onely in their single and sole capacities but as convened in Council about sacred matters have held opinions contrary to the truth of God That therefore the whole Church or the Body collective and diffusive over all the world shall universally agree to betray the truth or be given over unto Error One might as logically conclude that because many of the Citizens and some of the Aldermen many of the Parishioners and some of the Ministers and that not onely in their Houses but the very Church or the Guild-hal were swept away at London by the last great plague that therefore the whole City was dispeopled by it not a man escaping Such Arguments as these need no other Answer than to demonstrate the non sequiturs and inconsequence of them But first before we do proceed unto further evidence it will be necessary to lay down the state of the Question which is the Litis contestatio or the point in Controversie And in my minde Becanus states it very rightly We will therefore use his terms though he were a Iesuite and propose it thus viz. An tota Ecclesia Christi vel tota multitudo Christianorum quatenus ex Pastoribus ovibus conflata est errare possit in aliquo Articulo vel puncto fidei that is to say whether the whole Church of Christ or the whole multitude of Christian people consisting both of the Flock and the Pastors too may erre in any Article and point of Faith or publickly profess any point of Doctrine contrary to the Faith and Gospel of our Lord and Saviour This we deny and we deny it on the credit of our Saviours promises Upon this Rock saith he will I build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Where by the gates of Hell as the Fathers say he means not onely outward violence but Errors Heresies and false Doctrines which covertly or openly do aim at the ruine of it And of this minde is Epiphanius in Anchorato Origen Tract 1. on Matthew Ierome and Bede upon the place St. Augustine also hence inferreth Haereses omnes de ecclesia exiisse tanquam sarmenta inutilia à vite praecisa ipsam autem manere in radice sua in vite sua that is to say That Heresies were to the Church like unprofitable branches cut off from the Vines the Church remaining still in the Root in the Vine it self How so Quia portae inferorum non vincant eam because the gates of Hell cannot overcome it He promised his Apostles to send them a Comforter who should teach them all things Iohn 14.16 who should guide them into all truth Iohn 16.13 Not that he bound himself hereby to teach them all things or lead them into all truths of what sort soever For it is sure that some things the Apostles were still ignorant of as of the day and hour of the General Iudgment And probable enough it is that there were many Philosophical and Historical truths into which the Spirit did not lead them All things and all truth must be understood of all things truly necessary to a mans salvation In omnem veritatem i. e. Omnem quae expedit ad salutem saith Dr. Raynolds very rightly A promise made indeed to them the Apostles personally for it was unto them he spake and to none but them but made to all the Church in them the whole Church essentially whereof they were at that time the sole Representatives Consolatprium est ex hoc loco cognoscere fide audire quicquid est promissum his Apostolis promissum esse toti ecclesia saith a learned and a modest Papist It is saith he a special comfort to learn and faithfully believe from these words of Christs that the promise made to these Apostles was also made to the whole Church to the Body collective It was not Peter onely as the Papists say nor the Apostles onely as the words may seem to bear to whom these promises were made touching the not prevailing of the gates of Hell and the conducting of their feet in the ways of truth but to the whole Body of the Church represented by them Hence I conclude That the whole Church in the full latitude and universality thereof is free from Error such Errors as do lead to the gates of Hell and are destructive of salvifical supernatural Truths The Church being so far privileged by our Lord and Saviour that when the truth is banished out of one or more particular Churches it is admitted into others and some still opposing those corruptions both in Doctrine and Practise which in the others are defended The Church in this capacity is secure from Error even in the points of smallest moment and so it is confessed by Luther a man not over forwards to ascribe too much unto the Church Impossibile est illam errare posse etiam in minimo Articulo It is impossible saith he that the Church should erre conceive him of the Church essential in the smallest Article But this perhaps will be made more apparent by the matter of Fact than by any other kinde of evidence in an Argumentative way And for this matter of Fact we will take those times in which the truth may seem to be most miserably oppressed by the predominancy of the Arian faction and the tyranny and superstitions of the Popes of Rome That the Arian Heresie did extend no further than the Roman Empire we have shewn before that all the Roman Empire was not poysoned with it we will shew you now For besides all the Bishops of Rome successively from the first rising of this Heresie to the fall thereof who constantly except Liberius onely did maintain the truth the stories of those times acquaint us with the names and merits of some Catholick Bishops who with their Churches did oppose that predominant faction And because it were an endless and indeed a needless labor to recite them all take but those three whom Ierome brings together in one line or passage O Siquidem Arianus victis triumphatorem suum Egyptus excapit Hilarium ◠praelio revertentem Galliarum Ecclesia complexa est ad reditum Eusebii sui lugubres vestes Italia mutavit i. e. Upon the overthrow of the Arians Egypt received her Athanasius now returned in triumph the Church of France embraced her Hilary he was Bishop of Poictiers coming home with victory from the battel and on the return of Eusebius Bishop of Vercellis Italy changed her mourning garments By which it is most clear even to the vulgar eyes that not these Bishops onely did defend the truth but that it was preserved by their people also who never had received them with such joy and triumphs had they not been all of one opinion Or had but those three Bishops onely stood unto the truth yet had that been sufficient to preserve the Church from falling universally from the Faith of Christ or deviating from the truth in that particular
to signifie the place of meeting and the people which did therein meet That by these words Ecclesia quae est domi ejus St. Paul meaneth not a private family but a Congregation Severall significations of the word in the Ecclesiasticall notion of it The Clergy sometimes called the Church The Church called Catholick in respect of time place and persons Catholick antiently used for sound and Orthodox appropriated to themselves by the Pontificians and unadvisedly yeelded to them by the common Protestants Those of Rome more delighted with the name of Papists then with that of Christian. The Church to be accounted holy notwithstanding the unholinesse of particular persons The errour of the old and new Novatians touching that particular confuted by the constant current of the book of God Neither the Schismatick nor the Heretick excluded from being Members of the Catholick Church The Catholick Church consists not only of Elect or Predestinate persons The Popes supremacy made by those of Rome the principall Article of their faith Of the strange powers ascribed unto the Pope by some flattering Sycophants as well in temporal mattters as in things Spiritual The Pope and Church made termes convertible in the Schools of Rome The contrary errour of the Presbyterians and Independents in making the Church to be all body St. Hieroms old complaint revived in these present times The old Acephory what they were and in whom revived The Apostles all of equall power amongst themselves and so the Bishops too in the Primitive times as successors to the Apostles in the publick government Literae Formulae what they were in the elder ages Of the supremacy in sacred matters exercised by the Kings of Iudah and of that given by Law and Canon to the Kings of England CHAP. III. Of the visibility and infallibility of the Church of Christ and of the Churches power in expounding Scripture determining controversies of the faith and ordaining ceremonies WHat we are bound to believe and practise touching the holy Catholick Church in the present Article The Church at all times visible and in what respects The Church of God not altogether or at all invisible in the time of Ahab and Elijah nor in that of Antiochus and the Maccabees Arianisme not so universal when at the greatest as to make the Church to be invisible The visibilitie of the Church in the greatest prevalency of the Popedom not to be looked for in the congregations of the Albigenses Husse or Wicliffes answer to the question Where our Church was before Luthers time the Church of Rome a true Church though both erroneous in Doctrine and corrupt in manners The Vniversal Church of Christ not subject unto errour in points of Faith The promises of Christ made good unto the Vniversal though not to all particular Churches The opposition made to Arianism in the Western Churches and in the Churches East and West to the Popes Supremacy to the forced Celibat of Priests to Transubstantiation to the half Communion to Purgatory Worshipping of Images and to Auricular confession General Councels why ordained how far they are priviledged from errour and of what authority The Article of the Church of ENGLAND touching General Councels abused and falsified The power of National and Provincial Councels in the points of faith not only manifested and asserted in the elder times but strenuously maintained by the Synod of Dort Four Offices of the Church about the Scripture The practises of the Iews and Arians to corrupt the Text. The Churches power to interpret Scripture asserted both by Antient and Modern Writers The Ordinances of the Church of how great authority and that authority made good by some later Writers The judgement and practice of the Augustane Bohemian and Helvetian Churches in the present point Two rules for the directing of the Churches power in ordaining Ceremonies How far the Ordinances of the Church do binde the Conscience CHAP. IV. Of the Communion which the Saints have with one another and with CHRIST their Head Communion of affections inferreth not a community of goods and fortunes Prayers to the Saints and adoration of their Images an ill result of this communion THe nature and meaning of the word Communio in the Ecclesiastical notions of it The word Saints variously taken in holy Scripture In what particulars the Communion of the Saints doth consist especially The Vnion or Communion which the Saints have with CHRIST their Head as Members of his Mystical body proved by the Scriptures and the Fathers The Communion which the Saints have with one another evidenced and expressed in the blessed Eucharist Of the Eulogia or Panes Benedicti sent from one Bishop to another in elder times to testifie their unity in the faith of Christ. The salutation of the holy kiss how long it lasted in the Church and for what cause abrogated The name of Brothers and Sisters why used promiscuously among the Christians of the Primitive times Of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Love Feasts in the elder ages The readiness of the Christians in those blessed times not only to venture but to lay down their lives for one another Pleas for the community of the Estates studied by the Anabaptists and refelled by the Orthodox The natural community of mankinde in the use of the creatures contrary unto Law and Reason and to the pretentions also of the Anabaptists themselves The Orthodoxie in this point of the Church of England A general view of the communion which is between the Saints departed and those here on earth The Offices performed by godly men upon the earth to the Saints in Heaven That the Saints above pray not alone for the Church in general but for the particular members of it The Invocation of the Saints how at first introduced Prayers to the Saints not warranted by the Word of God nor by the writings of the Fathers nor by any good reason Immediate address to Kings more difficult then it is to God The Saints above not made acquainted in any ordinary way with the wants of men Arguments to the contrary from the Old Testament answered and laid by An answer to the chief argument from the 15. chapter of St. Luke Several ways excogitated by the Schoolmen to make the Saints acquainted with the wants of men and how unuseful to the Papists in the present point The danger and doubtfulnesse of those ways opened and discovered by the best learned men amongst the Papists themselves Invocation of the Saints and worshipping of their Images a fruit of Gentilisme The vain distinctions of the Papists to salve the worshipping of Images in the Church of Rome Purgatory how ill grounded on the use of Prayers for the dead Prayers for the dead allowed of in the primitive times and upon what reason The antient Diptychs what they were The heresie of Aerius and the Doctrine of the Church of England concerning Prayer for the dead Purgatory not rejected only by the Church of England but by the whole Churches of
this plea as a sorry shift which onely seemed to be excogitated for the present pinch If any ask me Where the Church was before Luthers time I answer generally First That if the Church had failed in these North-west parts of the world as indeed it did not yet were there many Christian Churches in the East and South the Greeks Nestorians Melchites Abassins with divers others with whom the first Reformers might have held communion though differing from them in some points of inferior moment And secondly I answer more particularly that our Church was before Luther where it hath been since in Germany France England Italy yea and Rome it self A sick Church then but since by Gods grace brought to more perfect health a corrupt Church then but since reformed of those particular abuses both in life and doctrine which seemed most offensive That the Church of Rome is a true Church though not the true Church no sober Protestant will deny Iunius grants it in his Book De Ecclesia cap. 19. and so doth Dr. Whitakers also Cont. 2. Qu. 3. cap. 2. as great an enemy as any of the Romish factions The like doth Dr. Raynolds in his fifth Thesis though he deny it as he might to be either the Catholick Church it self as they vainly boast or any found member of the same Nay even the very Separatists do not grutch them that as Francis Iohnson in his Treatise called A Christian Plea Printed 1627. pag. 123 c. A true Church in the verity of essence as the Church is a company of men which profess the Faith of Christ and are baptized into his Name but neither Orthodox in all points of doctrine nor sound or justifiable in all points of practise And a true Church in reference to the Fundamentals of the Christian Faith which they maintain as constantly and defend as strongly against the several Hereticks and Sectaries of this present age as any Doctor of the Protestant or Reformed Churches though in the Superstructures they are faln aside from the received opinions of the Catholick Church A true Church too in which Salvation may be had for why should we deny the possibility of their salvation who have been the chief instruments of ours saith judicious Hooker by those especially who ignorantly follow their blinde guides and do not pertinaciously embrace any Popish error either against their Science or against their Conscience Of whom as of the greatest numbers in the Church of Christ we may very safely say with Augustine Coeteram turbam non intelligendi vivacitas sed credendi simplicitas tutissimam facit i. e. That amongst ordinary men it is not the vivacity of understanding but the simplicity of believing which makes them safe Of this Church were the Protestants Members before they did withdraw themselves from the errors of it before by this their separating from the errors of it they were schismatically expelled and thrust out of the communion of the Church of Rome by those which had the conduct of the affairs thereof in the beginning of that breach And from this Church do we of the Church of England derive immediately our interess in Christ by the door of Baptism the Body of the holy Scriptures the Hierarchy or Publick Government our Liturgy and Solemn Forms of Administration not as originally theirs but as derived to them from the Primitive times and by them transmitted unto us This Bristo doth acknowledge in his Book of Motives and this we think it no reproach unto our Religion to acknowledge also That Aphorism of King Iames of most famous memory deserving to be writ in Letters of Gold viz. That no Church under colour of Reformation for of that he speaketh ought further to separate it self from the Church of Rome either in Doctrine or Ceremony than she had departed from her self when she was in her flourishing and best estate and from Iesus Christ our Lord and Head And yet I know not how it hath come to pass but so it is that instead of reforming of an old Church which is all we did the building of a new Church will we nill we is by some Zelots of boâ—h sides obtruded on us Whereas the case if rightly stated is but like that of a sick and wounded man that had long lien weltering in his own blood or languishing under a tedious burden of diseases and afterwards by Gods great mercy and the skilful dâ—ligence of honest Chirurgions and Physitians is at the last restored to his former health No new man in this case created that is Gods sole privilege but the old man cured No new Church founded in the other that belongs to Christ but the old Reformed When Hezekiah purged the Temple and other godly Kings and Princes of the Land of Iudah did reform Religion as we know they did Neither did the one erect a new Temple or the others frame a new Religion but onely rectified in both what they found amiss And so it was also in the Reformation of the Church of Rome further than which we need not go to look where our Church was before Luthers time or to finde out that constant and perpetual visibility of the Church of Christ which hath been hitherto the subject of this Disquisition But put the case the worst that may be and let it be supposed this once That the Church of Rome had so apostated from the Faith of Christ that it ceased to be a Church at all both in name and nature yet were there many Christian Churches in the East and South all of them visible no doubt as they still continue which constantly maintained all those several Truths that had been banished and exploded in the Church of Rome For that the Vniversal Church should so fall away as to teach any doctrine contrary to the Faith and Gospel is plainly to the promise made by Christ our Saviour It is true indeed Christ hath not bound himself nor annexed his spirit so inseparably to a National or Provincial Church but that it may fall at last unto such desperate and dangerous Errors as finally may cut it off as an unsound Member from the residue of the Body Mystical The Candlestick may be removed as well out of any Church as from that of Ephesus if wilfully they put out the light which shined amongst them and so it is determined by the Church of England As the Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch hath erred so also the Church of Rome hath erred not onely in their living and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith saith the Nineteenth Article But so it is not with the Universal the Body Collective of Gods people the Church essential nor can it be colourably inferred though it be the best Argument of Dr. Raynolds to evince his Thesis that because many of those who are outwardly called and some of the Elect themselves many of the Flock and some of the Pastors and that not
ointment on our Saviours head he appâ—oved it as a work well done saying She did it aforehand to anoint his Body to the burial And to this purpose the good women mentioned by St. Luke prepared their ointments and sweet odors intending therewithal to embalm his Body but were therein prevented by his Resurrection Which as it proves sufficiently what the custom was so our Redeemers Resurrection which so soon followed the anointing made by Mary Magdalen shews plainly to what end it pointed The care they took about them in their funeral rites is evidence sufficient if there were none else That they commit the bodies of the dead unto the Earth in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection according to the Language of the English Liturgy Upon this very ground no other the Christians of the Primitive times did use to spare no cost to embalm their dead but were more prodigal of sweet odors and most precious oyntments in the obsequies of the Saints departed than the poverty of their estate could well admit of Tertullian so affirms it saying Sciant Sabaei se pluris merces suas Christianis sepeliendis profligari quam diis fumigandis We spend saith he more Frankincense and Arabian Spices upon the burial of our dead than would suffice to offer at the Altars of the Heathen gods And on this ground it hath hitherto been the piety of the Church of England to lay the bodies of the dead into the Earth with all due solemnities though now she stand accused for Superstition even in this particular in the conceit of some Novators more precise than pious Nay if I understand aright the Apostles meaning St. Paul derives a very strong Argument from this antient custome to prove the Resurrection of the dead against all opposers Else what do they saith he which are baptized for dead if the dead rise not again why are they then baptized for dead That is to say and the Greek Text will bear it well why do they use such frequent washings over the bodies of the dead why are the dead baptized as a man may say with rich balms and ointments why are they laid into the Earth with such costly oyls if there be no certainty of this that even those bodies shall be raised to eternal glory I know it is an hard place I am faln upon A place which hath as much perplexed the wits of our greatest Clerks as any one in all Pauls Epistles St. Ambrose doth expound this place of Baptism applied unto some living man in the name and behalf of his friend dying without Baptism out of a superstitious conceit that Baptism so conferred upon one alive in the name of him that was deceased might be available to the Resurrection of the other dying unbaptized Atque ita vivus nomine mortui tingebatur as the Father hath it That there was Vicarium tale Baptisma as Tertullian calleth it amongst the Marcionites is plain and evident yea and amongst the Cerinthians also another sort of Hereticks as bad as they Epiphanius tells us of the quod sit that so indeed it was amongst them and Chrysostom informeth us of the manner of it But that such a superstitious custom as baptizing one man for another in hope that other might receive the benefit and effect thereof should creep so early into the Church of Corinth as to get footing there within three years after the first Preaching of the Gospel to them for no more time occurred between St. Pauls first Preaching there Anno 52 and the writing of this first Epistle which was in Anno 55. is a thing not possible to be believed Rather I think that mistaking of St. Pauls meaning in the place aforesaid might give occasion to that erroneous practise amongst the Cerinthians the wretched followers of Cerinthus and then by a very easie mistake it might be fastned on these Corinthians as it seems it was Others expound it of the Clinici as they called them in the former times such as were sick upon their death beds and being like to die and as good as dead desired the Sacrament of Baptism before their departure out of this life in hope to finde the better entrance by it unto that to come Most true it is that this Baptismus Clinicorum doth oft occur in Antient Writers and in the Canons also of some former Councils in which it was prohibited that any man so baptized should be admitted into holy Orders But that this custom was in use in those early daies or that the people were permitted to defer their baptism till the extremity of sickness did inforce them to it or did not rather receive it with the Faith it self as well in Corinth as elsewhere it is plain they did I can by no means be perswaded Another Exposition hath been thought upon and that too borrowed from a custom as erroneous as that first delivered which is that many did desire in the former times to be baptized on or near the Sepulchres of the Martyrs that so they might profess that Faith in the Resurrection for which they were slain This Musculus reports of some but of whom I know not But sure I am whosoever they were they were exceedingly mistaken in looking for the Tombs of Martyrs in the Church of Corinth within three years no more after their conversion And on the same leg as I take it halts the gloss of Chrysostom whom Theophylact followeth affirming it to be the custom of the Church of Corinth that when they were to be baptized they said over the Creed and that as they said the words of this Article viz. The Resurrection of the Body the Sacrament of Baptism was conferred upon them And then the meaning must be this Why are they then baptized for dead that is to say why are they then baptized into the resurrection of the dead in case the dead rise not again But first there is no constat of any such custom and if it were it had been but a weak Argument in so strong a Disputant to prove the Churches Doctrine in a point of Faith by the particular Churches custom not elsewhere used nor ever of such credit as to be continued Finally not to wander into more particulars Lyra doth give this gloss upon it Pro mortuis i. e. pro peccatis mortalibus quae sunt opera mortua Why are they then baptized for the dead that is saith he Why are they baptized for deadly sins which are called dead works in holy Scripture pro quibus abluendis accipitur Baptismus for washing away of which they receive that Sacrament But this agrees not well with the following words For being that the resurrection is of those that are so baptized if by pro mortuis we must mean dead works or our mortal sins it may be then inferred by the Rules of Logick that our dead works or mortal sins shall be also raised
unto it So wandring and uncertain hath the latter part of my Pilgrimage been that I began this work in Winchester the prime City of Hamshire continued it in a Parish of Wiltshire finished it at my house in Oxfordshire and am now come to publish it Quem das finem Rex magne laborum from Abington the chief Town of Barkshire For I had but finished it if that and not bestowed my last hand upon it when by the importunity of some speciall friends I was prevailed with to the writing of my large Cosmography Which being published and received with some approbation I began to fear I might goe lesse in the esteem which I had gotten If I should venture this piece to the publick view Jealous I was of being thought a better Geographer then Divine or that it should be said of me as it had been in some cases of some other men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say that I had spent more of my stock upon the Accessorie then upon the Principal more on Geography which was a thing ad extra to me then I had done upon Divinity my own proper element Considering therefore to whose hands I might commend the perusall of it I pitched at last on the right reverend Father in God and my very good Lord the Lord B. of Rochester of whose severity in judging without partiality and friendly counsell in advising without by-respects I was very confident And he accordingly having bestowed some time upon it returned me the incouragement and approbation of this following Letter which not without some hope of his Lordships pardon I shall here subjoyne as that which was the speciall motive to this publication SIR I Have as you desired read your soul on the Apostles Symbol and although I have not done it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet I have read it so as I dare say when you shall have reviewed it perfected the quotations and added the last hand thereto it shall not only redound to your deserved honour but much very much to the benefit of any candid and learned Reader And in this Approbation I have the concurrent judgement of a Scholar and sound Divine who read the book with me There remaines nothing more on my part then to receive your directions where and to whom the book shall be commended by Your reall friend and humble servant IOHN ROFFENS October 14. 1651. I am now drawing towards an end good Reader and shall only tell thee that I had entertained a Project of an higher nature such as hath not been ventured on for ought I can learne by any other whosoever which if God had pleased to continue me in those abilities of minde and body which he hath formerly vouchsafed me would more conduce to the advancement of good letters then any or all the rest of my undertakings But I have found of late God helpe me such great and sensible decay of sight that I may say too truely in the wisemans words Tenebrescunt videntes per foramina claudunt ostia in platea that is to say those that look out of the window be darkned and the doors are shut in the streets as our English reads it And for my part I never had the facultie as some men have of studying by another mans eyes or turning over my books by anothers hand but have been fain to work out my performances by my proper strength without the least help or co-operation to assist me in them If by thy prayers for good successe on such Physical means as I submit my self unto it shall please God to make my sight so usefull to me as to inable me to goe through with the undertakings I shall with joy and cheerfulnesse imploy the remainder of my time to compleat that work which I have digested in my thoughts but so that it lies still within me like an unpolished and unperfect Embryo in the Mothers womb the children being come to the birth but wanting strength to be delivered In the mean time I render all humble and hearty thankes to the Lord my God for giving me such a measure of his holy assistance as to bring this work to a conclusion which if it may redound to his glory the benefit of this Church and thy particular contentation it is all I aime at And that thou mayest receive herein the more full contentment I have drawn up the heads and summe of all the Chapters which I refer to thy perusall and gathered an Errata or Correction of the faults which I desire thee to amend accordingly as thou goest along Thou wilt by that means be somewhat better able to judge whether Geography be better then Divinity Remember the now well known scoffe which was put upon me And so I leave thee to Gods grace and the Churches blessing Lacies Court in Abingdon Iune 6. 1654. POSTSCRIPT READER I Am to give thee notice that in the seventh Chapter of the third Book there is a whole Section or Paragraph misplaced that being subjoyned to the end which should have found its proper place in the beginning of that Chapter And therefore I desire that after these words viz. that he made Israel to sin which thou shall finde fol. 464. lin 23. thou wouldest turne over to fol. 479. lin 17. beginning with these words viz. I know it doth much trouble c. which having read to the end of that Section thou mayest return to the place where thou wert before viz. Now to these positive texts c. and so proceed unto the end without interruption The rest of the Errata thou shalt finde summed up after the generall Contents which I desire thee to correct as before was intimated before thou settle to the work and so fare thee well SYLLABVS CAPITVM OR The Contents of the Chapters The PREFACE Of the Authority and Antiquity of the Creed commonly called the Apostles Creed with answer to the chief Objections which were made against it ALl things made One by God from the first beginning One Faith essential to the Church and upon what reasons What moved the Apostles to comprehend the chief heads of Faith in so short a Summary Whether the Creed of the Apostles were not that form of sound Doctrine which the Apostle recommends to Timothy Proofs for the Antiquity of the Creed from Irenaeus and Tertullian not the Creeds only but the authority of the Fathers disputed and disproved in these later times and by whom especially some reasons warranting the Creed to have been framed by the Apostles The story how the Creed was made at large related by Ruffinus The story of Ruffinus justified by the Antient Writers Traditions how far entertained in the Protestant Churches An Apostolical Tradition by what marks discerned and those marks found in the Tradition which transmits the Creed The reverend esteem held by the Antients of the Creed in Commenting upon the same and keeping it unaltered in the words and syllables The Creed to be first learned by
all that required Baptism When first made part of the publick Liturgy and rehearsed by the people standing in what particulars discriminated from other Formula's The first objection that the Creed is no Canonical Scripture produced and answered An answer to the second objection about the variation of the words in which the Creed was represented Several significations of the Greek word Catholick and that it was a word in use in and before the time of the Apostles contrary to the third objection The last objection from the words of Ruffinus answered The scope and Project of this work The Authors appeal unto antiquity The testimony given unto antiquity by the Antient Writers and also by the Church of England Calvins Authority produced for the asserting of this Creed to the twelve Apostles closeth up the Preface PART I. CHAP. I. Of the name and definition of faith the meaning of the phrase in Deum credere The Exposition of it vindicated against all exceptions THe Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what it signifies and from whence it comes The proper Etymologie of the Latine fides Faith how defined and how it differeth from experience knowledge and opinion The grounds of faith less falliâ—le thâ—n that of any Art or Science Why faith is called by St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the substance of things not seen c. The usual distinction between credere Deum credere Deo and credere in Deum proposed and explicated according to the general tendries of the Schools neither the phrase in Deum or in Christum credere and the distinction thereon founded so generally true as it is pretended Credere with the proposition in not so peculiar unto God as by some conceived No difference in holy Scripture between Deo and in Deum credere nor in the meaning of the Creed Of the faith of Reprobates and why faith hath the name of fides electorum in the Book of God The faith of Devils what it is and why it rather makes them tremble then serves to nourish them in the hope of grace and pardon The Vulgar distinction of faith into Salvifical Historical Temporary and the faith of Miracles proposed examined and rejected CHAP. II. That there is a God and but one God only and that this one God is a pure and Immortal Spirit and the sole Governour of the world proved by the light of reason and the testimony of the antient Gentiles THe notion of a Deity ingraffed naturally in the soul of man Pretagoras Diagoras and Euhemerus why counted Atheists in old times Fortune and Fate why reckoned of as gods by some old Philosophers Natural proofs for this truth that there is but one God summed up together and produced by Minutius Felix and seconded by the testimonies of Mercurius Trismegistus the Sibyls and Apollo himself confirmed by the suffrages of Orpheus and the old Greek Poets The beeing of one God alone strongly maintained by Socrates affirmed by Plato and his followers countenanced by Aristotle and the Peripateticks verified also by the Academicks the most rigid Stoicks and by the general acknowledgment of all sorts of people The judgement of the learned Gentiles touching the Essence and Attributes of God conformable to that of the Orthodox Christians The Heresies of the Manichees and the Anthropomorphites confuted by the writings of the old Philosophers A parallel between the Tutelary gods of the old Idolaters and the Topical or local Saints of the Pontificians CHAP. III. Of the Essence and Attributes of God according to the holy Scripture the name of Father how applyed to God Of his Mercy Justice and Omnipotency THe diligence of Iustin Martyr when an Heathen in the search of God The name IEHOVAH when and for what occasion first given to God in holy Scripture The superstition of the later Iews in the use thereof The Hebrew Elohim sometimes communicated to the creature The several Etymologies of the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The names of El Elion and Adonai what they do import Of the Simplicity Eternity and Omnipresence of God Of his Knowledge Wisdome and Omnipotency The name of Father Almighty given to God by the learned Gentiles God in what sense the Father of our Lord IESVS CHRIST and of none but him The preheminence due in that respect to God the Father the name of Father how communicable to the whole Godhead God proved to be the Father of all mankinde in the right of Creation and of his faithful people by the laws of Adoption Many resemblances between adoptions among men and mans adoption to the sonship of Almighty God The love care and authority of our Heavenly Father compared with that of our earthly parents The care of God in educating all his children in the knowledge of his will how far extended unto the Infidels and Pagans and how far beneficial to them The title of Almighty given to God the Father what it importeth in it self and what in reference to the creature to his Church especially CHAP. IV. Of the Creation of the World and the parts thereof that it was made at first by Gods Almighty power and since continually preserved by his infinite Providence GEneral inducements moving God to create the world An answer to that idle question what God did before the creating of the world The error of Lactantius in it God differenced by this great work from the gods of the Gentiles and that in the opinion of the Gentiles themselves The work of the Creation ascribed to the whole Godhead jointly in the holy Scripture Of the first matter out of which and the time when it was created The opinion of the worlds eternity refelled by Cicero why supposed by Aristotle The worlds creation by the power of Almighty God proved by the testimonies of Trismegistus of Plato Aristotle and others of the learned Greeks As also by the suffrages of Varro Tully Seneca and others of the principal wits amongst the Latines Why God did pass no approbation on the works of the second day and doubled it upon the third Probable proofs that by the waters above the Firmament mentioned in the first of Genesis Moses intended not the clowds and rain but some great body of waters above the Spheres The praise and honour due to God for the worlds creation The general Providence of God in ordering the affairs thereof asserted both against the Stoicks and the Epicureans Gods goodness towards all mankinde especially to his chosen people And of his Iustice or veracity in performing the promises made unto them Gods justice in retaliating to the sons of men and meting to them with that measure which they mete to other Vngodly men how used as executioners of divine vengeance That neither the impunity nor prosperous successes of the wicked in this present world are inconsistent with the justice of Almighty God CHAP. V. Of the creation of Angels The Ministry and office of the good The fall and punishment of the evil Angels and
