to P. 14â— which they have no just title themselves being out of Christ This is gross enough and dangerous 19. In the Article of our Creed Sitting at the right hand P. 174. of God signifieth the inferiority of the Mediator in respect of the Father This wants a lusty grain of Salt 20. The vow of single Life is a snare or as the noose in the On Gal. 1. v. 7. haltar to strangle the Soul 21. The third Succession is of Doctrine alone and thus our Ministers succeed the Apostles and this is sufficient It is sufficient for the Peoples not Gods Ministers 22. If in Turkie or America or elsewhere the Gospel should be Id Gal p. 196 197. received by the counsel and perswasion of private persons they shall not need to send into Europe for Consecrated Ministers but they have power to choose their own Ministers from within themselves Because where God giveth the word he giveth the power also 23. The Child of God falling into persecution and denying Id. Gal. 1. v. 22. Christ is not guilty to condemnation because c. 24. If as Eusebius saith in his Chronicle Peter sate Bishop of Rome twenty five years then Peter lived in breach of the express commandment of God for so long time because the Jews were his special charge Absurd and untrue 25. We are born Christians if our Parents believe and not P. 235. made so in Baptism 26. The Sacraments are said to apply Christ in that P. 242. they serve to confirm Faith whose office it is to apply c. 27. All the works of Regenerate men are sinful and in the P. 381. rigor of justice deserve damnation Well therefore may he say this of unregenerate men but neither is it true so far of one or other but the not doing of such good works is much more damnable It is true properly that they do not of themselves save but not so that they damn 28. There be three parts of Penance Contrition of heart Id. Papist cannot go beyond a reprobate p. 396. Confession of the mouth Satisfaction in the deed All these three Judas performed 29. As long as a man hath his Conscience to accuse him of Ibid. sin before God he is in a state of Damnation as St. John saith 1 Ep. 2. 10. St. John saith not so 30. The Church of Rome teacheth that Original Sin is done Ib. p. 397. Advertisement to the Roman Church p. 622. Vol. 1. away in Baptism This is called a damnable Error as if only the Ch. of Rome held so and it were not unanimously held by the Fathers 31. That we believe the Catholick Church it follows that the Catholick Church is invisible 32. We esteem of Repentance only as a fruit of Faith and Reform Catholick p. 615. the effect or efficacy of it is to testifie the Remission of our sins and our reconciliation before God 33. There is a twofold conversion Passive and Active Ib. p. 613. 614. Passive is an Action of God whereby he converteth man being yet unconverted These are the Heterodox Dogmes which Mr. Perkins suckt in from Calvins Divinity upon whose sleeve he seem'd to have pin'd his faith notwithstanding Scripture is so vehemently pretended which will warrant none of them And by these credulously assented to and preached contrary to the mind of our Church by vulgar and lazie Divines who would take no care or pains to look into the Scriptures or the Doctrine of the Ancient Church but through such mens Spectacles have diversity of opinions been bred in the common peoples mind to their dislike of their Governours and at last such a rupture as hath wasted and almost consumed us But here I am to give the curious Reader notice least I may seem to mis-report any thing quoted out of Mr. Perkins according to the pages that upon examining them and comparing them on this occasion I find what I took no notice of at first reading of his Works that I followed two several Editions of his Works in Folio the one of the year 1626 and the other of the year 1631 which not having by me I could not rectifie but doubt not but they are to be found in one of them And now because I perceive the Papists triumph when they can find such blemishes in our Church and charge it with all these and such like which they may find among dissenters I shall set down likewise their principal accusations as I find them collected and summ'd up by Fitz-Simons Henricus Fitzsimon Brittannomachia minist l. 2 c. 3. and the rather because he professes to have taken them out of a much more wise and learned Adversary to us then himself Alanus Copus otherwise called Nicolas Harpsfield and they are these following 1. The first Error he layes to our charge is that we hold There are only two Sacraments This we stand to as commonly explained by our Church 2. Infants belong to the people of God before they are Baptized This indeed is the opinion of Sectaries which Perkins before cited might have led them into but not of our Church nor the Ancient Church as may appear most evidently from the testimony of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod. Haerer Fab. l. 5. c. 28. Theodoret who in the behalf of the Catholick Church absolutely disowns unbaptized persons as Sons of God though they believed and embraced the Catholick Doctrine telling us that the Church would by no means suffer such to say the Lords Prayer accounting it an horrible thing for any to call God Father before he was baptized speaking thus This Prayer we teach not such who are not initiated but such as are partakers of that Mystery For none that are not initiated into that Mystery dares say Our Father which art in Heaven c. not having received that Grace of Adoption 3. The true Body of Christ is not in the Eucharist nor any thing but the substance of Bread Sure this fierce Accuser forgets himself Do we not also hold the substance of Wine remains in the Eucharist as well as that of bread Nay do we not profess * Christs Church Câ—techism Body and Bloud are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lords Supper And can they there be received unless they be there but the art of such rampant ignorant and malicious Factors for the Roman Church ever consisted principally in wilful bungling and by false stating of the differences between us and them to beguile the weak and unwary 4. That the Communion under both kinds is necessary It is as necessary under both as under one The contrary is the Sacrilegious Error of the Romanists 5. A Priest may not communicate alone Another grievous Error that we cannot indure Non-sense nor to see Christs institution bafled by such a ridiculous Communion unknown to Antiquity 6. It is unlawful to reserve or elevate the Eucharist Not simply as the Ancient Church did
may possibly to them were this any more than to say They would be at peace and unity with them when they became of their mind did as they would have them and not differ from them But I have transgressed I fear on this subject here at present which yet is not impertinent altogether it proving that it is Lawful to Excommunicate such who agree with us in Faith And the summ of the reason is this viz. Because there are as hath been acknowledged on both sides yea is almost on all sides granted two things essential to the Church Doctrine and Government or Discipline as it is called to act any thing to the violation of either of these may justly subject a man to this Ecclesiastical Censure And however at first sight dissension and opposition to the Rites and practices of a Church may not appear of a mortal nature of themselves as being perhaps about things in nature alterable yet in the consequence making a breach in the wall of the City of God they let in certain ruine and destruction Thieves and Robers And this holds no less to the Justification of the Church in Excommunicating refractory and disobedient persons to the Church in her citations though in truth the ground of her citation be matter of small moment It were indeed much to be wish'd that such severe sentences might not be executed but on occasions of greatest moment not only for the persons sake so excluded but the Churches sake denouncing whose autority must needs be much weakened and her sentence much contemned when upon matters appearing meerly trivial and light it is inflicted And therefore most useful it seemeth That redress of pecuniary pretensions on persons relating to Ecclesiastical Courts should not be by Excommunication but from the Civil Power enabling the Ecclesiastical to exact their dues But where this is not in use and where no other means appears of obliging men to reverence and submit to Ecclesiastical Powers but the punishment Ecclesiastical I would fain have such persons who profess not the utter abolition of such autority and dissolution propound some other effectual way of keeping up the power and autority of those Courts besides Excommunication before they declare so smartly against the abuse of it Lastly whosoever doth by contempt and disobedience first deny the Churches power and in very deed sever himself from it can he or any man of Christian reason or modesty contradict the Churches Act in declaring and formally manifesting what was more closely but really before done by himself So far as a man disobeys and opposes the Church so far is he really separated from it And to be partly on and partly off as some men propound to themselves and please themselves in thinking it free to choose and leave at their pleasure what their private judgements shall lead them to is not at all to clear them from the guilt or imputation of Schismaticalness For all proper Schismaticks agree in many things with the Church which they trouble and divide And every Schismatick stands divided from the Church And may not the censure of the Church by Excommunication most reasonably at least follow a mans own Act and declare that to be so which himself hath made so especially not only thereby or so much punishing the Offendor as securing the innocent and sound by such notice from the like contagion Doth not St. Paul cleerly imply so much when Gal. 5. 12. he saith to the Gallatians I would they were even cut off that trouble you How did these intruders and seducers so trouble the Church as to deserve such Excision or Cutting off By two things principally one whereof follows in the next verse by a presumption of such Christian Liberty which was never intended by Christ for his Church Another was in point Gal. 1. 6 7. of doctrine innovating rather in form than words For it was not another doctrine of the Gospel that was offered to these green and unstable Christians but another Form the easier to prevail upon their Consciences and to alienate them from their true Pastors Such as these would the Apostle have Cut off and therefore very false and frivolous is that ground of Socinian Extract mentioned in the beginning viz. That nothing which in it self hinders not salvation can give just occasion of Excommunication I do not here as many insist much upon the words of Christ in St. Matthew whereby he warrants a man to account him as Heathen and publican Math. 18. 15 16 17. who shall refuse to hear the Church arbitrating and judging within it self because I am of their opinion who expound this not of excommunication from the Church but of a freedom granted to a man to go to the humane Civil Power for justice against such a brother as if he were no better than a Heathen and Publican who will not listen to the voice and judgement of the Church Yet surely this intimates a power in the Church to determine and a duty in the members of it to submit unto the Judgement of it and if a private man may treat one of his brethren as he would a heathen in some cases may not the Church This is the least we can honestly make of Christs Charter given to the Church by St. Peter in Mat. 16. 19. the same Gospel I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven But consideration and limitation of this grievous censure is not to be omitted according to diversity of Persons Relations and the Causes given from whence I suppose arose the distinction of Major and Minor or Greater and Lesser Excommunication of ancient use in the Church And Anathema and Excommunication according to the Ancient differ For Excommunication is nothing else but a denunciation of a person alienated from the Communion of the Church in the mysteries and worship proper to Christians And this we may take to be the Lesser Excommunication but Anathema or the Greater Excommunication besides excluding from Christian Communion added a Curse corporal which the Scripture calls properly a Delivering unto Satan as well for the destruction of Body as Soul Thus was that incestuous person excommunicated by St. Paul For the destruction of the flesh that the Spirit may be 1 Cor. 5â— 5. saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ For though we say that this Anathema was to the destruction of the flesh we mean only Actually as in that state but the end of that was rather the Salvation of it by such outward judgements reducing the offender to repentance This Anathema upon the body by plaguing it being miraculously inflicted hath ceased But yet not all bodily punishments with it taking here bodily punishments not only for bodily pains but bodily and outward losses Of this sort may be those separate men from all Civil Communion
