no proof to the contrary But that our love is sound and sincere that it cometh from a pure heart a good conscience and a faith unfeigned who can pronounce saving only the searcher of all mens hearts who alone intuitively doth known in this kind who are his And as those everlasting promises of Love Mercy and Blessedness belong to the mystical Church even so on the other side when we read of any duty which the Church of God is bound unto the Church whom this doth concern is a sensible known company And this Visible Church in like sort is but one continued from the first beginning of the World to the last end Which company being divided into two moyeties the one before the other since the coming of Christ that part which since the coming of Christ partly hath embraced and partly shall hereafter embrace the Christian Religion we term as by a more proper name the Church of Christ. And therefore the Apostle affirmeth plainly of all men Christian that be they Jew or Gentiles bond or free they are all incorporated into one company they all make but one body The unity of which visible body and Church of Christ consisteth in that Uniformity which all several persons thereunto belonging have by reason of that one Lord whose servants they all profess themselves that one Faith which they all acknowledge that one Baptism wherewith they are all initiated The visible Church of Jesus Christ is therefore one in outward profession of those things which supernaturally appertain to the very Essence of Christianity and are necessarily required in every particular Christian man Let all the house of Israel know for certainty saith Peter that God hath made him both Lord and Christ even this Iesus whom ye have crucified Christians therefore they are not which call not him their Master and Lord. And from hence it came that first at Antioch and afterward throughout the whole world all that were of the Church visible were called Christians even amongst the Heathen which name unto them was precious and glorious but in the estimation of the rest of the world even Christ Jesus himself was execrable for whose sake all men were so likewise which did acknowledge him to be their Lord. This himself did foresee and therefore armed his Church to the end they might sustain it without discomfort All these things they will do unto you for my names sake yea the time shall come that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God good service These things I tell you that when the hour shall come ye may then call to minde how I told you before-hand of them But our naming of Jesus Christ the Lord is not enough to prove us Christians unless we also embrace that Faith which Christ hath published unto the World To shew that the Angel of Pergamus continued in Christianity behold how the Spirit of Christ speaketh Thou keepest my Name and thou hast not denied my Faith Concerning which Faith The rule thereof saith Tertullian is one alone immoveable and no way possible to be better framed anew What rule that is he sheweth by rehearsing those few Articles of Christian belief And before Tertullian Irency The Church though scattered through the whole World unto the uttermost borders of the Earth hath from the Apostles and their Disciples received Belief The parts of which Belief he also reciteth in substance the very same with Tertullian and thereupon inferreth This Faith the Church being spread far and wide preserveth as if one House did contain them These things it equally embraceth as though it had even one Soul one Heart and no more It publisheth teacheth and delivereth these things with Uniform consent as if God had given it lut one onely Tongue wherewith to speak He which amongst the Guides of the Church is best able to speak uttereth no more then this and less then this the most simple do not utter when they make Profession of their Faith Now although we know the Christian Faith and allow of it yet in this respect we are but entring entred we are not into the Visible Church before our admittance by the door of Baptism Wherefore immediately upon the acknowledgment of Christian Faith the Eunuch we see was baptized by Philip Paul by Ananias by Peter a huge multitude containing Three thousand Souls which being once Baptized were reckoned in the number of Souls added to the Visible Church As for those Vertues that belong unto Moral Righteousness and honesty of life we do not mention them because they are not proper unto Christian Men as they are Christian but do concern them as they are Men. True it is the want of these Vertues excludeth from Salvation So doth much more the absence of inward belief of heart so doth despair and lack of Hope so emptiness of Christian Love and Charity But we speak now of the Visible Church whose Children are signed with this mark One Lord one Faith one Baptism In whomsoever these things are the Church doth acknowledge them for her Children them onely she holdeth for Aliens and Strangers in whom these things are not found For want of these it is that Saracens Jews and Infidels are excluded out of the bounds of the Church Others we may not deny to be of the Visible Church as long as these things are not wanting in them For apparent it is that all Men are of necessity either Christians or not Christians If by External Profession they be Christians then are they of the Visible Church of Christ and Christians by External Profession they are all whose mark of Recognisance hath in it those things which we have mentioned yea although they be impious Idolaters wicked Hereticks Persons excommunicable yea and cast out for notorious improbity Such withal we deny not to be the Imps and Limbs of Satan even as long as they continue such Is it then possible that the self-same men should belong both to the Synagogue of Satan and to the Church of Jesus Christ Unto that Church which is his Mystical Body not possibleâ— because that Body consisteth of none but onely true Israelites true Sons of Abraham true Servants and Saints of God Howbeit of the Visible Body and Church of Jesus Christ those may be and oftentimes are in respect of the main parts of their outward Profession who inregard of their inward disposition of minde yea of External Conversation yea even of some parts of their very Profession are most worthily both hateful in the sight of God himself and in the eyes of the sounder part of the Visible Church most execrable Our Saviour therefore compareth the Kingdom of Heaven to a Net whereunto all which cometh neither is nor seemeth Fish His Church he compareth unto a Field where Tares manifestly known end seen by all Men do grow intermingled with good Corn and even so shall continue till the final consummation of the World God hath had ever
where once he dwelleth What shall become of his Promise I am with you to the Worlds end If the Seed of God which containeth Christ may be first conceived and then cast out how doth S. Peter term it immortal How doth St. Iohn affirm It abideth If the Spirit which is given to cherish and preserve the Seed of Life may be given and taken away how is it the earnest of our inheritance until Redemption how doth it continue with us for ever If therefore the man which is once just by faith shall live by Faith and live for ever it followeth that he which once doth believe the foundation must needs believe the foundation forever If he believe it for ever how can he ever directly deny it Faith holding the direct affirmation the direct negation so long as Faith continueth is excluded Object But you will say That as he that is to day holy may to morrow forsake his holiness and become impure as a friend may change his minde and be made an enemy as hope may wither so saith may dye in the heart of man the Spirit may be quenched Grace may be extinguished they which believe may be quite turned away from the Truth Sol. The case is clear long experience hath made this manifest it needs no proof I grant we are apt prone and ready to forsake God but is God as ready to forsake us Our mindes are changeable is His so likewise Whom God hath justified hath not Christ assured that it is his Fathers will to give them a Kingdom Notwithstanding it shall not be otherwise given them than if they continue grounded and stablished in the Faith and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel if they abide in love and holiness Our Saviour therefore when he spake of the sheep effectually called and truly gathered into his fold I give unto-them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any pluck them out of my hands in promising to save them he promised no doubt to preserve them in that without which there can be no salvation as also from that whereby it is irrecoverably lost Every errour in things appertaining unto God is repugnant unto Faith every fearful cogitation unto hope unto love every stragling inordinate desire unto holiness every blemish wherewith either the inward thoughts of our mindes or the outward actions of our lives are stained But heresie such as that of Ebion Gerinthus and others against whom the Apostles were forced to bend themselves both by word and also by writing that repining discouragement of heart which tempteth God whereof we have Israel in the Desart for a pattern coldness such as that in the Angels of Ephesus soul sins known to be expresly against the first or second table of the Law such as Noah Monasses David Solomon and Peter committed These are each in their kind so opposite to the former vertues that they leave no place for salvation without an actual repentance But Infidelity extream despair hatred of God and all goodness obduration in Sin cannot stand where there is but the least spark of Faith hope love and sanctity even as cold in the lowest degree cannot be where heat in the highest degree is found Whereupon I conclude that although in the first kind no man liveth which sinneth not and in the second as perfect as any do live may sinne yet sith the man which is born of God hath a promise That in him the Seed of God shall abide which Seed is a sure Preservative against the sinnes that are of the third suit Greater and clearer assurance we cannot have of any thing than of this that from such sinnes God shall preserve the Righteous as the apple of his Eye for ever Directly to deny the foundation of Faith is plain Infidelity where Faith is entred there Infidelity is for ever excluded Therefore by him which hath once sincerely believed in Christ the foundation of Christian Faith can never be directly denied Did not Peter Did not Marcellinus Did not others both directly deny Christ after that they had believed and again believe after they had denied No doubt as they confesse in words whose Condemnation is nevertheless their not believing for example we have Iudas So likewisewise they may believe in Heart whose Condemnation without Repentance is their not Confessing Although therefore Peter and the rest for whose Faith Christ hath prayed that it might not fail did not by denial sinne the Sinne of Infidelity which is an inward abnegation of Christ for if they had done this their Faith had clearly failed Yet because they sinned notoriously and grievously committing that which they knew to be expresly forbidden by the Law which saith Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him onely shalt thou serve necessary it was that he which purposed to save their Souls should as he did touch their Hearts with true unfeigned repentance that his mercy might restore them again to life whom Sinne had made the children of Death and Condemnation Touching the point therefore I hope I may safely set down that if the Justified erre as he may and never come to understand his errour God doth save him through general repentance But if he fall into Heresie he calleth him at one time or other by actual repentance but from Infidelity which is an inward direct denial of the foundation he preserveth him by special providence for ever Whereby we may easily know what to think of those Galatians whose hearts were so possest with the love of the Truth that if it had been possible they would have pluckt out their eyes to bestow upon their Teachers It is true that they were greatly changed both in perswasion and affection so that the Galatians when Saint Paul wrote unto them were not now the Galatians which they had been in former time for that through errour they wandred although they were his sheep I do not deny but that I should deny that they were his sheep if I should grant that through errour they perished It was a perilous opinion that they held perilous even in them that held it only as an Errour because it overthroweth the foundation by consequent But in them which obstinately maintain it I cannot think it less than a damnable Heresie We must therefore put a difference between them which erre of ignorance retaining neverthelesse a mind desirous to be instructed in Truth and them which after the Truth is laid open persist in the stubborn defence of their blindness Heretical defenders froward and stiff-necked Teachers of Circumcision the blessed Apostle calls Doggs Silly men who were seduced to think they taught the Truth he pitieth he taketh up in his arms he lovingly imbraceth he kisseth and with more than fatherly tenderness doth so temper qualifie and correct the speech he useth towards them that a man cannot easily discern whether did most abound the love which he bare to to their godly
as dust we may be brought at the length to esteem vilely that Spiritual Blisse Christ in Matth. 6. to correct this evil affection putteth us in minde to lay up treasure for our selves in Heaven The Apostle â— Tim. Chapter 3. misliking the vanity of those Women which attired themselves more costly than beseemed the Heavenly Calling of such as professed the fear of God willeth them to cloath themselves with Shamefastnesse and Modesty and to put on the Apparel of Good works Taliter pigmentata Deum habehitis amatorem saith Tertullian Put on Righteousnesse as a Garment instead of Civit have Faith which may cause a savour of life to issue from you and God shall be enamoured he shall be ravished with your beauty These are the Ornaments and Bracelets and Jewels which inflame the love of Christ and set his heart on fire upon his Spouse We see how he breaketh out in the Canticles at the beholding of this attire How fair art thou and how pleasant art thou O my Love in these pleasures 9. And perhaps St. Iude exhorteth us here not to build our Houses but our selves foreseeing by the Spirit of the Almighty which was with him that there should be men in the last days like to those in the first which should encourage and stir up each other to make Brick and to burn it in the fire to build Houses huge as Cities and Towers as high as Heaven thereby to get them a name upon Earth men that should turn out the poor and the Fatherless and the Widow to build places of rest for Dogs and Swine in their rooms men that should lay Houses of Prayer even with the ground and make them Stables where God's people have worshipped before the Lord. Surely this is a vanity of all vanities and it is much amongst men a special sicknesse of this age What it should mean I know not except God have set them on work to provide fewel against that day when the Lord Jesus shall shew himself from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire What good cometh unto the owners of these things saith Solomon but onely the beholding thereof with their eyes Martha Martha thou busiest thy self about many things One thing is necessary Ye are too busie my Brethren with Timber and Brick they have chosen the better part they have taken a better course that build themselves Ye are the Temples of the living God as God hath said I will dwell in them and will walk in them and they shall be my People and I will be their God 10. Which of you will gladly remain or abide in a mishapen a ruinous or a broken House And shall we suffer sinne and vanity to drop in at our eyes and at our ears and at every corner of our Bodies and of our Souls knowing that we are the Temples of the Holy Ghost which of you receiveth a Guest whom he honoureth or whom he loveth and doth not sweep his Chamber against his coming And shall we suffer the Chambers of our Hearts and Consciences to lye full of vomiting full of filth full of garbidge knowing that Christ hath said I and my Father will come and dwell with you Is it meet for your Oxen to lye in Parlors and your selves to lodge in Cribs Or is it seemly for your selves to dwell in your seiled houses and the House of the Almighty to lye waste whose House ye are yourselves Do not our eys behold how God every day overtaketh the wicked in their Journeys how suddenly they pop down into the Pit how God's judgements for their Crimes come so swiftly upon them that they have not the leisure to cry Alas how their life is cutt off like a thred in a moment how they passe like a shadow how they open their mouths to speak and God taketh them even in the midst of a vain or an idle Word And dare we for all this lye down take our rest eat our meat securely and carelesly in the midst of so great and so many ruines Blessed and praised for ever and ever be his Name who perceiving of how senseless and heavy metal we are made hath instituted in his CHURCH a Spiritual Supper and an Holy Communion to be Celebrated often That we might thereby be occasioned often to examine these Buildings of ours in what case they stand For sith God doth not dwell in Temples which are unclean sith a Shrine cannot be a Sanctuary unto him and this Supper is received as a Seal unto us that we are his House and his Sanctuary that his Christ is as truly united to me and I to him as my arm is united and knit unto my shoulder that he dwelleth in me as verily as the elements of Bread and Wine abide within me which perswasion by receiving these dreadful mysteries we profess our selves to have a due comfort if truly and if in hypocrisie then wo worth us Therefore ere we put forth our hands to take this blessed Sacrament we are charged to examine and to try our hearts whether God be in us of a truth or no and if by Faith and love unfeigned we be found the Temples of the Holy Ghost then to judge whether we have had such regard every one to our building that the Spirit which dwelleth in us hath no way been vexed molested and grieved or if it have as no doubt sometimes it hath by incredulity sometimes by breach of charity sometimes by want of zeal sometimes by spots of life even in the best and most perfect amongst us for who can say his heart is clean O then to fly unto God by unfeigned repentance to fall down before him in the humility of our Souls begging of him whatsoever is needful to repair our decays before we fall into that desolation whereof the Prophet speaketh saying Thy breach is great like the Sea who can heal thee 11. Receiving the Sacrament of the Supper of the Lord after this sort you that are Spiritual judge what I speak is not all other Wine like the Water of Merah being compared to the Cup which we bless Is not Manna like to gall and our bread like to Manna Is there not a taste a taste of Christ Jesus in the heart of him that eateth Doth not he which drinketh behold plainly in this Cup that his Soul is bathed in the blood of the Lamb O beloved in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ if ye will taste how sweet the Lord is if ye will receive the King of Glory Build your selves 12. Young men I speak this to you for ye are his House because by Faith ye are Conquerors over Satan and have overcome that evil Fathers I speak it also to you ye are his House because ye have known him who is from the beginning Sweet Babes I speak it even to you also ye are his House because your sinnes are forgiven you for his names sake Matrons and Sisters I may not hold it from you ye are also
