the Question in hand and so destructive of the Roman hypothesis that nothing can be said against it His words are these therefore in all regards death is good because it divides those that were always fighting that they may not impugn each other and because it is a certain port to them who being toss'd in the sea of this world require the station of faithful rest and because it makes not our state worse but such as it finds every one such it reserves him to the future judgment and nourishes him with rest and withdraws him from the envy of present things and composes him with the expectation of future things E. W. thinking himself bound to say something to these words answers It is an excellent saying for worse he is not but infinitely better that quit of the occasions of living here is ascertain'd of future bliss hereafter which is the whole drift of the Saint in that Chapter Read it and say afterwards if I say not true It is well put off But there are very many that read him who never will or can examine what S. Ambrose says and withal such he hopes to escape But as to the thing That death gives a man advantage and by its own fault no disadvantage is indeed not only the whole drift of that Chapter but of that whole book But not for that reason only is a man the better for death but because it makes him not worse in order to Eternity nay it does not alter him at all as to that for as death finds him so shall the judgment find him and therefore not purified by Purgatory for such he is reserved and not only thus but it cherishes him with rest which would be very ill done if death carried him to Purgatory Now all these last words and many others E. W. is pleas'd to take no notice of as not being for his purpose But he that pleases to see more may read the 12. and 18. Chapters of the same Treatise S. Gregorie's saying that after this life there is no purgation can no way be put off by any pretences For he means it of the time after death before the day of judgment which is directly oppos'd to the doctrine of the Church of Rome and unless you will suppose that S. Gregory believ'd two Purgatories it is certain he did not believe the Roman for he taught that the purgation which he calls Baptism by fire and the saving yet as by fire was to be perform'd at the day of judgment and the curiosity of that trial is the fierceness of that fire as Nicetas expounds S. Gregories words in his oration in sancta lumina So that S. Gregory affirming that this world is the place of purgation and that after this world there is no purgation could not have spoken any thing more direct against the Roman Purgatory S. Hilary and S. Macarius speak of two states after death and no more True says E. W. but they are the two final states That is true too in some sence for it is either of eternal good or evil but to one of these states they are consigned and determined at the time of their death at which time every one is sent either to the bosom of Abraham or to a place of pain where they are reserved to the sentence of the great day S. Hilary's words are these There is no stay or delaying For the day of judgment is either an eternal retribution of beatitude or of pain But the time of our death hath every one in his laws whiles either Abraham viz. the bosome of Abraham or pain reserves every one unto the Judgment These words need no Commentary He that can reconcile these to the Roman Purgatory will be a most mighty man in controversie And so also are the words of S. Macarius when they go out of the body the quires of Angels receive their souls and carry them to their proper place ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to a pure world and so lead them to the Lord. Such words as these are often repeated by the Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Ancient Church I summ them up with the saying of S. Athanasius ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. It is not death that happens to the righteous but a translation For they are translated out of this world into everlasting rest And as a man would go out of prison so do the Saints go out of this troublesome life unto those good things which are prepared for them Now let these and all the precedent words be confronted against the sad complaints made for the souls in Purgatory by Joh. Gerson in his querela defunctorum and Sr. Tho. More in his supplication of souls and it will be found that the doctrine of the Fathers differs from the doctrine of the Church of Rome as much as heaven and hell rest and labor horrid torments and great joy I conclude this matter of quotations by the saying of Pope Leo which one of my adversaries could not find because the Princes was mistaken It is the 91. Epistle so known and so us'd by the Roman writers in the Qu. of Confession that if he be a man of learning it cannot be suppos'd but he knew where to find them The words are these But if any of them for whom we pray unto the Lord being intercepted by any obstacle falls from the benefit of the present Indulgences and before he comes to the constituted remedies shall end his temporal life by humane condition or frailty that which abiding in the body he hath not received being out of the flesh he cannot Now against these words of S. Leo set the present doctrine of the Church of Rome that what is not finished of penances here a man may pay in Purgatory and let the world judge whether S. Leo was in this point a Roman Catholick Indeed S. Leo forgot to make use of the late distinction of sins venial and mortal of the punishment of mortal sins remaining after the fault is taken away but I hope the Roman Doctors will excuse the Saint because the distinction is but new and modern But this testimony of S. Gregory must not go for a single Testimony That which abiding in the body could not be receiv'd out of the body cannot that is when the soul is gone out of the body as death finds them so shall the day of judgment find them And this was the sence of the whole Church for after death there is no change of state before the General Trial no passing from pain to rest in the state of separation and therefore either there are no Purgatory pains or if there be there is no âase of them before the day of judgment and the Prayers and Masses of the Church cannot give remedy to one poor soul and this must of necessity be confessed by the Roman Doctors or else they must shew that ever any one Catholick Father did teach that after death
reported by the Author of the modest discourse And the great Erasmus who liv'd and died in the communion of the Church of Rome and was as likely as any man of his age to know what he said gave this testimony in the present Question In synaxi transubstantiationem sero definivit Ecclesia re nomine veteribus ignotam In the Communion the Church hath but lately defin'd Transubstantiation which both in the thing and in the name was unknown to the Ancients Now this was a fair and friendly inducement to the Reader to take from him all prejudice which might stick to him by the great noises of the Roman Doctors made upon their presence of the Fathers being on their side yet I would not so rely upon these testimonies but that I thought fit to give some little Essay of this doctrine out of the Fathers themselves To this purpose is alledged Justin M. saying of the Eucharist that it was a figure which our Lord commanded to do in remembrance of his Passion These were quoted not as the words but as the doctrine of that Saint and the Letter will needs suppose me to mean those words which are as I find in 259 and 260. page of the Paris edition The oblation of a Cake was a figure of the Eucharistical bread which the Lord commanded to do in remembrance of his Passion These are Justins words in that place with which I have nothing to do as I shall shew by and by But because Cardinal Perron intends to make advantage of them I shall wrest them first out of his hands and then give an account of the doctrine of this holy man in the present Article both out of this place and others ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The oblation of a Cake was a figure of the bread of the Eucharist which our Lord deliver'd us to do therefore says the Cardinal the Eucharistical bread is the truth since the Cake was the figure or the shadow To which I answer that though the Cake was a figure of the Eucharistical bread yet so might that bread be a figure of something else Just as baptism I mean the external rite which although it self be but the outward part and is the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or figure of the inward washing by the spirit of grace and represents our being buried with Christ in his death yet it is an accomplishment in some sence of those many figures by which according to the doctrine of the Fathers it was prefigured Such as in S. Peter the waters of the deluge in Tertullian were the waters of Jordan into which Naaman descended in S. Austin the waters of sprinkling These were types and to these baptism did succeed and represented the same thing which they represented and effected or exhibited the thing it did represent and therefore in this sence they prefigur'd baptism And yet that this is but a figure still we have S. Peters warrant The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us not the putting away the filth of the flesh but the answer of a good conscience towards God The waters of the flood were ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a type of the waters of baptism the waters of baptism were ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that is a type answering to a type and yet even here there is a typical representing and signifying part and beyond that there is the veritas or the thing signified by both So it is in the oblation of the Cake and the Eucharistical bread that was a type of this and this the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or correspondent of that a type answering to a type a figure to a figure and both of them did and do respectively represent a thing yet more secret For as S. Austin said these and those are divers in the sign but equal in the thing signified divers in the visible species but the same in the intelligible signification those were promissive and these demonstrative or as others express it those were pronunciative and these of the Gospel are contestative So Friar Gregory of Padua noted in the Council of Trent And that this was the sence of Justin M. appears to him that considers what he says 1. He does not say the Cake is a type of the bread but the oblation of the Cake that is that whole rite of offering a Cake after the Leper was cleansed in token of thankfulness and for his legal purity was a type of the bread of the Eucharist which for the remembrance of the passion which he suffer'd for these men whose minds are purged from all perverseness Jesus Christ our Lord commanded to make or do To do what To do bread or to make bread No but to make bread to be Eucharistical to be a memorial of the Passion to represent the death of Christ so that it is not the Cake and the bread that are the type and the antitype but the oblation of the Cake was the figure and the Celebration of Christs memorial and the Eucharist are the things presignified and prefigur'd But then it remains that the Eucharistical bread is but the instrument of a memorial or recordation which still supposes something beyond this and by this to be figured and represented For as the Apostle says Our Fathers did eat of the same spiritual meat that is they eat Christ but they eat him in figure that is in an external symbol so do we only theirs is abolished and ours succeeds the old and shall abide for ever Nay the very words us'd by Justin M. do evince this it is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã when it is an Eucharist it is still but bread and therefore there is a body of which this is but an outward argument a vehicle a channel and conveyance and that is the body of Christ for the Eucharistical bread is both bread and Christs body too For it is a good argument to say this is bread Eucharistical therefore this is bread and if it be bread still it must be a figure of the bread of life and this is that which I affirmed to be the sence of Justin M. The like expression to this is in his second Apology It is not common bread meaning that it is sanctified and made Eucharistical But here it may be the argument will not hold it is not common bread therefore it is bread for I remember that Cardinal Perron hath some instances against this way of arguing For the Dove that descended upon Christs head was not a common Dove and yet it follows not therefore this was a Dove The three that appeared to Abraham were not common men therefore they were men it follows not This is the sophistry of the Cardinal for the confutation of which I have so much Logick left as to prove this to be a fallacy and it will soon appear if it be reduc'd to a regular proposition This bread is not common therefore this bread is extraordinary bread
gone that they would not return and God did not and at last would not pardon them For this appellative is not properly subjected nor attributed to the sin it self but it is according as the man is The sin may be and is at some time unpardonable yet not in all its measures and parts of progression as appears in the case of Pharaoh who all the way from the first miracle to the tenth sinn'd against the Holy Ghost but at last he was so bad that God would not pardon him Some men are come to the greatness of the sin or to that state and grandeur of impiety that their estate is desperate that is though the nature of their sins is such as God is extremely angry with them and would destroy them utterly were he not restrain'd by an infinite mercy yet it shall not be thus for ever for in some state of circumstances and degrees God is finally angry with the man and will never return to him 49. Until things be come to this height whatsoever the sin be it is pardonable For if there were any one sin distinguishable in its whole nature and instance from others which in every of its periods were unpardonable it is most certain it would have been described in Scripture with clear characters and cautions that a man might know when he is in and when he is out Speaking a word against the Holy Spirit is by our blessed Saviour called this great sin but it is certain that every word spoken against him is not unpardonable Simon Magus spoke a foul word against him but S. Peter did not say it was unpardonable but when he bid him pray he consequently bid him hope but because he would not warrant him that is durst not absolve him he sufficiently declared that this sin is of an indefinite nature and by growth would arrive at the unpardonable state the state and fulness of it is unpardonable that is God will to some men and in some times and stages of their evil life be so angry that he will give them over and leave them in their reprobate mind But no man knows when that time is God only knows and the event must declare it 50. But for the thing it self that it is pardonable is very certain because it may be pardoned in baptism The Novatians denied not to baptism a power of pardoning any sin and in this sence it is without doubt true what Zosimus by way of reproach objected to Christian Religion it is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a deletery and purgative for every sin whatsoever And since the unconverted Pharisees were guilty of this sin and it was a sin forbidden and punished capitally in the law of Moses either to these Christ could not have been preached and for them Christ did not die or else it is certain that the sin against the holy Spirit of God is pardonable 51. Now whereas our Blessed Lord affirmed of this sin it shall not be pardoned in this world nor in the world to come we may best understand the meaning of it by the parallel words of old Heli to his sons If a man sin against another the Judge shall judge him placari ei potest Deus so the Vulgar Latin reads it God may be appeased that is it shall be forgiven him that is a word spoken against the Son of man which relates to Christ only upon the account of his humane nature that may be forgiven him it shall that is upon easier terms as upon a temporal judgment called in this place a being judged by the Judge But if a man sin against the Lord who shall intreat for him that is if he sin with a high hand presumptuously against the Lord against his power and his Spirit who shall intreat for him it shall never be pardoned never so as the other never upon a temporal judgment that cannot expiate this great sin as it could take off a sin against a man or the Son of man for though it be punished here it shall be punished hereafter But 52. II. It shall not be pardoned in this world nor in the world to come that is neither to the Jews nor to the Gentiles For Saeculum hoc this World in Scripture is the period of the Jews Synagogue and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the world to come is taken for the Gospel or the age of the Messias frequently among the Jews and it is not unlikely Christ might mean it in that sence which was used amongst them by whom he would be understood But because the word was also as commonly used in that sence in which it is understood at this day viz. for the world after this life I shall therefore propound another exposition which seems to me more probable Though remission of sins is more plentiful in the Gospel than under the Law yet because the sin is bigger under the Gospel there is not here any ordinary way of pardoning it no Ministery established to warrant or absolve such sinners but it must be referred to God himself and yet that 's not all For if a man perseveres in this sin he shall neither be forgiven here nor hereafter that is neither can he be absolved in this world by the ministery of the Church nor in the world to come by the sentence of Christ and this I take to be the full meaning of this so difficult place 53. For in this world properly so speaking there is no forgiveness of sins but what is by the ministery of the Church For then a sin is forgiven when it is pardon'd in the day of sentence or execution that is when those evils are removed which are usually inflicted or which are proper to that day Now then for the final punishment that is not till the day of judgment and if God then gives us a mercy in that day then is the day of our pardon from him In the mean time if he be gracious to us here he either forbears to smite us or smites us to bring us to repentance and all the way continues to us the use of the Word and Sacraments that is if he does in any sence pardon us here if he does not give us over to a reprobate mind he continues us under the means of salvation which is the ministery of the Church for that 's the way of pardon in this World as the blessed sentence of the right hand is the way of pardon in the World to come So that when our great Lord and Master threatens to this sin it shall not be pardon'd in this World nor in the World to come he means that neither shall the Ministers of the Church pronounce his pardon or comfort his sorrows or restore him after his fall or warrant his condition or pray for him publickly or give him the peace and communion of the Church neither will God pardon him in the day of Judgment 54. But all this fearful denunciation of the Divine judgment is only upon
mercies give us pardon and thy holy Spirit give us perseverance and thy infinite favour bring us to glory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen CHAP. X. Of Ecclesiastical Penance or The fruits of Repentance SECT I. 1. THE fruits of Repentance are the actions of spiritual life and signifie properly all that piety and obedience which we pay to God in the days of our return after we have begun to follow sober counsels For since all the duty of a Christian is a state of Repentance that is of contention against sin and the parts and proper periods of victory and Repentance which includes the faith of a Christian is but another word to express the same grace or mercies of the Evangelical Covenant it follows that whatsoever is the duty of a Christian and a means to possess that grace is in some sence or other a Repentance or the fruits of Gods mercy and our endeavours And in this sence S. John the Baptist means it saying Bring forth therefore fruits meet for Repentance that is since now the great expectation of the world is to be satisfied and the Lord 's Christ will open the gates of mercy and give Repentance to the world see that ye live accordingly in the faith and obedience of God through Jesus Christ. That did in the event of things prove to be the effect of that Sermon 2. But although all the parts of holy life are fruits of Repentance when it is taken for the state of favour published by the Gospel yet when Repentance is a particular duty or vertue the integral parts of holy life are also constituent parts of Repentance and then by the fruits of Repentance must be meant the less necessary but very useful effects and ministeries of Repentance which are significations and exercises of the main duty And these are sorrow for sins commonly called Contrition Confession of them and Satisfactions by which ought to be meant an opposing a contrary act of vertue to the precedent act of sin and a punishing of our selves out of sorrow and indignation for our folly And this is best done by all those acts of Religion by which God is properly appeased and sin is destroyed that is by those acts which signifie our love to God and our hatred to sin such as are Prayer and Alms and forgiving injuries and punishing our selves that is a forgiving every one but our selves 3. Many of these I say are not essential parts of Repentance without the actual exercise of which no man in any case can be said to be truly penitent for the constituent parts of Repentance are nothing but the essential parts of obedience to the Commandments of God that is direct abstinence from evil and doing what is in the Precept But they are fruits and significations exercises and blessed productions of Repentance useful to excellent purposes of it and such from which a man cannot be excused but by great accidents and rare contingencies To visit prisoners and to redeem captives and to instruct the ignorant are acts of charity but he that does not act these special instances is not always to be condemn'd for want of charity because by other acts of grace he may signifie and exercise his duty He only that refuses any instances because the grace is not operative he only is the Vncharitable but to the particulars he can be determin'd only by something from without but it is sufficient to the grace it self that it works where it can or where it is prudently chosen So it is in these fruits of Repentance He that out of hatred to sin abstains from it and out of love to God endeavours to keep his Commandments he is a true penitent though he never lie upon the ground or spend whole nights in prayer or make himself sick with fasting but he that in all circumstances refuses any or all of these and hath not hatred enough against his sin to punish it in himself when to do so may accidentally be necessary or enjoyned he hath cause to suspect himself not to be a true penitent 4. No one of these is necessary in the special instance except those which are distinctly and upon their own accounts under another precept as Prayer and forgiving injuries and self-affliction in general and Confession But those which are only apt ministeries to the grace which can be ministred unto equally by other instances those are left to the choice of every one or to be determin'd or bound upon us by accidents and by the Church But every one of the particulars hath in it something of special consideration SECT II. Of Contrition or godly Sorrow 5. IN all repentances it is necessary that we understand some sorrow ingredient or appendant or beginning To repent is to leave a sin which because it must have a cause to effect it can begin no where but where the sin is for some reason or other disliked that is because it does a mischief It is enough to leave it that we know it will ruine us if we abide in it but that is not enough to make us grieve for it when it is past and quitted For if we believe that as soon as ever we repent of it we shall be accepted to pardon and that infallibly and that being once forsaken it does not and shall not prejudice us he that considers this and remembers it was pleasant to him will scarce find cause enough to be sorrowful for it Neither is it enough to say he must grieve for it or else it will do him mischief For this is not true for how can sorrow prevent the mischief when the sorrow of it self is not an essential duty or if it were so in it self yet by accident it becomes not to be so for by being unreasonable and impossible it becomes also not necessary not a duty To be sorrowful is not always in our power any more than to be merry and both of them are the natural products of their own objects and of nothing else and then if sin does us pleasure at first and at last no mischief to the penitent to bid them be sorrowful lest it should do mischief is as improper a remedy as if we were commanded to be hungry to prevent being beaten He that felt nothing but the pleasure of sin and is now told he shall feel none of its evils and that it can no more hurt him when it is forsaken than a Bee when the sting is out if he be commanded to grieve may justly return in answer that as yet he perceives no cause 6. If it be told him it is cause enough to grieve that he hath offended God who can punish him with sad unsufferable and eternal torments This is very true But if God be not angry with him and he be told that God will not punish him for the sin he repents of then to grieve for having offended God is so Metaphysical and abstracted a speculation that there must be something else in
Man of the two he who thinks and deliberates what to say or he that utters his mind as fast as it comes whether is the better man he who out of reverence to God is most careful and curious that he offend not in his tongue and therefore he himself deliberates and takes the best guides he can or he who out of the confidence of his own abilities or other exterior assistances ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã speaks what ever comes uppermost Sect. 8. AND here I wave the advice and counsel of a very wise man no less than Solomon Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before God for God is in Heaven and thou upon Earth therefore let thy words be few The consideration of the vast distance between God and us Heaven and Earth should create such apprehensions in us that the very best and choicest of our offertories are not acceptable but by Gods gracious vouchsafing and condescension and therefore since we are so much indebted to God for accepting our best it is not safe ventured to present him with a dough-baked sacrifice and put him off with that which in nature and humane consideration is absolutely the worst for such is all the crude and imperfect utterance of our more imperfect conceptions Hoc non probo in philosopho cujus oratio sicut vita debet esse composita said Seneca A wise mans speech should be like his life and actions composed studied and considered And if ever inconsideration be the cause of sin and vanity it is in our words and therefore is with greatest care to be avoided in our prayers we being most of all concerned that God may have no quarrel against them for folly or impiety Sect. 9. BUT abstracting from the reason let us consider who keeps the precept best He that deliberates or he that considers not when he speaks What man in the world is hasty to offer any thing unto God if he be not who prays ex tempore And then add to it but the weight of Solomons reason and let any man answer me if he thinks it can well stand with that reverence we owe to the immense the infinite and to the eternal God the God of wisdom to offer him a sacrifice which we durst not present to a Prince or a prudent Governour in re âeriâ such as our prayers ought to be Sect. 10. AND that this may not be dasht with a pretence it is carnal reasoning I desire it may be remembred that it is the argument God himself uses against lame maimed and imperfect sacrifices Go and offer this to thy Prince see if he will accept it implying that the best person is to have the best present and what the Prince will slight as truly unworthy of him much more is it unfit for God For God accepts not of any thing we give or do as if he were bettered by it for therefore its estimate is not taken by its relation or natural complacency to him for in it self it is to him as nothing but God accepts it by its proportion and commensuration to us That which we call our best and is truly so in humane estimate that pleases God for it declares that if we had better we would give it him But to reserve the best says too plainly that we think any thing is good enough for him As therefore God in the Law would not be served by that which was imperfect in genere naturae so neither now nor ever will that please him which is imperfect in genere morum or materiâ intellectuali when we can give a better Sect. 11. AND therefore the wisest Nations and the most sober Persons prepared their Verses and Prayers in set forms with as much religion as they dressed their sacrifices and observ'd the rites of Festivals and Burials Amongst the Romans it belong'd to the care of the Priests to worship in prescrib'd and determin'd words In omni precatione qui vota effundit Sacerdos Vestam Janum aliosque Deos praescriptis verbis composito carmine advocare solet The Greeks did so too receiving their prayers by dictate word for word Itaque sua carmina suaeque praecationes singulis diis institutae sunt quas plerunque nequid praeposterè dicatur aliquis ex praescripto praeire ad verbum referre solebat Their hymns and prayers were ordained peculiar to every God which lest any thing should be said preposterously were usually pronounced word for word after the Priest and out of written Copies and the Magi among the Persians were as considerate in their devotions Magos Persas primo semper diluculo canere Diis hymnos laudes meditato solenni precationis carmine The Persians sang hymns to their Gods by the morning twilight in a premeditate solemn and metrical form of prayer saith the same Author For since in all the actions and discourses of men that which is the least considered is likely to be the worst and is certainly of the greatest disreputation it were a strange cheapness of opinion towards God and Religion to be the most incurious of what we say to him and in our religious offices It is strange that every thing should be considered but our Prayers It is spoken by Eââapius to the honour of Proaeresâus's Scholars that when the Proconsul asked their judgments in a question of Philosophy they were ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã they with much consideration and care gave in answer those words of Aristides that they were not of the number of those that used to vomit out answers but of those that considered every word they were to speak Nihil enim ordinatum est quod praecipitatur properat said Seneca Nothing can be regular and orderly that is hasty and precipitate and therefore unless Religion be the most imprudent trifling and inconsiderable thing and that the Work of the Lord is done well enough when it is done negligently or that the sanctuary hath the greatest beauty when it hath the least order it will concern us highly to think our prayers and religious offices are actions fit for wise men and therefore to be done as the actions of wise men use to be that is deliberately prudently and with greatest consideration Sect. 12. WELL then in the nature of the thing ex tempore forms have much the worse of it But it is pretended that there is such a thing as the gift of prayer a praying with the spirit Et nescit tardâ molimina Spiritus sancti gratia Gods Spirit if he pleases can do his work as well in an instant as in long premeditation And to this purpose are pretended those places of Scripture which speak of assistance of Gods spirit in our prayers Zech. 12.10 And I will pour upon the house of David and the inhabitants of Hierusalem the spirit of grace and supplication But especially Rom. 8.26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth
our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered c. From whence the Conclusion that is inferred is in the words of S. Paul that we must pray with the Spirit therefore not with set forms therefore ex tempore Sect. 13. THE Collection is somewhat wild for there is great independency in the several parts and much more is in the Conclusion than was virtually in the premises But such as it is the Authors of it I suppose will own it And therefore we will examine the main design of it and then consider the particular means of its perswasion quoted in the Objection Sect. 14. IT is one of the Priviledges of the Gospel and the benefit of Christs ascension that the Holy Ghost is given unto the Church and is become to us the fountain of gifts and graces But these gifts and graces are improvements and helps of our natural faculties of our art and industry not extraordinary miraculous and immediate infusions of habits and gifts That without Gods spirit we cannot pray aright that our infirmities need his help that we know not what to ask of our selves is most true and if ever any Heretick was more confident of his own naturals or did evermore undervalue Gods grace than the Pelagian did yet he denies not this but what then therefore without study without art without premeditation without learning the Spirit gives the gift of prayer and is it his grace that without any natural or artificial help makes us pray ex tempore no such thing the Objection proves nothing of this Sect. 15. HERE therefore we will joyn issue whether the gifts and helps of the Spirit be immediate infusions of the faculties and powers and perfect abilities Or that he doth assist us only by his aids external and internal in the use of such means which God and nature hath given to man to ennoble his soul better his faculties and to improve his understanding ** That the aids of the Holy Ghost are only assistances to us in the use of natural and artificial means I will undertake to prove and from thence it will evidently follow that labour and hard study and premeditation will soonest purchase the gift of prayer and ascertain us of the assistance of the Spirit and therefore set Forms of Prayer studied and considered of are in a true and proper sence and without Enthusiasm the fruits of the Spirit Sect. 16. FIRST Gods Spirit did assist the Apostles by ways extraordinary and fit for the first institution of Christianity but doth assist us now by the expresses of those first assistances which he gave to them immediately Sect. 17. THUS the Holy Ghost brought to their Memory all things which Jesus spake and did and by that means we come to know all that the Spirit knew to be necessary for us the Holy Ghost being Author of our knowledge by being the fountain of the Revelation and we are therefore ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã taught by God because the Spirit of God revealed the Articles of our Religion that they might be known to all ages of the Church and this is testified by S. Paul He gave some Apostles and some Prophets c. for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man c. This was the effect of Christ's ascension when he gave gifts unto men that is when he sent the Spirit the verification of the promise of the Father The effect of this immission of the Holy Ghost was to fill all things and that for ever to build up the Church of God until the day of consummation so that the Holy Ghost abides with the Church for ever by transmitting those revelations which he taught the Apostles to all Christians in succession Now as the Holy Ghost taught the Apostles and by them still teaches us what to believe so it is certain he taught the Apostles how and what to pray and because it is certain that all the rules concerning our duty in prayer and all those graces which we are to pray for are transmitted to us by Derivation from the Apostles whom the Holy Ghost did teach even to that very purpose also that they should teach us it follows evidently that the gift of prayer is a gift of the Holy Ghost and yet to verifie this Proposition we need no other immediate inspiration or extraordinary assistance than that we derive from the Holy Ghost by the conveyance of the Apostolical Sermons and Writings Sect. 18. THE reason is the same in Faith and Prayer and if there were any difference in the acquisition or reception faith certainly needs a more immediate infusion as being of greatest necessity and yet a grace to which we least cooperate it being the first of graces and less of the will in it than any other But yet the Holy Ghost is the Author of our faith and we believe with the Spirit it is S. Pauls expression and yet our belief comes by hearing and reading the holy Scriptures and their interpretations Now reconcile these two together Faith comes by hearing and yet is the gift of the Spirit and it says that the gifts of the Spirit are not extasies and immediate infusions of habits but helps from God to enable us upon the use of the means of his own appointment to believe to speak to understand to prophesie and to pray Sect. 19. BUT whosoever shall look for any other gifts of the Spirit besides the parts of nature helped by industry and Gods blessing upon it and the revelations or the supplies of matter in holy Scripture will be very far to seek having neither reason promise nor experience of his side For why should the spirit of prayer be any other than as the gift and spirit of faith as S. Paul calls it acquired by humane means using divine aids that is by our endeavours in hearing reading catechizing desires to obey and all this blessed and promoted by God this produces faith Nay it is true of us what Christ told his Apostles sine me nihil potestis facere not nihil magnum aut difficile but omninò nihil as S. Austin observes Without me ye can do nothing and yet we were not capable of a Law or of reward or punishment if neither with him nor without him we were able to do any thing And therefore although in the midst of all our co-operation we may say to God in the words of the Prophet Domine omnia opera operatus es in nobis O Lord thou hast wrought all our works in us yet they are opera nostra still God works and we work First is the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Gods grace is brought to us he helps and gives us abilities and then
they do prepare what to speak to the people it were also very fit they prepar'd their prayers and considered before-hand of the fitness of the offertory they present to God Sect. 32. LASTLY Did not the Pen-men of the Scripture write the Epistles and Gospels respectively all by the Spirit Most certainly holy Men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost saith Saint Peter And certainly they were moved by a more immediate motion and a motion nearer to an Enthusiasm than now adays in the gift and spirit of Prayer And yet in the midst of those great assistances and motions they did use study art industry and humane abilities This is more than probable in the different stiles of the several Books some being of admirable art others lower and plain The words were their own at least sometimes not the Holy Ghosts And if Origen Saint Hierome and especially the Greek Fathers Scholiasts and Grammarians were not deceived by false Copies but that they truly did observe sometimes to be impropriety of an expression in the language sometimes not true Greek who will think those errors or imperfections in Grammar were in respect of the words I say precisely immediate inspirations and dictates of the Holy Ghost and not rather their own productions of industry and humanity But clearly some of their words were the words of Aratus some of Epimenides some of Menander some of S. Paul This speak I not the Lord. Some were the words of Moses even all that part of the Levitical Law which concerned divorces and concerning which our blessed Saviour affirms that Moses permitted it because of the hardness of their hearts but from the beginning it was not so and divers others of the same nature collected and observed to this purpose by Origen S. Basil S. Ambrose and particularly that promise which S. Paul made of calling upon the Corinthians as he passed into Macedonia which certainly in all reason is to be presumed to have been spoken humanitùs and not by immediate inspiration and infusion because Saint Paul was so hindred that he could not be as good as his word and yet the Holy Ghost could have foreseen it and might better have excused it if Saint Paul had laid it upon his score but he did not and it is reasonable enough to believe there was no cause he should and yet because the Holy Ghost renewed their memory improved their understanding supplied to some their want of humane learning and so assisted them that they should not commit an error in fact or opinion neither in the narrative nor dogmatical parts therefore they writ by the Spirit Since that we cannot pretend upon any grounds of probability to an inspiration so immediate as theirs and yet their assistances which they had from the Spirit did not exclude humane arts and industry but that the ablest Scholar did write the best much rather is this true in the gifts and assistances we receive and particularly in the gift of prayer it is not an ex tempore and an inspired faculty but the faculties of nature and the abilities of art and industry are improv'd and ennobled by the supervening assistances of the Spirit And if these who pray ex tempore say that the assistance they receive from the Spirit is the inspiration of words and powers without the operations of art and natural abilities humane industry then besides that it is more than the Pen-men of Scripture sometime had because they needed no extraordinary assistances to what they could of themselves do upon the stock of other abilities besides this I say it must follow that such Prayers so inspired if they were committed to writing would prove as good Canonical Scripture as any is in Saint Paul's Epistles the impudence of which pretension is sufficient to prove the extreme vanity of the challenge Sect. 33. THE summe is this Whatsoever this gift is or this spirit of prayer it is to be acquired by humane industry by learning of the Scriptures by reading by conference and by whatsoever else faculties are improved and habits enlarged Gods Spirit hath done his work sufficiently this way and he loves not either in nature or grace which are his two great sanctions to multiply miracles when there is no need Sect. 34. AND now let us take a man that pretends he hath the gift of Prayer and loves to pray ex tempore I suppose his thoughts go a little before his tongue I demand then Whether cannot this man when it is once come into his head hold his tongue and write down what he hath conceived If his first conceptions were of God and God's Spirit then they are so still even when they are written Or is the Spirit departed from him upon the sight of a Pen and Inkhorn It did use to be otherwise among the old and new Prophets whether they were Prophets of prediction or of ordinary ministery But if his conception may be written and being written is still a production of the Spirit then it follows that set forms of prayer deliberate and described may as well be a praying with the Spirit as sudden forms and ex tempore out-lets Sect. 35. NOW the case being thus put I would fain know what the difference is between deliberate and ex tempore Prayers save only that in these there is less consideration and prudence for that the other are at least as much as these the productions of the Spirit is evident in the very case put in this Argument and whether to consider and to weigh them be any disadvantage to our devotions I leave it to all wise men to determine So that in effect since after the pretended assistance of the Spirit in our prayers we may write them down consider them try the spirits and ponder the matter the reason and the religion of the address let the world judge whether this sudden utterance and ex tempore forms be any thing else but a direct resolution not to consider beforehand what we speak Sic itaque habe ut istam vim dicendi rapidam aptiorem esse circulanti judices quà m agenti rem magnam seriam docentique They are the words of Seneca and express what naturally flows from the premises The pretence of the Spirit and the gift of prayer is not sufficient to justifie the dishonour they do to Religion in serving it in the lowest and most indeliberate manner nor quit such men from unreasonableness and folly who will dare to speak to God in the presence of the people and in their behalf without deliberation or learning or study Nothing is a greater disreputation to the prudence of a Discourse than to say it was a thing made up in haste that is without due considering Sect. 36. BUT here I consider and I wish they whom it concerns most would do so too that to pretend the Spirit in so unreasonable a manner to so ill purposes and without reason or promise or
do in their Verses and sing it to a new tune with perfect and true musick and all this ex tempore For all this the Holy Ghost can do if he pleases But if it be said that the Corinthian Christians composed their Songs and Hymns according to art and rules of Musick by study and industry and that to this they were assisted by the Spirit and that this together with the devotion of their spirit was singing with the Spirit then say I so composing set forms of Liturgie by skill and prudence and humane industry may be as much praying with the Spirit as the other is singing with the Spirit plainly enough In all the sences of praying with the Spirit and in all its acceptations in Scripture to pray or sing with the Spirit neither of them of necessity implies ex tempore Sect. 47. THE sum or Collecta of the premises is this Praying with the Spirit is either First when the Spirit stirs up our desires to pray per motionem actualis auxilii or secondly when the Spirit teaches us what or how to pray telling us the matter and manner of our prayers Thirdly or lastly dictating the very words of our prayers There is no other way in the world to pray with the Spirit or in the Holy Ghost that is pertinent to this Question And of this last manner the Scripture determines nothing nor speaks any thing expresly of it and yet suppose it had we are certain the Holy Ghost hath supplied us with all these and yet in set forms of Prayer best of all I mean there where a difference can be For 1 as for the desires and actual motions or incitements to pray they are indifferent to one or the other to set forms or to ex tempore Sect. 48. SECONDLY But as to the matter or manner of prayer it is clearly contained in the expresses and set forms of Scriptures and there it is supplied to us by the Spirit for he is the great Dictatour of it Sect. 49. 3. NOW then for the very words No man can assure me that the words of his ex tempore prayer are the words of the holy Spirit it is neither reason nor modesty to expect such immediate assistances to so little purpose he having supplied us with abilities more than enough to express our desires aliundè otherwise than by immediate dictate But if we will take David's Psalter or the other Hymns of holy Scripture or any of the Prayers which are respersed over the Bible we are sure enough that they are the words of Gods Spirit mediately or immediately by way of infusion or extasie by vision or at least by ordinary assistance And now then what greater confidence can any man have for the excellency of his prayers and the probability of their being accepted than when he prayes his Psalter or the Lords Prayer or any other office which he finds consigned in Scripture When Gods Spirit stirs us up to an actual devotion and then we use the matter he hath described and taught and the very words which Christ and Christs Spirit and the Apostles and other persons full of the Holy Ghost did use If in the world there be any praying with the Spirit I mean in vocal prayer this is it Sect. 50. AND thus I have examined the intire and full scope of this first Question and rifled their Objection which was the only colour to hide the appearance of its natural deformity at the first sight The result is this Scribendum ergo quoties licebit Si id non dabitur cogitandum ab utroque exclusi debent tamen adniti ut neque deprehensus orator neque destitutus esse videatur In making our Orations and publick Advocations we must write what we mean to speak as often as we can when we cannot yet we must deliberate and study and when the suddenness of the accident prevents both these we must use all the powers of art and care that we have a present mind and call in all our first provisions that we be not destitute of matter and words apt for the imployment This was Quintilian's rule for the matter of prudence and in secular occasions but when the instance is in Religion and especially in our prayers it will concern us nearer to be curious and deliberate what we speak in the audience of the eternal God when our lives and our souls and the honour of God and the reputation of Religion are concern'd and whatsoever is greatest in it self or dearest to us Sect. 51. THE second Question hath in it something more of difficulty for the Men that own it will give leave that set forms may be used so you give question 2 leave to them to make them but if authority shall interpose and prescribe a Liturgie every word shall breed a quarrel and if the matter be innocent yet the very injunction is tyranny a restraining of the gifts of the Holy Ghost it leaves the spirit of a Man sterile and unprofitable it is not for edification of the Church and is as destitute of comfort as it is of profit For God hath not restrained his Spirit to those few that rule the Church in prelation above others but if he hath given to them the spirit of Government he hath given to others the spirit of Prayer and the spirit of Prophecy Now the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withall for to one is given by the Spirit the word of Wisdom to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit And these and many other gifts are given to several members that they may supply one another and all joyn to the edification of the body And therefore that must needs be an imprudent sanction that so determines the offices of the Church that she cannot be edified by that variety of gifts which the holy Spirit hath given to several men to that purpose just as if there should be a Canon that but one Sermon should be preached in all Churches for ever Besides it must needs be that the devotion of the Suppliants must be much retarded by the perpetuity and unalterable reiteration of the same form For since our affections will certainly vary and suffer great alteration of degrees and inclinations it is easier to frame words apt to comply with our affections than to conform our affections in all varieties to the same words When the forms are daily changed it is more probable that every man shall find something proportionable to his fancy which is the great instrument of Devotion than to suppose that any one form should be like Manna fitted to every taste and therefore in prayers as the affections must be natural sweet and proper so also should the words expressing the affections issue forth by way of natural emanation Sed extemporalis audaciae atque ipsius temeritatis vel praecipua jucunditas est Nam in ingenio sicut in agro quanquam alia diu serantur atque
set form of Prayer Now it is considerable that no man ever had the fulness of the Spirit but only the Holy Jesus and therefore it is also certain that no man had the Spirit of prayer like to him and then if we pray this prayer devoutly and with pious and actual intention do we not pray in the Spirit of Christ as much as if we prayed any other form of words pretended to be taught us by the Spirit We are sure that Christ and Christs Spirit taught us this Prayer they only gather by conjectures and opinions that in their ex tempore or conceived forms the Spirit of Christ teacheth them So much then as Certainties are better than uncertainties and God's Word better than Man's so much is this set Form besides the infinite advantages in the matter better than their ex tempore and conceived Forms in the form it self And if ever any Prayer was or could be a part of that Doctrine of Faith by which we received the Spirit it must needs be this Prayer which was the only form our blessed Master taught the Christian Church immediately was a part of his great and glorious Sermon in the Mount in which all the needs of the world are sealed up as in a treasure house and intimated by several petitions as diseases are by their proper and proportioned remedies and which Christ published as the first emanation of his Spirit the first perfume of that heavenly anointing which descended on his sacred Head when he went down into the waters of Baptism Sect. 79. THIS we are certain of that there is nothing wanting nothing superfluous and impertinent nothing carnal or imperfect in this Prayer but as it supplies all needs so it serves all persons is fitted for all estates it meets with all accidents and no necessity can surprize any man but if God hears him praying that Prayer he is provided for in that necessity and yet if any single person paraphrases it it is not certain but the whole sence of a petition may be altered by the intervention of one improper word and there can be no security given against this but qualified and limited and just in such a proportion as we can be assured of the wisdom and honesty of the person and the actual assistance of the holy Spirit Sect. 80. NOW then I demand whether the Prayer of Manasses be so good a Prayer as the Lords Prayer or is the Prayer of Judith or of Tobias or of Judas Macchabeus or of the Son of Sirach is any of these so good Certainly no man will say they are and the reason is because we are not sure they are inspired by the Holy Spirit of God prudent and pious and conformable to Religion they may be but not penn'd by so excellent a spirit as this Prayer And what assurance can be given that any Ministers prayer is better than the prayers of the Son of Sirach who was a very wise and a very good man as all the world acknowledges I know not any one of them that has so large a testimony or is of so great reputation But suppose they can make as good prayers yet surely they are Apocryphal at least and for the same reason that the Apocryphal prayers are not so excellent as the Lords prayer by the same reason must the best they can be imagin'd to compose fall short of this excellent pattern by how much they partake of a smaller portion of the Spirit as a drop of water is less than all the waters under or above the Firmament Sect. 81. SECONDLY I would also willingly know whether if any man uses the form which Christ taught supposing he did not tie us to the very prescript words can there be any hurt in it Is it imaginable that any Commandment should be broken or any affront done to the honour of God or any act of imprudence or irreligion in it or any negligence of any insinuation of the Divine pleasure I cannot yet think of any thing to frame for answer so much as by way of an Antinomy or Objection But then supposing Christ did tie us to use this Prayer pro loco tempore according to the nature and obligation of all affirmative precepts as it is certain he did in the preceptive words recorded by St. Luke When ye pray say Our Father then it is to be considered that a Divine Commandment is broken by its rejection and therefore if there were any doubt remaining whether it be a Command or no yet since on one side there is danger of a negligence and a contempt and that on the other side the observation and conformity cannot be criminal or imprudent it will follow that the retaining of this Prayer in practice and suffering it to do all its intentions and particularly becoming the great ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or authority for set Forms of prayer is the safest most prudent most Christian understanding of those words of Christ propounding the Lords Prayer to the Christian Church And because it is impossible that all particulars should be expressed in any form of prayer because particulars are not only casual and accidental but also infinite Christ according to that wisdom he had without measure fram'd a Prayer which by a general comprehension should include all particulars eminently and virtually so that there should be no defect in it and yet so short that the most imperfect memories might retain and use it Sect. 82. AND it is not amiss to observe that our blessed Saviour first taught this Prayer to be as a remedy and a reproof of the vain repetition of the Pharisees and besides that it was so à priori we also in the event see the excellent spirit and wisdom in the Constitution for those persons who have laid aside the Lords Prayer have been noted by common observation to be very long in their forms and troublesome and vain enough in their repetitions they have laid aside the medicine and the old wound bleeds afresh the Pharisees did so of old Sect. 83. AND after all this it is strange imployment that any man should be put to justifie the wisdom and prudence of any of Christs institutions as if any of his servants who are wise upon his Stock instructed by his Wisdom made knowing by his Revelations and whose all that is good is but a weak ray of the glorious light of the Sun of Righteousness should dare to think that the Derivative should be before the Primitive the Current above the Fountain and that we should derive all our excellency from him and yet have some beyond him that is some which he never had or which he was not pleased to manifest or that we should have a spirit of Prayer able to make productions beyond his Prayer who received the Spirit without measure But this is not the first time man hath disputed against God Sect. 84. AND now let us consider with sobriety not only of this excellent Prayer but of
