time of our late civil warres wherein our Monarchy once subverted we all perished with it and our rights and welfare at such a loss that no man could say that aught he had remaining was his own It must needs be so for the government what ever it be is before the laws and the laws receiv all their strength and vigour from the acknowledged autority of that power from whence they are derived Now that the Christian Church was first monarchicall under one Sovereign Byshop when Christ who founded it was upon earth no man will deny for aristocracy or democracy it could not be sith all his twelve apostles were under him as his disciples and not fellow doctours or legislatours with him nor did he ever pretend to receiv his autority from men but immediately from God above unto whom he was personally united and this autority of his must first be accepted before his word can be believed or his law acknowledged and these must have all their force from that power which according to its firmitude of truth gives them all their life and vigour which remains and dies with it and with the government under which the laws and doctrin began It appears then that all the laws and rules and promises and whole doctrin of Christianity and founded upon the spiritual monarchy of Jesus who was Man-God that he might be both unto human kind a fit and proportioned head as man and uncontroulable independent and infallible as God And hence it must needs follow that the subversion of episcopacy which is the spirituall monarchy in which our Lord founded his Christianity must needs weaken and by degrees utterly destroy all faith for the ruin of the polity is the death of all its laws founded in it Nor will it suffice if an Independent or Presbyterian say that they are still under their head Christ who being in heaven hath his spirituall influences over them I say this suffices not for the true Church of Christ whersoever it is must have the very same head she had at first or else she cannot be the same body and that head was man-God personally present in both his natures with the body of his Church here on earth and although Christ may and does supply the invisible part of his God-head influence upon his mystick body yet a visible head or byshop if the Church hath not now over her as at first she had she is not the same she was and consequently in the way to ruin What then you will say cannot God preserv his Church without the help of man I answer we must not here dispute what God can do but what he will do God can warm the earth and make fruits to grow and us to see without the sun but if he have otherwise ordained we must expect those effects from the caus he hath set and no other wayes And that all truths are to be expected from his Church and from him he hath substituted in his place to govern us as our only visible Pastour is manifestly apparent both by his own law and practise and our experience By his law when he sayes that he who will not hear his Church must be as a publican and reprobate by his practise when he would not have his own supernatural vocation and endowment and light from heaven to suffice St. Paul either to make him a Christian or a Teacher till he had received both from the hands of his Church and pastors by our experience while we see from age to age that all those that withdraw themselves from the Catholick Church and from her chief Byshop and pastour let the occasion be what it will or never so little do run themselves restlesly into endles schisms denying one thing after another still from less to more till at length all Christianity be cancelled and beginning with schisme they end with atheisme all truth unity and peace being to be had onely from and in that one Church which as St. Paul does well and wisely call it Christs Body so is it only animated with his spirit of truth and from the government there appointed which is episcopal and in a special manner from the chief pastour there presiding ruling and directing in place of Jesus Christ unto whom all obey in yielding obeysance unto him in spiritual affairs according to his own order and appointment Nor is there any more certain rule of discerning the approaching ruin of Christianity in any person or people than when we see them either secretly to undermine or openly to oppugn papal autority No pope no byshop no byshop no Church no Church no salvation This being once well pondered as a thing of such weighty concernment deservs we shall begin both to suspect that the first reformers Luther and Calvin who being Priests under that Papal hierarchy flew out against the Church whereof they had been members and furiously cryed down both Pope and all episcopacy were not sent from God and likewise conclude that the counsel of Queen Elizabeth did wisely reassume that ancient form of Church government though it were opposite to the principles of reformation and judgment of all the first reformers becaus it was both most conformable to times of primitive Christianity and in all reason most likely to conserve the land in unity And if we were once by Gods grace freed from preconceived prejudice we should all of us as clearly see and love the beauty of papal doctrin as now some of us allow of papal government nor is there any thing commendable in any reformation but that and only that which it hath in it of Popery And lastly we shall easily discern that the the Presbyterian plea and all its arguments or whatever else they can have to say against episcopacy are of no value and indeed too slight for me to insist upon their solution I had a mind here to decipher the Protestants plea against the Papist but I finde that there cannot be made any one scheme of it as of the Independent and Presbyterians becaus these the first of them speaks so generally of all things that he seldom touches upon any one particular the other so insists upon one particular that he troubles himself with nothing else and a man may know what both of them would have But all these and several other reformations when they set their face against the Roman Catholick go all under the generall name of Protestants and yet speak several and contradictory things one accusing them for that which the other approves And generally they do neglect their doctrin and inveigh against the vices and follies which either they put upon them or are indeed found amongst som people or persons that do profess that faith in France Spain Italy or other parts as pride tyranny drunkennes leachery foolish gambols and usages of Countreys with which Protestant books against popery are lustily stuft up or if they do indeed speak to their doctrin it is either done onely with some
