just and unjust when it meaneth not the same man nor by imagining the same man learned and unlearned if learned in one skill and in another kinde of learning unskilful because the parts of every true opposition do always both concern the same subject and have reference to the same thing sith otherwise they are but in shew opposite and not in truth So the Will about one and the same thing may in contrary respects have contrary inclinations and that without contrariety The Minister of Justice may for publike example to others virtuously will the execution of that party whose pardon another for cousanguinities sake as virtuously may desire Consider death in it self and nature teacheth Christ to shun it Consider death as a mean to procure the salvation of the World and mercy worketh in Christ all willingness of minde towards it Therefore in these two desires there can be no repugnant opposition Again compare them with the Will of God and if any opposition be it must be onely between his appointment of Christs death and the former desire which wisheth deliverance from death But neither is this desire opposite to the Will of God The Will of God was that Christ should suffer the pains of death Not so his will as if the torment of innocency did in it self please and delight God but such was his Will in regard of the end whereunto it was necessary that Christ should suffer The death of Christ in it self therefore God willeth not which to the end we might thereby obtain life he both alloweth and appointeth In like manner the Son of Man endureth willingly to that purpose those grievous painsâ— which simply not to have shunned had been against Nature and by consequent against God I take it therefore to be an error that Christ either knew not what himself was to suffer or else had forgotten the things he knew The root of which error was an over-restrained consideration of Prayer as though it had no other lawful use but onely to serve for a chosen mean whereby the Will resolveth to seek that which the Understanding certainly knoweth it shall obtain Whereas Prayers in truth both unto are and his were as well sometime a presentation of meer desires as a mean of procuring desired effects at the hands of God We are therefore taught by his example that the presence of dolorous and dreadful objects even in mindes most perfect may as clouds over-cast all sensible joy that no assurance touching future victories can make present conflicts so sweet and easie but nature will shun and shrink from them nature will desire case and deliverance from oppressive burthens that the contrary determination of God is oftentimes against the effect of this desire yet not against the affection it self because it is naturally in us that in such case our Prayers cannot serve us as means to obtain the thing we desire that notwithstanding they are unto God most acceptable sacrifices because they testifie we desire nothing but at his hands and our desires we submit with contentment to be over-ruled by his Will and in general they are not repugnant unto the Natural Will of God which wisheth to the works of his own hands in that they are his own handy-work all happiness although perhaps for some special cause in our own particular a contrary determination have seemed more convenient finally that thus to propose our desires which cannot take such effects as we specifie shall notwithstanding otherwise procure us his Heavenly grace even as this very Prayer of Christ obtained Angels to be sent him as comforters in his Agony And according to this example we are not afraid to present unto God our Prayers for those things which that he will perform unto us we have no sure nor certain knowledge St. Pauls Prayer for the Church of Corinth was that they might not do any evil although he knew that no man liveth which sinneth not although he knew that in this life we always must pray Forgive us our sins It is our frailty that in many things we all do amiss but a vertue that we would do amiss in nothing and a testimony of that vertue when we pray That what occasion of sin soever do offer it self we may be strengthned from above to withstand it They pray in vain to have sin pardoned which seek not also to prevent sin by Prayer even every particular sin by Prayer against all sin except men can name some transgression wherewith we ought to have truce For in very deed although we cannot be free from all sin collectively in such sort that no part thereof shall be found inherent in us yet distributively at the least all great and grievous actual offences as they offer themselves one by one both may and ought to be by all means avoided So that in this sense to be preserved from all sin is not impossible Finally concerning deliverance it self from all adversity we use not to say men are in adversity whensoever they feel any small hinderance of their welfare in this World but when some notable affliction or cross some great calamity or trouble befalleth them Tribulation hath in it divers circumstances the Minde sundry faculties to apprehend them It offereth sometime it self to the lower powers of the Soul as a most unpleasant spectacle to the higher sometimes as drawing after it a train of dangerous inconveniences sometime as bringing with it remedies for the curing of sundry evils as Gods instrument of revenge and fury sometime sometime as a rod of his just yet moderate ire and displeasure sometime as matter for them that spightfully hate us to exercise their poysoned malice sometime as a furnace of tryal for vertue to shew it self and through conflict to obtain glory Which different contemplations of adversity do work for the most part their answerable effects Adversity either apprehended by Sense as a thing offensive and grievous to Nature or by Reason conceived as a snare an occasion of many mens falling from God a sequel of Gods indignation and wrath a thing which Satan desireth and would be glad to behold Tribulation thus considered being present causeth sorrow and being imminent breedeth fear For moderation of which two affections growing from the very natural bitterness and gall of adversity the Scripture much alledgeth contrary fruits which Affliction likewise hath whensoever it falleth on them that are tractable the grace of Gods holy Spirit concurring therewith But when the Apostle St. Paul teacheth That every one which will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution and by many tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of Heaven because in a Forest of many Wolves Sheep cannot chuse bat feed in continual danger of life or when St. Iames exhorteth to account it a matter of exceeding joy when we fall into divers temptations because by the tryal of Faith Patience is brought forth was it suppose we their meaning to frustrate
the Body without the Soul in the Body Christ hath merited to make us just but as a medicine which is made for health doth not head by being made but by being applied so by the merits of Christ there can be no Justification without the application of his Merits Thus farr we joyn hands with the Church of Rome 5. Wherein then do we disagree We disagree about the future and offence of the Medicine whereby Christ cureth our Disease about the 〈…〉 of applying it about the number and the power of means which God requireth in as for the effectual applying thereof to our Souls comfort When they are re 〈…〉 that the righteousness is whereby a Christian man is justified they answer that it is a Divine Spiritual quality which quality received into the Soul doth first make it to be one of them who are born of God and secondly indue it with power to bring forth such works as they do that are born of him even as the Soul of Man being joyned to his Body doth first make him to be of the number of reasonable Creatures and secondly inable him to perform the natural Functions which are proper to his kinde That it maketh the Soul amiable and gracious in the sight of God in regard whereof it is termed Grace That is purgeth purifieth and washeth out all the stains and pollutions of sins that by it through the merit of Christ we are delivered as from sin so from eternal death and condemnation the reward of sin This Grace they will have to be applied by infusion to the end that as the Body is warm by the heat which is in the Body so the Soul might be righteous by inherent Grace which Grace they make capable of increase as the Body may be more and more warm so the Soul more and more justified according as Grace should be augmented the augmentation whereof is merited by good Works as good Works are made meritorious by it Wherefore the first receit of Grace in their Divinity is the first Justification the increase thereof the second Justification As Grace may be increased by the merit of good Works so it may be diminished by the demerit of sins venial it may be lost by mortal sin In as much therefore as it is needful in the one case to repair in the other to recover the loss which is made the infusion of Grace hath her sundry after-meals for the which cause they make many ways to apply the infusion of Grace It is applyed to Infants through Baptism without either Faith or Works and in them really it taketh away Original sinne and the punishment due unto it It is applied to Infidels and wicked men in the first Justification through Baptism without Works yet not without Faith and it taketh away both Sinnes Actual and Original together with all whatsoever punishment eternal or temporal thereby deserved Unto such as have attained the first Justification that is to say the first receit of Grace it is applied farther by good Works to the increase of former Grace which is the second Justification If they work more and more Grace doth more increase and they are more and more justified To such as diminished it by venial sinnes it is applied by Holy-water Ave Marie's Crossings Papal Salutations and such like which serve for reparations of Grace decayed To such as have lost it through mortal sinne it is applied by the Sacrament as they term it of Penance which Sacrament hath force to conferr Grace anew yet in such sort that being so conferred it hath not altogether so much power as at the first For it onely cleanseth out the stain or guilt of sinne committed and changeth the punishment eternal into a temporal satisfactory punishment here if time doe serve if not hereafter to be endured except it be lightned by Masses Works of Charity Pilgrimages Fasts and such like or else shortned by pardon for term or by plenary pardon quite removed and taken away This is the mystery of the man of sinne This maze the Church of Rome doth cause her Followers to tread when they ask her the way to Justification I cannot stand now to untip this Building and to siâ— it piece by piece onely I will passe by it in few words that that may befall Bâ—… in the presence of that which God hath builded as hapned unto Dagon before the Ark. 6. Doubtless saith the Apostle I have counted all things loss and judge them to be doing that I may win Christ and to be found in him not having my own righteousness but that which is through the Faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God through Faith Whether they speak of the first or second Justification they make it the essence of a Divine quality inherent they make it Righteousnesse which is in us If it be in us then is it ours as our Souls are ours though we have them from God and can hold them no longer than pleaseth him for if he withdraw the breath of our nostrils we fall to dust but the Righteousness wherein we must be found if we will be justified is not our own therefore we cannot be justified by any inherent quality Christ hath merited righteousness for as many as are found in him In him God findeth us if we be faithful for by Faith we are incorporated into Christ. Then although in our selves we be altogether sinful and unrighteous yet even the man which is impious in himself full of iniquity full of sin him being found in Christ through Faith and having his sinne remitted through Repentance him God upholdeth with a gracious eye putteth away his sinne by not imputing it taketh quite away the Punishment due thereunto by pardoning it and accepteth him in Jesus Christ as perfectly righteous as if he had fulfilled all that was commanded him in the Law shall I say more perfectly righteous than if himself had fulfilled the whole Law I must take heed what I say but the Apostle saith God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him Such we are in the sight of God the Father as is the very Son of God himself Let it be counted folly or frensie or fury whatsoever it is our comfort and our wisdom we care for no knowledge in the World but this That man hath sinned and God hath suffered That God hath made himself the Son of Man and that men are made the righteousness of God You see therefore that the Church of Rome in teaching Justification by inherent Grace doth pervert the truth of Christ and that by the hands of the Apostles we have received otherwise than she reacheth Now concerning the righteousness of Sanctification we deny it not to be inherent we grant that unless we work we have it not onely we distinguish it as a thing different in nature from the righteousness of Justification we are righteous the one
behold saith the Apostle I Paul say unto you that if ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing Christ in the work of mans salvation is alone the Galathians were cast away by joyning Circumcision and the other Rites of the Law with Christ the Church of Rome doth teach her children to joyn other things likewise with him therefore their saith their belief doth not profit them any thing at all It is true that they do indeed joyn other things with Christ but how Not in the work of Redemption it self which they grant that Christ alone hath performed sufficiently for the salvation of the whole world but in the application of this inestimable treasure that it may be effectual to their salvation how demurely soever they confess that they seek remission of sins no otherwise then by the blood of Christ using humbly the means appointed by him to apply the benefit of his holy Blood they teach indeed so many things pernicious in Christian Faith in setting down the means whereof they speak that the very foundation of Faith which they hold is thereby plainly overthrown and the force of the blood of Jesus Christ extinguished We may therefore disputing with them urge them even with as dangerous sequels as the Apostle doth the Galatians But I demand If some of those Galatians heartily embracing the Gospel of Christ sincere and sound in Faith this one only error excepted had ended their lives before they were ever taught how perillous an opinion they held shall we think that the danger of this error did so over-weigh the benefit of their faith that the mercy of God might not save them I grant they overthrew the foundation of Faith by consequent doth not that so likewise which the Lutheran Churches do at this day so stifly and so firmly maintain For mine own part I dare not here deny the possibility of their salvation which have been the chiefest instruments of ours albeit they carried to their grave a perswasion so greatly repugnant to the truth Forasmuch therefore as it may be said of the Church of Rome she hath yet a little strength she doth not directly deny the foundation of Christianity I may I trust without offence perswade my self that thousands of our Fathers in former times living and dying within her walls have found mercy at the hands of God 18. What although they repented not of their errors God forbid that I should open my mouth to gain-say that which Christ himself hath spoken Except ye repent ye shall all perish And if they did not repent they perished But withall note that we have the benefit of a double Repentance the least sin which we commit in Deed Thought or Word is death without Repentance Yet how many things do escape us in every of these which we do not know How many which we do not observe to be sins And without the knowledge without the observation of sin there is no actual Repentance It cannot then be chosen but that for as many as hold the foundation and have holden all Sins and Errors in hatred the blessing of Repentance for unknown Sins and Errors is obtained at the hands of God through the gracious mediation of Jesus Christ for such suiters as cry with the Prophet David Purge me O Lord from my secret sins 19. But we wash a wall of lome we labour in vain all this is nothing it doth not prove it cannot justifie that which we go about to maintain Infidels and Heathen men are not so godless but that they may no doubt cry God mercy and desire in general to have their sins forgiven them To such as deny the foundation of Faith there can be no Salvation according to the ordinary course which God doth use in saving men without a particular repentance of that Error The Galathians thinking that unless they were circumcised they could not be saved overthrew the foundation of Faith directly therefore if any of them did die so perswaded whether before or after they were told of their Errors their end is dreadful there is no way with them but one death and condemnation For the Apostle speaketh nothing of men departed but saith generally of all If ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing Ye are abolished from Christ whosoever are justified by the Law ye are fallen from grace Gal. 5. Of them in the Church of Rome the reason is the same For whom Antichrist hath seduced concerning them did not S. Paul speak long before they received not the word of truth that they might not be saved therefore God would send them strong delusions to beleeve lies that all they might be damned which believe not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness And S. Iohn All that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life Apoc. 13. Indeed many in former times as their Books and Writings do yet shew held the foundation to wit salvation by Christ alone and therefore might be saved God hath always had a Church amongst them which firmly kept his saving truth As for such as hold with the Church of Rome that we cannot be saved by Christ alone without works they do not only by a circle of consequence but directly deny the foundation of Faith they hold it not no not so much as by a thred 20. This to my remembrance being all that hath been opposed with any countenance or shew of reason I hope if this be answered the cause in question is at an end Concerning general Repentance therefore what a Murtherer a Blasphemer an unclean person a Turk a Iew any sinner to escape the wrath of God by a general Repentance God forgive me Truly it never came within my heart that a general Repentance doth serve for all sins it serveth only for the common over-sights of our sinful life and for the faults which either we do not mark or do not know that they are faults Our Fathers were actually penitent for sins wherein they knew they displeased God or else they fall not within the compass of my first speech Again that otherwise they could not be saved than holding the foundation of Christian Faith we have not only affirmed but proved Why is it not then confessed that thousands of our Fathers which lived in Popish Superstitions might yet by the mercy of God be saved First if they had directly denied the very foundations of Christianity without repenting them particularly of that sin he which saith There could be no salvation for them according to the ordinary course which God doth use in saving men granteth plainly or at the least closely insinuateth that an extraordinary priviledge of mercy might deliver their souls from Hell which is more then I required Secondly if the foundation be denied it is denied for fear of some Heresie which the Church of Rome maintaineth But how many were there amongst our Fathers who being seduced by the common Error of
my Horse back to me I will give you Ten Groats more to carry you on foot to the Colledge And so God bless you good Richard And this you may believe was performed by both parties But alas the next news that followed Mr. Hooker to Oxford was That his Learned and Charitable Patron had changed this for a better life Which may be believed for that as he lived so he died in devout Meditation and Prayer and in both so zealously that it became a Religious question Whether his last Ejaculations or his Soul did first enter into Heaven And now Mr. Hooker became a Man of Sorrow and Fear Of sorrow for the loss of so dear and comfortable a Patron and of Fear for his future subsistence But Dr. Cole raised his spirits from this dejection by bidding him go cheerfully to his Studies and assuring him he should neither want Food not Rayment which was the utmost of his hopes for he would become his Patron And so he was for about Nine Moneths or not much longer for about that time this following accident did befal Mr. Hooker Edwin Sandys then Bishop of London and after Archbishop of York had also been in the days of Queen Mary forced by forsaking this to seek safety in another Nation where for many years Bishop Iewel and he were Companions at Bed and Board in Germany and where in this their Exile they did often eat the Bread of Sorrow and by that means they there began such a friendship as time did not blot out but lasted till the death of Bishop Iewel which was One thousand five hundred seventy and one A little before which time the two Bishops meeting Iewel began a story of his Richard Hooker and in it gave such a Character of his Learning and Manners that though Bishop Sandys was educated in Cambridge where he had obliged and had many Friends Yet his resolution was that his Son Edwin should be sent to Corpus-Christi Colledge in Oxford and by all means be Pupil to Mr. Hooker though his Son Edwin was then almost of the same age For the Bishop said I will have a Tutor for my Son that shall teach him Learning by Instruction and Vertue by Example and my greatest care shall be of the last and God willing this Richard Hooker shall be the Man into whose hands I will commit my Edwin And the Bishop did so about Twelve Moneths after this resolution And doubtless as to these two a better choice could not be made For Mr. Hooker was now in the Nineteenth year of his age had spent five in the University and had by a constant unwearied diligence attained unto a Perfection in all the Learned Languages By the help of which as excellent Tutor and his unintermitted Study he had made the subtilty of all the Arts easie and familiar to himself and useful for the discovery of such Learning as lay hid from common Searchers So that by these added to his great Reason and his Industry added to both He did not onely know more of Causes and Effects but what he knew he knew better then other men And with this Knowledge he had a most blessed and clear Method of Demonstrating what he knew to the great advantage of all his Pupils which in time were many but especially to his two first his dear Edwin Sandys and his as dear George Cranmer of which there will be a fair Testimony in the ensuing Relation This for his Learning And for his Behavior amongst other Testimonies this still remains of him That in four years he was but twice absent from the Chappel prayers and that his Behavior there was such as shewed an awful reverence of that God which he then worshipped and prayed to giving all outward Testimonies that his Affections were set on Heavenly things This was his Behavior towards God and for that to Man it is observable That he was never known to be angry or passionate or extream in any of his desires never heard to repine or dispute with Providence but by a quiet gentle submission and resignation of his will to the Wisdom of his Creator bore the burthen of the day with patience never heard to utter to an uncomly word And by this and a grave Behavior which is a Divine Charm hebegot an early Reverence unto his Person even from those that at other rimes and in other companies took a liberty to cast off that strictness of Behavior and Discourse that is required in a Collegiate Life And when he took any liberty to be pleasant his Wit was never blemished with scoffing or the utterance of any conceit that bordered upon or might beget a thought of loosness in his hearers Thus innocent and exemplary was his Behavior in his Colledge and thus this good man continued till his Death still increasing in Learning in Patience and Piety In this Nineteenth year of his Age he was chosen December 24. 1573. to be one of the Twenty Scholars of the Foundation being elected and admitted as born in Devonshire out of which County a certain number are to be elected in Vacancies by the Founders Statutes and now he was much encouraged for now he was perfectly incorporated into this beloved Colledge which was then noted for an eminent Library strict Students and remarkable Schollars And indeed it may glory that it had Bishop Iewel Doctor Iohn Reynolds and Doctor Thomas Iackson of that Foundation The first famous by his Learned Apology for the Church of England and his Defence of it against Harding The second for the learned and wise Menage of a publick Dispute with Iohn Hart of the Roman perswasion about the Head and Faith of the Church then Printed by consent of both parties And the third for his most excellent Exposition of the Creed and for his other Treatises all such as have given greatest satisfaction to men of the greatest Learning Nor was this man more eminent for his Learning then for his strict and pious Life testified by his abundant Love and Charity to all Men. In the year 1576. February 23. Mr. Hookers Grace was given him for Inceptor of Arts Doctor Herbert Westphaling a Man of noted Learning being then Vice-Chancellor and the Act following he was compleated Master which was Anno 1577. His Patron Doctor Cole being that year Vice-Chancellor and his dear Friend Henry Savil of Merton Colledge then one of the Proctors It was that Henry Savil that was after Sir Henry Savil Warden of Merton Colledge and Provost of Eaton He which founded in Oxford two famous Lectures and endowed them with liberal maintenance It was that Sir Henry Savil that translated and enlightned the History of Cornelim Tacitus with a most excellent Comment and enriched the World by his laborious and chargeable collecting the scattered pieces of St. Chrysostome and the Publication of them in one entire Body in Greek in which Language he was a most judicious Critick It was this Sir Henry Savil that had the happiness to
