the several Senses and Meanings according to which the Scriptures may be understood IT being found what is the Letter of the Word of God It is necessary to know what is the true sense of it For this is only in truth the Word and not the Letters Syllables or Grammatical words To know this we must first distinguish a Sense Historical and Mystical The Historical Sense is the same as the Literal so called because it is that which is primarily signified and intended by such a form of words And this is twofold For either these words are to be taken in the proper and natural signification as I may call that which is in most vulgar use or in their borrowed and mataphorical Sense As when I call a thing hard and apply it to Iron or Stone I speak properly and according to the Natural sense but when I apply Hardness to the heart I speak improperly and Metaphorically and yet Literally too intending thereby to signifie not any natural but moral quality in the heart The Seven Ears saith Joseph in Genesis are seven years and the Seven fat Kine are Seven years And so Christ in the Gospel This is my Body and infinite others in Scripture are Metaphorical and Literal Senses both The Mystical Sense is that which is a translation not so much of words from one signification to another as of the entire Sense to a meaning not excluding the Historical or Literal Sense but built upon it and occasion'd by it And is commonly divided into the Tropological Allegorical and Anagogical which some as Origen make coordinate with the former saying The Scripture is a certain Intelligible world wherein are four Parts Origen Homil 2. In Diversos as four Elements The Earth is the Literal Sense The waters is the profound Moral Sense The Air is the Natural Sense or natural science therein found And above all the sublime sense which is Fire In another place he mentions only the Historical Moral and Mystical And generally Idem Homil. 5. in Leviticum the Fathers do acknowledg all these though with some variation not distinguishing them as we have as might be shown were it needful to enlarge here on that subject The Moral Sense is that which is drawn from the natural to signifie the manners and conditions of men The Allegorical is a sense under a continuation of tropes and figures The Anagogical a translation of the meaning of things said or done on earth to things proper to heaven The Oxe being suffered to eat while he trod out the Corn according to St. Paul in the Moral sense signified that the labourer was worthy of his hire Mount Sinah and Mount Sion as the same Gal. 2. 24 25. Apostle saith signified the two Cities of God Earthly and Heavenly Allegorically And the Church of God upon Earth the Church Triumphant in heaven It is therefore without reason and modesty both that some strickt Modern Divines have set themselves against the Antient in contracting all these senses into one so as to allow no more which is of very ill consequence to the Faith both of Jew and Christian For generally all the hopes of the Jews concerning the Messias to come and all the proofs of the Christian taken from the Old Testament That he is come would come to little or nothing seeing there is manifestly a Literal or Historical sense primarily intended upon which the Mistical is built So that the arguments of the Evangelists and St. Paul in his Epistles convincing that Christ was the true Messias must needs be invalid seeing their quotation to that purpose had certainly another Literal Sense And it is against the condition of the whole Law it self which as St. Paul Heb. 10. 1. saith was a Shadow of good things to come and not the very things themselves It is here replied commonly That all these are but one Literal Perkins on Galâ—â— 22. sense diversely expressed which is to grant all that is contended for but with a reservation of a peculiar way of speaking to themselves that having been so infortunate as to judge of things amiss they may in some manner solace themselves with variety of phrase too commonly found amongst such as resolve to say something new where there is no just cause at all And to that which seems a Difficultie That no Symbolical sense can be argumentative or prove any thing in Divinity we answer That it cannot indeed unless it be known first to be the true Mistical sense of the words alledged For neither is the Literal sense it self until it be known that such was the true intent of the Speaker But those things which were symbolically and Mystically delivered in the Law being well known to Christ and his Apostles as likewise to the Learnedest of the Jewish Doctors by a received current tradition amongst them were of force to the ends alledged by them But where such a Mystical sense is not received nothing can be inferred from thence which is conclusive CHAP. X. Of the true Interpretation of Holy Scriptures The true meaning not the letter properly Scripture Of the difficultie of attaining the proper sense and the Reasons thereof IT availeth a Christian as little to have the Letter of the word of God without the genuine sense as it doth a man to have the shell without the Kernel For the sense is the word of God not the Letter Wicked men yea the Devil himselfe maketh use of the Letter to contradict the truth it self as St. Hierome hath observed and other Fathers and constant experience certifieth not without the consent of the Scripture it self which saith of it self In it are some things hard to be understood which 2 Pet. 3. 16. they that are unlearned and unstable wrest as they do all other Scriptures to their own destruction Therefore because it is very necessarie to be informed of the difficulties and dangers in misinterpreting Scripture before we can throughly apply our selves to prevent and avoid them we will First shew briefly That many things are difficult in Scripture and the Reasons why and after proceed to the most probable means rightly to interpret the same And these obstacles in attaining the true sense of Gods word are either found in our selves or in Gods wisdome and Providence or lastly in the Word of God it self Some indeed piously but inconsiderately make all the reason of difficulties not denied by them altogether in the Scripture to be in Man supposing they hereby vindicate Gods Providence from that censure it might otherwise be liable unto if so be that God should deliver such a Law to man which could not well be understood but apt to mislead men into errour And therefore say they It is the darkness and perversness of mans understanding and will that make things in Scripture obscure and not the condition of the Scriptures themselves But this no ways doth attain its end For when did God deliver his written word unto Mankind
particularly assured of his being in Christ The whole Antecedent I grant viz. That every man believeth Christ when he receiveth him and that Christ is received by Faith And that every man is bound to apply Christ particularly and his Promises to himself But the consequence here made follows not from hence For by the former a man believes assuredly that the Promises of Grace made through Christ to the Church do particularly belong to him he hath a right to them being called to the Covenant Neither do we promise any other security of Salvation by only Faith but to those that labour in their calling and be fruitful of good Works Dr. Fulk on Rhem. Test Phil. 3. v. 11. And thus far a man is and ought to be sure of his Salvation But there being implyed in all Promises of Everlasting Salvation certain conditions of obeying and repenting as well as believing simply whether a man is to that degree proficient in these as to put him in actual possession of Christ this is no where revealed neither are we commanded to believe it And when St. Paul saith to the Romans * Rom. 8. 15 16. See likewise 1 John 5. 9 10 Ye have not received again the spirit of bondage to fear but ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father What is more plain than that his meaning is to distinguish the general state of the Church of the Jews from the Church of the Gentiles and the spirit of Moses as I may so say which tender'd to bondage from the spirit of Christ which is that free Spirit For as it is elsewhere said If the Son make you free then shall you be free indeed And from hence no more can be concluded to any single person than to the whole Church of God in which there are many reprobates as all agree Neither is the matter helped out any whit by what follows The Spirit it self beareth witness with our Spirit that we are the Sons of God I presume few will be so severe and ignorant as to deny the large acceptation in Scripture of the Children of God and Sons of God and Saints viz. That generally they signifie no more than those who were elected outwardly to the Faith and Profession of Christ and to the means of becoming not only denominatively and of Right but really and effectually in Fact the heirs of Eternal Salvation To be then the Sons of God here with St. Paul signifies no more than by Faith to be the peculiar people and favorites of God above all such as were not thus brought home to Christs Fold Now that such singular Grace and Priviledges belonged to Christian St. Paul proves from the testimony of the Spirit namely That the Christian Religion is only the true Religion thus The Spirit beareth witness with our Spirit Our own Judgment our Consciences doth stedfastly assure us that we are the Children of God but this is not all this proves nothing to another to the convincing of him that we are the true Servants and Children of God but the Spirit of God bearing witness with our Spirit doth And the Spirit of God beareth witness with us sufficiently when it declareth openly by miracles signs and wonders wrought before the eyes of our Adversaries that what we preach and believe is the truth Which is the same with what St. Paul writes to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 2. 4. saying And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of mans wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of Power That your faith might stand not in the wisdom of man but in the power of God In which words he plainly sheweth the ground of the Corinthians faith not to be taken from any fair or plausible Rhetorick or form of words whereby men are led oftentimes to believe against reason but on the more solid grounds of extraordinary miracles wrought by the power of God and which did demonstrate to all equal judges That it was the Spirit of God which both taught them such mysteries of Faith as they preached and confirmed the same by such signs and wonders as did appear generally at the publication of the Gospel Now what doth all or any of this concern the supposed particular inward tacit testimony whereby it is said a man is to be assured of his Salvation And no more do the words of the Apostle in the end of the same Chapter prove too long to be recited but this Rom. 8. 