all that are deposited in the primitive records of our Religion Are not those Prayers and Hymns in holy Scripture excellent compositions admirable instruments of devotion full of piety rare and incomparable addresses to God Dare any man with his gift of Prayer pretend that he can ex tempore or by study make better Who dares pretend that he hath a better spirit than David had or than the Apostles and Prophets and other holy persons in Scripture whose Prayers and Psalms are by Gods Spirit consigned to the use of the Church for ever Or will it be denied but that they also are excellent Directories and Patterns for prayer And if Patterns the nearer we draw to our example are not the imitations and representments the better And what then if we took the Samplers themselves Is there any imperfection in them and can we mend them and correct the Magnificat The very matter of these and the Author no less than Divine cannot but justifie the Forms though set determin'd and prescribed Sect. 85. IN a just proportion and commensuration I argue so concerning the primitive and ancient forms of Church-service which are composed according to those so excellent Patterns which if they had remained pure as in the first institution or had always been as they had been reformed by the Church of England they would against all defiance put in for the next place to those forms of Liturgy which mutatis mutandis are nothing but the words of Scripture But I am resolved at this present not to enter into Question concerning the matter of Prayers Sect. 86. NEXT we must enquire what the Apostles did in obedience to the precept of Christ and what the Church did in imitation of the Apostles That the Apostles did use the Prayer their Lord taught them I think need not much be questioned they could have no other end of their desire and it had been a strange boldness to ask for a form which they intended not to use or a strange levity not to do what they intended But I consider they had a double capacity they were of the Jewish Religion by education and now Christians by a new institution in the first capacity they used those Set forms of Prayer which their Nation used in their devotions Christ and his Apostles sang a Hymn part of the great Allelujah which was usually sung at the end of the Paschal Supper After the Supper they sang a Hymn sayes the Evangelist The Jews also used every Sabbath to sing the XCII Psalm which is therefore intitled A Song or Psalm for the Sabbath and they who observed the hours of Prayer and Vows according to the rites of the Temple need not be suspected to have omitted the Jewish forms of prayer And as they complied with the religious customes of the Nation worshipping according to the Jewish manner it is also in reason to be presumed they were Worshippers according to the new Christian institution and used that form their Lord taught them Sect. 87. NOW that they tyed themselves to recitation of the very words of Christs Prayer pro loco tempore I am therefore easie to believe because I find they were strict to a scruple in retaining the Sacramental words which Christ spake when he instituted the blessed Sacrament insomuch that not only three Evangelists but Saint Paul also not only making a narrative of the institution but teaching the Corinthians the manner of its celebration to a tittle he recites the words of Christ. Now the action of the Consecrator is not a theatrical representment of the action of Christ but a sacred solemn and Sacramental prayer in which since the Apostles at first and the Church ever after did with reverence and fear retain the very words it is not only a probation of the Question in general in behalf of set forms but also a high probability that they retained the Lords Prayer and used it to an ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the very form of words Sect. 88. AND I the rather make this inference from the preceding argument because of the cognation one hath with the other for the Apostles did also in the consecration of the Eucharist use the Lords Prayer and that together with the words of institution was the only form of consecration saith Saint Gregory and Saint Hierome affirms that the Apostles by the command of their Lord used this prayer in the benediction of the Elements Sect. 89. BUT besides this when the Apostles had received great measures of the Spirit and by their gift of Prayer composed more Forms for the help and comfort of the Church and contrary to the order in the first Creation the light which was in the body of the Sun was now diffused over the face of the new heavens and the new Earth it became a precept Evangelical that we should praise God in Hymns and Psalms and Spiritual Songs which is so certain that they were compositions of industry and deliberation and yet were sung in the Spirit that he who denies the last speaks against Scriptures he who denies the first speaks against Reason and would best confute himself if in the highest of his pretence of the Spirit he would venture at some ex tempore Hymns And of this we have the express testimony of St. Austin de Hymnis Psalmis canendis haberi Domini Apostolorum documenta utilia praecepta And the Church obeyed them for as an Ancient Author under the name of Diânysius Areopagita relates the chief of the Clerical and Ministring Order offer bread upon the altar Cum Ecclesiastici omnes laudem hymnumque generalem Deo tribuerunt cum quibus Pontifex sacras preces ritè perficit c. They all sing one Hymn to God and the Bishop prays ritè according to the ritual or constitution which in no sence of the Church or of Grammar can be understood without a solemn and determined form ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says Casaubon is cantare idem saepiùs dicere apud Graecos ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã they were forms of praising God used constantly periodically and in the daily Offices And the Fathers of the Councel of Antioch complain against Paulus Samosatenus Quod Psalmos cantus qui ad domini nostri Jesu Christi honorem decantari solent tanquam recentiores à viris recentioris memoriae editos exploserit The quarrel was that he said the Church had used to say Hymns which were made by new men and not deriv'd from the Ancients which if we consider that the Councel of Antioch was in the twelfth year of Galienus the Emperour 133 years after Christs Ascension will fairly prove that the use of prescribed Forms of prayer Hymns and forms of Worshipping were very early in the Church and it is unimaginable it should be otherwise when we remember the Apostolical precept before mentioned And if we fancy a higher precedent than what was manifested upon earth we
great antiquity were not the prime constitutions in those several Churches respectively but meer derivations from tradition Apostolical for not only the thing but the words so often mentioned are in the 40 Canon of the Apostles ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the same is repeated in the twenty fourth Canon of the Council of Antioch ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Presbyters and Deacons must do nothing without leave of the Bishop for to him the Lords people is committed and he must give an account for their souls * And if a Presbyter shall contemn his own Bishop making conventions apart and erecting another altar he is to be deposed ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã saith the 32 Canon as a lover of Principality intimating that he arrogates Episcopal dignity and so is ambitious of a Principality The issue then is this * The Presbyters and Clergy and Laity must obey therefore the Bishop must govern and give them laws It was particularly instanced in the case of Saint Chrysostome ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã saith Theodoret He adorned and instructed Pontus with these laws so he reckoning up the extent of his jurisdiction * But now descend we to a specification of the power and jurisdiction of Bishops SECT XXXVI Appointing them to be Judges of the Clergie and Spiritual causes of the Laity THE Bishops were Ecclesiastical Judges over the Presbyters the inferiour Clergy and the Laity What they were in Scripture who were constituted in presidency over causes spiritual I have already twice explicated and from hence it descended by a close succession that they who watched for souls they had the rule over them and because no regiment can be without coercion therefore there was inherent in them a power of cognition of causes and coercion of persons * The Canons of the Apostles appointing censures to be inflicted on delinquent persons makes the Bishops hand to do it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã If any Presbyter or Deacon be excommunicated by the Bishop he must not be received by any else but by him that did so censure him unless the Bishop that censured him be dead The same is repeated in the Nicene Council only it is permitted that any one may appeal to a Synod of Bishops Si fortè aliquâ indignatione aut contentione aut qualibet commotione Episcopi sui excommunicati sint if he thinks himself wronged by prejudice or passion and when the Synod is met hujusmodi examinent Quaestiones But by the way it must be Synodus Episcoporum so the Canon Vt ita demum hi qui ob culpas suas Episcoporum suorum offensas meritò contraxerunt dignè etiam à caeteris excommunicati habeantur quousque in communi vel ipsi Episcopo suo visum fuerit humaniorem circà eos ferre sententiam The Synod of Bishops must ratifie the excommunication of all those who for their delinquencies have justly incurred the displeasure of their Bishop and this censure to stick upon them till either the Synod or their own Bishop shall give a more gentle sentence ** This Canon we see relates to the Canon of the Apostles and affixes the judicature of Priests and Deacons to the Bishops commanding their censures to be held as firm and valid only as the Apostles Canon names Presbyters and Deacons particularly so the Nicene Canon speaks indefinitely and so comprehends all of the Diocess and jurisdiction The fourth Council of Carthage gives in express terms the cognizance of Clergy-causes to the Bishop calling aid from a Synod in case a Clergy-man prove refractory and disobedient Discordantes Clericos Episcopus vel ratione vel potestate ad concordiam trahat inobedientes Synodus per audientiam damnet If the Bishops reason will not end the controversies of Clergie-men his power must but if any man list to be contentious intimating as I suppose out of the Nicene Council with frivolous appeals and impertinent protraction the Synod of Bishops must condemn him viz. for his disobeying his Bishops sentence * The Council of Antioch is yet more particular in its Sanction for this affair intimating a clear distinction of proceeding in the cause of a Bishop and the other of the Priests and Deacons ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. If a Bishop shall be deposed by a Synod viz. of Bishops according to the exigence of the Nicene Canon or a Priest or Deacon by his own Bishop if he meddles with any Sacred offices he shall be hopeless of absolution But here we see that the ordinary Judge of a Bishop is a Synod of Bishops but of Priests and Deacons the Bishop alone And the sentence of the Bishop is made firm omni modo in the next Canon Si quis Presbyter vel Diaconus proprio contempto Episcopo privatim congregationem effecerit altare erexerit Episcopo accersente non obedierit nec velit ei parere nec morem gerere primò secundò vocanti hic damnetur omni modo Quòd si Ecclesiam conturbare solicitare persistat tanquam seditiosus per potestates exteras opprimatur What Presbyter soever refuses to obey his Bishop and will not appear at his first or second Summons let him be deposed and if he shall persist to disturb the Church let him be given over to the secular powers * Add to this the first Canon of the same Council ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. If any one be excommunicate by his own Bishop c. as it is in the foregoing Canons of Nice and the Apostles The Result of these Sanctions is this The Bishop is the Judge the Bishop is to inflict censures the Presbyters and Deacons are either to obey or to be deposed No greater evidence in the world of a Superiour jurisdiction and this established by all the power they had and this did extend not only to the Clergy but to the Laity for that 's the close of the Canon ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã This constitution is concerning the Laity and the Presbyters and the Deacons and all that are within the rule viz. that if their Bishop have sequestred them from the holy Communion they must not be suffered to communicate elsewhere But the Audientia Episcopalis The Bishops Audience-Court is of larger power in the Council of Chalcedon ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã If any Clergy-man have any cause against a Clergy-man let him by no means leave his own Bishop and run to Secular Courts ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã But first let the cause be examined before their own Bishop or by the Bishops leave before such persons as the contesting parties shall desire ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Whosoever does otherwise let him suffer under the censures of the Church Here is not only a subordination of the Clergie in matters criminal but also the civil causes of the Clergie must be submitted to the Bishop under pain of the Canon * I end this with the attestation of the Council of Sardis exactly of the same Spirit the same injunction and almost the
titles of honour be either unfit in themselves to be given to Bishops or what the guise of Christendome hath been in her spiritual heraldry 1. S. Ignatius in his Epistle to the Church of Smyrna gives them this command Honora Episcopum ut Principem Sacerdotum imaginem Dei referentem Honour the Bishop as the image of God as the Prince of Priests Now since honour and excellency are terms of mutual relation and all excellency that is in men and things is but a ray of divine excellency so far as they participate of God so far they are honourable Since then the Bishop carries the impress of God upon his forehead and bears Gods image certainly this participation of such perfection makes him very honourable And since honor est in honorante it is not enough that the Bishop is honourable in himself but it tells us our duty we must honour him we must do him honour and of all the honours in the world that of words is the cheapest and the least S. Paul speaking of the honour due to the Prelates of the Church ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Let them be accounted worthy of double honour And one of the honours that he there means is a costly one an honour of Maintenance the other must certainly be an honour of estimate and that 's cheapest The Council of Sardis speaking of the several steps and capacities of promotion to the height of Episcopacy uses this expression ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã He that shall be found worthy of so Divine a Priesthood let him be advanced to the highest honour Ego procidens ad pedes ejus rogabam excusans me declinans honorem cathedrae potestatem saith S. Clement when S. Peter would have advanced him to the Honour and power of the Bishops chair But in the third epistle speaking of the dignity of Aaron the High-Priest and then by analogy of the Bishop who although he be a Minister in the Order of Melchisedech yet he hath also the Honour of Aaron Omnis enim Pontisex sacro crismate perunctus in civitate constitutus in Scripturis sacris conditus charus preciosus hominibus oppidò esse debet Every High-Priest ordained in the City viz. a Bishop ought forthwith to be dear and precious in the eyes of men Quem quasi Christi locum tenentem honorare omnes debent eique servire obedientes ad salutem suam fideliter existere scientes quòd sive honor sive injuria quae ei defertur in Christum redundat à Christo in Deum The Bishop is Christs Vicegerent and therefore he is to be obeyed knowing that whether it be honour or injury that is done to the Bishop it is done to Christ and so to God * And indeed what is the saying of our blessed Saviour himself He that despiseth you despiseth me If Bishops be Gods Ministers and in higher order than the rest then although all discountenance and disgrace done to the Clergy reflect upon Christ yet what is done to the Bishop is far more and then there is the same reason of the honour And if so then the Question will prove but an odd one even this Whether Christ be to be honoured or no or depressed to the common estimate of Vulgar people for if the Bishops be then he is This is the condition of the Question 2. Consider we that all Religions and particularly all Christianity did give Titles of honour to their High-Priests and Bishops respectively * I shall not need to instance in the great honour of the Priestly tribe among the Jews and how highly honourable Aaron was in proportion Prophets were called Lords in holy Scripture Art not thou my Lord Elijah said Obadiah to the Prophet Knowest thou not that God will take thy Lord from thy head this day said the children in the Prophets Schools So it was then And in the new Testament we find a Prophet Honoured every where but in his own Country And to the Apostles and Presidents of Churches greater titles of honour given than was ever given to man by secular complacence and insinuation Angels and Governours and Fathers of our Faith and Stars Lights of the World the Crown of the Church Apostles of Jesus Christ nay Gods viz. to whom the Word of God came and of the compellation of Apostles particularly Saint Hierom saith that when Saint Paul called himself the Apostle of Jesus Christ it was as Magnifically spoken as if he had said Praefectus praetorio Augusts Caesaris Magister exercitus Tiberii Imperatoris And yet Bishops are Apostles and so called in Scripture I have proved that already Indeed our blessed Saviour in the case of the two sons of Zebedee forbad them to expect by vertue of their Apostolate any Princely titles in order to a Kingdom and an earthly Principality For that was it which the ambitious woman sought for her sons viz. fair honour and dignity in an earthly Kingdom for such a Kingdom they expected with their Messias To this their expectation our Saviours answer is a direct antithesis And that made the Apostles to be angry at the two Petitioners as if they had meant to supplant the rest and get the best preferment from them to wit in a temporal Kingdom No saith our blessed Saviour ye are all deceived The Kings of the Nations indeed do exercise authority and are called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Benefactors so the word signifies Gracious Lords so we read it But it shall not be so with you What shall not be so with them shall not they exercise authority Who then is that faithful and wise Steward whom his Lord made Ruler over his Houshould Surely the Apostles or no body Had Christ authority Most certainly Then so had the Apostles for Christ gave them his with a sicut misit me pater c. Well! the Apostles might and we know they did exercise authority What then shall not be so with them Shall not they be called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Indeed if Saint Mark had taken that title upon him in Alexandria the Ptolomies whose Honorary appellative that was would have questioned him highly for it But if we go to the sence of the word the Apostles might be Benefactors and therefore might be called so But what then Might they not be called Gratious Lords The word would have done no hurt if it had not been an Ensign of a secular Principality For as for the word Lord I know no more prohibition for that than for being called Rabbi or Master or Doctor or Father What shall we think now May we not be called Doctors God hath constituted in his Church Pastors and Doctors saith Saint Paul Therefore we may be called so But what of the other the prohibition runs alike for all as is evident in the several places of the Gospels and may no man be called Master or Father Let an answer be thought on for these and the same will serve
Christ said Non designando officium but Sortem not their duty but their lot intimating that their future condition should not be honorary but full of trouble not advanc'd but persecuted But I had rather insist on the first answer in which I desire it be remembred that I said seeking temporal Principality to be forbidden the Apostles as an Appendix to the office of an Apostle For in other capacities Bishops are as receptive of honour and temporal principalities as other men Bishops ut sic are not secular Princes must not seek for it But some secular Princes may be Bishops as in Germany and in other places to this day they are For it is as unlawful for a Bishop to have any Land as to have a Country and a single Acre is no more due to the Order than a Province but both these may be conjunct in the same person though still by vertue of Christ's precept the functions and capacities must be distinguished according to the saying of Synesius ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã To confound and intermix the Kingdom and the Priesthood is to joyn things incompossible and inconsistent Inconsistent I say not in person but absolutely discrepant in function 3. Consider we that Saint Peter when he speaks of the dutious subordination of Sarah to her Husband Abraham he propounds her as an example to all married women in these words She obeyed Abraham and called him Lord why was this spoken to Christian women but that they should do so too And is it imaginable that such an honourable compellation as Christ allows every woman to give to her Husband a Mechanick a hard-handed Artisan he would forbid to those eminent Pillars of his Church those Lights of Christendom whom he really indued with a plenitude of power for the Regiment of the Catholick Church Credat Apella 4. Pastor and Father are as honourable titles as any They are honourable in Scripture Honour thy Father c. Thy Father in all sences They are also made sacred by being the appellatives of Kings and Bishops and that not only in secular addresses but even in holy Scripture as is known Add to this ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã are used in Scripture for the Prelates of the Church and I am certain that Duke and Captain Rulers and Commanders are but just the same in English that the other are in Greek and the least of these is as much as ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or Lord. And then if we consider that since Christ erected a spiritual Regiment and us'd words of secular honour to express it as in the instances above although Christ did interdict a secular principality yet he forbad not a secular title He us'd many himself 5. The voice of the Spouse the holy Church hath alwayes expressed their honourable estimate in reverential Compellations and Epithets of honour to their Bishops and have taught us so to do * Bishops were called Principes Ecclesiarum Princes of the Churches I had occasion to instance it in the question of jurisdiction Indeed the third Councel of Carthage forbad the Bishop of Carthage to be called Princeps Sacerdotum or summus sacerdos or aliquid hujusmodi but only primae sedis Episcopus I know not what their meaning was unless they would dictate a lesson of humility to their Primate that he might remember the principality not to be so much in his person as in the See for he might be called Bishop of the prime See But whatsoever fancy they had at Carthage I am sure it was a guise of Christendom not to speak of Bishops sine praefatione honoris but with honourable mention ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã To our most blessed Lord. So the Letters were superscribed to Julius Bishop of Rome from some of his Brethren in Sozomen Let no man speak Untruths of me ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Nor of my Lords the Bishops said Saint Gregory Nazianzen The Synodical book of the Councel of Constantinople is inscribed Dominis Reverendissimis ac piissimis Fratribus ac Collegis Damaso Ambrosio c. To our most Reverend Lords and holy Brethren c. And the Councel of Illyricum sending their Synodal letters to the Bishops of Asia by Bishop Elpidius Haec pluribus say they persequi non est visum quòd miserimus unum ex omnibus Dominum Collegam nostrum Elpidium qui cognosceret esset ne sicut dictum fuerat à Domino Collegâ nostro Eustathio Our Lord and Brother Elpidius Our Lord and Brother Eustathius * The Oration in the Councel of Epaunum begins thus Quod praecipientibus tantis Dominis meis ministerium proferendi sermonis assumo c. The Prolocutor took that office on him at the command of so many Great Lords the Bishops * When the Church of Spain became Catholick and abjured the Arian heresie King Recaredus in the third Councel of Toledo made a speech to the Bishops Non incognitum reor esse vobis Reverendissimi Sacerdotes c. Non credimus vestram latere Sanctitatem c. Vestra Cognovit Beatitudo c. Venerandi Patres c. And these often Your Holiness your Blessedness Most Reverend Venerable Fathers Those were the Addresses the King made to the Fathers of the Synod Thus it was when Spain grew Catholick but not such a Speech to be found in all the Arian Records They amongst them used but little Reverence to their Bishops But the instances of this kind are innumerable Nothing more ordinary in Antiquity than to speak of Bishops with the titles of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Domine verè Sancte suscipiende Papa So Saint Hierom a Presbyter to Saint Austin a Bishop Secundùm enim honorum vocabula quae jam Ecclesiae usus obtinuit Episcopatus Presbyteria major est saith Saint Austin Episcopacy is greater than the office and dignity of a Presbyter according to the Titles of Honour which the custom of the Church hath introduced But I shall sum up these particulars in a total which is thus expressed by Saint Chrysostom Haeretici à Diabolo Honorum vocabula Episcopis non dare didicerunt Hereticks have learned of the Devil not to give due titles of honour to Bishops The good Patriarch was angry surely when he said so * For my own particular I am confident that my Lords the Bishops do so undervalue any fastuous or pompous title that were not the duty of their people in it they would as easily reject them as it is our duty piously to use them But if they still desire appellatives of honour we must give them they are their due if they desire them not they deserve them much more So that either for their humility or however for their works sake we must highly honour them that have the rule over us It is the precept of S. Paul and S. Cyprian observing how curious our blessed Saviour was that he might give honour to the Priests of the Jews even then
meaning nothing to the giving of life So that here we have besides his authority an excellent Argument for us Christ said he that eateth my flesh hath life but the flesh that is the fleshly sence of it profits nothing to life but the Spirit that is the spiritual sence does therefore these words are to be understood in a spiritual sence 9. And because it is here opportune by occasion of this discourse let me observe this that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is infinitely useless and to no purpose For by the words of our Blessed Lord by the Doctrine of Saint Paul and the sence of the Church and the confession of all sides the natural eating of Christ's flesh if it were there or could so be eaten alone or of it self does no good does not give life but the spiritual eating of him is the instrument of life to us and this may be done without their Transubstantiated flesh it may be done in Baptisme by Faith and Charity by Hearing and understanding and therefore it may also in the blessed Eucharist although there also according to our Doctrine he be eaten only Sacramentally and Spiritually And hence it is that in the Mass-book anciently it is prayed after consecration Quaesumus Omnipotens Deus ut de perceptis muneribus gratias exhibentes beneficia potiora sumamus We beseech thee Almighty God that we giving thanks for these gifts received may receive greater gifts which besides that it concludes against the Natural Presence of Christ's body for what greater thing can we receive if we receive that it also declares that the grace and effect of the Sacramental communion is the thing designed beyond all corporal sumption and as it is more fully express'd in another Collect Vt terrenis affectibus expiati ad superni plenitudinem Sacramenti cujus libavimus sancta tendamus that being redeemed from all earthly affections we may tend to the fulness of the Heavenly Sacrament the Holy things of which we have now begun to taste And therefore to multiply so many miracles and contradictions and impossibilities to no purpose is an insuperable prejudice against any pretence less than a plain declaration from God Add to this that this bodily presence of Christ's body is either for corporal nourishment or for spiritual Not for Corporal for Natural food is more proper for it and to work a Miracle to do that for which so many Natural means are already appointed is to no purpose and therefore cannot be supposed to be done by God neither is it done for spiritual nourishment because to the spiritual nourishment vertues and graces the word and the efficacious signs faith and the inward actions and all the emanations of the Spirit are as proportion'd as meat and drink are to natural nourishment and therefore there can be no need of a Corporal Presence 2. Corporal manducation of Christ's body is apparently inconsistent with the nature and condition of a body 1. Because that which is after the manner of a spirit and not of a body cannot be eaten and drunk after the manner of a body but of a spirit as no man can eat a Cherubin with his mouth if he were made apt to nourish the soul but by the confession of the Roman Doctors Christ's body is present in the Eucharist after the manner of a spirit therefore without proportions to our body or bodily actions 2. That which neither can feel or be felt see or be seen move or be mov'd change or be changed neither do or suffer corporally cannot certainly be eaten corporally but so they affirm concerning the body of our blessed Lord it cannot do or suffer corporally in the Sacrament therefore it cannot be eaten corporally any more than a man can chew a spirit or eat a meditation or swallow a syllogism into his belly This would be so far from being credible that God should work so many Miracles in placing Christ's Natural body for spiritual nourishment that in case it were revealed to be placed there to that purpose it self must need one great Miracle more to verifie it and reduce it to act and it would still be as difficult to explain as it is to tell how the material fire of Hell should torment spirits and souls And Socrates in Plato's Banquent said well Wisdom is not a thing that can be communicated by local or corporal contiguity 3. That the Corporal presence does not nourish spiritually appears because some are nourished spiritually who do not receive the Sacrament at all and some that do receive yet fall short of being spiritually nourished and so do all unworthy Communicants This therefore is to no purpoose and therefore cannot be supposed to be done by the wise God of all the World especially with so great a pomp of Miracles 4. Cardinal Perron affirms that the Real Natural presence of Christ in the Sacrament is to greatest purpose because the residence of Christ's Natural body in our bodies does really and substantially joyn us unto God establishing a true and real Unity between God and Men. And Bellarmine speaks something like this de Euchar. l. 3. c. 9. But concerning this besides that every faithful soul is actually united to Christ without the actual residence of Christ's body in our bodies since every one that is regenerated and born a new of water and of the Spirit is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the same plant with Christ as Saint Paul calls him Rom. 6.5 He hath put on Christ he is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh Galat. 3.27 Ephes. 5.30 and all this by Faith by Baptism by regeneration of the Spirit besides this I say this corporal union of our bodies to the body of God incarnate which these great and witty Dreamers dream of would make man to be God For that which hath a real and substantial unity with God is consubstantial with the true God that is he is really substantially and truly God which to affirm were highest blasphemy 5. One device more there is to pretend an usefulness of the Doctrine of Christ's Natural presence viz. that by his contact and conjunction it becomes the cause and the seed of the Resurrection But besides that this is condemn'd by Vasquez as groundless and by Suarez as improbable and a novel temerity it is highly confuted by their own Doctrine For how can the contact or touch of Christ's body have that or any effect on ours when it can neither be touch'd nor seen nor understood but by faith which Bellarmine expresly affirms But to return from whence I am digressed Tertullian adds in the same place Quia sermo caro erat factus proinde in causam vitae appetendus devorandus auditu ruminandus intellectu fide digerendus Nam paulò antè carnem suam panem quoque coelestem pronunciârat urgens usquequaque per allegoriam necessariorum pabulorum memoriam Patrum qui panes carnes Egyptiorum praeverterant
second or third remove if here Christ begins to change the particulars of his discourse it can primarily relate to nothing but his death upon the Cross at which time he gave his flesh for the life of the world and so giving it it became meat the receiving this gift was a receiving of life for it was given for the life of the world The manner of receiving it is by faith and hearing the word of God submitting our understanding the digesting this meat is imitating the life of Christ conforming to his doctrine and example and as the Sacraments are instruments or acts of this manducation so they come under this discourse and no otherwise 18. But to return This very allegory of the word of God to be called meat and particularly Manna which in this Chapter Christ particularly alludes to is not unusual in the old Testament ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã saith Philo ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Moses said unto them This is the word which the Lord hath given us to eat This is the word which the Lord hath ordained you see what is the food of the soul even the eternal Word of God c. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The Word of God the most honourable and eldest of things is called Mana and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The soul is nourished by the Word qui pastus pulcherrimus est animorum 19. And therefore now I will resume those testimonies of Clemens Alexandrinus of Eusebius S. Basil S. Hierome and S. Bernard which I wav'd before all agreeing upon this exposition that the word of God Christs doctrine is the flesh he speaks of and the receiving it and practising it are the eating his flesh for this sence is the literal and proper and S. Hierom is express to affirm that the other exposition is mystical and that this is the more true and proper and therefore the saying of Bellarmine that they only give the mystical sence is one of his confident sayings without reason or pretence of proof and whereas he adds that they do not deny that these words are also understood literally of the Sacrament I answer it is sufficient that they agree in this sence and the other Fathers do so expound it with an exclusion to the natural sence of eating Christ in the Sacrament particularly this appears in the testimonies of Origen and Saint Ambrose above quoted to which I add the words of Eusebius in the third book of his Theologia Ecclesiastica expounding the 63. verse of the sixth of Saint John he brings in Christ speaking thus Think not that I speak of this flesh which I bear and do not imagine that I appoint you to drink this sensible and corporal blood But know ye that the words which I have spoken are spirit and life Nothing can be fuller to exclude their interpretation and to affirm ours though to do so be not usual unless they were to expound Scripture in opposition to an adversary and to require such hard conditions in the sayings of men that when they speak against Titius they shall be concluded not to speak against Cajus if they do not clap their contrary negative to their positive affirmative though Titius and Cajus be against one another in the cause is a device to escape rather than to intend truth and reality in the discourses of men I conclude It is notorious and evident what Erasmus notes upon this place Hunc locum veteres interpretantur de doctrinâ coelesti sic enim dicit panem suum ut frequenter dixit sermonem suum The Ancient Fathers expound this place of the heavenly doctrine so he calls the bread his own as he said often the word to be his And if the concurrent testimonies of Origen Tertullian Clemens Alexandrinus S. Basil Athanasius Eusebius S. Hierom S. Ambrose S. Austin Theophylact and S. Bernard are a good security for the sence of a place of Scripture we have read their evidence and may proceed to sentence 20. But it was impossible but these words falling upon the allegory of bread and drink and signifying the receiving Christ crucified and communicating with his passion in all the wayes of Faith and Sacrament should also meet with as allegorical expounders and for the likeness of expression be referr'd to sacramental manducation And yet I said this cannot at all infer Transubstantiation though sacramental manducation were only and principally intended For if it had been spoken of the Sacrament the words had been verified in the spiritual sumption of it for as Christ is eaten by faith out of the Sacrament so is he also in the Sacrament as he is real and spiritual meat to the worthy Hearer so is he to the worthy Communicant as Christ's flesh is life to all that obey him so to all that obediently remember him so Christ's flesh is meat indeed however it be taken if it be taken spiritually but not however it be taken if it be taken carnally He is nutritive in all the wayes of spiritual manducation but not in all the wayes of natural eating by their own confession nor in any by ours And therefore it is a vain confidence to run away with the conclusion if they should gain one of the premises But the truth is this It is neither properly spoken of the Sacrament neither if it were would it prove any thing of Transubstantiation 21. I will not be alone in my assertion though the reasonableness and evidence would bear me out Saint Austin saith the same Spiritualiter intelligite quod loquutus sum vobis Non hoc corpus quod videtis manducaturi estis Sacramentum aliquod commendavi vobis spiritualiter intellectum vivificabit nos That which I have spoken is to be understood spiritually ye are not to eat that body which ye see I have commended a Sacrament to you which being understood spiritually will give you life where besides that he gives testimony to the main question on our behalf he also makes sacramentally and spiritually to be all one And again Vt quia jam similitudinem mortis ejus in baptismo accipimus similitudinem quoque sanguinis carnis sumamus ita ut veritas non desit in sacramento ridiculum nullum fiat in Paganis quod cruorem occisi hominis bibamus That as we receive the similitude of his Death in Baptism so we may also receive the likeness of his Flesh and Blood so that neither truth be wanting in the Sacrament nor the Pagans ridiculously affirm that we should drink the blood of the crucified Man Nothing could be spoken more plain in this Question We receive Christ's body in the Eucharist as we are baptized into his death that is by figure and likeness In the Sacrament there is a verity or truth of Christ's body and yet no drinking of blood or eating of flesh so as the Heathen may calumniate us by saying we do that which the men of Capernaum thought Christ taught
And Saint Austin calls the Sacrament prece mysticâ consecratum But concerning this I have largely discoursed in another place But the effect of the consideration in order to the present Question is this that since the change that is made is made not naturally or by a certain number of syllables in the manner of a charm but solemnly sacredly morally and by prayer it becomes also the body of our Lord to moral effects as a consequent of a moral instrument 8. Sixthly And it is considerable that since the ministeries of the Church are but imitations of Christ's Priestood which he officiates in Heaven since he effects all the purposes of his graces and our redemption by intercession and representing in the way of prayer the Sacrifice which he offered on the Cross it follows that the ministeries of the Church must be of the same kind operating in the way of prayer morally and therefore wholly to moral purposes to which the instrument is made proportionable And if these words which are called the words of Consecration be exegetical and enunciative of the change that is made by prayers and other mystical words it cannot be possibly inferred from these words that there is any other change made than what refers to the whole mystery and action and therefore Take eat and this do are as necessary to the Sacrament as Hoc est corpus and declare that it is Christ's body only in the use and administration and therefore not natural but spiritual And this is yet more plain by the words in the Hebrew Text of Saint Matthew Take eat this which is my body plainly supposing the thing to be done already not by the exegetical words but by the precedents the mystick prayer and the words of institution and use and to this I never saw any thing pretended in answer But the force of the Argument upon supposition of the premises is acknowledged to be convincing by an Archbishop of their own Si Christus dandâ consecravit c. If Christ giving the Eucharist did consecrate as Scotus affirmed then the Lutherans will carry the victory who maintain that the body of Christ is in the Eucharist only while it is used while it was taken and eaten And yet on the other side if it was consecrated when Christ said Take eat then he commanded them to take bread and to eat bread which is to destroy the Article of Transubstantiation So that in effect whether it was consecrated by those words or not by those words their new Doctrine is destroyed If it was not consecrated when Christ said Take eat then Christ bid them take bread and eat bread and they did so But if it was consecrated by those words Take eat then the words of consecration refer wholly to use and it is Christ's body only in the taking and eating which is the thing we contend for And into the concession of this Bellarmine is thrust by the force of our Argument For to avoid Christ's giving the Apostles that which he took and brake and blessed that is breâd the same case being governed by all these words he answers Dominum accepisse benedixisse panem sed dedisse panem non vulgarem sed benedictum benedictione mutatum The Lord took bread and blessed it but he gave not common bread but bread blessed and changed by blessing and yet it is certain he gave it them before the words which he calls the words of Consecration To which I add this consideration that all words spoken in the person of another are only declarative and exegetical not operative and practical for in particular if these words hoc est corpus meum were otherwise then the Priest should turn it into his own not into the body of Christ. Neither will it be easie to have an answer not only because the Greeks and Latines are divided in the ground of their argument concerning the mystical instrument of consecration But the Latines themselves have seven several opinions as the Archbishop of Caesarea de capite Fontium hath enumerated them in his nuncupatory Epistle to Pope Sixtus Quintus before his book of divers treatises and that the consecration is made by this is my body though it be now the prevailing opinion yet that by them Christ did not consecrate the elements was the express sentence of Pope Innocent 3. and Innocent 4. and of many ancient Fathers as the same Archbishop of Caesarea testifies in the book now quoted and the Scholasticks are hugely divided upon this point viz. Whether these words are to be taken materially or significatively the expression is barbarous and rude but they mean whether they be consecratory or declarative Aquinas makes them consecratory and his authority brought that opinion into credit and yet Scotus and his followers are against it and they that affirm them to be taken significatively that is to be consecratory are divided into so many opinions that they are not easie to be reckoned only Guido Brianson reckons nine and his own makes the tenth This I take upon the credit of one of their own Archbishops 9. But I proceed to follow them in their own way whether Hoc est corpus meum do effect or signify the change yet the change is not natural and proper but figurative sacramental and spiritual exhibiting what it signifies being real to all intents and purposes of the Spirit and this I shall first shew by discussing the words of institution first those which they suppose to be the consecratory words and then the other 10. Hoc est corpus meum Concerning which form of words we must know that as the Eucharist it self was in the external and ritual part an imitation of a custome and a sacramental already in use among the Jews for the major domo to break bread and distribute wine at the Passeover after supper to the eldest according to his age to the youngest according to his youth as it is notorious and known in the practice of the Jews so also were the very words which Christ spake in this changed subject an imitation of the words which were then used This is the bread of sorrow which our Fathers eat in Egypt This is the Passeover and this Passeover was called the body of the Paschal Lamb nay it was called the body of our Saviour and our Saviour himself ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã said Justin Martyr dial cum Tryph. And Esdras said to the Jews This passeover is our Saviour and This is the body of our Saviour as it is noted by others So that here the words were made ready for Christ and made his by appropriation by meum he was the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world he is the true Passeover which he then affirming called that which was the Antitype of the Passeover the Lamb of God His body the body of the true Passeover to wit in the same sacramental sence in which the like words were affirmed in
the Mosaical Passeover SECT V. 1. HOC This That is this bread is my body this cup or the wine in the cup is my blood concerning the chalice there can be no doubt it is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã hic calix this chalice and as little of the other The Fathers refer the Pronoun demonstrative to bread saying that of bread it was Christ affirmed This is my body which I shall have in the sequel more occasion to prove for the present these may suffice Christus panem corpus suum appellat saith Tertullian Nos audiamus panem quem fregit Dominus esse corpus salvatoris so S. Hierome ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã so S. Cyril of Alexandria called bread his flesh Theodoret saith that to the body he gave the name of the symbol and to the symbol the name of his body ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã therefore signifies this bread and it matters not that bread in the Greek is of the masculine gender for the substantive being understood not expressed by the rule of Grammar the adjective must be the neuter gender and it is taken substantively Neither is there any inconvenience in this as Bellarmine weakly dreams upon as weak suggestions For when he had said that hoc is either taken adjectively or substantively he proceeds not adjectively for then it must agree with the substantive which in this case is masculine bread being so both in Greek and Latine But if you say it is taken substantively as we contend it is he confutes you thus If it be taken substantively so that hoc signifies this thing and so be referred to bread then it is most absurd because it cannot be spoken of any thing seen that is of a substantive unless it agrees with it and be of the same gender that is in plain English It is neither taken adjectively nor substantively not adjectively because it is not of the same gender not substantively because it is not of the same gender that is because substantively it is not adjectively But the reason he adds is as frivolous because no man pointing to his brother will say hoc est frater meus but hic est fraâer meus I grant it But if it be a thing without life you may affirm it in the neuter gender because it being of neither sex the subject is supplyed by thing so that you may say hoc est aqua this is water so in S. Peter ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã this is grace and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã But of a person present you cannot say so because he is present and there is nothing distinct from him neither re nor ratione in the thing nor in the understanding and therefore you must say hic not hoc because there is no subject to be supposed distinct from the predicate But when you see an image or figure of your brother you may then say hoc est frater meus because here is something to make a subject distinct from the predicate This thing or this picture this figure or this any thing that can be understood and not expressed may make a neuter gender and every School-boy knows it so it is in the blessed Sacrament there is a Subject or a thing distinct from Corpus This bread this which you see is my body and therefore is in Hoc no impropriety though bread he understood 2. To which I add this that though bread be the nearest part of the thing demonstrated yet it is not bread alone but sacramental bread that is bread so used broken given eaten as it is in the institution and use ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã this is my body and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã refers to the whole action about the bread and wine and so ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã may be easily understood without an impropriety And indeed it is necessary that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã this should take in the whole action on all sides because the bread neither is the natural body of Christ nor yet is it alone a sufficient symbol or representment of it But the bread broken blessed given distributed taken eaten this is Christs body viz. as Origens expression is typicuâ symbolicúmque corpus By the way give me leave to express some little indignation against those words of Bellarmine which cannot easily be excused from blasphemy saying that if our Lord had said of the bread which the Apostles saw and knew to be bread This is my body absurdissima esset locutio it had been a most absurd speech So careless are these opiniators of what they say that rather than their own fond opinions should be confuted they care not to impute non-sence to the eternal Wisdom of the Father And yet that Christ did say this of bread so ordered and to be used Hoc est corpus meum besides that the thing is notorious I shall prove most evidently 3. First That which Christ broke which he gave to his disciples which he bid them eat that he affirmed was his body What gave he but what he broke what did he break but that which he took what did he take accepit panem saith the Scripture he took bread therefore of bread it was that he affirmed it was his body Now the Roman Doctors will by no means endure this for if of bread he affirmed it to be his body then we have cleared the Question for it is bread and Christs body too that is it is bread naturally and Christs body spiritually for that it cannot be both naturally they unanimously affirm And we are sure upon this Article for disparatum de disparato non praedicatur propriè It is a rule of nature and essential reason If it be bread it is not a stone if it be a Mouse it is not a Mule and therefore when there is any predication made of one diverse thing by another the proposition must needs be improper and figurative And the Gloss of Gratian disputes it well If bread be the body of Christ viz. properly and naturally then something that is not born of the Virgin Mary is the body of Christ and the body of Christ should be both alive and dead Now that Hoc This points to bread besides the notoriousness of the thing in the story of the Gospels in the matter of fact and S. Paul calling it bread so often as I shall shew in the sequel it ought to be certain to the Roman Doctors and confessed because by their Doctrines when Christ said Hoc This and a while after it was bread because it was not consecrated till the last syllable was spoken To avoid this therefore they turn themselves into all the opinions and disguises that can be devised Stapleton says that Hoc This does only signifie the predicate and is referred to the body so as Adam said This is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone Hoc not this rib but this thing this predicate So Hic est filius
corpus meum viz. spiritualiter than to say hoc est that is sub his speciebus est corpus meum And this was the sence of Ocham the Father of the Nominalists it may be held that under the species of bread there remains also the substance because this is neither against reason nor any authority of the Bible and of all the manners this is most reasonable and more easie to maintain and from thence follow fewer inconveniences than from any other Yet because of the determination of the Church viz. of Rome all the Doctors commonly hold the contrary By the way observe that their Church hath determined against that against which neither the Scripture nor reason hath determined 2. The case is clearer in the other kind as in transition I noted above ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã hic calix I demand to what ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Hic This does refer What it demonstrates and points at The text sets the substantive down ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã this cup that is the wine in this cup of this it is that he affirmed it to be the blood of the New Testament or the New Testament in his blood that is this is the sanction of the everlasting Testament I make it in my blood this is the Symbol what I do now in sign I will do to morrow in substance and you shall for ever after remember and represent it thus in Sacrament I cannot devise what to say plainer than that this ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã points at the chalice Hoc potate merum So Juvencus a Priest of Spain in the reign of Constantine Drink this wine But by the way this troubled some body and therefore an order was taken to corrupt the words by changing them into Hunc potate meum but that the cheat was too apparent And if it be so of one kind it is so in both that is beyond all question Against this Bellarmine brings argumentum robustissimum a most robustious argument By ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or cup cannot be meant the wine in the cup because it follows ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã This Cup is the New Testament in my blood which was shed for you referring to the cup for the word can agree with nothing but the cup therefore by the cup is meant not wine but blood for that was poured out To this I oppose these things 1. Though it does not agree with ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã yet it must refer to it and is an ordinary ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã of case called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and it is not unusual in the best masters of Language ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in Demosthenes so also Goclenius in his Grammatical problemes observes another out of Cicero Benè autem dicere quod est peritè loqui non habet definitam aliquam regionem cujus terminis septa teneatur Many more he cites out of Plato Homer and Virgil and me thinks these men should least of all object this since in their Latin Bible Sixtus Senensis confesses and all the world knows there are innumerable barbarisms and improprieties hyperbata and Antipâoses But in the present case it is easily supplyed by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which is frequently understood and implyed in the article ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that is in my bloud which is shed for you 2. If it were referred to cup then the figure were more strong and violent and the expression less litteral and therefore it makes much against them who are undone if you admit figurative expressions in the institution of this Sacrament 3. To what can ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã refer but to ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã This cup and let what sence soever be affixed to it afterwards if it do not suppose a figure then there is no such thing as figures or words or truth or things 4. That ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã must refer to ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã appears by S. Matthew and S. Mark where the word is directly applyed to bloud S. Paul uses not the word and Bellarmine himself gives the rule verba Domini rectiùs exposita à Marco c. When one Evangelist is plain by him we are to expound another that is not plain and S. Basil in his reading of the words either following some ancienter Greek copy or else mending it out of the other Evangelists changes the case into perfect Grammar and good Divinity ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 6. Thirdly symbols of the blessed Sacrament are called bread and the cup after Consecration that is in the whole use of them This is twice affirmed by S. Paul The Cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communication so it should be read of the bloud of Christ the bread which we break is it not the communication of the body of Christ as if he had said This bread is Christs body though there be also this mystery in it This bread is the communication of Christs body that is the exhibition and donation of it not Christs body formally but virtually and effectively it makes us communicate with Christs body in all the effects and benefits A like expression we have in Valerius Maximus where Scipio in the feast of Jupiter is said Graccho Communicasse concordiam that is consignasse he communicated concord he consigned it with the sacrifice giving him peace and friendship the benefit of that communication and so is the cup of benediction that is when the cup is blessed it communicates Christs blood and so does the blessed bread for to eat the bread in the New Testament is the sacrifice of Christians they are the words of S. Austin Omnes de uno pane participamus so S. Paul we all partake of this one bread Hence the argument is plain That which is broken is the communication of Christs body But that which is broken is bread therefore bread is the communication of Christs body The bread which we break those are the words 7. Fourthly The other place of S. Paul is plainer yet Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. And so often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye declare the Lords death till he come and the same also vers 27. three times in this chapter he calls the Eucharist Bread It is bread sacramental bread when the communicant eats it But he that in the Church of Rome should call to the Priest to give him a piece of bread would quickly find that instead of bread he should have a stone or something as bad But S. Paul had a little of the Macedonian simplicity calling things by their own plain names 8. Fifthly against this some little things are pretended in answer by the Roman Doctors 1. That the holy Eucharist or the sacred body is called bread because it is made of bread as Eve is
common day yet these negatives suppose the affirmative of their proper subject Corinthian brass is brass Colossus is a statue and Christmas day is a day But if you affirm of a counterfeit or of an image or a picture by saying it is no common thing you deny to it the ordinary nature by diminution but if it have the nature of the thing then to say it is not common denies the ordinary nature by addition and eminency the first says it is not so at all the second says it is more than so and this is taught to every man by common reason and he could have observed it if he had pleased for it is plain Justin said this of that which before the Consecration was known to be natural bread and therefore now to say it was not common bread is to say it is bread and something more 2. The second reason from the words of Justin to prove it to be natural food still is because it is that by which our blood and our flesh is nourished by change Bellarmine says that these words by which our flesh and blood is nourished mean by which they use to be nourished not meaning that they are nourished by this bread when it is Eucharistical But besides that this is gratis dictum without any colour or pretence from the words of Justin but by a presumption taken from his own opinion as if it were impossible that Justin should mean any thing against his doctrine besides this I say the interpretation is insolent Nutriuntur i. e. solent nutriri as also because both the verbs are of the present tense ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The flesh and blood are nourished by bread and it is the body of Christ that is both in conjunction so that he says not as Bellarmine would have him Cibus ille ex quo carnes nostrae ali solent cum prece mysticâ consecratur efficitur corpus Christi but Cibus ille quo carnes nostrae aluntur est corpus Christi The difference is material and the matter is apparent but upon this alone I rely not To the same purpose are the words of Irenaeus Dominus accipiens panem suum corpus esse confitebatur temperamentum calicis suum sanguinem confirmavit Our Lord taking bread confessed it to be his body and the mixture of the cup he confirmed to be his blood Here Irenaeus affirms to be true what Bellarmine says non potest fieri cannot be done that in the same proposition bread should be the subject and body should be the praedicate Irenaeus sayes that Christ said it to be so and him we follow But most plainly in his fifth Book Quando ergo mixtus calix fractus panis percipit verbum dei fit Eucharistia sanguinis corporis Christi ex quibus augetur consistit carnis nostrae substantia Quomodo carnem negant capacem esse donationis Dei qui est vita aeterna quae sanguine corpore Christi nutritur and a little after he affirms that we are flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones and that this is not understood of the spiritual man but of the natural disposition or temper quae de calice qui est sanguis ejus nutritur de pane qui est corpus ejus augetur and again eum calicem qui est creatura suum sanguinem qui effusus est ex quo auget nostrum sanguinem eum panem c. qui est creatura suum corpus confirmavit ex quo nostra auget corpora it is made the Eucharist of the bread and the body of Christ out of that of which the substance of our flesh consists and is encreased by the bread which he confirmed to be his body he encreases our bodies by the blood which was poured out he encreases our blood that is the sence of Irenaeus so often repeated And to the same purpose is that of Origen ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The bread which is called the Eucharist is to us the symbol of thanksgiving or Eucharist to God So also Tertullian acceptum panem distributum discipulis suis corpus suum fecit He made the bread which he took and distributed to his disciples to be his body But more plainly in his Book De Coronâ militis Calicis aut panis nostri aliquid decuti in terram anxiè patimur we cannot endure that any of the cup or any thing of the bread be thrown to the ground The Eucharist he plainly calls bread and that he speaks of the Eucharist is certain and Bellarmine quotes the words to the purpose of shewing how reverently the Eucharist was handled and regarded The like is in S. Cyprian Dominus corpus suum panem vocat sanguinem suum vinum appellat Our Lord calls bread his body and wine his blood So John Maxentius in the time of Pope Hormisda The bread which the whole Church receives in memory of the Passion is the body of Christ. And S. Cyril of Jerusalem is earnest in this affair since our Lord hath declared and said to us of bread This is my body who shall dare to doubt it which words I the rather note because Cardinal Perron brings them as if they made for his cause which they most evidently destroy For if of bread Christ made this affirmation that it is his body then it is both bread and Christs body too and that is it which we contend for In the Dialogues against the Marciânites collected out of Maximus Origen is brought in proving the reality of Christs flesh and blood in his incarnation by this argument If as these men say he be without flesh and bloud ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. Of what body and of what bloud did he command the images or figures giving the bread and cup to his Disciples that by these a remembrance of him should be made But Acacius the successor of Eusebius in his Bishoprick calls it bread and wine even in the very use and sanctification of us Panis vinúmque ex hâc materiâ vescentes sanctificat the bread and wine sanctifies them that are fed with this matter In typo sanguinis sui non obtulit aquam sed vinum so S. Hierome he offered wine not water in the type representment or sacrament of his bloud To the same purpose but most plain are the words of Theodoret ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã In the exhibition of the mysteries he called bread his body and the mixture in the chalice he called bloud So also S. Austin Serm. 9. De diversis The Eucharist is our daily bread but we receive it so that we are not only nourished by the belly but also by the understanding And I cannot understand the meaning of plain Latin if the same thing be not affirmed in the little Mass-book published by Paulus 5. for the English Priests Deus qui humani generis