then presume of his knowledg and what motives has he in himself to do so which another wants Be it scriptures prophesies visions light or inward assurance boast of what you pleas all the earth will do the like and with the self-same confidence For let Philosphers speak what they pleas of the certainty of object which som men have over and above the certainty of subject I am not able to conceiv how an objectiv certainty can stand without evidence or how it may consist with that mutability I see to be in the world for men do depart as well from a good religion wherein they would have to be certainty of object as from a bad one wherein they allow only a certainty of subject which is nothing but a personal self-willed resolution in their wayes Since men therefor do thus abound all of them in their own sens haply without sence if a thousand voices may be of force against one single one how does it behoove us if we would be truly wise to walk all our dayes not in disputes and disquietness without end but in humility and fear But som will say all this is nothing to us since Christ our Lord hath revealed to us both God himself and all necessary truths concerning him of all which we may be confident But stay a while and ponder what I have already spoken do not all nations say as much for themselvs What then should we doubt of our faith in Christ no in no wise But I must speak a bold word these very dissentions of ours about that faith in its branches so hot so various so extravagant are apt to inferre a suspicion of it in its very root are not hundreds in our own countrey become atheists already upon that very motiv and these men supposing substantial change once made in religion and deliberately admitted are rather to be commended for their wit than blamed for they do but that sodainly which all the land will will come to by degrees If the Papist or Roman catholick who first brought the news of Christ and his Christianity into the land as all men must needs know that have either heard or read of Christianities ingress into England or other countreys and kingdoms for we do no sooner hear news of Christianity than Popery and his crucifixes monasteries reliques sacrifice and the like I say if the Papist be now becom so odious as we see he is and if the faith he brought and maintained a thousand years together be now rent all asunder by sects and factions which bandy all to the ruin of that mother religion if all her practical truths wherein chiefest piety consists be already abolished as erroneous does not this justify the pagan whom this catholick Christian displaced to make way for his own law And must not this be a certain way and means to introduce atheism which naturally follows that faith once removed even as a carkas succeeds a living body once deceased for one truth denied is a fair way to question another which came by the same hand and this a third till the very autority of the first revealer be at stake which can no more defend himself than he can his law for the same axe and instrument that cut down the branches can cut up the root too and if his reverence for which all the rest was beleeved defend not their truth it must needs at length utterly fail in his own For all the autority they had was purely from him and he falls in them before he falls in himself no man can deny this that shall seriously lay his hand upon his heart and ponder things as he ought And he that once ceases to beleev in Christ whom before he worshipped I am sure he will turn atheist if his wit and reason proceed consequently and beleev nothing A little more to specify my meaning If the institutions of monasteries to the praise and service of God day and night be thought as it hath been now these many years a superstitious folly if Christian Priests and sacrifices be things of high idolatry if the seven sacraments be deemed vain most of them if it suffice to salvation to beleev what ever life we lead if there be no value or merit in good works if Gods laws be impossible to be kept if Christ be not our law maker and directour of doing well as well as redeemer from ill if there be no sacramental tribunal for our reconciliation ordained for us by Christ upon earth if the real body of our Lord be not bequeathed unto his Spous in his last will and testament if there be not under Christ a general head of the Church who is chief Priest and Pastour of all Christians upon earth under God whose Vicegerent he is in spiritual affairs all which things are now held forth by us manifestly against the doctrin of the first preachers of Christianity in this land then say I paganisme was unjustly displaced by these doctrins and atheism must needs succeed for if Christ deceived us upon whom shall we rely and if they that brought us the first news of Christ brought along with it so many grand lyes why may not the very story of Christ himself be thought a Romance And erunt novissima pejora prioribus the latter condition of this land under atheism catholick faith once utterly extirpated must needs be far wors than it was in paganisme before it was planted Far sweeter is that body put case a statue of stone that was never animated than is any carkas of man after the soul is departed And are not we in a wood now who shall lead us out The maze is made greater by the consideration of the multitude of sects now reigning amongst us all which as they do unanimously conspire against that catholick Church they have deserted so do they wrangle now about every thing wherein they first agreed and conspired against her hating and execrating one another even unto war and bloodshed and the utter desolation of our distressed nation Quid est veritas and on whose side is God all this while does he not lie hid and say nothing and leav us wholly to our selvs by a judgment unsearchable in these our affairs even as in other courses of this world i th interim all opinions utter fine words all presume of themselvs all are peremptory and censur not only their neighbours but even the whole earth round about Where is truth here saith one nay not there but here quoth another neither there nor there but here saith a third but so many heres and there 's sounds nothing to a rational man but either every where or no where and which to conclude is impossible for man of himself stedfastly to resolv Here is Christ and there is Christ in the judgment of Christ himself signifies neither here nor there If they say saith our Lord here is Christ or there is Christ do not ye go forth or follow them and
both and let me once give a freedom to my thoughts I shall as soon question one as the other and if I do reject one proceeding rationally I must cashier the other also Surely the Pope canot but smile to see his book which is the ground and guide of the catholick faith he delivered with it to be made by the Protestant to speak protestantisme presbyterisme by the Presbyterian anabaptisme by the Anabaptist and quakerisme by the Quaker even as doubtles it would be a sport to Virgil if he were alive to see his Arma virumque cano turned epithalamist by one a prophetist by another an evangelist by a third whereas the poem it self intends none of these things but only the travels and wars of Eneas and doubtles our scripture it self might be made by these tricks of wit to speak forth the passions of Queen Dido Without all doubt and controul it is a most high inconsequence so passionately as we do to plaspheme a byshop who is and ever was acknowledged in the world for Pape or Father of Christianity as the most wicked man alive and a grand seducer and yet to hugge a book in our bosomes which we took at first upon his credit as an oracle of truth and then again first to fall out with him and then with one another amongst our selves about the meaning of that book wherein his own catholick beleevers all the while unanimously agree without any end pelting one another with texts and verses unto the utter ruin of charity not understanding for the most part either the uncertainty of our own reasonings or the dangerous consequence of our wayes I will utter a bold word but what I know to be true both by experience and