praecipit vel humana Constitutio Et ut facilius ita tutius quâ—que est omnes Imagines è templis submovere qudâ—n impâ—trare uc nec modus praetereâ—â—ur nec admiscedtur superscitio Eratm in Symb. Decalog Cateches 6. commended yet have not men dared as yet by any direct Precept to command the use of Images at all in Churches For that Images should be in Churches saith Erasmus no Constitution so much as humane requireth And as is is more easie so is it more safe to withdraw all Images out of Churches then to prevail that the Mean should not be exceeded nor Superstition mingled therewith Thirdly If that Rule of Explication holds good viz. that in the Decalogue where a sin is forbidden there the occasion leading thereunto is also forbidden I make no doubt but to worship the Creatour or any Creature by an Image is also here forbidden as Idolatrous though perhaps not Idolatry absolute And contrary to the current sense and distinction of modern Romanists concerning Material and Formal Idolatry of which we have before spoken denying an errour about the Object to be Formal Idolatry provided the intention be directed to the only true object of worship God we may more safely and properly call this outward visible adoration given to outward objects or at least seeming to be given to them Formal Idolatry than Material because there is nothing wanting to common sense which might make and denominate it Idolatry and this to have the Formalities of Idolatry but if they take Formal for the intrinsick specification of a thing then it is a Contradiction and Nonsense to say or suppose that there can be any Idolatry not Formal as to imagine any thing can be without its form or that which is absolutely necessary to make it what it is Furthermore this worshipping of God by any thing made is forbidden by this command if not as simply and immediately unlawful in it self yet under the head of Scandal unjustly and unnecessarily given For in this Case it will no more if so much as excuse a man from the just suspicion of Idolatry that he upon occasion declares he does not worship the thing before which he worships than it could do them of whom St. Paul to the 1 Cor. 8. 4. Corinthians speaks who sat in the Idols Temple being Christians and knowing an Idol was as much as nothing in the world and a man having so much Faith and Knowledge might do as he please in neglect and contempt of that but St. Paul could not be put off so but knowing and taking for v. 7. 10 11. granted that some did eat before an Idol with a conscience and sense of an Idol as it were adjured such presumers under the terrour of being accessary to the ruin of their brothers Souls not to have to do with them So what if it be true as most true it is a man may worship God or Saints before an Image and have a right intention and pure conscience towards God is it not also as true that he may have an erroneous and idolatrous intention Nay are not the Evidences and Presumptions much more clear and strong that his intention is corrupt then that it is pure Can flesh and bloud put any difference between the visible act of him that doth worship an Image directly and properly and of him that doth not Is not this then scandalous to sin So that we may reasonably conclude this Command to stretch it self to forbid all worship by Images and especially in publick where there is more danger to others though not under the same guilt or penalty as flat idolizing of any thing besides God For in that it is said Thou shalt not bow down to them is plainly forbidden external reverence to or before them in any way of Religious worship In that it is said Nor worship them is expressed the internal act and forbidden And thus far of the more literal sense of this Precept the more remote and reductive sense as I may call it is to interdict all worshipping of Imaginations or vain opinions which are certain Idols of the mind as the other are of the outward senses And thus Hierom upon the Prophet Esay Hieron in Isaiam c. 40. tropically applies his words To whom will ye liken the Lord c. We may say that Arch-hereticks are here rebuked who make sundry Idols out of their own heart c. And again upon the same Prophet afterward Quicquid Id. in Isaiam c. 44. v. 15 16. de Idolis dictum est potest referri ad haereseon Principes c. Whatever the Prophet speaks of Idols may be referred to the Ringleaders of Hereticks who dexterously frame out of their own hearts certain images of their opinions and of a lye and worship them knowing that they made them themselves And think it not sufficient to keep them to themselves unless they seduce other simpler folk with the adoration of them Against this little noted but most frequently practised Idolatry we have an excellent Sermon of a Reverend Bishop Andrews Sermon of worshipping Imaginations Sin ulachris phantasmatum suprum sectatores suos omnis error illidit Aug. Expos Ep. ad Rom. Inchoata lib. Prelate long since made and never more need was there then is now to inculcate this when people blinded with the love of their own inventions and opinions of the sense of Scripture run carelesly and rashly into the Idolatry of their own wayes having first consecrated them with an obscure and mistaken Text of Scripture or two and so made them as they think Divine This is condemned in this Commandment as are also all corrupting depraving mis-sensing Gods Holy Word bringing in Sects and Heresies disesteem and abuse of his Sacraments And to name no more to be remiss prophane and negligent in the true Service and Worship of God either by inward aversion or outward absenting themselves without just cause from him in his house and denying him that outward adoration and humiliation which he here forbids us to give any but himself which he surely never would have done had he not set some value on it himself And on the contrary we are required positively here to give all outward as well as inward worship to him as he is in his illimited nature without circumscribing him in our minds or likening him to any corporeal being how excellent soever The second Part of this Commandment gives us the reason of it viz. For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God deterring all men from the violation of the same from the Power Majesty and Justice of him against such contemners of his worship and his word So that as too often it is seen that some fond worldly and covetous Parents will even venture their own necks and damn their souls out of an extream desire to advance their children and to settle them sure and flourishing as they think in the world after them God confounds this their plot
a good while after So that the same difficulty is in reference to the Sabbath and it and is thus solved by Calvin himself That there were certain previous injunctions given Calvin Harmon in Pent. particularly and more rudely by God concerning the observation of certain Rites before that more exact delivery of them by God to Moses on Mount Sinai And as alwayes a day or time was allotted so likewise some special place separated from common uses as that called here the Tabernacle to the service of God For had there been any proper weakly day appointed by God before Moses surely we should have found some little mention thereof in the History of Moses from the Creation to his days but not a word of any such thing do we find to that purpose CHAP. XIII Of the Institution of the Lords Day That it was in part of Apostolical and partly Ecclesiastical Tradition Festival Days and Fasting derived unto us from the same Fountain and accordingly to be observed upon the like grounds Private Prayers in Families to the neglect of the Publique Worship unacceptable to God Of the Obligation all Priests have to pray daily according to their Office Of the Abuse of Holy days in the Number and unjustifiable occasions of them Of the Seven Hours of Prayer approved by the Ancient Church and our First Reformers Mr. Prinne's Cavils against Canonical Hours refuted THAT the Institution of the Lords day hath no known foundation from the Command of God or Christ may be collected from what is said But that the Apostles and Church Apostolical did by their example and practice commend it to following generations of Christians I acknowledge most true But still there remains a knot to be untied about the force of that Constitution whether it was only of Custom or Precept or all the Obligation proceeded from the decrees of the Church after the Apostles For direct Precept we find little or no Grounds in Scripture For Practice Apostolical and Custom upon that descending to posterity also the accession of the Laws Ecclesiastical and Imperial we make no scruple to acknowledge them to be very solemn and obligatory upon all good Christians But seeing all things practis'd by the Apostles are not Obligatory it will be worth the enquiry under what Capacity they so acted whether as Apostles or as Governors of the Church in such a large sense as might be communicable to their successours That it was not meerly and precisely an Apostolical Act to establish such a Festival seems to appear from the grounds found in the Law of Nature moving men to celebrate a day to God again that the first day of the week being the day of our Lord and Saviours Resurrection seems to be no other than Common Ecclesiastical Prudence as that which agreeth most with the End it self viz. The due commemoration of Christs resurrection on that day but that Christ should be so Commemorated and God so glorified seems to me to be specially Apostolical and so Divine that it is not alterable by the Counsel or Decrees of the Church any time after from whence may conveniently be reconciled the opposite opinions of both School-men and Canonists some of whom have asserted the divine Right of the Lords day and others the Ecclesiastical or Canonical only For that a day be Festivally observed to God is Natural that on such a Festival or Thanksgiving day Christ should be magnified and God praised is Apostolical but that on the First day of the week Christian Prudence and the necessary power of the Church may seem to suffice Which appeareth from the manner of celebrating the Christian Sabbath which hath been always left to the Authority and wisdom of the Church varying according to occasions given For that Christians very anciently met to treat of divine matters to communicate to celebrate the Eucharist and to sing Psalms Hymns and Spiritual Songs Justine Justin Apol. 2. Tertul. Apologer Martyr and Tertullian and the famous Epistle of Pliny witness And to this end they had a vacation from all worldly servile matters as many proofs of Antiquity demonstrate And for the dignity of this day it was that on it and none other Bishops were to be consecrated by the constitution of Leo 1. And what are the Prerogatives of this First Leo 1. Distinct 75. c. 1. Quod die c. day of the week are explained at large by the Ancient Fathers and Councils here not to be rehearsed From this Fountain of Ecclesiastical power resident in the Church springeth the Act of instituting other days to the Glory and Praise of God of two sorts viz. days of Humiliation and Exultation or joy For it is certain that after it was agreed upon that Christs Resurrection should be weekly celebrated it was consented to also that a Yearly Thanksgiving should be kept for the same which was the Christians Passover and our Easter day is immemorially practised and without interruption derived to this present age And therefore as well because it is the greatest matter of joy that at any time befell the Church of Christ as because it regulateth other principal Feasts and Fasts of the Church as lastly because thence is plainly inferred a power in the Church of ordaining Feasts and Fasts to the worship of God it is called by the Ancient The Mother of Feasts And surely upon this the Fathers of the Church produced many other Daughter-Feasts not all in a year nor an age but according to their power to maintain and defend them which was very difficult for them to do as becomed under Gentile persecution who were most severe against such Celebrities instituted by Christians to the overthrow and contempt of Gentile worship which according to the Light of nature consisted much in this as Seneca Legum Conditores Festùm instruerunt dies ut ad hilaritatem homines cogerent c. Seneca de Tranquil Aninai c. 15. hath said in these words The Founders of Laws ordained Festival days to the end that men might meet publiquely in Jollity puting some moderation to Labours as necessary for them These Gentile Institutions prevailing not only to Idololatrical service but corruption of manners contrary to nature it self The Ancient Fathers of the Church knew no better Antidote against such poison than to introduce Christian Festivals whereby all the natural and Civil benefit of Vacation from Labours friendly conversation and such like might be enjoyed and due worship and praise be given unto God in Christ Jesus And therefore Theodoret. Serm. 7. de Sacrificiis Theodoret with other Fathers is not ashamed to profess as a very laudable and religious occasion of Christian Feasts That they succeeded the Idolatrous and lewd Feasts of the Gentiles which some but in vain would turn against the use of them But they stand upon surer foundations than to be blown down with the wind of vain doctrines blustering against them For First as is said Nature it self directs to them
of it And first of Prayer the chiefest act of Gods worship contrary to Sectaries who are enemies to it in three respects And first by their vain conceit of Preaching wherein consisteth not the proper worship of God as in Prayer Chap. VIII A second Corruption of the worship of God not especially in Prayer by opposing Setforms of publick worship Reasons against extemporary Prayers in publick The places of Scripture and Reasons and Antiquity for Extemporary Prayers answered Chap. IX A third abuse of the worship of God by Sectaries in neglecting publick Prayers without Sermons censured That Prayer in a publick place appointed for Gods worship ought at all times to be offered to God Scripture and Universal Tradition require it above that in private places The frivolousness of such reasons as are used against it The Reasons for it Chap. X. A fourth Corruption of the worship of God by confining it to an unknown Tongue Scripture and Tradition against that custom A fifth abuse of Prayer in denying the People their Suffrage contrary to the ancient practise of the Church Chap. XI Of the Circumstances of Divine worship and first of the proper place of Divine worship called the Church the manner of worshipping there Of the Dedication of Churches to God their Consecration and the effects of the same That no man can convert any part of the Church to his private use without profanation of it and Sacriledge Against the abuse of Churches in the burial of dead bodies erecting Tombs and enclosing them in Churches or Chancels Rich men have no more Right to any part of the Church than the Poor The Common Law can give no Right in such Cases Chap. XII Of the second Circumstance of Gods worship Appointed times Of the Sabbath or Seventh-day how it was appointed of God to the Jews but not by the same Law appointed to Christians Nor that one day in Seven should be observed The Decalogue contains not all moral duties directly Gentiles observed not a Seventh day The New Testament no where commands a Seventh day to be kept holy Chap. XIII Of the Institution of the Lords Day That it was in part of Apostolical and partly Ecclesiastical Tradition Festival dayes and Fasting derived unto us from the same fountain and accordingly to be observed upon the like grounds Private Prayers in Families to the neglect of the publick worship unacceptable to God Of the Obligation all Priests have to pray daily according to their Office Of the abuse of Holy-dayes in the Number and unjustifiable occasions of them Of the seven Hours of Prayer approved by the Ancient Church and our first Reformers Mr. Prins Cavils against Canonical Hours refuted Chap. XIV The third thing to be considered in the worship of God viz. The true object which is God only That it is Idolatry to misapply this Divine worship What is Divine worship properly called Of the multitude and mischiefs of New distinctions of worship Dulia and Latria though distinct of no use in this Controversie What is an Idol Origen s criticism of an Idol vainly rested on What an Image What Idolatry The distinction of Formal and Material Idolatry upon divers reasons rejected The Papists really Idolatrous notwithstanding their good Intentions pretended Intention and Resolution to worship the true God excuses not from Idolatry Spalato Forbes and others excusing the Romanists from thence disproved That Idolatry is not always joyned with Polytheism or worshipping more Gods than one How the Roman Church may be a true Church and yet Idolatrous Chap. XV. Of Idolatry in the Romish Church particularly viz. In worshipping Saints Angels Reliques and especially the supposed Bloud of Christ No good foundation in Antiquity or the Scriptures for the said worship Chap. XVI Of the fourth thing wherein the worship of God consisteth viz. Preaching How far it is necessary to the Service of God What is true Preaching Of the Preaching of Christ wherein it consisteth Of painful Preaching That the Ministery according to the Church of England is much more painful then that of Sectaries The negligence of some in their duty contrary to the rule and mind of the Church not to be imputed to the Church but to particular Persons in Authority Chap. XVII The fifth general Head wherein the exercise of the worship of God doth consist Obedience That Obedience is the end of the Law and Gospel both That the Service of God principally consisteth therein Of Obedience to God and the Church The Reasons and Necessity of Obedience to our Spiritual as well as Civil Governours The frivolous cavils of Sectaries noted The severity of the Ancient and Latter Greek Church in requiring obedience The folly of Pretenders to obedience to the Church and wilfully slight her Canons and Laws more material than are Ceremonies Chap. XVIII Of Obedience to the Church in particular in the five Precepts of the Church common to all viz. 1. Observation of Festival dayes 2. Observation of the Fasts of the Church Of the Times Manner and Grounds of them Exceptions against them answered 3. Of the Customs and Ceremonies of the Church 4. Frequentation of the publick worship 5. Frequent Communicating and the due preparation thereunto Chap. XIX A Preparation to the Explication of the Decalogue by treating of Laws in General What is a Law Several kinds of Laws Of the obligation of Laws from Justice not Force only Three Conditions required to obliging Of the Ten Commandments in special Their Authour Nature and Use Chap. XX. Of the Ten Commandments in Particular and their several sense and importance Chap. XXI Of Superstition contrary to the true Worship of God and Christian Obedience AN INTRODUCTION TO THE Knowledge of the true Catholick Religion Part the First Book the First CHAP. 1. Of the Nature and Grounds of Religion in general Which are not so much Power as the Goodness of God and Justice in the Creature And that Nature it self teaches to be Religious RELIGION is the supream act of the Rational Creature springing from the natural and necessary Relation it beareth to the Creatour of all things God Almighty Or a due Recognition of the Cause of all Causes and Retribution of service and worship made to the same as the fountain of all Goodness derived to inferiour Creatures For there being a most excellent order or rather subordination of Causes in the Universe there is a necessary and constant dependance one upon another not by choice but natural inclination And the Perfection of all Creatures doth consist in observing that station and serving those ends and acting according to those Laws imposed by God on all things Thus the Heavenly Bodies moving in a perpetual and regular order and Psal 148. the Earth being fruitful in its seasons and the course of the Waters observing the Laws given them by God may be said to worship and obey him Which worship being performed according to that more perfect state of the Rational Creature and the prescriptions given to it may
faithful 2 Tim. 2. 11 12. saying If we be dead with him we shall also live with him If we suffer we shall also raign with him And is it not certainly implied that we shall receive the promises of God which are as well of Eternal and Spiritual things if we do the will of God by Faith and works of Faith when it is said Ye have need of patience that after ye have done the will of God ye might Heb. 10. 36. receive the promise And I should wonder at the subtilty of Perverters of divine Writ if they shall be able to draw any other sense from the words of Christ expressing his Rule of proceeding at the day of Judgment thus Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the Mat. 25. 34 35 36. foundation of the world For I was an hungred and ye gave me meat I was thirsty and ye gave me drink I was a stranger and ye took me in Naked and ye cloathed me I was sick and ye visited me I was in prison and ye came unto me How can any thing be spoken more plainly to make Eternal Life the reward They falsify our Tenets saying That we hold that Good works are not means of Salvation Francis White Epist. Dedie of Good works than is here spoken Or how can any man affirm that all things necessary to salvation are plainly taught and easily to be understood in Scripture and shall denie this to be plain and such good works as are here specified necessarie to salvation For to bring in any Scholie which shall elude this will do them much more mischief in other cases as leading to the corrupting all places of Scripture which they allow to be plain and rendring them altogether useless to the ends for which they are alleadged For to say only that Faith must be here understood is most true but insufficient to make the testimonie void because otherwise they were not good works And this must alwayes be retained in memory which we have before laid as a foundation That they are not the good works of natural Reason or humanity nor the good works of the Law now voided which we here in this dispute contend for but they are the works of Faith qualified with all the due conditions of the Gospel of Grace and actuated by the Spirit of Grace And here it may be useful to instance in some of those principal adjuncts which make our works truly evangelical and leading to that blessed end spoken of And here I do not make Faith so properly a condition as a cause and a common Essential foundation supposed to all Evangelical Acts as the root is not aptly termed a Condition of the fruit but the intrinsique Cause thereof But others there are very necessarie though not in the same degree such as these First that they be done in obedience to the will and command of Almighty God ordaining Good works Anew commandment John 13. 24. saith Christ I give unto you that ye love one another And how far this extends St. Paul tells us saving He that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law Rom. 13. â— Ephes 2. 10. And yet more expresly to the Ephesians he saith We are Gods workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them And again to the Thessalonians he saith This is the Thes 4. 3. will of God even your sanctification Secondly the merits of Christs Passion whereby we are redeemed to God and sanctified according to St. Paul to Titus speaking of Christ Who gave himself for us that he might redeem Tit. 2. 14. us from all iniquitie and purisie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of Good works A third thing requisite to constitute a work Good according to the Gospel is that it proceed from a Person adopted or made a Child of God by Grace For this is required of all true Christians That they be born again of John 3. 5. Joh. 3. 9. water and the Holy Ghost And as the same author elsewhere hath it Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God A fourth is the inward Grace of God working and moving the mind to holy works and this preventing us so that we are first excited of Gods Spirit without any natural inclination of our own to do that which is the good and acceptable will of God For to this end make our Saviours words in the Gospel where he saith Without me ye can do nothing that 1 Joh. 15. 5. is no Good work answerable to the perfection of the Gospel and the promises thereof A fifth is the outward Grace of God remitting and passing over the several Omnia mandata facta deputantur quando quicquid non fit agnoscitur Aug. Retract defects and blemishes adhering to Good works even of the Regenerate For then saith an holy Father truly is the Law fullfilled when what is committed amiss is pardoned And to this relate the words quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews as an ingredient into the Covenant of the Gospel viz. I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities will Heb. 8. 12. I remember no more Sixthly Perseverance in good is likewise necessarie though not to the essence of the Act done to make it Good for perseverence doth not of it self add good or evil to an action but supposes the same and continues it as it finds it yet to the reward it is absolutely necessarie Forasmuch as Gods Judgement as mans likewise is alwayes passed according to what a man actually is found to be whether good or evil and not to what a man hath been or possibly afterwards might have been For saith the word of God Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a Crown of Life And Revel 2. 10. 1 Cor. 7. 8. elsewhere Waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall also confirm you unto the end that ye may be blameless unto the day of our Lord Jesus Last of all to make a good Work rewardable is requisite the freeness of Gods promises made to accept the same and to reward it not for its own sake but for his sake and Christs sake And that God hath promised blessed rewards to those that work according to the tenour of the Gospel as now described doing it as his children under the protection of Christs mediation and merits to the glory of God through the operation of Gods Spirit persevering therein till God shall call them off resting not upon themselves but his promises is most undeniable and a Principle necessary to be maintained and practised by all faithful Christians doth appear from what is before alleadged And what if any thing may be is yet more cleerly asserted by Christ saying He that receiveth Mat. 10. 41. a
