the power of the Church to ordain any Rites or Ceremonies in the Service of God which the People are bound to observe other than such as God hath commanded in his Word 3. That Rites and Usages devised or abused either by Heathens or Idolaters may not be lawfully used by Christians in the Service of God 4. That it is unlawful or superstitious to kneel at the Holy Communion in the act of receiving the Sacrament 5. That Instrumental Musick may not be used in the Service of God as well as Vocal 6. That Episcopacy is Antichristian or repugnant to the word of God 7. That the Presbyterian Discipline is the very Scepter of Christs Kingdom or the order appointed by Christ himself for the perpetual Government of his Church which ought of all particular Congregations to be inviolably observed unto the worlds end 8. That it is simply unlawful for a Minister to be possessed of two Benefices 9. That Ecclesiastical persons may not meddle in secular affairs nor can with a good Conscience exercise any Civil office or Iurisdiction although by humane Authority Law or custom allowed them 10. That it is not lawful in preaching Gods word to recite sentences out of the Fathers much less from the writings of Heathen Writers 11. That the Election or consent of the people is of necessity required either to the ordaining of the Ministers or to the appointing of them to their particular charges 12. Lastly which though I find not positively delivered in terminis nor is the danger thereof so generally observed as of sundry of the former yet for that I find it often touched upon in these late Treatises and conceive it to be an error of no less dangerous consequence than many of the former I thought meet not to omit it That the examples of Christ and of his Apostles ought to be observed of all Christians as a perpetual Rule binding them to Conformity even as their Precepts do unto obedience 23. Concerning which Positions I do here in the face of this Congregation take God to witness who shall judge us all at the last day that I do verily believe and in my conscience am perswaded That all and every of them are the vain and superstitious inventions of men wholly destitute of all sound warrant from the written word of God rightly understood and applied and till they shall be better proved ought to be so esteemed of every man that desireth to make Gods Holy Word the rule of his opinions and actions Many and great are the mischiefs otherwise that come to the Church and People of God by the teaching of these and other like groundless Positions As amongst others these three following First great scandal is hereby given to Atheists Papists Separatists and other the enemies of our Religion especially to the Papists who will not only take occasion thence to speak evil of us and of the way of truth and holiness which we profess but will be themselves also the more confirmed in their own wicked errors by objecting to us that since we left them we cannot tell where to stay Secondly many sober and godly men both Ministers and other who chearfully submit to the established Laws and Government as they take themselves by the Law of God bound to do in things which they believe not to be repugnant to his word are by this means unworthily exposed to contempt and mis-censure as if they were time-servers or inclined to Popery or Superstition at the least But if they shall farther endeavour in their Sermons or otherwise to shew their just dislike and to hinder the growth of these unlawful impositions and to hold the people in their good belief by instructing them better they shall be sure to be forthwith branded as opposers of the Gospel As if there were such a spirit of infallibility annexed to some mens Pulpits as some have said there is to the Pope's Chair that whatsoever they shall deliver thence must needs be Gospel Thirdly hereby many an honest-hearted and well meaning Christian is wonderfully abused by being mis-led into Error Superstition and disobedience by having his Conscience brought into bondage in those things whereunto it was the good pleasure of God to leave him free and by being disposed to much uncharitableness in judging evil of his Brother that hath given him no just cause so to do 24. Besides these and sundry other mischiefs of dangerous consequence too long now to repeat the thing that I am presently to affirm concerning all and every of the positions aforesaid and other like them pertinently to the Text and business in hand is this That whosoever shall doctrinally and positively teach any of the same doth ipso facto become guilty of the Superstition here condemned by our Saviour and so far forth symbolizeth with the Pharisees in teaching for doctrines the commandments of men And I doubt not but there are in the Church of England sundry learned judicious and Orthodox Divines no way suspected of favouring Popery or Popish Innovations that by Gods help and the advantage of Truth will be ready to maintain what I now affirm in a fair Christian and Scholar-like trial against whosoever are otherwise minded whensoever by Authority they shall be thereunto required 25. I have now finished what I had to say from this Scripture by way of Application From the whole premisses would arise sundry Inferences as Corollaries and by way of Use. In the prosecution whereof had we time for it I should have occasion to fall upon some things that might be of right good use for the setling of mens Iudgments and Consciences in a way of Truth and Peace And truly my aim lay chiefly here when my thoughts fixt upon this Text. But having enlarged my self so far beyond my first purpose already I shall only give you a short touch of each of them and it may be hereafter as I shall see cause and as God shall dispose I may take some other occasion here or elsewhere to enlarge them further 26. The first should be an earnest request to such of my Brethren as through inconsideratian zeal against Popery or profaneness or any other cause have been a little too forward and faulty this way That they would in the fear of God review their own dictates and all partiality and self-seeking laid aside bestow a little pains to examine throughly the soundness of those principles from which they draw their Conclusions whether they be the very true word of God indeed or but the fancies and devices of the wit of man I know how lothly men are induced to suspect themselves to be in an Error and that it is with our Brethren herein as with other men may sufficiently appear in this that few of them will so much as bestow the reading of those Books that might give them satisfaction But beloved better try your own work your selves and if it prove but Hay or Stubble burn it your selves by acknowledging your
Books writ ex professo against the being of any original sin and that Adam by his fall transmitted some calamity only but no Crime to his Posterity the good old man was exceedingly troubled and bewailed the misery of those licentious times and seem'd to wonder save that the times were such that any should write or be permitted to publish any Error so contradictory to truth and the Doctrine of the Church of England established as he truly said by clear evidence of Scripture and the just and supreme power of this Nation both Sacred and Civil I name not the Books nor their Authors which are not unknown to learned men and I wish they had never been known because both the Doctrine and the unadvis'd Abettors of it are anâ— shall be to me Apocryphâ—l Another little story I must not pass in silence being an Argument of Dr. Sanderson's Piety great Ability and Judgment as a Casuist Discoursing with an honourable Person whose Piety I value more than his Nobility and Learning though both be great about a case of Conscience concerning Oaths and Vows their Nature and Obligation in which for some particular Reasons he then desired more fully to be inform'd I commended to him Dr. Sanderson's Book De Iuramento which having read with great satisfaction he ask'd me If I thought the Doctor could be induced to write Cases of Conscience if he might have an honorary Pension allow'd him to furnish him with Books for that purpose I told him I believe he would and in a Letter to the Doctor told him what great satisfaction that Honourable Person and many more had reaped by reading his Book De Iuramento and ask'd him whether he would be pleas'd for the benefit of the Church to write some Tract of Cases of Conscience He reply'd That he was glad that any had received any benefit by his Books and added further That if any future Tract of his could bring such benefit to any as we seem'd to say his former had done he would willingly though without any Pension set about that work Having received this answer that honourable Person before mention'd did by my hands return 50 l. to the good Doctor whose condition then as most good mens at that time were was but low and he presently revised finished and published that excellent Book De Conscientiâ A Book little in bulk but not so if we consider the benefit an intelligent Reader may receive by it For there are so many general Propositions concerning Conscience the Nature and Obligation of it explained and proved with such firm consequence and evidence of Reason that he who reads remembers and can with prudence pertinently apply them Hic nunc to particular Cases may by their light and help rationally resolve a thousand particular doubts and scruples of Conscience Here you may see the Charity of that honourable Person in promoting and the Piety and Industry of the good Doctor in performing that excellent work And here I shall add the Judgment of that learned and pious Prelate concerning a passage very pertinent to our present purpose When he was in Oxon and read his publick Lectures in the Schools as Regius Professor of Divinity and by the truth of his Positions and evidences of his Proofs gave great content and satisfaction to all his hearers especially in his clear Resolutions of all difficult Cases which occur'd in the Explication of the subject matter of his Lectures a Person of Quality yet alive privately ask'd him What course a young Divine should take in his Studies to enable him to be a good Casuist His answer was That a convenient understanding of the Learned Languages at least of Hebrew Greek Latin and a sufficient knowledge of Arts and Sciences presuppos'd There were two things in humane Literature a comprehension of which would be of very great use to enable a man to be a rational and able Casuist which otherwise was very difficult if not impossible 1. A convenient knowledge of Moral Philosophy especially that part of it which treats of the Nature of Humane Actions To know quid sit actus humanus spontaneus invitus mixtus unde habent bonitatem malitiam moralem an ex genere objecto vel ex circumstantiis How the variety of circumstances varies the goodness or evil of humane Actions How far knowledge and ignorance may aggravate or excuse increase or diminish the goodness or evil of our Actions For every Case of Conscience being only this Is this Action good or bad May I do it or may I not He who in these knows not how and whence humane Actions become morally good and evil never can in Hypothesi rationally and certainly determine whether this or that particular Action be so 2. The second thing which he said would be a great help and advantage to a Casuist was a convenient knowledge of the Nature and Obligation of Laws in general To know what a Law is what a natural and a Positive Law what 's required to the Latio dispensatio derogatio vel abrogatio legis what promulgation is antecedently required to the Obligation of any Positive Law what ignorance takes off the Obligation of a Law or does excuse diminish or aggravate the transgression For every Case of Conscience being only this Is this lawful for me or is it not and the Law the only Rule and Measure by which I must judg of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of any Action It evidently follows that he who in these knows not the Nature and Obligation of Laws never can be a good Casuist or rationally assure himself or others of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of Actions in particular This was the Judgment and good counsel of that learned and pious Prelate and having by long experience found the truth and benefit of it I conceive I could not without ingratitude to him and want of charity to others conceal it Pray pardon this rude and I fear impertinent Scrible which if nothing else may signifie thus much that I am willing to obey your Desires and am indeed London May 10. 1678. Your affectionate Friend Thomas Lincoln THE PREFACE TO THE READER HOW these Sermons will be looked upon if at all looked upon by the men of the Times is no very â—ard matter to conjecture I confess they are not A-la mode nor fitted to the Palate of those men who are resolved before-hand without tasting or trial to nauseate as unsavoury and unwholesome whatsoever shall be tendered unto them from the hand of an Episcopal Divine And therefore the republishing of them in this state of Church-affairs now the things so much contended for in some of them are worn out of date and thrown aside will be deemed at least a very unseasonable Undertaking to as much purpose perhaps it will be said as if a man would this year re-print an Almanack for the Last For the latter part of the Objection at the peril be it of those that had the hardiness
confession of their own learned Writers depend upon unwritten Traditions more than upon the Scriptures True it is that for most of these they pretend to Scripture also but with so little colour at the best and with so little confidence at the last that when they are hard put to it they are forced to fly from that hold and to shelter themselves under their great Diana Tradition Take away that it is confessed that many of the chief Articles of their Faith nature vacillare videbuntur will seem even to totter and reel and have much ado to keep up For what else could we imagine should make them strive so much to debase the Scripture all they can denying it to be a Rule of Faith and charging it with imperfection obscurity uncertainty and many other defects and on the other side to magnifie Traditions as every way more absolute but meerly their consciousness that sundry of their Doctrines if they should be examined to the bottom would appear to have no sound foundation in the Written Word And then must we needs conclude from what hath been already delivered that they ought to be received or rather not to be received but rejected as the Doctrines and Commandments of men 14. Nor will their flying to Tradition help them in this Case or free them from Pharisaism but rather make the more against them For to omit that it hath been the usual course of false teachers when their Doctrines were found not to be Scripture-proof to fly to Tradition do but enquire a little into the Original and growth of Pharisaical Traditions and you shall find that one Egg is not more like another than the Papists and the Pharisees are alike in this matter When Sadoc or whosoever else was the first Author of the Sect of the Sadduces and his followers began to vent their pestilent and Atheistical Doctrines against the immortality of the Soul the resurrection of the Body and other like the best learned among the Iews the Pharisees especially opposed against them by arguments and collections drawn from the Scriptures The Sadduces finding themselves unable to hold argument with them as having two shrewd disadvantages but a little Learning and a bad cause had no other means to avoid the force of all their arguments than to hold them precisely to the letter of the Text without admitting any Exposition thereof or Collection therefrom Unless they could bring clear Text that should affirm totidem verbis what they denied they would not yield The Pharisees on the contrary refused as they had good cause to be tied to such unreasonable conditions but stood upon the meaning of the Scriptures as the Sadduces did upon the letter confirming the truth of their interpretations partly from Reason and partly from Tradition Not meaning by Tradition as yet any Doctrine other than what was already sufficiently contained in the Scriptures but meerly the Doctrine which had been in all ages constantly taught and received with an Universal consent among the People of God as consonant to the holy Scriptures and grounded thereon By this means though they could not satisfie the Sadduces as Hereticks and Sectaries commonly are obstinate yet so far they satisfied the generality of the People that they grew into very great esteem with them and within a while carried all before them the detestation of the Sadduces and of their loose Errors also conducing not a little thereunto And who now but the Pharisees and what now but Tradition In every Mans eye and mouth Things being at this pass any Wise Man may Judge how easie a matter it was for Men so reverenced as the Pharisees were to abuse the Credulity of the People and the interest they had in their good Opinion to their own advantage to make themselves Lords of the Peoples Faith and by little and little to bring into the Worship whatsoever Doctrines and observances they pleased and all under the acceptable name of the Traditions of the Elders And so they did winning continually upon the People by their cunning and shews of Religion and proceeding still more and more till the Iewish Worship by their means was grown to that height of superstition and formality as we see it was in our Saviours days Such was the beginning and such the rise of these Pharisaical Traditions 15. Popish Traditions also both came in and grew up just after the same manner The Orthodox Bishops and Doctors in the ancient Church being to maintain the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father the Hypostatical union of the two Natures in the Person of Christ the Divinity of the Holy Ghost and other like Articles of the Catholick Religion against the Arrians Eunomians Macedonians and other Hereticks for that the words Trinity Homoiision Hypostasis Procession c. which for the better expressing of the Catholick sence they were forced to use were not expresly to be found in the holy Scriptures had recourse therefore very often in their writings against the Hereticks of their times to the Tradition of the Church Whereby they meant not as the Papists would now wrest their words any unwritten Doctrine not contained in the Scriptures but the very Doctrine of the Scriptures themselves as they had been constantly understood and believed by all faithful Christians in the Catholick Church down from the Apostles times till the several present Ages wherein they lived This course of theirs of so serviceable and necessary use in those times gave the first occasion and after-rise to that heap of Errors and Superstitions which in process of time by the Power and Policy of the Bishop of Rome especially were introduced into the Christian Church under the specious name and colour of Catholick Traditions Thus have they trodden in the steps of their Forefathers the Pharisees and stand guilty even as they of the Superstition here condemned by our Saviour in teaching for Doctrines mens Precepts 16. But if the Church of Rome be cast how shall the Church of England be quit That symbolizeth so much with her in many of her Ceremonies and otherwise What are all our crossings and kneelings and duckings What Surplice and Ring and all those other Rites and Accoutrements that are used in or about the Publick Worship but so many Commandments of men For it cannot be made appear nor truly do I think was it ever endeavoured that God hath any where commanded them Indeed these things have been objected heretofore with clamour enough and the cry is of late revived again with more noise and malice than ever in a world of base and unworthy Pamphlets that like the Frogs of Aegypt croak in every corner of the Land And I pray God the suffering of them to multiply into such heaps do not cause the whole Land so to stink in his Nostrils that he grow weary of it and forsake us But I undertook to justifle the Church of
