chief fortresse of the Isle of man which once surprized with ache and giddiness and distemper how easie will it be to subdue the rest Thus is it also with false Factions and Schismatical Doctrines if mingled with the bread of Life The Word of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how excellent is it in it self how sweet a nourishment unto life eternal But if the tares of Heresie and Schisme be mingled with it then it becomes as the wise man calls it panis impietatis bread of wickedness panis mendacii bread of lies and panis mendax bread of falshood Such as do eat thereof however it may please the palat will finde it gravel in their mouthes and bitterness within the stomach and giddiness within the head The Cup of the New Testament how pleasant is it in it self how powerful to the remission of our sins yet if the juyce of these foule tares be mingled in it then is it vinum iniquitatis the wine of wickedness and vinum prostitutionis the wine of fornication as the Prophet calls it such as do drink thereof how drunken will they be with the Cup of abomination and filthiness the wine of the wrath of God poured out in the Cup of his indignation We note it of this kind of men with what a giddiness they are possessed in all their wayes how strangely they are madded on their own dear fancies and as it were besotted with the folly of their own inventions The Lord hath mingled spiritum vertiginis the spirit of giddiness and perverseness in the midst of Egypt and made them erre in every work thereof as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit Galen relates in his first Book de facultate alimoniae how once the year being unseasonable and intemperate there sprung up an exceeding quantity of tares among the wheat the store of wheat in the mean time was very small and therefore neither the Husbandmen nor Bakers did sift it as they ought to do with skreenes and triers for that purpose but sold the wheat and tares together hereupon many of the people began to be diseased and ill affected in their heads but at the comming on of Summer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they brake out all of them into boyles and botches On this the wise Physitian gives this Caveat that we do carefully pick out these tares 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as his words there are and part them from our heaps of Corn lest else we also fall into the same distempers and inconveniences Do we not note it also thus in the condition of false schismatical and factious Doctrines and the progress of them The enemy hath been diligent there is no doubt of that in sowing tares amongst the wheat and many of his Baylâ—ffs careless in the sifting of them because their store of wheat is small and are not some of them which are as were those Bakers of whom Galen speaks the makers the dividers of this bread unto the people either on negligence or set purpose guilty alike of this Imposture That such there are fraudulent and deceitful Bakers of the bread of life is more then certain the destiny of Pharaohs Baker be upon them for what can follow hereupon but strange distempers in the head and foul diseases in the body fallings away from God breach of the common bond of peace and in the end perhaps totall Apostasies from the faith and Gospel And then what next but that in the Apostles Language as they did not like to acknowledge God so doth God give them over to a reprobate minde to do those things which are not convenient If Nicolas the Deacon fall away from the holy truth and overthrow the faith of some no question but that he or his will also do those things which the Lord hateth and Simon Magus if he have once the Gall of bitterness within what else can be expected from him but a promiscuous and lawless liberty indifferenter utendi foeminis which came in fine to be his Doctrine The Shipwreck of the faith is commonly attended by as great a Shipwreck of the Conscience however for the most part notably dissembled for remedy whereof we will apply the counsel and advice of Galen in our Saviours Language Take heed of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadduces or in the phrase of the Apostles Purge therefore out the old leaven the leaven of wickedness and malice and let us keep the feasts of God with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth But yet the Devil stayed not here the Devil as in malice he is inimicus a malignant enemy so in his cunning he is serpens as wise and subtile as a Serpent therefore he did not only sowe his tares in agro Domini in the Lords field but even in medio tritici in the middle of the wheat it self and in that act play'd both his prizes for it is generally noted of the tare that it is frugum pestis the very bane and plague of all other grain and for that reason called by Virgil infelix lolium nor doth the name thereof in the Greek Originalls assure us of a better Omen for the zizanion of my Text is in the grand Etymologicon so called quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it growes up with the wheat and at last destroyes it And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which name the two great Doctors Galen and Theophrastus have given it to us in the same work is said to be derived by a Metathesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to vitiate or to corrupt the tares corrupting the good seed by being mixed and made up with it into bread as I have told you out of Galen but that which is the greatest danger is that if not looked to in time the wheat may chance to be destroyed and all the field run over and pestred with them for Pliny tells us of a certain triticum circumligando enâ—care that winding round about the wheat at the last it kills it or if not so as he delivers yet it devoures it in the end by growing up with it and overspreading all the field in the which it groweth as Theophrastus rather thinketh And have we not observed it thus in Heresie false Doctrine Schisme Hath not St. Chrysostom observed that Satan did forbeare his tares when there was nothing to be hurt and that he sowed them when the wheat had taken root 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that so he might destroy the hopes and whole endeavours of the heavenly Husbandman And hath not Lyra noted well that therefore did the enemy sowe his tares even in the middle of the wheat ad ipsius destructionem only of purpose to destroy it destroy it how either by winding round about it or over-running all the field in which it is By winding round about it first as doth the Ivie with the Oak till it hath sucked out all
the modern Herbalists Nay many of the ancient writers have observed no lesse Zizania tritico similia esse in arundine dissimilia in fructu the difference is not in the blade or stalk but the fruit alone So saith Euthymius Zigabenus Between the tares and wheat whilest they are yet in herba in the blade or stalk grandis similitudo est there is no small similitude So Hierome Lastly To add no more we are told by Chrysostome that it was Satans cunning to disguise his errors under the mask and veil of truth that so he might more easily seduce the simple and beguile the ignorant And for that very cause saith he he made choice of these tares 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being so like unto the wheat in the first appearing that it was very hard to know which was right Tostatus hath affirmed as much in his work on Matthew Nam herba tritici zizaniorum similis est sed grana dissimilia the fruit saith he is different though the blades be like Lay these particulars together and they come to this that the false Doctrines noted and intended in the present Parable were such as had a shew of truth and might be easily mistook for sound Orthodox Tenets but being afterwards discovered and examined were disproved as dangerous So then the errors and false Doctrines which are noted here and said to have been sowen by Satan in medio tritici even in the middle of the Church were not like those of Arius who denied the Deity or of the Valentinians who denied the Manhood of our Lord and Saviour or of the Marcionites and Maniches which blasphemed the very Majesty of God the Father or of the Macedonians who quarrelled the Divinity of the holy Ghost Nor were they finally like those which had been set on foot in the primitive times by those desperate writers who in their severall turns and courses had impiously opposed and quarelled every or any Article of the Christian faith These we may rather liken unto briers brambles discerned as soon as in the blade or in the very first appearance The Church soon spied those Heresies and as soon condemned them nor ever were the servants eyes so heavy as not to note the time and observe the Authors of those wicked Doctrines leaving to us upon record the knowledge and relation of the whole proceedings so that those wretched and blasphemous Heresies wherewith the Church was exercised in the Primitive times were generally but like Jonahs gourd of a dayes continuance or the Solstitial Herbe in Plautus quae repentino ortae sunt repentino occidunt almost as soon supprest as risen Few of them though they had been sowen with all care and cunning came to take deep root fewer to cùm crevisset herba to the blade or blossom but none unto fecissent fructum to bring forth their fruit before they were descried and censured And however some of them as that of Arius became of universall latitude and long continuance so that ingemuit orbis as St. Hierome hath it the whole world groaned under the weight and burden of so foule an heresie yet did it never passe for Wheat or was counted Orthodox but still pursued and execrated as a wicked blasphemy But for these tares the Doctrines and erroneous tenets of the present Parable the case was otherwise either the servants were not able to discern them at first peeping forth or else conceived there was not so much danger in them as in truth there was or else were willing to believe that possibly they might prove wheat and so become a plentiful addition to Gods holy Harvest For either the opinion taken up was but the fancy of few however had in admiration for their parts and learning and so not likely to prevail or some such division from the Churches tenets as did not seem to threaten any present danger to the common quiet and so the lesse to be regarded And this is that which is observed by Lirinensis that many errors and false Doctriens had secretly been introduced into the Church quos nec cito deprehendere valeas nec facil damnare fas ducis which neither could be soon discerned nor were thought fit to be condemned on the first discovery By meanes whereof it came to passe that the said new but false opinions as they were scattered and dispersed when no man saw them so they took root when no man marked them And when they came to cùm crevisset herba when it came to that and that the blade sprung up and had shewn it self yet were they still so like the wheat both in shape and colour that few there were of such a searching and discerning eye as to pronounce aright from what seed they sprung nay when they came unto the triall to fecissent fructum and that their fruit discovered them to be but tares yet then they shewed themselves to the publick view with such a Copy of old age and reputation of Antiquity that they contended for priority with the wheat it selfe Such are the errors and false Doctrines whereof we challenge and accuse the Church of Rome such as a long time passed for truth and were not noted either in the seed or blade Errors which being set on foot by some private men and having gotten credit by continuance and long tract of time were first debated in the Schools as probable afterwards entertained in the Church as true and last of all imposed on mens souls as necessary Errors which at their first appearing did not directly ex professo either oppose the Churches Doctrine or disturb her peace but such as seemed to have upon them the character and superscription of sacred verity and grew up sensim sine sensu with Gods holy truth we charge them not with any of those impious blasphemies or wicked heresies derogatory to the honour of our Lord and Saviour or any other person of the glorious Trinity or any other common principle of the Catholick faith which Simon Magus and the rest of that damned crew have opposed and quarrelled In that they have done bravely for the Church of Christ and publickly opposed those wretched heresies which the Socinians have revived in these latter dayes Utinam sic semper errassent would they had erred thus alwayes had they erred no otherwise as once the Cardinal said of Calvin That which we have to say against them is that they have forsaken their first love like the Church of Ephesus and cast a stumbling-block before the people like to that of Pergamus and suffered the woman Jezebel which calleth her self a Prophetess to seduce Gods servants from the right way of his Commandements like the Thyatirians So that the aberration from the Gospel which we charge upon them is not from the profession but the purity of the Christian faith not from the outward signes and Sacraments but the sincerity and soundness of Religion not from the Church of Christ but in it
office either the affaires of Church or State which they are not called to dâ—sturb the order of Gods House and subvert the Discipline thereof and so become unworthy to be counted servants to so wise an Housholder But God is not an Housholder only and no more then so though so translated in my Text The Lord is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord of the soyle as well as Master of the House the House being such as hath good store of Land and a fair demesne belonging to it Ager est mundus totus non ecclesia The whole World is the Field of God and therefore called Ager suus his Field v. 24. and Ager tuus thy field the servants speaking to their Master v. 27. The Earth is the Lords and the fulness of it the whole World and all that dwell therein as the Royal Psalmist hath it Satan was but a silly braggard when he said to Christ Haec omnia tibi dabo all these will I give thee The Kingdoms of the Earth and the glories of them are of Gods disposing And all the Princes of the World even the Mahometan and Heathen hold their Crowns of God though they do service for them to the Devil The enemy is so far from being Lord in chief of all the Universe that he hath no propriety in the smallest part No Field no not the corner of a Field which he can challenge to himself or say to any of his servants that 's mine own go plough and fallow and manure it and then sowe my seed If he be so inclined at any time as to be sowing of his tares it must be done in agro Domini some part or other of the Lords Field And then he comes but on the post fact neither after the Field was sowen with good seed before For howsoever Heresies may be antiqua yet they are not prima Heresie may be very ancient but never primitive Truth was first sowen though many times it hapneth by the Devils practises that Heresie doth overcome it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wholsom Doctrines had first of all been planted in the Church of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 other Doctrines as the Apostle calls them 1 Tim. they came in after as the fruits of a latter sowing So much of ille he the relative as it stands marshalled in my Text and what did he Et ait illis He said unto them And it was no small grace to his poor servants that he vouchsafed to look so low as to hold conference with them and admit of parlies in matters which himself alone knew how to remedy But being it was a matter which concerned his Church and in the which the servants did address themselves unto him with so great affection he thought it no disparagement to hearken to their information and return an answer Nor stops he here as if he had done too much for them but he permits them also to propose their counsels vis imus colligimus ea in the words next following and to that also he replies Such conferences between the heavenly Husbandman and his Houshold-servants God and the Prophets Christ and his Disciples are no rare matters in the Scripture Not that God either stood in need of their intelligence or was made wiser by their counsels but leaving thereby an example unto Kings and Princes and such as are in authority from and under them not to despise the information or undervalue the advice of the meanest person how much soever ranked below them both in place and power Such men as are inquisitive in asking questions or prompt in giving their advise in emergent difficulties however they may seem unseasonable yet if they do it on good grounds as the servants here are not to be rejected as unserviceable Certain I am my Housholder conceived it so He neither blames his servants for their curiosity with nolo nimiùm curiosos nor taxeth them of indiscretion in the delivering of their opinions with nolonimiùm diligentes For howsoever to their counsel he returns a non yet he acquaints them fully with those weighty reasons which did incline him thereunto And as unto the unde to the point proposed to that he makes such answer as removed the doubt which is the quid respondet and my second general inimicus homo hoc fecit Where first we must consider who it was that did this mischief and that was inimicus an enemy Dicuntur in Scripturis inimici Dei qui non naturâ sed vitiis ejus imperio adversantur It is a Maxime of St. Austins That those are called Gods enemies in holy Scripture which are not such by nature in their first creation but only by their own corrupt affections His reason is naturam non esse contrariam Deo sed vitium because that nature of it self is not contrariant unto God but subservient rather Sin is the instrument which first made the breach between God Almighty and those who in the Book of God are called his enemies So was it also with the enemy which is mentioned here God made him good though not unchangeably good By nature he created him a living and immaculate spirit inferior unto none but to God himself But he would needs aspire beyond his nature and so as many times it hapneth unto proud usurpers lost both the Crown he aimed at and his own Inheritance For whereas God professeth of the Angels that they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and were by him created to be ministring Spirits Lucifer so the Scriptures call him did not like of that He thought himself a creature of too glorious a composition to be sent on errands or to be ready at command and therefore aimed at higher matters et ero similis Altissimo said the proud Aspirer He must be equall to the Almighty both in place and power This pride and blind ambition cast him out of Heaven and made him of an Angel and a Friend of God to become an enemy an enemy unto the Lord and to all his Saints This is the enemy which I am to speak of the enemy that took such pains to destroy Gods Harvest We met with him before in the 25. but there we found him with his clogge There he is styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inimicus ejus his enemy the enemy of God alone and there we did consider him accordingly To God an enemy ex professo on the ancient quaâ—rel upon the sentence passed against him for his first aspirings To man an enemy no further then he weares Gods Livery and retains unto him and therefore in that place inimicus ejus Gods enemy But here we finde him more at large an enemy or inimicus quispiam some enemy as Beza reads it An enemy to God and to Man Gods Image and the Church Gods Spouse to each of these an enemy in their several places In the first to God to God indeed an enemy but an harmless
