Gods Word already confirming this duty and to leave others to every ingenuous Christians diligent use of it to avoid prolixity And for the objections which may be made and are commonly found against what is above delivered for the same reason I pass them over as likewise because I intend not here Controversie but Positive Institutions CHAP. XXVII An Application of the former Discourse of Civil Government to Ecclesiastical How Christs Church is alwayes visible and how invisible Of the Communion of Christ and his Members The Church of Christ taken specially for the Elect who shall infallibly be saved never visible But taken for true Professours of the Faith must alwayes be visible though not Conspicuous in comparison of other Religions or Heresies THE Reasons moving me to insist a while upon Civil Government before I entred upon Ecclesiastical are First because I find Authors of the grounds of Christian Religion to treat of the same generally Secondly because where breaches have been made often in the Faith and Discipline of the Church there necessary provision ought to be made to secure them for the future but for want of due understanding of this Doctrine licencious zeal blinded with presumption hath transported very many into unchristian practises Thirdly because it is a necessary introduction to the more clear and compendious pursuing of our subject of the Spiritual Society of the Church of Christ and particularly its Form The Form of Christs Church may be distinguished according to the vulgar Notion into invisible and visible or inward and outward Invisible we here call that which doth not at all offer it self to our outward sense of seeing cannot be beholden with our eye Or that which may in some manner appear to our sight but not as a Church of Christ though in truth it so may be According to the first acceptation of invisible we understand the Body Mystical of Christ consisting of himself the only proper Head the Holy Spirit animating and influencing the same and the particular members of the holy most happy invisible Spirits in heaven and Saints on earth spiritually united to them by Christ in the divine band of holiness And hitherto do the words of the Apostle to the Ephesians seem to be applyed saying Having made known the mystery of his will That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather Ephes 1. 9 10. together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are in earth even in him signifying hereby the mystical conjunction of Men and Angels in Christ Jesus although there are who not improbably and more literally do understand these words only of the collection and uniting of Jews who in respect of their peculiar exaltation to Gods service and favour are stiled in Scripture heavenly compared with the Gentiles and Gentiles into one Faith and Church of Christ which therefore divers times is called a Mystery as Romans the 16. 25 26. Ephes 3. v. 3 4 5. Col. 1. 26 27. 1 Tim. 3. 16. because as is there expressed it was an hidden and incredible thing to the Jews that the Gentiles should be taken into the like priviledges and rights of serving God as were once esteemed incommunicable to any so fully as to the Jews But whether the Scripture according to its most genuine and literal sense intendeth at any time to comprehend into one Society Angelical Peings and Humane as the Church of Christ as I do not find though the Ancients as well as Modern have held such an opinion so do I not oppose the Mystery of which we now speak being sufficiently verified in the preternatural and invisible conjunction of Christ and his Church in the indissoluble bands of his Spirit guiding the members thereof into all sufficiencie of Grace here and immortal absolute glory hereafter in heaven To understand this co-union or conjunction of Christ and his Members the better we are to call to mind a threefold union intimated in holy Writ unto us First a conjunction of Nature when more are of the same individual nature as the three Persons in the Holy Trinity are united in the same Divine Nature though in themselves distinct which is so proper to that mystery of the Trinity that it is not to be found elsewhere no not in that intimate communion we now speak of between Christ and his Members their natures continuing distinct Again another conjunction proper to Christian Religion is the union of two natures into one Person as in the Mystery of Christs incarnation when the humane and divine Nature become one so far as to constitute but one Person Christ Jesus So do not Christ and his Church But by a third way are Christ and his Church united into one aggregate Spiritual Body or Society which is effected by his Spirit which yet do not make properly a Part of that Body but by its manifold divine Graces do produce and conserve the same Christ thereby and his Church being as St. Paul saith One Spirit He that is joyned unto the Lord is one Spirit And 1 Cor. 6. 17. St. John likewise saith Hereby we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his Spirit This truly and only in a proper sense is invisible and that alwayes and hath two Parts the triumphant in Heaven which is a most perfect pure holy and blessed Society which have through the bloud of the Lamb and the power of his Spirit overcome the three grand Enemies Sin Death and the Devil and reaped the fruits of their sufferings and labours all tears being wiped from their eyes all sorrows being fled away all temptations for ever conquered and ceasing to molest them Now this part of Christ's Church remains alwayes invosible unto us here below And as for the other Part which is called Militant and are described to be A number of faithful and elect people living under the Cross and aspiring towards the perfection of Grace and Glory hereafter supposing at present what may hereafter be farther discussed viz. That such a peculiar number of holy persons there are within the visible Church of Christ which shall infallibly attain to everlasting bliss in heaven yet neither are these as such at any time visible or discernable to our common senses It being scarce if at all possible to judge infallibly who shall be saved and who shall not be saved it being much more difficult for any man to be assured of another mans salvation than of his own seeing that as is said hereunto an inward testimony of Gods Spirit is required which is the ground of that sound hope which is commonly called Assurance but the Promises of God in holy Scripture do not extend in like manner to the assuring of any man that another shall be saved as that he himself shall or that anothers faith shall not fail as that his own shall not but thus far only probably a truer and more certain sentence may
a Church in two things principally First in the matter The material part of a believer as he is a Christian not as he is a man is his Faith consisting of its several Articles and Branches But the matter of the Church is the Christians themselves whereof it consisteth Secondly they differ in their Form too For no man is properly a Christian though he believes all the Articles of a Christian and lives accordingly unless he be formed and fashioned Formale autem Ecclesiae Catholicae est professio fi dei Christi intâ—gra sub suis Legitimis Rectoribus à Christo institut â—â— ministris cum Sacramentorum obsignatione participatione Sec. Marcus Anton. Spalat Lib. 7. cap 10. §. 26. by the Sacrament of Regeneration which is Baptism But the Form of Christs Church doth consist in that outward disposition and order of Superiour and Inferiour communicating mutually in all Christian Acts and Offices necessary to the conservation of the whole Body and the edification and encrease of every Member thereof This Description of Christs Church is warranted us from St. Paul to the Ephesians who expresly maketh * Eph. 4. 15 16. Colos 2. 19. Christ the Head of his Church From whom the whole Body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every Part maketh increase of the Body unto the edifying its self in Love The like words to which we find to the Colossians chap. 2. 19. It must therefore from hence be granted That there is to be Government in Christs Church and that the Government ought to be proportionable to the Body thereby ordered and ruled To the Internal Body of Christ or Mystical Church not visible to us an Internal Mystical and Invisible administration is very agreeable and sufficient from Christ the Head and by the influence of the Holy Spirit but the external Church standeth in need necessarily of external Rule and Direction as much as it doth of external Doctrine Instructions and Sacraments though it be inwardly informed by the Spirit of Christ Now if it be enquired what that Government is whereby Christ would have his Church directed which is the most famous Question of late dayes though scarce ever call'd in question for some hundred years after Christ the resolution will be facilitated from what we delivered concerning Government civil For first if Government Ecclesiastical be so essential to the subsistence of a Church that without it it cannot be of any continuance without a Miracle it cannot be imagined with any probability of Reason that God or Christ should make one part of his Church and leave it to the liberty and pleasure of Man to make the other but least of all can they be of this opinion who think so sacredly of all Ecclesiastical Orders that to admit any of humane invention or prudence is to prophane the whole Systeme Again upon the grounds laid down in civil Government If Christ be the Author of Government Ecclesiastical in General he must also be the Cause of some one Government in Particular otherwise he could not be the Authour of any at all seeing Institution Political as well as Creation Natural must of necessity have some Object to terminate it as its effect Generals in all cases following Particulars in the things themselves though the way of knowledge or learning these things is to begin with the General and so to descend to Particulars Thirdly to understand what kind of Government Christ instituted in his Church what more certain and compendious way what more equal than to judge rather from matter of Fact than long and uncertain Disputations built on Arguments which are subject to diverse casualties from mans Passion and Interests prosecuted thereby whereas there is evidence sufficient from the thing it self to settle belief in that Point Fourthly we are here to note That when we speak of Government we intend not to comprehend therein all Accruments Ornaments or Additions which happened after the thing it self For these may be and doubtless oftentimes have been the effects of humane Prudence regulated by general Precepts but we speak of the Form it self or the Kind of Government For though we said God was the Author of All well grounded Government and do not mean that every particle thereof or inferiour additional Grace must proceed from the same hand For God having permitted if not ordered that every nation should conform it self in outward matters to the condition of the time and place God must have made for several Ages and several Places several Regiments which no man hath presumed to affirm the Divine Right or Institution extending only to those things wherein all at first agreed So that as children receive from the Nature of man at first created by God in Adam their fouls and bodily shape with the several parts necessarily thereunto belonging but their behaviours gestures gates favour and complexions are commonly derived from their immediate Pareâ—â—s So doth every true Body of Christ every Church receive common forms and shapes from the first Institution of Christ extant in the Primitive times but their particular modifications and customes are owing to to their Spiritual Fathers whether mediate or immediate Which frowardly and peevishly to reject or disobediently to oppose without higher warrant what is it else but to imitate such graceless and unnatural children who are ashamed of their own Parents Fifthly A distinction ought to be put between the nature and degrees of any thing and especially of the Church which had its conception in the womb of the Jewish Church its infancy during our blessed Saviours Tum maxime Deus ex memoria hominum labitur cum beneficiis ejus fruentes honorem dare divinae indulgentiae deberent Lactantius lib. 2. cap. 1. de Origine Erroris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazienz Orat 1. contra Julianum abode upon the earth its minority during the Apostolical Age of One hundred years its perfect state soon after the first Christian Emperours advanced it and augmented it with secular strength and glory And it is certain that as the Roman Empire became more corrupt and declined so Christs Empire degenerated in many things contracting deformities in Doctrine and Discipline even from secular advantages granted unto it by the Devotion and Bounty of the best Wishers to it We are not then to be so narrow in our judgment of the Churches state to allow no more to it then when it but just crept out of the womb or when having gathered a little strength it could stand alone but not act according to the prime Institutours intention but as it was habited and affected in its riper years when we may behold that in more conspicuous manner which at first was obscurer yet essentially the same For as nothing is more evident to all but such as resolve they will understand nothing that they dislike than that in nature the Father is made before