which Admonitions all that I mean to say is but this There will come a time when three words uttered with Charity and Meekness shall receive a far more blessed Reward then three thousand Volumns written with disdainful sharpness of Wit But the manner of Mens Writings must not alienate our hearts from the Truth if it appear they have the Truth as the Followers of the same Defender do think he hath and in that perswasion they follow him no otherwise then himself doth Calvin Beza and others with the like perswasion that they in this cause had the Truth We being as fully perswaded otherwise it resteth that some kinde of tryal be used to finde out which part is in error 3. The first mean whereby Nature teacheth men to judge good from evil as well in Laws as in other things is the force of their own discretion Hereunto therefore St. Paul referreth oftentimes his own speech to be considered of by them that heard him I speak as to them which have understanding Judge ye what I say Again afterward Judge in your selves is it comly that a woman pray uncovered The exercise of this kinde of judgment our Saviour requireth in the Iews In them of Berea the Scripture commendeth it Finally Whatsoever we do if our own secret judgment consent not unto it as fit and good to be done the doing of it to us is sin although the thing it self be allowable St. Pauls rule therefore generally is Let every man in his own minde be fully perswaded of that thing which he either alloweth or doth Some things are so familiar and plain that Truth from Falshood and Good from Evil is most easily discerned in them even by men of no deep capacity And of that nature for the most part are things absolutely unto all Mens salvation necessary either to he held or denied either to be done or avoided For which cause St. Augustine acknowledgeth that they are not onely set down but also plainly set down in Scripture So that he which heareth or readeth may without any great difficulty understand Other things also there are belonging though in a lower degree of importance unto the offices of Christian men Which because they are more obscure more intricate and hard to be judged of therefore God hath appointed some to spend their whole time principally in the study of things Divine to the end that in these more doubtful cases their understanding might be a light to direct others If the understanding power or faculty of the Soul be saith the Grand Physitian like unto bodily sight not of equal sharpness in all What can be more convenient then that even as the dark-sighted man is directed by the clear about things visible so likewise in matters of deeper discourse the wise in heart do shew the simple where his way lieth In our doubtful Cases of Law what man is there who seeth not how requisite it is that Professors of skill in that Faculty be our Directors so it is in all other kindes of knowledge And even in this kinde likewise the Lord hath himself appointed That the Priests lips should preserve knowledge and that other men should seek the truth at his mouth because he is the Messenger of the Lord of Hosts Gregory Nazianzen offended at the peoples too great presumption in controlling the judgment of them to whom in such cases they should have rather submitted their own seeketh by earnest entreaty to stay them within their bounds Presume not ye that are Sheep to make your selves Guides of them that should guide you neither seek ye to overslip the fold which they about you have pitched It sufficeth for your part if ye can well frame your selves to be ordered Take not upon you to judge your selves nor to make them subject to your Laws who should be a Law to you for God is not a God of Sedition and Confusion but of Order and of Peace But ye will say that if the Guides of the people be blinde the common sort of men must not close up their own eyes and be led by the conduct of such If the Priest be partial in the Law the flock must not therefore depart from the ways of sincere Truth and in simplicity yield to be followers of him for his place sake and office over them Which thing though in it self most true is in your defence notwithstanding weak because the matter wherein ye think that ye see and imagine that your ways are sincere is of far deeper consideration then any one amongst Five hundred of you conceiveth Let the vulgar sort among you know that there is not the least branch of the Cause wherein they are so resolute but to the tryal of it a great deal more appertaineth then their conceit doth reach unto I write not this in disgrace of the simplest that way given but I would gladly they knew the nature of that cause wherein they think themselves throughly instructed and are not by means whereof they daily run themselves without feeling their own hazzard upon the dint of the Apostles sentence against evil speakers as touching things wherein they are ignorant If it be granted a thing unlawful for private men not called unto Publick Consultation to dispute which is the best State of Civil Policy with a desire of bringing in some other kinde them that under which they already live for of such Disputes I take it his meaning was If it be a thing confest that of such Questions they cannot determine without rashness in as much as a great part of them consisteth in special Circumstances and for one kinde as many Reasons may be brought as for another Is there any reason in the World why they should better judge what kinde of Regiment Ecclesiastical is the fittest For in the Civil State more insight and in those affairs more experience a great deal must needs be granted them then in this they can possibly have When they which write in defence of your Discipline and commend it unto the Highest not in the least cunning manner are forced notwithstanding to acknowledge That with whom the Truth is they know not they are not certain what certainly or knowledge can the multitude have thereof Weigh what doth move the common sort so much to favor this Innovation and it shall soon appear unto you that the force of particular Reasons which for your several Opinions are alleaged is a thing whereof the multitude never did nor could so consider as to be therewith wholly carried but certain general Inducements are used to make saleable your Cause in gross And when once men have cast a fancy towards it any slight Declaration of Specialties will serve to lead forward mens inclineable and prepared mindes The method of winning the peoples affection unto a general liking of the Cause for so ye term it hath been this First in the hearing of the multitude the faults especially of
which God is giveth Perfection to that he doth Those Natural Necessary and Internal Operations of God the Generation of the Son the Proceeding of the Spirit are without the compass of my present intent which is to touch onely such Operations as have their Beginning and Being by a voluntary purpose wherewith God hath eternally decreed when and how they should be which Eternal Decree is that we term an Eternal Law Dangerous it were for the feeble Brain of Man to wade far into the doings of the most High whom although to know be Life and Joy to make mention of his Name yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know him not as indeed he is neither can know him and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence when we confess without confession that his glory is inexplicable his greatness above our capacity and reach He is above and we upon Earth therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few Our God is One or rather very Oneness and meer Unity having nothing but it Self in it Self and not consisting as all things do besides God of many things In which Essential Unity of God a Trinity Personal nevertheless subsisteth after a manner far exceeding the possibility of mans conceit The works which outwardly are of God they are in such sort of him being One that each Person hath in them somewhat peculiar and proper For being Three and they all subsisting in the Essence of one Deity from the Father by the Son through the Spirit all things are That which the Son doth hear of the Father and which the Spirit doth receive of the Father and the Son the same we have at the hands of the Spirit as being the last and therefore the nearest unto us in order although in power the same with one Second and the First The wise and learned among the very Heathens themselves have all acknowledged some first cause whereupon originally the Being of all things dependeth Neither have they otherwise spoken of that Cause then as an Agent which knowing what and why it worketh observeth in working a most exact Order or Law Thus much is signified by that which Homer mentioneth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus much acknowledged by Mercurius Trismegistus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus much confest by Anaxagoras and Plato terming the Maker of the World an Intellectual Worker Finally the Stoiks although imagining the first cause of all things to be Fire held nevertheless that the same Fire having Art did O 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They all confess therefore in the working of that first cause that Counsel is used Reason followed a Way observed that is to say Constant Order and Law is kept whereof it self must needs be Author unto it self Otherwise it should have some worthier and higher to direct it and so could not it self be the first being the first it can have no other then it self to be the Author of that Law which it willingly worketh by God therefore is a Law both to himself and to all other things besides To himself he is a Law in all those things whereof our Saviour speaks saying My Father worketh as yet so I. God worketh nothing without cause All those things which are done by him have some end for which they are done and the end for which they are done is a Reason of his Will to do them His Will had not inclined to create Woman but that he saw it could not be well if she were not created Non est bonum It is not good man should be alone therefore let us make an helper for him That and nothing else is done by God which to leave undone were not so good If therefore it be demanded why God having power and ability infinite the effects notwithstanding of that power are all so limited as we see they are The reason hereof is the End which he hath proposed and the Law whereby his Wisdom hath stinted the effects of his power in such sort that it doth not work infinitely but correspondently unto that end for which it worketh even all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in most decent and comely sort all things in measure number and weight The General End of Gods External Working is the exercise of his most glorious and most abundant vertue Which abundance doth shew it self in variety and for that cause this variety is oftentimes in Scripture exprest by the name of riches The Lord hath made all things for his own sake Not that any thing is made to be beneficial unto him but all things for him to shew beneficence and grace in them The particular drift of every Act proceeding externally from God we are not able to discern and therefore cannot always give the proper and certain reason of his Works Howbeit undoubtedly a proper and certain Reason there is of every Finite Work of God in as much as there is a Law imposed upon it which if there were not it should be Infinite even as the Worker himself is They err therefore who think that of the Will of God to do this or that there is no Reason besides his Will Many times no Reason known to us but that there is no reason thereof I judge it most unreasonable to imagine in as much as he worketh all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not onely according to his own Will but the counsel of his own Will And whatsoever is done with counsel or wise resolution hath of necessity some reason why it should be done albeit that reason be to us in some things so secret that it forceth the wit of man to stand as the Blessed Apostle himself doth amazed thereat O the depth of the riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God How unsearchable are his Iudgments c. That Law Eternal which God himself hath made to himself and thereby worketh all things whereof he is the Cause and Author that Law in the admirable frame whereof shineth with most perfect Beauey the Countenance of that Wisdom which hath testified concerning her self The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way even before his works of old I was set up That Law which hath been the Pattern to make and is the Card to guide the World by that Law which hath been of God and with God everlastingly that Law the Author and Observer whereof is one onely God to be blessed for ever how should either Men or Angels be able perfectly to behold The Book of this Law we are neither able nor worthy to open and look into That little thereof which we darkly apprehend we admire the rest with religious ignorance we humbly and meekly adore Seeing therefore that according to this Law he worketh Of whom through whom and for whom are all things although there seem unto us confusion and disorder in the affairs of this present world◠Tamen quoniam bonus mundum rector temperat recte fieri
proceedeth not from God himself as from the supream cause of all things and every effect doth after a sort contain at leastwise resemble the cause from which it proceedeth All things in the World are said in some sort to seek the highest and to cover more or less the participation of God himself yet this doth no where so much appear as it doth in Man because there are so many kindes of Perfections which Man seeketh The first degree of Goodness is that General Perfection which all things do seek in desiring the continuance of their Being all things therefore coveting as much as may be to be like unto God in Being ever that which cannot hereunto attain personally doth seek to continue it self another way that is by Off-spring and Propagation The next degree of Goodness is that which each thing coveteth by affecting resemblance with God in the constancy and excellency of those operations which belong unto their kinde The Immutability of God they strive unto by working either always or for the most part after one and the same manner his absolute exactness they imitate by tending unto that which is most exquisite in every particular Hence have risen a number of Axioms in Philosophy shewing How the works of nature do always aim at that which cannot be bettered These two kindes of Goodness rehearsed are so nearly united to the things themselves which desire them that we scarcely perceive the appetite to stir in reaching forth her hand towards them But the desire of those Perfections which grow externally is more apparent especially of such as are not expresly desired unless they be first known or such as are not for any other cause then for Knowledge it self desired Concerning Perfections in this kinde that by proceeding in the Knowledge of Truth and by growing in the exercise of Vertue Man amongst the Creatures of this inferior World aspireth to the greatest Conformity with God This is not onely known unto us whom he himself hath so instructed but even they do acknowledge who amongst men are not judged the nearest unto him With Plato what one thing more usual then to excite men unto the love of Wisdom by shewing how much wise men are thereby exalted above men how knowledge doth raise them up into Heaven how it maketh them though not Gods yet â—as Gods high admirable and divine And Mercurius Trismegistus speaking of the vertues of a righteous Soul Such spirits saith he are never slayed with praising and speaking well of all men with doing good unto every one by word and deed because they study to frame themselves according to THE PATTERN of the Father of Spirits 6. In the Matter of Knowledge there is between the Angels of God and the Children of Men this difference Angels already have full and compleat knowledge in the highest degree that can be imparted unto them Men if we view them in their Spring are at the first without understanding or knowledge at all Nevertheless from this utter vacuity they grow by degrees till they come at length to be even as the Angels themselves are That which agreeth to the one now the other shall attain unto in the end they are not so far disjoyned and severed but that they comest length to meet The Soul of Man being therefore at the first as a Book wherein nothing is and yet all things may be imprinted we are to search by what steps and degrees it riseth unto Perfection of Knowledge Unto that which hath been already set down concerning Natural Agents this we must add That albeit therein we have comprised as well Creatures living as void of life if they be in degree of nature beneath Men nevertheless a difference we must observe between those Natural Agents that work altogether unwittingly and those which have though weak yet some understanding what they do as Fishes Fowls and Beasts have Beasts are in sensible capacity as ripe even as men themselves perhaps more ripe For as Stones though in dignity of Nature inferior unto Plants yet exceed them in firmness of strength or durability of Being and Plants though beneath the excellency of Creatures endued with sense yet exceed them in the Faculty of Vegetation and of Fertility So Beasts though otherwise behinde Men may notwithstanding in actions of Sense and Fancy go beyond them because the endeavors of Nature when it hath an higher perfection to seek are in lower the more remiss not esteeming thereof so much as those things do which have no better proposed unto them The Soul of Man therefore being capable of a more Divine Perfection hath besides the Faculties of growing unto sensible knowledge which is common unto us with Beasts a further hability whereof in them there is no shew at all the ability of reaching higher then unto sensible things Till we grow to some ripeness of years the Soul of Man doth onely store it self with conceits of things of inferior and more open quality which afterwards do serve as Instruments unto that which is greater in the mean while above the reach of meaner Creatures is ascendeth not When once it comprehendeth any thing above this as the differences of time affirmations negations and contradiction in Speech we then count it to have some use of Natural Reason Whereunto if afterwards there might be added the right helps of true Art and Learning which helps I must plainly confess this age of the World carrying the name of a Learned Age doth neither much know not greatly regard there would undoubtedly be almost as great difference in maturity of judgment between men therewith inured and that which now men are as between men that are now and Innocents Which speech if any condemn as being over Hyperbolical let them consider but this one thing No Art is at the first finding out so perfect as Industry may aftermake it yet the very first Man that to any purpose knew the way we speak of and followed it hath alone thereby performed more very near in all parts of Natural Knowledge then sithence in any one part thereof the whole World besides hath done In the poverty of that other new devised aid two things there are notwithstanding singular Of marvellous quick dispatch it is and doth shew them that have it as much almost in three days as if it had dwelt threescore years with them Again because the curiosity of Mans wit doth many times with perswade farther in the search of things then were convenient the same is thereby restrained unto such generalities as every where offering themselves are apparent unto men of the weakest conceit that need be So as following the Rules and Precepts thereof we may finde it to be an Art which teacheth the way of speedy Discourse and restraineth the minde of Man that it may not wax overwise Education and Instruction are the means the one by use the other by precept to make our Natural Faculty of Reason both the better and