startled those opinions which put the Church to a necessity of setting learned men on work to confute and crush them And doubt we not but that Posterity will fare the better for those monstrous Paradoxes in Divinity which have been vented since the meeting of this new Assembly and penetrate more throughly into some deep questions which now disturb the peace both of Church and State then any of the former Ages Firmior multò fides est quam reponit poenitentia Faith saith the Father stands more firmly when it is built upon repentance as doubtless Peters faith was most strongly setled after he had denyed his Master And 't is no otherwise with truth then it is with saith best setled and confirmed and planted when strugling long with error or heretical Doctrines it hath got the victory God as before I said is the God of truth and they that wilfully oppose the least truth of Gods are Rebels against God and against his truth And 't was known to be an experiment in the School of Politicks conatus subditorum irritos imperium semper promovere that the rebellion of a people when it is supprest doth make a Prince more strong and absolute then he was before But the Oportet goes yet further it reacheth not to the truth alone but to all those who do defend it There must be heresies saith St. Paul ut qui probati sint that those who are approved amongst you may be known and manifested St. Austin tells us of two sorts of enemies which do afflict the Church of Christ whereof the one is blinde with error and the other with malice And then he adds That if these enemies have leave to afflict it corporally with any kinde of persecution exercent ejus patientiam they give the Church occasion to shew forth her patience but if they do assault the same with Sects and Heresies or malè sentiendo with their false opinions exercent ejus sapientiam they give her opportunity to declare her wisdom There were no need of Champions to defend the truth should there be none that did oppose it nor could we know by any meanes who would take part with Christ and who sight against him were it not brought unto the triall Hectora quis nosset felix si Troja fuisset Hector had never been so famed for his feats of Arms had not Troy been beleaguered by the powers of Greece Nor had the valour and fidelity of Joab the wisdom and fidelity of Cushai the bounty and fidelity of Barzillai the piety and fidelity of the Priests and Levites no not so much as Shimeis slanderous tongue or the inconstant mutability of the vulgar herd been manifested and made known to David had not Achitophel contrived Absolom actually raised a Warre against him What had we known of Athanasius had not the Arian faction joyned themselves together in a League against him and spent their whole united forces on his single person Parque novum fortuna videt concurrere bellum Atque virum As if that holy Patriarch had been born unto Ishmaels destiny to have his hand against every man and every mans hand against him How little had been left unto us of Irenaeus Basil Hierome Austin and all the brave Heroes of the Primitive times had not the Gnosticks Valentinians Arians Donatists afforded them occasion to expresse their piety and manifest their zeal to the cause of Christ And to come neerer to our selves where had been all the glories of renowned Jewel or of incomparable Whitgift had not this Church been crucified from the first beginning between the Popish superstitions and the Puritan frenzies All men are apt enough to professe the Gospel in a time of peace and to declare themselves for truth when there are no heresies therefore Oportet esse haereses that so it may be known more clearly as Tertullian notes it tam qui in persecutionibus steterint quà m qui ad haereses non exorbitaverint as well who dare stand bravely out against persecutions as who dare bid defiance unto Sects and Heresies So then there are some notable reasons for the present Sinite and suffering of the Tares and Wheat to grow up together till the Harvest besides the dangers mentioned in the former verse But then a question will be made whether the Sinite in this place be so strong and binding that in no case the Tares are to be rooted up till the Harvest come Where first we take it for a truth unquestionable which we finde in Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. It is not here forbidden saith that learned Father either to curb the Heretick or silence him or suppress his insolencies or to prohibit their Assemblies or disperse their Conventicles God hath not so disarmed his Church as to lay it open to the assaults and violence of malicious enemies and left her with no other weapons then defensive only In the spirituall Armorie which St. Paul describes there is as well the sword of the spirit as the shield of faith and truth appointed for a Girdle as well as righteousness for a Brest plate Gods Church is furnished with a power to convince gainsayers as well as to exhort or rebuke the sinner and may employ the pen though not tosse the Pike Else not the Heretick but the true Professor would be put to silence and God should send out men to fight and yet binde their hands And more then so the Lord hath given his Church Authority to deal with obstinate Hereticks and with perverse Schismaticks as St. Paul did with Hymenaeus and Alexander who having made shipwrack of the faith were by him cut off from the society of the faithfull For though some men of eminency in point of learning out of their love to that libertas Prophetandi now so much in fashion would have the Church be very wary in exercising this authority yet they profess they have no purpose utterly to deprive her of that power and priviledge segregandi eos à suis coetibus qui doctrinam adulterant of excommunicating those who corrupt her Doctrines What then is that which is denied the Church in the present Sinite Assuredly not to restrain the Heretick or confute the Heresie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but to kill and slay them The Servants as we told you formerly were much scandalized to see Gods Field indangered by those wretched Tares errors in Doctrine and corruptions in point of manners being grown so prevalent that there was little hope to preserve the Church but by a sudden extirpation of them of what sort soever and thereupon they purposed as before I told you to go against them with the Sword to raise an holy Warre and destroy them utterly Which how unfit a way it was either to plant the Gospel or reform Religion I then told you also Warre being a Tragedy of such a nature as commonly destroyes the Stage whereupon t is acted
the juyce and made it fit for nothing but the very fire Faction and error so behave themselves to the Word of God as Judas did to God the Word They are both of them cunning Traytors killing sometimes in their embraces and sometimes betraying in their kisses Or if not thus yet they destroy it at the last by over-spreading all the Church and eating out the truth of Doctrine if not tell me if in the Jewish Church the Pharisees had not almost made the Commandements of God of none effect by their traditions Tell me if in the Christian Church the tares of errour and false Doctrine had not even overgrown the Gospel if the Popes Canon and the proud dictates of the Schoolmen had not usurped into the Chair and Throne of Scripture certain I am that Frier Richard de Man 's in the Trent-Councel did publickly maintain and with good applause that all the points of faith had been so clearly handled by those Schoolmen ut ea ex Scripturis discere nil opus esset that now the word of God was no longer serviceable so truly was it Satans purpose not only by the sowing of his tares to corrupt Religion but by that cunning to supplant it And all this while what was become of those to whom the Lord had farmed his field and leased out his Vineyard My Text makes answer to this question and tells us that they were asleep wherein we have the Servants and their sluggishness my last Couplet cùm dormirent homines while men slept Invadunt urbem somno vinoque sepultam Cities are sometimes soonest taken when the siege is raised and all the Watch-men made secure for when the enemy is neare and a Trench cast about the Walls the Watch is doubled and there are Centinels and Scouts in every corner to mark the motions of the Enemy and observe his purposes so also was it with the grand enemy of Gods Field in generall but more especially in reference to that particular part thereof which we call the Church As long as he essay'd to batter down the Bulwarks in the House of God he was more closely watched and all mens eyes were bent upon him but having lulled it once asleep drenched it in sensuality corrupted it with ease and prohibited pleasures then was his time to venture on it and to sowe his tares an opportunity well watch'd No sooner did men sleep no sooner were the servants drowsie and regardless of so great a charge but he was straight about his business no sooner did men sleep what men Lyra makes answer the Apostles what of their negligence no God forbid but of the death the last sleep and departure of those blessed spirits St. Austin and Euthymius do a little touch at this conceit and they only touch it but Egesippus with great confidence affirms it saying that after the Apostles deaths the Hereticks did then begin to lift up their heads and advance their errors mingling their tares 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their false and commentitious Doctrines with the truth and Gospel This we believe indeed that then the Hereticks became more insolent and adventurous then before they were and did oppose the Gospel as he tells us there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the greater impudence but yet I am not of opinion that this should be the sleep and these the men intended in the present Scripture With how much better reason doth the Glosse expound it of a general negligence both in the Pastor and the people a negligence of private men circa custodiam suae propriae personae in the preserving and defence of their several souls a negligence of the publick Pastors circa custodiam gregis sui in the ill tending of the flock committed to them This exposition of the Glosse confirmed by Chrysostom where he informs us of a misery of no mean quality like to befall those sleepy souls to whom the Husbandman had left his field yet not the Priest or Prelate only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the people also otherwise as the Apostle said that if there were no Resurrection then were the Christians of all men most miserable so were the Priest and Prelate the most miserable of all other Christians if all mens sins were rated only on their scores and they to give up an account of every soul in their several charges It s true indeed that both Euthymius and St. Hierome understand here only magistros praeceptores ecclesiarum the teachers and overseers of the Church And so far we may yeeld unto them that it is meant of them principally and as publick Ministers which are to have a care of the common safety but so that every private man is included also in the Parable The Devil first makes his advantage of the negligence of private persons and whiles they sleep secure and careless he scattereth in their hearts the seeds of Heresie and error that so they may be able to infect their brethren The enemy never sends out any of his Foxes to destroy Gods Harvest till he put fire-brands in their tails This done he seeks occasion to employ them in the destruction of the wheat in the infection of the Church and therein also makes advantage of the security and negligence of their Superiours of their Rulers These the Lords Bayliffs as it were to whom he hath intrusted his holy Husbandry and if they sleep if once they grow remisse and careless what else can we expect but that these tares take root and outgrow the Wheat and in conclusion overcome it Now in the Church we may observe three severall kindes of sleepiness all of them in their course predominant and of ill effect the sleep of negligence the sleep of ignorance and the sleep of sensuality The first the sleep of negligence and so St. Austin doth expound it but while men slept i. e. saith he Cùm negligentiùs agerent praepositi Ecclesiae when as the Rulers of Gods House grew dull and careless of their Watch and were not mindful of their duties This the disease even of the best and purest Ages for which is there almost of the Angels of the seven Churches which is not branded with this mark during the lives of the Apostles the falling from the love of Christ the tolerating of the Nicolaitans the suffering of the Woman Jesebel to seduce Gods servants the want of piety in one zeal in another and that poor little strength of faith which was remaining in the third what were they but the sad effects of dull and negligent security in the severall Pastors But the Apostles being gone those which did oversee the overseers there followed by degrees an infectious drowsiness over all the Church still more inclining to this sleep the more they were accustomed to it The times of Nazianzen how watchful were they in respect of those succeeding yet he complains in his Epistle to Nectarius as if the providence of God had
on the other side we think there needs no watch at all that those few Lawes and Canons which are now in force for preservation of the Churches peace and safety may very well be spared and layed by for ever And if his Majesty vouchsafe to give command unto his Prelates to have an eye unto the unity and uniformity of their severall Churches and to reduce them to her primitive lustre he is not only sure to hear of it in those scandalous Pamphlets which every day are offered to the publick view but shall have many close ill-willers that secretly repine murmur at so brave a piety I wil not say from what bad humour this proceeds but sure I am to say the best that it proceeds from a misapprehension of the Churches danger and that we would perswade our selves that the intentions of these men are harmless and themselves contemptible and that their wheat is pure and clean not any dangerous tare amongst it but I could tell you had I time and may perhaps take time to do it in prosecution of this Parable that they have introduced into the Church the ancient Heresies of the Novatians Donatists Aerians Priscillianists and the Apostolici with those of Bardesanes and Florinus which I spake of lately not to say any thing of those dangerous principles which they are known to hold among them against peace and government High time assuredly both for Prince and Prelate to have an eye upon them and to watch their doings Gird then thy Sword upon thy thigh O thou most mighty man of valour ride on with Worship and Renown because of Gods thine and the Churches enemies And may it be thine happiness as it is thy care to have thy Watchmen vigilant thy Servants faithful and thy Councel circumspect that so no tare either of error or false Doctrine may ever grow upon those Churches under thy Dominion SERMON III. At WHITE-HALL Jan. 28. 1638. MATTH 13. v. 26. But when the blade sprung up and had brought forth fruit then appeared the tares also PRosperum ac felix scelus virtus vocatur Succesfull mischief is oft crowned with the name of vertue and he is counted fortunate whose designes do prosper how wretched and unjust soever The wicked man is not ashamed of doing ill but of being detected nor doth he fear the sin but the discovery this makes them as they love to sin so to sin in secret as if the darkness would conceal their naughtiness or if it could be hid from God because committed in a corner But God from Heaven looks down upon them and derides their follies and brings them at the last to the open light that howsoever they have sinned in secret they may receive the wages and reward of sinne in publick And thus it was with Satan in the present Parable whose foot-steps and example his Disciples follow When he intended to destroy Gods Harvest he did it in a time of darkness Cùm dormirent homines when all the servants were asleep And that he might be sure to avoid discovery he did the feat alone in private without any company Venit abiit â—aith the Text his comming was in secret his departure sudden so that no notice could be taken of him when the deed was doing and not much neither being done for he made choice of such a seed to sow and scatter in Gods field which was so like the wheat in an outward shew and promised such a rich increase to the heavenly Harvest that it was no small difficulty to distinguish which was Gods which his And all this while who could have otherwise conceived but that he had been very fortunate in his undertaking and his tares good wheat but yet at last it fell out contrary to his expectation God making a discovery of his subtile practices and manifesting to his Church the danger in the which it stood And howsoever that men slept when the seed was sowen and that they looked not after it when the blade sprung up yet when it came to bring forth fruit then their eyes were opened and they were able to distinguish between wheat and tares But when the blade sprung up and had brought forth fruit Cùm autem crevisset herba fructum fecisset then appeared the tares also In handling of these words I shall consider these things following First Of what kinde those Doctrines were which were sowen by Satan and are decipher'd here by the name of tares Secondly That there was no way to discern those Doctrines the falshood and ill nature of them in the seed or stalks until they came to bring forth fruit Thirdly That every Doctrine of what sort soever doth produce some fruit by which it may be known whether true or false and Fourthly That when the fruits appeared then it was easie to discover of what sort they were Of these or of as many of them as the time will suffer beginning with the nature of these Doctrines which are here intended Sapientis est malè facere si utile sit tutum It was a maxime with the Epicures that no wise man forbears to pursue his most wicked counsels in case they might conduce to profit and be done with safety A dangerous and most mischievous principle if once put in practice and such as could proceed from no other Fountain then the first Father of all falshood He indeed had been versed therein from the first beginnings even from the first attempt that he made on man in which he took upon himself the shape and title of a Serpent the most subtile beast to work upon the weakness of a woman the most feeble sex The profit that he aimed at in that grand imposture was to attain that Empire on the earth over wretched man which he had failed of in the Heavens and amongst the Angels And he conceived himself secure in the undertaking both in regard of this disguise and the condition of the party that he was to deal with Thus was it then and thus it hath been ever since For the old Serpent is no changeling but still keeps his own qualis ab incoepto processerit the same Serpent still God had no sooner sowen his field with celestiall seed but straight the Devil was at hand to disperse his tares by doing which he might not only spoyl Gods Harvest but increase his own This was the profit that he aimed at which that he might be sure to procure with safety and not incurre the least suspicion of imposture till his croppe was ripe he did not only watch his opportunity whiles the servants slept but sowed the field with such a grain that could not easily be discerned when they were awake For tares zizania if we consider them according to the first appearance and in the manner of their growth are not much different from the wheat Folio oblongo sunt culmo tritici graciliore so sayes Rovillius and with him divers others of