irrefragable reason As the gospel cannot prove any thing being separated from the Church and the living and speaking oracle of him that sent it unto whose judgment both defendant and disputant must submit so neither without the help of that autority can it prove it self either by any argument which it uses none or by vertue of miracle recorded in it sith those signs and wonders there related are now as far from my knowledg as be the truths of any doctrins to be ratified by them so that I shall have as much ado to beleev them as any piece of doctrin they may confirm being all of them equally either motives or objects of beleef as I pleas my self And it is all one to me that am born in these dayes so long after those signs were wrought to beleev the miracles by Gods incarnation or Gods incarnation by the miracles since I may beleev both but can evidently know neither of them to be true so far as that I may use one of them as a medium to demonstrate the other If the gospel laid before me should work of it self any strang wonder in my sight then I might haply have some motive to beleev it but we in England inveigh bitterly against the present miracles that are shown in the catholick Church ascribing them all if they be true unto the operations of Satan so that according to this way I should not know what to think neither if the bible should do som strang thing before me and as little conclude of the past miracles there recorded §. 16. Appeal AS it is impossible to be assured that the bible is the word of God if we condemn him from whom it first came of imposture so is it certain that upon that book wrested out of the hands of catholicks against him and his who first presented it we ground all the several wayes of religion here in England whereof each body and faction does so far presume as to condemn all to death who will not approve them And yet if we did but proceed like rational men we could not but remain all of us in great humility and fear upon these surmises Does not the Pope pretend the spirit of Christ as well as we do not all catholicks so had we not the bible from them do they not ratiocinate out of it and show their religion thence as well as we only they do it uniformly we differently and upon their principles they build up Church and State we pull down all Put case we were all at this instant in our antient state of paganisme and a Priest or two should com to us from Rome to convert us now as then they did to Christianity with the gospel in their hands which they should tell us to be pure truth and Gods word which we never heard before if we should reject and disesteem them as cheating seducers could we rationally accept and beleev the book or would we not therefor cast into the fire that volum of theirs wherein were contained the summe of all their mission and news if we looked upon the men that brought it as impostours Consider seriously and think not to pull the snail out of her shell and then to keep one apart and crush the other without which it cannot liv Church and Gospel were both born together but the Church first at least in a priority of nature and must both liv together Christ the head must be authorised before he could teach and the Church established before any of her children could write a gospel nor can they with authentick autority write any thing but what the mother Church constituted by her espous the sours of all heavenly truths that earth can expect shall set her seal unto So that in any age to deny the Church and to accept of her writings to profess Christ and condemn her that brought us the first news of him is at one and the same time to take her autority and reject it to say she is fals and yet true in the same affairs As she gave testimony to Christ so did Christ unto her The same gospel ratifies both Christ and his Church the same Church both Christ and the gospel the same Christ both gospel and the Church too which himself established So then reason light scripture power of interpretation being equally to be found at least pretended in all anticatholick wayes and the Roman catholick although he have withal a surplusage of true and right autority from the Church and her pastour whom he ever follows yet since he never denied but strongly and effectuoussy maintained that he hath with him as much of true interpretation light and reason as any can pretend and so far more peculiar and excelling as the judgment of the universal Church in all ages from whence he drew that reason and light of his is in matters of religion that are not invented but derived to be preferred before the conceit of any one person who contrary to the very essence and nature of antient Christianity shall go out of the Church wherein he found himself it may most manifestly appear that as the catholick hath all the right and preheminence that any other may pretend for himself and yet a far greater too even that
Corinth most heartily in his letters requesting their praiers and he esteemed it as good as if he had himself been by and heard it and yet the catholick altar is not so far from the people as Corinth is from Rome Wherefore in St. Pauls judgment one may pray for another not onely priest for the people but people also for the priest without being understood or so much as either heard or seen Nor could St. Paul in his own reason ever deny the efficacy of those praiers which be made by one for another in any whatever language for it was all one to him what language the Romans spake and if he did reflect upon it he could not be ignorant that they spake not the language of Corinth when he wrote to them from thence that they should pray for him there at so great a distance But if any will yet be obstinate and object unto me that S. Paul himself even in his epistle he wrote to Corinth from Ephesus which was his first letter he sent to that people speaks there about the end of the same letter very much against their praying and prophesying in an unknown tongue he may know first that even the tongue of the Romans whose prayers notwithstanding S. Paul so earnestly requested at Corinth was an unknwn tongue to those that lived there and yet that wise apostle would not we may think contradict himself Secondly then what was the matter The busines was this There were in the primitive Churches up and down many gifts and gratuities bestowed upon Christian people by that holy Spirit who would thereby exalt the gospels glory as extemporary prophesies working of miracles gift of tongues and the like and S. Paul hearing at Ephesus of some disorders in Corinth upon that account as those kind of gifts are possible to be abused he wrote to them about it to let them know that the spirit of Jesus for such his voluntary donations unto men was indeed to be praised but yet that Christians should not therefor place in those things their utmost glory and then to diminish further the huge esteem they had there of gifts and tongues before all other he lets them know that of all the other gifts that in particular was liable to the greatest inconveniences even far more than either wonder-working or prophecy This is the apostles drift as any one may see that understands a grave and sober letter But what is all this to any service of the Church But thirdly that I may make the thing yet a little plainer the Latin in which the Catholick service is kept is no unknown tongue and therefor that objection of no