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A30349 An exposition of the Thirty-nine articles of the Church of England written by Gilbert Bishop of Sarum. Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715. 1700 (1700) Wing B5792; ESTC R19849 520,434 424

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by the Prayer of St. Paul for the Ephesians who had already heard the Gospel preached and were instructed in it That the eyes of their understanding being enlightened they might know what was the hope of his calling Eph. 1.17 18 19. and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints and what was the exceeding greatness of his power towards them that believed This seems to be somewhat that is both Internal and Efficacious Christ compares the Union and Influence that he communicates to Believers to that Union of a Head with the Members and of a Root with the Branches which imports an Internal a Vital and an Efficacious Influence And though the outward means that are offered may be and always are rejected when not accompanied with his overcoming Grace yet this never returns empty These outward means coming from God the resisting of them is said to be the resisting God the grieving or quenching his Spirit Act. 7.51 Eph. 4.30 Jam. 1.17 18. Joh. 13.1 Heb. 13.5 and so in that sense we resist the Grace or Favour of God But we can never withstand him when he intends to overcome us As for Perseverance it is a necessary consequence of Absolute Decrees and of Efficacious Grace For since all depends upon God and that as of his own will he begat us so with him there is neither variableness nor shadow of turning Whom he loves he loves to the end and he has promised That he will never leave nor forsak● those to whom he becomes a God We must from thence conclude That the purpose and calling of God is without Repentance And therefore though good Men may fall into grievous Sins to keep them from which there are dreadful things said in Scripture against their falling away or Apostacy yet God does so uphold them that though he suffers them often to feel the weight of their Natures yet of all that are given by the Father to the Son to be saved by him none are lost Upon the whole Matter They believe that God did in himself and for his own Glory foreknow such a determinate Number whom he pitched upon to be the persons in whom he would be both Sanctified and Glorified That having thus foreknown them he predestinated them to be holy conformable to the Image of his Son That these were to be called not by a General Calling in the Sense of these words Many are called but few are chosen but to be called according to his purpose Matth. 20 16. Rom. 8.29 30. Rom. 9.18 And those he justified upon their obeying that Calling and he will in conclusion Glorify them Nor are these words only to be limited to the Sufferings of good Men they are to be extended to all the effects of the love of God according to that which follows That nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. The whole Reasoning in the 9 th of the Romans does so plainly resolve all the acts of God's Mercy and Justice his hardning as well as his pardoning into an Absolute Freedom and an Unsearchable Depth that more express words to that effect can hardly be imagined It is in general said That the children being yet unborn neither having done good or evil that the purpose of God according to election might stand not of work but of him that calleth Iacob was loved and Esau hated ver 11. ver 17. ver 20. ver 22. That God raised up Pharaoh that he might shew his power in him and when an Objection is suggested against all this instead of Answering it it is silenced with this Who art thou O Man that repliest against God And all is illustrated with the Figure of the Potter and concluded with this solemn Question What if God willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known endured with much long-suffering the Vessels of wrath fitted to destruction This carries the Reader to consider what is so often repeated in the Book of Exodus concerning God's hardning the heart of Pharaoh Exod. 4.21.10.18.11.10.14.8 Prov. 16.4 Acts 1.48 Rev. 13.8.3.5.20.12.21.27 Rom. 1.26 28. so that he would not let his people go It is said That God has made the wicked man for the day of evil as it is written on the other hand That as many believed the Gospel as were appointed to eternal life Some are said to be written in the book of life of the lamb slain before the foundation of the world or according to God's purpose before the world began Vngodly Men are said to be of old ordained to condemnation and to be given up by God unto vile affections and to be given over by him to a reprobate mind Therefore they think that Reprobation is an absolute and free act of God as well as Election to manifest his Holiness and Justice in them who are under it as well as his Love and Mercy is manifested in the Elect. Nor can they think with the Sublapsarians That Reprobation is only God's passing by those whom he does not elect this is an act unworthy of God as if he forgot them which does clearly imply Imperfection And as for that which is said concerning their being fallen in Adam they argue That either Adam's Sin and the Connexion of all Mankind to him as their Head and Representative was absolutely decreed or it was not If it was then all is absolute Adam's Sin and the Fall of Mankind were decreed and by consequence all from the beginning to the end are under a continued Chain of Absolute Decrees and then the Supralapsarian and the Sublapsarian Hypothesis will be one and the same only variously expressed But if Adam's Sin was only foreseen and permitted then a conditionate Decree founded upon Prescience is once admitted so that all that follows turns upon it and then all the Arguments either against the Perfection of such Acts or the Certainty of such a Prescience turn against this for if they are admitted in any one Instance then they may be admitted in others as well as in that The Sublapsarians do always avoid to answer this and it seems they do rather incline to think that Adam was under an Absolute Decree and if so then tho' their Doctrine may seem to those who do not examin things nicely to look more plausible yet really it amounts to the same thing with the other For it is all one to say that God decreed that Adam should sin and that all Mankind should fall in him and that then God should chuse out of Mankind thus fallen by his Decree such as he would save and leave the rest in that lapsed state to perish in it as it is to say That God intending to save some and to damn others did in order to the carrying this on in a method of of Justice decree Adam's Fall and the Fall of Mankind in him in order to the saving of his El●ct and the damning of the rest All that the Sublapsarians say in this