And yet I would not be mistaken as if I thought there were no Heresie to be found in the Church of Rome or that their errors which they teach were neither positively dangerous in themselves nor possibly pernicious and destructive to them that hold them without true repentance That which was first an error only when first taken up in them that taught it may by an obstinate pertinacy become an Heresie in them that hold it It s true that every deviation from the truth or opposition made against it doth not denominate an Heretick nor doth the voluntary taking up of a false opinion create such mischief to the Church as the unwillingness to lay it down Were it not for pertinaciter defensa sponte electa would beare no great stroke in the definition of an Heresie This was the case between St. Cyprian and the Donatists S. Cyprian and some other holy Bishops of the African Churches conceived rebaptization to be necessary in some certain cases but modestly and with submission to the Church of God determining according to his word in Scripture The Donatists maintained the same opinion but they did it obstinately refused to hearken to the Church or to admit of any Judges but themselves to decide the controversie The error was the same in both the Doctrine false alike in both and yet the Donatists stand branded for it by the name of Hereticks whereas St. Cyprian and his Associates are accounted Catholicks Why so because of pertinaciter defensa because the Donatist maintained it with so great perverseness that there was no reclaiming of him to the sound Doctrines of the Church And this is that which Lerinensis speaks of with such admiration O mira rerum conversio Authores opinionis Catholici sectatores haeretici judicantur absolvuntur magistri condemnantur discipuli This also is the case of the Church of Rome the enemy had sowen his tares in agro domini and they sprung up in medio tritici When they were sowen they were not noted and having taken root and put forth the blade they looked so like the wheat with so fair a shew that very few if at all any did suspect them And so long these of Rome were in the same condition and estate with the African Prelates either their ignorance or inadvertency might have salv'd the sore but when the fruit discover'd them to be tares indeed and that they notwithstanding would defend and countenance them proclaim them to be wheat of the Lords own sowing sell them for such to simple people in the open markets and make them eat as one may say their own damnation then fell they into the condition of the desperate Donatist and that which was an error only in the first broachers of the Doctrine is in them made Heresie And here I may repeat that of Lirinensis Authores opinionis Catholici sectatores haeretici They which first set on foot the opinion whatsoever they were might have no ill intention in it conceiving that which they delivered not to be contrary to the Churches tendries though perhaps besides them And so it might be with them also which took them upon trust and assented to them not having meanes or opportunity to come unto the knowledge of the truth in those particulars But so it is not with our Masters in the Church of Rome who have not only means to know them and opportunity to consider of the fruit they bear but having been informed of that long mistake in which their Predecessors lived and of the dangers which those tares do threaten to the Church of God do obstinately shut their eyes against the sacred light of truth and will not see the beames thereof shine they never so brightly In which estate if they continue wilful without true repentance let them take heed lest that befall them which my Authour speaks of Absolvuntur magistri condemnantur discipuli and so I leave them to Gods mercy with them the first point of this Discourse viz. the kind or nature of the Doctr. which are here intended proceeding hence unto the 2d the difficulty to discern them in the seed or blade until they came to bring forth fruit to fecissent fructum Nil magis curant quà m occultare quod praedicant Tertullian notes it of the Valentinians that they did use to hide their tenets and conceal their Doctrines A Lesson taught them by their sire the Devil who when he had a purpose to destroy Gods Harvest not only did it at a time when the servants slept and in so quick a manner that he was not noted but sowed Gods field with such a seed as could not easily be discerned from the wheat it self until the very fruits proclaimed it In all his other projects to subvert the Gospel the Watchmen of the Church so traced him and kept so vigilant an eye upon him that all his machinations were detected and his hopes made frustrate he is resolved to cheat the very Watchmen and therefore sets on foot such Doctrines in which was no apparent danger and much lesse any visible impiety that whilest the Watchmen let them passe neither examining from whence they came nor to what they tended he might by them effect his purpose with the greater safety and by degrees endanger and subvert Religion And certainly it is no marvel that they should passe without discovery and prevail so farre considering how closely the design was carried how little noyse it made abroad and by what leisure and degrees it did gather strength For howsoever it be true which the Cardinall tells us that in omni insigni mutatione religionis in every notable change and alteration of Religion a man may easily discern both the change it self and all the circumstances that pertain unto it yet in the sowing of these tares it was not so We neither know the Authors time or place by whom when where the said false tenets were first broached nor finde we any that opposed them at their rising up or whether any did take notice of them when the blade sprung up And yet it is most manifest that such tares there were and that they had almost corrupted and destroyed the wheat before the servants had espied them The Cardinalls Rule holds good in all sudden changes which are made publickly and professedly and all at once in publick and notorious Heresies which come in with violence and aim at the foundation of the House of God And any man of common reading can tell as well as he when and by whom and where the Macedonian Arian Valentinian Heresies or any of the rest of so high a nature did at first begin but between those and these in the body mystical the difference is as great and signall as between open Arms and Clandestine conspiracy in the body politique whereof that may be easily discerned this not or an outragious burning Feaver and a dull Consumption in the body naturall of which that comes with fury this
this particular of the Author but that it will admit of some exceptions for there were very many Heresies in the primitive times acknowledged and avowed for such in the Church of Rome as viz. of the Gnosticks Nazarenes Ophites Cainites Sethians cum multis aliis mentioned in Epiphanius Austin and Theodoret and many other antient Writers of which it would extremely puzzle Bellarmine and all his followers in that Church to produce the Authors So is it also with the circumstances of time and place in which those heresies began which neither he nor any of the best Philologers in the Church of Rome can assigne precisely but wander up and down in the search thereof as their blinde fancies and conjecture lead them and so the wonder is the more that not being able to assigne the certainty of time and place in publick and notorious Heresies which came in with clamor they should expect the same from us in the detecting of those errors which came in by stealth In their authentick vulgar Latine there are many errors corruptions transpositions barbarismes which are by Cajetan Senensis Oleaster and the English Rhemists ingenuously confessed published Isidore Clarius a Spanish Monke professeth that he found no fewer then 8000 errors some of them very grosse and palpable And should we turn the scale and demand of Bellarmine when in whose time by whose neglect all the said errors and corruptions crept into the Text I trow he would be fain to answer cum dormirent homines that it was done when as the Watchmen were asleep and looked not to the publick safety of the Church of God So for the circumstance of place all that we know or possibly can know at so farre a distance is that these tares were sowen in agro domini not in this part alone or that but in medio tritici even in the middle of the Wheat as well in one place as another Dic quibus in terris were too hard a taste for the best Apollo in the Conclave and we may say Qua terra patet when they ask that question A more particular designation of these two last circumstances in all the points debated between them and us is a thing impossible The Text informs us that these tares were sowen cùm dormirent homines when all the servants were asleep and would you have them give accompt of time and place in matters which were done when they were asleep Such an accompt indeed they might haâ—e given as did the Souldiers in the Gospel of our Saviours body who gave it out and stood to it like brave men of arms that his Disciples came by night and stole it whilst they were asleep A very likely tale I promise you for if they were asleep as they said they were how could they tell that either any body came to steal him or that the Lords Disciples were the men that did it Adeo mendaci rum natura est ut cohaerere non possunt said Lactantius truly Besides those errors which we note in the Church of Rome as they came in privily so they grew up insensibly And first of all they came in privily there being not only many errors but even damnable heresies which came in privily and by stealth as St. Peter tells us There shall arise saith he false Teachers in those dayes that privily shall bring in damnable Heresies sectas perditionis as the Latine reads it The Devil in this point is like the Peacock as he is Angelus in penna and can transform himself into an Angel of light when he thinks it necessary so is he pede latro too a creature of a silent and a theevish gate when he sees occasion It is no easie tracing of him in his private paths Secondly those errors as they came in privily so they grew insensibly like to the finger of a Diall which we finde varied from the place where before it was and yet we do not see it vary for so do private mens opinions if they be but probable gain by degrees we know not how on the affection and good liking of particular persons and after on the approbation of the Church it self till in the end of Paradoxes they became to be counted School-points then taken or mistaken rather for the traditions of the Church and finally received as Articles of the Christian faith The holy Ghost hath said of Christ that he is a Rock Petra autem erat Christus in St. Pauls Epistles and Christ hath told us of the Confession of his faith that it is a Rock super hanc petram in St. Matthews Gospel Now one of those four things which seemed so wonderful and unsearchable in the eyes of Solomon is via serpentis super petram that of a Serpent on a Rock or if you like the Application that of the Devil in subverting the faith of Christ nor is it thus only in the points of faith but in that of Ceremonies which by degrees insensibly and without observation have very much declined and varied in the Church of Rome from what they were in their original institution there being many things ordained of a good intent as one amongst themselves complaineth quae nunc videmus partim in abusum partim in superstitionem verti which are now changed into abuse and altered into superstition But yet the Cardinal stayes not here we must enquire quis eam oppugnaverit what men opposed these new opinions and made head against them at their first appearance or else all is lost A Quere not more capable of resolution than the others were for if the Authors were not known the opinions private and that there is no Constat of the time or place when and wherein the seeds were sowen then certainly to look for an opponent were an excellent folly And it is plain that in the sevit no man saw them they were all asleep in the crevisset no mâ—n knew them they looked so like unto the Wheat but when they came to fructifie to fecissent fructum and that the fruits did yield the least suspicion to the vigilant servants of an ensuing mischief to the Church of God then did God stir up some to take notice of them and to give warning to the rest of the common danger if not tell me what Caveats had been entred in the Churches name by Gregory the Great against the Doctrine of the Popes supremacy by Berengarius against that of the carnall presence by Charles the Great and all his Clergy in the Synod of Frankford against the worshipping of Images by Huldrich B. of Ausburg in defence of the married Clergy by the Waldenses Pauperes de Lugduno Clemanges Petrus de Alliaco Wiclif Hus and others though men that had I grant their own personal errors against the severall corruptions of the Church of Rome both in faith manners Nay if we thought that that would please him we could tell the Cardinall out of Rainerius one of the Popes Inquisitors that there have
are constant unto nothing halting as once the Israelites between two opinions divided betwixt God and Mammon in great distraction with our selves whether we shall adhere to Christ or follow Antichrist continue in old England or hoyst sail for New And for the sores upon the body the blemishes of our behaviour the stains and scandalls of our conversation by which we grieve the Spirit and disgrace Religion what are they but the frequent though most lewd effects of a perverted understanding and a poysoned will The Heresies of the Gnosticks and the Carpocratians what vile and wretched things they were A man might easily conjecture what fine points they held by the condition of their lives which were so filthy and obscene that for their sakes the name of Christian first grew odious to the sober Gentile Vide Christianos quid agunt In illis patitur lex Christiana maledictum as devout Salvian oft complained The errors of the Church of Rome in point of judgement have they not bred as grievous errors in the points of practice Whence else proceeds it that the Priests are debarred from Marriage and permitted Concubines that open Stewes are suffered and allowed of so they pay rent unto the Pope and supply his Coffers that Princes may have dispensation to forswear themselves and break those Covenants which they have solemnly contracted with their confederates that subjects may take arms against and depose their Princes if the Pope do but say the word and free them from the Oath of their Allegeance And on the other side when we behold men factiously bent to oppose the Church seditiously inclined to disturb the State disloyally resolved to resist their Soveraign rebelliously disposed to excite the people when men refuse to pay the King his lawful tributes and yet consume them on their lusts when they let loose such rogues as Barrabas that they may crucifie their Lord and Master may we not certainly affirm that they have hearkened to the Doctrines of Knox and Cartwright and their successors in the cause Such as the Doctrines are which the eare takes in such also are the lives which are framed thereafter Cavete itaque quid auditis take you heed therefore what ye hear lest whilest you lend an eare to those false Apostles you partake with them of their sins And certainly there is good reason why we should take heed The Devil never was more busied in sowing of his tares then now nor ever had he better opportunity to effect his purpose So dull and sleepy are men grown circa custodiam propriae personae suae in reference to themselves and their private safety that they are angry with the Prelates for being so vigilant and careful circa custodiam gregis sui and having more care of them then they have themselves so that if Satan be but diligent as no doubt he is and send his instruments abroad as no doubt he doth he may disperse his tares securely and bring them to fecissent fructum ere they be discovered And how comes this to passe but for want of heed for want of taking heed what it is we hear and unto whom it is we hearken False factious and schsmatical Doctrines are the seeds of Satan and many instruments he hath both in the Pulpit and the Parlor to disperse those seeds some speaking evil of Authority and despising Dignities others perverting of the people and forbidding to pay tribute unto Caesar some taking up provision of the choicest wits and persons of most power and quality for the Church of Rome and others leading out whole Families to seek the Gospel in the Desert He that doth look for better fruit from such dangerous Doctrines then discontent and murmuring against their Rulers associations and conspiracies against lawful Government and finally a flat Apostasie from the sincerity of that Religion which is here profest may as well look for Grapes from Thorns or Figs from thistles A good Tree bringeth forth good fruit but for these evil Trees which bear evil fruit what are they profitable for but for the fire that as they are the cause of combustions here they may adde fuel to the fire hereafter Thus have I brought you at the length to that which did occasion the discovery of the Devills practise The sowing of these Tares the Sevit we had seen before We have now took a brief view of them in crevisset herba and brought them to fecissent fructum There remains nothing further but apparuerunt that they appeared and how they were discovered but that must be the work of another day SERMON IV. At WHITE-HALL Jan. 27. 1638. MATTH 13. v. 26. Tunc apparuerunt Zizania Then appeared the tares also LAtet anguis in herba The Snake or Serpent doth delight to hide himself under the covert of the grasse so that we hardly can discern them till we tread upon them and treading on them unawares when we think not of it are in danger to be bitten by them when we cannot help it Et sic palleat ut nudis qui pressit calcibus anguem so is it also in the Text. Here is a Serpent in the grasse anguis in herba in the tares when they first peeped out and anguis in crevisset when the blade grew up Yet all this while the enemy was either in his latitat and so was not seen or else disguised and veiled with an alias dictus and so passed unknown And had he not been found in fecissent fructum when the fruit was ripe and men were able to discern him we might have bin worse bitten and more shrewly punished then were the Israelites in the Desert by the fiery Serpents But God was pleased to deal more mercifully with his Church then so And though it seemed good unto him for some certain space to let the enemy rejoyce and admire himself in the success of his designes yet it held not long for when his hopes were highest and his tares well grown so that they seemed to have preeminence of the wheat it self then did the Heavenly Husbandman awake his servants and let them look upon the tares in fecissent fructum when they appeared to be what indeed they were infelix solium frugum pestis and whatsoever other name the Poets and Philosophers have bestowed upon them But when the blade sprung up and had brought forth fruit tunc apparuerunt zizania then appeared the tares also The words you see are very few and so the parts not like to be very many We will observe only these two particulars 1. That the tares appeared at last apparuerunt zizania when or how they were discovered and that we finde in the word tunc then when the blade had brought forth fruit Of these in order begining what the Quod sit first and so proceeding to the Quando Veritas non quaerit angulos Truth seeks no corners saith the Proverb And therefore Christ our Saviour hath compared it unto a Candle set upon an