35 36 37 38 39. is briefly to be answered 1. That they speak not at all of any individual single Christian but of the Church of God and that indefinitely or at large viz. That God hath so determined to plant propagate and maintain that Religion into which divers were collected by the ministry of the Apostles that whatever or from whomsoever evils might befall the Church of God yet they should never prevail with such persecutions to separate the faithful from Christ no not all the Powers nor Principalities on Earth nor all the Angels of Heaven or of Hell But to secure these and the like testimonies the better to their opinions some much admired persons of the Reformation peradventure suspecting what might be answered have proceeded to say That what promises Calvin Inst Christ hath made to his Church do equally concern every Christian as well as the Church which I cannot yield to without these Exceptions First That it may be understood of a particular Church as well as particular Persons But as may hereafter appear God hath made no absolute promise to any particular Church so far that it can be any point of Faith to believe that Gods counsel decree are such to it as never to suffer it to Apostatize from him So that no individual Church can be sure of its perseverance in the truth and if not that how should any particular person claim so much But the Promises of Christ being taken as they ought of a Church indefinitely it is most agreeable to Gods word to maintain an infallible perpetuity of the same Again It is to be remembred that all this while we are speaking not so much of certainty before God according to which we may yield the Salvation of men to be infallible but certainty before men or to the party concerned immediately which we call Assurance or Evidence In the body of an Orthodox Church it is certain in it self that many men shall be saved but not certain to us that any one therein shall nor evident to any one that he shall To the reasons taken from the Power of God who is able to save and reveal this And the truth of God who is faithful in his Promise And the Knowledge of God that he knoweth who are his what need we make any answer besides showing the vanity of that inference which is drawn from the possibility of any thing to the Fact it self and of that presumption rather than faith which
to the world Upon this Innovating Hereticks were forced to seek subterfuge from revelations and extraordinary discoveries promised as they corruptly understood Scripture by Christ in St. John saying I have yet many things to say unto you but ye Joh. 16 12 13. cannot bear them now Howbeit when the Spirit of truth shall come he will guide you unto all truth c. Hence they collected That Christ communicated not all to his immediate Disciples but reserved diverse things to be imparted extraordinarily to them and the phansie of such extraordinary favours from God is such a bewitching device that few not soundly setled in Faith can chose but expect and thirst after and at last conceit that so God doth deal with them when there is no such matter And of this Sacrilegious and Heretical folly are those Churches no less than simple single persons guilty which under pretense of power in the Church which must not be denyed of declaring the sense of Scripture and Faith do in very deed invent and introduce new Articles of Faith and absurd Scholies unheard of before either in substance or form and say They do but explain only what was before implyed and included in holy Writ For all Articles of Faith all necessary and due Discipline all true Administration of Sacraments wherein the truth of Christian Churches are generally affirmed to consist must long since have been discovered from the Rule of all these or otherwise they who were ignorant of or defective in these could not lay any just claim to be true Churches of Christ So that in truth Antiquity thus understood is an excellent Note of the true Faith and the true Faith not contradicted in worship as is possible more than a Note or Sign of a true Church it is the very Being it self But where Antiquity it self is obscure the condition of a Note according to the Canvasers of this point being to be more cleer than that which is in question it cannot do this good office for us And to argue backward as too many do very incongruously endeavouring to prove that which should prove is to discover the fondness of their opinions and falsness of their cause at the same time For instance to say the Church cannot err in Doctrine therefore we must believe this to be most ancient And to affirm that no man can precisely declare the time and place when such a Doctrine entred the Church taxed for innovation is very absurd as commonly and confidently as it is used For St. Augustine on whose grounds they seem to build this supposition supposed that First no time could be instanced in when such an usance was not in the Church but many times this can be done against pretences to Apostolicalness though the direct time when it began may not be instanced in For whenas most Doctrines of Faith have some practical worship proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristoteles Polit Lib 5. 8. 175. to them and evidencing them such as are the form the matter the rites of prayer none of which recorded in the Church insinuate any such opinions in that age of the Church especially of publick approbation is it not an argument more than conjectural there was then no such thing believed in the Church though we be not able to determine when it first sprung up Again it is very weak and frivolous which is presumed as unquestionable that all abuses and corruptions in the Church had some proper period wherein they must needs show themselves according to that formality as afterwards they appeared in and became notorious No doubt is to be made but points of Doctrine had their conceptions augmentations and progressions insensible as infinite other things in nature and manners have had and daily have A man may better demand the hour in which an Apple began first to rot or the week in which an old Groat began first to be defaced and loose its form than require a determinate point of time or perhaps the year in which such a Doctrine began to be corrupted into an heretical sense and practise But many of these are very exactly and faithfully set down and found short of immemorialness of Tradition as they term it For Succession another note of the Church I find it by some divided into Succession Doctrinal and Personal meaning better than they speak For I know nothing properly succeeding but where something is departed or lost Now the Doctrine of the Church being incessant and perpetual and not diverse from it self cannot be said so properly to succeed it self as to persevere in the Church But if we should pass that order and allow this language yet the thing it self seems here quite to be mistaken it being not at present enquired into the Faith of the Church which if it were granted to be sound and Catholick doth not of it self necessarily and fully infer a true Church and upon the reasons before agreed to viz. Due administration of Discipline to be essential to a true Church but into the Form constituting it a Visible and Formal Church to which is indispensably required proper Pastors and that by the appointment of Christ as St. Paul thus witnesseth speaking of Christ leaving Ephes 4. 11 12 the earth and ascending into heaven and deputing thereupon certain Officers in his stead in a visible ministration which he ceaseth now to exercise He gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ Now it is not necessary here to determine the quarrel about the kind of Officers here mentioned it sufficing to our purpose what is very evident that they who are Governours of the Church must be given to the Church by Christ But Christ acting no longer politically or visibly as hath been said and must be yielded but mystically he cannot be said to ordain any immediately in his own person but by the ministry of others Now how is it possible to distinguish them whom Christ hath appointed to constitute others in the Church from them to whom he hath given no such order but by this succession we now speak of namely a traduction of that faculty which is in one deriving it originally though by many intermediate hands from Christ himself to another succeeding him because as the Apostle to the Hebrews speaks the Priests are not suffered to continue by reason of Death This Hebr. 7. 23. surrogation then of Pastors and Priests is not to be at the pleasure or arbitrement of men to institute but must be by the will of Christ and this will of Christ must be revealed unto us either by the ordinary line and course from himself and Apostles or else must by some extraordinary and miraculous way be made known to men For though we deny it to be Christs practise to commission men to these ends we do not deny it to be
may possibly to them were this any more than to say They would be at peace and unity with them when they became of their mind did as they would have them and not differ from them But I have transgressed I fear on this subject here at present which yet is not impertinent altogether it proving that it is Lawful to Excommunicate such who agree with us in Faith And the summ of the reason is this viz. Because there are as hath been acknowledged on both sides yea is almost on all sides granted two things essential to the Church Doctrine and Government or Discipline as it is called to act any thing to the violation of either of these may justly subject a man to this Ecclesiastical Censure And however at first sight dissension and opposition to the Rites and practices of a Church may not appear of a mortal nature of themselves as being perhaps about things in nature alterable yet in the consequence making a breach in the wall of the City of God they let in certain ruine and destruction Thieves and Robers And this holds no less to the Justification of the Church in Excommunicating refractory and disobedient persons to the Church in her citations though in truth the ground of her citation be matter of small moment It were indeed much to be wish'd that such severe sentences might not be executed but on occasions of greatest moment not only for the persons sake so excluded but the Churches sake denouncing whose autority must needs be much weakened and her sentence much contemned when upon matters appearing meerly trivial and light it is inflicted And therefore most useful it seemeth That redress of pecuniary pretensions on persons relating to Ecclesiastical Courts should not be by Excommunication but from the Civil Power enabling the Ecclesiastical to exact their dues But where this is not in use and where no other means appears of obliging men to reverence and submit to Ecclesiastical Powers but the punishment Ecclesiastical I would fain have such persons who profess not the utter abolition of such autority and dissolution propound some other effectual way of keeping up the power and autority of those Courts besides Excommunication before they declare so smartly against the abuse of it Lastly whosoever doth by contempt and disobedience first deny the Churches power and in very deed sever himself from it can he or any man of Christian reason or modesty contradict the Churches Act in declaring and formally manifesting what was more closely but really before done by himself So far as a man disobeys and opposes the Church so far is he really separated from it And to be partly on and partly off as some men propound to themselves and please themselves in thinking it free to choose and leave at their pleasure what their private judgements shall lead them to is not at all to clear them from the guilt or imputation of Schismaticalness For all proper Schismaticks agree in many things with the Church which they trouble and divide And every Schismatick stands divided from the Church And may not the censure of the Church by Excommunication most reasonably at least follow a mans own Act and declare that to be so which himself hath made so especially not only thereby or so much punishing the Offendor as securing the innocent and sound by such notice from the like contagion Doth not St. Paul cleerly imply so much when Gal. 5. 