also of the creation and fall of man OF the name and nature of the Angels Why the creatioon of the Angels not expressed in Scripture Probable conjectures that the Angels were created before the beginning of the world and those conjectures backed by authority of the Antients both Greeks and Latines The several orders and degrees of the holy Angels The Angels ministring to Almighty God not only in inflicting punishments upon the wicked but in protection of the godly Many things said in Scripture to be done by God which were effected by the Ministry of the blessed Angels That every one of Gods people and they alone hath his Angel-guardian proved not only by the authority of the Antients but by the testimony of the Scripture Of the Daemons of the antient Gentiles That the worshipping of Angels mentioned in Coloss. 2. did arise from thence Angel worship not alone forbidden by Scriptures and Fathers but by the very Angels themselves The evil Angels first created in a state of integrity Of their confederacy and fall That the sin of ambition was the cause of the fall proved by the Scriptures and the Fathers and by several reasons Several differences between the sin and fall of man and the sin and fall of the evil Angels The reason why CHRIST took not on himself the Angelical nature The Devils diligence and design in seducing mankinde The Devil why and how called the Tempter Of the Mali Genii Of the Gentiles and that the Daemonium Socratis so often mentioned by the Antients was not of that nature Several Artifices of the Daemons in gaining Divine honours to themselves The Devil not without much difficulty dispossessed of the Soveraignty he had gotten in the souls of men The goodly structure of mans body and some contemplations thence arising That the soul of man is not ex traduce proved by the Scriptures and the Fathers The Image of God imprinted on mankinde in what it doth consist especially and of the several degrees and perfections of it The voluntary fall of man and how it came to be imputed to his whole posterity the remedy of God provided to restore lost man The fall of Adam not decreed and in what sense permitted by Almighty God CHAP. VI. What Faith it was which was required for Justification before and under the Law of Moses Of the knowledge which the Patriarchs and Prophets had touching Christ to come Touching the Sacrifices of the Jews the salvation of the Gentiles and the justifying power of Faith THe general project of this Chapter No faith in Christ required of Adam till his fall nor after that explicitely affirmed of our Father Abraham The error and mistake of Eve touching the Messias Whether the Prophets fully understood their own predictions touching Christ to come In what Gods Prophets differed from the Heathen Soothsayers The Heathen Soothsayers why called extatici and arreptitii and furiosi No explicite faith in Christ required of the Patriarchs before the law nor of the people of the Iews who lived under the Law What faith it was which was imputed for righteousness to our Father Abraham The Sacrifices of the Iews not counted expiatory in reference unto Christ to come but by the Ordinance and Institution of Almighty God Why CHRIST is said in Scripture to be the end of the Law Or the advantages which the Iews had above other Nations The Gentiles not left destitute of means and helps to bring them to the knowledge and Worship of God No point of Reverence performed by Gods people antiently in the act of Worship which was not practised by the Gentiles The Sacrifices of the Gentiles what they aimed at chiefly before perverted by the Devil The Sacrificing of men and women among the Gentiles by whom first introduced and upon what grounds The eminence of some Gentiles in all moral vertues The union of mans soul with Almighty God proposed as the chiefend of liâ—e by the old Philosophers The salvation of the nobler souls amongst the Gentiles defended by some late Divines denyed by St. Augustine formerly and upon what grounds the grounds on which he built examined The vertues of the Gentiles not to be counted sins or vices for any circumstantial imperfections which are noted in them The special help wherewith God might supply amongst the Gentiles the want of Scripture The charitable opinion of Franciscus Iunius touching the Infants of the Gentiles The case of the Gentiles altered since our Saviours passion and so St. Peter Act. 2. and the 17. Article of the Church of England to be understood What it is that makes Faith instrumental unto Iustification 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere or the act of faith imputed to a man for righteousness proved by the testimony of the Scriptures and the Antient Writers The Homilies of the Church explicated and applyed to the present point LIBER II. CHAP. I. Nothing revealed to the Gentiles touching Christ to come The Name of JESUS what it signifies and of bowing at it Of the name CHRIST and the Offices therein included The name of Christians how given unto his Disciples SAlvation of the world by Christ kept as a Mysterie from the Gentiles generally before the Preaching of the Gospel The Sibâ—lline Oracles what they say of Christ not to be counted pie fraudes and with what care preserved from the common view The tearm or â—â—tion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the WORD frequently found in Plato and his followers The summe of our belief touching Christ our Saviour The name of IESVS whence derived and what it signifieth A parallel between IESVS the Son of God and Ioshua or Iesus the son of Nun. The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rendred Salvator by the Writers in the Christian Church till the alteration made by Beza and of the full meaning of those words The dignity of the name of Iesus That bowing at the Name of IESVS was antiently used in the Church of Christ and from the first beginning of the Reformation in the Church of England The name CHRIST whence derived and what it signifieth and of the several Offices it relates unto That the name of Christian was not given unto the followers of Christs Doctrine without some solemnities Chrestos and Chrectiani mistakingly used for Christus and Christiani by some Heathen Writers CHAP. II. That JESUS CHRIST is the Son of God Why called his only or his only begotten Son Proofs for the Godhead of our Saviour Of the title of LORD THe name of the Son or Sons of God ascribed in several respects to men and Angels and also to the Saints departed given in a more peculiar manner to Kings and Prophets then unto any other of the sons of men in all of these respects communicable unto CHRIST our Saviour but after a more excellent manner then to all the rest CHRIST not the Son of God only but his only Son properly to be called the natural and begotten Son of Almighty God in reference to his birth
Viceroyes put upon him by the Papists and the Presbyterians THe title of King designed to Christ long before his birth given to him by the Souldiers and confirmed by Pilate The generall opinion of the Iews and of the Apostles and Disciples for a temporal Kingdome to be set up by their Messiah the like amongst the Gentiles also Christ called the head of the Church and upon what reasons The actuall possession of the Kingdome not conferred on Christ till his resurrection Severall texts of Scripture explained and applyed for the proof thereof Christ by his regall power defends his Church against all her enemies and what those enemies are against which he chiefly doth defend it Of the Legislative power of Christ of obedience to his lawes and the rewards and punishments appendent on them No Viceroy necessary on the earth to supply Christs absence The Monarchy of the Pope ill grounded under that pretence The many Viceroyes thrust upon the Church by the Presbyterians with the great prerogatives given unto them Bishops the Vicars of Christ in spirituall matters and Kings in the externall regiment of the holy Church That Kings are Deputies unto Christ not only unto God the Father proved both by Scriptures and by Fathers The Crosse why placed upon the top of the regall Crown How and in what respects Christs Kingdome is said to have an end Charity for what reasons greater then faith and hope The proper meaning of those words viz. Then shall he deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father disputed canvassed and determined CHAP. XV. Touching the coming of our Saviour to judgement both of quick and dead the souls of just men not in the highest state of blisse till the day of judgement and of the time and place and other circumstances of that action THe severall degrees of CHRISTS exaltation A day of judgement granted by the sober Gentiles Considerations to induce a natural man to that perswasion and to inforce a Christian to it That Christ should execute his judgement kept as a mysterie from the Gentiles Reasons for which the act of judging both the quick and the dead should be conferred by God on his Son CHRIST IESVS That the souls of righteous men attain not to the highest degree of happinesse till the day of judgement proved by authority of Scriptures by the Greek Fathers and the Latine by Calvin and some leading men of the reformation The alteration of this Doctrine in the Church of Rome and the reason of it The torments of the wicked aggravated in the day of judgement The terrors of that day described with the manner of it The errour of Lactantius in the last particular How CHRIST is said to be ignorant of the time and hour of the day of judgement The grosse absurdity of Estius in his solution of the doubt and his aime therein The audaciousnesse of some late adventurers in pointing out the year and day of the finall judgement The valley of Iehosophat designed to the place of the generall judgement The Easterne part of heaven most honoured with our Saviours presence The use of praying towards the East of how great antiquity That by the signe of the Son of man Mat. 24.30 we are to understand the signe of the crosse proved by the Western Fathers and the Southerne Churches The sounding of the trumpet in the day of judgement whether Literally or Metaphorically to be understood The severall offices of the Angels in the day of judgement The Saints how said to judge the world The Method used by Christ in the act of judging The consideration of that day of what use and efficacy in the wayes of life LIBER III. CHAP. I. Touching the holy Ghost his divine nature power and office The controversie of his Procession laid down historically Of receiving the holy Ghost and of the severall Ministrations in the Church appointed by him SEverall significations of these words the holy Ghost in the new Testament The meaning of the Article according to the Doctrine of the Church of England The derivation of the name and the meaning of it in Greek Latine and English The generall extent of the word Spirit more appositely fitted to the holy Ghost The divinity of the holy Ghost clearly asserted from the constant current of the book of God The grosse absurdity of Harding in making the divinity of the holy Ghost to depend meerly upon tradition and humane authority The many differences among the writers of all ages and between St. Augustine with himself touching the sin or blasphemy against the holy Ghost The stating of the controversie by the learned Knight Sir R. F. That the differences between the Greek and Latine Churches concerning the procession of the holy Ghost are rather verball then material and so affirmed to be by most moderate men amongst the Papists The judgement of antiquity in the present controversie The clause a Filioque first added to the antient Creeds by some Spanish Prelates and after countenanced and confirby the Popes of Rome The great uncharitablenesse of the Romanists against the Grecians for not admitting of that clause The graces of the holy Ghost distributed into Gratis data and Gratum facientia with the use of either Why Simon Magus did assert the title of the great power of God Sanctification the peculiar work of the holy Ghost and where most descernible Christ the chief Pastor of the Church discharged not the Prophetical office untill he had received the unction of the holy Spirit The Ministration of holy things conferred by Christ on his Apostles actuated and inlarged by the holy Ghost The feast of Pentecost an holy Anniversary in the Church and of what antiquity The name and function of a Bishop in St. Pauls distribution of Ecclesiasticall offices included under that of Pastor None to officiate in the Church but those that have both mission and commission too The meaning and effect of those solemne words viz. receive the holy Ghost used in Ordination The use thereof asserted against factious Novelty The holy Ghost the primary Author of the whole Canon of the Scripture The Canon of the Evangelical and Prophetical writings closed and concluded by St. Iohn The dignity and sufficiency of the written word asserted both against some Prelates in the Church of Rome and our great Innovators in the Church of England CHAP. II. Of the name and definition of the Church Of the title of Catholick The Church in what respects called holy Touching the head and members of it The government thereof Aristocraticall THe name Church no where to be found in the old Testament The derivation of the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what it signifyeth in old Authors The Christian Church called not improperly by the name of a Congregation The officiation of that word in our old Translators and the unsound construction of it by the Church of Rome Whence the word CHVRCH in English hath its derivation The word promiscuously used in the elder times
the Greeks and the antient Fathers The ireconcileable differences amongst the Papists and the fluctuation of St. Augustine in the point of Purgatory CHAP. V. Of the first Introduction of sin God not the Author of it Of the nature and contagion of Original sin No actual sin so great but it is capable of forgivenesse In what respect some sins may be accounted venial and others mortall FOrgivenesse of sins the first great benefit redounding unto mankind by our Saviours passion Man first made righteous in himself but left at liberty to follow or not to follow the ways of life Adam not God the author of the first transgression proved by the Scriptures and the Fathers The heresie of the Cataphrygians and of Florinus in making God the Author of sin as also of Bardesenus and Priscilian imputing sin to fate and the stars of Heaven The impious heresie of Florinus revived by the Libertines The Founder of the Libertines a member of the Church of Rome not of Calvins Schoole Calvin and his Disciples not altogether free from the same strange tenets The sin of Adam propagated to his whole posterity Original sin defined by the Church of England and in what it specially consisteth That there is such a sin as original sin proved by the testimony of the Scriptures by the light of reason and by the Practise of the Church Private Baptisme why first used and the use thereof maintained in the Church of England Not the day of their birth but of the death of the Saints observed as Festivals by the Church and upon what reasons The word natalis what it signifyeth in the Martyrologies Original sin how propagated from one man to another and how to children borne of regenerate Parents The sin of Adam not made ours by imitation only but by propagation Of the distinction of sins in venial and mortal and how far abominable Equality of sins a Paradox in the Schoole of Christ. No sin considered in its self to be counted veniall but only by the grace and goodnesse of Almighty God No sin so great but what is capable of Pardon if repented of no not the murdering of Christ nor the sin against the holy Ghost Arguments from the holy Scriptures as Heb 6.4 6. and Heb. 10.26 27. and 1 Ioh. 5.16 to prove some sins to be uncapable of pardon produced and answered The proper application of the severall places with the error of our last Translators in the second Text. CHAP. VI. Of the remission of sins by the bloud of Christ and of the Abolition of the body of sin by Baptisme and Repentance Of confession made unto the Priest and the authority Sacerdotal GOD the sole Author Christ the impulsive meritorious cause of the forgivenesse of sins Remission of sins how and in what respects ascribed to the bloud of Christ. Power to forgive sins conferred upon and exercised by the Apostles The doctrine of the Church of England touching the efficacy of Baptisme in the washing away of sin confirmed by the Scriptures and the Fathers and many eminent Divines of the reformed Churches Baptismal washings frequently used of old both by Iews and Gentiles as well to expiate their sins as to manifest and declare their innocence The waters of Baptisme in what respect made efficacious unto the washing away of the guilt of sin What it is which makes Baptisme to be efficacious unto the washing away of sin The rigor of the Primitive Church towards such as sinned after Baptisme The Clinici what they were and how then esteemed of The institution and antiquity of Infant Baptisme The old rule for determining in doubtfull cases how applyed to this Proofs for the Baptisme of Infants from St. Augustine up to Irenaeus inclusively What faith it is by which Infants are Baptized and justifyed Of the necessity of Baptisme the want thereof how supplyed or excused in the Primitive times and of the state of Infants dying unbaptized Repentance necessary and effectuall in men of riper years for remission of sins Confession in the first place to be made to God satisfaction for the wrong done to be given to man Satisfaction for sin in what sense to be given to God by the Penitent sinner Private confession to a Priest allowed of and required by the Church of England The Churches care in preserving the seal of confession from all violation Confession to a Priest defended by the best Divines of the Anglical Church approved by the Lutheranâ— not condemned by Calvin The disagreement of the Papists in the proofs of their auricular confession from the Texts of Scripture The severity of exacting all particular circumstances in confession with the inconveniences thereof That the power of sacerdotall Absolution in the opinion of the Fathers is not declarative only but judicial and that it is so also both in the Doctrine and the practise of the Church of England CHAP. VII Of the Resurrection of the body and the proofs thereof The objections against it answered Touching the circumstances and manner of it The History and grounds of the Millenarians THe resurrection of the body derided and contemned by the Antient Gentiles Proofs for the resurrection from the words of Iob from the Psalmes and Prophets and from the Argument of our Saviour in the holy Gospels Our Saviours Argument for the resurrection against the cavils of the Sadduces declared expounded and applyed to the present purpose Several Arguments to the same purpose and effect alledged by St. Paul in his Epistles and that too of the same numerical not another body Baptizing of or for the dead a pregnant proof or argument for the resurrection severall expositions of the place produced and which most probable Baptizing or washing of the dead antiently in use amongst the Iews the Gentiles and the Primitive Christians with the reasons of it Practical and natural truths for a resurrection The resurrection of the same bâ—dy denyed by Hereticks and justifyed with strong reasons by the Orthodox Christians Two strong and powerfull arguments for the resurrection produced from the Adamant and the art of Chymistry That the dead bodies shall be raised in a perfect stature and without those deformities which here they had and in their several sexes also contrary to the fancies of some vain disputers Considerations raised on the Doctrine of the resurrection with reference unto others and unto our selves The Doctrine of the Millenarians originally founded on some Iewish dotages by whom first set on foot in the Church of Christ how refined and propagated The Millenarian Kingdome described by Lactantius and countenanced by many of the antient writers till cryed down by Hierome The texts of Scripture on which the Millenarians found their fancies produced examined and lâ—yed by as unusefull for them The disagreement of the old Millenarians in the true stating of their Kingdome CHAP. VIII Of the immortality of the soul and the glories of Eternal life prepared for it as also of the place and torment of hell Hell
f. 387. for consorti r. consortio f. 401. f. in their baptism r. in their infancy before baptism f. 414. f. most high Ghost r. most high God f. 391. f. Syrius r. Syria f. 396. f. a siquidem r. siquidem f. 397. f. Arminians r. Armenians f. 398 f. convenientem r. convenientium f. 416. f dum quo r. cum quo f. suppetas r. suppetias f. 456. f. declanative r. declarative f. 453. f an evitable r. unevitable f. 471. f. inventute r. injuventute f. 495. f. which continual r. with continual THE SUMME OF Christian Theologie Positive Philological and Polemical CONTAINED IN THE Apostles CREED Or reducible to it IN THREE BOOKS By PETER HEYLYN 1 Joh. 5.7 There are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the holy Ghost and these three are one LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for Henry Seile over against St. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street 1654. A PREFACE To the following Work CONCERNING The ANTIQVITY AVTHORITY OF THE CREED CALLED THE Apostles CREED With Answer to the chief Objections which are made against it The Drift and Project of the WORK IT was a saying of St. Ambrose Unus unum fecit qui unitatis ejus haberet imaginem that God made only one in the first beginning after the likenesse or similitude of his own unity The creation of the World was the pattern of Man Man of the Church the Almighty of all Being one himself or rather being unity he bestowed upon the World not a being only but his blessing with it that being it should be but one One in the generall comprehension of parts and therefore by the Grecians called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Latines call it universum a name of multitude indeed but of a multitude united Universi qui in uno loco versi say the old Grammarians One also in opposition unto numbers and so maintained by Aristotle in his first De Coelo against the errors of Empedocles and Democritus two old Philosophers Now as he made the world but one after the similitude of himself so out of the world and according to that pattern created he man Made by the Lord according to his own image and made but one because the Lord was so that made him because the world was so out of which he was taken The severall parts and members in him do but commend the unity of the whole Compositum for though they are many members yet but one body saith St. Paul Which mutuall resemblance and agreement as it occasioned many of the old Philosophers to call man an Abridgement of the world so might it no lesse justly have occasioned others to style the world an inlargement of man Nay more then this seeing that only man was without an helper the Lord resolved to make one for him and to make her out of his own body only that so he might preserve still the former unity Nor stayed he here but he did give her unto man to be one flesh with him that to the unity of Original he might add the union of affections Magnum mysterium saith the Apostle but I Speak only as he did touching Christ and the Church For this Creation of the woman as St. Augustine tells us was a most perfect type of the birth and being of the Church of Christ Christum enim et Ecclesiam tali facto jam tunc prophetari oportebat The woman was created out of the side of man at such time as the Lord had caused a deep sleep to fall upon him the Church was also taken out of the wounded side of Christ being cast into a deeper sleep then that of Adam And as the woman was one body both in the composition of her parts and one with Adam both in the union of love and unity of being so is it also with the Church She is at perfect union with him in the union of her affections being marryed unto him for ever one with him in the unity of her original for we are members of his body and of his flesh and of his bone and lastly one in the consent and harmony of all her parts acknowledging one Lord one Faith one Baptisme For though the Church consisted in those early days both of Iews and Gentiles Greeks and Barbarians bond and free men not alone of different countries but of different natures yet being all incorporated into that society of men which we call the Church they make but one body only as St. Paul hath testifyed And whence proceeds that unity of this visible body but in that uniformity which all those severall persons have which belong unto it by reason of that one Lord whose servants they do all professe themselves to be that one Faith of which they do all make confession and that one Baptisme wherewith they are initiated into that society the outward and uniforme profession of these three things which appertain to the very essence of Christianity being necessarily required of each Christian man Christians they neither are nor can be who call not Christ their Lord and Master From hence it came that first in Antioch and afterwards throughout all the world all who were of the visible Church were called Christians Autor nominis ejus Christus saith Cornelius Tacitus But the bare calling of CHRIST IESVS our Lord and Master is not enough to prove us to be Christians unlesse that we do also embrace that Faith which he delivered to his Apostles and was by them delivered unto all the world And though we are not reckoned members of this visible Church till we receive admittance by the door of Baptisme yet is the door of Baptisme opened unto none untill they make profession of their faith in Christ. It is not honestie of life nor morall righteousnesse which gives denomination to a Christian although the want thereof doth exclude from heaven because they are not proper unto Christian men as they are Christians but do concern them as they are men The moral Law was given to mankinde in the state of nature and after promulgated to the Iews in more solemn manner Hence was it that so many of the antient Gentiles not to say any thing of the Iews before the coming of our Saviour were eminent in so many parts of moral vertue But for the acts of Faith whereby we do confesse that IESVS CHRIST is Lord of all things and willingly believe all those sacred truths which he came to publish to the world and by confession of the which we carry as it were a key to the door of Baptisme that is the proper badge and cognizance of a Christian man by which it is made known unto all the world both to what Lord he appertaineth and by what means he was admitted for a member of his house and family Which faith or rather the doctrines of which faith being first delivered by our Saviour with this comfort and reward annexed that whosoever believed in him should not perish but have life
everlasting and after preached by the Apostles both to Iew and Gentile was finally committed unto writing to this end and purpose that by reading it or hearing it read and declared by others we may believe that IESVS is the CHRIST the Son of God and that believing we may have life through his name as St. Iohn assures us And though this be affirmed by him of his Gospel only I mean that written by himself yet we may safely say the same of all the rest of the Apostolical and Evangelical writings as being dictated by the same Spirit writ by men equally inspired and all conducing to this end to teach us to know IESVS CHRIST and him crucifyed and to enable us to give a reason to all that aske of the faith that is in us But being the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles were of too great a bulk to be committed unto memory and that there were some things in them so obscure and difficult that many ignorant and unstable but well meaning men both might and did wrest them to their own destruction other things which related rather unto moral duties then to points faith it was thought fit by the Apostles to draw the points of saving faith such as were necessarily to be believed of all Christian people into a briefe and narrower compasse It was not for the ordinary sort of men to trouble themselves with doubtful disputations as St. Paul calleth them whereof many do occurre in his Epistles disputes of too great difficulty and sublime a nature for every man especially the weak in faith either to understand or conceive aright Nor was it possible that men of mean parts and laborious callings of which the Church consisted for the most part in the first beginning should either have so much leasure as to read over their writings or so much judgment as to gather and collect from thence what of necessity was to be believed that they might be saved what not or so much memory as to treasure up and repeat by heart the infinite treasures of divine knowledge which are comprehended in the same And if it were so as no doubt it was when the Apostles and Evangelists had left those excellent Monuments of themselves in writing which the Church hath ever since enjoyed to which men might resort as occasion was for their information and instruction how necessary then must we think it was for some such Summarie and Abstract of the Christian faith to be resolved upon amongst them which men of weak memories might repeat by heart and men of shallow comprehensions righly understand Those blessed souls knew well none better how to apply themselves to the capacities of the weakest men that there were many Babes in Christ who were to be fed with milk and not with meats and that if they became not all things unto all men they must resolve amongst themselves to save but few Upon this ground then which what juster could there be to induce them to it it is conceived they drew up that brief abstract of the Christian faith which we call the CREED and couched therein whatever point was necessary for all sorts of men in all times and all places of the world both to believe in their hearts as also to professe and confesse upon all occasions though to the apparent hazard of their lives and fortunes And why this might not be that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that form of sound words whereof St. Paul saith to Timothy Hold fast that form of sound words thou hast heard of me I must confesse that I could never yet see a convincing reason Certain I am that Irenaeus who lived very near the Apostles times hath said of this confession of the faith this Creed which hath so generally and unanimously been received over all the world Ecclesia per universum orbem usque ad fines terrae c. The Church saith he throughout the world even to the ends of the earth received from the Apostles and their Disciples that faith which believeth in one God the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth c. and in IESVS CHRIST the Son of God incarnate for our salvation and in the holy Spirit which preached by the Prophets the dispensation and coming of God and the birth of CHRIST our Lord by the Virgin his passion resurrection and ascension with his flesh into heaven and his coming from heaven in the glory of his Father to raise up all flesh and to give just judgement unto all Which words lest possibly we might interpret of the doctrine of faith which questionlesse was alwayes one and the same over all the world and not of any summary or abstract which they had digested for the use and benefit of Gods people or think that they relate rather to the substance of faith then to any set and determinate form of words in which that substance was delivered let us behold what the same Father hath delivered in another place This faith saith he which the Church though dispersed through the world received from the Apostles and their Disciples yet notwithstanding doth it keep it as safe as if it dwelt within the wals of one house and as uniformly hold N. B. as if it had but one only heart and soul and this as consonantly it preacheth teacheth and delivereth as if but one tongue did speak for all He addes which makes the point more plain that though there be different languages in the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet the effect and summe of the tradition i. e. the faith delivered in that forme is one and the same and I presume he means not by tradition those doctrines of faith which are delivered in the books and writings of the Evangelists and Apostles Finally he concludes with this expression and it is worthily worth our marking in the present case that he amongst the Governours of the Church who is best able to speak saith no more then this and no lesse then this the simplest and the most ignorant person which certainly he had not said but that there was one uniforme and determinate order of words which every one was bound to learn and adhere unto Tertullian he speaks plainer yet and affirmes expresly regulam fidei unam omnino esse solam immobilem et irreformabilem that there is but one rule of faith at all and that unmoveable and unalterable How could he say that there was but one rule of faith in the Church if every several Church had a several rule or that it was unmoveable and unalterable as he saith it was if there were no certain form of words prescribed which men were to keep to but every one might change and alter as he saw occasion So that I take it for a truth unquestionable that in the first ages nay the first beginnings of the Church of CHRIST there was a certain form of words prescribed for the ease and benefit of the Church a summarie or abstract of the Articles
of the Christian faith drawn up as briefly and as plainly but yet withall as fully as might stand with brevity a constant rule or standard Regula fidei as Tertullian cals it which both the people were to learn and the Priests or Ministers to teach And to this purpose it is said by Austin of the Creed or Symbolum that it was simplex breve plenum plain short and perfect simplicitas ut consulat rusticitati audientium brevitas memoriae plenitudo doctrinae that so the plainnesse of it might comply with the capacities of the hearers the shortnesse with their want of memory the perfection or the fulnesse of it with their edification Had any one of these been wanting had it been plain enough to be understood but too long and copious to be born in memory or short enough to be remembred but obscure and difficult above the reach of ordinary apprehensions or plain and short enough but imperfect maimed and wanting in some points of principal moment it had been no fit rule for the Church of CHRIST produced no benefit at all at least not worthy the divine Apostolical spirit for the use of Christians I know the age we live in hath produced some men and those of special eminence in the wayes of learning who seem to bid defiance unto all antiquity and will have neither Creeds nor Fathers no nor antient Councels to bear a stroke in any thing which concerns Religion It is not long since that the Apostles Creed hath been out of credit as neither theirs nor antiently received by the Christian Church in that forme we have it but none have taken more unhappy pains in this fruitlesse quarrel then one Downe of Devonshire Vossius hath lately writ a book De Tribus Symbolis wherein he hath not only derogated from this of the Apostles which others had quarrelled to his hand but very unfortunately endevours to prove that that ascribed to Athanasius and so long taken to be his by the chief lights for piety and learning in the Church of Christ was not writ by him Nor is he pleased with that form set forth and recommended to the Churches by the Councell of Nice for fear there should be any obligation laid upon mens consciences to believe otherwise then they list And whereas it was thought till these subtiller times that the most certain way to interpret Scripture was by the Catholick consent and commentaries of the antient Fathers so much renowned both in their own times and all ages since they are now made so inconsiderable such poor-spirited men that truth will shortly fare the worse because they delivered it Our Downe and after him one Dalie a French-man had not else beat their brains and consumed their time and stretched their wits unto the utmost to make them of no use or credit either in points of faith or controversie as they both have done The next thing that we have to do is to cry down the Canon of the Scripture also and as we have vilifyed the Creeds Councels and Fathers to make the fairer room for our own right reason which is both Fathers Creeds and Councels to our now great wits so to reject the Scriptures also as some do already to make the clearer way for new revelations which is the Paraclet or the holy Ghost of our present Montanists To meet with this strange pride and predominant humour I have most principally applyed my self at this time of leasure wherein God help it is not lawfull for me to attend that charge in which God had placed me to restore this antient and Apostolick Creed to its former credit and to expound the same as it stands in terminis according to the sense and meaning of those Orthodox and Catholick writers which have successively flowrished in the Christian world and were the greatest ornaments of the age they lived in For being free from prejudice and prepossessions which do too often blind the eyes of the wisest men and no way interessed in the quarrels which are now on foot to the great disturbance of the Church and peace of Christendome what men more fit then they to decide those Controversies which have been raised about the meaning of those Articles of the Christian faith which are comprised in it or deduced from it So doing I shall satisfie my self though I please not others and have good cause to thanke this retreat from businesse for giving me such opportunities to consult Antiquity and thereby to informe my own understanding For my part I have always been one of those qui docendo discunt who never more benefit my self then by teaching others And therefore though these Papers never see the light or perhaps they may not I shall not think I could have spent my time more profitably then in this employment So God speed me in it To goe back therefore where we left exceeding necessary it was as before was said for some short summarie or compendium of the Christian faith to be agreed on and drawn up for the use of Gods people and that for these 3. reasons chiefly First to consult the wants and weaknesses of poor ignorant persons such as were Novices in the faith and but Babes in CHRIST ut incipientibus et lactantibus quid credendum sit constitueretur as St. Augustine hath it Secondly that there might be some standing rule by which an Orthodox Teacher might be known from a wicked heretick a Christian from an unbeliever and to this end the Creed or Symbolum served exceeding fitly Of which St. Austin gives this note His qui contradicit aut a CRISTI fide alienus est aut est haereticus that whosoever contradicts it is either an Heretick or an Infidel Thirdly that people of all nations finding so punctual and exact an harmonie in points of doctrine to be delivered by the Apostles wheresoeoer they came might be the sooner won to embrace that faith in which they found so universal and divine a consonancie and be united with and amongst themselves in the bonds of peace which is not to be found but where there is the spirit of unity And who were able think you to prescribe a rule so universally to be received over all the world so suddenly to be obeyed by all Christian people but the Lords Apostles Who else but they were of authority to impose a form on the Church of CHRIST to be so uniformly held so consonantly taught in all tongues and languages as we finde this was by Irenaeus to be esteemed so unalterable and unmoveable as this was counted by Tertullian to be illustrated by the notes and Commentaries of the most glorious lights of the Christian firmament St. Cyril Chrysostom Austin and indeed who not â—and finally to continue for so long a time as for 1600. years together not only without such opposition as other Creeds have met with in particular Churches but without any sensible alteration in the words and syllables Assuredly such respects and honour had not