things are enjoyned them which God did never require at their hands and the things he doth require are kept from them their eyes are fed with pictures and their ears are filled with melody but their souls do wither and starve and pine away they cry for bread and behold stones are offered them they ask for fish and see they have Scorpions in their hands Thou seest O Lord that they build themselves but not in faith they feed their Children but not with food their Rulers say with shame Bring and not build But God is Righteous their drunkenness stinketh their abominations are known their madness is manifest the wince hath bound them up in her wings and they shall be ashamed of their doings Ephraim saith the Prophet is joyned to Idols let him alone I will turn me therefore from the Priests which do minister unto Idols and apply this Exhortation to them whom God hath appointed to feed his Chosen in Israel 32. If there be any feeling of Christ any drop of heavenly dew or any spark of God's good spirit within you stir it up be careful to build and edifie first your selves and then your flocks in this most holy Faith 33. I say first your selves For hâ— which will set the hearts of other men on fire with the love of Christ must himself burn with love It is want of faith in our selves my Brethren which makes us wretchless in building others We forsake the Lords inheritance and feed it not What is the reason of this Our own desires are settled where they should not be We our selves are like those women which have a longing to eat coals and lime aud filth we are fed some with honour some with ease some with wealth the Gospel waxeth loathsom and unpleasant in our taste how should we then have a care to feed others with that which we cannot fancy our selves If Faith wax cold and slender in the heart of the Prophet it will soon perish from the ears of the People The Prophet Amos speaketh of a famine saying I will send a famine in the Land not a famine of bread nor a thirst of water but of hearing the Word of the Lord. Men shall wander from sea to sea and from the North unto the East shall they ran to and fro to seek the Word of the Lord and shall not finde it Iudgement must begin at the House of God saith Peter Yea I say at the Sanctuary of God this judgement must begin This famine must begin at the heart of the Prophet He must have darkness for a vision he must stumble at noon day as at the twi-light and then truth shall fall in the midst of the streets then shall the people wander from sea to sea and from the North unto the East shall they run to and fro to seek the Word of the Lord. 34. In the second of Haggai Speak now saith God to his Prophet Speak now to Zerubbabel the Son of Shealtiel Prince of Iudah and to Iehoshua the Son of Iehosadak the High-priest and to the residue of the people saying Who is left among you that saw this House in her first glory and how do you see it now Is not this House in your eyes in comparison of it is nothing The Prophet would have all mens eyes turned to the view of themselves every sort brought to the consideration of their present state This is no place to shew what duty Zerubbabel or Iehoshuah doth owe unto God in this respect They have I doubt not such as put them hereof in remembrance I ask of you which are a part of the residue of God's Elect and chosen people Who is there amongst you that hath taken a survey of the House of God as it was in the days of the blessed Apostles of Jesus Christ Who is there amongst you that hath seen and considered this Holy Temple in her first glory And how do you see it now Is it not in comparison of the other almost as nothing when ye look upon them which have undertaken the charge of your Souls and know how far these are for the most part grown out of kind how few there be that tread the steps of their antient Predecessors ye are easily filled with indignation easily drawn unto these complaints wherein the difference of present from former times is bewailed easily perswaded to think of them that lived to enjoy the days which now are gone that surely they were happy in comparison of us that have succeeded them Were not their Bishops men unreproveable wise righteous holy temperate well-reported of even of those which were without Were not their Pastors Guides and Teachers able and willing to exhort with wholsome Doctrine and to reprove those which gain-said the Truth had they Priests made of the reffuse of the people were men like to the children which were in Niniveh unable to discern between the right hand and the left presented to the charge of their Congregations did their Teachers leave their flocks over which the Holy Ghost had made them Overseers did their Prophets enter upon holy things as spoils without a reverend calling were their Leaders so unkindly affected towards them that they could finde in their hearts to sell them as sheep or oxen not caring how they made them away But Beloved deceive not your selves Do the faults of your Guides and Pastors offend you it is your fault if they be thus faulty Nullus quimalum Rectorem patitur cum accuset quia sai fuit meriti perversi Pastoris subjacere ditioni saith St. Gregory whosoever thou art whom the inconvenience of an evil Governor doth press accuse thy self and not him his being such is thy deserving O ye disobedient Children turn again saith the Lord and then will I give you Pastors according to mine own heart which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding So that the onely way to repair all ruines breaches and offensive decays in others is to begin reformation at your selves Which that we may all sincerely seriously and speedily do God the Father grant for his Son our Saviour Jesus sake unto whom with the Holy Ghost three Persons one Eternal and Everlasting God be honour and glory and praise for ever Amen FINIS * This you may find in the Temple Reconds Will. Ermstead was Master of the Temple at the Dissolution of the Priory and diâ—d 2. Eliz. Richard Alvey Bat. l. ivinity paâ— 13. Feâ— 2 Eliz. Magister sive Cujtos DemuÌ„s Ecclestae nevi Templle died 27 Bez. Richard Hooker Succeeded that year by Patent in terminiâ— as Alvy had â—â— and he left it 32 Eliz. Tint year Dr. Belgey succeeded Richard Hooker * Mr. Dering †See Bishop Spotswoods History of the Church of Scotland * In his Annals of Elâ—â— 1599. * Iohn Whitgift the Archbishop * Hâ—â—eâ— and Cappergot The cause of Writing this General Discourse Greg. Nat. Sulp. Seveâ—â— Epist. Hist. Eccles. Leg. Carol. Mag. fol. 421 Judg.
hinder it from taking place and in such cases if any strange or new thing seem requisite to be done a strange and new opinion concerning the lawfulness thereof is withal received and broached under countenance of Divine Authority One example herein may serve for many to shew That false opinions touching the Will of God to have things done are wont to bring forth mighty and violent practices against the hinderances of them And those practices new opinions more pernicious then the first yea most extreamly sometimes opposite to that which the first did seem to intend Where the people took upon them the Reformation of the Church by casting out Popish Superstition they having received from their Pastors a General Instruction that whatsoever the Heavenly Father hath not planted must be rootod out proceeded in some foreign places so far that down went Oratories and the very Temples of God themselves For as they chanced to take the compass of their Commission stricter or larger so their dealings were accordingly more or less moderate Amongst others there sprang up presently one kinde of men with whose zeal and forwardness the rest being compared were thought to be marvellous cold and dull These grounding themselves on Rules more general that whatsoever the Law of Christ commandeth not thereof Antichrist is the Author and that whatsoever Antichrist or his adherents did in the World the true Professors of Christ are to undo found out many things more then others had done the Extirpation whereof was in their conceit as necessary as of any thing before removed Hereupon they secretly made their doleful complaints every where as they went that albeit the World did begin to profess some dislike of that which was evil in the Kingdom of Darkness yet Fruits worthy of a true-Repentance were not seen and that if men did repent as they ought they must endeavor to purge the truth of all manner evil to the end there might follow a new World afterward wherein righteousness onely should dwell Private Repentance they said â—â—st appear by every mans fashioning his own life contrary unto the custom and orders of this present World both in greater things and in less To this purpose they had always in their mouths those greater things Charity Faith the true fear of God the Cross the Mortification of the flesh All their Exhortations were to set light of the things in this World to account riches and honors vanity and in taken thereof not onely to seek neither but if men were possessors of both even to cast away the one and resign the other that all men might see their unfeigned conversion unto Christ. They were Sollicitors of Men to Fasts to often Meditations of Heavenly things and as it were Conferences in secret with God by Prayers not framed according to the frozen manner of the World but expressing such fervent desires as might even force God to heaâ—ken unto them Where they found men in Diet Attire Furniture of House or any other way observers of civility and decent order such they reproved as being carnally and earthly minded Every word otherwise then severely and sadly uttered seemed to pierce like a Sword theron them If any man were pleasant their manner was presently with sighs to repeat those words of our Saviour Christ Wo be to you which now laugh for ye shall lament So great was their delight to be always in trouble that such as did quietly lead their lives they judged of all other men to be in most dangerous case They so much affected to cross the ordinary custom in every thing that when other mens use was to put on better attire they would be sure to shew themselves openly abroad in worses The ordinary names of the days in the week they thought it a kinde of prophaneness to use and therefore accustomed themselves to make no other distinction then by Numbers The first second third day From this they proceeded unto Publick Reformation first Ecclesiastical and then Civil Touching the former they boldly avouched that themselves onely had the Truth which thing upon peril of their lives they would at all times defend and that since the Apostles lived the same was never before in all points sincerely taught Wherefore that things might again be brought to that ancient integrity which Iesus Christ by his Word requireth they began to controll the Ministers of the Gospel for attributing so much force and vertue unto the Scriptures of God read whereas the Truth was that when the Word is said to engender Faith in the Heart and to convert the Soul of Man or to work any such Spiritual Divine effect these speeches are not thereunto appliable as it is read or preached but as it is ingrafted in us by the power of the Holy Ghost opening the eyes of our understanding and so revealing the Mysteries of God according to that which Jeremy promised before should be saying I will put my Law in their inward parts and I will write it in their hearts The Book of God they notwithstanding for the most part so admired that other disputation against their opinions then onely by allegation of Scripture they would not hear besides it they thought no other Writings in the World should be studied in so much as one of their great Prophets exhorting them to cast away all respects unto Humane Writings so far to his motion they condescended that as many as had any Books save the Holy Bible in their custody they brought and set them publickly on fire When they and their Bibles were alone together what strange phantastical opinion soever at any time entred into their heads their use was to think the Spirit taught it them Their phrensies concerning our Saviours Incarnation the state of Souls departed and such like are things needless to be rehearsed And for as much as they were of the same Suit with those of whom the Apostle speaketh saying They are still learning but never attain to the knowledge of truth it was no marvel to see them every day broach some new thing not heard of before Which restless levity they did interpret to be their growing to Spiritual Perfection and a proceeding from Faith to Faith The differences amongst them grew by this mean in a manner infinite so that scarcely was there found any one of them the forge of whose Brain was not possest with some special mystery Whereupon although their mutual contentions were most fiercely prosecuted amongst themselves yet when they came to defend the cause common to them all against the Adversaries of their Faction they had ways to lick one another whole the sounder in his own perswasion excusing THE DEAR BRETHREN which were not so far enlightned and professing a charitable hope of the Mercy of God towards them notwithstanding their swerving from him in some things Their own Ministers they highly magnified as men whose vocation was from God The
things escape them and in many things they may be deceived yea those things which they do know they may either forget or upon sundry indirect considerations let pass and although themselves do not erre yet may they through malice or vanity even of purpose deceive others Howbeit infinite cases there are wherein all these impediments and lets are so manifestly excluded that there is no shew or colour whereby any such Exception may be taken but that the testimony of man will stand as a ground of infallible assurance That there is a City of Rome that Pins Quintus and Gregory the thirteenth and others have been Popes of Rome I suppose we are certainly enough perswaded The ground of our perswasion who never saw the place nor persons before named can be nothing but mans testimony Will any man here notwithstanding alledge those mentioned humane infirmities as Reasons why these things should be mistrusted or doubted of yea that which is more utterly to infringe the force and strength of mans testimony were to shake the very Fortress of Gods truth For whatsoever we believe concerning Salvation by Christ although the Scripture be therein the ground of our belief yet the authority of man is if we mark it the key which openeth the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scripture The Scripture doth not teach us the things that are of God unless we did credit men who have taught us that the words of Scripture do signifie those things Some way therefore notwithstanding mans infirmity yet his Authority may inforce assent Upon better advice and deliberation so much is perceived and at the length confest that Arguments taken from the Authority of men may not only so far forth as hath been declared but further also be of some force in Humane Sciences which force be it never so small doth shew that they are not utterly naught But in Matters Divine it is still maintained stifly that they have no manner force at all Howbeit the very self same reason which causeth to yield that they are of some force in the one will at the length constrain also to acknowledge that they are not in the other altogether unforcible For it the natural strength of mans wit may by experience and stucie attain unto such ripeness in the knowledge of things humane that men in this respect may presume to build somewhat upon their judgement what reason have we to think but that even in matters Divine the like wits furnisht with necessary helps exercised in Scripture with like diligence and assisted with the grace of Almighty God may grow unto so much perfection of knowledge that men shall have just cause when any thing pertinent unto Faith and Religion is doubted of the more willingly to encline their mindes towards that which the sentence of so grave wise and learned in that faculty shall judge most sound For the controversie is of the weight of such mens judgements Let it therefore be suspected let it be taken as gross corrupt repugnant unto the truth whatsoever concerning things divine above nature shall at any time be spoken as out of the mouths of meer natural men which have not the eyes wherewith