but they were the intermediate effects of the stock of Grace treasured up in the Soul and exhorting and improving it self by the continual supplie of the Spirit of Christ according to the * Mat. 25. 16. doctrine of St. Paul to the Corinthians saying Insomuch that we desired Titus that as he had begun so he would also finish in you the same Grace also Therefore as ye abound in every thing in Faith in utterance in knowledge and v. 7. in all diligence and in your love to us see that ye abound in this Grace also Of this influence of Christs Spirit to the augmentation of Grace in the hearts of the true believers speaketh the same Apostle to the Colossians thus The Col. 2. 19. Head from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministred and knit together encreaseth with the encrease of God Sanctification then may be described The Grace of God infused into the Soul of a Sinner and purifying it by Faith as Justification is the reputation and acceptation of a person for Just by almighty God through the intuition of the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ And yet more distinctly to declare their mutual agreement and difference it will conduce much to the due understanding of them both First then Justification and Sanctification agree in their Subject The true believer the same person who is Sanctified being also Justified and he that is Justified being Sanctified also For so saith the prophet Nahum of him The Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked Nahum 1. 3. And when we find St. Paul affirming the contrary in appearance viz. that God justifieth the ungodly we are to understand him to speak not in Rom. 4. 5. Sensu composito in such manner that he is justified while he is so ungodly but in Sensu diviso a distinct sense and season as if it had been said Him that was once ungodly as he seems to interpret himself in his Epistle to the Corinthians where having spoken of the many abominations men were subject to he saith And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are 1 Cor. 6. 11. Sanctified but ye are Justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God Secondly Justification and Sanctification agree in their foundation which is at least inchoate and initial holiness For though no mans inherent holiness arises so high as to denominate him truly Just or holy for its own sake yet both to Sanctification and Justification is necessarily required some preparatorie and imperfect holiness consisting principally in the Conversion of the mind to God from sin Thirdly both Sanctification and Justification are alike owing to Faith as their immediate Cause next under Gods Spirit as may be gathered from the prayer of Christ for his disciples Sanctifie them through thy truth thy word is Joh. 17 17. truth That is the doctrine of Faith received To which Faith the effect of Sanctification is ascribed by St. Peter in the Acts whereby the Act. 15. 9. hearts of the Gentile were purified or Sanctified Fourthly they are both equally imputed unto us through the Righteousness of Christ Therefore saith St. Paul to the Corinthians To them that are Sanctified in Christ Jesus And 1 Cor. 1. 2. Heb. 10. 29. to the Hebrews it is said We are Sanctified by the blood of the Covenant So that no less are we Sanctified then Justified by Christs death and merits and the imputation of them But on the other side they are distinct in some formalities such as these may be for First the immediate cause of our Sanctification is in holy Scripture imputed to the operation and influence of the Holy Spirit as our Justification is more properly attributed to Christ the mediator between God and man As appeareth from St. Pauls words to the Thessalonians But we are bound to give thanks alwayes for you brethren beloved of the Lord 2 Thes 2. 13. because God hath from the beginning chosen you to Salvation through Sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth And St. Peter Elect according 1 Pet. 1. 2. to the foreknowledge of God the Father and Sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience Thirdly Justification looketh backward being an absolution of the guilty from sins formerly committed and holding him Just but no man is justified actually from sins which hereafter he may fall into But Sanctification relates chiefly to the time future For not only is a sinner by the Spirit of Regeneration and Sanctification purged from the old Leaven of sin and malice but he becometh a New Lump and unleavened 1 Cor. 5. 7. Rom. 6. 13. and whereas he hath yielded his members as Instruments of unrighteousness unto sin he doth yield himself unto God as those that are alive from the dead And old things are done away in him and all things become new And whosoever is 1 Joh. 3. 9. thus born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God Fourthly to the Act of our Justification the will of man doth not necessarily concurr though it dissents not but is rather passive than Active but to our Sanctification is absolutely required the co-operation of the will and affections of man with the Grace of God in all those who have attained unto the use of reason For indeed by baptism Infants are so far Sanctified as to be freed from that hereditarie evil incident unto them which their will concurred not to but to actual Sanctification from those evils our wills did freely consent actual concurrence of our wills is necessary Fifthly Our Justification is entire and absolute at once no man being partly Justified and partly not Justified though he be partly Just and partly unjust or unholy But no man in this Life is so perfectly Sanctified as that there wants not somewhat to consummate the same because Justification being altogether the Act of God and not at all of Man God may and doth wholly and freely remit the guilt of sin to the penitent offendor But Man being also concerned in the Sanctification of himself his acts are imperfect and defective so that the effect it self partakes of the same and so Sanctification continues imperfect And it is not all at once but answerable to our natural man proceedeth by degrees Until we all come Eph 4. 13. in the unity of the Faith and of the knowledg of the son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the Stature of the fulness of Christ which fulness of stature is that we are to hope for and enjoy only in heaven Lastly to search no farther into this point before Justification there must of necessity goe some degree of Sanctification even in the opinion of such as contend most rigorously for freeness of Justification for to make Justification altogether
inconditionate and absolute on mans part is to blaspheme the immutable Justice of God and withall destroy the use of Faith in order to our Justification For it is impossible any thing bearing the name of a cause or condition as Faith certainly doth when we say We are Justified by â—aith should be posteriour to the thing it so relates unto The promise indeed of pardon and Justification of a sinner is actually made to those who do not actualâ—y believe and repent but promise answerably and covenant to believe and repent Non enim ut fâ—â—â— eat ignis cal facit sed quia fervet Nâ—c ideo benâ— currit roâ—a ut rotunda sâ—t sed quia rotunda Aâ—g ad Simplic Qu. 1. but the Execution and performance of this promise is not made before there be an actual fulfilling of our Covenant with God But then on the other side there must be perfect Justification before there can be that perfect Sanctification which we all aspire unto and God expects from us For then are we truly Sanctified when our works are holy and acceptable unto to God which they are not untill they proceed from a person so far Justified as to be accepted of God Whence may be resolved that doubt about Gods acceptation of the person for the works sake or the work for the persons sake For wisely and truly did the wife of Manoah inferr Gods acceptation of their sacrifice from the favour and grace he bore unto their persons and at the same time prove the favour God bore to their persons from the Acceptance of their sacrifice saying If the Lord were pleased to kil us he Judg. 13. 23. would not have received a burnt-offering and a meat-offering at our hands neither would he have shewed us all these things nor would as at this time have told us such things as these That God therefore accepted their Burnt-offering it is a sign he approved their persons but the reason antecedent of Gods acceptation of their sacrifice was because he first approved their persons And yet notwithstanding the goodness of the person is the original of the goodness of the work nothing hinders but the goodness of the work may add value favour and estimation unto the person As to use Luthers comparison and others after and before him the tree bears the fruit and not the fruit the tree And the goodness of the tree is the cause of the goodness of the fruit and not the goodness of the fruit the cause of the goodness of the tree Yet the fruit doth procure an esteem and valuation from the owner to the tree and endears it to him to the cultivating the ground and dressing it and conferring much more on that than others In like manner the Person Sanctified and Justified produces good works and not those good works him but some actions accompanied with Gods grace antecedent and inferiour to the fruit it self Yet doth the fruit of good Works add much of esteem and honour from God to such a person and render him capable of an excellent reward for St. Paul to the Philippians assureth them and us when he saith I desire fruit that may abound to your account Phil. 2. 7. CHAP. XVIII Of Justification as an Effect of Faith and Good Works Justification and Justice to be distinguished and How The several Causes of our Justification Being in Christ the Principal Cause What it is to be in Christ The means and manner of being in Christ. TO the informing our selves aright in the much controverted point of Justification which whether it be a proper effect of Good works or not doth certainly bear such a relation â—o them as may well claim this place to be treated of it seemeth very expedient after we have distinguished and illustrated it by Sanctification explained to proceed to distinguish it likewise from Justice For as Righteousness or holiness the ground of Sanctification is to be distinguished from Sanctification it self so is Justice the ground to be distinguished from Justification its complement and perfect on This being omitted or confusedly delivered by diverse hath been no small cause of great obscurities For Righteousness or Justice seems to be nothing else but an exact agreement of a mans actions in general to the true Rule of Acting and that Rule is the Law or word of God For he that offends not against that is undoubtedly a Just man of himself by his own works and needs nothing but Justice to declare and ackowledg him for such no mercy nor favour As that thing which agrees with the square or Rule is perfect But notwithstanding such supposed perfect conformitie to the Law of God be perfect righteousness yet is not this to be Justified Neither can any man in Religion be said more to Justifie himself than in civil cases where it is plainly one thing to be innocent and to be an accurate unreproveable observer of the Law in all things and to have sentence pronounced in his behalf that so indeed he really is For this is only to Justifie him though in pleading his own case in clearing and vindicating himself a man is vulgarly said to Justifie himself And no otherwise if we will keep to the safe way of proper and strict speaking is it in Religion Supposing that which never happen'd since Christ that a man should have so punctually observed every small as well as great precept of Gods Law that no exception could be taken against him yet is he not hereby Justified though he may be said to be the true Cause of his Justification and that he hath merited it Which St. Paul seems to implie unto us saying For I know 1 Cor. 4. 4. nothing by my self yet am I not hereby Justified For in truth Justification is an act of God only as Judge no less then author of his own Laws upon the intuition of due Conformitie to it or Satisfaction of it And as a man may possibly be just and yet never be Justified taking things abstractly so may a man be unjust and guilty and yet be justified doth not the word of God as well as common reason and experience certifie so much He that Justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the Just even Prov. 17. 15. they both are abomination unto the Lord. This then surely may be No man then can be justified by himself or any Act or Acts of him no not through Christ But though he cannot thus Judicially and formally Justifie himself it is not so repugnant to reason or Scripture to be said Materially and Causally to act towards his Justification Nay he cannot come up to the rigour of the Rule nor excel so far in Justice and holiness as to demand at Gods hands his absolving sentence yet that he cannot contribute towards it is not only false but dangerous doctrine leading men into a sloathfull despondencie and despair so that they shall do nothing at all because they cannot do all that is required of
leadeth men to assure themselves of the benefit of the promises which are conditional before it be evident unto them that such conditions have been duly observed by them The consideration of this uneven dealing and unreasonable conclusion upon such a supposal hath prevailed with some to make the promises of Salvation so free as not to consist with any condition but peremptory and absolute yea excluding Faith it self the last thing of all that their Religion will suffer them to deny God as a Condition making the only use of it to be to receive what is so freely given them as they falsly and prophanely imagine It will not after this be necessary to lay down the reasons of the contrary opinion having already shewed That there is no Precept for such a point of Faith no Proposition declaring it no Article of our Creed requiring it that falling very short of it which teacheth us to believe in God wherein they say three things are imposed on us to believe First That there is a God Secondly That this God is my God Thirdly That I must trust and put my confidence in him for my salvation All which we readily assent unto But the most pertinent of all these come not home to the case before us For every man may and ought to put his confidence in God for his Salvation and yet be never so much as confident of his Salvation as is plain and that upon this reason That the well grounding of such a confidence as this latter may be very obscure to him and so the thing it self not clear Again It is prescribed by the Lords Prayer and other places of Scripture to pray daily for Remission of Sins saying Forgive us our sins as we forgive them that trespass against us this we are no less to pray for than for our daily bread Therefore since we are not ordinarily so assured of the Pardon of them For as a man hopeth not properly for what he hath neither doth he pray for it knowing he hath it This St. Pauls argument to the Hebrews Heb. 10. 18. proves saying Where remission of sin is there is no more offerings for sin i. e. where the remission of our sins is known to us Praying being our Sacrifice under the Gospel This were ridiculous and displeasing to God we thereby implying that we have not that which we know we have which were unthankfully done of us God in such cases expecting justly from us acknowledgment of his Grace conferring such a blessing by all humble and devout Praise and Thanksgiving for it and not absurdly petitioning him as if we had it not And this is so convincing upon some that I find a bold profession in these words The fourth Petion in the Perkins Lords Prayer must be understood not so much of our old sins or debts as of our present and new sins I grant we must petition for pardon for our new sins but I deny that we are not daily to repent and beg mercy at Gods hands all the dayes of our Life for our ancient as well as moderner offences And therefore the same Author suspecting it may be the insufficiencie of this answer proceedeth I answer again We pray for the pardon of our sins not because we have no assurance thereof because our assurance is small we grow on from grace to grace in Christ c. Which is very soundly and soberly spoken but quite overthrows what was before contended for about Certainty For Assurance that is weak and small is no assurance but a competent degree and a comfortable measure of hope and probability which we not only allow but know to be enjoyned us in holy Scripture by St. Peter saying Make your calling and 2 Pet. 1. 10. election sure for if ye do these things ye shall never fall Where we grant That a man is bound so to walk believe and live as becometh the Faith he professes that his Salvation is sure before God and that he shall in that conjuncture never fall but this is not made so sure thereby to himself and one reason is included in the very words which are If ye do these things which implyes that such things may be omitted and express the consequence thereupon And not only doth this premature Certitude take us off from Prayer and Repentance which alone destroy all true Faith in us and under a glorious shew of most supream and firm assurance leave us really destitute of the proper means to attain that good degree of perswasion to the quieting of the troubled and distrustful Conscience but it also quite alienates the mind and enfeebles the hands of faithful men in the vigorous pursuit of obedience without which no man shall be saved For as a man cannot needs not repent of what he knows to be so fully forgiven nor ask that pardon again which he is thoroughly perswaded is granted him So neither can any man with that solicitude and resolution pursue the means of Salvation principally seen in obeying Gods Laws with Faith in Christs merits when his mind shall be wholly possessed with an opinion that the principal end next to the glory of God is absolutely satisfied namely his soul saved They say indeed that the meditation hereof should rather quicken and incite men to a more exact walking with God out of a greater obligation of gratitude and common ingenuity to make returns answerable to the singular Grace conferred 'T is true it should so indeed And so should an inheritance put actually and irrevocably into the son and heirs hands before the death of the Father But how many instances have we That so it is not for one That so it is Or who can say That ingenuity and good natur'dness are generally as powerful to keep up order and vertue in the world as the proposing of future favours and penalties to the persons concerned We are not therefore to judge of the future motions of Quod non metuitur contemnitur quod contemnitur utique non colitur Ita fit ut religio majestas honor metu constet metus autem non est ubi nullus irascitur Lactant. De Ira Dei cap. 8 men so much from some moral obligations as from natural propensions And who can say That naturally we are are as prone to do good to others as to ourselves To obey God abstractively i. e. secluding the fears and hopes we have from that service is to do it for Gods sake which is confessed to be the most noble principle a man can act by but when the Evils imminent on disobedience or the Blessing ensuing our obedience thorowly affect us we then will move upon a natural principle actuated and promoted by Faith But to conclude this the Sum of what a good Christian is to believe in this point is First The immutableness of God in his covenanting with man and the mutableness of man on his part in fulfilling the tearms he is tyed to God in Both these
are intimated to us in these words of St. Paul which are vulgarly brought against us viz. Nevertheless the foundation of God 2 Tim. 2. 19. standeth sure having this seal The Lord knoweth who are his And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity The first foundation of God is that which he hath layed in his assuring us that he will have a Church in despite of all Enemies and Persecuters which would destroy it The second is the seal to this Charter which relating to special persons is twofold The First That God knoweth who are his that is according to Scripture phrase owneth and asserteth the cause of those that are his and will never forsake them otherwise than he hath declared that is they not violating egregiously the Covenant on their parts The second is that which follows viz. Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity This is the seal set to the Covenant made by God which if not duly and proportionably to the favourableness of the Evangelical Covenant observed by man the seal of God avails but little to the benefit of a Christian A second conclusion may be That notwithstanding God hath no where enjoyned us under any forfeiture to obtain this assurance yet he requireth us to be alwayes so pressing and proficient in Faith and Holiness of Life that above his Capitulations or ordinary Promises made in his Word he may communicate his pleasure unto us and good-will concerning the particular salvation of us This hath been imparted unto divers and may again when it seems good to God But it is no Rule to us Thirdly A faithful Christian ought to endeavour the attaining to a strong and true degree of Hope by Gods grace and the working out of his Salvation with fear and trembling For St. John saith That a man may arrive to such a state of assurance as 't is called that considering and believing the undetermined mercy of God in the Gospel he may have confidence of Gods love towards him his own conscience not condemning him as St. John saith Beloved if our heart condemn us not then 1 John 3. 21. have we confidence towards God Lastly This sense serves much to the comfort and tranquility of the mind of scrupulous Christians more than the holding of a peremptory assurance of Salvation which they who require it cannot deny to be wanting to many faithful servants of God For when they consider that the want of this assurance is no indication or character of a Reprobate as some would make it and they must who bring it under precept and promise then are they heartened still to press towards holy and devout exercises believing that God not seeing nor judging as man judgeth nor as they of themselves but out of his incircumscribed mercie may accept them and have mercy on them And here properly doth that doctrine of Faith commended in the Articles of our Church as very comfortable take place viz. as that which when we have done all we must betake ourselves unto and which brings us neerest to God namely not that we believe we are justified for or because we believe we are freely but because Faith and trust in God as it is the first stone in our heavenly building so is it the crown and consummation of all when we disown and disavow all sufficiencie in ourselves or our most Christian Acts even Faith it self and trust in his mercy to be accepted under all our fears and reasonings to the contrary not manifestly violating the Covenant with God for which our own hearts and ordinary apprehensions may condemn us CHAP. XXII Of the Contrary to true Faith Apostasie Heresie and Atheism Their differences The Difficulty of judging aright of Heresie Two things constituting Heresie The Evil disposition of the mind and the falseness of the Matter How far and when Heresie destroyes Faith How far it destroyes the Nature of a Church THus having sufficiently treated of the most general and principal Effect of Faith before we leave this we are in reason to enquire into that which privatively relates to true Faith and that is Heresie What that is and wherein it consisteth For Heresie cannot properly be applyed to any but such who are of the Faith and in some degree belong to the Catholick Church wherein it is distinct from Atheism Apostasie and professed Infidelity For Infidelity though it carries with it in its name a sense which comprehends both Atheism and Apostasie yet use hath prevailed so far as to apply it only to such who do receive some Articles of the Christian Faith and them fundamental too though not as the Christians For Example Infidels may believe there is a God and that God but one and that there shall be a Resurrection of the Just and Unjust and Life everlasting either in misery or bliss yet being either wholly ignorant of or directly denying some fundamental Points of Faith as Christian they continue Infidels though not Atheists Neither can they be accounted Hereticks having never been of the Church nor initiated into or embraced the true Faith These are Negatively only related to the Church as Logicians say Dissimilary things relate one to another viz. A black thing to a white But Heresie is of a privative sense and an opposition to the true Catholick Faith with an Obligation not only taken from the matter of Faith it self to which all the world owe homage and obedience but from some extrinsecal formalities whereby some men more especially contract a relation to the Church of Christ And the first and most principal cause hereof is the solemn dedication which is made by ourselves or others we not oppugning it of us in the initiating Rite of Baptism wherein renunciation is openly made of all things persons and opinions contrary and inconsisting with that Doctrine we there submit unto and vow to observe This Dedication of us to Christ doth make and denominate us Christians and Catholicks according to the less ancient use of the word of which we shall hereafter speak Now according to the degree or manner of violating this most solemn and sacred Vow in Baptism are men said to be Apostates and Hereticks And an Apostates are Hereticks but not all Hereticks Apostates The principal difference consisteth in this 1. That the Apostate doth renounce even the first principles of Christian Faith as Christian And they are they which are expresly contained in the form of Baptism whereby he became a Christian 2. In a formal profession contrary to such Covenant made with God in Christ But Heresie doth not absolutely deny the Grounds of Christianity it self but whether by affected errour or invincible doth resolutely and firmly assert things contrary to true Doctrine But to give a precise definition of Heresie as St. Augustine of old so we find at this day very difficult and not to turn to the right hand or to the left not to make it too broad and wide