is either sepulchrum or sepultura the grave or the burial but either of them is a figure and it is so much used in sacramental and mystick propositions that they are all so or may be so ut baptismus sepulchrum sic hoc est corpus meum saith S. Austin And this is also observed in Gentile rites ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã So Homer The slain Lambs and the wine were the Sacrament the faithful oaths that is the rite and mysterie of their sanction they were oaths figuratively 6. Fourthly But to save the labour of more instances S. Austin hath made the observation and himself gives in a list of particulars solet autem res quae significat ejus rei nomine quam significat nuncupari septem spicae septem anni sunt non enim dixit septem annos significant multa hujusmodi Hinc est quod dictum erat Petra erat Christus non enim dixit Petra significat Christum sed tanquam hoc esset quod utique per substantiam non erat sed per significationem The thing which signifies is wont to be called by that which it signifies the seven ears of corn are seven years he did not say they signified seven years but are and many like this Hence it is said the rock was Christ for he said not the rock signifies Christ but as if the thing were that not which it were in his own substance but in signification Pervulgatum est in Scripturâ ut res figurata nomen habeat figurae saith Ribera That this is no usual thing is confessed on all hands So is that of Exodus the Lamb is the Passeover and this does so verifie Saint Austins words that in the New Testament the Apostles asked our Lord Where wilt thou that we prepare to eat the Passeover that is the Lamb which was the remembrance of the Passeover as the blessed Eucharist is of the death of Christ. To this instance Bellarmine speaks nothing to purpose for he denies the Lamb to signifie the Passeover or the passing of the Angel over the houses of Israel because there is no likelihood between the Lamb and the Passeover and to make the business up he says the Lamb was the Passeover By some straining the Lamb slain might signifie the slaying the Egyptians and remember their own escape at the time when they first eat the Lamb But by no straining could the Lamb be the thing especially if for the dissimilitude it could not so much as signifie it how could it be the very same to which it was so extreamly unlike but he always says something though it be nothing to the purpose and yet it may be remembred that the eating the Lamb was as proper an instrument of remembrance of that deliverance as the eating consecrated bread is of the passion of our blessed Lord. But it seems the Lamb is the very passeover as the very festival day is called the Passeover so he And he says true in the same manner but that is but by a trope or figure for the feast is the feast of the Passeover if you speak properly it is the Passeover by a Metonymie and so is the Lamb. And this instance is so much the more apposite because it is the fore-runner of the blessed Eucharist which succeeded that as Baptism did Circumcision and there is nothing of sence that hath been or I think can be spoken to evade the force of this instance nor of the many other before reckoned 8. Fifthly And as it is usual in all Sacraments so particularly it must be here in which there is such a heap of tropes and figurative speeches that almost in every word there is plainly a trope For 1. Here is the Cup taken for the thing contained in it 2. Testament for the legacy given by it 3. This is not in recto but in obliquo This that is not this which you see but this which you do not see This which is under the species is my dody 4. My body but not bodily my body without the forms and figure of my body that is my body not as it is in nature not as it is in glory but as it is in Sacrament that is my body Sacramentally 5. Drink ye that is also improper for his blood is not drunk properly for blood hath the same manner of existing in the chalice as it hath in the Paten that is is under the form of wine as it is under the form of bread and therefore it is in the veins not separate say they and yet it is in the bread as it is in the chalice and in both as upon the Cross that is poured out so Christ said expresly for else it were so far from being his blood that it were not so much as the Sacrament of what he gave so that the wine in the chalice is not drunk because it is not separate from the body and in the bread it cannot be drunk because there it is not in the veins or if it were yet is made as a consistent thing by the continent but is not potable now that which follows from hence is that it is not drunk at all properly but figuratively and so Mr. Brerely confesses sometimes and Jansenius There is also an impropriety in the word given for shall be given is poured out for shall be poured out in broken for then it was not broken when Christ spake it and it cannot be properly spoken since his glorification Salmeron allows an Enallage in the former and Suarez a Metaphor in the latter Frangi cùm dicitur est Metaphorica locutio And this is their excuse why in the Roman missal they leave out the words which is broken for you for they do what they please they put in some words which Christ used not and leave out something that he did use and yet they are all the words of institution And upon the same account there is another trope in eat and yet with a strange confidence these men wonder at us for saying the sacramental words are tropical or figurative when even by their own confession and proper grounds there is scarce any word in the whole institution but admits an impropriety And then concerning the main predication This is my body as Christ called bread his body so he called his body bread and both these affirmatives are destructive of Transubstantiation for if of bread Christ affirmed It is his body by the rule of disparates it is figurative and if of his body he affirmed it to be bread it is certain also and confessed to be a figure Now concerning this besides that our blessed Saviour affirmed himself to be the bread that came down from heaven calling himself bread and in the institution calling bread his body we have the express words of Theodoret ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Christ gave to his body the name of the Symbol and to the
his natural body then it was naturally broken and his bloud was actually poured forth before the passion for he gave ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã his body was delivered broken his bloud was shed Now those words were spoken either properly and naturally and then they were not true because his body was yet whole his bloud still in the proper channels or else it was spoken in a figurative and sacramental sence and so it was true as were all the words which our blessed Saviour spake for that which he then ministred was the Sacrament of his Passion 3. Secondly If Christ gave his body in the natural sence at the last Supper then it was either a sacrifice propitiatory or it was not If it was not then it is not now and then their dream of the Mass is vanished if it was propitiatory at the last Supper then God was reconciled to all the world and mankind was redeemed before the Passion of our blessed Saviour which therefore would have been needless and ineffective so fearful are the consequents of this strange doctrine 4. Thirdly If Christ gave his body properly in the last Supper and not only figuratively and in sacrament then it could not be a representment or sacrament of his Passion but a real exhibition of it but that it was a Sacrament only appears by considering that it was then alive that the Passion was future that the thing was really to be performed upon the Cross that then he was to be delivered for the life of the world In the last Supper all this was in type and sacrament because it was before and the substance was to follow after 5. Fourthly If the natural body of Christ was in the last Supper under the accidents of bread then his body at the same time was visible and invisible in the whole substance visible in his person invisible under the accidents of bread and then it would be inquired what it was which the Apostles received what benefits they could have by receiving the body naturally or whether it be imaginable that the Apostles understoood it in the literal sence when they saw his body stand by unbroken alive integral hypostatical 6. Fifthly If Christs body were naturally in the Sacrament I demand whether it be as it was in the last Supper or as upon the Cross or as it is now in Heaven Not as in the last Supper for then it was frangible but not broken but typically by design in figure and in Sacrament as it is evident in matter of fact 2. Not as on the Cross for there the body was frangible and broken too and the blood spilled and if it were so now in the Sacrament besides that it were to make Christs glorified body passible and to crucifie the Lord of life again it also were not the same body which Christ hath now for his Body that he hath now is spiritual and incorruptible and cannot be otherwise much less can it be so and not so at the same time properly and yet be the same body 3. Not as in Heaven where it is neither corruptible nor broken for then in the Sacrament there were given to us Christs glorified body and then neither were the Sacrament a remembrance of Christs death neither were the words of Institution verified This is my body which is broken besides in this we have Bellarmines confession Neque enim ore corporali sumi potest corpus Christi ut est in coelo But then if it be remembred that Christ hath no other body but that which is in Heaven and that can never be otherwise than it is and so it cannot be received otherwise properly it unanswerably follows that if it be received in any other manner as it must if it be at all it must be received not naturally or corporally but spiritually and indeed By a figure or a sacramental spiritual sence all these difficulties are easily assoiled but by the natural never 7. Sixthly At the last Supper they eat the blessed Eucharist but it was not in remembrance of Christs death for it was future then and therefore not then capable of being remembred any more than a man can be said to remember what will be done to morrow it follows from hence that then Christ only instituted a Sacrament or figurative mysterious representment of a thing that in the whole use of it was variable by heri and cras and therefore never to be naturally verified but on the Cross by a proper and natural presence because then it was so and never else at that time it was future and now it is past and in both it is relative to his death therefore it could not be a real exhibition of his body in a natural sence for that as it could not be remembred then so neither broken now that is nothing of it is natural but it is wholly ritual mysterious and sacramental For that this was the sacrament of his death appears in the words of Institution and by the preceptive words Do this in remembrance of me And in the reason subjoyned by S. Paul ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. For so often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye shew the Lords death till he come Therefore when Christ said This is my body given or broken on my part taken eaten on yours it can be nothing else but the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the sacramental image of his death to effect which purpose it could not be necessary or useful to bring his natural body that so the substance should become his own shadow the natural presence be his own Sacrament or rather the image and representment of what he once suffered His body given in the Sacrament is the application and memory of his death and no more that as Christ in Heaven represents his death in the way of intercession so do we by our ministery but as in Heaven it is wholly a representing of his body crucified a rememoration of his crucifixion of his death passion by which he reconciled God and man so it is in the Sacrament after our manner This is my body given for you that is This is the Sacrament of my death in which my body was given for you For as Aquinas said in all sciences words signifie things but it is proper to Theology that things themselves signified or expressed by voices should also signifie something beyond it This is my body are the sacramental words or those words by which the mystery or the thing is sacramental it must therefore signifie something beyond these words and so they do for they signifie the death which Christ suffered in that body It is but an imperfect conception of the mystery to say it is the Sacrament of Christs body only or his blood but it is ex parte rei a Sacrament of the death of his body and to us a participation or an exhibition of it as it became beneficial to us that
THUS I have by very many arguments taken from the words and circumstances and annexes of the Institution or Consecration proved that the sence of this mystery is mysterious and spiritual that Christs body is eaten only sacramentally by the body but really and effectively only by faith which is the mouth of the soul that the flesh profiteth nothing but the words which Christ spake are spirit and life And let it be considered Whether besides a pertinacious resolution that they will understand these words as they found in the letter not as they are intended in the spirit there be any thing or indeed can be in the nature of the thing or circumstances of it or usefulness or in the different forms of words or the Analogy of the other discourses of Christ that can give colour to their literal sence against which so much reason and Scripture and arguments from Antiquity do contest This only I observe that they bring no pretence of other Scriptures to warrant this interpretation but such which I have or shall wrest out of their hands and which to all mens first apprehensions and at the very first sight do make against them and which without curious notion and devices cannot pretend on their side as appears first in the tenth Chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians Verses 16 17. 2. Out of which I have already proved that Christs body is not taken in the natural sence but in the spiritual But when Bellarmine had out of the same words forced for himself three arguments proving nothing to save any man the labour of answering them he adds at the end of them these words Sed tota difficultas est as corporaliter realiter propriè sumatur sanguis caro an solùm significativè spiritualiter Quod autem corporaliter propriè probari posset omnibus argumentis quibus suprà probavimus propriè esse intelligenda verba illa institutionis Hoc est corpus meum That is after his arguments out of the first Epistle to the Corinthians were ended all the difficulty of the question still remained and that he was fain to prove by Hoc est corpus meum and the proper arguments of that but brings nothing from the words of S. Paul in this Chapter But to make up this also he does corrodere scrape together some things extrinsecal to the words of this authority as 1. That the literal sence is to be presumed unless the contrary be proved which is very true but I have evidently proved the contrary concerning the words of Institution and for the words in this Chapter if the literal sence be preferred then the bread remains after Consecration because it is called bread 2. So the Primitive Saints expounded it which how true it is I shall consider in his own place 3. The Apostle calling the Gentiles from their sacrificed flesh proposes to them a more excellent banquet but it were not more excellent if it were only a figure of Christs body so Bellarmine which is a fit cover for such a dish for 1. We do not say that in the Sacrament we only receive the sign and figure of Christs body but all the real effects and benefits of it 2. If we had yet it is not very much better than blasphemy to say that the Apostles had not prevailed upon that account For if the very figure and sacrament of Christs body be better than sacrifices offered to Devils the Apostle had prevailed though this sentence were true that in the Sacrament we receive only the figure And thus I have for all that is said against it made it apparent that there is nothing in that place for their corporal presence 3. There is one thing more which out of Scripture they urge for the corporal presence viz. He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lords body and he shall be guilty of the body and blood of Christ. Where they observe that they that eat unworthily do yet eat Christs body because how else could they be guilty of it and condemned for not discerning it 4. To this I answer many things 1. S. Paul does not say He that eateth and drinketh Christs body and blood unworthily c. but indefinitely He that eateth and drinketh c. yet it is probable he would have said so if it had been a proper form of speech because by so doing it would have layed a greater load upon them 2. Where S. Paul does not speak indefinitely he speaks most clearly against the Article in the Roman sence for he calls it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The cup of the Lord and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã this bread and he that eats this bread unworthily is guilty of the body and blood of Christ and now these comminatory phrases are quitted from their pretence but yet they have their proper consideration Therefore 3. Not discerning the Lords body is not separating it from profane and common usages not treating it with addresses proper to the mystery To which phrase Justin gives light in these words ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã we do not receive it as common bread and common drink but ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. but nourishment made Eucharistical or blessed by the word of Prayer and so it is the body and blood of the Lord. 4. It is the body of the Lord in the same sence here as in the words of institution which I have evinced to be exegetical sacramental and spiritual and by despising the sacrament of it we become guilty of the body and blood of Christ. Reus erit corporis sanguinis Christi qui tanti mysterii sacramentum despexerit saith S. Hierome And it is in this as Severianus said concerning the statutes of Theodosius broken in despight by the Antiochians ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã If you abuse the Kings Image the affront relates to your Prince 5. The unworthy receiver is guilty of the body and blood of Christ not naturally for that cannot now be and nothing is a greater probation of the spiritual sence of the words in this place than this which they would intice into their party For Christs body is glorified and not capable of natural injury but the evil communicant is guilty of the body and blood of Christ just as relapsing Christians are said by the same Apostles to crucifie the Lord of life again and put him to an open shame which I suppose they cannot do naturally or corporally One is as the other that is both are tropical or figurative 5. These are all that they pretend from Scripture and all these are nothing to their purpose but now besides what I have already said I shall bring arguments from other Scriptures which will not so easily be put off SECT IX Arguments from other Scriptures proving Christs Real Presence in the Sacrament to be only Spiritual not Natural 1. THE first is taken from those words of our
these 4. Origen says that the Christian people drinketh the blood of Christ and the flesh of the word of God is true food What then so say we too but it is Spiritual food and we drink the blood Spiritually He says nothing against that but very much for it as I have in several places remarked already 5. But how can this expound the other words Christian people eat Christs flesh and drink his blood therefore when Origen says the material part the Symbolical body of Christ is eaten naturally and cast into the draught he means not the body of Christ in his material part but the accidents of bread the colour the taste the quantity these are cast out by the belly Verily a goodly argument if a man could guess in what mood and figure it could conclude 6. When a man speaks distinctly and particularly it is certain he is easier to be understood in his particular and minute meaning than when he speaks generally But here he distinguishes a part from a part one sence from another the body in one sence from the body in another therefore these words are to expound the more general and not they to expound these unless the general be more particular than that that is distinguished into kinds that is unless the general be a particular and the particular be a general 7. Amalarius was so amus'd with these words and discourse of Origen that his understanding grew giddy and he did not know whether the body of Christ were invisibly taken up into Heaven or kept till our death in the body or expired at letting of blood or exhal'd in air or spit out or breath'd forth our Lord saying That which enters into the mouth descends into the belly and so goes forth into the draught The man was willing to be of the new opinion of the Real Presence because it began to be the mode of the Age. But his folly was soberly reproved by a Synod at Carisiacum about the time of Pope Gregory the Fourth where the difficulty of Origens argument was better answered and the Article determined that the bread and wine are spiritually made the body of Christ which being a meat of the mind and not of the belly is not corrupted but remaineth unto everlasting life 8. To expound these words of the accidents of bread only and say that they enter into the belly and go forth in the draught is a device of them that care not what they say for 1. It makes that the ejectamentum or excrement of the body should consist of colour and quantity without any substance 2. It makes a man to be nourished by accidents and so not only one substance to be changed into another but that accidents are changed into substances which must be if they nourish the body and pass in latrinam and then beyond the device of Transubstantiation we have another production from Africa a transaccidentisubstantiation a ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 3. It makes accidents to have all the affections of substances as motion substantial corruption alteration that is not to be accidents but substances For matter and form are substances and those that integrate all physical and compound substances but till yesterday it was never heard that accidents could Yea but magnitude is a material quality and ground or subject of the accidents So it is said but it is nonsence For besides that magnitude is not a quality but a quantity neither can it be properly or truly said to be material but imperfectly because it is an affection of matter and however it is a contradiction to say that it is the ground of qualities for an accident cannot be the fundamentum the ground or subject of an accident that is the formality and definition of a substance as every young scholar hath read in Aristotles Categories so that to say that it is the ground of accidents is to say that accidents are subjected in magnitude that is that magnitude is neither a quantity nor quality but a substance ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã An accident always subsists in a subject says Porphyrie 9. This answer cannot be fitted to the words of Origen for that which he calls the quid materiale or the material part in the Sacrament he calls it the Symbolical body which cannot be affirmed of accidents because there is no likeness between the accidents the colour the shape the figure the roundness the weight the magnitude of the host or wafer and Christs body and therefore to call the accidents a Symbolical body is to call it an unsymbolical Symbol an unlike similitude a representment without analogy But if he means the consecrated bread the whole action of consecration distribution sumption manducation this is the Symbolical body according to the words of S. Paul He that drinks this cup and eats this bread represents the Lords death it is the figure of Christs crucified body of his passion and our redemption 10. It is a strange expression to call accidents a body ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã says Aristotle a body may be called white but the definition or reason of the accident can never be affirmed of a body I conclude that this argument out of the words of our blessed Saviour urged also and affirmed by Origen do prove that Christs body is in the Sacrament only to be eaten in a Spiritual sence not at all in a Natural lest that consequent be the event of it which to affirm of Christs glorified body in the natural and proper sence were very blasphemy 2. The next argument from Scripture is taken from Christs departing from this world his going from us the ascension of his body and soul into Heaven his not being with us his being contained in the Heavens So said our blessed Saviour Vnless I go hence the Comforter cannot come and I go to prepare a place for you The poor ye have always but me ye have not always S. Peter affirms of him that the Heavens must receive him till the time of restitution of all things Now how these things can be true of Christ according to his humane nature that is a circumscribed body and a definite soul is the question And to this the answer is the same in effect which is given by the Roman Doctors and by the Vbiquitaries whom they call Hereticks These men say Christs humane nature is every where actually by reason of his hypostatical union with the Deity which is every where the Romanists say no it is not actually every where but it may be where and is in as many places as he please for although he be in Heaven yet so is God too and yet God is upon earth eodem modo says Bellarmine in the same manner the Man Christ although he be in Heaven yet also he can be out of Heaven where he please he can be in Heaven and out of Heaven Now these two opinions are concentred in the main impossibility that is that Christs body can
the accidents of a body were not communicable to a Spirit but how easily might they have been deceived if it had pleased God to invest other substances with new and stranger accidents For though a Spirit hath not flesh and bones they may represent to the eyes and hands the accidents of flesh and bones and if it could in the matter of faith stand with the goodness and wisdom of God to suffer it what certainty could there be of any Article of our religion relating to Christs humanity or any proposition proved by miracles To this instance the man that must answer all I mean Bellarmine ventures something saying it was a good argument of our blessed Saviour Handle and see that I am no Spirit That which is handled and seen is no Spirit But it is no good argument to say This is not seen not handled therefore it is no body and therefore the body of Christ may be naturally in the Sacrament though it is not seen nor handled To this I reply 1. That suppose it were true what he said yet it would also follow by his own words This is seen bread and is handled so therefore it is bread Hoc enim affirmativè colligitur This is the affirmative consequent made by our blessed Lord and here confessed to be certain It being the same collection It is I for by feeling and seeing you shall believe it to be so and it is bread for by feeling and seeing and tasting and smelling it you shall perceive it to be so To which let this be added That in Scripture it is as plainly affirmed to be bread as it is called Christs body Now then because it cannot be both in the proper and natural sence but one of them must be figurative and tropical since both of the appellatives are equally affirm'd is it not notorious that in this case we ought to give judgment on that side which we are prompted to by common sense If Christ had said only This is my body and no Apostle had told us also that it is bread we had reason to suspect our senses to be deceived if it were possible they should be but when it is equally affirmed to be bread as to be our Lords body and but one of them can be naturally true and in the letter shall the testimony of all our senses be absolutely of no use in casting the ballance The two affirmatives are equal one must be expounded tropically which will you chuse Is there in the world any thing more certain and expedite than that what you see and feel and taste naturall and proper should be judged to be that which you see and feel and taste naturally and properly and therefore that the other be expounded tropically since you must expound one of the words tropically I think it is not hard to determine whether you ought to do it against your sense or with it But it is also remarkable that our blessed Lord did not only by feeling and seeing prove it to be a body but by proving it was his body he proved it was himself that is by these accidents representing my person ye are not led into an error of the person any more than of the kind of substance See my hands and my feet ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that it is even I my self this I noted lest a silly escape be made by pretending these accidents only proved Christ to be no Spirit but a body and so the accidents of bread declare a latent body meaning the body of Christ For as the accidents of a body declare the substance of a body so the particular accidents of this kind declare this kind of this person declare this person For so our blessed Saviour proved it to be himself in particular and if it were not so the deceit would pass from one thing to another and although it had not been a Spirit yet it might be John the Baptist risen from the dead or Moses or Elias and not Jesus their dear Lord. Besides if this had been all that Jesus had intended only to prove he was no spectrum but a body he had not done what was intended For put case it had been a Spirit and had assumed a body as Bellarmine in the very next Paragraph forgetting himself or else being entangled in the wildernesses of an inconsistent discourse affirms that in Scriptures the Israelites did sometimes see and then they were not deceived in touching or seeing a body for there was a body assumed and so it seemed to Abraham and Lot but then suppose Jesus Christ had done so and had been indeed a Spirit in an assumed body had not the Apostles been deceived by their feeling and seeing as well as the Israelites were in thinking those Angels to be men that came to them in humane shapes how had Christs arguments been pertinent and material how had he proved that he was no Spirit by shewing a body which might be the case of a Spirit but that it is not consistent with the wisdom and goodness of God to suffer any illusion in any matter of sense relating to an Article of Faith 5. Secondly It was the case of the Christian Church once not only to rely upon the evidence of sense for an introduction to the religion but also to need and use this argument in confirmation of an Article of the Creed For the Valentinians and the Marcionites thought Christs body to be fantastical and so denied the Article of the Incarnation and if arguments from sense were not enough to confute them viz. that the Apostles did see and feel a body flesh and blood and bones how could they convince these misbelievers for whatsoever answer can be brought against the reality of bread in the Eucharist all that may be answered in behalf of the Marcionites for if you urge to them all those places of Scripture which affirm Christ to have a body they answer it was in Scripture called a body because it seem'd to be so which is the answer Bellarmine gives to all those places of Scripture which call it bread after consecration And if you object that if it be not what it seems then the senses are deceived They will answer a Jesuit being by and prompting them the senses were not deceived because they only saw colour shape figure and the other accidents but the inward sense and understanding that is the man was deceived when he thought it to be the body of a man for under those accidents and appearances there was an Angel or a Divinity but no Man and now upon the grounds of Transubstantiation how can they be confuted I would fain know 6. But Tertullian disputing against them uses the argument of sense as the only instrument of concluding against them infallibly Non licet nobis in dubium sensus istos revocare c. It is not lawful to doubt of our senses lest the same doubt be made concerning Christ lest peradventure it should
to have been the established resolved doctrine of the Primitive Church this ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is not necessary Because although no argument can prove it Catholick but a consent yet if some as learned as holy as orthodox do dissent it is enough to prove it not to be Catholick As a proposition is not universal if there be one or three or ten exceptions but to make it universal it must be ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã it must take in all 2. Secondly None of the Fathers speak words exclusive of our way because our way contains a Spiritual sence which to be true our adversaries deny not but say it is not sufficient but there ought to be more But their words do often exclude the way of the Church of Rome and are not so capable of an answer for them 3. Thirdly When the saying of a Father is brought out of which his sence is to be drawn by argument and discourse by two or three remote uneasie consequences I do not think it fit to take notice of those words either for or against us because then his meaning is as obscure as the article it self and therefore he is not fit to be brought in interpretation of it And the same also is the case when the words are brought by both sides for then it is a shrewd sign the Doctor is not well to be understood or that he is not fit in those words to be an umpire and of this Cardinal Perron is a great example who spends a volume in folio to prove S. Austin to be of their side in this article or rather not to be against them 4. Fourthly All those testimonies of Fathers which are as general indefinite and unexpounded as the words of Scripture which are in question must in this question pass for nothing and therefore when the Fathers say that in the sacrament is the body and blood of Christ that there is the body of our Lord that before consecration it is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã meer bread but after consecration it is verily the body of Christ truly his flesh truly his blood these and the like sayings are no more than the words of Christ This is my body and are only true in the same sence of which I have all this while been giving an account that is by a change of condition of sanctification and usage We believe that after consecration and blessing it is really Christs body which is verily and indeed taken of the faithful in the Lords Supper And upon this account we shall find that many very many of the authorities of the Fathers commonly alledged by the Roman Doctors in this question will come to nothing For we speak their sence and in their own words the Church of England expressing this mystery frequently in the same forms of words and we are so certain that to eat Christs body Spiritually is to eat him really that there is no other way for him to be eaten really than by Spiritual manducation 5. Fifthly when the Fathers in this question speak of the change of the Symbols in the holy Sacrament they sometimes use the words of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the Greek Church conversion mutation transition migration transfiguration and the like in the Latin but they by these do understand accidental and Sacramental conversions not proper natural and substantial Concerning which although I might refer the Reader to see it highly verified in David Blondels familiar elucidations of the Eucharistical controversie yet a shorter course I can take to warrant it without my trouble or his and that is by the confession of a Jesuit and of no mean same or learning amongst them The words of Suarez whom I mean are these Licet antiqui Pp. c. Although the ancient Fathers have used divers names yet all they are either general as the names of conversion mutation transition or else they are more accommodated to an accidental change as the name of Transfiguration and the like only the name of Transelementation which Theophylact did use seems to approach nearer to signify the propriety of this mystery because it signifies a change even of the first elements yet that word is harder and not sufficiently accommodate For it may signify the resolution of one element into another or the resolution of a mixt body into the elements He might have added another sence of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or Transelementation For Theophylact uses the same word to express the change of our bodies to the state of incorruption and the change that is made in the faithful when they are united unto Christ. But Suarez proceeds But Transubstantiation does most properly and appositely signifie the passage and conversion of the whole substance into the whole substance So that by this discourse we are quitted and made free from the pressure of all those authorities of the Fathers which speak of the mutation conversion transition or passage or transelementation transfiguration and the like of the bread into the body of Christ these do or may only signifie an accidental change and come not home to their purpose of Transubstantiation and it is as if Suarez had said the words which the Fathers use in this question make not for us and therefore we have made a new word for our selves and obtruded it upon all the world But against it I shall only object an observation of Bellarmine that is not ill The liberty of new words is dangerous in the Church because out of new words by little and little new things arise while it is lawful to coyn new words in divine affairs 6. Sixthly To which I add this that if all the Fathers had more unitedly affirmed the conversion of the bread into Christs body than they have done and had not explicated their meaning as they have done indeed yet this word would so little have help'd the Roman cause that it would directly have overthrown it For in their Transubstantiation there is no conversion of one thing into another but a local succession of Christs body into the place of bread A change of the Vbi was not used to be called a substantial conversion But they understood nothing of our present ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã they were not used to such curious nothings and intricate falshoods and artificial nonsence with which the Roman Doctors troubled the world in this question But they spake wholly another thing and either they did affirm a substantial change or they did not If they did not then it makes nothing for them or against us But if they did mean a proper substantial change then for so much as it comes to it makes against us but not for them for they must mean a change of one substance into another by conversion or a change of substances by substitution of one in the place of another If they meant the latter then it was no conversion of one into another and then they expressed not what they meant
expounding the Sacrament Nothing needs to be plainer By the way let me observe this that the words cited by Tertullian out of Jeremy are expounded and recited too but by allusion For there are no such words in the Hebrew Text which is thus to be rendred Corrumpanus veneno cibum ejus and so cannot be referred to the Sacrament unless you will suppose that he fore-signified the poysoning the Emperour by a consecrated wafer But as to the figure this is often said by him for in the first book against Marcion he hath these words again nec reprobavit panem quo ipsum corpus suum repraesentat etiam in Sacramentis propriis egens mendicitatibus creatoris He refused not bread by which he represents his own body wanting or using in the Sacraments the meanest things of the Creator For it is not to be imagined that Tertullian should attempt to perswade Marcion that the bread was really and properly Christs body but that he really delivered his body on the Cross that both in the old Testament and here himself gave a figure of it in bread and wine for that was it which the Marcionites denied saying on the cross no real humanity did suffer and he confutes them by saying these are figures and therefore denote a truth 8. However these men are resolved that this new answer shall please them and serve their turn yet some of their fellows great Clerks as themselves did shrink under the pressure of it as not being able to be pleased with so laboured and improbable an answer For Harding against Juel hath these words speaking of this place which interpretation is not according to the true sence of Christs words although his meaning swerve not from the truth And B. Rhenanus the author of the admonition to the Reader De quibusdam Tertulliani dogmatâ seems to confess this to be Tertullians error Error putantium corpus Christi in Eucharistiâ tantùm esse sub figurâ jam olim condemnatus The error of them that think the body of Christ is in the Eucharist only in a figure is now long since condemned But Garetius Bellarmine Justinian Coton Fevardentius Valentia and Vasquez in the recitation of this passage of Tertullian very fairly leave out the words that pinch them and which clears the article and bring the former words for themselves without the interpretation of id est figura corporis mei I may therefore without scruple reckon Tertullian on our side against whose plain words no real exception can lye himself expounding his own meaning in the pursuance of the figurative sence of this mystery 20. Concerning Origen I have already given an account in the ninth Paragraph and other places casually and made it appear that he is a direct opposite to the doctrine of Transubstantiation And the same also of Justin Martyr Paragraph the fifth number 9. Where also I have enumerated divers others who speak upon parts of this question on which the whole depends whither I refer the Reader Only concerning Justin Martyr I shall recite these words of his against Tryphon Figura fuit panis Eucharistiae quem in recordationem passionis facere praecepit The bread of the Eucharist was a figure which Christ the Lord commanded to do in remembrance of his passion 21. Clemens Alexandrinus saith ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. The blood of Christ is twofold the one is carnal by which we are redeemed from death the other spiritual viz. by which we are anointed And this is to drink the blood of Jesus to be partakers of the incorruption of our Lord. But the power of the word is the Spirit as blood is of the flesh Therefore in a moderated proposition and convenience wine is mingled with water as the Spirit with a man And he receives in the Feast viz. Eucharistical tempered wine unto faith But the Spirit leadeth to incorruption but the mixture of both viz. of drink and the word is called the Eucharist which is praised and is a good gift or grace of which they who are partakers by faith are sanctified in body and soul. Here plainly he calls that which is in the Eucharist Spiritual blood and without repeating the whole discourse is easie and clear And that you may be certain of S. Clement his meaning he disputes in the same chapter against the Encratites who thought it not lawful to drink wine ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. For be ye sure he also did drink wine for he also was a man and he blessed wine when he said Take drink ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã This is my blood the blood of the vine for that word that was shed for many for the remission of sins it signifies allegorically a holy stream of gladness ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã but that the thing which had been blessed was wine he shewed again saying to his disciples I will not drink of the fruit of this vine till I drink it new with you in my fathers kingdom Now S. Clement proving by Christs sumption of the Eucharist that he did drink wine must mean the Sacramental Symbol to be truly wine and Christs blood allegorically that holy stream of gladness or else he had not concluded by that argument against the Encratites Upon which account these words are much to be valued because by our doctrine in this article he only could confute the Encratites as by the same doctrine explicated as we explicate it Tertullian confuted the Marcionites and Theodoret and Gelasius confuted the Nestorians and Eutychians if the doctrine of Transubstantiation had been true these four heresies had by them as to their particular arguments relating to this matter been unconfuted 22. S. Cyprian in his Tractate de unctione which Canisius Harding Bellarmine and Lindan cite hath these words Dedit itaque Dominus noster c. Therefore our Lord in his table in which he did partake his last banquet with his disciples with his own hands gave bread and wine but on the cross he gave to the souldiers his body to be wounded that in the Apostles the sincere truth and the true sincerity being more secretly imprinted he might expound to the Gentiles how wine and bread should be his flesh and blood and by what reasons causes might agree with effects and diverse names and kinds viz. bread and wine might be reduced to one essence and the signifying and the signified might be reckoned by the same words and in his third Epistle he hath these words Vinum quo Christi sanguis ostenditur wine by which Christs blood is showen or declared Here I might cry out as Bellarmine upon a much slighter ground Quid clariùs dici potuit But I forbear being content to enjoy the real benefits of these words without a triumph But I will use it thus far that it shall outweigh the words cited out of the tract de coenâ Domini by Bellarmine by the Rhemists by the Roman Catechism by Perron
and by Gregory de Valentiâ The words are these Panis iste quem Dominus discipulis porrigebat non effigie sed naturâ mutatus omnipotentiâ verbi factus est caro sicut in personâ Christi c. The bread which the Lord gave to his disciples is changed not in shape but in nature being made flesh by the omnipotency of the word and as in the person of Christ the humanity was seen and the divinity lay hid so in the visible Sacrament the divine essence after an ineffable manner pours it self forth that devotion about the Sacraments might be religion and that a more sincere entrance may be opened to the truth whereof the body and the blood are Sacraments even unto the participation of the Spirit not unto the consubstantiality of Christ. This testimony as Bellarmine says admits of no answer But by his favour it admits of many 1. Bellarmine cites but half of those words and leaves out that which gives him answer 2. The words affirm that that body and blood are but a Sacrament of a reality and truth but if it were really and naturally Christs body then it were it self veritas corpus and not only a Sacrament 3. The truth of which these are Sacramental is the participation of the Spirit that is a Spiritual communication 4. This does not arrive ad Consubstantialitatem Christi to a participation or communion of the substance of Christ which it must needs do if bread were so changed in nature as that it were substantially the body of Christ. 5. These Sermons of S. Cyprians title and name are under the name also of Arnoldus Abbot of Bonavilla in the time of S. Bernard as appears in a M S. in the Library of All-Souls Colledge of which I had the honour sometimes to be a Fellow However it is confessed on all sides that this Tractate is not S. Cyprians and who is the Father of it if Arnoldus be not cannot be known neither his age nor reputation His style sounds like the eloquence of the Monastery being direct Friers Latin as appears by his honorificare amaricare injuriare demembrare sequestrare attitulare spiritalitas tâ supplico and some false latin besides and therefore he ought to pass for nothing which I confess I am sorry for as to this question because to my sence he gives us great advantage in it But I am content to lose what our cause needs not I am certain they can get nothing by him For if the authority were not incompetent the words were impertinent to their purpose but very much against them only let me add out of the same Sermon these words Panis iste communis in carnem sanguinem mutatus procurat vitam incrementum corporibus ideóque ex consueto effectu fidei nostra adjuta infirmitas sensibili argumento edocta visibilibus Sacramentis inesse vitae aeternae effectum non tam corporali quà m spirituali transitione nos cum Christo uniri That common bread being changed into flesh and blood procures life and increment to our bodies therefore our infirmity being helped with the usual effect of faith is taught by a sensible argument that the effect of eternal life is in visible Sacraments and that we are united to Christ not so much by a corporal as by a Spiritual change If both these discourses be put together let the authority of the writer be what it will the greater the better 23. In the dialogues against the Marcionites collected out of Maximus in the time of Commodus or Severus or thereabouts Origen is brought in speaking thus ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã If as the Marcionites say Christ had neither flesh nor blood of what flesh or of what blood did he giving bread and the chalice as images command his disciples that by these a remembrance of him should be made 24. To the same purpose are the words of Eusebius ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã He gave to his disciples the Symbols of Divine oeconomie commanding the image or type of his own body to be made and again ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã They received a command according to the constitution of the new Testament to make a memory of this sacrifice upon the table by the symbols of his body and healthful blood 25. S. Ephrem the Syrian Patriarch of Antioch is dogmatical and decretory in this question ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The body of Christ received by the faithful departs not from his sensible substance and is undivided from a spiritual grace He adds the similitude and parity of baptism to this mystery for even baptism being wholly made Spiritual and being that which is the same and proper of the sensible substance I mean of water saves and that which is born doth not perish I will not descant upon these or any other words of the Fathers I alledge for if of their own natural intent they do not teach our doctrine I am content they should pass for nothing 26. S. Epiphanius affirming man to be like God ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in some image or similitude not according to Nature illustrates it by the similitude of the blessed Sacrament We see that our Saviour took into his hands as the Evangelist hath it that he arose from supper and took those things and when he had given thanks he said This is mine and this we see it is not equal it is not like not to the image in the flesh not to the invisible Deity not to the proportion of members for this is a round form ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and cannot perceive any thing or is insensible according to power or faculty and he would by grace say This is mine and this and every man believes the word that is spoken for he that believeth not him to be true is fallen from grace and salvation Now the force of Epiphanius his argument consisting in this that we are like to God after his image but yet not according to nature as the Sacramental bread is like the body of Christ it is plain that the Sacramental species are the body of Christ and his blood ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã according to the image or representment not according to Nature but according to Grace 25. Macarius his words are plain enough ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã In the Church is offered bread and wine the antitype of his flesh and of his blood and they that partake of the bread that appears do spiritually eat the flesh of Christ. 26. S. Gregory Nazianzen speaking of the Pascha saith Jam potestatis participes erimus c. Now we shall be partakers of the Paschal supper but still in figure though more clear than in the old law For the legal passeover I will not be afraid to speak it was a more obscure figure of a figure S. Ambrose is of the same perswasion Fac nobis hanc oblationem ascriptam rationabilem acceptabilem quod est
figura corporis sanguinis Domini nostri Jesu Christi Make this ascribed oblation reasonable and acceptable which is the figure of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. And again Mira potentia c. it is a wonderful power of God which makes that the bread should remain what it is and yet be changed into another thing And again How much more operative is the word of Christ that the things be what they were and yet be changed into another and so that which was bread before consecration now is the body of Christ Hoc tamen impossibile est ut panis sit corpus Christi Sed haec verba ad sanum intellectum sunt intelligenda ita solvit Hugo saith the Gloss in Gratian which is an open defiance of the doctrine of S. Ambrose affirming it to be impossible But because these words pinch severely they have retrenched the decisive words and leave out sint and make them to run thus that the things be changed into another which corruption is discovered by the citation of these words in Paschasius Guitmond Bertram Algerus Ivo Carnotensis Gratian and Lombard But in another place he calls the mystical chalice the type of the blood and that Christ is offered here in imagine in type image or representation in coelo in veritate the truth the substance is in heaven And again This therefore truly is the Sacrament of his flesh Our Lord Jesus himself says this is my body Before the blessing by the words it was named another species or kind after the consecration the body of Christ is signified 27. S. Chrysostome is brought on both sides and his Rhetorick hath cast him on the Roman side but it also bears him beyond it and his divinity and sober opinions have fixt him on ours How to answer the expressions hyperbolical which he often uses is easie by the use of rhetorick and customs of the words But I know not how any man can sensibly answer these words For as before the bread is sanctified we name it bread but the Divine grace sanctifying it by the means of the Priest it is freed from the name of bread but it is esteemed worthy to be called the Lords body although the nature of bread remains in it To the same purpose are those words on the Twenty second Psalm published amongst his works though possibly they were of some other of that time or before or after it matters not to us but much to them for if he be later and yet esteemed a Catholick as it is certain he was and the man a-while supposed to be S. Chrysostome it is the greater evidence that it was long before the Church received their doctrine The words are these That table he hath prepared to his servants and his maidens in their sight that he might every day shew us in the Sacrament according to the order of Melchisedeck bread and wine to the likeness of the body and blood of Christ. To the same purpose is that saying in the Homilies of whoever is the Author of that opus imperfectum upon S. Mat. Si igitur haec vasa c. If therefore these vessels being sanctified it be so dangerous to transfer them to private uses in which the body of Christ is not but the mystery of his body is contained how much more concerning the vessels of our bodies c. Now against these testimonies they make an out-cry that they are not S. Chrysostoms works and for this last the book is corrupted and they think in this place by some one of Berengarius's scholars for they cannot tell Fain they would believe it but this kind of talk is a resolution not to yield but to proceed against all evidence for that this place is not corrupted but was originally the sence of the Author of the Homilies is highly credible by the faith of all the old MS. and there is in the publick Library of Oxford an excellent MS. very ancient that makes faith in this particular but that some one of their scholars might have left these words out of some of their copies were no great wonder though I do not find they did but that they foisted in a marginal note affirming that these words are not in all old copies an affirmation very confident but as the case stands to very little purpose But upon this account nothing can be proved from sayings of Fathers For either they are not their own works but made by another or 2. They are capable of another sence or 3. The places are corrupted by Hereticks or 4. It is not in some old copies which pretences I am content to let alone if they upon this account will but transact the question wholly by Scripture and common sence 5. It matters not at all what he is so he was not esteemed an Heretick and that he was not it is certain since by themselves these books are put among the works of S. Chrysostom and themselves can quote them when they seem to do them service All that I infer from hence is this that whensoever these books were writ some man esteemed a good Catholick was not of the Roman perswasion in the matter of the Sacrament therefore their opinion is not Catholick But that S. Chrysostom may not be drawn from his right of giving testimony and interpretation of his words in other places in his 23 Homily upon the first of the Corinthians which are undoubtedly his own he saith As thou eatest the body of the Lord so they viz. the faithful in the old Testament did eat Manna as thou drinkest blood so they the water of the rock For though the things which are made be sensible yet they are given spiritually not according to the consequence of nature but according to the grace of a gift and with the body they also nourish the soul leading unto faith 28. The next I produce for evidence in this case is S. Austin concerning whom it is so evident that he was a Protestant in this Article that truly it is a strange boldness to deny it and upon equal terms no mans mind in the world can be known for if all that he says in this question shall be reconcilable to Transubstantiation I know no reason but it may be possible but a witty man may pretend when I am dead that in this discourse I have pleaded for the doctrine of the Roman Church I will set his words down nakedly without any Gloss upon them and let them do by themselves as much as they can Si enim Sacramenta quandam similitudinem c. For if the Sacraments had not a certain similitude of those things whereof they are Sacraments they were no Sacraments at all But from this similitude for the most part they receive the things themselves As therefore according to a certain manner the Sacrament of the body of Christ is the body of Christ the Sacrament of the blood of