heavenly things are discerned For this we contend not But whom God hath endued with principal gifts to aspire unto knowledge by whose exercises labours and divine studies he hath so blest that the World for their great and rate skill that way hath them in singular admiration may we reject even their judgement likewise as being utterly of no moment For mine own part I dare not so lightly esteem of the Church and of the principal Pillars therein The truth is that the minde of man desireth evermore to know the truth according to the most infallible certainty which the nature of things can yield The greatest assurance generally with all men is that which we have by plain aspect and intuitive beholding Where we cannot attain unto this thereâ— what appeareth to be true by strong and invincible demonstration such as wherein it is not by any way possible to be deceived thereunto the minde doth necessarily assent neither is it in the choice thereof to do otherwise And in case these both do fail then which way greatest probability leadeth thither the minde doth evermore incline Scripture with Christian men being received as the Word of God that for which we have probable yea that which we have necessary reason for yea that which we see with out eyes is not thought so sure as that which the Scripture of God teacheth because we hold that his speech revealeth there what himself seeth and therefore the strongest proof of all and the most necessarily assented unto by us which do thus receive the Scripture is the Scripture Now it is not required nor can be exacted at our hands that we should yield unto any thing other assent then such as doth answer the evidence which is to be had of that we assent unto For which cause even in matters Divine concerning some things we may lawfuly doubt and suspend our judgement enclining neither to one side or other as namely touching the time of the fall both of man and Angels of some things we may very well retain an opinion that they are probable and not unlikely to be true as when we hold that men have their souls rather by creation then propagation or that the Mother of our Lord lived always in the state of Virginity as well after his birth as before for of these two the one her virginity before is a thing which of necessity we must believe the other her continuance in the same state always hath more likelihood of truth then the contrary finally in all things then are our Consciences best resolved and in a most agreeable sore unto God and Nature setled when they are so far perswaded as those grounds of â—erswasion which are to be had will bear Which thing I do so much the rather set down for that I see how a number of souls are for want of right Information in this Point oftentimes grievously vexed When bare and unbuilded Conclusions are put into their mindes they finding not themselves to have thereof any great certainty imagine that this proceedeth only from lack of Faith and that the Spirit God doth not work in them as it doth in true Believers by this means their hearts are much troubled they fall into anquish and perplexity whereas the truth is that how bold and confident soever we may be in words when it cometh to the point of trial such as the evidence is which the Truth hath either in it self or through proof such is the hearts assent thereunto neither can it be stronger being grounded as it should be I grant that proof derived from the authority of mans judgement is not able to work that assurance which doth grow by a stronger proof and therefore although ten thousand General Councils would set down one and the same definitive sentence
or Light of Reason or Learning or other help they may be received so they be not against the Word of God but according at leastwise unto the general Rules of Scripture they must be made Which is in effect as much as to say We know not what to say wel in defence of this Position And therefore lest we should say it is false there is no remedy but to say that in some sense or other it may be true if we could tell how First that Scholy had need of a very favorable Reader and a tractable that should think it plain construction when to be commanded in the Word and grounded upon the Word are made all one If when a man may live in the state of Matrimony seeking that good thereby which Nature principally desireth he make rather choice of a contrary life in regard of St. Pauls judgment That which he doth is manifestly grounded upon the Word of God yet not commanded in his Word because without breach of any Commandment he might do otherwise Secondly whereas no man in Justice and Reason can be reproved for those actions which are framed according unto that known Will of God whereby they are to be judged and the Will of God which we are to judge our actions by no sound Divine in the World ever denied to be in part made manifest even by the Light of Nature and not by Scripture alone If the Church being directed by the former of these two which God hath given who gave the other that man might in different sort be guided by them both if the Church I say do approve and establish that which thereby it judgeth meet and sindeth not repugnant to any word or syllable of holy Scripture who shall warrant our presumptuous boldness controuling herein the Church of Christ But so it is the name of the Light of Nature is made hateful with men the Star of Reason and Learning and all other such like helps beginneth no otherwise to be thought of then if it were an unlucky Comet or as if God had so accursed it that it should never shine or give light in things concerning our duty any way towards him but be esteemed as that Star in the Revelation called Wormword which being faln from Heaven maketh Rivers and Waters in which it falleth so bitter that men tasting them die thereof A number there are who think they cannot admire as they ought the power and authority of the Word of God if in things Divine they should attribute any force to Mans reason For which cause they never use reason so willingly as to disgrace Reason Their usual and common Discourses are unto this effect First The Natural Man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God For they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned Secondly It is not for nothing that St. Paul giveth charge to beware of Philosophy that is to say such knowledge as Men by Natural Reason attain unto Thirdly Consider them that have from time to time opposed themselves against the Gospel of Christ and most troubled the Church with Heresie Have they not always been great admirers of Humane Reason Hath their deep and profound skill in Secular Learning made them the more obedient to the Truth and not armed them rather against it Fourthly They that fear God will remember how heavy his sentences are in this case I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will cast away the Understanding of the Prudent Where is the Wise Where is the Scribe Where is the Disputer of this World Hath not God made the Wisdom of this World foolishness Seeing the World by Wisdom know not God In the Wisdom of God it pleased God by the foolishness of Preaching to save Believers Fifthly The Word of God in it self is absolute exact and perfect The Word of God is a two-edged sword as for the Weapons of Natural Reason they are as the Armor of Saul rather cumbersome about the Soldier of Christ then needful They are not of force to do that which the Apostles of Christ did by the power of the Holy Ghost My Preaching therefore saith Paul hath not been in the inticing speech of Mans wisdom but in plain evidence of the Spirit of Power that your Faith might not be in the Wisdom of men but in the Power of God Sixthly If I believe the Gospel there needeth no reasoning about it to perswade me If I do not believe it must be the Spirit of God and not the Reason of Man that shall convert my heart unto him By these and the like Disputes an opinion hath spred it self very far in the World as if the way to be ripe in Faith were to be raw in Wit and Judgment as if Reason were an enemy unto Religion childish simplicity the Mother of Ghostly and Divine Wisdom The cause why such Declamations prevail so greatly is For that men suffer themselves in two respects to be deluded one is that the Wisdom of Man being debased either in comparison with that of God or in regard of some special thing exceeding the reach and compass thereof it seemeth to them not marking so much as if simply it were condemned another That Learning Knowledge or Wisdom falsly so termed usurping a name whereof they are not worthy and being under that name controuled their reproof is by so much the more easily misapplied and through equivocation wrested against those things whereunto so precious names do properly and of right belong This duly observed doth to the former Allegations it self make sufficient answer Howbeit for all Mens plainer and fuller satisfaction First Concerning the inability of Reason to search out and to judge of things Divine if they be such as those properties of God and those duties of Men towards him which may be conceived by attentive consideration of Heaven and Earth We know that of meer Natural Men the Apostle testifieth How they knew both God and the Law of God Other things of God there be which are neither so found nor though they be shewed can ever be approved without the special operation of Gods good Grace and Spirit Of such things sometime spake the Apostle St. Paul declaring how Christ had called him to be a Witness of his Death and Resurrection from the Dead according to that which the Prophets and Moses had foreshewed Festus a meer Natural man an Infidel a Roman one whose ears were unacquainted with such matter heard him but could not reach unto that whereof he spake the suffering and the rising of Christ from the dead he rejected as idle superstitious fancies not worth the hearing The Apostle that knew them by the Spirit and spake of them with Power of the Holy Ghost seemed in his eyes but learnedly mad Which example maketh manifest what elswhere the same Apostle teacheth namely that Nature hath need of Grace whereunto I hope we are
or Rites as publickly are established is when there ariseth from the due consideration of those Customs and Rites in themselves apparent reason although not alwayes to prove them better than any other that might possibly be devised for who did ever require this in man's Ordinances yet competent to shew their conveniency and fitness in regard of the use for which they should serve Now touching the nature of religious Services and the manner of their due performance thus much generally we know to be most clear that whereas the greatness and dignity of all manner of Actions is measured by the worthiness of the Subject from which they proceed and of the Object whereabout they are conversant we must of necessity in both respects acknowledge that this present World affordeth not any thing comparable unto the publick Duties of Religion For if the best things have the perfectest and best operations it will follow that seeing Man is the worthiest Creature upon earth and every Society of Men more worthy than any Man and of Societies that most excellent which we call the Church there can be in this World no work performed equal to the exercise of true Religion the proper operation of the Church of God Again forasmuch as Religion worketh upon him who in Majesty and Power is infinite as we ought we account not of it unless we esteem it even according to that very height of Excellency which our hearts conceive when Divine sublimity it self is rightly considered In the powers and faculties of our Souls God requireth the uttermost which our unfeigned affection towards him is able to yield So that if we affect him not farr above and before all things our Religion hath not that inward perfection which it should have neither do we indeed worship him as our God That which inwardly each man should be the Church outwardly ought to testifie And therefore the Duties of our Religion which are seen must be such as that affection which is unseen ought to be Signs must resemble the Things they signifie If Religion bear the greatest sway in our Hearts our outward religious Duties must shew it as farr as the Church hath outward Ability Duties of Religion performed by whole Societies of men ought to have in them according to our power a sensible Excellency correspondent to the Majesty of Him whom we worship Yea then are the publick Duties of Religion best ordered when the Militant Church doth resemble by sensible means as it may in such cases that hidden Dignity and Glory wherewith the Church Triumphant in Heaven is beautified Howbeit even as the very heat of the Sun it self which is the life of the whole World was to the people of God in the Desert a grievous annoyance for ease whereof his extraordinary Providence ordained a Cloudy Pillar to over-shadow them So things of general use and benefit for in this world What is so perfect that no Inconvenience doth ever follow itâ— may by some accident be incommodious to a few In which case for such private Evils remedies thereare of like condition though publick Ordinances wherein the Common good is respected be not stirred Let our first Demand be therefore That in the External Form of Religion such things as are apparently or can be sufficiently proved effectual and generally fit to setforward Godliness either as betokening the greatness of God or as beseeming the Dignity of Religion or as concurring with Celestial Impressions in the mindes of men may be reverently thought of some few rare casual and tollerable or otherwise curable Inconveniences notwithstanding 7. Neither may we in this Case lightly esteem what hath been allowed as fit in the judgment of Antiquity and by the long continued practise of the whole Church from which unnecessarily to swerve Experience never as yet hath found it safe For Wisdom's sake we reverence them no less that are young or not much less then if they were stricken in years And therefore of such it is rightly said That the ripeness of Understanding is gray Hair and their Vertues old Age. But because Wisdom and Youth are seldom joyned in one and the ordinary course of the World is more according to Iob's Observation who giveth men advice to seek Wisdom amongst the Antient and in the length of Dayes Understanding therefore if the Comparison do stand between Man and Man which shall hearken unto other sith the Aged for the most part are best experienced least subject to rash and unadvised Passions it hath been ever judged reasonable That their Sentence in matter of Counsel should be better trusted and more relyed upon than other mens The goodness of God having furnished men with two chief Instruments both necessary for this life Hands to execute and a Mind to devise great things the one is not profitable longer than the vigour of Youth doth strengthen it nor the other greatly till Age and Experience have brought it to Perfection In whom therefore Time hath not perfected Knowledge such must be contented to follow them in whom it hath For this Cause none is more attentively heard than they whose Speeches are as Davids were I have been Young and now am Old much I have seen and observed in the World Sharp and subtile discourses of Wit procure many times very great applause but being laid in the Ballance with that which the habit of sound Experience plainly delivereth they are over-weighed God may endue Men extraordinarily with Understanding as it pleaseth him But let no Man presuming thereupon neglect the Instructions or despite the Ordinances of his Elders sith he whose gift Wisdom is hath said Ask thy Father and he will shew thee thine Antients and they shall tell thee It is therefore the Voyce both of God and Nature not of Learning only that especially in matters of Action and Policy The sentences and judgements of Men experienced aged and wise yea though they speak without any proof or demonstration are no less to be hearkned unto than as being Demonstrations in themselves because such Mens long Observation is as an Eye wherewith they presently and plainly behold those Principles which sway over all Actions Whereby we are taught both the Cause wherefore Wise-mens Judgments should be credited and the Mean how to use their Judgments to the increase of our own Wisdom That which sheweth them to be Wise is the gathering of Principles out of their own particular Experiments And the framing of our particular Experiments according to the Rule of their Principles shall make us such as they are If therefore even at the first so great account should be made of Wise mens Counsels touching things that are Publickly done as time shall add thereunto continuance and approbation of succeeding Ages their Credit and Authority must needs be greater They which do nothing but that which men of Account did before them are although they do amiss yet the less faulty because they are not the Authors of