and to deny Luk. 22. 20. V. 17. their senses when he saith This is my Body And as reasonles and frivolous are their Answers to St. Augustine who 1 Cor. 11. 27. affirms it to be a Prophane and blasphemous sense to understand Christ of Aug. de Doctrina Christ his proper Body and to eat it For can any thing be more Elusorie and ridiculous than to Scholie on him with a That is As meat is bought and sold in the Shambles Nam Sacramentum Alâ—ptionis suscipere dignatus est Christus et quando circumeisus est et quando baptizatus est et potest Sacramentum adoptionis Adoptio â—uncupari sicut Sacramentum coâ—poris et sanguints jus quod est in pane poculo consecrate Corpus jus sanguinem diciâ—us Non quod proprie corpus ejus sit panis poculum sanguinis Sed quod in se Mysterium coâ—poris ejus et sanguinis ejus contineant Hinc ipse Dominus Benedictum panâ—m Calicem quem Discipulis tradidit corpuaae sanguinem ejus voâ—â—vit Quocirea sicut Christi fideles sacramentum Corporis sanguinis ejus accipientes Corpus et sanguinem ejus recte dicuntur accipere c. Facundus Hâ—rmianensts Pro. 3. Capitulis Lib. 10. Cap. 5. But if it be possible to express any thing more clearly Facundus Hermianensis and that as set forth by Syrmondus doth both expound St. Austins meaning and our Saviour Christs yet more irrefragably writing against the Eutichians in these words For Christ vouchsafed to take on him the Sacrament of Adoption both at his Circumcision and at his Baptism and the Sacrament of Adoption may he called Adoption as the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ which is the Bread and Cup Consecrated we call his Body and Blood not that properly his body is Bread or his Blood the Cup but that they contain in then the Mystery of the Body and Blood of him Whence our Lord himself called the Blessed Bread and Cup which he delivered to his Disciples his Body and his Blood Wherefore as Christian believers taking the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of him are said truly to take the Body and Blood of Christ So Christ when he took the Sacrament of Adoption of Children might truly he said to take the Adoption of Children Thus he and Syrmondus in his notes upon this place doth confess these to be very harsh expressions like unto some of St. Austins there mentioned And to our urging the name fruit of the Vine given to the Consecrated substance and thence concluding that the real nature of Wine remains they answer that it is not unusual to give the name to a thing as a little before it was or seems to be Which we deny not And by the parity of reason return upon them to their loss For we know it is not unusual for a thing to be called by the name not which is proper to its nature but which it represents And to the eye of Faith the consecrated Elements Heb. 5. are the Body and Blood of Christ and so may not unaptly be so called by those whose senses are exercised as the Apostle speaks to discern both good and evil though in nature they be farr otherwise Some indeed as I conceive have been but too free of the Figures in this question supposing that the very word Est or Is must not be taken in its proper sense but stand for as much as Significat Signifies but this is without ground in Grammar or Divinity For he that saith as St. Paul 2 Tim. 4. 17. is interpreted to speak Nero is a Lion doth not lay the agreement upon Est or Is but upon the subject Nero For the Verb Substantive is equally indifferent to Comparative and Proper Speeches and continues so applied to any thing The Signification or Similitude lies in the two Terms Nero and a Lion and Bread and Wine and the Body and Blood of Christ Now there being no difference between a Similitude and a Metaphor but that the one is at large and in many words what the other is in one To say Christ is a Lamb or This which is bread is Christ is no more than to say Christ is as a Lamb and Bread is as Christs Body For the many agreements between the natural and Spiritual senses The one and that principal is that of Sacrifice which ought here to be briefly explained CHAP. XLIV Of the Sacrifice of the Altar What is a Sacrifice Conditions necessary to a Sacrament How and in what sense there is a Sacrifice in the Eucharist GREAT contentions have been about the Sacrifice of the Altar and perhaps though with just Cause yet not so great as is generally believed For these two Terms do much illustrate one the other For neither is the Altar upon which Christians offer properly an Altar any more then as is said before the Lords-Day now observed is properly a Sabbath nor is the Sacrifice thereon performed properly a Sacrifice Some will have that only truly called a Sacrifice which consisted of living Creaturs slain and offered to God Dixerunt aliqui quia Sacrificium non est nisi de Animalibus et erraverunt in hoc c. Guliel Parisien de Legib. Cap. 3. and to this sence do I most incline For there must be in all things some one thing which is as a Rule and Law and gives denomination to others according as they agree with it Now if all offerings to God as fine Flower and fruits of the Earth be called a Sacrifice in an equal sence to the most proper then have we no Rule to go by in Judging of Sacrifices And therefore Gulielmus Parisiensis who rejecteth the former acceptation because we Read in Leviticus 20. of a Sacrifice of fine Flower and Exodus 31. Sweet Smell seemeth himselfe to erre as he saith others do in the Notion of a Sacrifice For either these things and such-like were more properly called Oblations than Sacrifices or when they were called Sacrifices they were so called because of the Proper bloudy Sacrifice as the principal thing to which they were adjuncts Five things are said to be required to constitute a Sacrifice 1 A Proper Lessius de Ju. Just it Minister who is the Priest Heb. 5. Secondly the Matter must be sensible 3. The form of that matter must be changed and that after the nature of it Thirdly It must be directed and devoted to a Good end God And fiftly It must be offered in a proper place But not all these are certain and constantly true For Cain and Abel and Noah and Abraham and the rest under the Law offered proper Sacrifices but that they had peculiar Temples or Altars is not true For until that injuction of God in Deuteronomie Take heed to thy selfe that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in Deut. 12. 13. 14. every place that thou seest But in the place which the Lord shall
be convicted of moral evil and so unconcernedly to omit the weightier matters of the Law as Judgment Mercy or Charity in Vnity and Faith what can Charity call this but meer Pharisaism and where must such Pharisaism end at length but in Sadducism even denying of the Blessings and Curses of a Future Life For as Drusius hath Si Patres nostri selvissent mâ—râ—â—â—s resurrecturâ— praemia manere â—ustos â—â—st hanc vitam nâ—n tantoperè râ—bellassent Drusius in Mat. c 3. v. 7. Item in c. 22 23. observed it was one Reason alledged by the Sadduces against the Resurrection If our Fathers had known the dead should rise again and rewards were prepared for the Righteous they would not have rebelled so often not conforming themselves to Gods Rule as is pretended by all but conforming the Rule of Sin and of Faith it self to the good Opinion they had of their own Persons and Actions which Pestilential Contagion now so Epidemical God of his great Mercy remove from us and cause health and soundness of Judgment Affection and Actions to return to us and continue with us to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS Chap. I. OF the Nature and Grounds of Religion in General Which are not so much Power as the Goodness of God and Justice in the Creature And that Nature it self teaches to be Religious Chap. II. Of the constant and faithful assurance requisite to be had of a Deity The reasons of the necessity of a Divine Supream Power Socinus refuted holding the knowledge of a God not natural Chap. III. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature and the Infiniteness of God Chap. IV. Of the diversity of Religions in the World A brief censure of the Gentile and Mahumetan Religion Chap. V. Of the Jewish Religion The pretence of the Antiquity of it nulled The several erroneous grounds of the Jewish Religion discovered Chap. VI. The vanity of the Jewish Religion shewed from the proofs of the true Messias long since come which are many Chap. VII The Christian Religion described The general Ground thereof the revealed Will of God The necessity of Gods revealing himself Chap. VIII More special Proofs of the truth of Christian Religion and more particularly from the Scriptures being the Word of God which is proved by several reasons Chap. IX Of the several Senses and Meanings according to which the Scriptures may be understood Chap. X. Of the true Interpretation of Holy Scriptures The true meaning not the letter properly Scripture Of the difficulty of attaining the proper sense and the Reasons thereof Chap. XI Of the Means of interpreting the Scripture That they who understand Scripture are not for that authorized to interpret it decisively The Spirit not a proper Judge of the Scriptures sense Reason no Judge of Scripture There is no Infallible Judge of Scripture nor no necessity of it absolute The grounds of an Infallible Judge examined Chap. XII Of Tradition as a Means of understanding the Scriptures Of the certainty of unwritten Traditions that it is inferiour to Scripture or written Tradition No Tradition equal to Sense or Scripture in Evidence Of the proper use of Tradition Chap. XIII Of the nature of Faith What is Faith Of the two general grounds of Faith Faith divine in a twofold sense Revelation the formal reason of Faith Divine Of the several senses and acceptations of Faith That Historical Temporarie and Miraculous Faith are not in nature distinct from Divine and Justifying Faith Of Faith explicite and implicite Chap. XIV Of the effects of true Faith in General Good Works Good Works to be distinguish'd from Perfect Works Actions good four wayes Chap. XV. Of the effect of Good Works which is the effect of Faith How Works may be denominated Good How they dispose to Grace Of the Works of the Regenerate Of the proper conditions required to Good Works or Evangelical Chap. XVI Of Merit as an effect of Good Works The several acceptatations of the word Merit What is Merit properly In what sense Christians may be said to merit How far Good Works are efficacious unto the Reward promised by God Chap. XVII Of the two special effects of Faith and Good Works wrought in Faith Sanctification and Justification what they are Their agreements and differences In what manner Sanctification goes before Justification and how it follows Chap. XVIII Of Justification as an effect of Faith and Good Works Justification and Justice to be distinguished and how The several Causes of our Justification Being in Christ the principal cause What it is to be in Christ The means and manner of being in Christ Chap. XIX Of the efficient cause of Justification Chap. XX. Of the special Notion of Faith and the influence it hath on our Justification Of Faith solitary and only Of a particular and general Faith Particular Faith no more an Instrument of our justification by Christ than other co-ordinate Graces How some ancient Fathers affirm that Faith without Works justifie Chap. XXI A third effect of justifying Faith Assurance of our Salvation How far a man is bound to be sure of his Salvation and how far this assurance may be obtained The Reasons commonly drawn from Scripture proving the necessity of this assurance not sufficient c. Chap. XXII Of the contrary to true Faith Apostasie Heresie and Atheism Their Differences The difficulty of judging aright of Heresie Two things constituting Heresie the evil disposition of the mind and the falsness of the matter How far and when Heresie destroys Faith How far it destroys the Nature of a Church Chap. XXIII Of the proper subject of Faith the Church The distinction and description of the Church In what sense the Church is a Collection of Saints Communion visible as well as invisible necessary to the constituting a Church Chap. XXIV A preparation to the knowledge of Ecclesiastical Society or of the Church from the consideration of humane Societies What is Society What Order What Government Of the Original of Government Reasons against the peoples being the Original of Power and their Right to frame Governments Power not revocable by the people Chap. XXV Of the Form of Civil Government The several sorts of Government That Government in general is not so of Divine Right as that all Governments should be indifferently of Divine Institution but that One especially was instituted of God and that Monarchical The Reasons proving this Chap. XXVI Of the mutual Relations and Obligations of Soveraigns and Subjects No Right in Subjects to resist their Soveraigns tyrannizing over them What Tyranny is Of Tyrants with a Title and Tyrants without Title Of Magistrates Inferiour and Supream the vanity and mischief of that distinction The confusion of co-ordinate Governments in one State Possession or Invasion giveth no Right to Rulers The Reasons why Chap. XXVII An application of the former Discourse of Civil Government to Ecclesiastical How Christs Church is alwayes visible and how invisible Of the communion
works rites or Ceremonies of the Law delivered them by Moses as Saint Paul hath not only taught us but irrefragably proved against them in several places of his Epistles For the summ of his Argument and force may truly be reduced to this form as it is laid down more largely in his third Chapter to the Galatians Judaizing after the embracing of the Gospel of Christ Galat. 3. That way whereby Abraham Isaack Jacob and the most holy and renowned Patriarchs of the Jewish Line were justified before God must needs be it which God chiefly intended for the Justification of their Posterity to whom all the promises of God were made through them But neither Abraham nor Isanck nor Jacob were Justified by the Law of Moses so religious and rigorously now insisted on The first part of this reason will be easily granted by the Jews because they were the principal of the Jewish nation and honoured by God above any that succeeded them and therefore undoubtedly Justified by God But that this justification could V. 17. not be according to or by the Law of Moses Saint Paul in the forecited Chapter apparently proves where he shews that the Law was four hundred and thirty years after Abraham And how could that which then had no being be a cause of justification of Abraham Again the accounting of Righteous before God is to be justified before God But Abraham was accounted Righteous before God by Faith and Galat. 3. 6. Gen. 16. 6. Gal. 3. v. 7. not by Law For so saith the Scripture Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness Therefore They that are of Faith they are children of Abraham that is They who believed and live as did Abraham are Abrahams spiritual seed and heirs apparent of all the Promises made to him whereby all nations not the Jewish only should be blessed Furthermore No man could ever be Justified by that law but may rather be said to be condemned and cursed by it which he nor no man else did ever Deut. 27. 26. keep And the law saith expresly Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the Gal. 3. 10. words of this Law to do them which Confirming is well explained by the Apostle by Continuing For who ever by disobedience breaketh it cannot be said to confirm it or continue in it Now seeing all flesh failed more or less in the due observation thereof there must be provision otherwise made by God if so be he would have any saved It will perhaps be here said That God in such cases had appointed Sacrifices for expiations and reconciliations with him But against this not so much the Auctority as the Argument of the same Apostle makes in his Epistle to the Hebrews saying In those Sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins Heb. 10. once every year That is notwithstanding there were daily Sacrifices made according to the Law every day and upon special sins peculiar Sacrifices made by the offendor for an atonement yet every year to shew the insufficiencie of the Precedent Ceremonies mention was made of the sins of the People when the High Priest entred into the Holiest of Holie And the reason of this imperfection is given by the Author to the Hebrews when V. 4. he argueth First from the nature the Sacrifices themselves That it is impossible that the blood of Bulls and of Goats should take away sins or as one of their own Prophets before him intimateth saying Wherewith shall I Mic. 6. 