12. he saith to the Gallatians I would they were even cut off that trouble you How did these intruders and seducers so trouble the Church as to deserve such Excision or Cutting off By two things principally one whereof follows in the next verse by a presumption of such Christian Liberty which was never intended by Christ for his Church Another was in point Gal. 1. 6 7. of doctrine innovating rather in form than words For it was not another doctrine of the Gospel that was offered to these green and unstable Christians but another Form the easier to prevail upon their Consciences and to alienate them from their true Pastors Such as these would the Apostle have Cut off and therefore very false and frivolous is that ground of Socinian Extract mentioned in the beginning viz. That nothing which in it self hinders not salvation can give just occasion of Excommunication I do not here as many insist much upon the words of Christ in St. Matthew whereby he warrants a man to account him as Heathen and publican Math. 18. 15 16 17. who shall refuse to hear the Church arbitrating and judging within it self because I am of their opinion who expound this not of excommunication from the Church but of a freedom granted to a man to go to the humane Civil Power for justice against such a brother as if he were no better than a Heathen and Publican who will not listen to the voice and judgement of the Church Yet surely this intimates a power in the Church to determine and a duty in the members of it to submit unto the Judgement of it and if a private man may treat one of his brethren as he would a heathen in some cases may not the Church This is the least we can honestly make of Christs Charter given to the Church by St. Peter in Mat. 16. 19. the same Gospel I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven But consideration and limitation of this grievous censure is not to be omitted according to diversity of Persons Relations and the Causes given from whence I suppose arose the distinction of Major and Minor or Greater and Lesser Excommunication of ancient use in the Church And Anathema and Excommunication according to the Ancient differ For Excommunication is nothing else but a denunciation of a person alienated from the Communion of the Church in the mysteries and worship proper to Christians And this we may take to be the Lesser Excommunication but Anathema or the Greater Excommunication besides excluding from Christian Communion added a Curse corporal which the Scripture calls properly a Delivering unto Satan as well for the destruction of Body as Soul Thus was that incestuous person excommunicated by St. Paul For the destruction of the flesh that the Spirit may be 1 Cor. 5â— 5. saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ For though we say that this Anathema was to the destruction of the flesh we mean only Actually as in that state but the end of that was rather the Salvation of it by such outward judgements reducing the offender to repentance This Anathema upon the body by plaguing it being miraculously inflicted hath ceased But yet not all bodily punishments with it taking here bodily punishments not only for bodily pains but bodily and outward losses Of this sort may be those separate men from all Civil Communion
A Course of Divinity OR AN INTRODUCTION To the Knowledge of the True Catholick Religion Especially as Professed by the CHURCH OF ENGLAND In two Parts The one containing The Doctrine of Faith The other The Form of Worship By MATTHEW SCRIVENER LONDON Printed by Tho. Roycroft for Robert Clavil in Little Brittain MDCLXXIV THE ENTRANCE FOR the better conceiving and judging of this ensuing Treatise I have held it necessary Christian Reader to premise and propound to thy consideration these two things principally viz. The Occasions me thereunto moving and the manner of proceeding in it One Occasion given me was the multitude and variety of the like Books set forth by other Churches whereby not only the persons under them were trained up in the Knowledge and Faith professed there but the minds of many of our Church were prepossessed and their manners swayed by such Doctrines which seemed to me as forreign in nature as place to those of our Church and the Ancient I could have here given the Reader the names of above fourty Tractates of this nature many of which have been translated into the English Tongue to the corrupting of weaker judgments And not so much as the Christians of New-England have been wanting to the Interest of their Religion so far as to â—mit so advantagious a Work but by John Norton Teacher as he calls himself of the Church at Ipswich in New-England have collected certain Principal Heads of Divinity into a Body called The Orthodox Evangelist And as the great number of forreign Books have incited me so the Paucity of the like in and from our Church hath no less emboldened me to undertake this I am prevented by Industrious Mr. Baxter in giving any account of such who have made attempts this way and what hath been done by them without bringing their design to desired issue Only that excellently Learned Person Mr. Thorndyck passed over by him in his declining years hath given greater demonstrations of his zeal and learning in behalf of the English Church than any extant before him in one continued Body purposing a Review in the Latin Tongue wherein he intended to have more clearly expressed his meaning in some things of which it might be said as of St. Pauls writings they were hard to be understood and he himself saw to be wrested to evil ends and senses but his declining body and years would not suffer him to accomplish so good a Work What Mr. Baxer himself hath performed in his late large Volume I shall not give my censure but how well he is qualified for such a Work I may presume to give the Reader in the words of Esâ— Baxterus câ—â—is desiinatis sententiâ—s minimè omnium hominun addictus ut qui non plus faveat Presbyteriants quam Independentibus nec est infensus Hierarchicis sed medius dubiusque partibus nisi in causa Dei sanctitatis vitae Ludovicus Molinaeus Patroni p. 12. a great admirer of him Baxter saith he is of all men least addicted to any resolute opinions being one that favoureth not more the Presbyterians than the Independents neither is he sharp against the Episcopal Party but between them and doubtful what side to take except in the cause of God and holiness of Life The greatest part of which Character is but too true being as much with me as if he had said He were of no Religion at all For however Beza and Cartwrights opinions of a certain and definite Discipline Essentially requisite to a Church as a Church is to Christian Religion be by Puritans laid aside for the present and like embers buried up in the Ash-heap till they shall rise again next day and kindle a new fire and now nothing but Get Christ Purity of Ordinances is notorious amongst them to the Vulgar yet when people are deceived by that they call Pure and Powerful Preaching of Christ into new Societies of their own Manufacture then presently doth most apparent Reason and inevitable Necessity constrain them to invent and impose new Covenants and Bonds to conserve them in their new Fraternities contrary altogether to that General Liberty before propounded and promised them No more than doth the charm of Christian Liberty sound in their ears No more of the free use of Indifferent things so contrary to the Decrees and Practise of a Church but then come into credit again such sayings as these There must be Order There must be Government There must be unity in the Church dealing herein with poor simple Christians as men do with their horse they would take up carrying in one hand provender which they show him and make a great noise with and behind them in the other hand a bridle to hold him fast to them and ride him as they please And if Mr. Baxter be of no regulated determinate Society or Church adheres to no particular Communion submits to no Government nor Governours in special but to all or any as it should seem be must bear it as well as he can when he bears himself not out of passion or envie at his new and singular device of going to heaven but justice and reason censur'd for a man of no Religion at all or if any of his own making which teaches him to persevere in that fond and haughty design he once had when he took upon him to top his Brethren of the Ministery in the Western Parts and to frame Grounds and Aphorisms for both Civil and Ecclesiastical Politie of his own with as little judgment and humility as safety to the Church and State as if he had aim'd at nothing so much as to be according to forreign Phrase and Presidents an Extraordinary Pastor without any Original or Rule but from himself but failing of this he now thinks it best to become an Extraordinary Sheep of all and no fold writing Books as uncertain and contrary as himself on all sides and for all Palates as if he had found out the Universal Character for Religions like to that of Languages in which all men doing as he wou'd have them shou'd agree in going to Heaven And now all that lately and most officious and serviceable method of mounting our selves and crushing and trampling on the necks of others and them our Governours by most unjust and cruel acts most false and bitter language must be laid aside and thrown overboard as the Turks did their Cemiters when they lost the day at the battle of Lepanto not because they liked them not but because they could do them no more service and least they should come into the Christians hands and be used against them So indeed Sectaries now-a-dayes call for modesty and moderation on all hands casting away that unchristian language which stood them in so much stead against them they resolved to destroy not without horrible Success And yet we see while they call so charitably for moderation and would have no revilings of them that differ in opinions only their churlish nature and