may reconcile many otherwise contrary opinions found amongst the Ancient Fathers sometimes ascribing much of the Ecclesiastical Power to Christian Emperours and sometimes calling the same in question The Church of England so far as she hath declared herself herein seemeth to take the mean way and follow herein the Prescriptions of the Old Testament and the Precedents of Christian Emperors found in the Antient Church under the Gospel and doth profess to be the due of our Kings as much as ever any Kings upon earth to sway in Ecclesiastical matters In execution of which power as there was alwayes approbation moderated according to the customes of the Church so was there always Opposition when the bounds were exceeded And undoubtedly true is That we are taught by our Church to acknowledge That whatever in Church Constitutions and Canons Church of England Can. 2. matters was the Right of Jewish Kings or Christian Emperours of Old is so now the Right of our Kings But some not content herewith have out of the Title of Head given at the first attempts of Reformation to our King and made by acts of State Hereditary to his successors drawn an argument to prove all that power which rested in the Church to be devolved on the Kings of this Nation But this hath ever been disowned and disclaimed in such a large sense by themselves as appears by Queen Elizabeths Injunctions and an Act of Parliament in confirmation whereof I shall here only recite the opinion or testimony of Bishop Jewel in his view of Pius Quintus his seditious Bull Bishop Jewel against the Bull of Pius 5th against her in these his own word Where is the called Supream Head Peruse the Acts of Parliament the Records the Rolls and the Writs of Chancery or Exchequer which pass in her Graces name Where is she ever called Supream Head of the Church No No brethren she refuseth it she would not have it nor be so called Why then doth Christs Vicar blaze and spread abroad so gross an untruth c. This was her Judgement and modesty then when there was greatest cause to apprehend some such thing and what she thought of it I never could learn was ever otherwise interpreted by her Successors For notwithstanding that according to the most ancient and undoubted Rights of this Emperial Crown our Kings are supream Governors of the Church as well as State yet never was it expounded of the Church as they were Ecclesiastical but as they were of Civil capacity For herein differeth the Right of Kings according to our Reformation from that of Roman Perswasion That Clergy men becoming Sons of the Church in more especial manner than they of the Laity are not thereby exempted from the Civil Power either in matter of propertie or Criminalness But the Roman Church so far exalted and extended their Ecclesiastical Power as to withdraw such Persons and their Cases civil from Civil cognizance and judgement and assume it to themselves And this the Pope claiming very injuriously as Head of the Church To root up this usurpation Henry the eight null'd that his pretence and took the title to himself intending nothing more then to vindicate his Prerogative in that particular For though it cannot be denied that many and great Priviledges to this effect have been of Old granted by Christian Emperours to eminent Bishops to judge of their own Sons as they were called within themselves yet did they never claim this as a Native Right of the Church or Christianity but as an act of Grace from the Civil Power And though the Church following therein the Councel of St. Paul to go to Law rather before 1 Cor. 6. 1. the Just than unjust and that Christians should rather determine Causes of differences amongst themselves by arbitration than scandalously apply themselves to the Judgement Seat of Heathen did ever endeavour to determine business within it self and yet more especially the Clergy Yet they never denied a Right in Civil Autority to call them in question upon misdemeanours or to decide their Cases of Civil nature And for the other of Divine nature or purely Ecclesiastical Princes never expected or desired to intermeddle therewith This the Roman Deputy of Achaia Gallio understood not to concern his Juridical power when Act. 18. he refused to be a Judge of such matters as were esteemed Religious though in that violence was offered to the body of St. Paul before his face he might and ought to have shewn his Autority But when the Soveraign Power became Christian it was not thought unlawful at all nor scandalous to address themselves to it for decision of Controversies And this is it which is intended to be demanded now by our Kings in their Supremacy in Cases Ecclesiastical and Civil and acknowledged by the Clergy of this Church to be his due without that servile way of seeking leave from the Bishop of Rome or any under him Onely where it may be showed that Peculiar Grants of Exemptions from the common course of Justice have been made by Princes to the Clergy of the Church may it not seem equal that they should enjoy the benefit of them as well as others in other Cases But nothing is more unreasonable or intollerable then the impudence of those spitefully and malitiously bent against the Religion professed in our Church who argue from the Kings Supremacy over the Church such an absolute dominion there as they will by no means acknowledge due to him in the State If by Acts of Parliament a thing be confirmed to the Commonwealth it is lookt on as inviolable by the King and unalterable without the like solemn Revocation as was the Constitution But by vertue of the Ancient Right of the Crown they would have it believed the King may at his pleasure alter such solemn Acts made in behalf of the Church Without the concurrence of the Three Estates nothing is lookt upon as a standing Law to the Civil State but by vertue of this Supremacy Ecclesiastical they would have it believed that without any more ado without consent or counsel of the Church he may make what alteration of Religion he pleases which was never heard or dreamt of Yea and whereas not only his Civil but Ecclesiastical Power always acknowledged the Bounds of common benefit and extended not to destruction they would have it thought that he may when he pleaseth by vertue of such Headship destroy the Body of the Church and Religion and leave none at all so far at least as the withdrawing of all secular aid and advantage do hasten its ruine But they will not be of this opinion any longer than they have brought about their mischievous purposes Surely St. Paul who had 1 Cor. 5. 12. nothing to do at all with State matters and could not touch one that was without the Church by Ecclesiastical censure was as much the Head of the Church as ever any Prince in Christendom doth expressly declare that whatsoever
with Christians denying them all outward conversation as well as spiritual in matters of Religion Now this seems to be a branch of the Old Greater Excommunication and not in all places disusâ—d And sometimes is unlawful and otherwhile lawful according to the extent and application of them For to inflict the same to the dissolving of ties of nature is not agreeable to the simplicity of the Gospel And Natural Ties we call such as are between Subjects and Soveraign Parents and Children Husband and Wife which by no Ecclesiastical Excommunication can be broken or nulled The reason whereof besides the monstrous effects ensuing upon their evacuation not here to be treated of is this That Ecclesiastical Power can take away no more than it gave nor Christianity destroy what it never builded But Christianity did never simply confer such Rights on men but the Law of Nature only it regulated and directed the same therefore can it not null it It is therefore unchristian for any pretending Ecclesiastical Power to absolve subjects from obedience Civil or Children from natural and the like But every Christian in that he is adopted of God by baptism and admitted into the Society of Christians doth receive thereby certain Rights and power to communicate with it in all things which power may be forfeited and lost by breach of Covenant as well with the Body of the Church to live and believe according to the Received Faith and practice thereof as with the Head Christ And this being so judged by those who are over the Church in the Lord it is very consonant to Christian Religion to deny such of what order or rank soever they be the signs of outward communion Prayer and Communication of the Holy Sacraments of Christ The Church hath power to declare even soveraign Princes uncapable of such Communion and deny it them which we call the Lesser Excommunication Yet because as we said No natural Right can be extinguished upon unchristian misdemeanours If a Supream Prince of a Place should disdain to be denied or opposed in such cases and would make his entrance into the Church by vertue of his Civil Right to all places under his Dominion the most that the Church could do justly in such cases were to diswade him but by any force to resist his entrance into any Church were unlawful as it would be also to minister in a Christian manner in his presence for this cannot be commanded by him but in such cases suffering must be put in practice as for the Faith it self sought to be destroyed Some there are yet who call in question the peculiar and incommunicable Right of decreeing this Censure of Excommunication to those called the Clergy which is very strange seeing this Power is part of that of the Keys delivered by Christ himself to such only as he constituted Governors of the Church and that in Christs days their was a distinction between the Members of his Body as to Inferiority and Superiority Obedience and Command Teacher and Learner and much more in the Apostles days after Christs Assention and much more yet after their days according as the matter of the Church Christians encreasing and improving became more capable of a more convenient form and fashion For as it is in the production of natural things though the Form be certain and constant and the very same at the first production as in its perfection yet it doth not appear so fully and perfectly as afterward So was it with the Body of Christs Church It is certain therefore that from the beginning this Act of Excluding from the Communion was never executed but by the Rulers and Presidents of Congregations though the people might concurr thereto Now that these Rulers whom we may call Bishops or Presbyters were not created by the People nor by the Prince we have shewed already and therefore did nothing in their Right but in the Power of Christ whose Ministers alone they properly were And this being essential to right Administration of the Church how can it be supposed either to be separable from the Church in General or from those persons who are the proper Administrators of it For to say with some It is needless Selden de Jure Gentium apud Bibliander apud Erastum wholly where Christian Magistrates rule whose proper office it is to rebuke and punish vice and scandalous misdemeanors which say they can only be just cause of Excommunication is to destroy the subject of the question which supposes it needful and upon this enquires after the Persons which should Execute the same And spitefully to defeat the Church of all Authority from Christ doth indeed translate this Power to the Civil Magistrate And is not the absurdity the very same which endowes the Christian Governor with Civil Power and which endows the Civil Magistrate with Christian If it be not absurd for a King to be a Philosopher it is not absurd for a Philosopher to be a King