valiew against it There is no tongue in the world can be said absolutely either a known tongue or unknown but only with relation unto people and so every language in the world is in respect of som people a known tongue and in respect of others an unknown English is an unknown tongue to Vienna but not to London high Dutch is an unknown tongue to London but not to Vienna And therefor that we may conclude a tongue to be known or unknown we must compare it to the family or people in reference to whom it is used and no otherwise and that family or people must be considered not in any other respects if they have many but only in relation to that particular rank or order which refers unto such a language An English merchant living in Anwerp hath two languages which himself and family speaks English and Dutch and both of them in reference both to England and Holland jointly may be called both known tongues and unknown but in his busines with the English dutch is the unknown tongue in his Holland affairs english So the Pope as he is governour and lord of the city of Rome speaks Italian as all the other people there do and it is the only known tongue in that degree and order but as he is head of the whole Church spread over the earth which is a mystical body distinct from the body politick and hath a language of its own quite differing from the Italian that passes through Germany France and Spain both Indies and the Islands the north and south world wheresoever Christians live so he uses and speaks that general language which is latin and in that sens Italian is an unknown tongue and Latin only the known tongue of the Christian world So that in order to religion that one language that is spoken not in one corner but runs quite through the hous and is common to all as they be ranked in the series of Christianity wherein they are trained up by the father of the family and which in reference to religion he only speaks himself is the only known tongue in order to it and all other tongues unknown And so not latin but english not latin but dutch not latin but spanish is an unknown tongue to the Christian world for all these though they be the known languages of particular kingdoms which be but a corner of Christianity yet not they but latin is the known language of the whole Christian body and family through the world The hous of God is but one in it self although it be disperst over several nations and the language fitted for all the body must consequently be but one wherein all those nations are united and linked together exteriourly even as they be joined interiourly in faith which in that one tongue is carried up and down and conserved and all other tongues english french spanish be accidental to Christians as they be Christians even as the times and places of their abode be nor be they fastned unto them by their Christianity but by corporal birth and education which be contingent and altogether accidental to religion So then latin in reference to religion which for reasons above named must use one language is so far from being an unknown tongue that it is the only one known language of the Christian world united to Christian faith as the proper garment to a body by whose fashion it is discerned I know that a part of the Church useth greek in her Liturgy and som few people Hebrew as well as the generality does Latin But I mention only the latin tongue becaus my countrimen take notice only of that And all the three languages agree in this that they are segregated from vulgar use consecrated by the cross of the Meffiâ—s approved by the general pastour and equally liable to the present objection which is so trufatical that it casts not the least blemish upon popery for that custom and I hope all wife men will be of my mind Our land me thinks should thank the Pope for keeping his Mass and Psalter in such an unknown tongue For so our vulgar if they should be curious to see it yet can they neither be offended by what they hear nor so much as discern that our own English communion-book is drawn out of the
God that is in us urges us to hate all the works of the devil So say they There is no communion with light and darknes God and Belial They say so too you will be friends anon Blessed is he that hates iniquity from his heart This is the very subject of their sermons you are now becom one of their disciples We their disciples no we bow not our head to any horned beast Very good they like your resolution and will not therfor bow their heads to you Second Chapter All things are so obscure that no man in prudence can so far presume of his own knowledg as to set up himself a guide in religion to his neighbour § 6. Obscurity of God OF the three abovenamed considerations which being well imprinted in our hearts I should deem sufficient to put all our animosities to silence the two last be rather moral then acroamatick topicks and therefore to be cast with their fellows into the last paragraff of the book The first which speaks the great ignorance our present condition is involved both concerning God and his works and providence requires a little more explicit discours and becaus it is a speculation very beneficial not only to the purpos I now aim at but absolutely in it self and for several uses of mans life it shall take up the three or four following paragraffs And if all these things and religion can be about nothing els but them both God nature and providence do prove so obscure as I find them to be and I think will to all that ponder the matter well evidently appear what is then the knowledg we boast of and of which we are so confident as to prescribe laws every one of us to the whole land and to bring all into confusion about it He that shall think upon God alone apart from heaven and earth and every whatever created substance visible or invisible as in the center of his own all-sufficient eternity before either earth or heaven was made must needs be swallowed up and darkened round about as if he stood in the center of a world of waters and for want of a proper idea to fix on melt away in reverence of that all venerable and and sacred being which is an unmeasurable and boundless ocean of wisdom power and goodness in himself And altho he may have much improved himself by the frequent study and meditation of the subtil books Christendom hath brought forth yet shall he find himself so infinite short of any satisfying knowledg concerning God that he must conclude himself to remain still in the wondring side and to know nothing Whensoever I think of that first Esse we call God both S Thomas and subtil Scotus and all writings or conceits of men fail and fall short and help me little or nothing no nor any scripture whatsoever they seem all to speak something about God nothing of him indeed they cannot In this our earth and exile we have no words to express him no notion to conceiv him as he is in himself no idea to represent him which perhaps is the reason moved subtil Scotus to teach that our divinity is not speculative but practical lest it should be a science that signifies nothing for love of that divine object makes up all Our Lord is verily a hidden God saith one no less piously than truly hidden in himself and essence hidden in his works hidden in his providence hidden in his own life and being and hidden too in all his emanations and the egressions of eternity Nor can any created being in the