only to signifie how Christ was lifted up on the Cross but as practised in the Roman Church to the intent direct and divine Worship be given it 7. Wicked men eat not the Body of Christ Sure enough in a proper sense not denominatively only as the consecrated Elements are called the Body of Christ very often and currently 8. That they who communicate not are to be put out of the Church This is such an Error as the Ancient Church was guilty of as well as we as your own Vicecomes sheweth at large Vicecomes Vol. 3. l. 1. c. 18. 9. The Keys of the Church consist only in opening the Word of God No such thing is held by us 10. Private Confession is to be taken away Not so much as Sectaries say this absolutely 11. The Ceremonies of the Church are to be abrogated Simply and falsly said and directly contrary to the Articles of our Artic. 20. Church 12. Prayers in the Latin Tongue are barbarous and against St. Pauls Precept Very true where they are at first so instituted and understood by very few or none and so are they in the English Tongue or any other 13. No man can fulfill the Law This is true or false as it may be taken 14. More Masses then one cannot be said in one day in one Church Here our Accuser saith he knows not what For neither doth our Church inhibit more then once to officiate Liturgically neither did the Ancient Church practise if permit it for above four hundred years after Christ as appears from Dioscorus Bishop of Alexandria consulting with Leo the first Bishop of Rome what he should Leo 1 Epist 79 or as some So. See also Grecian consecr Dist c. 51. do when Christians were so numerous that they could not all be received into the Church at once who answered In such cases he might safely reiterate the office And the Council of Antisiodorum or Auxere held about the Year 578 decreed that but one Mass should be said upon one Altar in one day which is as much observed by the Church of Rome now-a-days as other Canons of Councils which lye in their way thrown out And where in the Ancient Church do you read of above one Altar in one Church 15. Unity is no Note of the Church Discords and Divisions are certain signs of Errors but Unity is no certain sign of Truth nor so much as of a Church how then can it be of a true Church 16. Universal Councils may be repeal'd by Particular This See Petrus Gregorius Syntagm l. 15. c 3. is nothing he might have said by particular persons as the Popes who may according to that Church null Acts of Councils Oecumenical But we only hold that in things mutable according to the condition Article 34. of Time Place and other Circumstances rendring some Decrees prejudicial to some Churches contrary to the intention of the first Ordainers of them a Provincial Church may make alterations 17. The Church may erre in Faith And what of that meaning any one Individual single Church as the Roman hath according to our Articles 18. The Precepts of the Church concerning set Fasts are A Doctrine of Devils It is rather a Doctrine of Devils to teach so 19. Peter was not the Prince of the Apostles Peter was A or if you will The Principal Apostle but he was not the Prince of any one of them much less of all 20. The Bishop of Rome is Antichrist We are not so much agreed about this point as to give in a full verdict but we agree he is Antichristian 21. The difference concerning Leaven and Easter is inconsiderable Where no danger of Schisms or confusions may alter the case it is true 22. It is Heathenish to invoke Saints that reign with Christ Whether heathenish or no may be doubted they never worshipping any relating to Christ But for all that it may be and is superstitious and idolatrous in the sense very current in the Roman Church 23. The Reliques of Saints are not to be worshipped We hold so indeed though we hold they are to be respected relatively 24. The Saints in Heaven have no merits It is true taken strictly and properly 25. Indulgences of the Church are vain They are not only vain but wicked and generally blasphemous and ridiculous as mangâ—ed by the Church of Rome contrary or at least without all Precedents of the Christian Church for many hundred years viz. in remitting Sins or Punishments after this life and that divers times before they are committed Is not this fine and wonderful ancient and Catholick 26. Nothing is to be read in the Church besides Canonical Scripture This is rank Puritanism contradicted by themselves in their practise who read their Sermons as well as others and pray which is aequivalent to reading in this case out of their own heads rather than Scripture 27. In Oecumenical Councils and Private for the explaining of the Doctrine of Faith the consent of Lay-Princes is necessary It is necessary for the orderly assembling of such Councils It is necessary for the giving any Secular enforcement unto them 28. That it is lawful for Lay-men alone the Clergy opposing to introduce the Ancient Religion This is true no farther then that of Gerson which is alledged to this purpose A Lay-man with Scripture on his side is to be preferred before a Council without it Supposing a monstrous Proposition no wonder if a monstrous conclusion follows 29. He is no Bishop that teacheth not This is also a Puritan strain It being only true that he is no faithful conscientious Pastor but either proud or treacherous or sloathful or basely prudent who doth not in person discharge his Office so far as he is able without turning the care of his flock over to others using that for an argument of keeping close in his Cabin which is rather an argument of appearing in his charge viz. storms on the Church Opposition the Faith and Orders of the Church meet withal and difficulties obstructing the truth It being both shameful and ridiculous both in Bishop and Priest to censure others for enemies to the Church and for them so to wast it in all mens esteem in deserting it and delivering it up to the care of others themselves seeking little else then their temporal Harvest and case These men are over the Church indeed but 't is as the Extinguisher is over the Candle to put it out They pretend for themselves they have been sufferers for the Church and so it should seem indeed by their carriage to it in that through their scandalous negligence as to their charge they take a course to revenge themselves of it by making it suffer as much or more for them 30. Faith alone justifies How this is held we have even now as also we shall hereafter more fully explain 31. There are no Merits in Good works There are none properly so called 32. Priests and Monks may marry 'T is true where the
Gods Word already confirming this duty and to leave others to every ingenuous Christians diligent use of it to avoid prolixity And for the objections which may be made and are commonly found against what is above delivered for the same reason I pass them over as likewise because I intend not here Controversie but Positive Institutions CHAP. XXVII An Application of the former Discourse of Civil Government to Ecclesiastical How Christs Church is alwayes visible and how invisible Of the Communion of Christ and his Members The Church of Christ taken specially for the Elect who shall infallibly be saved never visible But taken for true Professours of the Faith must alwayes be visible though not Conspicuous in comparison of other Religions or Heresies THE Reasons moving me to insist a while upon Civil Government before I entred upon Ecclesiastical are First because I find Authors of the grounds of Christian Religion to treat of the same generally Secondly because where breaches have been made often in the Faith and Discipline of the Church there necessary provision ought to be made to secure them for the future but for want of due understanding of this Doctrine licencious zeal blinded with presumption hath transported very many into unchristian practises Thirdly because it is a necessary introduction to the more clear and compendious pursuing of our subject of the Spiritual Society of the Church of Christ and particularly its Form The Form of Christs Church may be distinguished according to the vulgar Notion into invisible and visible or inward and outward Invisible we here call that which doth not at all offer it self to our outward sense of seeing cannot be beholden with our eye Or that which may in some manner appear to our sight but not as a Church of Christ though in truth it so may be According to the first acceptation of invisible we understand the Body Mystical of Christ consisting of himself the only proper Head the Holy Spirit animating and influencing the same and the particular members of the holy most happy invisible Spirits in heaven and Saints on earth spiritually united to them by Christ in the divine band of holiness And hitherto do the words of the Apostle to the Ephesians seem to be applyed saying Having made known the mystery of his will That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather Ephes 1. 9 10. together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are in earth even in him signifying hereby the mystical conjunction of Men and Angels in Christ Jesus although there are who not improbably and more literally do understand these words only of the collection and uniting of Jews who in respect of their peculiar exaltation to Gods service and favour are stiled in Scripture heavenly compared with the Gentiles and Gentiles into one Faith and Church of Christ which therefore divers times is called a Mystery as Romans the 16. 25 26. Ephes 3. v. 3 4 5. Col. 1. 26 27. 1 Tim. 3. 