If it be not absurd for a Civil Magistrate to have Priestly power it is not absurd for him that hath Priestly power to be a Magistrate There is certainly no inconsistency on either side For things of a far different nature and intention may easily meet in the same person though the things themselves can never be the same Here therefore the things differing so egregiously it is no more than nacessary that a different cause be acknowledged necessary which not appearing the Effect must be denied Now the Cause of all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as Ecclesiastical must needs come from him from whom the Church it self hath its Original and being And it is a certain Rule that a man is born to nothing that comes from Christ as Head of his Church but is made and instituted Which whoever is not cannot lay any just claim to any Office under him I know it is objected that Preaching being an Ecclesiastical Act hath without contradiction been practised by diverse and to this day may be no ordination preceeding To which I thus answer by distinguishing first between doing a thing Ex Charitate and Ex Officio out of Charity and out of duty Preaching was ever permittedin the Church especially taken in the larger sense wherein it signifies all declaration of the Gospel out of Charity But the office of Preaching was never suffered but upon antecedent qualifications And these two differ yet farther For he that doth a thing out of Office doth it so that it is not lawful for him absolutely to omit it but he that doth it out of Charity and only by connivance not by commission may cease at his pleasure and as he made may suspend himself when he will Again he that teaches without Autority upon bare permission nay be silenced without any other cause renderd but the will of him that hath the Jurisdiction or if a reason be given because He hath no autority is sufficient But he that is orderly instituted to that end cannot without
according to the judgment of many of the Ancients it was Christs intention we should have but two Sacraments when he shed from his Divine side water and blood insinuating thereby Baptism and the Sacrament of his Blood And another argument intimating 1 Cor. 10. 1 2 3 4. that Christ ordained but two Sacraments in the New Testament is taken from the due conformity between the Shadows and Types of the Law and the Substance of the Gospel The Law had but two Sacraments proper Circumcision and the Passover and therefore that these two should prefigure only two in the Gospel is most probable But not only the Fathers of old but Schoolmen did alwayes acknowledge a due proportion to be observed between these And it makes nothing against this That the Fathers do often call some at least of the other five Sacraments because then they spoke at large as we said before A second general Reason may be That as they have no precept so have they no promise from Christ of Grace or favour Spiritual For Ordination indeed hath an ordinary Gift of Ecclesiastical Power but no assurance of special Grace belonging to it Confirmation hath a good and laudable end but no special Promise to it Repentance hath a promise but hath no outward visible sign upon which the word is built to make it a Sacrament for this is a Third Reason of the equality of Sacraments Because all true and proper Sacraments must consist as well of outward signs to which the word and Grace are annext as of the Grace it self therein given But all these Sacraments have not these Signs and they which have an appearance of visible signs have them not by Gods institution Fourthly The Sacraments of the Gospel are of concernment to all true Christians according to their Capacities but all Christians are not by the confession of the Patrons of seven Sacraments bound to marry or to be in Holy Orders Nay some are absolutely interdicted the use of some of the reputed Sacraments as are women from Holy Orders therefore whatever may possibly be said concerning the not circumcising of Women under the Law under the Gospel there being neither Male nor Female as St. Paul affirmeth that cannot be a Sacrament equal in sacredness or necessity of which Women are not capable Fifthly The general Nature of Sacraments is such as renders the due Partakers of them more holy than they are who receive them not but no man saies that marriage faithfully observed doth make any person more holy then Virginity therefore it cannot be a Sacrament If they here say That Marriage is not a Sacrament absolutely but only as it is Christian and a representation of Christs conjunction with his Church and as it is blessed by the Priest I answer First to this latter That blessing doth not alter the kind of the thing but only sanctifies the thing it self and therefore Marriage in Heathens and Christians is the same in nature but not in the circumstances of Holiness And whenas St. Paul saith in his Epistle to the Ephesians having before treated of solemn Marriage This Eph. 5. 31 32 is a great mystery from whence commonly is drawn an argument of a Sacramentalness in Marriage of Christians the reply is easie which quite nulls the conclusion First Because it is as manifest as a thing need be that St. Paul doth speak rather of Heathens marriage than Christian as appears from his citation of the first institution of Marriage which comprehends all and therefore according to themselves could not intend to make a Sacrament of it seeing it is no Sacrament but as Christian Secondly The word being Mystery doth not properly signifie a Sacrament however the Vulgar Translation might be allowed to translate it so but not men upon that tearm given at large to draw it into the number of Sacraments St. Paul saith to the Corinthians Behold I show you a mystery 1 Cor. 15. we shall not all dye but we shall all be changed Is this a Sacrament also But many of the Fathers have so called it It may be so in the sense before spoken of in which many more things may so be called But lastly The Apostle in that Place to the Ephesians doth expresly remove that tearm Mystery from the natural or civil conjunction of Man and Woman Eph. 5. 27 29. in Matrimony and restrain it to Christ and his Church and doth not so much as say that Marriage is a mystery For having drawn an Argument for the due observation of Wedlock and its Rights that seeing Christ loved his Church man should love his Church he addeth afterward This is a great mystery but I speak of Christ and the Church which is as 32. if it had been said Here is a great Mystery but this Mystery I mean not So much of external Marriage but internal between Christ and his Church But after all this seeing we grant with many of the Ancients That the name Sacrament is communicable to more than two it is not much worth the contending whether we make more or fewer than seven while we reserve a peculiar sacredness to these two above others Let us rather touch upon them in their nature than name as best worthy to be rightly understood And first of Orders briefly as having spoken thereof in treating of the Political Power of the Church and there shown the necessity of them according to Christs intention and institution which was to make a discrimination between Persons and the several Members of that Body the Church of which he is the Head as is also sufficiently insinuated by St. Paul to the Corinthians saying But now hath Göd set the Members every one of 1 Cor. 12. 18. them in the Body as it hath pleased him where he doth not speak of moral but Political excellency and order of Inferiour and Superiour From whence the name of the Function is taken For as St. Augustine defines it Order is Civ Dei Lib. 19. 13. the disposing or ranking of equal and unequal things in their proper places And therefore sometimes the Church is divided by the Ancients into Clergy and Laity as two Orders Again The Clergy by the Ancienter into three only Bishop Priest and Deacon as Optatus Afterwards some made Isidorus Hispalens Orig. Lib. 7. c. 12. six some seven some nine as Hispalensis who likewise subdivideth the Bishop into four Orders Patriarch Metropolitane Arch-Bishop and simple Bishop So that it were not worth the labour to strive about words here and especially in distinguishing Order from Degree in the Church For though the distinction in nature be manifest between the first importing a diversity in kind and the other in condition of the same kind yet the Church cannot be though to speak so circumspectly at all times and so precisely as not to use them promiscuously divers times so that because she sometimes speaks of Degrees they should deny the Order of the same thing Neither
us but nothing could suffice to lay aside the proper cerimonies used at the Institution or form of it but such an opinion as that of Transubstantiation â—ellarmin It now sufficing according to moderner Judgments that the several Wafers now in use were all one when they came first from mill and are broken by the Teeth in actually receiving them whereas Christ represented the unity of his mystical Members and Fraction of his Natural Body by the Forms set before his Disciples the better to affect our hearts and quicken our devotion To the same end in Ancienter though not first dayes of Christianity there was an Elevation of the Mysteries made by the Priest to shew only how Christ was Lifted up on the Cross for our sins but upon the doctrine and perswasion of transubstantiation this was corrupted and perverted to the drawing people to a direct Adoration terminated in the Visible objects and not as was anciently used from that Action to take an occasion of worshipping Christ himself with a seqestration of their mind from their senses To this likewise pertains the Grosser devotion for many hundred years impractised and unknown to Christians that not only Adoration to God and Christ should be made by all who approched as Communicants to these Holy Mysteries but that the Host should be on purpose publickly exposed to the view of all enterers into the Church where it is with an injunction to exhibit all devout and divine worship to it which invention the Fathers and all Christian Churches were holy ignorant of for many hundred years and never was there so much as a Feast of Corpus Cristi till Urbane the Fourth instituted one about the year 1263. And the Adoration of the Host as Christ himself much later But if such an opinion had been of any tolerable Antiquity in the Church how could it be avoided but such direct and open Adoraâ—ion should have been given much more early it being a most ancient Principle of Christian Faith that Christ was God and of common humane reason that God is to be worshipped And yet no mention made of such Adorations as are of late introduced and required which is an argument they never believed as now the Romanists do for had they they must have necessarily done as they do But a stop must be put to this luxuriant Subject to keep our selves in the Limits presribed to our selves and here let it be Only having hitherto spoken of the Preparatories to Christian Faith the nature Kinds Acts effects and Lastly subject which is the Church and of this again in its Political and Mystical Capacity and Power which consists in the due Administration of the Sacraments as well Properly as Improperly and Equivocally so called It remains now to conclude and Crown the present doctrine of the Church with that which is most contrary of all things to the Nature of a Visible Church and that is Schism For by this unnatural state the true Nature of the Church is more illustrated and the Unitie of it by the explication of this Separation and Dis-union called Schism CHAP. XLVII The Conclusion of the Treatise of the subject of Christian Faith the Church by the treating of Schism contrary to the Visible Church Departure from the Faith real Schism not formal as to the outward form Of the state of Separation or Schism Of separation of Persons Coordinate and Subordinate Of Formal and Vertual Schism All Heresie vertually Schism not formally Separation from an Heretical Society no Schism From Societies not Heretical Schism Heretical Doctrine or Discipline justifie â—eparation How separation from a true Church is Schism and how not In what sense we call the Roman Church a true Church Some instances of Heretical Errours in the Roman Church Of the Guilt of Schism Of the notorious guilt of English Sectaries The folly of their Vindications That the Case of them and us is altogether different from that of us and the Church of Rome Not lawful to separate from the Vniversal Church VVHile we