of Reliques single life of Priests and the like to these Assuredly they are all so far from having the general consent of all times that generally they have had the consent of none no not so much as in the Church of Rome it self till the candle of all good literature was put out by the night of ignorance But for the Creed of the Apostles trie it according to these rules by both or either and it will evidently appear not only that it hath been universally and continually received in the Church for theirs but that the most famous and renowned men of all times and ages have so received it from their Fathers and recommended it for such to the times ensuing no man gainsaying or opposing till these later times in which the blessed Word of God cannot scape unquestioned So that we have as much authority as the Tradition of the Church the consent of Fathers and the succession of all times can give us to prove this Creed to have been writ by the Apostles by them commended to the Churches of their several plantations and so transmitted to our selves without interruption And no authority but divine immediately declared from the God of heaven is to be ballanced with this proof or heard against it Thus having proved that the Creed was writ by the Apostles and proved it by as great authority as any can be given by the Church of CHRIST and the consent of the most renowned Writers of the Primitive times Let us next see what reputation and esteem it carryed in all parts of Christendome and draw from thence such further arguments as the nature of that search will beaâ— And first it is a manifest and undoubted truth that as this Creed was universally received over all the world ab ipsis Apostolorum temporibus from the very times of the Apostles as Vigilius hath it without the least contradiction or opposition so hath it passed from hand to hand for above these 1600 years without alteration or addition This we did touch upon before but now press it further and use it for another argument that none but the Apostles were or could be the Authors of it and that if it had otherwise been esteemed of in the former times it would have been obnoxious unto alterations yea and to contradiction also as others the most celebrated Creeds in the Christian world It was the saying of Pope Gregory the Great that he esteemed of the four first General Councels no otherwise then of the four Evangelists And who is there to whom the name of Athanasius and the Nicene Councel and the first general Councel holden in Constantinople is not most venerably precious And yet the Creed of Athanasius hath found such sory welcome in some parts of the world as to be called either in dislike or scorn the Creed of Sathanasius and he himself condemned of extreme arrogance if not somewhat worse for imposing it upon the consciences of all Christian men as necessary to their salvation Non potuit Satan altius evehere humanam formulam as the Remonstrants please to phrase it The Nicene Creed was of no long continuance in the Church of Christ before these words secundum Scripturas according to the Scriptures were added to the Article of the Resurrection And to the Constantinopolitan the Churches of the West have added Filioque in another Article and no mean one neither that namely of the proceeding of the holy Ghost without the leave and liking of the Eastern Prelates The reason of which boldness is because they are and were conceived to be humane formula's of Ecclesiastical constitution only no divine authority and therefore might be altered and explained and fitted to the best edification of the Church Whereas the Creed of the Apostles is come unto our hands without alteration in the same words and syllables as it came from them none ever daring in the space of so many years to alter any thing therein though many have applyed their studies to explain the same And this I make a second argument evincing the Authority and Antiquity of the sacred Symbolum that men of most renown and credit for the times they lived in did purposely apply their studies to expound this Creed with as much diligence and care as any part or most parts at least of the holy Scriptures Witness the fourth Catechism of St. Cyril Bishop of Hierusalem two of the Homilies of St. Chrysostom some of St. Augustines Sermons de Tempore his two whole Tracts de fide Symbolo de Symbolo ad Catechumenos all principally made for explanation of this Creed together with the Commentaries of Ruffinus Maximus Taurinensis Venantius Fortunatus B. of Poyctiers antient writers all and all composed upon no other text or argument but this Creed alone Not to say any thing at all of the learned works of many eminent men in the ages following and of the present times we live in though otherwise of different perswasions in Religion A thing which cannot be affirmed of the Nicene Creed or any other Creed whatever none of which have been commented or scholied on by any of the antient Doctors of the Catholick Church or of the disagreeing parties in the present times And to say truth there was good reason why this Creed should be thus explained why such great pains should be bestowed to expound the same it being a very antient custome in the Church of CHRIST not to admit any to the sacred Font but such as made a publick profession of their faith according to the words of this Creed and understandingly recited it in the Congregation Mos ibi servatur Antiquus apud eos qui gratiam baptismi suscepturi sunt publice i. e. fidelium populo audiente Symbolum reddere so saith Ruffinus for his time of the Church of Rome we may affirme the like for those of Antioch Hierusalem Africa upon the credit of St. Chrysostome Cyril Augustine in their works now mentioned Nor was it long before it was ordained in the Councell of Agde Ann. 506. that in regard of the great confluence of all persons to the Church to receive the Sacrament of Baptisme upon Easter day the Creed should be expounded every day in the way of Sermons to the people from the Sunday we call Palme Sunday to the Feast it self Symbolum ab omnibus Ecclesiis ante octo dies Dominicae resurrectionis publice in Ecclesia competentibus praedicari as the Synod hath it Nay they conceived the learning of this Creed by heart so necessary in the former times that it was first desired and afterwards enjoyned that all should learn it and retain it in their hearts and memories who either were desirous to be counted good Catholick Christians or to partake of any of the solemne offices in the Christian Church St. Augustine commended it unto his Auditors that for the better keeping it in memory they should repeat it to themselves Quando surgitis quando vos collocatis ad
ones have bâ—en pleased to do it Witness that famous challenge made by Bishop Iewel by which the several points in issue between the Church of England and the Church of Rome were generally referred to the decision of the Antient Fathers with great both honour and success Witness these words of Peter Martyr a man of great imployment in the REFORMATION of the Church and sent for hither by Archbishop Cranmer to mote it here In judging things obscure saith he the Spirit there are two ways or means for our direction whereof the one is inward which is the Spirit the other outward or external the Word of God to which saith he Si Patrum etiam autoritas accesserit valebit plurimum If the authority of the Fathers do come in for seconds it will exceedingly avail And unto this agrees Chemnitius also though of a different judgement from him in some points of doctrine who having told us of the Fathers that we may best learn from their own words and sayings what we may warrantably conceive of their authority gives in the close thereof this note and a sound one 't is Nullum dogma in Ecclesia novum cum tota antiquitate pugnans recipiendum that is to say that new opinion which seems new and is repugnant to the general cuâ—rent of Antiquity is to be entertained in the Church of God What is decreed herein by the Church of England assembled representatively in her Convocations what by the King and three Estates convened in Parliament we shall see anon In the mean time take here the judgment of the Antients in this very case 'T is true indeed the Fathers many times and in sundry places humbly and piously have confessed the eminency of Canonical Scriptures above all the writings of men whatsoever they be for which consent St. Augustine contr Faust. Manic l. 11. c. 5. de Baptismat contr Donatist l. 1. c. 3. Epist. 19. in Proem lib. de Trinitate desiring liberty of dissent from one another when they saw occasion and binding no man to adhere unto their opinions further then they agreed with the Word of God delivered by the holy Prophets and Apostles which have been since the world began De quorum Scriptis quod omni errore careant dubitare nefarium est and of whose writings to make question whether or not they were free from error were a great impiety And this is that whereof St. Hierome speaks in an Epistle to Pope Damasus Ut mihi Epistolis tuis sive tacendarum sive dicendarum Hypostase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 n detur autoritas that he might be left to his own liberty either in using or refusiug the word Hypostasis But then it is as true withall that Vincentius give it for a rule Multorum magnorum consentientes sibi sententias Magistorum sequendas esse that the antient consent of godly Fathers is with great care both to be searched into and followed in the Rule of Faith And 't is as true that having moved this question in another place that if the Canon of the Scripture be so full and perfect and so abundantly sufficient in it self for all things Quid opus est ut ei Ecclesiasticae intelligentiae jungatur autoritas what need there is that the authority of Ecclesiastical interpretations should be joyned with it returns this answer in effect Lest every man should wrest the Scriptures to his own private fancy and rather draw some things from thence to maintain his errours then for the advancement of the truth Of the same resolution and opinion was St. Augustine also who though he were exceeding careful upon all occasions to yeild the Scriptures all due reverence yet he was willing therewithall to allow that honour which was meet both to the writings of the Fathers which lived before him and to the Canons and Decrees of preceding Councels and to submit himself unto their Authorities For speaking of General Councels he subjoyns this note Quorum est in Ecclesia saluberrima autoritas that their authority in the Church was of excellent use And in another place alleadging the testimonies of Irenaeus Cyprian Hilarie Ambrose and some other Fathers he concludeth thus Hoc probavimus autoritate Catholicorum sanctorum c. This we have proved by the authority of Catholick and godly men to the end that your weak and silly novelties might be overwhelmed with their only authority with which your contumacie is to be repressed He speaks this unto Iulian a Pelagian Heretick And with these testimonies and authorities of such holy men thou must either by Gods mercy be healed i. e. recovered from his errour or else accuse the famous and right holy Doctors of the Catholick Church against which miserable madness I must so reply that their faith may be defended against thee even as the Gospel it self is defended against the wicked and professed enemies of Christ. More of this kinde might be produced from the Antient Writers But what need more be said in so clear a point especially to us that have the honour to be called the children of the Church of England who by a a Canon of the year 1572 doth binde all men in holy Orders not to preach any thing in their Congregations to be believed and holden of the people of God but what is conâ—onant to the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments Quodque ex illa ipsa doctrina Catholici Patres Veteres Episcopi collegerint and had been thence concluded or collected take which word you will by the Catholick Fathers and antient Bishops of the Church The like authority and respect is given to the first four General Councels by the unanimous vote and suffrage of the Prince and three Estates convened in Parliament in the first year of Queen Elizabeth of famous memory wherein it was ordained or declared rather amongst other things that nothing should be deemed or adjudged Heresie in the Kingdome of England but what had been adjudged so formerly in any of the said four General Councels or any other General Councel determining the same according to the Word of God c. Where we may see that the Estates in Parliament did ascribe so much to the authority of those four Councels and the judgement of the Fathers which were there assembled as not to question any thing which they had determined concerning heresie or to examine whether it agreed with Gods Word or not but left the people of this Kingdom totally to repose themselves upon their authority and to take that for heresie without more ado which they judged to be so And so I close this point with those words of Saravia a learned man and one that stood up stoutly in this Churches cause against the innovating humors which was then predominant though not so high as in these times of Anarchie Qui omnem Patribus adimit autoritatem nullam relinquit sibi that is to say He who depriveth the Fathers of their due authority will
praeterpluperfect tense of the passive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth to be perswaded to be taught to be induced to give assent unto such propositions as are made unto us Thus is the word used by the great Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For I am perswaded that neither life nor death c. shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Iesus our Lord. And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Being confident of this very thing Persuasum habens hoc ipsum as Beza very properly doth translate the word That he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it till the day of Iesus Christ. So that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render faith being hence derived may not unfitly be construed a perswasion or a firm assent persuasionem seu firmam assensionem as the learned Valla hath observed and then the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being brought from thence will signifie in the true and proper notion of it I am perswaded verily of the truth of that which so many godly and religious men have related to me and give as full and firm an assent unto it as if I had been present when the deed was done Thus also for the Latine word Fides the Etymologie thereof is drawn from fio from the doing or performance of those things which are said or promised Fides enim dicitur saith Cicero eo quod fiat quod dictum est And therefore faith or fides call it which you will as it relates unto the promises of God is defined by Zanchius to be firma certa persuasio de promissionibus dei a strong and confident perswasion that God will graciously fulfil those promises which he hath pleased to make unto us And therefore I shall fix upon that definition of the thing it self which I finde amongst the Antient Schoolmen affirming it to be a firm assent to supernatural truths revealed Which definition lest it should fare the worse for the Authors sake is backed and seconded by so many learned men both of the Protestant and Reformed Churches as may well serve to set it free from all further cavils For thus Melanchthon for the Protestant or Lutheran Churches Fides est assensus omni verbo Dei nobis tradito Faith saith he is an assent to the veracity or â—ruth of the whole Word of God delivered to us And so saith Vrsin for the Doctors of the French or Calvinian party defining it almost in the self same words to be Vera persuasio qua assentimur omni verbo Dei nobis traditâ—o With these agree Chemnitius in Evan. Concil Trident. cap. de Iustificatione Pet. Martyr ad Rom. 3. v. 12. Polanus Partit Theolog. lib. 2. pag. 368. besides divers others Which being the true and proper definition of belief or faith according to the natural meaning of the word both in Greek and Latine I may conclude from hence without further trouble that to believe according as the word here stands in the front of the Creed is only to be verily perswaded of the truth of all those points and articles which are delivered in the same and to give a firm assent unto them agreeable unto the measure of our understanding Faith thus defined differeth not only from experience knowledge and opinion all which do come within the compass of Assents in general but from all other things whatsoever which come within the compass of our belief When we assent unto the truth of such things or matters as are discernible by sense we may call it perception or experience as when a man assents to this proposition that ice is cold or that fire is hot because he feels it to be so by his outward senses If our assent be weak unsetled or grounded only upon probabilities we then call it opinion in matters of which nature men are for the most part left at liberty their understandings being neither convinced by the power of a superior truth nor setled and confirmed by demonstrative proofs This though it be an assent is no firm assent and therefore nothing less then Faith If our assent be grounded on demonstrative proofs and built upon the knowledge of natural causes it is then tearmed Science or knowledge properly so called for Scire est per causas scire said the great Philosopher But he that gives assent unto any truth only because of the authority of the man that speaks it neither examining his proofs nor searching into the probabilty or possibility of the thing related that man in true propriety of speech is said to believe and to believe we know is the act of faith Thus it is said of the Samaritans that many of them believed on him for the saying of the woman which testified thus of him viz. He told me all that ever I did but more believed because of his own words when they had heard him speak and observed his doctrine And yet not every truth believed on the speakers credit is the proper object of belief or faith according as we use the word in the Schools of Christ but only supernatural truths such truths as our depraved nature could not reach unto without revelation from above by consequence not the authority of every speaker but only of such holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the holy Ghost is the foundation of this faith which we here define I give belief unto the Histories of Xenophon Thucydides Polybius and Corn. Tacitus because I hold a good opinion of the men that writ them And I believe that Edward the Black Prince wonne the battel of Crecie being then but 18 years of age and that King Henry the fifth subdued the greatest part of France within five or six years because I finde it so related without contradiction both by our English Chroniclers and the French Historians But I rely on no humane authority how great soever it be for a rule of Faith which as it hath truths only supernatural for the object of it so have those truths or the revelation rather of those truths no other Author then the Spirit of God So then faith is a firm assent which makes it differ from opinion which may be called an assent also but weak and wavering It is a firm assent to truths for to believe in lyes is not faith but folly A brand or character set on those by Almighty God who seeing they would not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved have been and are given over unto strong delusions and to believe in lyes that they should be damned 'T is an assent to truths revealed not grounded on demonstrative proofs or the disquisition of natural causes or the experiment of sense but only on the authority of him who reveals it to us which differenceth it most clearly both from experience and from knowledge which have surer grounds
the Apostles Creed it is said expresly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say I believe in the holy Catholick Church and in the Nicene Creed it was said of old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Credo in unam Catholicam Ecclesiam as the Translator of Socrates where that Creed occurreth And though the same be not expressed in terminis in the Latine Creed yet in the Grammar of the words it is understood For where the Latine Creeds run thus Credo in Spiritum sanctum sanctam Catholicam Ecclesiam c. that is to say I believe in the holy Ghost the holy Catholick Church c. as the English hath it either the word Credo must be interposed as Credo in Spiritum sanctam credo sanctam Catholicam Ecclesiam i. e. I believe in the holy Ghost I believe the holy Catholick Church or else the Preposition In must relate to both as also to the rest that follow I know indeed that after Credere in Deum or in Iesum Christum was thought to be a different act and degree of faith from Credere Deo or Iesu Christo that men began to think it somewhat inconvenient to say as formerly Credo in sanctam Catholicam Ecclesiam or Credo in Mosen Prophetas I believe in the holy Catholick Church or I believe in Moses and the holy Prophets which have been since the world began And so we are to understand both Ruffin and Paschasius when they speak thereof both fitting their expressions to such forms of words as were then authorized in the Schools of CHRIST The like is to be said of St. Augustine also viz. Credimus Paulo non credimus in Paulum c. We believe Paul saith he we believe not in Paul and we believe Peter we believe not in Peter Where note the Father speaks not of the property but of the use of the phrase according to the language of the times he lived in for ab initio non fuit sic that it was otherwise intended at the first beginning we have shewn already Whether the phrase be so peculiar an expression of the holy Ghost as that it is not to be found in the old Greek Writers I will not meddle at the present though I conceive the holy Ghost did dictate nothing of the Scriptures but the matter only and left the language thereof to the sacred Pen-men But for the Septuagint although they do not use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 preceding an Accusative Case which is the singularity of expression so much insisted on in this business yet use they other words to the same effect For those which stand so highly on singularity cannot choose but grant that many times they use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not seldom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sometimes also though not often 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which whosoever should translate in the English tongue could not translate it otherwise then thus to believe in God So that whether it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Credo in Deum or Credo in Deo it makes no difference in this case no more then that these words of the Evangelist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Beza are translated Crediderunt in nomen ejus but by the Author of the Vulgar in nomine ejus which come both to one This makes it evident in part that the said distinction between Credere Deo credere Deum stands not upon so sure a ground as was imagined but I must make it yet more evident that in the true intent and meaning of the sacred Pen-men there is no difference at all to be found between them For in the 16. chapter of the Acts the Iaylor did demand of Paul and Silas what it behoved him to do that be might be saved vers 30. to which they made this following answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Crede in Dominum Iesum Christum c. believe on the Lord IESVS CHRIST and thou shalt be saved and thy house It followeth thereupon in the sacred story that being instructed in the Word and baptized with water he rejoyced greatly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Credens Deo as both Beza and the Vulgar read it Believing in God with all his house vers 34. where if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the 34. be not the same with that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the 31 verse as to the act of faith which is one in both although the Object of this Act be given us in a different manner the Iaylor had fallen short of that way to Heaven and possibly might have been as far from the hopes of Salvation as when he first proposed the question And if they be the same as no doubt they be then Credere Deo Credere in Deum differ not at all and therefore neither the distinction nor the Explication so generally true and universally to be imbraced as hath been supposed which was the first thing to be proved The second was that howsoever Credere in Deum in some texts of Scripture may possibly admit that explication which is made thereof yet can it not be possisibly admitted in this place of the Creed My reason is because all Novices or Catechumeni which were to be admitted into the Church by the dore of Baptism all children formerly baptized which either came or were brought before the Bishop for Confirmation were first to give an account of their faith to make a publick profession or confession of it in the face of the Church according to the very words and Articles of this common Creed For which see proof sufficient in the former chapter Now if by Credere in Deum in Iesum Christum the Church intended such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such an adhaesion unto God in IESVS CHRIST such an assurance and perswasion of our interest in him as the phrase is pretended to import the Church did very ill to exact it from the hands of Novices or from the mouths of babes in Christ considering how strong the meat was and how agreeable unto the stomach of the strongest faith My second reason is which before was touched at because if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to believe in God the Father Almighty in Iesus Christ his only Son and in the holy Ghost the Lord and giver of life import no less then such a dependence on them as is due from the Creature to his God and that too ex vi Phraseos out of the very prhase or form of speech in Deum credere the same dependence must all Christians have upon the Church the same on the Communion of Saints and the rest that follow Will you have a reason of this reason It is because the very same phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is extant still interminis in tearms exprest in all Greek copies of the Creed and necessarily implyed in the Latine
he only made a shew of faith which he never had Why so Quia Lucas aperte testatur eum credidisse because S. Luke affirms that he did believe being convinced by the signs and miracles which S. Philip wrought as many others of Samaria at the same time were And yet no doubt but Simon Magus was a Reprobate a man rejected by the Lord in regard of his wickedness and that his heart was not right in the sight of God and afterwards an author of such mischief in the Church of God that Ignatius who lived neer those times very rightly cals him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first begotten of the Devil The like mâ—y be affirmed also of Alexander Hymeneus and Philetus who had been made partakers of the Faith of CHRIST and were zealous in it for the time but afterwards made shipwrack of it denying amongst other Articles of the Christian faith that of the resurrection of the dead and thereby overthrowing the faith of some Men questionless given over to a reprobate sense or else we may be well assured St. Paul had never given them over to the hands of Satan as it is plain he did But what need search be made into these particulars when Calvin himself affirms in general Reprobis fidem tribui eosdem interdum simili fere sensu atque Electos affici eosque merito dici Deum sibi propitium credere c. that Faith is given unto the Reprobate that sometimes they are touched with the like sense of Gods grace as the Elect ones are and may deservedly be said to believe that God is favourable and propitious to them God sometimes makes the Sun of Righteousness as well as the Sun of Heaven to shine on the evil and on the good Which notwithstanding Faith is called and that most properly Fides Electorum the Faith of Gods Elect in that and other places of the Book of God because the fruits thereof are in them more visible the confession of the same more fervent the seeds thereof more fastly rooted and the fruit more durable For which cause possibly the Apostle doth there join together the faith of Gods Elect and the knowledge of the truth which is after godliness Which is indeed the special difference which is between the faith of the Elect and the faith of the Reprobates For if the fruit be unto holiness no question but the end thereof will be life everlasting It is not then the weakness or the want of faith which doth alone exclude the Reprobate from the Kingdom of Heaven and make him finally uncapable of the grace and favour of the Lord in the day of judgement but the want of a good conscience in the sight of God And therefore if we mark it well St. Peter did not charge it upon Simon Magus that he wanted faith or that his faith was only a dissembled hypocritical faith upbraiding him as formerly Ananias in another case that he had not only lyed unto men but unto God but that he was in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity not having his heart right in the sight of God Nor did St. Paul accuse the said three Apostates that they never had received the faith or that the faith which they received was not true and real but that first having put away a good conscience they afterwards made shipwrack of the faith also blaspheming God and scattering abroad their dangerous errours to the seducing of their brethren If Simon had repented of his wickedness as St. Peter advised it may be charitably supposed that the thoughts of his heart had been forgiven him And Hymeneus and Alexander if they had made good use of the Apostles censure when he delivered them unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh no question but their spirits might have been saved in the day of the Lord IESUS Which may suffice for answer to the first objection touching the faith of reprobates as they use to call them whose firm assent to supernatural truths revealed makes them not inheritable to the Kingdom of Heaven because they hold the truth revealed in unrighteousness and so become without excuse as St. Paul tels us in another case of the antient Gentiles The next Objection is that if this phrase in Deum credere import no more then this that there is a God and that all his words are Divine truths and all the world the workmanship of his hands alone the Devils do belieue as much as St. Iames assures us Thou believest saith he that there is one God thou dost well the Devils also believe and tremble Iam. 1.19 The answer unto this is easie St. Iames assures us of the Devils that they believe there is one God but doth withall assure us this that this belief of theirs confirms them in the certainty and foreknowledge of their everlasting damnation the apprehension of the which produceth nothing in them but fear and horrour The Devils do believe that there is a God and that this God is just in all his actions and righteous in all his ways unchangeable in his Decrees Yesterday and to day and the same for ever What other comfort can they reap from this faith of theirs but that being once condemned by God to eternal fire they are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness to the judgement of the great and terrible day For knowing that the judgements of the Lord are just and his doom unchangeable they must needs know withall the certainty of their own damnation or else they cannot properly be affirmed to believe this truth that there is a God And as they do believe that there is a God so they believe also that he is the Maker of heaven and earth For being at the first created by Almighty God with so great perspicacity and clearness of the understanding they could not choose but know the hand that made them and consequently believe that he made all those things which are ascribed to God in the holy Scripture Though by their fall they lost the favour of the Lord their first estate in which they were created by Almighty God the grace by which they stood and the glories which they did possess yet lost they not that quickness and agility of motion that perspicacity and clearness of the understanding wherewith they were endowed by God at their first Creation But what makes this unto their comfort when the same knowledge or belief call it which you will by which they are assured that God made the Heavens and the Earth and all the things therein contained will keep them always in remembrance of this most sad truth that he also made an Hell of fire where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth prepared for the Devill and his Angels To go a little farther yet the Devils did not only believe long since that CHRIST was come in the flesh but publickly proclaimed him in the open