16. because as is there expressed it was an hidden and incredible thing to the Jews that the Gentiles should be taken into the like priviledges and rights of serving God as were once esteemed incommunicable to any so fully as to the Jews But whether the Scripture according to its most genuine and literal sense intendeth at any time to comprehend into one Society Angelical Peings and Humane as the Church of Christ as I do not find though the Ancients as well as Modern have held such an opinion so do I not oppose the Mystery of which we now speak being sufficiently verified in the preternatural and invisible conjunction of Christ and his Church in the indissoluble bands of his Spirit guiding the members thereof into all sufficiencie of Grace here and immortal absolute glory hereafter in heaven To understand this co-union or conjunction of Christ and his Members the better we are to call to mind a threefold union intimated in holy Writ unto us First a conjunction of Nature when more are of the same individual nature as the three Persons in the Holy Trinity are united in the same Divine Nature though in themselves distinct which is so proper to that mystery of the Trinity that it is not to be found elsewhere no not in that intimate communion we now speak of between Christ and his Members their natures continuing distinct Again another conjunction proper to Christian Religion is the union of two natures into one Person as in the Mystery of Christs incarnation when the humane and divine Nature become one so far as to constitute but one Person Christ Jesus So do not Christ and his Church But by a third way are Christ and his Church united into one aggregate Spiritual Body or Society which is effected by his Spirit which yet do not make properly a Part of that Body but by its manifold divine Graces do produce and conserve the same Christ thereby and his Church being as St. Paul saith One Spirit He that is joyned unto the Lord is one Spirit And 1 Cor. 6. 17. St. John likewise saith Hereby we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his Spirit This truly and only in a proper sense is invisible and that alwayes and hath two Parts the triumphant in Heaven which is a most perfect pure holy and blessed Society which have through the bloud of the Lamb and the power of his Spirit overcome the three grand Enemies Sin Death and the Devil and reaped the fruits of their sufferings and labours all tears being wiped from their eyes all sorrows being fled away all temptations for ever conquered and ceasing to molest them Now this part of Christ's Church remains alwayes invosible unto us here below And as for the other Part which is called Militant and are described to be A number of faithful and elect people living under the Cross and aspiring towards the perfection of Grace and Glory hereafter supposing at present what may hereafter be farther discussed viz. That such a peculiar number of holy persons there are within the visible Church of Christ which shall infallibly attain to everlasting bliss in heaven yet neither are these as such at any time visible or discernable to our common senses It being scarce if at all possible to judge infallibly who shall be saved and who shall not be saved it being much more difficult for any man to be assured of another mans salvation than of his own seeing that as is said hereunto an inward testimony of Gods Spirit is required which is the ground of that sound hope which is commonly called Assurance but the Promises of God in holy Scripture do not extend in like manner to the assuring of any man that another shall be saved as that he himself shall or that anothers faith shall not fail as that his own shall not but thus far only probably a truer and more certain sentence may
the ultimate of All was the glory of God was the salvation of the observers of them obedience unto Gods will being the most immediate Fifthly they agree In that neither of them was immediately given of God but both in the hand of a Mediatour between God and Man as the Apostle witnesseth of the Old Law in his Epistle to the Galatians Gal. 3. 19 20. It was ordained by Angels in the hands of a Mediatour Now this Mediatour is not a Mediatour of one And of the Gospel the same Apostle speaketh to the Hebrews that Jesus was the Mediatour of a New Covenant as was Hebr. 12. 24. prophesied in Deuteronomy by Moses saying The Lord thy God will raise Deut. 18. 15. up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren like unto me unto him ye shall hearken And Moses and Christ agreed in that First Moses came not of himself but was sent of God So also Christ glorified Hebr. 5. 5. not himself to be made an High Priest but he that said unto him Thou art my Son c. 2. Neither Moses nor Christ delivered their own will or sought their own glory before the glory of him that sent them For Moses was commanded to make all things according to the patern shewed Exod. 25. 40. him of God in the Mount And we find nothing in the Books of Moses more frequent than The Lord said unto Moses c. In like manner Christ saith of himself The Word which ye hear is not mine but the Fathers that John 14. 24. John 5. 43. sent me And elsewhere I am come in my Fathers name c. Thirdly they were both sent immediately of God Fourthly Both of them confirmed the Doctrine by Miracles and mighty Signs proving to the beholders a Divine Power assisting them For Moses wrought such Miracles as none of the expertest Magicians could and Christ saith of himself If I John 15. 24. had not done among them the works that no other man did they had not had sin Thus they may seem to agree But their difference is no less and that First if we consider their immediate Authors in their Persons For Moses was only Man but Christ God and Man under which one manifold other differences are comprehended as to their conception birth life and death manner of their office and administration thereof which I pass over and come to the Laws or Covenants themselves given by Moses and Christ For then the Law and Covenant in the hand of Christ was more ancient than that given by Moses as to the substance and foundation which was the Law of Nature and Reason and Justice towards God and Man and perfect Obedience to the will of God For the Promise of the Messias to come was made to Mankind immediately after Adams transgression wherein consisted the sum of the Gospel many hundred of years before Moses his dayes or Laws and therefore must be more sacred and necessary Secondly The Law as Mosaical was only a type and shadow of good things to come and not the very things themselves as the Apostle to the Hebrews argueth Hebr. 10. 1. But as it is commonly seen when a man propoundeth to himself to cast a fair Statue or to build a fair house he first makes a mold and prepares convenient tools So God out of his wisdom however he could have done otherwise first prepared the Law of Moses as a Model according to which he cast the Law of Christ and made use of the Rites and Ceremonies to prepare the way for the Gospel And hence ariseth a Third difference because the Form of Moses his Law was temporary and to cease but that of Christ was to have no end as was prophesied in the Book of the Psalms speaking of the Jewish Politie Church and Magistracy under the Metaphors of Heavens and their host as is freouent in Scripture They shall perisb but thou shalt endure yea all of them shall wax old like a psal 102. 26 27. hebr 1. 10. Jer. 32. 40. Hebr. 13. 20. Daniel 4. 3. Psal 145. 13. garment as a vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed but thou art the same and thy years shall have no end Of Christs Kingdom there shall be no end Fourthly The Law and Covenant Mosaical had only temporal Promises of reward and punishments relating to this Life and the Land of Canaan called for this cause the Land of Promise unto Abraham and his Seed upon condition of Obedience unto those Laws delivered to Abraham and Moses As upon due examination of particular instances which may be given doth appear For they declare to us that so long as they observed Gods commands and kept to his worship they prospered and were happy in secular blessings but when they forsook them God forsook them and they soon perished in their sins But both the promises and threatnings of the Gospel and New Covenant were spiritual and perpetual leading unto everlasting Life For every one saith Christ that Matth. 19. 29. hath for saken houses or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children for any names sake shall receive an hundred fold and shall inherit everlasting Life And so Luke 18. v. 30. Yet to judge more clearly of the Mosaical Law and the better to reconcile both Jewish and Christian interpreters of Moses his Law some whereof make it meerly Ceremonial and concerning in its reward only temporal blessings or curses as may be gathered from the blessings and curses ennumerated in the Book of Deuteronomie Deut. 28. chap. 18. others affirm it to have contained spiritual blessings upon obedience and the contrary therefore we are to distinguish in the Law of Moses those things which were meerly Mosaical and Levetical from those things which were Natural and Moral For the Law or Covenant made by Moses in Gods behalf with the Israelites contained in it many things of morality and Gods worship and service agreeable to the substantial part of the Gospel but this it did not as Mosaical but rather as Evangelical For from the beginning of the World to the Incarnation of Christ there was alwayes as a thorow-Base to several parts in Musick the Covenant of the Gospel in some degree running along with the various forms of Mosaical Constitutions and these often insinuated and pressed in the Old Law but the Covenant Mosaical though it was built upon these grounds was not fashioned by them but as the Author to the Hebrews saith had also Ordinances of Divine Service and a worldly Hebr. 9. 1. v. 10. Sanctuary that is for that Age. And again calleth them Carnal Ordinances imposed on them until the time of Reformation i. e. of the Gospel it self Now in all reason the end should be proportionable to the means If therefore the means be carnal so ought also the end and not spiritual speaking of the reward But the Ordinances of the Gospel being not