England and her regular and obedient Children in this behalf and it will be expected I should do it If any of the Children of this Church in their too much hast have over-run their Mother that is have busied themselves and troubled others with putting forward new Rites and Ceremonies with scandal and without Law or by using her name without her leave for the serving of their own purposes have causlessly brought an evil suspicion upon her as some are blamed let them answer it as well as they can it is not my business now to plead for them but to vindicate the Church of England against another sort of men who have accused her of Superstition unjustly 17. Set both these aside and her defence is made in a word if we do but remember what hath been already delivered in the Explication of the Text to wit that it is not the commandments of men either Materially or Formally taken but the Opinion that we have of them and the teaching of them for Doctrines wherein Superstition properly consisteth Materially first There is no Superstition either in wearing or in not wearing a Surplice in kneeling or in not kneeling at the Communion in crossing or in not crossing an Infant newly Baptized even as there is no Superstition in washing or in not washing the hands before Meat So long as neither the one is done with an Opinion of necessity nor the other forborn out of the Opinion of unlawfulness For so long the Conscience standeth free The Apostle hath so resolved in the very like case that neither he that eateth is the worse for it nor he that eateth not the better for it A Man may eat and do it with a good Conscience too As in the present case at this time it is certain Christs Disciples did eat and washed not it cannot be doubted but at some time or other they washed before they eat Not for Conscience sake towards God either but even as they saw it fit and as the present occasion required and they might do both without supersition But if any man shall wear or kneel or cross with an Opinion of necessity and for Conscience sake towards God as if those parts of Gods Service wherein those Ceremonies are used in our Church could not be rightly performed without them yea althought the Church had not appointed them doubtless the use of those Ceremonies by reason of such his Opinion should be Superstition to him Because a man cannot be of that Opinion but he must believe it to be true Doctrine that such and such Ceremonies are of themselves necessary parts of Gods worship As on the contrary if any body should refuse to wear or kneel or cross out of an Opinion of their unlawfulness as if those Ceremonies did vitiate the whole act of that Worship whereunto they are applied I cannot see but upon the same ground and by reason of such his Opinion the refusal of those Ceremonies should be to him also Superstition Because a man cannot be of that Opinion but he must believe this to be true Doctrine that such and such Ceremonies are of themselves unlawful to be used in the Worship of God But the obedient Children of the Church of England having no such Opinion either of the necessity or unlawfulness of the said Ceremonies but holding them to be as indeed they are things in their own nature indifferent are even therefore free from Superstition in both the kinds aforesaid So then in the things commanded taken materially that is to say considered in themselves without respect to the Churches command there is no Superstition because there is nothing concerning them Doctrinally taught either the one way or the other 18. Now if we can as well clear these things taken also formally that is to say considered not in themselves but as they stand commanded by publick authority of the Church the whole business is done as to this point Nor is there in truth any great difficulty in it if we will but apprehend things aright For although the very commanding them do seem to bring with it a kind of necessity and to lay a tie upon the Conscience as that of St. Paul implieth both you must needs be subject and that for Conscience sake yet is not that any tie brought upon the Conscience de novo by such command of the Church only that tie that lay upon the Conscience before by virtue of that general Commandment of God of obeying the higher Powers in all their lawful commands is by that Commandment of the Church applied to that particular matter Even as it is in all Civil Constitutions and humane positive Laws whatsoever And the necessity also is but an obediential not a doctrinal necessity But the Text requireth a doctrinal necessity to make the thing done a vain and superstitious Worship Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men Which the Church of England in prescribing the aforesaid Ceremonies hath not done nor by her own grounds could do For look as the case standeth with private men for doing or refusing even so standeth the case with publick Governours for commanding or forbidding As therefore with private men it is not the bare doing or refusing of a thing as in discretion they shall see cause but the doing of it with an Opinion of necessity or the refusing of it with the Opinion of unlawfulness that maketh the action superstitious as hath been already shewed so with publick Governours it is not the commanding or forbidding of a mutable Ceremony as for the present they shall deem it fit for order decency or uniformities sake or such other like respects but the commanding of it with an opinion as if it were of perpetual necessity or the forbidding it with the like opinion as if it were simply unlawful that maketh the Constitution superstitious 19. Now I appeal to any man that hath not run on madly with the cry for company but endeavoured with the Spirit of Charity and Sobriety to satisfie his understanding herein if the Church of England both in the Preface before the Book of Common-Prayer and in the Articles of her Confession and in sundry passages in the Homilies occasionally and these Books are acknowledged her most Authentick Writings the two former especially and the just standard whereby to measure her whole Doctrine if I say she have not in them all and that in as plain and express terms as can be desired disclaimed all humane Traditions that are imposed upon the Consciences of Gods People either in point of Faith or Manners and declared to the world that she challenged no power to her self to order any thing by her own Authority but only in things indifferent and such as are not repugnant to the word of God and that her Constitutions are but for order comeliness and uniformity sake and not for Conscience sake towards God and that therefore any of those her Orders and Constitutions may be retained
abolished or altered from time to time and at all times as the Governours for the time being shall judge to serve best unto Edification What should I say more If men list to be contentious and will not be satisfied who can help it yet thus much I dare say more Let any Papist or Precisian in the world give instance but in any one single thing doctrinally maintained by the Church of England which he can with any colour of truth except against as a Commandment of men if we do not either shew good warrant for it from the written word of God which we doubt not but to be able to do and is most ad rem or else which is enough ad hominem for every single instance they shall bring return them ten of their own teaching every whit as liable to the same exception as that we will yield the Bucklers and confess her guilty 20. But now what will you say if after all this clamouring against English Popish Ceremonies as of late they have blazoned them they that keep all this ado prove in the end the guilty persons themselves I am much deceived if it do not clearly prove so if we either compare her Doctrine and theirs together or take a view of some of theirs by themselves First compare them a little which will also add some confirmation to the former point for the farther justifying of the Church of England in this behalf And for example and perspicuity sake let the instance be kneeling at the Communion there being the like reason of all the rest I pray you consider well the evidence weigh the grounds and observe the course held on both sides and then give sentence accordingly If as God hath given those our Church Governours power to determine of indifferent mutable circumstances and they using the liberty of the power given them have appointed kneeling rather than sitting or standing as judging it a gesture of greater reverence and well becoming our unworthiness but without any Opinion either of the necessity of that gesture or of the unlawfulness of the other two so God had given the like Power to these our Brethren and they using the liberty of that power had appointed sitting or standing rather than kneeling as judging either of them a more proper Table gesture than it yet without any Opinion of their necessity or of the unlawfulness of kneeling the case had then been alike of both These had been as free as they neither of them had been guilty of Superstition in teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of men because there was no doctrinal necessity whereby to bind the Consciences of Gods People on either side Again if as these say to their Proselytes peremptorily in effect thus you are bound in Conscience not to kneel it is an unlawful gesture a superstitious relique of Popery and carrieth with it a shrewd appearance of their idolatrous Bread-worship and therefore we charge you upon your Consciences not to kneel so our Church-Governours should say to the People peremptorily in effect thus you are bound in Conscience to kneel or else you prophane the holy Sacrament not discerning the Lords Body and therefore we charge you upon your Consciences to kneel the case of both had here also been alike Both alike guilty of Superstition in teaching for doctrines the commandments of men because by that doctrinal necessity as well the one sort as the other had laid a perpetual obligation upon the Consciences of men in a matter which God having not any where either commanded or forbidden hath therefore left free and indifferent But now taking the case as de facto it is without Ifs and And 's set the one against the other and make the comparison right and here it is Our Brethren having no publick authority given them to order what shall be done or not done in matters of external government do yet bind the Consciences of Gods people by teaching that which they thus forbid to be simply and in it self unlawful Our Governors on the contrary though having publick authority to prescribe in such matters do yet leave the Consciences of men at liberty without teaching that which they appoint to be of absolute necessity in it self This being species facti as the Civilians speak the even true state of the case say now I beseech you in good sooth and be not partial Quid Iuris at whose door lieth the Superstition The one side teaching no such doctrine but having authority do by virtue of that authority appoint the People to kneel The other side having no such authority but teaching a doctrine do by virtue of that doctrine charge the people not to kneel Whether of both sides may rightlier be said to teach for doctrines the Commandments of men Tu quum sis quod ego fortassis nequior 21. Their guilt herein will yet farther appear if leaving comparisons we take a view of some of their doctrines by themselves I say but some of them for how many hours would serve to reckon them all or who indeed even of themselves knoweth them all There are so many Covies of new doctrines sprung up ever and anon especially in these late times of connivance and licentiousness which by that they are well hatcht presently fly abroad the Country and are entertained by some or other for as good Divinity as if they were the undoubted Oracles of the Holy Ghost I dare not affirm it because I will not put my self to the trouble to prove it and because I heartily desire and wish I be deceived in it yet I cannot dissemble my fear that it is but too true by the proportion of what we almost dayly hear or see that within little more than this one twelvemonth last past there have been more false and superstitious doctrines vented in the Pulpits and Presses in England than have been in so open and daring a manner in the whole space of almost fourscore years before I mean since the first of Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory And to make good the former charge omitting sundry other their unwarrantable positions partly concerning Church-Government Orders and Ceremonies established by Law partly concerning sundry received customs in matters wholly or in part Ecclesiastical partly concerning the use of sundry pastimes and recreations partly concerning sundry usages and customs in vita communi in things meerly Civil and not sacred or Ecclefiastical the particulars whereof would amount to many scores if not hundreds I shall present unto your view a dozen only which I have selected from the rest of those that I have observed to have been most urged of late in Sermons and Pamphlets by which you may in part judge of the rest And they are these 22. 1. That the appointing of a set form of Prayer or Liturgy to be used in the Service of God is unlawful or Antichristian or that it is a straitning or limiting of the Holy Spirit of God 2. That it is not in
nothing against Conscience 37 38 2. Get the mastery of thine own Will 39 43 3. Beware of Engagements to Sin 44 45 4. Resolve not to yield to any Temptation 46 The Conclusion Sermon X. Ad Aulam I. Ser. on PHIL. iv 11. Sect. 1 4. THe occasion Scope 5 Paraphrase and 6 Division of the Text. 7 12 Four Observations from the Apostles Protestation 13 14 The Nature of Contentment gathered from the Text in three Particulars viz. 15 16 I. That a man be content with his own Estate without coveting that which is anothers 17 19 Illustrated by Examples both ways 20 21 and proved from Grounds both of Justice 22 and Charity 23 Not all desire of that which is anothers forbidden 24 but the Inordinate only Whether in respect 25 26 1. Of the Object of the Desire 27 29 2. The Act or of the Desire 30 31 3. The Effects of the Desire 32 The Inference thence 33 II. That a man be content with his present Estate 34 Because 1. That only is properly his own 35 2. All looking beyond that disquieteth the mind 36 3. The present is ever best 37 38 The Duty pressed 39 40 and the misunderstanding of it prevented 41 III. That a man be content with any Estate 42 44 with the Reasons thereof 45 c. and Inferences thence Sermon VI. Ad Aulam II. Serm. on PHIL. iv 11. Sect. 1-3 THe Art of Contentment 4 1. Not from Nature 4 2. Institution 6 3. or Outward Things 7 But from God who teacheth it us 8 1. by his Spirit 9 2. by his Promises 10 c. 3. by the Rod of Discipline 12 Inferences I. Where this learning is to be had 13 II. Sundry motives thereunto 14 III. The Trial of our proficiency therein by Six Marks 15 1. The despising of unjust gain 16 2. The moderating of worldly Desires and Care 17 3. The careful using and of what we have 18 4. the charitable dispensing of what we have 19 5. The bearing both of wants with patience 20 c. 6. and losses with patience 22 Seven Helps to further us in this Learning 23 24 1. A right perswasion of the Goodness and Truth of God 25 2. A through sense of our own unworthiness 26 3. Thankfulness for what we have 27 4. A prudent comparing of our Estates with other mens 28 5. To consider the vanity of all outward things 29 30 6. Sobriety in a frugal and temperate use of the Creature 31 7. To remember that we are but Pilgrims here Sermon VII Ad Aulam on ISA. lii 3. Sect. 1. THe Sum and Division of the Text. 2 4 Part I. Mans Sale 5 Inferences thence To take knowledge 1. of our Misery therein 2 2. and Presumption therein 7 The Materials of the Contract viz. 8 10 I. The Commodity and therein our Baseness 11 15 II. The Price and therein our Folly 15 18 An Objection by way of Excuse removed 19 24 III. The Consent and therein our Inexcusableness 25 PART II. Mans Redemption wrought 26 I. EFFECTUALLY Wherein are considered 27 1. The Power of the Redeemer 28 2. The Love of the Redeemer 29 3. The Right of the Redeemer 30 And thence Inferred a threefold Duty viz. 1. of Affiance relatively to his Power 31 2. of Thankfulness relatively to his Love 32 3. of Service relatively to his Right 33 II. FREELY As to us who payed nothing towards it 34 37 But yet a valuable price payed by our Redeemer 38 Inferences thence To exclude Merit 39 But not Endeavours 40 The Conclusion Sermon VIII Ad Aulam on ROM xv 5. Sect. 1 2 THe Scope and Division of the Text. 3 5 THE FORMALITY of the Prayer Observations thence viz. I. Prayer to be joyned with Instruction 6 9 II. God the only Author of Peace 10 III. Concerning the Style FIVE ENQUIRIES viz. 11 13 1. Why the God of Patience 14 16 2. Why of Consolation 17 19 3. Of the Choice of these two Attributes 20 4. Their Conjunction 21 5. and Order 22 In the matter of the Prayer three Particulars 23 I. THE THING prayed for viz. Like mindedness 24 26 Opened 27 and Pressed upon these Considerations 28 1. That we are members of the same Body 29 2. and of the same Family 30 3. That it forwardeth the building up of Gods Church 31 33 4. but the want of it giveth Scandal to the Enemies thereof 34 35 II. The FORMER QUALIFICATION importing an agreement 1. Universal 36 38 2. Mutual 39 40 III. The Later QUALIFICATION importing an agreement 1. according unto Truth and Godliness 41 42 2. after The Example of Christ. 43 The Conclusion Sermon IX Ad Aulam on 1 TIM iii. 16. Sect. 1 4. THe Occasion Scope and Division of THE TEXT 5 6 Of the word Mystery 7 I. POINT The Gospel A GREAT MYSTERY Because 8 9 1. it could not have been known 10 13 2. had it not been revealed and 14 15 3. being revealed cannot be perfectly comprehended 16 17 INFERENCES thence I. Reason not to be the measure of Faith 18 19 II. Disquisition of Truth to be within the bounds of Sobriety 20 21 III. Offence not to be taken at the difference of Opinions among Christians 22 23 II. POINT Christianity a Mystery of Godliness In regard 24 26 1. both of the general Scope thereof 27 2. and of the special Parts thereof 28 3. and the means of conserving it 29 31 INFERENCES thence I. for the trial of Doctrines 32 33 with application to the present Church of England 34 II. For the ordering of our Lives 35 The Conclusion Sermon X. Ad Aulam on PSAL. cxix 75. Sect. 1. THe Division of THE TEXT 2 6 What is meant by the Judgments of God 7 POINT I. The righteousness of Gods Judgments 1. as proceeding from him 8 9 2. as deserved by us 10 INFERENCES thence 1. Not to murmur against the ways of Gods providence 11 2. but to submit our wills to his 12 14 Davids many troubles 15 17 and God the causer thereof 18 POINT II. That God causeth his servants to be troubled it is out of his faithfulness whether we respect 19 1. his Promises 20 22 2. or their Relations 23 The Inference thence To bear troubles chearfully 24 25 POINT III. The faithfulness of God in sending troubles evidenced from 26 30 1. The End he aimeth at therein 31 34 2. The Proportion he holdeth therein 35 36 3. The Issues he giveth thereout Sermon XI Ad Aulam I. Ser. on 1 COR. x. 23. Sect. 1 2. THe Scope and Division of the Text. 3 4 All things meant of Indifferent things only 5 What things are Indifferent 6 8 POINT I. The Liberty we have to indifferent things 9 10 The Error of those that over-much restrain this Liberty 11 14 blamed as 1. unrighteous in it self 15 22 2. Dangerous in the Consequents 23 With some APPLICATION to this Church 24 The chief Causes of that Error discovered 25 27 viz. 1. Ignorance 28 30 2. and Partiality 31