treat of the Church it must be alwaies remembred that we intend not to speak of the Invisible Church as it is taken for a select number supposed to belong intimately and inseparably to Christs invisible Body of which no knowledg or account can be had but by sensible outward things but we altogether enquire of the Visible Church which though it be not alwaies Actually seen or discerned from other Societies especially pretending to be Churches of Christ yet must alwaies be Visible though not conspicious And it would be a gross mistake in any so to judge of the Church Visible and Invisible as of distinct Churches or necessarily distinct parts of the same Church because the same persons may at the same time be of the Visible and Invisible Church This distinction then is to be allowed no farther than as it insinuates to us the Several States of the Members of the same Church the Church in nature being but One according to several testimonies of Holy-Writt and the very nature of all Communities and much more of the Church which is to be an Aggregate Body consisting of many parts by no natural Bond or influence united together but by divine Falsae Professionis Imagine utimur si cujus nomine gloriamur ejus instituta non sequimur Leo. Mag. Serm. 5. de Jejun 7. Mensis and Spiritual Which is manifested by certain outward Acts which renders and denominates such a society of Men Visible as a Church of Christ These Acts are principally two The profession and declaration in word or writing of the true Faith and the Exercise of those Graces and workes which that Faith requires in Religious worship and Obedience That and in what degree of necessitie this Church must be One as well as Visible is before declared and here only repeated to give light to the nature of Schisme now to be explained For to omit the Criticismes and various acceptations of the word Schism as not necessarie we shall proceed by degrees to shew these two things concerning it The Nature and Guilt of it For the Nature of Schism it doth appear from the Unitie and conjunction of Christs Body of the Church consisting in two things Communion with Christ the Head and mutual Communion of the members one with another the contrary to this must needs be Discommunion and Separation But there being two parts in Communion a Material or the things in which men communicate as faith it selfe and the substantial Part of Christian worship And a Formal the Actual outward exercise of this The First of these though it be really yet is not formally Schism as may appear more fully by and by because all Schism doth suppose some agreement with and Relation to that One Body the Church but where the foundation of such Relation is destroyed there the whole perishes And therefore a division from the Faith of Christs bodie the Church being either Total and that again either Negatively when
be called Religion And nothing can be more fundamentally Just then for the Creature to refund according to its ability and rank the Fruits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo Judaeus Allegoriarum lib. 2. Papin L. Siquis â—f De Religios of those perfections received from the Cause of all Causes especially considering that such retribution is rather an augmentation then diminution of such Perfections in the Creature For not onely are all things thus freely derived from God to the Creatures but by a perpetual act of Providence called Conservation continued to them together with a most various and bountiful supply of all things requisite thereunto to which no Creature could lay any claim either to have or to hold And therefore most just equal reasonable and honourable it is for it to make such a Re-exhibition to God as is called Religion Therefore that famous Heathen Lawyer said well Summa ratio est quae pro Religione facit The highest Reason of all is that which makes for Religion And Tullie in a certain place defines Religion thus briefly and aptly Religio est Justitia erga deos Religion is Justice towards the gods And Macrobius makes Pietie and Religion two of the seven parts into which he divides Justice These not onely truly Christian but natural grounds of sober Men Macrob. Saâ— c. 7. P. 37. may suffice to put to silence the brutish Philosophie of some of late who acknowledge no other grounds of Dominion either Divine or Humane or of Obedience thereunto but Power and Force enabling to exact and extort the same not considering that Protection on the part of the Governing and Profit and Benefit on the part Governed do create a debt of veneration and service And therefore by the same reason should Justice have no place in the Ruler but onely his Power and Pleasure to incline him to govern well as it should have no place in the Governed to obey well And not only from the special benefits derived from God should Man return the mite of his recompence or recognition by Religion but also from a subordination of Creatures serving him should he be moved to pay the like to God The Psalmist tells us that God hath put all things Psal 8. 6 7 8. under Mans feet All Sheep and Oxen yea and all the beasts of the Field The Fowls of the Air and the Fish of the Sea and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the Seas From this example therefore Subjection and subserviency of all inferiour Creatures to Man by the appointment of God doth appear the reasonableness of Mans subjection unto God Neither was this though forfeited by Man upon his first disobedience against God so lost unto him but it was confirmed unto him after the Flood in these words And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon Gen. 9. 2. every beast of the Earth and upon every Fowl of the Air and upon all that Quod non metuitur contemnitur quod contemnitur utique non colitur Ita fit ut Religio Majestas honor metu constet c. Lactant. de Ira Dei c. 8. Psal 111. 10. Prov. 1. 17. moveth upon the Earth and the Fishes of the Sea into your hand are they delivered This Fear therefore and dread of a Divine Majesty is that which God hath in like manner laid upon Man as the ground and cause of all religious worship of him Man being infinitely more inferiour and subject by nature to God then the Beasts are to him For as Lactantius hath it That which is not feared is contemned that which is contemned cannot be worshiped and so it comes to pass that Religion and Majesty and Honour consists of Fear Which the Scripture assures us of also where it saith by David and Solomon both The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdome And notwithstanding all Creatures do exhibit obedience unto Almighty God yet none may properly be said to be Religions but Man For Religion must be a service and a tendency to Perfection and union with God but the Blessed Spirits of Men and Angels are out of their Apprentiship and imperfect state and consummated in that fruition and reward and union with God which they are capable of And the Apostate Spirits though they give obedience to God cannot be said to be Religious because their wills are constantly and utterly rebellious and all is involuntary and forced but Religion must be free and voluntary as is intimated Psalm 110. by the Psalmist Again Irrational Creatures or Beasts cannot be said to be Religious properly though they may be said to be Obedient For Obedience may consist as with necessity in Devils so with ignorance and necessity both as in Beasts But Religion must be rational as St. Paul implieth in these words I beseech you brethren by the mercies of God Rom. 12. 1. that ye present your bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service Whatsoever worship the Creatures give unto God is principally performed by their Head Man Man being as the first born and eldest Son to God in comparison of them So that as it was a natural Law that the eldest of the Family and most worthy should be as a Priest to the rest to offer Sacrifice unto God for all the rest as Cain and Abel are interpreted to bring their offerings to Adam to present them to God so do the Beasts bringing their several tributes to Man through him offer their bounden service unto God CHAP. II. Of the Constant and Faithful assurance requisite to be had of a Deity The reasons of the necessity of a Divine supream Power Socinus refuted holding the knowledg of a God not natural ALL Religion supposeth a Deity as all Arts and Sciences suppose their foundation upon which they are built and not prove it Yet notwithstanding for the more effectual knowledg and perswasion hereof and for the due exercise of that natural notion of a God which many times is very weak for want of use as men sometimes loose the use of their bodily Limbs for want of due exercise of them we shall briefly recount for methods sake some of those many demonstrations of a Divine supream Being which is God and that by these gradations First That there are purer and superiour Beings to Man though not obvious to any of the five gross senses of man may be gathered from the effects supernatural to all corporeal Creatures and ordinarily visible Such are the suddain and rapid translations of Bodies from one place to another Such are likewise voices heard without any notice given to the eye of persons present Such are Apparitions made to diverse in all ages of Spirits to persons in the likeness of Bodies indeed but declaring by their manner of entrance their manner of motions and actions their manner of departure and disappearing that such forms are only assumed to render their presence more obvious
themselves For though infinite Instances may be given of Cities and Nations which have wrung the Civil Power out of the hands of their Princes and Magistrates and pretended they would be ruled by their own Counsels and power yet could they never effect this but were constrained after all devices used to no purpose to let go their hold if not Pretensions and suffer the assumed Power to return to a more capable subject Which incapacity of using such Power is no less then an unanswerable Demonstration to me that it was never there placed by any divine Will or Right but somewhere else Now though some eminent Reformers of the Late Age have been so superfluously and in truth superstitiously nice and as is pretended jealous for Christs honour and absolute Headship over his Church that would not so much as allow the name of Government to the Church or any in it least Christ should suffer loss but administration must be the Junius de Ecclesia name signifying power and Rule exercised in the Church yet in truth all this is no better then a Superstitious fear where there is no fear For they are not names but things that are so much to be heeded And if these men in their Charge had not acted the part of Governours as well as others we might have allowed this invention for tollerable but the truth is the honour pretended to Christ and the Gentle usage of the People have ended in the same thing which the other more openly and honestly professed to do the difference being only in the Hands so acting But 't is no new thing to beguile dissetled people with new words into new orders neither will it ever be left off as common a Stratagem as it is so long as the People are people and Craft and Ambition shall spurrmen of Fortune to currie and scratch that unruly beast to the end that when they find it convenient they may get up of them and ride them at their pleasure This incapacity of all Christians to rule themselves being the same with the other necessarily inferreth a more proper subject of that Power which not being assumed but delivered any more then the Faith it self founds a distinction of Christians and the Church as ancient as the Church it self not unknown to Civil Societies For as hath been said a Kingdom or Commonwealth is said to decree and act such a thing when not the thousand part thereof so much as know any thing of it till it be done so that clearly there is a Nation Real and Representative and Formal and proper This consisteth of all Persons in that Society and every member of that Political Bodie The other of such Principal Parts of that Bodie as are in Possession of autority and power to Rule the rest and whose Acts are interpreted to be the Acts of the whole State And that the Church consisting of infinite Persons uncapable of consulting or acting Decretorily must and alwayes had certain Select Persons representing the whole which it should conclude the thing it self together with Precedents of all Places and Ages do prove The greatest arguments and most colourable are taken from the Infancy of the Church