drunkenness who putteth the bottle to his neighbours mouth provoking him to drink to excess or of Theft who will by no means steal himself but is aiding in his advice and putting advantages into his hands to take anothers Goods In like manner the necessary consequence of a light Errour being very notorious though a person be not formally an Heretick in the conclusion which he may protest against as not following from his erroneous proposition yet if in truth it doth so and is generally so reputed to the mis-leading of Christians such a man is really or virtually an Heretick and obnoxious to the guilt and punishment due unto such Errours which he denies For instance It is a notorious Heresie to hold it unnecessary there should be any Church of Christ and to affirm That it suffices that every good Christian hath the word of God and believes and lives by himself though the word of God contradicts this impiety sufficiently and to be a Christian at large If any person heretically inclined shall deny that this is his opinion or that thus he would have it yet if he preaches such Doctrine and publishes such Opinions which do necessarily infer thus much he is a notorious Heretick in reality though not in the formality As also if he should teach The Church hath no power to enjoyn any thing besides what the word of God requires This Errour taken simply and nakedly hath no such monstrousness as may not pass for tolerable but in the necessary consequence it is as pernicious to the community of Christians as to preach against Christ himself And therefore the argument of late Rationalists is very false founded upon this ground Socinus Chi. viz. That Christians are not to be obliged under pain of damnation such as Anathema's and Excommunications are to any thing which Christ hath not by his Law prescribed For this indeed taken strictly is true Christ for ought may appear doth not in Scripture command Rites in use with the Church but Christ under pain of his displeasure doth require that we should do all things not contrary to his injunctions for the keeping up Non sunt parva existimanda sine quibus magna consistere enim possint Hieron of the nature of a Church and Christian Society and therefore though the Errour be in it self light it falls in the event heavy upon Christianity it self and deserves no less rigour than is used towards the offender in Faith it self Lastly From hence we may reasonably judge of the frequent denunciations of alienation from the Faith and Church against them who erred heretically affirming in general That Heresie quite alienated from the Church and that Society could not be of the Church which maintained an Heresie For first we are to note that few or none before St. Cyprians time were so severely censured by the ancient Fathers but such as were offenders against the very principles of Christianity it self St. Cyprian indeed and others from him extended this censure to such as were less criminal For it is a very hard matter to instance in any one Article of Faith though I know some great Clerks have attempted it which Novations or Donatists rejected or offended against So that abating somewhat for the vehemence of the zeal conceived against such enemies to the Church in the writings of Fathers against Hereticks it will appear that it was matter of Fact rather than Faith or Heresie which exposed them to such censures For uncharitableness will as certainly damn as unfaithfulness And he that dies for Christ as divers Hereticks did in animosity groundless against his brother and especially against the Church of which he is or ought to be a member may notwithstanding loose his Life hereafter as well as here But of this more now we are to speak of the Church CHAP. XXIII Of the proper Subject of Faith the Church The distinction and description of the Church In what sense the Church is a Collection of Saints Communion Visible as well as Invisible necessary to the constituting a Church HAving spoken of the Nature Kinds Acts and Effects of Christian Faith we proceed now to speak of the proper Subject of Faith which is the Church Which word is commonly used as well for the Place where our Lord is publickly and solemnly worshipped as for the People of God serving and worshipping him But of this latter only we art to treat at present which we define to be A Calling and Collection of Saints from The Church is an universal Congregation or fellowship of Gods faithful People and Elect built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ being the head and corner stone Hom. Chur. of Engl. Part. 2. pa. 213. their vain Conversation in the world to the Faith and Worship of God according to the Rule and Laws of his Holy word and to visible communion with themselves which description I doubt not to be grounded in all its parts upon the Scriptures themselves And that God is the Author and only Institutor of such a Church if it needed any proof the Scripture would soon afford it St. Paul saith to the Corinthians Chap. 7. * 1 Cor. 7. 17. But as God hath distributed to every man as the Lord hath called every one so let him walk and so ordain I in all Churches And so exhorteth the Thessalonians to †1 Thess 2. 12 walk worthy of God who called them to his Kingdom and Glory And so in very many places else where as will appear farther now we consider the Term from whence God doth call and choose his faithful people and that is the World the world not taken in its natural sense signifying the Natural bodies of all sorts of which it consisteth nor absolutely from it in the more special sense in which Mankind is sometimes called the world for civil conversation and humane mutual Offices may be maintained and ought between Christians and Heathens or Infidels but rather in a moral sense that is unnatural unjust unrighteous communication with the wicked of the world as wicked as St. Paul explaineth himself to the 1 Cor. 5. 9 10. Corinthians I wrote unto you in an Epistle not to company with fornicatours Yet not altogether to refuse to converse with the fornicatours of this world or with the covetous or extortioners or with Idolaters for them must ye needs go out of the world but if any man that is called a brother be a fornicatour c. St. Peter takes most of the terms in our description speaking 1 Pet. 2. 9 10. of Converts to the Faith Ye are a chosen generation a Royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar People that ye should shew forth the praises of God who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light c. And St. Paul to the Ephesians According as he hath chosen us in him before the Ephes 1. 4. foundation of the World that we should be holy and
be in them before and which doth more than countervail such antecedent liberty of simply teaching as was then in some manner fixed Thirdly there was in such cases as this added a Power and Right of instituting others as occasion offered which is unknown to have been in them as Evangelists From it follows that of all the forementioned kinds of Government that of the Church approached neerest to that call'd Monarchical which was only absolute and universal in Christ the Soveraign Head thereof but Ministerially under him and over the Church under their circuit Politically as proper Heads and Rulers and whatever power after extraordinary Callings by Revelation from God ceased any one dispartake of in the Church was ctrtainly at first derived from such single Persons alone however to the solemnity of such ordination others of an inferiour Order concurred thereto And as the Government of the civil World was originally without exception so far as search can be made by the most curious Antiquaries Monarchical though it were not governed by one man alone but by Civil Supream Princes of several Dominions into which the earth was parcelled So though no one Father or Bishop ever presided over all the Christian world yet several single Persons in their respective Provinces governing the Church as Principal the Government of the Church may rightly be termed Monarchical in Particular but Aristocratical as to the whole For as the Apostles were all Monarchs compared with their Proselites Converts and Churches by them founded but were but Peers compared one with another So was it with the Bishops and Patriarchs of the Church succeeding them whereby the Prophesie of Christ in St. Matthew was verified spoken not so much as some mistake it of his Heavenly Kingdome but earthly his Church and its ensuing glory Verily I say unto you that ye which M … â—â— have followed me in the regeneration when the son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel That when the Church of Christ should flourish then there should be such as in lieu of the twelve Tribes of Israel should Rule as in Thrones the Church of God under the Gospel They who object against this the words of Christ in Saint Matthew Ye know that the Princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them and Mâ—tt 20 25. 26. they that are great exercise autority upon them But it shall not be so among you Do declare no less against Aristocratical then Monarchical Government yea all Government over the Church And their favourable gâ—osS in behalf of one will be as valid for that which they reject For as it was not at all the mind of Christ that there should be no Governours at all over his Church so doth it not at all appear that what was lawful for many to do was not lawful for one But here the old cheat again takes place to suppose that the Government of one is in it self tyrannical and of many free but neither Christ nor nature ever taught them how to prove this presumptuous imagination And to this may we add another such mistake from St. Peters words That men should not be Lords over Gods heritage And what then Must there be more 1 Pet. 5. 3. than one over a Church and not onely one May a company of Presbyters oblige Christians to do or believe such things and not Lord it but if by a principal Person bearing Rule this same thing be done then is the Precept violated Besides who sees not that hath not a mind to be blind That the Apostle speaks nothing at all in these words of the kind of Government but the exercise of it and abuse Surely if Episcopal Government could not choose but tyrannize and Presbyterial could do nothing but according to Scripture and equity this Objection were unanswerable otherwise not worth the mentioning much less answering as common as it is and as confidently urged And as to that Pretense intended to overthrow our prime ground of Christs institution taken from what was first actually found in the Church viz. That Imparity of Christs Ministers was not found in the Church till about an hundred and forty or fifty years after Christ when it is confessed by the Enemies of Ecclesiastical Hierarchies that it prevailed Let the Huggers of this Device First consider what a pitiful addition is made to their cause from hence seeing that it is undenyable there was a disparity all the Apostles dayes who in order excelled all Ecclesiastical Persons and that almost one hundred years were spent of the said tearm in their time So that about fifty or sixty years only this imaginary Government had its being and then was lost again for fourteen hundred and then was better lost then found and taken up again But a far worse inconvenience spoils this jest as being founded and raised only from conjecture and that conjecture upon the obscurity of those ages not so clearly known as afterwards CHAP. XXIX Of the necessity of holding visible Communion with Christs Church Knowledge of that visible Church necessary to that Communion Of the Notes to discern the true Church how far necessary Of the Nature or Condition of such Notes in General IT being so necessary as we have above shewed to be in communion with the visible Church of Christ and the Nature of things themselves being more intrinsick many times than to characterize sufficiently them to the Enquirer into them it hath been thought necessary to explain them farther by more apparent and observable notices given of them And in the Doctrine of the Church these seem to be of greatest consequence Visibility Universality or Catholickness Sanctity and Perpetuity Of all which we shall briefly speak in order yet first premising somewhat concerning Notes in General For seeing as we have said it is necessary to know the true Church from the false and the Natures of things are often-times so abstruse and hidden from us that we cannot discover them from their own Light therefore it hath been judged very reasonable to pitch upon certain outward Notes eading us unerringly to the knowledge of the thing it self And in truth I cannot wholly approve of that course chosen to certifie us and point out to us the-true Church taken from the very being of it such as are Faithful and sincere Doctrine taught therein Sacraments duly administred Worship purely performed and Discipline rightly constituted because these are rather of the very intrinsick nature and definition it self of the Church than notes and characters outward whereby the nature it self should be certainly known We all indeed without exception consent that that Church is the true Church which is thus qualified and affected believeth aright is governed aright administreth the Sacraments aright and worshippeth aright and in one word which followeth most exactly the Rules of Holy Scripture but in the Assumption and Application is all the doubt and infinite
themselves For though infinite Instances may be given of Cities and Nations which have wrung the Civil Power out of the hands of their Princes and Magistrates and pretended they would be ruled by their own Counsels and power yet could they never effect this but were constrained after all devices used to no purpose to let go their hold if not Pretensions and suffer the assumed Power to return to a more capable subject Which incapacity of using such Power is no less then an unanswerable Demonstration to me that it was never there placed by any divine Will or Right but somewhere else Now though some eminent Reformers of the Late Age have been so superfluously and in truth superstitiously nice and as is pretended jealous for Christs honour and absolute Headship over his Church that would not so much as allow the name of Government to the Church or any in it least Christ should suffer loss but administration must be the Junius de Ecclesia name signifying power and Rule exercised in the Church yet in truth all this is no better then a Superstitious fear where there is no fear For they are not names but things that are so much to be heeded And if these men in their Charge had not acted the part of Governours as well as others we might have allowed this invention for tollerable but the truth is the honour pretended to Christ and the Gentle usage of the People have ended in the same thing which the other more openly and honestly professed to do the difference being only in the Hands so acting But 't is no new thing to beguile dissetled people with new words into new orders neither will it ever be left off as common a Stratagem as it is so long as the People are people and Craft and Ambition shall spurrmen of Fortune to currie and scratch that unruly beast to the end that when they find it convenient they may get up of them and ride them at their pleasure This incapacity of all Christians to rule themselves being the same with the other necessarily inferreth a more proper subject of that Power which not being assumed but delivered any more then the Faith it self founds a distinction of Christians and the Church as ancient as the Church it self not unknown to Civil Societies For as hath been said a Kingdom or Commonwealth is said to decree and act such a thing when not the thousand part thereof so much as know any thing of it till it be done so that clearly there is a Nation Real and Representative and Formal and proper This consisteth of all Persons in that Society and every member of that Political Bodie The other of such Principal Parts of that Bodie as are in Possession of autority and power to Rule the rest and whose Acts are interpreted to be the Acts of the whole State And that the Church consisting of infinite Persons uncapable of consulting or acting Decretorily must and alwayes had certain Select Persons representing the whole which it should conclude the thing it self together with Precedents of all Places and Ages do prove The greatest arguments and most colourable are taken from the Infancy of the Church to the contrary For both Hereticks and Schismaticks endeavour at contrary conclusions from the Scripture Patrons of the Popes absoluteness argue from a Superiority or Primacy of order in St. Peter when the Church consisted it may be of twenty persons to make good the Popes pretensions to supremacy over the universal Church when it consisteth of so many Nations But to this our answer is ready First that the like power was never in St. Peter over his fellow Apostles and the Rest that is claimed by the Present Bishop of Rome Secondly That if such a Power as is asserted to St. Peter for the Popes sakehad ever been in him really yet it could be no good ground of his Successors claiming the same over the Catholick Church And that First because there is no probability of the like Gifts and Graces requisite to such Autority in the Popes of Rome as were given by Christ to St. Peter yea there are more instances to be given of the Ignorance and horrible vitiousness of Persons possessing that Chaiâ— then in any other Patriarchal See in Christendom Secondly There is no Rule of Certainty setting aside the Personal incapacities and imperfections how far the Apostolical power was derived to their Successors but what may be taken from the end of such power which was to conserve the Church in due order of Government Devotion and Faith and this may as well and better be performed without one Persons engrossing to himself the Disposal of all things Primarily though not in the Execution Thirdly the difference is vast between the Church consisting of so few and contracted into so narrow a circuit as at the first founding of it when one man might have with great facility taken the whole management of the Church upon him and in following Ages when it was diffused into so many and far distant quarters of the Universe not to be inspected or managed by one man though an Apostle On the other side Persons of Democratical Principles and purposes finding in holy Writ that the whole Church without distinction of Persons were often assembled together and that during their such meeting matters concerning the due administration of the Church were treated of collect from thence that in right and not rather occasionally they concurred to Publick Acts of the Church but this likewise is a fallacy without any necessity of consequence as will appear from the original and orderly search made into the first Constitution and the gradual Progress of Ecclesiastical Persons and functions First then That Christ is the Head of the Church and under that General notion of Power life and motion doth communicate his influence unto his Body the Scripture is so manifest and it is so generally and willingly by all assented to that it were lost time to insist on it He is then by immediate consequence the fountain of all Power resting in that Body as doth appear from the several Appellations subordinate to that of Head attributed unto him in Scripture For Hebrews the third and first he is called The Apostle of our profession And in the Book of the Acts he is stiled that Prophet Heb. 3. 1. Acts. 3. 22. Deut. 18. 15. Luk. 4. 18. which was in Deuteronomie promised to the true Israel And an Evangelist he is made to us by his own words verifying the Prediction of Esaias upon himself Saying The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel And St. Peter calleth him our 1 Pet. 2. 25. Mat. 23. 10. Bishop Doctour or Master he claims as proper to himself in St. Mathew And to the Hebrews as before he is called a Priest an High priest yea lastly a Deacon or Minister for the words properly used signify the same Rom. 15. 8. thing
such as were Christians without any autority in the Church and therefore we read often of the Apostles and their Party on the one side and Brethren on the other But the Officers and Rulers of the Acts. 11. 1 12 17 15 23 16. 2. Church are not found to have any general name distinguishing them from others but were by their particular charges and Offices known to men as Apostles Elders Bishops Evangelists Deacons But afterward compendiousness of speech general cemprehension of them so distinct requiring they received their several Names not as Socinus Salmasius and some such presumptuous traders for Anarchy in the Church would have it the things themselves or being For it is granted that at first all true believers Clerus dicimur quia sors Dei sumus Hieron Item Praefat. ad Enarrat August Psal 1 Pet. 5. 3. were called indifferently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Gods Portion or Clergy as we now speak For it is very probable that St. Peter using that word which we render Clergy doth intend to comprehend thereby all Christian People as well as they who as St. Hierome saith are the Lords portion more peculiarly But with good advice afterward they who were more especially dedicated to Gods service and attended his Altar were signally called the Clergy and the other the Laity or people very agreeably to the phrase of the Old Testament where we find not only a distinction in the things themselves but in the names of such as served any ways in Gods house and those who were only Israelites at large For these were called simply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sons of the People or the Laity as we now adayes speak 2 Chron. 35 7 12. Vid. Vatab. in Locum in opposition to the Levites which discrimination in terms was thought to be introduced in Josiah's time Secondly From what is said we may conclude that even before and after this distinction all the administration of Church affairs passed through the hands of these Persons of the Clergy or Ecclesiastical Functions and that their Votes and Acts ever went under the name of the Church it may be that in the beginning of the Church when Christians had not so many advantages as after they had and their convenience of assembling was not so great but they were constrained to teach and pray and determine controversies and ordain Laws for the Church that the Laity as we now call them were present at all these but that this fortuitous presence should inferr a right nothing appears A third Conclusion may be That observing the orderly Rites used to invest any person with a Clerical Power it must necessarily follow that they who wanted them never attained the thing it self For the Author to the Hebrews asserts plainly the sacredness of Evangelical Ministring Heb. 5. 4. from the Prescriptions and practise of the Levitical saying No man takes this office upon him but he that was called of God as was Aaron and least it might be presumed that this strickness concerned the Old Law only he proceedeth to that greatest of Precedents Christ himself who though he needed not any Institution being absolutely free to all such purposes of himself yet was called of God in signal manner to shew that all that exercise such Sacred function should much more be thereunto orderly called Now to understand what this ordinary and orderly call is the better it is worth the observing how Aaron was called for so in proportionable manner ought all under the Gospel be ordained to the Ministry And here first we may note there is not the least intimation given of such a Call as is Internal upon which many vainly rest But Aaron was called not only internally by certain proper and sufficient Gifts to that Office but externally and that not of himself but of another He was called by God Now least it should be here suspected that a bare and bold presumption of being called of God without some outward evidence prooving the same might suffice to justify an Intruder of himself into the Ministry the Scripture tells us how Aaron was called of God and that is not only of God and immediately but mediately by man that is by Moses Nay farther because many content themselves with such an Ordination as comes from another not examining much what power or Right such persons have so to ordain others the Scriptures tell us that Aaron was called by another and him appointed specially by God so to do as we read Exodus the 28. 1. where Exod. 2. ◠God commandeth Moses saying And take thou unto thee Aaron thy Brother and his sons with him from among the children of Israel that they may minister unto me in the Priests Office Here is their Election or Vocation Their consecration or ordination followeth afterward described particularly according to its several Ceremonies in the next chapter So that we see the great Example or Figure of Evangelical ordination directeth to such a form as ought to be of God by the hands of some who are thereunto appointed And if any should here interpose that Moses himself was no Priest properly himself though he were of the Tribe of Levi and yet he consecrated Priests being himself rather a Civil Magistrate and from hence argue a power in Lay-men especially Magistrates to do the same now adayes I answer here indeed doth Calvins defence of himself and such as are in like condition take place of an Ordinary call and an Extraordinary For before God had setled a Rule and Order in his Church the extraordinary and immediate hand of God did appoint persons to minister before It was therefore first of all an Extraordinary Act in God to call Moses rather than any others to direct and Rule his Church it was next an Extraordinary Act in him to separate the whole Tribe of Levi to Minister before him but from that time forward there was no such thing heard of as an Extraordinary Call Secondly I answer that God prescribing to us Rules and Precedents doth not thereby so tie his own hands as he doth ours but when he pleaseth he may create Persons in Extraordinary manner to what ends he will And his Autority infallibly granted to those we call now Lay-men is altogether sufficient to make a Priest of what Order or dignity soever he shall be But until such infallible Proofs of either Gods immediate Calling which is Extraordinary indeed or his immediate enabling or empowring any other Person not having in the ordinary Course established in his Church received such a power be given all such Extraordinary assuming of the Ministery on a mans self is more then one way Extraordinary and to be rejected as void And with such no good and conscientious Christian ought to Communicate as with Priests that is as Offering the Spiritual Sacrifice of Prayer and Praise unto God as a Legitimate and Publick Minister of God or Mediatour of the People or that Mistical Sacrifice in the