followeth That there is no particular object so good but it may have the shew of some difficulty or unpleasant quality annexed to itâ— in respect whereof the Will may shrink and decline it Contrariwise for so things are blended there is no particular evil which hath not some appearance of goodness whereby to inâ—inuate it self For evil as evil cannot be desired if that be desired which is evil the cause is the goodness which is or seemeth to be joyned with it Goodness doth not move by being but by being apparent and therefore many things are neglected which are most precious onely because the value of them lieth hid Sensible Goodness is most apparent neer and present which causeth the Appetite to be therewith strongly provoked Now Pursuit and Refusal in the Will do follow the one the Affirmation the other the Negation of Goodness which the Understanding apprehendeth grounding it self upon Sease unless some higher Reason do chance to teach the contraty And if Reason have taught it rightly to be good yet not so apparently that the Minde receiveth it with utter impossibility of being otherwise still there is place left for the Will to take or leave Whereas therefore amongst so many things as are to be done there are so few the goodness whereof Reason in such sort doth or easily can discover we are not to marvel at the choice of evil even then when the contrary is probably known Hereby it cometh to pass that Custom inuring the Minde by long practice and so leaving there a sensible Impression prevaileth more then reasonable Perswasion what way soever Reason therefore may rightly discern the thing which is good and yet the Will of Man not incline it self thereunto as oft as the prejudice of sensible Experience doth oversway Nor let any Man think that this doth make any thing for the just excuse of Iniquity for there was never sin committed wherein a less good was not preferred before a greater and that wilfully which cannot be done without the singular disgrace of Nature and the utter disturbance of that Divine Order whereby the preheminence of chiefest Acceptation is by the best things worthily challenged There is not that good which concerneth us but it hath evidence enough for it self if Reason were diligent to search it out Through neglect thereof abused we are with the shew of that which is not sometimes the subrilty of Satan enveighling us as it did Evâ— sometimes the hastiness of our Wills preventing the more considerate Advice of sound Reason as in the Apostles when they no sooner saw what they liked not but they forthwith were desirous of fire from Heaven sometimes the very custom of evil making the heart obdurate against whatsoever instructions to the contrary as in them over whom our Saviour spake weeping O Ierusalem how often and thou wouldst not Still therefore that wherewith we stand blameable and can no way excuse it is in doing evil we prefer a less good before a greater the greatness whereof is by Reason investigable and may be known The search of Knowledge is a thing painful and the painfulness of Knowledge is that which maketh the Will so hardly inclinable thereunto The Root hereof Divine Malediction whereby the Instruments being weakned wherewithal the Soul especially in reasoning doth work it prefereth rest in Ignorance before wearisome labor to know For a spur of Diligence therefore we have a natural thirst after Knowledge ingrafted in us But by Reason of that original weakness in the Instruments without which the Understanding part is not able in this World by discourse to work the very conceit of painfulness is as a bridle to stay us For which cause the Apostle who knew right well that the weariness of the flesh is an heavy clog to the Will striketh mightily upon this Key Awake thou that sleepest cast off all which presseth down watch labor strive to go forward and to grow in knowledge 8. Wherefore to return to our former intent of discovering the Natural way whereby Rules have been found out concerning that Goodness wherewith the Will of Man ought to be moved in Humane Actions as every thing naturally and necessarily doth desire the utmost good and greatest Perfection whereof Nature hath made it capable even so Man Our felicity therefore being the object and accomplishment of our desire we cannot chuse but wish and cover it All particular things which are subject unto Action the Will doth so far forth incline unto as Reason judgeth them the better for us and consequently the more available to our bliss If Reason err we fall into evil and are so far forth deprived of the general Perfection we seek Seeing therefore that for the framing of Mens actions the knowledge of good from evil is necessary it onely resteth that we search how this may be had Neither must we suppose that there needeth one Rule to know the good and another the evil by For he that knoweth what is straight doth even thereby discern what is crooked because the absence of straightness in bodies capable thereof is crookedness Goodness in Actions is like unto straightness wherefore that which is done well we term right For as the straight way is most acceptable to him that travelleth because by it he cometh soonest to his journeys end so in Action that which doth lie the evenest between us and the end we desire must needs be the fittest for our use Besides which fitness for use there is also in rectitude Beauty as contrariwise in obliquity deformity And that which is good in the Actions of Men doth not onely delight as profitable but as amiable also In which consideration the Grecians most divinely have given to the Active perfection of Men a name expressing both Beauty and Goodness because Goodness in ordinary speech is for the most part applied onely to that which is beneficial But we in the name of Goodness do here imply both And of discerning Goodness there are but these two ways the one the knowledge of the causes whereby it is made such the other the observation of those signs and tokens which being annexed always unto Goodness argue That where they are found there also Goodness is although we know not the cause by force whereof it is there The former of these is the most sure and infallible way but so hard that all shun it and had rather walk as men do in the dark by hap-hazard then tread so long and intricate Mazes for Knowledge sake As therefore Physitians are many times forced to leave such Methods of curing as themselves know to be the fittest and being over-ruled by their Patients impatiency are fain to try the best they can in taking that way of cure which the cured will yield unto In like sort considering how the case doth stand with this present Age full of Tongue and weak of Brain behold we yield to the stream thereof into the Causes of Goodness we
will not make any curious or deep inquiry to touch them now and then it shall be sufficient when they are so near at hand that easily they may be conceived without any far removed discourse That way we are contented to prove which being the worse in it self is notwithstanding now by reason of common imbecillity the fitter and likelier to be brooked Signs and tokens to know good by are of sundry kindes some more certain and some less The most certain token of evident Goodness is if the general perswasion of all men do so account it And therefore a common received Error is never utterly overthrown till such times as we go from Signs unto Causes and shew some manifest Root or Fountain thereof common unto all whereby it may clearly appear how it hath come to pass that so many have been overseen In which case surmises and slight probabilities will not serve because the universal consent of men is the perfectest and strongest in this kinde which comprehendeth onely the signs and tokens of Goodness Things casual do vary and that which a man doth but chance to think well of cannot still have the like hap Wherefore although we know not the cause yet thus much we may know that some necessary cause there is whensoever the judgments of all men generally or for the most part run one and the same way especially in matters of that discourse For of things necessarily and naturally done there is no more affirmed but this They keep either always or for the most part one Tenure The general and perpetual voice of men is as the Sentence of God himself For that which all men have at all times learned Nature her self must needs have taught and God being the Author of Nature her voice is but his Instrument By her from him we receive whatsoever in such sort we learn Infinite duties there are the goodness whereof is by this rule sufficiently manifested although we had no other warrant besides to approve them The Apostle St. Paul having speech concerning the Heathen saith of them They are a Law unto themselves His meaning is that by force of the Light of Reason wherewith God illuminateth every one which cometh into the World Men being enabled to know truth from falshood and good from evil do thereby learn in many things what the Will of God is which will himself not revealing by any extraordinary means unto them but they by natural discourse attaining the knowledge thereof seem the Makers of those Laws which indeed are his and they but onely the finders of them out A Law therefore generally taken is a directive rule unto goodness of operation The rule of Divine Operations outward is the definitive appointment of Gods own Wisdom set down within himself The rule of Natural Agents that work by simple necessity is the determination of the Wisdom of God known to God himself the Principal Director of them but not unto them that are directed to execute the same The rule of Natural Agents which work after a sort of their own accord as the Beasts do is the judgment of common sense or fancy concerning the sensible goodness of those objects wherewith they are moved The rule of Ghostly or Immaterial Natures as Spirits and Angels is their intuitive intellectual judgment concerning the amiable beauty and high goodness of that object which with unspeakble joy and delight doth set them on work The rule of Voluntary Agents on Earth is the sentence that Reason giveth concerning the goodness of those things which they are to do And the sentences which Reason giveth are some more some less general before it come to define in particular actions what is good The main principles of Reason are in themselves apparent For to make nothing evident of it self unto Mans understanding were to take away all possibility of knowing any thing And herein that of Theophrastus is true They that seek a reason of all things do utterly overthrow Reason In every kinde of Knowledge some such grounds there are as that being proposed the Minde doth presently embrace them as tree from all possibility of Error clear and manifest without proof In which kinde Axioms or Principles more general are such as this That the greater good is to be chosen before the less If therefore it should be demanded what reason there is why the will of man which doth necessarily shun harm and covet whatsoever is pleasant and sweet should be commanded to count the pleasures of sin Gall and notwithstanding the bitter Accidents wherewith Vertuous Actions are compast yet still to rejoyce and delight in them Surely this could never stand with Reason but that Wisdom thus prescribing groundeth her Laws upon an infallible rule of Comparison which is That small difficulties when exceeding great good is sure to ensue and on the other side momentany benefits when the hurt which they draw after them is unspeakable are not at all to be respected This rule is the ground whereupon the Wisdom of the Apostle buildeth a Law enjoyning Patience unto himself The present lightness of our affliction worketh unto us even with abundance upon abundance an eternal weight of glory while we look not on the things which are seen but on the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal Therefore Christianity to be embraced whatsoever calamities in those times it was accompanied withal Upon the same ground our Saviour proveth the Law most reasonable that doth forbid those crimes which men for gains sake fall into For a man to win the World if it be with the loss of his Soul what benefit or good is it Axioms less general yet so manifest that they need no farther proof are such as these God to be worshipped Parents to be honored Others to be used by us as we our selves would be by them Such things as soon as they are alledged all men acknowledge to be good they require no proof or further discourse to be assured of their goodness Notwithstanding whatsoever such principle there is it was at the first found out by discourse and drawn from out of the very Bowels of Heaven and Earth For we are to note that things in the World are to us discernable not onely so far forth as serveth for our vital preservation but further also in a twofold higher respect For first if all other uses were utterly taken away yet the Minde of Man being by Nature speculative and delighted with contemplation in it self they were to be known even for meer Knowledge and Understandings sake Yea further besides this the knowledge of every the least thing in the World hath in it a second peculiar benefit unto us in as much as it serveth to minister Rules Canons and Laws for Men to direct those actions by which we properly term Humane This did the very Heathens themselves obscurely insinuate by making Themis
which we call Ius or Right to be the Daughter of Heaven and Earth We know things either as they are in themselves or as they are in mutual relation one to another The knowledge of that which Man is in reference unto himself and other things in relation unto Man I may justly term the Mother of all those Principles which are as it were Edicts Statutes and Decrees in that Law of Nature whereby Humane Actions are framed First therefore having observed that the best things where they are not hindred do still produce the best Operations for which cause where many things are to concur unto one effect the best is in all congruity of Reason to guide the residue that it prevailing most the work principally done by it may have greatest perfection when hereupon we come to observe in our selves of what excellency our Souls are in comparison of our Bodies and the divine part in relation unto the baser of our Souls seeing that all these concur in producing Humane Actions it cannot be well unless the chiefest do command and direct the rest The Soul then ought to conduct the Body and the Spirit of our Mindes the Soul This is therefore the first Law whereby the highest power of the Minde requireth general obedience at the hands of all the rest concurring with it unto Action Touching the several grand Mandates which being imposed by the understanding Faculty of the Minde must be obeyed by the Will of Man they are by the same method found out whether they import our duty towards God or towards Man Touching the one I may not here stand to open by what degrees of discourse the Mindes even of meer Natural Men have attained to know not onely that there is a God but also what Power Force Wisdom and other properties that God hath and how all things depend on him This being therefore presupposed from that known relation which God hath unto us as unto children and unto all good things as unto effects whereof himself is the principal cause these Axioms and Laws Natural concerning our duty have arisen That in all things we go about his aid is by Prayer to be craved That be cannot have sufficient honor done unto him but the uttermost of that we can do to honor him we must which is in effect the same that we read Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy soul and with all thy minde Which Law our Saviour doth term The first and the great Commandment Touching the next which as our Saviour addeth as like unto this he meaneth in amplitude and largeness in as much as it is the Root out of which all Laws of duty to Men-ward have grown as out of the former all Offices of Religion towards God the like Natural enducement hath brought men to know that it is their duty no less to love others then themselves For seeing those things which are equal must needs all have one measure if I cannot but wish to receive all good even as much at every mans hand as any man can wish unto his own soul how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied unless my self be careful to satisfie the like desire which is undoubtedly in other men we all being of one and the same Nature To have any thing offered them repugnant to this desire must needs in all respects grieve them as much as me So that if I do harm I must look to suffer there being no reason that others should shew greater measure of love to me then they have by me shewed unto them My desire therefore to be loved of my equals in nature as much as possible may be imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to them-ward fully the like affection From which relation of equality between our selves and them that are as our selves what several Rules and Canons Natural Reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is ignorant as namely That because we would take no harm we must therefore do none that sith we would not be in any thing extreamly dealt with we must our selves avoid all extremity in our dealings that from all violence and wrong we are utterly to abstain with such like which further to wade in would be tedious and to our present purpose not altogether so necessary seeing that on these two General Heads already mentioned all other specialities are dependent Wherefore the natural measure whereby to judge our doings is the sentence of Reason determining and setting down what is good to be done Which sentence is either mandatory shewing what must be done or else permissive declaring onely what may be done or thirdly admonitory opening what is the most convenient for us to do The first taketh place where the comparison doth stand altogether between doing and not doing of one thing which in it self is absolutely good or evil as it had been for Ioseph to yield or not to yield to the impotent desire of his leud Mistress the one evil the other good simply The second is when of divers things evil all being not evitable we are permitted to take one which one saving onely in case of so great urgency were not otherwise to be taken as in the matter of Divorce amongst the Jews The last when of divers things good one is principal and most eminent as in their act who sold their possessions and laid the price at the Apostles feet which possessions they might have retained unto themselves without sin Again in the Apostle St. Pauls own choice to maintain himself by his own labor whereas in living by the Churches maintenance as others did there had been no offence committed In goodness therefore there is a latitude or extent whereby it cometh to pass that even of good actions some are better then other some whereas otherwise one man could not excel another but all should be either absolutely good as hitting jump that indivisible Point or Centre wherein goodness consisteth or else missing it they should be excluded out of the number of well-doers Degrees of well-doing there could be none except perhaps in the seldomness and oftenness of doing well But the Nature of Goodness being thus ample a Law is properly that which Reason in such sort defineth to be good that it must be done And the Law of Reason or Humane Nature is that which men by discourse of Natural Reason have rightly found out themselves to be all for ever bound unto in their actions Laws of Reason have these marks to be known by Such as keep them resemble most lively in their voluntary actions that very manner of working which Nature her self doth necessarily observe in the course of the whole World The Works of Nature are all behoveful beautiful without superfluity or defect even so theirs if they be framed according to that which the Law of Reason teacheth Secondly Those Laws are investigable by Reason without
many deep and profound points of Doctrine as being the main original ground whereupon the Precepts of duty depend many Prophecies the clear performance whereof might confirm the World in belief of things unseen many Histories to serve as Looking-glasses to behold the Mercy the Truth the Righteousness of God towards all that faithfully serve obey and honor him yea many intire Meditations of Piety to be as Patterns and Precedents in cases of like Nature many things needful for Explication many for Application unto particular occasions such as the Providence of God from time to time hath taken to have the several Books of his holy Ordinance written Be it then that together with the principal necessary Laws of God there are sundry other things written whereof we might haply be ignorant and yet be saved What shall we hereupon think them needless shall we esteem them as riotous Branches wherewith we sometimes behold most pleasant Vines overgrown Surely no more then we judge our hands or our eyes superfluous or what part soever which if our Bodies did want we might notwithstanding any such defect retain still the compleat Being of Men. As therefore a compleat Man is neither destitute of any part necessary and hath some parts whereof though the want could not deprive him of his essence yet to have them standeth him in singular stead in respect of the special uses for which they serve In like sort all those writings which contain in them the Law of God all those venerable Books of Scripture all those Sacred Tomes and Volumes of holy Writ they are with such absolute perfection framed that in them there neither wanteth any thing the lack whereof might deprive us of life nor any thing in such wise aboundeth that as being superfluous unfruitful and altogether needless we should think it no loss or danger at all if we did want it 14. Although the Scripture of God therefore be stored with infinite variety of matter in all kindes although it abound with all sorts of Laws yet the principal intent of Scripture is to deliver the Laws of Duties Supernatural Oftentimes it hath been in very solemn manner disputed whether all things necessary unto salvation be necessarily set down in the holy Scriptures If we define that necessary unto salvation whereby the way to salvation is in any sort made more plain apparent and easie to be known then is there no part of true Philosophy no Art of account no kinde of Science rightly so called but the Scripture must contain it If onely those things be necessary as surely none else are without the knowledge and practise whereof it is not the will and pleasure of God to make any ordinary grant of salvation it may be notwithstanding and oftentimes hath been demanded how the Books of holy Scripture contain in them all necessary things when of things necessary the very chief is to know what Books we are bound to esteem holy which point is confest impossible for the Scripture it self to teach Whereunto we may answer with truth that there is not in the World any Art or Science which proposing unto it self an end as every one doth some end or other hath been therefore thought defective if it have not delivered simply whatsoever is needful to the same end but all kindes of knowledge have their certain bounds and limits each of them presupposeth many necessary things learned in other Sciences and known beforehand He that should take upon him to teach men how to be eloquent in pleading causes must needs deliver unto them whatsoever Precepts are requisite unto that end otherwise he doth not the thing which he taketh upon him Seeing then no man can plead eloquently unless he be able first to speak it followeth that ability of speech is in this case a thing most necessary Notwithstanding every man would think it ridiculous that he which undertaketh by writing to instruct an Orator should therefore deliver all the Precepts of Grammar because his Profession is to deliver Precepts necessary unto eloquent speech yet so that they which are to receive them be taught beforehand so much of that which is thereunto necessary as comprehendeth the skill of speaking In like sort albeit Scripture do profess to contain in it all things which are necessary unto salvation yet the meaning cannot be simply of all things which are necessary but all things that are necessary in some certain kinde or form as all things that are necessary and either could not at all or could not easily be known by the light of Natural discourse all things which are necessary to be known that we may be saved but known with presupposal of knowledge concerning certain Principles whereof it receiveth us already perswaded and then instructeth us in all the residue that are necessary In the number of these Principles one is the Sacred Authority of Scripture Being therefore perswaded by other means that these Scriptures are the Oracles of God themselves do then teach us the rest and lay before us all the duties which God requireth at our hands as necessary unto salvation Further there hath been some doubt likewise whether containing in Scripture do import express setting down in plain terms or else comprehending in such sort that by reason we may from thence conclude all things which are necessary Against the former of these two constructions instance hath sundry ways been given For our belief in the Trinity the Co-eternity of the Son of God with his Father the proceeding of the Spirit from the Father and the Son the duty of Baptizing Infants These with such other principal points the necessity whereof is by none denied are notwithstanding in Scripture no where to be found by express literal mention onely deduced they are out of Scripture by collection This kinde of comprehension in Scripture being therefore received still there is no doubt how far we are to proceed by collection before the full and compleat measure of things necessary be made up For let us not think that as long as the World doth endure the wit of man shall be able to sound the bottom of that which may be concluded out of the Scripture especially if things contained by collection do so far extend as to draw in whatsoever may be at any time out of Scripture but probably and conjecturally surmized But let necessary collection be made requisite and we may boldly deny that of all those things which at this day are with so great necessity urged upon this Church under the name of Reformed Church Discipline there is any one which their Books hitherto have made manifest to be contained in the Scripture Let them if they can alledge but one properly belonging to their cause and not common to them and us and shew the deduction thereof out of Scripture to be necessary It hath been already shewed how all things necessary unto salvation in such sort as before we have maintained must needs be possible for