Divinity Reader in Heidelberg though he both useth approveth this distinction yet to my seeming takes not the tearms to be so different as the members of a good Division ought to be by the rules of Logick and indeed so confounds them one with another that we can hardly see where the difference lyeth For he confesseth in plain tearms fidem Iustificantem Historicam semper inse complecti that justifying faith doth always comprehend the Historical in it and that the faith of Miracles hath either Temporary or Historical faith always joyned unto it If so the difference between them must be very small consisting more in magis minus and such degrees of comparison then in any spiritual and formal difference and possibly it may fall out that the faith of miracles as they call it is rather an extraordinary gift or effect of faith then any distinct species or branch thereof First for Historical faith that faith whereby we do believe Ea vera esse quae in libris Prophetarum Evangelistarum tradita sunt by which we do believe those things for true which are contained in the Books of the Old and New Testament as themselves define it I cannot see wherein it differeth from justifying or saving faith unless perhaps it be in the application which rather is an Act of faith then a species of it And 't is but a perhaps if that for in my mind Dr. Iackson reasoneth very well That our Faith is not to be counted unsound or non salvifical because Historical but rather oft-times therefore insufficient to some because not so fully Historical as it might be or in that our apprehension of divers matters related in Sacred stories is not so great so lively and sound as to equalize the utmost limits of some belief which yet may be fully comprehended under Historical assent there being no assent which can exceed the measure of that belief or credence which is due unto sacred Writers Which if it be on our parts as it ought to be to Gods general promises it will more forcibly more truly and naturally apply them to us in particular then we our selves can possibly do by beginning our faith at that particular application where indeed it must end For temporary faith they define that next to be an Assent unto the Doctrine of the Gospel accompanyed with joy and gladness and the outward profession of the same but such as lasteth but for a season and fades in time of persecution and affliction And this they ground upon that passage in our Saviours parable where it is said that He which receiveth the seed in stony places the same is he that receiveth the Word and anon with joy receiveth it yet hath he not root in himself but dureth for a season For when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the Word by and by he is offended But for my part I could never see any reason to perswade me yet that our Saviour in that Parable did purpose to represent unto our view the several kindes of Believers but the several kindes of hearers only many of which do hear the Word with divers ends and different purposes but only they which do so hear the Word of God as to bring forth the fruit of good living shall like the good grain in the following Parable be laid up at the last day in the barn of the Heavenly husbandman Or granting that they build this definition on a ground well laid yet I see nothing to the contrary but that the temporary faith which is there defined may be a true and lively faith and justifie the man that hath it in the sight of God though failing in the course of his Christian race he do not get the prize proposed unto them that win and hold out to the very end A temporary faith may justifie for the present time and bring forth many fruits of holiness and newness of life but it is faith with perseverance in the works of Piety which shall receive the Crown in the day of Judgement And if this Temporary faith be not saving also it is not in regard of it self that it wants any of those signs and tokens by which a saving faith is to be discerned but that the man that is endued or invested with it hath not the gift of perseverance but out of worldly fear or on by-respects makes shipwrack of his faith or casts it over-board in the storm as a thing unprofitable So that the difference between Temporary and Salvifical faith is not in any thing essential to the true nature of faith but only in duration which is accidental and extrinsical which make it no more a distinct species of faith or to fall short in any thing which true faith should have then that a man who dyeth in the flower of his youth wants any thing of being as compleat and perfect a man as he that lives unto the age of Methusalem That magis minus do not differre specie is an old rule in Logick And so Bucanus doth conclude to the point in hand though as professed and rigid a Calvinian as any other whatsoever affirming plainly Fidem languidam esse veram fidem that a weak and languishing faith is a true faith on this very reason Quia magis minus non variant rerum species as before is said Which rule if it hold good in the intension of Faith as to strength and weakness will certainly hold good in the extension of it also as to length and shortness of duration Last of all for the faith of Miracles or fides Miraculorum as they please to call it is defined by the said Vrsinus to be Donum singulare faciendi aliquod opus extraordinarium aut praedicendi certum eventum ex revelatione divina that is to say a singular gift of doing some extraordinary and supernatural work or foretelling things to come by divine Revelation But this considered as it ought is so far from being a distinct species of faith that it ought not to be called faith at all but is rather the effect of an eminent faith or some more extraordinary gift super-added to it For CHRIST our Saviour reckoneth it as the effect of a powerful faith saying to his Disciples when they seemed to complain because they could not cast the Devil out of a man who was brought before them that it was propter incredulitatem ipsorum by reason of their unbelief as our English reads it that it to say because their faith was yet but weak and newly planted not strong nor spiritful enough to effect such wonders And the Apostle reckoning up those gifts and graces of the holy Ghost which God bestowed upon his Church in her first plantations gives us this punctual list or catalogue of them saying that unto one is given by the Spirit the Word of Wisdom to another the Word of knowledge by the same Spirit to another is given Faith by
the name IEHOVAH as the Greeks by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he telleth us there In this regard if possible there had been no other reason it was a name or Attribute call it which we will which was not fit to be communicated unto any creatures as many other of his names and Attributes have used to be And this the Iews so stood on in their later times of that State that they would by no means give it to an earthly Prince Iosephus the Historian telling us of some amongst them whom no extremity of torment could enforce to conferre this title on any of the Roman Emperours though at that time they had their Countrey in subjection and did Lord it over them Had they stayed here it had been well No body could have grudged or murmurred that GOD should have a name peculiar to himself alone or that his name should not be mentioned otherwise then with fear and reverence But afterwards it gave occasion to such superstitions as made them subject to the scorn and censure of all other people the use of that most sacred Name being forbad at all times upon pain of death for fear â—orsooth Ne quotidiano usu vilesceret lest the promiscuous use thereof should bring it into disesteem amongst the Vulgar The very same reason if you mark it for which the Massing-Priest in the Church of Rome is bound to speak the words of Consecration in so low a voyce that the next stander by cannot hear a syllable Ne se. vilescerent sacrosancta verba lest they should grow into contempt with the common people The second name which doth occur of GOD in the holy Scripture for of Elijah which proceedeth from the same root I forbear to speak is that of Eloah in the singular but most frequently that of Elohim in the plural number It sigfieth the mighty Iudges and is derived from Alah which is to swear because that in all weighty causes when necessity requires an Oath to finde out the truth we are to swear only by the name of God who is the righteous Iudge both of Heaven and Earth For the most part it is rendred by the English GOD and is first used by Moses in the first words of Genesis Bereshith bara Elohim saith the Hebrew Text In principio creavit Deus saith the Vulgar Latine in the beginning God created saith the Modern English Where Elohim a Nown of the plural number is joined with Bara being a Verb of the singular number to signifie the Mysterie of the glorious Trinity as many of our late Divines have been pleased to note though neither any of the old Translations which have been formerly in use in the Christian Church did take notice of it nor are constructions of that kinde such strangers in the Hebrew tongue as other learned men have noted as that so high a mystery of the Christian faith should have no better grounds to stand on then so weak a Criticism This name is generally rendred in Greek by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence the Latine Deus and in English GOD and is not so peculiar to the heavenly Majesty as not to be communicated sometimes to the creature also For thus the Lord to Moses in the Book of Exodus Ego constitui te Deum Pharaonis the word is Elohim in the Hebrew I have made thee a God unto Pharaoh that is to say I have made thee as a God unto him to be the internuncio or Embassadour betwixt me and him And in this sense it is applyable also unto Kings and Princes as Ego dixi Dii estis I have said yee are Gods Psal. 82. because they do participate of his Supreme Power and are his Substitutes and Vicegerents here upon the Earth in which respect they are called Potestates Powers in the very Abstract The Powers that be saith the Apostle are ordained of GOD And for the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence the Latine Deus there are given us three Originations of it all serviceable to set forth the nature of the glorious Godhead For first it is derived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to run because of that swift motion which he seemeth to have by being present in all places those which conceived not the miracle of his Omnipresence conjecturing at him by the swiftness and agility of motion According unto that of Virgil Deum ire per omnes Terrasq tractusque maris Coelumque profundum The very same with that of David If I climbe up into Heaven thou art there if I go down into Hell thou art there also A thing objected by Cecilius against the Christians who had been well enough contented if they had only given him a Supreme direction over all wordly affairs Sed quod loc is omnibus inter erret but that he should be present in all places also that was conceived to be too great a prejudice to those many Gods whom the Gentiles worshipped and shut up in their several Temples But of this more anon in a place more proper The second Etymon of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is to see according to another passage of the Prophet Ieremie Can any man hide himself in secret places so that I shall not see him saith the Lord In this respect the good old Father Irenaeus hath affirmed of God that he is totus oculus totum lumen all eye all light and Orpheus an old Heathen Poet tels us also of him that though he be invisible yet he seeth all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clemens citeth him in his Protrepticon or Exhortation The third and last is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to inflame or kindle because that by the vertue of his heavenly power he doth inflame our souls with the fire of zeal and kindle a right spirit within us Est deus in nobis agitante calescimus illo as in another case said the Heathen Poet. But leaving these Grammatical observations on the name of GOD pass we on forwards to those other titles by which he is presented to us in the holy Scripture which are El Helion Adonai Of these the first is El and signifieth as much as the strong God GOD being not only strong in his own Essence but giving strength and fortitude to all the creatures according to their several natures By this name Christ invoketh the assistance of his heavenly Father saying Eli Eli or Eloi Eloi in the Syriack My God my God why hast thou forsaken me and by the same is called himself in the Prophet El Gibber or the strong and most mighty GOD Esa. 9.6 The next is Helion the most high Altissimus a name ascribed to God in both the Testaments Pay thy vows to the most High Psal. 50.14 the power of the most High Luk. 50.32 the Son of the most High Luk. 8.28 Most high not only in respect of his habitation because he
or bad The ill successe that followed the young Prodigals journey was no part of his fathers purpose of his will and absolute decree much lesse no nor so much as to be ascribed unto his permission which was but causa sine qua non as the Schooles call it if it were so much Only it gave the Father such an opportunity as Adams fall did GOD in the present case of entertaining him with joy at his coming home and killing the faâ—ted Calfe for his better welcome T is true that God to whose eternal eye all things are present and fore-seen as if done already did perfectly fore-know to what unhappy end this poor man would come how far he would abuse that natural liberty wherewith he had endowed him at his first Creation Praescivit peccaturum sed non praedestinavit ad peccatum said Fulgentius truly And upon this fore-knowledge what would follow on it he did withall provide such a soveraign remedy as should restore collapsed man to his primitive hopes of living in Gods fear departing hence in his favour and coming through faith in Christ unto life eternall if he were not wanting to himself in the Application For this is a faithfull saying and worthy of all acceptation that CHRIST IESVS came into the World to save sinners of whom every man may say as St. Paul once did that he is the chief And it is as worthy of acceptance which came though from the same Spirit from a worthier person that God so loved the World the whole world of mankinde that He sent his only begouten Son into the World to the intent that whosoever did believe in him should live though he dyed and whosoever liveth and believeth in him should not die for ever but have as in another place everlasting life But what it is to believe in him and what a Christian man is bound to believe of him as it is all the subject of the six next Articles so must it be the argument of another book this touching our belief in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth and all things therein with most of the material points which depend upon it beginning now to draw to a final period Chap. VI. What Faith it was which was required for Justification before and under the Law Of the knowledge which the Patriarchs and Prophets had touching Christ to come Touching the Sacrifices of the Jews the Salvation of the Gentiles and the Justifying power of Faith ANd yet before we pass to the following Articles there are some points to be disputed in reference to the several estates of the Church of God as it stood heretofore under the Law and since under the Gospel the influence which Faith had in their justification and the condition of those people which were Aliens to the law of Moses before Christs coming in the flesh For being that the Patriarchs before the time of Moses and those holy men of God that lived after him till the coming of Christ had not so clear and explicite a knowledge of the particulars of the Creed which concern our Saviour or the condition of the holy Catholick Church and the Members of it as hath been since revealed in the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles it cannot be supposed that they should have universally the same object of faith which we Christians have or were bound to believe all those things distinctly touching Christ our Saviour and the benefits by him redounding to the sons of men which all Christians must believe if they will be saved And then considering that there is almost nothing contained in Scripture touching God the Father his Divine Power and Attributes the making and government of the World and all things therein which was to be believed by those of the line of Abraham but what hath been avowed and testified by the learned Gentiles it will not be unworthy of our disquisition to see wherein the differences and advantages lay which the Patriarchs and those of Iudah had above the Nations or whether the same light of truth did not shine on both through divers Mediums for the better fitting and preparing of both people to receive the Gospel In sifting and discussing of which principal points we shall consider what it is in faith it self which is said to justifie of what effect the Sacrifices both before and under the Law were to the satisfying of Gods wrath and expiating of the sins of the people by whom they were offered to the Lord and the relation which they had to the death of Christ the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world and finally what is to be conceived of those eminent men amongst the Gentiles who not extinguishing that light of nature which was planted in them but regulating all their actions by the beams thereof came to be very eminent in all kindes of learning and in the exercise of Iustice Temperance Mercy Fortitude and other Acts of Moral vertue Some other things will fall in incidently on the by which need not be presented in this general view And the mature consideration of all these particulars I have reserved unto this place that being situate in the midst between the Faith we have in God the Father Almighty and the belief required of us in his Son Christ Iesus it may either serve for an Appendix to the former part or a Preamble to the second or be in stead of a bond or ligament for knitting all the joints of this body together in the stronger coherence of discourse And first Faith being as appeareth by the definition before delivered a firm assent to supernatural truths revealed we cannot but conceive in reason that the Object of it is to be commensurable to the proportion and degree of the Revelation For as our Saviour said in another case that to whom much is given of him the more shall be required so may we also say in this that to whom more divine supernatural truths have been revealed of him there is a greater measure of belief expected Till the unhappy fall of Adam there was no faith required but in God alone For without faith it is impossible to please God saith the Apostle which Adam by the Law of his Creation was obliged to endeavour Nor could he come before the Lord or seek for the continuance of his grace and favours had he not first been fitted and prepared by faith For he that cometh unto God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him as in the same text saith the same Apostle Which words we may not understand of Faith in Christ at least not primarily with respect to Adam of whom such faith was not required in the state of Innocency for where there was no sin there was no need of a Saviour but only of a faith in Almighty God the stedfast confession and acknowledgement of whose beeing and bounty was to speak
that diâ—ine and spiritual essence which is of the same nature with it No marvell if men so well principled and building on so good a Basis as it seems they did came to be every way proportionable in their superstructures and did not only wean themselves from those common vices which had defiled the age they lived in but also from those vulgar errours and superstitions which had profaned the worship of immortal God This last a point in which the wiseman Socrates did proceed so far that he publickly opposed the Idolatries used amongst the Grecians endevouring to reduce them to the service of the only God and for that cause was sentenced to death by the Judges of Athens and made the first Martyr as it were in the cause of God amongst the Gentiles And though the terrour of this example did prevail so far as to afright others from opposing those many Gods which the people worshipped it being grown into a Proverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Socrates his cup was ready for them yet did they secretly promote the knowledge of the supreme God and taught their followers to repose themselves on his goodness only A pregnant evidence whereof we have in Aristotle who drawing nigh unto his end after all his labours after his toylesome studies in the works of nature is said to have breathed out his soul with this expression Ens entium miserere mei that is to say Thou being of all being have mercy on me Upon which grounds Apulejus either writ or translated a Book entituled De Daemonio Socratis or De Deo Socrate as of late times some of the Divines of Colin did set out a Tract which they inscribed De salute Aristotelis and some have been so favourable to the Gentiles generally I mean the Gentiles of those former and heroicall times who did conforme their lives to the light of nature as not to shut them out of the Kingdom of Heaven Certain I am that a Franciscan Fryer preached to that effect before the Fathers of the Trent Councel without being ever questioned or censured for it save that upon complaint made by some Protestants who were there attending he afterwards forbare the Pulpit on pretence of sickness Et destitit Franciscanus ille praedicare valeudinem excusans as I finde it in Sleidan And I am no less certain also that Zuinglius that great Agent in the Reformation in his Book entituled An Exposition of the Christian faith dedicated to Christiern King of Denmark not onely placeth Adam Enoch Noah Abraham together with the rest of the Patriarchs and Prophets in the highest Heavens but tels the said King Christierâ— that he shall there finde the souls of Theseus Socrates Aristides Nuâ—a Camillus Cato Scipio and the rest of those old Heroes whose vertuous acts are registred in the Antient Authors whether Greek or Latine And of this minde Erasmus also hath declared himself to be in his Preface to the Tusculan Questions of his setting out I know that in the general esteem of the Antient Fathers especially after the rising of the Pelagian Heresies the greatest vertues of the Heathens were counted but splendida peccata or illustrious sins for so I think St. Augustine cals them The Antients before Augustines time were more moderate in it But after he in his discourses against those Hereticks had pronounced this Aphorism Omnis Infidelium vita peccatum est that the whole life of Infidels was nothing but sin it was straight taken up by Prosper after him by Beda and at the last by Peter Lombard Anselm and indeed who not that built on the authority of that reverend man But then we must observe withall that as they kept themselves to St. Augustines Tenet so did they also build upon his Foundation and if we seek into the ground-work or foundation which S. Augustine built it may perchance be found but a mere mistake For taking for his ground the Apostles words that without faith it is impossible to please God and that whatsoever is not of faith is sin they first conceive that the Apostle speaketh in both places of faith in Christ and then conclude that faith in Christ is such a necessary qualification of every good and vertuous action that every thing we do without it is sin and consequently must needs be unpleasing to Almighty God Pope Leo also is of the same opinion but whether he took it from St. Augustine or not I am not able to say affirming positively Extra Ecclesiam Catholicam nihil esse castum nihil integrum dicente Apostolo Omne quod non est ex fide est peccatum that is to say that out of the Communion of the Catholick Church there is nothing either pure or perfect it being said by the Apostle that whatsoever is not of faith is sin This is the ground they build upon And if the ground be faulty as I think it is the building must be very weak which is laid upon it For first that text of the Apostle in the 14. to the Romans Whatsoever is not of faith is sin as it is generally interpreted by most Modern Writers and to say truth the literal sense of holy Scripture was never so clearly opened as in these our times relates not unto faith at all as it is an act whereby we do believe in God or his Son CHRIST IESVS but only to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or firm perswasion which every one ought to have in his own mind of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of that which he goeth about And then the meaning of the Text will be only this that if a man doth any thing on deliberation of which he is not verily perswaded that he doth well in it but doth it with a wavering and doubtful minde he is guilty of sin The words foregoing give good strength unto this construction where it is said that he that doubteth whether he doth well or ill is damned if he eat because he doth it not of faith that is to say because he doth it not of a right perswasion that he doth well in eating what is set before him which hath no reference at all to faith in Christ. No more hath that which is alleadged from the 11. to the Hebrews where it is said that without faith it is impossible to please God Which is not to be understood only of faith in Christ if of that at all but only of that act of faith in the general notion by which for so it followeth in the Text it self Whosoever cometh unto God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Now that the Gentiles had this faith conceive me still of the more noble souls amongst them is clear and evident by that which they have said of God in their publick writings of which we have produced asmuch in the former Chapters as may abundantly suffice to confirm this point But then
the children of Infidels are saved partly by vertue of the Covenant and partly by Gods Election By vertue of the Covenant in regard they are descended of such Ancestors as were themselves within the Covenant though it be long since and that there be some interruption in the whole succession Gods mercy reaching as he tels us Exod. 20. unto a thousand generations By Election because God hath not barred himself from a power and right to communicate his Grace to those whose Ancestors were not of the Covenant For if he called those Adulti men of riper years to be partakers of the Covenant who were not within the same before why may he not in like manner if he please elect children also Finally as he doth believe that all who are elected or within the Covenant shall most undoubtedly be saved so he doth charitably conceive that those whom God takes out of this world in the state of infancy servari potius secundum electionem providentiam ipsius paternam quam a regno Coelorum abdicari are rather saved by Gods election and paternal providence then utterly excluded out of the Kingdom of Heaven If the same charity make me hope the like of those famous men among the Gentiles who were not wanting to the grace of God which was given unto them why should I fear worse fortune then was found by Iunius who never yet was censured for ought I have read for that so charitable resolution in the case of Infants no not by those of the Reformed who differ in opinion from him as to that particular And so far I conceive I may go with safety without opposing any text of holy Scripture or any publick tendry of the Church of England 'T is true St. Peter telleth us in the 4. of the Acts that there is no name under Heaven given among men whereby they be saved but that of our Lord and Saviour IESVS CHRIST v. 12. But this is spoken with relation to the times of the Gospel when CHRIST had broken down the partition wall and that the Gentiles were admitted to the knowledge of the word of life a general command being laid by CHRIST on his Apostles to preach the Gospel to all Nations After this time the case was altered and the Gentiles altogether left without excuse if they embraced not the ordinary meanes of their salvation which by the universall preaching of Christ crucifyed had been offered to them And so I understand that Article of the Church of England by which all they are to be accursed who presume to say that every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect that he professeth so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law and the light of nature Act. 18. For certainly the Article relates not to the times before Christs coming or the condition of the Gentiles in those elder dayes but only to the present condition of the Church of Christ as it now stands and hath stood since his death and passion in opposition both to Iewes and Gentiles unto Turkes and Saracens with reference to the Familists and such modern Sectaries who made the external profession of the faith of Christ but a thing indifferent so they conformed themselves by the light of nature Of which opinion one Galcalus Martius also is affirmed to be by Paulus Iovius in his Elog. doct virorum So that for ought appeares from that place of the Acts and from this Article of the Church we may conceive the charitable hope of the salvation of some of the more noble Gentiles the great example of whose vertues is transmitted to us in Classical and approved Authors But this was only in some extraordinary and especial cases some Casus reservati as the Lawyers call them which God reserved to his own Power and dispensation and not of any ordinary and common right For generally the Heathen people as they knew not God having extinguished that light of nature which was given unto them so having their understanding darkned and that light put out their will forthwith became depraved the affections of their hearts corrupted and their lusts exorbitant And as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge so did God give them over to a reprobate minde to do those things which are not convenient dishonouring their owne bodies amongst themselves and being filled with all unrighteousnesse and uncleannesse Nay even their greatest Clerks men of wit and learning professing themselves wise did become fooles in that they sought not after God the true fountain of wisdome and holding the truth which was revealed to them in unrighteousnesse as St. Paul saith of them were thereby made without excuse And as the light of nature was thus generally extinguished amongst the Gentiles so was the light of Prophecie as much neglected amongst the Iewes who though they were Gods chosen and peculiar people had so degenerated from the piety of their Predecessors that there was hardly either faith or charity to be found amongst them Insomuch as all the world was now of the same condition in which it was before the flood Of which God said that all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth the wickedness of man grown great and all the imaginations of the thoughts of his heart continually and only evill Nothing could have prevented a second deluge but Gods gratious promise that there should never more be a flood to destroy the Earth nothing have respited the World from more grievous punishment had not Christ come into the World and by his suffering on the Crosse for the sinne of Man appeased Gods anger for the present and caused his Gospell to be preached unto every nation that so they might escape the wrath of the time to come Nothing required by him for so great a mercy but that we would believe in him that to the faith which every man was bound before to have in God the Father Almighty by whom we were created when we were just nothing there might be added a beliefe in IESVS CHRIST his only Sonne by whom we were redeemed being worse then nothing He knew the frailty of our nature that we were but dust that we were utterly unable to observe the Law which Adam either could not or would not keep in the state of innocency and therefore did not look so far as to the Covenant of works to require them of us but to the Covenant of faith as the easier duty God in the Covenant of works required of every man for his justification an absolute and entire obedience to the Law which he had prescribed and that obedience to the Law had it been performed had justifyed the performance of it in the sight of God But finding man unable to fulfill the Law he made a second Covenant with that sinfull Creature and required nothing of him for his justification but only faith in God and his gracious promises for the redemption of the world
first it is objected out of Ruffinus that this clause of Christs descent into hell was not in his time in the Creed of the Church of Rome nor in those of the Eastern Churches His words are these Sciendum est quod in Ecclesiae Romanae Symbolo non habetur additum descendit ad inferos sed neque Orientis Ecclesiis This we acknowledge to be true what then Therefore say they it needs must follow that it was not in the Creed at all untill some time after But this by no means can be gathered out of Ruffines words who is not to be understood in the sense they dream of or if he be shall presently confute himself without further trouble And first Ruffinus could not say that the clause of Christs descent into hell was neither in the Apostles Creed before his time nor reckoned for a part thereof by the Church of Rome or by any Churches of the East For long before the times he lived in Ignatius Bishop of Antioch the most famous City of the East repeated it as a part of the Creed the like did Chrysostome one of the Presbyters of that Church and Cyril Bishop of Hierusalem both living in the same time that Ruffinus lived in Nyssen and Nazianzen and Basil his contemporaries or not long before him do reckon it amongst the Articles of the Christian faith and give us the true orthodox sense thereof as before was shewn all of them very famous Bishops of the lesser Asia one of the most considerable parts of the Eastern Church The like doth Epiphanius for the Isle of Cyprus and Cyril for the Patriarchate of Alexandria whereof this last was the great ruler of the Aegyptian Aethiopian and Arabian Churches the other though within the Patriarchate of Antiochia yet was sui juris an Independent as it were and of equal priviledge at home So also for the African and other Churches of the Western world it is most evident by that which hath been cited from Fulgentius Augustine Ambrose Tertullian Cyprian and all the rest of note and eminency that this of the descent into hell was reckoned for an Article of the Creed in those parts and times in which they severally and respectively did live and flourish And so it was esteemed in Rome it self when Ruffinus lived and in the Church of Aquileia not far from Rome where he was a Presbyter For otherwise neither he himself had so reputed it nor commented thereupon as upon the rest nor had St. Hierome being at that time a Presbyter of the Church of Rome so â—ar avowed this Article of the descent into hell or given us so much help and furtherance to the right understanding thereof had it been reputed by that Church for no part or Article of the Common Creed as we see he did Thus then Ruffinus did not mean and indeed he could not that this Article of the descent into hell was not accounted for an Article of the Apostles Creed either by those of Rome or the Eastern Churches No such matter verily His meaning is that whereas in those times diverse several Churches and many times particular persons of rank and quality did use to publish several Creeds to serve as testimonies of their right beliefe upon occasion of some new emergent heresies the Creed or Symbol made for the Church of Rome and some of those which were in use in the Eastern parts did omit this Article For well we know it was omitted both in the Constantinopolitan and Nicene Creeds which were of so much reputation in all parts of Christendome as being a point about the which no stir or Controversie had been raised Nor doth Ruffinus say if we marke him well that the Church of Rome denied this clause to be part of the Apostles Creed which he must either say or nothing which will do them good but that it was not in Ecclesiae Romanae Symbolo in the Creed or Symbol made for the use of the particular Church of Rome for some particular occasion such as was that of Damasus in St. Hieromes works where indeed it is not So that the omitting of this Article in the Creeds of those particular Churches which Ruffinus speaks of shewes rather that it was received in all parts of Christendome with such a general consent and unanimity that it was needlesse to insert it in those Creeds because no controversie or debate had been raised about it For otherwise it must needs follow by this Argument that being there is no mention of Christs death in the Nicene Creed nor of his burial in the Creed of Athanasius nor of the Communion of the Saints in the Constantinopolitan nor of many of the last Articles in the Creed of Damasus not to descend to more particulars therefore those Articles and clauses were not to be found in such copies of the Apostles Creed as were commended to the use of Gods people within the Patriarchates of Rome Constantinople Alexandria or the City of Nice or any of those numerous Churches over all the world where those particular Creeds were received and welcomed This project therefore failing as we see it doth the Devils next great care hath been to dispute down the authority and effect thereof such a descent as is delivered and maintained by the Church of England being neither possible nor pertinent as is objected And first say some it is not possible Why so Because say they our Saviour promised the penitent Theef that the same day his soul should be with him in Paradise What then Therefore Christs soul being to goe that day to Paradise could neither goe to hell that day nor the two days after An argument which hath as many faults almost as it hath words For first our Saviour was not of such slow dispatch as these men would have him but that he might carry the theefs soul to Paradise and yet shew himself the same day to the fiends in hell That both were done on the same day Vigilius one of the antients doth affirme expressely Constat dominum nostrum Jesum Christum sexta feria crucifixum c. It is most manifest saith he that our Lord Jesus Christ was crucifyed on the sixt day that on the same day he descended into hell on the same day he lay in the grave ipsa die latroni dixisse and on the same said to the Theef This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise All this might very well be done by our Lord Christ Iesus within lesse time then the compasse of a natural day unlesse we measure his omnipotence by our own infirmities But yet to take away all scruples which may hence arise St. Augustine and some others of the Fathers have resolved it thus viz. that when Christ said unto the Theef This day thou shall be with me in Paradise he spake not of his manhood but of his Godhead And this saith Augustine doth free the Article from all