6. come before the Lord and bow my self before the High God Shall I come before him with Burnt offerings and Calves of a year old Will the Lord be pleased 7. with thousands of Rams or with ten thousands of Rivers of oil Shall I give my first born for my transgression The fruit of my body for the sin of my Soul And so again in the book of the Psalms Sacrifices and offerings thou Psal 4. 6 7. didst not desire mine ears hast thou opened Burnt-offerings and sin-offerings hast thou not required Then said I Lo I come in the volume of the book it is written of me c. All which with many such like places do declare what esteem Good and Godly men had of the Legal Sacrifices that were but in themselves insufficient and unacceptable to Almighty God for either the expiating and satisfying for sins or the appeasing of God offended by the same and therefore some further remedie some more excellent means of reconcisiation were necessary And this appears from the ends of such Sacrifices instituted which principally were these First to declare a right that God had in all those Creatures which he had given man for his use and service Secondly to represent to man the guilt and punishment unto which he was subject by his sins as verily as that beast so slain and sacrificed before his eyes Thirdly to insinuate unto him the true means of becoming reconciled unto God offended which was A Second general end of the Old Law which was to prefigure the Messias and only true Saviour of the world who related not only to Abrahams seed but to all to whom the promise made to Abraham related viz. Gen. 22. 18. Galat. 3. 10. In thy seed shall all the Nations of the earth be blessed And therefore if such an objection be made Wherefore serveth the Law if not to such Ends Saint Paul answereth thus It was added because of transgressions to whom the Promise was made Because of Transgression First by reason that the Oral Covenant made with Adam and renewed to Abraham suffice not of it self to contain man in his dutie without the additional statute committed to writing by Moses called signally The Law Secondly this became to them under it a rule and direction until such time as the seed to whom it was promised should come i. e. The fulness of the Gentiles to whom through Adam and Abraham both the Messias was promised Whence appeareth the vanitie of the Jews imagination supposing that God by an immutable decree had affixed the priviledges and benefits of the Gospel entirely to the Jews And this inferrs another argument used by Saint Paul against the perfection and perpetuity of the Jewish Law For nothing was promised to Abraham and his seed peculiarly but upon the Covenant of Circumcision But Abraham was not reputed righteous before God by vertue of Circumcision but being Righteous was Circumcised and all the principal Promises made to Abraham as the Father of the Faithful were before Circumcision as the historie in Genesis assures us and Saint Paul to the Romans argueth and concludes against the Jews They which are the children of the Flesh are not the Children of God that is in that respect or for that cause because they were lineally descended from Abrahams flesh and blood but the Children of the Promise are counted for the Seed i. e. They were the persons comprehended in the Covenant and promises made to
faithful 2 Tim. 2. 11 12. saying If we be dead with him we shall also live with him If we suffer we shall also raign with him And is it not certainly implied that we shall receive the promises of God which are as well of Eternal and Spiritual things if we do the will of God by Faith and works of Faith when it is said Ye have need of patience that after ye have done the will of God ye might Heb. 10. 36. receive the promise And I should wonder at the subtilty of Perverters of divine Writ if they shall be able to draw any other sense from the words of Christ expressing his Rule of proceeding at the day of Judgment thus Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the Mat. 25. 34 35 36. foundation of the world For I was an hungred and ye gave me meat I was thirsty and ye gave me drink I was a stranger and ye took me in Naked and ye cloathed me I was sick and ye visited me I was in prison and ye came unto me How can any thing be spoken more plainly to make Eternal Life the reward They falsify our Tenets saying That we hold that Good works are not means of Salvation Francis White Epist. Dedie of Good works than is here spoken Or how can any man affirm that all things necessary to salvation are plainly taught and easily to be understood in Scripture and shall denie this to be plain and such good works as are here specified necessarie to salvation For to bring in any Scholie which shall elude this will do them much more mischief in other cases as leading to the corrupting all places of Scripture which they allow to be plain and rendring them altogether useless to the ends for which they are alleadged For to say only that Faith must be here understood is most true but insufficient to make the testimonie void because otherwise they were not good works And this must alwayes be retained in memory which we have before laid as a foundation That they are not the good works of natural Reason or humanity nor the good works of the Law now voided which we here in this dispute contend for but they are the works of Faith qualified with all the due conditions of the Gospel of Grace and actuated by the Spirit of Grace And here it may be useful to instance in some of those principal adjuncts which make our works truly evangelical and leading to that blessed end spoken of And here I do not make Faith so properly a condition as a cause and a common Essential foundation supposed to all Evangelical Acts as the root is not aptly termed a Condition of the fruit but the intrinsique Cause thereof But others there are very necessarie though not in the same degree such as these First that they be done in obedience to the will and command of Almighty God ordaining Good works Anew commandment John 13. 24. saith Christ I give unto you that ye love one another And how far this extends St. Paul tells us saving He that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law Rom. 13. â— Ephes 2. 10. And yet more expresly to the Ephesians he saith We are Gods workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them And again to the Thessalonians he saith This is the Thes 4. 3. will of God even your sanctification Secondly the merits of Christs Passion whereby we are redeemed to God and sanctified according to St. Paul to Titus speaking of Christ Who gave himself for us that he might redeem Tit. 2. 14. us from all iniquitie and purisie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of Good works A third thing requisite to constitute a work Good according to the Gospel is that it proceed from a Person adopted or made a Child of God by Grace For this is required of all true Christians That they be born again of John 3. 5. Joh. 3. 9. water and the Holy Ghost And as the same author elsewhere hath it Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God A fourth is the inward Grace of God working and moving the mind to holy works and this preventing us so that we are first excited of Gods Spirit without any natural inclination of our own to do that which is the good and acceptable will of God For to this end make our Saviours words in the Gospel where he saith Without me ye can do nothing that 1 Joh. 15. 5. is no Good work answerable to the perfection of the Gospel and the promises thereof A fifth is the outward Grace of God remitting and passing over the several Omnia mandata facta deputantur quando quicquid non fit agnoscitur Aug. Retract defects and blemishes adhering to Good works even of the Regenerate For then saith an holy Father truly is the Law fullfilled when what is committed amiss is pardoned And to this relate the words quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews as an ingredient into the Covenant of the Gospel viz. I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities will Heb. 8. 12. I remember no more Sixthly Perseverance in good is likewise necessarie though not to the essence of the Act done to make it Good for perseverence doth not of it self add good or evil to an action but supposes the same and continues it as it finds it yet to the reward it is absolutely necessarie Forasmuch as Gods Judgement as mans likewise is alwayes passed according to what a man actually is found to be whether good or evil and not to what a man hath been or possibly afterwards might have been For saith the word of God Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a Crown of Life And Revel 2. 10. 1 Cor. 7. 8. elsewhere Waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall also confirm you unto the end that ye may be blameless unto the day of our Lord Jesus Last of all to make a good Work rewardable is requisite the freeness of Gods promises made to accept the same and to reward it not for its own sake but for his sake and Christs sake And that God hath promised blessed rewards to those that work according to the tenour of the Gospel as now described doing it as his children under the protection of Christs mediation and merits to the glory of God through the operation of Gods Spirit persevering therein till God shall call them off resting not upon themselves but his promises is most undeniable and a Principle necessary to be maintained and practised by all faithful Christians doth appear from what is before alleadged And what if any thing may be is yet more cleerly asserted by Christ saying He that receiveth Mat. 10. 41. a
only foundation besides which none can â—ay any other neither is there any other name under Heaven whereby a man may be saved Christ Jesus this Faith is so active and operative in holy works proceeding from it that the Person is qualified thereby according to the frankness of Gods Covenant made with him in Christ to become capable of the benefit and end of the Covenant Viz. More Grace here and fruition of Glory hereafter For notwithstanding a the sufferings no not of Martyrdom for Christ of this life are not worthy of themselves nor indeed by the accession of Gods Grace to be compared to the glory to be revealed yet may they be a means and a Rom. 8. â— way leading to the same And though b Tit. 3 5. We are saved Not by Works of Righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy by the washing of regeneration and renuing of the holy Ghost Yet this we are not capable of so freely but c Gal. 5. 6. by Faith working by Love Which moveth the Apostle to exhort us thus d Phil. 2. 12. My beloved as ye have always obeyed not as in my presence onely but now much more in my absence work Out your own salvation with fear and trembling And left any man should conceive amiss of the Grace of God as perfecting all things without our concurrence or should presume so far of his own strength as to judge himself able of himself to effect that it is most wisely and seasonably added e v. 13. For it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure Whence it is that Eternal life is termed expresly f Rom. 6. 23. The gift of God Nay moreover the means conducing hereunto next under God is acknowledged owing unto God by the same Apostle to the Ephesians g Eph. 2. 8 9. For by Grace are ye saved through Faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Not of Works least any man should boast Yet notwithstanding these and many other places of holy Scripture magnifying the grace of God are not Works of Faith excluded any more then Faith it self from their proper vertue in obtaining the promises For still the reward is not of Debt but of Mercy as some of late distinguish and yet it is not so of mercy as that Justice subsequent and conditional to the promise should be wholy exploded For what can the Scripture else intend when it saith If we confess 1 Joh. 1. 9. our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness And doth not St. Paul joyn them both together saying That Rom. 3. 26. he might be Just and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus Is it not here as plain as words need make it that the Apostle concerneth the justice of God in the justification of him that believeth How then can these be reconciled but by distinguishing a twofold Justice in God in reference to the work of Man An absolute or antecedent Justice before his promise freely made and a consequent conditional Justice supposing a free stipulation made by God which never could be deserved neither is deserved by the completion of the terms to which Man stands obliged to God So that St. Paul joyns them both together thus considered without any suspition of contrariety For saith he to the Thessalonians It is a righteous 2 Thes 1. 6 7. thing and that is no less then just with God to recompence tribulation to them that trouble you And to you who are troubled rest with us c. But some have said concerning the reward in such cases as holy faithful working promised that it is promised to the Person and not to the Work Which if it were so as upon tryal would scarce prove so what an evasion doth this prove Seeing in such cases it is most absurd to divide and oppose those two which are inseparable For God neither doth reward the work without the person neither the person without the work but the person working as the person believing Therefore when St. Paul saith in his second Epistle to Timothy I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the Faith he declareth his holy Life and good works and when he addeth Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the Righteous or just Judge as the old Translation had it shall give me at that day and not unto me only but unto all them also that love his appearing doth sufficiently implie an inseparableness of the person from the work and that which puts the person into a capacity of the reward or Crown is the dutifulness of the person towards God So that there must of necessity be a Causality in good deeds in order to our Salvation though considering the most vulgarousness of the word merit and not the sense diluted with the abovesaid qualifications it is both immodest and unsafe to applie the same to Acts which are Good neither for their own sake nor for the Agents sake but for Christs sake and the liberal promise sake of God So that to say That Christ merited that we might merit is very improperly as well incroachingly spoken upon the Grace of God but to say That Christ merited to the end we might effectually work out our Salvation is to say no more then St. Paul intendeth in his Epistle to the Thessalonians where he affirmeth that God hath not appointed us to wrath but to obtain Salvation by â—â—hes 5. 9. our Lord Jesus Christ And how obtain the words going before and following speaking of good works sufficiently declare and yet shall be more fully explained in the succeeding Chapter CHAP. XVII Of the two special Effects of Faith and Good Works wrought in Faith Sanctification and Justification what they are Their Agreements and differences In what manner Sanctification goes before Justification and how it follows it WE have shewed the Effect of Faith to be Good Works we have also shewed how and in what sense the Effect of good Works is Salvation but there remains two other effects both of Faith and works of Faith here to be considered before we proceed and they are Sanctification and Justification For good Works are fruitful not only in reference to an ample and manifold reward but in Serva ergo mandata Dei-Sanctifica cor tuum ut Deus inhabitet in te Et quotidie magis magis invenies Deum Opus Imperfect in Mat. Him 4. reference to good Works as the Parable of our Saviour in the twenty fifth of Mathew plainly informs us where it is said Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same and made them other five talents These five talents acquired to the first five cannot be interpreted the reward ultimate for that is expressed afterward to be the Joy of the Lord