hill which shewes it self unto the eye of each beholder We may affirm thereof as doth St. Ambrose of the Sun deficere videtur sed non deficit the light thereof cannot be possibly extinguished although sometimes darkened Opprest sometimes it is as it hath been formerly by errors Heresies and false opinions supprest it cannot be for ever For magna veritas great is the truth and it prevaileth at the last however for a while obscured by mens subtile practises That Heresies shall arise St. Paul hath told us and he hath brought it in with an oportet oportet esse haereses in the Epistle And that there must be scandalls Christ himself hath told us and he hath told it too with a necesse est ut scandala veniant in the holy Gospel The reasons both of the oportâ—t and necesse we shall see hereafter when we shall come to scan those motives which might induce the Lord to permit these tares Sinite utraque crescere usque ad messem v. 30. Mean while it doth concern us to take special notice that as it pleased the Lord to give way to error and suffer sometimes heresies of an higher nature and sometimes false opinions of an inferior quality to take fast footing in his Church yet he did never suffer them to destroy his harvest but brought them at the last to apparuerunt The comfortable beams of truth dispersed and scoured away those Clouds of error wherewith the Church before was darkened and by the light thereof the foulness and deformity of falshood was made more notorious so that from hence two special Queres may be raised first why these tares or errors were so long concealed and secondly how they were at last revealed And first they were concealed as it were of purpose to let the Church take notice of her own condition how careless and how blinde she is in the things of God did not the eye of God watch over her and direct her goings Her carelesness we had before in dormirent homines when as we found her sleeping and regardless of the common enemy that time the tares were in their Sevit and no man would hold up his head to look unto the publick safety Her blindness we may note in this that being left unto her self she could not see them in crevisset when they put forth the leaf and the blade sprung up and that they did begin to spread abroad and justle with the truth for the preeminence If either no false Doctrines had been sowen at all or had they all been noted at the first peeping forth the Church might possibly impute it to her own great watchfulness pleaded some special priviledge of infallibility and so in time have fallen into presumption God therefore left her to her self that falling into sin and error and suffering both to grow upon her by her own remisseness she might ascribe her safety unto God alone whose eyes do neither sleep nor slumber The Church is then in most security when God watcheth over her when he that keepeth Israel hath his eye upon her Gods eye he being â—culus infinitus as the learned Gentile and totus oculus as the learned Father is her best defence Which if it be averted from her she walketh forthwith in darkness and the shadow of death subject to every rising error obnoxious to the practises of her subtile enemies And in this state she stands in this wretched state till he be pleased to shine upon her and blesse her with the light of his holy countenance the beames whereof discover every crooked way and bring them to apparuerunt to the publick view And to apparuerunt all must come every false Doctrine whatsoever there 's no doubt of that for Idem est non esse non apparere No Tenet is erroneous in respect of us till it appear to us to be so and till it doth appear to be so we may mistake it for a truth imbrace it for a tendry of the Catholick Church endeavour to promote it with our best affections and yet conceive our selves to be excusable in that it is amoris error not erroris amor In thâ—s regard our Fathers might be safe in the Church of Rome and may be now triumphant in the Church of Heaven though they believed those Doctrines which were therein taught or possibly maintained them with their best affections The errors of that Church were not then discovered nor brought to their apparuerunt and being taken or mistaken for sound Orthodox Tenets were by them followed and defended in their several stations So that we may affirm of them as once St. Peter of the Jewes novimus quia per ignorantiam fecerint we know that through ignorance they did it or if we know it not so clearly as St. Peter did yet we may charitably hope that it was no otherwise in those particular points and passages wherein we know not any thing unto the contrary He that makes any doubt of this what faith soever he pretends to shewes but little charity and makes no difference between an accidentall and a wilful blindness There are some errors in the Church like some Diseases in the body when they are easie to be cured they are hard to be known when they are easie to be known they are hard to cured but every error disease is of that condition that it must first be known the true quality thereof discovered or else it is impossible to prescribe a remedy But so it is not now with us nor any of our Masters in the Church of Rome as it was anciently with our fore-fathers in and of that Church Those errors which in former times were accounted truths or not accounted of as errors are now in the apparuerunt we see them plainly as they are and by comparing them with Scripture the true rule of faith are able to demonstrate the obliquity of those opinions and false Doctrines which they have thrust upon the Church in these latter ages And we may say of them in Tertullians Language Ipsa Doctrina eorum cum Apostolica comparata ex diversitate contrarietate sua pronunciabit neque Apostoli alicujus essâ— neque Apostolici The difference which appeares between the Doctrines of the Church of Rome delivered in the new Creed of Pope Pius quartus and those which were delivered once unto the Saints in the old Creed of the Apostles shewes plainly that they neither came from the Apostles nor any Apostolical Spirit so that in case we shut our eyes against the sacred beames of truth which now shine upon us or if they so long after the apparuerunt will not see those tares which are discovered to their hands both we and they are all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 utterly uncapable of excuse in the sight of God If any man will be so obstinately wedded to his own opinion as to take up his Lodging in a Pest-house after he hath been made acquainted with the present danger
however we in charity may say Lord have mercy upon him yet he hath reason to believe that God in justice will inflict that judgement on him which usually doth befall those men which do wilfully and perversly tempt the Lord their God Nor was it only necessary in regard of us of private and particular men that the tares should come to their Epiphanie their apparuerunt God did it most especially for his Churches sake whom he had promised to conduct in the wayes of truth and to be with her alwayes to the end of the world The tare is in it self as the Poet calls it infelix lolium a wretched and unlucky weed and frugum pestis the bane and plague of other grains as the learned Herbalist And of the mischief which it brings to Gods holy Husbandry either by eating up the wheat the Lords own good seed or over-running all the field in the which it growes I have at large discoursed already Suffice it that the Devil sowed them with a devillish purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that so he might destroy the labour of the Heavenly Husbandman And doubt we not but that he had in fine effected his malicious ends had not God brought them in due time to apparuerunt had he not made a plain discovery of their noxious nature and called upon his servants to take notice of them We may conceive what reputation they had gained by a longer sufferance how ill it would have gone with the Church of God in the attempt of reformation in that being so long since detected and brought to their apparuerunt so many in the world are not yet perswaded that there was any thing in point of Doctrine fit to be reformed It is with errors now as with temples anciently the more antiquity they have the greater sanctity Tantumque sanctitatis tribuerunt quantum vetustatis as Minutius Felix God therefore took his time to detect these errors and to give notice to the world that they were but tares before they could prescribe to truth or challenge such an interest in antiquity as was not possible to be disproved And this the Lord did partly for his own sake too that so he might acquit himself of those gracious promises which he had made unto his Churches and by that meanes became her debtor He promised to be with her alwayes and therefore could not possibly forsake her in her greatest need He promised to conduct her in the wayes of truth and therefore could not leave her as a prey to error He promised that the gates of Hell should not prevail against her and therefore could not give her over to the snares of Satan God never doth forsake his Church though he sometimes leaves her to her self for her further trial nor turn away his face though he look aside for her correction and chastisement for should he utterly desert it and leave it as a prey unto sin and error the Church indeed were in a very sory taking but in the mean time where were all Gods promises Might not the enemy rejoyce and advance his head and say that either God did not see his practises or was not able to prevent them that he was only rich in promises promissis dives but when it came to the performance then Quid dignum tanto And might not his most trusty servants have complained with David Ut quid Deus repulisti in finem O God wherefore art thou absent from us so long we see not our tokens there is not one Prophet more no not one is there among us that understandeth any more This the Lord heard but would not suffer And therefore when he had made trial of his Church and let her see her own infirmities he brought those errors and false Doctrines which did seem to threaten it to their apparuerunt to the open light And of false Doctrines many are of that condition that being once discovered they are soon confuted majorque aliquanto labor est invenire quà m vincere How this was done and when we must next consider which for the time thereof was tunc and for the manner of it in fecissent fructum my next particular and next in order to be handled Rectum est sui index obliqui There is no better way to discern any thing that 's crooked then by laying it to a right line or to discover errors and erroneous Tenets then to compare them with the truth Truth doth not only justifie it self but by the light thereof we are made more able then before to judge of falshood And howsoever many false opinions have passed and still may passe for currant in the conceit of those which have took them up yet by comparing them with Scripture which is truth it self or with the Catholique tendries of Gods holy Church the best Expositor of Scripture their folly and their falshood will at once appear Thus was it with the tares in the present Parable They seemed so lovely to the eye in the blade or stalk that few were able to discern them Most took them to be Wheat of the Lords own sowing a very excellent piece of Wheat and such as might have recompenced the labour of the heavenly Husbandman but when they came unto fecissent fructum when both the Wheat and tares came to bring forth fruit and that the fruits of each were balanced in the scale of the holy Sanctuary then was it no great difficulty to determine of them to say that this was Wheat and that these were tares that this was truth and that was error that this was seed of Gods own sowing the bonum semen mentioned in the 24. and for the others unde haec they could proceed from none but ab inimico So true is that which Christ our Saviour tells us in another case igitur ex fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos by their fruits you shall know them As for example The Doctrine of the Popes supremacy as it is represented to us in the fairest colours how specious seemes it to the eye how necessary for the preservation of peace and unity in the Church of God how excellent a piece of Wheat would a man suppose it at first looking on Nature pleads for it in regard that all living Creatures as Bees and Birds and Sheep and all other Cattel love to have some chief by which the rest may be directed Rex unus apibus dux unus gregibus in armentis rector unus as St. Cyprian hath it St. Hierome adds grues unum sequuntur literato ordine that the Cranes also have some Prince whom they love to follow The Politicks stand up in defence of Monarchy as the most excellent form of Government 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith our Master Aristotle And that they may not stand alone against those popular Estates which the world then cherished they bring the Poets in for seconds for whom in the name of all the rest it is said by Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
with it what a strange multitude of tares that one word doth carry The Cardinall makes this difference between the termes hanc sanctis caeteris that that belongs indifferently to all the Saints illam humanitati Christi matri ejus but this alone to Christs humane nature only and his blessed Mother The ground of the distinction and how they differ from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or indeed rather how they differ not we shall not canvasse for the present Suffice it that in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they comprehend both prayers to Saints and adoration of their Images And first for prayers unto the Saints the Fathers taught according to the word of God that the Saints departed pray for us as fellow-members with them of that mystical body whereof Christ Jesus is the head Which as it is unquestionably true of the Saints in general so was it thought by Maximus Taurinensis and that not improbably that of the Saints none were more constant in it then the holy Martyrs qui supplicia pro nobis pertulere who suffered death for our incouragement and confirmation In this regard the faithful of the primitive times used to repair unto their Tombs and did there offer up their supplications to the Lord their God next ventured to implore the Lord to grant them their desires and prayers even for the blessed sake of those Saints and Martyrs at whose Tombs they kneeled and in the end began to implore the Martyrs to recommend their prayers to the Lord Almighty for their more quick dispatch in the Court of Heaven By which degrees came in the invocation of the Saints and ther with that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Religious worship of them which the Schools maintain and is defended for good Doctrine in the Church of Rome This Doctrine of what sort it is whether wheat or tare must be determined by the fruits and if we bring it once to fecissent fructum the true condition of this Doctrine will at full appear For what did follow hereupon but that the Saints were made our Mediators at the Throne of Grace every man choosing some or other of those blessed Spirits to be his Advocate and Intercessor with Almighty God our Saviour Christ meanwhile neglected or but little thought of Nay they went so far at the last that Christ was fain to mediate with the Saints as if their passions and not his had been the meritorious causes of Redemption as in that prayer of the Portuice touching Thomas Becket Christe Jesu per Thomae vulnera quae nos ligant relaxa scelera Nor stayed they there but as they made their prayers unto them so did they come at last to make their vowes not by but to the Saints departed and finally to dedicate unto their proper and immediate service Temples and Festivalls and Altars and set forms of worship which being all materiall parts and circumstances of religious adoration and so confessed to be even by those of Rome hath so plunged poor ignorant people into grosse and palpable Idolatry it having been the constant Doctrine of Antiquity that all religious worship of what sort soever is so peculiar unto God that without manifest Idolatry it cannot be communicated unto any creature And howsoever those of wit and learning have found a mentall reservation to deceive themselves yet that will prove no plaster for the general sore nor save the common people from the downâ— right sins The Cardinall indeed thus resolves the case Licet dicere S. Petre