present Article that is to say that by Christs descending into hell is meant nothing else but his going down into the Chambers of death and his continuance in the state of separation from his body for the space of three days under the power and dominion of death Which though it came after the conceit of Calvin who maketh the descent of Christ into hell to be the sufferings of hell paines in his soul in his Agony and upon the Crosse yet we have joyned it to the former as being at the furthest cousin german to it if not the same device clothed in other words For what else is it to be dead and buried but to descend down into the chambers of death and what else to goe down to the chambers of death but to be dead and buried as our Saviour was What need was there that when the Creed had specifyed his death and burial and his lying in the grave three days in as plain termes as possibly the wit of man could devise to put it in there should a clause be added in the next words following to signifie his going down to the Chambers of death a three dayes separation of his soul and body and that in words so figurative and Metaphorical that all the Lexicons and Grammars of both the languages must be searched and studied before we can finde out what we are to trust to Assuredly it was not the Apostles purpose to set mens wits upon the rack to finde out their meaning or to make the Creed which they intended for the use of the simplest sort tormentum ingeniorum a torture to the brain of the ablest Scholar or to expresse themselves in such difficult termes that men must go to Schoole to the old Greek Poets and the late Iewish Rabbins before they can attain to the meaning of them As if there were no way to become a Christian but to be first an exact Critick a professed Philologer Yet this hath been the Helena of our greatest Clerks of none more preciously beloved then by the Bishop of Meuth who in his Answer to the Iesuites challenge hath spent a great deal of unfortunate pains to no other purpose but to crosse the current of Antiquity together with the authorized doctrine of the Church of England Concerning which I shall not need to say more now then what was touched upon before touching the unliklyhood of improbability of using such obscure and figurative expressions in so plain a forme in the which all things else must be understood in the literal sense and the repeating of the same thing twice in so short an Abstract not capable of a Tautologie though in divers words And as for the far fetching of Theological and Ecclesiastical notions out of the works and writings of old obsolete Authors it is a devise not known nor heard of in the Christian Church till these Critical times nor very well approved in this neither by judicious men And therefore for a full and finall answer to this last conceit I shall use this caution of Aquinas viz. Aliud est etymologia nominis aliud significatio nominis c. that is to say that in words we must not so much look upon their original exact and precise signification or derivation as that whereto they are by ordinary use applyed And unto this shall add the counsell and advise of a grave Divine a late learned member of the Church viz. That he who hopeth to attain the true knowledge of the principles of the Christian faith must either use the help of some Lexicon peculiar to Divinity or make one of his own it being an easier thing saith he to learn the termes of Law or Physick out of Thomasius or Riders Dictionaries then to know the true Theological use and meaning of many principal termes in the old or new Testament out of Stephanus or Pagninus his Thesaurus though both of them most excellent writers in their kinde Which I conceive to be as fit and full an answer unto this second exposition of the descent into hell drawn from the Greek Hades and the Hebrew Sheol as the merit of it doth require Only take here the substance of my former answer in these words of Calvin Quantae oscitantiae fuisset rem minime difficilem verbis expeditis claris demonstratam obscuriore deinde verborum complexu indicare magis quam declarare How great a folly must we think it in the compilers of the Creed whosoever they were to lay down that in difficult and intricate phrases which had been formerly delivered in most clear and significant termes especially considering that when two several formes of speech are joyned together to expresse one thing the latter commonly doth use to explain the former We now proceed to that interpretation of this part of the Creed which hath found most followers and hath been most insisted on by some late Divines as the undoubted sense and meaning of the present words though to attain unto this meaning they must allow themselves both Metaphors and other figures which as before was shewn this short forme admits not And this interpretation found the better welcome not because any way more probable then the rest of the new devices but in regard it came from Calvin whose reputation was so high and his authority so great amongst them that as one very well observeth they were esteemed to be the most perfect Divines who were most skilful in his writings which were almost grown the very Canon by which both Discipline and Doctrine were to be judged Now Calvin seeing how absurd and inconvenient it must needs be thought to make the descent of Christ into hell to be nothing else but his burial and that of his descent into the chambers of death and his continuance of separation from his body being then found out fell on a fancie which might seem to have more affinity to his descent unto the very place of torments the habitations of the damned though to say truth it was not so much properly a descending of his soul to the torments of hell as an ascending of the torments of hell to finde a place in his soul. To bring this in he first declareth that Christ had done nothing for us in the way of redemption if he had died no other then a bodily death and therefore that it was necessary he should undergoe divinae ultionis severitatem the severity of the divine vengeance Then he inferres that to this end he was to struggle cum inferorum copiis aeternaeque mortis horrore with the infernall powers of hell and the horrors that attend on eternal death and to submit himself unto all those punishments which the most wicked souls are condemned to suffer the eternity thereof excepted only that in this sense he may be truely said to descend into hell in regard he suffered all those torments nay that death it self which are by God inflicted upon wicked men dirosque
Reformers in Queen Elizabeths time say as much as this The Scriptures say the Papists in their Council of Trent for I regard not the unsavory Speeches of particular men Is not sufficient to Salvation without Traditions that is to say without such unwritten Doctrinals as have from hand to hand been delivered to us Said not the Puritans the same when they affirmed That Preaching onely viva voce which is verbum traditum is able to convert the sinner That the Word sermonized not written is alone the food which nourisheth to life eternal that reading of the Word of God is of no greater power to bring men to Heaven than studying of the Book of Nature that the Word written was written to no other end but to afford some Texts and Topicks for the Preachers descant If so as so they say it is then is the written word no better than an Ink-horn Scripture a Dead Letter or a Leaden Rule and whatsoever else the Papists in the height of scorn have been pleased to call it Nay of the two these last have more detracted from the perfection and sufficiency of the holy Scripture than the others did They onely did decree in the Council of Trent That Traditions were to be received Paripietatis affectu with equal Reverence and Affection to the written Word and proceed no further These magnifie their verbum traditum so much above it that in comparison thereof the Scripture is Gods Word in name but not in efficacy They onely adde Traditions in the way of Supplement where they conceive the Scriptures to be defective These make the Scriptures every where deficient to the work intended unless the Preacher do inspire them with a better Spirit than that which they received from the Holy Ghost Good God that the same breath should blow so hot upon the Papists and yet so cold upon the Scriptures that the same men who so much blame the Church of Rome for derogating from the dignity and perfection of the Holy Scriptures should yet prefer their own indigested crudities in the way of Salvation before the most divine dictates of the Word of God But such are men when they leave off the conduct of the Holy Ghost to follow the delusions of a private Spirit Articuli IX Pars Secunda 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam i. e. The Holy Catholick Church CHAP. II. Of the name and definition of the Church Of the Title of Catholick The Church in what respects called Holy Touching the Head and Members of it The Government thereof Aristocratical IN the same Article in which we testifie our Faith in the Holy Ghost do we acknowledge That there is a Body or Society of faithful people which being animated by the power of that Blessed Spirit hath gained unto it self the name of the Church and with that name the attribute or title of Catholick in regard of the extent thereof over all the World of Holy in relation to that piety of life and manners which is or ought to be in each several Member And not unfitly are they joyned together in the self same Article the Holy Ghost being given to the Apostles for the use of the Church and the Church nothing but a dead and lifeless carcass without the powerful influence of the Holy Ghost As is the Soul in the Body of Man so is the Holy Ghost in the Church of Christ that which first gives it life that it may have a Being and afterward preserves it from the danger of putrefaction into which it would otherwise fall in small tract of time Having therefore spoken in the former Chapter of the Nature Property and Office of the Holy Ghost and therein also of the Volume of the Book of God dictated by that Blessed Spirit for that constant Rule by which the Church was to be guided both in Life and Doctrine We now proceed in order to the Church it self so guided and directed by it And first for the Quid nominis to begin with that it is a name not found in all the writings of the Old Testament in which the body of Gods people the Spiritual body is represented to us after a figurative manner of Speech in the names of Sion and Ierusalem as Pray for the peace of Jerusalem Psal. 121. And the Lord loveth the gates of Sion Psal. 87. The name of Church occurreth not till the time of the Gospel and then it was imposed by him who had power to call it what he pleased and to entitle it by a name which was fittest for it The Disciples gave themselves the name of Christians the name of Church was given them by our Saviour Christ. No sooner had St. Peter made this confession for himself and the rest of the Apostles Thou art Christ the Son of the living God but presently our Saviour added Upon this Rock that is to say The Rock of this Confession as most of the Antients and some Writers also of the darker times do expound the same will I build my Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Greek The word used by our Lord and Saviour is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence the Latines borrowed their Ecclesia the French their Eglise and signifieth Coetum evocatum a chosen or selected company a company chosen out of others derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as much as evocare to call out or segregate In that sense as the word is used to signifie a company of men called by the special Grace to the Faith in Christ and to the hopes of life eternal by his death and passion is the word Ecclesia taken in the writings of the holy Apostles and in most Christian Authors since the times they lived in though with some difference or variety rather in the application to their purposes But antiently it was of a larger extent by far and signified any Publick meeting of Citizens for the dispatch of business and affairs of State For so Thucidides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. That the Assembly being formed the different parties fell upon their disputes and so doth Aristophanes use it in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. That the people should now give the Thracians a Publick meeting in their Guild-hal or Common forum of the City St. Luke who understood the true propriety as well as the best Critick of them all gives it in this sense also Acts 19.32 where speaking of the tumult which was raised at Ephesus he telleth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Assembly was confused And in the 26. Psal. Ecclesia malignantium is used for the Congregation of ungodly men APPLICATION BUt after Christ had given this name unto the Body of the Faithful which confessed his Name and the Apostles in their writings had applied it so as to make it a word of Ecclesiastical use and notion the Fathers in the following Ages did so appropriate the same to the state of
30. And in his Regulae Compend Respons 310. St. Ierom in 1 Cor. St. Chrysostom also on the place Theodoret Theophylact and Oecumenius on the same Text also Nor is the word so used onely in the best Christian Writers but did admit also of the same signification amongst the best learned and most critical of the Heathen Greeks Of whom take Lucian for a taste who speaking of the adorning of the Court or Senate-house expresseth the place it self by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which cannot possibly be meant of the men that met but of the place of the Assembly A thing which here I had not noted because not pertinent to the sense of the present Article but onely to encounter with the peevish humor of our Modern Sectaries who will by no means yet yeeld the name of Churches to those sacred places but call them Steeple-houses in the way of scorn But to proceed the word Ecclesia or Church in the Genuine sense as it denotes the Body Collective of Gods Servants since the coming of Christ is variously taken in the Book of God and also in the Writings of the purest times For first it signifieth a particular Congregation of men assembled together in some certain and determinate place for Gods publick service In this sense it is taken in those several Texts where St. Paul speaketh of the Church in the house of Nymphas Col. 4.15 To the Church in the house of Philemon Vers. 5. The Church which was in the house of Aquila and Priscilla Rom. 16. and 1 Cor. 16.19 I know that this is commonly expounded of their private Families as if the house and family of each Faithful Christian were in St. Pauls esteem reputed for a Church of Christ. But herein I prefer Mr. Medes opinion before all men else who understands those words of the Congregation of Saints which were wont to assemble at such houses for the performance of Divine Duties it being not unusual with some principal Christians in those early days to dedicate or set apart some private place within their own houses for the residue of the Church to assemble in And this he proveth first from the singularity of the expression which must needs include somewhat more than ordinary somewhat which was not common to the rest of the Saints whom St. Paul salutes in his Epistles For in so large a Bedrol as is made in the last to the Romans it is very probable that many if not most of them were Masters of Families and then must all their Families be Churches too as well as that of Aquila and Priscilla or else we must finde some other meaning of the words than that which hath hitherto been delivered Secondly Had St. Paul intended by those words The Church which is in their house nothing but the Family of Nymphas Philemon and the rest we should have found it put in the same expression which he doth elswhere use on the same occasion as viz. The houshold of Aristobulus the houshold of Narcissus Rom. 16.10 11. The houshold of Onesiphorus 2 Tim. 4.19 Patrobas Hermes and the Brethren which are with them Rom. 16.14 Nereus and Olympas and all the Saints which are with them Vers. 15. The difference of expressions makes a different case of it and plainly doth conclude in my apprehension That by the Church in such an house the Apostle meaneth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Church assembled at such houses as he there expounds it And though he cite no antient Author to confirm him in this opinion but Oecumenius and he none of the antientest neither Yet in a matter of this nature I may say of him as Maldonat doth of Euthymius in a greater point whose single judgement he preferreth before all the rest of the Fathers viz. Quem minorem licet solum autorem verisimilia tamen dicentem quam plures majoresque illos sequi malo But to proceed unto the other acceptions of the word Ecclesia it is also used to signifie in holy Scripture The Church of some City with the Region or Country round about it a National or Provincial Church under the Government of one or many Bishops and subordinate Ministers as the Churches of the Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Thessalonians Romans and the rest mentioned in the Acts and St. Pauls Epistles Thirdly It is also used to signifie not the Church it self or the whole Body of the people of a City or Province agreeing in the Faith of Christ but for the principal Officers and Rulers of it such as possess the place of Iudicature in the Court or Consistory In this sense it is used in the 18 of Matthew where the party wronged and able to get no remedy otherwise is willed by Christ to tell the Church that is to say to make his complaint to them who having the chief place and power in Spiritual matters are able to compel the wrong-doer to make satisfaction by menacing and inflicting the Churches Censures Tell the Church That is saith Chrysostom the Prelates and Pastors of the Church who have the power of binding and loosing such offenders which is mentioned in the verse next following And in this sense the name of Church became appropriated to the Clergy in the latter times and hath been used to signifie the State Ecclesiastick Ecclesiae nomen ad Clerum solere restringi as Gerson noted in his time not without regret as being men most versed in the Church affairs And lastly it is used for the Body Collective or Diffusive of the people of God made up of several Congregations States and Nations consisting both of Priests and People of men as well under as in Authority In this respect Christ is said to be the head of the Church Eph. 5.23 The husband of the Church V. 32. To love his Church and to give himself for his Church V. 25. That is to say not onely of a National or Provincial Church and much less of a Congregational onely but of the Universal Church which consists of all dispersed and distressed over all the World And this we do define to be the whole Congregation of Christian people called by the grace and goodness of Almighty God to a participation of his Word and Sacraments and other outward means of eternal life This Universal Church being thus found out is represented to us in the present Article by two marks or characters by which she is to be discerned from such Publick meetings which otherwise might claim that title Of which the one denotes the generality of extent and latitude and is that of Catholick by which it is distinguished from the Iewish Synagogue being shut up in the bounds of that Country onely and from the private Conventicles of Schismatical persons The other doth express the quality of the whole compositum by the piety and integrity of its several members and is that of Holy by which it is distinguished from the Assemblies of ungodly men from the
the East the Donatist in the South and the Novatians in the West who made one Faction onely though of several names were antiently of this opinion and set up Churches of their own of the New Edition For flattering themselves with a conceit of their own dear sanctity they thought themselves too pure and pious to joyn in any act of worship with more sober Christians and presently confined the Church which before was Catholick to their own private Conventicles and to them alone or intra partem Donati as they pleased to phrase it Who have succeeded them of late both in their factions and their follies too we all know full well The present ruptures in this State do declare most evidently that here is Pars Donati now as before in Africa A frenzy which gave great offence to the Antient Fathers who labored both by Speech and Pen to correct their insolencies and of such scandal to the Churches of the Reformation that Calvin though a ridged man and one inclinable enough unto new opinions did confute their dotages and publickly expose them to contempt and scorn The Antients and the Moderns both have agreed on this That though the Church of Christ be imperfect always and may be sometimes faulty also yet are not men to separate themselves so rashly from her Communion or make a rupture for poor trifles in the Body Mystical It argueth little Faith and less Charity saith renowned Cyprian if when we see some Errors in the Church of God De ecclesia ipsi recedamus we presently withdraw our selves and forsake her fellowship And here we might bring in St. Augustine and almost all the Fathers to confirm this point but that they are of no authority with the captious Schismatick and now of late disclaimed by our neater wits Therefore for further satisfaction of the stubborn Donatist we will behold the Constitution of the Church in the Book of God and take a view of the chief Types and Fortunes of it to see if we can finde there such a spotless Church as they vainly dream of In Adams family which was the first both Type and Seminary of the Church of God there was a Cain a murderer that slew his brother Amongst the Sons of God in the time of Noah how many that betook themselves to the daughters of men and in Noahs Ark the next and perhaps the greatest a Cham which wretchedly betrayed the nakedness of his aged father In Abraham's house there was an Ishmael that mocked at Isaac though the heir and the heir of promise in Isaac's a prophane Esau that made his belly his God and sold Heaven for a break-fast in Iacob's there were Simeon and Levi Brethren in evil besides a Reuben who defiled his old Fathers Bed And in the Church of Israel when more large and populous how many were mad upon the worship of the Golden Calf more mad in offering up their sons to the Idol Moloch Thousands which bowed the knee to Baal Ten thousands which did sacrifice in the Groves and prohibited places yet all this while a Church a true Visible Church with which the Saints and Prophets joyned in Gods publick worship Let us next look upon the Gospel and we shall finde that when the bounds thereof were so strait and narrow that there were few more visible Members of it than the Twelve Apostles yet amongst them there was a Iudas that betrayed his Master When it began to spread and enlarge it self to the number of One hundred and twenty there were among them some half Christians such as Nicodemus who durst not openly profess the Gospel but came unto the Lord by night and some false Christians such as Demas who out of an affection to the present world forsook both the Apostle and the Gospel too She then increased to such a multitude that they were fain to choose seven subordinate Ministers the better to advance the work and one of them will be that Nicholas the founder of the Nicolaitan Hereticks whom the Lord abhorred Follow it out of Iewry into Samaria and there we finde a Simon Magus as formal a Professor as the best amongst them and yet so full of the gall of bitterness within that Ignatius in plain terms calleth him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first-born of the Devil Trace it in all the progress of it thorow Greece and Asia and we shall see the factiousness of the Corinthians the foolishness of the Galatians and six of the seven Asian Churches taxed with deadly sin Good God into what corner of the Earth will the Donatist run to finde a Church without corruption free from sin and error It must be sure into the old Utopias or the new Atlantis or some Fools Paradise of their own in terra incognita unless as Constantine once said unto Acesius a Novatian Bishop b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they can erect a Ladder of their own devising and so climb up into the Heavens Whilest they are here upon the Earth they have no such hopes and do but fool themselves in the expectation The chief occasion of these Errors which the two opposite Factions in the Church of Christ have thus faln into is a mistake of the right constitution of the members of it For those of Rome condemning all the Protestant party for Hereticks and the Eastern Churches for Schismatical and then excluding Hereticks and Schismaticks from being any members of the Church at all not onely appropriate to themselves the name of Catholick but consequently confine the Church within their Communion And on the other side the Donatist and their Modern followers out of the dear affection which they bear themselves first make the Church to consist of none but the Elect and none to be Elect but those who joyn fellowship with them and so by the same necessary consequence have confined the Church within the Walls or Curtains of their private Conventicles Both faulty and both grounding their unsound Conclusions upon as false and faulty principles For taking it for granted first which will never be yeilded by us nor made good by them that both the Christians of the East are Schismaticks and the Protestants of the North are no better then Hereticks yet are they not presently to be cut off from being any Members of the Church at all as Bellarmine and others of the Church of Rome have been pleased to say A Schismatick in the true meaning of the word is he Who holding an entire profession of the truth of God and joyning with the Church in all points of doctrine do break the peace thereof and disturb the order by refusing to submit themselves to their lawful Pastors and yeild obedience to her power in external matters If he stay there and withal fall not into manifest Heresie and set on foot some new Opinion as most Schismaticks have used to do the better to justifie themselves in their separation so
Nullum Schisma non sibi aliquam confingit haeresin ut rectè ab Ecclesia recessisse videatur as St. Ierom notes it we have no reason to exclude him absolutely from the Church of Christ For so long as he falleth not into dangerous error but holds by the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles which the Church is built on He is and may be still a member of the Church of God though not of this or that particular Church or Congregation from which he hath disjoyned himself by his wilful folly nor yet so absolutely and fully of the Church of God as they who do communicate entirely in all things necessary As long as the Schismatick retaineth the profession of the Christian Faith in all the Fundamental Points and Articles of it gives ear unto the Word and receives the Sacraments according to the institution of our Lord and Saviour and performs other acts of Religious Worship though in a separate Church or Congregation of his own assembling I dare not shut him out from the hopes of Heaven or rashly say He is no subject of the Kingdom of Grace He may be still a member of the Militant Church and one day have his part in the Church Triumphant notwithstanding his offence in separating from his Fellow-Christians in case he do it not out of pride and against the clear light of his own Conscience But the Church from which he makes his separation may lawfully proceed against him as a great offender for breaking the bond of peace and unity which ought so carefully to be preserved in a Church well constituted With Hereticks the case is worse though not quite desperate for they not onely violate the Churches peace but wilfully defend some pernicious Error which tends to the destruction of the Faith it self So Haeresis aliquod dogma perversum habe◠saith the same St. Ierom. But here we must distinguish first of Heresies before we venture to resolve of the point in Question it being so That neither every erroneous opinion may be called an Heresie nor every Heresie of it self is so great and capital as to exclude the man that holds it from the Church of Christ. Many in all ages have been branded and condemned for Hereticks because they were not wholly of the same opinions with those of greatest reputation in their several Churches though oftentimes in matters of inferior nature in which diversity of opinions might have been admitted whom it were both uncharitable and unchristian too to bar from all their right and interess in the Christian Church Nay granting that the Heresie be in Fundamentals not taken up upon mistake but wilfully and maliciously invented for some private ends yet in regard they still retain amongst them the profession of other Divine verities which they hold and believe in common with the rest of the faithful for should they erre in all points of the Christian Faith they were no longer to be called Hereticks but Apostate Infidels they pertain still unto the Church and were so counted and esteemed of in the strictest times An Argument whereof may be that when an Heretick recanted of his sin and heresie and sought to be again admitted to the Churches Ordinances he was not entred as at first by the door of Baptism nor any of his acts made void if a Priest or Minister which he had done by vertue of his holy orders And so far were the Antients from this new opinion of making Hereticks no members of the Church at all That the Rebaptization of an Heretick or of such as had been formerly baptized by Hereticks was counted an error in St. Cyprian and afterwards condemned for Heresie in those that wilfully maintained it upon his Authority The stories of those times make this plain enough especially St. Augustine's works against the Donatists where this point is very fully handled and with his resolution in it I conclude this controversie Isti in quibusdam rebus nobiscum sunt in quibusdam à nobis exierunt c In some things saith the Father they are with us still in others they are departed from us In those things wherein they agree with us they are a part of that great building whereof the chief Corner-stone is Christ our Saviour In those wherein they disagree they are parted from it And if they draw any more unto them even they are fastned in those joynts to the rest of that Body c. In qua nec illi separati sunt in which their Teachers are not separated from that Sacred Body But yet although the Romanists are extreamly out in excluding all whom they call Schismaticks or condemn for Hereticks from having any place in the Church of Christ to make the more Elbow-room for themselves The Donatist and his followers are more out than they in making none but the Elect to be members of it and so monopolizing the whole Kingdom of Heaven to their faction onely In which it is most strange to see with what precipitancy and inadvertency many in the Reformed Churches of great name and credit not looking into the design and ill consequents of it have labored to promote this Tenet as most true and Orthodox especially after Iohn Wicliff and Hus his follower had set the same on foot again in these latter ages That Wicliff was of this opinion is evidently to be seen in Thomas Waldensis who doth not onely so report him but doth his best endeavor to confute him in it And that Hus also taught the same is no less evident by the proceedings had against him in the Council of Constance in which amongst others of his doctrines they condemned this one viz. Unicam esse sanctam universalem ecclesiam eamque Praedestinatorum Vniversitatem that is to say That there is one onely holy Universal Church which is the general body of Gods Elect. Thus they nor did there want some reason which might move them to it For noting many Errors and Corruptions in the Church of Rome which made them think it very unsafe to communicate any longer with it and being withal unwilling to be so esteemed of as men out of the Church They fell upon this new way to bear off that blow by making the true Church of God to be always invisible because consisting onely of Elect and praedestinate persons which were known onely unto God But on what grounds soever it was first excogitated the fame and piety of the men have so indeered it to the Doctors of the Calvinian Churches and others which profess most enmity to the Church of Rome that generally they make no other definition of the Catholick Church than that it is the Body Collective of Gods Elect. Ecclesia est coetus hominum ab aeterno electus à Deo ad vitam eternam as Vrsine in his Comment on the Palatine Catechism Ecclesia est coetus hominum sanctorum qui ex gratuita Dei electione vocati sunt in unionem cum Christo 〈◊〉
as to brook no Superior fitted the Government of those Congregations which they called the Churches according unto that equality and want of order which they had been accustomed to in Civil matters For in their Platform every Congregation whether little or great is absolute in it self and independent of any other having in it self a supream Authority of exercising Ecclesiastical Powers and Spiritual Faculties without any reference or appeal in point of grievance And in the exercising of those powers and faculties every Member of the Congregation whether poor or rich as they are all concerned are all equally interessed And for the Ministration of the Word and other Ordinances for I think they do not call them Sacraments though many times they do set a part some particular persons yet do they not exclude any man of what rank soever from exercising of his gift as the Spirit moves him In this quite contrary to the Fathers of the Presbytery who though they do so dearly affect a parity amongst the Ministers themselves yet do they suffer none to perform that Office but such as have an outward calling by giving them the hands of fellowship Which Ceremony they conceive savors more of parity than that of the imposition of hands used in Ordinations And though each Presbyter and Presbytery too stand in equal rank and equipage with one another yet in relation to their Meetings or Bodies aggregate they do allow of sub and supra the Presbytery being subordinate unto the Classis as the Classis is to the Provincial and that to the General Assembly from which lieth no appeal in what case soever But so it is not with the Brethren of the Independency every particular Member of their Congregations being permitted to Preach and expound the Scripture according to the measure of the gift which is given unto him So that if Ierome were alive he might most justly make complaint of that foul disorder which some began to practise in those early days but was never so much in request as amongst this people Whereas saith he all other Arts and Mysteries have their peculiar Artists and distinct Professors Sola Scripturarum ars est quam omnes passim sibi vendicant onely the Art of Preaching and Expounding Scripture is usurped by all men For this saith he each weak old man and taâ—ling gossip for we have Women Preachers too in these Congregations and each wrangling Sophister every man in a word doth intrench upon and take upon them to teach others what they did never learn themselves Some with a supercilious look speak big and dogmatize of holy Matters amongst silly women others learn that of women it is a shame to say it which afterwards they teach to men and some again with great variety of words and sufficient impudence do talk to others of those things which they understand not themselves A man would think St. Ierome were inspired with the Spirit of Prophecy and that he spake not of the frenzies of the former times but the distempers of the present And yet perhaps we have a better character of them especially as it relates to their way of Government in the old Acephali the Hereticks which had no head as their name doth signifie Of whom Nicephorus thus informeth us Acephali ob cam causam dicti sunt quod sub Episcopis non fuerint c The Acephali were so called saith he because they were not under Bishops and therefore neither did they minister Baptism according to the solemn and received Order of the Church nor celebrate the Sacrament of the Lords Supper or any other Divine Office in the usual manner And because every man had liberty to adde unto the holy Faith what new points he pleased a very great number of Hereticks and Apostates did ensue upon it with whom the Church for a long time was perplexed and exercised Besides that great seditions and disorders did from hence arise the rascal rabble of that Sect pressing unto the Rails of the Altar threatning to fine the Priests and cast them out of their Churches with reproach and infamy if they presumed to mention the Authority of the General Council that of Chalcedon it is he means or to recite the names of those holy Fathers who were present at it So far and to this purpose he in which we may discern a great deal of the humor as well as we have found the name of our new Acephali But to proceed The Government of the Church not being Monarchical as our Masters in the Church of Rome would have it nor Democratical or Popular as the Fathers of the Presbytery and Brethren of the Independency have given it out both in their Practise and their Platforms it remains then that it must be Aristocratical And this indeed hath been the judgement of most pure Antiquity and verified in the practise of the happiest times For howsoever those of Rome do perswade themselves that Christ invested Peter with a Sovereign power over the rest of the Apostles yet generally the Fathers of the Primitive times have determined otherwise For so saith Origen Haec velut ad Petrum dicta sunt omnium communia Those things which seem spoken to St. Peter onely are common unto all the rest Thus Cyprian Hoc erant utique coeteri Apostoli quod fuit Petrus pari consorti praediti potestatis honoris The rest of the Apostles were as much privileged as Peter and were all invested with a like proportion both of power and honor Thus Ierome also for the Latines the two great Writers of the African and Alexandrian Churches you have heard before Super Petrum fundatur Ecclesia c The Church is founded upon Peter but this is said in another place of the other Apostles all of which had the Keys of Heaven Et ex aequo super eos ecclesiae fortitudo solidatur and the foundation of the Church is setled equally on them all And thus St. Chrysostom for the Greeks Paul saith he had no need of Peter or stood in want of his voice or countenance Honore enim illi par erat ne quid dicam amplius but was his equal at the least that I say no more The like equality was maintained in the following times amongst the Bishops or chief Rulers in the Church of Christ. For being Successors unto the Apostles in the Publick Government though not in their extraordinary power as they were Apostles whereof we shall speak more anone they had no reason to pretend superiority over one another which none of the Apostles could lay claim unto Of this equality of the Bishops doth St. Ierom speak and it is indeed an evidence beyond all exception Vbicunque fuerit Episcopus sive Eugubii sive Constantinopli sive Alexandriae sive Tanai ejusdem meriti ejusdem est Sacerdotiâ— Potentia divitiarum paupertatis humilitas vel sublimiorem vel inferiorem Episcopum non facit Coeterum omnes Apostolorum