it is this a very good one too viz. That when we are to try the Doctrines we should duly examine them whether they be according unto Godliness yea or no. Our Saviours direction for the discovery of false Prophets Mat. 7. is to this very purpose Ex fructibus Ye shall know them by their fruits Meaneth he it trow you of the fruits of their lives in their outward Conversation Verily no not only no nor principally neither perhaps not at all For Falshood is commonly set off by Hypocrisie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the next following verse here Shews of Sanctity and Purity pretensions of Religion and Reformation is the wool that the woolf wrappeth about him when he meaneth to do most mischief with least suspicion The Old Serpent sure is never so silly as to think his Ministers the Ministers of darkness should be able to draw in a considerable party into their communion should they appear in their dismal colours therefore he putteth them into a new dress before he sendeth them abroad disguising and transforming them as if they were the Ministers of righteousness and of the light Our Saviour therefore cannot mean the fruits of their lives so much if at all as the fruits of their Doctrines that is to say the necessary consequents of their Doctrines such Conclusions as naturally and by good and evident discourse do issue from their Doctrines And so understood it is a very useful Rule even in the Affirmative taking in other requisite conditions withal but in the Negative taken even alone and by it self it holdeth infallibly If what is spoken seem to be according to Godliness it is the better to like onward and the more likely to be true yet may it possibly be false for all that and therefore it will be needful to try it farther and to make use of other Criterions withal But if what is spoken upon examination appear to have any repugnancy with Godliness in any one branch or duty thereunto belonging we may be sure the words cannot be wholsom words It can be no heavenly Doctrine that teacheth men to be Earthly Sensual or Devilish or that tendeth to make men unjust in their dealings uncharitable in their censures undutiful to their superiors or any other way superstitious licentious or prophane 32. I note it not without much rejoycing and gratulating to us of this Church There are God knoweth a-foot in the Christian World Controversies more than a good many Decads Centuries Chiliads of novel Tenents brought in in this last Age which were never believed many of them scarce ever heard of in the Ancient Church by Sectaries of all sorts Now it is our great comfort blessed be God for it that the Doctrine established in the Church of England I mean the publick Doctrine for that is it we are to hold us to passing by private Opinions I say the publick Doctrine of our Church is such as is not justly chargeable with any Impiety contrarious to any part of that Duty we owe either to God or Man Oh that our Conversations were as free from exception as our Religion is Oh that we were sufficiently careful to preserve the honour and lustre of the Truth we profess by the correspondency of our lives and actions thereunto 33. And upon this point we dare boldly joyn issue with our clamourous adversaries on either hand Papists I mean and Disciplinarians Who do both so loudly but unjustly accuse us and our Religion they as carnal and licentious these as Popish and superstitious As Elijah once said to the Baalites that God that answereth by fire let him be God so may we say to either of both and when we have said it not fear to put it to a fair trial That Church whose Dostrine Confession and Worship is most according to Godliness let that be the Church As for our Accusers if there were no more to be instanced in but that one cursed position alone wherein notwithstanding their disagreements otherwise they both consent That lawful Soveraigns may be by their Subjects resisted and Arms taken up against them for the cause of Religion it were enough to make good the Challenge against them both Which is such a notorious piece of Ungodliness as no man that either feareth God or King as he ought to do can speak of or think of without detestation and is certainly if either St. Peter or St. Paul those two great Apostles understood themselves a branch rather of that other great mystery 2 Thes. 2. the mystery of Iniquity than of the great mystery here in the Text the mystery of Godliness There is not that point in Popery besides to my understanding that maketh it savour so strongly of Antichrist as this one dangerous and desperate point of Iesuitism doth Wherein yet those men that are ever bawling against our Ceremonies and Service as Antichristian do so deeply and wretchedly symbolize with them The Lord be judge between them and us whether our Service or their Doctrine be the more Antichristian 34. I have done with the former Inference for the trial of Doctrines there is another yet behind for the bettering of our lives For sith Christianity is a mystery of Godliness it concerneth every Christian man so to take the mystery along with him that he leave not Godliness behind That is whatsoever becometh of doubtful Controversies to look well to his life and to make conscience of practising that which without all Controversie is his Duty I know Controversies must be looked into and it were well if it were done by them and by them only whose Gifts and Callings serve for it For Truths must be maintained Errors must be refuted and the Mouths of gain-sayers must be stopped All this must be done it is true but it is as true when all this is done still the shortest cut to heaven is Faith and Godliness 35. I know not how better to draw my Sermon towards a conclusion than by observing how the great Preacher concludeth his Eccles. last After he had taken a large and exact survey of all the travels that are done under the Sun and found nothing in them but Vanity and Vexation of Spirit he telleth us at length that in multitude of Books and much reading we may sooner meet with weariness than satisfaction But saith he if you will hear the end of all here it is this is the Conclusion of the whole matter Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole business of man upon which all his care and employment in this world should be spent So I say we may puzzle our selves in the pursuit of knowledg dive into the mysteries of all Arts and Sciences especially ingulph our selves deep in the studies of those three highest Professions of Physick Law and Divinity For Physick search into the Writings of Hippocrates Galen and the Methodists of Avicen and the Empyricks of Paracelsus and the Chymists for Law wrestle through the large bodies
but a perswasive offer and left to us to receive or refuse is not that grace which shall bring men to Heaven Which truths or untruths or both be they which they will did upon these or the like occasions come to be searched into and charitably debated betwixt Dr. Sanderson Dr. Hammond and Dr. Pierce the now reverend Dean of Salisbury of which I shall proceed to give some account but briefly In the year 1648. the 52 London Ministers then a Fraternity of Sion Colledge in that City had in a printed Declaration aspers'd Dr. Hammond most heinously for that he had in his Practical Catechism affirm'd That our Saviour died for the sins of all mankind To justifie which truth he presently makes a charitable Reply as 't is now printed in his Works After which there were many Letters past betwixt the said Dr. Hammond Dr. Sanderson and Dr. Pierce concerning God's grace and decrees Dr. Sanderson was with much unwillingness drawn into this Debate for he declared it would prove uneasie to him who in his judgment of God's decrees differ'd with Dr. Hammond whom he reverenced and loved dearly and would not therefore ingage himself in a Controversie of which he could never hope to see and end nevertheless they did all enter into a charitable disquisition of these said Points in several Letters to the full satisfaction of the Learned those betwixt Dr. Sanderson and Dr. Hammond being now printed in his Works and for what past betwixt him and the learned Dr. Pierce I refer my Reader to a Letter sent to me and annext to the end of this Relation I think the Judgment of Dr. Sanderson was by these Debates altered from what it was at his entrance into them for in the year 1632 when his excellent Sermons were first printed in 4 o the Reader may on the Margent find some accusation of Arminius for false Doctrine and find that upon a review and reprinting those Sermons in folio in the year 1657. that accusation of Arminius is omitted And the change of his judgment seems more fully to appear in his said Letter to Dr. Pierce And let me now tell the Reader which may seem to be perplex'd with these several affirmations of God's decrees before mentioned that Dr. Hammond in a Postscript to the last Letter of his to Dr. Sanderson says God can reconcile his own contradictions and therefore advises all men as the Apostle does to study mortification and be wise to sobriety And let me add further that if these 52 Ministers of Sion Colledge were the occasion of the Debates in these Letters they have I think been the occasion of giving an end to the Quinquarticular Controversie for none have since undertaken to say more but seem to be so wise as to be content to be ignorant of the rest till they come to that place where the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open And let me here tell the Reader also that if the rest of mankind would as Dr. Sanderson not conceal their alteration of Judgment but confess it to the honour of God and themselves then our Nation would become freer from pertinacious Disputes and fuller of Recantations I am not willing to lead my Reader to Dr. Hammond and Dr. Sanderson where we left them together at Boothly Pannel till I have look'd back to the long Parliament the Society of Covenanters in Sion Colledge and those others scattered up and down in London and given some account of their proceedings and usage of the late learned Dr. Laud then Archbishop of Canterbury whose life seem'd to be sacrific'd to appease the popular fury of that present time And though I will forbear to mention the injustice of his death and the barbarous usage of him both at his Tryal and before it yet my desire is that what follows may be noted because it does now or may hereafter concern us that is to note That in his last sad Sermon on the Scaffold at his death he did as our blessed Saviour advis'd his Disciples Pray for those that persecuted and despitefully used him And not only pardon'd those Enemies but passionately begg'd of Almighty God that he would also pardon them and besought all the present beholders of this sad sight that they would pardon and pray for him But tho' he did all this yet he seem'd to accuse the Magistrates of the City for not suppressing a sort of people whose malicious and furious Zeal had so far transported them and violated all modesty that tho' they could not know whether he were justly or unjustly condemned were yet suffer'd to go visibly up and down to gather hands to a Petition that the Parliament would hasten his Execution And he having declar'd how unjustly he thought himself to be condemned and accus'd for endeavouring to bring in Popery for that was one of the Accusations for which he died he declared with sadness That the several Sects and Divisions then in England which he had laboured to prevent were now like to bring the Pope a far greater harvest than he could ever have expected without them And said these Sects and Divisions introduce prophaneness under the cloak ofâ— an imaginary Religion and that we have lost the substance of Religion by changing it into Opinion and that by these means the Church ofâ— England which all the Iesuits machinations could not ruine was fall'n into apparent danger by those Covenanters which were his Accusers To this purpose he spoke at his death for which and more to the same purpose the Reader may view his last sad Sermon on the Scaffold And 't is here mentioned because his dear Friend Dr. Sanderson seems to demonstrate the same fear of Popery in his two large and remarkable Prefaces before his two Volumes of Sermons and seems also with much sorrow to say the same again in his last Will made when he was and apprehended himself to be very near his death And these Covenanters ought to take notice of it and to remember that by the late wicked War began by them Dr. Sanderson was ejected out of the Professors Chair in Oxford and that if he had continued in it for he lived 14 years after both the Learned of this and other Nations had been made happy by many remarkable Cases of Conscience so rationally stated and so briefly so clearly and so convincingly determin'd that Posterity might have joyed and boasted That Dr. Sanderson was born in this Nation for the ease and benefit of all the Learned that shall be born after him But this benefit is so like time past that they are both irrecoverably lost I should now return to Boothby Pannel where we left Dr. Hammond and Dr. Sanderson together but neither can now be found there For the first was in his Journey to Londoni and the second seiz'd upon the day after his Friends departure and carried Prisoner to Lincoln then a Garrison of the Parliaments For the pretended reason of which Commitment I shall give this
to leave them a competence and in the hands of a God that would provide for all that kept innocence and trusted in his providence and protection which he had always found enough to make and keep him happy There was in his Diocess a Minister of almost his Age that had been of Lincoln Colledge when he left it who visited him often and always welcom because he was a Man of Innocence and open-heartedness This Minister asked the Bishop what Books he studied most when he laid the foundation of his great and clear Learning To which his Answer was That he declin'd reading many Books but what he did read were well chosen and read so often that he became very familiar with them and told him they were chiefly three Aristotle's Rhetorick Acquinas's Secunda Secundae and Tully but chiefly his Offices which he had not read over less than 20 times and could at this Age repeat without Book And told him also the learned Civilian Doctor Zouch who died lately had writ Elementa jurisprudentiâ—e which was a Book that he thought he could also say without Book and that no wise man could read it too often or love or commend it too much and he told him the study of these had been his toyl But for himself he always had a natural love to Genealogies and Heraldry and that when his thoughts were harassed with any perplext Studies he left off and turned to them as a recreation and that his very recreation had made him so perfect in them that he could in a very short time give an account of the Descent Arms and Antiquity of any Family of the Nobility or Gentry of this Nation Before I give an account of his last sickness I desire to tell the Reader that he was of a healthful constitution chearful and mild of an even temper very moderate in his diet and had had little sickness till some few years before his death but was then every Winter punish'd with a Diarrhed which left him not till warm weather return'd and remov'd it And this Distemper did as he grew elder seize him oftner and continue longer with him But though it weakned him yet it made him rather indispos'd than sick and did no way disable him from studying indeed too much In this decay of his strength but not of his memory or reason for this Distemper works not upon the understanding he made his last Will of which I shall give some account for confirmation of what hath been said and what I think convenient to be known before I declare his death and burial He did in his last Will give an account of his Faith and Perswasion in Point of Religion and Church-Government in these very words I Robert Sanderson Dr. of Divinity an unworthy Minister of Iesus Christ and by the providence of God Bishop of Lincoln being by the long continuance of an habitual distemper brought to a great bodily weakness and faintness of spirits but by the great mercy of God without any bodily pain otherwise or decay of understanding do make this my Will and Testament written all with my own hand revoking all former Wills by me heretofore made if any such shall be found First I commend my Soul into the hands of Almighty God as of a faithful Creator which I humbly beseech him mercifully to accept looking upon it not as it is in it self infinitely polluted with sin but as it is redeemed and purged with the precious blood of his only beloved Son and my most sweet Saviour Iesus Christ in confidence of whose merits and mediation alone it is that I cast my self upon the mercy of God for the pardon of my sins and the hopes of eternal life And here I do profess that as I have lived so I desire and by the grace of God resolve to dye in the Communion of the Catholick Church of Christ and a true Son of the Church of England which as it stands by Law established to be both in Doctrine and Worship agreable to the Word of God and in the most and most material Points of both conformable to the Faith and practice of the godly Churches of Christ in the primitïve and purer times I do firmly believe led so to not so much from the force of custom and education to which the greatest part of mankind owe their particular different perswasions in point of Religion as upon the clear evidence of truth and reason after a serious and unpartial examination of the grounds as well of Popery as Puritanism according to that measure of understanding and those opportunities which God hath afforded me and herein I am abundantly satisfied that the Schiâ—m which the Papists on the one hand and the Superstition which the Puritan on the other hand lay to our charge are very justly chargeable upon themselves respectively Wherefore I humbly beseech Almighty God the Father of Mercies to preserve the Church by his power and providence in peace truth and Godliness evermore to the worlds end which doubtless he will do if the wickedness and security of a sinful people and particularly those sins that are so rife and seem daily to increase among us of Unthankfulness Riot and Sacriledge do not tempt his patience to the contrary And I also farther humbly beseech him that it would please him to give unto our gracious Sovereign the Reverend Bishops and the Parliament timely to consider the great danger that visibly threatens this Church in point of Religion by the late great increase of Popery and in point of Revenue by sacrilegious enclosures and to provide such wholsom and effectual remedies as may prevent the same before it be too late And for a further manifestation of his humble thoughts and desires they may appear to the Reader by another part of his Will which follows As for my corruptible Body I bequeath it to the Earth whence it was taken to be decently buried in the Parish Church of Bugden towards the upper end of the Chancel upon the second or at the farthest the third day after my decease and that with as little Noise Pomp and Charge as may be without the invitation of any person how near soever related unto me other than the Inhabitants of Bugden without the unnecessary expence of Escutcheons Gloves Ribonds c. and without any Blacks to be hung any where in or about the House or Church other than a Pulpit-Cloth a Hearse-Cloth and a Mourning Gown for the Preacher whereof the former after my Body shall be interred to be given to the Preacher of the Funeral Sermon and the latter to the Curat of the Parish for the time being And my Will further is That the Funeral Sermon be preached by my own Houshold Chaplain containing some wholesome Discourse concerning Mortality the Resurrection of the Dead and the last Iudgment and that he shall have for his pains 5 l. upon condition that he speak nothing at all concerning my person either good or ill other