miserere mei c. that it is lawful for us men to pray unto S. Peter to have mercy upon us to save us and set open to us the Gates of Heaven to grant us health and patience and what else we want modò intelligamus his precibus meritis if so we understand it thus Do all these things that I request by thy prayers and merits But this I would fain know of Bellarmine with all his wit how many of the vulgar sort have ever learnt or practised such a reservation or if they have how farre it may extenuate and excuse the sin So it is also in the point of Images first introduced into the Church for Ornament history and imitation Sic defunctis praemium posteris dabatur exemplum as Minutius hath it Had they stayed there it had been well and no fault found with them They might have used them so sans question and therewithall have given them that respect and reverence which properly belongs to the similitude and representations of celestiall things Posterity had never questioned them or their proceedâ—ngs in the point had they gone no further But when the Schools began to state it that idem honor debetur imagini exemplari that the same veneration was to be afforded to the Type and Prototype then came the Doctrine to the growth to fecisset fructum When and by whom and where it was first so stated it is not easie to determine and indeed not necessary It is enough that we behold it in the fruits And what fruits think you could it beare but most grosse Idolatry greater then which was never known amongst the Gentiles witness their praying not before but to the Crucifix and calling on the very Crosse the wooden and materiall Crosse both to increase their righteousness and remit their sins Auge piis justitiam reis dona veniam as the Portesst had it Nor could we look for better fruit from so lewd a Tenet it being defended in the Schools that the Image of Christ is to be worshipped with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the highest kind of worship in their own opinion cum Christus adoretur adoratione latriae because that kind of Adoration doth properly belong to Christ our Lord. And for the Images of the Saints they that observe with what laborious Pilgrimages magnificent processions solemn offerings and in a word with what affections prayers and humble bendings of the body they have been are worshipped in the Church of Rome might very easily conceive that she was once again relapsed to her ancient Paganisme It s true the better to relieve themselves in this desperate plunge they have excogitated many fine distinctions as terminative and objective propriè impropriè per se per accidens which howsoever they may satisfie the more learned sort are not intelligible to poor simple people What said I that perhaps they may give satisfaction to the learned No such matter verily for Bellarmine himself confesseth that those who hold that any of the Images of Christ our Saviour are to be honoured with that kind of worship which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are fain to find out many a nice distinction quas vix ipsi intelligunt nedum populus imperitus which they themselves much lesse poor ignorant people could not understand which makes me think that sure the Cardinall was infatuated with the spirit of dotage himself defining positively in the self-same page Imagines
vizards even whilest he was about this deed of darkness By them a question is demanded of poor ignorant servants who either weary of their labour or inclined to ease or careless of their Masters business had been fast asleep and knew not what was done till they were well wakened If they must needs be further satisfied in these curious cavills let them repair to their own Master and enquire of him who being conscious to himself of his own lewd acts can give them a more punctuall answer We are no servants of the enemy nor ever were imployed in sins dark designs and therefore unacquainted with his plots and counsels To us according to this Parable the asking of the question appertains not to the answer of it But put the case the worst that may be and let it passe for granted that our adversaries may pervert and change the question as they list themselves yet why should we return them any other Answer then the Lord made unto his servants Why may not we make this reply to all their Queries inimicus homo hoc fecit that the enemy did it The Lord out of his infinite wisdom thought it not improper to give a general answer to a particular demand And why should we be wiser then our Master The servants ask in special unde haec zizania the Lord returns in generall inimicus fecit But as for the particulars of time place and persons wherewith our Adversaries presse and charge us against right and reason those he reserves unto himself and conceales from us And 't is a learned ignorance not to know those things which God endeavours to keep secret Ea nescire quae magister optimus non vult docere erudita est inscitia as mine Authour hath it Some things the Lord reserves to the day of judgement when all hearts shall be open all desires made known and no secrets hid And then we shall be sure to know what times the enemy made choyce of to sowe his tares what instruments he used in the doing of it what place or Country he selected for their first appearance with all the other curious circumstances which are so much insisted on by the common Adversary If this suffice not we must finally return that Answer which once Arnobius made to some foolish questions propounded by the enemies of the Christian faith Nec si nequivero causas vobis exponere cur aliquid fiat illo vel illo modo sequitur ut infecta sint quae jam facta sunt In case we are not able to declare unto them when by what persons in what Countries the Doctrines by us questioned were first set on foot it followeth not that therefore none of them are tares of the enemies sowing I have no more to say for the Explication most of the points having bin treated of before in our former discourses on this Argument And for the Application I must give you notice that it relates not to the matter only at this time delivered but to the whole intent and purpose of the present Parable I have already layed before you those tares and errors which have been noted and observed in the Church of Rome Our own turn is next and it comes in agreeably to the Text it self in which it is supposed as granted that there was good feed sowen by the Heavenly Husbandman however afterwards the field became full of tares According unto which Proposall I shall first shew you in the Thesis what speciall care was taken in our Reformation that all things might be fitted to the word of God and the best ages of the Church Next I shall make a true discovery of those several tares wherewith this Field is over-grown and Gods seed indangered So doing I am sure I shall not be accused of partiality or respect of persons And therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 encouraged by your Christian patience let us on in Gods name Si de interpretatione legis quaeritur inspiciendum est inprimis quo jure civitas retro in ejusmodi casibus usa suit It is a Maxime in the Lawes that if a question do arise about the sense and meaning of some Law or Statute the best way is to have recourse to the decisions of the State in the self-same case An Axiome no lesse profitable in Divinity then it is in Law The State Ecclesiastical hath her doubts and changes as great and frequent as the civill the body mystical as subject to corruptions as the body politick In which condition either of distractions or of distempers no better way to set her right to bring her to her perfect constitution then to look back upon her primitive and ancient principles Ad legem testimonium was the rule of old And this the Church of Christ hath thought fit to follow when she hath found her self diseased with plain and manifest corruptions or otherwise distracted with debates and doubtful disputations as St. Paul calls them The Law of God the Gospel of our Saviour Christ for points of Doctrine the usage and testimony of the primitive Church for points of practice hath alwayes been her rule and Canon in such desperate plunges In the observance of which rule as generally the Church of God hath discharged her duty as may appear by the inspection of her ancient Coâ—ncels and other Monuments and Records of her acts and doings so aut me amor suscepti negotii fallit either I erre through too much filiall piety to the Church my Mother or else there never was a National Church in what Age soever that hath more punctually observed this rule then this Church of England For in that great business of the Reformation those Worthies here whom God had raised and fitted for the undertaking were not possessed for ought we finde with any spirit of contradiction or humour of affecting contrarieties That which they found before established which either was agreeable to the word of God in point of Doctrine or to the usage of the primitive Church in point of order and devotion they retained as formerly so farre endeavouring a conformity with the Church of Rome that where she left not Christ and the Primitive Church there they left not her Luther and Calvin however honoured and admired in the World abroad were here no otherwise considered then as learned men whose works and writings possibly might be counted useful but not thought Authentick Our Prelates here that were engaged in this great business Cranmer and Ridley and the rest of these brave Heroes were of as able parts as they but more moderate spirits They knew the Church had first been founded upon the Prophets and Apostles our Saviour Christ being the Corner-stone and therefore would not build their reformation on the names of men Christianus mihi nomen est Catholicus cognomen was Pacianus's Speech of old but they made it theirs and still we keep it as our own But what need more The fair succession of the
Bishops and the vocation of the Ministry according to the ancient Canons the dignity of the Clergy in some sort preserved the honour and solemnity of Gods publick worship restored unto its original lustre the Doctrines of Religion vindicated to their primitive purity shew manifestly that they kept themselves to that sacred rule Ad legem testimonium to the Law and Testimony Two things there are especially considerable in the Church of Christ matters of Doctrine and of worship The first of these we find comprized in the Book of Articles the other in the Book of Common Prayer and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England In both of which the Fathers of this Church proceeded with a temperate hand having one eye upon the Scriptures the other on the practice of the Church of God in her purest Ages but none at all either on Saxonie or Geneva It s true indeed that Calvin offered his assistance to Archbishop Cranmer for the composing of our Articles si quis mei usus fore videbitur if his assistance were thought necessary and would have crossed the Seas about it But the Archbishop knew the man and how he had been practising with the Duke of Somerset ut Hoppero manum porrigeret to countenance Bishop Hooper in his opposition to the Churches Ordinances and thereupon refused the offer Latimer also tells us in a Sermon preached before King Edward Anno 1549. That there was a Speech touching Melanchthons comming over but it went no further then the Speech And he himself Melancthon writes to Camerarius Regiis literis in Angliam vocor that he was sent for into England but this was not till 53. as his Letters testifie the Articles of this Church being passed the year before in Convocation and the Doctrine setled God certainly had so disposed it in his heavenly wisdom that so this Church depending upon neither party might in succeeding times be a judge between them as more inclinable to compose then espouse their quarrells And for this Doctrine what it is how correspondent to the word of God and to the ancient tendries of the Catholick Church the Challenge and Apology of Bishop Jewel never yet throughly answered by the adverse party may be proof sufficient But we have further proof then that for the Archbishop of Spalato at his going hence professed openly that he would justifie and defend the Church of England for an Orthodox Church in all the essentiall points of Christianity and that he held the Articles thereof to be true and profitable and none of them at all heretical And he that calls himself Franciscus à Sâ— Clara in his Examen of those Articles denies not but that being rightly understood they do contain sound Catholick Doctrine Adeò veriâ—as ab invitis etiam pectoribus erumpet said Lactantius truly Now as the Church of England did not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as once the Orator affirmed of the Grecian Oracles in the points of Doctrine so neither did it Calvinize in matter of exterior order and Gods publick Worship The Liturgy of this Church was so framed and fitted out of those common principles of Religion wherein all parties did agree that it was generally applauded and approved by those who since have laboured to oppose it Alexander Alesius a learned Scot did first translate it into Latine and that as he himself affirms both for the comfort and example of all other Churches which did endeavour Reformation and increase of piety The Scots in their first Reformation divers years together used the English Liturgy the fancy of extemporary prayers not being then took up not cherished as Knox himself confesseth in his own dear History And howsoever now of late they have divulged a factious and prohibited Pamphlet against the English Popish Ceremonies as they please to call them yet in the structure of their Reformation they bound themselves by Oath and by Covenant too to adhere only to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England Religionis cultui ritibus cum Anglis communibus subscripserunt as it is in Buchannan So for the other opposite party those of Rome they made at first no doubt nor scruple of coming to our publick Service or joyning with us in the worship of one common Saviour Sir Edward Coke a man who both for age and observation was very well able to avow it both in his pleadings against Garnet and his Charge given at the Assizes held in Norwich and the sixth part of his Reports in Cawdries case doth affirm expresly that for the ten first years of Queen Elizabeths Reign there was no Recusant known in England whose testimony lest it should stand single and so become obnoxious to those scorns and cavils which Parsons in his Answer unto that Report hath bestowed upon it Sanders himself in his seditious Book de Schismate shall come in for second Frequentabant haereticorum Synagogas intererant eorum concionibus ad easque audiendas filios familiam suam compellebant So he but not to stand upon his testimony or build so great an edifice on so weak a ground as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the suffrage and consent of the vulgar Meinie the Pope himself as Cambden doth relate the Story made offer to confirm our Liturgie the better to make up the breaches of the House of God which since the Priests and Jesuites have disswaded from out of a wretched policy to make them wider A point which verily that Pope had not yielded to being a very stiffe and rigorous Prelate but that he found the Liturgie to be so composed as it could no wayes be offensive unto Catholick eares Either the Pope must lose his infallibility and become subject unto error like to other men or else there is no error to be found in the English Liturgie Thus have we seen a Church reformed according to the prescript of the Word of God by the Law and Testimony A Church that seemes to have been cultivated by the Lords own hand planted by Paul and watred by Apollos God himself giving the increase A Church that grew up in the middle of two contrary factions as did the Primitive Church between Jew and Gentile and was the better strengthened and consolidated by the opposition Gods Field was no where better husbanded the good seed no where sowen with a clearer hand then it was in this O faciles dare summa Deos But as it fared at first with the Primitive Church so it hapned here We must not so far flatter and abuse our selves as to conceive there are no tares at all in our Reformation because it was first sowen with the Lords good Seed The Devil as he stayed his time donec dormirent homines till the servants slept so he made use of such a grain and used such subtile instruments to effect his purpose that many will not think them to be tares of the enemies sowing now