Successores sunt I have laid down the place at large because St. Ierome is conceived to have been an enemy to the Episcopal Function and to that end some fragments of him are alleged by our Innovators His meaning is That all Bishops whether of the greater or the lesser Cities were of the same Order and preheminence in the Church of Christ and that it was neither the pride of wealth nor the baseness of a poor estate which made a Bishop higher or lower in respect of Government all of them being Successors unto the Apostles And so Erasmus understands him who in his Scholies on the place gives this gloss or descant Hieronymus videtur aequare omnes Episcopos inter se c Ierome saith he doth seem to make all Bishops equal amongst themselves because all equally Successors unto the Apostles and thinks not any Bâ—shop to be less than another because he is poorer nor superior to another because he is richer making the Bishop of Eugubium a poor small City equal unto the Pope of Rome St. Cyprian speaks as plain as Ierome Vna est ecclesia c There is one Church saith he divided by Christ throughout the world into many Members Episcopatus item unus Episcoporum multorum concordi numerositate diffusus And there is also one Bishoprick or Episcopal Office alike diffused over all the world by an agreeing or corresponding multitude of many Bishops And in another place to the same effect Episcopatus unus cujus à â—ingulis in solidum pars tenetur i.e. There is but one Episcopal Function in the Church of Christ whereof every particular Bishop doth stand wholly seized And this Pope Eleutherius doth himself acknowledge who in a Decretal of his let those of Rome look to the credit of the writing tells the Bishops of France and in them all other Bishops of what Realm soever Vobis à Christo Vniversalis Ecclesia est commissa That to their care the Vniversal Church was by Christ committed Every Bishop wheresoever he be fixt and resident hath like St. Paul an universal care over all the Churches Which since they could not exercise by personal conferences they did it in the Primitive times before they had the benefit of general Councils by Letters Messages and Agents for the communicating of their Counsels and imparting their advice unto one another as the emergent occasions of the Church did require the same Examples of the which in the stories of those Elder-times are obvious to the eye of each careful Reader By means of which entercourse and correspondency they maintained not onely an Association of the several Churches for their greater strength nor a Communication onely of their Counsels for the publick safety but a Communion also with each other as Members of that Mystical Body whereof Christ is Head These Letters they called Literas format as communicatorias as in an Epistle of St. Augustine where both names occur And for the publick benefit which redounded by them we may finde it in Optatus an African Bishop who having made a Catalogue of the Bishops of Rome from St. Peter down unto Siricius who then held the place or as his own words are Qui noster est socius who was his partner or associate in the Common Government He addeth Cum quo nobis totus orbis commercio formatarum in una communionis societate concordat i. e. With whom together with our self the whole world agreeth in one communion or society by those Letters of intercourse This as it cuts off all pretensions to Monarchial Government so doth it utterly destroy the Democratical or Popular Platforms The Publick Government of the Church belonging onely unto Bishops as Successors to the Apostles to whom Christ committed it For that the Bishops do succeed in place of the Apostles is the constant and received opinion of all the Antients What Ierome did affirm herein we have seen before but he affirms it more than once and gives it us again in another place where shewing the difference between the Montanists and the Catholick Church he saith That they had made the Bishops the third in order Apud nos Apostolorum locum Episcopi tenent but in the Church the Bishops held the place or rank of the Apostles St. Augustine saith as much as he deriving the descent or petigree of the Christian Faith by the Seats of the Apostles Et successiones Episcoporum and the succession of Bishops which were dispersed and propagated over all the world St. Cyprian as more ancient so he speaks more plainly who writing to Cornelius the then Bishop of Rome exhorts him to preserve that unity Per Apostolos nobis successoribus traditam which was commended by the Apostles unto them their Successors And before him also Irenaeus who lived very near St. Iohns time if he lived not in it who speaking of those Bishops which were ordained by the Apostles and shewing what perfections were required in them then addes Quos successores relinquebant c Whom they left behinde to be their Successors delivering over unto them their own place of Government Nothing can be more plain than this and nothing can more plainly declare unto us that neither the Monarchy of the Pope nor the Democraâ—y of the Presbyterians nor the Anarchy of the New-England Independents had any being or existence in the Primitive times The Government of the Church was wholly in the hands of Bishops who separately in their several and respective Diocesses or joyntly in Provincial Councils took order in all matters which concerned the same But this is to be understood with a salvo jure a reservation of the Rights and Privileges of such Christian Princes as God raised up to be nursing Fathers to his Church To them as God hath given the sword for he beareth not the sword in vain so are they made custodes utriusque tabulae the Guardians and Keepers of both Tables of the Law of God not onely in keeping them themselves as every private man is bound to do but in that they ought to have a care that all and every of their Subjects yeeld obedience to them and punish such as evil doers which offend against them And this extends as well to Bishops and inferior Ministers as to any Lay-subject of what rank soever who though they derive their Spiritual Function immediately from Christ himself yet are they not onely subject to the Rule of Princes in matter of Exterior order in the service of God but are to be accomptable to them in their Ministration if wilfully they neglect or transgress their duties The constant practise of all godly Kings and Emperors as well under the Old Testament as since the time of the Gospel makes this plain enough For if we please to search the Scriptures we shall finde David giving Rules to the Priests and Levites in matters which concerned the worship of God dividing them
in several ranks appointing unto every rank the course of his ministery composing Psalms and Hymns to the praise of God prescribing how they should be sung with what kind of instrument and ordering with what vestments the Singing-men should be arayed in the act of their service We shall there finde the Feast of Purim ordained by Mordecai who then possessed the place of a Prince among them and that of the Dedication by the Princes of the Maccabean progeny yet both religiously observed in all times succeeding this last by Christ himself as the Gospel telleth us We shall there finde how Moses broke in peeces the Golden Calf and Hezekiah the Brazen Serpent how the high places were destroyed and the groves cut down by the command of Iehosaphat and what a Reformation was made in the Church of Iudah by the good King Iosiah Finally we shall therein finde how Aaron the High Priest was reproved by Moses Abiathar deposed by Solomon the arrogancy of the Priests restrained by Ioas Such power as this the godly Princes of the Iews did exercise by the Lords appointment to the glory of Almighty God and their own great honor If they took more than this upon them and medled as Vzziah did in offering incense which did of right belong to the Priests office A Leprosie shall stick upon him till the hour of his death nor shall he have a sepulchre amongst the rest of the Kings And such and none but such is that supream power which we ascribe unto the King in the Church of England The Papists if they please may put a scorn on Queen Elizabeth of most famous memory in saying Foeminam in Anglia esse caput ecclesiae that a woman was the head of the Church of England as once Bellarmine did and Calvin if he list may pick a quarrel with the Clergy of the times of King Henry the eighth as rash and inconsiderate men and not so onely but as guilty of the sin of blasphemy Erant enim blasphemi cum vocarunt eum summum caput ecclesiae sub Christo for giving to that King the title of Supream Head of the Church under Christ himself But Queen Elizabeth disclaimed all authority and power of ministring divine service in the Church of God as she declared in her Injunctions unto all Her Subjects And the Clergy in their Convocation Anno 1562. ascribe not to the Prince the Ministery of the Word and Sacraments nor any further power in matters which concern Religion than that onely Prerogative which was given by God himself to all godly Princes in the Holy Scriptures More than this as we do not give the Kings of England so less than this the Christian Emperors did not exercise in the Primitive times as might be made apparent by the Acts of Constantine and other godly Emperors in the times succeeding if it might stand with my design to pursue that Argument Take one for all this memorable passage in Socrates an old Ecclesiastical Historian who gives this Reason why he did intermix so much of the acts of Emperors with the affairs of holy Church viz. That from that time in which they first received the Faith Ecclesiae negotia ex illorum nutu perpendere visa sunt c The business of the Church did seem especially to depend on their will and pleasure insomuch as General Councils were summoned by them for the dispatch of such affairs as concerned Religion even in the main and fundamentals and other emergent occasions of the highest moment CHAP. III. Of the Invisibility and Infallibility of the Church of Christ And of the Churches power in Expounding Scripture Determining Controversies of the Faith and Ordaining Ceremonies BUt laying by those Matters of External Regiment we will look next on those which are more intrinsecal both to the nature of the Church and the present Article For when we say That we believe the Holy Catholick Church we do not mean That we do onely believe that there is a Church upon the Earth which for the latitude thereof may be called Catholick and for the piety of the Professors may be counted Holy but also that we do believe that this Church is led by the Spirit of God into all necessary Truths and being so taught becomes our Schoolâ—mistress unto Christ by making us acquainted with his will and pleasure and therefore that we are to yeeld obedience unto her Decisions determining according to the Word of God This is the sum of that which we believe in the present Artiâ—le more than the quod sit of the same which we have looked upon in the former Chapter and to the disquisition of these points we shall now proceed A matter very necessary as the world now goes in which so many Schisms and Factions do distract mens mindes that Truth is in danger to be lost by too much curiosity in enquiring after it For as the most Reverend Father the late Lord Bishop of Canterbury very well observes Whiles one Faction cries up the Church above the Scripture and the other side the Scripture to the contempt and neglect of the Church which the Scripture it self teacheth men both to honor and obey They have so far endangered the belief of the one and the authority of the other That neither hath its due from a great part of men The Church commends the Scripture to us as the Word of God which she hath carefully preserved from the time of Moses to this day and so far we are willing to give credence to her as to believe that therein she hath done the duty of a faithful witness not giving testimony to any supposititious or corrupted Text but to that onely which doth carry the impressions in it of the Image and Divine Character of the Spirit of God But if a difference do arise about the sense and meaning of this very Scripture or any controversie do break forth on the mis-understanding of it or the applying and perverting it to mens private purposes which is the general source and fountain of all Sects and Heresies we will not therein hearken to the voice of the Church but every man will be a Church to himself and follow the Dictamen or the illumination as they please to call it of their private Spirit It therefore was good counsel of a learned man of our own Not to indulge too much to our own affections or trust too much unto the strength of a single judgment in the controverted points of Faith but rather to relie on the authority and judgment of the Church therein For seeing saith he that the Controversies of Religion in our time are grown in number so many and in nature so intricate that few have time and leasure and fewer strength of understanding to examine them what remaineth for men desirous of satisfaction in things of such consequence but diligently to search out which of all the Societies of men in
be invisible And so it is also in those two instances which the Patrons of this invisibility have pitched upon since the times of the Gospel the one being in the prevalency of the Arian Heresie the other in the predominancy of Popish Superstition For the first it is alleged out of St. Ierom Ingemuit mundus se Arianum esse miratus est That the world groaned under the burden of that Heresie and wondred how she was become so wholly Arian But this admits of such a qualification and restriction as utterly overthroweth the thoughts of invisibility For that which Ierom calls Mundus or the whole world generally in Lerinensis is but orbis penè totus almost all the world Arianorum venenum non jam portiunculam quandam sed orbem pene totum contaminaverat The Arian poyson saith that Author had not onely envenomed a small part or portion but almost all the world it self And that which Lerinensis calls orbem pene totum almost all the world was onely almost all that part of the world which was under the command and power of the Roman Emperors Costerius in his Notes on Lerinensis doth expound him so saying Adeo incredibiles fuisse impietatis hujus successus ut omnes fere Romani imperii Ecclesias haec lues pervaserit And to this Exposition that of Gregorius Presbyter who wrote the life of Gregory Nazianzen gives a great deal of light who attributes the spreading of that powerful Heresie unto the countenance it had from some of those Emperors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who labored with might and main to promote the same so that the growth and spreading of the Arrian Heresie was neither over all the world nor almost all the world but onely over almost all the Churches in the Roman Empire and that but for the time onely when Constantius and Valens did possess the Throne There were then many Christian Churches in Persia India Aethiopia where neither Valens nor Constantius were of any power and many Catholick Bishops in France Egypt Italy and consequently Catholick Churches also to which an Orthodox Professor might have had recourse for the worship of God according to the prescript of his holy Word And though the Arian Heresie both for time and place was more diffused and longer-lived than any other whatsoever in the Church of Christ yet neither did it over-spread the whole face of the Church or made it for the time invisible to discerning eyes nor by denying the consubstantiality of persons in the holy Trinity did they so abjure the Christian Faith as not to be accounted Christians though defiled with Heresie by their greatest enemies The Orthodox Professors so esteemed them reckoning their Bishops Priests and Deacons to be lawfully called their Sacraments to be lawfully ministred by them their Forms of Divine worship nothing different from the rest of the Church except in the Doxology onely And if they did proceed against them in the way of punishment it was not as they were no Christians but as Arian Hereticks And on the other side holding entire all other points of Christian Faith and scrupling onely against that because they found it not in terminis in the holy Scriptures the Gentiles amongst whom they lived in the out-parts of the Empire persecuted them as they did the rest who professed the Gospel with fire and sword and put them unto grievous deaths insomuch as suffering for the Christian Faith not the Arian Heresie some of them had the honor to be counted Martyrs even by the Catholicks themselves Ita ut non-nulli ex Ariana secta Martyres fierent as it is in Socrates But the main difficulty doth relate to that space of time in which the power and superstition of the Church of Rome carried all before it and in relation unto that the Fautors of the Churches invisibility have most beat their brains For not being able when put to it by their Romish Adversaries to finde a Church agreeing in all points with the Protestant Tenets before Luthers time they betook themselves to this as their surest refuge That the Church was many times invisible and so had been immediately in the time before them Thus Luther pleased to place the Church in quibusdam reliquiis in a certain remnant of men whom the world took no heed of who were indeed the people and the Church of God though not so accounted And Calvin hides the same in uncertain corners where God did wonderfully preserve it from the sight of men Et mirabiliter Ecclesiam suam tanquam in latebris servasse as his own words are But this not giving satisfaction to the common Adversary who press upon us with this Question Where was your Church before Luther a pedegree thereof was fetched from Wicliff Hus the Albigenses the Pauperes de Lugduno and I know not whom who in their several times and ages had publickly opposed some errors and corruptions in the Church of Rome and thereby drew upon themselves the hatred of the Roman Clergy And by this means it was conceived That a perpetual visibility of the Protestant Churches might be fairly proved the fancy of an invisible Church beginning to grow out of credit with most sorts of men especially considering that besides the opposition made by those before remembred Clemangius Armachanus Lincolniensis had severally inveighed against the pride and vices of the Court of Rome and that there were many things also in the Church it self whereof St. Bernard and Pope Adrian wished a Reformation But this in my opinion will not do the deed For neither did Clemangius Armachanus or the rest that follow withdraw themselves from the Communion of the Church of Rome or if they had they did not thereby make themselves a distinct Church from it and least of all a Church agreeing in all points perhaps not in any with those which are defended in the Protestant Schools And as for Wicliff Hus and the Albigenses though they held some opinions which the Protestants do yet held they many others which the Protestants do not Some I am sure which are as much abominated by the Church of England as the extreamest dregs of the Church of Rome Nor can we prove the visibility of our Church from them from whom we neither receive our Baptism nor our Priesthood nor our Form of Worship nor any outward Rite and Ceremony nor any thing for ought I know by which we claim the name of a Christian Church Or if we did our visibility would fail us in those frequent intervals which were between Wicliff and the Hussites the Hussites and the Albigenses the Albigenses and the rest of those scattered companies from whom this goodly Pedegree is to be derived Whereof the one started up in England the other long before him in Bohemia the third in France and others in the Mountains of Italy not having a Succession from nor giving a Succession unto one another So that relinquishing
The word of truth being established as say both Law and Gospel if there be onely two or three witnesses to attest unto it Two or three Members of the Church may keep possession of a truth in the name of the rest and thereby save the whole from Error even as a King invaded by a forein enemy doth keep possession of his Realm by some principal fortress the standing out whereof in time may regain it all The Body cannot properly be said to be wholly dead as long as any Member of it doth remain alive But in this storm raised by the Arians in the Church the Orthodox Professors had but one Error to encounter with and that discovered and opposed in the first rising of it The Church of Rome maintained so many and those promoted by such power and so subtile instruments that there was far more danger in the Mass of Popery than any single Errors in the times before yet never could they so prevail by their force or cunning but that their Errors were opposed in some Church or other and truth though banished in the West found hearty entertainment in the Eastern parts As for example The Popes Supremacy is and hath long been held at Rome as an Article of the Faith and a chief one too and held so ever since it was declared by Pope Boniface the Seventh Omnino esse de necessitate salutis omni humanae creaturae suâ—esse Romano Pontifici i. e. That it was altogether necessary to Salvation for every mortal man to be subject to the Bishops of Rome But this Supremacy was never acknowledged by the Greeks nor Muscovites nor by the Habbassines or Christians of Ethiopia nor by the Indian Churches neither till these latter days in which they have submitted to the Popes authority And in the West it self where the Pope most swayed it was continually opposed by the Albigenses the Hussites Wiclivists and others in their several times The Popes usurped a power over Kings and Princes and did not onely hold it as a matter practical but publickly maintained and taught as a doctrinal point But against this did all the Princes of the world oppose their power the French by the Pragmatical Sanction the English by the Statutes of Provisions and Praemuniri the German Emperors at once both by Sword and Pen as is apparent by the writing of Marsilius Patavinus Dante 's Occam and many others of those times whereof consult Goldastus in his Monarchia It pleased the Popes for politick and worldly ends to restrain the Clergy of that Church from marriage because that having Wives and Children they would be more obnoxious to their natural Princes and not depend so much as now on the See of Rome But on the other side the Greeks the Melchites and the Maronites which are names of several Churches of the East neither deny Ordination unto married men or force them to abstain from the use of their Wives when they are in Orders The Russes and Arminians admit none but married men into the Priesthood the Iacobites and Nestorians allow of second and third marriages in those of their Clergy as also do the Indians and Christians under Prâ—ster Iohn the Patriarck being first sued to for a dispensation In Germany when this yoke was first laid upon them by Pope Gregory the Seventh the Clergy generally opposed stiling that Pope Hominem plane haereticum vesani dogmatis an Arant Heretick and the Broacher of a mad opinion In Italy it was taught by Panormitanus Votum non esse de essentia Sacramenti That the vow of single life was not essential unto Orders How late it was before the Priests of England could be brought to forsake their Wives and what embroilments have been raised in the Church about it Henry of Huntingdon and others of our Antient Writers do declare at large Pope Innocent the Third first setled Transubstantiation in the Church of Rome a word not known unto the Fathers in the Primitive times nor any of the old Grammarians and Professors of the Latine tongue But the Armenians do reject it as an unsound Tenet and so as I conjecture did the Egyptian Maronite and the Habbassine Churches who neither do allow of the Reservation nor the Elevation of the Host as the Romanists call it which are the Pages or attendants of that Popish Error And in the Church of Rome it self it was opposed by Bertram Berengarius and Basilius Monachus as afterwards by the Pauperes de Lugduno the Albigenses Hussites Wiclivists and their descendents to the time when first Luther writ The taking of the Cup in the holy Sacrament from the Lay-Communicant and thereby sacrilegiously robbing him of the one half of his birth-right crept unawares upon the Church by a joynt negligence as it were both of Priest and People But so that it was still retained by the Eastern Churches claimed and accordingly enjoyed by the Albigenses and their followers and so tenaciously adhered unto by the Bohemians where the Hussites had their first original that in small time they got the names of Calistini and Sub utrâques from their participating of the Cup and communicating under both kindes when none else durst do it And this they did in so great numbers that Cochlaeus one of their greatest Adversaries relates that Thirty thousand of them did assemble together at one time to receive the Sacrament under both kindes The fire of Purgatory hath for a long time warmed the Popes Kitchin and kept the Pot boiling for the Monks and Friers But there is no such fire acknowledged by the Greeks and Moscovites nor by the Melchites Iacobites Armenian and Egyptian Christians nor by the Waldenses Hussites and their Descendents The Worshipping of Images hath not onely been practised but enjoyned by the Church of Rome ever since the second Nicene Council But the Christians of St. Thomas so they call the Indians admit no Images at all to be set up in their Churches The Grecians Moscovites and Ethiopians though they admit of Painted Images yet allow not of the Carved and forbid the worshipping of both The Church of Rome hath long time used Auricular Confession as a kinde of State-picklock and opening therewith the Cabinet-Counsels of the greatest Kings and laid it as a burden upon the conscience of the penitent sinner But the Nestorians and the Iacobites never did enjoyn it themselves or approved it in them that did And though the Greek Church still retains the use of Confession of the right use whereof we shall speak hereafter yet such a rigorous pressing of it as our Masters in the Church of Rome have been used unto they allow not of These are some few of many Errors which have been taught and patronized in the Church of Rome which yet were constantly opposed and condemned by others in the East and South As on the other side those Churches of the East and South and such
as in the West did gainsay the same had their several Errors which never could finde entertainment in the Church of Rome Insomuch as one might safely say of Theological truths as was once said of Philosophical viz. Though they may not possibly be found all at once together in a National or Particular Church yet they are all preserved in the Vniversal And it is the Vniversal Church or the Church Essential not any Topical Church whatever which is free from Error This being granted as I think it is proved sufficiently that the Church Essential cannot fall into any Error which is destructive of divine and salvifical truth We will next see whether and if at all how far this privilege may be extended to the Representative For being it is impossible for the whole Church the diffusive Body to meet together in one place for the composing of such Differences and suppressing such Heresies as may occasionally arise in some part thereof it hath been found expedient in all former ages to delegate some choice men out of the particulars which being met should represent the whole Body Collective and in the name of those that sent them agree amongst themselves what was fit to be done These Meetings were called General Councils Concilia à conciliando from reconciling and attoning such material differences as did disturb the publick peace and general in relation unto National and Provincial Councils assembled on occasions of more private nature From the Apostles times did this use continue Who on the dissention raised by some which came down from Iudea and mingled Circumcision and the Law of Moses with the Gospel of Christ did meet together to consider and determine of it And having resolved upon the point they sent their Decretory Epistle unto all the Churches requiring their obedience and conformity to that resolution which on debate amongst themselves and by the guidance and assistance of the Holy Ghost had been made therein This as it was the first General Council of the Church of Christ so was it the model also of all those that followed and of this Council it is certain that it could not erre Partly because composed for the most part of the Lords Apostles but principally because guided and directed by the Spirit of Truth who had the supream managing of the Action But this we cannot say of those General Councils which after were assembled on the like occasions For though the Church essential might delegate her power unto those Commissioners whom she imployed at such Assemblies yet could she not also import her Privilege And for the Members who convened they neither were endued with a like measure of the Spirit as the Apostles were possessed of nor sure infallibly of such assistance from the Holy Ghost as he vouchsafed to them in that great affair and therefore could not warrantably presume of the like freedom from error which that first General Council might lay claim unto Augustine hath resolved it so against Cresconius Non debet se Ecclesia Christo praeponere cum ille semper veraciter judicet Ecclesiastici autem judices plerumque falluntur The Church saith he ought not to prefer her self before Christ i. e. Before Christ speaking in his Gospel considering that he always judgeth according to truth but Ecclesiastical Iudges being men are oft-times deceived And so it is resolved by the Church of England who hath declared That for as much as General Councils be Assemblies of men whereof all be not governed by the Spirit and Word of God they may erre and sometimes have erred in things appertaining unto God A possibility then there is in the judgment of the Church of England That General Councils may erre in the things of God whether in points of Faith or not there is nothing said For being the Conveners are no more than men men subject as all others are to Humane affections and byassed many times by their private interesses it cannot be but such a possibility may be well supposed And a declaration there is also that some General Councils have actually erred as did the second Nicene in the matter of Images for which it stands censured by the Bishops of France and Germany in the Synod held at Franckford under Charls the Great Which notwithstanding such and so sacred is the name of a General Council if truly such that is to say if it be lawfully called and rightly constituted That the determinations of it are not rashly to be set at nought or wilfully opposed or scornfully slighted it being the Supream Tribunal of Christ on Earth For since the Lord was pleased so graciously to promise That when two or three were gathered together in his name he would be in the midst of them It may be piously inferred in Pope Celestines words Cum nec tam brevi numero Spiritus defit quanto magis eum interesse credamus turbae convenientem in unum sanctorum If the Spirit saith he be not wanting to so small a number how much rather ought we to believe that he vouchsafes to be present with a great multitude of good and godly men convened together He that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me said Christ himself also unto his Apostles and in them unto their Successors in his holy Ministery May it not piously be inferred from those words of Christ as did some of the Antients in an African Synod to be a very gross absurdity for a man to think That God would give an understanding and discerning Spirit to particular men Et sacerdotibus in Concilium congregatis denegare and not afford it to be a company of godly Bishops met together in counsel And reason good For as many eyes see more than one and the united judgments of learned men assembled together carry more authority in Natural or Political things than of some single persons onely so questionless the joynt prayers of many devout and godly men prevail more with God for the assistance of his Spirit in their consultations than any private man can chalenge or presume upon when points of Faith and matters appertaining to the service of God are to be debated Upon these grounds from the Apostles times to these the Church hath exercised a power in her Representatives of setling such affairs as concerned the publick whether it were that some new controversie did arise in the points of Faith or an emergent Heresie was to be suppressed or that some Text of holy-Scripture which Hereticks had wrested to their private ends was to be expounded or finally that the worshipping of God the Lord in the beauty of holiness did require it of them Nor was it onely exercised by the Church de facto but de jure too And so it is resolved by the Church of England in her Twentieth Article the first and last expresly the second upon strong and necessary consequence The Church hath power to decree Rites or
Ceremonies and authority in Controversies of Faith And yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to the Word of God neither may it so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another Wherefore although the Church be a witness and a keeper of holy Writ yet as it ought not to decree any thing against the same so besides the same ought it not to enforce any thing to be believed as necessary to salvation So stands the Article in the very Acts and Records of the Convocation An. 1562. where by the way the Book of Articles being Re-printed in Latine An. 1571. when the Puritan Faction did begin to shew it self in its colours the first clause touching the authority of the Church in Controversies of Faith and in Decreeing Rites and Ceremonies was clean omitted and stands so maimed in the Book called The Harmony of Confessions for the Protestant and Reformed Churches According to which false and corrupted Copies I know not by what indirect means or by whose procurement it was so Printed too at Oxon An. 1636. when the Grandees of that Faction did begin to put forth again But to proceed The Church or Body Collective of the people of God having devolved this Power on her Representatives doth thereby binde her self to stand to such Conclusions as by them are made till on the sight of any inconvenience which doth thence arise or upon notice of some irregularity in the form and manner of proceeding she do again assemble in a new Convention review the Acts agreed on in the former Meeting and rectifie what was amiss by the Word of God And this is that which St. Augustine averreth against the Donatists men apt enough to flie in the Churches face if any thing were concluded or agreed upon against their Tenets Concilia quae per singulas provincias fiunt plenariorum Conciliorum autoritati cedere ipsaque plenaria saepe priora à posterioribus emendari cum aliquo experimento aperitur quod clausum erat cognoscitur quod latebat Provincial Councils saith the Father ought to submit unto the General And of the Generals themselves the former are oftentimes corrected by some that follow when any thing is opened which before was shut or any truth made known which before was hidden For otherwise it was not lawful nor allowable to particular men to hold off from conformity to the publick Order which had been setled in the Church nor to make publick opposition unto her conclusions which as the late most Reverend Father in God the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury very well resolves it Are with all submission to be observed by every Christian that is as he expounds himself in another place to have external obedience yeelded to it at least where Scripture or evident demonstration do not come against it And this hath been the judgment of the purest times and the practise of the best men for the times they lived in For thus said Constantine the Emperor to the point in hand Quicquid in sanctis Episcoporum Conciliis decernitur c Whatsoever is decreed in the holy Councils of Bishops ought wholly to be attributed to the Will of God More plainly Martianus Caesar Injuriam eos facere Reverendissimae Synodi judicio qui semel judicata in dubium vocent That they commit a great affront against the dignity and judgment of the most Reverend Council who shall presume to call in question what is there determined Which words of his are well enough allowed by Doctor Whitakers if understood of those things onely as they ought to be which are determined according to the Word of God St. Augustine to this purpose also Insolentissimae est insaniae c It is saith he an insolent madness for any man to dispute whether that be to be done or not which is determined to be done and therefore usually is done by the whole Catholick Church of Christ. St. Bernard also thus for the darker times Quae major superbia c What greater pride than that one man should prefer his own private judgment before the judgment of the Church Tanquam ipse solus Spiritum Dei habeat as if he onely were possessed of the Spirit of God And this holds also good in National and Provincial Councils which being the full Representative of the Church of that State or Nation hath power sufficient to compose such controversies as do arise amongst themselves and to require obedience of the Represented according to the limitations laid down before in the case of Oecumenical or General Councils The practise of all times and Nations make this plain enough in which many several Heresies have been concluded against as in that of Milevis wherein the Pelagians were condemned Anno 416. Matters of Faith have been resolved on as in the third of Toledo Anno 589. wherein many Anathemaes were thundred out against the Arians and finally Constitutions made for regulating the whole Body of Christian people in the worship of God as in the General Code of the African Councils Or were there no Record thereof in the times fore-going yet may we finde this power asserted in these later days and that by some of the most eminent Doctors of the Reformed Churches For the Divines of the Classis of Delph assembled amongst others in the Synod of Dort do declare expresly Ordinem nullum nullam pacem in Ecclesia Dei esse posse c That there would be no peace nor order in the Church of God if every man were suffered to Preach what he listed without being bound to render an accompt of his doctrine and submitting himself unto the judgment and determination of Synodical meetings Why so For if Paul and Barnabas say they being endued with the same Spirit as the rest of the Apostles were endued withal were content to go unto Ierusalem to know the judgment of the rest in the point then questioned Quanto aequius est ut Pastores alii qui Apostoli non sunt hujusmodi Synodicis Conventibus se subjiciant How much more fitting must it be for other Ministers which are no Apostles to captivate their own judgments unto that of a publick Synod Nor was the Synod it self less careful to provide for her own authority than the Delphenses were to promote the same And thereupon decreed in the close of all Abdicandos esse omnes ab officiis suis c That every man should be deprived as well of Ecclesiastical as Scholastical Offices who did not punctually submit to the Acts of the Synod and that no man should be admitted to the Ministery for the time to come who refused to subscribe unto the doctrine which was there declared and Preach according to the same And in pursuance of this final determination no fewer than Two hundred of the opposite party who did refuse to yeeld conformity to the Acts thereof were forthwith banished the