and this is to our brethren whom we have wronged and scandalized And is either publick when we have done any thing against the Church in general by unchristian practises as Murders Sacriledge Uncleanness and such like It was constantly required that such should satisfie the will of the Church of which they were members and undergo penalties or penances judged meet for such offences and not be admitted into brotherly communion until they had suffered for their folly to the content of the Church A laudable necessary practise to be retained still as well that the offender being put to publick shame for publick sins might amend his life and the Church may be preserved from the like contagion of sin For notorious offenders being excluded from the Communion were not restored to it until such satisfaction as this was made Another satisfaction much of the same nature with this is that which ought to be made to the utmost of our power to them whom we have wronged by unjust words or deeds against them which is necessary for the obtaining of Gods mercy and pardon to us For if we must forgive the injuries done unto us if we would have God forgive us our trespasses ought we not much more to give every man his due in point of justice The first seems to be a Law purely Evangelical but the second Natural supposed to the Gospel as imperfect yet most necessary The Rule therefore amongst Divines is most certain The sin is not pardoned until the thing Non remittitur peccatum nisi restituatur ablatum cum restitui potest Aug. Epist 54 taken away be restored Now we take away a mans Good name and we take away his Estate unjustly and before we can say we have repented we must be careful to our utmost to make this Satisfaction or Restitution Where we take away a mans life we cannot indeed ever satisfie the Party no though we should dedicate our own lives to him yet so far as we can even outwardly humble our selves by afflicting our bodies and purses and especially endeavouring by extraordinary acts of bounty and Charity to preserve the lives of such who stand in need of our assistance and relief It was no satisfaction to him whose eye was put out or tooth broken to have the eye or tooth of his Adversary to be struck out for it Yet it shewed in the Moral sense thus much that our utmost indeavour must not be wanting to make satisfaction to them we have wilfully spoiled oppressed defrauded or otherwise injured For otherwise it doth not appear how a man dying conscious of such apparent injustices as these can escape the damnation of hell A new stupifying notion of Faith freely justifying may perhaps be so ministred to him as to quiet his Conscience but save his Soul it cannot where it is in a mans power to make recompence and satisfie injuries and injustices But because man is naturally so partial unto himself as for his ease and self-love to make the best construction of Gods mercy inconditionate to him and his sins against God It was never in open notorious scandalous sins permitted to the offender to judge for himself but his actions were subject to Ecclesiastical censures and proper punishments imposed upon him to bring him by those outward censures to inward remorse Which severe censures when they were observed to have a great effect upon the Penitent were divers times remitted in part lightened and shortened by the favour of the Church which were called therefore Indulgences Following herein the precept and example of St. Paul in the like case of the incestuous Corinthian excommunicated out of the Church who demonstrating sincere and extraordinary repentance for such his fact St. Paul with a 2 Cor. 2. 6 7. fatherly affection puts a stop to the utmost process of his Penance saying Sufficient to such a man is this punishment which was inflicted of many So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him and comfort him lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with over-much sorrow c. Lest the punishment imposed on grievous offenders meeting with a tender spirit should break the heart rather then humble it and cast him away whom they intended to save thereby a seasonable relaxation was alwayes at hand to the restauration of such an one But as for that sense and gross abuse of Indulgence whereby it is turned to remit sins aforehand without due humiliation passed and not only so but to reach the torments supposed to be inflicted on Christians after this life in Purgatory it is so absurd in it self so unknown to all ancient Christian ages so inconsistent with the doctrine of the Gospel and nature of Repentance that as it is impudence in that Church to pretend any of these to favour it so is it stupidity in any person to lend any credit to it or have any relvance upon it It is usually said That few souls going out of this life so pure and thorowly cleansed as to be fit presently to enter into the holy place of heaven where no unclean thing shall come it is requisite there should remain some place to perfect the purgation of the Soul begun here And that the power of the Church especially the reputed Universal Father of it extendeth in like manner to the mitigating and shortning of those purgative torments as to the penances inflicted upon Penitents on earth Truly if they could but prove what they as yet have not taken the boldness so much as to say that they or the Church inflicted the torments of Purgatory upon sinners there detained I should be apt to believe they could take off the Rod they laid on but never pretending to that I marvel they should pretend to this any more than they dare to the removal of a Fever by an indulgence only because they judged the Party so ill affected to have suffered and been sick long enough There being not the least ground in holy Scripture to enable them so far nor any argument out of Scripture to perswade themselves of this power so great as temporal gain and filthy cursed lucre more like to damn the pretenders to it then save the tormented out of misery But this is upon supposal made of such a Purgatory but that it is only supposed and no real existence appears from most ancient Tradition retained to this day in the Church of Greece which indeed taking occasion from Origen's singular opinion doth affirm a Purgation and that by fire at the last day of the general Resurrection when by an unknown manner God shall cause a purgation and change of the corruptible body of man into an incorruptible condition more fit for heaven and glory Austin sometimes Aug. Civ Dei lib. 21. c. 24. doubted whether any such place or state after death were wherein Souls were detained for their emendation and preparation for Heaven He grants it possible and that it is all but actually and positively so to
that communion which may detain any man of Christian modesty and Charity from pronouncing such an one to be infallibly damn'd or out of possibility to salvation And if it be hereupon demanded What difference we put between Infidels and such corrupt Christians seeing diverse have undertaken to assert a Possibility of salvation to them also living exactly to the Light and Rule of Nature in them I answer not absolutely at present dashing the argument a-pieces by denying the supposition and their colourable proofs thereof but demonstrating a vast discrimination between the one and other condition For commonly where Heresies which are so properly called and not Gentilism as they are which destroy the first Principles of Christianity are taught and maintained there are to be found all truths necessarie to salvation in a Christian sense For the Holy Scriptures we suppose are there received and submitted unto which are able to make a 2 Tim 3. 16 17. man wise unto salvation and thorowly to furnish him unto all good works And the Records of the Church and ancienter practise good guides against the rocks way-laying a man in his course to Heaven And the want of actual communion with a Church doth then only expose our souls to Perdition when it is wilfully and causelesly slighted and contemned And then only doth Separation visible 〈◊〉 less Visible alienation of mind and affection put on the nature of Schism And there are two general defects in a Church which justify Separation according to those two things we have shewed do constitute a Church Doctrine of Faith and Divine Regiment called commonly Discipline If a Church errs notoriously in the former no Separation can be called Schism oâ— if defective not in Government absolutely for without some Government it could not be so much as a Society but in the Government oâ—dained for it because then it should not be a Christian Society For the faith of Christians held do not make a Christian Society but the Christian Regiment Christian Regiment also I call that not whereby Christians are Governed for Civil Governments are common to Heathens and Christians but that which is Proper to Christians as Christians and was instituted by Christ for Christians and not invented out of mens wise brains and accommodated to the Church and perhaps called Divine to give it greater credit and place amongst Christians Of which we have alreadie spoken It being a common rule amongst the Ancients Clemens Alexand Stromal immutable with me There can be no true Flock without true Pastours And there can be no true Pastours where they are not set over the Flock according to Christs known and received will but some presumed tacit and extraordinary Vocation as they term it when there is an entrance by the Window and not by the Door From hence it doth appear how uncertain and confused their notion and position is who without any more adoe conclude all those to be Schismaticks and that upon their own Principles and Concessions who separate from a Christian Societie which they acknowledge to be a true Church For very great is the ambiguity both of Separation and True Church First Separation is as we have before noted either of Subordinates or Co-ordinates And of Subordinates either simply or with Restriction Simply subordinate I call them not comparitively with Christs Imperial Power but with all External power who by divine Right of Providence owe direct obedience to their Pastours in all things not inhibited by the Law of God to which all Spiritual Pastours are to be no â—ess subject than the sheep themselves And thus every Bishop is true Head and Governor of that Flock which under Christ is committed to his Care and Custodie But in like manner is not that Bishop subject to the Metropolitane and much less that Metropolitane to his Patriarch For these are but Ecclesiastical Constitutions and of no distinct Order though Degree According to which obligations of obeying the refusing to obey and dis-uniting ones self from the Governours of the Church doth aggravate or extenuate the Division and the guilt thereof And without all peradventure may one Church divide from another upon less grounds then the Members of one Church separate from the more immediate Head of the same How thick do instances stand in Ecclesiastical History of Churches who by vertue of their Respective Governours have been divided and yet both remain true Churches Again a True Church is said so to be more than one way viz. As to Being absolutely and Being perfectly We know that every Errour in Doctrine though great nay though heretical doth not presently destroy the nature of a Church absolutely though it takes away from the perfection of a Church How that opinion was delivered by the Fathers viz. That Heresie destroyes the Church we have Cyprianus Epistola 52. â— gat Novatianos eâ—â—e Christianosâ— shewed in part speaking of Heresie and now may add farther that the the same persons of old or their Co-equals denied an Heretique to be a Christian also and therefore they are to be understood of the such foul and unchristian Heresies which rased the foundation of faith it self as did the Valentinians the Gnosticks the Marcionites and such like For t is now agreed to That unless a man be a Christian he cannot be an Heretique Or if at any time they spake of more tolerable Heresies not wholly inconsistent with Christianity it self then they laid the burden of Damnation upon that accessorie but separable Aggravation Uncharitableness which alone and especially conjoined with such errours exposed to damnation But as it is with the Natural Man it is with the Spiritual There are some parts Essential and Vital which cannot be wanting or corrupted but the Whole must loose its nature and denomination and there are others not absolutely Essential which are called Integral without which the Body may possible subsist but not be perfect in its material Parts And so it is with the Body of Faith consisting of so many Articles or members as Parts some Vital and essential some necessarie to its perfections but not its Being absolutely And a Church may be called a true Church which is defective or Excessive in these though not in them And yet we need not betake our selves to that explication by some used of a True-man and a Thief to express how a Church may be a True Church and an erroneous one at the same time For the nature of this truth we ascribe unto the Church consisting only in Morality If the Church failes in that the Nature of it failes as it doth not in a man when he is corrupted with falsness and vice But this we say That although all Truths are equally true as to the nature of Truth it self they are not of equal importance and use to us or to a Church Therefore such a Latitude being in the notion of a True Church how can any man so confidently say that No Church can separate from the Church