finde by daily experience that those calamities may be nearest at hand readiest to break in suddenly upon us which we in regard of times or circumstances may imagine to be farthest off Or if they do not indeed approach yet such miseries as being present all men are apt to bewail with tears the wise by their Prayers should rather prevent Finally if we for our selves had a priviledge of immunity doth not true Christian Charity require that whatsoever any part of the World yea any one of all our Brethren elswhere doth either suffer or fear the same we account as our own burthen What one Petition is there found in the whole Litany whereof we shall ever be able at any time to say That no man living needeth the grace or benefit therein craved at Gods hands I am not able to express how much it doth grieve me that things of Principal Excellency should be thus bitten at by men whom God hath endued with graces both of Wit and Learning for better purposes We have from the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ received that brief Confession of Faith which hath been always a badge of the Church a mark whereby to discern Christian men from Infidels and Jews This Faith received from the Apostles and their Disciples saith Ireneus the Church though dispersed throughout the World doth notwithstanding keep as safe as if it dwels within the Walls of some one house and as uniformly hold as if it had but one onely heart and soul this as consonantly it Preacheth teacheth and delivereth as if but one tongue did speak for all At one Sun shineth to the whole World so there is no Faith but this one published the brightness whereof must enlighten all that come to the knowledge of the Truth This rule saith Tertullian Christ did institute the stream and current of this rule hath gone as far it hath continued as long as the very promulgation of the Gospel Under Constantine the Emperor about Three hundred years and upward after Christ Arius a Priest in the Church of Alexandria a suttle-witted and a marvellous fair-spoken man but discontented that one should be placed before him in honor whose superior he thought himself in desert became through envy and stomack prone unto contradiction and hold to broach at the length that Heresie wherein the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ contained but not opened in the former Creed the coequality and coeternity of the Son with the Father was denied Being for this impiety deprived of his place by the Bishop of the same Church the punishment which should have reformed him did but increase his obstinacy and give him occasion of laboring with greater earnestness elswhere to intangle unwary mindes with the snares of his damnable opinion Arius in short time had won to himself a number both of Followers and of great Defenders whereupon much disquietness on all sides ensued The Emperor to reduce the Church of Christ unto the Unity of sound Belief when other means whereof tryal was first made took no effect gathered that famous Assembly of Three hundred and eighteen Bishops in the Council of Nice where besides order taken for many things which seemed to need redress there was with common consent for the setling of all mens mindes that other Confession of Faith set down which we call the Nicene Creed whereunto the Arians themselves which were present subscribed also not that they meant sincerely and indeed to forsake their error but onely to escape deprivation and exile which they saw they could not avoid openly persisting in their former opinions when the greater part had concluded against them and that with the Emperors Royal Assent Reserving therefore themselves unto future opportunities and knowing that it would not boot them to stir again in a matter so composed unless they could draw the Emperor first and by his means the chiefest Bishops unto their part till Constantines death and somewhat after they always professed love and zeal to the Nicene Faith yet ceased not in the mean while to strengthen that part which in heart they favored and to infest by all means under colour of other quarrels their greatest Adversaries in this cause Amongst them Athanasius especially whom by the space of Forty six years from the time of his Consecration to succeed Alexander Archbishop in the Church of Alexandria till the last hour of his life in this World they never suffered to enjoy the comfort of a peaceable day The heart of Constantine stoln from him Constantius Constantines Successor his scourge and torment by all the ways that malice armed with Soveraign Authority could devise and use Under Iulian no rest given him and in the days of Valentinian as little Crimes there were laid to his charge many the least whereof being just had bereaved him of estimation and credit with men while the World standeth His Judges evermore the self-same men by whom his accusers were suborned Yet the issue always on their part shame on his triumph Those Bishops and Prelates who should have accounted his cause theirs and could not many of them but with bleeding hearts and with watred checks behold a person of so great place and worth constrained to endure so soul indignities were sure by bewraying their affection towards him to bring upon themselves those molestations whereby if they would not be drawn to seem his Adversaries yet others should be taught how unsafe it was to continue his friends Whereupon it came to pass in the end that very few excepted all became subject to the sway of time other odds there was none amongst them saving onely that some fell sooner away some latter from the soundness of Belief some were Leaders in the Host of Impiety and the rest as common Soldiers either yielding through fear or brought under with penury or by flattery ensnared or else beguiled through simplicity which is the fairest excuse that well may be made for them Yes that which all men did wonder at Osius the ancientest Bishop that Christendom then had the most forward in defence of the Catholick cause and of the contrary part most feared that very Osius with whose hand the Nicene Creed it self was set down and framed for the whole Christian World to subscribe unto so far yielded in the end as even with the same hand to ratifie the Arians Confession a thing which they neither hoped to see nor the other part ever feared till with amazement they saw it done Both were perswaded that although there had been for Osius no way but either presently subscribe or die his answer and choice would have been the same that Eleazars was It doth not become our age to dissemble whereby many young persons might think that Osius in hundred years old and upward were now gone to another Religion and so through mine hypocrisie for a little time of transitory life they might be deceived by me and I procure malediction and reproach to my old
desires of aspiring thereunto and extreme discontentment as oft as they were defeated even this doth shew that the state of Bishops was not a few degrees advanced above the rest Wherefore of grand Apostates which were in the very prime of the Primitive Church thus Lactantius above thirteen hundred years sithence testified Men of a slippery saith they were who feigning that they knew and worshipped God but seeking onely that they might grow in WEALTH and Honour affected the Place of the HIGHEST PRIESTHOOD whereunto when their Betters were chosen before them they thought it better to leave the Church and to draw their Favourers with them than to endure those men their Governours whom themselves desired to govern Now whereas against the present estate of Bishops and the greatness of their port and the largeness of their expences at this day there is not any thing more commonly objected than those antient Canons whereby they are restrained unto a far more sparing life their Houses their Retinue their Diet limited within a farr more narrow compass than is now kept we must know that those Laws and Orders were made when Bishops lived of the same Purse which served a well for a number of others as them and yet all at their disposing So that convenient it was to provide that there might be a moderate stint appointed to measure their expences by lest others should be injured by their wastefulness Contrariwise there is now no cause wherefore any such Law should be urged when Bishops live onely of that which hath been peculiarly alloted unto them They having therefore Temporalities and other Revenues to bestow for their own private use according to that which their state requireth and no other having with them any such common interest therein their own discretion is to be their Law for this matter neither are they to be pressed with the rigour of such antient Canons as were framed for other times much less so odiously to be upbraided with uncomformity unto the Pattern of our Lord and Saviour's estate in such circumstances as himself did never minde to require that the rest of the World should of necessity be like him Thus against the wealth of the Clergy they alledge how meanly Christ himself was provided for against Bishops Palaces his want of a hole to hide his Head in against the service done unto them that he came to minister not to be ministred unto in the World Which things as they are not unfit to controul covetous proud or ambitious desires of the Ministers of Christ and even of all Christians whatsoever they be and to teach men contentment of minde how mean soever their estate is considering that they are but Servants to him whose condition was farrmore abused than theirs is or can be so to prove such difference in State between us and him unlawful they are of no force or strength at all If one convented before their Consistories when he standeth to make this Answer should break out into Invectives against their Authority and tell them that Christ when he was on Earth did not sit to judge but stand to be judged would they hereupon think it requisite to dissolve their Eldership and to permit no Tribunals no Judges at all for fear of swerving from our Saviour's example If those men who have nothing in their mouths more usual than the poverty of Jesus Christ and his Apostles alledge not this as Iulian sometime did Beati panperes unto Christians when his meaning was to spoyl them of that they had our hope is then that as they seriously and sincerely wish that our Saviour Christ in this point may be followed and to that end onely propose his blessed example so at our hands again they will be content to hear with like willingness the holy Apostle's Exhortation made unto them of the Laity also Be ye Followers of us even as we are of Christ let us be your example even as the Lord Iesus Christ is ours that we may all proceed by one and the same rule XXIV But beware we of following Christ as Thieves follow True-men to take their Goods by violence from them Be it that Bishops were all unworthy not onely of Livings but even of Life yet what hath our Lord Jesus Christ deserved for which men should judge him worthy to have the things that are his given away from him unto others that have no right unto them For at this mark it is that the head Lay-Reformers do all aim Must these unworthy Prelates give place What then Shall Better succeed in their rooms Is this desired to the end that others may enjoy their Honours which shall doe Christ more faithful service than they have done Bishops are the worst men living upon Earth therefore let their sanctified Possessions be divided Amongst whom O blessed Reformation O happy men that put to their helping-hands for the furtherance of so good and glorious a Work Wherefore albeit the whole World at this day do already perceive and Posterity be like hereafter a great deal more plainly to discern not that the Clergy of God is thus heaved at because they are wicked but that means are vsed to put it into the heads of the simple multitude that they are such indeed to the end that those who thirst for the spoyl or Spiritual Possessions may till such time as they have their purpose be thought to covet nothing but onely the just extinguishment of un-reformable Persons so that in regard of such mens intentions practices and machinations against them the part that suffereth these things may most fitly pray with David Iudge thou me O Lord according to my Righteousness and according unto mine innocency O let the malice of the wicked come to an end and be thou the guide of the just Notwithstanding forasmuch as it doth not stand with Christian humility otherwise to think then that this violent outrage of men is a rod in the ireful hands of the Lord our God the smart whereof we deserve to feel Let it not seem grievous in the eyes of my reverend L. L. the Bishops if to their good consideration I offer a view of those sores which are in the kind of their heavenly function most apt to breed and which being not in time cured may procure at the length that which God of his infinite mercy avert Of Bishops in his time St. Ierome complaineth that they took it in great disdain to have any fault great or small found with them Epiphanius likewise before Ierome noteth their impatiency this way to have been the very chuse of a Schism in the Church of Christ at what time one Audius a Man of great Integrity of life full of faith and zeal towards God beholding those things which were corruptly done in the Church told the B B. and Presbyters their faults in such sort as those men are wont who love the truth from their hearts and walk in the paths of a most exact
we teach plainly that To hold the foundation is in express terms to acknowledg it 25. Now because the foundation is an affirmative Proposition they all overthrow it who deny it they directly overthrow it who deny it directly and they overthrow it by consequent or indirectly which hold any one assertion whatsoever whereupon the direct denial thereof may be necessarily concluded What is the Question between the Gentiles and Us but this Whether salvation be by Christ What between the Iews and Us but this Whether by this Iesus whom we call Christ yea or no This is to be the main point whereupon Christianity standeth it is clear by that one sentence of Festus concerning Pauls accusers They brought no crime of such things as I supposed but had certain questions against him of their superstition and of one Iesus which was dead whom Paul affirmed to be alive Where we see that Jesus dead and raised for the Salvation of the World is by Iesus denied despised by a Gentile by a Christian Apostle maintained The Fathers therefore in the Primitive Church when they wrote Tertullian the book which he called Apologeticus Minutius Faelix the Book which he intitleth Octavius Arnobius the seventh books against the Gentiles Chrysostom his Orations against the Jews Eusebius his ten books of Evangelical demonstration they stand in defence of Christianity against them by whom the foundation thereof was directly denied But the writings of the Fathers against Novatians Pelagians and other Hereticks of the like note refel Positions whereby the foundation of Christian Faith was overthrown by consequent onely In the former sort of Writings the foundation is proved in the latter it is alledged as a proof which to men that had been known directly to deny must needs have seemed a very beggerly kind of disputing All Infidels therefore deny the foundation of Faith directly by consequent many a Christian man yea whole Christian Churches have denied it and do deny it at this present day Christian Churches the foundation of Christianity not directly for then they cease to be Christian Churches but by consequent in respect whereof we condemn them as erroneous although for holding the foundation we do and must hold them Christians 26. We see what it is to hold the foundation what directly and what by consequent to deny it The next thing which followeth is whether they whom God hath chosen to obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ may once effectually called and through faith justified truly afterwards fall so far as directly to deny the foundation which their hearts have before imbraced with joy and comfort in the Holy Ghost for such is the faith which indeed doth justifie Devils know the same things which we believe and the minds of the most ungodly may be fully perswaded of the Truth which knowledge in the one and in the other is sometimes termed faith but equivocally being indeed no such faith as that whereby a Christian man is justified It is the Spirit of Adoption which worketh faith in us in them not the things which we believe are by us apprehended not onely as true but also as good and that to us as good they are not by them apprehended as true they are Whereupon followeth the third difference the Christian man the more he encreaseth in faith the more his joy and comfort aboundeth but they the more sure they are of the truth the more they quake and tremble at it This begetteth another effect where the hearts of the one sort have a different disposition from the other Non ignoro plerosque conscientia meritorum nihil se esse per mortem magis optare quam credere Malunt cuim extingui penitus quam ad supplicia reparari I am not ignorant saith Minutius that there be many who being conscious what they are to look for do rather wish that they might then think that they shall cease when they cease to live because they hold it better that death should consume them unto nothing then God revive them unto punishment So it is in other Articles of Faith whereof wicked men think no doubt many times they are too true On the contrary side to the other there is no grief or torment greater then to feel their perswasion weak in thingsâ— whereof when they are perswaded they reap such comfort and joy of spirit such is the faith whereby we are justified such I mean in respect of the quality For touching the principal object of Faith longer then it holdeth the foundation whereof we have spoken it neither justifieth nor is but ceaseth to be faith when it ceaseth to believe that Jesus Christ is the onely Saviour of the World The cause of life spiritual in us is Christ not carnally or corporally inhabiting but dwelling in the soul of man as a thing which when the minde apprehendeth it is said to inhabite or possess the minde The minde conceiveth Christ by hearing the Doctrine of Christianity as the light of Nature doth the minde to apprehend those truths which are meerly rational so that saving truth which is far above the reach of Humane Reason cannot otherwise then by the Spirit of the Almighty be conceived All these are implied wheresoever any of them is mentioned as the cause of the spiritual life Wherefore if we have read that the spirit is our life or the Word our life or Christ our life We are in very of these to understand that our life is Christ by the hearing of the Gospel apprehended as a Saviour and assented unto through the power of the Holy Ghost The first intellectual conceit and comprehension of Christ so imbraced St. Peter calleth the seed whereof we be new born our first imbracing of Christ is our first reviving from the state of death and condemation He that hath the Son hath life saith St. Iohn and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life If therefore he which once hath the Son may cease to have the Son though it be for a moment he ceaseth for that moment to have life But the life of them which have the Son of God is everlasting in the world to come But because as Christ being raised from the dead dyed no more death hath no more power over him so justified man being allied to God in Jesus Christ our Lord doth as necessarily from that time forward always live as Christ by whom he hath life liyeth always I might if I had not otherwhere largely done it already shew by many and sundry manifest and clear proofs how the motions and operations of life are sometime so indiscernable and so secret that they seem stone-dead who notwithstanding are still alive unto God in Christ. For as long as that abideth in us which animateth quickneth and giveth life so long we live and we know that the cause of our Faith abideth in us for ever I. Christ the Fountain of Life may flit and leave the Habitation