highest pitch of all possible excellency naturally approach that unaccessible presence in his state of pilgrimage and mutability The discovery of himself unto them is their bliss it is their condition supernatural and felicity of glory What then can poor man a worm and dust in this his state of sin corruption and darknes presume to know of Him whom no invisible creatur or the highest angel can pry into even in the highest excellency of his spiritual condition out of his state of immutability and beatitude No man can see God and live and no angel can see God and dye for the vision is inconsistent either with our mortality or their state of probation we must be elevated above our mortal life they exalted from their condition of mutability by that vision once imparted God is an abysse of beatitude reserved onely for the infinity of bliss in the state of eternity where new ravishing wonders and extasies and joyes shall spring up from him without end to the daily fresh beatifying of all those spirits that shall be thought worthy of that glorious never failing day Nor is there any way left for man to reach this infinite abysse but by affection The will of man is far longer winged than his understanding and love will find access where knowledg cannot approach For tho it be true that an unknown thing cannot be loved yet may a man love more of a thing than he knows and fasten his affection upon that thing in particular whereof he hath but a general and confused apprehension Thus I may love a mans person whom I never saw and consequently know not by a report of his goodness or sight of his hand writing which love will embrace the person himself tho it be guided by no more knowledg then that of his words or gesture or written conceptions so God represented unto us under the general and metaphysical notions of an infinite substantial ocean of goodness wisdom and power from whom do all things flow by whom they subsist and in whom finally they end the first caus eternal immense omnipotent the best and greatest creatour and conserver of all that is or can be substantial wisdom and sanctity immutable hater of iniquity and lover of good the beginning and end of things essential truth and light and life the very being of all beings the solace of all spirits and sole beatifying bliss and the like tho this and much more said of him as notions adjacent and metaphysical properties of that eternal and ineffable essence suffice us for our knowledg of him in this world yet is all the while that great essence from whence those properties flow unexprest and utterly hid and God still in his particular and specifick entity and unknown God to us and yet notwithstanding God or that unknown essence is supereminently estimated adored and loved even in his very individual being by that spirit who will think of him and love him as he ought even in this very state of our exile corruption and darknes So far extended so ingenious and quick is love that a very small sparkling of knowledg if it do but show her afar off onely the outward frontispiece and battlements where the beloved dwells will enough suffice her for a guide to throw her self into him bosom This great God and immens spring of life and being if he be compared to the univers and whole creation
in time either by the meeting of atomes for their concours is disorderly and casuall and opus naturae opus intelligentiae nor yet by the first caus himself out of pure nothing for ex nihilo nihil fit of nothing can nothing be made either by God or nature The world is not eternal saith Epicure but made in time without the assistance of any deity which if any there be must be ever at rest out of the eternall matter of ever moving atomes it must be made either of them or of nothing and ex nihilo nihil fit of nothing can nothing be made and the same atomes by their own connaturall mobility do make and marre do and undo all things In these and a thousand such like contests that employ the world does not a credulity once fixed fill up both the pages of the book and all consequent ratiocination disputes and arguments are they any thing els but colourable explications of this fore-conceived inevident credulity Since then all sciences stand upon som one or other basis of beleef which is a postulatum not to be examined this world may indeed be esteemed credulous but not knowing and all maisters of any whatever schools have equall need to set this motto over their school doors Oportet discentem credere He that will learn must beleeve and when he has learned all truths can be taught him he does but only beleev that he had learned any And so I take my leav of this second great abyss of nature §. 9. Obscurity of providence THe third and last abyss is the great gulf of Gods Providence in the government of the world equally as deep and unfoardable by man as the former tho we may sometimes perceiv some little glimmerings of it as an owl of the sun but even these are uncertain and doubtful and it is so much the more perillous than either of the rest for that in the other and in particular that of his works we follow Gods power wisdom and goodness so much the more admiring all things by how much the less we understand but in this we are apt to call every thing in question and our thoughts if they be not well bridled ready at every turn to accuse God and plead against him and cite him to judgment to the peril of his heavy displeasure And therefor he did very cautiously and wisely who finding a doubt to rise within himself concerning providence subscribed before-hand to Gods inerrable justice before he would enter into any parly about his proceedings Justus es Domine saith he Just art thou O Lord but why doth the way of the wicked prosper Is there any man lives upon earth from the lowest hinde to the highest philosopher that hath not perceived the depth of providence and the absolute inscrutability of Gods wayes in the government of the whole creation as a gulf without bottom where resignation adores and presumption drowns My thoughts have frequently hovered upon the shore of this ocean but I durst never pass further on than so far as I saw ground there dipping my hands and feet to follow God and pray but no further nor did I ever receiv from any writings of discours of man any satisfaction therein and none I expect For what are those immortal laws God hath fixedly prescribed either to the earth elements or stars which they never transgress who is it can tell They are many no doubt and various in order to him the first caus in order to the several things contained within them and in order to one another for they must all make up one great Pan or univers be it never so big And all things doubtles within the whole body of this univers are don regularly truly and justly according to the prescribed idea rule and measure the will order and law of the first caus disposer and governour who is the way truth and life to all the whole creation What the angels know hereof cannot be certainly conjectured nor whether any one be absolute and universal overseer under God of the whole visible creation It may seem not improbable that if any intelligence stand limited to the oversight and guidance of any one place put case our earth or a star that he may not know the laws of another no further than they concern his own system nay perhaps not all the laws of his own but such onely as himself is to