measure so that in effect they are refused for being good Christians But after this it happened again that the words of type and image were disliked in the question of the holy Sacrament by the Emperor Charles the great his Tutor Alcuinus and the Assembly at Frankfort but it was in opposition to the Council of Constantinople that called it the true image of Christs body and of the Nicene Council who decreed the worship of Images for if the Sacrament were an Image as they of CP said then it might be lawful to give reverence and worship to some Images for although these two Synods were enemies to each other yet the proposition of one might serve the design of the other but therefore the Western Doctors of that age speaking against the decree of this did also mislike the expression of that meaning that the Sacrament is not a type or image as a type is taken for a prefiguration a shadow of things to come like the legal ceremonies but in opposition to that is a body and a truth yet still it is a Sacrament of the body a mystery which is the same in effect with that which the Fathers taught in their so frequent using these words of Type c. for 750. years together And concerning this I only note the words of Charles the Emperor Ep. ad Alcuinum after the Synod Our Lord hath given the Bread and the Chalice in figurâ corporis sui sui sanguinis in the figure of his body and blood But setting the authority aside for if these men of CP be not allowed yet the others are and it is notorious that the Greek Fathers did frequently call the bread and wine ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and the Latin Fathers call them signs similitudes figures types images therefore there must be something pretended to stop this great out-cry and insupportable prejudice of so great so clear authority After many trials as that by antitypes they mean exemplars that it is only before consecration not after and such other little devices of which they themselves quickly grew weary at last the craftiest of them came to this that the body of Christ under the Species might well be said to be the sign of the same body and blood as it was on the Cross so Bellarmine That 's the answer and that they are hard put to it you may guess by the meanness of the answer For besides that nothing can be like it self Idem non est simile the body as it is under the Species is glorified immortal invisible impassible indivisible insensible and this is it which he affirms to be the sign that is which is appointed to signifie and represent a body that was humbled tormented visible mortal sensible torn bleeding and dying So that here is a sign nothing like the thing signified and an invisible sign of a visible body which is the greatest absurdity in nature and in the use of things which is imaginable but besides this this answer if it were a proper and sensible account of any thing yet it is besides the mark for that the Fathers in these allegations affirm that the Species are the signs that is that bread and wine or the whole Sacrament is a sign of that body which is exhibited in effect and Spiritual power they dreamt not this dream it was long before themselves did dream it They that were but the day before them having as I noted before other fancies I deny not but the Sacramental body is the sign of the true body crucified but that the body glorified should be but a sign of the true body crucified is a device fit for themselves to fancy To this sence are those words cited by Lombard and Gratian out of S. Austin in the sentences of Prosper Caro ejus est quam formâ panis opertam in Sacramento accipimus sanguis quem sub specie vini potamus Caro viz. Carnis sanguis sacramentum est sanguinis carne sanguine utroque invisibili intelligibili spirituali significatur corpus Christi visibile plenum gratiae divinae majestatis That is It is his flesh which under the form of bread we receive in the Sacrament and under the form of wine we drink his blood Now that you may understand his meaning he tells you this is true in the Sacramental or Spiritual sence only for he adds flesh is the Sacrament of flesh and blood of blood by both flesh and blood which are invisible intelligible and Spiritual is signified the visible body of Christ full of grace and Divine majesty In which words here is a plain confutation of their main Article and of this whimsie of theirs For as to the particular whereas Bellarmine says that Christs body real and natural is the type of the body as it was crucified S. Austin says that the natural body is a type of that body which is glorified not the glorified body of the crucified 2. That which is a type is flesh in a spiritual sence not in a natural and therefore it can mean nothing but this That the Sacramental body is a figure and type of the real ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã And this thing is noted by the Gloss of Gratian. Caro i. e. species carnis sub qua latet corpus Christi c. The flesh that is the Species of it under which it lies are the Sacrament of the flesh so that the being of a Sacrament of Christs body is wholly relative to the Symbols not to the body as if the body were his own sign and his own Sacrament 30. Next to this heap of testimonies I must repeat the words of Theodoret and Gelasius which though known in this whole question yet being plain certain and unanswerable relying upon a great Article of the religion even the union of the two natures of Christ into one person without the change of substances must be as sacred and untouched by any trifling answer as the Article it self ought to be preserved The case was this The Eutychian Hereticks denied the natures of Christ to be united in one person that is they denied him to be both God and Man saying his humanity was taken into his divinity after his ascension The Fathers disputing against them say the substances remain intire though joyned in the person The Eutychians said this was impossible But as in the Sacrament the bread was changed into Christs body so in the ascension was the humanity turned into the divinity To this Theodoret answers in a Dialogue between the Eutychians under the name of Eranistes and himself the Orthodox Christ honoured the symbols and signs which are seen with the title of his body and blood not changing the nature but to nature adding grace The words are not capable of an answer if we observe that he says there is no change made but only grace superadded in all things else the things are the same And again For neither do
the nature of the imployment for I love not to be as S. Paul calls it one of the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Disputers of this world For I suppose skill in Controversies as they are now us'd to be the worst part of learning and time is the worst spent in them and men the least benefited by them that is when the Questions are curious and impertinent intricate and unexplicable not to make men better but to make a Sect. But when the Propositions disputed are of the foundation of Faith or lead to good life or naturally do good to single persons or publick Societies then they are part of the depositum of Christianity of the Analogy of faith and for this we are by the Apostle commanded to contend earnestly and therefore Controversies may become necessary but because they are not often so but oftentimes useless and always troublesome and as an ill diet makes an ill habit of body so does the frequent use of controversies baffle the understanding and makes it crafty to deceive others it self remaining instructed in nothing but useless notions and words of contingent signification and distinctions without difference which minister to pride and contention and teach men to be pertinacious troublesome and uncharitable therefore I love them not But because by the Apostolical Rule I am tyed to do all things without murmurings as well as without disputings I consider'd it over again and found my self reliev'd by the subject matter and the grand consequent of the present Questions For in the present affair the case is not so as in the others here the Questions are such that the Church of Rome declares them to reach aâ far as eternity and damn all that are not of their opinions and the Protestants have much more reason to fear concerning the Papists such who are not excus'd by ignorance that their condition is very sad and deplorable and that it is charity to snatch them as a brand from the fire and indeed the Church of Rome maintains Propositions which if the Ancient Doctors of the Church may be believ'd are apt to separate from God I instance in their superaddition of Articles and Propositions derived only from a pretended tradition and not contain'd in Scripture Now the doing of this is a great sin and a great danger Adoro Scripturae plenitudinem Si non est scriptum timeat vae illud adjicientibus detrahentibus destinatum said Tertullian I adore the fulness of Scripture and if it be not written let Hermogenus fear the woe that is destin'd to them that detract from or add to it S. Basil says Without doubt it is a most manifest argument of infidelity and a most certain sign of pride to introduce any thing that is not written in the Scriptures our blessed Saviour having said My sheep hear my voice and the voice of strangers they will not hear and to detract from Scriptures or add any thing to the Faith that is not there is most vehemently forbidden by the Apostle saying If it be but a mans Testament nemo superordinat no man adds to it And says also This was the Will of the Testator And Theophilus Alexandrinus says plainly It is the part of a Devillish spirit to think any thing to be Divine that is not in the authority of the holy Scriptures and therefore S. Athanasius affirms that the Catholicks will neither speak nor endure to hear any thing in Religion that is a stranger to Scripture it being immodestiae vaecordia an evil heart of immodesty to speak those things which are not written Now let any man judge whether it be not our duty and a necessary work of charity and the proper office of our Ministery to perswade our charges from the immodesty of an evil heart from having a Devillish spirit from doing that which is vehemently forbidden by the Apostle from infidelity and pride and lastly from that eternal Woe which is denounc'd against them that add other words and doctrines than what is contain'd in the Scriptures and say Dominus dixit The Lord hath said it and he hath not said it If we had put these severe censures upon the Popish doctrine of Tradition we should have been thought uncharitable but because the holy Fathers do so we ought to be charitable and snatch our Charges from the ambient flame And thus it is in the question of Images Dubium non est quin Religio nulla sit ubicunque simulacrum est said Lactantius Without all peradventure where ever an Image is meaning for worship there is no Religion and that we ought rather to die than pollute our Faith with such impieties said Origen It is against the Law of Nature it being expresly forbidden by the second Commandment as Irenaeus affirms Tertullian Cyprian and S. Augustine and therefore is it not great reason we should contend for that Faith which forbids all worship of Images and oppose the superstition of such Guides who do teach their people to give them veneration to prevaricate the Moral Law and the very Law of Nature and do that which whosoever does has no Religion We know Idolatry is a damnable sin and we also know that the Roman Church with all the artifices she could use never can justifie her self or acquit the common practices from Idolatry and yet if it were but suspicious that it is Idolatry it were enough to awaken us for God is a jealous God and will not endure any such causes of suspicion and motives of jealousie I instance but once more The Primitive Church did excommunicate them that did not receive the holy Sacrament in both kinds and S. Ambrose says that he who receives the Mystery other ways than Christ appointed that is but in one kind when he hath appointed it in two is unworthy of the Lord and he cannot have Devotion Now this thing we ought not to suffer that our people by so doing should remain unworthy of the Lord and for ever be indevout or cozen'd with a false shew of devotion or fall by following evil Guides into the sentence of Excommunication These matters are not trifling and when we see these errors frequently taught and own'd as the only true Religion and yet are such evils which the Fathers say are the way of damnation we have reason to hope that all wise and good men lovers of souls will confess that we are within the circles of our duty when we teach our people to decline the crooked ways and to walk in the ways of Scripture and Christianity But we have observed amongst the generality of the Irish such a declension of Christianity so great credulity to believe every superstitious story such confidence in vanity such groundless pertinacy such vicious lives so little sense of true Religion and the fear of God so much care to obey the Priests and so little to obey God such intolerable ignorance such fond Oaths and manners of swearing thinking
were press'd in the Council of Florence by Pope Eugenius and by their necessity how unwillingly they consented how ambiguously they answered how they protested against having that half-consent put into the Instrument of Union how they were yet constrain'd to it by their Chiefs being obnoxious to the Pope how a while after they dissolv'd that Union and to this day refuse to own this Doctrine are things so notoriously known that they need no further declaration We add this only to make the conviction more manifest We have thought fit to annex some few but very clear testimonies of Antiquity expresly destroying the new Doctrine of Purgatory Saint Cyprian saith Quando istinc excessum fuerit nullus jam locus poenitentiae est nullus satisfactionis effectus When we are gone from hence there is no place left for repentance and no effect of satisfaction Saint Dionysius call the extremity of death ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The end of all our Agonies and affirms That the Holy men of God rest in joy and in never-failing hopes and are come to the end of their holy combates Saint Justin Martyr affirms That when the soul is departed from the body ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã presently there is a separation made of the just and unjust The unjust are by Angels born into places which they have deserv'd but the souls of the just into Paradise where they have the conversation of Angels and Archangels Saint Ambrose saith That Death is a Haven of rest and makes not our condition worse but according as it finds every man so it reserves him to the judgment that is to come The same is affirmed by Saint Hilary c Saint Macarius and divers others they speak but of two states after death of the just and the unjust These are plac'd in horrible Regions reserv'd to the judgment of the great day the other have their souls carried by Quires of Angels into places of Rest. Saint Gregory Nazianzen expresly affirms That after this life there is no purgation For after Christ's ascension into Heaven the souls of all Saints are with Christ saith Gennadius and going from the body they go to Christ expecting the resurrection of their body with it to pass into the perfection of perpetual bliss and this he delivers as the Doctrine of the Catholick Church In what place soever a man is taken at his death of light or darkness of wickedness or vertue ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the same order and in the same degree either in light with the just and with Christ the great King or in darkness with the unjust and with the Prince of Darkness said Olympiodorus And lastly we recite the words of Saint Leo one of the Popes of Rome speaking of the Penitents who had not perform'd all their penances But if any one of them for whom we pray unto the Lord being interrupted by any obstacles falls from the gift of the present Indulgence viz. of Ecclesiastical Absolution and before he arrive at the appointed remedies that is before he hath perform'd his penances or satisfactions ends his temporal life that which remaining in the body he hath not receiv'd when he is devested of his body he cannot obtain He knew not of the new devices of paying in Purgatory what they paid not here and of being cleansed there who were not clean here And how these words or any of the precedent are reconcileable with the Doctrines of Purgatory hath not yet entred into our imagination To conclude this particular We complain greatly that this Doctrine which in all the parts of it is uncertain and in the late additions to it in Rome is certainly false is yet with all the faults of it passed into an Article of Faith by the Council of Trent But besides what hath been said it will be more than sufficient to oppose against it these clearest words of Scripture Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth even so saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours If all the dead that die in Christ be at rest and are in no more affliction or labours then the Doctrine of the horrible pains of Purgatory is as false as it is uncomfortable To these words we add the saying of Christ and we rely upon it He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath eternal life and cometh not into judgment but passeth from death unto life If so then not into the judgment of Purgatory If the servant of Christ passeth from death to life then not from death to the terminable pains of a part of Hell They that have eternal life suffer no intermedial punishment judgment or condemnation after death for death and life are the whole progression according to the Doctrine of Christ and Him we chuse to follow SECT V. THE Doctrine of Transubstantiation is so far from being Primitive and Apostolick that we know the very time it began to be own'd publickly for an Opinion and the very Council in which it was said to be passed into a publick Doctrine and by what arts it was promoted and by what persons it was introduc'd For all the world knows that by their own parties by Scotus Ocham Biel Fisher Bishop of Rochester and divers others whom Bellarmine calls most learned and most acute men it was declared that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is not expressed in the Canon of the Bible that in the Scriptures there is no place so express as without the Churches Declaration to compel us to admit of Transubstantiation and therefore at least it is to be suspected of novelty But further we know it was but a disputable Question in the ninth and tenth Ages after Christ that it was not pretended to be an Article of Faith till the Lateran Council in the time of Pope Innocent the Third one thousand two hundred years and more after Christ that since that pretended determination divers of the chiefest Teachers of their own side have been no more satisfied of the ground of it than they were before but still have publickly affirm'd that the Article is not express'd in Scripture particularly Johannes de Bassolis Cardinal Cajetan and Melchior Canus besides those above reckon'd And therefore if it was not express'd in Scripture it will be too clear that they made their Articles of their own heads for they could not declare it to be there if it was not and if it was there but obscurely then it ought to be taught accordingly and at most it could be but a probable Doctrine and not certain as an Article of Faith But that we may put it past argument and probability it is certain that as the Doctrine was not taught in Scripture expresly so it was not at all taught as a Catholick Doctrine or an Article of the Faith by the Primitive Ages of the Church Now for this we need no proof
and Martyrs Confessors Bishops and Anachorets that prosecuting the Lord Jesus Christ with a singular honour we separate these from the rank of other men and give due worship to his Divine Majesty while we account that he is not to be made equal to mortal men ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã although they had a thousand times more righteousness than they have Now first here is mention made of all in their Prayers and Oblations and yet no mention made that the Church prayes for one sort and only gives thanks for the other as these Gentlemen the Objectors falsely pretend But here is a double separation made of the Righteous departed one is from the worser sort of sinners the other from the most righteous Saviour True it is they believ'd they had more need to pray for some than for others but if they did not pray for all when they made mention of all how did they honour Christ by separating their condition from his Is it not lawful to give thanks for the life and death for the resurrection holiness and glorification of Christ And if the Church only gave thanks for the departed Saints and did not pray for mercy for them too how are not the Saints in this made equal to Christ So that I think the testimony of Epiphanius is clear and pertinent To which greater light is given by the words of Saint Austin Who is he for whom no man prayes but only he who interceeds for all men viz. our Blessed Lord. And there is more light yet by the example of Saint Austin who though he did most certainly believe his Mother to be a Saint and the Church of Rome believes so too yet he prayed for pardon for her Now by this it was that Epiphanius separated Christ from the Saints departed for he could not mean any thing else and because he was then writing against Aerius who did not deny it to be lawful to give God thanks for the Saints departed but affirm'd it to be needless to pray for them viz. he must mean this of the Churches praying for all her dead or else he had said nothing against his Adversary or for his own cause Saint Cyril though he be confidently denied to have said what he did say yet is confessed to have said these words Then we pray for the deceased Fathers and Bishops and finally for all who among us have departed this life Believing it to be a very great help of the souls for which is offered the obsecration of the holy and dreadful Sacrifice If Saint Cyril means what his words signifie then the Church did pray for departed Saints for they prayed for all the departed Fathers and Bishops it is hard if amongst them there were no Saints but suppose that yet if there were any Saints at all that died out of the Militant Church yet the case is the same for they prayed for all the departed And 2. They offered the dreadful Sacrifice for them all 3. They offered it for all in the way of prayer 4. And they believed this to be a great help to souls Now unless the souls of all Saints that died then went to Purgatory which I am sure the Roman Doctors dare not own the case is plain that prayer and not thanksgivings only were offered by the Ancient Church for souls who by the Confession of all sides never went to Purgatory and therefore praying for the dead is but a weak Argument to prove Purgatory Nicolaus Cabasilas hath an evasion from all this as he supposes for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which is the word us'd in the Memorials of Saints does not alwayes signifie praying for one but it may signifie giving of thanks This is true but it is to no purpose for when ever it is said ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã we pray for such a one that must signifie to pray for and not to give thanks and that 's our present case and therefore no escape here can be made the words of Saint Cyril are very plain The third Allegation is of the Canon of the Greeks which is so plain evident and notorious and so confessâd even by these Gentlemen the Objectors that I will be tried by the words which the Author of the Letter acknowledges So it is in the Liturgy of Saint James Remember all Orthodox from Abel the just unto this day make them to rest in the land of the living in thy Kingdom and the delights of Paradise Thus far this Gentleman quoted Saint James and I wonder that he should urge a conclusion manifestly contrary to his own Allegation Did all the Orthodox from Abel to that day go to Purgatory Certainly Abraham and Moses and Elias and the Blessed Virgin did not and Saint Stephen did not and the Apostles that died before this Liturgy was made did not and yet the Church prayed for all Orthodox prayed that they might rest in the Land of the living c. and therefore they prayed for such which by the confession of all sides never went to Purgatory In the other Liturgies also the Gentleman sets down words enough to confute himself as the Reader may see in the Letter if it be worth the reading But because he sets down what he list and makes breaches and Rabbet holes to pop in as he please I shall for the satisfaction of the Reader set down the full sence and practice of the Greek Canon in this Question And first for Saint James his Liturgy which being merrily disposed and dreaming of advantage by it he is pleased to call the Mass of Saint James Sixtus Senensis gives this account of it James the Apostle in the Liturgy of the Divine Sacrifice prays for the souls of Saints resting in Christ so that he shews they are not yet arriv'd at the place of expected blessedness But the form of the prayer is after this manner Domine Deus noster c. O Lord our God remember all the Orthodox and them that believe rightly in the faith from Abel the just unto this day Make them to rest in the Region of the living in thy Kingdom in the delights of Paradise in the bosom of Abraham Isaac and Jacob our Holy Fathers from whence are banished grief sorrow and sighing where the light of thy countenance is president and perpetually shines In the Liturgy of Saint Basil which he is said to have made for the Churches of Syria is this Prayer Be mindful O Lord of them which are dead and departed out of this life and of the Orthodox Bishops which from Peter and James the Apostles unto this day have clearly professed the right word of Faith and namely of Ignatius Dionysius Julius and the rest of the Saints of worthy memory Nay not only for these but they pray for the very Martyrs O Lord remember them who have resisted or stood unto blood for Religion and have fed thy holy Flock with righteousness and holiness Certainly this is not giving of
but therefore this is bread still here the Consequence is good and is so still when the subject of the proposition is something real and not in appearance only Because whatsoever is but in appearance and pretence is a Non-Ens in respect of that real thing which it counterfeits And therefore it follows not This is not a common dove therefore it is a Dove because if this be model'd into a right proposition nihil supponit there is no subject in it for it cannot in this case be said This Dove is no common Dove but this which is like a Dove is not a common Dove and these persons which look like men are not common men And the rule for this and the reason too is Non entis nulla sunt praedicata To which also this may be added that in the proposition as C. Perron expresses it the negation is not the Adjective but the substantive part of the predicate It is no common Dove where the negative term relates to the Dove not to common It is no Dove and the words not common are also equivocal and as it can signifie extraordinary so it can signifie Natural But if the subject of the proposition be something real then the consequent is good as if you bring a Pigeon from Japan all red you may say This is no common Pigeon and your argument is still good therefore it is a Pigeon So if you take sugred bread or bread made of Indian wheat you saying this is no common bread do mean it is extraordinary or unusual but it is bread still and so if it be said this bread is Eucharistical it will follow rightly therefore this is bread For in this case the predicate is only an infinite or Negative term but the subject is suppos'd and affirm'd And this is also more apparent if the proposition be affirmative and the terms be not infinite as it is in the present case This bread is Eucharistical I have now I suppose clear'd the words of Justin M. and expounded them to his own sence and the truth but his sence will further appear in other words which I principally rely upon in this quotation For speaking that of the Prophet Isai. Panis dabitur ei aqua ejus fidelis he hath these words It appears sufficiently That in this prophecie he speaks of bread which our Lord Christ hath deliver'd to us to do ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for a memorial that he is made a body for them that believe in him for whose sake he was made passible and of the Cup which for the recordation of his blood he delivered to them to do that is give thanks or celebrate the Eucharist These are the words of Justin Where 1. According to the first simplicity of the primitive Church he treats of this mystery according to the style of the evangelists and S. Paul and indeed of our Blessed Lord himself commanding all this whole mystery to be done in memory of him 2. If S. Justin had meant any thing of the new fabrick of this mystery he must have said ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the bread made his body though this also would not have done their work for them but when he says he gave the bread only for the remembrance of his being made a body the bread must needs be the sign figure and representation of that body 3. Still he calls it bread even then when Christ gave it still it is wine when the Eucharist is made when the faithful have given thanks and if it be bread still we also grant it to be Christs body and then there is a figure and the things figured the one visible and the other invisible and this is it which I affirmed to be the sence of Justin Martyr And it is more perfectly explicated by Saint Greg. Naz. calling the Pascal Lamb a figure of a figure of which I shall yet give an account in this Section But to make this yet more clear ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. We do not receive these as common bread or common drink but as by the word of God Jesus Christ our Lord was made flesh and for our salvation had flesh and blood so are we taught that that very nourishment on which by the prayers of his word thanks are given by which our flesh and blood are nourished by change is the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus Here S. Justin compares the consecration of the Eucharist by prayer to the incarnation of Christ the thing with the thing to shew it is not common bread but bread made Christs body he compares not the manner of one with the manner of the other as Cardinal Perron would fain have it believed for if it were so it would not only destroy an Article of Christian faith but even of the Roman too for if the changes were in the same manner then either the man is Transubstantiated into God or else the bread is not Transubstantiated into Christs body but the first cannot be because it would destroy the hypostatical Union and make Christ to be one nature as well as one person but for the latter part of the Dilemma viz. that the bread is not Transubstantiated whether it be true or false it cannot be affirmed from hence and therefore the Cardinal labours to no purpose and without consideration of what may follow But now these words make very much against the Roman hypothesis and directly prove the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the consecrated bread that is after it is consecrated to be natural nourishment of the body and therefore to be Christs body only spiritually and Sacramentally unless it can be two substances at the same time Christs body and bread in the Natural sence which the Church of Rome at this day will not allow and if it were allowed it would follow that Christ body should be Transubstantiated into our body and suffer the very worst changes which in our eating and digestion and separation happen to common bread This argument relies upon the concurrent Testimony of many of the ancient Fathers besides Justin Martyr especially S. Irenaeus and certainly destroys the whole Roman Article of Transubstantiation for if the Eucharistical bread nourishes the body then it is still the substance of bread for accidents do not nourish and quantity or quality is not the subject or term of Nutrition but reparation of substance by a substantial change of one into another But of this enough Eusebius is next alledged in the Dissuasive but his words though pregnant and full of proof against the Roman hypothesis are by all the Contra-scribers let alone only one of them says that the place of the quotation is not rightly mark'd for the first three chapters are not extant well but the words are and the last chapter is which is there quoted and to the 10. chapter the Printer should have more carefully attended and not omit the Cypher which I suppose he would
if he had foreseen he should have been written against by so learned an adversary But to let them agree as well as they can the words of Eusebius out of his last chapter I translated as well as I could the Greek words I have set in the Margent that every one that understands may see I did him right and indeed to do my Adversary right when he goes about to change not to mend the translation he only changes the order of the words but in nothing does he mend his own matter by it for he acknowledges the main Question viz. that the memory of Christs sacrifice is to be celebrated in certain signs on the Table but then that l may do my self right and the question too whosoever translated these words for this Gentleman hath abused him and made him to render ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as if it were ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and hath made ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to be governed by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which is so far off it and hath no relation to it and not to be governed by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã with which it is joyn'd and hath made ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to be governed by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã when it hath a substantive of its own ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and he repeats ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã once more than it is in the words of Eusebius only because he would not have the Reader suppose that Eusebius call'd the consecrated Elements the symbols of the body and blood But this fraud was too much studied to be excusable upon the stock of humane infirmity or an innocent perswasion But that I may satisfie the Reader in this Question so far as the testimony and doctrine of Eusebius can extend he hath these words fully to our purpose First our Lord and Saviour and then after him his Priests of all Nations celebrating the spiritual sacrifice according to the Ecclesiastick Laws by the bread and the wine signifie the mysteries of his body and healing blood And again By the wine which is the symbol of his blood he purges the old sins of them who were baptized into his death and believe in his blood Again he gave to his Disciples the symbols of the divine Oeconomy commanding them to make the image figure or representation of his own body And Again He received not the sacrifices of blood nor the slaying of divers beasts instituted in the Law of Moses but ordained we should use bread the symbol of his own body So far I thought fit to set down the words of Eusebius to convince my Adversary that Eusebius is none of theirs but he is wholly ours in the doctrine of the Sacrament S. Macarius is cited in the Disswasive in these words In the Church is offered bread and wine the Antitype of his flesh and blood and they that partake of the bread that appears do spiritually eat the flesh of Christ. A. L. saith Macarius saith not so but rather the contrary viz. bread and wine exhibiting the Exemplar or an antitype his flesh and blood Now although I do not suppose many learned or good men will concern themselves with what this little man says yet I cannot but note that they who gave him this answer may be asham'd for here is a double satisfaction in this little answer First he puts in the word exhibiting of his own head there being no such word in S. Macarius in the words quoted 2. He makes ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to be put with ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã by way of apposition expresly against the mind of S. Macarius and against the very Grammar of his words And after all he studies to abuse his Author and yet gets no good by it himself for if it were in the words as he hath invented it or some body else for him yet it makes against him as much saying bread and wine exhibite Christs body which is indeed true though not here said by the Saint but is directly against the Roman article because it confesses that to be bread and wine by which Christs body is exhibited to us but much more is the whole testimony of S. Macarius which in the Disswasive are translated exactly as the Reader may see by the Greek words cited in the Margent There now only remains the authority of S. Austin which this Gentleman would fain snatch from the Church of England and assert to his own party I cited five places out of S. Austin to the last of which but one he gives this answer that S. Austin hath no such words in that book that is in the Tenth book against Faustus the Manichee Concerning which I am to inform the Gentleman a little better These words that which by all men is called a sacrifice is the sign of the true sacrifice are in the tenth book of S. Austin de C. D. cap. 5. and make a distinct quotation and ought by the Printer to have been divided by a colume as the other But the following words in which the flesh of Christ after his assumption is celebrated by the Sacrament of remembrance are in the 20. book cap. 21. against Faustus the Manichee All these words and divers others of S. Austin I knit together in a close order like a continued discourse but all of them are S. Austins words as appears in the places set down in the Margent But this Gentleman car'd not for what was said by S. Austin he was as well pleased that a figure was false Printed but to the words he hath nothing to say To the first of the other four only he makes this crude answer that S. Austin denied not the real eating of Christs body in the Eucharist but only the eating it in that gross carnal and sensible manner as the Capharnaites conceiv'd To which I reply that it is true that upon occasion of this error S. Austin did speak those words and although the Roman error be not so gross and dull as that of the Capharnaites yet it was as false as unreasonable and as impossible And be the occasion of the words what they are or can be yet upon this occasion S. Austin spake words which as well confute the Roman error as the Capharnaitical For it is not only false which the men of Capernaum dreamt of but the antithesis to this is that which S. Austin urges and which comes home to our question I have commended to you a Sacrament which being spiritually understood shall quicken you But because S. Austin was the most diligent expounder of this mystery among all the Fathers I will gratifie my Adversary or rather indeed my Unprejudicate Readers by giving some other very clear and unanswerable evidences of the doctrine of S. Austin agreeing perfectly with that of our Church At this time after manifest token of our liberty hath shin'd in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ we are not burdened with the heavy operation of signs
in two parts of the body which is one and whole and so is but in one place and consequently is but one soul. But if the feet were parted from the body by other bodies intermedial then indeed if there were but one soul in feet and head the Gentleman had spoken to the purpose But here these wafers are two intire wafers separate the one from the other bodies intermedial put between and that which is here is not there and yet of each of them it is affirm'd that it is Christs body that is of two wafers and of two thousand wafers it is at the same time affirm'd of every one that it is Christs body Now if these wafers are substantially not the same not one but many and yet every one of these many is substantially and properly Christs body then these bodies are many for they are many of whom it is said every one distinctly and separately and in it self is Christs body 2. For his comparing the presence of Christ in the wafer with the presence of God in Heaven it is spoken without common wit or sence for does any man say that God is in two places and yet be the same one God Can God be in two places that cannot be in one Can he be determin'd and number'd by places that sills all places by his presence or is Christs body in the Sacrament as God is in the world that is repletivè filling all things alike spaces void and spaces full and there where there is no place where the measures are neither time nor place but only the power and will of God This answer besides that it is weak and dangerous is also to no purpose unless the Church of Rome will pass over to the Lutherans and maintain the Ubiquity of Christs body Yea but S. Austin says of Christ Ferebatur in manibus suis c. he bore himself in his own hands and what then Then though every wafer be Christs body yet the multiplication of wafers does not multiply bodies for then there would be two bodies of Christ when he carried his own body in his hands To this I answer that concerning S. Austins mind we are already satisfied but that which he says here is true as he spake and intended it for by his own rule the similitudes and figures of things are oftentimes called by the name of those things whereof they are similitudes Christ bore his own body in his own hands when he bore the Sacrament of his body for of that also it is true that it is truly his body in a Sacramental spiritual and real manner that is to all intents and purposes of the holy Spirit of God According to the words of S. Austin cited by P. Lombard We call that the body of Christ which being taken from the fruits of the Earth and consecrated by mystick prayer we receive in memory of the Lords Passion which when by the hands of men it is brought on to that visible shape it is not sanctified to become so worthy a Sacrament but by the spirit of God working invisibly If this be good Catholick doctrine and if this confession of this article be right the Church of England is right but then when the Church of Rome will not let us alone in this truth and modesty of confession but impose what is unknown in Antiquity and Scripture and against common sence and the reason of all the world she must needs be greatly in the wrong But as to this question I was here only to justifie the Disswasive I suppose these Gentleman may be fully satisfied in the whole inquiry if they please to read a book I have written on this subject intirely of which hitherto they are pleas'd to take no great notice SECT IV. Of the Half-Communion WHEN the French Embassador in the Council of Trent A. D. 1561. made instance for restitution of the Chalice to the Laity among other oppositions the Cardinal S. Angelo answered that he would never give a cup full of such deadly poison to the people of France instead of a medicine and that it was better to let them die than to cure them with such remedies The Embassador being greatly offended replied that it was not fit to give the name of poison to the blood of Christ and to call the holy Apostles poisoners and the Fathers of the Primitive Church and of that which followed for many hundred years who with much spiritual profit have ministred the cup of that blood to all the people this was a great and a publick yet but a single person that gave so great offence One of the greatest scandals that ever were given to Christendom was given by the Council of Constance which having acknowledged that Christ administred this venerable Sacrament under both kinds of bread and wine and that in the Primitive Church this Sacrament was receiv'd of the faithful under both kinds yet the Council not only condemns them as hereticks and to be punished accordingly who say it is unlawful to observe the custom and law of giving it in one kind only but under pain of excommunication forbids all Priests to communicate the people under both kinds This last thing is so shameful and so impious that A. L. directly denies that there is any such thing which if it be not an argument of the self-conviction of the man and a resolution to abide in his error and to deceive the people even against his knowledge let all the world judge for the words of the Councils decree as they are set down by Carranza at the end of the decree are these Item praecipimus sub pââna excommunicationis quod nullus presbyter communicet populum sub utraque specie panis vini I need say no more in this affair To affirm it necessary to do in the Sacraments what Christ did is called heresie and to do so is punished with excommunication But we who follow Christ hope we shall communicate with him and then we are well enough especially since the very institution of the Sacrament in both kinds is a sufficient Commandment to minister and receive it in both kinds For if the Church of Rome upon their supposition only that Christ did barely institute confession do therefore urge it as necessary it will be a strange partiality that the confessed institution by Christ of the two Sacramental species shall not conclude them as necessary as the other upon an Unprov'd supposition And if the institution of the Sacrament in both kinds be not equal to a command then there is no command to receive the bread or indeed to receive the Sacrament at all but it is a mere act of supererogation that the Priests do it at all and an act of favour and grace that they give even the bread it self to the Laity But besides this it is not to be endur'd that the Church of Rome only binds her subjects to observe the decree of abstaining from the cup
Adversaries put me often to sight with His words are these He viz. the Apostle S. Paul saith that he is unworthy of the Lord who otherwise celebrates the mystery than it was deliver'd by him For he cannot be devout that presumes otherwise than it was given by the Author Therefore he before admonishes that according to the order delivered the mind of him that comes to the Eucharist of our Lord be devout for there is a judgment to come that as every one comes so he may render an account in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ because they who come without the discipline of the delivery or tradition and of conversation are guilty of the body and blood of our Lord. One of my Adversaries says these words of S. Ambrose are to be understood only of the Priest and it appears so by the word celebrat not recipit he that celebrates otherwise than is delivered by Christ. To this I answer that first it is plain and S. Ambrose so expresses his meaning to be of all that receive it for so he says that the mind of him that cometh to the Eucharist of our Lord ought to be devout 2. It is an ignorant conceit that S. Ambrose by celebrat means the Priest only because he only can celebrate For however the Church of Rome does now almost impropriate that word to the Priest yet in the Primitive Church it was no more than recipit or accedit ad Eucharistiam which appears not only by S. Ambrose his expounding it so here but in S. Cyprian speaking to a rich Matron Locuples dives Dominicum celebrare te credis corban omnino non respicis Dost thou who art rich and opulent suppose that you celebrate the Lords Supper or sacrifice who regardest not the poor mans basket Celebrat is the word and receive must needs be the signification and so it is in S. Ambrose and therefore I did as I ought translate it so 3. It is yet objected that I translate aliter quam ab eo traditum est otherwise than he appointed whereas it should be otherwise than it was given by him And this surely is a great matter and the Gentleman is very subtle But if he be ask'd whether or no Christ appointed it to be done as he did to be given as he gave it I suppose this deep and wise note of his will just come to nothing But ab eo traditum est of it self signifies appointed for this he deliver'd not only by his hands but by his commandment of Hoc facite that was his appointment Now that all this relates to the whole institution and doctrine of Christ in this matter and therefore to the duplication of the Elements the reception of the chalice as well as the consecrated bread appears first by the general terms qui aliter mysterium celebrat he that celebrates otherwise than Christ delivered 2. These words are a Commentary upon that of S. Paul He that eats this bread and drinks the Cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Now hence S. Ambrose arguing that all must be done as our Lord delivered says also that the bread must be eaten and the cup drunk as our Lord delivered and he that does not do both does not do what our Lord delivered 3. The conclusion of S. Ambrose is full to this particular They are guilty of the body and blood of Christ who came without the discipline of the delivery and of conversation that is they who receive without due preparation and not after the manner it was delivered that is under the differing symbols of bread and wine To which we may add that observation of Cassander and of Vossius that the Apostles represented the persons of all the faithful and Christ saying to them Take and eat he also said Drink ye all of this he said not Eat ye all of this and therefore if by vertue of these words Drink ye all of this the Laity be not commanded to drink it can never be proved that the Laity are commanded to eat Omnes is added to bibite but it is not expresly added to Accipite Comedite and therefore Paschasius Radbertus who lived about eight hundred and twenty years after Christs incarnation so expounds the precept without any hesitation Bibite ex hoc omnes i. e. tam Ministri quam reliqui credentes Drink ye all of this as well they that minister as the rest of the believers And no wonder since for their so doing they have the example and institution of Christ by which as by an irrefragable and undeniable argument the Ancient Fathers us'd to reprove and condemn all usages which were not according to it For saith S. Cyprian If men ought not to break the least of Christs commandments how much less those great ones which belong to the Sacrament of our Lords passion and redemption or to change it into any thing but that which was appointed by him Now this was spoken against those who refus'd the hallowed wine but took water instead of it and it is of equal force against them that give to the Laity no cup at all but whatever the instance was or could be S. Cyprian reproves it upon the only account of prevaricating Christs institution The whole Epistle is worth reading for a full satisfaction to all wise and sober Christians Abeo quod Christus Magister praecepit gessit humana novella institutione decedere by a new and humane institution to depart from what Christ our Master commanded and did that the Bishops would not do tamen quoniam quidam c. because there are some who simply and ignorantly In calice Dominico sanctificando plebi ministrando non hoc faciunt quod Jesus Christus Dominus Deus noster sacrificii hujus author Doctor fecit docuit c. In sanctifying the cup of the Lord and giving it to the people do not do what Jesus Christ did and taught viz. they did not give the cup of wine to the people therefore S. Cyprian calls them to return ad radicem originem traditionis Dominicae to the root and original of the Lords delivery Now besides that S. Cyprian plainly says that when the chalice was sanctified it was also ministred to the people I desire it be considered whether or no these words do not plainly reprove the Roman doctrine and practice in not giving the consecrated chalice to the people Do they not recede from the root and original of Christs institution Do they do what Christ did Do they teach what Christ taught Is not their practice quite another thing than it was at first Did not the Ancient Church do otherwise than these men do and thought themselves oblig'd to do otherwise They urg'd the doctrine and example of our Lord and the whole Oeconomy of the Mystery was their warrant and their reason for they always believed that a
other hereticks It is most likely here it might go away But however the good providence of God hath kept this record to reprove the follies of the Roman Church in this particular The authority of S. Austin reprehending the worship of images was urg'd from several places of his writings cited in the Margent In his first book de moribus Ecclesiae he hath these words which I have now set down in the Margent in which describing among other things the difference between superstition and true religion he presses it on to âssue Tell not me of the professors of the Christian name Follow not the troops of the unskilful who in true religion it self either are superstitious or so given to lusts that they have forgotten what they have promis'd to God I know that there are many worshippers of sepulchres and pictures I know that there are many who live luxuriously over the graves of the dead That S. Austin reckons these that are worshippers of pictures among the superstitious and the vitious is plain and forbids us to follow such superstitious persons But see what follows But how vain how hurtful how sacrilegious they are I have purpos'd to shew in another volume Then addressing himself to the Manichees who upon the occasion of these evil and superstitious practices of some Catholicks did reproach the Catholick Church he says Now I admonish you âhat at length you will give over the reproaching the Catholick Church by reproaching the manners the of these men viz. worshippers of pictures and sepulchres and livers riotously over the dead whom she her self condemns and whom as evil sons she endeavours to correct By these words now cited it appears plainly that S. Austin affirms that those few Christians who in his time did worship pictures were not only superstitious but condemned by the Church This the Letter writer denies S. Austin to have said but that he did say so we have his own words for witness Yea but 2. S. Austin did not speak of worshippers of Pictures alone what then Neither did he of them alone say they were superstitious and their actions vain hurtful and sacrilegious But does it follow that therefore he does not say so at all of these because he says it of the others too But 3. neither doth he formally call them superstitious I know not what this offer of an answer means certain it is when S. Austin had complained that many Christians were superstitious his first instance is of them that worship pictures and graves But I perceive this Gentleman found himself pinch'd beyond remedy and like a man fastned by his thumbs at the whipping-post he wries his back and shrinks from the blow though he knows he cannot get loose In the Margent of the Dissuasive there were two other testimonies of S. Austin pointed at but the Letter says that in these S. Austin hath not a word to any such purpose That is now to be tryed The purpose for which they were brought is to reprove the doctrine and practice of the Church of Rome in the matter of images It was not intended that all these places should all speak or prove the same particular but that which was affirmed in the text being sufficiently verified by the first quotation in the Margent the other two are fully pertinent to the main inquiry and to the condemnation of the Roman doctrine as the first was of the Roman practice The words are these Neither is it to be thought that God is circumscribed in a humane shape that they who think of him should fancy a right or a left side or that because the Father is said to sit it is to be supposed that he does it with bended knees lest we fall into that sacriledge for which the Apostle execrates them that change the glory of the incorruptible God into the similitude of a corruptible man For for a Christian to place such an image to God in the Church is wickedness but much more wicked is it to place it in our heart So S. Austin Now this testimony had been more properly made use of in the next Section as more relating to the proper matter of it as being a direct condemnation of the picturing of God but here it serves without any sensible error and where ever it is it throws a stone at them and hits them But of this more in the sequel But the third testimony however it pleases A. L. to deny it does speak home to this part of the question and condemns the Roman hypothesis the words are these See that ye forget not the testimony of your God which he wrote or that ye make shapes and images But it adds also saying Your God is a consuming fire and a zealous God These words from the Scripture Adimantus propounded Yet remember not only there but also here concerning the zeal of God be so blames the Scriptures that he adds that which is commanded by our Lord God in those books concerning the not worshipping of images as if for nothing else he reprehends that zeal of God but only because by that very zeal we are forbidden to worship images Therefore he would seem to favour images which therefore they do that they might reconcile the good will of the Pagans to their miserable and mad sect meaning the sect of the Manichees who to comply with the Pagans did retain the worship of images And now the three testimonies are verified and though this was an unnecessary trouble to me and I fear it may be so to my Reader yet the Church of Rome hath got no advantage but this that in S. Austins sence that which Romanists do now the Manichees did then only these did it to comply with the Heathens and those out of direct and meer superstition But to clear this point in S. Austins doctrine the Reader may please to read his 19. book against Faustus the Manichee cap. 18. and the 119. Epistle against him chap. 12. where he affirms that the Christians observe that which the Jews did in this viz. that which was written Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one God thou shalt not make an idol to thee and such like things and in the latter place he affirms that the second Commandment is moral viz. that all of the Decalogue are so but only the fourth I add a third as pregnant as any of the rest for in his first book de consensu Evangelistarum speaking of some who had fallen into error upon occasion of the pictures of S. Peter and S. Paul he says Sic nempe errare meruerunt qui Christum Apostolos ejus non in sanctis codicibus sed in pictis parietibus quaesiverunt The Council of Eliberis is of great concern in this Question and does great effort to the Roman practices E. W. takes notice of it and his best answer to it is that it hath often been answered already He says true it hath been answered