autority he had it was for the edification and not destruction 2 Cor. 10. 8. of the Church The argument therefore taken from an Hereditary Right in the Crown of England of being Governour and Defendor of our Church to the apparent ruine and destruction of it we know very well from whence it proceedeth and whether it tendeth but where it will end as yet God only knows This we know that Papists are mad when that scoff and reproach which they have constantly put upon both King and Church from that Title upon due enquiry makes so little to their purpose And therefore they will fight with us with the name only CHAP. XXXII Of the Exercise of the Political power of the Church in Excommunication The grounds and Reasons of Excommunication More things than what is of Faith matter sufficient of Excommunication Two Objections answered Obedience due to Commands not concerning Faith immediately Lay-men though Princes cannot Excommunicate Mr. Selden refuted NAture in all Bodies that have Life casts out of it what ever corrupts afflicts or oppresseth the same and by Struglings and contentions endeavours to deliver it self from such noxious humors as would destroy it And this is the reason men take Vomits Purges and Sudorificks that the deadly humour being expelled the wholesome may prevail and the Whole be preserved There can then be nothing more reasonable or Christian than to put this in practice in Bodies Political or Ecclesiastical We see how Thieves Robbers Murderers and such like malefactors who are enemies to humane Society be denied and that justly the benefit of that Society against which they have so offended by confinement in Prison or deprivation of Life it self forfeited justly in seeking or acting the ruine of another And can any that grants the Communion of Christians to be a Body knit together by its several joints and nerves and consisting of several Members deny but the like Evil may befal in its kind to it what doth happen to others in another viz that some noxious humor of Heresie corrupting the Faith in which as the Scripture saith of the Blood is the life of a Christian and the Church it self may poison it And some violence of Schism may dissolve or dismember it And shall not it be allowed the like remedy or means of Cure which are held necessary in like cases No opinion how heretical or immoral so ever is more pernicious to Christian Society than that which absolutely denyes power to the Church to eject unsound and tainting members out of it and to provide for the security of the Body even by the abscission and destruction of any one Part infesting it For this opinion strikes not at one part of the Body but all neither at one point of Faith but all though not immediately and directly but indirectly and by consequence For as upon the fall of the House the persons within must needs be crusht to death so upon the dissolution of the outward Frame of the Church the Faith itself must of necessity in a short time perish and be reduced to nothing And therefore those men of reason as they would be accounted give us but little cause to think them better men than Christians who affirm rawly and loosely without qualification or due explication of their mind that no man is to be cast out of the Church but for something which is necessary to salvation or which Christ doth not require or forbid absolutely either denying or not considering a man can scarce tell which by their works hereby that Christ and St. Paul and our Creed it self require conservation of the unity of the Church both as a thing admirable in its self and necessary to the Faith it self For any man therefore to broach or publish such an opinion as this That every man may use what Ceremonies he pleases in the publick service of God or if he pleases he may use none and this That the Church hath no power to command or forbid any thing which is not expressed in the Scripture when as Rules general and several Examples in Scripture justify the contrary These I say being contrary not only to some one Church but all even those they would by no means have touched thereby do no less in their consequence mischief to the Church than the denial of the Mystery of the Trinity it self or of Christs incarnation however I grant they in their form are nothing so foul And therefore I presume to conclude them matter of Excommunication and so I judge St. Paul doth where he advises nay commands in the name of the Lord 2 Thes 3. 6. Jesus Christ the Thessalonians to withdraw themselves from every one that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition he received of us These traditions were as it is here implied concerning orders of the Church and manners of Worship which in all probability are most of them lost to us St. Paul therefore requiring that whoever did not walk according to those prescriptions delivered by him should be separated doth not warrant the like proceedings now For t is the very same thing whether the Church withdraws it self or whether it expells another When the Israelites warned by Moses departed from the tents of the wicked Corah Dathan Num. 16. 26 and Abiram who only walked disorderly not erroneously in the matter of worship that we read of and their complices and touched nothing of theirs they Anathematized them no less than if they had set them packing into remoter parts from the Congregation Nay if now-adayes as lately Sectaries should prevail so far as to possess themselves of all the Publick and Lawful places of Worship and eject the true Church they might stand no less legally and Really Excommunicate than if they were thrust formally from thence themselves For'tis not the place but the Cause and the Body from which they are cut that makes the Excommunication just and valid This we are confirmed in by the same Apostle afterward And if any man obey not our word by this Epistle note that man 2 Thes 3. 14. and have no company with him that he may be ashamed Now St. Paul in this Epistle had delivered many things not essential in themselves to salvation And where the company of Christians was not great and their society not formed and their outward power little or nothing as in the beginning of all Churches there it sufficed in liew of Formal excommunication to withdraw themselves from such troublers of the Church And this we read further of in St. Paul to the Romans saying Now I beseech Rom. 16. 17. you brethren mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them St. Paul generally in his Epistles not only insists upon unity of Faith but unity of Charity and outward communion they therefore that were Authors of unnecessary divisions are they whom he would have noted and avoided which when it is done with Publick
be he no where affirms but saith expresly I do not therefore affirm because I oppose it not But the supream folly of cutting off scores hundreds and thousands of years of torments by Indulgences upon earth was such an imposture as could never enter into the head of any of the sober Ancients and not to be endured amongst Christians Many are the Suffrages of the Fathers to that of the word of God Blessed are the dead which dye in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit Rev. 14. 13. that they may rest from their Labours and their works do follow them Implying a direct and comfortable passage from this miserable to that happy life in heaven And whereas they say That they who go to Purgatory may be said to dye in Christ because they shall at length be delivered by Christ How can that stand with such excessive pains there suffered to which none on earth are equal either in degree or continuance How can these wretched souls be said to rest from their labours and sorrows Must they not make God a mocker of his servants in comforting them against their affections in this world by telling them they shall one day be delivered from them and go to greater in Purgatory Besides What grounds do they find in the Word of God or the word of the primitiye Fathers which makes a a twofold state in Christ One of them who by Saintly lives pass immediately to bliss Another of them who are in a middle state and are partly miserable and partly blessed But to their prime argument the Answer is easie We are not generally purged wholly from sin nor have we made full satisfaction of punishments for our sins in this Life unless by Martyrdom or some heroical and eminent Sanctity Both are false which are here supposed First That Martyrdom for Christ or the most holy and exemplary life lead here in this world do so perfectly purge us that we need not further cleansing Again it is denyed that true and sincere repentance acted in this life both in forsaking sin and in true conversion unto God sufficeth not to purge us from all our sins in this life as to the guilt and penalty of them and the odious stain rendring the soul unaccepted to God though men arive not to the perfection of Martyrdom or the eminencie of Sanctity attainable here as St. John witnesseth But if we walk in the light as he is in the light 1 John 1. 7. we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin He doth not here intend to speak of the supreamest sanctity only but of that general state of grace and holy life in which whoever is the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth him from all his sins and dying in that state needs no more cleansing to make him capable of entring immediately into everlasting bliss which is far from all torment though not so consummate as to be capable of no addition at the Resurrection when the Body shall be re-united to the Soul Nor doth this take away what of prerogatives is justly due to Martyrdom or eminent Holiness in this Life because there remains proper to them first a greater measure of comfortable assurance of Gods favour and bliss hereafter and a much greater and higher degree of glory when possessed than inferiour degrees of holiness here can lay claim to And this is sufficient encouragement next to the pure intention of holiness it self and Gods glory to any Christian to abound in good works knowing that his 1 Cor. 15. labour is not in vain in the Lord. And thus much of those we call Aequivocal Sacraments and improper For though all true Sacraments are ordinarily necessary to salvation yet all things ordinarily necessary to salvation are not Sacraments as Repentance which in its nature consisting of true Contrition of heart and conversion unto God and thereby putting us into capacity of mercy from God is not pretended to be a Sacrament until the Priest acteth his part towards the Penitent And if Contrition thus understood or Repentance be no Sacrament surely neither can Confession or Satisfactions which are said to be parts of Repentance be Sacraments nothing being in the parts which may not be in the whole But so moderate sound Consecration of Arch-Bishops and Bishops a course hath our Church taken as to call them Sacramentals as being above the order of general acts and duties of Piety and not amounting to the dignity of the two proper ones Baptism and the Eucharist CHAP. XL Of Baptism The Author Form Matter and Manner of Administration of it The General necessity of it The Efficacy in five things Of Rebaptization that it is a prophanation but no evacuation of the former Of the Character in Baptism MANY Acceptations are found of the word Baptism in Holy Scripture which I leave to others who have collected them and betake my self to the thing it self commonly understood by it And thus Baptism is a Sacrament of the New Testament instituted by Christ consisting of the outward signs of Water and the Word and the inward Grace of Regeneration and remission of sins and outward Communion with the Church of Christ all which I conceive to be contained in our Church Catechism where it is first described by its outward Sign to be Water wherein the Party is baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost And by its inward Grace to be A death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness for being by nature born in sin we are hereby made the Children of Grace This Sacrament then of baptism is said truly to succeed that of Circumcision and to have the same Spiritual effect upon the Spiritual and inward man which that had over the Outward The agreement and difference between which two will sufficiently appear from the comparing of this as we now shall explain it with that which we shall do by considering the Form the Matter The Subject The Efficacy and the Minister of Baptism The Form we have propounded to us by Christ when he first instituted the same and commanded his Disciples to go and teach all nations baptizing Mat. 28. 19. them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatever I have commanded you From whence it doth appear that taking Baptism simply for the Act it consisteth in that form of words here prescribed by Christ and the outward Action of baptizing with Water But taken more Concretely and complexly for all things concurring to that Sacrament essentially It is a Covenant made between God and Man whereby is promised on Gods part remission of sins and salvation and on mans part Faith and Observation of the terms of the Gospel as St. Mark more expresly hath it He that believeth Mar. 16. 16. Eph. 2. 12. and is baptized shall be
upon us it is evident that they are to be understood not of the ordinary Baptism by Water but the extraordinary of the Holy Ghost sometimes preventing Baptism as appears in the Acts more than once Other reasons out of Scripture Act. 10. 41. brought to this purpose do prove only that to repeat Baptism is needless but not damnable For the Ethiopians who are reported to Baptize Breerwoods Enquirit themselves once a year on the same day that Christ was Baptized do it as the History of them tells not so much implying an invalidity in one Baptism as a convenience to bring to mind the Baptism of Christ on Epiphany perhaps reckoning the precept of Christ given to Communicate in Remembrance of him might hold to the obliging them to repeat Baptism in remembrance of his Baptism CHAP. XLI Of the second Principal Sacrament of the Gospel the Eucharist Its names Its parts Internal and External It s matter Bread and Wine And the necessity of them Of Leavened and Vnleavened Bread Of Breaking the Bread in the Sacrament VVE now come to the Second most proper and necessary Sacrament known by several names as that of The Supper of the Lord in our Church Catechisms not because our Lord Christ made his Supper of it or ever intended we should but because at his Last Supper upon the Paschal Lamb and the conclusion of it he instituted this for his Apostles and all Faithful peoples spiritual benefit as a Spiritual Repast or Supper nourishing them to eternal Life In answer to which we read of the Promise of Christ in the Revelations Behold Rev. 3. 20. I stand at the door and Knock if any man hear my voice and open the door I will come into him and will Sup with him and he with me And St. Paul more expresly to the Corinthians When ye come together therefore 1 Cor. 11. 20. into one place this is not to eat the Lords Supper distinguishing hereby this Sacred Supper from the more ordinary communion which those first Christians had in their Charitable meetings to eat and drink together to their mutual edification and comfort From whence their Cavils seem to be groundless who with some scorn reject this name in use much amongst the Reformed fearing somewhat derogatory to those Sacred Mysteries And upon the same grounds likewise do they shun the name of the Lords Table lest the word Altar which seems to them more sacred should be less accounted of And yet without reason For surely where St. Paul calls those holy Mysteries The Table of the Lord he speaketh not properly but Metonymically 1 Cor. 10. 21. not of the Material Table on which they were placed but of the Adjuncts which were the Sacramental Elements Though it be plain that from this Supper of the Lord the Table furnished with it took its denomination of the Lords And that not only in Scriptures but amongst Primitive writers too And Altar of the Lord it was called only Metaphorically not properly by both no otherwise than the Lords day was called by way of Analogy The Sabbath day From the Form used at the celebration of those Mysteries it was called Eucharist which was Thanksgiving as Mathew 26. 26 27. From the Effect which was double Communion with Christ and with the Members of Christs Body the Faithful it was termed Communion 1 Cor 10. 16. From the Matter of which it consisted The Body and Blood of Christ Corin ibid. And many more less considerable appellations have been received in the Church to be passed over in this short view wherein we are rather to enquire into the Nature of it in these Particulars viz 1. The Author 2. The Matter 3. The Form 4. The Ends and Effects For the Author It is without controversy Christ himself the histories of the Gospels plainly so affirming Mat. 26. 26. Mar. 14. 22. Luc. 22. 19. And St. Paul to the Corinthians 1 Epist 11. 23. It having nothing herein peculiar to it it being necessary to all Sacraments so properly called that they be Instituted of God or Christ as is above proved The Greatest contention of all is concerning the Subject-matter of this Blessed Sacrament not in a few words to be opened or composed The clearest way to proceed in this disquisition is First to consider the External Part and then the Internal The External are the Signs or Elements appointed by Christ to insinuate and represent unto us his Passion or as his own express words are to bring to remembrance his death and Passion This do in remembrance of me And what is here only recorded by the Evangelists Luk. 22. 19. to have been said of the Bread St. Paul affirmeth to have been likewise spoken of the Cup Do this as often as ye drink it in remembrance 1 Cor. 11-25 of me declaring unto us the use and end of the Institution of these Signs But before we go any further it will be necessary in our way to distinguish the twofold most principal and common acceptation of the word Sacrament here For sometimes it is taken Complexly for the whole ministration of the Lords Supper and at other times only for the Material Part of it which again is sometimes taken for the External or signifying Part the Elements and sometimes for the Internal or things by them signified which are the Body and Blood of Christ and that not simply and absolutely but as under the consideration of his Bitter death and Passion and that for our sakes The Elemental and External parts of this Sacrament are to be considered two ways First before the celebration or consecration of the same and then after First then it is generally agreed to on all sides that our Saviour Christ took natural Bread and natural Wine most commonly in use in those Countreys and therefore in all reason this ought to be a constant binding prescription to all that minister and use that Sacrament and not to vary from the very kind used by him when ever it can with any tolerable care and cost be obtained But seeing that Christ in all probability without any scrupulous choice of Wheat or Rye or Barley or any one single Grain made use of that which was in ordinary use at Meals amongst them and there being no express word which of these he took there appears no reason why any one of which Bread may be made for the service and life of Man may not be taken to this purpose And especially considering that the end of the Institution which is said to be the representing of Christs death and Passion and the affecting us thereby may no less be performed by the one sort than the other Yet where the constant practice of the Church confirmed by positive Injunctions hath determined the kind it can be no ways free or safe for any unnecessarily to vary from that It is of much greater difficulty to determine What is to be done in the cases of such both extreme Northern as
be made apparent in how many and great things they have degenerated in their Doctrine and Worship since it pleased God to withdraw his holy Spirit from that Church upon their rejecting of the true Messias sent them and to translate it to the Church of the Gentiles And no wonder that they who observe not that now should argue against it as a thing not to be done and moreover deny that ever it was believed or practised by their Forefathers for there remains no other way to excuse themselves in their present error but to maintain that it was never otherwise held This is a common evasion of all Hereticks and Sectaries But that the Scriptures of the Old Testament contained this Doctrine in substance though the more perspicuous and glorious manifestation of the same was reserved for the New is not to be denied especially if we consider how that many of their own Doctors and Rabbies have so interpreted the same And some have admired the Hebrew Language as the holy Tongue not so much as some of moderner standing amongst them have given out because of the neat and modest expression of things of impure and obscene nature for it is very plain that the most obscene things are there as broadly and manifestly expressed as elsewhere but from the matter which it treats of generally very divine and particularly from the nature of that Tongue in every word of which being a Radix or original the Mystery of the Trinity is implied in that it consists but of three principal Letters which Letters make but one word But there are more sure words of Prophesie than they and such are these together with the Comment and approbation of the Chaldee Paraphrast Gen. 3. v. 8. it is said They heard the voice of the Gen 3. 8. Lord God walking in the Garden which words Onkelos renders thus And they heard the voice of the Word of the Lord God where we see that Voice and Word are distinguished the one being taken for the Word spoken the other for the Word subsisting or personal And again v. 22. where the Hebrew hath And the Lord God said c. Jonathans or as some more properly the Hierusalem Targum hath The Word of the Lord said And the same Hierusalem Targum on Deuteronomy the 33. 7. hath The Word of the voice of the Lord heard Judah where the Original and other Translations have Hear Lord or receive Lord the voice of Judah And so in other places which doth argue a Personality ascribed unto the Word of God Which doth farther appear for that the action of Creation extending the Heavens and Repenting is attributed unto the Word of God But I leave the asserting of the Mystery of the Trinity from the Scriptures of the Old Testament interpreted by the learnedst and most renowned of the Jewish Doctors to such who have made it their design to convince them from testimonies of their own Authors as Petrus Galatinus and more exactly Josephus de Voisin in his Comments on Prigro Christianae Fidei and especially de Trinitate I shall only add here that memorable passage in Bibliander out of the Jewish Rabbies upon that place in Bibliander de Paschate Israel Gen. 28. 11. Gen. 28. And he lighted upon a certain place and tarried there all night because the Sun was set and he took of the stones of the place and put them for his pillows and lay down in that place to sleep Where some Rabbies saith Bibliander do understand that he took two stones but others as Rabbi Nechemias that he took three and in this manner prayed to God If God shall write his Name upon me as he did his Name upon mine Ancestors let all these become one and he found them all one By which type of the stone they give to understand God to be the Original of all things for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in Hebrew is a stone implies in a mystery the Trinity for in Aben Ab intimates the Father Ben signifies the Son and ◠or N. Neshanna or Spirit Thus they Which their interpretation whether it hath not more of wit than solid Argument I am not here to determine it sufficing our present purpose to shew that the Doctrine of the Trinity is no invention of Christians as moderner Jews vainly give out for if their forefathers mention the same though their grounds may not be of the soundest it argues they knew and received it Other Texts from the Old Testament implying this Mystery are chiefly these 2 Sam. 23. 2. Isa 48. 16 17. and chap. 61. 1. and chap. 63. 9. Psal 33. 6. compared with Joh. 11. 1 2 3. Haggai 2. 5. compared with Gen. 1. 26. Isa 6 3 c. Concerning all which it is to be observed First That it is not to be expected the testimonies of the Old Testament whose design it was to deliver all things more covertly and obscurely should be altogether so literally and expresly taken as that none other may be found as proper as that sence given by Christians but it may suffice that an apt accommodation may be made to the confirmation of our Faith and that by the chief enemies to it Secondly That the Tradition of the Jewish Church differed from the historical or literal sence Hence our Saviour Christ proves the Messias to be God out of Psalm 110. v. 1. The Lord said Psal 110. Matth. 22. 42. unto c. arguing to this effect He who was greater than David himself from whom the Messias should come must needs be God David calling him in Spirit Lord but David in Spirit calls the Messias his Lord whereas David being himself absolute Soveraign had no mortal greater than he therefore he must be God This was then generally received amongst the wisest of them That the Messias was there intended though the words might be capable of a more literal sence And the like may we judge of the Arguments of St. Paul drawn out of the Old Testament to confirm the Doctrine of the New and particularly this for it is confessed that he bringeth many proofs as do also the other sacred Pen-men out of the Books of the Old Testament which have a literal sence much differing from that purpose to which they are alledged But it is certain that the ancient Jews did maintain two sences a Literal and a Mystical and that St. Paul being educated in the prime Traditions and Mysteries of their Divinity used them according to the known sence of the learned For otherwise it had been as easie then for the Jews to have put in their exceptions against his Doctrine as now it is for Jews to cavil at them But besides the Autority of the Old Testament principally to be used against Jews the Autority of the New must be enforced against the Heresies of Christians against this great Mystery Go ye saith Christ in St. Matthew and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father Matth.