to the contrary For both Hereticks and Schismaticks endeavour at contrary conclusions from the Scripture Patrons of the Popes absoluteness argue from a Superiority or Primacy of order in St. Peter when the Church consisted it may be of twenty persons to make good the Popes pretensions to supremacy over the universal Church when it consisteth of so many Nations But to this our answer is ready First that the like power was never in St. Peter over his fellow Apostles and the Rest that is claimed by the Present Bishop of Rome Secondly That if such a Power as is asserted to St. Peter for the Popes sakehad ever been in him really yet it could be no good ground of his Successors claiming the same over the Catholick Church And that First because there is no probability of the like Gifts and Graces requisite to such Autority in the Popes of Rome as were given by Christ to St. Peter yea there are more instances to be given of the Ignorance and horrible vitiousness of Persons possessing that Chaiâ— then in any other Patriarchal See in Christendom Secondly There is no Rule of Certainty setting aside the Personal incapacities and imperfections how far the Apostolical power was derived to their Successors but what may be taken from the end of such power which was to conserve the Church in due order of Government Devotion and Faith and this may as well and better be performed without one Persons engrossing to himself the Disposal of all things Primarily though not in the Execution Thirdly the difference is vast between the Church consisting of so few and contracted into so narrow a circuit as at the first founding of it when one man might have with great facility taken the whole management of the Church upon him and in following Ages when it was diffused into so many and far distant quarters of the Universe not to be inspected or managed by one man though an Apostle On the other side Persons of Democratical Principles and purposes finding in holy Writ that the whole Church without distinction of Persons were often assembled together and that during their such meeting matters concerning the due administration of the Church were treated of collect from thence that in right and not rather occasionally they concurred to Publick Acts of the Church but this likewise is a fallacy without any necessity of consequence as will appear from the original and orderly search made into the first Constitution and the gradual Progress of Ecclesiastical Persons and functions First then That Christ is the Head of the Church and under that General notion of Power life and motion doth communicate his influence unto his Body the Scripture is so manifest and it is so generally and willingly by all assented to that it were lost time to insist on it He is then by immediate consequence the fountain of all Power resting in that Body as doth appear from the several Appellations subordinate to that of Head attributed unto him in Scripture For Hebrews the third and first he is called The Apostle of our profession And in the Book of the Acts he is stiled that Prophet Heb. 3. 1. Acts. 3. 22. Deut. 18. 15. Luk. 4. 18. which was in Deuteronomie promised to the true Israel And an Evangelist he is made to us by his own words verifying the Prediction of Esaias upon himself Saying The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel And St. Peter calleth him our 1 Pet. 2. 25. Mat. 23. 10. Bishop Doctour or Master he claims as proper to himself in St. Mathew And to the Hebrews as before he is called a Priest an High priest yea lastly a Deacon or Minister for the words properly used signify the same Rom. 15. 8. thing
when it retains its nature not otherwise but cannot determine possibly when the nature first begins to change to a destruction What infinite and grievous suspitions and scruples must evermore afflict the minds of Communicants upon conceit that the matter they so receive may have suffered such strange kind and degrees of composition that the nature of Wine is really lost and an artificial liquor not much to the eye or vulgar taste discernible taken in its stead to the nulling of the effects of the Sacrament and much worse where such a specifical Conversion of the Elements into Christs Body and Blood is maintained and received with answerable Faith and worship The distinction of Material and Formal Idolatry of which we may hereafter speak little redressing that monstrous evil And if we are not so indispensably and absolutely tied to the natures of things in this Action much less ought there to be such warm and uncharitable contentions about the condition form or qualities of those Elements which in no manner change the nature of them as Leavening or Unleavening or forming the bread after the common use or in such manner as may be thought least subject to prophanation in making the Bread into several Cakes or Wafers which though it nulleth not the Sacrament yet it corrupteth the Institution and End both in some measure For First it is certain Christ celebrated on solid usual bread and why should we upon private imaginations next to vain Superstition introduce another order than Christ pitched on and amend by fine contrivances what he but rudely laid down as we irreverently must suppose Again It doth seem more than an indifferent Ceremonie which according to St. Paul and after him the Fathers signified the Unity of Christ and his Members and of his members one with another by that one Sacramental Body visibly representing and exhibiting invisibly Christ in that One Bread And lastly That Ceremony of breaking Bread so much practised by Primitive Christians even in this Sacrament and thereby expressing Christs own proper Body broken for our sins a very Fruitful Reasonable and significant Action is altogether laid aside to the great injury of Christs institution and Christians edification Surely if any thing this is to make our selves wiser than Christ and to be subtiller and more zealous for his Majesty than he would have us which cannot be wiped off by that common refuge and reserve at pinching objections viz The Power of the Church For the Church has no Right what ever Power it may have to make alterations at pleasure upon no better grounds than were at the first known and neglected in Sacramental things though the nature of the Sacrament may remain inviolate For seeing the Sacramental Signs were ordained by Christ to call to remembrance the particulars as well as general of Christs Passion and the manner as well as the thing it self to the intent that the more deep and lively impression might be made thereof in our Souls to pare off out of presumption of the Churches Power and more reverent ministration and participation thereof the Ceremonies so immediately and significantly expressing the End of it and used by Christ himself and for ought doth appear for several Ages after is to invade the Rights and call in question the Wisdom of Christ himself And surely then The Breaking of Bread signifying the violence offered to Christs Body and the Powring out the Wine intimating the shedding of his Blood for us nothing can be more useful and therefore to abrogate these and invent and impose others upon pretences not unknown but rejected at the first Institution argues more superstitious presumption than sober Devotion CHAP. XLII Of the things signified in the Sacrament of the Eucharist the Body and Blood of Christ How they are present in the Eucharist Sacrament ally Present a vain invention All Presence either Corporal or Spiritual Of the Real Presence of the Signs ' and things signified The Real Presence of the Signs necessarily inferr the Presence of the Substance of Bread and Wine Signs and thing signified always distinct BUT thus far of the Signs The things internal and signified are yet of greater importance to our Faith and worship viz. the Body and Blood of Christ The several Disputes about which we shall reduce to these two General Heads briefly to be explained First the manner of Existence of them in the Eucharist And next the manner of Participation which two do mutually illustrate one another For as to the Real Presence it self I find no such real difference which may deserve discussion For surely If Christ or his Body and Blood be at all Present in this Sacrament they are really present For imaginary fictitious presence is no better than a Mockery unworthy of any Philosopher to admit and much more Divine Whatsoever is Really is or not all according to this account And therefore to say We All agree in the thing though we differ in the Manner of Christs Presence is to say no more and to draw no neerer at all to the composing of this difference than we may have any common Philosopher to joyn with us upon this granted that Christ is Present there for that must needs be really So that no Christian can deny the Real Presence absolutely but must presently interpret himself in some peculiar sense to himself And they that do so are wont to begin with a distinction of Sacramental and Corporal or as some Natural Presence For Sacramental Presence it being not at all heard of or known in Logick or Nature nor to be explained by any thing parallel to it out of this Mystery it self who can be the better for it Who can understand what is meant by it before he be resolved of the thing most of all question'd viz What is Sacramental Presence For unless we be cut off here and must not at all enquire What it is to be Sacramentally Present but take the notion at a venture and presume we know what in truth we do not we shall be as hard put to it as before For Sacramentally to be present doth not at all express the manner unless as some seem to mean by it such a Mystical presence that we know not what to make of and in this acceptation every unknown thing should create a new kind of being but imply all senses possible to a Sacrament So that if a man holds Christs body to be in the Sacrament Bodily and naturally this is certainly a Sacramentally and If he holds it to be there Spiritually it is likewise Sacramentally and so whatever other way we can reasonably conceive to be in the Sacrament it must be Sacramentally Sacramental Presence being as is said no one kind of Presence but common to all possible to the Eucharist if not to nature it self It will be more needful to distinguish between Christs Corporal Presence and Christ Corporally Present and there is good ground for to do so For if Presence be as Thomas
fit the Case For when the Scripture saith Christ is a Door or Christ is a Vine or a Lamb it is not the same formally as to say that a Lamb is Christ or a Door or a Vine is Christ Yet if that rigour must be observed in Scripture Propositions to have them true that without a Trope or Figure they must be understood otherwise we must be reproached to deny Scripture the foresaid speeches must as necessarily inferr a Transubstantiation of Christ into the Nature of a Door or Vine or Lamb as his bare words at the Celebration do inferr a Transubstantiation of the Elements into his Nature And no apparence of disparity can be here shown if so be Christs Literal meaning must be here urged as they do Now That the Signs which were before are Really Present in the Sacrament after Consecration doth appear from the most-Essential thing to a Sacrament A Sacrament we have defined to be a Visible Sign with Austin and infinite others I say a Visible and Real Sign and not Visibly Apparently or Seemingly a Sign or a Sign of a Sign as the deluding Specieses remaining after supposed Transubstantiation are said to be And it is an Impossible thing as is before shewed in the general treating of Sacraments that the Sign should be the thing signified For if some Sign could be the thing signified then something signified should be a Sign and so both wayes the Relate and Cor-relate should be the same too and two should be one and one should be two and if this may be what may not be or at least said to be For as to the instances given That in some Cases a thing may be a Sign and the thing signified it hath been showed how defective they are in that they are a Sign of the same nature perhaps or rather some qualification of it and not of the same thing numerically as the individual Sign in the Lords Supper is believed to be of that it is Therefore from hence they are put to their choice Whether of the two they will suffer the loss of the Sacrament or the absence of Christs Body in their sense For not only the nature of the thing now expressed require Sacramental Signs as well as the thing signified but the manifold Autorities of the