Dr. Sanderson's constant practice every morning to entertain his first waking thoughts with a repition of those very Psalms that the Church hath appointed to be constantly read in the daily Morning Service and having at night laid him in his bed he as constantly clos'd his eyes with a repitition of those appointed for the Service of the Evening remembring and repeating the very Psalms appointed for every day and as the month had formerly ended and began again so did this Exercise of his devotion And if the First-fruits of his waking thoughts were of the World or what concern'd it he would arraign and condemn himself for it Thus he began that work on Earth which is now the imployment of Dr. Hammond and him in Heaven After his taking his Bed and about a day before his death he desir'd his Chaplain Mr. Pullin to give him absolution And at his performing that Office he pull'd off his Cap that Mr. Pullin might lay his hand upon his bare head After this desire of his was satisfied his Body seem'd to be at more ease and his mind more chearful and he said often Lord forsake me not now my strength faileth me but continue thy mercy and let my mouth be ever filled with thy praise He continued the remaining night and day very patient and thankful for any of the little Offices that were perform'd for his ease and refreshment and during that time did often say to himself the 103. Psalm a Psalm that is compos'd of Praise and Consolations fitted for a dying Soul and say also to himself very often these words My heart is fixed O God my heart is fixed where true joy is to be found And now his thoughts seem'd to be wholly of death for which he was so prepar'd that that King of Terrors could not surprise him as a thief in the night for he had often said he was prepar'd and long'd for it And as this desire seem'd to come from Heaven so it left him not till his Soul ascended to that Region of blessed Spirits whose employments are to joyn in consort with his and sing Praise and Glory to that God who hath brought him and them to that place into which sin and sorrow cannot enter Thus this Pattern of meekness and primitive innocence chang'd this for a better Life 't is now too late to wish that mine may be like his for I am in the eighty fifth year of my Age and God knows it hath not but I most humbly beseech Almighty God that my death may and I do as earnestly beg that if any Reader shall receive any satisfaction from this very plain and as true relation he will be so Charitable as to say Amén. I. W. Blessed is that man in whose Spirit there is no guile Psal 32. 2. Dr. Pierce Dean of Salisbury his Letter to Mr. Walton Good Mr. Walton AT my return to this place I made a yet stricten search after the Letters long ago sent me from our most excellent Dr. Sanderson before the happy Restoration of the King and Church of England to their several Rights in one of which Letters more especially he was pleas'd to give me a Narrative both of the file and the Progress and reasons also as well of his younger as of his last and â—iper Judgment touching the famous Points controverted between the Calvinian and the Arminians as they are commonly though unjustly and unskilfully misâ—alled on either side The whole Letter I allude to does consist of several sheets where of a good part has been made publicâ— long ago by the most learned most judicious most pious Dr. Hammond to whom I sent it both for his private and for the publick satisfaction if he thought fit in his excellent Book intituled A Pacifick Discourse of God's Grace and Decrees in full accordance with Dr. Sanderson To which discourse I refer you for an account of Dr. Sanderson and the History of his Thoughts in his own hand writing wherein I sent it to Westâ—ood as I received it from Boothby Pannel And although the whole Book printed in the year 1660. and reprinted since with his other Tracts in Folio is very worthy of your perusal yet for the Work you are about you shall not have need to read more at present than from the 8th to the 23d page and as far as the end of § 33. There you will find in what year the excellent man whose life you write became a Master of Arts. How his first reading of Learned Hooker had been occasioned by some Puritanical Pamphlets and how good a preparative he found it for his reading of Calvin's Institutions the honour of whose name at that time especially gave such credit to his Errors How he erred with Mr. CalviÅ„ whilst he took things upon trust in the Sublapsarian way How being chosen to be a Clerk of the Convocation for the Diocess of Lincoln 1625. He reduced the Quinquarticular Controversie into five Schemes or Tables and thereupon discerned a necessity of quitting the Sublapsarian way of which he had before a better liking as well as the Supralapsarian which he could never fancy There you will meet with his two weighty Reasons against them both and find his happy change of Iudgment to have been ever since the year 1625. even 34 years before the world either knew or at least took notice of it And more particularly his Reasons for rejecting Dr. Twiss or the way He walks in although his acute and very learned and ancient Friend I now proceed to let you know from Dr. Sanderson's own hand which was never printed and which you can hardly know from any unless from his Son or from my self That when that Parliament was broken up and the Convocation therewith dissolved a Gentleman of his Acquaintance by occasion of some Discourse about these Points told him of a Book not long before published at Paris A. D. 1623. by a Spanish Bishop who had undertaken to clear the Differences in the great Controversie De Concordiâ Gratiae Liberi Arbitrarij And because his Friend perceived he was greedily desirous to see the Book he sent him one of them containing the four first Books of twelve which he intended then to publish When I had read says Dr. Sanderson in the following words of the same Letter his Epistle Dedicatory to the Pope Greg. 15. he spake so highly of his own invention that I then began rather to suspect him for a Mountebank than to hope I should find satisfaction from his performances I found much confidence and great pomp of words but little matter as to the main Knot of the Business other than had been said an hundred times before to wit of the co-existence of all things past present and future in mente divina realiter ab aeterno which is the subject of his whole third Book only he interpreteth the word realiter so as to import not only praesentialitatem objectivam as others held before him but
I say First that we have indeed no higher or other esteem of Ceremonies than as of indifferent things yet do we not count them Trifles otherwise than as in comparison with necessary duties But let Ceremonies Secondly be as very Trifles as any man can imagine them to be yet Obedience sure is no Trifle They mis-state the Question when they talk of pressing Ceremonies It is Obedience formally that is required Ceremonies not otherwise pressed than as the matter wherein that Obedience is to be exercised If a Master appoint his Servant to do some small matter that he thinketh fit to have done though in it self of no great moment yet he will expect to be obeyed and it is great reason he should If in such case the Servant should refuse to do the thing appointed because he hath no mind thereunto and should receive a check or correction for such refusal could he either sufficiently excuse his own fault or reasonably complain of his Master for dealing hardly with him by saying The thing was but a Trifle Is it not evident that the thing which made the Master angry and the Servant an offender in that Case was not precisely and formally the leaving of the thing undone which had it not been commanded might have been left undone without any fault or blame at all but the refusing to do it when he that had a right to his service commanded him Wherefore Thirdly that which is said of some mens doting so extreamly on Ceremonies might have been well enough spared I know no true Son of the Church of England that doteth upon any Ceremony whatsoever opinion he may have of the decency or expediency of some of them If any do let him answer for himself Among wise men he will hardly pass for a wise man that doteth upon any Nor will he I doubt prove a much wiser man that runs into the contrary Extream and abhorreth all It is true Fourthly that there have been long and unkind quarrels about these things More is the pity but where is the fault To whom is the beginning and to whom the continuance of a quarrel rather imputable To him that demandeth his right or to him that with-holdeth it from him For this is the plain Case in short The Bishops under the King require obedience to the Laws Ecclesiastical these men refuse to give it So began the quarrel at first and upon the same terms it continued If the Obedience challenged were indeed due to those Laws then did our Brethren both begin the quarrel and hold it on if it were not then must the whole blame lye upon those that claimed it unjustly and not upon them So that upon winding up of the business the whole Controversie will devolve upon this point Whether to the Laws Ecclesiastical Obedience is due or not For the right determining whereof for so much as it is confessed on all hands that Obedience is due to Lawful Authority commanding Lawful things two other points are to be resolved the one concerning the Authority by which the Constituons were made the other concerning the lawfulness of the things therein required The Presbyterians of the Kirk flatly and directly deny both Ours less forward to declare their opinion in the former point have chosen rather to stand upon the later only And so the point in issue is briefly this Whether the things commanded and particularly the Ceremonies be lawful yea or no. Which bringeth us to the consideration of § XIII The Fourth Objection Wherein besides some ill language which I love not to stir into they declare First what they conceive to be our Opinion and next what is indeed their own concerning the Ceremonies c. in question In the former we desire that candor which in all reason and charity they ought to afford us that they would fix nothing upon us as our opinion which our selves who should best know what our opinion is protest against as not our opinion They have been told a thousand times over in the Sermons and Writings of private men which is also attested and affirmed by the publick Declaration of our Church the most authentick assurance a question of this nature is capable of That we place no Necessity at all in these things but hold them to be meerly indifferent That when for decency order or uniformity's sake any Constitutions are made concerning them there is the same necessity of obeying such Constitutions as there is of obeying other Laws made for the good of the Common-wealth concerning any other indifferent things That such Necessity either in the one or the other ariseth not properly from the Authority of the immediate Law-giver but from the Ordinance of God who hath commanded us to obey the Ordinances of men for his sake That such necessity of Obedience notwithstanding the things remain in the same indifferency as before Every way in respect of their Nature and quoad Rem it being not in the power of accidental Relations to change the Natures of things and even in respect of their Use and quoad Nòs thus far that there is a liberty left for men upon extraordinary and other just occasions sometimes to do otherwise than the Constitution requireth extra casum Scandali Contemptus A liberty which we dare not either take our selves or allow to others in things properly and absolutely necessary Upon which very account I mean the consideration of the indifferency of the things in themselves and upon which account alone it is that many of the Episcopal that is to say the true English Protestant Divines who sadly resent the voting down of the Liturgy Festivals and Cremonies of the Church by so many former Laws established heartily desired heretofore the continuance and as heartily still wish the restitution and are by Gods help ready with their Tongues Pens and Sufferings to maintain and justifie the Lawful use of the same do yet so far yield to the sway of the Times and are perswaded they may with a good Conscience so do as to forbear the use thereof in the publick Worship till it shall seem good to those that are in place of Authority either to restore them to their former state as it is well hoped when they shall have duly considered the evil consequents of that Vote they will or at leastwise and in the mean time to leave them arbitrary for men according to their several different judgments to use or not to use which seemeth but reasonable the like favour and liberty in other kinds having been long allowed to almost all other sorts of men though of never so distant perswasions one from another Lastly That all Laws made concerning Ceremonies or other indifferent things whether Civil or Ecclesiastical are mutable and as they were at first made by Humane Authority so may they from time to time be by humane Authority abrogated and repealed And then and thenceforth they lose their obligation whereby the
necessity of yielding obedience thereunto wholly ceaseth and determineth and the things thereby commanded or prohibited return to their primitive and natural indifferency even in their Use also and in respect of us This is clearly our Opinion and men may easily so understand us if they will § XIV But their Opinion is that the things enjoyned are Popish and Superstitious and consequently unlawful to be used And this they render as the reason of their Non-conformity And the Reason were certainly good if the Opinion were true For the Popishness first unless we should sue out a Writ de finibus regendis it will be hard to find out a way how to bring this Controversie to an issue much less to an end the term hath been so strangely extended and the limits thereof if yet it have any so uncertain If they would be entreated to set bounds to what they mean by Popish and Popery by giving us a certain definition of it we should the sooner either come to some agreement or at least understand our selves and one another the better wherein and how far we disagreed In the mean time it is to me a wonder that if reason would not heretofore yet the sad experience of the ill consequents so visible of late time should not have taught them all this while to consider what infinite advantage they give to the Romish party to work upon weak and wavering souls by damning so many things under the name of Popery which may to their understandings be sufficiently evidenced Some to have been used by the ancient Christians long before Popery was hatched or but in the Egg and All to have nothing of Superstition or Popery in them unless every thing that is used in the Church of Rome become thereby Popish and Superstitious Nor what great advantage they give to our newer Sectaries to extend the name yet farther Who by the help of their New-Lights can discern Popery not only in the Ceremonies formerly under debate but even in the Churches and Pulpits wherein they used to Preach against Popery and the Bells wherewith they used to call the people together to hear them These are by some of them cry'd down as Popish with other things very many which their Presbyterian Brethren do yet both allow and practise though how long they will so do is uncertain if they go on with the Work of Reformation they have begun with as quick dispatch and at the rate they have done these last two seven years The having of God-fathers at Baptism Churching of Women Prayers at the burial of the dead Children asking their Parents blessing c. which whilome were held innocent are now by very many thrown aside as rags of Popery Nay are not some gone so far already as to cast into the same heap not only the ancient hymn Gloria Patri for the repeating whereof alone some have been deprived of all their livelihoods and the Apostles Creed but even the use of the Lords Prayer it self And what will ye do in the end thereof And what would you have us do in the mean time when you call hard upon us to leave our Popery and yet would never do us the favour to let us know what it is It were good therefore both for your own sakes that you may not rove in infinitum and in compassion to us that you would give us a perfect boundary of what is Popery now with some Prognostication or Ephemerides annexed if you please whereby to calculate what will be Popery seven years hence § XV. But to be serious and not to indulge my self too much merriment in so sad a business I believe all those men will be found much mistaken who either measure the Protestant Religion by an opposition to Popery or account all Popery that is taught or practised in the Church of Rome Our godly Fore-fathers to whom under God we owe the purity of our Religion and some of which laid down their lives for the defence of the same were sure of another mind if we may from what they did judge what they thought They had no purpose nor had they any warrant to sâ—t up a new Religion but to reform the Old by purging it from those Innovations which in tract of time some sooner some later had mingled with it and corrupted it both in the Doctrine and Worship According to this purpose they produced without constraint or precipitancy freely and advisedly as in peaceable times and brought their intentions to a happy end as by the result thereof contained in the Articles and Liturgy of our Church and the Prefaces thereunto doth fully appear From hence chiefly as I conceive we are to take our best scantling whereby to judge what is and what is not to be esteemed Popery All those Doctrines then held by the modern Church of Rome which are either contrary to the written Word of God or but super-added thereunto as necessary Points of Faith to be of all Christians believed under pain of damnation and all those Superstitions used in the worship of God which either are unlawful as being contrary to the Word or being not contrary and therefore arbitrary and indifferent are made Essentials and imposed as necessary parts of Worship these are as I take it the things whereunto the name of Popery doth properly and peculiarly belong But as for the Ceremonies used in the Church of Rome which the Church of England at the Reformation thought fit to retain not as Essential or necessary parts of Gods Service but only as accidental and mutable circumstances attending the same for order comliness and edification sake how these should deserve the name of Popish I so little understand that I profess I do not yet see any reason why if the Church had then thought fit to have retained some other of those which were then laid aside she might not have lawfully so done or why the things so retained should have been accounted Popish The plain truth is this The Church of England meant to make use of her liberty and the lawful power she had as all the Churches of Christ have or ought to have of ordering Ecclesiastical Affairs here yet to do it with so much prudence and moderation that the World might see by what was laid aside that she acknowledged no subjection to the See of Rome and by what was retained that she did not recede from the Church of Rome out of any spirit of contradiction but as necessitated thereunto for the maintenance of her just liberty The number of Ceremonies was also then very great and they thereby burdensome and so the number thought fit to be lessened But for the Choice which should be kept and which not that was wholly in her power and at her discretion Whereof though she were not bound so to do yet hath she given a clear and satisfactory account in one of the Prefaces usually prefixed before the Book of Common-Prayer § XVI Besides this of Popish they