so should confidently say Eusebius had nothing to this purpose viz. to condemn the picturing of God when his words are so famous that they are recorded in the seventh Synod and the words were occasioned by a solemn message sent to Eusebius by the sister of Constantius and wife of Licinius lately turned from being Pagan to be Christian desiring Eusebius to send her the picture of our Lord Jesus to which he answers Quia vero de quadam imagine quasi Christi scripsisti hanc volens tibi à nobis mitti quam dicis qualem hanc quam perhibes Christi imaginem Vtrââ veram incommutabilem natura characteres suos portantem An istam quam propter nos suscepit servi formae schemate circumamictus Sed de forma quidem Dei nec ipse arbitror te quaerere semel ab ipso edoctam quoniam neque patrem quis novit nisi filius neque ipsum filium novit quis aliquando digne nisi solus pater qui eum genuit And a little after Quis ergo hujusmodi dignitatis gloriae vibrantes praefulgentes splendores exarare potuisset mortuis inanimatis Coloribus scripturis Vmbraticis And then speaking of the glory of Christ in Mount Thabor he proceeds Ergo si tunc incarnata ejus forma tantam virtutem sortita est ab inhabitante in se Divinitate mutata quid oportet dicere cum mortalitate exutus corruptione ablutus speciem servilis formae in gloriam Domini Dei commutavit Where besides that Eusebius thinks it unlawful to make a picture of Christ and therefore consequently much more to make a picture of God he also tells Constantia he supposes she did not offer at any desire of that Well for these three of the Fathers we are well enough but for the rest the objector says that they speak only against representing God as in his own essence shape or form To this I answer that God hath no shape or form and therefore these Fathers could not speak against making Images of a thing that was not and as for the Images of his essence no Christian no Heathen ever pretended to it and no man or beast can be pictured so no Painter can paint an Essence And therefore although this distinction was lately made in the Roman Schools yet the Fathers knew nothing of it and the Roman Doctors can make nothing of it for the reasons now told But the Gentleman saith that some of their Church allow only and practise the picturing those forms wherein God hath appeared It is very well they do no more but I pray in what forms did God the Father ever appear or the Holy and Mysterious Trinity Or suppose they had does it follow they may be painted We saw but now out of Eusebius that it was not esteemed lawful to picture Christ though he did appear in a humane body And although it is supposed that the Holy Ghost did appear in the shape of a Dove yet it is forbidden by the sixth General Council to paint Christ like a Lamb or the Holy Spirit like a Dove Add to this where did ever the Holy and Blessed Trinity appear like three faces joyned in one or like an old man with Christ crucified leaning on his breast and a Dove hovering over them and yet however the objector is pleas'd to mince the matter yet the doing this is ubique inter Catholicos recepta and that not only to be seen but to be ador'd as I prov'd a little above by testimonies of their own The next charge is concerning S. Hierom that he says no such thing which matter will soon be at an end if we see the Commentary he makes on these words of Isaiah Cui ergo similem fecisti Deum To whom do you liken God Or what Image will ye make for him who is a Spirit and is in all things and runs every where and holds the earth in his fist And he laughs at the folly of the Nations that an Artist or a Brasier or a Goldsmith or a Silversmith makes a God viz. by making the Image of God But the objector adds that it would be long to set down the words of the other Fathers quoted by the Doctor and truly so the Doctor thought so too at first but because the objector says they do not make against what some of his Church own and practise I thought it might be worth the Readers pains to see them The words of S. Austin in this question are very plain and decretory For a Christian to place such an Image to God viz. with right and left-hand sitting with bended knees that is in the shape of a man is wickedness but much more wicked is it to place it in our hearts But of this I have given account in the preceding Section Theodoret Damascen and Nicephorus do so expresly condemn the picturing God that it is acknowledg'd by my adversaries only they fly for succour to the old mumpsimus they condemn the picturing the essence of God but not his forms and appearances a distinction which those good old writers never thought of but directly they condemned all Images of God and the Holy Trinity And the Bishops in the seventh Synod though they were worshippers of Images yet they thinking that Angels were Corporeal believ'd they might be painted but denied it of God expresly And indeed it were a strange thing that God in the old Testament should so severely forbid any Image to be made of him upon this reason because he is invisible and he presses it passionately by calling it to their memory that they heard a voice but saw no shape and yet that both he had formerly and did afterwards shew himself in shapes and forms which might be painted and so the very reason of the Commandment be wholly void To which add this consideration that although the Angels did frequently appear and consequently had forms possible to be represented in Imagery yet none of the Ancients did suppose it lawful to paint Angels but they that thought them to be corporeal ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã said Philo. To which purpose is that of Seneca Effugit oculos cogitatione visendus est And Antiphanes said of God ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã God is not seen with eyes he is like to no man therefore no man can by an Image know him By which it appears plainly to be the General opinion of the Ancients that whatever was incorporeal was not to be painted no though it had appeared in symbolical forms as confessedly the Angels did And of this the second Synod of Nice it self is a sufficient witness the Fathers of which did all approve the Epistle of John Bishop of Thessalonica in which he largely discourses against the picturing of any thing that is incorporeal He that pleases to see more of this affair may find much more and to very great purpose in a little book de imaginibus
in the first book of the Greek and Latin Bibliotheca Patrum out of which I shall only transcribe these words Non esse faciendum imagines Dei imo si quis quid simile attentaverit hunc exâremis suppliciis veluti Ethnicis communicantem dogmatis subjici Let them translate it that please only I remember that Aventinus tells a story that Pope John XXII caused to be burnt for Hereticks those persons who had painted the Holy Trinity which I urge for no other reason but to shew how late an innovation of religion this is in the Church of Rome The worship of Images came in by degrees and it was long resisted but until of late it never came to the height of impiety as to picture God and to worship him by Images But this was the state and last perfection of this sin and hath spoiled a great part of Christianity and turn'd it back to Ethnicism But that I may summ up all I desire the Roman Doctors to weigh well the words of one of their own Popes Gregory II. to the Question Cur tamen Patrem Domini nostri Jesu Christi non oculis subjicimus Why do we not subject the Father of our Lord Jesus to the eyes He answers Quoniam Dei natura spectanda proponi non potest ac fingi The nature of God cannot be expos'd to be beheld nor yet feign'd He did not conclude that therefore we cannot make the Image of his essence but none at all nothing of him to be expos'd to the sight And that this is his direct and full meaning besides his own words we may conclude from the note which Baronius makes upon it Postea in usu venisse ut pingatur in Ecclesia Pater Spiritus Sanctus Afterwards it became an use in the Church viz. the Roman to paint the Father and the Holy Ghost And therefore besides the impiety of it the Church of Rome is guilty of innovation in this particular also which was the thing I intended to prove THE END VNVM NECESSARIVM OR The Doctrine and Practice OF REPENTANCE DESCRIBING The Necessities and Measures of a Strict a Holy and a Christian Life AND Rescued from Popular Errors By JER TAYLOR Chaplain in Ordinary to King CHARLES the First and late Lord Bishop of Down and Connor Poenitentiae compensatione redimendam proponit impunitatem Deus Praeveniamus faciem ejus in confessione Tertul. de Poenit. Cor contritum S PETER MARY MAGDALENE LONDON Printed for R. Royston Bookseller to the King 's most Excellent Majesty 1673. TO The Right Honourable and Noblest Lord RICHARD Earl of Carbery c. MY LORD THE duty of Repentance is of so great and universal concernment a Catholicon to the evils of the Soul of every man that if there be any particular in which it is worthy the labours of the whole Ecclesiastical Calling to be instant in season and out of season it is in this duty and therefore I hope I shall be excused if my Discourses of Repentance like the duty it self be perpetually increasing and I may like the Widow in the Gospel to the unjust Judge at least hope to prevail with some men by my importunity Men have found out so many devices and arts to cousen themselves that they will rather admit any weak discourses and images of Reason than think it necessary to repent speedily severely and effectively We find that sinners are prosperous and God is long before he strikes and it is always another mans case when we see a judgment happen upon a sinner we feel it not our selves for when we do it is commonly past remedy Indeed it was to be pitied in the Heathen that many of them were tempted to take the thriving side when Religion it self was unprosperous When Jupiter suffered his golden Scepter to be stole and the Image never frown'd and a bold fellow would scrape the Ivory thigh of Hercules and go away without a broken pate for all the Club that was in his hand they thought they had reason to think there was no more sacredness in the Images of their gods than in the statues of Vigellus and because the event of all regular actions was not regular and equal but Catiline was hewn down by the Consuls sword for his Rebellion and for the same thing Caesar became a Prince they believed that the Powers that govern'd these extraregular events must it self be various and changeable and they call'd it Fortune But My Lord that Christians should thus dote upon temporal events and the little baits of fishes and the meat of dogs adoring every thing that is prosperous and hating that condition of things that brings trouble is not to be pardon'd to them who profess themselves Servants and Disciples of a Crucified Lord and Master But it is upon the same account that men are so hardly brought to repent or to believe that Repentance hath in it so many parts and requires so much labour and exacts such caution and cannot be performed without the best assistances or the greatest skill in spiritual notices They find sin pleasant and prosperous gay and in the fashion And though wise men know it is better to be pleas'd than to be merry to have rest and satisfaction in wisdom and perfective notices of things than to laugh loud and fright sobriety away with noises and dissolution and forgetfulness yet this severer pleasure seems dull and flat and men generally betake themselves to the wildnesses of sin and hate to have it interrupted by the intervening of the sullen grace of Repentance It was a sprightly saying of him in the Comedy Ego vitam Deorum proptereà sempiternam esse arbitror Quòd voluptates eorum propriae sunt Nam mihi immortalitas Parta est si huic nulla aegritudo gaudio intercesserit Our immortality is to be reckoned by the continuance of our pleasure My life is then perpetual when my delights are not interrupted And this is the immortality that too many men look after by incompetent means But to be called upon to Repentance and when men inquire what that is to be told it is all the duty of a returning man the extermination of sin the mortification of all our irregular appetites and all that perfection of righteousness which can consist with our state of imperfection and that in order to these purposes we must not refuse the sharpest instruments that they may be even cut off which trouble us but that we suffer all the severity of voluntary or imposed discipline according as it shall be judged necessary this is it which will trouble men such I mean who love a beggerly ease before a laborious thriving trade a foul stable to some beasts is better than a fair way and therefore it is that since all Christians are convinced of the necessity the indispensable necessity of Repentance they have resolved to admit it but they also resolve they will not understand what it is Vna herclè falsa lachrymula one
that those who are under our Charges should know the force of the Resurrection of Christ and the conduct of the Spirit and live according to the purity of God and the light of the Gospel To this let us cooperate with all wisdom and earnestness and knowledge and spiritual understanding And there is no better way in the world to do this than by ministring to persons singly in the conduct of their Repentance which as it is the work of every man so there are but few persons who need not the conduct of a spiritual guide in the beginnings and progressions of it To the assistance of this work I have now put my Symbol having by the sad experience of my own miseries and the calamities of others to whose restitution I have been called to minister been taught something of the secret of Souls and I have reason to think that the words of our dearest Lord to S. Peter were also spoken to me Tu autem conversus confirma fratres I hope I have received many of the mercies of a repenting sinner and I have felt the turnings and varieties of spiritual entercourses and I have often observed the advantages in ministring to others and am most confident that the greatest benefits of our office may with best effect be communicated to souls in personal and particular Ministrations In the following book I have given advices and have asserted many truths in order to all this I have endeavoured to break in pieces almost all those propositions upon the confidence of which men have been negligent of severe and strict living I have cancell'd some false grounds upon which many answers in Moral Theologie us'd to be made to inquiries in Cases of Conscience I have according to my weak ability described all the necessities and great inducement of a holy life and have endeavoured to do it so plainly that it may be useful to every man and so inoffensively that it may hurt no man I know but one Objection which I am likely to meet withall excepting those of my infirmity and disability which I cannot answer but by protesting the piety of my purposes but this only that in the Chapter of Original sin I speak otherwise than is spoken commonly in the Church of England whos 's ninth Article affirms that the natural propensity to evil and the perpetual lusting of the flesh against the spirit deserves the anger of God and damnation against which I so earnestly seem to dispute in the sixth Chapter of my Book To this I answer that it is one thing to say a thing in its own nature deserves damnation and another to say it is damnable to all those persons in whom it is subjected The thing it self that is our corrupted nature or our nature of corruption does leave us in the state of separation from God by being unable to bear us to Heaven imperfection of nature can never carry us to the perfections of glory and this I conceive to be all that our Church intends for that in the state of nature we can only fall short of Heaven and be condemn'd to a poena damni is the severest thing that any sober person owns and this I say that Nature alone cannot bring us to God without the regeneration of the Spirit and the grace of God we can never go to Heaven but because this Nature was not spoil'd by Infants but by persons of reason and we are all admitted to a new Covenant of Mercy and Grace made with Adam presently after his fall that is even before we were born as much as we were to a participation of sin before we were born no man can perish actually for that because he is reconcil'd by this He that says every sin is damnable and deserves the anger of God says true but yet some persons that sin of mere infirmity are accounted by God in the rank of innocent persons So it is in this Article Concupiscence remains in the regenerate and yet concupiscence hath the nature of sin but it brings not condemnation These words explain the ãâã Original imperfection is such a thing as is even in the regenerate and it is of the nature of sin that is it is the effect of one sin and the cause of many but yet it is not daââing because as it is subjected in unconsenting persons it loses its own natural venome and relation to guiltiness that is it may of it self in its abstracted nature be a sin and deserve Gods anger viz. in some persons in all them that consent to it but that which will always be in persons that shall never be damned that is in infants and regenerate shall ãâã damn them And this is the main of what I affirm And since the Church of England intended that Article against the Doctrine of the Pelagians I suppose I shall not be thought to recede from the spirit and sence of the Article though I use differing manners of expression because my way of explicating this question does most of all destroy the Pelagian Heresie since although I am desirous to acquit the dispensation of God and his Justice from my imputation or suspicion of wrong and am loth to put our sins upon the account of another yet I impute all our evils to the imperfections of our nature and the malice of our choice which does most of all demonstrate not only the necessity of Grace but also of Infant Baptism and then to accuse this Doctrine of Pelagianism or any newer name of Heresie will seem like impotency and weakness of spirit but there will be nothing of truth or learning in it And although this Article was penn'd according to the style of the Schools as they then did loâe to speak yet the hardest word in it is capable of such a sence as complies with the intendment of that whole sixth Chapter For though the Church of England professes her self fallible and consequently that all her truths may be peaceably improved yet I do think that she is not actually deceiv'd and also that divers eminently learned do consent in my sence of that Article However I am so truly zealous for her honour and peace that I wholly submit all that I say there or any where else to her most prudent judgment And though I may most easily be deceived yet I have given my reasons for what I say and desire to be tried by them not by prejudice and numbers and zeal and if any man resolves to understand the Article in any other sence than what I have now explicated all that I shall say is that it may be I cannot reconcile my Doctrine to his explication it is enough that it is consistent with the Article it self in its best understanding and compliance with the truth it self and the justification of God However he that explicates the Article and thinks it means as he says does all the honour he can to the Authority whose words if he does not understand yet the sanction
the burthen was great but the shoulder is weak and crushed and therefore was not able to bear it and therefore much less can it stand under a bigger load if the holy Precepts of the Gospel should prove so and we be assisted by no firmer supporters 16. For the nature and constitution of man is such that he cannot perpetually attend to any state of things Voluntas per momenta variatur quia solus Deus immutabilis variety and change inconstancy and repentance are in his very nature * If he be negligent he is soon tempted If he be watchful he is soon wearied * If he be not instructed he is exposed to every abuse * If he be yet he is ignorant of more than he knows may be consened by very many things and in what he knows or seems to know he is sometimes confident sometimes capricious curious and impertinent proud and contemptuous * The Commandments are instanc'd in things against our natural inclinations and are restraints upon our appetite and although a man may do it in single instances yet to act a part of perpetual violence and preternatural contentions is too hard and severe an expectation and the often unavoidable failings of men will shew how impossible it is It is as S. Hieromes expression is as if a man should hale a boat against the stream if ever he slacken his hand the vessel falls back and if ever we give way to our appetite in any of the forbidden instances we descend naturally and easily * Some vices are proportionable to a mans temper and there he falls pleasantly and with desire ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã said Aristotle That which is natural is sweet but that which is violent is troublesome to others he is indifferent but to them he is turn'd by every byass * If a man be morose he is apt to offend with fullenness and angry pretensions but if he be compliant and gentle he is easily cousened with fair entreaties * If he be alone he is sad and phantastick and woe to him that is alone If he be in company it will be very hard for him to go with them to the utmost limits of permission and not to step beyond it * No mans leisure is great enough to attend the inquiry after all the actions and particulars for which he is to be judged and he does many things which he considers not whether they be sins or no and when he does consider he often judges wrong * For some things there are no certain measures and there are very many constituent or intervening things and circumstances of things by which it is made impossible to give a certain judgement of the whole * Oftentimes a man is surpris'd and cannot deliberate for want of time sometimes he is amaz'd and wants order and distinction to his thoughts and cannot deliberate for want of powers * Sometimes the case is such that if a man determines it against his temporal interest he determines falsly and yet he thinks he does it safest and if he judges in compliance with his temporal regards he cannot be confident but that he was mov'd not by the prevailing reason but by prevailing passion * If the dispute be concerning degrees there is no certain measures to weigh them by and yet sometimes a degree does diversifie the kind and vertue and vice are but differing degrees of the same instance and the ways of sinning upon the stock of ignorance are as many as there are ignorances and degrees and parts and vicious causes and instances of it 17. Concerning our infirmities they are so many that we can no more account concerning the ways of error coming upon that stock than it can be reckoned in how many places a lame man may stumble that goes a long journey in difficult and uneven ways We have beginning infant strengths which are therefore imperfect because they can grow Crescere posse imperfectae rei signum est and when they are most confirm'd and full grown they are imperfect still When we can reckon all the things of chance then we have summ'd up the dangers and aptnesses of man to sin upon that one principle but so as they can they are summ'd up in the words of Epiphanius ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The condition of our nature the inconstancy of our spirits the infirmity of our flesh the distraction of our senses are an argument to make us with confidence expect pardon and mercy from the loving kindness of the Lord according to the preaching of Truth the Gospel of Christ. 18. But besides all this the numbers of sin are not easily to be told the lines of account are various and changeable our opinions uncertain and we are affrighted from one into another and all changes from sin are not into vertue but more commonly into sin Obsessa mens hominis undique diaboli infestatione vallata vix occurrit singulis vix resistit si avaritia prostrata est exurgit libido And if we do not commit things forbidden yet the sins of omission are innumerable and undiscernable * Businesses intervene and visits are made and civilities to be rendred and friendly compliances to be entertain'd and necessities to be served and some things thought so which are not so and so the time goes away and the duty is left undone prayers are hindred and prayers are omitted and concerning every part of time which was once in our power no man living can give a fair account 19. This moral demonstration of the impossibility of perfect and exact obedience and innocence would grow too high if I should tell how easily our duties are sowr'd even when we think we walk wisely Severity is quickly turn'd into ungentleness love of children to indulgence joy to gayety melancholy to peevishness love of our wives to fondness liberties of marriage to licentiousness devotion to superstition austerity to pride feasting to intemperance Vrbanity to foolish jesting a free speech into impertinence and idle talking 20. There were no bottom of this consideration if we consider how all mankind sins with the tongue He that offends not in his tongue he is a perfect man indeed But experience and the following considerations do manifest that no man is so perfect For 21. Every passion of the Soul is a Spring and a shower a parent and a nurse to sin Our passions either mistake their objects or grow intemperate either they put too much upon a trifle or too little upon the biggest interest They are material and sensual best pleas'd and best acquainted with their own objects and we are to do some things which it is hard to be told how they can be in our own power We are commanded to be angry to love to hope to desire certain things towards which we cannot be so affected ever when we please A man cannot love or hate upon the stock and interest of a Commandment and yet these are parts of our duty To mourn and
good to be like God but to be like him is to be just and holy and prudent That 's ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as much as we can that is with a hearty righteous sincere endeavour for so ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or holy is used It signifies sincere true without error ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã So Damascius in Suidas It is not likely or true that he that is not wise in little things should be wise in great things But to live holily in the Christian sence is to live in faith and good works that 's Christian perfection ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã He is good and holy who by faith and good works is like unto God For this perfection or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã holiness is nothing else but a pursuance of that which is just and good for so said Moses concerning the man that forsook God and denied that he had made a Covenant with him Do not say in thine heart ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã let it be lawful or holy or permitted to me to depart from the Lord. To this sence was that of Justin Martyr who expounds this phrase of Be ye perfect by Christianum fieri Be perfect that is Be Christians be Christs Disciples for he who came ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to fulfil to consummate obedience to perfect the law to obey him and be Disciples of his institution is our perfection and consummation 44. IV. This perfection of state although it does not suppose a perfection of degrees yet it can be no less than 1. A perfection of parts It must be a Religion that is not mingled with interest piety to God that is not spoiled with cruelty to our neighbours a zeal that hath in it no uncharitableness or spite that is our Religion must be intire and not defective in any constituent part So S. James uses the word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã perfect and intire wanting nothing 2. To which add this also That to this perfection of state perseverance is of necessity to be added For so we are taught by the same Apostle Let patience have her perfect work that is let it bear you through all your trials lasting till all your sufferings are over For he that endures to the end shall be crowned because he only is perfect Our holiness must persevere to the end But 3. it must also be growing all the way For this word perfect is sometimes in Scripture used for degrees and as a distinction between Christians in the measures of duty S. Paul uses it to signifie well grown Christians or men in Christianity ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã stand perfectly and full or confidently fulfilling all the will of God for therefore we preach Christ and exhort every man and teach every man in all wisdom that we may present every man ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã perfect in Christ Jesus that is that they should not always be as babes for whom milk and weak nutriment is to be provided nor like those silly women always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth but it is commanded us to be wise and perfect to be men in Christ so S. Paul makes the antithesis Be ye babes in malice but in your minds ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã be perfect that is be men wise and confident and strong and well grown Perfectly instructed that is readily prepared to every good work not always imployed in the elements and infant propositions and practices of Religion but doing noble actions well skill'd in the deepest mysteries of faith and holiness This is agreeable to that expression of S. Paul who having laid the foundation of Christianity by describing the fundamentals intending to speak of the more mysterious points of the Religion calls it a going on to perfection So that by this Precept of perfection it is intended we should do more than the lowest measure of our duties and there is no limit but even the utmost of our power all that we can is the measure of our duty I do not say all that we can naturally or possibly but all that we can morally and probably according to the measures of a man and the rate of our hindrances and infirmities 45. V. But the last sort and sence of perfection is that which our blessed Saviour intended particularly in the instance and subject matter of this Precept and that is a perfection in the kind of action that is a choice and prosecution of the most noble and excellent things in the whole Religion Three are especially instanc'd in the holy Gospel I. The first is a being ready or a making our selves ready to suffer persecution prescrib'd by our blessed Saviour to the rich young man If thou wilt be perfect sell all and give to the poor that is if thou wilt be my disciple make thy self ready and come and follow me For it was at that time necessary to all that would follow Christs person and fortune to quit all they had above their needs For they that followed him were sure of a Cross and therefore to invite them to be disciples was to engage them to the suffering persecution and this was that which our blessed Saviour calls perfection Dulce periculum est O Lenaee sequi Deum Cingentem viridi tempora pampino It is an easie thing to follow God in festivals and days of Eucharist but to serve him in hard battels to die for him is the perfection of love of faith and obedience Obedient unto death was the Character of his own perfection for Greater love than this hath no man than to lay down his life Scis quem dicam bonum perfectum absolutum Quem malum facere nulla vis nulla necessitas potest He is good absolute and perfect whom no force no necessity can make evil II. The second instance is being merciful for S. Luke recording this Precept expounds it by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Be ye perfect that is Be ye merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful for by mercy only we can be like him ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã He that bears his neighbours burthen and is willing to do benefit to his inferiors and to minister to the needy of the good things which God hath given him he is as God to them that receive he is an imitator of God himself And Justin Martyr reciting this Precept of our blessed Saviour instead of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã uses the word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Be ye good and bountiful us your heavenly Father is And to this purpose the story of Jesus and the young man before mentioned is interpolated in the Gospel according to the Hebrews or the Nazarens The Lord said unto him How sayest thou I have kept the Law and the Prophets when it is written in the Law Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self and behold many of thy brethren the sons of Abraham are covered in filth and
a perfect grace * We must be ready to part with all for a good conscience and to die for Christ that 's perfect obedience and the most perfect love * We must conform to the Divine Will in doing and suffering that 's perfect patience we must live in all holy conversation and godliness that 's a perfect state * We must ever be going forward and growing in godliness that so we may be perfect men in Christ. * And we must persevere unto the end that 's perfection and the crown of all the rest If any thing less than this were intended it cannot be told how the Gospel should be a holy institution or that God should require of us to live a holy life but if any thing more than this were intended it is impossible but all mankind should perish 52. To the same sence are we to understand those other severe Precepts of Scripture of being pure unblameable without spot or wrinkle without fault that is that we be honest and sincere free from hypocrisie just in our purposes and actions without partiality and unhandsome mixtures S. Paul makes them to expound each other ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã sincere that is without fault pure and clear in Conscience 53. Like to this is that of Toto corde loving and serving God with all our heart and with all our strength That this is possible is folly to deny For he that saith he cannot do a thing with all his strength that is that he cannot do what he can do knows not what he says and yet to do this is the highest measure and sublimity of Christian perfection and of keeping the Commandments But it signifies two things 1. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã without hypocrisie sincerely and heartily opposite to that of Corde corde in the Psalmist Corde corde loquuti sunt they spake with a double heart but the men of Zebulon went out to battel absque corde corde they were not of a double heart so S. Hierome renders it but heartily or with a whole heart they did their business 2. It signifies diligence and labour earnestness and caution Totus in hoc sum so the Latines use to speak I am earnest and hearty in this affair I am wholly taken up with it 54. Thus is the whole design of the Gospel rarely abbreviated in these two words of Perfection and Repentance God hath sent Jesus to bless you ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã whilest or so that every one of you turn from your iniquities He blesses us and we must do our duty He pardons us and we obey him He turns us and we are turned And when S. Peter had represented the terrors of the day of Judgment he infers What manner of persons ought we to be ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in holy living and holy worshippings This he calls a giving diligence to be found ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã without spot and unblameable that 's Christian perfection and yet this very thing is no other than what he calls a little before ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a coming to repentance Living in holy conversation and piety in the faith of Christ is the extent and burthen of repentance and it is the limit and declaration of the spotless and unblameable This is no more and that is no less 55. Upon this account the Commandments are not only possible but easie necessary to be observed and will be exacted at our hands as they are imposed That is 1. That we abstain from all deliberate acts of sin 2. That we never contract any vicious habit 3. That if we have we quite rescind and cut them off and make amends for what is past 4. That our love to God be intire hearty obedient and undivided 5. That we do our best to understand Gods will and obey it allowing to our selves deliberately or by observation not the smallest action that we believe to be a sin Now that God requires no more and that we can do thus much and that good men from their conversion do thus much though in differing degrees is evident upon plain experience and the foregoing considerations I conclude with the words of the Arausican Council Omnes baptizati Christo auxiliante cooperante possunt debent quae ad salutem pertinent si fidelitèr laborare voluerint adimplere All baptized Christians may by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ if they will faithfully labour perform and fulfil all things that belong to their salvation 56. The summ of all is this The state of regeneration is perfection all the way even when it is imperfect in its degrees The whole state of a Christians life is a state of perfection Sincerity is the formality or the Soul of it A hearty constant endeavour is the Body or material part of it And the Mercies of God accepting it in Christ and assisting and promoting it by his Spirit of Grace is the third part of its constitution it is the Spirit This perfection is the perfection of Men not of Angels oand it is as in the perfection of Glory where all are perfect yet all are not equal Every regenerate man hath that perfection without which he cannot be accepted but some have this perfection more some less It is the perfection of state but the perfection of degrees is not yet Here men are ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã made perfect according to the measure of their Fathers as Porphyrie express'd it that is by the measures of mortality or as it pleases God to enable and accept them SECT IV. The former Doctrine reduc'd to Practice 1. THE Law is either taken for the Law of Moses or the Law of Works The Law of Works is that Empire and Dominion which God exercised over man using his utmost right and obliging man to the rigorous observation of all that Law he should impose upon him And in this sence it was a law of death not of life for no man could keep it and they that did not might not live This was impos'd on Adam only 2. But when God brought Israel out of Egypt he began to make a Covenant with them with some compliance to their infirmities For because little things could not be avoided Sacrifices were appointed for their expiation which was a mercy as the other was a misery a repentance as the sin But for great sins there was no Sacrifice appointed no repentance ministred And therefore still we were in the ministration of death for this mercy was not sufficient as yet it was not possible for a man to be justified by the Law It threatned sinners with death it inflicted death it did not promise eternal life it ministred no grace but fear and temporal hope It was written in Tables of stone not in their hearts that is the material parts of the Law of Moses were not consonant to natural and essential reason but arbitrary impositions they were not perfective of a man but
profited or obliged by our services no moments do thence accrew to his felicities and to challenge a reward of God or to think our best services can merit heaven is as if Galileo when he had found out a Star which he had never observed before and pleased himself in his own fancy should demand of the Grand Signior to make him king of Tunis for what is he the better that the studious man hath pleased himself in his own Art and the Turkish Empire gets no advantages by his new Argument * And this is so much the more material if we consider that the littleness of our services if other things were away could not countervail the least moment of Eternity and the poor Countrey man might as well have demanded of Cyrus to give him a Province for his handful of river water as we can expect of God to give us Heaven as a reward of our good works 22. XVI But although this rule relying upon such great and convincing grounds can abolish all proud expectations of reward from God as a debtor for our good works yet they ought not to destroy our modest confidence and our rejoycings in God who by his gracious promises hath not only obliged himself to help us if we pray to him but to reward us if we work For our God is merciful he rewardeth every man according to his work so said David according to the nature and graciousness of the work not according to their value and proper worthiness not that they deserve it but because God for the communication of his goodness was pleased to promise it Promissum quidem ex misericordiâ sed ex justitiâ persolvendum said S. Bernard Mercy first made the promise but justice pays the debt Which words were true if we did exactly do all that duty to which the reward was so graciously promised but where much is to be abated even of that little which was bound upon us by so glorious promises of reward there we can in no sence challenge Gods justice but so as it signifies equity and is mingled with the mercies of the chancery Gratis promisit gratis reddit So Ferus God promised freely and pays freely If therefore thou wilt obtain grace and favour make no mention of thy deservings And yet let not this slacken thy work but reinforce it and enlarge thy industry since thou hast so gracious a Lord who of his own meer goodness will so plentifully reward it 23. XVII If we fail in the outward work let it be so ordered that it be as little imputable to us as we can that is let our default not be at all voluntary but wholly upon the accounts of a pityable infirmity For the Law was a Covenant of Works such as they were but the mind could not make amends within for the defect without But in the Gospel it is otherwise for here the will is accepted for the fact in all things where the fact is not in our power But where it is there to pretend a will is hypocrisie Nequam illud verbum est benè vult nisi qui benè facit said the Comedian This rule is our measure in the great lines of duty in all negative Precepts and in the periods of the law of Christ which cannot pass by us without being observed But in the material and external instances of duty we may without our fault be disabled and therefore can only be supplied with our endeavours and desires But that is our advantage we thus can perform all Gods will acceptably For if we endeavour all that we can and desire more and pursue more it is accepted as if we had done all for we are accepted according to what a man hath and not according to what he hath not Unless we can neither endeavour nor desire we ought not to complain of the burthen of the Divine Commandments For to endeavour truly and passionately to desire and contend for more is obedience and charity and that is the fulfilling of the Commandments Matter for Meditation out of Scripture according to the former Doctrine The Old Covenant or the Covenant of Works IN that day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Cursed in every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the law to do them And thou shalt write upon stones all the words of this law very plainly Thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day to the right hand or to the left But it shall come to pass if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes then shall all these curses come upon thee and overtake thee And if you will not be reformed by these things but will walk contrary unto me then will I also walk contrary unto you and will punish you yet seven times for your sins He that despised Moses law died without mercy under two or three witnesses The New Covenant or the Covenant of Grace WE are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God * To declare I say at this time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus * Where is boasting then it is excluded by what law of works Nay but by the law of faith * Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit For as many as are led by the Spirit they are the sons of God * Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities because he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God * And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall not he with him also freely give us all things Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifieth This is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days saith the Lord I will put my laws in their mind and write them in their hearts and I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a people all shall know me from the least to the greatest * For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more If any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things are past away all things are become new And all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus
Christ and hath given to us the ministery of reconciliation * Now then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God * For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost for the promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are afar off and to as many as the Lord our God shall call And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law that the man which doth those things shall live by them But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise The word is nigh thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart that is the word of faith which we preach that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved Death is swallowed up in victory O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. My yoke is easie and my burthen is light For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh hath for sin condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit His Commandments are not grievous If while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life And not only so but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the attonement I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me My grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness Ask and you shall have seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you To him that hath shall be given and he shall have more abundantly Having therefore these promises let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord. The PRAYER I. O Eternal God Lord of Heaven and Earth Father of Men and Angels we do adore thy infinite Goodness we revere thy Justice and delight in thy Mercies by which thou hast dealt with us not with the utmost right and dominion of a Lord but with the gentleness of a Father treating us like friends who were indeed thy enemies Thou O God didst see our follies and observe our weaknesses thou knowest the aversness of our nature to good and our proneness to commit vanity and because our imperfect obedience could not bring us to perfect felicity whither thou didst design us the great God of all the world was pleased to make a new Covenant with Man and to become a debtor to his servants Blessed be God and blessed be that Mercy which hath done so great things for us O be pleased to work that in us which thou expectest from us Let us not lose our title in the Covenant of Faith and Repentance by deferring the one or dishonouring the other but let us walk worthy of our vocation according to the Law of Faith and the Mercies of God and the Covenant of our Lord Jesus II. O Blessed Jesus never suffer us to abuse thy mercies or to turn thy Grace into wantonness Let the remembrance and sense of thy glorious favours endear our services and let thy goodness lead us to Repentance and our Repentance bring forth the fruits of godliness in our whole life Imprint deeply upon our hearts the fear and terror of thy Majesty and perpetually entertain our spirits with highest apprehensions of thy loving kindness that we may fear more and love more every day more and more hating sin crucifying all its affections and desires passionately loving holy things zealously following after them prudently conducting them and indefatigably persevering in them to the end of our lives III. O Blessed and Eternal God with thy spirit inlighten our understandings in the rare mysterious Secrets of thy Law Make me to understand all the most advantageous ways of duty and kindle a flame in my Soul that no difficulty or contradiction no temptation within or persecution without may ever extinguish Give me a mighty grace that I may design to please thee with my best and all my services to follow the best examples to do the noblest Charities to pursue all Perfection ever pressing forward to the mark of the high calling in Christ Jesus Let us rather choose to die than to sin against our Consciences Let us also watch that we may omit nothing of our duty nor pretermit any opportunity by which thou canst be glorified or any Christian instructed comforted or assisted not resting in the strictest measures of Command but passing forward to great and prudent significations of love doing heroick actions some things by which thou mayest be greatly pleased that thou mayest take delight to pardon to sanctifie and to preserve thy servants for ever Amen CHAP. II. Of the Nature and Definition of Repentance And what parts of duty are signified by it in Holy Scriptures SECT I. THE Greeks use two words to express this duty ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã post factum angi cruciari to be afflicted in mind to be troubled for our former folly it is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã saith Phavorinus a being displeased for what we have done and it is generally used for all sorts of Repentance but more properly to signifie either the beginnings of a good or the whole state of an effective Repentance In the first sence we find it in S. Mathew ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ye seeing did not repent that ye might believe him Of the second sence we have example in Judas ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he repented too but the end of it was he died with anguish and despair and of Esau it is said ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he found no place for an effective repentance but yet he repented too for he was ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he fain would have had it otherwise and he sought it with tears which two do fully express all the meaning of this ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã when it is distinguished from the better and effective Repentance There is in this Repentance a sorrow for what is done a
ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã not ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã But when Christ had been preached all the obfirmation and obstinacy of mind by which they shut their eyes against that light all that was choice and interest or passion and was to be rescinded by Repentance But Conversion was the word indifferently used concerning the change both of Jews and Gentiles because they both abounded in iniquity and did need this change called by S. Paul ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a redemption from all iniquity by S. Peter ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a conversion from wickedness 10. In analogy and proportion to these Repentances and Conversions of Jews and Gentiles the Repentances of Christians may be called Conversion We have an instance of the word so used in the case of S. Peter When thou art converted strengthen thy brethren that is when thou art returned from thy folly and sin of denying the Lord do thou confirm thy brethren that they may not fall as thou hast done This is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a conversion from vanity and impiety or injustice when a person of any evil life returns to his duty and his undertaking in Baptism from the unregenerate to the regenerate estate that is from habitual sin to habitual grace But the Repentances of good men for their sins of infirmity or the seldom interruptions of a good life by single falls is not properly Conversion But as the distance from God is from whence we are to retire so is the degree of our Conversion The term from whence is various but the term whither we go is the same All must come to God through Jesus Christ in the measures and strictness of the Evangelical holiness which is that state of Repentance I have been now describing which is A perfect abrenunciation of all iniquity and a sincere obedience in the faith of Jesus Christ which is the result of all the foregoing considerations and usages of words and is further manifested in the following appellatives and descriptions by which Repentance is signified and recommended to us in Scripture 11. I. It is called Reconciliation ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã We pray you in Christs stead to be reconciled to God that is to be friends with him no longer to stand in terms of distance for every habitual sinner every one that provokes him to anger by his iniquity is his enemy not that every sinner hates God by a direct hate but as obedience is love so disobedience is enmity or hatred by interpretation ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã enemies in their mind by wicked works So S. Paul expresses it and therefore the reconciling of these is to represent them holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight Pardon of sins is the least part of this reconciliation Our sins and our sinfulness too must be taken away that is our old guilt and the remanent affections must be taken off before we are friends of God And therefore we find this reconciliation press'd on our parts we are reconciled to God not God to us For although the term be relative and so signifies both parts as conjunction and friendship and society and union do yet it pleased the Spirit of God by this expression to signifie our duty expresly and to leave the other to be supposed because if our parts be done whatsoever is on Gods part can never fail And 2. Although this reconciliation begins on Gods part and he first invites us to peace and gave his Son a Sacrifice yet Gods love is very revocable till we are reconciled by obedience and conformity 12. II. It is called Renewing and that either with the connotation of the subject renewed or the cause renewing The renewing of the Holy Ghost and the renewing of the mind or the spirit of the mind The word is exactly the same with ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which is a change of mind from worse to better as it is distinguished from the fruits and effects of it So be renewed in your mind that is throw away all your foolish principles and non-sence propositions by which you use to be tempted and perswaded to sin and inform your mind with wise notices and sentences of God That ye put off concerning the old conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and that ye put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness which is an excellent description of Repentance In which it is observable that S. Paul uses two words more to express the greatness and nature of this change and conversion It is 13. III. A new Creature The new Man Created in Righteousness for the state of Repentance is so great an alteration that in some sence it is greater than the Creation because the things created had in them no opposition to the power of God but a pure capacity obediential but a sinner hath dispositions opposite to the Spirit of Grace and he must unlearn much before he can learn any thing He must die before he can be born Nam quodcunque suis mutatum finibus exit Continuò hoc mors est illius quod fuit anté Lucret. Our sins the body of sin the spirit of uncleanness the old man must be abolished mortified crucified buried our sins must be laid away we must hate the garments spotted with the flesh and our garments must be whitened in the blood of the Lamb our hearts must be purged from an evil conscience purified as God is pure that is as S. Paul expresses it from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit denying or renouncing all ungodliness and worldly lusts 14. And then as the antithesis or consequent of this is when we have laid away our sin and renounced ungodliness We must live godly righteously and soberly in this present world we must not live either to the world or to our selves but to Christ Hic dies aliam vitam adfert alios mores postulat Our manner of life must be wholly differing from our former vanities so that the life which we now live in the flesh we must live by the faith of the Son of God that is according to his Laws and most holy Discipline 15. This is pressed earnestly upon us by those many Precepts of obedience to God to Christ to the holy Gospel to the Truth to the Doctrine of Faith * of doing good doing righteousness doing the truth * serving in the newness of the Spirit * giving our members up as servants of righteousness unto holiness * being holy in all conversations * following after peace with all men and holiness being followers of good works providing things honesâ in the sight of God and men abhorring evil and cleaving to that which is good * perfecting holiness in the fear of God to be perfect in every good work * being filled with the fruits of righteousness walking worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing being
fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God * abounding in the work of the Lord. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã are the words often used fill'd full and perfect 16. To the same purpose is it that we are commanded to live in Christ and unto God that is to live according to their will and by their rule and to their glory and in their fear and love called by S. Paul to live in the faith of the Son of God to be followers of Christ and of God to dwell in Christ and to abide in him to walk according to the Commandments of God in good works in truth according to the Spirit to walk in light to walk with God which was said of Enoch of whom the Greek LXX read ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã He pleased God * There are very many more to the same purpose For with great caution and earnestness the holy Scriptures place the duties of mankind in practice and holiness of living and removes it far from a confidence of notion and speculation Qui fecerit docuerit He that doth them and teaches them shall be great in the Kingdom and Why do you call me Lord Lord and do not the things I say to you and Ye are my friends if ye do what I command you ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã We must not only be called Christians but be so for not to be called but to be so brings us to felicity that is since the life of a Christian is the life of Repentance whose work it is for ever to contend against sin for ever to strive to please God a dying to sin a living to Christ he that thinks his Repentance can have another definition or is compleated in any other or in fewer parts must be of another Religion than is taught by Christ and his holy Apostles This is the Faith of the Son of God this is that state of excellent things which he purchased with his blood and as there is no other Name under Heaven so there is no other Faith no other Repentance whereby we can be saved Upon this Article it is usual to discourse of Sorrow and Contrition of Confession of sins of making amends of self-affliction and some other particulars but because they are not parts but actions fruits and significations of Repentance I have reserved them for their proper place Now I am to apply this general Doctrine to particular states of sin and sinners in the following Chapters SECT III. Descriptions of Repentance taken from the Holy Scriptures ¶ WHEN Heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against thee if they pray towards this place and confess thy name and turn from their sin when thou afflictest them Then hear thou in Heaven and forgive the sin of thy servants and of thy people Israel that thou teach them the good way wherein they should walk and give rain upon thy land which thou hast given to thy people for an Inheritance ¶ And the Redeemer shall come to Zion and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob saith the Lord. As for me this is my Covenant with them saith the Lord My Spirit that is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed saith the Lord from henceforth and for ever Again when I say unto the wicked Thou shalt surely die If he turn from his sin and do that which is lawful and right If the wicked restore the pledge give again that he had robbed walk in the statutes of life without committing iniquity he shall even live he shall not die * None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him he hath done that which is lawful and right he shall surely live Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that hence forth we should not serve sin Likewise reckon ye also your selves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. * Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof * Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield your selves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God * Being then made free from sin ye became the servants of righteousness * I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness Wherefore my brethren ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ that ye should be married to another even to him who is raised from the dead that we should bring forth fruit unto God For when we were in the flesh the motions of sins which were by the law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death * But now we are delivered from the law that being dead wherein we were held that we should serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter And that knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed The night is far spent the day is at hand let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light * Let us walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkenness not in chambering and wantonness not in strife and envying * But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof Having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God For godly sorrow worketh Repentance to salvation not to be repented of but the sorrow of the world worketh death * For behold this self same thing that ye sorrowed after a godly sort what carefulness it wrought in you yea what clearing of your selves yea what indignation yea what fear yea what vehement desire yea what zeal yea what revenge in all thing ye have approved your selves to be clear in this matter For the love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all then were all dead Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things are past away behold all things are become new That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts And be renewed in the spirit of your mind * And that ye put on that new man which after