That grace is the cause of such special acts of God Neither doth any prevision in God of acceptation of grace of complyance with and obedience to Gods will move to Elect or Call any man and that upon that sure ground of Thomas because Thom. 3. Q. 2. 11. c. there can be no possible way of meriting without Grace for Grace is the first Principle or beginning of all merit and nothing can be a cause or so much as conduce to its own being But the inclining of God to such a thing must come under the notion of meriting or to speak more agreeably to our ears doing well before God And therefore they much more truly may be said to be the direct cause of Grace And this not as some Pelagian Hereticks supposed at last by constraint of argument for the more ready and easie operation of mans will but simply to will that which is good Nay St. Austine saith and that truly the same of mans Understanding De Spir. Litera ca. 7. as Will. For he holds forth his mercy not because they do know but to the end they may know Neither because they are of a right heart but that they may be right of heart doth he hold forth his Righteousness whereby he justifieth the ungodly So that provision of good Works or Faith as the reason inclining God to confer Grace simply is altogether inconsistent with the Holy Scriptures and the freeness of Gods grace asserted plentifully therein But there is another and farther tearm of Gods Predestination Election and Vocation which is to his Kingdome of Glory and the Reward not of the merit but work of Faith and Holiness And to these no doubt but we are ordained and elected and called as the end by those means This is that St. Paul intended in that place to the Romans above quoted and in the second chapter telling us God will render to every man according Rom. 2. v. 6. 10. to his deeds and glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first and also to the Gentiles Christ tells us in the twentieth chapter of St. Matthew that to set on his right hand and on his left in Matth. 20. 23. Matth. 25. 34 35 36 37 38. his Kingdom shall be given to them for whom it is prepared and in the 25th who they are for whom it is so prepared from the foundation of the world viz. the Righteous and moreover who are the Righteous namely such who abounded in good works there particularly mentioned And to this may be referred most of those speeches at large falling from the most eminent Fathers of the Church before the time of Austine wherein they affirm that God elected some and not others upon the fore-sight of good works in them and obedience others rejecting for their disobedience Thus spake Origen thus Chrysostome Nazianzene Ambrose and Hierome too who wrote as expresly as Austine against such a freedom of the will which should give any occasion to God to confer his first Grace on man all meaning no more than the election of man to glory upon the intuition of Grace Now if this opinion should be strained to the highest it would not rise to this that God did choose any man simply and primarily for his works sake or his faith fore-seen for as is shewed God elected simply to that and not for that but the most may be wrung out of it is too great a propinquity to Merit But neither doth this follow seeing they who say God in such an order i. e. after grace upon such an occasion as those good works of which God is no less a principle cause than Man doth choose to confer glory on a man or ordain him to life do not say that such fore-seen works bear a proportion to such glory or reward The Scriptures which plainly affirms the former exclude the latter making it a matter of free promise in the original and the gift of God together with mans work as especially to the Romans St. Paul doth Now being made free from sin and become Rom. 6. 22 23. servants to God ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ There is nothing therefore more consonant to reason nothing better reconciles the seeming jarrs of the ancient Fathers before and about the time of Austin with that more wary and exact state and defence of the Question concerning Gods election of man upon pre-vision of Faith and Obedience alwayes including Christs obedience and merits and the freeness of his Grace in electing And nothing reconciles the Scriptures more clearly than the opinion which allows God to be the sole reason of his own will and the author of his Grace of Sanctification and Salvation also and yet holdeth such an order between these that God doth not choose any man to his free and immerited Grace of Salvation but through and upon consideration I do not say valuable and proportionable in weight and worth but in nature of the state of Sanctification going before Does not St. Paul render it as a reason why God was to be glorified in his Saints when he came to take vengeance of his adversaries Because our testimony among you was believed And did not the Master of 2 Thes 1. 10. Mat. 20. 2. the Vineyard who is Christ fore-ordain a penny to the Labourers in consideration of their labour foregoing Doth not St. James say the very Jam. 1. 12. same in these words Blessed is the man that endureth temptations for when he is tried he shall receive the Crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him Surely that which man promiseth upon a condition he doth not ordinarily bestow before that condition be performed but ordains it to follow upon it And to the same purpose speaks St. John too in the Apocalypse Be thou faithful unto death and I will Rev. 2. 10. give thee a Crown of life But perhaps they think there remains some force in Calvins argument still against this and that God must be obnoxious to that imprudence that ordinary men are not if he did not first propound the end and then make all means to conform and conduce to it so that man should first be ordian'd to his end of glory or misery before he is All this I grant and yet grant them nothing and this is all they are like to get from confounding the inward and secret acts of God with his outward or the Decrees of God with the execution of them as Twiss notoriously doth in Twissius Animadvers in Collat. Arm. cum Jun. p. 1 2. his entrance to the Animadversions on the Conference between Arminius and Junius It is certain that God doth decree a man to his end before he is but doth he ordain him to such an end before he ordains him to
Heaven and Hell But we deny not that the Ancients prayed for the Dead nor do we dissent much from them in that pious act our selves however there are quarrellers amongst us well known by their other affected and morose follies who oppose it because they have no express Scripture for it but we deny they ever prayed for the pardon of their sins or ease of torments so anciently but for an happy rest and restauration in a Resurrection So that we peremptorily deny and well may notwithstanding all proofs brought to the contrary that Prayer for the Dead necessarily infers Roman Purgatory And for the Consequence of this Opinion of Roman Purgatory Indulgences it is so rank a Corruption such a novel and impudent invention as the Church of Rome under that defection it now is never did so great a miracle as to get it any place in sober and knowing mens minds both thing it self and the abuse of it being such as alone may suffice to disgrace the Authours of it and make their pretenses to infallibility alwaies false very ridiculous We know indeed that scarce any thing was of ancienter use in the Church then some Indulgences but no more like these than Earth is like Purgatory Indulgences were made by such who were in autority in the Church towards Penitents who had their Penances allotted them for scandalous Crimes committed against the Faith and Church which Penances were often relaxed and mittigated by the favour and indulgences of the Fathers of the Church good cause appearing for to do so But that ever it was in the power of the Church to give ease to such as were punished in that other Life to come was never heard of for above a thousand years after Christ Alphonsus de Castro is worth the Alphonsus de Castro lib. 8. Adv. Haer. de Indulg reading upon this who is positive for Indulgences but going about to prove them prepares his Reader with a long Preface for such a short Discourse telling him that He ought not to expect for all points of Faith Antiquity or express Scripture For many things are known to the moderner which those ancient Writers were altogether ignorant of For seldome any mention is made in ancient Writers of the transubstantiation of the Bread into Christs Body of the Spirits proceeding from the Son much rarer of Purgatory almost none at all especially among Greek Writers for which reason Purgatory is not believed of the Greek to this day c. The ancient Church caused men to satisfie in this life and would leave nothing to be punished in the Life to come and therefore there is no mention of Indulgences Thus he But adds Amongst the Romans the use of them is said to be very ancient as may in some manner be collected from their stations And it is reported of Gregory the First of whom we even now spake that he granted some in his dayes It is said and reported by where and by whom he could not tell us But he tells us indeed how Innocent the Third that great Innovator and Corrupter of the Church constituted it in the Latherane Council and the Council of Constance after that much which was not before the Year 1200. Judge we from hence what great account is to be made of the many sayings of the Fathers pretended to approve this devise And judge we farther what great Reason or Scripture there is for the Popish faction to derogate so far as they do from the efficacy of Gods Holy Spirit of Grace in the repenting sinner though straitened of time in the exercise and demonstration of his true Conversion and from the fullness of Christs mediation and merits which are ordained for the remission of all sins upon true Repentance For the bloud of Christ cleanseth from all sin saith St. John and so say they understood as in this Life and the Life to come but St. John nor any other holy Writer of Scripture gives us the least intimation of any other season of pardon then that of this Life Therefore here to end this First Part with the end of Man in this world seeing Gods Promises are so liberally revealed unto penitent sinners in this Life without exceptions of matter time or place of venial or mortal sins Seeing Christs merits are absolutely sufficient to acquit the sinner and no limitation is to be found upon Faith and Repentance in Scripture Seeing lastly that Gods Spirit of Grace is of vertue sufficient to sanctifie to the washing away of all filthiness both of flesh and spirit and this life is only mentioned in Scripture for the exerting of this work and perfecting this cure of the soul Let us rather thankfully embrace so great salvation and work it out for St. Paul supposes we may with fear and trembling in this life that so as St. Peter hath 2 Pet. 1. 11. it An entrance may be ministred abundantly unto us into the everlasting Kingdem of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ The End of the First Part. THE Second Part OF THE INTRODUCTION To the Knowledge of the True Catholick Religion CHAP. I. Of the worship of God wherein the Second Part of Christian Religion consists Of the Necessity of worshipping God It is natural to worship God Socinus holding the contrary confuted Of the Name of Religion the Nature of religious worship wherein it consisteth REligion we have defined to be A due Recognition and Retribution made by the Creature to God the Fountain of all Being communicating himself freely to inferiour Beings And this description we have in substance given us by David in his last and most serious charge to Solomon his Son saying And thou Solomon my Son know thou the God of 1 Chron. 28. 9. thy Fathers and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind c. From whence we take the ground of our distinction of Religion into two Parts The true knowledge of God which is attained by the Doctrine of Faith revealed in Gods holy Word and the worship of him there in likewise contained Of the former having already spoken we now proceed more briefly to treat of the second The worship of God And that God is to be worshipped is such an inseparable notion from the acknowledgment of God as nothing can follow more necessarily then that doth from this And it were more reasonable though that be brutish for to deny God absolutely then to deny him worship and service And therefore Seneca saith well The first worshipping of God is to believe there is a God The next to yield to him his Majesty to yield him Sen. Epist 95. his Goodness to understand that he or they governs the world And afterward He sufficiently worships God who imitates him And Tully The Cicero de Natura Deor. lib. 2. worship of God ought to be most excellent and pure and holy and full of piety so that we may constantly worship him with a pure intire and uncorrupt mind and voice
that outward acts of worship are of this nature I only blush at the perverseness and folly of these men and so leave them Yet out of pitty towards some who like the Israelites after Absolome are carried away from the truth in the innocency of their souls I shall endeavour to stay them by advising them to consider what Perkins wri eth well in these words Indeed all the worship of God is Spiritual even Perkins Cases of Conscience L. 2. C. 5. that which we call outward yet not of it self but by vertue of the inward from which it proceedeth But were it not so yet the worship of the Body it self is a real and in some degree an acceptable service unto God even distinctly considered from that of the Mind as the same Author also confesses upon this solid ground God is the Creatour not only of the soul of man but also of the body and we bless God not only with the heart but also with the tongue Therefore the whole man must pray in publick And who is it that grants what the Psalmist sayes All thy works praise thee O Lord and denies not the body Psal 145. 10 to be the workmanship of God but must grant that the body is obliged to the worship of God as really as the soul Doth not St. Paul say Glorifie 1. Cor. 6. 20. God in your body and in your spirit which are Gods The Body and the Soul are both said to be Gods and therefore are both to be rendred unto God according to their ability and capacity And it is no less ridiculous for men to deny bodily service to God as unprofitable and unacceptable unto him because God calls so earnestly for the spiritual and inward service of the mind than it would be to deny God the inward worship of the Soul joined to the Body because it is said Worship him all ye Saints and let the Angels of God worship him Whatsoever the idle and unprofitable servant saith in the Gospel of God that he was an hard man reaping where he had not sown and gathering where he strawed not yet it is nothing so For God Mat. 25. 24. doth not require more than he hath given and therefore having given less to the Body than to the Soul do we think he will accept of no less from the Body than he doth from the soul The Parable now touched proves the quite contrary God there well rewarding less encrease and return though not in the Arithmetical proportion yet Geometrical Put the Case that the body hath received but as five talents and the soul ten nay that it hath received but one yet the condemnation for not improving that one according to the cause and ground given sufficiently evidence that the improvement according to that ground would be an occasion of praise and reward And this Thirdly appears from the peaceableness of man in bodily Acts. For if the mind being well disposed to God the Bodily outward acts are sometimes sinful as in the simulation of worshipping an Idol with outward acts when inwardly a man detests and abhorrs the same as certainly they are then surely though the mind be not so well devoted to God as it ought provided it be not bent to the contrary the outward acts may be acceptable in some degree to God And therefore Origen hath these words It is one thing to worship and another to adore A man may sometimes Adore Origen Hom. 8. in Excd. unwillingly as they that flatter Kings when they perceive they are addicted to that sort of Idolatry do seem to adore or fall down to Idols Whereas in their hearts they are well assured that an Idol is nothing But to worship is with entire affection and addiction to be subservient if then a Man may offend God with his body why may he not please him Is it because God will according to his due have all or none This makes as much against the simplicity and singularity of the Souls worship as the bodies and no more Fourthly the Scripture giving us precepts of outward worship and presidents of Gods rewarding bodily ceremonies of worship doth abundantly commend the same unto us St. Paul saith to the Corinthians Providing for 2 Cor. 8. 21. honest things not only in the sight of the Lord but also in the sight of men Christ saith Let your works so shine before men that they may glorifie your Father Mat. 5. 1 Thes 5. 22. Rom. 12. 17. which is in heaven And again St. Paul to the Thessalonians saith Abstain from all appearance of Evil. And to the Romans Provide things honest in the sight of all men All which words may be interpreted of moral works but not so as to exclude the outward bodily Acts of Reverence and worship of God which are apt to affect or disaffect men And the reason here of is because of all the worship and glory we exhibit to Almighty God nothing more accreweth really unto him than external esteem For it is as true of the Glory of God as Man with the change of persons It is the Aug. Civit. Dei L. 5. Gul. â—â—aris de Fide C. 3. Judgement of Men thinking well of men and so of God saith Austin or as Gulielmus Parisiensis Glory is nothing else but an excellent high and far spread fame By which it appeareth that all Glory is a thing rather Relative than absolute and depending on the opinion of men 'T is confessed there is an absolute Glory and essential of God with himself but we give not that to him but only publish and celebrate the same and this we do chiefly by outward acts or bodily And do we not read in Joshuah how Achan is said to give glory unto God in open confession of his sins And doth not the Scripture plainly affirm that Ahah was accepted of God Jos 7. 19. so far as to the mitigating of the sentence pronounced against him by God Because he Humbled himself before God And what was his humiliation but 1 King 21. 27. 29. the outward ceremonious acts of Repentance as Renting his clothes putting sackcloth upon his Flesh fasting lying in sackcloth going softly Which will be of greater force if it be true what some modern interpreters say of these things That they were all hypocritically done Fifthly External worship and reverence are not only so many indications and Effects of the more noble and divine worship of the Soul and fruits which are as acceptable as the tree that bears them but which is much more they are very often causes of the devotion of the mind and great inflamers of the affections as well of him that so demeans himself in humility and reverence as of the beholder Of this latter St. Paul speaks in his epistle to the Corinthians where he treats of the external decency and order to be observed in the worship and House of God upon which he that cometh in falling down on
that worthily and gravely and not all Rites introduced ordinarily and orderly into the Church by good Councels and autority as many vainly have imagined and drawn his words with wonted ignorance or spite against the use of Ceremonies But what we were saying is this that all Reverence and gravity and decency are wholly such by humane agreement and opinion and that of the Region wherein they are used For if any posture or gesture or Habit were naturally good or Evil decent or indecent it would be so to all countries and people the contrary to which is most certain viz. That what one people judgeth grave and decent another esteemeth ridiculous and uncomely To bare the Head in the Western parts of the world is a token and Act of Reverence to whom it is done but absurd and grievous to the Eastern Parts Again in the Western Parts for Men to move their hats and to bend the Knee to one is Reverence but for women to do so is foolish and ungrateful to any Black clothes and habit in the European Parts and amongst Christians are generally looked on as comely grave and decent for persons of the soberest rank but odious to the Turks and so might instances be given in many things of like nature Which are not for any intrinsick worth in them or natural received into the service of God but for that they are partly by consent of men where we live acknowledged for proper notes of Reverence or else are by express constitution declared to be such which are designed by the Church to signifie and express veneration and esteem of what we do and upon that become such For neither do words themselves naturally signifie what we mean by them nor do letters naturally give such a sound to a word compounded of them but altogether by human agreement and appointment no more do these signs and ceremonies of themselves but by consent and institution imply reverence and devotion Where then do these frivolous and quarrelsome fellows appear who resolving to undo something done before them and do somewhat that better suits with their own humours and unchristian tempers devise monstrous things in such rites malitiously apply them zealous enforce the contrary upon such absurd errours And will take no denial when they are pleased to utter such slanders as these That we urge them as of absolute necessity We prefer them before the more material service of God We make them conditions of Communion with us The first and second of which are directly false and never can be made good The Third is indirectly true For by consequence indeed they become conditions of Communion in all Churches and their mouths are opened directly and expresly according to their manner only against our Church yet all are no less concerned than ours yea their own Conventicles are in as much danger of this argument as our Churches For I appeal unto themselves whether they would not thrust out from among them such as should dare against their Orders to do what they list amongst them Would they suffer one amongst that should constantly take the Communion kneeling while the rest sat or stood Would they not severely censure and being obstinate eject such an one as should bow at the name of Jesus against their will and perhaps him that should own he makes a conscience of being covered in the house of God Must they not here interpret themselves better in their famous modern Maxime Of making outward Rites conditions of Communion and so that their adversaries shall come off as well as they Or they suffer as much mischief by their own weapon as any else But what they will say we regard not no more than what they have said in that Rule it self frivolous and fallacious That which we say to it is the quite contrary That we do not make such Orders or customes conditions of our communion so much as they make them causes of non-communion and Separation Let the matter then be brought fairly before all equal Judges who are to be blamed they who have no autority either to appoint or put down any Ceremonie and yet upon that which they can never prove to be forbidden or unlawful but as it likes them not by which they argue us out of all but their own inventions refuse communion with that Church to which they have all general obligations to joyn themselves Or they who being over them in the Lord whether they will or not do form outwardly by such Ceremonies and Rites the more intrinsick parts of Gods Worship requiring under the sin of disobedience and pain of Ecclesiastical censures following thereupon submission unto them In fine We accuse them and believe we are much better able as we are always ready to prove it of making innocent I do not say inoffensive for where shall we find that thing that offends not some body rites and orders the only ground of Schism rather than we make them conditions of Communion And so what they will get by this justification of themselves they may and hope will at length put in their eyes and cause tears of repentance to fall from them for their many groundless prevarications and slanders of both Powers God had set over them CHAP. III. Of the Second thing considerable in Divine Worship viz. The state wherein we serve God What is a State The formal cause of a State Divine Vows What is a Vow The proper matter of Vows Evangelical Councils That it is lawful and useful to make Vows under the Gospel contrary to Peter Martyr The nature of Vows explained THE Second thing wherein religious worship doth consist in general is the special state which a true Believer chooseth to serve God in The state of any thing doth import in it Inde est quod etiam in actionibus humanis dicitur negotium habere aliquem statum Secundum ordinem propriae dispositionis cum quadam immobilitate seu quiete Thomas 2 dae Qu. 183. c. 1. constancie and subtilty as Thomas hath not amiss described it in general saying In humane actions a matter is said to have a state according to its particular constitution with a certain immutability and rest Whatever therefore is by nature uncertain and mutable and becomes determined and fixed may be said to be in such a state in which it is so fixed And though by the vanity and natural wantonness of Mans will he is too often unresolved and fickle in his due Obligations towards God yet by Reason and much more Religion every man is bound to God and his liberty is to serve God in the common state of Religion which restrains his irregular motions and confines him to the will of God And under this due subjection is every man especially brought by being baptized and therein vowing faith and Christian obedience unto God But as Religion in general is the stating and establishing a man towards God and as Christian Religion is yet an higher stricter and holyer obligation