mannage for even some of these which concern him not to use may lye covert in that great will on whose revelation every intellect depends and thus a miracle may be wrought by God almighty even beside or contrary to the cours of nature which is administred by angels But man he knows none of these laws no not any let him exalt himself never so much in his own vanity he knows not I say any of those rules by which either the whole univers or our own earth and elements are governed Man is of a certain the highest creature visible upon earth and the most excellent species known to our eyes but who can therefor say there be not others above him more knowing and more powerful than he and more conversant in the government even of this our visible world tho they appear not to our sight We have indeed a preheminence of perfection but not of operation over any thing in nature which is a superiority natural not moral And therefor in all probability there must be som creatur over us with both the precedencies far more perfect then any under them and guiding also the motions of all well known to himself if namely God have committed the administration of this present world unto any other under his own influence and ordination St. Paul seems to conceit that these spirits are evil ones whom he calls rectores tenebrarum harum but there must be good ones too to moderate the ill influence of those malign agents or els man that lives upon earth is in a sad condition But as for us what do we know of all this for certain or what can we do we can neither rais a wind nor any other meteor nor asswage the sea nor still an earthquake c. not only destitute of power to do it but also of knowledg how it should be done There be many creaturs under us that is to say inferiour in perfection of nature as birds beasts and plants but they are not under us at all either in direction or subordination of motion We neither teach the birds to build their nest or to ingender or provide for their young or put forth the wing to flight or to appear and hide themselvs in their season nor the fish to swim to get food and defence against annoiances or to choose their resort and stations in the liquid main or those several wayes they have for multiplication and livelihood nor do we put the fansy into the bee or little ant to work their tasks in season with the art and industry they show
not in that manner the Evangelist uses or if he did he could not intend to affirm that which neither he nor God himself can make good Nor will we grant any thing to Christ but what we can do our selves or understand at least how it may be don If there were upon earth any speaking oracle unto whom all parties would submit in these affairs disputes would soon end if such a one be excluded or denied the very rising of them is as ominous as the blazing of a comet or coming of a whale into a river and portends great disturbance and desolation The world had that fearful apprehension when they first beard that Luther would shine with his own light and defy the stars of heaven But they were more than assured of much approaching mischief when they once understood that Calvin had left the Roman Sea to show himself and domineer and sport in the fresh waters of Geneva §. II. Reason WHo shall then set up himself for a guide to his neighbour in affairs of religion which must needs carry an obscurity far above all that is in nature and how and which way will he do it that a good disinterested judgment may approve of his pretensions There can no other way whereby any should now afresh after Christian religion has been above sixteen hundred years profest in the world set up himself a new extraordinary directour be thought of or imagined but either som high inconfutable reason internal special light or purer interpretation of formerly received Scripture And what man is there in the world can now wisely begin to pretend any of these things to the disparagement of the rest of the Christian world Reason carries the fairest show and seems most civil and manly and if it lean upon principles of faith formerly received it may do much good for the strengthning or securing of religion in weak beleevers but then it makes not saith but supposes it and must know withal and if it be right reason cannot but know that all argumentations are answerable which if they rely upon obscure suppositions may according to the height of the maisters conceit pretend much but can prove nothing irrefragably Did religion com at first by reason or must it only begin now A good beleever cannot but think that Christ the great maister had a reason for what he taught but he must beleeve first before he can think so and altho he had a reason himself yet since he taught us none we can have from him no other reason but his autority and this may be beleeved but not evidently proved for his miracles recorded and not seen are as pure an object of faith as his autority and person nay if I had seen them I could not have told my self unto whom the intricacies of whole nature are so much unknown whether nature and art might compas them or no and so might I conclude him to be some ingenious person or great naturallist but not a god Nor is it likely that Christ ever meant that reason should frame our religion both becaus he constituted such men to plant faith as were not any maisters of arts and if reason had been the business it had been fitter to send them about the world to learn than to teach as also becaus himself though he did oftentimes with subtil and most rational argumentations confute the Pharisees errours yet did he never by any reason that I can remember establish his own doctrin nor answer to any Quomodo though he was often put to it but still when the Jews demanded How can this or that be How can man forgiv sins How can this man give us his flesh to eat he repeated again his own assertion and doctrin and might perhaps confirm it by miracle but he proved it not by reason And it was very fitting if so be he were such a person as we beleev him to be that he should be taken upon his word and not stand to give his vassails a reason of his will If Christ our Lord had been no more than an ordinary wise legislatour yet could he not rationally intend at once both the unity of his Church upon earth and the guidance of all men in it onely by reason of their own for my reason is not his and may well prove contrary as well to it as that of my neighbours whence will result together not onely not one religion but also no religion whiles one neighbours reason differs from another and perhaps both from Gods Wherfore wise and holy Church hath in all ages both forbid her children to dispute their principles of religion in the sense they had received them and also refused to be tried before any Senate by the philosophy of any pure man to stand or fall by his axioms This is apparent not only by ancient writings of Christian doctours but by a fact of Emperour Julian who falling from Christian religion amongst other oppressions he deprived Christians of their schools of literature throughout the Roman Empire telling them by way of jeer that Christians need not any learning unto whom this one word Credo is sufficient And indeed it is sufficient for faith and must needs be both the sufficient and only means of conserving a Church in uniformity for religion must be somthing which may be common to all persons that profess