have bestowed also upon the Ceremonies the Epithet of Superstitious Which is a word likewise as the former of late very much extended and standeth in need of a Boundary too and a definition as well as it But howsoever they do with the words I must needs set bounds to my discourse lest I weary the Reader The point of Superstition I have had occasion to touch upon more than once as I remember in some of these Sermons and proved that the Superstition lyeth indeed at their door not ours They forbid the things commanded by the Church under the obligation of Sin and that Obligation arising not from their forbidding them but from the things themselves which they judge to be unlawful and thence impose upon all men a necessity of not using them which is Superstition Whereas the Church requires obedience indeed to her Commands and that also under the obligation of Sin but that obligation arising not at all from the nature of the things themselves always held and declared Indifferent but immediately from the Authority of the Superior commanding the thing and originally from the Ordinance of God commanding Obedience to Superiors as already hath been said and this is not Superstition For further satisfaction therefore in this matter referring the Reader to the Sermons themselves I shall only by way of addition represent to the Objectors St. Paul's demeanor at Athens Where finding the City full of Idols or wholly given to Idolatry he doth not yet fall foul upon them nor exclaim against them in any reproachful manner no nor so much as call them Idolaters though they were such and that in a very high degree but tempering his Speeches with all lenity and condescension he telleth them only of their Superstition and that in the calmest manner too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the comparative degree in such kind of speaking being usually taken for a diminuent term How distant are they from his Example with whom every thing they mislike is presently an Idol Christmas day an Idol the Surplice an Idol the Cross after Baptism a great Idol the Common-Prayer Book an abominable Idol When yet if the worst that can be said against them were granted the most it could amount to is but Superstition and till that be granted which must not be till it be well proved it is more childish than manly to cry out Superstition Superstition § XVII Their next is a Suspicion rather than Objection and that upon no very good ground But Charity is not easily suspicious nor without cause Wherein I have somewhat to say in behalf of my self and other my Brethren and somewhat by way of return to them For my self I had a desire I may truly say almost from my very Childhood to understand as much as was possible for me the bottom of our Religion and particularly as it stood in relation both to the Papists and as they were then stiled Puritans to inform my self rightly wherein consisted the true differences between them and the Church of England together with the grounds of those differences For I could even then observe which was no hard matter to do that the most of mankind took up their Religion upon trust as Custom or Education had framed them rather than choice It pleased God in his goodness to afford me some opportunities suitable to that my desire by means whereof and by his good blessing I attained to understand so much of the Romish Religion as not only to dislike it but to be able to give some rational account why I so do And I doubt not but these very Sermons were there nothing else to do it will sufficiently free me from the least suspicion of driving on any design for Rome As for those other regular Sons of the Church of England that have appeared in this Controversie on her behalf how improbable and so far forth uncharitable the suspicion is that they should be any way instrumental towards the promoting of the Papal Interest may appear amongst other by these few Considerations following 1. That those very persons who were under God the Instruments of freeing us from the Roman Yoke by casting Popery out of the Church and sundry of them Martyred in the cause those very Persons I say were great favourers of these now accounted Popish Ceremonies and the chief Authors or Procurers of the Constitutions made in that behalf Hae manus Trojam erigent 2. That in all former times since the beginning of the Reformation our Archbishops and Bishops with their Chaplains and others of the Prelatical Party many of them such as have written also in defence of the Church against the Puritans were the Principal I had almost said the only Champions to maintain the Cause of Religion against the Papists 3. That even in these times of so great distraction and consequently thereunto of so great advantage to the Factors for Rome none have stept into the gap more readily nor appeared in the face of the Enemy more openly nor maintained the Fight with more stoutness and Gallantry than the Episcopal Divines have done as their late learned Writings testifie Yea and some of them such as beside their other sufferings have lain as deep under the suspicion of being Popishly-affected as any other of their Brethren whosoever 4. That by the endeavours of these Episcopal Divines some that were bred Papists have been gained to our Church others that began to waver confirmed and setled in their old Religion and some that were fallen from us recovered and reduced notwithstanding all the disadvantages of these confused times and of each of these I am able to produce some instance But I profess sincerely as in the presence of God and before the World that I have not known at least I cannot call to remembrance so much as one single Example of any of this done by any of our Anti-Ceremonian Brethren whether Presbyterian or Independent § XVIII But I have somewhat to return upon these our Brethren who thus causelesly suspect us Possible it will not please them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I must speak it out both for the truths sake and theirs To wit that themselves are in truth though not purposely and intentionally whereof in my own thought I freely acquit them yet really and eventually the great promoters of the Roman Interest among us and that more ways than one These three among the rest are evident First by putting to their helping hand to the pulling down of Episcopacy It is very well known to many what rejoycing that Vote brought to the Romish party How even in Rome it self they sang their Io-â—aeans upon the tydings thereof and said triumphantly Now the day is ours Now is the fatal blow given to the Protestant Religion in England They who by conversing much with that Nation were well acquainted with the fiery turbulent spirits of the Scottish Presbyterians knew as well how to make their advantage
the main Foundation upon which so many false conclusions are built and the fountain from which so many acts of sinful disobedience issue would well deserve a full and through examination But this Preface being already swollen far beyond the proportion I first intended and for that I have heretofore both in one of the Sermons and else where discovered in part the unsoundness thereof I am the willinger both for mine own ease and the Readers to refer him over thither and to spare mine own farther labour here Considering Thirdly that in the present case we need not flinch for fear of any harm that Principle could do us should it be admitted as sound as they would have it For we have both Commands and Examples in the Scriptures to warrant both the prescribing and the using of the Ceremonies Though not as specified in their particulars yet as either comprehended in the General or inferred by way of proportion Which kind of Warranty from Scripture themselves are by force of argument driven to allow as sufficient or else they would be at a loss for a hundred things by them daily done upon no better or other Warrant than that For Commands then we have besides that grand Canon 1 Cor. 14. 40. Let all things be done decently and according to order all those Texts that either contain the right and liberty we have to all the Creatures of God to use them for our service without scruple All things are lawful nothing unclean of it self To the pure all things are pure c. or require Subjection and Obedience to Superiors Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers Submit to every Ordinance of man c. And as for Example I think I could readily produce a full Score and not bate an Ace of some Ceremonies and circumstantial actions ordered used or done by holy men even in the Old Testament who yet were more strictly tyed to prescript forms than Christians are under the Gospel for the doing whereof it doth not appear that they either had any Command from God or were guided by any former Precedents or expected any other Warrant than the use of their Reason and of prudential Discourse what Warrant else had David for his purpose of building a Temple to God which yet Nathan the Prophet of God approved yea which God himself approved of Or what Solomon for keeping a Feast of seven days for the Dedication of the Altar Or what Ezekiah for continuing the Feast of unleavened bread seven days longer than the time appointed by the Law Or what Mordecai and Esther for making an Ordinance for the yearly observation of the Feast of Purim Or what lastly Iudas and the Maccabees for ordaining the Feast of the Dedication of the Altar to be kept from year to year at a set season for eight dayes together which Solemnity continued even in the days of Christ and seemeth to have been by him approved in the Gospel The building of Synagogues in their Towns the wearing of Sack-cloth and Ashes in token of humiliation the four Fasts mentioned Zach. 8. whereof one only was commanded with sundry other I omit for brevity's sake Instances enough and pregnant enough to manifest how very much our Brethren deceive themselves by resting upon so unsound a Principle and that upon a meer mistake as will appear presently by § XXI Their Eighth and last Objection Wherein they seem to lay an imputation upon all those that stand for the Ceremonies as if they consequently denyed the sufficiency of the Scriptures For answer hereunto First it is freely confessed that the acknowledging of the Holy Scriptures to be a perfect Rule of Faith and Manners is the main Article of the Protestant Religion as opposed to the Romish But that all that stand for the Ceremonies should deny the same is so manifestly untrue or indeed that some of the Church of England should deny that which is so clearly contained in the Articles of the Church whereunto he hath subscribed so improbable that it might well pass for a perfect Calumny were not the original occasion of their mistake herein so apparent if but even from the manner of their Discourse in the present business The true state whereof Secondly is this The things wherein the power of Christianity consisteth are of two sorts Credenda and Agenda which we usually express by Faith and Manners And the Scripture we acknowledge to be a perfect Rule of Both yet not as excluding the use of Reason but supposing it When God gave us the light of his holy Word he left us as he found us reasonable creatures still without any purpose by the gift of that greater and sublimer Light to put out the Light he had formerly given us that of Reason or to render it useless and unserviceable Of which Light the proper use and that which God intended it for when he gave it us is that by the help thereof we might be the better enabled to discern Truth from Falshood that we might embrace the one and reject the other and Good from Evil that we might do the one and shun the other Our Reason therefore is doubtless a good Rule both for things to be believed and for things to be done so far as it reacheth but no perfect Rule at all rather a very imperfect one because it reacheth not home To supply the defects whereof dim as it is even in Natural and Moral things but dark as darkness it self in things Supernatural and Divine it was that it pleased the wisdom and goodness of our God to afford us another Light Viz. that of supernatural revelation in his holy Word without which we could never by the light of Reason alone have found out the right way that leadeth to eternal Happiness So that God having first made us reasonable Creatures and then vouchsafed us his holy Word to instruct us what we are to believe and to do either as Men or as Christians We are now furnished with as perfect absolute and sufficient a Rule both of Faith and Manners as our condition in this life is capable of And it is our duty accordingly to resign our selves wholly to be guided by that Word yet making use of our Reason withal in subordination and with submission thereunto as a perfect Rule both of Faith and Life This being clearly so and the Scripture by consent of both parties acknowledged to be the perfect Rule of what we are to believe as well as of what we are to do I earnestly desire our Brethren to consider what should hinder a Christian man from doing any thing that by the meer use of his Reason alone he may rightly judge to be lawful and expedient though it be not commanded or exampled in the Scriptures so as it be not contrary thereunto more than from believing any thing that by the like use of his Reason alone he may rightly judge to be true
Only I may not dissemble what my own fears have long been and yet are That if things shall still go on according as they have begun and hitherto proceeded the application that some have made of that passage Iohn 11. 48. Venient Romani capient gentem nostram will prove but too true a Prophecy and Popery will over-run all at the last Whether there be just cause so to fear or no I leave it to wiser men to judge when together with what hath been already said concerning the great scandals and advantages given to the Papists by our confusions they shall have duly considered the probability of what I shall now farther say It is a wonder to see in how short a time our Anti-ceremonian Brethren are strangely both multiplied and divided multiplied in their number but divided by their opinions and subdivided into so many several tribes and familes that their power is nothing so much encreased by that multiplication as it is weakned by these divisions In as much as many of those Sects into which they have spread and diffused themselves are not more opposite to the Truth the only property wherein they all agree than they are one to another in so far that the establishment of any one cannot be but by the destruction of all or most of the rest This experience giveth us to see How impossible a thing it is they should long hold together in one entire body for their own preservation But whilest they are still crumbling into fractions and factions biting and ready to devour one another a vigilant adversary that is intent upon all advantages and opportunities may when he spieth his time over-master them with much ease and little resistance Whereas the Papists on the other side are by the very nature as I may say of their Religion and the fundamental Principle thereof viz. To believe as the Church believeth tyed together in a fast unity among themselves against all opposers of their Church or of any point of Faith designed by the Church So that these holding altogether as an imbodied Army and those dispersed abroad in scattered troops and many small parties Who is like to become Master of the Field is no hard matter to judge Neither will the supposed and I fear truly supposed greater number of Atheists than either Papists or Sectaries be any hinderance to the Papists for finally prevailing Because it is not for the interest of the Atheist and his Religion pardon the boldness of the Catachresis to engage either for or against any side farther than a jeer But to let them fight it out keep himself quiet till they have done and then clap in with him that getteth the day He that is of no Religion can make a shift to be of any rather than suffer And the Atheist though he be in truth and in heart neither Protestant nor Papist nor any thing else yet can he be in face and outward comportment either Protestant or Papist or any thing else Iew or Turk if need be as will best serve his present turn That this is their mind some of them in a bravery have given us to understand plainly enough and in print § XXIV And is it not high time then trow we to look about us Hannibal ad portas When the danger is so great and so near withal even at the door shall we be so wretchlesly wilful as neither to open our eyes to see it our selves nor endure with patience that any body else should tell us of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What I have now said how it will be taken I know not Prophets are seldom welcome that prophesie unwelcome things But truly at the sad apprehension of the dangerous condition we now stand in and in zeal for the safety and honour of my dear Mother the Church of England which hath nourished me up to become a Christian and a Protestant that is to say a pure pute Christian without any other addition or Epithete my heart waxed hot within me and the fire so kindled that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I could not forbear but upon the first opportunity offered once more to give Vent thereunto by laying open the second time my inmost thoughts to the view of the World Which I have done with the greatest plainness and freedom that avoiding bitterness was possible for me to do I was willing to sharpen my style I confess that it might enter as it was but needful where the skin was callous But with the only intention as the great Searcher of all hearts knoweth by putting the Patient to a little smart at the first piercing of the Sore to give future ease to the part affected and not at all by angering the Sore to make it worse With which Protestation I hope the more sober among them will rest satisfied I mean the Moderate Presbyterian especially Of which sort I know many whom I verily believe to be godly and conscientious men though in error and whom I therefore love and honour These are the only adversaries in this controversie whose spirits are in a disposition and capacity to be wrought upon in a rational way As for the rest I mean the rigid Scotised through-paced Presbyterian on the one side and the giddy Enthusiast on the other such is their either obstinacy or madness that it is vain to think of doing any good upon them by argument till it shall please God to make them of more humble and teachable spirits I entreat the Reader if he shall meet with any thing herein written that hath any bitterness in it or but sharpness more than one that would deal plainly cannot avoid that he would take it as meant against these last only and not at all against those of the former rank whom I never meant to exasperate Hear the conclusion of the whole matter Read without gall or prejudice Let not truth fare the worse for the Plainness Catch not at Syllables and Phrases Study and seek the Churches peace Judge not anothers servant who must stand and fall to his own Master Keep Faith and a good Conscience Bear one anothers Burdens and so fulfil the Law of Christ. Consider what hath been said and pray to the Lord to give us all a right understanding in all things Amen Amen Botheby Paynell July 13. MDCLVII Placere singulis volam sed ut prosim Nec displicere metuam dummodo prosim Scazon THE SUMMARY of CONTENTS Of the several ensuing SERMONS Sermon I. Ad Clerum on Rom. 14. 3. Sect. 1. THE Occasion of the TEXT 2 Scope of the TEXT 3 Coherence of the TEXT 4 and Division of the TEXT 5 POINT I. Of not Despising others 6 Be they never so weak 7 and we never so strong 8 Both for the Sins sake to the Despisers 9 and for the Scandals sake in the Despised 10-11 POINT II. Of not Judging others 12 with the true meaning thereof And four Reasons 13 viz. 1. The want of Commission