Pards and Lyons creatures that never sucked the milk of Women Certain I am as most Interpreters agree that by the name of Lyon in the 2d of Tim. St. Paul designes the Emperor Nero I was delivered saith the Apostle out of the mouth of the Lyon Ex ore leonis i. e. persecutoris saith St. Hierome i. e. Neronis saith Lyranus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so saith St. Chrysostome with whom accord Theophylact and Oecumenius And when he laboured to envenom it by scandalous and noysom Hereticks he made use of Serpents that by the poyson of their impious Doctrine she might be brought unto destruction Certain I am that Epiphanius resembleth every severall Hereticks unto some speciall sort of Serpent But in the sowing of these tares in bringing in that deviation from the true Religion which is intended in this Parable he then thought it his best way to make use of men men who knew how to time it and to watch advantages and to make use of all occasions and so with more assurance might effect his purpose because leasâ— suspected The Devill never went beyond himself but in this invention in putting on the shape of man when he did this feat that he might passe unseen by the houshold-servants This is the true cause as I conceive it why Satan is here called inimicus homo the envious and malicious man or if you will the enemy-man as the Rhemists read it What kinde of men the enemy made use of to effect his purpose and how he makes the lusts and passions of his several instruments subservient to his wretched purposes we shall see in the hoc fecit my last particular Aetatis cujusque notandi sunt tibi mores He that desires to be esteemed a Master in the Art of man must be well skilled in all the humors and affections which are peculiar to his nature and incident unto his age Nay he must be well read in mens wants and weaknesses their imperfections and defects which if applied with cunning and employed with care may prove exceeding serviceable to the aims and projects of the cunning practiser And as the thrifty man that desires to prosper turns every thing unto his profit and makes no small commodity out of toyes and trifles so he that trades in men and hath the art of diving into their affections may husband and improve the meanest passion to his great advantage The Devil the old enemy is a cunning man a subtle practiser and is not now to learn this lesson When he was once resolved on the fecit hoc to sowe his tares his dangerous and hereticall Doctrines in the Church of God he was not to be taught how to deal with men how to make use of their affections of their lusts and passions for the promoting of his purpose or how to use their weaknesse and deficiencies as an help unto it Whether men be voluptuous arrogant or vain-glorious whether they pine with envy or are stirred with choler or be they rash or head-strong t is all one to him He knowes full well his opportunities how to apply himself unto them as the humour takes and by their meanes to do that businesse which he durst never undertake without them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not that the Devil hath a power as the Father notes it to thrust men into his employments whether they will or not but that he makes such use of their lusts and passions as may best suit with his intendments The enemy in this business deales by craft not force And first if we begin with the ambitious man as certainly he would take it ill if we should do otherwise how much hath Satan wrought upon this affection from the beginning of the world What was it but ambition in our Father Adam when he desired to be as God knowing good and evill And did not Satan work upon that humour to the undoing of that wretched upstart and his whole posterity What was it but ambition in Simon Magus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first-begotten of the Devil as Ignatius calls him which made him love to be entituled the great power of God And did not Satan work upon that humour for the promoting and divulging of those desperate blasphemies with which the Church was long tormented What was it but ambition in the Popes that moved them to affect the Title of Universall Bishop in the Church of Christ And hath not Satan wrought upon that humour to the distraction of the Church if not the totall ruine of it This Doctrine of the Cardinall Si Papa doceret virtutes esse vitia c. that if the Pope determine vertue to be vice all men are to believe so without more ado that of Aquinas and the Schools that he may make new Articles of faith which Pius Quartus put in practise that of the Canonists in generall that as the Vicar-generall of our Saviour Christ he is Lord of all and consequently hath a power to do what he list as also to dispense what and how he list in matters which concern the Church with Oaths and Vowes and Leagues and Mariages yea with the very Law of nature these and the rest what are they but the fruits of the Popes supremacy and what produced the Popes supremacy but the Popes ambition I fear a spice of this ambition and a shrewd one too is still left amongst us in them most visible who would be every one a Pope in their severall Parishes The Fathers of the Consistory claim as great Authority as ever Pope did in the Conclave and at their feet according to their own dear principles the Pâ—inces of the Earth must lay down their Scepters Huic disciplinae omnes orbis principes fasces suos submittere parere necesse est as Travers hath resolved it in his Book of Discipline Vain-glory may come next ambition and many times they go together This was the motive that incited Theudas to take upon himself the name of some doughty Prophet that he might draw away much people after him and be counted somebody This Austin notes to be the fountain of all Heresies Superbia mater heresâ—on as the Father hath it St. Bernard speaks it out more fully captare gloriam de singularitate scientiae to get himself a name for a man of eminency Somewhat they needs must teach which is not ordinary to gain themselves opinion and increase their followers St. Dominick St. Francis and all the rest which have so surfeited the Church with their several Orders what aimed they at in all their institutions but the vain-glory of a new Invention and to have their followers called by their own names So fared it also with the Schoolmen Lombard Aquinas Bonaventure and the rest that followed every one superadding some new niceties unto those before them Those intricate debates first raised amongst them touching Predestination Grace Free-will the Merit of good works as well
knowledge through affected ignorance or had his lips sealed up through affected idleness they fed the People with dumb shewes and Images the Lay-mens Bible and with the pomp and ceremonies of the Masse the Lay-mens Idoll or with the counting of their Beades the poor peoples Pater-noster Quae non officio mentis sed ministerio corporis consistunt as once Lactantius scoffed it of the ancient Gentiles By meanes whereof the rites and ceremonies of the Church were grown so numerous that they became a burden to the Church of God and being first ordained as helps and accessories to Gods publick worship came in the end to be accounted the meritorious and essential parts thereof and having in their Institution first no more then usum significandi a power to signifie attained at last to usus efficiendi a power to dignifie in the production of the works and effects of Grace As for the fault in not applying speedy remedies to emergent mischiefs that relates chiefly to the Prelates as those who are intrusted by our Saviour with the powers of Government For if at first upon the broching of some new opinions which seemed to tend to any alteration in the things of God the Prelates had bestirred themselves tryed and examined it by the holy Scriptures or by the tendries and expressions of the Primitive Church we had not now been troubled to decry those Doctrines which are obtruded on the Church for Catholick Or if they had compelled the People to observe those Ceremonies which had been recommended to them from most pure Antiquity and not have suffered others to be thrust upon them either by practise or connivence we had not been troubled to discard those usages which had defiled if not prophaned the whole Worship of God So when the Latine Tongue in these Western parts by reason of the intermixture of Gohes Hunnes and Vandalls and other Nations of the North began to alter and degenerate from its ancient purity if then the Prelates of the Church had also changed the Language of the publick Liturgy and fitted it to the understanding of the common people the Church of Rome had never been accused of so foul a crime as to inforce poor people to a Latine Service to which they cannot say Amen For sure it is an excellent rule of him in Gellius that men must speak according to the times in which they live and live according to the times which old Stories speak of Moribus antiquis praesentibus utere verbis as that Author hath it Agreeably to which good Rule those in the Church of Rome might have kept together the ancient Piety and Discipline with the modern Languages Hitherto we have noted and surveyed the Devils practises upon the noblerâ—sex of man Think we he holds so wretched an opinion of the other though the weaker Vessel as to conceive them utterly unserviceable for the improving of his Harvest If we observe his doings we shall finde it otherwise He had so good success with Eve in his first attempt that he had shewn himself at once ingrateful and unprovident to have left them so He knew that by the constitution of their sex they were weak but wilful easily won to entertain new fancies and opinions but not so easily to forgo them He also knew that by the eagerness of their affections and the insinuating powers which they have by nature they are most diligent and industrious in drawâ—ng their Husbands Children friends and servants to entertain that cause which themselves affect Upon this ground he would not send out Simon Magus without an Helena nor would Montanus venture on the Stage alone to disperse his Heresies but must have Maximilla and Priscilla joyned Assistants with him And if Priscillian have a mind to pervert the People and raise a faction to himself in the Church of God he will not fail to court the Women and make them fast unto his party Sulpitius so assures us of him that he was much admired and followed by the female sex who loving novelties and being of unsetled judgement catervatim ad eum confluebant resorted to him by whole flocks and multitudes So for the sowing of his tares in the middle Ages what use the enemy made of Maud the Countesse in the advancing of the Popes supremacy what of St. Briget and St. Clare if I may so call them in laying the burden of professed virginity upon the necks of tender Maidens which they can neither carry as they should nor cast down when they list the Story of those times can witness and these Ages feel The enemy is still the same qualis ab incoe epâ—o processerit the same Satan still and will not suffer this poor sex to remain in quiet but works upon them by his Emissaries and practiseth upon them by his Agents as knowing what fit Instruments they are to advance a party Not that he doth employ them often in the setting but in the selling of his tares their business lies not in the Field but in the Market to passe them up and down and from hand to hand and raise the price of the Commodity St. Paul foretells us of a sort of men that should creep into Houses and lead captive silly women laden with sin and driven about with divers lusts Now we finde it verified where we may note and I but note it by the way that those who are led captive so in the Apostles Judgement are but silly women or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he calls them laden with sin and therefore easie to be wrought on and so not walking in the wayes of Gods Commandements and driven about with divers lusts therefore not rightly grounded in the rules of constancy Such women as are there described by the Apostle silly and sinful and unconstant too let them for me be still led captive t is a gain to lose them Thus have I represented to you a discovery of the enemies practises 1. the use he makes of the affections passions and deficiencies of his severall instruments to bring about the fecit hoc which my Text here speaks of And though it be a matter of no small difficulty to trace the Prince of darkness in his deeds of darkness yet I have done the best I could directed by the light of Scripture and by the Candle of antiquity to observe his goings The use we make of all is this that we avoid those humors and deficiencies in our severall stations which Satan is so apt to work on that we be neither puffed up with ambition nor tickled with vain-glory nor filled with covetous desires nor pined with discontent and envy nor dulled with ignorance nor finally besotted with a lazie negligence These passions and defects if we yield not to we need not fear the enemy noâ— his fecit hoc For God even our own God shall give us his blessing and strengthen us in every good both word and work To whom be glory c. Amen
separando eos à communione Ecclesiae by severing them from the Communion of the faithful The like saith Gorran also and some latter Writers others and those of more Antiquity but farre more eminency in the Church think rather that their meaning was to cut them off not only from the body of the Church but of all mankind to go against them with the Sword and destroy them utterly Chrysostom so conceives it saying that if they had gone on as they were resolved in prosecuting of the Heretick with fire and sword 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blood-shed and warre must needs have followed over all the World Theophylact goes to work more plainly and tells us that the servants being offended at the growth of Heresies by consequence incensed against the Hereticks themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were of a minde to make quick work with them to rid them of the troubles of this wretched life and so to save the trouble of more tedious process To which of these two courses their zeal might bend them is in the next place to be considered I conceive the last And this I am induced to think by the Masters Answer who on the hearing of the Proposition returned a non for it is plain he had a negative voyce of which more hereafter He did not like of the intention and to dislike their purpose there had been no reason had their design been to proceed only by the Churches censures He that committed to the Church in St. Peters name the power and dispensation of the keyes intended not that they should serve for nothing but a dumb shew a sign and token only of a powerless Ministery And when he gave to his Apostles so direct a power of binding and retaining sins and giving over unto Satan the impenitent person think you his meaning was they shonld never use it If so St. Panl must needs be guilty of no small offence in dealing so severely with the man of Corinth and wonder 't was there was no relaxation sued for from the Court of Heaven in case of so severe and just a sentence And to what end serves Dic Ecclesiae if the poor Church have power to hear but not to censure or if upon the Churches censures none be so fit to be accounted either an Heathen or Publican as he who is intrusted by the Church to inflict the same Assuredly God would not disallow the course which himself prescribed or by removing from the Church the power of censure open a gapp to all impurity both of life and doctrine There was a time once in the Church of England I do not say it is so now wherein the censures of the Church under pretence or colour of some civill sanctions were either quite abolished or of no effect to the no small increase of vice because it nourished a presumption of impunity in vicious persons Of this old Father Latimer doth thus complain in a Sermon preached before King Edward Lechery saith he is used in England and such lechery as is used in no other place of the World And yet it is made a matter of sport a matter of nothing a laughing matter a trifle not to be passed on nor reformed Well I trust it will be amended one day and I hope to live to see it mended as old as I am And here I will make a suit to your Highnesse to restore unto the Church the Discipline of Christ in excommunicating such as be notable offenders Nor never devise any other way for no man is able to devise any better then that God hath done with excommunication to put them from the Congregation till they be confounded Therefore restore Christs Discipline for Excommunication and that shall be a meane both to pacifie Gods wrath and indignation and also that lesse abomination shall be used then in times past hath been and is at this day I speak this of a Conscience and I mean to move it of a will to your Grace and your Realm Bring into the Church of England the open Discipline of Excommunication that open sinners may be stricken withall So farre the very words of Father Latimer Let every one consider of them as he thinks most necessary perhaps the Sermon may be more effectuall with some kinde of men when one is raised up from the dead to preach unto them Besides this could not be the way which was intended by those servants if either we consider their Colligimus or the eradicetis of their Master in the following words The servants or the Church in them might have gone on to excommunication of the Heretick and the condemning of the Heresie without the least fear or imagination that by so doing eradicetur simul cum eis triticum the wheat the Lords good seed would be pulled up with them The censure of an Heretick doth rather strengthen then destroy the truth of Doctrine and he that doth correct a stubborn and impenitent sinner hindreth not but confirms the vertuous person in the way of godliness And for Colligimus that is we know a compound word as is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Original and doth not so much signifie a single gathering as a gathering up of all together and so the word is used in the following Verses It seemes the servants of my Text would have made short work and swept away these tares at once without more ado which howsoever it may be done sometimes in ore gladii which devoures all things where it is permitted to range at liberty yet is it seldom done if ever in gladio oris by Admonitions Excommunications or any other kind of spiritual punishments Non excommunicandam multitudinem was the rule of old The censures of the Church do only legere pick here and there a man out of many sinners by whose exemplary corrections others may beware of the like offences Tormenta paucorum sunt exempla omnium as my Authour hath it Colligere is none of hers in this sense and meaning And therefore here was no such meaning as to proceed by excommunication to bring these tares to be arraigned and tryed at the Churches Barre And being their meaning was not so their zeal though more remarkable was yet lesse warrantable A zeal like that of James and John the two Sonnes of Thunder Vis dicimus ut descendat ignis Wilt thou that fire come down from Heaven to destroy these miscreants No dealing with some zelots of both sides but by fire and faggot by the sword at least for which they have no warrant I am sure from either Text. Neither indeed do they which stand most on it fetch their grounds from hence or if they did how wretchedly would those grounds deceive them neither the Brethren there nor the servants here had any calling from the Lord to be the instruments of his vengeance The Apostles were ordained by Christ amongst other things to offer unto God the sacrifice of