were a mere question of Words to dispute concerning the term Sacrifice to consider the Extent of that Word and the many various respects in which the Eucharist may be called a Sacrifice In general all Acts of Religious Worship may be called Sacrifices because somewhat is in them offered up to God Let my Prayer be set forth before thee as Incense and the lifting up of my Hands as the evening Sacrifice Psal. 141.2 Psal. 51.17 The Sacrifices of God are a broken Spirit A broken and a contrite Heart O God thou wilt not despise These shew how largely this Word was used in the Old Testament So in the New we are exhorted by him that is by Christ to offer the Sacrifice of Praise to God continually that is the Fruit of our Lips giving Thanks to his Name A Christian's dedicating himself to the Service of God Hebr. 13.15 Rom. 12.1 is also expressed by the same Word of presenting our Bodies a living Sacrifice holy and acceptable to God All Acts of Charity are also called Sacrifices an odour of a sweet smell Phil. 4.10 a Sacrifice acceptable well pleasing to God So in this large Sense we do not deny that the Eucharist is a Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving And our Church calls it so in the Office of the Communion In two other respects it may be also more strictly called a Sacrifice One is because there is an Oblation of Bread and Wine made in it which being sanctified are consumed in an Act of Religion To this many passages in the Writings of the Fathers do relate This was the Oblation made at the Altar by the People And though at first the Christians were reproached as having a strange sort of a Religion in which they had neither Temples Altars nor Sacrifices because they had not those things in so gross a manner as the Heathens had yet both Clemens Romanus Ignatius and all the succeeding Writers of the Church do frequently mention the Oblations that they made And in the Antient Liturgies they did with particular Prayers offer the Bread and Wine to God as the Great Creator of all things Those were called the Gifts or Offerings which were offered to God in imitation of Abel who offered the Fruits of the Earth in a Sacrifice to God Both Iustin Martyr Irenaeus the Constitutions and all the antient Liturgies have very express Words relating to this Another respect in which the Eucharist is called a Sacrifice is because it is a Commemoration and a Representation to God of the Sacrifice that Christ offered for us on the Cross In which we claim to that as to our Expiation and Feast upon it as our Peace-offering according to that antient Notion that Covenants were confirmed by a Sacrifice and were concluded in a Feast on the Sacrifice Upon these Accounts we do not deny but that the Eucharist may be well called a Sacrifice But still it is a commemorative Sacrifice and not propitiatory That is we do not distinguish the Sacrifice from the Sacrament as if the Priests consecrating and consuming the Elements were in an especial manner a Sacrifice any other way than as the communicating of others with him is one Nor do we think that the consecrating and consuming the Elements is an Act that does reconcile God to the Quick and the Dead We consider it only as a federal Act of professing our Belief in the Death of Cstrist and of renewing our Baptismal Covenant with him The Virtue or effects of this are not General they are limited to those who go about this piece of Worship sincerely and devoutly they and they only are concerned in it who go about it And there is no special Propitiation made by this Service It is only an Act of Devotion and Obedience in those that eat and drink worthily and though in it they ought to pray for the whole Body of the Church yet those their Prayers do only prevail with God as they are devout Intercessions but not by any peculiar Virtue in this Action On the other hand the Doctrine of the Church of Rome is that the Eucharist is the highest Act of Homage and Honour that Creatures can offer up to the Creator as being an Oblation of the Son to the Father So that whosoever procures a Mass to be said procures a new piece of Honour to be done to God with which he is highly pleased and for the sake of which he will be reconciled to all that are concerned in the procuring such Masses to be said whether they be still on Earth or if they are now in Purgatory And that the Priest in offering and consuming this Sacrifice performs a true Act of Priesthood by reconciling Sinners to God Somewhat was already said of this on the Head of Purgatory It seems very plain by the Institution that our Saviour as he blessed the Sacrament said Take eat St. Paul calls it a Communion of the Body and Blood of the Lord and a Partaking of the Lord's Table and he through his whole Discourse of it speaks of it as an Action of the Church and of all Christians but does not so much as by a Hint intimate any thing peculiar to the Priest So that all that the Scripture has delivered to us concerning it represents it as an Action of the whole Body in which the Priest has no special share but that of officiating In the Epistle to the Hebrews there is a very long Discourse concerning Sacrifices and Priests in order to the explaining of Christ's being both Priest and Sacrifice There a Priest stands for a Person called and consecrated to offer some living Sacrifice and to slay it and to make reconciliation of Sinners to God by the shedding offering or sprinkling the Blood of the Sacrifice This was the Notion that the Iews had of a Priest And the Apostle designing to prove that the Death of Christ was a true Sacrifice brings this for an Argument that there was to be another Priesthood after the order of Melchisedec He begins the fifth Chapter with settling the Notion of a Priest Heb. 5.10 according to the Iewish Ideas And then he goes on to prove that Christ was such a Priest called of God and Consecrated But in this Sense he appropriates the Priesthood of the New Dispensation singly to Christ in opposition to the many Priests of the Levitical Law And they truly were many Priests because they were not suffered to continue by reason of Death But this Man Heb. 7.24 because he continueth ever hath an unchangeable Priesthood It is clear from the whole Thread of that Discourse that in the strictest Sense of the Word Christ himself is the only Priest under the Gospel and it is also no less evident that his Death is the only Sacrifice in opposition to the many Oblations that were under the Mosaical Law to take away Sin Which appears very plain from these Words Who needeth not daily as those High-Priests to offer up