declining or swarving aside which absolute perfection when did God ever finde in the Sons of mere mortal men Doth it not follow that all Flesh must of necessity fall down and confess We are not dust and ashes but worse our mindes from the highest to the lowest are not right If not right then undoubtedly not capable of that blessedness which we naturally seek but subject unto that which we most abhorr Anguish Tribulation Death Wo endless Misery For whatsoever misseth the way of Life the issue thereof cannot be but Perdition By which reason all being wrapped up in sinne and made thereby the Children of Death the mindes of all men being plainly convicted not to be right shall we think that God hath indued them with so many excellencies more not onely than any but then all the Creatures in the World besides to leave them in such estate that they had been happier if they they had never been Here commeth necessarily in a new way unto Salvation so that they which were in the other perverse may in this be found strait and righteous That the way of Nature this the way of Grace The end of that way Salvation merited presupposing the righteousness of mens works their Righteousness a natural hability to do them that hability the goodness of God which created them in such perfection But the end of this way Salvation bestowed upon men as a Gift presupposing not their righteousness but the forgiveness of their unrighteousness Justification their Justification not their natural ability to do good but their hearty sorrow for their not doing and unfeigned belief in him for whose sake not-doers are accepted which is their Vocation their Vocation the Election of God taking them out from the number of lost Children their Election a Mediator in whom to be elect This Mediation inexplicable Mercy his Mercy their Misery for whom he vouchsafed to make himself a Mediator The want of exact distinguishing between these two wayes and observing what they have common what peculiar hath been the cause of the greatest part of that confusion whereof Christianity at this day laboureth The lack of diligence in searching laying down and inuring mens mindes with those hidden grounds of Reason whereupon the least particular in each of these are most firmly and strongly builded is the onely reason of all those scruples and uncertainties wherewith we are in such sort intangled that a number despair of ever discerning what is right or wrong in any thing But we will let this matter rest whereinto we stepped to search out a way how some mindes may be and are right truly even in the sight of God though they be simply in themselves not right Howbeit there is not onely this difference between the just and impious that the minde of the one is right in the sight of God because his obliquity is not imputed the other perverse because his sin is unrepented of but even as lines that are drawn with a trembling hand but yet to the point which they should are thought ragged and uneven nevertheless direct in comparison of them which run clean another way so there is no incongruity in terming them right-minded men whom though God may charge with many things amiss yet they are not as those hideous and ugly Monsters in whom because there is nothing but wilful opposition of minde against God a more than tolerable deformity is noted in them by saying that their mindes are not right The Angel of the Church of Thyatyra unto whom the Son of God sendeth this greeting I know thy works and thy love and service and faith notwithstanding I have a few things against thee was not as he unto whom Saint Peter Thou hast no fellowship in this business for thy heart is not right in the sight of God So that whereat the orderly disposition of the minde of man should be this Perturbation and sensual Appetites all kept in awe by a moderate and sober will in all things frained by Reason Reason directed by the Law of God and Nature this Babylonian had his minde as it were turned upside down In him unreasonable cecity and blindnesse trampled all Laws both of God and Nature under seet Wilfulness tyrannized over Reason and Brutish Sensuality over Will An evident token that his out-rage would work his overthrow and procure his speedy ruine The Mother whereof was that which the Prophet in these words signified His minde doth swell Immoderate swelling a token of very eminent breach and of inevitable destruction Pride a vice which cleaveth so fast unto the hearts of men that if we were to strip our selves of all faults one by one we should undoubtedly finde it the very last and hardest to put off But I am not here to touch the secret itching humour of vanity wherewith men are generally touched It was a thing more than meanly inordinate wherewith the Babylonian did swell Which that we may both the better conceive and the more easily reap profit by the nature of this vice which setteth the whole World out of course and hath put so many even of the wisest besides themselves is first of all to be inquired into Secondly the dangers to be discovered which it draweth inevitably after it being not cured And last of all the ways to cure it Whether we look upon the gifts of Nature or of Grace or whatsoever is in the World admired as a part of man's excellency adorning his Body beautifying his Minde or externally any way commending him in the account and opinion of men there is in every kinde somewhat possible which no man hath and somewhat had which few men can attain unto By occasion whereof there groweth disparagement necessarily and by occasion of disparagement Pride through mens ignorance First therefore although men be not proud of any thing which is not at lest in opinion good yet every good thing they are not proud of but onely of that which neither is common unto many and being desired of all causeth them which have it to be honoured above the rest Now there is no man so void of brain as to suppose that Pride consisteth in the bare possession of such things for then to have Vertue were a Vice and they should be the happiest men who are most wretched because they have least of that which they would have And though in speech we do intimate a kinde of vanity to be in them of whom we say They are Wise men and they know it yet this doth not prove That every Wiseman is proud which doth not think himself to be blockish What we may have and know that we have it without offence do we then make offensive when we take joy and delight in having it What difference between men enriched with all aboundance of earthly and heavenly Blessings and Idols gorgeously attired but this The one takes pleasures in that which they have the other none If we may be possest with Beauty Strength Riches Power Knowledge
Apostle speaks not as Baronius would have it washed from sins with holy water but pure that is holy free from the pollution of sin as the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth signifie You may also see here refused those calumnies of the Papists that we abandon all religious Rites and godly duties as also the confirmation of our Doctrine touching certainty of Faith and so of Salvation which is so strongly denied by some of that Faction that they have told the world S. Paul himself was uncertain of his own salvation What then shall we say but pronounce a wo to the most strict observers of St. Francis rules and his Canonical Discipline though they make him even equal with Christ and the most meritorious Monk that ever was registred in their Kalender of Saints But we for our comfort are otherwise taught out of the holy Scripture and therefore exhorted to build our selves in our most holy Faith that so when our earthly house of this Tabernacle shall be destroyed we may have a Building given of God a house not made with hands but eternal in the Heavens This is that which is most piously and feelingly taught in these few leaves so that you shall read nothing here but what I perswade my self you have long practiâ—ed in the constant course of your life It remaineth only that you accept of these Labours tendred to you by him who wisheth you the long joys of this world and the eternal of that which is to come Oxon. from Corp. Christi Colledge this 13. of Ianuary 1613. TWO SERMONS Upon Part of Saint Judes Epistle The First Sermon Epist. JUDE Verse 17 18 19 20 21. But ye beloved remember the words which were spoken before of the Apostles of our Lord Iesus Christ How that they told you that there should be Mockers in the last time which should walk after their own ungodly lusts These are makers of Sects fleshly having not the Spirit But ye beloved edifie your selves in your most holy Faith praying in the Holy Ghost And keep your selves in the love of God looking for the mercy of our Lord Iesus Christ unto eternal life THE occasions whereupon together with the end wherefore this Epistle was written is opened in the front and entry of the same There were then as there are now many evil and wickedly disposed Persons not of the Mystical Body yet within the visible bounds of the Church men which were of old ordained to condemnation ungodly men which turned the grace of our God into wantonness and denyed the Lord Jesus For this cause the Spirit of the Lord is in the hand of Iude the Servant of Iesus and Brother of Iames to exhort them that are called and sanctified of God the Father that they would earnestly contend to maintain the Faith which was once delivered unto the Saints Which Faith because we cannot maintain except we know perfectly first against whom secondly in what sort it must be maintained therefore in the former three verses of that parcel of Scripture which I have read the Enemies of the Crosse of Christ are plainly described and in the latter two they that love the Lord Jesus have a sweet Lesson given them how to strengthen and stablish themselves in the Faith Let us first therefore examine the description of these Reprobates concerning Faith and afterwards come to the words of the Exhortation wherein Christians are taught how to rest their hearts on God's eternal and everlasting Truth The description of these godless Persons is two-fold general and special The general doth point them out and shew what manner of men they should be The Particular pointeth at them and saith plainly These are they In the general description we have to consider of these things First when they were described They were told of before Secondly the men by whom they were described They were spoken of by the Apostles of our Lord Iesus Christ. Thirdly the days when they should be manifest unto the World they told you They should be in the last time Fourthly their disposition and whole demeanour Mockers and Walkers after their own ungodly lusts 2. In the third to the Philippians the Apostle describeth certain They are men saith he of whom I have told you often and now with tears I tell you of them their God is their belly their glory and rejoycing is in their own shame they minde earthly things These were Enemies of the Crosse of Christ Enemies whom he saw and his eyes gusht out with tears to behold them But we are taught in this place how the Apostles spake also of Enemies whom as yet they had not seen described a family of men as yet unheard of a generation reserved for the end of the World and for the last time they had not only declared what they heard and saw in the days wherein they lived but they have prophesied also of men in time to come And you do well said St. Peter in that ye take heed to the words of Prophesie so that ye first know this that no Prophesie in the Scripture cometh of any man 's own resolution No Prophesie in Scripture cometh of any man 's own resolution For all Prophesie which is in Scripture came by the secret inspiration of God But there are Prophesies which are no Scripture yea there are Prophesies against the Scripture My Brethren beware of such Prophesies and take heed you heed them not Remember the things that were spoken of before but spoken of before by the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Take heed to Prophesies but to Prophesies which are in Scripture for both the manner and matter of those Prophesies do shew plainly that they are of God 3. Touching the manner how men by the spirit of Prophesie in holy Scripture have spoken and written of things to come we must understand that as the knowledge of that they spake so likewise the utterance of that they knew came not by these usual and ordinary means whereby we are brought to understand the mysteries of our Salvation and are wont to instruct others in the same For whatsoever we know we have it by the hands and Ministry of men which lead us along like Children from a letter to a syllable from a syllable to a word from a word to a line from a line a to a sentence from a sentence to a side and so turn over But God himself was their Instructor he himself taught them partly by Dreams and Visions in the Night partly by Revelations in the Day taking them aside from amongst their Brethren and talking with them as a man would talk with his Neighbour in the way This they became acquainted even with the secret and hidden Counsels of God they saw things which themselves were not able to utter they behold that whereat men and Angels are astonished They understood in the beginning what should come to passe in the last dayes 4. God
which lightned thus the eyes of their understanding giving them knowledge by unusual and extraordinary means did also miraculously himself frame and fashion their Words and Writings in so much that a greater difference there seemeth not to be between the manner of their knowledge than there is between the manner of their speech and ours When we have conceived a thing in our hearts and throughly understand it as we think within our selves â—re we can utter in such sort that our Brethren may receive instruction or comfort at our mouths how great how long how earnest meditation are we forced to use And after much travail and much pains when we open our lips to speak of the wonderful works of God our tongues do faulter within our mouths yea many times we disgrace the dreadful mysteries of our Faith and grieve the spirit of our Hearers by words unsavoury and unseemly speeches Shall a Wise-man fill his Belly with the Eastern winde saith Eliphaz shall a Wise-man dispute with words not comely or with talk that is not profitable Yet behold even they that are wisest amongst us living compared with the Prophets seem no otherwise to talk of God than as if the Children which are carried in arms should speak of the greatest matters of State They whose words do most shew forth their wise understanding and whose lips do utter the purest knowledge so long as they understand and speak as men are they not fain sundry ways to excuse themselves Sometimes acknowledging with the Wise-man Hardly can we discern the things that are on earth and with great labour finde we out the things that are before us Who can then seek out the things that are in Heaven Sometimes confessing with Iob the righteous in treating of things too wonderful for us we have spoken we wist not what Sometimes ending their talk as doth the History of the Macchabees if we have done well and as the Cause required it is that we desire if we have spoken slenderly and barely we have done we could But God hath made my mouth like a sword saith Esay And we have received saith the Apostle not the spirit of the World but the spirit which is of God that we might know the things that are given to us of God which things also we speak not in words which man's wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost doth teach This is that which the Prophets mean by those Books written full within and without which Books were so often delivered them to eat not because God fed them with Ink and Paper but to teach us that so oft as he imployed them in this heavenly Work they neither spake nor wrote any word of their own but uttered syllable by syllable as the Spirit put it into their mouths no otherwise than the Harp or the Lute doth give a sound according to the discretion of his hands that holdeth and striketh it with skill The difference is only this An instrument whether it be a Pipe or Harp maketh a distinction in the times and sounds which distinction is well perceived of the Hearer the Instrument it self understanding not what is Piped or Harped The Prophets and holy men of God not so I opened my mouth saith Ezekiel and God reached me a scroul saying Son of man cause thy Belly to eat and fill thy Bowels with this I give thee I ate it and it was sweet in my mouth as honey saith the Prophet Yea sweeter I am perswaded than either honey or the honey comb For herein they were not like Harps or Lutes but they felt they felt the power and strength of their own words When they spake of our peace every corner of their hearts was filled with joy When they prophesied of mournings lamentations and woes to fall upon us they wept in the bitterness and indignation of Spirit the arm of the Lord being mighty and strong upon them 5. On this manner were all the Prophesie of holy Scripture Which Prophesies although they contain nothing which is not profitable for our instruction yet as one Star differeth from another in glory so every word of Prophesie hath a treasure of matter in it but all matters are not of like importance as all Treasures are not of equal price The chief and principal matter of Prophesie is the promise of Righteousness Peace Holiness Glory Victory Immortality unto every Soul which believeth that Jesus is Christ of the Iew first and of the Gentile Now because the doctrine of Salvation to be looked for by Faith in him who was in outward appearance as it had been a man forsaken of God in him who was numbred judged and condemned with the wicked in him whom men did see busseted on the face scofft at by Souldiers scourged by Tormentors hanged on the Cross pierced to the Heart in him whom the eyes of many Witnesses did behold when the anguish of his Soul enforced him to roar as if his heart had rent in sunder O my God my God why hast thou forsaken me I say because the doctrine of Salvation by him is a thing improbable to a natural man that whether we preach to the Gentile or to the Jew the one condemneth our Faith as madnesse the other as Blasphemy therefore to establish and confirm the certainty of this saving Truth in the hearts of men the Lord together with their Preachings whom he sent immediately from himself to reveal these things unto the World mingled Prophesies of things both Civil and Ecclesiastical which were to come in every age from time to time till the very last of the latter dayes that by those things wherein we see daily their words fulfilled and done we might have strong consolation in the hope of things which are not seen because they have revealed as well the one as the other For when many things are spoken of before in Scripture whereof we see first one thing accomplished and then another and so a third perceive we not plainly that God doth nothing else but lead us along by the hand till he have settled us upon the rock of an assured hope that not one jot or tittle of his Word shall pass till all be fulfilled It is not therefore said in vain that these godless wicked ones were spoken of before 6. But by whom By them whose words if men or Angels from Heaven gainsay they are accursed by them whom whosoever despiseth despiseth not them but me saith Christ. If any man therefore doth love the Lord Jesus and wo worth him that loveth not the Lord Jesus hereby we may know that he loveth him indeed if he despise not the things that are spoken of by his Apostles whom many have despised even for the baseness and simpleness of their Persons For it is the property of fleshly and carnal men to honour and dishonour credit and discredit the words and deeds of every man according to that he wanteth or hath without If a man with gorgeous