but they were the intermediate effects of the stock of Grace treasured up in the Soul and exhorting and improving it self by the continual supplie of the Spirit of Christ according to the * Mat. 25. 16. doctrine of St. Paul to the Corinthians saying Insomuch that we desired Titus that as he had begun so he would also finish in you the same Grace also Therefore as ye abound in every thing in Faith in utterance in knowledge and v. 7. in all diligence and in your love to us see that ye abound in this Grace also Of this influence of Christs Spirit to the augmentation of Grace in the hearts of the true believers speaketh the same Apostle to the Colossians thus The Col. 2. 19. Head from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministred and knit together encreaseth with the encrease of God Sanctification then may be described The Grace of God infused into the Soul of a Sinner and purifying it by Faith as Justification is the reputation and acceptation of a person for Just by almighty God through the intuition of the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ And yet more distinctly to declare their mutual agreement and difference it will conduce much to the due understanding of them both First then Justification and Sanctification agree in their Subject The true believer the same person who is Sanctified being also Justified and he that is Justified being Sanctified also For so saith the prophet Nahum of him The Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked Nahum 1. 3. And when we find St. Paul affirming the contrary in appearance viz. that God justifieth the ungodly we are to understand him to speak not in Rom. 4. 5. Sensu composito in such manner that he is justified while he is so ungodly but in Sensu diviso a distinct sense and season as if it had been said Him that was once ungodly as he seems to interpret himself in his Epistle to the Corinthians where having spoken of the many abominations men were subject to he saith And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are 1 Cor. 6. 11. Sanctified but ye are Justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God Secondly Justification and Sanctification agree in their foundation which is at least inchoate and initial holiness For though no mans inherent holiness arises so high as to denominate him truly Just or holy for its own sake yet both to Sanctification and Justification is necessarily required some preparatorie and imperfect holiness consisting principally in the Conversion of the mind to God from sin Thirdly both Sanctification and Justification are alike owing to Faith as their immediate Cause next under Gods Spirit as may be gathered from the prayer of Christ for his disciples Sanctifie them through thy truth thy word is Joh. 17 17. truth That is the doctrine of Faith received To which Faith the effect of Sanctification is ascribed by St. Peter in the Acts whereby the Act. 15. 9. hearts of the Gentile were purified or Sanctified Fourthly they are both equally imputed unto us through the Righteousness of Christ Therefore saith St. Paul to the Corinthians To them that are Sanctified in Christ Jesus And 1 Cor. 1. 2. Heb. 10. 29. to the Hebrews it is said We are Sanctified by the blood of the Covenant So that no less are we Sanctified then Justified by Christs death and merits and the imputation of them But on the other side they are distinct in some formalities such as these may be for First the immediate cause of our Sanctification is in holy Scripture imputed to the operation and influence of the Holy Spirit as our Justification is more properly attributed to Christ the mediator between God and man As appeareth from St. Pauls words to the Thessalonians But we are bound to give thanks alwayes for you brethren beloved of the Lord 2 Thes 2. 13. because God hath from the beginning chosen you to Salvation through Sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth And St. Peter Elect according 1 Pet. 1. 2. to the foreknowledge of God the Father and Sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience Thirdly Justification looketh backward being an absolution of the guilty from sins formerly committed and holding him Just but no man is justified actually from sins which hereafter he may fall into But Sanctification relates chiefly to the time future For not only is a sinner by the Spirit of Regeneration and Sanctification purged from the old Leaven of sin and malice but he becometh a New Lump and unleavened 1 Cor. 5. 7. Rom. 6. 13. and whereas he hath yielded his members as Instruments of unrighteousness unto sin he doth yield himself unto God as those that are alive from the dead And old things are done away in him and all things become new And whosoever is 1 Joh. 3. 9. thus born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God Fourthly to the Act of our Justification the will of man doth not necessarily concurr though it dissents not but is rather passive than Active but to our Sanctification is absolutely required the co-operation of the will and affections of man with the Grace of God in all those who have attained unto the use of reason For indeed by baptism Infants are so far Sanctified as to be freed from that hereditarie evil incident unto them which their will concurred not to but to actual Sanctification from those evils our wills did freely consent actual concurrence of our wills is necessary Fifthly Our Justification is entire and absolute at once no man being partly Justified and partly not Justified though he be partly Just and partly unjust or unholy But no man in this Life is so perfectly Sanctified as that there wants not somewhat to consummate the same because Justification being altogether the Act of God and not at all of Man God may and doth wholly and freely remit the guilt of sin to the penitent offendor But Man being also concerned in the Sanctification of himself his acts are imperfect and defective so that the effect it self partakes of the same and so Sanctification continues imperfect And it is not all at once but answerable to our natural man proceedeth by degrees Until we all come Eph 4. 13. in the unity of the Faith and of the knowledg of the son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the Stature of the fulness of Christ which fulness of stature is that we are to hope for and enjoy only in heaven Lastly to search no farther into this point before Justification there must of necessity goe some degree of Sanctification even in the opinion of such as contend most rigorously for freeness of Justification for to make Justification altogether
From all which we may gather both the Efficient and Exemplary cause of the several orders in Christ For first we read how he called unto himself twelve Apostles as well to minister under him during his abode upon earth as to Preside and inform his Church after his departure out of this World which according to St. Hierome were prefigured by the twelve fountains the twelve Patriarchs the twelve Tribes the twelve Princes of Exod. 15. 27. Mark 3. 14. the Tribes There he not only elected but ordained also as St. Mark testifieth that they should be with him and that he might send them out to preach naming them Apostles as St. Luke writeth After the choice and Luk. 6. 13. Mat. 10. 1. Luk. 9. 2. Math. 10. 1. Math. 10. 10. Ordination of them he gave them actual Mission as it appeareth by St. Mathew and Commission to preach and to work miracles to the confirmation of his Doctrine and to receive a reward for their pains And when the Harvest was too great for so few Labourers as twelve St. Luke tells us he added Adjutants to them seventy Disciples answerable to Luk. 10. 1. Numb 11. 10 the seventy Elders by Gods appointment set over the children of Israel and the seventy Souls that went with Jacob into Egypt These two orders Gen. 46. Eph. 3. 5. are thought to be intended by St. Paul to the Ephesians where he maketh mention of Apostles and Prophets by Prophets meaning such who bare that part of the Prophetical office which consisted in ordinary instruction of the People of which in other places likewise he speaketh Now adding to these the common sort of Christians or Disciples which were if not at the time of Christs abode upon earth yet afterward Christians as St. Paul intimateth where he affirmeth Christ was seen after his resurrection of 1 Cor. 15. 6. above five hundred brethren at once We have three distinct orders of Christians First Apostles secondly Evangelists or the seventy Thirdly simple Believers or Christians And it is most certain that as the Apostles did not so much as choose their Lord nor the Evangelists the Apostles so the Common sort did not then constitute or choose their Preachers or Evangelists but while Christ continued on earth he kept the power of Ordination of whom he pleased in his own hands and never is it so much as insinuated that upon his departure he left any power in their hands to dispose Ecclesiastical Affairs or Persons therein but that with his Apostles as succeeding him in visible Administration he deposited this power many arguments are offer'd us out of Scripture For in the Person of St. Peter he gave power to all the Apostles saying Feed my sheep And that this same power Joh. 21. 15 resting in them was by them transmitted unto others the very same form of words almost used by St. Peter himself to be the Governours of the 1 Pet. 5. 2. Church do prove where he saith Feed the Flock of God which is among you taking the oversight thereof not by constraint but willingly And St. Paul in the Acts of the Apostles likewise And that the whole Ecclesiastical Acts. 20. 28. Jurisdiction was entirely in the Apostles and Apostolical Persons doth appear from the enumeration of the most principal parts of which such Jurisdiction doth consist which may be these as we find them in Scripture recorded 1. Power of determining Controversies of Religion as appeareth from the Question agitated about keeping the Law of Moses Acts. 15. and concluded by the Apostles and Elders which were of the second Order after the Apostles And in the eleventh of the Acts the same resolved Acts. 11. the doubt concerning the Conversing with Gentiles 2. Of imposing Laws and orders for the due and sober conversation in matters of Moral nature as may be gathered from St. Paul to the Thessalonians where he adviseth That Christians study to be quiet and to do their own business and to work with 1 Thes 4. 11. their own hands as we commanded you And so in the second Epistle he thus writeth Now we command you brethren in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ 2 Thes 3. 6. that ye withdraw your selves from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition which he received of us And so verse the twelfth of the same Chapter Thirdly Censurings and Punishments of the refractory and disorderly and that of two sorts First of suspension and interdicting as did the Disciples of Christ suspected Preachers of him in St. Luke John answered Luk. 9. 49. and said Master we saw one casting out Devils in thy name and we forbade him because he followeth not with us And so others they restrain who preached without their command or exceeded their commission as may be read in the acts of the Apostles by vertue of the same censuring Power St. Paul Acts. 15. 24 25. 1 Tim. 2. 12. interdicts women from preaching in the Church Secondly the Censure of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and separation of 〈◊〉 and notorious offendors in the Church from communion in the Church For St. Paul writing to the Corinthians in this manner What will ye shall I come unto you with a rod or in Love and in the spirit of meekness doth evidently distinguish a twofold 1 Cor. 4. 21. power resident in him of severity to chastise and meekness to comfort and support And this power is more plainly expressed in the exercise thereof upon the scandalous offendor in incestuous marriage As also 1 Cor. 5. 3 4 5. in the formidabâ—e proceedings against Hymeneus and Alexauder whom St. Paul delivered unto Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme and several other things more proper for some other place A Fourth instance of Jurisdiction is seen in the power of Ordination pertaining to the Apostles by imposition of hands For they did ordain those Deacons mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles And St. Paul to Timothy exhorting Acts. 6. 5 6. 2 Tim. 1. 6. him to Stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of his hands doth declare the Act of Ordination used by himself From alâ— which these four conclusions do necessarily follow First that by Christ and his Apostles intention there were alwayes in their dayes distinction of persons in the Church some having the power of Rule and some being subject according to the Comparison of St. Paul to the Corinthians of the natural order and superiority of and subjection of the 1 Cor. 12. Members in a natural Body to one another and coming to application v 28. be saith And God hath set some in the Church First Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers after that Miracles And by demanding and Questioning v. 29 30. doth vehemenâ—ly deny a Parity in the Church And this distinction of Persons was no otherwise known at first but by the common name of Brethren given to