men to know and that many things are in such sort necessary the knowledge whereof is by the light of Nature impossible to be attained Whereupon it followeth that either all flesh is excluded from possibility of salvation which to think were most barbarous or else that God hath by supernatural means revealed the way of life so far forth as doth suffice For this cause God hath so many times and ways spoken to the sons of men Neither hath he by speech onely but by writing also instructed and taught his Church The cause of writing hath been to the end that things by him revealed unto the World might have the longer continuance and the greater certainty of assurance by how much that which standeth on Record hath in both those respects preheminence above that which passeth from hand to hand and hath no Pens but the Tongues no Book but the ears of Men to record it The several Books of Scripture having had each some several occasion and particular purpose which caused them to be written the Contents thereof are according to the exigence of that special end whereunto they are intended Hereupon it groweth that every Book of holy Scripture doth take out of all kindes of truth Natural Historical Foreign Supernatural so much as the matter handled requireth Now for as much as there have been Reasons alledged sufficient to conclude that all things necessary unto salvation must be made known and that God himself hath therefore revealed his Will because otherwise men could not have known so much as is necessary his surceasing to speak to the World since the publishing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the delivery of the same in writing is unto us a manifest token that the way of salvation is now sufficiently opened and that we need no other means for our full instruction then God hath already furnished us withal The main drift of the whole New Testament is that which St. Iohn setteth down as the purpose of his own History These things are written that ye might believe that Iesus is Christ the Son of God and that in believing ye might have life through his Name The drift of the Old that which the Apostle mentioneth to Timothy The holy Scriptures are able to make thee wise unto salvation So that the general end both of Old and New is one the difference between them consisting in this That the Old did make wise by teaching salvation through Christ that should come the New by teaching that Christ the Saviour is come and that Jesus whom the Jews did crucifie and whom God did raise again from the dead is he When the Apostle therefore affirmeth unto Timothy that the Old was able to make him wise to salvation it was not his meaning that the Old alone can do this unto us which live sithence the publication of the New For he speaketh with presupposal of the Doctrine of Christ known also unto Timothy and therefore first it is said Continue thou in those things which thou hast learned and art perswaded knowing of whom thou hast been taught them Again those Scriptures he granteth were able to make him wise to salvation but he addeth through the Faith which is in Christ. Wherefore without the Doctrine of the New Testament teaching that Christ hath wrought the Redemption of the World which Redemption the Old did foreshew he should work it is not the former alone which can on our behalf perform so much as the Apostle doth avouch who presupposeth this when he magnifieth that so highly And as his words concerning the Books of ancient Scripture do not take place but with presupposal of the Gospel of Christ embraced so our own words also when we extol the compleat sufficiency of the whole intire Body of the Scripture must in like sort be understood with this caution That the benefit of Natures Light be not thought excluded as unnecessary because the necessity of a Diviner Light is magnified There is in Scripture therefore no defect but that any man what place or cailing soever he hold in the Church of God may have thereby the light of his Natural Understanding so perfected that the one being relieved by the other there can want no part of needful instruction unto any good work which God himself requireth be it Natural or Supernatural belonging simply unto men as men or unto men as they are united in whatsoever kinde of Society It sufficeth therefore that Nature and Scripture do serve in such full sort that they both joyntly and not severally either of thou be so compleat that unto Everlasting felicity we need not the knowlegde of any thing more then these two may easily furnish our mindes with on all sides And therefore they which adde Traditions as a part of Supernatural necessary Truth have not the Truth but are in Error For they onely plead that whatsoever God revealeth as necessary for all Christian men to do or believe the same we ought to embrace whether we have received it by writing or otherwise which no man denieth when that which they should confirm who claim so great reverence unto Traditions is that the same Traditions are necessarily to be acknowledged divine and holy For we do not reject them onely because they are not in the Scripture but because they are neither in Scripture nor can otherwise sufficiently by any Reason be proved to be a God That which is of God and may be evidently proved to be so we deny not but it hath in his kinde although unwritten yet the self same force and authority with the written Laws of God It is by ours acknowledged That the Apostles did in every Church institute and ordain some Rites and Customs serving for the seemliness of Church Regiment which Rites and Customs they have not committed unto writing Those Rites and Customs being known to be Apostolical and having the nature of things changeable were no less to be accounted of in the Church then other things of the like degree that is to say capable in like sort of alteration although set down in the Apostles writings For both being known to be Apostolical it is not the manner of delivering them unto the Church but the Author from whom they proceed which doth give them their force and credit 15. Laws being imposed either by each man upon himself or by a Publick Society upon the particulars thereof or by all the Nations of Men upon every several Society or by the Lord himself upon any or every of these There is not amongst these four kindes any one but containeth sundry both Natural and Positive Laws Impossible it is but that they should fall into a number of gross Errors who onely take such Laws for Positive as have been made or invented of men and holding this Position hold also that all Positive and none but Positive Laws are mutable Laws Natural do always binde Laws Positive not so but onely
that in truth they never meant any otherwise to tie the one then the other unto Scripture both being thereunto equally tied as far as each is required in the same kinde of necessity unto Salvation If therefore it be not unlawful to know and with full perswasion to believe much more then Scripture alone doth teach if it be against all Sense and Reason to condemn the knowledge of so many Arts and Sciences as are otherwise learned then in Holy Scripture notwithstanding the manifest Speeches of ancient Catholick Fathers which seem to close up within the bosom thereof all manner good and lawful knowledge wheresore should their words be thought more effectual to shew that we may not in deeds and practice then they are to prove that in speculation and knowledge we ought not to go any further then the Scripture Which Scripture being given to teach matters of belief no less then of action the Fathers must needs be and are even as plain against credit besides the relation as against practice without the injunction of the Scripture S. Augustine hath said Whether it be question of Christ or whether it be question of his Church or of what thing soever the question be I say not if we but if an Angel from Heaven shall tell us any thing beside that you have received in the Scripture under the Law and the Gospel let him be accursed In like sort Tertallian We may not give our selves this liberty to bring in any thing of our will nor chuse any thing that other men bring in of their will we have the Apostles themselves for Authors which themselves brought nothing of their own will but the Discipline which they received of Christ they delivered faithfully unto the people in which place the name of Discipline importeth not as they who alledge it would fain have it construed but as any man who noteth the circumstance of the place and the occasion of uttering the words will easily acknowledge even the self-same thing it signifieth which the name of Doctrine doth and as well might the one as the other there have been used To help them farther doth not S. Ierome after the self-same manner dispute We believe it not because we read it not yea We ought not so much as to know the things which the Book of the Law containeth not saith S. Hilary Shall we hereupon then conclude that we may not take knowledge of or give credit unto any thing which sense or experience or report or art doth propose unless we finde the same in Scripture No it is too plain that so far to extend their Speeches is to wrest them against their true intent and meaning To urge any thing upon the Church requiring thereunto that Religious Assent of Christian Belief wherewith the words of the Holy Prophets are received to urge any thing as part of that supernatural and celestially revealed Truth which God hath taught and not to shew it in Scripture this did the ancient Fathers evermore think unlawful impious execrable And thus as their Speeches were meant so by us they must be restrained As for those alledged words of Cyprian The Christian Religion shall finde that out of this Scripture Rules of all Doctrines have sprung and that from hence doth spring and hither doth return whatsoever the Ecclesiastical Discipline doth contain Surely this place would never have been brought forth in this cause if it had been but once read over in the Author himself out of whom it is cited For the words are uttered concerning that one principal Commandment of Love in the honour whereof hespeaketh after this sort Surely this Commandment containeth the Law and the Prophets and in this one Word is the Abridgement of all the Volumes of Scripture This Nature and Reason and the authority of thy Word O Lord doth proclaim this we have heard out of thy month herein the perfection of all Religion doth consist This is the first Commandment and the last This being written in the Book of Life is as it were an everlasting lesson both to Men and Angels Let Christian Religion read this one Word and meditate upon this Commandment and out of this Scriptrue it shall finde the Rules of all Learning to have spring and from hence to have risen and hither to return whatsoever the Ecclesiastical Discipline containeth and that in all things it is vain and bootless which Charity confirmeth not Was this a sentence trow you of so great force to prove that Scripture is the onely Rule of all the actions of men Might they not hereby even as well prove that one Commandment of Scripture is the onely rule of all things and so exclude the rest of the Scripture as now they do all means besides Scripture But thus it fareth when too much desire of contradiction causeth our speech rather to pass by number then to stay for weight Well but Tertullian doth in this case speak yet more plainly The Scripture saith he denieth what it noteth not which are indeed the words of Tertullian But what the Scripture reckoneth up the Kings of Israel and amongst those Kings David the Scripture reckoneth up the sons of David and amongst those sons Solomon To prove that amongst the Kings of Israel there was no David but only one no Solomon but one in the sons of David Tertullians Argument will fitly prove For inasmuch as the Scripture did propose to reckon up all if there were moe it would haue named them In this case the Scripture doth deny the thing it noteth not Howbeit I could not but think that man to do me some piece of manifest injury which would hereby fasten upon me a general Opinion as if I did think the Scripture to deny the very Reign of King Henry the Eighth because it no where noteth that any such King did reign Tertullians speech is probable concerning such matter as he there speaketh of There was saith Tertullian no second Lamech like to him that had two wives the Scripture denieth what it noteth not As therefore it noteth one such to have been in that Age of the World so had there been moe it would by likelihood as well have noted many as one What infer we now hereupon There was no second Lamech the Scripture denieth what it noteth not Were it consonant unto reason to divorce these two Sentences the former of which doth shew how the latter is retrained and not marking the former to conclude by the latter of them that simply whatsoever any man at this day doth think true is by the Scripture denied unless it be there affirmed to be true I wonder that a case so weak and feeble hath been so much persisted in But to come unto those their Sentences wherein matters of action are more apparently touched the Name of Tertullian is as before so here again pretended who writing unto his Wife two Books and exhorting her in the one to live a Widow
case our Apology shall not need to be very long 3. The mixture of those things by speech which by Nature are divided is the Mother of all Error To take away therefore that Error which Confusion breedeth distinction is requisite Rightly to distinguish is by conceit of minde to sever things different in Nature and to discern wherein they differ So that if we imagine a difference where there is none because we distinguish where we should not it may not be denied that we misdistinguish The only trial whether we do so yea or no dependeth upon comparison between our conceit and the nature of things conceived Touching matters belonging to the Church of Christ this we conceive that they are not of one sute Some things are meerly of Faith which things it doth suffice that we know and believe some things not onely to be known but done because they concern the actions of men Articles about the Trinity are matters of meer Faith and must be believed Precepts concerning the Works of Charity are matters of Action which to know unless they be practised is not enough This being so clear to all mens understanding I somewhat marvel that they especially should think it absurd to oppose Church Government a plain matter of Action unto matters of Faith who know that themselves divide the Gospel into Doctrine and Discipline For if matters of Discipline be rightly by them distinguished from matters of Doctrine why not matters of Government by us as reasonably set against matters of Faith Do not they under Doctrine comprehend the same which we intend by matters of Faith Do not they under Discipline comprise the Regiment of the Church When they blame that in us which themselves follow they give men great cause to doubt that some other thing then judgment doth guide their speech What the Church of God standeth bound to know or do the same in part Nature teacheth And because Nature can teach them but onely in part neither so fully as is requisite for mans salvation not so easily as to make the way plain and expedite enough that many may come to the knowledge of it and so be saved therefore in Scripture hath God both collected the most necessary things that the School of Nature teacheth unto that end and revealeth also whatsoever we neither could with safety be ignorant of nor at all be instructed in but by Supernatural Revelation from him So that Scripture containing all things that are in this kinde any way needful for the Church and the principal of the other sort This is the next thing wherewith we are charged as with an Error We teach that whatsoever is unto Salvation termed necessary by way of excellency whatsoever it standeth all men upon to know or do that they may be saved whatsoever there is whereof it may truly be said This not to believe is eternal death and damnation or This every soul that will live must duly observe Of which sort the Articles of Christian Faith and the Sacraments of the Church of Christ are All such things if Scripture did not comprehend the Church of God should not be able to measure out the length and the breadth of that way wherein for ever she is to walk Hereticks and Schismaticks never ceasing some to abridge some to enlarge all to pervert and obscure the same But as for those things that are accessary hereunto those things that so belong to the way of Salvation as to alter them is no otherwise to change that way then a path is changed by altering onely the uppermost face thereof which be it laid with Gravel or set with Grass or paved with stones remaineth still the same path In such things because discretion may teach the church what is convenient we hold not the Church further tied herein unto Scripture then that against Scripture nothing be admitted in the Church lest that path which ought always to be kept even do thereby come to be overgrown with Brambles and Thorns If this be unfound wherein doth the point of unsoundness lie Is it not that we make some things necessary some things accessory and appendent onely For our Lord and Saviour himself doth make that difference by terming Judgment and Mercy and Fidelity with other things of like nature The greater and weightier matters of the Law Is it then in that we account Ceremonies wherein we do not comprise Sacraments or any other the like substantial duties in the exercise of Religion but onely such External Rites as are usually annexed unto Church actions is it an oversight that we reckon these things and matters of Government in the number of things accessory not things necessary in such sort as hath been declared Let them which therefore think as blameable consider well their own words Do they not plainly compare the one unto Garments which cover the Body of the Church the other unto Rings Bracelets and Jewels that onely adorn it The one to that Food which the Church doth live by the other to that which maketh her Diet liberal dainty and more delicious Is dainty fare a thing necessary to the sustenance or to the cloathing of the Body rich attire If not how can they urge the necessity of that which themselves resemble by things not necessary Or by what construction shall any man living be able to make those comparisons true holding that distinction untrue which putteth a difference between things of External Regiment in the Church and things necessary unto Salvation 4. Now as it can be to Nature no injury that of her we say the same which diligent beholders of her works have observed namely that she provideth for all living Creatures nourishment which may suffice that she bringeth forth no kinde of Creature whereto she is wanting in that which is needful Although we do not so far magnifie her exceeding bounty as to affirm that she bringeth into the World the Sons of Men adorned with gorgeous attire or maketh costly buildings to spring up out of the Earth for them So I trust that to mention what the Scripture of God leaveth unto the Churches discretion in some things is not in any thing to impair the honor which the Church of God yieldeth to the sacred Scriptures perfection Wherein seeing that no more is by us maintained then onely that Scripture must needs teach the Church whatsoever is in such sort necessary as hath been set down and that it is no more disgrace for Scripture to have left a number of other things free to be ordered at the discretion of the Church then for Nature to have lest it unto the wit of man to devise his own attire and not to look for it as the Beasts of the field have theirs If neither this can import nor any other proof sufficient be brought forth that we either will at any time or ever did affirm the sacred Scripture to comprehend no more then onely those bare necessaries if we
or Light of Reason or Learning or other help they may be received so they be not against the Word of God but according at leastwise unto the general Rules of Scripture they must be made Which is in effect as much as to say We know not what to say wel in defence of this Position And therefore lest we should say it is false there is no remedy but to say that in some sense or other it may be true if we could tell how First that Scholy had need of a very favorable Reader and a tractable that should think it plain construction when to be commanded in the Word and grounded upon the Word are made all one If when a man may live in the state of Matrimony seeking that good thereby which Nature principally desireth he make rather choice of a contrary life in regard of St. Pauls judgment That which he doth is manifestly grounded upon the Word of God yet not commanded in his Word because without breach of any Commandment he might do otherwise Secondly whereas no man in Justice and Reason can be reproved for those actions which are framed according unto that known Will of God whereby they are to be judged and the Will of God which we are to judge our actions by no sound Divine in the World ever denied to be in part made manifest even by the Light of Nature and not by Scripture alone If the Church being directed by the former of these two which God hath given who gave the other that man might in different sort be guided by them both if the Church I say do approve and establish that which thereby it judgeth meet and sindeth not repugnant to any word or syllable of holy Scripture who shall warrant our presumptuous boldness controuling herein the Church of Christ But so it is the name of the Light of Nature is made hateful with men the Star of Reason and Learning and all other such like helps beginneth no otherwise to be thought of then if it were an unlucky Comet or as if God had so accursed it that it should never shine or give light in things concerning our duty any way towards him but be esteemed as that Star in the Revelation called Wormword which being faln from Heaven maketh Rivers and Waters in which it falleth so bitter that men tasting them die thereof A number there are who think they cannot admire as they ought the power and authority of the Word of God if in things Divine they should attribute any force to Mans reason For which cause they never use reason so willingly as to disgrace Reason Their usual and common Discourses are unto this effect First The Natural Man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God For they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned Secondly It is not for nothing that St. Paul giveth charge to beware of Philosophy that is to say such knowledge as Men by Natural Reason attain unto Thirdly Consider them that have from time to time opposed themselves against the Gospel of Christ and most troubled the Church with Heresie Have they not always been great admirers of Humane Reason Hath their deep and profound skill in Secular Learning made them the more obedient to the Truth and not armed them rather against it Fourthly They that fear God will remember how heavy his sentences are in this case I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will cast away the Understanding of the Prudent Where is the Wise Where is the Scribe Where is the Disputer of this World Hath not God made the Wisdom of this World foolishness Seeing the World by Wisdom know not God In the Wisdom of God it pleased God by the foolishness of Preaching to save Believers Fifthly The Word of God in it self is absolute exact and perfect The Word of God is a two-edged sword as for the Weapons of Natural Reason they are as the Armor of Saul rather cumbersome about the Soldier of Christ then needful They are not of force to do that which the Apostles of Christ did by the power of the Holy Ghost My Preaching therefore saith Paul hath not been in the inticing speech of Mans wisdom but in plain evidence of the Spirit of Power that your Faith might not be in the Wisdom of men but in the Power of God Sixthly If I believe the Gospel there needeth no reasoning about it to perswade me If I do not believe it must be the Spirit of God and not the Reason of Man that shall convert my heart unto him By these and the like Disputes an opinion hath spred it self very far in the World as if the way to be ripe in Faith were to be raw in Wit and Judgment as if Reason were an enemy unto Religion childish simplicity the Mother of Ghostly and Divine Wisdom The cause why such Declamations prevail so greatly is For that men suffer themselves in two respects to be deluded one is that the Wisdom of Man being debased either in comparison with that of God or in regard of some special thing exceeding the reach and compass thereof it seemeth to them not marking so much as if simply it were condemned another That Learning Knowledge or Wisdom falsly so termed usurping a name whereof they are not worthy and being under that name controuled their reproof is by so much the more easily misapplied and through equivocation wrested against those things whereunto so precious names do properly and of right belong This duly observed doth to the former Allegations it self make sufficient answer Howbeit for all Mens plainer and fuller satisfaction First Concerning the inability of Reason to search out and to judge of things Divine if they be such as those properties of God and those duties of Men towards him which may be conceived by attentive consideration of Heaven and Earth We know that of meer Natural Men the Apostle testifieth How they knew both God and the Law of God Other things of God there be which are neither so found nor though they be shewed can ever be approved without the special operation of Gods good Grace and Spirit Of such things sometime spake the Apostle St. Paul declaring how Christ had called him to be a Witness of his Death and Resurrection from the Dead according to that which the Prophets and Moses had foreshewed Festus a meer Natural man an Infidel a Roman one whose ears were unacquainted with such matter heard him but could not reach unto that whereof he spake the suffering and the rising of Christ from the dead he rejected as idle superstitious fancies not worth the hearing The Apostle that knew them by the Spirit and spake of them with Power of the Holy Ghost seemed in his eyes but learnedly mad Which example maketh manifest what elswhere the same Apostle teacheth namely that Nature hath need of Grace whereunto I hope we are