God is created in righteousness and true holiness Let no man deceive you with vain words for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience Be not ye therefore partakers with them * For ye were sometimes darkness but now are ye light in the Lord walk as children of light * For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth * Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord * And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them * See then that ye walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise * Redeeming the time because the days are evil * Wherefore be ye not unwise but understanding what the will of the Lord is If ye then be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ fitteth on the right hand of God Set your affection on things above not on things on the earth * For ye are dead and your life is hidden with Christ in God * Mortifie therefore your members which are upon the earth fornication uncleanness inordinate affection evil concupiscence and covetousness which is idolatry * But now you also pât off all these anger wrath malice blasphemy filthy communication out of your mouth * Lie not one to another seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds * And have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world * Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ * Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us Looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God * Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord * Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with meekness the ingraffed word which is able to save your souls * But be ye doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust And besides this giving all diligence add to your faith vertue and to vertue knowledge * And to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness * And to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness charity * For if these things be in you and abound they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. * But he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see far off and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind be sober and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children not fashioning your selves according to the former lusts in your ignorance * But as he which hath called you is holy so be ye holy in all manner of conversation * Because it is written Be ye holy for I am holy Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed The indispensable necessity of a good life represented in the following Scriptures WHosoever breaketh one of these least Commandments and shall teach men so he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven but whosoever shall do and teach them the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven And why call ye me Lord Lord and do not the things which I say Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service And be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is that good that acceptable and perfect will of God Who will render to every man according to his deeds To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life * But unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath * Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile * But glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first and also to the Gentile Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the Commandments of God Therefore my beloved brethren be ye stedfast unmoveable always abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but faith which worketh by love For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them And this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment That ye may approve things that are excellent that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ * Being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God Furthermore then we beseech you brethren and exhort you by the Lord Jesus that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God so ye would abound more and more * For ye know what Commandments we gave by the Lord Jesus * For this is the will of God even your sanctification As you know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you as a Father doth
expiation of them they fancy and consequently give what allowance they list to those whom they please to mislead For in innumerable Cases of Conscience it is oftner inquired whether a thing be Venial or Mortal than whether it be lawful or not lawful and as Purgatory is to Hell so Venial is to Sin a thing which men fear not because the main stake they think to be secured for if they may have Heaven at last they care not what comes between And as many men of the Roman perswasion will rather chuse Purgatory than suffer here an inconsiderable penance or do those little services which themselves think will prevent it so they chuse venial sins and hug the pleasures of trifles warming themselves at phantastick fires and dancing in the light of the Glo-worms and they love them so well that rather than quit those little things they will suffer the intolerable pains of a temporary Hell for so they believe which is the testimony of a great evil and a mighty danger for it gives testimony that little sins can be beloved passionately and therefore can minister such a delight as is thought a price great enough to pay for the sufferance of temporal evils and Purgatory it self 3. But the evil is worse yet when it is reduc'd to practice For in the decision of very many questions the answer is It is a venial sin that is though it be a sin yet there is in it no danger of losing the favour of God by that but you may do it and you may do it again a thousand thousand times and all the venial sins of the world put together can never do what one mortal sin can that is make God to be your enemy So Bellarmine expresly affirms But because there are many Doctors who write Cases of Conscience and there is no measure to limit the parts of this distinction for that which is not at all cannot be measured the Doctors differ infinitely in their sentences some calling that Mortal which others call Venial as you may see in the little Summaries of Navar and Emanuel Sà the poor souls of the Laity and the vulgar Clergy who believe what is told them by the Authors or Confessors they chuse to follow must needs be in infinite danger and the whole body of Practical Divinity in which the life of Religion and of all our hopes depends shall be rendred dangerous and uncertain and their confidence shall betray them unto death 4. To bring relief to this state of evil and to establish aright the proper grounds and measures of Repentance I shall first account concerning the difference of sins and by what measures they are so differenc'd 2. That all sins are of their own nature punishable as God please even with the highest expressions of his anger 3. By what Repentance they are cur'd and pardon'd respectively SECT II. Of the difference of sins and their measures 5. I. SINS are not equal but greater or less in their principle as well as in their event It was one of the errors of Jovinian which he learned from the Schools of the Stoicks that all sins are alike grievous Nam dicunt esse pares res Furta latrociniis magnis parva minantur Falce recisuros simili se si sibi regnum Permittant homines For they supposed an absolute irresistible Fate to be the cause of all things and therefore what was equally necessary was equally culpable that is not at all and where men have no power of choice or which is all one that it be necessary that they chuse what they do there can be no such thing as Laws or sins against them To which they adding that all evils are indifferent and the event of things be it good or bad had no influence upon the felicity or infelicity of man they could neither be differenc'd by their cause nor by their effect the first being necessary and the latter indifferent * Against this I shall not need to oppose many Arguments for though this follows most certainly from their doctrine who teach an irresistible Decree of God to be the cause of all things and actions yet they that own the doctrine disavow the consequent and in that are good Christians but ill Logicians But the Article is sufficiently cleared by the words of our B. Lord in the case of Judas whose sin as Christ told to Pilate was the greater because he had not power over him but by special concession in the case of the servant that knows his Masters will and does it not in the several condemnations of the degrees and expressions of anger in the instances of Racha and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Thou vain man or Thou fool by this comparing some sins to gnats and some to Camels and in proportion to these there are ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in S. Luke many stripes a ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in S. James a greater condemnation * Thus to rob a Church is a greater sin than to rob a Thief To strike a Father is a higher impiety than to resist a Tutor To oppress a Widow is clamorous and calls aloud for vengeance when a less repentance will vote down the whispering murmurs of a trifling injury done to a fortune that is not sensible of smaller diminutions Nec vincit ratio tantundem ut peccet idémque Qui teneros caules alieni fregerit horti Vt qui nocturnus Divûm sacra legerit He is a greater criminal that steals the Chalice from a Church than he that takes a few Coleworts or robs a garden of Cucumers But this distinction and difference is by something that is extrinsecal to the action the greatness of the mischief or the dignity of the person according to that Omne animi vitium tanto conspectius in se Crimen habet quanto major qui peccat habetur 6. II. But this when it is reduc'd to its proper cause is because such greater sins are complicated they are commonly two or three sins wrapt together as the unchastity of a Priest is uncleanness and scandal too Adultery is worse than Fornication because it is unchastity and injustice and by the fearful consequents of it is mischievous and uncharitable Et quas Euphrates quas mihi misit Orontes Me capiant Nolo furta pudica thori So Sacriledge is theft and impiety And Apicius killing himself when he suppos'd his estate would not maintain his luxury was not only a self-murtherer but a gluttonous person in his death Nil est Apici tibi gulosius factum So that the greatness of sins is in most instances by extension and accumulation that as he is a greater sinner who sins often in the same instance than he that sins seldom so is he who sins such sins as are complicated and intangled like the twinings of combining Serpents And this appears to be so because if we take single sins as uncleanness and theft no man can tell which is the greater sin neither
excused by the wronged preserved person the evil accident was taken off by the pious purpose But he that to dishonour his friend throws a glass of wine in his face and says he did it in sport may be judged by his purpose not by his pretence because the pretence can be confuted by the observation of little circumstances and adherencies of the action which yet peradventure cannot legally be proved Alitèr leges alitèr philosophi tollunt astutias leges quatenus tenere manu res possunt philosophi quatenus ratione intelligentiâ Laws regard the great materialities of obedience the real sensible effect But wise men Philosophers and private Judges take in the accounts of accidental moments and incidencies to the action said Cicero But 3. Gods judgment is otherwise yet for he alone can tell the affection and all that which had secret influence into the event and therefore he can judge by what is secret by the purpose and heart which is indeed the only way of doing exact justice From hence it follows that what ought not to dissolve the friendship of man may yet justly dissolve our friendship with God for he takes other measures than men may or can 16. IV. Because offences against God may be avoided but it is not so in our entercourses with men for God hath told us plainly what is our duty what he expects what will please and what will displease him but men are often governed by Chance and that which pleases them to day shall provoke them to morrow and the next day you shall be their enemy for that for which three days ago they paid you thanks 17. V. If men exact little things it becomes their own case for we sin against our brother and need his pardon and therefore Hanc veniam petimúsque damúsque vicissim We give and ask pardon Det ille veniam facilè cui veniâ est opus But we never found iniquity in God or injustice in the most High and therefore he that is innocent may throw a stone at the criminal 18. VI. God hath in the smallest instance left us without excuse for he hath often warned us of small offences * He hath told us their danger He that despiseth little things shall perish by little and little * He hath told us they asperse us with a mighty guilt for he that offends in one Commandment is guilty of all * He hath told us that we are not certainly excused though our conscience do not manifestly accuse us for so S. Paul I am not hereby justified for God is greater than my conscience * He hath threatned loss of Heaven to him that is guilty of the breach of one ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã though of the least of these Commandments ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã these which Christ had reckoned in his Sermon where fetters are laid upon thoughts and words shall be called the least in the Kingdom that is he shall be quite shut out for minimus here is as much as nullus minimus vocabitur that is minimi aestimabitur he shall not be esteem'd at all in the accounts of doomsday mercy ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the accounts of the Doomsday book where there shall be a discerning of them who shall be glorified from them that are to be punished And this which is one of the severest periods of holy Scripture can by no arts be turned aside from concluding fully in this question Bellarmine says it means only to condemn those who by false doctrines corrupt these severe precepts and teach men as the Pharisees did of old not all those who break them themselves if they teach others to keep them He that breaks one of these and shall teach men so to do so are the words of Christ. But it is a known thing that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is oftentimes used for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã He that breaks one of these or shall teach others The words were spoken to the persons of the Apostles who were to teach these doctrines ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã exactly as Christ preach'd them but without peradventure they were also intended to all the Church and the following words and the whole analogy of the adjoyned discourse make it clear to every observing Reader and the words plainly say this He that shall break one of these least Commandments and He that shall teach men so each of them shall be called the least in the Kingdom But 2. why did our blessed Lord so severely threaten those that should teach others to break any of these severe Commandments by false interpretation but only because it was so necessary for all to keep them in the true sence and so fearful a thing to any to break them 3. Those who preach severe doctrines to others and touch them not with one of their fingers are guilty of that which Christ reproved in the Pharisees and themselves shall be cast-aways while they preach to others so that the breaking it by disobedience is damnable as well as the breaking it by false interpretation Odi homines ignavâ operâ philosophâ sententiâ Qui cum sibi semitam non sapiant alteri monstrant viam Indeed it is intolerable to teach men to be vicious but it is a hateful baseness to shew others that way which our selves refuse to walk in Whatever therefore may not be allowed to be taught may not also be done for the people are not to be taught evil because they must not do evil but may the teachers do what they may not teach and what the people may not do or is not the same punishment to them both 4. Now upon these grounds this very gloss which Bellarmine gives being a false interpretation of these words of Christ which are a summary of his whole Sermon and as it were the sanction and establishment of the former and following periods into laws must needs be of infinite danger to the inventer and followers of it for this gloss gives leave to men to break the least of these Commandments some way or other if they do not teach others so to do without being affrighted with fears of Hell but in the mean while this gloss teaches or gives leave to others to break them but allows no false interpretation of them but its own 5. But then it is worse with them who teach others so to do and command all men to teach so and if the Roman Doctors who teach that some breach of these Commandments is not of its own nature and by the divine threatnings exclusive of the transgressors from the Kingdom of God be not in some sence a teaching men so to do then nothing is For when God said to Adam That day thou eatest of the forbidden fruit thou shalt die the Tempter said Nay but ye shall not die and so was author to Adam of committing his sin So when our blessed Saviour hath told us that to break one of these least Commandments is exclusive
repent timely and effectually dies for none The wages of sin is death of sin indefinitely and therefore of all sin and all death for there is no more distinction of sin than death only when death is threatned indefinitely that death is to be understood which is properly and specifically threatned in that Covenant where the death is named as death temporal in the Law death eternal under the Gospel 34. And thus it appears in a very material instance relating to this question for when our blessed Saviour had threatned the degrees of anger he did it by apportioning several pains hereafter of one sort to the several degrees of the same sin here which he expresses by the several inflictions passed upon Criminals by the Houses of Judgment among the Jews Now it is observable that to the least of these sins Christ assigns a punishment just proportionable to that which the gloss of the Pharisees and the Law it self did to them that committed Murther which was capital He shall be guilty of judgment so we read it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã not ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã so it is in the Greek He shall be guilty in the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that is in the Court of Judgment the Assembly of the twenty three Elders and there his punishment was death but the gentlest manner of it the decapitation or smiting him through with the sword and therefore the least punishment hereafter answering to death here can mean no less than death hereafter * And so also was the second ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he that calls Racha shall be guilty that is shall be used as one that stands guilty in the Sanhedrim or Council meaning that he is to die too but with a severer execution by stoning to death this was the greatest punishment by the houses of judgment for Crucifixion was the Roman manner These two already signifie Hell in a less degree but as certainly and evidently as the third For though we read Hell-fire in the third sentence only yet ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã no otherwise signifies Hell than the other two by analogy and proportionable representment The cause of the mistake is this When Christ was pleased to add yet a further degree of punishment in hell to a further degree of anger and reproach the Jews having no greater than that of stoning by the judgment of the Sanhedrim or Council he would borrow his expression from that which they and their Fathers too well understood a barbarous custome of the Phoenicians of burning children alive in the valley of Hinnom which in succession of time the Hellenists called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã not much unlike the Hebrew word and because by our blessed Lord it was used to signifie or represent the greatest pains of hell that were spoken of in that gradation the Christians took the word and made it to be its appellative and to signifie the state or place of the damned just as ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the garden of Eden is called Paradise But it was no more intended that this should signifie Hell than that any of the other two should The word it self never did so before but that and the other two were taken as being the most fearful things amongst them here to represent the degrees of the most intolerable state hereafter just as damnation is called death the second death that because we fear the first as the worst of present evils we may be affrighted with the apprehensions of the latter From this authority it follows that as in the Law no sins were venial but by repentance and sacrifice so neither in the Gospel are they not in their own nature not by the more holy Covenant of the Gospel but by repentance and mortification For the Gospel hath with greater severity laid restraint upon these minutes and little particles of action and passion and therefore if in the law every transgression was exacted we cannot reasonably think that the least parts of duty which the Gospel superadded with a new and severer caution as great and greater than that by which the law exacted the greatest Commandments can be broken with indemnity or without the highest danger The law exacted all its smallest minutes and therefore so does the Gospel as being a Covenant of greater holiness But as in the law for the smaller transgressions there was an assignment of expiatory rites so is there in the Gospel of a ready repentance and a prepared mercy 37. VII Lastly those sins which men in health are bound to avoid those sins for which Christ did shed his most precious blood those sins which a dying man is bound to ask pardon for though he hopes not or desires not to escape temporal death certain it is that those sins are in their nature and in the Oeconomy or dispensation of the Divine threatnings damnable For what can the dying man fear but death eternal and if he be bound to repent and ask pardon even for the smallest sins which he can remember in order to what pardon can that repentance be but of the eternal pain to which every sin by its own demerit naturally descends If he must repent and ask pardon when he hopes not or desires not the temporal it is certain he must repent only that he may obtain the eternal And they that will think otherwise will also find themselves deceiv'd in this * For if the damned souls in hell are punish'd for all their sins then the unpardon'd venial sins are there also smarted for But so it is and so we are taught in the doctrine of our great Master If we agreee not while we are in the way we shall be cast into the eternal prison and shall not depart thence till we have paid the uttermost farthing that is ever for our smallest sins if they be unremitted men shall pay in hell their horrible Symbol of damnation And this is confessed on all hands that they who fall into hell pay their sorrows there even for all But it is pretended that this is only by accident not by the first intention of the Divine justice because it happens that they are subjected in such persons who for other sins not for these go to hell Well! yet let it be considered whether or no do not the smallest unremitted sins increase the torments of hell in their proportion If they do not then they are not at all punished in hell for if without them the perishing soul is equally punished then for them there is no punishment at all But if they do increase the pains as it is certain they do then to them properly and for their own malignity and demerit a portion of eternal pains is assigned Now if God punishes them in hell then they deserv'd hell if they be damnable in their event then they were so in their merit for God never punishes any sin more than it deserves though he often does less But to say that this is
endeavour it but a studying how to circumvent him and an habitual design of getting advantage upon his weakness a watching him where he is most easie and apt for impression and then striking him upon the unarm'd part But this is brought to effect by DECEIT 7. Cùm aliud simulatur aliud agitur alterius decipiendi causâ said Vlpian and Aquilius that is all dissembling to the prejudice of thy Neighbour ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã any thing designed to thy Neighbours disadvantage by simulation or dissimulation VNCLEANNESS ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 8. Stinking So the Syriack Interpreter renders it and it means obscene actions But it signifies all manner of excess or immoderation and so may signifie ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã prodigal or lavish expences and immoderate use of permitted pleasures even the excess of liberty in the use of the Marriage-bed For the Ancients use the word not only for unchaste but for great and excessive ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã They are exceeding fat and a Goat with great horns is called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã It is luxuria or the excess of desire in the matter of pleasures Every excess is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã it is intemperance ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã signifies a special kind of crime under this It means all voluntary pollutions of the body or WANTONNESS 9. That is all tempting foolish gestures such which Juvenal reproves Cheironomon Ledam molli seltante Bathyllo which being presented in the Theatre would make the Vestal wanton Every thing by which a man or woman is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã abominable in their lusts to which the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the lusts not to be named are reducible amongst which S. Paul reckons the effeminate and abusers of themselves with mankind that is they that do and they that suffer such things Philoctetes and Paris Caesar and the King of Pontus Mollities or softness is the name by which this vice is known and the persons guilty of it are also called the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The abominable HATRED 10. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Great but transient angers The cause and the degree and the abode makes the anger Criminal By these two words are forbidden all violent passion fury revengefulness ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The enemy and the avenger says David But not this only but the misliking and hating of a man though without actual designs of hurting him is here noted that is when men retain the displeasure and refuse to converse or have any thing to do with the man though there be from him no danger of damage the former experiment being warning enough The forbearing to salute him to be kind or civil to him and every degree of anger that is kept is an ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a part of Enmity or Hatred To this are reduc'd the Vnmerciful that is such as use their right in extream severity towards Servants and Malefactors Criminal or obnoxious persons and the Implacable that is a degree beyond such who being once offended will take no satisfaction but the utmost and extremest forfeiture DEBATE CONTENTIONS 11. That is all striving in words or actions scolding and quarrels in which as commonly both parties are faulty when they enter so it is certain they cannot go forth from them without having contracted the guilt of more than one sin whither is reduced clamour or loud expressions of anger Clamour is the horse of anger said S. Chrysostom anger rides upon it throw the horse down and the rider will fall to the ground Blasphemy backbiting we read it but the Greek signifies all words that are injurious to God or Man WHISPERERS 12. That is such who are apt to do shrewd turns in private a speaking evil of our Neighbour in a mans ear Hic nigrae succus loliginis haec est Aerugo mera this is an arrow that flieth in the dark it wounds secretly and no man can be warned of it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã backbiters it is the same mischief but it speaks out a little more than the other and it denotes such who pretend friendship and society but yet traduce their friend or accuse him secretly ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as Polybius calls it a new way of accusation to undermine a man by praising him that you seeming his friend a lover of his vertue and his person by praising him may be the more easily believed in reporting his faults like him in Horace who was glad to hear any good of his old friend Capitolinus whom he knew so well who had so kindly obliged him Sed tamen admiror quo pacto Judicium illud Fugerit but yet I wonder that he escaped the Judges Sentence in his Criminal cause There is a louder kind of this evil ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Railers that 's when the smoke is turned into a flame and breaks out it is the same iniquity with another circumstance it is the vice of women and boys and rich imperious fools and hard rude Masters to their Servants and it does too often infect the spirit and language of a Governour Our Bibles read this word by Despiteful that notes an aptness to speak spiteful words cross and untoward such which we know will do mischief or displease FOOLISHNESS 13. Which we understand by the words of S. Paul Be not foolish but understanding what the will of the Lord is It means a neglect of enquiring into holy things a wilful or careless ignorance of the best things a not studying our Religion which indeed is the greatest folly and sottishness it being a neglecting of our greatest interests and of the most excellent notices and it is the fountain of many impure emanations A Christian must not be ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he must not call fool nor be a fool Heady is reduc'd to this and signifies rash and indiscreet in assenting and dissenting people that speak and do foolishly because they speak and do without deliberation PRIDE 14. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a despising of others if compared with our selves so Theophrastus calls it Concerning which we are to judge our selves by the voices of others and by the consequent actions observable in our selves any thing whereby we overvalue our selves or despise others preferring our selves or depressing them in unequal places or usages is the signification of this vice which no man does heartily think himself guilty of but he that is not that is the humble man A particular of this sin is that which is in particular noted by the Apostle under the name of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã arrogance or bragging which includes pride and hypocrisie together for so Plato defines it to be ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a pretending to excellencies which we have not a desiring to seem good but a carelesness of being so reputation and fame not goodness being the design To this may be referred Emulations ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã so the Apostle calls them zeals it signifies immoderate love to a lawful
is done in the same degree the repentance is perfect more or less For there is a latitude in this duty as there are degrees of perfection SECT II. 1. Every man is bound to repent of his sin as soon as he hath committed it 1. THAT this doctrine is of great usefulness and advantage to the necessity and perswasions of holy life is a good probable inducement to believe it true especially since God is so essential an enemy to sin since he hath used such rare arts of the Spirit for the extermination of it since he sent his holy Son to destroy it and he is perpetually destroying it and will at last make that it shall be no more at all but in the house of cursing the horrible regions of damnation But I will use this only as an argument to all pious and prudent persons to take off all prejudices against the severity of this doctrine For it is nothing so much against it if we say it is severe as it makes for it that we understand it to be necessary For this doctrine which I am now reproving although it be the doctrine properly of the Roman Schools yet it is their and our practice too We sin with greediness and repent at leisure Pars magna Italiae est si verum admittimus in quâ Nemo togam sumit nisi mortuus No man puts on his mourning garment till he be dead This day we seldom think it fit to repent but the day appointed for repentance is always To morrow Against which dangerous folly I offer these considerations 2. I. If the duty of repentance be indispensably requir'd in the danger of death and he that does not repent when he is arrested with the probability of so sad a change is felo de se uncharitable to himself and a murderer of his own soul then so is he in his proportion who puts it off one day because every day of delay is a day of danger and the same law of charity obliges him to repent to day if he sinn'd yesterday lest he be dead before to morrow The necessity indeed is not so great and the duty is not so urgent and the refusal is not so great a sin in health as in sickness and dangers imminent and visible But there are degrees of necessity as there are degrees of danger And he that considers how many persons die suddenly and how many more may and no man knows that he shall not cannot but confess that because there is danger there is also an obligation of duty and charity to repent speedily and that positively or carelesly to put it off is a new fault and increases Gods enmity against him He that is well may die to morrow He that is very sick may recover and live many years If therefore a periculum ne fiat a danger lest repentance be never done is a sufficient determination of the Divine Commandment to do it then it is certain that it is in every instant determinately necessary because in every instant there is danger In all great sicknesses there is not an equal danger yet in all great sicknesses it is a particular sin not to repent even by the confession of all sides it is so therefore in all the periods of an uncertain life a sin but in differing degrees And therefore this is not an argument of caution only but of duty For therefore it is of duty because it is of caution It could not be a caution unless there were a danger and if there be a danger then it is a duty For he that is very sick must do it But how if he escapes was he obliged for all that He was because he knew not that he should escape By the same reason is every one obliged because whether he shall or shall not escape the next minute he knows not And certainly it was none of the least reasons of Gods concealing the day of our death that we might ever stand ready And this is plainly enough taught us by our blessed Saviour laboriously perswading and commanding us not to defer our repentance by his parable of the rich man who promised to himself the pleasures of many years he reprov'd that folly with a Stulte hac nocte and it may be any mans case for Nemo tam felix Crastinum ut possit sibi polliceri But he adds a Precept Let your loyns be girded about and your lights shining and ye your selves like men that wait for their Lord. And blessed are those servants whom their Lord when he cometh shall find watching And much more to the same purpose Nay that it was the reason why God concealed the time of his coming to us that we might always expect him he intimated in the following Parable This know that if the good man of the house had known what hour the thief would come he would have watched Be ye therefore ready also for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not Nothing could better have improved this argument than these words of our blessed Saviour we must stand in procinctu ready girded ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ready for the service always watching as uncertain of the time but in perpetual expectation of the day of our Lord. I think nothing can be said fuller to this purpose But I add the words of S. Austin Verum quidem dicis quòd Deus poenitentiae tuae indulgentiam promisit sed huic dilationi tuae crastinum non promisit To him that repents God hath promised pardon but to him that defers repentance he hath not promised the respite of one day It is certain therefore he intended thou shouldest speedily repent and since he hath by words and deeds declar'd this to be his purpose he that obeys not is in this very delay properly and specifically a Transgressor 3. II. I consider that although the precept of repentance be affirmative yet it is also limited and the time sufficiently declared even the present and none else As soon as ever you need it so soon you are obliged To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts That is defer not to hear him this day for every putting it off is a hardening your hearts For he that speaks to day is not pleased if you promise to hear him to morrow It was Felix his case to S. Paul Go away I will hear thee some other time He that calls every day means every day that we should repent For although to most men God gives time and leisure and expects and perseveres to call yet this is not because he gives them leave to defer it but because he still forbears to strike though their sin grows greater Now I demand when God calls us to repentance is it indifferent to him whether we repent to day or no Why does he call so earnestly if he desires it so coldly Or if he be not indifferent is he displeas'd if we repent speedily This no man thinks
Chrysostom In that moment says he he wipes away all the sins of his life And S. Austin upon that of David before quoted My confession came not so far as my mouth and God heard the voice of my heart 58. To this I answer first concerning the words of David Then concerning the examples 1. Concerning contrition that it is a good beginning of repentance is certain and in its measure acceptable to God and effective of all its proper purposes But contrition can have but the reward of contrition but not of other graces which are not parts but effects of it God will not despise the broken and contrite heart no for he will receive it graciously and bind up the wounds of it and lead it on in the paths of righteousness and by the waters of comfort 59. II. But a man is not of a contrite heart as soon as he hath exercised one act of contrition He that goes to break a rock does something towards it by every blow but every blow does not break it A mans heart is not so easily broken I mean broken from the love of sin and its adherence to it Every act of temperance does not make a man temperate and so I fear will it be judg'd concerning contrition 60. III. But suppose the heart be broken and that the man is contrite there is more to be done than so God indeed does not despise this but he requires more God did not despise Ahabs repentance but it did not do all his work for him He does not despise patience nor meekness nor resignation nor hope nor confession nor any thing that himself commands But he that commands all will not be content with one alone every grace shall have its reward but it shall not be crown'd alone Faith alone shall not justifie and repentance alone taken in its specifical distinctive sence shall not suffice but faith and repentance and charity and patience and the whole circle and rosary of graces and duties must adorn our heads 61. IV. Those graces and duties which are commanded us and to which God hath promised glorious rewards must not be single or transient acts but continual and permanent graces He that drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst again He that eats of this bread shall live for ever He that believes in me rivers of living waters shall flow from his belly He that confesseth his sins and forsaketh them shall have mercy Repent and believe and wash away your sins Now these words of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã are of extended and produced signification as Divines observe and signifie a state of duty such as includes patience and perseverance Such also are these He that doth the will of my Father abideth for ever If we confess our sins he is just and faithful to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all iniquity and they that do such things shall possess the kingdom of Heaven And I will deliver him because he hath put his trust in me And If ye love him he also will love us And Forgive and ye shall be forgiven These and many more do not intend that any one grace alone is sufficient much less any one act of one grace proceeding from the Spirit of God can be sufficient to wipe off our leprosies But these signifie states of duty and integrity not transient actions or separate graces And besides the infinite reasonableness of the thing this truth is consign'd to us plainly in Scripture God will render to every man according to his deeds To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life And if men had pleased they might as well have fallen upon this proposition that an act of humility would have procur'd our pardon as well as that an act of contrition will do it because of the words of David The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a contrite heart and will save such as be of an humble spirit Salvation is as much promised to humility alone as to contrition alone that is to neither separately but in the conjunction with other parts of duty 62. V. Contrition is either taken in its proper specifick signification and so it is but a part of repentance and then who can say that it shall be sufficient to a full and final pardon Repentance alone is not sufficient There must be faith and hope and charity therefore much less shall a part be sufficient when the whole is not But if contrition be taken in a sence comprehending more than it self then I demand how much shall it involve That it does include in it an act of the Divine love and a purpose to confess and a resolution to amend is affirmed So far is well But why thus far and no farther Why shall not contrition when it is taken for a sufficient disposition to pardon and salvation signifie as much as repentance does and repentance signifie the whole duty of a converted sinner Unless it does repentance it self that is as it is one single grace cannot suffice as I proved but now And therefore how shall contrition alone much less an act of contrition alone do it For my part I should be very glad it were so if God so pleased for I have as much need of mercy as any man and have as little reason to be confident of the perfection of my repentance as any returning sinner in the world But I would not willingly deceive my self nor others and therefore I must take the surest course and follow his measures who hath describ'd the lines and limits of his own mercy * But it is remarkable that the manner of the Scripture is to include the consequents in the antecedents He that is of God heareth Gods word That is not only hears but keeps it For not the hearer but the doer is blessed So S. John in the Revelation Blessed are they that are called to the marriage of the Lamb. They which are called are blessed that is They which being called come and come worthily having on the wedding garment For without this the meaning of the Spirit is not full For many are called but few are chosen And thus also it is in the present instance God will not despise the contrite heart that is the heart which being bruised with sorrow returns to duty and lives in holiness for in order to holiness contrition was accepted But one thing I shall remark before I leave this In the definition of Contrition all the Schools of Theologie in the world that I know of put the love of God Contrition is not only sorrow but a love of God too Now this doctrine if they themselves would give men leave rightly to understand it is not only an excellent doctrine but will also do the whole business of this great Question Without Contrition our sins cannot be pardon'd It is not Contrition unless the love
foregoing cases CAN the Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots then may ye learn to do good that are accustomed to do evil This is thy lot the portion of thy measures from me saith the Lord because thou hast forgotten me Give glory to the Lord your God before he cause darkness and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains lest while you look for light he turn it into the shadow of death and make it gross darkness What wilt thou say when he shall punish shall not sorrow take thee as a woman in travel And if thou say in thine heart Wherefore came these things upon me for the goodness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered and thy heels made bare I have seen thine adulteries and thy neighings the lewdness of thy whoredoms and thine abominations Wo unto thee wilt thou not be made clean when shall it once be saith the Lord God Thus saith the Lord unto this people Thus have they loved to wander they have not refrained their feet therefore the Lord doth not accept them he will now remember their iniquity and visit their sins Then saith the Lord Pray not for this people for their good When they fast I will not hear their cry and when they offer an oblation I will not accept them but I will consume them by the sword and by famine and by the pestilence Therefore thus saith the Lord if thou return then will I bring thee again and thou shalt stand before me and if thou take forth the precious from the vile thou shalt be as my mouth I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee saith the Lord. And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible Learn before thou speak and use Physick or ever thou be sick Before judgment examine thy self and in the day of visitation thou shalt find mercy Humble thy self before thou be sick and in the time of sins shew repentance Let nothing hinder thee to pay thy vows in due time and defer not until death to be justified I made hast and prolonged not the time to keep thy Commandments Thus saith the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel Amend your ways and your doings and I will cause you to dwell in this place Trust not in lying words saying The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord. For if you throughly amend your ways and your doings if you throughly execute judgment If ye oppress not the stranger and the widow then shall ye dwell in the land Thus saith the Lord God I will give you the land and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof and all the abominations thereof from thence And I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within you and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and will give them an heart of flesh That they may walk in my statutes and keep mine ordinances and do them and they shall be my people and I will be their God But as for them whose heart walketh after their detestable things and their abominations I will recompence their way upon their own heads saith the Lord God They have seduced my people saying Peace and there was no peace and one built up a wall and others dawb'd it with untemper'd morter Will ye pollute me among my people for handfulls of barley and pieces of bread to slay the souls that should not die and to save the souls alive that should not live by your lying unto my people that hear your lies Therefore I will judge you ô house of Israel every one according to your ways saith the Lord God repent and turn your selves from all your transgressions so iniquity shall not be your ruine Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby you have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit for why will ye die ô house of Israel For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth saith the Lord God wherefore turn your selves and live ye Ye shall remember your ways and all your doings wherein ye have been defil'd and ye shall loath your selves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed Wo unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as it were with a cart-rope Wo unto them that justifie the wicked for a reward and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him And when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you yea when you make many prayers I will not hear your hands are full of blood Wash ye make ye clean put away the evil of your doing from before mine eyes cease to do evil Learn to do well seek judgment relieve the oppressed judge the fatherless plead for the widow Come now and let us reason together saith the Lord Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow though they be red as crimson they shall be as wooll If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the fruit of the land But if ye refuse and rebel ye shall be devoured with the sword for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it She hath wearied her self with lies therefore have I caused my fury to light upon her Sow to your selves in righteousness and reap in mercy break up your fallow ground for it is time to seek the Lord till he come and rain righteousness upon you Turn thou unto thy God keep mercy and judgment and wait on thy God continually O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but in me is thy help Return to the Lord thy God for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity Take with you words and turn to the Lord say unto him Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously so will we render the calves of our lips For in thee the fatherless findeth mercy I will heal their backsliding I will love them freely for mine anger is turned away Seek ye the Lord while he may be found call ye upon him while he is near Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity whose name is Holy I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the Spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones For I will not contend for ever neither will I be always wroth for the spirit should fail before me and the souls which I have made For the iniquity of his
bath my stained soul in thy blood Wash the Ethiop cleanse the Leper dress the strangers wounds and forgive thy enemy VII I Will not O my God I dare not distrust those infinite glories of thy mercy and graciousness by which thou art ready to save all the world The sins of all mankind together are infinitely less than thy mercy and thou who didst redeem the Heathen world wilt also I hope rescue me who am a Christian. This is my glory and my shame my sins had not been so great if I had not disgrac'd so excellent a title and abused so mighty a grace but yet if the grace which I have abused had not been so great my hopes had been less One deep O God calls upon another O let the abyss of thy mercy swallow up the puddles of my impurity let my soul no longer sink in the dead sea of Sodom but in the laver of thy blood and my tears and sorrow wash me who come to thee to be cleansed and purified It is not impossible to have it done for thy power hath no limit It is not unusual for thee to manifest such glories of an infinite mercy thou doest it daily O give me a fast a tenacious hope on thee and a bitter sorrow for my sins and an excellent zeal of thy glory and let my repentance be more exemplary than my sins that the infiniteness of that mercy which shall save me may be conspicuous to all Saints and Angels and may endear the return of all sinners to thee the fountain of Holiness and Mercy Mercy dear God pity thy servant and do thy work of grace speedily and mightily upon me through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Ejaculations and short Prayers to be used by Dying or Sick Penitents after a wicked life I. O Almighty Father of Men and Angels I have often been taught that thy mercies are infinite and I know they are so and if I be a person capable of comfort this is the fountain of it for my sins are not infinite only because they could not be so my desires were only limited by my Nature for I would not obey the Spirit II. THou O God gavest mercy to the Thief upon the Cross and from pain thou didst bring him to Paradise from sin to repentance from shame to glory Thou wert the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world and art still slain in all the periods of it O be thou pleased to adorn thy Passion still with such miracles of mercy and now in this sad conjunction of affairs let me be made the instance III. THou art angry if I despair and therefore thou commandest me to hope My hope cannot rest upon my self for I am a broken reed and an undermined wall But because it rests upon thee it ought not to be weak because thou art infinite in mercy and power IV. HE that hath lived best needs mercy and he that hath lived worst even I O Lord am not wounded beyond the efficacy of thy blood O dearest sweetest Saviour Jesus V. I Hope it is not too late to say this But if I might be suffered to live longer I would by thy grace live better spending all my time in duty laying out all my passion in love and sorrow imploying all my faculties in Religion and Holiness VI. O MY God I am ready to promise any thing now and I am ready to do or to suffer any thing that may be the condition of mercy and pardon to me But I hope I am not deceived by my fears but that I should if I might be tried do all that I could and love thee with a charity great like that mercy by which I humbly pray that I may be pardon'd VII MY comfort O God is that thou canst if thou wilt and I am sure thy mercy is as great as thy power and why then may not I hope that thou wilt have mercy according to thy power Man only Man is the proper subject of thy mercy and therefore only he is capable of thy mercy because he hath sinned against thee Angels and the inferiour creatures rejoyce in thy goodness but only we that are miserable and sinful can rejoyce in thy mercy and forgiveness VIII I Confess I have destroyed my self but in thee is my help for thou gettest glory to thy name by saving a sinner by redeeming a captive slave by inlightning a dark eye by sanctifying a wicked heart by pardoning innumerable and intolerable transgressions IX O MY Father chastise me if thou pleasest but do not destroy me I am a son though an Absalom and a Cain an unthankful a malicious a revengeful uncharitable person Thou judgest not by time but by the measures of the Spirit The affections of the heart are not to be weighed in the balance of the Sanctuary nor repentance to be measured by time but by the Spirit and by the measures of thy mercy X. O MY God Hope is a word of an uncertain sound when it is placed in something that can fail but thou art my hope and my confidence and thy mercies are sure mercies which thou hast revealed to man in Christ Jesus and they cannot fail them who are capable of them XI O Gracious Father I am as capable of mercy as I was of being created and the first grace is always so free a grace so undeserved on our part that he that needs and calls is never forsaken by thee XII BLessed Jesus give me leave to trust in thy promises in the letter of thy promises this letter killeth not for it is the letter of thy Spirit and saveth and maketh alive Ask and you shall have so thou hast said O my God they are thy own words and whosoever shall call on the Name of the Lord shall be saved XIII THere are O blessed Jesus many more and one tittle of thy word shall not pass away unaccomplished and nothing could be in vain by which thou didst intend to support our hopes If we confess our sins thou art just and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all iniquities XIV WHen David said he would confess then thou forgavest him When the Prodigal was yet afar off thou didst run out to meet him and didst receive him When he was naked thou didst reinvest him with a precious robe and what O God can demonstrate the greatness of thy mercy but such a misery as mine so great a shame so great a sinfulness XV. BVT what am I O God sinful dust and ashes a miserable and undone man that I should plead with the great Judge of all the World Look not upon me as I am in my self but through Jesus Christ behold thy servant cloath me with the robes of his righteousness wash me in his bloud conform me to his image fill me with his Spirit and give me time or give me pardon and an excellent heroick spirit that I may do all that can be done something that is excellent and that
66. For we must observe carefully that there is a pardon of sins proper to this life and another proper to the world to come Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted and what ye bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven That is there are two remissions One here the other hereafter That here is wrought by the Ministery of the Word and Sacraments by faith and obedience by moral instruments and the Divine grace all which are divisible and gradual and grow or diminish ebbe or flow change or persist and consequently grow on to effect or else fail of the grace of God that final Grace which alone is effective of that benefit which we here contend for Here in proper speaking our pardon is but a disposition towards the great and final pardon a possibility and ability to pursue that interest to contend for that absolution and accordingly it is wrought by parts and is signified and promoted by every act of grace that puts us in order to Heaven or the state of final pardon God gives us one degree of pardon when he forbears to kill us in the act of sin when he admits when he calls when he smites us into repentance when he invites us by mercies and promises when he abates or defers his anger when he sweetly engages us in the ways of holiness these are several parts and steps of pardon For if God were extremely angry with us as we deserve nothing of all this would be done unto us and still Gods favours increase and the degrees of pardon multiply as our endeavours are prosperous as we apply our selves to religion and holiness make use of the benefits of the Church the ministery of the Word and Sacraments and as our resolutions pass into acts and habits of vertue But then in this world we are to expect no other pardon but a fluctuating alterable uncertain pardon as our duty is uncertain Hereafter it shall be finished if here we persevere in the parts and progressions of our repentance But as yet it is an Embryo in a state of conduct and imperfection here we always pray for it always hope it always labour for it but we are not fully and finally absolved till the day of sentence and judgment until that day we hope and labour * The purpose of this discourse is to represent in what state of things our pardon stands here and that it is not only conditional but of it self a mutable effect a disposition towards the great pardon and therefore if it be not nurs'd and maintain'd by the proper instruments of its progression it dies like an abortive conception and shall not have that immortality whither it was designed ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã For it was not ill said of old he that remits of his severity and interrupts his course does also break it and then he breaks his hopes and dissolves the golden chain which reached up to the foot of the throne of grace 67. II. Here therefore the advice is reasonable and necessary he that would ensure his pardon must persevere in duty and to that purpose must make a full and perfect work in his mortifications and fights against sin he must not suffer any thing to remain behind which may ever spring up and bear the apples of Sodom It is the advice of Dion Prusaeensis He that goes to cleanse his soul from lusts like a wild desert from beasts of prey unless he do it thoroughly in a short time will be destroyed by the remaining portions of his concupiscence For as a Fever whose violence is abated and the malignity lessened and the man returns to temper and reason to quiet nights and chearful days if yet there remains any of the unconquered humour it is apt to be set on work again by every cold or little violence of chance and the same disease returns with a bigger violence and danger So it is in the eradication of our sins that which remains behind is of too great power to effect all the purposes of our death and to make us to have fought in vain and lose all our labours and all our hopes and the intermedial piety being lost will exasperate us the more and kill us more certainly than our former vices as cold water taken to cool the body inflames it more and makes cold to be the kindler of a greater fire 68. III. Let no man be too forward in saying his sin is pardoned for our present perswasions are too gay and confident and that which is not repentance sufficient for a lustful thought or one single act of uncleanness or intemperance we usually reckon to be the very porch of Heaven and expiatory of the vilest and most habitual crimes It were well if the Spiritual and the Curates of Souls were not the authors or incouragers of this looseness of confidence and credulity To confess and to absolve is all the method of our modern repentance even when it is the most severe Indeed in the Church of England I cannot so easily blame that proceeding because there are so few that use the proper and secret ministery of a spiritual guide that it is to be supposed he that does so hath long repented and done some violence to himself and more to his sins before he can master himself so much as to bring himself to submit to that ministery But there where the practice is common and the shame is taken off and the duty returns at certain festivals and is frequently performed to absolve as soon as the sinner confesses and leave him to amend afterwards if he please is to give him confidence and carelesness but not absolution 69. IV. Do not judge of the pardon of thy sins by light and trifling significations but by long lasting and material events If God continues to call thee to repentance there is hopes that he is ready to pardon thee and if thou dost obey the Heavenly calling and dost not defer to begin nor stop in thy course nor retire to thy vain conversation thou art in the sure way of pardon and mayest also finish it But if thou dost believe that thy sins are pardon'd remember the words of our Lord concerning Mary Magdalen much is forgiven her and she loved much If thou fearest thy sins are not pardon'd pray the more earnestly and mortifie thy sin with the more severity and be no more troubled concerning the event of it but let thy whole care and applications be concerning thy duty I have read of one that was much afflicted with fear concerning his final state and not knowing whether he should persevere in grace and obtain a glorious pardon at last cried out O si scirem c. Would to God I might but know whether I should persevere or no! He was answered What wouldest thou do if thou wert sure Wouldest thou be careless or more curious of thy duty If that knowledge would make thee careless desire it not but if