distracted in Opinions to declare himself expresly either for them or against them If they be utterly unlawful and he know it so how is he not bound in conscience to reprove those that use them or require them Otherwise he betrayeth the truth of God by his silence and suffereth men to go on in their superstition without rebuke But if he be sufficiently resolved of their lawfulness how is he not bound in conscience to reprove those that refuse them or oppose them Otherwise he betrayeth the peace of the Church by his silence and suffereth men to go on in their disobedience without rebuke Nay more every Minister that hath received Pastoral Charge hath twice or thrice if not oftener witnessed his allowance of all and singular the 39. Articles of the Church of England Once at his Ordination before the Bishop then at his Institution into his Benefice before his Ordinary and both these by Subscription under his Hand and then after upon his Induction before his own Flock and that by verbal Approbation By which Subscription and Approbation he hath not only acknowledged in the Church the power of ordaining Rites and Ceremonies Artic. 20. but he hath after a sort also bound himself openly to rebuke such as willingly and purposely break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church as offenders against the common Orders of the Church and wounders of the consciences of the weak Brethren Artic. 34. He then that for any respect whatsoever is meal-mouth'd in these things wherein he is bound both in Conscience and by virtue of his own voluntary Act to speak freely neither is constant to his own hand and tongue nor is faithful in Gods House as was Moses in discharging a good Conscience and revealing unto his people the whole Counsel of God Thus have I endeavoured having the opportunity of this place as I held my self both in Conscience and in regard of my Subscription bound to deliver my Opinion freely so far as my Text gave occasion concerning the Ceremonial Constitutions of our Church and therein laboured to free not only the Conformer from all unjust censures but even the Non-conformer also so far as he hath reason to expect it from all scandalous despisings I beseech you pardon my length if I have been troublesome I had much to say and the matter was weighty and I desired to give some satisfaction in it to those that are contrary-minded and I have no purpose for any thing I know at all to trouble this place any more hereafter Let us all now humbly beseech Almighty God to grant a blessing to what hath been presently taught and heard that it may work in the hearts of us all charitable affections one towards another due obedience to lawful Authority and a conscionable care to walk in our several Callings faithfully painfully and peaceably to the comfort of our own Souls the edification of God's Church and the glory of the ever blessed Trinity the Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Persons and One God To whom be ascribed by us and the whole Church as is most due the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen AD CLERUM The Second Sermon At a Visitation at Boston Lincoln 24 th April 1621. ROM III. 8. And not rather as we be slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say Let us do evil that good may come whose damnation is just A Little before at the fourth Verse St. Paul had delivered a Conclusion sound and comfortable and strengthned it from David's both experience and testimony in Psal. 51. A place pregnant and full of sinews to inforce it The Conclusion in effect was That Nothing in Man can annul the Covenant of God Neither the original unworthiness of God's Children through the universal corruption of Nature nor their actual unfaithfulness bewrayed through frailty in particular trials can alienate the free love of God from them or cut them off from the Covenant of Grace but that still God will be glorified in the truth and faithfulness of his promises notwithstanding any unrighteousness or unfaithfulness in Man But never yet was any Truth so happily innocent as to maintain it self free from Calumny and Abuse Malice on the one hand and Fleshliness on the other though with different aims yet do the same Work They both pervert the Truth by drawing pestilent Corollaries from sound Conclusions as the Spider sucketh poyson from medicinable Herbs But with this difference Malice slandereth the Truth to discountenance it but Fleshliness abuseth the Truth to countenance it self by it The cavilling Sophister he would fain bring the Apostles gracious Doctrine into Discredit The carnal Libertine he would as fain bring his own ungracious behaviour into credit Both by making false yet colourable Inferences from the former Conclusion There are three of those Inferences but never a good The First If so then cannot God in reason and justice take vengeance of our unrighteousness The Colour for why should he punish us for that which so much magnifieth and commendeth his righteousness But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God what shall we say Is God unrighteous that taketh vengeance The Second Inference If so then it is unjust either in God or Man to condemn us as sinners for breaking the Law The Colour for why should that action be censured of sin which so abundantly redoundeth to the glory of God For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lye unto his glory why yet am I also judged as a sinner The Third and last and worst Inference If so then it is a good and wise resolution Let us sin freely and boldly commit evil The Colour for why should we fear to do that from which so much good may come In this Verse of my Text And not rather let us do evil that good may come This last cavilling Inference the Apostle in this Verse both bringeth in and casteth out again bringeth in as an objection and casteth out by his answer An answer which at once cutteth off both it and the former Inferences And the Answer is double Ad rem ad hominem That concerneth the force and matter of the Objection this the state and danger of the Objectors Ad rem in the former part of the Verse And not rather as we be slanderously reported and us some affirm that we say Let us do evil that good may come Ad hominem in the latter end Whose damnation is just In the former part there is an Objection and the Rejection of it The Objection And not rather Let us do evil that good may come The Rejection thereof with a Non sequitur implying not only the bare inconsequence of it upon the Apostles conclusion but withal and especially the falsness and unsoundness of it taken by it self As we be slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say Let us do
to be cried down and condemned under the name of Will-worship nor doth it come within the compass of our Saviours reproof in this place If Ionadab had laid an obligation upon the Consciences of the Rechabites not to drink wine by telling them that for Conscience sake towards God they ought to abstain therefrom or if the Iewish Elders and Governors leaving the Consciences of the People free had only made a Law under some penalty for decency and cleanliness sake that no Man should sit down to Meat in publick with unwashen hands to my seeming had he then been guilty of this Pharisaical superstition and they free In brief then to conclude this Enquiry To lay an obligation either upon the judgements or consciences of Men in point of opinion or practice which God hath not laid that and nothing but that is to teach for doctrines the commandments of men 9. We have yet a third thing to be enquired of for the Explication of the words namely how and in what respect they that teach such Doctrines may be said to worship God in vain The Ambiguity of our English word Worship hath occasioned many Errors among Divines and mis-understandings of one anothers words and writings whereby the disputes and controversies about Worship are become of all other the most intricate and perplexed The Hebrews and the Greeks too have sundry words and those of distinct notions and significations which we in English for want of fitter expressions are fain to translate promiscuously by this one word Worship The Greek words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the word here used are all indifferently rendred worshipping Here according to the notion of the Greek word it properly signifieth the performance of some Religious or devout act with an intention to honour God thereby Whereby it appeareth that these Pharisees placed a great part of their Religion in the observation of these Traditions of mens divising and flattered themselves with this conceit That they did God a great deal of honour in so doing and that therefore he could not choose but be marvellous well pleased with them for so doing By long accustoming themselves to which like outward observances they had almost lost the vigor and soul of true Religion which consisteth in the inward Reverence and Devotion of the heart and had little other left than the bare carcase or empty outside thereof and that also patcht and pieced up for the most part with the devices and inventions of men 10. And this our Saviour now telleth them is Worship in vain He saith so indeed but hath he any Text for it The place he citeth is in Isa. 29. 13. where the words according to the Original run but thus Their fear towards me is taught by the precept of men but that it is vain the Prophet doth not there say He doth not say it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in those very words according to the Hebrew but the scope of the place importeth all that and more For God there threatneth to punish the People for such worship which he would not have done if he had been either pleased with it or honoured by it But the very word and all is so found even as our Saviour citeth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Septuagint there which being the most common and received Translation in those days was therefore for the most part followed by Christ and his Apostles in their quotations especially where it swerved not very much in sence from the Original Now a thing is said to be done in vain when it hath not that wished effect which the doer intended and expected Those Pharisees then intending by those superstitious Will-worships to honour God and hopeing to please him therewithal when their expectations should be so far frustrated that God should all on the contrary profess himself dishonoured and displeased thereby it must needs be acknowledged that this their Will-worship was all in vain Certainly God will reject what himself hath forbidden and he hath forbidden and that both frequently and with the severest interminations all manner of Will-worship of this kind and properly so called and all additions of Men unto his holy Word 11. In the several parts of the Text thus opened we may see the full meaning of the whole God will not approve of nor accept any Wit-worship or Will-worship forged or devised by Man with an Opinion as if it were a necessary part of Gods service nor allow of any Doctrine that tendeth to bind the Iudgments or Consciences of his people further than he hath thought fit himself to bind them by the expresses of his Word He will when time serveth root out every plant which is not of his own planting And when the day is come which shall declare by a fiery Trial every mans work of what sort it is the Gold and Silver and precious Stones shall abide the fire and the Workman that built with such good stuff shall receive a blessed reward But he that buildeth Wood or Hay or Stubble though by the great mercy of God he himself may pass through the fire and be saved with some difficulty so long as he holdeth fast the foundation which is Christ and his merits yet he shall suffer loss in his work however That shall be sure to burn and perish whatsoever becometh of him All that fear of God is but superstitious and vain that is taught by the Precepts and Commandments of men 12. From the Explication of the Text hitherto I come now to the Application of it Wherein I doubt not by Gods help but to make clear to the judgment of any Man that is not either uncapable through ignorance or fore-possessed with prejudice these three things First that the Papists are guilty of the Pharisaical Superstition and Will-worship here condemned Secondly that the Church of England and her regular and Obedient Children are not guilty of the same Thirdly that those Divines and others in the Church of England that so undutifully charge her therewithal are in truth themselves inexcusably guilty of that very Crime whereof they unjustly accuse her 13. First for the Papists That they are the right children and successors of the Pharisees no Man that rightly understandeth the Tenets of the Romish Church but will easily grant if he shall duly consider what a mass of humane Traditions both in point of belief and worship are imposed upon the judgments and consciences of all that may be suffered to live in the visible Communion of that Church and that with opinion of necessity and under pain of Damnation The Popes Supremacy Worshipping of Images Invocation of Saints and Angels the Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass Purgatory the seven Sacraments Transubstantiation Adoration of the Host Communion under one kind Private Masses forbidding Priests Marriage Monastical Vows Prayer in an unknown Tongue Auricular Confession All these and I know not how many more are such as even by the
course for the time and to wait God's leisure and a farther opportunity And if after some reasonable expectation upon further tender with modest importunity he cannot yet hope to prevail he must begin to resolve of another Course submit himself to Authority and Order acknowledge God's Providence in it possess his soul in patience and think that for some secret corruption in himself or for some other just cause God is pleased that he should not or not yet enter into that Calling On the other side a Gentleman liveth in his Country in good credit and account known to be a sufficient man both for Estate and Understanding thought every way fit to do the King and his Country service in the Commission of the Peace yet himself either out of a desire to live at ease and avoid trouble or because he thinketh he hath as much business of his own as he can well turn him to without charging himself with the cares of the publick or possibly out of a privy conscientiousness to himself of some defect as it may be an Irresolution in Iudgment or in Courage or too great a propension to foolish pity or for some other reason which appeareth to him just thinketh not that a fit Calling for him and rather desireth to be spared But for so much as it is not fit a man should be altogether his own Judge especially in things that concern the Publick he must herein depend upon those to whom the power of sparing or imposing in this kind is committed He may excuse himself by his other many occasions alledge his own wants and insufficiences and what he can else for himself and modestly crave to be spared But if he cannot by fair and honest sute get off he must submit himself to Authority and Order yield somewhat to the Iudgment of others think that God hath his secret work in it and rest upon the warrant of his outward Calling The outward Calling then is not a thing of a small moment or to be lightly regarded Sometimes as in the case last proposed it may have the chief and the casting voice but where it hath least it hath always a Negative in every regular choice of any Calling or Course of life And it is this outward Calling which I say not principally but even alone must rule every ordinary Christian in the judging of other mens Callings We cannot see their hearts we know not how God might move them we are not able to judge of their inward Callings If we see them too neglectful of the duties of their Calling if we find their Gifts hold very short and unequal proportion with the weight of their Calling or the like we have but little comfortable assurance to make us confident that all is right within But yet unless it be such as are in place of Authority and Office to examine mens sufficiences and accordingly to allow or disallow them what hath any of us to do to judge the heart or the Conscience or the inward Calling of our Brother So long as he hath the warrant of an orderly outward Calling we must take him for such as he goeth for and leave the trial of his heart to God and to his own heart And of this second general point the choice of a Calling thus far Remaineth now the third and last point proposed The Use of a Mans calling Let him walk in it vers 17. Let him abide in it ver 20. Let him abide therein with God here in my Text. At this I aimed most in my choice of this Text and yet of this I must say least Preachers oft-times do with their proposals as Parents sometimes do with their Children though they love the later as well yet the first go away with the largest portions But I do not well to trifle out that little sand I have left in Apologies let us rather on to the matter and see what Duties our Apostle here requireth of us under these Phrases of abiding in our Callings and abiding therein with God It may seem he would have us stick to a Course and when we are in a Calling not to forsake it nor change it no not for a better no not upon any terms Perhaps some have taken it so but certainly the Apostle never meant it so For taking the word Calling in that extent wherein he treateth of it in this Chapter if that were his meaning he should consequently teach that no single man might marry nor any Servant become free which are apparently contrary both unto common Reason and unto the very purpose of the Chapter But taking the word as we have hitherto specially intended it and spoken of it for some setled Station and Course of Life whereby a man is to maintain himself or wherein to do profitable service to human Society or both is it yet lawful for a man to change it or is he bound to abide in it perpetually without any possibility or liberty to alter his course upon any terms I answer it is lawful to change it so it be done with due caution It is lawful first in subordinate Callings For where a man cannot warrantably climb unto an higher but by the steps of an inferiour Calling there must needs be supposed a lawfulness of relinquishing the inferiour How should we do for Generals for the Wars if Colonels and Lieutenants and Captains and common Soldiers might not relinquish their charges and how for Bishops in the Church if beneficed-men and College-Governours were clench'd and riveted to their Cures like a Nail in a sure place not to be removed Nay we should have no Priests in the Church of England since a Priest must be a Deacon first if a Deacon might not leave his Station and become a Priest But St. Paul saith They that have used the Office of a Deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree and so in lower Callings it is that men should give proof of their worthiness for higher It is lawful secondly yea necessary when the very Calling it self though in it self good and useful doth yet by some accident become unlawful or unuseful As when some Manufacture is prohibited by the State or when some more exact device of later Invention hath made the old unprofitable It is lawful thirdly when a man by some accident becometh unable for the duties of his Calling as by Age Blindness maim decay of Estate and sundry other impediments which daily occur It is lawful fourthly where there is a want of sufficient men or not a sufficient number of them in some Callings for the necessities of the State and Country in such cases Authority may interpose and cull out men from other Callings such as are fit and may be spared to serve in those Not to branch out too many particulars it is lawful generally where either absolute Necessity enforceth it or lawful Authority enjoyneth it or a concurrence of weighty Circumstances