in general concerned himself in the marriage of others And to declare how that state was not at all inconsistent with a state Clerical of twelve Disciples John 2. 1 2. which Christ chose to minister for him Eleven are supposed to be married persons or at least to have been married formerly To answer which by saying that after they were chosen they forsook their wives is to evade and not really to answer First because it had been as easie for Christ surely to have picked out a dozen persons free from the knowledge of women as to make choice of such as were wedded had he judged any incapacity in these to the Evangelical Ministery But secondly do we find any thing in special prescribed by Christ for such separation from wives more than for other Christians who were not Ministers of the Gospel For of all faithful Christians it is spoken in certain junctures that whoever forsaketh not Father and Mother and Brethren and Sisters and Wise and Children for Christs sake cannot be his Disciple And there is no rule but common necessity and prudence not Divine prescription which requires any man for the Gospels sake to forsake his Wife rather than his Father and Mother Yet that the Apostles did actually absent rather than separate themselves from their Wives and that others who enter'd into the ministration to the Church under the Apostles foreseeing what St. Paul expresseth the present distress of the Church as well in regard of the 1 Cor. 7. 26. persecutions of the Church as the paucity of Preachers the greatness of the Harvest and the small number of Labourers did decline the state of marriage is very probable because they were required by Christs Injunction to Go and teach all Nations which travelling life ill could consist with cohabitation with Wives And therefore it must be given them Gratis and not by the merits of any reason oâ— grounds they can show that that such relinquishing of their Wives was either total or upon conscience made of the thing it self Doth not St. Paul say expresly in the words before those now touched Concerning Virgins I have no commandment of the Lord If such as served at the Altar were to be excepted surely he 1 Cor. 7. 25. would not have left the Rule so general as we find speaking only according to humane prudence And though they search with their best eyes they shall not be able to find in any other writings of the Apostles one Text o Scripture obliging Bishops or Priests to singleness of life more than those of the Laity unless they argue from reason That Virginal Chastity is more severe more pure more spiritual than conjugal which is yielded and therefore more obliging the Clergy who should be more spiritual persons then others all which I deny not but say that this binds them no more from marriage than it doth from wine and strong drink which if none of the Clergy ever used they were the more to be commended unless in such cases as St. Paul advises Timothy For their stomachs sake and often infirmities And thus is Bellarmin's first proof laid Bellarm. de Clericis l. 1. c. 19. The sole grounds then of unmarried state of Priests must be fetch'd from Tradition and Reason of both which we shall presume to speak a word or two Apostolical Tradition is pretended but not trusting much to that recourse is had to the Old Testament from certain allegorical interpretations made of some Rites in Moses's Law which may do well in the Church where they used them to perswade but ill in the Schools to prove the same as a necessary duty The argument taken from the custom of the Priest abstaining from their Wives during the time of their ministration I do really 1 Chron. 24. believe to have had an influence upon Primitive Christians Judaizing in many other things of like nature to restrain them from the use of their Wives upon solemn ministrations But this was without Law or Canon freely undertaken and embraced as was Celebacie it self at first until about the year 385. Siricius Bishop of Rome made a constitution that it should and ought to be and that on that ground And that the inferiour Orders such as Ostiaries Readers Exorcists and Acolythites should only be permitted to marry But Alexander the third about the year 1160 proceeded according to the method of that Church to shut them also out the doors of Orders that should presume to marry But all that was done against those in greater or sacred Orders in the Church for more than three hundred years after Christ was to deny such as were married access to the Altar by way of ministration who from that time abstained not from their Wives as did the Council of Arles and some in Spain Only a custom prevailed very generally and anciently to suffer none who were in those called Sacred Orders such as were Bishops and Priests and Deacons to marry after they were so ordained for if they did they were dismissed of their Office or their Wives The Eastern Church ever accepted of married persons into the Clergy and at length understanding the Apostle Let the Bishops be the husbands of one wife as a Precept rather than a Caution that they should be husbands of no more then one which in all likelyhood the truest sense in the Sixth Council In Trullo decreed they only should be received into Priestly Orders who were married And therefore all antiquity for twelve hundred years together fails them in this that it was otherwise then voluntary that married Priests lived from their Wives who had before orders or that married Men might not be made Priests though 't is confessed they preferred unmarried Persons before them until that Sixth Council which for that reason amongst others Bellarmine calls a Profane Synod and Baronius impious such a great veneration have they for the Autority of the Church when it speaks not their sense Yet as we are far from giving an exact and full account of this long controversie here so are we so far as I can Divine at the judgment of our Church willing to accommodate the matter with others that can digest any thing but their own stout devises to acknowledge a Power in the Church to bind or loose her sons of the Clergy to an unmarried state or to leave them free For to aggravate matters to that height as to make it absolute tyranny or Antichristian and to be against the word of God which saith Marriage is honourable in all things and the like implyes more of the weakness of the Arguer than strength in the Argument more of spite and passion than ingenuity or soberness For 't is answered very sufficiently marriage is not condemned but virginity commended before it Marriage is not at all declared to be evil when Celebacie is said to be much better Marriage is not condemned when certain persons are condemned for marrying Doth a Father that should cast off
from an hearty and diligent answer and reply to the Minister and thank themselves if ever they be denied the understanding the publique worship of God For is there not much reason that the service should forsake them who forsake that And that they who will not concern themselves reverently and devoutly as they ought to do in it should be made uncapable of so doing by such an invention as this I know they of the Sectaries as their writings testifie can be content the Common people should say Amen at the last as if St. Paul had indeed intended no more than that one word whereas in all probability he intended not that word at all in terms but such a constant and general suffrage as might be implied in that word and yet that word very laudably used in the conclusion of several prayers It may I should think put them to the blush to consider how herein they vary from the whole practice of ancient Churches as I could particularly show and give us no reason why they presume so sacrilegiously to defraud the People I have I confess met in some of their writings such an one as can scarce be wondred at enough coming from them For they say it may give some occasion Account of the Conference at c. to the Laity to invade the Office of the Minister Priest they would have said if they dar'd to speak so in Publique And is not this wonderful and ridiculous both that they who have by their own Principles quite destroyed the ancient Hierarchy of the Church so far as power would enable them and by their practice opened a way for all comers into the Ministry by defending Extraordinariness of Vocation should be more zealous than any Hierarchical persons in either Ancient or Modern days for the Dues and Rights of the Ministry This surely can have no good meaning as it hath no good reason seeing all that the Laity doth in such cases is only to follow and not to lead as Pastours do and to answer the call of others and not to give any law or word to any Is there any fear that the common people should ascend to the throne when they give their approbation by shout and applause to the Oration of their King made from thence There ciprocation of the people was never looked upon otherwise than a suffrage and an â—â—â—â—ance and argument of the inward affection born by them to the worship of God performed by the Priest and a proof of their communion with him So that very early in the Church it was constituted that no such publick Service should be performed in the Church where Consecrat Dist 1. there were not two at least to make answer to the Priest And as there was never before these prevaricating Sectaries any fear that the Deacon should invade the Priests office because he made answer to him so neither that the people should usurp either because they replyed to both as innumerable instances may prove take this amongst many which I could add to them already collected by Vicecomes In the Aethiopian Mass which bears the name of Joseph Vicecom Observ Eccl. Tom. 3. l. 1. c. 14. the Universal Canon thus speaks the Deacon Bow the knee People Before thee O Lord we bow it and praise thee The Assistent to the Priest saith as followeth Lord Lord c. The People replyes the same Then the Assistent of the Priest or rather Bishop for so the word Sacerdos and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly used signifies follow the Prayer Lord c. The Deacon says Arise to Prayer The People Lord have mercy upon us c. Thus and much more anciently Now for the credit of the Roman Church and much more for the Puritan who agrees with it herein hear what follows in Vicecomes This custom is long since antiquitated in the Latin Church a custom being brought in that some one of the number of Clerks should answer to the Priest in the sacred ministration of the Mass Which when it first began may well be doubted by reason of the scarcity of Writers who treat of it But if I may use my conjecture it was but a little before Beroaldus his dayes which Beroaldus I take to be him who lived about the year 1480 because he is the first that I can find who makes mention thereof in a Manuscript of Ceremonies which is extant in the Library of the Canons of the great Church c. By which it may be seen which are most popish the Church of England in its publick Liturgy commending and prescribing this ancient custom and laudable or Sectaries who have conspired with Papists to abolish it and exclude it out of their Service CHAP. XI Of the Circumstances of Divine Worship and first of the proper Place of Divine Worship called the Church the manner of worshipping there Of the Dedication of Churches to God their Consecration and the Effects of the same That no man can convert any part of the Church to his private use without profanation of it and Sacriledge Against the abuse of Churches in the Burial of dead Bodies erecting Tombs and enclosing them in Churches or Chancels Rich men have no more right to any part of the Church than the Poor The Common Law can give no Right in such Cases THERE are two very considerable circumstances in most Moral and Divine Actions Place and Time which have great influence upon the goodness and evil of an action And we have already so far touched the former as to assert the Excellencie of a Place Publick above the Private Closet or Domestick Rooms Now it is requisite we should enquire into the condition of such publick places as we call Temples or Churches omitting here Sic ergo appellamus Ecclesiam Basilicam quâ continetur populus c. Aug. Ep. 157. the various names and significations and acceptations as more proper for larger and learneder Treatises And yet we must not omit the distinction of Church into Proper and Improper as Austin doth thus use it For so saith he we call the Temple Basilica the Church wherein is contained the people which are truly called the Church as that by the name Church that is The place is called Gods Temple or Church because the company and congregation of Gods people which is properly called the Church doth there assemble themselves on the days appointed Homil. Ch. of Engl. Of the place c. p. 126. the people contained in the Church we should signifie the place which contains c. And to prevent all mistakes we confess we here mean that opprobriously called The Steeple-house as no bodies house but as we believe the House of God by institution and designation however it proves many times by Hereticks and Schismaticks intrusion and usurpation the House of the Enemy to God But the Kings Palace is still the Kings though Rebels and Usurpers possess themselves by violence and injustice of the same And that
Secondly Religion of all sorts ever acknowledged Festival worship Thirdly Apostolical practice and Prescription commend them and Fourthly our Church Homilies one reason possibly they have suffered Homily of the time and place of Prayer pag. 125. so many reproaches of ungodly men tell us that Holy days were appointed by the same Authority that the Lords day was which as sorely as it may vex these dissenters to hear is most true For though it sayes with the same Authority it doth not from thence follow that they by that Authority were instituted with the same sacredness And Mr. Perkins is Perkins Preparat to Problem pag. 681. deceived who tells us Not a Feast except Easter can be proved for 300 years after Christ Indeed Socrates whom he quotes saith the Apostles did not much concern themselves in Feasts but his meaning plainly is not about such punctilio's or Circumstances of Feasts as gave him occasion to write about them such as were the Contentions between the Eastern and Western Church about the day of keeping Easter But that Easter was Apostolical can be no more doubted then that Sunday was so And that fifty days after Easter to Whitsuntide were kept Festivally Tertullian witnesseth And therefore Cartwright whom nothing Tertul. Advers Psychicos cap. 14. could hold but his own fansie and the Genevan Plat-form thought it safer to say being urged with Antiquity I appeal from the examples of the Ancient Church to the Scriptures There were other grosser Errors countenanced by Antiquity There were so or there were none at all But what greater errour did Antiquity generally assert to then this of Innovatours denying all Holy days lawful but the Lords day Do you appeal to Scripture to prove this So do we Show one place against them if ye can Or show that the Church where there is no precept of Scripture in particular may not ordain such times of Worship When will these Scriptures appear For the places commonly alledged against set days viz. Rom. 14. 5. I leave Mr. Perkins to answer sufficiently though not absolutely in his Cases of Conscience Lib. 2. cap. 16. And that of Galat. 4. 10. to his Comment on the words And that of Colos 2. 16. to the now quoted place of his Cases of Conscience intending here no formal disputation though this Author falls into many pitiful suspicions and imaginations of his own in these places As for instance on Galatians 4. 10. he saith Indeed the Church of England observes Holy days but the Popish superstition is cut off This is true but the reason he gives very false which is this For we are not bound in conscience to the Observation of those days For Conscience binds every good Christian from singularizing Conscience binds to embrace all convenient opportunities to praise and honor God Conscience likewise binds to faithful obedience to our Ecclesiastical Superiours in such pious exercises as these and against which no more then the rude Effects of their private opinions and passion hath been alledged notwithstanding I know how much Gelaspie and after him Voctius have travailed in this subject and notwithstanding his answers Davenant on Coloss 2. v. 16. I hold the Reasons of Bishop Davenant to be strong and Pious given us for the observation of Holy days in his Comment upon the Colossians to which I refer the Reader for brevity sake And for the same reason I reduce what may be said about Fasts to what is already said of the Feasts of the Church For there is the very same reason of Antiquity Apostolical for the observation of both power and Liberty of the Church just occasions offered Conformity to the Primitive state of the Church Advantages of such exercises Characteristicks of Christian from unchristian societies and professions which all equally infer the duty of Fasting on set days as of Feasting and the madness and wickedness of such Christians as dare open their mouths against them because no doubt but both one and other have been much abused by Roman superstition Yet not Fasting so much as Festival days The abuses may here be noted to be these 1. Multitude whereby works of Nature and Civil necessities should be so far impeded Origen Hom. 10. in Genes and retarded that no small prejudice should befall the Common-wealth thereby Indeed Origen saith Every day is to be a Festival to a Christian calling them Jews who observe some now and then but his meaning is not that every day a man should cease from his labour wholly and only wear his best cloaths walk about and do nothing but worship God but as there he expresses himself should go to Church daily and not content himself with his domestique devotion but appear before God in publique place though not in that publique manner as with the assembly of Christians This still binds as a Councill at least if not Command and that which as hath been shewed already is much better then that which is performed within the walls of our Bucerus de Regno Christ lib. 2. cap. 10. own house or Closets if we will take Bucers judgment who speaketh thus When as all that we have and are and our very lives we have received and do receive daily from the free bounty of God is it not very meet also that we should assemble daily also to render him thanks and to renew our devotion to him and our worship of him by his Word and Sacraments which he hath for this purpose appointed for us and by daily Prayers which he requireth of us Your Majesties therefore he speaketh to Edward the sixth Part it is to inforce the authority of the Divine Law against this so great abuse of God and unbridled profanation of Holy days And therefore if Sectaries Religion be examined duly which hath procured them so much credit and esteem amongst unknowing people it will be found to fall short by much of that which is approved and established by our Church They are said to be frequent and constant in duties as they call them of their Families meaning prayers perhaps morning and evening this is very good and laudable But consider we a little whence this practice hath arisen whither it tendeth and it is rather a defrauding God of that due which we plead for then out-doing others The Church the publique house of God is the proper place of Gods worship and that he is more glorified in than by home-made worship Therefore for them to translate the Service of God out of the Church at all times but when a Sermon calls them forth into their own houses and to offer the morning and evening sacrifice at home when it ought and may be offered in his own house is so far from deserving the name of extraordinary Pieties that it deserves rather the name of Sacriledge And this I speak meaning when this proceeds either from that brutish opinion that all places are alike to God which is only true in sensu diviso and