Apostle speaks of the state of Evil or Condemnation in the next of the state of Restitution and Justification For as all persons were included in the Condemnation of Adam so were all included in the Justification of Christ But as of all them only some many were through his disobedience made Sinners that is became such sinners as not to return to actual Righteousness and Salvation so by the obedience of Christ not all who were called and chosen came to Life and Holiness but many only were made Righteous actually and not all Or if we take the word Sin as he of whom we speak doth not so much for the real inward vitiousness of the soul but for any outward defect and which is yet more for the Punishment of Sin in which sense the Sacrifice for sin was called Sin in the Old Law and Christ in the New Testament is said to be made Sin for us that is a Sacrifice for Sin so that to be made sinners should import as much as to be made lyable to the punishment of sin the matter is the same But because this Authour not only inclines to the Opinion of Pelagius and of Socinus after him making the corruption of nature nothing and therefore exempting Infants from any such natural infection as we here suppose but uses the same evasion of Imitation of Adams sin and not propagation as the original of all Evil to us therefore let us hear what St. Austins argument was against that Opinion If saies he the Apostle spake Aug. Epist 87. of Sin by imitation and not propagation entring into the world he could not have said that by one Man Sin entred into the world but rather by the Devil for he sinned before man and as the Wiseman saith Through envie Wisd 2. 24. of the Devil came death into the world And Christ tells us how aptly the Devil may be said to propagate sin by imitation as well as Adam thus reprehending the Jews Ye are of your Father the Devil and the Lusts of John 8. 44. your Father ye will do he was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him when he speaketh a lye he speaketh it of his own for he is a lyar and the Father of it And when St. Paul saith We were by nature the children of wrath as well Ephes 2. 3. Psalm 51. 5. as others And the Psalmist Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in Sin did my mother conceive me that these places must be accounted hyperbolical and not to have a proper sense is the special evasion of Modern Wits not comparable to Ancienter Judgments more simply understanding them I know a more colourable interpretation is made by others who interpret Conceiving in sin as relating to the Parents and not to the Children But this is less probable than the ordinary and obvious sense applying it to David For though it may be probable enough that Parents may offend in acts of Procreation and so the child may be said to be conceived by them in sin yet David being at the speaking of these words in deepest repentance for his own sins cannot be said to leave off that subject and to confess the sins of others and charge his parents with that which concerned him not Again when he says He was shapen in iniquity nothing could he say more intimately to signifie his proper state at the time of his first conception But the Scriptures do not only barely say we are originally thus infected and sinful but by the effects and certain other indications declare the same The first and chiefest of which may be Death and punishments sticking close to infants at their birth and even before they come into the world Now the Law of God being unalterable that punishment should follow and not go before sin it must be that somewhat of the nature of sin must prepare the way for such sufferings Secondly That all men come to years of discretion are effected with Actual sin few of the opposers of Original sin deny But according to Reason and Scripture both the fountain being so infected and corrupted whatever flows from it must of necessity partake of the same evil For Job 14. 4. Jam. 3 11 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Anâ—ae Gazaei Thâ—â—â—hrastus Biblioth P P. pag. 392. To. 8. Non eniâ— es ex â—â—lis qui modo nova quaedam gannire câ—perunt dicentes nullum reatum esse ex Adam tractum qui per baptisâ—um in infante sâ—lvatur Aug. Epist 28. Hieronymo Ad neminem ante bona mens â—enit quam mala Omnes prâ—â—ccupati sumus Sen. Ep. 50. Nemo difficulter ad naturam reducitur nisi qui ab â—a defecit ibid. who saith Job can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one And St. James Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter Can a fig-tree my brethren bear olive-berries either a vine figs so can no fountain yield both salt water and fresh From whence it follows by way of just Analogy That the Fountain being corrupt there must be derived to the Rivolets the like unsoundness And thirdly we see this by experience that both bodily and mental infirmities and disorders are traduced from Father to Son in actual Evils as the Gout Stone and Leprosie are transinitted to posterity from the Father and Anger and other passions in like manner It may as well be said That the Son hath the Gout and halts by imitation and not by propagation as that such other affections which are common to Father and Son so proceed Fourthly The Argument which St. Augustine could never by the Pelagians be answered taken from Baptism For this they could not deny but the Church universally practised Paeda-baptism that is held an opinion manifested in practise that Children were capable of that Sacrament and received the benefit of it however some particular persons deferred the same and held it of use unto them for the entring into the Kingdom of Heaven Therefore surely there must be some impediment and that impediment could be nothing but what hath the nature of sin in it therefore they bring sin with them into the World Pelagius had a good mind indeed as Austin observed to have denyed the use of Baptism but as bold as he and his great second Julian of Capua was the general Judgment of the Church declared in the practise of it put a stop to his inclinations but Socinus bolder than any Heretick before him sticks at no such thing but flatly denyes the use of it to all but such as are converted newly to the Christian Faith as in the times of the Apostles This was freely and roundly invented and uttered and which suffices alone to convince us of the former errour denying Original Sin which was alwayes held a principal cause of Baptism Lastly Thus much may be observed by natural Reason to the confirmation of Original Sin
point with that sentence of St. Augustine against Neque enim ea nobis volumus quae dimissa non dubitamus in baptismo sed illa utique quae humanâ— fragilitate quamvis paâ—va tamen crebra subrepunt Aug. Ep. 108. them who by their own confession doth expresly affirm That that clause in the Lords Prayer Forgive us our trespasses or doubts used by the Regenerate in Baptism doth not concern the inhabiting Concupiscence but the sins committed after Baptism Which agrees with what we delivered before that though we may give and lament for the misery of damnified nature in us by our fall in Adam yet we are not bound to pray for the remission of it after our regeneration It may be inserted into our confession as a part of our misery thereby to move God to a more full restitution of the loss sustained but not as to the obtaining of forgiveness of the guilt It may serve for our humiliation and aspiration to a fuller delivery from the infelicity we are under by the remains of it not from the guilt of it which is the sinfulness wholly extinguished by those waters For as it is with a son to whom his father hath committed a greater measure of wealth of money and rich cloathing than he could well expect during his minority which money and rayment he hath in riotous living wretched company lost and imbezelled though he returns so far into the favour of his father as to have his offence pardoned and is taken into his family and hath the promise of being heir of his Estate notwithstanding his former miscarriages yet hath not at present the like affluence and ornaments restored to him as he was once possessed of So God dealeth ordinarily with his children made such by Baptism the crime is remitted to them which they were guilty of they are accepted into his favour and become part of his holy family the Church they are assured of the future inheritance in Heaven Yet doth not God thereby presently restore all that in Adam was prodigally lost by them and mis-spent but ordains that they should by their future good and dutiful behaviour and his ordinary allowance of Grace given them Occupie until he comes and by daily improvement in Grace arrive at last by little and little to the perfect consummation in Glory After Baptism therefore there is that Lucrum cessans as they call it that want of benefit which was once enjoyed fully and freely and continues of the nature of punishment after pardon sealed to us But the Damnum emergens or positive damage or evil doth cease God forbearing further to vindicate himself than what naturally springs from the foresaid defects remaining in the Regenerate and this too not so much with an evil eye as a good intention to his children to reduce them nearer and nearer to him by such exercises And hereby I suppose is competently answered also that Scholastical doubt moved chiefly in reference to Actual sins viz. Whether God doth properly punish his children for those sins which he hath pardoned unto them before The Scripture which is not wont to speak Logically precisely or Scholastically but popularly familiarly doth many times call that punishment from God because nothing can happen without his order and dispensation which is rather to be imputed to the imperfect state of Regeneration in this life and the unrestored integrity in man than the unpardonedness of offences And again it declareth so full satisfaction made by