Ecclesiae as before I told you out of Hierome to whom our Saviour gave the keyes and the Church afterwards the Crozier or the Pastoralls Staffe the badge and emblem of their Office But neither our Saviour nor the Church gave them any power to take the Sword into their hands or to proceed in ore gladii when they found any thing amisse in life or Doctrine which stood in need of Reformation Look upon which of these you will either upon the Servants or upon the Tares and we shall quickly finde that the Sword and Warre are never more unfitly used then by such men and in such cases For the Tares being sowen in medio tritici amongst the Wheat v. 25. and growing intermingled with it in the blade or stalk v. 26. if the Sword chance to mow them down down go both alike And should the Field be weeded by the hand of Warre impossible it is but that in gathering up the Tares eradicetur simul cum eis triticum the Wheat must needes be rooted up at the self-same time Bonorum malorumque fata mixta merita confusa The wicked and the righteous person the Schismatick and conformable man the Heretick and Orthodox Professor are all alike subject unto those calamities which the Warre brings upon a Nation their Persons their Estates their Families all comprehended in the masse of the same perdition which as they are the ordinary consequents of the Sword and Warre so do they fall most heavily on the Church of Christ when the Sword is put into unskilful hands who neither have a right unto it nor the Art to use it or when the Warre is undertaken and pursued under the mask and colour of Religion When once the Successors of St. Peter as they claim to be laid aside the keyes and betook themselves unto the Sword what havock did they make in the Christian Church how often have they died their Robes in the blood of the Saints And when the Warre begun by the Christian Princes on the Turks and Saracens was turned upon the Albigenses by the Popes of Rome and that the Cruciata was proclaimed against those poor souls only because they differed in some points of Doctrine from the opinions of that Church how many hundred thousands of well-meaning men who made a conscience of their wayes and erred not if they erred at all out of pride but ignorance were rooted up and made a sacrifice to the offended Deities of the Roman Conclave The miseries of those Warres and the nature of them are but a Glasse wherein we may behold the troubles and distractions of these latter times in which the Sword hath been so often made the Judge of controversies almost all the States in Christendom have been imbroiled in Warres under pretence of Reformation That Maxime of Illyricus the Father of the rigid Lutherans as they use to call them terrendos Principes metu seditionum that Princes must be frighted into Reformation by the fear and threatning of seditions that of Gesselius a more rigid Calvinist that if the Prince and Clergy did neglect their duties in the reforming of the Church the people then must undertake it licèt ad sanguinem usque pro eo pugnent although they have no other way to effect the same then by raising Warres and stirring up the Subjects against their Soveraigns that of some zelots of our own who now the Sword is drawn would not have it sheathed till it be fully glutted in the blood of Malignants what ruine and destruction hath it brought on the Church of God defiled the Sanctuaries of the Lord and defaced his Temples laid desolate the beauties of our dwelling-places and made us Christians both a derision and a prey to the Turks and Gentiles Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum Such mischiefs have the Sword and the Warre produced under pretence of imus colligimus of gathering up such Tares as have been thought to grow in the Field of God and rectifying such abuses as in long tract of time had risen in his publick worship With how much better judgement was the Question stated in the Heroick times of Christianity when as it was both taught and practised Defendendam esse Religionem non occidendo sed moriendo that the Gospel was to be defended not by blood and slaughter nor by destroying those who opposed the same or harboured any Tenets which agreed not with it but by submitting our own lives to the hand of death in testimony of the truth and a good conscience whensoever the necessities of the Church shall require it of us With how much greater love to the Church of Christ did the good Father give this Comment on the present text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God saith he would not let the Hereticks be destroyed by Warres for fear the righteous person and the true believer should also suffer with them in the same destruction But what will some men say Is there no use of the Sword at all in the confounding of the Heretick or the reclaiming of the Schismatick or the correction of the wicked and flagitious person I say not so the Sword may have its use in all these particulars and Warres be serviceable in some of them But then the Sword must be committed to the hands of the proper Minister not to the Servants of my Text or any Minister of the Gospel of what rank soever and Warres must be denounced and pursued by those in whom the supreme Government of the State is vested to whom it appertains of right Parcere subjectis debellare superbos to be indulgent to the quiet and obedient subject but to pull down the stomach of the proud and rebellious person Each of them hath their several way and their severall weapons in the effecting of this work but each of them must stay the time The Heretick is first to be attempted by the power of the word by which Apollos mightily convinced the Jewes and which St. Paul assures us is exceeding profitable not onely for Doctrine but reproof It is the faithful word as he elsewhere tells us by which the Prelate is inabled not only to exhort but convince gainsayers The same course must be also taken in the recovery of the Schismatick in reduction of the stray-sheep to the Fold of Christ it being the duty of the diligent and careful Shepherd to seek out that which was lost and bring back that which was driven away Which meanes if they should prove to be ineffectual and that the word and Doctrine will not work the cure it then pertains unto the Pastor to have recourse unto the censures of the Church Et flagellorum terroribus vel etiam doloribus revocare to fetch them back again by the Rod of Discipline and if that faile to excommunicate them and deliver them to the hands of Satan Further then this they may not go t is beyond their
bounds what may be done upon Certificate hereof by the Civil Magistrate and how farre he may use the Sword in cutting off the obstinate Heretick and the perverse Schismatick we shall see hereafter when we are come to look upon the Sinite in the following verse in which it was appointed by the heavenly Husbandman that both the Tares and Wheat should be permitted to grow up together till the Harvest In the mean time there is no question to be made but that notorious offenders such S. Cyprian takes to be the Tares which are here intended are most immediately subject to the sword of the Civil Magistrate if single persons and to be rooted up by the hand of Warre if they unite themselves together by their wretched maâ—hinations do imbroyl the State God gave the Sword into the hands of the higher powers for no other purpose but that they should be his avengers vindices in iram saith the vulgar to execute wrath and judgement upon those that do evill and amongst other evill that do resist the powers He that imployes it not to that end and purpose and doth not make himself a terror unto those which do evill works beares the Sword in vain and gives some countenance unto the error shall I call it or the frenzie rather of the foolish Anabaptists who do affirm expresly and in terminis That the Sword is not to be used by the Civill Magistrate which were it so in case the Magistrate might not use the Sword when he saw occasion or will not use the same when he may and ought God needed not have put the Sword into his hands A Scabbard and a pair of Hilts would have served the turn And as for Warre it is the last remedy which a Prince can use for the correction of a stubborn and rebellious people not to be thought on nor imbraced but in great extremities Warre is then only just when it is necessary and can no longer be avoided and then too to be used with alloyes and temperaments as Poysons are sometimes in a Course of Physick That Prince as wittily and tartly the Italians tell us who upon every slight occasion doth take up Arms against his Subjects may be compared unto the mâ—n which sets his House on fire for to rost his Eggs. But if the Prince hath tryed all other courses and can speed in none if when he speaks of peace they prepare for Warre if they refuse to hear his Charms charm he never so sweetly Viribus utendum est quas fecimus God and the Sword must end the quarrel Let him then gird his sword upon his thigh like a mighty man according to his Worship and Renown Let him ride on couragiously against them that hate him let his right hand teach him terrible things and finally let his Arrowes he sharp in the hearts of his enemies till the people be subdued unto him and that he be anointed with the Oyl of gladness above all his fellows No Physick better then Phlebotomy for corrupted bodies when as the spirits are inflamed and the blood boyles high But of this Argument enough There is another thing to be considered in this present Answer in the ne fortè of the Master and that was this for fear lest out of prejudice or inadvertency they might have taken that for Tares which indeed was Wheat and so have done more hurt to the Field of God then the Tares themselves For as I have observed before on the 26. the Tares are very like the Wheat in the blade or stalk as both Euthymius Zygabenus and St. Hierome tell us So like they are to one another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Chrysostom according to the outward shew that he must have discerning eyes who can distinguish them aright till their fruits be ripe who on the first discovery can expresly say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that these be Tares and this is Wheat saith Athanasius And this he doth illustrate and exemplifie by the similitude and resemblance which seemes to be betwixt the Hypocrite and the righteous man Both of them come unto the Church and receive the word and seem to entertain the same with such equal joy that the spirituall Husbandman himself is many times deceived in them not being able to determine by the outward view but when the Doctrine which they heard comes to bring forth fruit then saith he it is easily seen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who is the true Believer and who the Hypocrite By meanes of which similitude and resemblance as many counterfeit Christians have been taken for right honest men and divers dangerous and unsound opinions found entertainment in the Church for true Orthodox Tenets so t is not only possible but also probable that either through prejudice or inadvertency some honest and religious men may be condemned for lewd and reprobate some Orthodox and true opinions rejected as unsound and dangerous First for the men themselves let us look on them and we shall finde that t is not only probable as before t is said but even of ordinary course for the best men to be traduced and to be branded with some Character of reproach and infamy Our Saviour Christ himself did not scape so well but that he was accounted a Samaritan a Wine bibber and a glutton a friend of Publicans and sinners St. Peter stands accused by the Magdeburgians for a forward fellow a rash and inconsiderate person St. Paul by the Athenians for an idle prater a setter forth of strange Gods a babler And who is he of all the gallant Spirits in the Primitive times who is not branded on record for incestuous mixtures those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 remembred and confuted in the works of our Christian Advocates Prejudice blindes the eyes as much as malice and inadvertency betrayes the judgement to an error with as great facility as either If we be biassed with the one vertue will be accounted vice obedience treason loyalty rebellion and upon those whom we finde guilty of those crimes an imus colligimus shall be passed immediately If we are governed by the other and judge of men according to the Character which the World gives of them each light report or foolish fear or slight suspicion shall serve for a sufficient ground to condemn the innocent and though he be right Wheat indeed of the Lords own sowing vote him to be a Tare and the work is done the imus colligimus will come after as a thing of course Good reason therefore had the Master to restrain his Servants to check them in the midst of their hot pursuit and not to let them go and gather quòd multi falso deferuntur qui sanctimoniam pietatem in occulto colunt considering how easie a thing it is for the best men to be misreported and so accordingly destroyed And what he said to them he saies to us and others on the like
and no such Weapon as the Sword except it be the sword of the Spirit committed to the Ministers of the Word and Sacraments which are the Servants aimed at in our Saviours Parable It is the Civill Magistrate and t is he alone which hath jus gladii materialis as our Lawyers call it the power of the materiall Sword and the right to use it And if he use it not as occasion serves in cutting off notorious Malefactors and punishing seditious or rebellious persons frustra gladium gerit he beares the Sword in vain as the Scriptures tell us But how farre he may use the same in cutting off the obstinate Heretick and the perverse Schismatick after the Church hath done her part and that Certificate be returned of her whole proceedings is a point worthy of a further and more punctuall search At this we only touched before referring the full disquisition of it to the present Sinite as a place more proper for that purpose And first perhaps it will be thought but an easie Controversie and of no great difficulty to determine in which the disagreeing parties are so well agreed The practise of the Church of Rome makes it clear enough what they do hold in point of Doctrine although they have not yet improved it for ought I can tell into an Article of the faith as many of their School-points were in the Tridentine Council Bellarmine gives it for a Maxime or a ruled case rather in the Divinity of that Church Posse haereticos ab Ecclesia damnatos temporalibus poenis etiam morte mulctari that Hereticks condemned at the Churches barre are to be executed on the Scaffold of the Civil Magistrate And this he laboureth to make good as his Custom is both by Authority of Scripture and consent of Fathers though he bring some sory proof from either Our Saviour tells us of false Prophets that they should come in Sheeps Clothing but inwardly were ravenous Wolves and that whoever comes not into the fold by the ordinary doore but climbs in at the Window is a Thief and a Robber At Lupi rapaces optimo jure occiduntur But Wolves saith he are justly killed and t is well known what punishment belongs to Theeves and thereupon concludes without more adoe that Hereticks are to be punished like Wolves and Robbers Would any man believe that so great a Clerk could be so seriously foolish in a matter of such main concernment as the life of his poor Christian Brother or that he meant good earnest when he urged those Texts Might not a man conclude with as good a Conscience I am sure he may with as much equity and Logick as the Cardinall doth that Christ our Saviour ought to be crucified again at his second comming because he tells us of that comming that it will be Sicut fur in nocte like a Thief in the night and we well know what punishment belongs to Burglarers or that prophane and wicked persons are to be cherished in their riotous and licentious courses because the Scripture likeneth them to a dogg which returneth to the vomit and yet such doggs are oft times cherished by their Masters The Cardinall had never set so light a price on the life of his Brother had he considered at how great a price it was bought by Christ So also for the Protestant Doctors though at the first they did unanimously detest both the opinion and the practice of the Church of Rome in this particular and certainly they had good reason so to do as the case then stood yet they soon altered their opinion for after that Servetus had been burnt at Geneva by the instigation of Calvin and Valentine Gentilis executed at Brasil by the Command of the Switzers the Allobrogian party set their wits on work to defend the action and after drew in many others of the Protestant Churches to concur with them in that point Calvin first sets it down in thesi haereticos jure gladii coercendos that Hereticks were to be restrained by the Sword of the temporal Magistrate which though it was in generalls only yet did he make it serve the turn for the present shift But Beza building a large Tract upon his foundation entituled De haereticis à Magistratu puniendis sets up this Position almost the same in termes with that of Bellarmine viz. haereticos interdum capitali etiam supplicio à magistratu coercendos that Hereticks sometimes are to be punished by death For which though he produce no evidence from the Evangelists or Apostles which are the best Judges in this case but that of Ananias and his Wife Saphira both whom St. Peter most miraculously condemned and executed by a word of his mouth yet he confesseth of this instance non posse in exemplum trahi that it is not to be drawn into example And if not to be drawn into example as he saith it is not then certainly no such proof to confirm the point as he thinks it is yet that we might not think him singular or to stand alone he brings in Bullinger Melancthon and Wolfgangus Capito as being of the same judgement with him to whom Aretius might be added in his defence of the proceedings against Valentine Gentile and some others since so incident it is to our humane frailty to square our judgement by the rule of our private interests and not so much to ponder what we ought to do as to finde Pleas and Arguments to defend our doings But notwithstanding this agreement of the adverse parties we may resolve upon the question as our Redeemer did in another case quòd ab initio non fuit sic it was not so from the beginning The Primitive Fathers knew of no such meanes for the confuting of an Heretick or the suppressing of an Heresie as the fire and faggot St. Chrysostomes judgement in the point you have heard already take St. Austins now who tells us of himself that he was once perswaded neminem ad unitatem Christi cogendum esse that no man was to be compelled by force and punishments to joyn himself unto the Church But afterwards upon experience of the peace and benefit which did most commonly redound to the Church thereby he so farre altered his opinion as to allow of banishment or fine and ransom in case of obstinate perverseness but by no meanes of death in what case soever And this the Cardinall confesseth though against himself ingeniously affirming of that holy Father semper excepero supplicium mortis that alwayes he excepted death as too sharp a remedy and inconsistent with the meekness of our Saviours Gospel T is true that Valentinian Martian and other of the following Emperours when they could finde no other way to restrain their insolencies have added also poenam sanguinis in their publick Edicts But this was only in terrorem No execution done upon them in a long time after and then but by some Arian Kings of the