autority he had it was for the edification and not destruction 2 Cor. 10. 8. of the Church The argument therefore taken from an Hereditary Right in the Crown of England of being Governour and Defendor of our Church to the apparent ruine and destruction of it we know very well from whence it proceedeth and whether it tendeth but where it will end as yet God only knows This we know that Papists are mad when that scoff and reproach which they have constantly put upon both King and Church from that Title upon due enquiry makes so little to their purpose And therefore they will fight with us with the name only CHAP. XXXII Of the Exercise of the Political power of the Church in Excommunication The grounds and Reasons of Excommunication More things than what is of Faith matter sufficient of Excommunication Two Objections answered Obedience due to Commands not concerning Faith immediately Lay-men though Princes cannot Excommunicate Mr. Selden refuted NAture in all Bodies that have Life casts out of it what ever corrupts afflicts or oppresseth the same and by Struglings and contentions endeavours to deliver it self from such noxious humors as would destroy it And this is the reason men take Vomits Purges and Sudorificks that the deadly humour being expelled the wholesome may prevail and the Whole be preserved There can then be nothing more reasonable or Christian than to put this in practice in Bodies Political or Ecclesiastical We see how Thieves Robbers Murderers and such like malefactors who are enemies to humane Society be denied and that justly the benefit of that Society against which they have so offended by confinement in Prison or deprivation of Life it self forfeited justly in seeking or acting the ruine of another And can any that grants the Communion of Christians to be a Body knit together by its several joints and nerves and consisting of several Members deny but the like Evil may befal in its kind to it what doth happen to others in another viz that some noxious humor of Heresie corrupting the Faith in which as the Scripture saith of the Blood is the life of a Christian and the Church it self may poison it And some violence of Schism may dissolve or dismember it And shall not it be allowed the like remedy or means of Cure which are held necessary in like cases No opinion how heretical or immoral so ever is more pernicious to Christian Society than that which absolutely denyes power to the Church to eject unsound and tainting members out of it and to provide for the security of the Body even by the abscission and destruction of any one Part infesting it For this opinion strikes not at one part of the Body but all neither at one point of Faith but all though not immediately and directly but indirectly and by consequence For as upon the fall of the House the persons within must needs be crusht to death so upon the dissolution of the outward Frame of the Church the Faith itself must of necessity in a short time perish and be reduced to nothing And therefore those men of reason as they would be accounted give us but little cause to think them better men than Christians who affirm rawly and loosely without qualification or due explication of their mind that no man is to be cast out of the Church but for something which is necessary to salvation or which Christ doth not require or forbid absolutely either denying or not considering a man can scarce tell which by their works hereby that Christ and St. Paul and our Creed it self require conservation of the unity of the Church both as a thing admirable in its self and necessary to the Faith it self For any man therefore to broach or publish such an opinion as this That every man may use what Ceremonies he pleases in the publick service of God or if he pleases he may use none and this That the Church hath no power to command or forbid any thing which is not expressed in the Scripture when as Rules general and several Examples in Scripture justify the contrary These I say being contrary not only to some one Church but all even those they would by no means have touched thereby do no less in their consequence mischief to the Church than the denial of the Mystery of the Trinity it self or of Christs incarnation however I grant they in their form are nothing so foul And therefore I presume to conclude them matter of Excommunication and so I judge St. Paul doth where he advises nay commands in the name of the Lord 2 Thes 3. 6. Jesus Christ the Thessalonians to withdraw themselves from every one that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition he received of us These traditions were as it is here implied concerning orders of the Church and manners of Worship which in all probability are most of them lost to us St. Paul therefore requiring that whoever did not walk according to those prescriptions delivered by him should be separated doth not warrant the like proceedings now For t is the very same thing whether the Church withdraws it self or whether it expells another When the Israelites warned by Moses departed from the tents of the wicked Corah Dathan Num. 16. 26 and Abiram who only walked disorderly not erroneously in the matter of worship that we read of and their complices and touched nothing of theirs they Anathematized them no less than if they had set them packing into remoter parts from the Congregation Nay if now-adayes as lately Sectaries should prevail so far as to possess themselves of all the Publick and Lawful places of Worship and eject the true Church they might stand no less legally and Really Excommunicate than if they were thrust formally from thence themselves For'tis not the place but the Cause and the Body from which they are cut that makes the Excommunication just and valid This we are confirmed in by the same Apostle afterward And if any man obey not our word by this Epistle note that man 2 Thes 3. 14. and have no company with him that he may be ashamed Now St. Paul in this Epistle had delivered many things not essential in themselves to salvation And where the company of Christians was not great and their society not formed and their outward power little or nothing as in the beginning of all Churches there it sufficed in liew of Formal excommunication to withdraw themselves from such troublers of the Church And this we read further of in St. Paul to the Romans saying Now I beseech Rom. 16. 17. you brethren mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them St. Paul generally in his Epistles not only insists upon unity of Faith but unity of Charity and outward communion they therefore that were Authors of unnecessary divisions are they whom he would have noted and avoided which when it is done with Publick
of Christ also Must not they be necessitated here to slee to an unknown Concomitance the one of the other and not a coexistence And if thus the blood hath the flesh of Christ concomitantly as well as the â—lesh the blood and so for this reason might the Cup be received without the Bread But we positively deny both such Carnal Capernaitical Coexistence as is here presumed and such necessary Concomitance too that with the receiving of one alone the other should be necessarily taken also but hold rather where both are not Present both are absent and no Sacramental Receiving of Christ can possibly be hoped for And though I have been long of this opinion before I found any authority express to this purpose besides the very intrinsique nature of the Sacrament it self now touched Yet am I not alone For thus speaks a Reverent and Learned Father of our Church In all compounded things the moiety of the matter is the moiety of substance Bishop Whites Reply to c. pag. 483. And whatsoever Jesuited Romanists teach I see not how their Laicks can truly say that they have at any time in all their Lives been partakers of this Sacrament for if half a man be not a man then likewise half a Communion is not a Communion But were there more colour for nothing of reality do we find in their Offers to vindicate themselves in what is said for the possibility of a Sacrament in one Kind received What can be said for their gross abuse of their and our Lords Institution and their Relinquishing the unanimous practice of the Catholick Church for so many Ages together Did not Christ equally institute both Did he not equally communicate both to his Disciples Or supposing that they were then all Priests which may be well doubted of seeing they were not compleatly consecrated then by the descent of the Holy Ghost nor commissioned to Go teach and Baptise all nations until after this doth this give any likelihood that therefore it is the sole Right for Priests to receive in both Kinds Did Christ any where make two Institutions One For Priests and another for Laicks If but one Who should presume to alteâ— or adulterate his Prescriptions He said Drink ye all of Mat. 26. 27. this which is more than we find he said of the Bread And the shift is sad and pitiful which some who have nothing better to say yet must say something adde that Christ said This do as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of 1 Cor. 11. 25. Fisher against White me As if he excepted sometimes from drinking when he commanded to eat Ridiculous The meaning of Christ being as plain as any thing need be that there should so often be had a devout remembrance of him as we communicate and not imply as is most boldly insinuated that sometimes we may not communicate in the Sacramental bloud of Christ For it followeth As Often as ye eat this bread and drink this cupp ye do shew the Lords death 1 Cor. 11. 26. till he come Never are they separated in the Scripture No ground at all for the omitting of one rather than the other The Church hath power to denie one as much as the other The Church hath no power to denie either or any thing else of such divine Institution The Church of God for above 1200 years did constantly and universally practise both And until the Council of Constance about the year 1415 many in the Roman Church so received but then it was violently taken away But to this very day all Churches not subdued to the Roman continue the Ancient form And do a companie of paltry reasons drawn from possible inconveniences in Lay-mens taking the Cup countervail so great a cloud of witnesses and so strong arguments to the contrary What if sometimes the Ancients did permitt the exportation of the one without the other to such as were sick or unable to receive in Publique Does this come home to the Case which requireth that the Publique Ministration should be changed also And how doth it appear I am sure not by their demonstrations that such Persons so receiving in half were ever reputed to have Sacramentally received Christ Nay not half of the Autorities or Instances commonâ—y given of such Communications do concern this subject for most are to be understood of the Panis Benedictus or the Bread blessed by the â—riâ—â—â— upon 〈◊〉 offering of it by the People which was not all consecrated Sacramentally and so given unto Christians to be imparted to such as were of the same Communion in token that they were in Communion with them though absent This I grant was sometimes performed by the sending to such the Consecrated Element of Bread in the Eucharist Not with an opinion of the Fathers of the Church however possibly same vulgar and ignorant Christians might have too high a conceit of it that such receiving was tantamount to the receiving in both Kinds Sacramentally But to their inconveniences which are many of them more fit to make sport than to sway in so grave a Controversie we shall only reply that all they can alleadg was no newes to their and our Predecessours and yet never could it enter into their hearts to attempt so monstâ—ous a change upon such frivolous pretences But the truth is the Errour of transubstantiation being throughly received occasioned this by way of common prudence as well as Christian devotion For it being firmly and clearly believed the Consecrated Elements became Christs Bodie and Blood forsaking wholely their own Nature Common Reason required that all possible respect and Care should be taken as far as the wit of man could reach that no detriment or indignity should be done to them and that then became indecent and prophane which before was not To have the Least Crum fall aside must be accounted a grand prophanation though in voluntary and therefore humane wit invented Wafers and preferred them before bread according as Christ used it In breaking of the Host some possible waste might happen therefore though Christ and following Christians communicated of 1 Cor. 10. 17. one Bread according to St Paul For we are one Bread and one bodie and we are all partakers of one Bread undoubtedly literally meaning the participation by many of the same Loaf in the Sacrament now superstition hath better instructed us than the holy Spirit St Paul and there must be no more breaking of bread amongst Christians of which the Scripture speakes so often though I confess not alwayes meaning the Eucharist but yet that too many times and which is so lively and proper a Ceremony and signification of Christs passion lest somewhat should fall out amiss toward the supposed Body of Christ in their sense To give Respect to use reverence to it to take all convenient and devout Care about it is verie reasonable and pious for the Relation it hath to Christ and his Proper Bodie and the Virtue to