not opposit by holding that Grace hath use of Nature Secondly Philosophy we are warned to take heed of not that Philosophy which is true and sound Knowledge attained by Natural discourse of Reason but that Philosophy which to bolster Heresie or Error casteth a fraudulent shew of Reason upon things which are indeed unreasonable and by that mean as by a stratagem spoileth the simple which are not able to withstand such cunning Take heed lest any spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit He that exhorteth to beware of an enemies policy doth not give counsel to be impolitick but rather to use all prudent foresight and circumspection lest our simplicity be over-reached by cunning sleights The way not to be inveighled by them that are so guileful through skill is throughly to be instructed in that which maketh skilful against guile and to be armed with that true and sincere Philosophy which doth teach against that deceitful and vain which spoileth Thirdly But many great Philosophers have been very unsound in belief and many sound in belief have been also great Philosophers Could Secular Knowledge bring the one sort unto the love of Christian Faith Nor Christian Faith the other sort out of love with Secular Knowledge The harm that Hereticks did they did it unto such as were unable to discern between sound and deceitful reasoning and the remedy against it was ever the skill which the Ancient Fathers had to discry and discover such deceit Insomuch that Cresconius the Heretick complained greatly of St. Augustine as being too full of Logical subtilties Heresie prevaileth onely by a counterfeit shew of Reason whereby notwithstanding it becometh invincible unless it be convicted of Fraud by manifest Remonstrance clearly true and unable to be withstood When therefore the Apostle requireth hability to convict Hereticks can we think he judgeth it a thing unlawful and not rather needful to use the Principal Instrument of their Conviction the Light of Reason It may not be denied but that in the Fathers writings there are sundry sharp invectives against Hereticks even for their very Philosophical reasonings The cause whereof Tertullian confesseth not to have been any dislike conceived against the kinde of such reasonings but the end We may saith he even in matters of God be made wiser by Reasons drawn from the Publick Perswasions which are grafted in Mens mindes So they be used to further the Truth not to bolster Error so they make with not against that which God hath determined For there are some things even known by Nature as the Immortality of the Soul to many our God unto all I will therefore my self also use the sentence of some such as Plato pronouncing every Soul Immortal I my self too will use the secret acknowledgment of the communalty bearing Record of the God of gods But when I hear men alledge That which is dead is dead and While thou art alive be alive and After death an end of all even of death it self Then will I call to minde both that the heart of the people with God is accounted dust and that the very Wisdom of the World is pronounced Folly If then an Heretick flie also unto such vicious popular and secular conceits my answer unto him shall be Thou Heretick avoid the Heathen although in this ye be one that ye both belie God yet thou that dost his under the Name of Christ differest from the Heathen in that thou seemest to thy self a Christian. Leave him therefore his conceits seeing that neither will be learn thine Why dost thou having sight trust to a blind guide Thou which hast put on Christ take raiment of him that is naked If the Apostle have armed thee why dost thou borrow a strangers shield Let him rather learn of thee to acknowledge then thou of him to renounce the Resurrection of the Flesh. In a word the Catholick Fathers did good unto all by that Knowledge whereby Hereticks hindering the Truth in many might have furthered therewith themselves but that obstinately following their own ambitious or otherwise corrupted affections instead of framing their wills to maintain that which Reason taught they bent their wits to finde how Reason might seem to teach that which their Wills were set to maintain For which cause the Apostle saith of them justly that they are for the most part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men condemned even in and of themselves For though they be not all perswaded that it is truth which they withstand yet that to be error which they uphold they might undoubtedly the sooner a great deal attain to know but that their study is more to defend what once they have stood in then to finde out sincerely and simply what truth they ought to persist in for ever Fourthly there is in the World no kinde of knowledge whereby any part of Truth is seen but we justly account it precious yea that Principal Truth in comparison whereof all other knowledge is vile may receive from it some kinde of light whether it be that Egyptian and Caldean wisdom Mathematical wherewith Moses and Daniel were furnished or that Natural Moral and Civil wisdom wherewith Solomon excelled all Men or that Rational and Oratorial wisdom of the Grecians which the Apostle St. Paul brought from Tarsus or that Judaical which he learned in Ierusalem sitting at the feet of Gamaliel To detract from the dignity thereof were to injure even God himself who being that Light which none can approach unto hath sent out these lights whereof we are capable even as so many sparkles resembling the Bright Fountain from which they rise But there are that bear the title of Wisemen and Scribes and great Disputers of the World and are nothing indeed less then what in shew they most appear These being wholy addicted unto their own wills use their wit their learning and all the wisdom they have to maintain that which their obstinate hearts are delighted with esteeming in the frantick error of their mindes the greatest madness in the World to be Wisdom and the highest Wisdom foolishness Such were both Jews and Grecians which professed the one sort Legal and the other Secular skill neither enduring to be taught the Mystery of Christ Unto the glory of whose most blessed Name who so study to use both their Reason and all other Gifts as well which Nature as which Grace hath endued them with let them never doubt but that the same God who is to destroy and confound utterly that wisdom falsly so named in others doth make reckoning of them as of true Scribes Scribes by Wisdom instructed to the Kingdom of Heaven Scribes against that Kingdom hardned in a vain opinion of Wisdom which in the end being proved folly must needs perish true Understanding Knowledge Judgment and Reason continuing for evermore Fifthly Unto the Word of God being in respect of that end for which God ordained it perfect exact and absolute in it self we do not add Reason
as a Supplement of any maim or defect therein but as a necessary Instrument without which we could not reap by the Scriptures perfection that fruit and benefit which it yieldeth The Word of God is a two-edged sword put in the hands of reasonable men and Reason as the weapon that flew Goliah if they be as David was that use it Touching the Apostles he which gave them from above such Power for miraculous confirmation of that which they taught endued them also with Wisdom from above to teach that which they so did confirm Our Saviour made choice of Twelve simple and unlearned Men that the greater their lack of Natural wisdom was the more admirable that might appear which God supernaturally endued them with from Heaven Such therefore as knew the poor and silly estate wherein they had lived could not but wonder to hear the Wisdom of their speech and be so much the more attentive unto their teaching They studied for no Tongue they spake withal of themselves they were rude and knew not so much as how to premeditate the Spirit gave them speech and cloquent utterance But because with St. Paul it was otherwise then with the rest in as much as he never conversed with Christ upon Earth as they did and his education had been scholastical altogether which theirs was not Hereby occasion was taken by certain Malignants secretly to undermine his great Authority in the Church of Christ as though the Gospel had been taught him by others then by Christ himself and as if the cause of the Gentiles conversion and belief through his means had been the learning and skill which he had by being conversant in their Books which thing made them so willing to hear him and him so able to perswade them whereas the rest of the Apostles prevailed because God was with them and by a miracle from Heaven confirmed his Word in their mouths They were mighty in deeds As for him being absent his Writings had some force in presence his Power not like unto theirs In sum concerning his Preaching their very by-word was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 addle speech empty talk His Writings full of great words but in the Power of miraculous Operations His presence not like the rest of the Apostles Hereupon it ariseth that St. Paul was so often driven to make his Apologies Hereupon it ariseth that whatsoever time he had spent in the study of Humane Learning he maketh earnest protestation to them of Corinth that the Gospel which he had preached amongst them did not by other means prevail with them then with others the same Gospel taught by the rest of the Apostles of Christ. My Preaching saith he hath not been in the perswasive speeches of Humane Wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of Power that your faith may not be in the wisdom of men but in the Power of God What is it which the Apostle doth here deny Is it denied that his speech amongst them had been perswasive No for of him the sacred History plainly restifieth that for the space of a year and a half he spake in their Synagogue every Sabbath and perswaded both Jews and Grecians How then is the speech of men made perswasive Surely there can be but two ways to bring this to pass the one Humane the other Divine Either St. Paul did onely by art and natural industry cause his own speech to be credited or else God by miracle did authorise it and so bring credit thereunto as to the speech of the rest of the Apostles Of which two the former he utterly denieth For why If the Preaching of the rest had been effectual by miracle his onely by force of his own learning so great inequality between him and the other Apostles in this thing had been enough to subvert their Faith For might they not with reason have thought that if he were sent of God as well as they God would not have furnished them and not him with the power of the Holy Ghost Might not a great part of them being simple haply have feared lest their assent had been cunningly gotten unto his doctrine rather through the weakness of their own wits then the certainty of that Truth which he had taught them How unequal had it been that all Believers through the Preaching of other Apostles should have their Faith strongly built upon the evidence of Gods own miraculous approbation and they whom he had converted should have their perswasion built onely upon his skill and wisdom who perswaded them As therefore calling from men may authorise us to teach although it could not authorise him to teach as other Apostles did So although the wisdom of man had not been sufficient to enable him such a Teacher as the rest of the Apostles were unless Gods miracles had strengthned both the one and the others Doctrine yet unto our ability both of teaching and learning the Truth of Christ as we are but meer Christian men it is not a little which the wisdom of man may add Sixthly Yea whatsoever our hearts be to God and to his Truth believe we or be we as yet faithless for our Conversion or Confirmation the force of Natural Reason is great The force whereof unto those effects is nothing without grace What then To our purpose it is sufficient that whosoever doth serve honor and obey God whosoever believeth in him that man would no more do this then innocents and infants do but for the Light of Natural Reason that shineth in him and maketh him apt to apprehend those things of God which being by grace discovered are effectual to perswade reasonable mindes and none other that honor obedience and credit belong aright unto God No man cometh unto God to offer him Sacrifice to pour out Supplications and Prayers before him or to do him any service which doth not first believe him both to be and to be a rewarder of them who in such sort seek unto him Let men be taught this either by Revelation from Heaven or by Instruction upon Earth by Labor Study and Meditation or by the onely secret Inspiration of the Holy Ghost whatsoever the mean be they know it by if the knowledge thereof were possible without discourse of Natural Reason why should none be found capable thereof but onely men nor men till such time as they come unto ripe and full ability to work by reasonable understanding The whole drift of the Scripture of God what is it but onely to teach Theology Theology what is it but the Science of things Divine What Science an be attained unto without the help of Natural Discourse and Reason Iudge you of that which I speak saith the Apostle In vain it were to speak any thing of God but that by Reason Men are able somewhat to judge of that they hear and by discourse to discern how consonant it is to Truth Scripture indeed teacheth things above Nature things which our Reason by
it self could not reach unto Yet those things also we believe knowing by Reason that the Scripture is the Word of God In the presence of Festus a Roman and of King Agrippa a Jew St. Paul omitting the one who neither knew the Jews Religion not the Books whereby they were taught it speaks unto the other of things foreshewed by Moses and the Prophets and performed in Jesus Christ intending thereby to prove himself so unjustly accused that unless his Judges did condemn both Moses and the Prophets him they could not chuse but acquit who taught onely that fulfilled which they so long since had foretold His cause was easie to be discerned what was done their eyes were witnesses what Moses and the Prophets did speak their Books could quickly shew It was no hard thing for him to compare them which knew the one and believed the other King Agrippa believest thou the Prophets I know thou dost The question is how the Books of the Prophets came to be credited of King Agrippa For what with him did authorise the Prophets the like with us doth cause the rest of the Scripture of God to be of credit Because we maintain That in Scripture we are taught all things necessary unto Salvation hereupon very childishly it is by some demanded What Scripture can teach us the Sacred Authority of the Scripture upon the knowledge whereof our whole Faith and Salvation dependeth As though there were any kinde of Science in the World which leadeth men unto knowledge without presupposing a number of things already known No Science doth make known the first Principles whereon it buildeth but they are always either taken as plain and manifest in themselves or as proved and granted already some former knowledge having made them evident Scripture teacheth all supernaturally revealed Truth without the knowledge whereof Salvation cannot be attained The main principal whereupon our belief of all things therein contained dependeth is That the Scriptures are the Oracles of God himself This in it self we cannot say is evident For then all men that hear it would acknowledge it in heart as they do when they hear that every whole is more then any part of that whole because this in it self is evident The other we know that all do not acknowledge when they hear it There must be therefore some former knowledge presupposed which doth herein assure the hearts of all Believers Scripture teacheth us that saving Truth which God hath discovered unto the World by Revelation and it presumeth us taught otherwise that it self is Divine and Sacred The question then being By what means we are taught this some answer That to learn it we have no other way then onely Tradition as namely that so we believe because both we from our Predecessors and they from theirs have so received But is this enough That which all mens experience teacheth them may not in any wise be denied And by experience we all know that the first outward Motive leading men so to esteem of the Scripture is the authority of Gods Church For when we know the whole Church of God hath that opinion of the Scripture we judge it even at the first an impudent thing for any man bred and brought up in the Church to be of a contrary minde without cause Afterwards the more we bestow our labor in reading or hearing the Mysteries thereof the more we finde that the thing it self doth answer our received opinion concerning it So that the former enducement prevailing somewhat with us before doth now much more prevail when the very thing hath Ministred further Reason If Infidels or Atheists chance at any time to call it in question this giveth us occasion to sift what reason there is whereby the testimony of the Church concerning Scripture and our own perswasion which Scripture it self hath confirmed may be proved a truth infallible In which case the ancient Fathers being often constrained to shew what warrant they had so much to relie upon the Scriptures endeavored still to maintain the authority of the Books of God by Arguments such as unbelievers themselves must needs think reasonable if they judged thereof as they should Neither is it a thing impossible or greatly heard even by such kinde of proofs so to manifest and clear that point that no man living shall be able to deny it without denying some apparent Principle such as all men acknowledge to be true Wherefore if I believe the Gospel yet is reason of singular use for that it confirmeth me in this my belief the more If I do not as yet believe nevertheless to bring me into the number of Believers except Reason did somewhat help and were an Instrument which God doth use unto such purposes what should it boot to dispute with Infidels or godless persons for their conversion and perswasion in that point Neither can I think that when grave and learned men do sometime hold that of this Principle there is no proof but by the testimony of the Spirit which assureth our hearts therein it is their meaning to exclude utterly all force which any kinde of Reason may have in that behalf but I rather incline to interpret such their speeches as if they had more expresly set down that other motives and enducements be they never so strong and consonant unto Reason are notwithstanding ineffectual of themselves to work Faith concerning this Principle if the special Grace of the Holy Ghost concur not to the enlightning of our mindes For otherwise I doubt not but men of wisdom and judgment will grant That the Church in this point especially is furnished with Reason to stop the mouths of her impious Adversaries and that as it were altogether bootless to alledge against them what the Spirit hath taught us so likewise that even to our own selves it needeth Caution and Explication how the testimony of the Spirit may be discerned by what means it may be known lest men think that the Spirit of God doth testifie those things which the spirit of error suggesteth The operations of the Spirit especially these ordinary which be common unto all true Christian men are as we know things secret and undiscernable even to the very soul where they are because their nature is of another and an higher kinde then that they can be by us perceived in this life Wherefore albeit the Spirit lead us into all truth and direct us in all goodness yet because these workings of the Spirit in us are so privy and secret we theresore stand on a plainer ground when we gather by Reason from the quality of things believed or done that the Spirit of God hath directed us in both then if we settle our selves to believe or to do any certain particular thing as being moved thereto by the Spirit But of this enough To go from the Books of Scripture to the sense and meaning thereof because the Sentences which are by the Apostles recited out of the Psalms to prove