in their resolutions and increase their numbers Nec quicquam proficit exquisitior crudelitas vestra illecebra sectae est as Tertullian hath it The Hereticks all from Simon Magus to Priscillian the last that stands upon the Register in St. Austins Catalogue when they did openly assault the faith it self and struck at the foundations of it what did they but occasion only that the faith became the better setled and that all those which were approved were made more manifest In which regard that of Euagrius is most true that from those very men and matters which made so many ruptures in the Church of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by those the Doctrine of the Church was confirmed and setled This when the Devil had perceived he called in his Wolves and exercised the Church no more with Heresies and persecutions He found it more expedient to make use of men who knew how to time it to watch their opportunities and espy advantages and so with more assurance might effect his purpose because lesse suspected The Serpent never had beguiled poor Eve had he not used the voyce of man nor had the Syren◠captivated and bewitched so many passengers had they not had the face of Women Virginei vultus vox humana remansit as the Poet hath it Of all the instruments of mischief which the world hath bred there 's none like man the Master workman whose winding wit and subtile reaches make him most fit for all imployments Xerxes when as with all his forces his most numerous forces he could not force an entry through the walls of Babylon met with a man Zopyrus by whose craft and cunning he found the gates set open to him which made him oftentimes affirm malle se Zopyrum integrum quà m viginti Babylonas that he preferred Zopyrus before twenty Babylons No battery doth assault so forcibly nor mine work so surely as the wit of man which if it be once set on mischief is indeed most mischievous Our Saviour Christ when he was led by Satan into the Wilderness found neither Bear nor Wolf nor Lion that durst set upon him but when he came into the open Country and conversed with men then was he assaulted on the one side by the Scribes and Pharisees and on the other side by the Herodians all of them lying in wait how they might betray him And therefore when he sent out his Disciples he arms them with this wholsom Caveat Cavete itaque ab hominibus beware of men Ab ipsis potiùs hominibus quam à feris timendum as Beza glosseth on the place And yet there is no fear of men if they would be quiet the danger is not in the men but in their rising it is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that works all the trouble And indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place is an active word or verbum operativum as the Lawyers call it This aggravates the Churches dangers for when the Wolves came in they came in with intrabunt at the common entrance The whole Church saw it and observed it and knew how to trace them but for these risings it is hard to say whence they take beginning or to what they tend or who it is that doth support them When Jupiter had transformed his Io into an Heifer and was demanded whence she came the crafty God returned this answer that she did rise immediately from the very earth ut autor desinat inquiri that so there might no further search be made of what herd she was And so it is in all these risings Jupiter è terra genitam mentitur there 's no man will confess from what root they came or own them till they grow into a body and are made ready for an head And when t is come to that t is a rising still a popular seditious and tumultuous rising The word so used twice for failing in the 5th Chapter of the Acts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Before those dayes arose up one Judas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 's the word boasting himself to be somebody to whom a number of men joyned themselves In the next verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After this man rose up Judas of Galilee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 's the word again in the dayes of taxing and drew away much people after him Here have we risings popular and seditious risings the one against the civil Magistrate in the point of taxing the other against the peace and polity of the Church in matters which concern Religion both of them layd before us in that very word which my Text makes use of which shewes us that the rising mentioned in my Text is like that of Theudas or of Judas a sudden tumultuous rising of unquiet men Yet were this but a rising simply and no more then so the danger were not great if any for men may sometimes rise and sit down again rise and repent them of their rising upon better thoughts and having so repented set them down without more hurt done Such was the rising of the holy Pilgrims in King Henries time who bound themselves by solemn Covenant to defend Religion although then changing to the better but on the first report of the Kings approch disbanded and went home again every man to his House O Israel But this we must not look for alwayes The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of my Text as it doth signifie to rise so it doth intimate unto us such a rising as brings destruction with it and desolation after it The word so used oftentimes in the best Greek Authours as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eversa est civitas and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to raise a City Such risings as those are which St. Paul here mentioneth however they may hap to speed aim at the utter ruine of that State against which they rise nor do the risers think themselves in safety whilest there are any to resist They never use to talk of peace till a desolation Et ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant as he in Tacitus And yet we do not see the bottom of our danger neither Some risings have been easily suppressed by art and wisdom and other some dissolved by force and power But this is such a kind of rising that though it be supprest a while it will up again and like Antaeus in the Poet rise up with greater strength then before it had majorque accepto robore surgit as it is in Lucan The word in the Original doth signifie resurgere as well as surgere and then we have an insurrection with a resurrection a rising that will still be rising if composed only for a while or setled only for the present The Church is never safe in such storms as these until it happen to these risers as unto Theudas and his followers of whom the Story saith that both himself and as many as believed on him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were scattered and confounded and brought to nothing Redacti
let us look upon the sheep as they are a flock as they are Oves first in the plural number and secondly as Oves meae my sheep the sheep of Christ a multitude or number under the command of one supreme Sheepherd First Oves in the plural number otherwise Christ could have no Church and the great Sheepherd would have never a Flock One sheep can no more properly be called a Flock then one Swallow may be said to make a Summer and on the other side a multitude of sheep without rule or Government is no more a flock then several shreds of Cloth may be called a Garment So is it also with the Church one man though never so replenished with celestial Graces cannot so properly be called a Church as a Chappel of Ease and multitudes of men that live not under one Lord one Faith one Baptisme cannot with such propriety be termed a Church as a confusion of opinions To the making therefore of a Church a Flock there is a number first required and next an union or consolidation of those numbers It s true this number hath not been at all times eminent nor equally conspicuous in all places and yet there have been still a number Seven thousand knees there were in Israel which Elijah knew not that had not bowed themselves to Baal and infinite numbers in the Realm of Judah who never offered sacrifice to that wretched Idol visible Professors of Gods saving truths and devout worshippers of his holy name Nor ever was the Church so destituâ—e of the grace of God as not to hold those necessary fundamental Doctrines which are required unto salvation and those professed and taught in some place or other according to the will and pleasure of Almighty God Since God first had a Church there have still been numbers of Professors though more or lesse according unto times and seasons more in some places then in others although not alwayes in such whole and sound condition so free from erroâ— and corruptions as it ought to be But number simply is not so great a strength to the Church of God as is the unity thereof For as the holy Ghost in the Book of Psalms compares the Church not unto men but to a City a City at unity in it self and in the Canticles not unto Souldiers but an Army an Army terrible with banners so doth he liken it not unto sheep but to a flock a flock new come from washing in the same Song of Solomon a little flock as himself calls it in St. Luke And if a flock it must be then united and collected into one Fold under the leading and command of the same one Sheepherd unum â—vile and unus Pastor being joyned together in this Chapter v. 16. To finde this one Sheepherd who it is we need seek no further then my Text it is Christ our Saviour who therefore calleth them oves meas his own sheep his as the chief sheepherd and proprietary the Lord and owner of the flock And this supreme and universal sheepherd we acknowledge gladly and should account our selves in an ill condition were we not under his command fed by his blessed Word and Sacraments and safely sheltered under the wings of his protection There is indeed another who pretends to this this universal Empire over all the Flock one who cries out with Polyphemus in the Poet Hoc pâ—cus omne meum est that all the sheep upon the Downs are his or like the sheepherd in the Eclogue Mille meae Siculis errant in montibus Agnae and so are all the Lambs on a thousand Hills And whereas antiently it was conceived to be a perfect definition of the Church of Christ viz. that it was a body of men professing one Lord one Faith one Baptisme our Masters in the Church of Rome have now added this sub unius Christi in terris Vicarii Romani Pont. that this collected body must be under the command of the Bishop of Rome A patch subjoyned to the old definition of a Church much like the piece of new Cloth put to an old Garment which our Saviour speaketh of That which is added to it to make up the rent takes from the beauty of the Garment Et scissura fit pejor saith the Text the Schisme or rupture is made worse then before it was For by this patch this new addition the Churches of the East which are large and numerous those of the Moscovites and Aâ—thiopians which are farre more entire though not so populous and all the Churches also of the Reformation are cut off for ever from having any part in David or hope of an inheritance in the sonne of Jesse But with this new Divinity we have nought to do We know but one chief Sheepherd onely even the Lord Christ Jesus whose voyce we are to hear whom we ought to follow If it be asked whether the number or the unity of the flock be the more considerable no question but we must determine it in behalf of unity A small flock if it hold together are lesse obnoxious to the Wolf then multitudes of sheep dispersed and scattered without rule and order Luporum insidiis oves minus patent quod ita catervatim incedant à reliquis non aberrent as mine Authour hath it When the sheep keep together in a flock a Body the Wolf dare hardly meddle with them for it were madness in him to attempt a flock But if he meet them single or in scattered Companies divided from the main Body of their fellows or otherwise stragling from the Fold then takes he his advantage of them and destroyes them utterly As long as Dinah kept her self within the Sanctuary of her Fathers House fenced by the valour of her Brethren and guided by the counsels of a careful Parent it went well with her she preserved her honour But when the gadding humour took her and she must needs abroad to see the Daughters of the Land she forthwith met with Sichem the Sonne of Hamor who seized upon her and defiled her And so it also is with the stragling Christian such as do peevishly divide themselves from the Communion of the Church and wander from the rest of that sacred Body They either fall into the jawes of the roaring Lion who walkes about in expectation of his prey seeking out whom he may devoure or else by hearkening to the voice of strangers whom they should not follow they make themselves a spoyl unto Theeves and Robbers Keep we then all together in one Fold one Flock and so we need not fear the violence of Satan nor the power of Hell nor any mischievous design of malicious men And if we would preserve the spirit of unity in the bond of peace we cannot do it with lesse hazard nor with more assurance then if we hearken diligently to the voyce of Christ and tread with patience in his steps which are the duties to be done
and esteem of others as illiterate may at last own them for less than fanaticall and groundless Opinionists He did not alledge any proofes for the other part both because he knew that others would do that for him as also because he had not that esteem for quotations to the contrary which he had for these not that he is much prepossessed through prejudice but upon an old protestant consideration that records and presidents differing from the received ways and interests of men are more to be regarded from any that make for them since the forgeryes and falsifications of precedent Ages make it propable that such passages might be inserted and foysted in but why or how these should be adulterated he did not see Even in matters of common transaction in our English Courts of judicature he thought he had been told that one precedent or verdict against the juriâ—diction of a Court is of more validity than a thousand for it because it is supposed that none will contrary to right and equity infringe their own power Further if any should oppose the sayings of others in the behalf of humane learning to what he had vouched he hoped they would produce them out of Authors contemporaries with his or else they should not imagine that he would think any such averrements to be contradictory to what his query may seemingly assert nor yet satisfactory to the question nor doth he think and. Heraldus Ouzelius and others concurr with him herein that out of Antiquty they can alledg any such quotations If they oppose his query with the practise and use of humane learning which is found in Clem. Alexandr Orig. Tertullian Lactantius Arnobius Minucius Felix c. He shall not think such dealing to be fair since the question is what was their judgment not what they did practise Of the latter no man will suppose the querist to be ignorant and if any should yet would the Objection be of no value untill they shall evince that every man did in those times live up to the light he had and acted as he spake He thinks it may have been with the Ancients as with Vega that excellent methodest in Physick who being sick of a feavour a friend visited him found him drinking wine whereupon he charged him with having formerly prohibited the use thereof in feavours by his writings The infirme replyed in my books you see the practise of Physick but in me the practise of Physicians He supposes that after persons have been brought over from Paganisme to Christianity something may stick by them as an ill scent may when one comes out of a jakes yet that is their failing not their justification If Moses learnt the Egyptian skill it was whilst he remained in Pharaoh's Court And so Paul was learned in Heathen Authors but it was before he came to the School of Christ he hath used them but three or four times in his works whereas now they are more frequent than Texts of Scripture Athanasius against the Gentiles saith the Scriptures are sufficient to declare the truth of themselves and that if his friend Macarius did read other Religious writers It was but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a lover of â—legance not as a lover of Christ Other things there were which he saw might be objected which he will not now insist upon having weighed them in the ballances and found them light About the call of the Ministry and the first Reformers he hopes not to be opposed with the afterjudgment of Luther or the rest He is not of their Opinion who thinke the first reformers did use that Artifice of bending a crooked stick as much the other way that so it may at least become straight Such dealings are not to be admitted in the service of our God who is a consuming fire It is to charge them with a great hypocrisie since they never owned any such actions but delivered all as precious and glorious Truths and to make them guilty of the ruine of those poor souls who dyed in the profession of a belief their teachers did not intend them In fine it is to make the first Reformation as bad or not much better a way as thâ—t of Popery and all that embraces it and adhere thereunto to be in a different only and sinfull estate It is a slur to the greatest wonder God hath produced after the Churches being 1200. years in the Wilderness How much more ought we to prejudge all succeeding times from their Doctrines and having such pregnant motives to believe they were spirited by God let us impute their after-change to failings upon carnall considerations when Luther went to settle himself Pope in Germany and his writings were advanced as the test of truth and an Oligarchy of Ministers setled elsewhere Let us owe our Reformation to God and not Belial or Antichrist to the call and excitement of the former not consecration of the latter Let us acknowledge their zeal their chatity those more glorious principles of spirituall graces rather than prudentiall contrivements Are not those there first works which are here quoted are not those the works by which Luther said he would have men and Angels tryed If you say that there is a difference betwixt a Church setled and unsetled a question will arise if that can be questioned whether the Papists did not say their church was then setled and whether any settlement politicall will suffice to debarr those actings for then the first Reformers yea first Christians and Christ himself all are cast If only what is a settlement of truth or Gospel-settlement be intended doth not this resolve all into a tryall of doctrines a proof that the present way is the sole Gospel-way Which whosoever shall avow he need not want employment for his thoughts from the severall writings of Papists Episcoparians Presbyterians Independents c. however the Questionist should rest In Matth. 13. v. 3. In Matth. 13. Lib. 5. c. 1. In Mat. 13. Luk. 14. 16. Matth. 22. 2. Matth. 5. 1 Kings Joh. 16. 29. De Doct. Ch. l. 2. c. 3. in locum Ovid. met lib. 1. Georgic l. â— Gen. 4. 2. Lib. de Agricultura Joh. 10. 11. 1 Pet. 5. 4. 2. 25. Gen. 4. 2 Chron. 26. 10. Hist Rom. l. 1. c. 11. v. 1. Joh. 5. 17. Augustine Jâ—h 5. Joh. 6 61. Gen. 3. 15. Tertul. Exod. 21. 1. cap. 1. v. 9. c. 3. v. 17. Heb. 1. 1. 2. v. 37. Matth. 28. v. 20. In locum Ephes 4. v. 11 12. 1 Cor. 3. 9. 1 Cor. 3. 6. Ovid. Plautus Metam l. 1. Buâ—ling In Matth. 13. Homil. in Matth. 3. James 1. v. 13 14. Eusebius Hist 5. 19. Aug. de haeres c. 35. Ibid. c. 70. Ibid. c. 15. De Gen. ad lit l. 2. c. 17. Calv. Instruct adv Libertinos In Quintino Plutarch in Caesare Calv. Institut l. 3. c. 23. Se. 7. De Civit. l 5. c. 1. Joh. 3. 16 17. 1 Joh. 2. 2. 1 Joh. 2. 2. Acts 2. 3 11.