it and equally proportioned to all capacities and conditions and such a thing is to Beleeve but not to ratiocinate all men both rich and poor wise and unlearned prince and peasant may equally beleev one and the same thing and so hold it uniformly from time to time but if that very thing were to be set up unto each one by his own proper reason the several kinds of beings in sensitiv or vegetative nature even from the oak to the mustard seed would not more differ than that one judgment in several men have there not been fifty or threescore several interpretations of these few words Hoc est corpus meum c. and almost a hundred opinions amongst the masters of reason about their summum bonum And if any say that it is enough for som great master in these times by the strength of his reason to rais a religion that is onely to be accepted and others of weaker abilities may either take all that from him or only follow and hold what themselvs are able by their own reason to reach This cannot satisfie at all for first if I must take a religion upon the credit of some great masters reason which my self cannot judg or comprehend I had as good take it from the first master and beleev as I do and not suffer another in these dayes to make himself lord over me and lead me another way of his own and he indeed that does so does not only by this slight put himself into the place of Him who conveighes faith but of Christ himself who made it for the sense is the life and spirit of all
for his coming whom you judge so near Nothing is so suspicious as tumultuous piety And I do earnestly request you would seriously peruse two short stories related by wise Gamaliel in the fifth chapter of the Acts and make them a part of your primmer Men Israelites saith he look to these men what you are to do Before these dayes there was one Theodas professing himself to be some body unto whom consented a number of men about four hundred who was slain and all that beleeved him was dissipated and brought to nothing After him there was Judas Galileus in the dayes of profession and he drew people after him and he perished himself and so many as consented to him were disperst And both these rose up under a pretens of piety and if I be not mistaken for Christ too whose reign they would have set up in Palestine before his first coming or thereabouts even as you would now before his second to the disturbance of the kingdom you live in So then good friends setting aside your violent exclamations against all that adhere not to you which you cannot your selves justify for humility and peace is the great and inseparable property of piety if it be true and real our agreement with you is already made for the true light you magnify we praise it too and hope we enjoy it the vice you deplore we do equally detest the coming and reign of Christ we hope and wish for with all Christian resignation and the two horns of ministery and magistracy as soon as the world is grown so good and peaceable as there shall be no further use of them will be taken away but till all iniquity and the wild beasts you speak of be rid out of the earth I hope you will be so rational as not to think we will throw away the onely horns of our safety and if you do well you need not fear the sword either of spiritual or temporal power The apostles were never rebellious to any autority they found established in the world Nor is there any power upon earth can justly disturb a Prince or Kingdom by pretens of any light truth or religion which be it never so true is to be humbly offered not violently intruded upon any The Anabaptist walks with the Quaker and makes up with him a pair of Independents his books carry the like pious strain but have somewhat a clearer colour of art and less of zeal The particular controversy of Infant-baptisme which becaus he allows not of it gives him his special name I will not meddle with But his great argument why children should not be baptised namely becaus they cannot either know what is done to them or concurr themselvs to the effect if it were of force might in my mind equally hinder their corporal nurs to wash or make them clean unto which they are so far from concurring that as much as they are able they resist it and struggle and kick and cry amain when 't is done not knowing what good is done to them and as there is as much need of the spiritual washing as of that so can God as easily with his laver make their souls clean without their help as we their bodies However gentlemen Anabaptists if you will not wash your children you will give us leav I hope to baptise ours which if it should not do them good yet will it for certain do you no harm custom is a tirant and we cannot but keep it it you like it not unusquisque in suo sensu abundet Even as the Papist is defensiv against Protestant Presbyterian and Independent who all hate and persecute him so is the Independent offensiv against them all but the intermediat Presbyterian and Protestant are in an offensiv postur against their foregoers and defensiv against their revolting successors But the Presbyterian very much renowned in these dayes for his zealous prayer and preaching does not so much heed the bitings of his junior Independent weaker than himself both in learning and repute as he does endeavour to disable the Prelate-Protestant his foregoer whose gravity and long continuance in the land with much estimation and applaus cannot without great hostility and force of wit be as he could wish utterly disparaged And so the Presbyterians caus in this great contest bears in a manner this scheme of plea against the Protestant episcopacy Your Monarchick-superintendency wherin one should tirannise and lord it over many in spirituall affairs we can no wayes approâ— against the lively current of Gospel-dispensations in which if any will be greater than the rest let him that may he be so indeed by the form that is in Christ who being in his divinity-fulnes emptied himself into the figure of a servant be made the least We have all one Lord and Maister and we equally his servants unto whom alone we either stand or fall from whose fulnes we receiv all of us grace for grace Did not the maister check his apostles for the like spirit-ambition when they laboured against the vein of the ingoings of humble Christ within their souls to be one greater then another whereas they were all indifferently under him whom they called Lord and maister and by his own testimony very truly And if we be successors to the apostles in soul-ministery and dispensations of Gospel-verities we succeed them also in their absolute independency upon any other Lord but himself who is all in all The first reforming Protestants in the sulnes of time and age of reconciliation-light whom both you and we acknowledg to be indued with most ample gifts and essences of Christ within the closets of their souls struggled and lift and bore up more resolutely against this Papall-government the very Egiptian residence whence succeeding darknes spred it self about the world than any one or other pernicious doctrin might have flowed from that sours unto the obstructing of the light-dispensations from above And not without reason for all doctrin-vassailage was exercised and kept in hand by that Episcopacy-power over mens immortall souls whose command belongs only to him who sees and rules hearts to the utter ruin of all Christian liberty in the Gospel-messengers who now were to administer to the hungry mouths of soul-starved persons not bread of life from heavenly places but husks and chaft from the earthly pallaces of dry and deceitful dictates of men Nor was this Prelate-presidentship ever permitted in any reformed Churches beyond the seas where reformation-light first sprang forth but pulled down and abhorred either as downright Popery or at least the shadow and imitation of it and we who be the lights of the world and salt of the whole earth as we are to refrain from all show of evil so can we not find upon earth any superior spirit-power by which we may be made good for if the primary lights of the world and stars of the firmament be once put out who shall lighten them again whose abode is in earth and clay