by them retained are all the holy days and fasts observed in the Church of England kneeling at the Communion the Cross in Baptism a distinct kinde of habit for the Ministration and divers others which by retaining they declare to be free from sin but those men to be guilty both of sin and scandal who wilfully refuse to conform unto them The Bohemians in their Confession go as high as this Humanos ritus consuetudines quae nihil pietati adversantur in publicis conventibus servanda esse i. e. That all Rites and Customs of Humane or Ecclesiastical Institution which are not contrary unto Faith and Piety are still to be observed in the publick meetings of the Church And still say they we do retain many antient Ceremonies as prescribed Fasts Morning and Evening Prayer on all days of the week the Festivals of the Virgin Mary and the holy Apostles The Churches of the Zuinglian and Calvinian way as they have stript the Church of her antient Patrimony so have they utterly deprived her of her antient Customs not thinking their Religion plain enough till they left it naked nor themselves far enough from the pride of Rome till they had run away from all Primitive decency And yet the Switzers or Helvetian Churches which adhere to Zuinglius observe the Festivals of the Nativity Circumcision Passion Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord and Saviour as also of the coming of the Holy Ghost And those of the Genevian platform though they have utterly exploded all the antient Ceremonies under the colour of removing Popish Superstitions yet they like well enough of others of their own devising and therefore do reserve a power as appears by Calvin of setling orders in their Churches to which the people shall be bound for he calls them by the name of vincula quaedam to conform accordingly By which we see that there hath been a fault on both sides in the point of Ceremonies the Church of Rome enjoyning some and indeed too many Quae pietati adversantur which were repugnant to the rules of Faith and Piety and therefore not to be retained without manifest sin as the Augustane and Bohemian Confessions do expresly say and the Genevians either having none at all or such as altogether differ from the antient Forms Against these two extreams I shall set two Rules whereof the one is given in terminis by the Church of England the other by an eminent and renowned Member of it The Church declares her self in the point of Ceremonies but addes withal That it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to the Word of God That makes directly against those of the Church of Rome who have obtruded many Ceremonies on the Church of Christ plainly repugnant to the Word and therefore not to be observed without deadly sin The other Rule is given by our Learned Andrews and that relates to those of the opposite faction Every Church saith he hath power to begin a custom and that custom power to binde her own children to it Provided that is the Rule that her private customs do not affront the general received by others the general Rites and Ceremonies of the Catholick Church which binding all may not be set light by any And this he doth infer from a Rule in the Mathematicks that Totum est majus sua parte that the whole is more considerable than any part and from another Rule in the Morals also that it is Turpis pars omnis toti non congrua an ugly and deformed part which agrees not with the whole So than according to the judgment of this Learned Prelate the customs of particular Churches have a power of binding so they run not cross against the general First Binding in regard of the outward man who if he wilfully refuse to conform unto them must though unwillingly submit to such pains and penalties as by the same power are ordained for those who contemn her Ordinances And they are binding too in regard of Conscience not that it is simply and absolutely sinful not to yeeld obedience or that the Makers of those Laws and Ordinances can command the Conscience Non ex sola legislatoris voluntate sed ex ipsa legum utilitate as it is well resolved by Stapleton but because the things which they command are of such a nature that not to yeeld obedience to them may be contrary unto Justice Charity and the desire we ought to have of procuring the common good of all men amongst whom we live of which our Conscience would accuse us in the sight of God who hath commanded us to obey the Magistrates or Governors whom he hath set over us in things not plainly contrary to his written Word To bring this business to an end in points of Faith and Moral Duties in Doctrines publickly proposed as necessary in the way of Salvation we say as did St. Ierom in another case Non credimus quia non legimus We dare not give admittance to it or make it any part of our Creed because we see no warrant for it in the Book of God In matters of exterior Order in the Worship of God we say as did the Fathers in the Nicene Council 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let antient customs be of force and prevail amongst us though we have no ground for it in the Scripture but this general warrant That all things be done decently and in order as St. Paul advised They that offend on either hand and either bring into the Church new Doctrines or cast out of the Church her antient and approved Ceremonies do violate that Communion of Saints which they ought to cherish and neither correspond with those in the Church Triumphant nor such as are alive in the Churches Militant Of which Communion of the Saints I am next to speak according to the course and method of the present Creed ARTICLE X. Of the Tenth Article OF THE CREED Ascribed to St. SIMON ZELOTES 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Sanctorum Communionem Remissionem peccatorum i. e. The Communion of Saints The forgiveness of Sins CHAP. IV. Of the Communion which the Saints have with one another and with Christ their Head Communion of Affections inferreth not a community of Goods and Fortunes Prayers to the Saints and Adoration of their Images an ill result of this Communion NExt to the clause touching the nature and authority of the Catholick Church followeth in order a recital of the principal benefits which are conferred upon the Members of that Mystical Body Two in this life and two in that which is to come Those in this life are first that most delightful Fellowship and Communion which the Saints have with one another and with Christ their Head and secondly That forgiveness and remission of all their sins as well actual as original which Christ hath purchased for them by his death and passion and by the Ministery
be Saints in the Church Triumphant But whether it be there or here a mutual communion there is always to be held between us between the Saints upon the Earth though Saints by outward calling onely united in the joynt participation of the Word and Sacraments and the external Profession of the Faith and Gospel but more conspicuously between those which are Saints indeed not onely nominally but really and truly such in that harmony of affections and reciprocal offices of love which makes them truly one Body of Christ though different Members And a communion there is too of this later kinde between the Saints upon the Earth and those which have their consummation in the Heaven of Glories who though they have in some part received the promise yet being fellow-members of the same one Body they pray for and await our ransom from this prison of flesh without which God hath so disposed it they should not be made perfect Which said we may now clearly see in what particulars the Communion of Saints intended in this Article doth consist especially which may be easily reduced unto three heads 1. A Communion in the Mysteries of our Salvation by which they are made members of one another and of Christ their Head 2. A Communion of Affections expressed in all the acts of love and charity even to the very communicating of their lives and fortunes And 3. A communion of entercourse between the Saints in Heaven and those here on Earth according to the different states in which God hath placed them All other kindes of Christian Communion are either contained in and under these or may be very easily reduced unto them And first for the Communion in the Mysteries of our Salvation and the benefits which redound thereby to the Church of Christ St. Paul hath told us That the Cup of blessing which is blessed in the holy Eucharist and the Bread there broken is the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ and that being made partakers of that one Bread we are thereby made though many to be one Bread also and one Body even the Body of Christ one Bread though made of many grains and one Body though composed of many members A better Paraphrase upon which place of the Apostle we can hardly finde in all the writings of the Fathers than that of Cyril Ut igitur inter nos Deum singulos uniret quamvis corpore simul anima distemus modum tamen adinvenit consilio patris sapientiae suae convenientem Suo enim corpore credentes per Communionem mysticam benedicens secum inter nos unum nos corpus efficit c That Christ might unite every one of us both with our selves and with God though we be distant from each other both in body and soul he hath devised a way agreeable to his own Wisdom and the Counsel of his Heavenly Father For in that he blesseth them that believe with his own Body by means of that Mystical Communion of it he maketh us one body with himself and with one another For who will think them not to be of this Natural union which be united in one Christ by the Union or Communion of that one holy Body For if we eat all of one Bread we are all made one Body in regard Christ may not be dis-joyned nor divided In which full passage of the Father we finde an union of the faithful with Christ their Head as well as a conjunction with one another effected by the Mystical communion of his Body and Blood A double union first with Christ and with each others next as the members of Christ. The union which we have with Christ is often times expressed in Scripture under the figure and resemblance of the Head and Members which as they make but one Natural Body so neither do they make but one Body Mystical Know you not saith the Apostle that your bodies are the members of Christ 1 Cor. 6.15 That ye are the body of Christ and members in particular 1 Cor. 12.27 That we are members of his body and of his flesh and of his bones Ephes. 5.30 And doth not the same Apostle tell us That God hath given Christ to be head over all things unto his Church Eph. 1.22 That Christ is the head of the Church Vers. 23. And that from this head all the body by joynts and bonds having nourishment ministred and knit together increaseth with the increase of God Col. 2.19 Occumenius hereupon inferreth That neither Christ without the Church much less the Church without her Christ but both together so united make a perfect body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that Author hath it Others of more antiquity do affirm the same For thus St. Chrysostom Quidnaem significat panis Corpus Christi quid fiunt qui accipiunt Corpus Christi What signifieth the Bread The Body of Christ What are they made that do receive it The Body of Christ. St. Augustine thus Hunc cibum potum societatem vult intelligi corporis membrorum suorum i. e. He would have us understand that this meat and drink is the fellowship of his body and of his members What of the members onely with one another Not onely so but of the fellowship or communion which they have with him that is their head who though he be above in the heavenly places and is not fastned to his body with any corporal connexion yet he is joyned unto it by the bonds of love as the same Father hath it in another place Habet ecclesia caput positum in coelestibus quod gubernat corpus suum separatum quidem visione sed charitate annexum St. Cyprian speaks more home than either both to the matter and the manner of the union which we have with Christ. Nos ipsi corpus Christi effecti Sacramento re Sacramenti capiti nostro conjungineur unimur We are then made the Body of Christ both by the Sacrament and the grace represented by it when we are joyned or united unto Christ our Head Not that we are not made the members of Christs Mystical Body but onely by a participation of the Sacrament of his Body and Blood but that this Mystical union and communion which we have with Christ is most fitly represented by it For otherwise St. Paul hath told us That by one Spirit we are all baptized into that one Body and consequently made the members of Christ. According unto that of Divine St. Augustine Ad hoc baptisma valet ut baptizati Christo incorporentur membra ejus efficiantur To this saith he availeth Baptism that men being baptized may be incorporated unto Christ and made his Members But this supposeth a relation to the other Sacrament of which although they may not actually participate before they die yet they have either a desire to it if they be of age and a right or interess in it
if they die in their Baptism in which respect they may be said to communicate with the rest of the faithful Concerning which the same St. Augustine hath most excellently resolved it thus No man in any wise may doubt but that every faithful man is then made partaker of Christs Body and Blood when in Baptism he is made a member of Christ And that he is not deprived of the Communion of that Bread and that Cup although before he either eat of that Bread or drink of that Cup he depart this world being in the unity of Christs Body For he is not deprived from partaking of the benefit of that Sacrament so long as he findeth in himself the things or the res Sacramenti as St. Cyprian calls it which the Sacrament signifieth As for the Union or Communion which the faithful have with one another though that arise upon their first incorporation in Iesus Christ by holy Baptism yet is more compleatly signified and more fully effected by that communion which they have in his Body and Blood And so St. Cyprian and St. Augustine and the rest of the Fathers do declare most plainly St. Cyprian as more antient shall begin the evidence and be the foreman of the Inquest That Christian men are joyned together with the inseparable bonds of charity the Lords Supper doth saith he declare St. Augustine generally first of all outward Sacraments In nullum nomen Religionis seu verum seu falsum coagulari possunt homines nisi aliquo signaculorum vel sacramentorum visibilium consortio colligantur Men saith he cannot be united into any Religion be it true or false unless they be joyned together in the bond of some visible Sacraments What he affirmeth of this particularly we shall see anon first taking with us that of Dionysius an Antient Writer doubtless whosoever he was Sancta illa unius ejusdem panis poculi communis pacifica distributio unitatem illis divinam tanquam unà enutritis praescribit that is to say That holy and peaceable distribution of the same one Bread and that common Cup prescribeth to them which are so fed and nourished together a most heavenly union More elegantly in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which Pachymeres the Greek Paraphrast doth thus reason for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Because that common feeding together with such joynt consent bringeth to our remembrance the Lords Supper Nor doth the participation of this blessed Sacrament produce an union or communion between them alone who do receive the same together at one time and place but it doth joyn and knit together all the Saints of God how far soever they are distant and scattered far and near upon the face of the Earth For therein we profess that we are all servants in one House and resort all to one Table and feed all of one Spiritual Meat which is the Flesh and Blood of the Lamb of God The Prayers which are used in that holy action being so fitted and contrived in all Antient Liturgies that they extend not unto those onely which do then communicate but that they and the whole Church with them may by the death and merits of Iesus Christ and through Faith in his Blood obtain remission of their sins and all other the benefits of his passion as it is piously expressed in the Liturgy of the Church of England To this St. Ierom gives a clear and most ample testimony who being pressed by Iohn the then Bishop of Ierusalem with whom he had some personal quarrels to go to Rome and witness his integrity by communicating in the face of that Church A qua videmur communione separari from whose communion he had seemed to separate returns this Answer Non necesse esse ire tam longè that it was not needful for him to go so far How so Et hic in Palestina eodem modo ei jungimur In viculo enim Bethlehem Presbyteris ejus quantum in nobis est communion◠sociamur For here saith he in Palestine do we hold communion with that Church and I residing in this Village of Bethlehem am joyned in the communion with the Priests of Rome By which we see that whosoever doth worthily eat the Body of Christ and drink his Blood according to the Institution of our Lord and Saviour communicates thereby with all Christian men of all Countreys and Nations whatsoever and that by vertue and effect of the said Communion they be all knit and joyned together as members of the same one Body in the bonds of love And this is that which is affirmed by St. Augustine Non mirum si absentes adsumus nobis ignoti no smet novimus cum unius corporis membra simus unum habeamus caput una perfundamur gratia uno pane vivamus una incedamus via eadem habitemus is domo It is no wonder saith the Father that being absent we be present together and being not acquainted do know each other considering that we be the Members of one Body have the same one Head an endowment of the self-same Spirit and that we live by one bread go the same way and dwell together in one House To testifie this Communion which they had with each other by vertue of the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper it was a custom of the Primitive and Purest times to send some part of the consecrated Elements unto them which were absent and joyned not with them in that action And sometimes for one Bishop to send to another a Loaf of Bread as a token of consent in the point of Faith and in all brotherly love and concord which he that did receive it if he thought it fitting might consecrate and use at the Ministration Touching the first of these it was well observed by Irenaeus that when any of the Eastern Bishops came to Rome the Popes thereof which preceded Victor did use to send them some of the blessed Sacrament although they differed in the observation of the Feast of Easter whereby a mutual concord and communion was preserved between them Of which he writeth thus to the said Pope Victor Qui fuerunt ante te Presbyteri etiam cum non ita observarent Presbyteris Ecclesiarum of the East he meaneth cum Romam acciderent Eucharistiam mittebant And of the other it is said in those Epistles which Paulinus wrote unto St. Augustine Panem unum quem unanimitatis indicio misimus charitati tuae rogamus ut accipiendo benedicas i. e. The Loaf of Bread which I have sent unto you as a token of unity I beseech you to receive and consecrate See also to what purpose he sent those five Loaves which were designed for the said St. Augustine and Licinius of which he speaketh in the Six and thirtieth Epistle of that Fathers works and that other single Loaf in the Five and thirtieth where it appeareth That the Loaves so sent and consecrated
omnium mores actus omnium verba denique occultas cogitationes diligenter inquirere as by the same Cecilius it was charged upon them The fourth which is the way most travelled but of no more certainty is That they see our thoughts and counsels by looking on the face of God in whom as in some magical mirror Tanquam in speculo as they phrase it they see what ever things are done both in Heaven and Earth And hereupon that saying of the first Pope Gregory Qui videt videntem omnia videt omnia is grown into a Maxim in the Schools of Rome But for the proof of this as of that before we have no proof at all but some bare conjectures or Gregories ipse dixit if so much as that too weak foundations to support such a weighty fabrick and therefore not relied on by their greatest Scholars Aquinas the great Patriarch of the Roman Schools saith plainly That the blessed Angels behold the Divine Essence of God and yet know not all things Nesciunt enim futura contingentia cogitationes cordium For they neither know future contingencies nor the thoughts of the heart which belongs onely unto God Thus Martinez Bene potest videns deum non videre omnes creaturas in illo That one who sees God face to face may withal not behold in him each particular Creature Thus Bannes Nullus beatus videt in essentia divina omnia individua aut omnes cogitationes eorum No blessed Saint beholdeth all individuals or the thoughts of all men in the Divine Essence And Durand with a limitation that spoils all the rest Intellectus creatus videns divinam essentiam videt in ipsa omnia quae per ipsam naturaliter ex necessitate repraesentantur alia vero non that is to say A created understanding looking on the Divine essence doth therein see all things which naturally and of necessity are represented by it and not else at all Bellarmine therefore is resolved on another way which though it hath less countenance from the antient Schoolmen yet is by him preferred before all the rest Vt quae magis idonea sit ad convincendos Calvinistas as being fittest to convince and confute the Calvinists And that is that all sublunary matters are made known unto them Deo revelante by revelation from their God which is the matter to be proved and by us denied but with no evidence made good by the learned Cardinal for ought I am able to perceive That at some times they have some things revealed unto them is already granted That all things are revealed unto them is but his opinion and the opinion of some few of the same society Others as eminent as he or they therein differing from them who tell us that this revelation is so made by God Ut unus alio plures vel pauciores videat That one Saint comes to know more or less than others according to the providence and goodness of Almighty God Qui disponere potest quatenus quantum se extendat cognitio cujuscunque videntis deum Who can and doth dispose of so great a favor both to the manner and the measure of the knowledge given therefore no revelation of all things to the Saints in general as Bellarmine desires to have it but onely of some things to some of them and but on some occasions too as before was granted Or were it as Bellarmine desires to have it yet must our prayers unto the Saints be a fruitless vanity For what else is it to desire of the Saints or Angels that they would recommend our wants and endear our prayers unto the Lord considering that our prayers and wants can come unto their knowledge by no other means than by such revelation Little need they commend our desires to him who must first tell them what we want before they can sollicite him in our behalf Upon such false and faulty grounds have they raised this doctrine and by that means reduced again into the world an old peece of Gentilism long since exploded For if we please to look into the Mysteries of the Pagan Theology we shall finde that they devised a kinde of inferior gods whom they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Deastros and placed them as it were in the middle between God and men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is in Plato And they devised them to this end That because the principal or supream gods were of so pure and divine a nature as might not be prophaned with the approach of earthly things or with the care and managing of worldly businesses They might make use of these Deastros or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Mediators for them in the Courts of the greater deities Thus the same Plato doth inform us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God saith he is not to be approached by men but all commerce and intercourse between gods and men is performed by the mediation of Daemons And in particular he tells us That they are the Messengers and reporters from men to God and again from God to men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. As well of the supplications and prayers of the one as of the commands and rewards from the other This have we more exactly from Apuleius whom take here at large Mediae sunt potestates per quas desideria nostra merita ad Deos commeunt inter mortales caelicolasque vectores hinc precum inde donorum qui ultro citroque portant hinc petitiones inde suppetias seu quidam utrinque interpretes salutigeri We had the sum before in English and repeat not now He that desires to see more to the same effect may finde it in the tract of Plutarch entituled De defectu oraculorum and in St. Augustines most learned and elaborate Books inscribed De civitate Dei especially in the eighth Book cap. 18.21 and in the ninth Book cap. 9.17 where we shal finde this point discussed Whether in our addresses to the Court of Heaven we should make use of Daemons for our Internuncios An error which it seems began to creep into the Church upon the first converting of the Gentiles to the Faith of Christ who under colour of humility as if they were not worthy to come near to God would have brought in the worshipping of Angels instead of Daemons but were encountred presently by St. Paul himself advising the Colossians who as it seems began to be thus inclined to take special care lest any man did beguile them of their reward through voluntary humility in the worship of Angels But what they failed to do in the holy Angels the Papists have since brought about in the blessed Saints whom they have made their Mediators between God and man in the commending of their prayers and desires to God and the obtaining from his hands of such gifts and graces as they stand in need of And that they might
from the work of his Ministery should neither be named in the Offertory nor any prayer be made for him at the holy Altar Ne deprecatio aliqua nomine ejus in ecclesia frequentetur as his words there are To this effect we have this clause or prayer in St. Chrysostoms Liturgy Offerimus tibi rationalem hunc cultum pro iis qui in fide requiescunt majoribus scilicet Patribus Patriarchis Prophetis Apostolis Praeconibus Evangelistis Martyribus Confessoribus c We offer this reasonable sacrifice unto thee O Lord for all that rest in the Faith of Christ even for our Ancestors and Predecessors the Patriarcks Prophets and Apostles Evangelists Preachers Martyrs Confessors c. And finally to this end served the antient Diptychs being Tables of two leaves apeece in the one of which were the names of such famous Popes Princes and Prelates men renowned for piety as were still alive and in the other a like Catalogue of such famous men as were departed in the Faith as is observed by Iosephus Vice Comes in his Observat. Eccles. de Missae apparatu Tom. 4. l. 7. c. 17. and by Sir H. Spelman in his learned Glossary Out of these Diptychs did they use to repeat the names both of the living and the dead at the time of the Eucharist as appears plainly by that passage of the Fift Council of Constantinople In which we finde first That the people came together about the Altar to hear the Diptychs Tempore Diptychorum cucurrit omnis multitudo circumcirca Altare and then that recital being made of the four General Councils as also of the Arch-Bishops of blessed memory Leo Euphemius Macedonius and other persons of chief note who had departed in the Faith of our Saviour Christ the people with a loud voice made this acclamation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Glory be to thee O Lord. Not that it was the meaning of the antient Church to pray for the deliverance of their souls from Purgatory since they never thought them to be there but partly to preserve their memory in the mindes of the living and partly to pray for their deliverance from the power of death which doth yet tyrannize over the bodies of the faithful the hastning of their Resurrection and the joyful publick acquitting of them in that great day wherein they shall stand to be judged at the Tribunal of Christ. These were the ends for which the Offerings and Prayers for the dead were made Which being very consonant to the rules of piety found such a general entertainment in the Primitive times that none but Aërius and his followers disallowed the same Of him indeed it is reported by St. Augustine Illo cum suis Asseclis Sacrificium quod pro defunctis offertur respuebat that he and his followers admitted not of Sacrifices in behalf of the dead the Sacrifices he meaneth are of praise and prayer for which and others of his Heterodox and unsound opinions he was condemned for an Heretick by the antient Father and so remains upon record Concerning which take here along the judgment of Dr. Field once Dean of Glocester who speaking of Aërius and his Heterodox doctrines resolves it thus For this his rash and inconsiderate boldness and presumption in condemning the Vniversal Church of Christ he was justly condemned For howsoever we dislike the Popish manner of praying for the dead which is to deliver them out of their feigned Purgatory yet do we not reprehend the Primitive Church nor the Pastors and Guides of it for naming them in their publick prayers thereby to nourish their hope of the Resurrection and to express their longing desires of the consummation of their own and their happiness which are gone before them in the Faith of Christ What Bishop Andrews and Bishop Montague have affirmed herein we have seen before and seen by that and by the judgment of this Reverend and Learned Doctor That the Church of England is no enemy to the antient practise of praying for the dead in the time of the celebration of the holy Eucharist though on the apprehension of some inconveniences as her case then stood it was omitted in the second Liturgy of King Edward the sixt which is still in force But howsoever it was so omitted in the course of the Eucharist yet doth it still retain a place in our publick Liturgy and that in as significant terms as in any of the formulas of the Primitive times For in the Form of Burial Having given hearty thanks to Almighty God in that it hath pleased him to deliver that our Brother out of the miseries of this sinful world We pray That it would please him of his infinite goodness shortly to accomplish the number of his Elect and to hasten his Kingdom that we with that our Brother and all others departed in the true Faith of Gods holy name may have our perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soul in his eternal and everlasting glory But Prayers and Offerings for the dead as before was said are no proofs for Purgatory The Church of England which alloweth of prayer for the dead in her Publick Liturgy hath in her Publick Articles rejected Purgatory as a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture but rather repugnant to the same The like do Montague of Norwich and the Dean of Glocester whose words we have before repeated and so doth Bishop Iewel the greatest ornament in his time of our Reformation And as for prayer for the dead saith he which you Dr. Harding say ye have received by tradition from the Apostles themselves notwithstanding it were granted to be true yet doth it not evermore import Purgatory Nor doth he onely say it but he proves it too For bringing in a prayer of St. Chrysostoms Liturgy in which there is not onely mention of the Patriarcks Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors but of the blessed Virgin her self he addes I trow ye will not conclude hereof that the Patriarcks Prophets Apostles c. and the blessed Virgin Mary were all in Purgatory Of the same judgment is the late renowned Arch-Bishop of Canterbury who telleth us That it is most certain that the antients had and gave other Reasons of prayer for the dead than freeing them out of Purgatory And this saith he is very learnedly and largely set down by the now learned Primate of Armagh Where we have the Primate of Armagh in the bargain too But what need such a search be made after the judgment and opinion of particular persons of the Church of England when it is manifest that the Greek Church at this day and almost all the Fathers of the Greek Church antiently though they admit of prayers for the dead yet believe no Purgatory Of which Alphonsus à Castro doth very ingenuously give this note De Purgatorio in antiquis Scriptoribus potissimum Graecis ferè nulla mentio est Qua de
all them that are sanctified Blotting out the hand-writing of Ordinances which was against us and nailed it to his cross for ever to the end that being mindful of the price wherewith we were bought and of the enemies from whom we were delivered by him We might glorifie God both in our bodies and our souls and serve the Lord in righteousness and holiness all the days of our lives For if the blood of Bulls and of Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctified to the purifying of the flesh in the time of the Mosaical Ordinances How much more shall the Blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God in the time of the Gospel This is the constant tenor of the Word of God touching remission of our sins by the Blood of Christ. And unto this we might here adde the consonant suffrages and consent of the antient Fathers If the addition of their Testimonies where the authority of the Scripture is so clear and evident might not be thought a thing unnecessary Suffice it that all of them from the first to the last ascribe the forgiveness of our sins to the death of Christ as to the meritorious cause thereof though unto God the Father as the principal Agent who challengeth to himself the power of forgiving sins as his own peculiar and prerogative Isai. 43.25 Peculiar to himself as his own prerogative in direct power essential and connatural to him but yet communicated by him to his Son CHRIST IESUS whilest he was conversant here on Earth who took upon himself the power of forgiving sins as part of that power which was given him both in Heaven and Earth Which as he exercised himself when he lived amongst us so at his going hence he left it as a standing Treasury to his holy Church to be distributed and dispensed by the Ministers of it according to the exigencies and necessities of particular persons For this we finde done by him as a matter of fact and after challenged by the Apostles as a matter of right belonging to them and to their successors in the Ministration First For the matter of fact it is plain and evident not onely by giving to St. Peter for himself and them the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven annexing thereunto this promise That whatsoever he did binde on Earth should be bound in Heaven and whatsoever he did loose on Earth should be loosed in Heaven But saying to them all expresly Receive the Holy Ghost Whose sins soever ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained And as it was thus given them in the way of fact so was it after challenged by them in the way of right St. Paul affirming in plain terms That God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself by not imputing their trespasses unto them but that the Ministery of this reconciliation was committed unto him and others whom Christ had honored with the title of his Ambassadors and Legates here upon the Earth Now as the state of man is twofold in regard of sin so is the Ministery of reconciliation twofold also in regard of man As he is tainted with the guilt of original sinfulness the Sacrament of Baptism is to be applied the Laver of Regeneration by which a man is born again of water and the Holy Ghost Iohn 3.5 As he lies under the burden of his actual sins the Preaching of the Word is the proper Physick to work him to repentance and newness of life that on confession of his sins he may receive the benefit of absolution Be it known unto you saith St. Paul that through this man CHRIST IESUS is preached unto you remission of sins and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses And first for Baptism It is not onely a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christian men are discerned from others which be not Christned as some Anabaptists falsly taught but it is also a sign of regeneration or new birth whereby as by an instrument they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church the promises of the forgiveness of sin and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost are visibly signed and sealed Faith is confirmed and Grace increased by vertue of Prayer unto God This is the publick Doctrine of the Church of England delivered in the authorised Book of Articles Anno 1562. In which lest any should object as Dr. Harding did against Bishop Iewel That we make Baptism to be nothing but a sign of regeneration and that we dare not say as the Catholick Church teacheth according to the holy Scriptures That in and by Baptism sins are fully and truly remitted and put away We will reply with the said most Reverend and Learned Prelate a man who very well understood the Churches meaning That we confess and have ever taught that in the Sacrament of Baptism by the death and Blood of Christ is given remission of all manner of sins and that not in half or in part or by way of imagination and fancy but full whole and perfect of all together and that if any man affirm that Baptism giveth not full remission of sins it is no part nor portion of our Doctrine To the same effect also saith judicious Hooker Baptism is a Sacrament which God hath instituted in his Church to the end That they which receive the same might thereby be incorporated into Christ and so through his most precious merit obtain as well that saving grace of imputation which taketh away all former guiltiness and also that infused divine vertue of the Holy Ghost which giveth to the powers of the soul the first dispositions towards future newness of life But because these were private men neither of which for ought appears had any hand in the first setting out of the Book of Articles which was in the reign of King Edward the Sixth though Bishop Iewel had in the second Edition when they were reviewed and published in Queen Elizabeths time let us consult the Book of Homilies made and set out by those who composed the Articles And there we finde that by Gods mercy and the vertue of that Sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour CHRIST IESUS the Son of God once offered for us upon the Cross we do obtain Gods grace and remission as well of our original sin in Baptism as of all actual sin committed by us after Baptism if we truly repent and turn unfeignedly unto him again Which doctrine of the Church of England as it is consonant to the Word of God in holy Scripture so is it also most agreeable to the common and received judgment of pure Antiquity For in the Scripture it is said