upon a little in the 8. Sermon Ad Aulam towards the latter end but it is very needful to be better understood than it is considering the ill use that hath been made of Scripture-examples both in former and much more in these our later times 11. Secondly I beseech them to consider whereof also I have given some touch more than once in the ensuing Sermons what scandal is given and what advantage to the Anabaptists Familists Quakers and the whole crue of our modern Sectaries by what other name or title soever they are called or distinguished When this gap was once opened What Command have you in Scripture or what Example for this or that Un◠Eurusque Notusque it was like the opening of Pandora's Box or the Trojan Horse As if all had been let loose swarms of Sectaries of all sorts broke in and as the Frogs and Locusts in Egypt overspred the face of the Land Nor so only but as often it hapneth these young Striplings soon outstript their Leaders and that upon their own ground leaving those many Parasangs behind them who had first shewed them the way and made entrance for them For as those said to others What Commands or Example have you for kneeling at the Communion For wearing a Surplice c. For Lord Bishops For a penned Liturgy For keeping Holy-days c. and there stopt So these to them Where are your Lay-Presbyters your Classes c. to be found in Scripture Where your Steeple-houses your National Church Your Tithes and Mortuaries Your Infant-sprinklings Nay where your Metre-Psalms Your two Sacraments Your observing a weekly Sabbath for so far I find they are gone and how much farther I know not already and how much farther they will hereafter for Erranti nullus terminus God only knoweth shew us say they a Command or Example for them in Scripture Fugerunt trepidi vera manifesta loquentem Stoïcidae Thus do these pay them home in their own metal and how the pay can be honestly refused till they order their Mintage better I yet understand not If any of them shall say with him in the Satyrist haec ego nunquam Mandavi dices olim nec talia suasi the reply is ready in the next verse there Mentis causa malae tamen est origo penes te I doubt not but many of those that made a stand sooner are highly displeased with those that rush on headlong and adventured farther yea and it may be declaim against them with some vehemency both in the Pulpit and Press But truly no great reason if they lent them their Premisses to fall out with them about the Conclusion The Master in the Fable did not well to beat his Maid for serving him with thin Milk when it was his own Cow that gave it For why should he that giveth another Scandal be angry with him for taking it Or he that helpeth to set it on tumbling down the hill blame the stone if it tumble on still Ex virtute impressâ and do not stop just where he would have it so mischievous a thing is it as Aristotle often observeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to lay the foundation upon a firm bottom at the first It had been best if this had been looked to sooner and from the beginning but better than not at all if it would be well considered yet and some remedy thought on to help it as much as may be before it grow past all hope of recovery 12. But thirdly and above all I beseech them to consider whether that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which many times marreth a good business hath carried them and how mightily though unwittingly and I verily believe most of them unwillingly they promote the Interest of Rome whilst they do with very great violence but not with equal prudence oppose against it so verifying that of the Historian Poet spoken in another case Omnia dat qui justa negat I mean in casting out not Ceremonies only but Episcopacy also and Liturgy and Festivals out of the Church as Popish and Antichristian Hoc Ithacus velit If any of these things be otherwise guilty and deserve such a regulation upon any other account which yet is more than I know farewel they but to be sent away packing barely upon this score that they are Popish and Antichristian this bringeth in such a plentiful harvest of Proselytes to the Iesuit that he doth not now as formerly gaudere intus in sinu laugh in his sleeve as we say but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 openly and in the face of the Sun triumph gloriously and in every Pamphlet proclaim his Victories to the World If you shall say that the Scandal is taken by them not given by you it is to all but your selves as much as nothing whilst the contrary is demonstrable and that there is in these very pretensions a proper and as I may say a natural tendency to produce such effects as we see to have ensued thereupon The truth whereof will evidently appear by stating the Case thus A man otherwise rational and conscientious but somewhat wavering in point of Religion yet desiring in sincerity of heart to be of the truer Church if he knew which were it hath some temptations offered him by his Education Friends Books the confusions among us or otherwise to incline him towards the Church of Rome Which temptations being not able of himself to conquer he repaireth to a Presbyterian suppose or Independent he acquainteth him with his doubts and desireth satisfaction therein telleth him among other things that he had a good opinion of the Church of England heretofore whilst she had Episcopal Government and a well-formed Liturgy and did observe Christian Festivals and some kind of outward decency in the worship of God as all the Churches of Christ had and did in the the purest and primitive times but now that all these things are laid aside he must needs be of another mind unless they can fully satisfie him concerning the premisses In this Case I would fain know what possible satisfaction such a man could receive from either of these holding to their Principles To tell him these things were Popish and therefore to be cast out of the Church were the next way to put him quite off he would presently conclude and it is impossible he should do otherwise being already so prepared as in the Case is supposed that certainly then that which we call Popery is the old Religion which in the purest and primitive times was professed in all Christian Churches throughout the World That only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is usually the last Reserve in these disputes That the mystery of iniquity began to work betimes will seem to him but a ridiculous begging of the Question and he will tell them that every Sectary may say the same to them Whereas the sober English Protestant is able by the Grace of God with much evidence of truth
and without forsaking his old Principles to justifie the Church of England from all imputations of Heresie or Schism and the Religion thereof as it stood by Law established from the like imputation of Novelty and to apply proper and pertinent answers to all the Objections of those whether Papists or others that are contrary minded to the full satisfaction of all such as have not by some partial affection or other rendred themselves uncapable to receive them 12. I confess I had no purpose as may appear by the beginning of my Preface when I set pen to paper to have said much if any thing at all of these matters But I had so very much more to say for the pressing of each of these three considerations and the business withal seemed to me of so much importance that after I had once begun I had much ado to repress my self from drawing this Preface into a yet far greater length But since I had thus adventured to unbowel my self and to lay open the yery inmost thoughts of my heart in this sad business before God and the world I shall hope to find so much charity from all my Christan Brethren as to shew me my Error if in any thing I have now said I be mistaken that I may retract it and to pardon those excesses in modo loquendi if they can observe any such which might possibly whilst I was passionately intent upon the matter unawares drop from my Pen. Civilities which we mutually owe one to another damus hanc veniam petimúsque vicissim Considering how hard a thing it is amidst so many passions and infirmities as our corrupt nature is subject to to do or say all that is needful in a weighty business and not in some thing or other to over-say or over-do Yet this I can say in sincerity of my heart and with Comfort that my desire was the nature of the business considered both to speak as plain and to offend as little as might be If I can approve my carriage herein to the judgment and consciences of sober and charitable men it will be some rejoycing to me but I am not hereby justified I must finally stand or fall to my own Master who is the only infallible Iudge of all mens hearts and ways Humbly I beseech him to look well if there be any way of wickedness or hypocrisie in me timely to cover it himself and discover it to me that it may be by his grace repented of and pardoned by his mercy by the same mercy and grace to guide my feet into the ways of Peace and Truth and to lead me in the way everlasting Decemb. 31. 1655. O be favourable and gracious unto Sion build thou the Walls of Ierusalem Repair the breaches thereof and make no long tarrying O Lord our Helper and our Redeemer ETIAM VENI DOMINE JESU The Reader is desired to take notice That the Eighteenth Sermon one of those mentioned by the Author in his Preface to have been formerly omitted is in this Impression added THE CONTENTS or SUMMARY Of the several ensuing SERMONS Sermon I. Ad Aulam on ECCLES vii 1. Sect. 1 FCclesiastes the Preachers Sermon 2 or Solomons Paradoxes 3-6 The use of Rhetorical Exornations in Sermons 7-10 THE WORDS OF THE TEXT severally explained 11-12 A good Name to be preferred before the most precious Oyntments As 13-14 -1. being a more peculiar blessing 15-16 -2. yielding more solid content 17-18 -3. enabling to worthier performances 19-22 -4. being of larger extention both for Place and Time 23-25 Yet not to be preferred before a good Conscience 26-27 THE INFERENCES 1. The sin of those that rob others of their good Names 28-29 -2. The folly of those that value any outward things above a good Name 30-31 -3. That it is not enough for a man that he can satisfie his own Conscience in what he doth But 32 -4. There ought to be a great care had also of preserving a good Name And that upon these 33 CONSIDERATIONS I. That it is our bounden Duty 34-5 -2. That by our care much may be done in it 36 -3. That a good name lost is of hard recovery 37 c. Some RULES OF DIRECTION tending as helps thereunto Sermon II. Ad Aulam on PROV xvi 7. Sect. 1. THe Sum and Division of THE TEXT 2 6 The Words in the former part of the Text explained 7 POINT I. The necessity of seeking to PLEASE God 8 9. both in point of Duty and Relations 10 11 and in point of Wisdom and Benefit 12 14 POINT II. God is pleased with our ways wherein he findeth 1. Conformity to his ways 15 16 2. and Obedience to his Will 17 notwithstanding their imperfection 18 1. as being his own work in us and 19 2. beholding them as in the face of Christ. 20 The Inference for comfort 21 The Words in the latter part of the Text explained 22 24 POINT III. God procureth the peace of those that please him 25 Their own endeavour subordinately concurring 26 8 A grand Objection removed 29 FOUR INFERENCES briefly touched 30 A FIFTH INFERENCE farther considered for the preventing of a double fallacy to wit 31 2 1. that of imputing our sufferings wholly to the injustice of others 32 4 2. that of thinking the better of our selves and our own ways because we have Enemies 35 The Conclusion Sermon III. Ad Aulam on 1 PET. ii 17. Sect 1 3. THe Scope and Division of THE TEXT 4 8 The Duty of HONOURING ALL MEN explained 9 10 and enforced by Reasons taken 1. from Justice 11 2. from Equity 12 14 3. from Religion 15 A REPROOF 1. of those that honour none but themselves 16 17 2. of those that honour none but their Superiors 18 c. 3. of those that limit the duty with a condition Si meruerint 24 26 Who are meant by THE BROTHERHOOD 37 c. and what by loving the brotherhood 30 Two grounds of this duty viz. 1. Their Goodness in themselves 31 c. their Nearness to us in sundry relations 36 c. We may in loving the Brethren prefer some 39 c. But not exclude any Sermon IV. Ad Aulam on PSALM xix 13. Sect. 1 3. A General view of the xix PSALM 4 6 The Scope and Division of the Text. 7 The reading considered and cleared 8 Of Presumption in General 9 11 Of the Sin of Presumption materially taken 12 14 From the distinction of Sins of Ignorance Infirmity and Presumption 15 18 Severally Exemplified 19 The nature of Presumptuous Sins declared 20 24 The heinousness of Presumptuous Sins declared by sundry Intimations in the Text 25 and by Reasons drawn partly from their Cause 26 27 partly from their evil Effects 1. before Repentance 28 2. at the time of Repentance 29 32 3. after Repentance 33 For the avoiding of Presumptuous Sins 34 with our Prayers to God 35 we are to joyn our own Endeavours Four Particular Rules for direction herein viz. 36 1. Do
perfection from Peace And then but not before shall Ierusalem be built as a City that is at unity in it self when they that build Ierusalem are at unity first among themselves 31. Consider fourthly what heartning is given and what advantage to the Enemy abroad whilst there are fractions and distractions at home Per discordias civiles externi tollunt animos said the Historian once of old Rome And it was the complaint of our Countrey-man Gildas uttered long since with much grief concerning the state of this Island then embroiled in Civil Wars Fortis ad civilia bella infirma ad retundenda hostium tela That by how much more her valour and strength was spent upon her self in the managing of intestine and domestick broils the more she laid her self open to the incursions and out-rages of forreign Enemies The common Enemies to the truth of Religion are chiefly Atheism and Superstition Atheism opposing it in the fore-front and Superstition on both hands If either of which at any time get ground of us as whilst we wrangle God knoweth what they may do we may thank our own contentions for it most We may cherish causless jealousies and frame chimera's of other matters and causes out of our fancies or fears But the very truth is there is no such scandal to enemies of all sorts as are our home differences and chiefly those which make it the sadder business that are about indifferent things Alas whereto serveth all this ado about gestures and vestures and other outward rites and formalities that for such things as these are things in their own nature indifferent and never intended to be otherwise imposed than as matters of circumstance and order men should clamour against the times desert their ministerial functions and charges fly out of their own Country as out of Babylon stand at open defiance against lawful authority and sharpen their wits and tongues and pens with so much petulancy that I say not virulency as some have done to maintain their stiffness and obstinacy therein I say whereto sérveth all this but to give scandal to the Enemies of our Church and Religion 32. Scandal first to the Atheist Who till all men be of one Religion and agreed in every point thereof too which I doubt will never be whilst the world lasteth thinketh it the best wisdom to be of none and maketh it his best pastime to jeer at all Great scandal also secondly to the Romanist Who is not a little confirmed in his opinion of the Catholickness of the Roman Faith when he heareth so many of the things which have been and still are retained in the Church of England in common with the Church of Rome as they were transmitted both to them and us in a continued line of Succession from our godly and Orthodox forefathers who lived in the Ages next after Christ and his Apostles to be now inveighed against and decryed as Popish and Superstitious And when he seeth men pretending to piety purity and reformation more than others not contenting themselves with those just exceptions that had been formerly taken by the Church of England and her regular children against some erroneous Doctrines and forms of worship taught and practised in the Church of Rome and endeavoured to be unduly and by her sole Authority imposed upon other Churches to be so far transported with a spirit of Contradiction as that they care not so as they may but run far enough from Rome whither or how far they run although they should run themselves as too oft they do quite beyond the bounds of Truth Allegiance common reason and even common humanity too 33. But especially and thirdly great scandal to those of the separation Who must needs think very jollily of themselves and their own singular way when they shall find those very grounds whereon they have raised their Schism to be so stoutly pleaded for by some who are yet content to hold a kind of communion with us Truly I could wish it were sufficiently considered by those whom it so nearly concerneth for my own part I must confess I could never be able to comprehend it with what satisfaction to the conscience any man can hold those principles without the maintenance whereof there can be nothing colourably pretended for inconformity in point of Ceremony and Church-government and yet not admit of such conclusions naturally issuing thence as will necessarily enforce an utter separation Vae mundo saith our Saviour Woe unto the world because of offences It is one of the great trials wherewith it is the good pleasure of God to exercise the faith and patience of his servants whilst they live on the earth that there will be divisions and offences and they must abide it But vae homini though without repentance wo to the man by whom the occasion cometh Much have they to answer for the while that cannot keep themselves quiet when they ought and might but by restless provocations trouble both themselves and others to the great prejudice and grief of their brethren but advantage and rejoycing of the common Enemy 34. Thus much for the Thing it self Like-mindedness The conditions or Qualifications follow The former whereof concerneth the Persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one toward another It noteth such an agreement as is both Universal and Mutual Universal first I doubt not but in the then Roman Church at the time when this Epistle was written the strong agreed well enough among themselves and were all alike-minded and so the weak among themselves all alike-minded too They all minded to despise these these all minded to judg them But that agreement was with those only of their own party and so a partial agreement which tended rather to the holding up of a Faction than to the making up of an Union It was an Universal agreement the Apostle desired and prayed for that the strong would be more compassionate to the Weak and the weak more charitable toward the Strong both Weak and Strong more patient and moderate and more respective either of other in all brotherly mutual condescensions 35. It is our fault too most an end We are partial to those on that side we take to beyond all reason ready to justifie those enterprises of theirs that look very suspiciously and to excuse or at least to extenuate their most palpable excesses and as ready on the other side to misconstrue the most justifiable actions of the adverse part but to aggravate to the utmost their smallest and most pardonable aberrations Thus do we sometimes both at once either of which alone is an abomination to the Lord justifie the guilty and condemn the innocent Whilst partial affections corrupt our judgments and will not suffer us to look upon the actions of our brethren with an equal and indifferent eye But let us beware of it by all means for so long as we give our selves to be carried away with partialities and prejudices we shall