Ancientest of the Greek and Latin Fathers have for this reason called the Sacramental Elements Signs Figures Representations Types Antitypes of Christs Body and Blood as might at large be shewed our Adversaries not denying it But what answer do they make to them The Modern Greeks as Cardinal Bessario who is herein followed by some more modern than himself Latinizing answer confessing that the Fathers Bessario Do Eucharist Sacramento often so speak but say they they speak only of the Bread and Wine before Consecration and not after Here is some wit in this shuffle and evasion but no truth at all For before Dedication and Consecration they are not Signs or Figures or Antitypes at all They have no more relation to the Body and Blood of Christ than the like Elements at our Common tables and therefore they must be understood to speak of them after Consecration But the Answer of the Scholastical managers of this controversy in the Latin Church shows less modesty and no more truth For Aūg. in Psal 3. they say St. Austin who calls the consecrated Elements a Figure of Christs Body spake not of every empty Figure but of a Figure of a thing really present All this we grant willingly viz that the Signs Sacramental are not Signs of things future or Absent This is nothing at all to the purpose And the Second answer is notoriously and boldly false saying That St. Austin might there speak as Manichee who denied the Real Body Contra Adamant C. 12. of Christ For it was in confutation of Manicheans And of Tertullians words who likewise calls the consecrate Elements Signs they make non-sense joyning head and tail together that they may really signifie nothing least they should signify that for which we alleadg them Tertullian saies Hoc est Corpus meum Id est Figura Corporis mei Figura Corporis mei saies one after his greater Doctors is referred not unto Corpus meum as an Fisher Jes explication thereof but unto Hoc in this manner Hoc id est Figura Corporis mei est Corpus meum i. e. This that is the Figure of my Body is my Body If it be not sufficient conviction of their Errour and confusion that they are driven to such unnatural tossing of mens words against common sense and Grammar and having so done to affect nothing but what is directly false or unintelligible as this Scholie is making the Figure and the Body the very same thing I confess I have nothing to say For this is the subject we have at present in hand That the Sign and thing signified must by eternal necessity be distinct but this opinion of Transubstantiation destroys this and destroying this destroys the Sacrament For whereas they say That the remaining Species supply the place of the Substance abolished and are Signs This cannot consist with the impossibility of such Accidents without a subject in that contrary to their definition they should stick and not stick to a thing in that they are Accidents their nature requires that they should have a subject and the nature of this mutation requires they should have none And where as they argue That what any Creature can do the Creatour can much more do and therefore if the Creature can sustain Accidents the Creatour God Almighty can I answer If the Creature could sustain Accidents without a subject then doubtless could God the Creatour but doth it follow that because the Creature can be a subject to them therefore the Creatour can also All that a Creature can Do the Creatour can do but all that the Creature can Suffer I trow the Creatour cannot But to be the subject to Accidents is a Passion and imperfection and no Action and therefore nothing can be concluded from hence Therefore they proceed one strain higher not doubting to say That what the Creature can do by its Passive Capacity the Creatour can do by his Active which if it did not imply a contradiction in nature itself I should easily grant but this it doth For first it is to make an Accident a Substance For t is the nature of a Substance to subsist of it self without the aid or support of any other thing distinct from it Not that the Secondary being can subsist without the First God himself but without any thing Created And therefore seeing that Substance it self cannot continue in its Being without Gods omnipotent hand supporting it this doth equalize the nature of Accidents to that of Substance in that it supposeth that Accidents by a divine power may subsist of themselves as well as Substance For substance cannot subsist at all without a Divine power and thus Accidents by a
effect such things as in their general nature they had no tendencie unto The distinction common amongst Philosophers of Fortuna and Casus i. e. Fortune and Casualty and calling that Fortune which contingently falls out to free Intelligent Agents acting and that Casualty which besides natural intention happens to fall out may seem to clear this For if we should affirm that in natural things there were no such indifferencie really but all things were precisely and particularly determined by God in his private counsel however a wide latitude seemeth to us to be left them to move and act or not to act or to move and act thus or not thus but contrariwise no great absurdity or inconvenience would follow For what absurdity could be inferred if a man should say That the Eagle letting fall a Tortoise upon the bald head of the Philosopher of Syracuse walking in the field and so beating out his brains was determined necessarily so to do of God or that the tree that fell down in a wind and killed him that walked out to preserve himself from the fall of his house which he feared was inevitably appointed so to do These effects did not proceed from the nature of these causes themselves but a Superiour hand and yet might be no less necessary than such effects of which the common reason of man can give an ordinary and easie account And if this be granted in some things it doth lye upon them who deny it in all to render a reason of the difference and not on them who affirm a paritie by infinite instances to prove it being sufficient to say There can nothing be shown to the contrary But in things rational and endowed with a power of Election and Rejection it must be confessed that the difficulty is much greater because there seems to be a repugnancie to free will in such tacit necessity and God should seem to take away with one hand what he had given with the other And therefore of this in a more convenient place after we have spoken somewhat preparatory thereunto concerning the Decrees of God which are internal acts of the Providence of God CHAP. IX The method of enquiring into the Nature and Attributes of God Vorstius his grounds of distinguishing the Attributes of God from his Nature examined Of the Decrees of God depending on his Vnderstanding and Will Of knowledge of Intelligence Vision and the supposed Middle knowledge The Impertinencie of this Middle knowledge invented in God How Free Agents can be known by God in their uncertain choice Indifferent Actions in respect of Man not so in respect of God All Vision in God supposes certainly in the thing known IF the Holy Scriptures leaving us many precedents have thereby warranted or at least permitted us to speak of God after the manner of Mans body ascribing unto him head eyes mouth hands and feet and the better to perceive the things of God much more may we be allowed if at all to search into Gods nature to regulate our enquiry of God from the nature of mans mind and the more supream acts of his soul The first Act of which is his apprehension and knowledge with judgment following thereupon The next in order is the Act of his will and this Order we may best follow in the enquiry into Gods Providence which is constituted according as we can judge of knowledge and will whose proper act it is to decree And here first It is requisite that we take notice of the folly and gross impiety of Vorstius a late Pragmatick in Divine Mysteries who would needs distinguish God from himself and taking him at his word wherein speaking after the manner of men such diversity is mentioned concludes that God and his Attributes are really distinct in nature one from another And why did he not by the same rule conclude that Gods very Being his Essence was distinct really from it self as well as from the supposed Accidents he Epicurean-like feigns to God For God is no less affirmed to have heart hands and feet than to have Understanding and Will And if it be granted there is a figurative and no proper sense in the one case why may it not be in the other And that God is all these things Eminently but not after the formality of mankind The matter will be cleared better by examining his prime arguments taken from the Decrees of God our present subject First sayes he The decrees of God are various and many but the Essence of God is but one therefore they must be really distinct To which the answer is as obvious as the argument presumptuous That if the Decrees were really many they must of necessity be really distinct as well from themselves as God But their plurality is rather Relative than Absolute All the Acts of God being but one pure simple Act as in him but denominated divers from the event or relation they bear to the Creature This is one of the first principles in his Christian Catechise and why did he pretending to reason leap over this and not first disprove it and then proceed to his arguments It was a great piece of folly therefore in him to prove a real distinction of Gods Attributes before he had proved that the Nature of God was compounded or would admit of any such opposition For they who deny this will certainly deny that Another of his reasons is The decrees of God are free because they might have not been as well as have been But Gods nature is not so Answ There is a twofold freedom in the Decrees of God The one in respect of the Nature of God as God is precisely considered which abstracting from all Acts was indifferent to others as well as those Decrees made And the other in respect of the Creature or object which was capable of other Decrees and therefore were Gods Decrees said to be free but we all know that distinction of Instants in Order and Nature do not infer a necessary distinction in duration but that both Nature and Decrees might be coequal in eternity Now all things that are eternal are in some case necessary And the Schools have such a distinction of Decrees as they have of nature viz. Decretum Decretans and Decretum Decretatum meaning that the Decrees of God are sometimes used for the Act of God decreeing and sometimes for the thing decreed And of this latter it may be said That the Decree of God is produced and made which is a third special argument of Vorstius but of the other it cannot so be affirmed but it may flow from him by an eternal Law or Volition within himself and not at all occasioned by the Creature And it is therefore said to be free because it was not imposed upon him and therefore necessary because not accessary to him or contingent but proceeding from him as a natural and necessary yet voluntary Agent For we must not look upon God as subject to the condition of the