Christ for the sins of the Penitent and freeness of Gods Grace that without calling in question the justification of a sinner and the justice of God no more can be exacted of the pardoned than what is paid But as is said a son reconciled to his father may be fully forgiven and assured of the inheritance expected yet through want of that plenty denyed him not good affection may fall into many wants and troubles which should not have touched him had he at first persevered in his duty and felicity CHAP. XV. Of the Restitution of Man after sin The Means and Motives thereunto In what manner Christs Mediation was necessary to the reconciling of Man to God Socinus his Opinion of Christs Mediation refuted That Christ truly and properly satisfied by his Death and Passion for us AND thus have we passed one great Period of Gods Divine Providence in relation to the fall of Man For as hath been said the Providence of God consisting of his Power Justice Wisdome and Goodness is seen no less conspicuously in the due disposing of Evil to the general good of the Universe as likewise to his Glory than in dispensing of Good to his Creatures though this latter affects us most Now therefore we are to proceed to that Second most eminent Act of Gods more than Paternal Providence to Mankind in his Restauration And here we are to consider first the Motives inducing God to such a benign acceptation of him to favour Then the Means whereby this was accomplished And the former we may soon dispatch from what we before noted out of Chrysostome that the first Original of Gods great design and fountain of favour towards lost Man did and must needs spring from his own good will and inclination to Mercie immediately without any consideration whatever For neither Mans misery nor any of those many attempts of Schoolmen Fathers or Postillers to render a reason why God should be more inclined to favour Man than the lapsed Angels can be of any tolerable account to incite or invite God to Mercy in this case no nor the consideration of Christ For Christ was not the first reason which prevailed with God to have mercie but his own natural Grace as I may so speak disposed him first in general to the end And the end Mans restitution being thus propounded and determined by himself Christ was in order of causes elected as a Mediatour and Means designed to bring to pass that end And this the holy Scriptures affirm St. Peter in his Sermon recorded in the Acts thus speaks of him And he commanded us Acts 10. 42 43 to preach unto the People and to testifie that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead To him give all the Prophets witness that through his Name whosoever believeth in him should receive remission of sins Christ then is not the first Motive of Gods favourable Decree to Man but Christ is the first Means whereby that Decree was executed and brought to effect And this being granted and premised the doubt concerning the absolute or hypothetical necessity of Christs becoming incarnate and negotiating Mans salvation that is more plainly Whether so necessary it was that Christ should appear a Mediatour between God and Man as there were no possible salvation without it or that only upon or because God had so decreed it that none should be saved but by Christ may seem half ended For it is out of question
answer by demanding Why they shorten and straiten Christian Liberty naturally stretching it self to the Positive as well as the Negative part of our Religious Acts This seems to me to be both Sacrilegious and Superstitious too And why they make it shorter then Jesus Christ hath made it But I return to a second Instance of precise Superstition by the same Author defended That it is unlawful to salute with a kiss a Matron at first meeting her or departing from her because it is the foretaste of Lust yea to kiss is a very ill custom And so after the English fashion to salute all women they meet with Thus the superstitious Precisian not distinguishing between a thing contrary to a sober mans Judgment and his Conscience Whatever is indecent or unprofitable may be against the Judgment of a sober man but it is not therefore against his Conscience for only that can be said to be against Conscience which either is or appears at least to be morally evil Doubtless a grave and sober person may abhor the endless and witless fashions refuse to follow them but not out out of conscience because they are of themselves unlawful but because vain useless indecent and perhaps incommodious and so out of judgment and if the consequents be apparently evil I shall conclude all with one instance more of the Superstition of Sectaries the great cryers out against Superstition taken from Thomas Cartwright They commonly describe Superstition to be a rigorous exacting that at the hands of Christians which is not necessary to be done which is likewise to take away Christian Liberty according to their estimation And with this Querie they suppose they come up so close to you as you shall not be able to deliver your self out of their hands Is it which you require necessary to Salvation If it be answered No then again they come upon you with another expostulation Why then do you enjoyn it Hath not God left us many and those difficult Laws and Precepts and do you make the way to heaven more strait and the yoke of Christ more heavy by multiplying Superstitious Inventions To the latter part we have already made answer in effect denying absolutely what is taken here for granted that by such moderate Ceremonies both for number and nature as are of force and in use in our Church fewer and clearer than any Church of Christ hath used for twelve hundred years before the Reformation lately made the way to heaven is not at all straitned or stopped or the Precepts of God rendred more difficult and burdensome and not rather more light and easie to be observed and the truly labouring Christian helped and defended by them in his rode to heaven but where ignorant heads and evil tongues have cast infinite snares and horrible stumbling blocks in their way and so it is not the superstitious Ceremonies but the Enemies to such Ceremonies which have no other Superstition in them but what they have with much study and art and ill will we thank them devised and traduced all things not of their own invention yet double guilt with the glorious pretexts of Gods Word and pure Spiritual Worship which if you chance to be so profane and incredulous as to call in question and bring to the Touch you spoil all presently Again farther it is as necessary to Salvation as abstaining from notorious sins can make it to obey those that are over us in the Lord in all things against which no more but general and foul language which are solid and godly proofs with the vulgar can be brought nor hath been But to come to our intended Instance Are all things not necessary to Salvation not only superstuous but superstitious What will these Objectours answer to Baptism of Infants which many of them I here aim at do hold useful indeed and profitable but not necessary to Salvation or to exempt from the pains of damnation yet they are due observers of it They say there is a special Precept of God for the same and therefore perhaps though the thing be not of it self so necessary it may become necessary by vertue of such a Precept Granting all this liberally which if we would contend with them we might put them harder to it than they will be known of But where will they find any such direct or positive Precept that these Infants ought to be brought necessarily to Church and be baptized in the publick Congregation We commend their zeal and much approve their resolution so to have Baptism administred that seeing one end of it is to enter and as it were matriculate them into Christs Visible as well as Invisible Body the Church assembled they severely require this But if nothing can be needful which is not absolutely necessary and nothing so expedient as to be commanded by Man which God hath not before required who can without trembling read their horrible Superstition who under such grievous Obligations endeavour to enforce this as Cartwright doth in these words And I will farther say that Cartwright against Whitgift page 14. though the Infants which dye without Baptism should be assuredly damned yet ought not the order which God hath set in his Church Publick Baptism be broken after this sort Now that the Order which he calls indeed Gods is but the Order of the Assemblies so decreeing is manifest from the impossibility of proving this out of Scripture and the easiness of proving the contrary out of Reason thus from his own speech For is it possible for any man to conceive that God should require any thing of any man the observing of which should damn him He therefore that supposes that the Infant or any other person to be baptized must by Gods severe command be brought to Church to be baptized if he be baptized at all cannot so much as suppose that God will damn him for not being baptized at home in private But this is here supposed by him though I know not granted that a child may be damned for want of baptism and yet this child must no where be baptized but in the solemnities of a Congregation What is Tyranny and Superstition in the height if this be not What is it to advance humane Constitutions and Orders to an equality with Divine Precepts if this be not to suffer a poor soul to be damn'd rather than the Orders of their Church should be broken and to threaten and terrifie with damnation them that shall observe conscienciously the Orders of other Churches Or how come the Orders of their Churches which have no Scripture to confirm them as this for instance hath not to be more of Gods setling than they of other Churches no less consonant thereunto than theirs Where is the Fear of God Reverence and Justice Equity and common Ingenuity wanting to Man if not here Such dealings as this do really deserve our pity and prayers for them as well as for our selves tormented by them That God of his great mercy to them and us would vouchsafe to open so their eyes and affect their hearts with such a sincere and sober fear of God that they may like lost sheep straying into wild Desarts and in untrodden paths at length be reduced to the Great Shepheard of their and our souls making one Flock and in one Fold of the Church to the Glory of God the Safety of themselves and the unspeakable joy of the Church here and the salvation of us all hereafter FINIS ERRATA PAg. io lin 33. â— next for neat p. 43. In the title of the Chapt. 1. Temporarie p. 44. 1. 36. r. supposing p. 48. l. 37. r. affectedly p. 60. l. 38. r. vulgar use p. 73. l. 14. dele not p. 74. l. 30. dele â—ere p. 82. l. 26. 1. sure p. 83. l. 33. 1. as p. 93. l. 12. r. lighter ib. l. 51. r. people p. 95. l 25. add poâ—â—er p. 104. l. 48. 1. Collatinus p. 114. l. 12. 1. 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