the Law-maker as an argument wherefore it should not be lawful to change that which he hath instituted and will have this the cause why all the Ordinances of our Saviour are immutable they which urge the Wisdom of God as a proof that whatsoever Laws he hath made they ought to stand unless himself from Heaven proclaim them disannulled because it is not in man to correct the Ordinance of God may know if it please them to take notice thereof that we are far from presuming to think that men can better any thing which God hath done even as we are from thinking that men should presume to undo some things of men which God doth know they cannot better God never ordained any thing that could be bettered Yet many things he hath that have been changed and that for the better That which succeedeth as better now when change is requisite had been worse when that which now is changed was instituted Otherwise God had not then left this to chuse that neither would now reject that to chuse this were it not for some new-grown occasion making that which hath been betterworse In this case therefore men do not presume to change Gods Ordinance but they yield thereunto requiring it self to be changed Against this it is objected that to abrogate or innovate the Gospel of Christ if Men or Angels should attempt it were most heinous and cursed sacriledge And the Gospel as they say containeth not onely doctrine instructing men how they should believe but also Precepts concerning the Regiment of the Church Discipline therefore is a part of the Gospel and God being the Author of the whole Gospel as well of Discipline as of Doctrine it cannot be but that both of them have a Common Cause So that as we are to believe for ever the Articles of Evangelical Doctrine so the Precepts of Discipline we are in like sort bound for ever to observe Touching Points of Doctrine as for example the Unity of God the Trinity of Persons Salvation by Christ the Resurrection of the Body Life Everlasting the Judgment to come and such like they have been since the first hour that there was a Church in the World and till the last they must be believed But as for Matters of Regiment they are for the most part of another nature To make new Articles of Faith and Doctrine no Man thinketh it lawful new Laws of Government what Commonwealth or Church is there which maketh not either at one time or another The Rule of Faith saith Tertullian is but one and that alone immoveable and impossible to be framed or cast a new The Law of outward Order and Polity not so There is no reason in the World wherefore we should esteem it as necessary always to do as always to believe the same things seeing every man knoweth that the Matter of Faith is constant the Matter contrariwise of Action daily changeable especially the Matter of Action belonging unto Church Polity Neither can I finde that Men of soundest judgment have any otherwise taught then that Articles of Belief and things which all men must of necessity do to the end they may be saved are either expresly set down in Scripture or else plainly thereby to be gathered But touching things which belong to Discipline and outward Polity the Church hath Authority to make Canons Laws and Decrees even as we read that in the Apostles times it did Which kinde of Laws for as much as they are not in themselves necessary to Salvation may after they are made be also changed as the difference of times or places shall require Yea it is not denied I am sure by themselves that certain things in Discipline are of that nature as they may be varied by times places persons and other the like circumstances Whereupon I demand are those changeable Points of Discipline commanded in the Word of God or no If they be not commanded and yet may be received in the Church how can their former Position stand condemning all things in the Church which in the Word are not commanded If they be commanded and yet may suffer change How can this latter stand affirming all things immutable which are commanded of God Their distinction touching Matters of Substance and of Circumstance though true will not serve For be they great things or be they small if God have commanded them in the Gospel and his commanding them in the Gospel do make them unchangeable there is no reason we should more change the one then we may the other If the Authority of the Maker do prove unchangeableness in the Laws which God hath made then must all Laws which he hath made be necessarily for ever permanent though they be out of Circumstance onely and not of Substance I therefore conclude that neither Gods being Author of Laws for Government of his Church nor his committing them unto Scripture is any reason sufficient wherefore all Churches should for ever be bound to keep them without change But of one thing we are here to give them warning by the way For whereas in this Discourse we have oftentimes profest that many parts of Discipline or Church Polity are delivered in Scripture they may perhaps imagine that we are driven to confess their Discipline to be delivered in Scripture and that having no other means to avoid it we are in fain to argue for the changeableness of Laws ordained even by God himself as if otherwise theirs of necessity should take place and that under which we live be abandoned There is no remedy therefore but to abate this Error in them and directly to let them know that if they fall into any such conceit they do but a little flatter their own cause As for us we think in no respect so highly of it Our perswasion is that no age ever had knowledge of it but onely ours that they which defend it devised it that neither Christ nor his Apostles at any time taught it but the contrary If therefore we did seek to maintain that which most advantageth our own cause the very best way for us and the strongest against them were to hold even as they do that in Scripture there must needs be found some particular Form of Church Polity which God hath instituted and which for that very cause belongeth to all Churches to all times But with any such partial eye to respect our selves and by cunning to make those things seem the truest which are the fittest to serve our purpose is a thing which we neither like nor mean to follow Wherefore that which we take to be generally true concerning the Mutability of Laws the same we have plainly delivered as being perswaded of nothing more then we are of this That whether it be in Matter of Speculation or of Practice no untruth can possibly avail the Patron and Defender long and that things most truly are like most behovefully spoken 11. This we hold and grant for Truth
number of degrees being not onely by the Law of Moses but also by the Law of the sons of Noah for so they took it an unlawful discovery of nakedness This discovery of nakedness by unlawful Marriages such as Moses in the Law reckoneth up I think it for mine own part more probable to have been meant in the words of that Canon then Fornication according unto the scase of the Law of Nature Words must be taken according to the matter whereof they are uttered The Apostles command to abstain from Blood Construe this according to the Law of Nature and it will seem that Homicide onely is forbidden But construe it in reference to the Law of the Jews about which the question was and it shall easily appear to have a clean other sense and in any mans judgment a truer when we expound it of eating and not of shedding blood So it we speak of Fornication he that knoweth no Law but onely the Law of Nature must needs make thereof a narrower construction then he which measureth the same by a Law wherein sundry kindes even of Conjugal Copulation are prohibited as impure unclean unhonest St. Paul himself doth term Incestuous Marriage Fornication If any do rather think that the Christian Gentiles themselves through the loose and corrupt Custom of those times took simple Fornication for no Sin and were in that respect offensive unto believing Jews which by the Law had been better taught Our proposing of another conjecture is unto theirs no prejudice Some things therefore we see there were wherein the Gentiles were forbidden to be like unto the Jews some things wherein they were commanded not to be unlike Again some things also there were wherein no Law of God did let but that they might be either like or unlike as occasion should require And unto this purpose Leo saith Apostolical Ordinance beloved knowing that our Lord Iesus Christ came not into this world to undo the Law hath in such sort distinguished the Mysteries of the Old Testament that certain of them it hath chosen one to benefit Evangelical knowledge withal and for that purpose appointed that those things which before were Iewish might now be Christian Customs The cause why the Apostles did thus conform the Christians as much as might be according to the pattern of the Jews was to rein them in by this mean the more and to make them cleave the better The Church of Christ hath had in no one thing so many and so contrary occasions of dealing as about Judaism some having thought the whole Jewish Law wicked and damnable in it self some not condemning it as the Former sort absolutely have notwithstanding judged it either sooner necessary to be abrogated or further unlawful to be observed then truth can bear some of scrupulous simplicity urging perpetual and universal observation of the Law of Moses necessary as the Christian Jews at the first in the Apostles times some as Hereticks holding the same no less even after the contrary determination set down by consent of the Church at Ierusalem finally some being herein resolute through meer infidelity and with open profest enmity against Christ as unbelieving Jews To controul slanderers of the Law and Prophets such as Marcionites and Manichees were the Church in her Liturgies hath intermingled with Readings out of the New Testament Lessons taken out of the Law and Prophets whereunto Tertullian alluding saith of the Church of Christ It intermingleth with Evangelical and Apostolical Writings the Law and the Prophets and from thence it drinketh in that Faith which with Water is sealeth cloatheth with the Spirit nourisheth with Eucharist with Martyrdom setteth forward They would have wondred in those times to hear that any man being not as Favorer of Heresie should term this by way of disdain Mangling of the Gospels and Epistles They which honor the Law as an Image of the Wisdom of God himself are notwithstanding to know that the same had an end in Christ. But what Was the Law so abolished with Christ that after his Ascension the Office of Priests became immediately wicked and the very name hateful as importing the exercise of an ungodly function No as long as the glory of the Temple continued and till the time of that final desolation was accomplished the very Christian Jews did continue with their Sacrifices and other parts of Legal Service That very Law therefore which our Saviour was to abolish did not so soon become unlawful to be observed as some imagine nor was it afterward unlawful so far that the very name of Altar of Priests of Sacrifice it self should be banished out of the World For though God do now hate Sacrifice whether it be Heathenish or Jewish so that we cannot have the same things which they had but with impiety yet unless there be some greater let then the onely evacuation of the Law of Moses the names themselves may I hope be retained without sin in respect of that proportion which things established by our Saviour have unto them which by him are abrogated And so throughout all the writings of the Ancient Fathers we see that the words which were do continue the onely difference it that whereas before they had a literal they now have a metaphorical use and are as so many notes of remembrance unto us that what they did signifie in the Letter is accomplished in the Truth And as no man can deprive the Church of this liberty to use names whereunto the Law was accustomed so neither are we generally forbidden the use of things which the Law hath though it neither command us any particularity as it did the Jews a number and the weightiest which it did command them are unto us in the Gospel prohibited Touching such as through simplicity of error did urge universal and perpetual observation of the Law of Moses at the first we have spoken already Against Jewish Hereticks and false Apostles teaching afterwards the self-same St. Paul in every Epistle commonly either disputeth or giveth warning Jews that were zealous for the Law but withal Infidels in respect of Christianity and to the name of Jesus Christ most spightful enemies did while they flourished no less persecute the Church then Heathens and after their Estate was overthrown they were not that way so much to be feared Howbeit because they had their Synagogues in every famous City almost throughout the World and by that means great opportunity to withdraw from the Christian Faith which to do they spared no labor this gave the Church occasion to make sundry Laws against them As in the Council of Laodicea The Festival Presents which Iews or Hereticks use to send must not be received nor Holidays solemnized in their company Again From the Iews Men ought not to receive their Unlevened Bread nor to communicate with their Impieties Which Council was afterwards indeed confirmed by the Sixth General Council But what was the true sense or meaning both of
for not conforming her self to those Churches in that which she cannot deny to be in them well abrogated For the authority of the first Churches and those they account to be the first in this cause which were first Reformed they bring the comparison of younger Daughters conforming themselves in attire to the example of their elder Sisters wherein there is just as much strength of Reason as in the Livery Coats beforementioned St. Paul they say noteth it for a mark of special honor that Epanetus was the first man in all Athaia which did embrace the Christian Faith after the same sort he toucheth it also as a special preheminence of Iunius and Andronicus that in Christianity they were his Ancients The Corinthians he pincheth with this demand Hath the Word of God gone out from you or hath it lighted on you alone But what of all this If any man should think that alacrity and forwardness in good things doth add nothing unto mens commendation the two former speeches of St. Paul might lead him to reform his judgment In like sort to take down the stomach of proud conceited men that glory as though they were able to set all others to School there can be nothing more fit then some such words as the Apostles third sentence doth contain wherein he teacheth the Church of Corinth to know that there was no such great odds between them and the rest of their Brethren that they should think themselves to be Gold and the rest to be but Copper He therefore useth speech unto them to this effect Men instructed in the knowledge of Iesus Christ there both were before you and are besides you in the world ye neither are the Fountain from which first nor yet the River into which alone the Word hath flowed But although as Epanetus was the first man in all Achaia so Corinth had been the first Church in the whole World that received Christ the Apostle doth not shew that in any kinde of things indifferent whatsoever this should have made their example a Law unto all others Indeed the example of sundry Churches for approbation of one thing doth sway much but yet still as having the force of an example onely and not of a Law They are effectual to move any Church unless some greater thing do hinder but they binde none no not though they be many saving onely when they are the major part of a General Assembly and then their voices being more in number must over-sway their judgments who are fewer because in such cases the greater half is the whole But as they stand out single each of them by it self their number can purchase them no such authority that the rest of the Churches being fewer should be therefore bound to follow them and to relinguish as good Ceremonies as theirs for theirs Whereas therefore it is concluded out of these so weak Premisses that the retaining of divers things in the Church of England which other Reformed Churches have cast out must needs argue that we do not well unless we can shew that they have done ill what needed this wrest to draw out from us an accusation of forein Churches It is not proved as yet that if they have done well our duty is to follow them and to forsake our own course because it differeth from theirs although indeed it be as well for us every way as theirs for them And if the proofs alledged for confirmation hereof had been sound yet seeing they lead no further then onely to shew that where we can have no better Ceremonies theirs must be taken as they cannot with modesty think themselves to have found out absolutely the best which the wit of men may devise so liking their own somewhat better then other mens even because they are their own they must in equity allow us to be like unto them in this affection Which if they do they ease us of that uncourteous burden whereby we are charged either to condemn them or else to follow them They grant we need not follow them if our own ways already be better And if our own be but equal the Law of Common Indulgence alloweth us to think them at the least half a thought the better because they are our own which we may very well do and never draw any Inditement at all against theirs but think commendably even of them also 14. To leave Reformed Churches therefore and their Actions for Him to judge of in whose sight they are as they are and our desire is that they may even in his sight be found such as we ought to endeavor by all means that our own may likewise be Somewhat we are enforced to speak by way of Simple Declaration concerning the proceedings of the Church of England in these affairs to the end that men whose mindes are free from those partial constructions whereby the onely name of Difference from some other Churches is thought cause sufficient to condemn ours may the better discern whether that we have done be reasonable yea or no. The Church of England being to alter her received Laws concerning such Orders Rites and Ceremonies as had been in former times an hinderance unto Piety and Religious Service of God was to enter into consideration first That the change of Laws especially concerning matter of Religion must be warily proceeded in Laws as all other things humane are many times full of imperfection and that which is supposed behoveful unto men proveth oftentimes most pernicious The wisdom which is learned by tract of time findeth the Laws that have been in former ages established needful in latter to be abrogated Besides that which sometime is expedient doth not always so continue and the number of needless Laws unabolished doth weaken the force of them that are necessary But true withal it is that Alteration though it be from worse to better hath in it inconveniences and those weighty unless it bein such Laws as have been made upon special occasions which occasions ceasing Laws of that kinde do abrogate themselves But when we abrogate a Law as being ill made the whole cause for which it was made still remaining Do we not herein revoke our very own deed and upbraid our selves with folly yea all that were makers of it with oversight and with error Further if it be a Law which the custom and continual practice of many ages or years hath consumed in the mindes of men to alter it must needs be troublesome and scandalous It amazeth them it causeth them to stand in doubt whether any thing be in it self by nature either good or evil and not all things rather such as men at this or that time agree to account of them when they behold even those things disproved disannulled rejected which use had made in a manner natural What have we to induce men unto the willing obedience and observation of Laws but the weight of so many mens judgments as have with deliberate advice assented
it absurd to commend their Writings as Reverend Holy and Sound wherein there are so many singular Perfections only for that the exquisite Wits of some few peradventure are able dispersedly here and there to finde now a word and then a sentence which may be more probably suspected than easily cleared of Error by as which have but conjectural knowledge of their meaning Against immodest Invectives therefore whereby they are charged as being fraught with outragious Lyes we doubt not but their more allowable censure will prevail who without so passionate terms of disgrace do note a difference great enough between Apocryphal and other Writings a difference such as Iosephus and Epiphanius observe the one declaring that amongst the Jews Books written after the days of Artaxerxe were not of equal credit with them which had gone before in as much as the Jews sithence that time had not the like exact succession of Prophets the other acknowledging that they are profitable although denying them to be Divine in such construction and sense as the Scripture it self is so termed With what intent they were first published those words of the Nephew of Jesus do plainly enough signifie After that my Grand-father Jesus had given himself to the reading of the Law and the Prophets and other Books of our Fathers and had gotten therein sufficient judgment he purposed also to write something pertaining to Learning and Wisdom to the intent that they which were desirous to learn and would give themselves to these things might profit much more in living according to the Law Their end in writing and ours in reading them is the same The Books of Iudith Toby Baruch Wisdome and Ecclesiasticus we read as serving most unto that end The rest we leave unto men in private Neither can it be reasonably thought because upon certain solemn occasions some Lessons are chosen out of those Books and of Scripture it self some Chapters not appointed to be read at all that we thereby do offer disgrace to the Word of God or lift up the Writings of men above it For in such choice we do not think but that Fitness of Speech may be more respected than Worthyness If in that which we use to read there happen by the way any Clause Sentence or Speech that soundeth towards Error should the mixture of a little dross constrain the Church to deprive herself of so much Gold rather than learn how by Art and Judgment to make separation of the one from the other To this effect very fitly from the counsel that St. Ierem giveth Lata of taking heed how she read the Apocrypha as also by the help of other learned men's Judgments delivered in like case we may take direction But surely the Arguments that should binde us not to read them or any part of them publickly at all must be stronger than as yet we have heard any 21. We marvel the less that our reading of Books not Canonical is so much impugned when so little is attributed unto the reading of Canonical Scripture it self that now it hath grown to be a question whether the Word of God be any ordinary mean to save the Souls of men in that it is either privately studied or publickly read and so made known or else only as the same is preached that is to say explained by a lively voyce and applyed to the People's use as the Speaker in his Wisdom thinketh meet For this alone is it which they use to call Preaching The publick reading of the Apocrypha they condemn altogether as a thing effectual unto Evil the bare reading in like sort of whatsoever yea even of Scriptures themselves they mislike as a thing uneffectual to do that good which we are perswaded may grow by it Our desire is in this present Controversie as in the rest not to be carried up and down with the waves of uncertain Arguments but rather positively to lead on the mindes of the simpler sort by plain and easie degrees till the very nature of the thing it self do make manifest what is Truth First therefore because whatsoever is spoken concerning the efficacy or necessity of God's Word the same they tye and restrain only unto Sermons howbeit not Sermons read neither for such they also abhor in the Church but Sermons without Book Sermons which spend their life in their birth and may have publick audience but once For this cause to avoid ambiguities wherewith they often intangle themselves not marking what doth agree to the Word of God in it self and what in regard of outward accidents which may befall it we are to know that the Word of God is his Heavenly Truth touching matters of eternal life revealed and uttered unto Men unto Prophets and Apostles by immediate Divine Inspiration from them to us by their Books and Writings We therefore have no Word of God but the Scripture Apostolick Sermons were unto such as heard them his Word even as properly as to us their Writings are Howbeit not so our own Sermons the exposition which our discourse of Wit doth gather and minister out of the Word of God For which cause in this present question we are when we name the Word of God always to mean the Scripture only The end of the Word of God is to save and therefore we term it the Word of Life The way for all men to be saved is by the knowledge of that Truth which the Word hath taught And sith Eternal life is a thing of it self communicable unto all it behooved that the Word of God the necessary mean thereunto be so likewise Wherefore the Word of Life hath been always a Treasure though precious yet easie as well to attain as to finde lest any man desirous of life should perish through the difficulty of the way To this and the Word of God no otherwise serveth than only in the nature of a Doctrinal Instrument It saveth because it maketh wise unto Salvation Wherefore the ignorant it saveth not they which live by the Word must know it And being it self the Instrument which God hath purposely framed thereby to work the knowledge of Salvation in the hearts of men what cause is there wherefore it should not of it self be acknowledged a most apt and a likely mean to leave an apprehension of things Divine in our understanding and in the minde an assent thereunto For touching the one sith God who knoweth and discloseth best the rich tresures of his own Wisdom hath by delivering his Word made choice of the Scriptures as the most effectual means whereby those treasures might be imparted unto the World it followeth That no man's understanding the Scripture must needs be even of it self intended as a full and perfect discovery sufficient to imprint in us the lively Character of all things necessarily required for the attainment of Eternal Life And concerning our assent to the Mysteries of Heavenly truth seeing that the Word of God for the Author's sake