which Heaven is opened and that is the word and baptism at the first and ever after the holy Sacrament of the Supper of the Lord and all the parts of the Bishops and Priests advocation and intercession in holy prayers and offices 59. But as for the declarative absolution although it is rather an act of wisdom than of power it being true as S. Hierome said that as the Priests of the Law could only discern and neither cause nor remove leprosies so the Ministers of the Gospel when they retain or remit sins do but in the one judge how long we continue guilty and in the other declare when we are clear and free yet this very declaration is of great use and in many cases of great effect For as God did in the case of David give to the Prophet Nathan a particular special and extraordinary commission so to the Ministers of the Gospel he gives one that is ordinary and perpetual He had a prophetical evidence but these have a certainty of faith as to one of the propositions and as to the other some parts of humane experience to assure them 1. of Gods gracious pardon to the penitent and 2. of the sincerity of their repentance and therefore can with great effect minister to the comfort of sad and afflicted penitents This does declare the pardon upon observation of the just grounds and dispositions but the dispensation of Ecclesiastical Sacraments does really minister to it not only by consigning it but as instruments of the Divine appointment to convey proper mercies to worthily disposed persons 60. II. But the other great thing which I was to say in this Article is this That the judicial absolution of the Priest does effect no material event or change in the penitent as to the giving the pardon and therefore cannot be it which Christ intended in the giving those excellent powers of remitting and retaining sins Now upon this will the whole issue depend Does the Priest absolve him whom God condemns God is the supreme Judge and though we may minister to his judgment yet we cannot contradict it or can the Priest condemn him whom God absolves That also is impossible He is near that justifieth me who will contend with me and if God be with us who can be against us Or will not God pardon unless the Priest absolves us That may become a sad story For he may be malicious or ignorant or interested or covetous and desirous to serve his own ends upon the ruine of my soul and therefore God dispenses his mercies by more regular just and equal measures than the accidental sentences of unknowing or imprudent men If then the Priest ministers only to repentance by saying I absolve thee what is it that he effects For since Gods pardon does not go by his measures his must go by Gods measures and the effect of that will be this God works his own work in us and when his Minister observes the effects of the Divine grace he can and ought to publish and declare to all the purposes of comfort and institution that the person is absolved that is he is in the state of grace and Divine favour in which if he perseveres he shall be saved But all this while the work is supposed to be done before and if it be the Priest hath nothing left for him to do but to approve to warrant and to publish And the case in short is this 61. Either the sinner hath repented worthily or he hath not If he hath then God hath pardoned him already by vertue of all the promises Evangelical If he hath not repented worthily the Priest cannot ought not to absolve him and therefore can by this absolution effect no new thing The work is done before the Priestly absolution and therefore cannot depend upon it Against this no Sect of men opposes any thing that I know of excepting only the Roman Doctors who yet confess the argument of value if the penitent be contrite But they add this that there is an imperfect Contrition which by a distinct word they call Attrition which is a natural grief or a grief proceeding wholly from fear or smart and hath in it nothing of love and this they say does not justifie the man nor pardon the sin of it self But if this man come to the Priest and confess and be absolv'd that absolution makes this attrition to become contrition or which is all one it pardons the mans sins and though this imperfect penitent cannot hope for pardon upon the confidence of that indisposition yet by the Sacrament of Penance or Priestly absolution he may hope it and shall not be deceived 62. Indeed if this were true it were a great advantage to some persons who need it mightily But they are the worst sort of penitents and such which though they have been very bad yet now resolve not to be very good if they can any other way escape it and by this means the Priests power is highly advanc'd and to submit to it would be highly necessary to most men and safest to all But if this be not true then to hope it is a false confidence and of danger to the event of souls it is a nurse of carelesness and gives boldness to imperfect penitents and makes them to slacken their own piety because they look for security upon confidence of that which will be had without trouble or mortification even the Priests absolution This therefore I am to examine as being of very great concernment in the whole article of Repentance and promised to be considered in the beginning of this Paragraph SECT V. Attrition or the imperfect Repentance though with Absolution is not sufficient 63. BY Attrition they mean the most imperfect Repentance that is a sorrow proceeding from fear of Hell a sorrow not mingled with the love of God This sorrow newly begun they say is sufficient for pardon if the sins be confest and the party absolved by the Priest This indeed is a short process and very easie but if it be not effectual and valid the persons that rely upon it are miserably undone Here therefore I consider 64. I. Attrition being a word of the Schools not of the Scripture or of antiquity means what they please to have it and although they differ in assigning its definition yet it being the least and the worst part of repentance every action of any man that can in any sence be said to repent upon consideration of any the most affrighting threatnings in the Gospel cannot be denied to have attrition Now such a person who being scar'd comes to confess his sin may still retain his affections to it for nothing but love to God can take away his love from evil and if there be love in it it is Contrition not Attrition From these premises it follows that if the Priest can absolve him that is attrite he may pardon him who hath affections to sin still remaining that is one who
at a solemnity of joy so are all the sad accents and circumstances and effects and instruments of sorrow proper in a day of mourning All Nations weep not in the same manner and have not the same interjections of sorrow but as every one of us use to mourn in our greatest losses and in the death of our dearest relatives so it is fit we should mourn in the dangers and death of our souls that they may being refreshed by such salutary and medicinal showers spring up to life eternal 77. In the several Ages of the Church they had several methods of these satisfactions and they requiring a longer proof of their repentance than we usually do did also by consequent injoyn and expect greater and longer penitential severities Concerning which these two things are certain 78. The one is that they did not believe them simply necessary to the procuring of pardon from God which appears in this that they did absolve persons in the Article of death though they had not done their satisfactions They would absolve none that did not express his repentance some way or other but they did absolve them that could do no exterior penances by which it is plain that they made a separation of that which was useful and profitable only from that which is necessary 79. The other thing which I was to say is this That though these corporal severities were not esteemed by them simply necessary but such which might in any and in every instance be omitted in ordinary cases and commuted for others more fit and useful yet they chose these austerities as the best signification of their repentance towards men such in which there is the greatest likelihood of sincerity a hearty sorrow such which have in them the least objection such in which a man hath the clearest power and the most frequent opportunity such which every man can do which have in them the least inlet to temptation and the least powers to abuse a man and they are such which do not only signifie but effect and promote repentance But yet they are acts of repentance just as beating the breasts or smiting the thigh or sighing or tears or tearing the hair or refusing our meat are acts of sorrow if God should command us to be sorrowful this might be done when it could be done at all though none of these were in the expression and signification The Jews did in all great sorrows or trouble of mind rent their garments As we may be as much troubled as they though we do not tear our clothes so we may be as true penitents as were the holy Primitives though we do not use that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that hardship which was then the manner of their penitential solemnities But then the repentance must be exercised by some other acts proper to the grace Prayers 80. Preces undique undecunque lucrum says one Prayers are useful upon all occasions but especially in repentances and afflictive duties or accidents Is any man afflicted let him pray saith S. James and since nothing can deserve pardon all the good works in the world done by Gods enemy cannot reconcile him to God but pardon of sins is as much a gift as eternal life is there is no way more proper to obtain pardon than a devout humble persevering prayer And this also is a part of repentance poenaeque genus vidisse precantem When we confess our sins and when we pray for pardon we concentre many acts of vertue together There is the hatred of sin and the shame for having committed it there is the justification of God and the humiliation of our selves there is confession of sins and hope of pardon there is fear and love sense of our infirmity and confidence of the Divine goodness sorrow for the past and holy purposes and desires and vows of living better in time to come Unless all this be in it the prayers are not worthy fruits of a holy repentance But such prayers are a part of amends it is a satisfaction to God in the true and modest sence of the word So S. Cyprian affirms speaking of the three children in the fiery Furnace Domino satisfacere nec inter ipsa gloriosa virtutum suarum martyria destiterunt They did not cease to satisfie the Lord in the very midst of their glorious martyrdoms For so saith the Scripture Stans Azarias precatus est Azarias standing in the flames did pray and made his exomologesis or penitential confession to God with his two partners Thus also Tertullian describes the manner of the Primitive repentance Animum moeroribus dejicere illa quae peccavit tristi tractatione mutare caeterum pastum potum pura nosse non ventris scil sed animae causâ plerumque verò jejuntis preces alere ingemiscere lachrymari mugire dies noctésque ad Dominum Deum suum presbyteris advolvi caris Dei adgeniculari omnibus fratribus legationes deprecationis suae injungere To have our minds cast down with sorrow to change our sins into severity to take meat and drink without art simple and pure viz. bread and water not for the bellies sake but for the soul to nourish our prayers most commonly with fasting to sigh and cry and roar to God ãâã Lord day and night to be prostrate before the Ministers and Priests to kneel before all the servants of God and to desire all the brethren to pray to God for them Oportet orare impensiùs rogare so S. Cyprian we must pray and beg more earnestly and as Pacianus adds according to the words of Tertullian before cited multorum precibus adjuvare we must help our prayers with the assistance of others Pray to God said Simon Peter to Simon Magus if peradventure the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee Pray for me said Simon Magus to S. Peter that the things which thou hast spoken may not happen to me And in this case the prayers of the Church and of the holy men that minister to the Church as they are of great avail in themselves so they were highly valued and earnestly desir'd and obtainâd by the penitents in the first Ages of the Church Alms. 81. Alms and Fasting are the wings of prayer and make it pierce the clouds That is humility and charity are the best advantages and sanctification of our desires to God This was the counsel of Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar Eleemosynis peccata tua redime redeem thy sins by Alms so the Vulgar Latin reads it Not that money can be the price of a soul for we are not redeemed with silver and gold but that the charity of Alms is that which God delights in and accepts as done to himself and procures his pardon according to the words of Solomon In veritate misericordia expiatur iniquitas In truth and mercy iniquity is pardoned that is in the confession and Alms of a penitent there is pardon for water
appetites of the body and its desires whether reasonable or excessive and though these things were not direct sins to us in their natural abode and first principle yet they are proper inherent miseries and principles of sin to us in their emanation But from this state Christ came to redeem us all by his grace and by his spirit by his life and by his death by his Doctrine and by his Sacraments by his Promises and by his Revelations by his Resurrection and by his Ascension by his Interceding for us and Judging of us and if this be not a conjugation of glorious things great enough to amaze us and to merit from us all our services and all our love and all the glorifications of God I am sure nothing can be added to it by any supposed need of which we have no revelation There is as much done for us as we could need and more than we could ask Nempe quod optanti Divûm promittere nemo Auderet volvenda dies en attulit ultro Vivite foelices animae quibus est fortuna peracta Jam sua The meaning of which words I render or at least recompence with the verse of a Psalm To thee O Lord I 'le pay my vow My knees in thanks to thee shall bow For thou my life keep'st from the grave And dost my feet from falling save That with the living in thy sight I may enjoy eternal light For thus what Ahasuerus said to Ester Veteres literas muta Change the old Letters is done by the birth of our Blessed Saviour Eva is changed into Ave and although it be true what Bensirach said From the woman is the beginning of sin and by her we all die yet it is now changed by the birth of our Redeemer From a woman is the beginning of our restitution and in him we all live Thus are all the four quarters of the World renewed by the second Adam ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The East West North and South are represented in the second Adam as well as the first and rather and to better purposes because if sin did abound Grace shall super-abound I have now Madam given to you such accounts as I hope being added to my other Papers may satisfie not only your Ladiship but those to whom this account may be communicated I shall only now beg your patience since you have been troubled with Questions and enquiries and objections and little murmurs to hear my answers to such of them as have been brought to me 1. I am complained of that I would trouble the World with a new thing which let it be never so true yet unless it were very useful will hardly make recompence for the trouble I put the world to in this inquiry I answer that for the newness of it I have already given accounts that the Opinions which I impugne as they are no direct parts of the Article of Original sin so they are newer than the truth which I have asserted But let what I say seem as new as the Reformation did when Luther first preached against Indulgences the pretence of Novelty did not and we say ought not to have affrighted him and therefore I ought also to look to what I say that it be true and the truth will prove its age But to speak freely Madam though I have a great reverence for Antiquity yet it is the prime antiquity of the Church the Ages of Martyrs and Holiness that I mean and I am sure that in them my opinion hath much more warrant than the contrary But for the descending Ages I give that veneration to the great names of them that went before us which themselves gave to their Predecessors I honour their memory I read their Books I imitate their piety I examine their arguments for therefore they did write them and where the reasons of the Moderns and theirs seem equal I turn the balance on the elder side and follow them but where a scruple or a grain of reason is evidently in the other balance I must follow that Nempe qui ante nos ista moverunt non Domini nostri sed Duces sunt Seneca Ep. 33. They that taught of this Article before me are good guides but no Lords and Masters for I must acknowledge none upon earth for so am I commanded by my Master that is in Heaven and I remember what we were taught in Palingenius when we were boys Quicquid Aristoteles vel quivis dicat eorum Dicta nihil moror à vero cum fortè recedunt Saepe graves magnosque viros famâque verendos Errare labi contingit plurima secum Ingenia in tenebras consueti nominis alti Authores ubi connivent deducere easdem If Aristotle be deceiv'd and say that 's true What nor himself nor others ever knew I leave his text and let his Scholars talk Till they be hoarse or weary in their walk When wise men erre though their fame ring like Bells I scape a danger when I leave their spells For although they that are dead some Ages before we were born have a reverence due to them yet more is due to truth that shall never die and God is not wanting to our industry any more than to theirs but blesses every Age with the understanding of his truths Aetatibus omnibus omnibus hominibus communis sapientia est nec illam ceu peculium licet antiquitati gratulari All Ages and all men have their advantages in their enquiries after truth neither is wisdom appropriate to our Fathers And because even wise men may be deceived and therefore that when I find it or suppose it so for that 's all one as to me and my duty I must go after truth where-ever it is certainly it will be less expected from me to follow the popular noises and the voices of the people who are not to teach us but to be taught by us and I believe my self to have reason to complain when men are angry at a doctrine because it is not commonly taught that is when they are impatient to be taught a truth because most men do already believe a lie Recti apud nos locum tenet error ubi publicus factus est so Seneca Epist. 123. complained in his time it is a strange title to truth which error can pretend for its being publick and we refuse to follow an unusual truth Quasi honestius sit quiafrequentius and indeed it were well to do so in those propositions which have no truth in them but what they borrow from mens opinions and are for nothing tolerable but that they are usual Object 2. But what necessity is there in my publication of this doctrine supposing it were true for all truths are not to be spoken at all times and if a truth gives offence it is better to let men alone than to disturb the peace I answer with the labouring mans Proverb a Penny-worth of ease is worth a Penny at any time and a little truth
exemption and they supposing that commonly it was otherwise troubled themselves about the exception of a Rule which in that sence which they suppos'd it was not true at all she was born as innocent from any impurity or formal guilt as Adam was created and so was her Mother and so was all her family * When the Lutheran and the Roman dispute whether justice and Original righteousness in Adam was Natural or by Grace it is de non ente for it was positively neither but negatively only he had Original righteousness till he sinn'd that is he was righteous till he became unrighteous * When the Calvinist troubles himself and his Parishioners with fierce declamations against natural inclinations or concupiscence and disputes whether it remains in baptized persons or whether it be taken off by Election or by the Sacrament whether to all Christians or to some few this is a ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for it is no sin at all in persons baptiz'd or unbaptiz'd till it be consented to My Lord when I was a young man in Cambridge I knew a learned professor of Divinity whose ordinary Lectures in the Lady Margarets Chair for many years together Nine as I suppose or thereabouts were concerning Original Sin and the appendant questions This indeed could not chuse but be Andabatarum conflictus But then my discourse representing that these disputes are useless and as they discourse usually to be de non ente is not to be reprov'd For I profess to evince that many of those things of the sence of which they dispute are not true at all in any sence I declare them to be de non ente that is I untie their intricate knots by cutting them in pieces For when a false proposition is the ground of disputes the process must needs be infinite unless you discover the first error He that tells them they both fight about a shadow and with many arguments proves the vanity of their whole process they if he says true not he is the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã * When S. Austin was horribly puzled about the traduction of Original Sin and thought himself forc'd to say that either the Father begat the soul or that he could not transmit sin which is subjected in the soul or at least he could not tell how it was transmitted he had no way to be relieved but by being told that Original Sin was not subjected in the Soul because properly and formally it was no real sin of ours at all but that it was only by imputation and to certain purposes not any inherent quality or corruption and so in effect all his trouble was de non ente * But now some wits have lately risen in the Church of Rome and they tell us another story The soul follows the temperature of the body and so Original Sin comes to be transmitted by contact because the constitution of the body is the fomes or nest of the sin and the souls concupiscence is deriv'd from the bodies lust But besides that this fancy disappears at the first handling and there would be so many Original Sins as there are several constitutions and the guilt would not be equal and they who are born Eunuchs should be less infected by Adam's pollution by having less of concupiscence in the great instance of desires and after all concupiscence it self could not be a sin in the soul till the body was grown up to strength enough to infect it and in the whole process it must be an impossible thing because the instrument which hath all its operations by the force of the principal agent cannot of it self produce a great change and violent effect upon the principal agent Besides all this I say while one does not know how Original Sin can be derived and another who thinks he can names a wrong way and both the ways infer it to be another kind of thing than all the Schools of learning teach does it not too clearly demonstrate that all that infinite variety of fancies agreeing in nothing but in an endless uncertainty is nothing else but a being busie about the quiddities of a dream and the constituent parts of a shadow But then My Lord my discourse representing all this to be vanity and uncertainty ought not to be call'd or suppos'd to be a ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as he that ends the question between two Schoolmen disputing about the place of Purgatory by saying they need not trouble themselves about the place for that which is not hath no place at all ought not to be told he contends about a shadow when he proves that to be true which he suggested to the two trifling Litigants But as to the thing it self I do not say there is no such thing as Original Sin but it is not that which it is supposed to be it is not our sin formally but by imputation only and it is imputed so as to be an inlet to sickness death and disorder but it does not introduce a necessity of sinning nor damn any one to the flames of Hell So that Original Sin is not a Non ens unless that be nothing which infers so many real mischiefs The next thing your Lordship is pleas'd to note to me is that in your wisdom you foresee some will argue against my explication of the word Damnation in the Ninth Article of our Church which affirms that Original Sin deserves damnation Concerning which My Lord I do thus and I hope fairly acquit my self 1. That it having been affirmed by S. Austin that Infants dying unbaptized are damn'd he is deservedly called Durus pater Infantum and generally forsaken by all sober men of the later ages and it will be an intolerable thing to think the Church of England guilty of that which all her wiser sons and all the Christian Churches generally abhor I remember that I have heard that King James reproving a Scottish Minister who refus'd to give private Baptism to a dying Infant being askt by the Minister if he thought the child should be damn'd for want of Baptism answered No but I think you may be damn'd for refusing it and he said well But then my Lord If Original Sin deserves damnation then may Infants be damn'd if they die without Baptism But if it be a horrible affirmative to say that the poor babes shall be made Devils or enter into their portion if they want that ceremony which is the only gate the only way of salvation that stands open then the word Damnation in the Ninth Article must mean something less than what we usually understand by it or else the Article must be salved by expounding some other word to an allay and lessening of the horrible sentence and particularly the word Deserves of which I shall afterwards give account Both these ways I follow The first is the way of the School-men For they suppose the state of unbaptized Infants to be a poena damni and they are confident enough to say that
which interpretation I follow S. Paul not the Pelagians they who are on the other side of the question follow neither And unless men take in their opinion before they read and resolve not to understand S. Paul in this Epistle I wonder why they should fancy that all that he says sounds that way which they commonly dream of But as men fancy so the Bells will ring But I know your Lordships grave and wiser judgment sees not only this that I have now opened but much beyond it and that you will be a zealous advocate for the truth of God and for the honour of his justice wisdom and mercy That which follows makes me believe your Lordship resolv'd to try me by speaking your own sence in the line and your temptation in the interline For when your Lordship had said that My arguments for the vindication of Gods goodness and justice are sound and holy your hand run it over again and added as abstracted from the case of Original Sin But why should this be abstracted from all the whole Oeconomy of God from all his other dispensations Is it in all cases of the world unjust for God to impute our fathers sins to us unto eternal condemnation and is it otherwise in this only Certainly a man would think this were the more favourable case as being a single act done but once repented of after it was done not consented to by the parties interested not stipulated by God that it should be so and being against all laws and all the reason of the world therefore it were but reason that if any where here much rather Gods justice and goodness should be relied upon as the measure of the event * And if in other cases laws be never given to Ideots and Infants and persons uncapable why should they be given here But if they were not capable of a Law then neither could they be of Sin for where there is no law there is no transgression And is it unjust to condemn one man to Hell for all the sin of a thousand of his Ancestors actually done by them And shall it be accounted just to damn all the world for one sin of one man But if it be said that it is unjust to damn the innocent for the sin of another but the world is not innocent but really guilty in Adam Besides that this is a begging of the question it is also against common sence to say that a man is not innocent of that which was done before he had a being for if that be not sufficient then it is impossible for a man to be innocent And if this way of answer be admitted any man may be damned for the sin of any Father because it may be said here as well as there that although the innocent must not perish for anothers fault yet the Son is not innocent as being in his Fathers loyns when the fault was committed and the law calls him and makes him guilty And if it were so indeed this were so far from being an excuse to say that the Law makes him guilty that this were absolute tyranny and the thing that were to be complain'd of I hope by this time your Lordship perceives that I have no reason to fear that I prevaricate S. Paul's rule ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã I only endeavour to understand S. Paul's words and I read them ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in proportion to and so as they may not intrench upon the reputation of Gods goodness and justice that 's ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to be wise unto sobriety But they that do so ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as to resolve it to be so whether God be honour'd in it or dishonour'd and to answer all arguments whether they can or cannot be answered and to efform all their Theology to the air of that one great proposition and to find out ways for God to proceed in which he hath never told of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ways that are crooked and not to be insisted in ways that are not right if these men do not ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã then I hope I shall have less need to fear that I do who do none of these things And in proportion to my security here I am confident that I am unconcern'd in the consequent threatning If any man shall Evangelize ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã any other doctrine than what ye have received something for Gospel which is not Gospel something that ye have not received let him be accursed My Lord if what I teach were not that which we have received that God is just and righteous and true that the soul that sins the same shall die that we shall have no cause to say The Fathers have eaten sowre Grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge that God is a gracious Father pardoning iniquity and therefore not exacting it where it is not that Infants are from their Mothers wombs beloved of God their Father that of such is the Kingdom of God that he pities those souls who cannot discern the right hand from the left as he declar'd in the case of the Ninevites that to Infants there are special Angels appointed who always behold the face of God that Christ took them in his arms and blessed them and therefore they are not hated by God and accursed heirs of Hell and coheirs with Satan that the Messias was promisâd before any children were born as certainly as that Adam sinn'd before they were born that if sin abounds grace does superabound and therefore children are with greater effect involv'd in the grace than they could be in the sin and the sin must be gone before it could do them mischief if this were not the doctrine of both Testaments and if the contrary were then the threatning of S. Paul might well be held up against me but else my Lord to shew such a Scorpion to him that speaks the truth of God in sincerity and humility though it cannot make me to betray the truth and the honour of God yet the very fear and affrightment which must needs seize upon every good man that does but behold it or hear the words of that angry voice shall and hath made me to pray not only that my self be preserved in truth but that it would please God to bring into the way of truth all such as have erred and are deceived My Lord I humbly thank your Lordship for your grave and pious Counsel and kiss the hand that reaches forth so paternal a rod. I see you are tender both of truth and me and though I have not made this tedious reply to cause trouble to your Lordship or to steal from you any part of your precious time yet because I see your Lordship was perswaded induere personam to give some little countenance to a popular error out of jealousie against a less usual truth I thought it my duty to represent to your Lordship such things by which as I can so I ought to
longer But your Lordship adds further And to remember how often he calls Concupiscence Sin I know S. Paul reckons Concupiscence to be one of the works of the flesh and consequently such as excludes from Heaven Col. 3.5 Evil Concupiscence concupiscence with something superadded but certainly that is nothing that is natural for God made nothing that is evil and whatsoever is natural and necessary cannot be mortified but this may and must and the Apostle calls upon us to do it but that this is a superinducing and an actual or habitual lusting appears by the following words Verse 7. in which ye also walked sometimes when ye lived in them such a concupiscence as that which is the effect of habitual sins or an estate of sins of which the Apostle speaks Rom. 7.8 Sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence that is so great a state of evil such strong inclinations and desires to sin that I grew as captive under it it introduced a necessity like those in S. Peter who had eyes ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã full of an Adulteress the women had possessed their eyes and therefore they were ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã they could not cease from sin because having ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã all concupiscence that is the very spirit of sinful desires they could relish nothing but the productions of sin they could fancy nothing but Colloquintida and Toadstools of the Earth * Once more I find S. Paul speaking of Concupiscence 1 Thess. 4.5 Let every man know to possess his vessel in holiness and honour not in the lust of concupiscence as do the Gentiles which know not God In the lust of Concupiscence that is plainly in lustfulness and impurity for it is a Hebraism where a superlative is usually expressed by the synonymon as Lutum coeni pluvia imbris so the Gall of bitterness and the iniquity of sins Robur virium the blackness of darkness that is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the outer darkness or the greatest darkness so here the lusâ of Concupiscence that is the vilest and basest of it I know no where else that the Apostle uses the word in any sence But the like is to be said of the word lust which the Apostle often uses for the habits produced or the pregnant desires but never for the natural principle and affection when he speaks of sin But your Lordship is pleased to add a subtlety in pursuance of your former advices and notices which I confess I shall never understand Although Baptism take away the guilt as concretively redounding to the person yet the simple abstracted guilt as to the Nature remains for Sacraments are administred to persons not to natures This I suppose those persons from whom your Lordship reports it intended as an answer to a secret objection For if Concupiscence be a sin and yet remains after Baptism then what good does Baptism effect But if it be no sin after then it is no sin before To this it is answered as you see there is a double guilt a guilt of person and of nature That is taken away this is not for Sacraments are given to Persons not to Natures But first where is there such a distinction set down in Scripture or in the prime Antiquity or in any moral Philosopher There is no humane nature but what is in the persons of men and though our understanding can make a separate consideration of these or rather consider a person in a double capacity in his personal and in his natural that is if I am to speak sence a person may be considered in that which is proper to him and in that which is common to him and others yet these two considerations cannot make two distinct subjects capable of such different events I will put it to the trial This guilt that is in nature what is it Is it the same thing that was in the person that is is it an obligation to punishment If it be not I know not the meaning of the word and therefore I have nothing to do with it If it be then if this guilt or obligation to punishment remains in the nature after it is taken from the person then if this concupiscence deserve damnation this nature shall be damned though the person be saved Let the Objectors my Lord chuse which they will If it does not deserve damnation why do they say it does If it does then the guilty may suffer what they deserve but the innocent or the absolved must not the person then being acquitted and the nature not acquitted the nature shall be damn'd and the person be saved But if it be said that the guilt remains in the nature to certain purposes but not to all then I reply so it does in the person for it is in the person after Baptism so as to be a perpetual possibility and proneness to sin and a principle of trouble and if it be no otherwise in the nature then this distinction is to no purpose if it be otherwise in the nature then it brings damnation to it when it brings none to the Man and then the former argument must return But whether it prevail or no yet I cannot but note that what is here affirmed is expresly against the words commonly attributed to S. Cyprian De ablutione pedum Sic abluit quos parentalis labes infecerat ut nec actualis nec Originalis macula post ablutionem illam ulla sui vestigia derelinquat How this supposing it of Baptism can be reconcil'd with the guilt remaining in the nature I confess I cannot give an account It is expresly against S. Austin Tom. 9. Tract 41. in Johan Epist. ad Ocean saying deleta est tota iniquitas expresly against S. Hierome Quomodo justificati sumus sanctificati si peccatum aliquid in nobis relinquitur But again My Lord I did suppose that Concupiscence or Original Sin had been founded in nature and had not been a personal but a natural evil I am sure so the Article of our Church affirms it is the fault and corruption of our Nature And so S. Bonaventure affirms in the words cited by your Lordship in your Letter Sicut peccatum actuale tribuitur alicui ratione singularis personae ita peccatum originis tribuitur ratione naturae Either then the Sacrament must have effect upon our Nature to purifie that which is vitiated by Concupiscence or else it does no good at all For if the guilt or sin be founded in the nature as the Article affirms and Baptism does not take off the guilt from the nature then it does nothing Now since your Lordship is pleas'd in the behalf of the objectors so warily to avoid what they thought pressing I will take leave to use the advantages it ministers for so the Serpent teaches us where to strike him by his so warily and guiltily defending his head I therefore argue thus Either Baptism does not take off the guilt of Original Sin
most eminent writers of the Primitive Christ I need not trouble my self with citations of many of them since Calvin lib. 3. Instit. c. 3. Sect. 10. confesses that S. Austin hath collected their testimonies and is of their opinion that Concupiscence is not a sin but an infirmity only But I will here set down the words of S. Chrysostome Homil. 13. in Epist. Rom. because they are very clear Ipsae passiones in se peccatum non sunt Effraenata verò ipsarum immoderantia peccatum operata est Concupiscentia quidem peccatum non est quando verò egressa modum foras eruperit tunc demum adulterium fit non à concupiscentia sed à nimio illicito illius luxu By the way I cannot but wonder why men are pleased where-ever they find the word Concupiscence in the New Testament presently to dream of Original Sin and make that to be the summ total of it whereas Concupiscence if it were the product of Adam's fall is but one small part of it Et ut exempli gratia unam illarum tractem said S. Chrysostome in the forecited place Concupiscence is but one of the passions and in the utmost extension of the word it can be taken but for one half of the passion for not only all the passions of the Concupiscible faculty can be a principle of sin but the Irascible does more hurt in the world that is more sensual this is more devillish The reason why I note this is because upon this account it will seem that concupiscence is no more to be called a sin than anger is and as S. Paul said Be angry but sin not so he might have said Desire or lust but sin not For there are some lustings and desires without sin as well as some Anger 's and that which is indifferent to vertue and vice cannot of it self be a vice To which I add that if Concupiscence taken for all desires be a sin then so are all the passions of the Irascible faculty Why one more than the other is not to be told but that Anger in the first motions is not a sin appears because it is not always sinful in the second a man may be actually angry and yet really innocent and so he may be lustful and full of desire and yet he may be not only that which is good or he may overcome his desires to that which is bad I have now considered what your Lordship received from others and gave me in Charge your self concerning Concupiscence Your next Charge is concerning Antiquity intimating that although the first antiquity is not clearly against me yet the second is For thus your Lordship is pleased to write their objection I confess I find not the Fathers so fully and plainly speaking of Original Sin till Pelagius had pudled the stream but after this you may find S. Jerome c. That the Fathers of the first Four Hundred years did speak plainly and fully of it is so evident as nothing more and I appeal to their testimonies as they are set down in the Papers annexed in their proper place and therefore that must needs be one of the little arts by which some men use to escape from the pressure of that authority by which because they would have other men concluded sometimes upon strict inquiry they find themselves entangled Original Sin as it is at this day commonly explicated was not the Doctrine of the Primitive Church but when Pelagius had pudled the stream S. Austin was so angry that he stampt and disturb'd it more And truly my Lord I do not think that the Gentlemen that urg'd against me S. Austin's opinion do well consider that I profess my self to follow those Fathers who were before him and whom S. Austin did forsake as I do him in the question They may as well press me with his authority in the Article of the damnation of Infants dying unbaptized or of absolute predestination In which Article S. Austin's words are equally urged by the Jansenists and Molinists by the Remonstrants and Contra-remonstrants and they can serve both and therefore cannot determine me But then my Lord let it be remembred that they are as much against S. Chrysostome as I am against S. Austin with this only difference that S. Chrysostome speaks constantly in the argument which S. Austin did not and particularly in that part of it which concerns Concupiscence For in the inquiry whether it be a sin or no he speaks so variously that though Calvin complains of him that he calls it only an infirmity yet he also brings testimonies from him to prove it to be a sin and let any man try if he can tie these words together De peccator mer. remission l. 1. c. 3. Concupiscentia carnis peccatum est quia inest illi inobedientia contra dominatum mentis Which are the words your Lordship quotes Concupiscence is a sin because it is a disobedience to the Empire of the spirit But yet in another place lib. 1. de civit Dei cap. 25. Illa Concupiscentialis inobedientia quanto magis absque culpa est in corpore non consentientis si absque culpa est in corpore dormientis It is a sin and it is no sin it is criminal but is without fault it is culpable because it is a disobedience and yet this disobedience without actual consent is not culpable If I do believe S. Austin I must disbelieve him and which part soever I take I shall be reproved by the same authority But when the Fathers are divided from each other or themselves it is indifferent to follow either but when any of them are divided from Reason and Scripture then it is not indifferent for us to follow them and neglect these and yet if these who object S. Austin's authority to my Doctrine will be content to subject to all that he says I am content they shall follow him in this too provided that they will give me my liberty because I will not not be tied to him that speaks contrary things to himself and contrary to them that went before him and though he was a rare person yet he was as fallible as any of my brethren at this day He was followed by many ignorant ages and all the world knows by what accidental advantages he acquired a great reputation but he who made no scruple of deserting all his predecessors must give us leave upon the strength of his own reasons to quit his authority All that I shall observe is this that the Doctrine of Original Sin as it is explicated by S. Austin had two parents one was the Doctrine of the Encratites and some other Hereticks who forbad Marriage and supposing it to be evil thought they were warranted to say it was the bed of sin and children the spawn of vipers and sinners And S. Austin himself and especially S. Hierome whom your Lordship cites speaks some things of marriage which if they were true then marriage were highly
Son of God and upon this confession saith the story they both went into the water and the Ethiop was washed and became as white as snow 4. In these particular instances there is no variety of Articles save only that in the annexes of the several expressions such things are expressed as besides that Christ is come they tell from whence and to what purpose And whatsoever is expressed or is to these purposes implyed is made articulate and explicate in the short and admirable mysterious Creed of St. Paul Rom. 10.1 This is the word of faith which we preach that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved This is the great and entire complexion of a Christian's faith and since salvation is promised to the belief of this Creed either a snare is laid for us with a purpose to deceive us or else nothing is of prime and original necessity to be believed but this Jesus Christ our Redeemer and all that which is the necessary parts means or main actions of working this redemption for us and the honour for him is in the bowels and fold of the great Article and claims an explicite belief by the same reason that binds us to the belief of its first complexion without which neither the thing could be acted nor the proposition understood 5. For the act of believing propositions is not for it self but in order to certain ends as Sermons are to good life and obedience for excepting that it acknowledges Gods veracity and so is a direct act of Religion believing a revealed proposition hath no excellency in its self but in order to that end for which we are instructed in such revelations Now Gods great purpose being to bring us to him by Jesus Christ Christ is our medium to God obedience is the medium to Christ and Faith the medium to obedience and therefore is to have its estimate in proportion to its proper end and those things are necessary which necessarily promote the end without which obedience cannot be encouraged or prudently enjoyned So that those articles are necessary that is those are fundamental points upon which we build our obedience and as the influence of the Article is to the perswasion or engagement of obedience so they have their degrees of necessity Now all that Christ when he preached taught us to believe and all that the Apostles in their Sermons propound all aim at this that we should acknowledge Christ for our Law-giver and our Saviour so that nothing can be necessary by a prime necessity to be believed explicitely but such things which are therefore parts of the great Article because they either encourage our services or oblige them such as declare Christs greatness in himself or his goodness to us So that although we must neither deny nor doubt of any thing which we know our great Master hath taught us yet salvation is in special and by name annexed to the belief of those Articles only which have in them the endearments of our services or the support of our confidence or the satisfaction of our hopes such as are Jesus Christ the Son of the living God the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus forgiveness of sins by his bloud Resurrection of the dead and life eternal because these propositions qualifie Christ for our Saviour and our Law-Giver the one to engage our services the other to endear them for so much is necessary as will make us to be his servants and his Disciples and what can be required more This only Salvation is promised to the explicite belief of those Articles and therefore those only are necessary and those are sufficient but thus to us in the formality of Christians which is a formality superadded to a former capacity we before we are Christians are reasonable creatures and capable of a blessed eternity and there is a Creed which is the Gentiles Creed which is so supposed in the Christians Creed as it is supposed in a Christian to be a man and that is oportet accedentem ad Deum credere Deum esse esse remuneratorem quaerentium eum If any man will urge farther that whatsoever is deducible from these Articles by necessary consequence is necessary to be believed explicitely I answer It is true if he sees the deduction and coherence of the parts but it is not certain that every man shall be able to deduce whatsoever is either immediately or certainly deducible from these premises and then since salvation is promised to the explicite belief of these I see not how any man can justifie the making the way to heaven narrower than Jesus Christ hath made it it being already so narrow that there are few that find it 7. In the pursuance of this great truth the Apostles or the holy men their Contemporaries and Disciples composed a Creed to be a Rule of Faith to all Christians as appears in Irenaeus Tertullian St. Cyprian St. Austin Ruffinus and divers others which Creed unless it had contained all the intire object of Faith and the foundation of Religion it cannot be imagined to what purpose it should serve and that it was so esteemed by the whole Church of God in all Ages appears in this that since Faith is a necessary pre-disposition to Baptism in all persons capable of the use of reason all Catechumens in the Latine Church coming to Baptism were interrogated concerning their faith and gave satisfaction in the recitation of this Creed And in the East they professed exactly the same faith something differing in words but of the same matter reason design and consequence and so they did at Hierusalem so at Aquileia This was that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã These articles were ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã L. 5. Cod. de S. Trinit ad fid Cath. Cùm recta Now since the Apostles and Apostolical men and Churches in these their Symbols did recite particular Articles to a considerable number and were so minute in their recitation as to descend to circumstances it is more than probable that they omitted nothing of necessity and that these Articles are not general principles in the bosom of which many more Articles equally necessary to be believed explicitely and more particular are infolded but that it is as minute an explication of those prima credibilia I before reckoned as is necessary to salvation And therefore Tertullian calls the Creed Regulam fidei quâ salvâ formâ ejus manente in suo ordine possit in Scriptura tractari inquiri si quid videtur vel ambiguitate pendere vel obscuritate obumbrari Cordis signaculum nostrae militiae Sacramentum S. Ambrose calls it lib. 3. de velandis virgin Comprehensio fidei nostrae atque perfectio by S. Austin Serm. 115. Confessio expositio regula fidei generally by the Ancients The profession of this Creed was the exposition of that
saying of Saint Peter ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The answer of a good conscience towards God For of the recitation and profession of this Creed in Baptism it is that Tertullian de resur carnis says Anima non lotione sed responsione sancitur And of this was the prayer of Hilary lib. 12. de Trinit Conserva hanc conscientiae meae vocem ut quod in regenerationis meae Symbolo baptizatus in Patre Filio Spir. S. professus sum semper obtineam And according to the rule and reason of this Discourse that it may appear that the Creed hath in it all Articles primò per se primely and universally necessary the Creed is just such an explication of that Faith which the Apostles preached viz. the Creed which St. Paul recites as contains in it all those things which entitle Christ to us in the capacities of our Law-giver and our Saviour such as enable him to the great work of redemption according to the predictions concerning him and such as engage and encourage our services For taking out the Article of Christs descent into Hell which was not in the old Creed as appears in some of the Copies I before referred to in Tertullian Ruffinus and Irenaeus and indeed was omitted in all the Confessions of the Eastern Churches in the Church of Rome and in the Nicene Creed which by adoption came to be the Creed of the Catholick Church all other Articles are such as directly constitute the parts and work of our redemption such as clearly derive the honour to Christ and enable him with the capacities of our Saviour and Lord. The rest engage our services by proposition of such Articles which are rather promises than propositions and the whole Creed take it in any of the old Forms is but an Analysis of that which St. Paul calls the word of salvation whereby we shall be saved viz. that we confess Jesus to be Lord and that God raised him from the dead by the first whereof he became our Law-giver and our Guardian by the second he was our Saviour the other things are but parts and main actions of those two Now what reason there is in the world that can inwrap any thing else within the foundation that is in the whole body of Articles simply and inseparably necessary or in the prime original necessity of Faith I cannot possibly imagine These do the work and therefore nothing can upon the true grounds of reason enlarge the necessity to the inclosure of other Articles 9. Now if more were necessary than the Articles of the Creed I demand why was it made the Characteristick note of a Christian from a Heretick or a Jew or an Infidel or to what purpose was it composed Or if this was intended as sufficient did the Apostles or those Churches which they founded know any thing else to be necessary If they did not then either nothing more is necessary I speak of matters of meer belief or they did not know all the will of the Lord and so were unfit Dispensers of the mysteries of the Kingdom or if they did know more was necessary and yet would not insert it they did an act of publick notice and consign'd it to all Ages of the Church to no purpose unless to beguile credulous people by making them believe their faith was sufficient having tried it by that touch-stone Apostolical when there was no such matter 10. But if this was sufficient to bring men to heaven then why not now If the Apostles admitted all to their Communion that believed this Creed why shall we exclude any that preserve the same intire Why is not our faith of these Articles of as much efficacy for bringing us to heaven as it was in the Churches Apostolical Who had guides more infallible that might without errour have taught them superstructures enough if they had been necessary and so they did But that they did not insert them into the Creed when they might have done it with as much certainty as these Articles makes it clear to my understanding that other things were not necessary but these were that whatever profit and advantages might come from other Articles yet these were sufficient and however certain persons might accidentally be obliged to believe much more yet this was the one and only foundation of Faith upon which all persons were to build their hopes of Heaven this was therefore necessary to be taught to all because of necessity to be believed by all So that although other persons might commit a delinquency in genere morum if they did not know or did not believe much more because they were obliged to further disquisitions in order to other ends yet none of these who held the Creed intire could perish for want of necessary faith though possibly he might for supine negligence or affected ignorance or some other fault which had influence upon his opinions and his understanding he having a new supervening obligation ex accidente to know and believe more 11. Neither are we oblig'd to make these Articles more particular and minute than the Creed For since the Apostles and indeed our blessed Lord himself promised heaven to them who believed him to be the Christ that was to come into the World and that he who believes in him should be partaker of the resurrection and life eternal he will be as good as his word yet because this Article was very general and a complexion rather than a single proposition the Apostles and others our Fathers in Christ did make it more explicite though they have said no more than what lay entire and ready form'd in the bosom of the great Article yet they made their extracts to great purpose and absolute sufficiency and therefore there needs no more deductions or remoter consequences from the first great Article than the Creed of the Apostles For although whatsoever is certainly deduced from any of these Articles made already so explicite is as certainly true and as much to be believed as the Article it self because ex veris possunt nil nisi vera sequi yet because it is not certain that our deductions from them are certain and what one calls evident is so obscure to another that he believes it is false it is the best and only safe course to rest in that explication the Apostles have made because if any of these Apostolical deductions were not demonstrable evidently to follow from that great Article to which salvation is promised yet the authority of them who compil'd the Symbol the plain description of the Articles from the words of Scriptures the evidence of reason demonstrating these to be the whole foundation are sufficient upon great grounds of reason to ascertain us but if we go farther besides the easiness of being deceived we relying upon our own discourses which though they may be true and then bind us to follow them but yet no more than when they only seem truest yet they cannot make