not Composito viz. before some one place be determined and dedicated especially to his worship and not after or from the contempt of Gods house or from dislike of the Publique worship or from admiration of our own Gifts and a delight to show them or lastly a design to breed a faction in private against the publique profession I know likewise and grant that several just Impediments there are to the publique service and in such Cases most necessary it is that Gods service should be performed within doors But it is not necessary that this should be performed as the affected manner is in a service quite distinct from the publique yea often quite contrary What men speak in prayer and spiritual devotion between God and their own souls privately they are the only proper judges of and Christian not Liberty only but piety requires they should so be But surely when Men speak before others as well as God and there is nothing so much as the Place which diversifies the worship in a Family from that in the Church that of the Church is most proper And not to say any thing of the Laity no Priest or Minister of our Church ought upon common occasions to officiate in Prayers in Private Families any otherwise than he is bound to do in Publique especially if they to whom he officiates and himself have not performed their duties in that manner before in Publique which when they have then only is the proper place for another free-will offering unprescribed I shall not here insist on the obligation all Priests have to recite their Office as I could but only give this general reason That every Priest is ordained of God by man as a constant intercessour between God and Man in behalf of the People and especially them of whom he hath a Pastoral charge and not only the nature of his Office but condition of his Benefice requires that this he doth constantly or daily twice the old rule being very reasonable viz. Beneficium requirit officium the temporal benefits received by the Clergy require spiritual office The first is daily and so should the second also be And this is no such innovation as the contrary that the Priest should have nothing to do but when he preaches or that he should pray and offer to God as liketh best every single Christian which is impossible and ridiculous and an intolerable presumption in any man to prescribe to their Minister how he should minister to them when he is lawfully prescribed his duty before and if he were not he ought to prescribe to others not of the same order with himself and not take Laws from them which is the corruptest and modernest of all Innovations But the Recitation of the Office by the Priest is a constitution of above a thousand years standing according Barthol Gavantus in Rubricam Brev. Tom. 2. Sect. 2. c. 5. Tit. 1. Compilatio Chronolog ad An. 490. to the account of them who set it Jowest Sigebert in his Chronicle affirmeth it began in the year 540 as Gavantus out of him But I find another Chronologer to place it in the year 490 saying Anastasius the fifty second Pope ordained that no Clergyman should omit his Divine Office the office of the Mass or Eucharist only excepted And therefore with excellent wisdom and advice it is in these words prescribed by the Church before the Liturgy All Priests and Deacons are to say daily the Morning and Evening Prayer either privately or openly not being let by sickness or some other urgent cause And surely as there is an Obligation upon Priests to use these prayers there must be implied an obligation in all the true sons of the Church to be present at them and to joyn with the Priest Which because it cannot be expected that all men well inclin'd should be always in a capacity to do the Priest doubtless may comply with the exigencies of others so it be not to the pre judice of the Publique And now considering also the many extraordinary days of Festivals and ordinary days of Fasting wherein especial obligation lies upon all Good Christians so far as they can without justifiable impediment to appear in the house of God and worship him not omitting their personal and private devotions at home and comparing the same with the practice of Puritans who are so strangely deluded with the great vertue of a Sermon and extemporary prayers at home that it goes quite against the hair if not conscience of them to visit Gods house upon the account of prayers and adoration only let it be fairly judged whether they have such cause to insult over our Religion and not be ashamed of their gross defects and dissonancy from all that ever professed Christianity before their days Will their bold pretences to Giftedness think they in their rare way of worship cover these foul blemishes from God when they do not from men But this upon the occasion of the contrary abuse of times in order to Religion wherein the Româ—n Church hath exceeded and departed from the practice of the Ancient Church which indeed had some other solemn times of worship before the fourth Century besides Sundays and Easter day but very Erasinus in Matth. 11. v. 30. Id. in Romanos cap. 14. 5. few Truly and learnedly saith Erasmus upon Matthew The Age of Hieromne knew very few Feasts except the Lords day And in another place he writes thus With the Jews some days were prophane and some days holy but with the Christians every day is equally this he speaks according to the sense of Origen not excepting the Lords day holy Not that Festivals are not to be observed which the holy Fathers instituted afterward to the more commodious assembling of Christian People and to the worship of God but that they were very few to wit The Lords day Easter and Pentecost and some such like reckoned up by Hieromne But I know not whether it be expedient to add Feast upon Feast especially since we see the manners of Christians to come to that pass that so much reason as there was of old to institute them for pieties sake so great seems there to be to antiquitate them Thus he And this hath been the opinion of the Church of England and the course taken in the Reforming the abuse in the number of them And a second abuse hath been pared off by us seen in the end of them which is rather to the honour of Saints than of God or Christ among Papists I know at the long run as we may so speak they ascribe in their doctrine all to God but not half of them have this sense and little or nothing many times comes from them but what is directed to the Saint they then worship Bishop Whitgift doth distinguish ours from theirs many ways This one shall suffice at present out of him Neither Whit gifts Answer to the admonition pag. 175. are they Holy days called by the name
it is That divine Adoration receives its specification from the intention which is an act principally of the will so that be the object what it will yet if I have no intention to worship any other than the true God I worship him when I direct my worship to that which we may suppose not to prove upon tryal God But this is not to be granted that intention is sufficient to denominate worship or constitute it true and Catholick though it suffices abundantly to make a worship false when it is intended for such And then may a man be said to intend false worship not only when he knows it to be false but when he might possibly know it to be so and when he intends to worship that which actually is a false object For as hath been said Idolatry consists principally in the understanding as also the Scripture intimateth when it charges the Idolatrous Israelites with ignorance 2 King 17. 26. Isa 4. 9. of God For were not the Samaritans Idolaters who knew not the manner of the God of Israel And what saith the Prophet Isaiah They that make a graven Image i. e. to worship it are all of them vanity and their delectable things shal not profit and they are their own witnesses they see not nor know that they may be ashamed Surely if any man saw and were convinced of his error he would be ashamed of it but 't is his ignorance that detains him as well as precipitates him into such errors Ephes 4. 18. as St. Paul witnesses of the Gentiles Having their understanding darkened through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart Fifthly There is no reason to grant that simplicity and sincerity of Intention and Resolution of worshipping none but the true God may not consist and hold good in worshipping more than one God as in the Act. 17. 23. case of the Athenians worshipping the unknown God in the Acts For as Pausanias in Eliacis taking notice of this inscription hath it The Persians threatning Greece with War the Athenians sent to the Lacedemonians to beg aid of them Pan met their Embassador Philippides and expostulated with him why the Athenians had made no statue to him but left him our adding that if they received him he would stand by them Hereupon they erected this Monument To the unknown God Others say That they being miserably harrassed with the Pestilence and finding no relief from them they worshipped bethought themselves there might be a God neglected by them who might relieve them and so dedicated an Altar To the unknown God Might not all these things stand with very great sincerity of intention And yet I suppose it was Idolatry So that sincere resolution and intention of worshipping none but the true God only may be found where many are worshipped For though to us as St. Paul saith * Toletus Instruct Sacerdotum l. 4. c. 14. § 6. There is but one God and one Lord yet with all Nations it was not so they might really and stedfastly believe there were more Gods than one And therefore Tolet the Jesuit well writeth thus Therefore Idolatry is the exhibiting of a Divine worship to a false God For to worship him for true God who is not God either by praising him or invoking him or Sacrificing to him or any wayes prostrating our selves to him is to commit Idolatry False adoration which is Idolatry is never but where an Error in the understanding goeth before †De Ratione lure definiend pag. 273. Num ut Supersationis caput est Id. 〈◊〉 iâ—a emnus Dei caltus non solum extrav ritatem fidei sed etiam extra uniatem Ecclesis alterius Dei cultum in se contnet ab coquem Fides Christiarorum communis intra Ecclesiam colendum propâ—nit Omnis enim Commentitia religio talem sibi Deum colendum pâ—â—ponit qualem sibi ipsa commenta sit non qualem se ipse ostendit Quod Idololatrioe instar quoddam est And besides all this the Author of this tenet in another place acknowledges it to be a sort of Idolatry to feign or device a worship of God otherwise than was instituted of God and that not only to worship God out of the verity of Faith but out of the unity of the Church containeth in it a worship of another God than is propounded by the Christian Faith to be worshiped in the Church And again All commentitions religion propounds such a God to be worshipped as it hath feigned to it self not as he hath declared himself to be By which words I understand him to explain himself and draw nearer to the common notion of Idolatry than he is commonly taken to do For granting that it is a kind of Idolatry to offer any superstitious worship interdicted by God and that in thus doing a man doth in effect frame to himself a God distinct from the true God it may be easily granted that all Idolatry consisteth in Polytheism or plurality of Gods because in effect a man makes strange Gods though not formally as he that constituteth one of purpose to worship as the object of his Devotion And this agreeth with what othet learned men have written of Idolatry Quicunque de Deo secus sentit quam revera est c. Erasm in symbolum Catechesm 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epict. Cap. 38. Perkins Cases of Conscience l. 2. c. 11. Luther Colloq Mensalia p. 91. extending it to a false notion or judgment of the one true God For Erasmus in his Catechism on the Creed saith Whosoever thinketh otherwise of God than in truth he is or doth not believe him to be such as the Authority of the Holy Scriptures hath described him to us believeth not in God but in an Idol To the same purpose speaketh Mr. Perkins thus If adoration be given to the true God with a false and erroneous intention it makes him an Idol For example if the body be bowed with this intent to worship God out of the Trinity as the Turk doth Or if he be worshipped out of his Son with the Jews thus doing we worship not the true God but an Idol To these I add these words of Luther All manner of Religion let it have never so great a name and lustre of Holiness when people will serve God without his word and command is nothing else but plain Idolatry It may be said in behalf of Jews and Turks that they are not Idolaters because they worship God according to the true Light of Nature asserting and magnifying above all men the unity of God and directing their worship after the manner of the service of God before Christ To which answering I shall wave the question about the measure of knowledg the Jews had of the Trinity before Christ of which somewhat hath been said before and rather distinguish between the manner of their believing or disbelieving those mysteries For it is much different
there be no Sermon there to offer their Prayers unto God and be instructed and edified out of the Word of God But I hold it best considering the many prejudices and superstitious surmises that are bred in the minds of too many simple Christians concerning the use of Gods house and the worship therein to propound what might more accurately be spoken of that subject from the opinion of Chrysostome that devout and judicious Father in an Homily against such as absented themselves too much from the House of God in these words so near as I could translate them He that loves doth not only desire to see his friend Chryâ—ostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Pag 1. 2 103. Tom. 8. whom he loveth but the very house only and the gate yea not only the gate of the house but the very holes and passages thereunto And if he sees but the garment or pantofle of his beloved he imagines himself to be present Such were the Prophets because they saw not God who is incorporeal they beheld his House and by his House imagined they had him present I should choose to be prostrate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the House of God rather then to dwell in the Tents of sinners Every place Every Room Psal 84. compared with the House of God is the Tent of sinners though it be a Court of Justice though it be a Council-house though any mans private House For though there should be Prayers though Supplications there yet must there necessarily be strifes and contentions and evil language and debates about secular cares But this House is clear from all these Wherefore they are the Tents of wicked men but this the House of God And as the shore free from winds and waves affords great safety to the Barks which put into them In like manner the House of God drawing such as enter into it from the stroms of outward businesses causeth them to abide in great calmness and security and to hear the Oracles of God This place is the Foundation of Vertue the School-house of Philosophy or wisdome and that not only at the time of assembling when the Word of God is heard and spiritual Doctrine and the Reverend Fathers are assembled but likewise at every other time Enter into the Porch only and suddainly as it were a spiritual Brees incloses thy soul And this quietness leads thee to trembling and teaches thee to be wise It elevates the mind and suffereth thee not to mind these present things It transports thee from Earth to Heaven And if so great benefit doth aâ—crue unto thee being there when there is not any Congregation what great profit must they needs reap who are then present and what great dammage must they suffer who are absent when the Prophets on all sides sound forth when the Apostles are preached when Christ stands in the midst when the Father disposes matters there done when the Holy Spirit affordeth its own joyes Would ye know where such persons spend their time who despise the Congregation what witholds them and what withdraws them from this sacred Table and of what is there discoursed Or rather I know clearly For rather they prate of absurd and ridicuious matters or are fix'd on worldly cares But both these exercises fail of pardon and have extream punishment And for the former there is no need so much as of a word or demonstration Yea that they who pretend the affairs of their house and alledge the unsupportable necessity from thence can by no means obtain pardon being called once aweek and even not then enduring the preferring of Spiritual before Earthly things is apparent from the Gospels For they who were called to the spiritual Marriage made such excuses as these One that he had bought a yoke of Oxen one that he had purchased a field another that he had married a bride but they were all alike punished They may be necessary causes but when God calls they are no Apology For after God all things are necessary After his honour let all other things be regarded For what servant I pray tell attends the affairs of his own house before he hath finished his Lords service c. And in another place he as plainly and zealously contendeth for the Time as here he doth for the Place of Gods worship directly refuting the vain imaginations of them in his days who contented themselves in appearing in Gods Chrys Proaem in 6. Orat. in Annam Tom. 5. p. 78. To. 8. p. 8. House on Festival days only I would we had not them that had learnt worse Doctrine then this Such saith he are to be perswaded to communicate according to every Festival assembly For though saith he Whitsuntide is passed yet the Feast is not over For every coming together is a Feast Whence doth this appear From the very words of Christ himself Matth. 18. 20. whereby he saith Where two or three are gathered together in my Name I am there in the midst of them But when Christ is in the midst of them assembled what other proof of a Feast would ye have greater than this Where there is teaching and praying where are the Benedictions of the Fathers the hearing of Laws where the assembling of Brethren is and the bond of sincere Charity where there is conversing with God and God discourses with men why should we not call that a Feast and Solemn meeting c. Thus he And are not all these to be had many dayes even when there is no Sermon And have not men been of late taught to despise and prophanely deride such incomparable daily blessings as these and the benefits flowing from them the more is the shame and the more is the pity God of his great mercy and grace teach us better and better settle us and incline us delivering us from that prophane imposture which hath of late been wrought into the minds of Christians most unchristianly that it is needless nay perhaps worse superstitious in publick or private manner to visit Gods House by Prayers and Praises offered there to him but when a Sermon is at hand A second Precept of the Church is to all conscientious Christians and obedient Children of God and the Church To observe the Fasts of Directions after the Kalendar and Rubrick after the Nicene Creed the Church which Fasts the Church makes fourfold The Fourty Days of Lent Ember Days at the four Seasons being the Wednesday Friday and Saturday after the first Sunday in Lent after the Feast of Pentecost after September the Fourteenth and after December the Thirteenth The Three Rogation days being the Monday Tuesday and Wednesday before Holy Thursday or the Ascension of our Lord. In all which we must note and suppose that Fasting it self in general is the Ordinance of God himself and not of the Church this duty in a manner contrary unto that of rejoycing unto God and Feasting standing upon the same Grounds that Festivals and Days of
two Tables and hanging all on one string Charity which saith St. Paul is the fulfilling of the Law as many Beads or Jewels make but one Bracelet Yet according to the several forms and distinct matter are they often distinguished Origen Hom. 10. super Exod Non ut simplicioribus videtur cuncta quae statuantur Lex dicitur c. Psal 19. 7 8. as by Origen in these words It is not as may seem to the simpler sort that all things that are constituted are the Law Lex but some truly are called Law some Testimonies some Commands some Righteousnesses some Judgments which the 18 or 19 Psalm plainly teaches us saying The Law of the Lord is a perfect Law converting the soul the Testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple The Statutes of the Lord are right rejoycing the heart the Commandment of the Lord is pure enlightning the eyes Neither doth Gulielmus Parisiensis much vary from his sense who makes seven Parts of the Law of God the First whereof is Testimonies Sunt autem partes Legis hujus Dei septem quarum prima est Testimenia c. Gul. Parisiens de Legibus cap. 1. and these are of Truths and therefore to be believed The Second Commands and these are of Honest things and therefore to be fulfilled The Third Judgments and these are of Equity and therefore to be obeyed The Fourth are Examples and these are to be imitated The Sixth is Threatnings to wit of Punishments and these are to be feared The Seventh are Ceremonies and these are to be reverenced and observed Thus he But whether these do not concern rather the whole Body of the Law than the Decalogue in particular may justly be doubted but shall not here be disputed though upon this account it may seem to concern this also For if the Ten Commandments be the sum of the whole Law of Moses as is credibly taught how can it so be unless it vertually comprehends the several distinct parts thereof which will be farther cleared in the brief consideration of these three Particulars concerning the Decalogue 1. The Institution of this Law 2. The Nature or Use of it and Thirdly The Explication of it The Authour and Institutour of this Law was insallibly God himself as of all the Writings of Moses the Prophets Evangelists and Apostles received amongst us for Canonical But whether there were any more immediate act of God and as I may say personal in delivering these Commands than in communicating his will by Moses to the Israelites upon other occasions is not so well resolved The Learned of the Jewish Doctours do put a distinction between the Divineness of the Pentateuch wrote by Moses and the rest of holy Scripture of the Old Testament making that the Ground and Rule as it were of other prophetical Writings and so do many suppose the Law to be more Sacred than the other parts of Scripture and to be more Sacred because more solemnly and formidably and with greater manifestation of Gods Glory and Majesty delivered to Moses yea and because written with the finger of God himself as the Scripture witnesses which seems to speak as if God herein had not used the ministery of Angels as at other times and upon other occasions but spake and acted immediately in his own person These words saith Moses in Deuteronomy the Lord Deut. 5. 22. spake unto all your assembly in the Mount out of the midst of the fire of the cloud and of the thick darkness with a great voice and he added no more and he wrote them in two Tables of Stone and deliveted them to me And when the people in Exodus beg of Moses saying Speak thou with us and we will Exod. 20. 19. hear thee but let not God speak with us least we dye it seems to imply that God himself was the speaker Nay God saith afterward Ye have seen that v. 22. I have talked with you from heaven And to this effect the holy Scripture elsewhere as Deut. 4. 36. Nehem. 9. 13. Deut. 5. 4. Exod. 33. 11. from all which there is nothing more certain then that the voice was sensible and after humane manner audible contrary to some Jews who as Buxtorf tells us presume to say it was imaginary only And what do not the Jews superstitiously devise to magnifie this Law and by implication themselves above other people so favoured by God For they not only say that God with his own mouth spake these Ten Words but with his own hands made the two Tables as may be seen in Buxtorf and Buxtorf de Decalogo amongst others Rabbi Simeon writes That both Tables were created by God immediately and that before the world began not regarding how contradictory to Scriptures such an assertion is Exod. 34. 1 2 3 4. and Deut. 10. 1. which they would understand only of the Second Tables but without reason But if we consider first how dubiously and ambiguously the word God is used in Scripture signifying Angels often and sometimes Men of Renown and Command and the Finger of God to be the same sometimes with the Spirit of God sometimes with the Power of God Exod. 8. 19. Luke 11. 20. And secondly That then according to our apprehension and the Scriptures phrase God is said to do a thing himself when he doth it not by any humane instrument or help though he imployeth invisible Spirits therein there will be no such necessity of Consequence as may seem at first view and thus Calvin upon these words of Exod. 31. 18. interprets the matter not amiss And if we consider secondly what sense the Writers of the New Testament take them in the other opinion which holds that these Commands were delivered by the mediation of Angels will appear most probable For so saith St. Stephen expresly in the Acts to the Jews Who received the Law by Acts 7. 53. Gal. 3. 19. the disposition of Angels and have not kept it And St. Paul It was ordained by Angels in the hands of a Mediatour And in the Epistle to the Hebrews it is called The word spoken by Angels Some may say here That by Law is here to be understood not the Decalogue only but the whole Law of Moses at the least which cannot be absolutely denyed though the contrary seems most probable But if it be so does not the whole include the parts If the Law in general was so dispenced does it not follow that this Law in particular was so ordained Though if it be granted that this Law particularly was so delivered it doth not follow that the whole Law of Moses was so given by the ministery of Angels and not only by Divine inspiration without any Angels officiating towards it as in this Case we suppose And Perkins on the Galatians affirmeth directly that this Law was given by the Perkins Gal. 3. 19. ministery of Angels And to confirm this I shall adde a Scholastical Reason For if it