expresly by St. Peter to the sorrowful and afflicted Iews Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Iesus Christ for the remission of sins By Ananias unto Saul Arise and be baptised and wash away thy sins calling on the name of the Lord By Paul himself who had experimentally found the efficacy and fruit thereof in his own person That God according to his mercy hath saved us not by works of righteousness which we have done but by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost and finally by St. Peter also That Baptism doth now save us not the putting away of the filth of the flesh but the answer of a good conscience towards God by the resurrection of Iesus Christ This also was the judgment of the Antient Writers and that too long before the starting of the Pelagian Heresies to which much is ascribed by some as to the advancing of the efficacy and fruit of Baptism by succeeding Fathers For thus Tertullian Quotidiè nunc aquae populos conservant deleta morte per ablationem delictorum Exempto scilicet reatu eximitur poena Ita restituetur homo Deo ad similitudinem ejus qui retro ad imaginem Dei conditus fuerat Now saith he do the Waters daily preserve the people of God death being destroyed and overthrown by the washing away of sins for where the guilt is taken away there is the punishment remitted also St. Cyprian thus Remissio peccatorum sive per Baptismum sive per alia Sacramenta donetur propriè Spiritus Sancti est that is to say that the remission of sins whether given in Baptism or by any other of the Sacraments is properly to be ascribed to the Holy Ghost The African Fathers in full Council do affirm the same and so doth Origen also for the Alexandrians of both which we shall speak anon in the point of Paedo-baptism Thus Nyssen for the Eastern Churches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Baptism saith he is the expiation of our sins the remission of our offences the cause of our new-birth and regeneration Thus do the Fathers in the Constantinopolitan Council profess their Faith in one Baptism or being onely once baptized for the remission of sins And finally That this was the doctrine of the Church in general before Augustines time who is conceived to be first that did advance the power and efficacy of Baptism to so great an height in opposition to the Pelagian Heresies appears by a by-word grown before his time into frequent use the people being used to say when they observed a man to be too much addicted to his lusts and pleasures Sine illum faciat quod vult nondum enim baptizatus est i. e. Let him alone to take his pleasure for as yet the man is not baptised More of this we shall see anon in that which follows Nor is this onely Primitive but good Protestant Doctrine as is most clear and evident by that of Zanchius whom onely I shall instance in of the later Writers Cum Minister Baptizat c. When the Minister baptizeth I believe that Christ with his own hand reached as it were from Heaven Filium meum sanguine suo in remissionem peccatorum aspergere besprinkleth the Infant with his Blood to the remission of sins by the hand of that man whom I see besprinkling him with the Waters of Baptism So that I cannot choose but marvel how it comes to pass that it must now be reckoned for a point of Popery that the Sacraments are instrumental causes of our justification or of the remission of our sins or that it is a point of learning of which neither the Scriptures nor the Reformed Religion have taught us any thing So easie a thing it is to blast that with Popery which any way doth contradict our own private fancies But here before I do proceed further in this present Argument I shall make bold to divert a little upon the antient use of Baptismal-washings before our Saviour Christ ordained it for an holy Sacrament that we may see what hint our Saviour took in this Institution who thought it no impiety to fit the antient usages of the Iews and Gentiles to the advancement of the Gospel though now to hold conformity with the Church of Rome in matters very pertinent to the same effect is reckoned for the greatest Error in our Reformation First for the Iews that they used very frequent washings is most clear in Scripture For not onely the Pharisees particularly who were a superstitious supercilious Sect but the Iews in general have this Character given them by St. Mark That they eat not except they wash their hands oft that they washed as often as they came from market or any publick place of meeting and that they did observe upon old Tradition the washing of Cups and Pots of brazen Vessels and of Tables And this they did not onely in the way of cleanliness or in point of manners to wash away the filth of their bodies when they went to eat or to make clean their Vessels and other Vtensiles which they ate or drank in But rather out of an opinion that by those frequent washings they preserved themselves from the filth and corruption of the world especially in their return from the streets and market places where possibly they might meet with some that were uncircumcised or otherwise obnoxious to an ill report by which they thought themselves defiled And this I take to be an antient custom of the Iews because I finde it much in use amongst the Samaritans who were in many if not most of their common Ceremonies but the Apes onely of the Iews Who on the same opinion of their own dear sanctity which had so perfectly possessed their neighbors of Iudah did use when they had visited any of the Nations to sprinkle themselves with urine upon their return and if by negligence or necessity of business they had touched any not of their own Sect to drench themselves over-head and ears in the next Fountain The reason of which is thus delivered by Epiphanius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Because they held it for an abomination to come near a man that was of a different Religion or perswasion from them But this appears more plainly by that passage of St. Iohns Gospel where there is mention of six water pots of stone at the marriage-feast of Cana in Galilee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the manner of the purifying of the Iews Where by no means I can consent to Maldonâ—tes interpretation who will not have these water-pots to be used at all for any Legal or Mosaical purification Qua qui secundum legem polluti erant mundabantur in which they used to wash themselves who had incurred some legal pollution but onely for those Pharisaical washings which the Pharisees used often in the midst of a feast Which had it been the
ab his putat exigendam fidem quos novit nullam propriam habere culpam The justice of Almighty God saith he doth not think it fitting that having committed no particular sin of their own he should exact of them a proper and particular faith of their own but as they were undone by anothers fault so they should be relieved by anothers faith To which effect though not so fully I have read somewhere I am sure in St. Ierome but cannot well remember where Qui peccavit in altero credat in altero That he which hath sinned in others may believe by others For the next point though we maintain the necessity of Baptism as the ordinary outward means to attain salvation and do correct those Ministers by the Churches censures by whose gross negligence or default if required to do it an Infant shall die unbaptized Yet we conceive it not so absolutely necessary in the way to Heaven but it is possible for a man to be saved without it For antiquity supplied in some the want of water by blood which many times was the case of Martyrs in others the inevitable want of Baptism by the Holy Ghost the earnestness of the desire if it might have been had supplying the defect of the outward Ceremony Hence came the old distinction of Baptismus fluminis Baptismus flaminis and Baptismus sanguinis Concerning which the Fathers teach us this in brief That where men are debarred by an evitable impossibility from the outward Sacrament Faith and the inward conversion of the heart flying unto God in IESUS CHRIST through the sweet motion and gracious instinct of the Holy Spirit may be reckoned for a kinde of Baptism because thereby they obtain all that which they so earnestly sought after in the Sacrament of Baptism if they could have been partakers of it And if it be so that an ordinary degree of Faith do sometime obtain salvation without the Baptism of Water much more may that which makes men willing to suffer death for Christs and the Gospels sake and be baptized as it were in their dearest blood It was not simply the want of Baptism but the neglect and contempt thereof which antiently in the Adulti men of riper years was accounted damnable But what may then be said in the case of Infants in whom are no such strong desires no such sanctified motions Shall we adjudge them with St. Augustine to eternal fire as some say he did who thereby worthily got the name of Infanto-mastyx or the scourge of Infants as he had gloriously gained the title of Malleus Pelagianorum The Maul or Hammer of the Pelagian Hereticks No God forbid that we should so restrain his most infinite mercies unto outward means Or shall we feign a third place for them near the skirts of Hell as our good Masters do in the Church of Rome We have as little ground for that in the holy Scripture Rather than so we may resolve and I think with safety that as the Faith of the Church and of those which do present such as are baptized is by God accepted for their own so the desire and willingness of the same Church and of their God-fathers and Parents where Baptism cannot possibly be had is reputed theirs also Or if not so yet we refer them full of hope to the grace of God in whose most rigorous constitutions and sharpest denunciations deepest mercies are hid and who is still the Father of mercies though the God of justice And so I shut up this discourse with these words of Hooker That for the Will of God to impart his grace to Infants without Baptism the very circumstance of their natural birth may serve in that case for a just Argument whereupon it is not to be misliked that men in a charitable presumption do gather a great likelihood of their salvation to whom the benefit of Christian parentage being given the rest that should follow is prevented by some such casualty as man hath no power himself to avoid So he of those which are descended of a Christian stock What may be thought of children born of unbelievers hath been said elswhere And so much of the first ordinary outward means ordained by Christ for the remission of our sins the holy Sacrament of Baptism Proceed we next unto the other which is the power of the Keys committed in the person of St. Peter to the Catholick Church and those which by the Churches order are authorized and appointed to it That miserable man being wrought upon unto repentance by the power and preaching of the Word may on confession of his sins be forgiven of God or have the benefit of absolution from the hands of his Ministers if their spiritual necessities do so require For certainly there is not a more ready way to forgiveness of sins than by sincere and sound repentance nor any speedier means to beget repentance than to present our sins unto us in their own deformity by the most righteous myrror of the Word of God For when the sinner comes to know by the Word of God the heinousness of his misdeeds the wrath which God conceives against him for his gross offences together with the punishment which is due unto them according to his rigorous judgments The thought thereof must needs affect him both with fear and horror and make him truly sensible of his desperate state To whom then shall he flie for succor but to God alone humbly confessing unto him both his sins and sorrows How can he look to be recovered of the biting of these fiery Serpents but by looking with the eye of faith on that brazen Serpent which was exalted on the Cross for his Redemption Or if he finde his Conscience troubled and his minde afflicted and that he hath not confidence enough to draw near to God then let him go unto the Priest whom God hath made to be the Iudge between the unclean and the clean whom God hath authorized to minister the word of comfort to raise up them that be faln and support the weak to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide their feet in the way of peace This is the Method to be used the course to be pursued by those who do desire to profit in the School of repentance And about this as to the main and substance of it there is but little difference amongst knowing men For that Repentance is a necessary means required for the remission of sins committed after Baptism the Antients and the Moderns do agree in one The Fathers used to call it secundam tabulam post naufragium the second Table after Spiritual shipwrack on which all those who had made shipwrack of the Faith and a good conscience used to lay hold after they had foregone the benefit received in Baptism to keep them up from sinking in the depth of despair from being overwhelmed in the bottomless Ocean of sin and judgment
Translation it is called a washing yet in the Greek and Latine both it is a baptization Next to these positive and practical Proofs we will add some natural and experimental Evidences which conclude the same and are more within the compass of the observation of the meanest capacities We see the Sun withdraweth from us every evening the comfort both of light and heat and yet we doubt not of his rising on the morrow morning We go to bed as to our grave yeelding our selves to sleep-which is the image of death with prayers and supplications to Almighty God in hope to be restored unto sense and action on the day insuing We note it in the common course of the works of Nature that Herbs and Plants and all the Flowers of the field do in the time of Winter seem to lose that life which made them flourish with more lustre than the Court of Solomon but we observe withall as a thing of course that the next Spring returns them to their perfect beauties Expectandum nobis etiam corporis ver est we have a Spring to come said the Christian Advocate The Husbandman commits his seed unto the ground in expectation of a plentiful and joyful Harvest his hope deceiveth him not at last though that which he buried in the womb of the Earth must die before it quicken unto life again This is another of St. Pauls Arguments to our present purpose Thou fool saith he that which thou sowest is not quicked except it die upon which words of the Apostle take this gloss or descant out of an old Greek M. S. in Bodleys Liberarie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Earth laboureth not after the ordinarie manner of a woman in travel Her Infant Corn is not quickned except it die Should it live still it could not be formed in that womb The earth receiveth the bare corn onely and by corrupting it restoreth it in a better fashion than she took it in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And can we have saith he a more forcible impression or representation of our own restitution than by this example Observing these things as we do in the works of Nature how can we think so poorly of the Lord our God as if it were not in his power with the like facility to re-give to us our former beauties as either to the Plants or Planets Should we make search into the secret and more wonderful works of prudent nature we may be told by Plinie That dead Bees are restored both to life and motion onely by sprinkling them with Nepenthe young Pellicans by the blood of the old ones and Eels with vinegar and blood The raising of the new Phenix out of the ashes of the old one hath been a thing so generally received over all the world that for my part I dare not question it though I know some do And of the Swallows it is said that at the beginning of Winter they use to fall down together in heaps into the dust or water and there sleep in their Chaos till hearing the voyce of returning Nature at the Spring they awaken out of this dead sleep and live amongst the fowls of the Air again And more than so it is affirmed by George Maior a German writer that he found a company of Swallows lying dead under an old Table in the Church of Witteberge which by an artificial heat he restored to life the ordinary time of nature being then not come in which they should revive of course This makes it plain that nature is no Enemy to a Resurrection by consequent our Faith in this agreeable to the course of Nature and not to be denyed by a natural man though no one Point or Article of the Christian Faith hath been more eagerly opposed by the ancient Gentiles nor more pertinaciously decried by Heretical Christians And howsoever men of inferior parts might make scruple of it yet can I not but wonder at those great Philosophers that they should plead so earnestly against a Tenet so consonant to the waies and works of Nature and otherwise not much a stranger to their own opinions Themselves both Platonists and Pythagoreans acknowledge an eternal being of the soul and though the man did dye and his corps was buried yet the Soul lived again in another Body And so the antient Druides were perswaded also Regit idem spiritus artus Orbe aâ—io as the Poet hath informed us of them The truth of this opinion I dispute not here I know it to be vain and foolish Onely I shall conclude from their own Position and think the Argument will be good ad homines That the same Soul may be as easily beleeved to live again in its own body as in the body of another made of purpose for it And this Tertullian doth retort against those Philosophers who did admit of this Pythagorean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this transmigration of the soul from body to body and yet deny the Resurrection of that body to which the Soul more naturally ought to be united Si quaecunque ratio praeest animarum humanarum reciprocandarum in corpora cur non in eandem substantiam redeant cum hoc sit restitui id esse quod fuerat as his words there are That which most stumbled both these Philosophical and our Christian Hereticks was That the faithful of the Primitive times did not onely stand for the Assumption of a new Body which perhaps the others would have granted with no great difficulty but the Resurrection of the old The restitution of a body which had either been consumed to ashes eaten by Worms devoured by Fishes and wilde Beasts and finally incorporated into the substance of those Beasts and Fishes which had so devoured it Which being thought impossible by some old Philosophers and not well understood by some poor weak Christians occasioned it on both sides to be called in question and by some Christian Hereticks to be more decried than ever it had been by the Gentiles formerly The Marcionites of old denied it so did Marcus too and so did Basilides Cerdo and the rest of that wicked brood The Anabaptists and Socinians of these times do deny it also although not on the same grounds as the former Hereticks by those it was denied because thought impossible in which they and the Gentiles did agree together by these because they do not think it consonant to the Word of God That flesh and blood should inherit the Kingdom of Heaven as if there were no difference between the substance of flesh and the infirmities and frailties which attend upon it between a natural body and a body glorified Of which more anon In the mean time to satisfie the doubts of those of what sort soever which charge this Article of our Faith with impossibilities we may demand of them these particulars besides what hath been said to the point already viz. Whether it be not equally as possible to Almighty
did eat drink and sit down together at the self-same Table And therefore unto these and such Texts as these which speak of eating and drinking or sitting down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdom of Heaven there cannot be given a better answer than that which Christ returned to the captious Saduces viz. That in the Kingdom of Heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the Angels of God And if they are as the Angels of God there shall be neither eating nor drinking then we are sure of that Nor is it like that glorified and immortal Bodies alimoniis terrenis sustentanda sint can be sustained with corruptible and earthly food For as Ierom very well inferreth Vbi cibus sequuntur morbi c. Where there is meat there will be sickness where there is sickness death will follow and after that another Resurrection is to be expected and then another thousand years to be added to that Et sic de coeteris As for those passages alleged from the Revelation if they be literally understood they seem to be expresly for the Millenarians but then withal it draweth after it such inconsequences as plainly overthrow their whole foundation For I hope they will provide themselves of a better Supper Than to eat the flesh of Kings and the flesh of Captains and the flesh of Mighty-men and the flesh of Horses and of them that sit on them and the flesh of all men both bond and free and small and great Such chear and such an earthly paradise as they seem to dream of will agree but ill I must desire to be excused for calling it a Dream of an earthly paradise for I am verily perswaded that it is no other It hangs upon such doubtful proofs and is so differently reported by the Patrons of it that never sick-mans dream was more incoherent Which that we may the better see and see withal how every one added somewhat of his own unto it according as the strength or weakness of his fancy led him I shall put down a memorable passage of Gennadius which most fully speaks it In divinis repromissionibus nihil terrenum vel transitorium expectamus sicut Melitani sperant Non nuptiarum copulam sicut Cerinthus Marcus delirant Non quod ad cibum vel ad potum pertinet sicut Papiae Autori Irenaeus Tertullianus Lactantius acquiescunt Neque per mille Annos Resurrectionem regnum Christi in terra futurum Sanctos cum illo in deliciis regnaturos speramus sicut Nepos docuit qui primam justorum Resurrectionem secundam impiorum confinxit By which we see that Melito did fancy onely a transitory and earthly Kingdom Cerinthus and Marcus introduced the use of the marriage-bed Papias seemed to be content with eating and drinking and Nepos found out the distinction to make all compleat between the first and second Resurrection making the first to be onely of the just and righteous the second of the wicked and impenitent sinner after the end or expiration of the thousand years This is the Genealogie or Pedigree of this Opinion which hath of late begun to revive among us and findes not onely many followers but some Champions also Whom I desire more seriously to consider in their better thoughts whether this their supposed Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour commended to the world by some Antient Writers gave not the first hint unto Mahomets Paradise In which he promiseth to those who observe his Law most delicious dwellings adorned with flowery Fields watered with Chrystalline Rivers and beautified with Trees of Gold under whose comfortable shade they shall spend their time with amorous Virgins and be possessed of all voluptuous delights which to a sensual minded-man are the greatest happiness I know that some of late times and of eminent note have given us this opinion in a better dress delivering upon probable grounds That before the end of the world there shall be a time in which the Church of Christ shall flourish for a thousand years in greater purity and power both for faith and manners and in more outward lustre and external glory than hitherto it hath done in all former ages Coelius Secundus Curio in his Book De Amplitudine Regni Dei P. Cunaeus in that De Repub. Iudaeorum Du Moulin in his Christian Combat Piscator in his Comment on the Revelation Alstedius in a Tract of his called Diatribe de mille Annis Apocalypticis and divers others not inferior unto them for parts and learning have declared for it And for my part I see no danger in assenting to it If this will satisfie the Millenarians they shall take me with them but if they stand too stifly to their former tendries and look not for this flourishing time of the Gospel till the Resurrection of the just be first accomplished and then expect to have their part and portion in the pleasures of it I must then leave them to themselves The method of my Creed doth perswade me otherwise which from the Resurrection of the Body leads me on immediately unto the joys and glories of eternal everlasting life to which now I hasten I know it doth much trouble many pious and sober men to finde the force and efficacy of our Saviours Argument in the place foregoing which seems more plainly to assert the Immortality of the Soul than the Resurrection of the Body the bodies of Abraham Isaac and Iacob being dissolved into dust in the time of Moses though their souls were living with their God Concerning which we are to know 1. That the Sadduces by whom this Question was propounded did not alone deny the Resurrection of the dead but so as to affirm withal Animas cum corporibus extingui That the Soul it self did also perish with the body as Iosephus tells us They said that there was neither Angel nor Spirit as St. Luke says of them 2. That though the Pharisees who were their opposite faction in the latter end of the Iewish state did grant a Resurrection or Reviviscency from the dead yet was it after such an Animal and Carnal sense in eating drinking and conversing with women In qua cibo potu opus esset conjugia rursum jungerentur c. saith my Author of them as the Mahometans now dream of in their sensual paradise And against this absurd opinion as indeed it was the Sadduces had found out that Argument about a woman which had or might have had seven Husbands by the Law of Moses whose writings onely they received as Canonical Scripture desiring to be satisfied in their curiosity to which of the seven she should be wife at the Resurrection Which when the Pharisees could not answer as keeping to those principles indeed they could not they thought to put our Saviour to it at the self-same weapon But they found there another manner of Spirit than what had spoken to them by and
till the coming of CHRIST and after a more explicit faith in Christ when he had redeemed it then had been pressed before on the house of Iacob CHRIST hath redeemed us saith St. Paul from the curse of the Law that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles thorough IESVS CHRIST that is to say that as Abraham did believe in God and that was imputed unto him for righteousness even so the Gentiles thorow faith in IESVS CHRIST might be justifyed also And yet faith doth not justifie conceive not so out of any property that is natural or essential to it or any dignity or work inherent in it above other Theological vertues but out of somewhat that is adventitious and extrinsecal meerly that is to say the will good-pleasure or appointment of Almighty God This is the will of him that sent me saith our Saviour that every Man that seeth the Son and believeth in him should have life everlasting Where clearly he suspends the justifying property or power of faith not upon any quality or vertue that it hath in it self but only on the will and free grace of God which had it fallen in conjunction or cooperation with any other of Gods graces either hope or patience or any other whatsoever that act of grace or the act rather of that grace so by God appointed would have conduced as fully to our justification as now the act of faith or believing doth But now to trouble our selves with these speculations suffice it that as God was pleased to make choice of faith so he made choice not of the habit or the object but the act of faith to be imputed to us for our justification Abraham believed God saith the holy Scripture and it was counted unto him for righteousness Nor is it thus with Abraham only but with all the faithful who if they do believe on him that justifyeth the ungodly that faith of theirs shall be accounted unto them for righteousness also T is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Credere the very act of faith it self which God requireth of us for our justification in stead of all the workes of the Law and if we do believe as we ought to do that every act of our believing without the help of any of the workes of the Law shall be imputed to us for righteousness Seven times at least in the fourth Chapter of the Romans hath the Apostle used this phrase to account or impute faith for righteousness unto the believer We finde the same phrase also used in the 3. Chapter to the Galatians vers 5. and in the 2. of St. Iames vers 23. Scarce such another consonancy of expression in the holy Scripture Which certainly the holy Ghost had not stood upon not bound himself precisely to the words and syllables of if he had not meant to give this honour unto faith it self but rather to some other thing which faith layeth hold of and applyeth for our endlesse comfort And this as it is most agreeable to the Text and Context where faith is put in opposition unto workes that faith alone might have the honour of our justification so hath it been the constant Doctrine of the antient Writers who do ascribe the same to faith and to faith properly so called not as the word is taken tropically or metonymically for the object thereof For thus saith Iustin Martyr first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Abraham saith he had not from God the testimony or commendation of righteousness because of his circumcision but because of his faith Tertullian next How saith he are we made the children of faith or of whose faith if not of Abrahams For if Abraham believed God and that was imputed unto him for righteousness and he deserved thereby to be made the Father of many nations Not autem credendo Deo magis pro inde justificamur sicut Abraham we by believing God more as having more things to believe then Abraham had for that I take it is his meaning are therefore also justifyed as Abraham was Next to him that of Origen which we had before Cum multae fides Abraham praecesserint c. Whereas many faiths or many acts of Abrahams faith had gone before now all his faith was recollected and summed up together and so imputed unto him for his justification St. Ambrose in fewer words saith as much as any Sic decretum dicit a Deo ut cessante lege solam fidem gratia Dei posceret ad salutem God saith he hath so decreed that the Law ceasing the grace of God should require only faith of man towards his salvation Why was this writ saith St. Chrysostome of our father Abraham 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that we may learn that we are also justifyed as Abraham was because we have believed the same God And in another place What was Abraham the worse for not being under the Law To which he answereth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was nothing the worse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for his faith was sufficient for his justification What saith St. Augustine of himself In eum credo qui justificat impium ut deputetur fides mea ad justitiam that is to say I do believe in him that justifyeth the ungodly that my faith may be imputed to me for righteousnesse What doth the same Father say of Abraham in another place if at the least the work be his Ecce sine opere justificatur ex fide et quicquid illi legali observatione potest conferri totum credulitas sua donavit Behold saith he Abraham is justifyed without works by faith and whatsoever could have been conferred upon him by the observation of the Law that his believing only hath wholly given him Primasius somewhat after him in the course of time Tam magna fuit dono dei fides Abrahami ut et pristina peccata ei donarentur et sola prae omni justitia doceretur accepta i. e. So great was Abrahams faith by the gift of God that both his former sins were pardoned and this his faith alone was preferred in acceptation before all righteousness And finally thus Haimo B. of Halberstad an Author of the 9. Century to descend no lower Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousnesse that is saith he unto remission of sinnes quia per ipsam fidem qua credidit justus effectus est because by that faith wherewith he believed he was made righteous By all which testimonies of the antients it is plain and evident that faith is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere or the very act of believing is that which is imputed to us for our justification and that this is no new interpretation excogitated by Arminius in these latter days as some please to tell us Nor is this contrary to the Church of England delivered in her book of Homilies though at the first appearance it may so be thought When we
affirme that We are justifyed only by faith in Christ we understand not saith the Book that this our own act to believe in Christ or this faith in Christ which is within us doth justifie us and deserve our justification unto us for that were to count our selves to be justifyed by â—ome act or vertue that is within our selves but that we must renounce the merit of faith hope charity and all other vertues as things that be far too weak imperfect and insufficient to deserve remission of sins and our justification and must trust only on Gods mercy in the bloud of Christ. Where plainly it is not the intent of the Book of Homilies to exclude the act of faith from being an externall and impulsive cause of our justification but from being the meritorious cause thereof in the sight of God from having any thing to do therein in the way of merit Or if they do relate to the act of faith it is not to the act of faith as the gift of God but as to somewhat which we call and accompt our own without acknowledging the same to be given by him And in that sense to say that we are justifyed by any thing within our selves which is so properly our own as not given by God is evidently opposite to that of the holy Scripture viz. By grace ye are saved through faith and not of your selves it is the gift of God that is to say that faith by which ye are saved is the gift of God And certainly it is no wonder if faith in Christ should be acknowledged and esteemed the gift of God considering that we have Christ himself no otherwise which is the object of our faith then by gift from God who did so love the world as our Saviour telleth us that he gave his only begotten Son to the end that whosoever believed in him should not perish but have life everlasting Of which great mercy of the Lord in giving his beloved Son and of the sufferings of that Son for our redemption I am next to speake THE SUMME OF Christian Theologie Positive Philological and Polemical CONTAINED IN THE Apostles CREED Or reducible to it The Second Part. By PETER HEYLYN 1 Tim. 3.16 Without controversie great is the Mysterie of godliness God manifested in the flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the world received up into glorie LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for Henry Seile 1654. ARTICLE III. Of the Third ARTICLE OF THE CREED Ascribed to St. IAMES 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Credo et in Jesum Christum filium ejus unicum Dominum nostrum i. e. And in IESUS CHRIST his only Son our Lord. CHAP. VIII Nothing revealed to the Gentiles touching Christ to come The name of JESUS what it signifyeth and of bowing at it Of the name CHRIST and the offices therein included The name of Christians how given unto his Disciples THUS are we come to that part of the Christian Creed which doth concern the Worlds Redemption by our Lord and Saviour IESVS CHRIST A part to which we are not like to finde much credit from the stubborn and untractable Iews except it be to so much of it as concernes his sufferings under Pontius Pilate of which they made themselves the unhappy instruments and very little help for the proof thereof from any of the learned Gentiles who being taken up with high speculations would not vouchsafe to look so low as a crucifyed IESVS The preaching of Christ crucifyed as St. Paul hath told us as to the Iews who were a proud high-minded people it became a stumbling block so to the Greeks who boasted in the pride of learning and humane wisdome it was counted foolishness And if it were so counted a parte post when he that was the light to lighten the Gentiles had shined so visibly amongst them and countenanced the preaching of his holy Gospel by such signes and wonders as did in fine gain credit to it over all the world it is not to be thought that they had any clearer knowledge of salvation by him or by the preaching of his Gospel a parte ante The Iews indeed had many notable advantages which the Gentiles had not For unto them pertained the Adoption and the glory and the Covenants and the giving of the Law and the service of God and the promises They had moreover amongst them the Prophetical writings or as St. Peter cals it the sure word of Prophesie which like a light shining in a darke place might well have served to guide them in the way of truth to keep them in a constant expectation of their Saviours coming and when he came to entertain him with all joy and cheerfulness Yet when he came unto his own they received him not that miserable obduration being fallen upon them that seeing they did see and not perceive that hearing they did hear but not understand But on the other side the Gentiles wanted all those helpes to bring them to the knowledge of their promised Saviour which were so plentifully communicated to the house of Israel For though the Lord had signifyed by the prophet Isaiah saying There shall be a root of Jesse and he that shall rise to reigne over the Gentiles in him shall the Gentiles trust yet this was more then God had pleased to manifest to the Gentiles themselves till they were actually called to the knowledge of CHRIST by the ministery of St. Peter and the accomplishment of this prophesie made known unto them by the application of St. Paul The light of natural reason could instruct them in this general principle that there was a God for nulla gens tam barbara said the Latine Oratour never was man so brutish or nation so barbarous which in the works of nature could not read a Deity And the same light of natural reason could instruct them also that that God whosoever he was was to be served and worshipped by them with their best devotions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first place to serve and reverence the Gods was one of the most special Rules which the Greek Oratour commended to his dear Demonicus But that it should please God in the fulnesse of time to send his son made of a woman made under the Law to redeem such as were under the Law that they might receive the Adoption of sons that CHRIST should come into the world to save sinners and breaking down the partition wall between Jew and Gentile make one Church of both neither the light of nature nor the rule of reason nor any industry in their studies could acquaint them with This St. Paul calleth a mystery not made known in other ages to the sons of men a mysterie hidden from the generations of preceding times and if a mystery a secret and an hidden mystery we should but lose time did we