apparel come amongst us although he be a Thief or a Murtherer for there are Thieves and Murtherers in gorgeous apparel be his heart whatsoever if his Coat be of Purple or Velvet or Tissue every one riseth up and all the reverend Solemnities we can use are too little But the man that serveth God is contemned and despised amongst us for his Poverty Herod speaketh in judgement and the People cry out The voyce of God and not of man Paul preacheth Christ they term him a Trifler Hearken beloved Hath not God chosen the Poor of this World that they should be rich in Faith Hath he not chosen the Reffuse of the World to be Heirs of his Kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him Hath he not chosen the Off-scowrings of Men to be the Lights of the World and the Apostles of Jesus Christ Men unlearned yet how fully replenished with understanding Few in number yet how great in power Contemptible in shew yet in Spirit how strong how wonderful I would faiâ—â— learn the mystery of the eternal generation of the Son of God saith Hilary Whom shall I seek Shall I get me to the Schools of the Grecians Why I have read Ubi Sapiens ubi Scriba ubi Conquisitor hujus saculi These Wise-men in the World must needs be dumbe in this because they have rejected the wisdom of God Shall I beseech the Scribes and Interpreters of the Law to become my Teachers how can they know this sith they are offended at the Cross of Christ It is death for me to be ignorant of the unsearchable mystery of the Son of God of which mystery notwithstanding I should have been ignorant but that a poor Fisher-man unknown unlearned new come from his Boat with his Cloaths wringing-wet hath opened his mouth and taught me In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God These poor silly Creatures have made us rich in the knowledge of the mysteries of Christ. 7. Remember therefore that which is spoken of by the Apostles Whose words if the Children of this World do not regard is it any marvail They are the Apostles of our Lord Jesus not of their Lord but of ours It is true which one hath said in a certain place Apostolicam sidem seculi homo non capit A man sworn to the World is not capable of that Faith which the Apostles do teach What mean the Children of this World then to tread in the Courts of our God What should your Bodies do at Bethel whose Hearts are at Bethaven The god of this World whom ye serve hath provided Apostles and Teachers for you Chaldeans Wizzards Sooth-sayers Astrologers and such like Hear them Tell not us that ye will sacrifice to the Lord our God if we will sacrifice to Ashtaroth or Melcom that ye will read our Scriptures if we will listen to your Traditions that if ye may have a Mass by permission we shall have a Communion with good leave and liking that ye will admit the things that are spoken of by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus if your Lord and Master may have his Ordinances observed and his Statutes kept Solomon took it as he well might for an evident proof that she did not bear a motherly affection to her Childe which yielded to have it cut in divers parts He cannot love the Lord Jesus with his heart which lendeth one ear to his Apostles and another to false Apostles which can brook to see a mingle-mangle of Religion and Superstition Ministers and Massing-Priests Light and Darkness Truth and Error Traditions and Scriptures No we have no Lord but Jesus no Doctrine but the Gospel no Teachers but his Apostles Were it reason to require at the hand of an English Subject obedience to the Laws and Edicts of the Spaniards I do marvel that any man bearing the name of a Servant of the Servants of Jesus Christ will go about to draw us from our Allegiance We are his sworn Subjects it is not lawful for us to hear the things that are not told us by his Apostles They have told us that in the last days there shall be Mockers therefore we believe it Credimus quia legimus We are so perswaded because we read it must be so If we did not read it we would not teach it Nam qua libro Legis non continentur ea nec nosse debemus saith Hilary Those things that are not written in the book of the Law we ought not so much as to be acquainted with them Remember the words which were spoken of before by the Apostles of our Lord Iesus Christ. 8. The third thing to be considered in the description of these men of whom we speak is the time wherein we should be manifested to the World They told you there should be mockers in the last time Noah at the commandement of God built an Ark and there were in it Beasts of all sorts clean and unclean A Husbandman planteth a Vineyard and looketh for Grapes but when they come to the gathering behold together with Grapes there are found also wilde Grapes A rich man prepareth a great Supper and biddeth many but when he sitteth him down he findeth amongst his Friends here and there a man whom he knoweth not This hath been the state of the Church â—it hence the beginning God always hath mingled his Saints with faithless and godless Persons as it were the clean with the unclean Grapes with sowre grapes his Friends and Children with Aliens and Strangers Marvel not then if in the last dayes also ye see the men with whom you live and walk arm in arm laugh at your Religion and blaspheme that glorious name whereof you are called Thus it was in the days of the Patriarks and Prophets and are we better than our Fathers Albeit we suppose that the blessed Apostles in foreshewing what manner of men were set out for the last dayes meant to note a calamity special and peculiar to the Ages and Generations which were to come As if he should have said As God hath appointed a time of Seed for the Sower and a time of Harvest for him that reapeth as he hath given unto every Herb and every Tree his own fruit and his own season not the season nor the fruit of another for no man looketh to gather Figgs in the Winter because the Summer is the season for them nor Grapes of Thistles because Grapes are the fruit of the Vine so the same God hath appointed sundry for every Generation of them other men for other times and for the last times the worst men as may appear by their properties which is the fourth point to be considered of in this description 9. They told you that there should be Mockers He meaneth men that shall use Religion as a Cloak to put off and on as the weather serveth such as shall with Herod hear the Preaching of Iohn Baptist to day
and to morrow condescend to have him beheaded or with the other Herod say they will worship Christ when they purpose a massacre in their hearts kiss Christ with Iudas and betray Christ with Iudas These are Mockers For Ishmael the Son of Hagar laughed at Isaac which was heir of the Promise so shall these men laugh at you as the maddest People under the Sun if ye be like Moses choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sinne for a season And why God hath not given them eyes to see nor hearts to conceive that exceeding recompence of your reward The promises of Salvation made to you are matters wherein they can take no pleasure even as Ishmael took no pleasure in that promise wherein God had said unto Abraham In Isaac shall thy seed be called because the Promise concerned not him but Isaac They are termed for their impiety towards God Mockers and for the impurity of their life and conversation Walkers after-their own ungodly lusts Saint Peter in his second Epistle and third Chapter soundeth the very depth of their impiety shewing first how they shall not shame at the length to profess themselves prophane and iâ—â—eligious by flat denying the Gospel of Jesus Christ and deâ—ding the sweet and comfortable promises of his appearing Secondly that they shall not be onely deâ—iders of all Religion but also disputers against God using Truth to subvert the Truth yea Scriptures themselves to disprove Scriptures Being in this sort Mockers they must needs be also Followers of their own ungodly lusts Being Atheists in perswasion can they choose but be Beasts in conversation For why remove they quite from them the feat of God Why take they such pains to abandon and put out from their hearts all sense all taste all feeling of Religion but onely to this end and purpose that they may without inward remorse and grudging of Conscience give over themselves to all uncleanness Surely the state of these men is more lamentable than is the condition of Pagans and Turks For at the bare beholding of Heaven and Earth the Infidel's heart by and by doth give him that there is an eternal infinite immortal and ever-living God whose hands have fashioned and framed the World he knoweth that every House is builded of some man though he see not the man which built the House and he considereth that it must be God which hath built and created all things although because the number of his days be few he could not see when God disposed his Works of old when he caused the light of his Clouds first to shine when he laid the Corner-stone of the Earth and swadled it with bands of Water and Darkness when he caused the Morning-star to know his place and made bars and doors to shut up the Sea within his House saying Hitherto shalt thou come but no further he hath no eye-witnesse of these things Yet the light of Natural reason hath put this wisdom in his reâ—ns and hath given his Heart thus much understanding Bring a Pagan to the Schools of the Prophets of God prophesie to an Infidel rebuke him lay the judgements of God before him make the secret sinnes of his heart manifest and he shall fall down and worship God They that crucified the Lord of Glory were not so farr past recovery but that the preaching of the Apostles was able to move their hearts and to bring them to this Men and Brethren what shall we doe Agrippa that sate in judgement against Paul for Preaching yielded notwithstanding thus farr unto him Almost thou perswadest me to become a Christian. Although the Jews for want of knowledge have not submitted themselves to the righteousnesse of God yet I bear them record saith the Apostle That they have a zeal The Athenians a people having neither zeal nor knowledge yet of them also the same Apostle beareth witnesse Ye men of Athens I perceive ye are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some way religious but Mockers walking after their own ungodly lusts they have smothered every spark of that heavenly light they have stifled even their very natural understanding O Lord thy Mercy is over all thy works thou savest Man and Beast yet a happy case it had been for these men if they had never been born and so I leave them 10. Saint Iude having his minde exercised in the Doctrine of the Apostles of Jesus Christ concerning things to come in the last time became a man of wise and staid judgement Grieved he was to see the departure of many and their falling away from the Faith which before they did professe grieved but not dismayed With the simpler and weaker sort it was otherwise Their countenance began by and by to change they were half in doubt they had deceived themselves in giving credit to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Saint Iude to comfort and refresh these silly Babes taketh them up in his armes and sheweth them the men at whom they were offended Look upon them that forsake this blessed Profession wherein you stand they are now before your eyes view them mark them are they not carnal are they not like to noysom carrion cast out upon the Earth is there that Spirit in them which cryeth Abba Father in your bosoms Why should any man be discomforted Have you not heard that there should be Mockers in the last time These verily are they that now do separate themselves 11. For your better understanding what this severing and separating of themselves doth mean we must know that the multitude of them which truly believe howsoever they be dispersed farr and wide each from other is all one Body whereof the Head is Christ one building whereof he is the Corner-stone to whom they as the Members of the Body being knit and as the stones of the Building being coupled grow up to a man of perfect stature and rise to an holy Temple in the Lord. That which linketh Christ to us is his mere mercy and love towards us That which tyeth us to him is our faith in the promised Salvation revealed in the Word of Truth That which uniteth and joyneth us amongst our selves in such sort that we are now as if we had but one Heart and one Soul is our love Who be inwardly in Heart the lively Members of this Body and the polished stones of this Building coupled and joyned to Christ as flesh of his flesh and bones of his bones by the mutual bond of his unspeakable love towards them and their unseigâ—ed faith in him thus linked and fastned each to other by a spiritual sincere and hearty affection of love without any manner of simulation who be Jewes within and what their names be none can tell save he whose eyes do behold the secret disposition of all mens hearts We whose eyes are too dim to behold the inward man must leave the secret judgement of every Servant to his own Lord accounting