his face which is one of those outward Acts we here mean I will worship God and report that God is in you of a truth 1 Cor. 14. 25. 2 Cor. 9. 12. And in his Second Epistle he saith Your zeal hath provoked very many Which zeal was manifested in external works And who may not observe not only an Influence of the inward affections moving the outward parts but a Refluence as one may say of such outward acts upon the inward faculties to the exciting them And that speaking cholericly doth not only proceed from a principle of Angriness but augments the passion inward and so in love and zeal in matters as well divine as prophane acting humility and devotion outwardly doth wonderfully excite those graces in the inward man I shall add but one more argument to beget a better opinion of external and bodily services in Gods worship than vulgarly prevails And that is The general practice of the ancientest and best Christians I say best Christians and purest and perfectest worship of God in open defiance of them of late times who insolently magnifie themselves and modern inventions to the contempt of their much superiours in piety and years They had many outward rites and ceremonies adorning the worship of God which I prefer infinitely before the sowre and severe nakedness of Gods service amongst them 'T is not to be denied that in process of time Ceremonies multiplied to the prejudice of Religion but I think scarce at any so much as the affected prophaneness hath on the other side damnified it And they that argue from the great opinion some have of Ceremonies to the total abolition of them put an argument into the mouths of others to renounce communion with them that hate them and detest them to that superstitious excess as to have none at all and by the same rule to love them because they detest them who have been so scandalous in their opposition to them Now this external Worship we here plead for is an Adoration of God An humiliation of the Body by external Acts and gestures upon the consideration and reverent esteem of the Divine Presence and the small and low esteem we have of our selves which is so necessary and natural that it is to be admired how the contrary carriage could ever be received as pleasing to God or man were it not that the Tempter to irreligion knoweth no shame nor they who are abused by him and his Instruments no mean in flying Extreams What is more frequent in Scripture than examples of such as thus humbled themselves before God Falling down in Scripture which necessarily is bodily Adoration hath been alwayes such an inseparable concomitant of Divine inward worship such an excellent part of it that by a current Synecdoche it is put for the worship of God entirely and absolutely For what else may we understand by that Prophetical speech of Christ All Kings shall fall down before him all nations shall worship And so in the Prophet Esay Shall I fall down to the stock of a tree That is Psal 77. 11. Esay 44. 19. And so in the Prophet Esay Shall I fall down to the stock of a tree That is worship it in this bodily manner And so in the next Chapter and the 46. Chapter They fall down yea they worship by which words the Prophet Es 45. 14. Es 46. 6. condemns the Idolatrous practise then in use And as hath been said if there were nothing good in such outward adoration which might be pleasing to God it could not displease him to have it given unto Idols or false Gods as every where in Scripture it doth What a piece of matter had it been for the three Children of God to have fallen down before Nebuchadnezar's Dan. 3. â— Image in Daniel if there were no account to be made of such outward Acts not so much surely as of disobedience to the Kings command Nay what hurt would there be to fall down to the Devil as Christ was tempted to do by that Evil and ambitious Spirit if it did not at all belong to Mat. 4. 9. God Or what good do they what glory do we understand given by the 24 Elders to God in the Revelation when they fall down before the throne Rev. 4. 10. of God if so be there is nothing in it Surely therefore it is a part of our duty and service thus to adore the Divine Majesty thus to humble our bodies in his presence And it is seen commonly in Bowing or inclining any part of the body and sometimes of the whole by casting it upon the earth as unworthy to stand before God and to beget the deeper sense of our own vileness and to move God to pitty our prostrated body and dejected mind Sometimes it may suffice to Luk. 18. 33. incline the head as it were blushing to lift it up with any confidence towards God and heaven Sometimes incurvation of the Body sometimes bending of the knee and sometimes constant and devout kneeling according as occasion and opportunity shall be offered and the spring of inward devotion move the outward parts of the body For all this while we urge not so necessarily any much less all these outward acts so as to require them simply to divine worship as if a Man could not be accepted without them Yet so far again we do that where just autority competent opportunity and means expect any of these from us wilfully and contemptuously to neglect them doth make me really believe that God will not hear or accept the pretended real devotion of the inward man as being corrupted with disobedience and irreverence and exclusive of part of his Right And an other rule for directing this manner of worship is this that we are not singly and of our own head in publick to put in use or act any such ceremonious devotion to the offence of the more general custom and warranted practise of the Churches of which we are Members For all Acts of Reverence are to be estimated not by private opinions but by publick and general approbation For seeing scarce any ceremony is natural but all by institution and reputation of men judged proper or indecent this Decency the Custom of places and Sentence of Superiours must determine lest the Church falls into that unhappy state of which Austin complains and be subjected to more burdensome and contrary Rites than the Jewish Church suffered while it is thought lawful under the Gospel which was not tolerated under the Law for every single man either to devise a form of worshipping God out of his own head or to bring those Rites into that Church in which he lives by his own will which he had observed to be in use in others whereof perhaps he hath read or which in his Travels he hath seen which the farther they have been and more strange always pass for the most commendable a thing which St. Austin in that Epistle condemns and
affirmeth that it is Desecrated by the interrment of Hereticks there But certainly the words in the Revelation expressing a Vision meant no such thing as they are alledged for but only that in that Vision the holy Apostle beheld the souls of Saints and Martyrs departed humbled before or at the foot of the Altar as the manner was anciently to pray especially at the time v. 10. of offering crying aloud and with great importunity for justice and revenge upon the Persecutors of the Church and Murderers of them for the Testimony of Christ Jesus But because such hath been and I fear ever will be the corruption of Christian Religion that he that hath power in his hands and money good store in his purse shall be Sainted so far as outward ceremonies and priviledges can advance him he that would be at the charge of breaking up of the ground hath not been denyed nor dare any that I know whatever they ought to do deny him the liberty of being buried in the Church This may be and must be passed over but the affectation or irreligious ambition of building stately Seats and making that which is common to all Christians peculiar to some house so as upon no occasion it must be used by others is wicked and sacrilegious and much more the taking in of any the least part of Gods ground as the Church is to the prophane uses of making Tombs and Sepulchres and no other They are wont to say There is room enough besides It may be so for they commonly who thus enclose or usurp Gods Land have thin'd the inhabitants of the place where they live by illegal enclosures of the Common belonging to the Parish and so almost dispeopled the place But what is that to them more than any body else And why may not any man upon the same reason violently or fraudulently take away certain Acres of Land from him and say in his defense He hath left him enough still And least such as are Patrons of Churches and have certain supposed Prerogatives over the Chancels above what can be pretended to by the common sort of people should conceive they may there do as they please they are to know That in right and conscience such fore-mention'd practises can least of all be done For as the Founder of the Church so likewise the Builders of Chancels from whence only they can pretend such priviledge and as the maintainers of it in repair do at the time of the consecration consent to a total alienation of all civil propriety from themselves they can neither build nor bury there nor incommodate the place more than any other man for they are only Guardians and not Owners of that place upon which they may and ought to exclude and refuse all such incommodations of others as may any way deface or straiten or empair the same but they have no more right to do any such things there themselves then he that is Trustee or Guardian to an Orphan to seize upon his estate or any part thereof to his own use And it is only civil custom which hath given him a peculiar right of burial there rather then any body else And this may seem sufficient if not too much to have said of the Negative force of Dedication of Churches against Usurpers of Gods and Christians Rights The positive effect which is a veneration and worship therein of God Almighty doth farther confirm this and is contained in the end expressed as well as in the form of Dedication used by Solomon as the constant practise of the Jews whose Tabernacle or Temple had nothing of constant preaching or instruction of the people but only Prayers and Sacrifices Afterward their Synagogues called also Proseuchae for convenience because Acts 13. 27. all people could not meet at the Temple were erected where as the Scripture tells us the Law was read and Moses preached every Sabbath day but they had their special denomination fâ—ouâ— the Office and Acts of Prayer Synagogue signifying no more than an Assembly in general From whence if not also from the consent of all Nations besides who had Temples to their Gods it may appear that the most principal end of Gods House was alwayes till an ignorant irregular Generation sprang up esteemed the House of Prayer and Worship and teaching and instruction of people very necessary indeed as the foundation upon which all worship must be built was not that main end as is pretended And this worship being in its proper place in the Church was always and ought to be performed in most publique manner and most solemn as to outward appearance as well as inward affection to which too many deluded by a gross and cheap piece of Sophistry would confine Gods worship It is time we have no direct precept in the New Testament that I can call to mind enjoyning any particular behaviour at the time of Gods service nor yet in the Law And why so were not that very necessary in case any outward carriage were necessary Yes truly if so be such a Religious manner of worship could be known to us no other way than by Revelation extraordinary For Gods word is very sparing in those things of which we may by the common light of Nature attain to the knowledge For who is there that knows there is a God that knoweth not also that he is to be worshipped Who is there that knoweth that God is to be worshipped thar knoweth not also that he is to worshipped in the most lowly and reverent manner And that reverence outward is mutable and various according to the opinion of several Countries and therefore no one general Rule could be made comprehending and obliging all people but this is laid down to us that what is accounted in any Nation most solemn humble and reverent is that which is required of us in the worship of God But surely kneeling bowing the body uncovering the head yea and prostration of the body in convenient time and place are acts of worship such as were in use among the Jews of old continued by the Apostles and successors in Faith and Devotion as innumerable places of Holy Writ in the Old and New Testament intimate unto us where falling low at Gods footstool bowing the knee and such like outward acts of reverence are put for prayer it self which they never would have been had not they been the known manner of worship And Salvian describes Salvian de Provid lib. 7. Ad domos statim dominicas 〈◊〉 c. to us the custom of Christians in his early days thus We presently haste to the Lords house we cast our bodies on the floor and pray with weeping and joy mixt together And I am not advis'd of more then one place which interdicts any one piece of irreverence as unnatural and that the superstition of Puritans hath cast them into and that is covering of mens faces in the time of publique prayer when the hat as an instance