be true what St. John saith that No man hath seen God at any time and what the John 1. 18. Schools teach as I believe that fleshly eyes cannot possibly discern God immediately may we not much more truly say that we cannot hear Gods voice with our fleshly ears and live any more than see God and live But God says expresly No man shall see me and live But as God maketh certain Exod. 33. 20. representations of himself to our eye which are not himself but yet bear his name in Scripture so God produceth or causeth to be produced audible sounds which are not really and properly his voice yet represent so much to the ear of man which when it comes attended with more than natural or ordinary circumstances as did the voice at the giving of the Law it is more especially and signally ascribed unto God as his Lastly It is said in Exodus that Moses wrote upon the Tables the words of Exod. 34 28. the Covenant the Ten Commandments which in the beginning of the Chapter God is said to write I will write upon these Tables the words that were Exod. 34. 1. in the first c. which moved the Fathers as Cyprian and Austin whom Lyra follows to understand them so that God wrote Autoritatively and Moses Ministerially But later Jewish and Christian Expositours have thought good rather to refer the later part of these words And he was there with the Lord fourty dayes and fourty nights he did neither eat bread nor drink water and he wrote upon the Tables the words of the Covenant the Ten Commandments to God not without some violence to the sense more current otherwise But in such variety and obscurity as is here I see no remedy but men must judge for themselves However I suppose the second thing propounded is from hence competently clear concerning the Nature of this Law That as it is undoubtedly Divine so from the Authority delivering it it hath no more force or obligation upon us than other words of God extant in holy Scripture Nor is it easily to be conceived how any thing can be said to be more or less divine which is acknowledged to come from God by vertue of any manner of delivering it whether mediately or immediately by a still and quiet inspiration or by a publick and majestick declaration but from the matter it may And Buxtorf in his forementioned Tractate on Buxtorf in Decalog num 51. Priscis temporibus c. the Decalogue hath these words In ancient times it was a custome among the Jews that the Decalogue should every day in the Morning Prayers be publickly and privately rehearsed and repeated This laudable custom in latter times they have abolished the reason whereof the Talmud renders to be lest the people should believe that the Decalogue had any â—ore divineness in it than other parts of Scripture From whence we may observe First That anciently the Jews had a constant Form of Worship Secondly That there is no such ridiculousness in Prayers publick and private to repeat the Creed and Ten Commandments as certain pretenders to giftedness have presumed Thirdly That the Jewish Doctours discerning the great inconvenience that might happen from admitting degrees of Sacredness in Divine Revelations chose to prevent such errours by taking away the presumed occasion For however some have distinguished between Divine Right and Apostolical making this a mean between humane purely and divine yet in propriety of speech all Constitutions are either divine purely or purely humane And therefore Apostolical Right can be no more than humane Right when it is distinguished from Divine This we speak of Constitutions taken in their formality not as oftentimes they are used for the things themselves so ordained For no doubt but as there are degrees of sins against Laws so these degrees are estimated from the weightiness or lightness of the matter against which offences are committed And thus we may hold that the Ten Commandments are more Sacred that is contain more important matters than generally the rest of the Scriptures do that is again in the like number words being certainly the most perfect and plain and compendious form of serving God that the Jews had any where revealed unto them if not a more absolute sum of our practical duties towards God and Man then we find collected together in so few words in the Gospel and therefore not unworthily inserted into the Second part of the Office of our Church But whether this Decalogue was ever intended by God as such a perfect and compleat Rule of Obedience that nothing to which Jew or Christian was obliged hath escaped it may well be question'd understanding the Question not so much of ceremonial or extrinsecal Duties of Religion as moral and perpetual Many have this last age brought forth who though they look upon it little less than ridiculous to make any use of the Ten Commandments in our worship of God yet ascribe so great perfection to it as a Rule that they suppose they have convinced you of absurdity enough if they drive you to either of these straits To deny any Moral duty to be contained in the Decalogue or to affirm any Ceremonial to be therein included For then they loudly cry concerning the First you make the Law of God an Imperfect Rule And concerning the Second as by name doth Dr. Twisse in his Treatise on the Sabbath with innumerable others If for instance the Fourth Commandment be not Moral what doth it among the Ten Commands And having said this they need they think say no more to confound their adversaries To the former therefore we say that improving the Art of Reduction to the height no doubt but all Moral and Ceremonial duties too may be reduced to some of the Ten Commandments For if our Saviour Christ our Great and Infallible Master reduced these Ten to two and again all things contained in the Law and Prophets which must be all Moral duties to Love of God and Love of our Neighbour in St. Matthews Gospel saying On these two Commandements hang all the Law and the Prophets Nay and Matth. 22. 37 38 39 40. which is yet more St. Paul brings all Christian duties under one Head of Love saying Love is the fulfilling of the Law Do we wonder at or can Rom. 13. 10. we censure those who would have all Christian vertues included and vices and sins excluded by the Decalogue But surely they who contend for such a comprehension as may be useful to a man do not intend that it self should be incomprehensible and illimited which at this rate it must be reducing every thing to any thing but certain Rules have been invented for the limiting and directing of men in this matter which being not taken from the Reason of the thing it self so much as the Arbitrary wit of the Hic video quosdam in hoc elaborasse ut universa proecepta sive jubentia sive
ventantia ad hoec decem redigant Capitalium peccatorum species quae septem numerantur in aliquod horum referum sed sedulâ diligentiâ magis quam serid Erasm Cateches 6. in Decal Thom 22. qu. 148. 2. ad 1. Contrivers of them may as well as many other things be refused at pleasure as an humane Invention For mine own particular I think Erasmus has spoken judiciously and truly in the Case Here I see some labouring hard to reduce all Precepts whether commanding or forbidding to these Ten and to refer the seven deadly sins to some of these but with diligence more sedulous than serious And no other instance needs be given of an incapacity in the Decalogue of Regular reduction of this nature than what Thomas has given us whose Logical head was able to do as much in this kind as any mans Framing an Objection to himself that Gluttony was no mortal sin because it was not contrary to any of the Ten Commandments answers thus Gluttony is a mortal sin in as much as it averts us from the Ultimate end and according to this by a Certain Reduction by which every thing may be reduced to every thing is opposed to the Command of Sanctifying the Sabbath in which is required our rest in the Ultimate End If this be fair and allowable what needed we any more Commandments than that of keeping holy the Sabbath day For surely all sin as well as Gluttony turns us away from our Last End which is God and our resting in him and therefore by this reason all sin should be Sabbath-breaking St. James James 2. 10. indeed saith Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all that is a breaker of all But he very well explains himself immediately after that he meant not so much in respect of the matter of the Law that a man could not sin against it in one case but he must sin against it in another but in respect of the Manner For saith he He that said unto thee do not commit adultery said also do not kill c. implying thus much that the same evil mind that disposes a man to disobey God in one point of the Law will incline him to the like in others and the Cords of Fear and Love of God being broken to offend God in one sin leave him at liberty to offend him in any other whatever Not that a man doth directly or actually commit sin against the whole Law As in the case of Moral Vertues according to Philosophers all are so connected and dependent upon one another in Prudence that whoever wants that lies open to all vices But our enquiry is concerning the connexion of vertues and vices in the matter of them whether the offender in one sin is guilty of all whether the Drunkard be a Thief or the Sabbath-breaker an Adulterer For according to the large extent of Rules commonly given either of these may be made good and without such a latitude drunkenness will hardly find a proper place in any of the Ten Commandments unless we say as some more wittily than solidly Drunkenness slaggers through all the Commands And in the like sense What sin doth not And therefore Thom. ibid. Thomas is constrained to acknowledge that Not all Mortal sins are directly contrary to the Precepts of the Decalogue but those only which contain injustice because the Precepts of the Decalogue in especial manner pertain to Justice and the parts thereof That so many Ancient as well as Modern Doctors of Christs Church have endeavoured to bring all Sins and Graces and Duties to the Ten Commandments I take to proceed from this three-fold cause First in Imitation of the Jews who agreed with Christians in the Use of the Decalogue Novatianus Epistâ—de Judaicis apud Tertul cap. 3. Deniqu dâ—eem sermones â—lh in tabulis nibil novum dacent c. Grot. in Decalogum as being no more than a restoring the decayed Law of Nature in man and reprinting it in his mind as well hath Novatianus observed thus Lastly those ten sayings in Tables teach no new thing but what was blurred they admonish that Justice contained in them as fire buried might as it were by the breath of the Law be re-enkindled And Philo testifieth of the Jews not only of his Times but ancienter that they were wont to reduce All the Precepts of Moses his Law to these Ten not that they did believe that they were all contained in them as Grotius hath observed but that those things we have here belong to such general heads of Actions unto which for memory sake others may be reduced in like manner as Philosophers are wont to Sixt. Sen. Bib. l. 4. reduce all things to Aristotles Ten Categories or Predicaments though by the way it is observed by Sixtus Senensis out of ancient Authors that Aristotle was not the true Author of the Ten Predicaments but rather Architas Tarentinus And this Christians did more accurately as being better endowed with the Holy Spirit and obliged to higher vertues A second reason might be for that the Decalogue as we have already said though it be not such an exquisite and ample Rule as to contain all things without great straining and force yet it being the most significant is any where extant in Scripture Christians chose that for their Compendium to which other duties might relate And this Thirdly because of the expediency of advancing some one Form of Words to be a Rule of Practise as were the Creed and Lords Prayer instituted as Forms of Faith and all Prayers and that chiefly for help to the Memory of men in their compleat duty towards God and Man The first that I have observed who brought this way of Reduction of all things to the Commandments was St. Hieromne who hath delivered such General Rules for this purpose as have been much improved and multiplied by many Catechises and Commentators upon them To which I shall refer the Reader at present passing or rather posting from the Use in General to the Particular Use of it in the Third thing viz. The Explication CHAP. XX. Of the Ten Commandments in Particular and their several sense and importance IN all Laws three things are to be considered saith a late excellent Die â—mâ—bi Hâ—los-phasier Oretzere si non tres Leâ—uâ— partes dâ—â—mmâ—â— Philosophis Platone Possidonio Cicerone alits consittuantur nempe Preoemium Lex ipsa Epilogus sive sanctio Goldastus Replicat ad Gretz c. 11. person in the Civil Law The Preface the Law it self and the Epilogue or Conclusion to it or Sanction And these are all found in the Decalogue And where some have no special Preface there the General Prologue is to be current and applyed unto them And so where other particular precepts want the enforcement of them in the conclusion they may well borrow it from some other as for Example I am the Lord thy God set
have from the matter it self divided the Commandments so that Four which relate principally to God should be placed in the First Table and Six in the Second which seems to be most rational though no less arbitrary than the other There are likewise among the Jews who agree not in the very matter it self of the Ten Commandments For some as the Talmudists and others following them do make that we call properly The Proaem or Preface I am the Lord thy God to be part of the First Commandment which is denyed by Aberbenel and others of them as well as most of us For this Proposition or Sentence I am the Lord thy God is as we say properly Enunciative or Indicative or purely affirmative and not Imperative or Commanding as all Precepts must be which are so properly called The First Commandment therefore is this Thou shalt have no other Gods §. I. but me Where it is first to be observed that almost thorow the whole Decalogue some variety in words is to be found in Exodus and in Deuteromy the Fifth where it is repeated The Reason whereof Grotius thinks to be this That here Moses did set down or rather took precisely what was spoken or written by the Angel but in Deuteronomy he rehearses the same himself without such absolute Punctualities of words or expressions and yet must we not dare to say or believe that Moses transgressed his own Rule given by God in the Fourth Chapter before viz. Ye shall not adde unto Deut. 4. 2. the word which I command you neither shall ye diminish ought from it that ye may keep the Commandments of the Lord your God which I command you So that it is a vain Scholie some would give us upon that and such like Texts of Scripture that nothing at all must be added to Gods word more than we find the Letter to require For undoubtedly such speeches mean no more than that we should do or say neither more or less to overthrow the intention of God in his Commandments For otherwise all the large and far fetched senses devised and applyed by the precise Masters and Mistakers of that Rule to each particular Precept in the Decalogue would be found either Superstitious or Sacrilegious inventions though not inconsistent with the Analogy of Faith Furthermore Laws are of two sorts generally Affirmative or Negative In the Negative of which this is one the ordinary method of explication is first to declare those sins of Commission which are prohibited and then the Duties Graces and Vertues which are there implicitly required on the contrary this being one general Rule of expounding the Decalogue that where any vice or sin is forbidden there the contrary vertue is commanded And on the other side Where any vertue or holy act is required there the contrary vice or evil is interdicted As for Example Here it is forbidden that we should have or make or worship any other God but the one true God therefore on the contrary there is an implicite injunction duly and faithfully to serve that one true God And though the sense Negative is most current and general through the whole Decalogue yet were the Affirmative duties they which God principally aimed at and intended For Negatives do not make us holy to God in themselves but only as they are necessary introductions and good beginnings to the more perfect performance of Positive Duties It would avail a man very little towards the fulfilâ—ing of this First Commandment not to worship more Gods than one for so he mâ—ght worship none at all and be a greater offender than the Idolater that worships many We are therefore in the first place to enquire what are those Vertues and Graces God commands and so shall we more readiâ—y and easily conceive what errours and sins we are hereby commanded to avoid Some of both sorts we shall here instance in to make more compleat that rude and imperfect account given above of the Acts of Obedience and Holiness owing from every good Christian to God but as in a Table rather than in a Treatise The Supposition then that this first Precept requires of us the true worship of God doth infer all that train of Graces thereunto necessary which are commonly reduced to these three Theological Vertues Faith Hope and Charity Of the nature of Faith as well in General as Particular have we spoken largely in the first Part Yet rather in a speculative than practical or obediential way which is proper to this place By the duty of Faith then it is first required that we should have a competent knowledge of God and of his will for some knowledge must of necessity go before Faith There is a twofold knowledge One of simple apprehension or intelligence and this must go before Faith For how Rom. 10. 14. saith St. Paul shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard It is impossible a man should worship God before he believes there is a God And impossible he should believe there is a God before he hath some notion or apprehension of a God either by hearing which is the ordinary way or by some inward suggestion And therefore we read that Paul inquiring of the Acts 19. 2. Novices in Christianity at Ephesus Have ye received the Holy Ghost they answered We have not as yet heard whether there be an Holy Ghost or no. And there is another knowledge of Assurance which assurance is caused in Humane Sciences by an orderly and necessary connexion of natural causes one with another but in Divine matters by Faith which causes that or greater perswasion than any outward artificial Demonstrations And therefore both the encrease of our knowledge and the encrease and strengthning of our Faith are much required by this Precept according as we have the Scriptures more particularly advising us and that by St. Peter 2 Pet. 1. 5. And beside all this giving all diligence adde to your faith vertue and to vertue knowledge and to knowledge temperance c. And so in his first Epistle 1 Pet. 2. 3. 1 Tim. 2. 4. Taste and see how good the Lord is And St. Paul to Timothy God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth And infinite other places Next to knowledge of God seems to be the fear of God according as Acts 9. 39. the Scripture hath it And the Churches were edified walking in the fear of the Lord. Next to Fear comes Repentance and Sorrow for sins past then Renovation or that properly called Obedience in Newness of Life with many others not here to be insisted on The second Grace is Hope which excites to walk and act according to the Gospel from the consideration of the many Promises and upon the intuitiâ—n of an excellent reward to follow certainly the fulfilling the will of God Of which we have spoken in treating of Gods works Lastly Charity with its retinue of Divine Graces is required