and using all men as Brethren both near and dear unto us supposing Christ to love them tenderly so as they keep the profession of the Gospel and joyn in the outward communion of Saints Whereof the one doth-warrantize unto us their Faith the other their love till they fall away and forsake either the one or the other or both and then it is no injury to term them as they are When they separate themselves they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not judged by us but by their own doings Men do separate themselvs either by Heresie Schism or Apostasie If they lose the bond of Faith which then they are justly supposed to do when they frowardly oppugn any principal point of Christian Doctrine this is to separate themselves by Heresie If they break the bond of Unity whereby the Body of the Church is coupled and knit in one as they doe which wilfully forsake all external Communion with Saints in holy Exercises purely and orderly established in the Church this is to separate themselves by Schism If they willingly cast off and utterly forsake both profession of Christ and communion with Christians taking their leave of all Religion this is to separate themselves by plain Apostasie And Saint Iude to expresse the manner of their departure which by Apostasie fell away from the Faith of Christ saith They separated themselves noting thereby that it was not constraint of others which forced them to depart it was not infirmity and weaknesse in themselves it was not fear of Persecution to come upon them whereat their hearts did fail it was not grief of torment whereof they had tasted and were not able any longer to endure them No they voluntarily did separate themselves with a fully settled and altogether determined purpose never to name the Lord Jesus any more nor to have any fellowship with his Saints but to bend all their counsel and all their strength to raze out their memorial from amongst them 12. Now because that by such examples not onely the hearts of Infidels were hardned against the Truth but the mindes of weak Brethren also much troubled the Holy Ghost hath given sentence of these Backsliders that they were carnal men and had not the Spirit of Christ Jesus lest any man having an overweening of their Persons should be overmuch amazed and offended at their fall For simple men not able to discern their Spirits were brought by their Apostasie thus to reason with themselves If Christ be the Sonne of the Living God if he have the words of Eternal life if he be able to bring Salvation to all men that come unto him what meaneth this Apostasie and unconstrained departure Why do his Servants so willingly forsake him Babes be not deceived his Servants forsake him not They that separate themselves were amongst his Servants but if they had been of his Servants they had not separated themselves They were amongst us not of us saith Iohn and Saint Iude proveth it because they were carnal and had not the Spirit Will you judge of Wheat by Chaff which the winde hath scattered from amongst it Have the Children no Bread because the doggs have not tasted it Are Christians deceived of that Salvation they look for because they were denyed the joys of the life to come which were no Christians What if they seemed to be Pillars and principal Upholders of our Faith What is that to us which know that Angels have fallen from Heaven Although if these men had been of us indeed O the blessedness of a Christian man's estate they had stood surer than the Angels that had never departed from their place Wherein now we marvel not at their departure at all neither are we prejudiced by their falling away because they were not of us sith they are fleshly and have not the Spirit Children abide in the House for ever they are Bond-men and Bond-women which are cast out 13. It behoveth you therefore greatly every man to examine his own estate and to try whether you be bond or free children or no children I have told you already that we must beware we presume not to sit as Gods in judgement upon others and rashly as our conceit and fancy doth lead us so to determine of this man he is sincere or of that man he is an Hypocrite except by their falling away they make it manifest and known that they are For who art thou that takest upon thee to judge another before the time Judge thyself God hath left us infallible evidence whereby we may at any time give true and righteous sentence upon our selves We cannot examine the hearts of other men we may our own That we have passed from death to life we know it saith St. Iohn because we love the Brethren And know ye not your own selves how that Iesus Christ is in you except you be Reprobates I trust Beloved we know that we are not Reprobates because our Spirit doth bear us record that the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ is in us 14. It is as easie a matter for the Spirit within you to tell whose ye are as for the eyes of your Bodie to judge where you sit or in what place you stand For what saith the Scripture Ye which were in times past Strangers and Enemies because your mindes were set an evil works Christ hath now reconciled in the body of his Flesh through death to make you holy and umblameable and without fault in his sight If you continue grounded and established in the Faith and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel Collos. 1. And in the third to the Colossians Ye know that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of that Inheritance for ye serve the Lord Christ. If we can make this account with our selves I was in times past dead in Trespasses and Sinnes I walked after the Prince that ruleth in the Ayr and after the Spirit that worketh in the Children of Disobedience but God who is rich in mercy through his great love wherewith he loved me even when I was dead hath quickned me in Christ. I was fierce heady proud high-minded but God hath made me like the Childe that is newly weaned I loved pleasures more than God I followed greedily the joyes of this present World I esteemed him that erected a Stage or Theatre more than Solomon which built a Temple to the Lord the Haâ—p Viol Timbrel and Pipe Men-singers and Women-singers were at my Feast it was my felicity to see my Children dance before me I said of every kinde of vanity O how sweet art thou in my Soul All which things now are crucified to me and I to them Now I hate the pride of life and pomp of this world now I take as great delight in the way of thy Testimonies O Lord as in all Riches now I finde more joy of heart in my Lord and Saviour than the Worldly-minded-man when his Wheat and Oyl do much abound
Now I taste nothing sweet but the Bread which came down from Heaven to give life unto the World Now mine eys see nothing but Jesus rising from the dead Now my ears refuse all kinde of melody to hear the Song of them that hath gotten victory of the Beast and of his Image and of his Mark and of the number of his Name that stand on the Sea of Glass having the Harps of God and singing the Song of Moses the Servant of God and the Song of the Lamb saying Great and marvellous are thy works Lord God Almighty just and true are thy wayes O King of Saints Surely if the Spirit have been thus effectual in the secret work of our Regeneration unto newness of life if we endeavour thus to frame our selves anew then we may say boldly with the blessed Apostle in the tenth to the Hebrews We are not of them which withdraw our selves to perdition but which follow Faith to the conservation of the Soul For they which fall away from the grace of God and separate themselves unto perdition they are fleshly and carnal they have not God's holy Spirit But unto you because ye are Sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts to the end ye might know that Christ hath built you upon a Rock unmoveable that he hath registred your names in the Book of life that he hath bound himself in a sure and everlasting Covenant to be your God and the God of your Children after you that he hath suffered as much groaned as oft prayed as heartily for you as for Peter O Father keep them in thy Name O Righteous Father the World hath not known thee but I have known thee and these have known that thou hast sent me I have declared thy name unto them and will declare it that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them The Lord of his infinite mercy give us hearts plentifully fraught with the treasure of this blessed assurance of Faith unto the end 15. Here I must advertise all men that have the testimony of God's holy fear within their Breasts to consider how unkindly and injuriously our own Countrey-men and Brethren have dealt with us by the space of four and twenty years from time to time as if we were the men of whom St. Iude here speaketh never ceasing to charge us some with Scism some with Heresie some with plain and manifest Apostasie as if we had clean separated our selves from Christ utterly forsaken God quite abjured Heaven and trampled all Truth and Religion under our feet Against this third sort God himself shall plead our Cause in that day when they shall answer us for these words nor we them To others by whom we are accused for Schism and Heresie we have often made our reasonable and in the sight of God I trust allowable Answers For in the way which they call Heresie we worship the God of our Fathers believing all things which are written in the Law and the Prophets That which they call Schism we know to be our reasonable service unto God and obedience to his voyce which cryeth shrill in our ears Go out of Babylon my People that you be not Partakers of her sinnes and that ye receive not of her Plagues And therefore when they rise up against us having no quarrel but this we need not seek any farther for our Apology than the words of Abiah to Iereboam and his Army 2 Chron. 13. O Ieroboam and Israel hear you me Ought you not to know that the Lord God of Israel hath given the Kingdom over Israel to David for ever even to him and to his Sons by a Covenant of Salt that is to say an everlasting Covenant Jesuits and Papists hear ye me ought you not to know that the Father hath given all power unto the Son and hath made him the onely Head over his Church wherein he dwelleth as an Husband-man in the midst of his Vineyard manuring it with the sweat of his own brows not letting it forth to others For as it is in the Canticles Solomon had a Vineyard in Baalhamon he gave the Vineyard unto Keepers every one bringing forth the fruit thereof a thousand pieces of Silver but my Vineyard which is mine is before me saith Christ. It is true this is meant of the Mystical Head set over the Body which is not seen But as he hath reserved the Mystical Administration of the Church invisible unto himself so he hath committed the Mystical Government of Congregations visible to the Sonnes of David by the same Covenant whose Sons they are in the governing of the Flock of Christ whomsoever the Holy Ghost hath set over them to go before them and to lead them in several Pastures one in this Congregation another in that as it is written Take heed unto your selves and to all the Flock whereof the Holy Ghost hath made you Overseers to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood Neither will ever any Pope or Papist under the Cope of Heaven be able to prove the Romish Bishop's usurped Supremacy over all Churches by any one word of the Covenant of Salt which is the Scripture For the Children in our streets do now laugh them to scorn when they force Thou art Peter to this purpose The Pope hath no more reason to draw the Charter of his universal Authority from hence than the Brethren had to gather by the words of Christ in the last of St. Iohn that the Disciple whom Jesus loved should not dye If I will that he â—arry till I come what is that to thee saith Christ. Straitways a report was raised amongst the Brethren that this Disciple should not dye Yet Jesus said not to him He shall not dye but If I will that he â—arry till I come what is that to thee Christ hath said in the sixteenth of St. Matthew's Gospel to Simon the Son of Ionas I say to thee Thou art Peter Hence an opinion is held in the World That the Pope is universal Head of all Churches Yet Jesus said not The Pope is universal Head of all Churches but Ta es Petrus Thou art Peter Howbeit as Ieroboam the son of Nebat the servant of Solomon rose up and rebelled against his Lord and there were gathered unto him vain men and wicked which made themselves strong against Roboam the son of Solomon because Roboam was but a Childe and tender-hearted and could not resist them So the Son of Perdition and Man of Sin being not able to brook the words of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ which forbad his Disciples to be like Princes of Nations They bear rule that are called Gracious it shall not be so with you hath risen up and rebelled against his Lord and to strengthen his arm he hath crept into the Houses almost of all the Noblest Families round about him and taken their
the Lord's building and as Saint Peter speaketh Heirs of the grace of life as well as we Though it be forbidden you to open your mouths in Publick Assemblies yet ye must be inquisitive in things concerning this Building which is of God with your Husbands and Friends at home not as Delilah with Sampson but as Sarah with Abraham whose Daughters ye are whilst ye do well and build your selves 13. Having spoken thus farr of the Exhortation as whereby we are called upon to edifie and build our selves it remaineth now that we consider the things prescribed namely wherein we must be built This prescription standeth also upon two points the thing prescribed and the adjuncts of the thing And that is our most pure and holy Faith 14. The thing prescribed is Faith For as in a chain which is made of many links if you pull the first you draw the rest and as in a Ladder of many staves if you take away the lowest all hope of ascending unto the highest will be removed So because all the Precepts and Promises in the Law and in the Gospel do hang upon this Believe and because the last of the graces of God doth so follow the first that he glorifieth none but whom he hath justified nor justifieth any but whom he hath called to a true effectual and lively Faith in Christ Jesus therefore St. Iude exhorting us to build our selves mentioneth here expresly onely Faith as the thing wherein we must be edified for that Faith is the ground and the glory of all the welfare of this Building 15. Ye are not Strangers and Foreigners but Citizens with the Saints and of the Houshold of God saith the Apostle and are built upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Iesus Christ himself being the chief Corner-stone in whom all the Building being coupled together groweth unto an holy Temple in the Lord in whom ye also are built together to be the habitation of God by the Spirit And we are the habitation of God by the Spirit if we believe for it is written Whosoever confesseth that Iesus is the Sonne of God in him God dwelleth and he in God The strength of this habitation is great it prevaileth against Satan it conquereth Sinne it hath Death in cerision neither Principalities nor Powers can throw it down it leadeth the World captive and bringeth every enemy that riseth up against it to confusion and shame and all by Faith for this is the Victory that overcommeth the World even our Faith Who is it that overcommeth the World but he which believeth that Jesus is the Son of God 16. The strength of every Building which is of God standeth not in any man's arms or leggs it is onely in our Faith as the valour of Sampson lay only in his hair This is the reason why we are so earnestly called upon to edifie our selves in Faith Not as if this bare action of our mindes whereby we believe the Gospel of Christ were able in itself as of it self to make us unconquerable and invincible like stones which abide in the Building for ever and fall not out No it is not the worthiness of our believing it is the vertue of him in whom we believe by which we stand sure as houses that are builded upon a Rock He is a Wise-man which hath builded his house upon a Rock for he hath chosen a good foundation and no doubt his house will stand but how shall it stand Verily by the strength of the Rock which beareth it and by nothing else Our Fathers whom God delivered out of the Land of Egypt were a People that had no Peers amongst the Nations of the Earth because they were built by Faith upon the Rock which Rock is Christ. And the Rock saith the Apostle in the first to the Corinthians the tenth Chapter did follow them Whereby we learn not onely this that being built by Faith on Christ as on a Rock and grafted into him as into an Olive we receive all our strength and fatness from him but also that this strength and fatnesse of ours ought to be no cause why we should be high-minded and not work out our salvation with a reverent trembling and holy fear For if thou boasteth thy self of thy Faith know this That Christ chose his Apostles his Apostles chose not him that Israel followed not the Rock but the Rock followed Israel and that thou bearest not the Root but the Root thee So that every Heart must thus think and every Tongue must thus speak Not unto us O Lord not unto us nor unto any thing which is within us but unto thy name onely onely to thy Name belongeth all the praise of all the Treasures and Riches of every Temple which is of God This excludeth all boasting and vaunting of our Faith 17. But this must not make us careless to edifie our selves in Faith It is the Lord that delivereth mens souls from death but not except they put their trust in his mercy It is God that hath given us eternal life but no otherwise than thus If we believe in the name of the Sonne of God for he that hath not the Sonne of God hath not life It was the Spirit of the Lord which came upon Sampson and made him strong to tear a Lyon as a man would rend a Kid but his strength forsook him and he became like other men when the Razor had touched his Head It is the power of God whereby the Faithful have subdued Kingdoms wrought Righteousness obtained the Promises stopped the mouths of Lyons quenched the violence of Fire escaped the edge of the Sword but take away their Faith and doth not their strength forsake them are they not like unto other men 18. If ye desire yet farther to know how necessary and needful it is that we edifie and build up our selves in Faith mark the words of the blessed Apostle Without Faith it is impossible to please God If I offer unto God all the Sheep â—â—d Oxen that are in the World if all the Temples that were builded since the dayes of Adam till this hour were of my foundation if I break my very heart with calling upon God and wear out my tongue with preaching if I sacrifice my body and my soul unto him and have no Faith all this availeth nothing Without Faith it is impossible to please God Our Lord and Saviour therefore being asked in the sixth of St. Iohn's Gospel What shall we do that we might work the works of God maketh answer This is the work of God that ye believe in him whom he hath sent 19. That no work of ours no building of our selves in any thing can be available or profitable unto us except we be edified and built in Faith What need we to seek about for long proof Look upon Israel once the very chosen and peculiar of God to whom the adoption of the Faithful and the glory of Cherubims and the