such opinion of it as in truth agrees only to God He directly intends who really supposes falsly any Creature to be God and intends to worship it as God or certainly he who otherwise out of perverted affection desires to worship that which he well knows to be a Creature as God He intends indirectly who no ways intending directly to honour a Creature as God yet outwardly notwithstanding this doth bestow divine honor on the Creature as God So that in the judgment of sober men he may be thought to account the Creature for God as if any man through fear of death should sacrifice to Idols Therefore if actually a man worships that which is not God his intention to worship only the true God can relieve him no farther than his opinion and intention to accompany with his own wife excuses him from Casual Adultery in lying with another woman and that is but little unless circumstances be such as may render the ignorance of the Fact invincible as they say or unavoidable And the intention and opinion if they be against ordinary presumptions to the contrary do not excuse Now to apply it to the last Case of Christ corporally present in the Sacrament This is agreed upon by us that what Christ saith to be so is infallibly true seem it never so contrary to our outward senses But seeing the words of Christ according to the like expressions in Holy Writ where things that bear Analogy with one another are said positively to be one another as where St. Paul saith Believers are Christs bone and Christs flesh which is not true in the natural sense but Metaphorical for otherwise unbelievers might be said so to be which St. Paul never intended do not necessarily infer that sense and all the ends imaginable are attainable no less by the spiritual sense and metaphorical acceptation of the words than by the more gross and natural And lastly to suppose what is said above concerning this subject testimony of senses bear witness to the contrary as much after Consecration as before the upshot of the business will be this Whether there remains any such infallible inducements to produce an opinion of such a thing there being whether such gounds unresistible there be for to found such an intention that may excuse from errour And therefore I absolutely deny Spalatoe's opinion saying I answer I acknowledge no Idolatrous De Republ. Eccl. Lib. 7. cap II. num 2. crime in the adoration of the Eucharist so long as the intention is directed aright For they who teach that Bread to be no longer bread but the body of Christ c. For if they knew that the Body of Christ did not lye hid under the Species and his blood under those of Wine they would not so worship This I say satisfies not because they have no sufficient grounds that so it is or so Christs words are to be understood Secondly and as to this point principally because Idolatry is primarily a defect and errour in the understanding as their own men confess and only secondarily and by consequence in the will or purpose which altogether overthrows the moderate sense of Forbes likewise to Forbes ubi supra p. 439. say no more For as for that other evasion and purgation whereby they would fetch off Papists from Idâ—latrous worship in the Eucharist because there can be no doubt made but Christ may be adored as Austins known words are in the Eucharist with all outward and bodily as well as mental worship is much less to the purpose For This quite changes the question which is wholly about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the ancients call them the objects appearing whether they be Christ and to be worshipped as Christ For Christ in the Sacrament we may worship without exceptions of any divine or corporal manner Christ's body and blood are really present in the Eucharist we grant and in a more eminent manner then in other places or divine ordinances but when we hear him say The faithful receive the body and blood of Christ in Forbes ibid. themselves corporally but yet after a spiritual miraculous and imperceptible manner we grant the manner to be wonderful and imperceptible but we cannot grant it to be Corporally and Spiritually in the same respect without a contradiction For What is corporally to receive a thing but modo corporali after a corporal manner and therefore to correct as it were that Expression with that which follows viz. Modo tamen spirituali yet after a spiritual manner is quite to destroy what he seem'd to say before For Nothing can be received Corporally after a spiritual manner And it is much more intelligible than that of the Romanists which saith That the Body of Christ may be received spiritually and bodily For the body according to them is taken into the mouth and so bodily received by the wicked and unbelievers and it is by the faithful besides received by Faith spiritually which may stand together But to suppose any spiritual way to explicatory of the corporal way of receiving Christ is to suppose contradictions But this belongs to another place Let us now touch the third exception I make against the distinction of Material and Formal Idolatry taken from the Novelty of it and singularity as never heard of before late dayes when extremities put mens wits to study for new forms of Speech to dress up the new body of Divinity framed to themselves Why did not the Heathen come off so For surely they might Why did not this enter into the head of the ancienter School-men who I dare say make no mention of it How comes it about that the aneient Fathers and Councils knew no other Idolatry than that which even moderner Papists approve of when the soberer mode is on them viz. The worshipping as God that which is not God without any notice taken of Material and Formal worship contenting themselves with the general distinction of Ignorance of the Law and Ignorance of the Fact or wilful Ignorance and unwilling Or vincible and invincible Surely this implies somewhat singular in this case which they either are ashamed to express or can not which latter is my case For I confess I see no reason why we may not distinguish two sorts of Heresie as well two sorts of Schism two sorts of Adulterie two sorts of Drunkenness and Murder Material and Formal as of Idolatry And yet we hear little or no mention of this distinction but only as it is applyed to Idolatry which besides what is abovesaid renders it more suspected and the coyners and users of it Fourthly and lastly The dangerousness of this distinction and apparent damage it doth to Christian Religion declares it to be wicked and intollerable while it both opens a way to all carelessness in worshipping we know not how nor what contrary to our Faith and then when we may receive competent information of our error and should repent it lulls us asleep
heart Not he that looketh on a woman but he that looketh on her to lust after her is condemned though all curious studious idle impertinent views of men or women upon which may follow ordinarily the sparks and then the flames of lust are forbidden Again not all lusting of the heart is to be compared to the acts of lusting inwardly with the act outward joyned to that Adultery of the heart our Saviour Christ doth not equal to the Adultery of act but makes it Adultery in a degree inferiour Secondly There is uncleanness of the Tongue too when it breaketh out into impure light foolish lascivious speeches tending to begetting evil thoughts and acts in others against which St. Paul declareth in his Epistle to the Ephesians Let no corrupt communication come out of your mouth but Coloss 4 29. that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace to the hearers Coloss 3. 8. And to the Coâ—ossians But now ye also put off all these anger wrath malice blasphemy filthy communication out of your mouth Thirdly Actual uncleanness which is accomplished in the deeds of the flesh And â—aâ—h several degrees which may be distinguished into Unnatural and Natural Unnatural consisteth in the vile acts a man or woman may commit upon their own bodies perverting the course and end of nature instituting diversity of Sexes for sober and profitable propagation making that void in some manner at least At which St. Paul may seem to strike as Ephes 5. 12. far as modesty would permit when he says It is a shame to speak of those things which are done of them in secret meaning the impurities of Gnostick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theodoret. Haret Fabul cap. 7. and Valentinian Conventicles to the reproach of Primitive Christianity Epiphanius relating how besides those called natural lusts between Sexes distinct they dishonoured and corrupted their own bodies in the highest acts of single uncleanness and made up some of their Mysteries thereby And however single persons do not so prodigiously abuse themselves as did those impure Hereticks pretending greater Sanctity and deeper Mysteries in their Religion then the Catholicks yet must it needs be a great offense to God so to corrupt a mans self in yielding to fleshly temptations condemned by Heathen Poets though themselves were immodest for a violation of the Law of Nature it self which therefore all Christians especially of weak reason strong passions and young years are most watchfully to beware of and resolutely to avoid Another sort of acted rather then actual Uncleanness here prohibited is the foul sin of Sodomie to which the wicked Citizens of Sodom destroyed Gen. 19. 4 5. Rom. 1. 26. by fire gave denomination as may appear in the Book of Genesis And of which St. Paul to the Romans speaketh when he saith that God delivered up the Gentiles to these unnatural Lusts as a punishment of their gross Idolatry For this cause God gave them up to vile affections For even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature And likewise the men leaving the natural use of the women burned in their lusts one towards another men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their errours which was meet A Third unnatural Lust is that called Bestiality or abusing or being abused Lev. 28. 23. by Beasts in lustful acts against which God hath in his Word as well as by the Light and Law of Nature declared The more natural but yet unchristian Lusts here forbidden are Adultery which is either simple viz. when a married person committeth uncleanness with an unmarried where some make two kinds the one when the man is married but the woman single which they commonly make the less and so indeed it is by reason that it brings no spurious brood to inherit or share the Goods of any other man but him that he knowingly and willingly bestows them on The other is when the woman is married and the man single which is besides the general sin subject to the foresaid mischief And therefore hereby the woman offends in these four respects Incredulity not believing or regarding the Law and Word of God to the contrary 2. Not reverencing the Laws of the Church 3. Treachery against her Faith and Troth given before God to her Husband whereby she delivered unto him 1 Cor. 7. 4. the power of her Body as St. Paul speaketh 1 Cor. 7. as likewise doth the Husband to his Wife upon the same occasion and therefore thus far the Man and Woman transgressing offend equally 4. They say the Woman in such cases is a Thief in that she spoileth her Husband of his goods and giveth them to a false Issue he would knowingly no wayes yield them to But yet saith Thomas the man sinneth no less than the woman however Thomas in decem Praecepta Opusc 3. he may flatter himself otherwise And the sum of his reason is this First Because that the man hath no more power over his Body than the woman over hers Secondly Because the man is stronger naturally than the woman and endued with more reason Thirdly Because the man is the Head of the woman and her teacher as St. Paul saith therefore as it is a greater sin for a Priest than a Layman to offend in that kind so is it for a man who is as it were Gods Minister even in spiritual matters to the woman And in truth we find little or no difference put by the Scripture between the fact James 4. 4. of the one and the other St. James joyning them thus together Ye Adulterers and Adulteresses know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with Levit. 20. 10. God Yet Moses his Law decreed the Adulteress to be put to death but not the Adulterer as offending more against the Civil capacity of Man And perhaps for the hardness of their hearts least they should do it themselves God would have it done in a more orderly and just way Some Laws of Christians at this day granting the man leave to kill his wife himself finding her in actual Adultery Fornication likewise which some calling Simple have legitimated in great measure is condemned by this Commandment St. Paul as it were foreseeing and intending to confound such modern Doctours saith Know ye not 1 Cor. 6 9 10. that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God be not deceived neither Fornicators nor Idolaters nor Adulterers nor Effeminate nor Abusers of themselves with mankind Nor Thieves nor Covetous nor Drunkards nor Revilers nor Extortioners shall inherit the Kingdom of God And to the Hebrews But Fornicators and Adulterers God shall judge And so likewise the Excusers or Extenuaters of them so far as to bring down the guilt of either of them to that of a venial sin only which is as much as nothing Est ergo heresis dicere Fornicationem simplicem