of Rome but they must make themselves thereby Schismatiques before God though before the Church they cannot be condemned for such qualifying this hard saying with this Supposition only That the Church of Rome alwayes had and hath Salvation in it as a true Church though corrupted For that we may and do call a True Church wherein the principles of Christianity are kept intire as to the most fundamental of them but withal this hinders not but diverse things at the same time and by the same Church which are damnable may be found in it For in the same house saith St Paul there are Vessels to honour and dishonour which we may as well interpret of Tenets of faith as of the Professours of the Faith And in the same Dispensatorie are both Poisons and Cordials yea in the same dish may be found Food sufficient to nourish and destroy shall we therefore not be careful to avoid the whole because we do acknowledge the wholesomness of so many in it Who knowes not that there are monstrousnesses in Excess as well as defect And that it suffices not to keep a man in communion with a Church that all things necessary are therein contained when withal many things not only unnecessary but pernicious are shuffled together with them If we can therefore shew as we suppose we have and can that the Roman Church alloweth and propoundeth many heretical dogmes many Idololatrical practises what will it avail them to have it granted them that all truths are extant there in the Monuments of their Church It will here infallibly be replied by them That it cannot be that a Church at the same time can hold all things needful in Faith and worship and yet maintain such errours as are charged upon them To which I say and grant That 't is not possible they should hold the same things as contrary or appearing so unto them But really they may and actually doe First as Philosophers should of contraries In gradu remisso not Intenso In the remisser and lower degrees not the extremest Secondly They may hold contraries really though not formally and as contrary For instance They may hold this fundamental opinion That God alone is to be worshipped with that divine worship which is the supreamest of all And they may hold that such a thing for example the Host is very God which verily is not God and consequently may teach the worship of such a reputed God Their Churches faith if it teaches strictly that only the true God is to be worshipped is inviolate and sound in Thesis But their Perswasion that such this is is an errour in fact rather than in Faith which contradicts the former opinion really But we hold That it is necessary to salvation that we erre not in such gross facts though we abominate detest and renounce the sin never so solemnly And the like may we say in many points of difference between us and them when they hold the proposition in General sound and good but by help of infinite and unintelligible distinctions word it out and ware off the imputation but not the Guilt of Errour Of the number of which things hard to be understood is that consideration of Schism before God and Schism before the Church with an implication that Separation from a true Church makes men Schismaticks before God though not before men because for example The Church of Rome cannot oblige any body to stand to the Autority which it so abaseth namely by breaking the Canons of the Church It is true A Church or Man may be a Schismatick before God and not before the Church But it cannot possibly be imagined how a man can be a Schismatique before men and from men and not before God But if it could be were we not in a very fair way to hell if we had no more to answer for than our Schism before God Were not our whole Church Schismatical and as good as lost though men took no notice of it It doth not follow therefore neither is it confessed that all are Schismaticks who separate from a true Church unless the separation be from it As it is true For we have shown that a Church true in essentials may fail in Integrals And it is no hard matter to show that a Church Erring in doctrines constituting the body of Faith may be separated from without Schism And the reason proving this is because that such Churches are alreadie really Schismatical through the said errours and it is not only lawful but a duty to separate from Schismaticks For so saith St. Paul We command you brethern in the name of the 2 Thes 3. 6. Lord Jesus Christ that ye withdraw your selves from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition which he received of us And what Traditions do we think St Paul intendeth there Only Ecclesiastical Canons and decrees of Councils for the better Government of the Catholick Church That this he may mean I denie not but that no more I denie For he that offends against the Faith offends against the Traditions To the Church but he that breaks the Constitutions offends against the Traditions Of the Church only which are of far inferiour nature It may well be doubted whether breaking of the Canons of the Church only can justify a Separation from a Church because they are not so much the Traditions delivered To the Church by Christ and his Apostles as the Traditions Of the Church which in their nature are mutable But yet if any co-ordinate Church shall refuse to innovate but stick resolutely and firmly to the received Discipline and Lawes of the Church while others shall violate them and choose new Forms and impose new Conditions of communion with it not agreeable to the old upon which a schism followes surely the guilt of Schism is to fall only upon that Church which thus innovates For though I am apt to believe that such alterations may not be sufficient to justifie a renunciation of Communion with such an Innovating Church and much less in single persons and private members of the same Church yet doubtless it fully excuses from the guilt of Schism if it patiently and passively persists in the more ancient and conformable way to the Churches of Christ in past ages even with apparent peril of Schism provided that the said Traditional Laws and practices shall not by the more judicious and conspicious part of the Church assembled freely and Lawfully in Council be judged inconvenient and so according to the Right it hath to reverse or establish things in nature alterable declar'd void and introduce new For in such cases disowning of the Power and Autority of the Church and refusing the decrees thereof tending to the General unitie of it is of it self a Schismatical Act. But in notorious errours in Doctrine or Faith it is free for any particular Church to divide from another because such corruption is of selfe damnable And in such cases we need
28. 19. and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost which plainly distinguishes three Persons And Take heed saith St. Paul in the Acts therefore unto your Acts 20. 28. selves and to all the Flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Overseers to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own bloud Here we have two persons distinct expressed The Holy Ghost whose act of making Overseers doth infer an Agent and that Agent a Person And in that it is said God purchased the Church with his bloud there is an express Character of Christ in his Passion to whom is expresly given the title of God for that God the Father died nor Christ as God though Christ God is manifest Now of God the Father no Christian can make doubt after so many manifest Texts expressing the same And Rom. 9. v. 5. Whose Rom. 9. 5. are the Fathers and of whom concerning the flesh Christ came who is over all God blessed for ever The Scholie of Socinus and his followers being meerly cavillous and forced contrary to common reading The Confession likewise of Thomas upon the Miracle wrought by Christ proveth the Deity of Christ crying out My God and my Lord. And in the Epistle to the Colossians Joâ— 20. v. 28. Col. 2. 9. the God-head is said to dwell in Christ bodily i. e. in opposition to figuratively or improperly To these bare Testimonies add we these rational proofs from the Attributes proper to God given to Christ 1. Eternity Micah 5. 2. His goings-out are from everlasting 2. Omnipotence Micah Joh. 3. 31. Joh. 3. 31. He that cometh from above is above all but only God is above all An instance likewise of Christs Omnipotency is given us by St. Paul to the Philippians where speaking of Christ he saith Who shall change our vile Phil. 3. 21. body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself 3. Immensity another property of God is given to Christ Mat. 18. 20. Where he promiseth Where two or three shall be gathered together in his Name he will be in the midst of them which is not possible for him that is not God Christs Church being in all places diffused 4 Divine worship given to Christ implies a divine nature in him but both Old and New Testaments agree herein that Christ the Messias is to be worshipped In the Psalms thus it Psal 72. is written of him Yea all Kings shall fall down before him and all Nations shall worship him And in the second Psalm David adviseth to kiss the Son Psal 2. that is worship him lest he be angry and ye perish from the right way when his wrath is kindled but a little blessed are all they that put their trust in him Now we know the same Psalmist saith Put not your trust in Princes Psal 146. 3. nor in any Son of man in whom there is no help And believing in Christ is a special part of worship but this is required by Christ of his Disciples saying Ye believe in God believe also in me Prayer likewise is made to Joh. 14. 1. Acts 7. Christ by St. Stephen for in the Acts it is written how Stephen was stoned calâ—ing upon Christ and saying Lord Jesus receive my spirit The third Person in the holy Trinity is the holy Ghost which we have shewed in part that the learnedest of the ancient Jews were not ignorant of though more obscurely delivered in the Old Testament than in the New The first thing then we are to prove is That the holy Ghost is a Person for that it is there needs no other proof than the words themselves so often used in Scripture And that it subsists personally and not only as an Act or Grace will appear from these two general heads The Acts of it an the Attributes given to it And first In what sense the Scriptures use evil Spirit in the same sense may it be said to use the good Spirit but evil Spirit is frequently used for a Person who is the author of mischief to mankind and therefore the good Spirit must be a Person the author of 1 Joh. 4. 6. Rom. 11. 8. Eph. 2. 2. 1 Sam. 16. 14. 2 Chron. 18. 20 21. good to man We read in Scripture of a Spirit of error and the Spirit of slumber and the Spirit of disobedience and of an evil Spirit that possessed Saul and of a lying Spirit that entred into and moved the false Prophets and in the New Testament as well as humane Authors of divers who have been infested with evil Spirits Now all these were real and personal Subsistences and therefore in parity of reason so should the good Spirit of which we so often read both in the Old and New Testament under the appellation of the Spirit of the Lord as the Spirit of the Lord moved upon the waters at the beginning and the Spirit of the Lord fell upon such persons And if it be here replyed That we are to understand the good Spirits after the same manner we understand the evil and that the evil Spirits being evil Angels the good Spirit should be good Angels only We answer not denying That Spirit may be so used in Scripture divers times and that by the same parity of reason that it is insinuated unto us that the evil Spirit hath one Prince and chief amongst them called Lucifer so the good Spirits have one supreme over them that good Spirit of God Secondly That where Scripture speaks of Spirit absolutely there the divine Spirit is constantly to be understood as St. Hierome hath observed Again We read from the Acts of the Spirit as interceding for us being Rom 8. 26. Eph. 4. 30. Mat. 3. 16. grieved and descending upon Christ in a bodily shape at his Baptism and Christs speech to his Disciples saying in St. John I will ask the Father and he shall give you another Comforter Christ was the one Comforter not only by his Graces but personal presence among his Disciples and answerable to this must the holy Spirit be also here promised And that this divine Person is distinct from the other appeareth from the general Doctrine of the Trinity above and specially out of St. Matthew where Christ saith Baptizing them in the Name of the Father Mat. 28. and of the Son and of the holy Ghost which must imply a distinction And St. John Chap. 1. He that sent me to baptize with water the same said unto Joh. 1. 33. me Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him the same is he which baptizeth with the holy Ghost And so Joh. 14. 16. Joh. 15. 26. From the same place of St. Matthew appeareth the equality of all these three Persons and especially from the immediate operation the Spirit had upon Christ who was God and Man for of it Isaiah thus
indifferently Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift 39. of the Holy Ghost For the promise is unto you and your Children and to all that are far off even as many as the Lord your God shall call And St. Paul to the Romans Now the Righteousness of God without the Law is manifested Rom. 3. 21 22. being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets Even the Righteousness of God which is by Faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe for there is no difference And to these many other like places of Scripture may be added declaring no man destined to incredulity or impenitency aforehand until such time as he hath declared against both and that to the end of his Life But on the other side rather that God puts no difference Now if St. Pauls argument held good as certainly it did that a wife should not put away her husband who was an Infidel nor the believing husband his wife upon the grounds of ignorance of a good event Should a man put away his Soul For what knowest thou O wife Rom. 7. 16. whether thou shalt save thy husband Or how knowest thou O man whether thou shalt save thy wife So what knowest thou O man who doubtest of Gods Decrees whether thou shalt save thy soul Whence we may conclude That it is no ground of discomfort that the event is determined for it is equal on our side as much as against us but it is the ground of all reasonable satisfaction from the General Law requiring obedience Evangelical and from the Promises made without any discrimination which a man cannot apply to his disadvantage or discouragement without being first guilty of unreasonableness and unnaturalness to himself Now Religion and the designs thereof do suppose a man a true natural man to himself before it attempts to draw him to an higher good or nobler ends So that if a man will deny his own natural reason and self-love due to himself such a man is indeed no fit person to be treated with any more than a direct mad man but this natural reason suggests to him that where he knows it not to be an invincible Evil which he is to contend with and knows not but that the way is as easie the door as open the means as effectual to him as any man living to attain happiness he is to take heart and courage and resolution to effect his desires For to omit a certain duty of Faith and Hope upon an obscure and uncertain ground is monstruous and ridiculous I conclude therefore that as almost all the actions of mans life yea and his life it self which are no less determined with God then the state of Grace or Wickedness Glory or Misery do not cause him to suspend endeavours leading to the end propounded to himself so neither in the Concernments of his soul keeping his natural Reason to himself entire can he obstinately refuse to act according to the ends of Religion Yet I might adde this also which is most true that if it were revealed to a man that he should never escape damnation do he what he can or what he will yet that desperate carelesness and loseness could not be but greatest stupidity because God doth certainly proportion salvation and damnation as to the degrees of them to the degrees of Holiness and Sins in this Life and therefore it were more than worth a mans time and diligence by a more restrained and Christian conversation to obtain a mitigation of the evil he so fears And yet that part of the argument commonly used which saith That it is in vain for a man who is so determined to strive to free himself and to abound in religious acts is directly false and to be denyed For no good works shall go unrewarded And this is no less infallibly true That to him that hath shall Matth. 