themselves have thought it an addition of honour to sit in that solemn and thrice venerable assembly though in a separated place Shall we I say mock and revile this sacred person Let not such a thing be said of us any more let it not be told in Gath or the streets of Askalon that we use any such rude behaviour lest the very uncircumcised Philistins condemn our vast inexcusable incivility Nor yet let us either envy or malign the respect which Pappists give to Him from whom they received their Christianity and by whose vigilance and care it hath been kept inviolate amongst them from its first ingres into the land even to this very day Shall our eye be therefor evil becaus theirs is good §. 30. Popery IN the more flourishing doctrins of the Catholick Church I could be largely copious but I have said as much as may suffice my intended purpos which was so far to excuse even that religion also that if all do not embrace yet none may persecute and hate it Wherefor I do purposly omit to speak of other more plausible parts of Popery viz. 1. The obligation which all who beleev in Christ have to attend unto good works and the merit and benefit of so doing 2. The possibility of keeping Gods commandements with the assistance of divine grace 3. The liberty and freedom of human will either to comply with grace or resist it 4. The sacred councel and excellency of divine vowes 5. The right and obligation to restitution when any one shall have wronged his neighbour either in his soul or body fame goods or estate 6. The power and autority of of the Church in her tradition and decisions 7. The fasts and abstinence at certain times from som kind of meats which is all the religion we read Adam was injoined to observ in Paradise that we may therby be more apt to acknowledg Gods gifts and goodnes at those times we enjoy other good things of his bounty and at other times them and to sanctify our spirit for divine retirements 8. The divine ordination and unspeakable comfort and benefit of Confession 9. The caelibate and single life of the clergy who thereby freed from much solicitude of this world though not without som troublesom struggling against unseemly lusts of youth may approach the altar like angels of God who neither marry nor are given in marriage 10. The doctrin of indulgencies which be nothing els but a releas from som temporal penalties due to sin after repentance and remission which the Church does generally bestow by commutation as when for example an indulgence of such penalties for so many daies or years is granted unto such as upon the time appointed shall repent and confess fast pray give almes and communicate for the Churches preservation and concord of Christian princes which is a doctrin as rational and well grounded as any in Christianity though we in England will not understand it 11. Finally the ecclesiastick hierarchy and supremacy whereby catholick religion like a flourishing fair tree spreads his boughs in several kingdoms of the earth even from sea to sea so united all of it in all its parts and connexed together that ther is no catholick upon earth but is under som priest all priests subordinated to their byshops these to their metropolitan all metropolitans to the Patriarchs and Patriarchs united in the Papal cone every leaf cleavs to som twig every twig to som branch every branch to som bough every bough to the bole and the bole to the root And several other such like points of the Roman religion which coming all together from once hand have stood unchangeable in all ages the same and depending all upon the verity of the first revealer have an equality of truth though not of weight These and several others with the other half dozen more offensive doctrins I have cleared and explicated our reformers cut off at one blow when they taught us that it would suffice to salvation only to beleev in Christ without any more ado and that other things were popish superstitions whereby we became a strang kind of servants that beleev their maister but heed not either to fulfil his orders or do his commands For they told us and we have hitherto beleeved it That ther be no such things as good works pleasing to God but all be as menstruous rags filthy odious and damnable in the sight of heaven That if it were otherwis yet are they not in our power That with the assistance of any grace to be had Gods commandements are impossible to be kept and it would be therefor vain to attempt it especially sith we have in us no strength of free will to act any thing but evil That it must needs be foolishnes to vow unto God sith we can do nothing we ought to do and no less foolish if we have vowed to pay it That what wrong soever we do to another God is merciful and restitution fruitles both becaus one sin cannot make satisfaction for another nor any thing clear us but the blood of Christ alone unto which if we should concurr our selves by doing good works or satisfying for ill we should be half our own redeemers That the Church which presumes to teach other things than we allow is a fals mistres distracted and knows not what she sayes That to fast from sin is fast enough without depriving our stomachs of good flesh when we have a mind to it and yet becaus we sin in every thing we do neither is that fast possible to be kept That confession is needless How can man forgive sins That our clergy find themselvs men and not angells and love women as well as others and first revolted from popery principally for their sakes preferring a good wife before the whore of Babylon and the altars that kept them asunder are thrown down the honest pulpit standing now solitary speaks for them and brings them happily together That of indulgencies there is no need since obligation to penalties is shaken off long ago by our own autority without any indulgence from another That papal supremacy is the only obstacle to our liberty and therefor it must be abolished And let popery hang together as close as it can it shall go hard but we will find a battery to shake it So much indeed hath sophistry and continual clamour against popery and state punishments lying ever most heavily upon the professours of it prevailed over our judgments that now ther is no goodnes no worth no truth in it no none at all it is all naught all and every part of it naught nothing but naughtines superstition and vanity All that I will say for the present is this If popery be a bad religion more is the pitty for the professors of it suffer as much for it as might well serv for a good one Millions of people for the beleef they have in it and the love they bear its holy counsels and