only to the manners of men but almost to common sense also they gave occasion to the Wits of those times under a colour of making themselves merry with the Paradoxes of the Stoicks to laugh even true vertue it self out of countenance 22. Lastly for why should I trouble you with any more These are enow by condemning sundry indifferent things and namely Church Ceremonies as unlawful we give great scandal to those of the Separation to their farther confirming in that their unjust Schism For why should these men will they say and for ought I know they speak but reason why should they who agree so well with us in our Principles hold off from our Conclusions Why do they yet hold communion with or remain in the bosom of that Church that imposeth such unlawful things upon them How are they not guilty themselves of that luke-warm Laodicean temper wherewith they so often and so deeply charge others Why do they halt so shamefully between two opinions if Baal be God and the Ceremonies lawful why do not they yield obedience chearful obedience to their Governours so long as they command but lawful things But if Baal be an Idol and the Ceremonies unlawful as they and we consent Why do they not either set them packing or if they cannot get that done pack themselves away from them as fast as they can either to Amsterdam or to some other place The Objection is so strong that I must confess for my own part If I could see cause to admit of those principles whereon most of our Non-Conformers and such as favour them ground their dislike of our Church-Orders and Ceremonies I should hold my self in all conscience bound for any thing I yet ever read or heard to the contrary to forsake the Church of England and to fly out of Babylon before I were many weeks older 23. Truly Brethren if these unhappy fruits were but accidental events only occasioned rather than caused by such our opinions I should have thought the time mis-spent in but naming them since the very best things that are may by accident produce evil effects But being they do in very truth naturally and unavoidably issue therefrom as from their true and proper cause I cannot but earnestly beseech all such as are otherwise minded in the bowels and in the name of the Lord Iesus Christ and by all the love they bear to Gods holy truth which they seem so much to stand for to take these things into their due consideration and to lay them close to their consciences Aud as for those my brethren of the Clergy that have most authority in the hearts of such as byass too much that way for they only may have some hope to prevail with them the rest are shut out by prejudice if I were in place where I should require and charge them as they will answer the contrary to God the Church and their own Consciences that they would approve their faithfulness in their Ministry by giving their best diligence to inform the judgments of Gods people aright as concerning the nature and use of indifferent things and as in love to their souls they are bound that they would not humour them in these their pernicious errors nor suffer them to continue therein for want of their rebuke either in their publick teaching or otherwise as they shall have opportunity thereunto in private discourses 24. But you will say if these things were so how should it then come to pass that so many men pretending to Godliness and thousands of them doubtless such as they pretend for it were an uncharitable thing to charge them all with hypocrisie should so often and so grievously offend this way To omit those two more universal causes Almighty God's Permission first whose good pleasure it is for sundry wise and gracious ends to exercise his Church during her warfare here with Heresies and Schisms and Scandals And then the wiliness of Satan who cunningly observeth whether way our hearts incline most to looseness or to strictness and then frameth his Temptations thereafter So he can but put us cut of the way it is no great matter to him on whether hand it be he hath his end howsoever Nor to insist upon sundry more particular causes as namely a natural proneness in all men to superstition in many an affectation of singularity to go beyond the ordinary sort of people in something or other the difficulty of shunning one without running into the contrary extreme the great force of Education and Custom besides manifold abuses offences and provocations arising from the carriage of others and the rest I shall note but these two only as the two great fountains of Error to which also most of the other may be reduced Ignorance and Partiality from neither of which God 's dearest Servants and Children are in this life wholly exempted 25. Ignorance first is a fruitful mother of Errors Ye err not knowing the Scriptures Mat. 22. Yet not so much Gross Ignorance neither I mean not that For your mere Ignaro's what they err they err for company they judge not at all neither according to the appearance nor yet righteous judgment They only run on with the herd and follow as they are led be it right or wrong and never trouble themselves farther But by Ignorance I mean weakness of judgment which consisteth in a disproportion between the affections and the understanding when a man is very earnest but withall very shallow readeth much and heareth much and thinketh that he knoweth much but hath not the judgment to sever truth from falshood nor to discern between a sound Argument and a captious Fallacy And so for want of ability to examine the soundness and strength of those principles from whence he fetcheth his Conclusions he is easily carried away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as our Apostle elsewhere speaketh with vain words and empty arguments As St. Augustine said of Donatus Rationes irripuit he catcheth hold of some reasons as wranglers will catch at a small thing rather than yield from their opinions quas consider antes verisimiles esse potius quam veras invenimus which saith he we found to have more shew of probability at the first appearance than substance of truth after they were well considered of 26. And I dare say whosoever shall peruse with a judicious and unpartial eye most of those Pamphlets that in this daring age have been thrust into the World against the Ceremonies of the Church against Episcopal Government to pass by things of lesser regard and usefulness and more open to exception and abuse yet so far as I can understand unjustly condemned as things utterly unlawful such as are lusorious lots dancing Stage-plays and some other things of like nature When he shall have drained out the bitter invectives unmannerly jeers petulant girding at those that are in authority impertinent digressions but above all those most bold and perverse
Factum hac pertinet illa ad jus ad illam Peritia opus est ad hanc Prudentia l Jer. 17. 9. I know nothing by my self yet am I not hereby justified but he that judgeth me is the LORD 1 Cor. 4 4. If our heart condemn us GOD is greater than our heart and knoweth all things 1 John 3. 21. Latet me facultas mea quae in me est ut animus meus de viribus suis ipse se interrogans non facilè sibi credendum existimet quia quod inest plerumque occultâ—m est Aug. lib. 10. Confess c. 32. 14. 2. m Heb. 12. 9. n Psal. 79. 26. 2. Jer. 11. 20. and 17. 10. 20. 12. Rev. 2. 23. o Heb. 4. 13. p 1 Cor. 4. 5. q Temeritas est damnare quod nescias Sen. Epist. 91. Sâ—nt quaedam facta media quae ignoramus quo animo fiunt quia bono malo fieri possunt de quibus temerarium est judicare August l. 2. de Serm. Dom. in monte cap. 18. 15. 3. r In rerum judicio debet aliquis niti ad hoc ut interpretetur unumquodque secundum quod est in judicio autem personarum ut interpretetur in melius Aquin. 2. 0. qu. 60. art 4. ad 3. and he giveth a substantial reason for it ib. in resp id 2. s Glossa Ord. in hunc loc Theologi passim Semper quicquid dubium est humanitas incliâ—at in melius Sen. ep 81. s Error Charitatis salutaris errâ—r t Melius est quod aliquis frequenter fallatur habens bonam opinionem de malo homine quà m quòd rarius fallatur habens malam opinionem de bono homine quia ex hoc sit injuria alicui non autem ex primo Aq. 2. a. qu. 60. Art 2. ad 1. u Aequum licet statuerit haud aequus fuit Sen. in Med. Act. 2. x 1 Cor. 13. 5. y Si suspiciones vitare non possumus quia homines sumus judicia tamen id est definitivas firmasque sententias continere debemus Glos. Ordin in 1 Cor. 4. z 1 Cor. 4. 3. 16. 17. 18. 1. 2. 3. 4. 19. 1. a Article 20. agreeable to the confessions of other Protestant Churches b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 14. 20. c Constit. Canon 30. 20. d Ex 1 Cor. 7. 35. e Lincolnsh Abridg. p. 34. f Mat. 7 8 c. g In Spiritum Sanctum blasphemant qui sacros Canones violant 25 qu. 1. Violatores h Constit. c. can 74. aâ—t 20. Act for Uniformity and Treat of ceremonies prefixed to the Book of Common-Prayer i Without prejudice to the liberty of other Churches See Pref. to communion Book k The Church ought not to enforce any thing besides the holy Writ to be believed for necessity of salvation Artic. 20. l See Conference at Ham. Court pag. 70 71. m In rebus mediis lex posita est obedientiâ— Bern. Epist. 7. n De hujusmodi quippe nec praeceptor expectandus nec prohibitor auscultandus est Ber. de prec dispensat See Agel 2. Noct. Artic. 7. Ber. Ep. 7. o See Sa. Collins Sermon on 1 Tim. 6. 3. pag. 44. c. 2. * Artic. 34. p See Calvin lib. 4. Instir. c. 10. scâ—â— 27. q Quot capita tot Schismata Hieronym 3. r Like that Col. 2. 21. Touch not taste not handle not 21. 1. 2. s Pro inficiatione pontificatûs foeminei Aquipont in resp ad Sohn de Antichristo Thes. 15. speaking of the Priests executed in the Reign of Qu. Elizabeth t See Donnes Pseudo-Martyr per totum especially c. 5. c. u The practice of our Church sufficiently confirmeth this which censureth no man for the bare omission of some kind of Rites and Ceremonies now and then where it may be presumed by the parties chearful and general conformity otherwise that such omission proceedeth not either from an opinionative dislike of the Ceremony imposed or from a timorous and obsequious humouring of such as dislike it Whosoever willingly and purposely doth openly break c. Artic. 34. x In minimis quoque mandatis culpam facit non minimam convertit in crimen gravis rebellionis naevum satis levem simplicis transgressionis Bern. de prec dispens 22. 1. 2. 3. 4. 23. y 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 13. 5. z Not only for wrath but also for conscience sake Ibid. a Meditations on the Lord's Prayer pag. 12. in the Margent 24. 25. 26. b All benefit of Law being denied them and they debarred of other means by conference or writing for their defence Def. of Ministers reasons part 1. pref to the Reader We do accuse the Reverend Bishops in the sight of God and Man for their hard and extreme dealing toward us Removal of Imputations p. 40. 17. c Many by their factious behaviour were driven to be Papists The King 's Ma. in Confer at Hamp p. 68. 28 b Witness the learned Books of divers reverend Prelates Iohn Whitgift Iohn Buckeridge Tho. Morton c. 29. c Sancti stante charitate possunt errare etiam contra Catholicam veritatem Occh. Dial. part 1. â— 2. c. 4. d So Pelagius from whose root Popery in that Branch sprouted was a man as strict for life as most Catholicks yet a most dangerous and pestilent Heretick Pelagii viri ut audio Sanct non parvo profectu Christiani Aug. 3. de pec merit rem 1. Istum sicut eum qui noverunt loquuntur bonum ac praedicandum virumâ— Ib. c. 3. d Non enim in cujusquam persona praetermittendum est quod institutis generalibus continetur Leo. Dist. 61. Miramur 30. e I refer the Reader for more particular satisfaction to Fr. Mason's Serm. on 1 Cor. 14. 40. pag. 30. Sam. Collins Serm. on 1 Tim. 6. 3. pa. 21 22 and others but especially to their own Writings f Brightman in Apoc. cap. 3. 31. g This Simile was first used by a very Reverend grave and worthy Dean who hath many ways deserved well of our whole Church Alexander Noel Dean of Pauls in a Sermon before Queen Elizabeth and modestly and moderately urged not at all against the Ceremonies which by his practice he did allow but for the further restraint of Popish Priests and Jesuites who lay thick in Ireland and the Western Coasts of England and Wales as heaps of dust and dirt behind the doors Yet I here ascribed it to the Puritans who though they father it upon that good Man must own it as their own Brat because by mis applying it to the Ceremonies they have made it their own Malè dum recitas incipit esse tâ—un h Meditations on the Lords Prayer page 21 c. primae edit 1619. See Hooker's Preface Sect. 8. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 1. i Eadem velle eos cognosces da posse quantum volunt Sen. Ep. 42. 2. k Matth. 10. 27. 3. l Gal. 2. 14. utique conversationis fuit vitium
Divin nomin 2. b Marlorat in Enchirid. 3. c Acts. 15. 9. d Joh. 1. 12. Galat. 4. 26. e Rom. 3. 28. 5. 1. f Hab. 2. 4. Gal. 2. 20. g Rom. 15. 13. 1 Pet. 1. 8. h Rom. 5. 1. i Acts 16. 34. Ephes. 1. 8. k Si quis dixerit opera omnia quae ante justificationem fiunt verè esse peccata Anathema sit Con. Trident. Sess. 6. Can. 7. 4. 5. 1. 2. l Though S. August sometimes applyeth it also to prove that all the actions of infidels meaning c be sin Rhem. annot in Loc. m Et omne quod non est ex fide peccatum est ut sc. intelligat justitiam infidelium non esse justitiam quia sordet natura sine gratia Prosper in Epist ad Rufin Vid. etiam eundem contra Collat. n Extra Ecclesiam Catholicam nihil est integrum nihil castum dicente Apostolo Omne quod non c. Leo serm 2. de jejun Penitent 6. o T. C. l. 1. p. 59 c. apud Hooker lib. 2. p Rom. 10. 17. q T. C. l. p. 27. apud Hooker lib. 2. Sect. 4. 7. r Job 13. 7. 8. s I say that the Word of God containeth whatsoever things can fall into any part of mans life T. C. lib. 1. p. 20. apud Hooker lib. 2. §. 1. 9. t Rom. 4. 15. u Rom. 2. 15. x Rom. 2. 15. y Tertul. de coron milit cap. 4. 10. 1. 2. 3. z Matth. 7. 12. a 1 Cor. 14. 40. II. 12. b Ver. 4 10 13. 13. c verse 3. 14. * It is indeed fully handled by M Hooker in his second book of Eccles Policy but few men of that party will read his works though written with singular learning wisdom godliness and moderation d Pet. Blesens Epist. 131. e Delicata satis imo nimis molesta est ista obedientia c. Bern. de praecept dispens f Infirmae prorsus voluntatis indicium est statuta seniorum studiosiùs discutere haerere ad singulae quae injunguntur exigere de quibusque rationem male suspicari de omni praecepto cujus causa latuerit nec unquam libenter ordire nisi c Bern. Ibid. 15. g Esay 40. 1 2. h Esay 61. 1 3. i Rom. 8. 15. k 1 Tim. 1. 7. l Psal. 45. 7. m Psal. 30. 11. 16. n See Articles of the Church of England Artic. 6. 17. o Himing in Rom. 14. 1. p Piscat Ibid. q Joh. 3. 36. Acts 14. 1 2. r Hic Verse 2. 2. s Verse 14. 3. t Verse 22. 4. u Verse 23. 18. 19. 1. x Respectus non mutant naturam y Opinio nostra nobis legem facit Ambr. de Paradis 2. z Joh. 16. 2. a Acts 26. 9. b 1 Tim. 1. 13. c Acts 23. 3 4. Phil. 3. 6. 3. 20. 1. 2. 3. Ubi est suspicio ibi discussiâ— necessaria Bernard Ep. 7. d Ratio in rebus manifestis non inquirit sed statim judicat Aquin. 1 2. qu. 14. 4. ad 2. e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Arist. 1. Mag. Moral 18. f 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. 2. Eth. 5. 21. g Verse 5. hic plene certus sit Heming h Quasi plenis velis feratur Piscat in Schol. ad Rom. 14. 5. i Luke 9. 50. k 1 Cor. 14. 40. l 1 Tim. 4. 4. m Tit. 1. 15. n Rom. 14. 14. o 1 Cor. 6. 12. 22. p Herodot in Clio Senec. 3. De Ira 21. 23. q Qui agit contra conscientiam qua credit Deum aliquid prohibuisse licet erret contemnit Deum Bonavent 2. sent dist 39. r Menand s Pres. Satyr 5. t Jam. 4. 17. u Quod sit contra conscientiam aedificat ad gehennam c. 28. qu. 1. Omnes Sect. ex his x Rom. 14. 22. y Dan. 3. 16 18. z c. 11. qu. 3. Qui resistet ex Augustino 24. 25. a animo nunc huc nunc fluctuat illuc Virg. Aeneid 10. b Jam. 1. 8. 1. c Ibid. d Eph. 4. 14. 2. 3. 4. 26. 1. 2. e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. 3. Ethic 4. 3. f 1 Cor. 7. 36. g Non tibi imputabitur ad culpam quod invitus ignoras Aug. de nat grat 27. h Nil faciendum de quo dubites sit necne rectè factum Cic l. 1. de offic 28. h Is damnum dat qui jubet dare ejus ver ê° nulla culpa est cui parere necesse sit L. 169. F. de div Reg. jur i Bernard â—e praecept dis-pens l Rom. 13. 1. 1 Peâ— 2. 13. 29. m Rom. 15. 6. n Isidor o Dubius incertus quasi duarum viarum Isid. 10. Etym. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p Plus est standum praecepto praelati quà m conscientiae Bonav 2. â—sen distinct 39. 30. q Gregor 31. 32. r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Solon apud Stob. Serm. 3. 33. 1. 2. 3. 34. Luk. 12. 1 Matth. 16. 12. 1 Cor. 5. 8. Percuâ—it illos atrociore recriminatione Eras. in Paraph 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys. Hom. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys. ibid. Isa. 29. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 26. 5. Luk. 16. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 4. 2. 1 Thes. 5. 21. 1 Joh. 4. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Mark 10. 19. Luk. 18. 10. Jer. 45. 6. Jer. 35. 18 19. Abridgm Linc. p. 44. Per appositionem Eras. Bez. Jer. 23. 28. 1 Cor. 3. 12 15. Gal. 1. 8. 2 Joh. 10. Mat. 15. 12. 1 Cor. 3. 12. 15. Andradus Multò maxima pars Evangelii pervenit ad nos traditione perexigua literis est mandata Hos. Confes. c. 92. Egenum elementum Hosius Plumbea regula Pighius c. a V. Chamier Tom. 1 Panstrat Lib. 9. c. 16. Jewels defence 2. c. 9. b Non male comparari Pharisaeos Catholicis Serarius apud Hal. Seron Mat. 5. 30. c Sadoc discipulus Antiqui Sochaei author sectae Sadducaeorum secundum Rabbinos V. El. Tisb in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Schindler in Lexic Pentagl Sed hoc ut Commentum Rabbinicum exigit Montacutius qui Sadducaeorum originem ad Dositheum quendam refert ex authoritate Epiphanii aliorum eosque Sadducaeos dictos confirmat à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iustitia ob mores austeros in judiciis severitatem V. Montacut Appar 7. sect 49. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Ios. 13. Antiq. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiph. in Ptol. Iustin. Nuell 146. alii 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys. Hom 51. in Mat. Mox subsecuta est corruptela Calvin in loc Exod. 8. 14. 1 Cor. 8. 8. Rom. 13. 5. 20. Every particular or National Church hath authority to ordain change and abolish Ceremonies c. Art 34. a The Ceremonies that remain are retained for Discipline and Order which upon just causes may be altered and changed and therefore are not to be esteemed equal with Gods law Pref. of Cerem b The Church hath power to decree Rites and Ceremonies but it ought not besides the