hath credit with all that confess it as we all do to be his Word every Proposition of holy Scripture every Sentence being to us a Principle if the Principles of all kindes of Knowledge else have that vertue in themselves whereby they are able to procure our Assent unto such Conclusions as the industry of right Discourse doth gather from them we have no reason to think the Principles of that Truth which tendeth unto man's everlasting happiness less forcible than any other when we know that of all other they are for their certainty the most infallible But as every thing of price so this doth require travel We bring not the knowledge of God with us into the World And the less our own opportunity or ability is that way the more we need the help of other men's Judgments to be our direction herein Nor doth any man ever believe into whom the doctrin of Belief is not instilled by instruction some way received at the first from others Wherein whatsoever fit means there are to notifie the Mysteries of the Word of God whether Publickly which we call Preaching or in Private howsoever the Word by every such mean even ordinarily doth save and not only by being delivered unto men in Sermons Sermons are not the only Preaching which doth save Souls For concerning the use and sense of this word Preaching which they shut up in so close a Prison although more than enough have already been spoken to redeem the liberty thereof yet because they insist so much and so proudly insult thereon we must a little inure their Ears with hearing how others whom they more regard are in this Case accustomed to use the self-same language with us whose manner of speech they deride Iustin Martyr doubteth not to tell the Grecians That even in certain of their Writings the very Judgment to come is preached not the Council of Vaeus to insinuate that Presbyters absent through infirmity from their Churches might be said to preach by those Deputies who in their stead did but read Homilies nor the Council of Toledo to call the usual Publick reading of the Gospels in the Church Preaching nor others long before these our days to write that by him who but readeth a Lesson in the Solemn Assembly as part of Divine Service the very Office of Preaching is so far-forth executed Such kind of speeches were then familiar those Phrases seemed not to them absurd they would have marvelled to hear the Out-cryes which we do because we think that the Apostles in writing and others in reading to the Church those Books which the Apostles wrote are neither untruly nor unfitly said to preach For although mens Tongues and their Pens differ yet to one and the self-same general if not particular effect they may both serve It is no good Argument St. Paul could not write with his Tongue therefore neither could he preach with his Pen. For Preaching is a general end whereunto Writing and Speaking do both serve Men speak not with the Instruments of Writing neither write with the Instruments of Speech and yet things recorded with the one and uttered with the other may be preached well enough with both By their Patience therefore be it spoken the Apostles preached as well when they wrote as when they spake the Gospel of Christ and our usual Publick reading of the Word of God for the Peoples instruction is Preaching Nor about words would we ever contend were not their purpose in so restraining the same injurious to God's most Sacred Word and Spirit It is on both sides confest That the Word of God outwardly administred his Spirit inwardly concurring therewith converteth edifieth and saveth Souls Now whereas the external Administration of his Word is as well by reading barely the Scripture as by explaining the same when Sermons thereon be made in the one they deny That the Finger of God hath ordinarily certain principal operations which we most stedfastly hold and believe that it hath in both 22. So worthy a part of Divine Service we should greatly wrong if we did not esteem Preaching as the blessed Ordinance of God Sermons as Keyes to the Kingdom of Heaven as Wings to the Soul as Spurrs to the good Affections of Man unto the Sound and Healthy as Food as Physick unto diseased Mindes Wherefore how higly soever it may please them with words of Truth to extoll Sermons they shall not herein offend us We seek not to derogate from any thing which they can justly esteem but our desire is to uphold the just estimation of that from which it seemeth unto us they derogate more than becometh them That which offendeth us is first the great disgrace which they offer unto our Custom of bare reading the Word of God and to his gracious Spirit the Principal vertue whereof thereby manifesting it self for the endless good of mens Souls even the Vertue which it hath to convert to edifie to save Souls this they mightily strive to obscure and Secondly The shifts wherewith they maintain their opinion of Sermons whereunto while they labour to appropriate the Saving power of the Holy Ghost they separate from all apparent hope of Life and Salvation thousands whom the goodness of Almighty God doth not exclude Touching therefore the use of Scripture even in that it is openly read and the inestimable good which the Church of God by that very mean hath reaped there was we may very well think some cause which moved the Apostle Saint Paul to require that those things which any one Churches affairs gave particular occasion to write might for the Instruction of all be published and that by reading 1. When the very having of the Books of God was a matter of no small charge and difficulty in as much as they could not be had otherwise than only in written Copies it was the necessity not of Preaching things agreeable with the Word but of reading the Word it self at large to the People which caused Churches throughout the World to have publick care that the sacred Oracles of God being procured by Common charge might with great sedulity be kept both intire and sincere If then we admire the providence of God in the same continuance of Scripture notwithstanding the violent endeavours of Infidels to abolish and the fraudulence of Hereticks always to deprave the same shall we set light by that Custom of Reading from whence so precious a benefit hath grown 2. The Voyce and Testimony of the Church acknowledging Scripture to be the Law of the Living God is for the truth and certainty thereof no mean Evidence For if with Reason we may presume upon things which a few mens depositions do testifie suppose we that the mindes of men are not both at their first access to the School of Christ exceedingly moved yea and for ever afterwards also confirmed much when they consider the main consent of all the Churches in the whole World witnessing
care for the well bestowing of time account waste As for unpleasantness of sound if it happen the good of Mens souls doth either deceive our ears that we note it not or arm them with patience to endure it We are not so nice as to cast away a sharp Knife because the edge of it may sometimes grate And such subtile opinions as few but Utopians are likely to fall into we in this climate do not greatly fear 37. The complaint which they make about Psalms and Hymns might as well be over-past without any answer as it is without any cause brought forth But our desire is to content them if it may be and to yield them a just reason even of the least things wherein undeservedly they have but as much as dreamed or suspected that we do amiss They seem sometimes so to speak as if greatly offended them that such Hymns and Psalms as are Scripture should in Common Prayer be otherwise used then the rest of the Scripture is wont sometime displeased they are at the artificial Musick which we adde unto Psalms of this kinde or of any other nature else sometime the plainest and the most intelligible rehearsal of them yet they savor not because it is done by Interlocution and with a mutual return of Sentences from side to side They are not ignorant what difference there is between other parts of Scripture and Psalms The choice and flower of all things profitable in other Books the Psalms do both more briefly contain and more movingly also express by reason of that Poetical Form wherewith they are written The Ancients when they speak of the Book of Psalms use to fall into large Discourses shewing how this part above the rest doth of purpose set forth and celebrate all the considerations and operations which belong to God it magnifieth the holy Meditations and Actions of Divine Men it is of things heavenly an Universal Declaration working in them whose hearts God inspireth with the due consideration thereof an habit or disposition of minde whereby they are made fit Vessels both for receipt and for delivery of whatsoever spiritual perfection What is there necessary for man to know which the Psalms are not able to teach They are to beginners an easie and familiar Introduction a mighty Augmentation of all Vertue and Knowledge in such as are entred before a strong confirmation to the most perfect amongst others Heroical Magnanimity exquisite Justice gave Moderation exact Wisdom Repentance unfeigned unwearied Patience the Mysteries of God the Sufferings of Christ the Terrors of Wrath the Comforts of Grace the Works of Providence over this World and the promised Joys of that World which is to come all good necessarily to be either known or done or had this one Celestial Fountain yieldeth Let there be any grief or disease incident nuto the Soul of Man any wound or sickness named for which there is not in this Treasure-house a present comfortable remedy at all times ready to be found Hereof it is that we covet to make the Psalms especially familiar unto all This is the very cause why we iterate the Psalms oftner then any other part of Scripture besides the cause wherefore we inure the people together with their Minister and not the Minister alone to read them as other parts of Scripture he doth 38. Touching Musical Harmony whether by Instrument or by Voice it being but of high and low in sounds a due proportionable disposition such notwithstanding is the force thereof and so pleasing effects it hath in that very part of man which is most Divine that some have been thereby induced to think that the Soul it self by Nature is or hath in it Harmony A thing which delighteth all Ages and beseemeth all States a thing as seasonable in grief as in joy as decent being added unto actions of greatest weight and solemnity as being used when men most sequester themselves from action The reason hereof is an admirable faculty which Musick hath to express and represents to the minde more inwardly then any other sensible mean the very standing rising and falling the very steps and inflections every way the turns and varieties of all Passions whereunto the minde is subject yea so to imitate them that whether it resemble unto us the same state wherein our mindes already are or a clean contrary we are not more contentedly by the one confirmed then changed and led away by the other In Harmony the very Image and Character even of Vertue and Vice is perceived the minde delighted with their Resemblances and brought by having them often iterated into a love of the things themselves For which cause there is nothing more contagious and pestilent then some kindes of Harmony then some nothing more strong and potent unto good And that there is such a difference of one kinde from another we need no proof but our own experience in as much as we are at the hearing of some more inclined unto sorrow and heaviness of some more mollified and softned in minde one kinde apter to stay and settle us another to move and stir our affections There is that draweth to a marvelous grave and sober mediocrity there is also that carrieth as it were into extasies filling the minde with an heavenly joy and for the time in a manner severing it from the body So that although we lay altogether aside the consideration of Ditty or Matter the very Harmony of sounds being framed in due sort and carried from the Ear to the Spiritual faculties of our Souls is by a Native Puissance and Efficacy greatly available to bring to a perfect temper whatsoever is there troubled apt as well to quicken the spirits as to allay that which is too eager sovereign against melancholly and despair forcible to draw forth tears of devotion if the minde be such as can yield them able both to move and to moderate all affections The Prophet David having therefore singular knowledge not in Poetry alone but in Musick also judged them both to be things most necessary for the House of God left behinde him to that purpose a number of divinely indited Poems and was farther the Author of adding unto Poetry melody a publick Prayer melody both Vocal and Instrumental for the raising up of Mens hearts and the sweetning of their affections towards God In which consideration the Church of Christ doth likewise at this present day retain it as an ornament to Gods service and an help to our own devotion They which under pretence of the Law Ceremonial abrogated require the abrogation of Instrumental Musick approving nevertheless the use of Vocal melody to remain must shew some reason wherefore the one should be thought a Legal Ceremony and not the other In Church Musick curiosity and oftentation of Art wanton or light or unsuitable harmony such as onely pleaseth the ear and doth not naturally serve to the very kinde and degree of those impressions which the matter
our Lords admonition Pray that ye enter not into temptation When himself pronounceth them blessed that should for his Names sake be subject to all kindes of ignominy and opprobrious malediction was it his purpose that no man should ever pray with David Lord remove from me shame and contempt In those tribulations saith St. Augustine which may hurt as well as profit we must say with the Apostle What we should ask as we ought we know not yet because they are tough because they are grievous because the sense of our weakness flieth them we pray according to the general desire of the will of man that God would turn them away from us owing in the mean while this devotion to the Lord our God that if he remove them not yet we do not therefore imagine our selves in his sight despised but rather with godly sufferance of evils expect greater good at his merciful hands For thus is vertue in weakness perfected To the flesh as the Apostle himself granteth all affliction is naturally grievous Therefore Nature which causeth to fear teacheth to pray against all adversity Prosperity in regard of our corrupt inclination to abuse the blessings of Almighty God doth prove for the most part a thing dangerous to the Souls of Men. Very Ease it self is death to the wicked and the prosperity of fools slayeth them Their Table is a Snare and their Felicity their utter overthrow Few men there are which long prosper and sin not Howbeit even as these ill effects although they be very usual and common are no bar to the hearty prayers whereby most vertuous mindes with peace and prosperity always where they love because they consider that this in it self is a thing naturally desired So because all adversity is in it self against nature what should hinder to pray against it although the providence of God turn it often unto the great good of many men Such Prayers of the Church to be delivered from all adversity are no more repugnant to any reasonable disposition of mens mindes towards death much less to that blessed Patience and meek Contentment which Saints by Heavenly inspiration have to endure what cross or calamity soever it pleaseth God to lay upon them then our Lord and Saviours own Prayer before his Passion was repugnant unto his most gracious resolution to die for the sins of the whole World 49. In praying for deliverance from all adversity we seek that which Nature doth wish to it self but by intreating for Mercy towards all we declare that Affection wherewith Christian Charity thirsteth after the good of the whole World we discharge that duty which the Apostle himself doth impose on the Church of Christ as a commendable office a sacrifice acceptable in Gods sight a service according to his heart whose desire is to have all men saved A work most suitable with his purpose who gave himself to be the price of redemption for all and a forcible mean to procure the conversion of all such as are not yet acquainted with the Mysteries of that Truth which must save their Souls Against it there is but the bare shew of this one Impediment that all mens salvation and many mens eternal condemnation or death are things the one repugnant to the other that both cannot be brought to pass that we know there are Vessels of Wrath to whom God will never extend mercy and therefore that wittingly we ask an impossible thing to be had The truth is that as life and death mercy and wrath are matters of meer understanding or knowledge all mens salvation and some mens endless perdition are things so opposite that whosoever doth affirm the one must necessarily deny the order God himself cannot effect both or determine that both shall be There is in the knowledge both of God and Man this certainty That life and death have divided between them the whole Body of mankinde What portion either of the two hath God himself knoweth for us he hath left no sufficient means to comprehend and for that cause neither given any leave to search in particular who are infalliby the heirs of the Kingdom of God who cast-aways Howbeit concerning the state of all men with whom we live for onely of them our Prayers are meant we may till the Worlds end for the present always presume That as far as in us there is power to discern what others are and as far as any duty of ours dependeth upon the notice of their condition in respect of God the safest Axioms for Charity to rest it self upon are these He which believeth already is and he which believeth not as yet may be the childe of God It becometh not us during life altogether to condemn any man seeing that for any thing we know there is hope of every mans forgiveness the possibility of whose repentance is not yet cut off by death And therefore Charity which hopeth all things prayeth also for all Men. Wherefore to let go Personal Knowledge touching Vessels of Wrath and Mercy what they are inwardly in the sight of God it skilleth not for us there is cause sufficient in all men whereupon to ground our Prayers unto God in their behalf For whatsoever the Minde of Man apprehencieth as good the Will of Charity and Love is to have it inlarged in the very uttermost extent that all may enjoy it to whom it can any way add perfection Because therefore the father a good thing doth reach the nobler and worthier we reckon it our Prayers for all mens good no less then for our own the Apostle with very fit terms commendeth as being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a work commendable for the largeness of the affection from whence it springeth even as theirs which have requested at Gods hands the salvation of many with the loss of their own Souls drowning as it were and over-whelming themselves in the abundance of their love towards others is proposed as being in regard of the rareness of such affections 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more then excellent But this extraordinary height of desire after other mens salvation is no common mark The other is a duty which belongeth unto all and prevaileth with God daily For as it is in it self good so God accepteth and taketh it in very good part at the hands of faithful men Our Prayers for all men do include both them that shall finde mercy and them also that shall finde none For them that shall no man will doubt but our Prayers are both accepted and granted Touching them for whom we crave that mercy which is not to be obtained let us not think that our Saviour did mis-instruct his Disciples willing them to pray for the peace even of such as should be uncapable of so great a blessing or that the Prayers of the Prophet Ieremy offended God because the answer of God was a resolute denial of favor to them for whom Supplication was made And if any