13. 20. Rom. 2. 8 10. more be given and to him that doth righteousness and to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life And that the external acts and means are effectual to these great ends Christ tells us saying To you that hear shall more be given than Mark 4. 24. that Gods Grace is necessarily required to all true Conversion and Holyness I know those of Dort following Calvine and Peter Martyr and such of eminencie in Reforming answer otherwise But in truth their Reply is no Answer For granting an invincible state of unregenerateness and a total insufficiencie in Man to free himself without the effectual Grace of God yea and an irreversibleness in Gods Decrees so that all endeavours and acts should be frustrated to the obtaining the blessed end generally promised and the terrour of those under this Necessity they oppose only good counsel to this and much more and reprove them lightly at least that meditate too much on the severer part of Gods Decrees the abstruser Counsels of him and determinations to the taking them off from those good duties which God without exception requires of all But all this and the like to this is very little or nothing to the purpose For they certainly hereby betray their Cause and grant the whole argument to be good and duly to infer all that is intended by it only they oppose barely the Conclusion and would not have it take place though they can find no fault with that it is grounded on What a miserable shift is it for any who are not able to deny that upon their own reason such a thing follows to say Yea but this ought not to be and to perswade contrary to conviction of themselves as well as others But occasion will be given of these matters more fully in what follows CHAP. XI Of the Execution of Gods Providence in the Predestination and Reprobation of Man How the Decrees and Providence of God are distinguished The Reason and Method of Gods Decrees Righteousness is the Effect and not Cause of Predestination to Life Predestination diversly taken in Scripture as also Election and Vocation God praedestinates no man simply to Death without consideration of Evil fore-going as Calvin and some others would have it GOD having in his secret mysterious Counsels ordained all things according to his Divine will and pleasure without being lyable to that saucie expostulation of any Creature Why hast thou made me thus or What doest thou For 't is as certain Rom. 9. 20. Job 9. 12. as there is a God that God neither doth nor can do any injury to the Creature though man may and often doth injure him and himself too in mis-representing him he proceedeth next to the execution of his Decrees and Counsels which are so many acts of his Providence And because it would be much too long and extravagant to turn to the more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Protagoras
understood as well of an evil habit and inveterate custome acquired of sinning which is wont to give Law to the Reason and Mind of Man as of Original sin we now speak of contra-distinct to it were it not that the stream of Ancient and Modern Interpreters hath given another sense not with modesty to be opposed Therefore yielding those many places to be meant of Concupiscence natural we are to distinguish answerable to what is abovesaid with the Bishop between Inhabiting Concupiscence and Actual Concupiscence And herein a little vary from him if he doth mean that those places are to be applyed to Concupiscence resident only and not actuated But of this latter he seems to speak and no doubt so is St. Paul to be understood and not of the other And without all doubt Concupiscence coming to act inwardly in the mind by coveting only inordinately or outwardly by executing the evil purposes of the mind are sin even in the most Regenerate And when this becomes a habit then it is called by St. Paul to the Romans The Old Man and the Body of Sin But when the Rom. 6 6. remains of that inhabiting Concupiscence which only can be properly called Original never come after the death and burial with Christ in baptism as the Apostle speaks often to recover new life and motions by Rom. 6. 3 4. Colos 2. 12. Gal. 3. 27. conceiving new warmth from outward temptations as in Infants dying before they come to be actual sinners and in those of riper years immediately after their baptism it cannot properly be said to be sin or to expose to damnation as all sin properly so called doth St. Austin quoted by that learned Bishop plainly affirmeth thus much saying Tale Aug. lib. 6. c. 5. In Julian tantum malum and such and-so great Evil as that Original only because it is in a man would oblige us to death and drag us to the last death but that its chain was broken in baptism All this we subscribe to and do profess that the hold Original sin had over us is loosed by Baptism Yet we profess with Thomas also quoted that when ever such Concupiscence comes into the Will be it of Regenerate or Unregenerate it puts on the nature of sin But we suppose the remains of that Original Evil to contain themselves where Baptism left them and not to proceed farther For this God certainly hates I mean progress of Concupiscence and as it is well argued God cannot hate any thing but sin But after Regeneration by Baptism or restauration to the vertue and power of Baptism and the benefit thereof by Repentance the Sin in kind as Lust Envie Murder Malice is odious unto God but as it relates to the Person once guilty of it it is no longer odious unto God why because it is covered it is pardoned it is not imputed it is as if it had not been For otherwise it could not be said Blessed is the man whose transgression Psal 32. 1 2. is forgiven whose sin is covered Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit there is no guile But St. Paul to the Corinthians having recited those notorious sins unto which unmortified and unregenerate men were subject and guilty of adds And such were some 1 Cor. 6. 11. of you but ye are washed but ye are sactified but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of his Grace Meaning that upon their conversion unto Christ their washing in Baptism their having received the Holy Ghost they were acquitted from their former sins and judged innocent and pure before him And the Author to the Hebrews tells us Hebr. 9. 26. how Christ as an High Priest once in the end of the world hath appeared to put away sin by the Sacrifice of himself And to what end should any man multiply Texts to prove this to them who will affirm that all sin is damnable and grant that the Regenerate are not in a state of Damnation then surely they are not properly sinners or guilty I speak of the state of Remission and Absolution and as such as all Infants baptised are And the grown Christian because he may and is most prone to incur new sins after such absolution and purgation is not therefore to be said not to have been truly absolution and purgation is not therefore to be said not to have been truly freed from the guilt of sin passed before his baptism and thorow repentance For that this may happen experience and the testimony of St Peter witnesseth For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world 2. Pet. 2. 20. through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ they are again entangled therein and overcome the latter end is worse with them than the beginning And what do they but in effect come off from their opinion of sinfulness in that Concupiscibleness rather than Concupiscence in the Regenerate who after all plainly grant that there is no guilt remaining in it of it self and thus answer the argument which proveth that it is no such sin as they hold because Original sin is the death of the soul and makes a man an enemy to God but Concupiscence in the Regenerate doth not this thus Original sin doth not cause spiritual death but only as it is linked with guilt but pardon being obtained in Baptism the guilt is taken away and makes not any man lyable to wrath but as he is found in the old Adam so soon as a man is of the number of the Regenerate he is found in the new Adam i. e. in Christ Now would it be known how any thing of the true nature of sin may be separated from guilt which is too hard for me to apprehend they being so intimately coupled together and convertible that as there cannot be conceived any guilt without sin so neither any sin without guilt And if they say the guilt is done away in Baptism or Repentance I will say the sin is done away too and maintain it If they had distinguished between the effects and fruits of Original sin and the sin it self the matter had been much plainer and easier and by their manner of proceeding in this Question it should seem they only drive at this For I grant what they allow that Baptism doth not free from all corruption of Original sin such as are blindness of the Mind and debility of the Will to embrace good entirely and infirmities of the body which by a Metonymie are called sin sometimes but the guilt it must necessarily or do nothing at all but what Calvine and Perkins and Cartwright and many dancing after their Pipe to the scandal of the Sacraments and the Reformation admit us into the outward communion of the Church and signifie the pardon of our sins from all eternity without including Baptism or Repentance which is made no more then a sign too I conclude this
fishes some were taken in one haven and some in another and eaten of others And again these men that have eaten these fishes which devour'd the man happen to dye in other Countries and that perhaps devoured by wild beasts Such a confusion and dissipation being made how shall that man rise again Who is he that reduces the dust again But why O man dost thou thus speak and patches a long train of tales together and offerest it as insoluble For answer me What if that man doth not go to Sea and be not drownd If no fish eat him nor the fish be afterward eaten of infinite men but that he be laid decently in his Coffin and neither worms nor any thing else molest him How shall that dust and ashes be compacted together again Whence shall that body flourish again Is not this unanswerable If they be Greeks Heathens who doubt of these things We can answer a thousand things But what Because there are some amongst them who put souls into Plants and Fruit-trees and Doggs Tell me which is easier for a soul to recover its own body or another Again there are others who says that fire shall catch them that their garments shall arise and their shooes and no body laughs at them And some introduce Atomes But we have nothing to say to them But to Believers if we may call them believers who thus doubt we shall say with the Apostle All life is subject to corruption all plants all seeds Seest thou not c. Here that eloquent Father expatiates in the mysteries and subtilties of nature shewing how little we understand of them and concludes this point thus But these things humane reason is to seek in But when God works all things yield to him In another place he doubts whether he be an Infidel or Christian who calls in question the Resurrection and the reason hereof is because as the power of God is infinite so infinite wayes there are for his infinite wisdome to bring to pass his own pleasure and to make good his words in which he hath caused his servants to trust CHAP. XIX Of the most perfect effect of Christs Mediation in the Salvation of Man Several senses of Salvation noted That Salvation is immediately after death to them that truly dye in Christ And that there is no grounds in Antiquities or Scripture for that midde state called Purgatory the Proofs answered Of the Consequent of Roman Purgatory Indulgences the novelty groundlesness and gross abuse of them The Conclusion of the first Part of this Introduction SAint Paul where he disputes the manner of Gods free Election of his people to the grace of the Gospel doth also declare unto us the end of such Election to be another Election and that to glory as in these words That he might make known the riches of his glory Rom. 9. 23. of Grace on the vessels of mercy which he had before prepared unto glory This is yet more fully expressed by St. Peter in this order Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the Resurrection 1 Pet. 1. 3. of Jesus Christ from the dead To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time But before we engage far in this subject of Salvation it is requisite we observe a twofold Salvation frequently mentioned and promised in Scripture A Temporal and Eternal For herein common mistakes have surprised many who willing to amplifie and extend all the promises of Gods deliverance equally to us of this last Age of the Church and to them of the former and Apostolical do willingly interpret many places of Scripture peculiar to them as concerning us to which cannot be literally done though figuratively it may For the Church of Christ being in those first Ages in continual conflicts with her enemies Jewish and Gentile and most violent persecntions harrassing and wasting the tender body of the Infant-Church many weak Christians were of desponding minds and looked upon the same as Job upon natural man as having a short time to live and full of sorrows Which moved the Apostolical Writers to confirm the Hope and Faith of them by the assurances of deliverances and salvation And none can deny this to be the literal meaning of St. Paul in his eighth Chapter to the Romans from whence so many draw an Argument to prove the innumerable purpose of God towards particular persons in predestinating and electing and glorifying them when upon faithful examination nothing more was primarily intended then assurance of Gods temporal preservation of the Church and making it outwardly glorious in despight of all its adversaries so that none should separate the flook of Christ so far from the love of Christ by persecution tribulation distress or famine or nakedness or peril or sword but that at length it should be more than conquerer through him that loved it And that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come c. should cause God to forsake it And no other is the meaning of the same Apostle in his thirteenth Chapter to the Romans where he saith And that knowing the time that now it is high Rom. 13. 11. time for us to awake out of sleep for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed i. e. having continued thus long in the faith the time now draweth near we should be secured and saved from our enemies And the Salvation to be revealed in the last times spoken of by St. Peter was the Deliverance which at last should be manifested to the Church in constant expectation of which they were kept by Faith and confidence of Gods mercy And if we shall consult the Apocalypse we shall scarce find the word Salvation used in any other sense then that of temporal deliverance Rev. 7. 10. 12 10. 19 1. of Gods Church But withal most certain it is that by Salvation is very often indended by Gods word the deliverance from the miseries of sin and suffering in this world into a state of such perfect bliss as man is capable of in which sense St. Paul saith The Gospel is the power of God unto Rom. 1. 16. salvation And that with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation which salvation was in those dayes the destruction of them that confessed Christ For St. Paul to animate the weak Believers to a stout and resolute profession of Christ against the terrors of death threatning those that were known to be Christians tells them that if they so boldly confessed Christ with their mouth as to dye in that profession they should be saved And when St. Paul advises the Philippians to work out their salvation Phil. 2. 12. with fear and trembling he means without