but alter his Opinion whereby he is perswaded that such an accident that afflicts him is an evil and such an object formidable let him but believe himself impregnable or that he receives a benefit when he is plundered disgraced imprisoned condemned and afflicted neither his steps need to be disturbed nor his quietness discomposed But if a man cannot change his Opinion when he lists nor ever does heartily or resolutely but when he cannot doe otherwise then to use force may make him an Hypocrite but never to be a right Believer and so in stead of erecting a trophee to God and true Religion we build a monument for the Devil Infinite examples are recorded in Church-story to this very purpose But Socrates instances in one for all for when Eleusius Bishop of Cyzicum was threatned by the Emperour Valens with banishment and confiscation if he did not subscribe to the Decree of Ariminum at last he yielded to the Arian Opinion and presently fell into great torment of Conscience openly at Cyzicum recanted the errour asked God and the Church forgiveness and complained of the Emperour's injustice and that was all the good the Arian party got by offering violence to his Conscience And so many families in Spain which are as they call them new Christians and of a suspected Faith into which they were forced by the tyranny of the Inquisition and yet are secret Moors are evidence enough of the inconvenience of preaching a Doctrine in ore gladii cruentandi For it either punishes a man for keeping a good Conscience or forces him into a bad it either punishes sincerity or perswades hypocrisie it persecutes a truth or drives into errour and it teaches a man to dissemble and to be safe but never to be honest 12. Ninthly It is one of the glories of Christian Religion that it was so pious excellent miraculous and perswasive that it came in upon its own piety and wisedome with no other force but a torrent of arguments and demonstration of the Spirit a mighty rushing wind to beat down all strong holds and every high thought and imagination but towards the persons of men it was always full of meekness and charity compliance and toleration condescention and bearing with one another restoring persons overtaken with an errour in the spirit of meekness considering lest we also be tempted The consideration is as prudent and the proposition as just as the precept is charitable and the precedent was pious and holy Now things are best conserved with that which gives it the first being and which is agreeable to its temper and constitution That precept which it chiefly preaches in order to all the blessedness in the world that is of meekness mercy and charity should also preserve itself and promote its own interest For indeed nothing will doe it so well nothing doth so excellently insinuate itself into the understandings and affections of men as when the actions and perswasions of a Sect and every part and principle and promotion are univocall And it would be a mighty disparagement to so glorious an Institution that in its principle it should be mercifull and humane and in the promotion and propagation of it so inhumane And it would be improbable and unreasonable that the sword should be used in the perswasion of one Proposition and yet in the perswasion of the whole Religion nothing like it To doe so may serve the end of a temporal Prince but never promote the honour of Christ's Kingdom it may secure a design of Spain but will very much disserve Christendom to offer to support it by that which good men believe to be a distinctive cognizance of the Mahometan Religion from the excellency and piety of Christianity whose sense and spirit is described in those excellent words of Saint Paul 2 Tim. 2.24 The servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging the truth They that oppose themselves must not be strucken by any of God's servants and if yet any man will smite these who are his opposites in Opinion he will get nothing by that he must quit the title of being a servant of God for his pains And I think a distinction of persons Secular and Ecclesiasticall will doe no advantage for an escape because even the Secular power if it be Christian and a servant of God must not be ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã I mean in those cases where meekness of instruction is the remedy or if the case be irremediable abscission by Censures is the penalty 13. Tenthly And if yet in the nature of the thing it were neither unjust nor unreasonable yet there is nothing under God Almighty that hath power over the Soul of man so as to command a perswasion or to judge a disagreeing Humane positive Laws direct all externall acts in order to several ends and the Judges take cognizance accordingly but no man can command the Will or punish him that obeys the Law against his will for because its end is served in externall obedience it neither looks after more neither can it be served by more nor take notice of any more And yet possibly the Understanding is less subject to humane power then the Will for that humane power hath a command over externall acts which naturally and regularly flow from the Will ut plurimùm suppose a direct act of will but always either a direct or indirect volition primâry or accidental but the Understanding is a natural faculty subject to no command but where the command is itself a reason fit to satisfie perswade it And therefore God commanding us to believe such Revelations perswades and satisfies the understanding by his commanding and revealing for there is no greater probation in the world that Proposition is true then because God hath commanded us to believe it But because no man's command is a satisfaction to the understanding or a verification of the Proposition therefore the understanding is not subject to humane Authority They may perswade but not injoyn where God hath not and where God hath if it appears so to him he is an Infidel if he does not believe it And if all men have no other efficacy or authority on the understanding but by perswasion proposal and intreaty then a man is bound to assent but according to the operation of the argument and the energy of perswasion neither indeed can he though he would never so fain and he that out of fear and too much compliance and desire to be safe shall desire to bring his understanding with some luxation to the belief of humane Dictates and Authorities may as often miss of the Truth as hit it but is sure always to lose the comfort of Truth because he believes it upon indirect insufficient and incompetent arguments and as his desire it should be so is his best argument that it is so so the
from Christ it is a receiving Christ which is the duty here enjoyned this is one way of doing it and all the ways that they are capable of And that this precept can be performed this way S. Augustine affirms expresly in his third book de peccatorum meritis remissione In this thing there is nothing hard but the metaphors of eating and drinking Now that this is to be spiritually understood our Blessed Lord himself affirms in answer to the prejudice of the offended Capernaites that it is to be understood of Faith and that Faith is the spiritual manducation is the sense of the ancient Church and therefore in what sense soever any one is obliged to believe in the same sense he is obliged to the duty of spiritual manducation and no otherwise But because Infants cannot be obliged to the act or habit of Faith and yet can receive the Sacrament of Faith they receive Christ as they can and as they can are intitled to life But however by this means the difficulty of the expression is taken off for if by eating and drinking Christ is meant receiving Christ by Faith then this phrase can be no objection but that S. Austin's affirmative may be true and that this commandment is performed by Infants in Baptism which is the Sacrament of Faith To eat and drink does with as great impropriety signifie Faith as Baptism but this is it which I said at first that the metaphoricall expression was no part of the precept but the vehiculum of the Commandment occasioned by the preceding discourse of our Blessed Saviour and nothing is necessary but that Christ should be received by all that would have life eternall of which because Infants are capable and without receiving Christ they by virtue of these words are not capable and but in Baptism they cannot receive Christ it follows that these words are no argument to infer an equal necessity of communicating Infants but they are a good argument to prove a necessity of baptizing them Secondly But farther yet I demand can Infants receive Christ in the Eucharist Can they in that Sacrament eat the flesh of Christ and drink his bloud If they cannot then neither these words nor any other can infer an equal necessity of being communicated for they can infer none at all and whether those other words of Nisi quis renatus fuerit c. do infer a necessity of Baptism will be sufficiently cleared upon their own account But if Infants can receive Christ in the Eucharist to which they can no more dispose themselves by Repentance then they can to Baptism by Faith then it were indeed very well if they were communicated but yet not necessary because if they can receive Christ in the Eucharist they can receive Christ in Baptism and if they can receive him any way this precept is performed by that way and then whether they must also be communicated must be enquired by other arguments for whatsoever is in these words intended is performed by any way of receiving Christ and therefore cannot infer more in all circumstances and to all persons Thirdly Suppose these words were to be expounded of Sacramentall manducation of the flesh of Christ in the Lord's Supper yet it does not follow that Infants are as much bound to receive the Communion as to receive the Baptism It is too crude a fancy to think that all universal Propositions whether affirmative or negative equally expressed do signifie an equal universality It is said in the Law of Moses Whosoever is not circumcised that soul shall be cut off from his people this indeed signifies universally and included Infants binding them to that Sacrament But when it was said Whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death whether small or great although these words be expressed with as great a latitude as the other yet it is certain it did not include Infants who could not seek the Lord. The same is the case of the two Sacraments the obligation to which we do not understand onely by the preceptive words or form of the commandments but by other appendages and the words of duty that are relative to the suscipients of the several Sacraments and the analogy of the whole Institution Baptism is the Sacrament of beginners the Eucharist of proficients that is the birth this is the nourishment of a Christian. There are many more things of difference to be observ'd But as the Church in several Ages hath practised severally in this Article so in the particular there is no such certainty but that the Church may without sin doe it or not doe it as she sees cause but that there is not the same necessity in both to all persons and that no necessity of communicating Infants can be inferr'd from the parallel words appears in the former answers and therefore I stand to them Ad 9. The summe of the sixth Argument is this The promise of the Holy Ghost is made to all to us and to our children and if the Holy Ghost belong to them then Baptism belongs to them also because Baptism is the means of conveying the Holy Ghost as appears in the words of S. Peter Be baptized and ye shall receive the holy Ghost as also because from this very argument S. Peter resolved to baptize Cornelius and his family because they had received the gift of the Holy Ghost for they that are capable of the same grace are receptive of the same sign Now that Infants also can receive the effects of the Holy Spirit is evident because besides that the promise of the Holy Ghost is made to all to us and our posterity S. Paul affirms that the children of believing parents are holy but all holiness is an emanation from the Holy Spirit of God Ad 19. To the words of S. Peter they answer that the promise does appertain to our children that is to our posterity but not till they are capable they have the same right which we have but enter not into possession of their right till they have the same capacity for by children are not meant Infants but as the children of Israel signifies the descendents onely so it is here And indeed this is true enough but not pertinent enough to answer the intention and efficiency of these words For I do not suppose that the word children means Infants but you and your children must mean all generations of Christendom all the descendents of Christian parents and if they belong to their posterity because they are theirs then the Promises belong to all that are so and then children cannot be excluded But I demand have not the children of believing parents a title to the Promises of the Gospel If they have none then the Kingdom of Heaven belongs not to such and if they die we can doe nothing but despair of their Salvation which is a proposition whose barbarity and unreasonable cruelty confutes itself But if they
the Lord taketh them up and so it is in this particular what is wanting to them by the neglect of others God will supply by his own graces and immediate dispensation But if Baptism be made necessary to all then it ought to be procured for those who cannot procure it for themselves just as meat and drink and physick and education And it is in this as it is in blessing little babes cannot ask it but their needs require it and therefore as by their friends they were brought to Christ to have it so they must without their asking minister it to them who yet are bound to seek it as soon as they can The precept bindes them both in their several periods Ad 31. But their next great strength consists in this Dilemma If Baptism does no good there needs no contention about it if it does then either by the opus operatum of the Sacrament or by the dispositions of the suscipient If the former that 's worse then Popery if the latter then Infants cannot receive it because they cannot dispose themselves to its reception I answer that it works its effect neither by the Ceremony alone nor yet by that and the dispositions together but by the grace of God working as he please seconding his own Ordinance and yet Infants are rightly disposed for the receiving the blessings and effects of Baptism For the understanding of which we are to observe that God's graces are so free that they are given to us upon the accounts of his own goodness onely and for the reception of them we are tied to no other predispositions but that we do not hinder them For what worthiness can there be in any man to receive the first grace before grace there can be nothing good in us and therefore before the first grace there is nothing that can deserve it because before the first grace there is no grace and consequently no worthiness But the dispositions which are required in men of reason is nothing but to remove the hinderances of God's grace to take off the contrarieties to the good Spirit of God Now because in Infants there is nothing that can resist God's Spirit nothing that can hinder him nothing that can grieve him they have that simplicity and nakedness that passivity and negative disposition or non-hinderances to which all that men can doe in disposing themselves are but approaches and similitudes and therefore Infants can receive all that they need all that can doe them benefit And although there are some effects of the Holy Spirit which require natural capacities to be their foundation yet those are the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or powers of working but the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and the inheritance and the title to the Promises require nothing on our part but that we can receive them that we put no hinderance to them for that is the direct meaning of our Blessed Saviour He that doth not receive the kingdome of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein that is without that nakedness and freedome from obstruction and impediment none shall enter Upon the account of this Truth all that long harangue that pursues this Dilemma in other words to the same purposes will quickly come to nothing For Baptism is not a mere Ceremony but assisted by the grace of the Lord Jesus the communication of the Holy Spirit and yet it requires a duty on our part when we are capable of duty and need it but is enabled to produce its effect without any positive disposition even by the negative of children by their not putting a bar to the Holy Spirit of God that God may be glorified and may be all in all Two particulars more are considerable in their Argument The first is a Syllogism made up out of the words of S. Paul All that are baptized into Christ have put on Christ. The Minor proposition is with a little straining some other words of S. Paul thus But they that put on Christ or the new man must be formed in righteousness and holiness of truth for so the Apostle Put ye on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness But Infants cannot put on Christ to any such purposes and therefore cannot be baptized into Christ. I answer that to put on Christ is to become like unto him and we put him on in all ways by which we resemble him The little babes of Bethlehem were like unto Christ when it was given to them to die for him who died for them and us We are like unto him when we have put on his robe of righteousness when we are invested with the wedding garment when we submit to his will and to his doctrine when we are adopted to his inheritance when we are innocent and when we are washed and when we are buried with him in Baptism The expression is a metaphor and cannot be confined to one particular signification but if it could yet the Apostle does not say that all who in any sense put on the new man are actually holy and righteous neither does he say that by the new man is meant Christ for that also is another metaphor and it means a new manner of living When Christ is opposed to Adam Christ is called the new man but when the new man is opposed to the old coversation then by the new man Christ is not meant and so it is in this place it signifies to become a new man and it is an exhortation to those who had lived wickedly now to live holily and according to the intentions of Christianity But to take two metaphors from two several books and to concentre them into one signification and to make them up into one Syllogism is fallacia quatuor terminorum they prove nothing but the craft of the men or the weakness of the cause For the words to the Ephesians were spoken to them who already had been baptized who had before that in some sense put on Christ but yet he calls upon them to put on the new man therefore this is something else and it means that they should verifie what they had undertaken in Baptism which also can concern children but is seasonable to urge it to them as S. Paul does to the Ephesians after their Baptism But yet after all let the argument press as far as it is intended yet Infants even in the sense of the Apostle do put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness for so are they they are a new creation they are born again they are efformed after the image of Christ by the designation and adoption of the Holy Spirit but as they cannot doe acts of reason and yet are created in a reasonable nature so they are anew created in righteousness even before they can doe acts spiritual that is they are designati sanctitatis as Tertullian's expression is they are in the second birth as in the first instructed
if he had not been rescued by the Civil Power But men have too much neglected all the ministeries of Grace and this most especially and have not given themselves to a right understanding of it and so neglected it yet more But because the prejudice which these parts of the Christian Church have suffered for want of it is very great as will appear by enumeration of the many and great Blessings consequent to it I am not without hope that it may be a service acceptable to God and an useful ministery to the Souls of my Charges if by instructing them that know not and exhorting them that know I set forward the practice of this Holy Rite and give reasons why the people ought to love it and to desire it and how they are to understand and practise it and consequently with what dutious affections they are to relate to those persons whom God hath in so special and signal manner made to be for their good and eternal benefit the Ministers of the Spirit and Salvation S. Bernard in the Life of S. Malachias my Predecessor in the See of Down and Connor reports that it was the care of that good Prelate to renew the rite of Confirmation in his Diocese where it had been long neglected and gone into desuetude It being too much our case in Ireland I find the same necessity and am oblig'd to the same procedure for the same reason and in pursuance of so excellent an example Hoc enim est Evangelizare Christum said S. Austin non tantùm docere quae sunt dicenda de Christo sed etiam quae observanda ei qui accedit ad compagem corporis Christi For this is to preach the Gospel not only to teach those things which are to be said of Christ but those also which are to be observed by every one who desires to be confederated into the Society of the Body of Christ which is his Church that is not only the doctrines of good Life but the Mysteries of Godliness and the Rituals of Religion which issue from a Divine fountain are to be declar'd by him who would fully preach the Gospel In order to which performance I shall declare 1. The Divine Original Warranty and Institution of the Holy Rite of Confirmation 2. That this Rite was to be a perpetual and never-ceasing Ministration 3. That it was actually continued and practised by all the succeeding Ages of the purest and Primitive Churches 4. That this Rite was appropriate to the Ministery of Bishops 5. That Prayer and Imposition of the Bishop's hands did make the whole Ritual and though other things were added yet they were not necessary or any thing of the Institution 6. That many great Graces and Blessings were consequent to the worthy reception and due ministration of it 7. I shall add something of the manner of Preparation to it and Reception of it SECT I. Of the Divine Original Warranty and Institution of the Holy Rite of Confirmation IN the Church of Rome they have determin'd Confirmation to be a Sacrament proprii nominis properly and really and yet their Doctors have some of them at least been paulò iniquiores a little unequal and unjust to their proposition insomuch that from themselves we have had the greatest opposition in this Article Bonacina and Henriquez allow the proposition but make the Sacrament to be so unnecessary that a little excuse may justifie the omission and almost neglect of it And Loemelius and Daniel à Jesu and generally the English Jesuits have to serve some ends of their own Family and Order disputed it almost into contempt that by representing it as unnecessary they might do all the ministeries Ecclesiastical in England without the assistance of Bishops their Superiors whom they therefore love not because they are so But the Theological Faculty of Paris have condemn'd their Doctrine as temerarious and savouring of Heresie and in the later Schools have approv'd rather the Doctrine of Gamachaeus Estius Kellison and Bellarmine who indeed do follow the Doctrine of the most Eminent persons in the Ancient School Richard of Armagh Scotus Hugo Cavalli and Gerson the Learned Chancellor of Paris who following the Old Roman order Amalarius and Albinus do all teach Confirmation to be of great and pious Use of Divine Original and to many purposes necessary according to the Doctrine of the Scriptures and the Primitive Church Whether Confirmation be a Sacrament of no is of no use to dispute and if it be disputed it can never be prov'd to be so as Baptism and the Lord's Supper that is as generally necessary to Salvation but though it be no Sacrament it cannot follow that it is not of very great Use and holiness and as a Man is never the less tied to Repentance though it be no Sacrament so neither is he ever the less oblig'd to receive Confirmation though it be as it ought acknowledg'd to be of an Use and Nature inferior to the two Sacraments of Divine direct and immediate institution It is certain that the Fathers in a large Symbolical and general sence call it a Sacrament but mean not the same thing by that word when they apply it to Confirmation as they do when they apply it to Baptism and the Lord's Supper That it is an excellent and Divine Ordinance to purposes Spiritual that it comes from God and ministers in our way to God that is all we are concern'd to inquire after and this I shall endeavour to prove not only against the Jesuits but against all Opponents of what side soever My First Argument from Scripture is what I learn from Optatus and S. Cyril Optatus writing against the Donatists hath these words Christ descended into the water not that in him who is God was any thing that could be made cleaner but that the water was to precede the future Vnction for the initiating and ordaining and fulfilling the mysteries of Baptism He was wash'd when he was in the hands of John then followed the order of the mystery and the Father finish'd what the Son did ask and what the Holy Ghost declar'd The Heavens were open'd God the Father anointed him the Spiritual Vnction presently descended in the likeness of a Dove and sate upon his head and was spred all over him and he was called the Christ when he was the anointed of the Father To whom also lest Imposition of hands should seem to be wanting the voice of God was heard from the cloud saying This is my Son in whom I am well pleased hear ye him That which Optatus says is this that upon and in Christ's person Baptism Confirmation and Ordination were consecrated and first appointed He was Baptized by S. John he was Confirm'd by the Holy Spirit and anointed with Spiritual Unction in order to that great work of obedience to his Father's will and he was Consecrated by the voice of God from Heaven In all things Christ is the Head and the
diligence and labour to what sufferings or journeyings he is oblig'd for the procuring of this ministery there must be debita sollicitudo a real providential zealous care to be where it is to be had is the duty of every Christian according to his own circumstances but they who will not receive it unless it be brought to their doors may live in such places and in such times where they shall be sure to miss it and pay the price of their neglect of so great a ministery of Salvation Turpissima est jactura quae per negligentiam sit He is a Fool that loses his good by carelesness But no man is zealous for his Soul but he who not only omits no opportunity of doing it advantage when it is ready for him but makes and seeks and contrives opportunities Si non necessitate sed incuriâ voluntate remanserit as S. Clement's expression is If a man wants it by necessity it may by the overflowings of the Divine Grace be supplied but not so if negligence or choice causes the omission 3. Our way being made plain we may proceed to other places of Scripture to prove the Divine Original of Confirmation It was a Plant of our Heavenly Father's planting it was a Branch of the Vine and how it springs from the Root Christ Jesus we have seen it is yet more visible as it was dressed and cultivated by the Apostles Now as soon as the Apostles had received the Holy Spirit they preached and baptized and the inferior Ministers did the same and S. Philip particularly did so at Samaria the Converts of which place received all the Fruits of Baptism but Christians though they were they wanted a ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã something to make them perfect The other part of the Narrative I shall set down in the words of S. Luke Now when the Apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word of God they sent unto them Peter and John Who when they were come down prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost For as yet he was fallen upon none of them only they were Baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Then laid they their hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost If it had not been necessary to have added a new solemnity and ministration it is not to be supposed the Apostles Peter and John would have gone from Jerusalem to impose hands on the Baptized at Samaria Id quod deerat à Petro Joanne factum est ut Oratione pro eis habitâ manu impositâ invocaretur infunderetur super eos Spiritus Sanctus said S. Cyprian It was not necessary that they should be Baptized again only that which was wanting was performed by Peter and John that by prayer and imposition of hands the Holy Ghost should be invocated and poured upon them The same also is from this place affirmed by P. Innocentius the First S. Hierom and many others and in the Acts of the Apostles we find another instance of the celebration of this Ritual and Mystery for it is signally expressed of the Baptized Christians at Ephesus that S. Paul first Baptized them and then laid his hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost And these Testimonies are the great warranty for this Holy Rite Quod nunc in confirmandis Neophytis manûs Impositio tribuit singulis hoc tunc Spiritûs Sancti descensio in credentium populo donavit universis said Eucherius Lugdunensis in his Homily of Pentecost The same thing that is done now in Imposition of hands on single persons is no other than that which was done upon all Believers in the descent of the Holy Ghost it is the same Ministery and all deriving from the same Authority Confirmation or Imposition of hands for the collation of the Holy Spirit we see was actually practised by the Apostles and that even before and after they preached the Gospel to the Gentiles and therefore Amalarius who entred not much into the secret of it reckons this Ritual as derived from the Apostles per consuetudinem by Catholick custom which although it is not perfectly spoken as to the whole ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or Authority of it yet he places it in the Apostles and is a witness of the Catholick succeeding custom and practice of the Church of God Which thing also Zanchius observing though he followed the sentiment of Amalarius and seemed to understand no more of it yet says well Interim says he exempla Apostolorum veteris Ecclesiae vellem pluris aestimari I wish that the Example of the Apostles and the Primitive Church were of more value amongst Christians It were very well indeed they were so but there is more in it than mere Example These examples of such solemnities productive of such spiritual effects are as S. Cyprian calls them Apostolica Magisteria the Apostles are our Masters in them and have given Rules and Precedents for the Church to follow This is a Christian Law and written as all Scriptures are for our instruction But this I shall expresly prove in the next Paragraph 4. We have seen the Original from Christ the Practice and exercise of it in the Apostles and the first Converts in Christianity that which I shall now remark is that this is established and passed into a Christian Doctrine The warranty for what I say is the words of S. Paul where the Holy Rite of Confirmation so called from the effect of this ministration and expressed by the Ritual part of it Imposition of Hands is reckoned a Fundamental point ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Not laying again the foundation of Repentance from dead works and of Faith towards God of the Doctrine of Baptisms and of laying on of Hands of Resurrection from the Dead and Eternal Judgment Here are six Fundamental points of S. Paul's Catechism which he laid as the Foundation or the beginning of the institution of the Christian Church and amongst these Imposition of hands is reckoned as a part of the Foundation and therefore they who deny it dig up Foundations Now that this Imposition of hands is that which the Apostles used in confirming the Baptized and invocating the Holy Ghost upon them remains to be proved For it is true that Imposition of hands signifies all Christian Rites except Baptism and the Lord's Supper not the Sacraments but all the Sacramentals of the Church it signifies Confirmation Ordination Absolution Visitation of the Sick Blessing single persons as Christ did the Children brought to him and blessing Marriages all these were usually ministred by Imposition of hands Now the three last are not pretended to be any part of this Foundation neither Reason Authority nor the Nature of the thing suffer any such pretension The Question then is between the first three First Absolution of Penitents cannot be meant here not only because we never read that the Apostles did use that Ceremony in their Absolutions
but because the Apostle speaking of the Foundation in which Baptism is and is reckoned one of the principal parts in the Foundation there needed no Absolution but Baptismal for they and we believing one Baptism for the Remission of Sins this is all the Absolution that can be at first and in the Foundation The other was secunda post naufragium tabula it came in after when men had made a shipwrack of their good conscience and were as S. Peter says ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã forgetful of the former cleansing and purification and washing of their old sins Secondly It cannot be meant of Ordination and this is also evident 1. Because the Apostle says he would thence-forth leave to speak of the Foundation and go on to perfection that is to higher Mysteries Now in Rituals of which he speaks there is none higher than Ordination 2. The Apostle saying he would speak no more of Imposition of Hands goes presently to discourse of the mysteriousness of the Evangelical Priesthood and the honour of that vocation by which it is evident he spake nothing of Ordination in the Catechism or Narrative of Fundamentals 3. This also appears from the context not only because Laying on of hands is immediately set after Baptism but also because in the very next words of his Discourse he does enumerate and apportion to Baptism and Confirmation their proper and proportioned effects to Baptism illumination according to the perpetual style of the Church of God calling Baptism ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã an enlightning and to Confirmation he reckons tasting the Heavenly gift and being made partakers of the Holy Ghost by the thing signified declaring the Sign and by the mystery the Rite Upon these words S. Chrysostom discoursing says That all these are Fundamental Articles that iâ that we ought to Repent from dead works to be Baptized into the Faith of Christ and be made worthy of the gift of the Spirit who is given by Imposition of Hands and we are to be taught the mysteries of the Resurrection and Eternal Judgment This Catechism says he is perfect so that if any man have Faith in God and being baptized is also confirmed and so tastes the Heavenly gift and partakes of the Holy Ghost and by hope of the Resurrection tastes of the good things of the World to come if he falls away from this state and turns Apostate from this whole Dispensation digging down and turning up these Foundations he shall never be built again he can never be Baptized again and never be Confirmed any more God will not begin again and go over with him again he cannot be made a Christian twice If he remains upon these Foundations though he sins he may be renewed ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã by Repentance and by a Resuscitation of the Spirit if he have not wholly quenched him but if he renounces the whole Covenant disown and cancel these Foundations he is desperate he can never be renewed ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to the Title and Oeconomy of Repentance This is the full explication of this excellent place and any other ways it cannot reasonably be explicated but therefore into this place any notice of Ordination cannot come no Sence no Mystery can be made of it or drawn from it but by the interposition of Confirmation the whole context is clear rational and intelligible This then is that Imposition of hands of which the Apostle speaks Vnus hic locus abunde testatur c. saith Calvin This one place doth abundantly witness that the original of this Rite or Ceremony was from the Apostles ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã saith S. Chrysostom for by this Rite of Imposition of hands they receiv'd the Holy Ghost Foâ though the Spirit of God was given extra-regularly and at all times as God was pleas'd to do great things yet this Imposition of hands was ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã this was the Ministery of the Spirit For so we receive Christ when we hear and obey his word we eat Christ by Faith and we live by his Spirit and yet the Blessed Eucharist is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the ministery of the Body and Blood of Christ. Now as the Lord's Supper is appointed ritually to convey Christ's Body and Bloud to us so is Confirmation ordain'd ritually to give unto us the Spirit of God And though by accident and by the overflowings of the Spirit it may come to pass that a man does receive perfective graces alone and without Ministeries external yet such a man without a miracle is not a perfect Christian ex statuum vitae dispositione but in the ordinary ways and appointment of God and until he receive this Imposition of hands and be Confirmed is to be accounted an imperfect Christian. But of this afterwards I shall observe one thing more out of this testimony of S. Paul He calls it the Doctrine of Baptisms and Laying on of hands by which it does not only appear to be a lasting ministery because no part of the Christian Doctrine could change or be abolished but hence also it appears to be of Divine institution For if it were not S. Paul had beed guilty of that which our Blessed Saviour reproves in the Scribes and Pharisees and should have taught for Doctrines the Commandments of Men. Which because it cannot be suppos'd it must follow that this Doctrine of Confirmation or Imposition of hands is Apostolical and Divine The Argument is clear and not easie to be reprov'd SECT II. The Rite of Confirmation is a perpetual and never-ceasing Ministery YEA but what is this to us It belong'd to the days of wonder and extraordinary The Holy Ghost breath'd upon the Apostles and Apostolical men but then he breath'd his last recedente gratiâ recessit disciplina when the Grace departed we had no further use of the Ceremony In answer to this I shall ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã by divers particulars evince plainly that this Ministery of Confirmation was not temporary and relative only to the Acts of the Apostles but was to descend to the Church for ever This indeed is done already in the preceding Section in which it is clearly manifested that Christ himself made the Baptism of the Spirit to be necessary to the Church He declar'd the fruits of this Baptism and did particularly relate it to the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church at and after that glorious Pentecost He sanctified it and commended it by his Example just as in order to Baptism he sanctified the Floud Jordan and all other waters to the mystical washing away of sin viz. by his great Example and fulfilling this righteousness also This Doctrine the Apostles first found in their own persons and Experience and practised to all their Converts after Baptism by a solemn and external Rite and all this passed into an Evangelical Doctrine the whole mystery being signified by the external Rite in the words of the Apostle as before it was by Christ expressing
lawful or not but which were better To Confirm Infants or to stay to their Childhood or to their riper years Aquinas Bonaventure and some others say it is best that they be Confirmed in their Infancy quia dolus non est nec obicem ponunt they are then without craft and cannot hinder the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them And indeed it is most agreeable with the Primitive practice that if they were Baptized in Infancy they should then also be Confirmed according to that of the famous Epistle of Melchiades to the Bishops of Spain Ità conjuncta sunt haec duo Sacramenta ut ab invicem nisi morte praeveniente non possint separari unum altero ritè persici non potest Where although he expresly affirms the Rites to be two yet unless it be in cases of necessity they are not to be severed and one without the other is not perfect which in the sence formerly mentioned is true and so to be understood That to him who is Baptized and is not Confirmed something very considerable is wanting and therefore they ought to be joyned though not immediately yet ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã according to reasonable occasions and accidental causes But in this there must needs be a liberty in the Church not only for the former reasons but also because the Apostles themselves were not Confirmed till after they had received the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper Others therefore say That to Confirm them of Riper years is with more edification The confession of Faith is more voluntary the election is wiser the submission to Christ's discipline is more acceptable and they have more need and can make better use of their strengths than derived by the Holy Spirit of God upon them and to this purpose it is commanded in the Canon Law that they who are confirmed should be perfectae aetatis of full age upon which the Gloss says Perfectam vocat fortè duodecim annorum Twelve years old was a full age because at those years they might then be admitted to the lower services in the Church But the reason intimated and implied by the Canon is because of the Preparation to it They must come Fasting and they must make publick Confession of their Faith And indeed that they should do so is matter of great edification as also are the advantages of choice and other preparatory abilities and dispositions above-mentioned They are matter of edification I say when they are done but then the delaying of them so long before they be done and the wanting the aids of the Holy Ghost conveyed in that Ministery are very prejudicial and are not matter of edification But therefore there is a third way which the Church of England and Ireland follows and that is that after Infancy but yet before they understand too much of Sin and when they can competently understand the Fundamentals of Religion then it is good to bring them to be Confirmed that the Spirit of God may prevent their youthful sins and Christ by his Word and by his Spirit may enter and take possession at the same time And thus it was in the Church of England long since provided and commanded by the Laws of King Edgar cap. 15. Vt nullus ab Episcopo confirmari diu nimiùm detrectârit That none should too long put off his being Confirmed by the Bishop that is as is best expounded by the perpetual practice almost ever since as soon as ever by Catechism and competent instruction they were prepared it should not be deferred If it have been omitted as of late years it hath been too much as we do in Baptism so in this also it may be taken at any age even after they have received the Lord's Supper as I observed before in the Practice and Example of the Apostles themselves which in this is an abundant warrant But still the sooner the better I mean after that Reason begins to dawn but ever it must be taken care of that the Parents and God-fathers the Ministers and Masters see that the Children be catechised and well instructed in the Fundamentals of their Religion For this is the necessary preparation to the most advantageous reception of this Holy Ministery In Ecclesâis potissimùm Latinis non nisi adultiore aetate pueros admitti videmus vel hanc certè ob causam ut Parentibus Susceptoribus Ecclesiarum Praesectis occasio detur pueros de Fide quam in Baptismo professi sunt diligentiùs instituendi admonendi said the excellent Cassander In the Latin Churches they admit children of some ripeness of age that they may be more diligently taught and instructed in the Faith And to this sence agree S. Austin Walafridus Strabo Ruardus Lovaniensis and Mr. Calvin For this was ever the practice of the Primitive Church to be infinitely careful of Catechizing those who came and desired to be admitted to this holy Rite they used Exorcisms or Catechisms to prepare them to Baptism and Confirmation I said Exorcisms or Catechisms for they were the same thing if the notion be new yet I the more willingly declare it not only to free the Primitive Church from the suspicion of Superstition in using Charms or Exorcisms according to the modern sence of the word or casting of the Devil out of innocent Children but also to remonstrate the perpetual practice of Catechizing Children in the eldest and best times of the Church Thus the Greek Scholiast upon Harmenopulus renders the word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Primitive Exorcist was the Catechist And Balsamon upon the 26. Canon of the Council of Laodicea says that to Exorcize is nothing but to Catechize the unbelievers ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Some undertook to Exorcize that is says he to Catechize the unbelievers And S. Cyril in his Preface to his Catechisms speaking to the Illuminati Festinent says he pedes tui ad Catecheses audiendas Exorcismos studiosè suscipe c. Let your feet run hastily to hear the Catechisms studiously receive the Exorcisms although thou beest already inspired and exorcized that is although you have been already instructed in the Mysteries yet still proceed For without Exorcisms or Catechisms the Soul cannot go forward since they are Divine and gathered out of the Scriptures And the reason why these were called Exorcisms he adds Because when the Exorcists or Catechists by the Spirit of God produce fear in your hearts and do inkindle the Spirit as in a furnace the Devil flies away and Salvation and hope of Life Eternal does succeed according to that of the Evangelist concerning Christ They were astonished at his Doctrine for his word was with power and that of S. Luke concerning Paul and Barnabas The Deputy when he saw what was done was astonished at the Doctrine of the Lord. It is the Lord's Doctrine that hath the power to cast out Devils and work Miracles Catechisms are the best Exorcisms
n. 22. His testimony for Infant-baptism 760 n. 21 22. Church Neither it alone nor the Presbyters in it had power to excommunicate before they had a Bishop set over them 82 § 21. Mere Presbyters had not in the Church any jurisdiction in causes criminal otherwise then by substitution ibid. No Church-presidency ever given to the Laiety 114 § 36. Whether secular power can give prohibitions against the power of the Church 122. § 36. A Church in the opinion of Antiquity could not subsist without Bishops 148 § 45. The Church did always forbid Clergy-men to seek after secular imployments 157 § 49. and to intermeddle with them for base ends 158 § 49. The Church prohibiting secular imployment to Clergy-men does it gradu impedimenti 159 § 49. The Canons of the Church do as much forbid houshold-cares as secular imployment 160 § 49. Lay-Elders never had authority in the Church 165 § 51. What the Church signifieth 382 383. Wicked men are not true members of it 383. In what sense Saint Paul calls the Church the pillar and ground of truth 386 387. What truth that is of which the Church is the pillar 387. Whether the representative Church be infallible 389. The word Church is never used in Scripture for the Clergy alone 389. Of the meaning of that of our Lord Tell the Church 389. Of the notes of the Church 402. Scripture is more credible then the Church 407. Some rites which the Apostles injoyned the Christian Church does not now practise 430. The Primitive Church affirmed but few things to be necessary to salvation 436. The Roman is not the Mother of all Churches 449. The authority of the Church of Rome they teach is greater then that of the Scripture 450. When in the question between the Church and the Scripture they distinguish between authority quoad nos in se it salves not the difficulty 451. Eckius's pitiful Argument to prove the authority of the Church to be above the Scripture 451. The Church is such a Judge of Controversies that they must all be decided before you can find him 1012. Success and worldly prosperity no note of the true Church 1018. Clemens Alexandrinus His authority against Transubstantiation 258 § 12. In Vossius his opinion he understood not original sin 759 n. 20. Clergy The word Church never used in Scripture for the Clergy alone 389. Clinicks Objections against the repentance of Clinicks 678 n. 57. and 677 n. 56. and 679 n. 64. Heathens newly baptized if they die immediately need no other repentance ibid. The objection concerning the Thief on the Cross answered 681 n. 65. Testimonies of the Ancients against the repentance of Clinicks 682 n. 66. The way of treating sinners who repent not till their death-bed 695 n. 25. Considerations to be opposed against the despair of Clinicks 696 n. 29. What hopes penitent Clinicks have according to the opinion of the Fathers of the Church 696 697 n. 30. The manner how the ancient Church treated penitent Clinicks 699 n. 5. The particular acts and parts of repentance that are fittest for a dying man 700 n. 32. The practice of the Primitive Fathers about penitent Clinicks 804. The repentance of Clinicks 853 n. 96. Colossians Chap. 2.18 explained 781 n. 31. Commandment Of the difference between S. Augustine and S. Hierome in the proposition about the possibility of keeping God's Commandments 579 n. 30. Communicate To doe it in act or desire are not terms opposite but subordinate 190 § 3. Commutations When they were first set up 292. Amends may be made for some sins by a commutation of duties 648 68. Comparative Instances in Texts of Scripture wherein comparative and restrained negatives are set down in an absolute form 229 § 10. Concupiscence It is not a mortal sin till it proceeds farther 776 n. 20. It is an evil but not a sin 734 n. 84. It is not wholly an effect of Adam's sin 752 n. 11. Natural inclinations are but sins of infirmity 789 n. 50. Where it is not consented to it is no sin 752 n. 11. and 765 n. 30. and 767 n. 39. and 898 907 909 911 912 876. The natural inclination to evil that is in every man is not sin 766 n. 32. It is not original sin 911. The inconstancy of S. Augustine about it 913. Confession According to the Roman doctrine Confession does not restrain sin and quiets not the Conscience 315 § 2. c. 2. A right confesfession according to the Roman Doctrine is not possible 316 § 3. The seal of Confession they will not suffer to be broken if it be to save the life of the Prince or the whole State 343 c. 3. § 2. The Roman doctrine about the seal of Confession is one instance of their teaching for doctrines the commandments of men 473. Nectarius abolished the custome of having sins published in the Church 474 488 492. That the seal of confession is broken among them upon divers great occasions 475. Whether to confess all our great sins to a Priest be necessary to salvation 477. Of the harmony of Confession made by the Reformed 899. Nothing of auricular confession to a Priest in Scripture 479. There is no Ecclesiastical Tradition for auricular confession 491. Auricular confession made an instrument to carry on unlawful plots 488 489. Father Arnold Confessor to Lewis XIII of France did cause the King in private confession to take such an oath as did in a manner depose him 489. Auricular confession leaves behind it an eternal scruple upon the Conscience 489. Auricular confession is an instance of the Romanists teaching for doctrines the commandments of men 477. Confession is a necessary act of repentance 830 n. 34. It is due to God 831. Why we are to confess sins to God who knoweth them before 832 n. 37. What properly is meant by it ibid. Auricular confession whence it descended 833 41. Confession to a Priest is no part of contrition ibid. The benefit of confessing to a Priest 834. Rules concerning the practice of confession 854 n. 100. Shame should not hinder confession 855 n. 104. A rule to be observed by the Minister that receiveth confession 856 n. 105. Of confessing to a Priest or Minister 857 n. 109. Confession in preparation to the Sacrament 857 n. 110. Confirmation It was not to expire with the age of the Apostles 53 § 8. Photius was the first that gave the power of Confirmation to Presbyters 109 § 33. The words Signator consignat in those Texts of the Fathers that are usually alledged against Confirmation by Bishops alone signifie Baptismal unction 110 § 33. The great benefit and need of the rite of Confirmation in the Church Ep. ded to that Treatise pag. 2. The Latine Church would have sold the title of Confirmation to the Greek but they would not buy it Ep. ded pag. 5. The Papists hold Confirmation to be a Sacrament and yet not necessary 3. b. That it is a Divine Ordinance 3 4. b. Of the necessity of
damneth not 756 n. 16. The sum of the doctrine of Original sin 757 n. 5. Clemens Alexandrinus in the opinion of Vossius understood not Original sin 759 n. 20. P. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã WHat it signifieth 617 n. 21. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã What it and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã signifie 809 n. 37. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The signification of it 617 n. 21. Pardons Of Pardons 316 318 c. 2. § 3 4. What is the use of so many hundred thousand years of pardon 317. The many follies about Pardons and the difficulties 319. Wherein the pardon of sin doth consist 484 485. At the day of Judgement a different pardon is given from what we obtain in this world 501. Several degrees of pardon of sin 839 n. 54. As our repentance is so is our pardon 839. Mistakes about Pardon and Salvation 789 n. 45. Some sins called unpardonable in a limited sense 806 n. 22. What is our state of pardon in this life 814 n. 57. and 816. In what manner and to what purpose the Church pardoneth Penitents by the hand of a Priest 838 839 n. 54. The usefulness of pardon by a Priest 841 n. 59. Parishes When the first division of them was 139 § 43. Episcopal Dioceses in the Primitive notion of them had no subordination nor distinction of Parishes 140 § 43. Which was first a particular Congregation or a Diocese 141 § 43. Passions What they are 870. How the Will and Passions do differ and where they are seated ibid. They do not rule the will 871. Their violence excuseth not under the title of sins of infirmity 792 n. 56. Make it the great business of thy life to subdue thy Passions 795 n. 67. A state of passion is a state of spiritual death 793 n. 58. A Passion in the soul is nothing but a peculiar way of being affected with an object 825 n. 19. The Passions are not immediately subject to commandment 826 n. 19. From what cause each Passion flows ibid. Passeover The Eucharist does imitate the words used at the Passeover as the institution is a Copy of that 201 § 5. The Lamb is said to be the Passeover of which deliverance it was onely the commemorative sign 211 § 6. Peace Truth and Peace compared in their value 883. All truth is not to be preferred before it 882 962. Pelagian How the doctrine of Original sin as here explicated is contrary to the Pelagian 571. Saint Augustine's zeal against the Pelagians made him mistake Rom. 7.15 19. pag. 775 n. 18. Of that Heresie 761 n. 23 24. How it is mistaken 761 762 n. 23. Pelagius's Heresie not condemned by any General Council 961 n. 31. Penances Of corporal austerities 858 n. 111. A rule for the measure of them 860 n. 114 115. Which are best and rather to be chosen 860 n. 114. Fasting Prayer and Alms are the best penances 860 n. 115. They are not to be accounted simply necessary or a direct service of God 860 n. 116. People Against popular Elections in the Church 131 § 40. How it came to pass that in the Acts of the Apostles the people seem to exercise the power of electing the Seven Deacons 131 § 40. The people's approbation in the choice of the superiour Clergy was sometimes taken how and upon what reason 132 § 40. The people had de facto no vote in the first Oecumenical Council 137 § 41. Perfection How Christian perfection and supererogation differ 590 591 n. 16. Perfection of degrees and of state 582 n. 41. ad 48. How perfection is consistent with repentance 582 n. 47. § 3. per tot Wherein perfection of state consisteth 583 n. 47. Perfection in genere actûs 584. what it is 584. The perfection of a Christian is not the supreme degree of action or intention 585 n. 47. It cannot be less then an entire Piety perfect in its parts 585 n. 48. The perfection of a Christian requires increase 589 n. 13. and 583 n. 44. Philippians Chap. 1. v. 1. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that Text discussed 87 § 23. Chap. 2. 12 13. Work out your salvation with fear explained 676 n. 55. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã What these words in Saint Paul's style do import 767 n. 38. and 781. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The use of that word 723 and 767 n. 35. Picture Divers Hereticks did worship the Picture of our Lord and were reproved for it 545. A reply to that answer of the Romanists That the writings of the Fathers do forbid nothing else but picturing the Divine Essence 550 554. Against the distinction of picturing the Essence and the Shape 550 554. Pope John caused those to be burned for Hereticks that made Pictures of the Trinity 555. Pilgrimages They are reproved by the ancient Fathers 293 496. Place Picus Mirandula maintained at Rome that one body by the power of God could not be in two places at one time 222 § 9. How a spirit is in place 236 § 11. How a body is in place ibid. One body cannot at the same time be in two places 236 § 11. and 241. A glorified body is subject to the conditions of locality as others are according to Saint Augustine's opinion 237 § 11. Ubiquity is an incommunicable attribute of God's 237 § 11. and 241. The device of potential and actual Ubiquity helps not 237 § 11. Three natural ways of being in a place 237 § 11 Of being in a place Sacramentaliter 239 § 11. Bellarmine holds that one body may be in two places at once which Aquinas denieth 239 § 11. That one body cannot be at once in two distant places 236 and 241 § 11. That consequence If two bodies may be in one place then one body may be in two places denied 243 § 11. Against Aristotle's definition of place 244 § 11. When our Lord entred into an assembly of the Apostles the doors being shut it does not infer that there were two bodies in one place 245 § 11. Two bodies cannot be in one place 245 § 11. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The true notion of it 636 n. 4. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã How it differs from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 724 n. 53. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The meaning of it 636 n. 5. Pope A Text of Saint Cyprian's contrary to their Supremacy over the Bishops that succeed other Apostles 155 § 48. The authority of a Pope against publick Prayers in an unknown tongue 304. The Apostles were from Christ invested with an equal authority 308. By the Law of Christ one Bishop is not superiour to another and they all derive their power equally from Christ 309. When Bellarmine was to answer the authority of Fathers brought against the Pope's universal Episcopacy he allows not the Fathers to have a vote against the Pope 310 c. 1. § 10. Saint Cyprian affirms that Pope Stephen had not a superiority of power over Bishops that were of forrein Dioceses 310. Saint Gregory Bishop of Rome reproved the Patriarch of Constantinople for