minde what our duties are it is but reasonable that in the one the publick experience of the World over-weigh some few mens perswasion and in the other the rare perfection of a few condescend unto common imbecillity Seeing therefore that in fear shame which doth worthily follow sin and to bear undeserved reproach constantly is the general duty of all men professing Christianity seeing also that our weakness while we are in this present World doth need towards Spiritual duties the help even of corporal furtherance and that by reason of natural intercourse between the highest and the lowest powers of mans minde in all actions his fancy or imagination carrying in it that special note of Remembrance then which there is nothing more forcible where either too weak or too strong a conceit of infamy and disgrace might do great harm standeth always ready to put forth a kinde of necessary helping hand we are in that respect to acknowledge the good and profitable use of this Ceremony and not to think it supersluous that Christ hath his mark applied unto that part where bashfulness appeareth in token that they which are Christians should be at no time ashamed of his ignominy But to prevent some inconveniencies which might ensue if the over-ordinary use thereof as it fareth with such Rites when they are too common should cause it to be of less observation or regard where it most availeth we neither omit it in that place nor altogether make it so vulgar as the Custom heretofore hath been Although to condemn the whole Church of God when it most flourished in zeal and piety to mark that age with the brand of Error and Superstition onely because they had this Ceremony more in use then we now think needful boldly to affirm That this their practice grew so soon through a fearful malediction of God upon the Ceremony of the Cross as if we knew that his purpose was thereby to make it manifest in all mens eyes how execrable those things are in his sight which have proceeded from humane invention is as we take it a censure of greater zeal then knowledge Men whose judgments in these cases are grown more moderate although they retain not as we do the use of this Ceremony perceive notwithstanding very well such censures to be out of square and do therefore not onely acquit the Fathers from superstition therein but also think it sufficient to answer in excuse of themselves The Ceremony which was but a thing indifferent even of old we judge not at this day a matter necessary for all Christian men to observe As for their last upshot of all towards this Mark they are of opinion that if the ancient Christians to deliver the Cross of Christ from contempt did well and with good consideration use often the Sign of the Cross in testimony of their Faith and Profession before Infidels which upbraided them with Christs sufferings now that we live with such as contrariwise adore the Sign of the Cross because contrary diseases should always have contrary remedies we ought to take away all use thereof In which conceipt they both ways greatly seduce themselves first for that they imagine the Fathers to have had no use of the Cross but with reference unto Infidels which mis-perswasion we have before discovered at large and secondly by reason that they think there is not any other way besides Universal Extirpation to reform superstitious abuses of the Cross. Wherein because there are that stand very much upon the example of Ezechias as if his breaking to pieces that Serpent of Brass whereunto the Children of Israel had burnt Incense did enforce the utter abolition of this Ceremony the fact of that vertuous Prince is by so much the more attentively to be considered Our lives in this World are partly guided by Rules and partly directed by Examples To conclude out of general Rules and Axioms by discourse of Wit our duties in every particular action is both troublesome and many times so full of difficulty that it maketh diliberations hard and tedious to the wisest men Whereupon we naturally all incline to observe examples to mark what others have done before us and in favor of our own ease rather to follow them then to enter into new consultation if in regard of their Vertue and Wisdom we may but probably think they have waded without Error So that the willingness of men to be led by example of others both discovereth and helpeth the imbecillity of our judgment Because it doth the one therefore insolent and proud Wits would always seem to be their own Guides and because it doth the other we see how hardly the vulgar sort is drawn unto any thing for which there are not as well Examples as Reasons alledged Reasons proving that which is more particular by things more general and farther from Sense are with the simpler sort of men less trusted for that they doubt of their own judgment in those things but of Examples which prove unto them one doubtful particular by another more familiarly and sensibly known they easily perceive in themselves some better ability to judge The force of Examples therefore is great when in matter of action being doubtful what to do we are informed what others have commendably done whose deliberations were like But whosoever doth perswade by example must as well respect the fitness as the goodness of that he alledgeth To Ezechias God himself in this fact giveth testimony of well-doing So that nothing is here questionable but onely whether the example alledged be pertinent pregnant and strong The Serpent spoken of was first erected for the extraordinary and miraculous cure of the Israelites in the Desart This use having presently an end when the cause for which God ordained it was once removed the thing it self they notwithstanding kept for a Monument of Gods Mercy as in like consideration they did the Pot of Manna the Rod of Aaron and the Sword which David took from Goliah In process of time they made of a Monument of Divine Power a plain Idol they burnt Incense before it contrary to the Law of God and did it the services of honor due unto God onely Which gross and grievous abuse continued till Ezekias restoring the purity of sound Religion destroyed utterly that which had been so long and so generally a snare unto them It is not amiss which the Canon Law hereupon concludeth namely That if our Predecessors have done some things which at that time might be without fault and afterward be turned to Error and Superstition we are taught by Ezechias breaking the Brazen Serpent that Posterity may destroy them without any delay and with great Authority But may it be simply and without exception hereby gathered that Posterity is bound to destroy whatsoever hath been either at the first invented or but afterwards turned to like Superstition and Error No it cannot be The Serpent therefore and the Sign of the
mine eyes some small and scarce discernable Grain or Seed whereof Nature maketh a promise that a Tree shall come and when afterwards of that Tree any skilful Artificer undertaketh to frame some exquisite and curious work I look for the event I move no question about performance either of the one or of the other Shall I simply credit Nature in things natural Shall I in things artificial relie my self on Art never offering to make doubt And in that which is above both Art and Nature refuse to believe the Author of both except he acquaint me with his ways and lay the secret of his skill before me Where God himself doth speak those things which either for height and sublimity of Matter or else for secresie of Performance we are not able to reach unto as we may be ignorant without danger so it can be no disgrace to confess we are ignorant Such as love Piety will as much as in them lieth know all things that God commandeth but especially the duties of Service which they ow to God As for his dark and hidden works they prefer as becometh them in such cases simplicity of Faith before that Knowledge which curiously sisting what it should adore and disputing too boldly of that which the wit of man cannot search chilleth for the most part all warmth of zeal and bringeth soundness of belief many times into great hazard Let it therefore be sufficient for me presenting my self at the Lords Table to know what there I receive from him without searching or enquiring of the manner how Christ performeth his promise Let Disputes and Questions Enemies to Piety abatements of true Devotion and hitherto in this cause but over-patiently heard let them take their rest Let curious and sharp-witted Men beat their Heads about what Questions themselves will the very Letter of the Word of Christ giveth plain security that these Mysteries do as Nails fasten us to his very Cross that by them we draw out as touching Efficacy Force and Vertue even the Blood of his goared side In the Wounds of our Redeemer we there dip our Tongues we are died red both within and without our hunger is satisfied and our thirst for ever quenched they are things wonderful which he feeleth great which he seeth and unheard of which he uttereth whose Soul it possest of this Paschal Lamb and made joyful in the strength of this new Wine This Bread hath in it more then the substance which our eyes behold this Cup hallowed with solemn Benediction availeth to the endless life and welfare both of Soul and Body in that it serveth as well for a Medicine to heal our infirmities and purge our sins as for a Sacrifice of Thanksgiving With touching it sanctifieth it enlightneth with belief it truly conformeth us unto the image of Iesus Christ. What these Elements are in themselves it skilleth not it is enough that to me which take them they are the Body and Blood of Christ his Promise in witness hereof sufficeth his Word he knoweth which way to accomplish why should any cogitation possess the minde of a Faithful Communicant but this O my God thou art true O my Soul thou art happy Thus therefore we see that howsoever Mens opinions do otherwise vary nevertheless touching Baptism and the Supper of the Lord we may with consent of the whole Christian World conclude they are necessary the one to initiate or begin the other to consummate or make perfect our life in Christ. 68. In Administring the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ the supposed faults of the Church of England are not greatly material and therefore it shall suffice to touch them in few words The first is That we do not use in a generality once for all to say to Communicants Take eat and drink but unto every particular person Eat thou drink thou which is according to the Popish manner and not the Form that our Saviour did use Our second oversight is by Gesture For in Kneeling there hath been Superstition Sitting agreeth better to the action of a Supper and our Saviour using that which was most fit did himself not kneel A third accusation is for not examining all Communicants whose knowledge in the Mystery of the Gospel should that way be made manifest a thing every where they say used in the Apostles times because all things necessary were used and this in their opinion is necessary yea it is commanded in as much as the Levites are commanded to prepare the people for the Passover and Examination is a part of their Preparation our Lords Supper in place of the Passover The fourth thing misliked is That against the Apostles prohibitionâ— to have any familiarity at all with notorious Offenders Papists being not of the Church are admitted to our very Communion before they have by their Religious and Gospel-like behavior purged themselves of that suspition of Popery which their former life hath caused They are Dogs Swine unclean Beasts Foreigners and Strangers from the Church of God and therefore ought not to be admitted though they offer themselves We are fiftly condemned in as much as when there have been store of people to hear Sermons and Service in the Church we suffer the Communion to be ministred to a few It is not enough that our Book of Common Prayer hath godly Exhortations to move all thereunto which are present For it should not suffer a few to Communicate it should by Ecclesiastical Discipline and Civil punishment provide that such as would withdraw themselves might be brought to Communicate according both to the Law of God and the ancient Church Canons In the sixth and last place cometh the enormity of imparting this Sacrament privately unto the sick Thus far accused we answer briefly to the first That seeing God by Sacraments doth apply in particular unto every mans person the Grace which himself hath provided for the benefit of all mankinde there is no cause why Administring the Sacraments we should forbear to express that in our forms of Speech which he by his Word and Gospel teacheth all to believe In the one Sacrament I Baptize thee displeaseth them not If â—at thou in the other offend them their fancies are no rules for Churches to follow Whether Christ at his last Supper did speak generally once to all or to every one in particular is a thing uncertain His words are recorded in that Form which serveth best for the setting down with Historical brevity what was spoken they are no manifest proof that he spake but once unto all which did then Communicate muchless that we in speaking unto every Communicant severally do amiss although it were clear that we herein do otherwise then Christ did Our imitation of him consisteth not in tying scrupulously our selves unto his syllables but rather in speaking by the Heavenly Direction of that inspired Divine Wisdom which teacheth divers ways to one end and doth therein controul their boldness
condition as long as they stedfastly were observed to honour God and their success being faln from him are remonstrances more than sufficient how all our welfare even on earth dependeth wholly upon our Religion Heathens were ignorant of true Religion Yet such as that little was which they knew it much impaired or bettered alwaies their worldy affairs as their love and zeal towards it did wain or grow Of the Jews did not even their most malicious and mortal Adversaries all acknowledge that to strive against them it was in vain as long as their amity with God continued that nothing could weaken them but Apostasie In the whole course of their own proceedings did they ever finde it otherwise but that during their faith and fidelity towards God every man of them was in war as a thousand strong and as much as a grand Senate for counsel in peaceable deliberations contrariwise that if they swarved as they often did their wonted courage and magnanimity forsook them utterly their Soldiers and military men trembled at the sight of the naked sword when they entered into mutual conference and sate in counsel for their own good that which Children might have seen their gravest Senators could not discern their Prophets saw darkness instead of Visions the wise and prudent were as men bewitcht even that which they knew being such as might stand them in stead they had not the grace to utter or if any thing were well proposed it took no place it entered not into the minds of the rest to approve and follow it but as men confounded with strange and unusual amaâ—â—ments of spirit they attempted tumultuously they saw not what and by the issues of all attempts they found no certain conclusion but this God and Heaven are strong against as in all we do The cause whereof was secret fear which took heart and courage from them and the cause of their fear an inward guiltiness that they all had offered God such apparent wrongs as were not pardonable But it may be the case is now altogether changed and that in Christian Religion there is not the like force towards Temporal felicity Search the ancient Records of time look what hath happened by the space of these sixteen hundred years see if all things to this effect be not Inculent and clear yea all things so manifest that for evidence and proof herein we need not by uncertain dark conjectures surmise any to have been plagued of God for contempt or blest in the course of faithful obedience towards true Religion more than onely them whom we finde in that respect on the one side guilty by their own confessions and happy on the other side by all mens acknowledgement who beholding that prosperous estate of such as are good and vertuous impute boldly the same to God's most especial favour but cannot in like manner pronounce that whom he afflicteth above others with them he hath cause to be more offended For Vertue is always plain to be seen rareness causeth it to be observed and goodness to be honoured with admiration As for iniquity and sin it lyeth many times hid and because we be all offenders it becometh us not to incline towards hard and severe sentences touching others unless their notorious wickedness did sensibly before proclaim that which afterwards came to pass Wherefore the sum of every Christian man's duty is to labour by all means towards that which other men seeing in us may justifie and what we our selves must accuse if we fall into it that by all means we can to avoid considering especially that as hitherto upon the Church there never yet fell tempestuous storm the vapours whereof were not first noted to rise from coldness in affection and from backwardness is duties of service towards God so if that which the tears of antiquity have untered concerning this point should be here set down it were assuredly enough to soften and to mollifie an Heart of steel On the contrary part although we confesse with Saint Augustine most willingly that the chiefest happiness for which we have some Christian Kings in so great admiration above the rest is not because of their long Reign their calm and quiet departure out of this present life the settled establishment of their own flesh and blood succeeding them in Royalty and Power the glorious overthrow of foreign enemies or the wise prevention of inward danger and so secret attempts at home all which solaces and comforts of this our unquiet life it pleaseth God oftentimes to bestow on them which have no society or part in the joys of Heaven giving thereby to understand that these in comparison are toys and trifles farr under the value and price of that which is to be looked for at his hands but in truth the reason wherefore we most extol their felicity is if so be they have virtuously reigned if honour have not filled their hearts with pride if the exercise of their power have been service and attendance upon the Majestie of the Most High if they have feared him as their own inferiours and subjects have feared them if they have loved neither pomp nor pleasure more than Heaven if revenge have slowly proceeded from then and mercy willingly offered it self if so they have tempered rigour with lenity that neither extream severitie might utterly cutt them off in whom there was manifest hope of amendment nor yet the easinesse of pardoning offences imbolden offenders if knowing that whatsoever they do their potency may bear it out they have been so much the more carefull are to do any thing but that which is commendable in the best rather than usual with greatest Personages if the true knowledge of themselves have humbled them in God's sight no lesse than God in the eyes of men hath raised them up I say albeit we reckon such to be the happiest of them that are mightiest in the World and albeit those things alone are happiness nevertheless considering what force there is even in outward blessings to comfort the mindes of the best disposed and to give them the greater joy when Religion and Peace Heavenly and Earthly happiness are wreathed in one Crown as to the worthiest of Christian Princes it hath by the providence of the Almighty hitherto befallen let it not seem unto any man a needlesse and superfluous waste of labour that there hath been thus much spoken to declare how in them especially it hath been so observed and withal universally noted even from the highest to the very meanest how this peculiar benefit this singular grace and preheminence Religion hath that either it guardeth as an heavenly shield from all calamities or else conducteth us safe through them and permitteth them not to be miseâ—… it either giveth honours promotions and wealth or else more benefit by wanting them than if we had them at will it either filleth our Houses with plenty of all good things or maketh a Sallad of green herbs more sweet than all the
we teach plainly that To hold the foundation is in express terms to acknowledg it 25. Now because the foundation is an affirmative Proposition they all overthrow it who deny it they directly overthrow it who deny it directly and they overthrow it by consequent or indirectly which hold any one assertion whatsoever whereupon the direct denial thereof may be necessarily concluded What is the Question between the Gentiles and Us but this Whether salvation be by Christ What between the Iews and Us but this Whether by this Iesus whom we call Christ yea or no This is to be the main point whereupon Christianity standeth it is clear by that one sentence of Festus concerning Pauls accusers They brought no crime of such things as I supposed but had certain questions against him of their superstition and of one Iesus which was dead whom Paul affirmed to be alive Where we see that Jesus dead and raised for the Salvation of the World is by Iesus denied despised by a Gentile by a Christian Apostle maintained The Fathers therefore in the Primitive Church when they wrote Tertullian the book which he called Apologeticus Minutius Faelix the Book which he intitleth Octavius Arnobius the seventh books against the Gentiles Chrysostom his Orations against the Jews Eusebius his ten books of Evangelical demonstration they stand in defence of Christianity against them by whom the foundation thereof was directly denied But the writings of the Fathers against Novatians Pelagians and other Hereticks of the like note refel Positions whereby the foundation of Christian Faith was overthrown by consequent onely In the former sort of Writings the foundation is proved in the latter it is alledged as a proof which to men that had been known directly to deny must needs have seemed a very beggerly kind of disputing All Infidels therefore deny the foundation of Faith directly by consequent many a Christian man yea whole Christian Churches have denied it and do deny it at this present day Christian Churches the foundation of Christianity not directly for then they cease to be Christian Churches but by consequent in respect whereof we condemn them as erroneous although for holding the foundation we do and must hold them Christians 26. We see what it is to hold the foundation what directly and what by consequent to deny it The next thing which followeth is whether they whom God hath chosen to obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ may once effectually called and through faith justified truly afterwards fall so far as directly to deny the foundation which their hearts have before imbraced with joy and comfort in the Holy Ghost for such is the faith which indeed doth justifie Devils know the same things which we believe and the minds of the most ungodly may be fully perswaded of the Truth which knowledge in the one and in the other is sometimes termed faith but equivocally being indeed no such faith as that whereby a Christian man is justified It is the Spirit of Adoption which worketh faith in us in them not the things which we believe are by us apprehended not onely as true but also as good and that to us as good they are not by them apprehended as true they are Whereupon followeth the third difference the Christian man the more he encreaseth in faith the more his joy and comfort aboundeth but they the more sure they are of the truth the more they quake and tremble at it This begetteth another effect where the hearts of the one sort have a different disposition from the other Non ignoro plerosque conscientia meritorum nihil se esse per mortem magis optare quam credere Malunt cuim extingui penitus quam ad supplicia reparari I am not ignorant saith Minutius that there be many who being conscious what they are to look for do rather wish that they might then think that they shall cease when they cease to live because they hold it better that death should consume them unto nothing then God revive them unto punishment So it is in other Articles of Faith whereof wicked men think no doubt many times they are too true On the contrary side to the other there is no grief or torment greater then to feel their perswasion weak in thingsâ— whereof when they are perswaded they reap such comfort and joy of spirit such is the faith whereby we are justified such I mean in respect of the quality For touching the principal object of Faith longer then it holdeth the foundation whereof we have spoken it neither justifieth nor is but ceaseth to be faith when it ceaseth to believe that Jesus Christ is the onely Saviour of the World The cause of life spiritual in us is Christ not carnally or corporally inhabiting but dwelling in the soul of man as a thing which when the minde apprehendeth it is said to inhabite or possess the minde The minde conceiveth Christ by hearing the Doctrine of Christianity as the light of Nature doth the minde to apprehend those truths which are meerly rational so that saving truth which is far above the reach of Humane Reason cannot otherwise then by the Spirit of the Almighty be conceived All these are implied wheresoever any of them is mentioned as the cause of the spiritual life Wherefore if we have read that the spirit is our life or the Word our life or Christ our life We are in very of these to understand that our life is Christ by the hearing of the Gospel apprehended as a Saviour and assented unto through the power of the Holy Ghost The first intellectual conceit and comprehension of Christ so imbraced St. Peter calleth the seed whereof we be new born our first imbracing of Christ is our first reviving from the state of death and condemation He that hath the Son hath life saith St. Iohn and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life If therefore he which once hath the Son may cease to have the Son though it be for a moment he ceaseth for that moment to have life But the life of them which have the Son of God is everlasting in the world to come But because as Christ being raised from the dead dyed no more death hath no more power over him so justified man being allied to God in Jesus Christ our Lord doth as necessarily from that time forward always live as Christ by whom he hath life liyeth always I might if I had not otherwhere largely done it already shew by many and sundry manifest and clear proofs how the motions and operations of life are sometime so indiscernable and so secret that they seem stone-dead who notwithstanding are still alive unto God in Christ. For as long as that abideth in us which animateth quickneth and giveth life so long we live and we know that the cause of our Faith abideth in us for ever I. Christ the Fountain of Life may flit and leave the Habitation