Heaven and Hell But we deny not that the Ancients prayed for the Dead nor do we dissent much from them in that pious act our selves however there are quarrellers amongst us well known by their other affected and morose follies who oppose it because they have no express Scripture for it but we deny they ever prayed for the pardon of their sins or ease of torments so anciently but for an happy rest and restauration in a Resurrection So that we peremptorily deny and well may notwithstanding all proofs brought to the contrary that Prayer for the Dead necessarily infers Roman Purgatory And for the Consequence of this Opinion of Roman Purgatory Indulgences it is so rank a Corruption such a novel and impudent invention as the Church of Rome under that defection it now is never did so great a miracle as to get it any place in sober and knowing mens minds both thing it self and the abuse of it being such as alone may suffice to disgrace the Authours of it and make their pretenses to infallibility alwaies false very ridiculous We know indeed that scarce any thing was of ancienter use in the Church then some Indulgences but no more like these than Earth is like Purgatory Indulgences were made by such who were in autority in the Church towards Penitents who had their Penances allotted them for scandalous Crimes committed against the Faith and Church which Penances were often relaxed and mittigated by the favour and indulgences of the Fathers of the Church good cause appearing for to do so But that ever it was in the power of the Church to give ease to such as were punished in that other Life to come was never heard of for above a thousand years after Christ Alphonsus de Castro is worth the Alphonsus de Castro lib. 8. Adv. Haer. de Indulg reading upon this who is positive for Indulgences but going about to prove them prepares his Reader with a long Preface for such a short Discourse telling him that He ought not to expect for all points of Faith Antiquity or express Scripture For many things are known to the moderner which those ancient Writers were altogether ignorant of For seldome any mention is made in ancient Writers of the transubstantiation of the Bread into Christs Body of the Spirits proceeding from the Son much rarer of Purgatory almost none at all especially among Greek Writers for which reason Purgatory is not believed of the Greek to this day c. The ancient Church caused men to satisfie in this life and would leave nothing to be punished in the Life to come and therefore there is no mention of Indulgences Thus he But adds Amongst the Romans the use of them is said to be very ancient as may in some manner be collected from their stations And it is reported of Gregory the First of whom we even now spake that he granted some in his dayes It is said and reported by where and by whom he could not tell us But he tells us indeed how Innocent the Third that great Innovator and Corrupter of the Church constituted it in the Latherane Council and the Council of Constance after that much which was not before the Year 1200. Judge we from hence what great account is to be made of the many sayings of the Fathers pretended to approve this devise And judge we farther what great Reason or Scripture there is for the Popish faction to derogate so far as they do from the efficacy of Gods Holy Spirit of Grace in the repenting sinner though straitened of time in the exercise and demonstration of his true Conversion and from the fullness of Christs mediation and merits which are ordained for the remission of all sins upon true Repentance For the bloud of Christ cleanseth from all sin saith St. John and so say they understood as in this Life and the Life to come but St. John nor any other holy Writer of Scripture gives us the least intimation of any other season of pardon then that of this Life Therefore here to end this First Part with the end of Man in this world seeing Gods Promises are so liberally revealed unto penitent sinners in this Life without exceptions of matter time or place of venial or mortal sins Seeing Christs merits are absolutely sufficient to acquit the sinner and no limitation is to be found upon Faith and Repentance in Scripture Seeing lastly that Gods Spirit of Grace is of vertue sufficient to sanctifie to the washing away of all filthiness both of flesh and spirit and this life is only mentioned in Scripture for the exerting of this work and perfecting this cure of the soul Let us rather thankfully embrace so great salvation and work it out for St. Paul supposes we may with fear and trembling in this life that so as St. Peter hath 2 Pet. 1. 11. it An entrance may be ministred abundantly unto us into the everlasting Kingdem of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ The End of the First Part. THE Second Part OF THE INTRODUCTION To the Knowledge of the True Catholick Religion CHAP. I. Of the worship of God wherein the Second Part of Christian Religion consists Of the Necessity of worshipping God It is natural to worship God Socinus holding the contrary confuted Of the Name of Religion the Nature of religious worship wherein it consisteth REligion we have defined to be A due Recognition and Retribution made by the Creature to God the Fountain of all Being communicating himself freely to inferiour Beings And this description we have in substance given us by David in his last and most serious charge to Solomon his Son saying And thou Solomon my Son know thou the God of 1 Chron. 28. 9. thy Fathers and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind c. From whence we take the ground of our distinction of Religion into two Parts The true knowledge of God which is attained by the Doctrine of Faith revealed in Gods holy Word and the worship of him there in likewise contained Of the former having already spoken we now proceed more briefly to treat of the second The worship of God And that God is to be worshipped is such an inseparable notion from the acknowledgment of God as nothing can follow more necessarily then that doth from this And it were more reasonable though that be brutish for to deny God absolutely then to deny him worship and service And therefore Seneca saith well The first worshipping of God is to believe there is a God The next to yield to him his Majesty to yield him Sen. Epist 95. his Goodness to understand that he or they governs the world And afterward He sufficiently worships God who imitates him And Tully The Cicero de Natura Deor. lib. 2. worship of God ought to be most excellent and pure and holy and full of piety so that we may constantly worship him with a pure intire and uncorrupt mind and voice
our Saviour Christ informs us in the Gospel extending it to all in common civil society with us And as in the preceding Commandments God required that we should not wrong our Neighbour in evil acts or deeds so here doth he prohibit us from doing him any wrong in word Which word is primarily meant of wrong in Judgment when men are called to testifie to the truth of a matter they by no means should deliver against their Neighbour what is false which may be done three wayes First by false accusations and charges of facts or crimes not committed contrary to Gods word Lev. 19. 16. Thou Lev. 19. 16. Accusatorum lemeritas tribus medis detegitur tribus poenis suljicitur Aut enim calumniantur aut proevaricantur aut tereiversantur c. Annot. in Grot. Par. 2. Cau. 2. Q. 3. Lev. 19. 15. shalt not go up and down as a Tale-bearer among thy people neither shal s thou stand against the bloud of thy Neighbour I am the Lord. And this false dealing in Judgment may be committed three wayes as the Annotatour on Gratian hath observed For false Accusers saith he either slander by bringing false crimes or prevaricate by concealing true crimes or commit tergiversation in quite relinquishing the charge All which are enemies to justice and truth here commanded A second offence in Judgment is in the person of a Witness to affirm a falsity or deny a truth A third is to give a wrong sentence in the office and place of a Judge forbidden by God so severely and frequently and particularly in Leviticus Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment thou shalt not respect the person of the poor nor honour the person of the mighty but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy Neighbour And in common conversation men offend against this Law several wayes Prov. 22. Eccle. 10. 11. Differunt susurratio detractio in fine Nam principalis intentio detractoris est famam proximi denigrare Susarronis autem intentio principalis est illum cui sie invidet per mala quae de eo dicit ab amicitiâ— altorum separare Gerson de 7 Viriis Capitalib 1. By detraction or defamation of our Neighbour whereby properly a man endeavours to lessen and bring to nothing the worthy parts or deeds of him and to amplifie and aggravate his faults and failings to the diminution of his reputation But Solomon tells us A good name is better than precious oyntment Of him likewise we read in Ecclesiastes Surely the serpent will bite without inchantment and a babler is no better He smiteth stingeth woundeth and destroyeth as a Serpent or Adder before he be discovered and hath his name as he doth the office of the old Serpent who hath the name of Devil in the Greek and Latin Tongues from his mischievous slaundering of God and Man He differeth from the Talebearer or Susurro of which before as Gerson observeth in the end For the chief end of the Detractour or Slaunderer is to slur the reputation of his Nighbour But the chief end of the Whisperer or Talebearer is to alienate him whom he envies from the esteem and friendship of another by the evil he speaks of him Which seems to be grounded on Solomon Proverb 16. 28. A froward man soweth strife and a whisperer separateth chief friends And the same more fully and particularly by Solomon Prov. 6. v. 14. declaring how God hateth him that soweth discord and v. 19. A false witness that speaketh lies and him that soweth discord among brethren Another sort of offenders are on the contrary Flatterers and Dissemblers with God or Man whose lips are all oyl and their hearts gall and vinegar or if they should not intend any great mischief directly yet by idle and unreasonable soft and smooth language they corrupt and poyson the minds of their hearers with a vain opinion of themselves to the conceiving of Pride and bringing forth folly and running into so many evils which an open enemy could not have brought upon them Of these therefore speaketh Solomon also Faithful are the wounds of a friend but the kisses of Prov. 27. 6. an enemy are deceitful But of all flattery none so abominable to God or pernicious to Man as that of Religion in soothing men up in wicked known sins for some special quality or singularity of believing and worshipping which upon tryal will not all prove worth a straws end whenas the most material parts of Religion as Humility Charity Unity Obedience of unquestionable worth and excellencie are trampled on as of no use or rather hinderances to sinister and vile ends Murmurers likewise and Complainers may well be brought under the lash of this Law who upon every frivolous and light exception or defect in their Governours are restless unquiet discontented envious mutinous factious and given to alienate the hearts of the Inferiours from their Superiours by suggesting many groundless fears and suspicions and putting in Caveats against them and all this while with very specious pretexts of zeal for truth and the publick good As did Dathan Corah and Abiram against Moses and Aaron as did Aaron and Miriam against Moses and as did Absolom against David and sometimes the whole Congregation of Israel against their Governours which one would have thought being the body of the People which some make the true Supream Power might have passed for Right and Reasonable St. Paul knowing that the Light and Faith of the Gospel seldom masters mens corrupt natures and inclinations so far as to secure them in innocencie from such evils advertises Christians from their examples to beware of such sins saying Neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured and were destroyed 1 Cor. 10. 10. of the destroyer And such are they also who raise false reports and raise or spread false news of no small consequence many times without any tolerable grounds But last of all to this belongs the sin of Lying in general even when it is not accompanied with the mischiefs aforesaid of Detraction or Slandering A lye saith St. Augustine well Est falsa significatio cum voluntate fallendi is Aug. de Menda ad Consen cap. 12. Quantum in ipse est mentitur ille qui dicit verum quod putat falsum Quantum enim ad animum ejus attinet quia nen quod sit hoc dicit non verum dicit quamvis verum inveniatur esse quod dicit nec ullo modo liber est a mendacio qui ore nesciens verum loquitur sciens autem voluntate mentâ—tur Id. Enchirid. cap. 18. a false signification with an intent to deceive Where we must first distinguish between Lying and Telling a Lye He that tells a lye may not lye but speak truth for it may be true that such a lye as is reported was told but to lye it is not necessary a man should make a lye for it suffices he tells that for truth which he either knows or believes to be false