Covenants of Mercy and the Law of Moses and the service of God and the promises of Christ were made impropriate who not onely were the Off-spring of Abraham Father unto all them which do believe but Christ their Off-spring which is God to be blessed for evermore 20. Consider this People and learn what it is to build your selves in Faith They were the Lord's Vine He brought it out of Egypt he threw out the Heathen from their places that it might be planted he made room for it and caused it to take root till it had filled the earth the Mountains were covered with the shadow of it and the boughs thereof were as the goodly Cedars she stretched out her branches unto the Sea and her boughs unto the River But when God having sent both his Servants and his Son to vâ—siâ—s this Vine they neither spared the one nor received the other but stoned the 〈…〉 s and crucified the Lord of glory which came unto them then began the curse â—â— God to come upon them even the curse whereof the Prophet David hath spoken saying Let their table be made a snare and a net and a stumbling block even for a recompence unto them Let their eyes be darkned that they do not see how down their backs for ever keep them down And sithence the hour that the measure of their infidelity was first made up they have been spoiled with Warrs eaten up with Piagues spent with Hunger and Famine they wander from place to place and are become the most â—ase and contemptible people that are under the Sun Ephraim which before was a terrour unto Nations and they trembled at his voyce is now by infidelity so vile that he seemeâ—h as a thing cast out to be trampled under mens feet In the midst of these desolations they cry Returâ— we beseech thee O God of hosts look down from heaven behold and visit their Vine but their very Prayers are turned into sin and their crys are no better than the lowing of â—easts before him Well saith the Apostle by their anbelief they are broken off and thou dost standby thy Faith Behold therefore the bountifulness and severity of God towards them severity because they have fallen bountifulness towards thee if thou continue in his bountifulness or else thou shalt be cut off If they forsake their unbelief and be grafted in again and we at any time for the hardness of our hearts be broken off it will be such a judgment as will amaze all the Powers and Principalities which are above Who hath searched the counsel of God concerning this secret And who doth not see that Infidelity doth threaten Lo-ammi unto the Gentiles as it hath brought Lo-ruchama upon the Jews It may be that these words seem dark unto you But the words of the Apostle in the eleventh to the Romans are plain enough If God have not spared the natural branches take heed take heed lest he spare not thee Build thy self in Faith Thus much of the thing which is prescribed and wherein we are exhorted to edifie our selves Now consider the Condition and Properties which are in this place annexed unto Faith The former of them for there are but two is this Edifie your selves in your Faith 21. A strange and a strong delusion it is wherewith the man of Sin hath bewitched the World a forcible spirit of Errour it must needs be which hath brought men to such a senseless and unreasonable perswasion as this is not onely that men cloathed with mortality and sinne as we our selves are can do God so much service as shall be able to make a full and perfect satisfaction before the Tribunal seat of God for their own sinnes yea a great deal more than is sufficient for themselves but also that a man at the hands of a Bishop or a Pope for such or such a price may buy the over-plus of other mens merits purchase the fruits of other men's labours and build his Soul by another man's faith Is not this man drowned in the gall of bitterness Is his heart right in the sight of God Can he have any part or fellowship with Peter and with the Successors of Peter which thinketh so vilely of building the precious Temples of the Holy Ghost Let his money perish with him and he with it because he judgeth that the Gift of God may be sold for money 22. But beloved in the Lord deceive not your selves neither suffer ye your selves to be deceived Ye can receive no more ease nor comfort for your Souls by another man's faith than warmth for your Bodies by another man's cloaths or sustenance by the bread which another man doth eat The just shall live by his own Faith Let a Saint yea a Martyr content himself that he hath cleansed himself of his own sins saith Tertullian No Saint or Martyr can cleanse himself of his own sins But if so be a Saint or a Martyr can cleanse himself of his own sins it is sufficient that he can do it for himself Did ever any man by his death deliver another man from death except onely the Sonne of God He indeed was able to Safe-conduct a Thief from the Cross to Paradise for to this end he came that being himself pure from sinne he might obey for Sinners Thou which thinkest to do the like and supposest that thou canst justifie another by thy Righteousness if thou be without sinne then lay down thy life for thy Brother dye for me But if thou be a Sinner even as I am a Sinner how can the Oyl of thy Lamp be sufficient both for thee and for me Virgins that are wise get ye Oyl while ye have day into your own Lamps For out of all peradventure others though they would can neither give nor sell. Edifie your selves in your own most holy faith And let this be observed for the first property of that wherein we ought to edifie our selves 23. Our Faith being such is that indeed which St. Iude doth here term Faith namely a thing most holy The reason is this We are justified by Faith For Abraham believed and this was imputed unto him for Righteousness Being justified all our iniquities are covered God beholdeth us in the Righteousness which is imputed and not in the Sins which we have committed 24. It is true we are full of sin both original and actual whosoever denieth it is a double Sinner for he is both a Sinner and a Lyar. To deny sin is most plainly and clearly to prove it because he that saith he hath no sin lyeth and by lying proveth that he hath sin 25. But imputation of Righteousness hath covered the sins of every Soul which believeth God by pardoning our sin hath taken it away So that now although our transgressions be multiplied above the hairs of our head yet being justified we are as free and as clear as if there were no one spot or stain of any uncleanness in us For it
is God that justifieth And who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's chosen saith the Apostle in Rom. 8. 26. Now sin being taken away we are made the righteousness of God in Christ for David speaking of this Righteousness saith Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven No man is blessed but in the righteousness of God Every man whose sin is taken away is blessed Therefore every man whose sin is covered is made the Righteousness of God in Christ. This Righteousness doth make us to appear most holy most pure most unblameable before him 27. This then is the sum of that which I say Faith doth justifie Justification washeth away sin sin removed we are cloathed with the righteousness which is of God the righteousness of God maketh us most holy Every of these I have proved by the testimony of God's own mouth Therefore I conclude That Faith is that which maketh us most holy in consideration whereof it is called in this place Our most holy saith 28. To make a wicked and a sinful man most holy through his believing is more than to create a World of nothing Our faith most holy Surely Solomon could not shew the Queen of Sheba so much treasure in all his Kingdom as is lapt up in these words O that our hearts were stretched out like tenis and that the eyes of our understanding were as bright as the Sun that we might thoroughly know the riches of the glorious inheritance of the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power towards us whom he accepteth for pure and most holy through our believing O that the Spirit of the Lord would give this Doctrine entrance into the slony and brazen heart of the Jew which followeth the Law of Righteousness but cannot attain unto the righteousness of the Law Wherefore saith the Apostle they seek righteousness and not by faith wherefore they stumble at Christ they are bruised shivered to pieces as a ship that hath run herself upon a Rock O that God would cast down the eyes of the proud and humble the souls of the high-minded that they might at the length abhor the garments of their own flesh which cannot hide their nakedness and put on the faith of Christ Jesus as he did put it on which hath said Doubtless I think all thing but loss for the excellent knowledge-sake of Christ Iesus my Lord for whom I have counted all things loss and do judge them to be dung that I might win Christ and might be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the saith of Christ even the righteousness which is of God through faith O that God would open the Ark of Mercy wherein this Doctrine lyeth and set it wide before the eys of poor afflicted Consciences which fly up and down upon the water of their afflictions and can see nothing but onely the gulf and deluge of their sinnes wherein there is no place for them to rest their feet The God of pity and compassion give you all strength and courage every day and every hour and every moment to build and edifie your selves in this most pure and holy faith And thus much both of the thing prescribed in this Exhortation and also of the properties of the thing Build your selves in your most holy faith I would come to the next branch which is of Prayer but I cannot lay this matter out of my hands till I have added somewhat for the applying of it both to others and to our selves 29. For your better understanding of matters contained in this Exhortation Build your selves you must note that every Church and Congregation doth consist of a multitude of Believers as every House is built of many Stones And although the nature of the Mystical body of the Church be such that it suffereth no distinction in the invisible members but whether it be Paul or Apollos Prince or Prophet he that is taught or he that teacheth all are equally Christ's and Christ is equally theirs yet in the external administration of the Church of God because God is not the Author of Confusion but of Peace it is necessary that in every Congregation there be a distinction if not of inward dignity yet of outward degree so that all are Saints or seem to be Saints and should be as they seem But are all Apostles If the whole Body were an eye where were then the hearing God therefore hath given some to be Apostles and some to be Pastors c. for the edification of the body of Christ. In which work we are God's labourers saith the Apostle and ye are God's husbandry and God's building 30. The Church respected with reference unto administration Ecclesiastical doth generally consist but of two sorts of men the Labourers and the Building they which are ministred unto and they to whom the work of the Ministery is committed Pastors and the Flock over whom the Holy Ghost hath made them Overseers If the Guide of a Congregation be his name or his degree whatsoever be diligent in his Vocation feed the flock of God which dependeth upon him caring for it not by constraint but willingly not for filthy lucre but of a ready minde not as though he would tyrannize over God's heritage but as a pattern unto the Flock wisely guiding them If the People in their degree do yield themselves frameable to the truth not like rough stone or flint refusing to be smoothed and squared for the building if the Magistrate do carefully and diligently survey the whole order of the work providing by Statutes and Laws and bodily punishments if need require that all things may be done according to the rule which cannot deceive even as Moses provided that all things might be done according to the pattern which he saw in the Mount there the words of this Exhortation are truly and effectually heard Of such a Congregation every man will say Behold a people that are wise a people that walk in the Statutes and Ordinances of their God a people full of knowledge and understanding a people that have skill in building themselves Where it is otherwise there at by sloathfulness the roof doth decay and as by idleness of bands the House droppeth thorow as it is in Eccles. 10. 18. so first one piece and then another of their building shall fall away till there be not a stone left upon a stone 31. We see how fruitless this Exhortation hath been to such as bend all their travel onely to build and manage a Papacy upon earth without any care in the Worlâ— of building themselves in their most holy faith God's people have enquired at their mouths What shall we do to have Eternal life Wherein shall we build and edifie our selves And they have departed home from their Prophets and from their Priests laden with Doctrines which are Precepts of men they have been taught to tire out themselves with bodily exercise those
day some maintain it than it was in them which held it at first as Luther and others whom I had an eye unto in this speech The Question is not Whether â—o error with such and such circumstances but simply Whether an error overthrowing the foundation do exclude all possibility of salvation if it be not râ—enated and expresly repented of 2 Thes. 2. 11. Apoc. 13. v. â— For this is the only thing alledged to prove the impossibility of their salvation The Church of Rome joyneth works with Christ which is a denial of the foundation and unless we hold the foundation we cannot be saved They may cease to put any confidence in works and yet never think living in Popish superstition they did amiss Pighius dyed Popish and yet denial Popery in the Article of Justification by works long before his death What the foundation of saith is Vâ—caeto ad conâ—ionem multitudine quae coalesecre in populi unial corpus nuâ—a et praâ—erquam I legibus poterat Liv. de Rom. lib. 1. Ephes. 1. 23. 4. 1â— Ephes. 2. 20. John 6. 63. 2 Tim. 3. 15. Acts 16. 17. Heb. 10. 20. Gen. 49. Job 19. Acts 4.18 Luke 1. 11. 1 Cor. 3. a Rom. 8. 10. b Phil. 2. 15. c Col. 3.4 1 Pet. 1. Ephes. 2. 9. John 5. 11. 1 John 5. 13. Perpetuity of saith Rom. 6. 10. John 14. 19. 1 Pet. 1. 1. 2 John 3. 9. Ephes. 1. 4. 5. John 4. 14. Coll. 1. 23. 1 Tim. 2. 15. John 10. 1 John 3. â— * Howsoever men be changed for changed they may be even the best amongst men if they that have received as it seemeth some of the Galatians which fell into errour not received the Gifts and Graces of God which are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as Faith Hope and Charity are which God doth never take away from him to whom they are given as less repented him to have given them if such might be so farr changed by errour as that the very root of Faith should be quite extinguished in them and so their Salvation utterly lost It would shake the hearts of the strongest and stoutest of us all See this contrary in Beza his observations upon the harmony of Confessions a Error convicted and afterwards maintained â—â— more than errour for although opinion be the same it was in which respect I still call it errour yet they are not now the same they were when they are taught what the Truth is and plainly raught b Acts 15. 9. c Gal. 4.14.15 d Vers. 18. e Vers. 21. f Vers. 8. â—â—er de Unit. Eccles. servants Calr Ey 108. Morn de Eccles. Zaâ—ch praâ—â—ar de Relig. 1 Thess. 1. 13. Rom. 11. 6. * I deny not but that the Church of Rome requireth some kinde of works which she ought not to require at mens hands But our question in general about the adding of good works not whethere such or such Works be goed In this comparison it is enough to touch so much of the matter in question between St. Paul and the Galatians as inferreth those Conclusions Ye are fallen from grace Christ can profit you nothing which Conclusions will foâ—low Circumcision and Rites of the Law Ceremonial if they be required as things necessary to Salvation This only was a ledged against me and need I touch more than was all edged a Mat. 5. 20. b Luke 11. 39. c Mat. 5. 21. Eph. 2. 7. 15. a Gal 3. 8. b 1 Pet. 2. 9. and 5 3. c Ephes. 1. 7. d Isa. 53. 11. Jer. 23. 6. e Eph. 3. 25. f Mat. 19. 27. g 2 Thess. 2. 15. h Gal. 2. 16. end 3. 3. 2 Thess. 2. 13. Hac â—aâ—io Ecclesiastici Sacramenti Catholicae Fâ—ici est vt qui parâ—em â—ivini Sacrimenti negar partem â—â—â—alâ—at cuâ—sirâ—â— Iratuim sibi â—onnâ—â—a cuncorpâ—â—ata sunc omnia â—t aliud â—â—ae aâ—io staâ—e non possie quiunum ex omnibus denegaveriâ—â— aliaâ—â— emnia tradidâ—ss non presir Cassian lib. 6. de Incarnat Dom. If he obstâ—aâ—cly stand in denial pag 193. Acts 20. 23. Lib 2. â—e in car Dem. cap. 14. Levis of Oraneâ— l. Merlit cap. last â— Paulgarola let 11. Annoâ— in 1 John 1. In his Book of Consolation Works of Superetogation Let all Affection be laid asideâ— Let the Matter indifferently be considered Ecclus. 6. 2. Lib 4. cap. 6. de dâ—ct chr Rob. Tolâ—â— lib. 4. cap. 5. 2 Pet. 1. Pâ—iâ—â— in Orit D. Aâ—nold Parsons in 3. convers Mal. 1. 7. Canus locur l. 11. c. 5. Viâ— ver lib. 2. de corrupt art Hard. lib. 4. Pac. 1903. edit 1570. a In the third part of the 3. conversions of England in the Examination of Foxes Saints c. 14. sect 53.54 p. 215. b Sect. 55. c Plut. in Demosthen d Liv. Dec. 1 l.2 an V.C. 60 e 1 Tim. 2.8 f Annal. tom â— An. 59. n. 109,110 tom 2. An. 132. num g S. Paulus de sua salute incertus Kicheom Jesuit 1.2 c. 12. Idolat Huguen p. 119. in marg edit Lat. Mogunt 113. interpret Marcel Bomper Jesuita h Witness the verses of Horatius a Jesuite recited by Posse Biblioth Select part 2 l.17 c. 19. Exue Franciscum tunica laceroque cuculâ—o Qui Franciscus erat jam tibi Christus eriâ— Francisci exuriâ—s si quà licet indue Christium Jam Francisco erit qui modo Christus erat The like hath Bencius another Jesuite i 2 Cor. 3.1 Of the spirit of Prophesie received from God himself Of the Prophers manner of speech Job 15. 2 3. Wisd. 2. 15. Esay 49. 5. Ezekiel 3. A natural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perceiveth nor heavenly things James 2. Acts 12. Acts 17. We must not halt between two opinion Nockerâ— in the last time Mockers Mockers worse than Pagans and Infidelâ— Rom. 10. Iudas vit sapienâ— certi usicâ— Three fold Separation 1. Heresie 2. Scism 3. Apostasie Infallible evâ—dence in the Faithful that they are Gods Children The Papists falsly accuseâ— us of Heresie and Apostasie Acts 2â— Apoc. 18. Caâ—t 8. 11. Acts â—â— The Popes usurped Supremacy Concil delector Cardin. Laurent Soriuâ— Coun. de reb gest 1 Pio â— Urancise Sansâ—viâ— de guherm Rerum â—â—h l. â— Cap. de Jud. are scal â—oldap 1 Chron. 13. Verse 12. Gen. 6.3 13. Gen. 6. â— 1â— Gen. 19. 12. Gen. 19. 15. Verse 1â— The Sacrament of the Lords Supper Lam. 2. 13. Ephes. 4. 1 John 4. 1 John 5. Mat. 9. Rom. 11. 1 John 2. No pleasuâ—â— of God without Faith Psal. 69. Rom. 11. Psal. 10. 1â— Verse â—2 Hosea 1. 2. nor my people Verse 6. not obtaining mercy * Careless Amos â— 11,12 1 Pet. 4. 17. Jer. 3. 14 15.