much from the Blessed Virgin on the one hand as she had been over-exalted on the other So they said that Christ had only gone through her But this Impiety sunk so soon that it is needless to say any thing more to refute it The Third Branch of the Article is That these two Natures were joined in one Person never to be divided What a Person is that results from a close Conjunction of Two Natures we can only judge of it by considering Man in whom there is a Material and a Spiritual Nature joined together They are Two Natures as different as any we can apprehend among all created Beings yet these make but One Man The Matter of which the Body is composed does not subsist by it self is not under all those Laws of Motion to which it would be subject if it were mere inanimated Matter but by the Indwelling and Actuation of the Soul it has another Spring within it and has another Course of Operations According to this then to subsist by another is when a Being is acting according to its Natural Properties but yet in a constant dependance upon another Being so our Bodies subsist by the Subsistence of our Souls This may help us to apprehend how that as the Body is still a Body and operates as a Body though it subsists by the Indwelling and Actuation of the Soul so in the Person of Jesus Christ the Human Nature was entire and still acted according to its own Character yet there was such an Union and Inhabitation of the Eternal Word in it that there did arise out of that a Communication of Names and Characters as we find in the Scriptures A man is called Tall Fair and Healthy from the state of his Body and Learned Wise and Good from the qualities of his Mind So Christ is called holy harmless and undefiled is said to have died risen and ascended up into Heaven with relation to his Human Nature He is also said to be in the form of God to have created all things Phil. 2.6 Col. 1.16 to be the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his person with relation to his Divine Nature The Ideas that we have of what is Material and what is Spiritual Heb. 1.3 lead us to distinguish in a Man those descriptions that belong to his Body from those that belong to his Mind so the different apprehensions that we have of what is created and uncreated must be our Thread to guide us into the Resolution of those various Expressions that occur in the Scriptures concerning Christ. The design of the Definition that was made by the Church concerning Christ's having one Person was chiefly to distinguish the nature of the Indwelling of the Godhead in him from all Prophetical Inspirations The Mosaical degree of Prophecy was in many respects superior to that of all the subsequent Prophets Yet the difference is stated between Christ and Moses in terms that import things quite of another nature the one being mentioned as a Servant the other as the Son that built the House It is not said that God appeared to Christ or that he spoke to him but God was ever with him and in him Joh. 1.14 and while the Word was made flesh yet still his glory was as the glory of the only begotten Son of God The Glory that Isaiah saw was called his Glory and on the other hand God is said to have purchased his Church with his own Blood If Nestorius in opposing this meant only as some think it appears by many Citations out of him that the Blessed Virgin was not to be called simply the Mother of God but the Mother of him that was God and if that of making Two Persons in Christ was only fasten'd on him as a Consequence we are not at all concerned in the Matter of Fact whether Nestorius was misunderstood and hardly used or not but the Doctrine here asserted is plain in the Scriptures That though the Human Nature in Christ acted still according to its proper Character and had a peculiar Will yet there was such a constant Presence Indwelling and Actuation on it from the Eternal Word as did constitute both Human and Divine Nature one Person As these are thus so entirely united so they are never to be separated Christ is now exalted to the highest degrees of Glory and Honour and the Characters of Blessing Honour and Glory are represented in St. Iohn's Visions as offered to the Lamb for ever and ever It is true St. Paul speaks as if Christ's Mediatory Office and Kingdom were to cease after the Day of Judgment Rev. 5.13 and that then he was to deliver up all to the Father But though when the full number of the Elect shall be gathered the full End of his Death will be attained and when these Saints shall be glorified with him and by him his Office as Mediator will naturally come to an end yet his own Personal Glory shall never cease And if every Saint shall inherit an everlasting Kingdom much more shall he who has merited all that to them and has conferred it on them be for ever possessed of his Glory The Fourth Branch of the Article is concerning the Truth of Christ's Crucifixion his Death and Burial The Matter of Fact concerning the Death of Christ is denied by no Christian the Iews do all acknowledge it the first Enemies to Christianity did all believe this and reproached his Followers with it This was that which all Christians gloried in and avowed so that no question was made of his Death except by a small number called Docetae who were not esteemed Christians till Mahomet denied it in his Alcoran who pretends that he was withdrawn and that a Iew was crucified in his stead But this corruption of the History of the Gospel came too late afterwards to have any shadow of credit due to it nor was there any sort of Proof offered to support it So this Doctrine concerning the Death of Christ is to be received as an unquestionable Truth There is no part of the Gospel writ with so copious a Particularity as the History of his Sufferings and Death as there was indeed no part of the Gospel so important as this is The Fifth Branch of the Article is That he was a true Sacrifice to reconcile the Father to us and that not only for Original but for Actual Sins The Notion of an Expiatory Sacrifice which was then when the New Testament was writ well understood all the World over both by Iew and Gentile was this That the Sin of one Person was transferred on a Man or a Beast who was upon that devoted and offered up to God and suffered in the room of the offending Person and by this Oblation the Punishment of the Sin being laid on the Sacrifice an Expiation was made for Sin and the Sinner was believed to be reconciled to God This as appears through the whole Book of Leviticus was
the Sacrament of his Blood is the Blood of Christ he carried himself in his own hands in some sort when he said This is my Body St. Chrysostom says the Bread is thought worthy to be called the Body of our Lord And in another Place reckoning up the improper Senses of the word Flesh he says the Scriptures use to call the Mysteries that is the Sacrament by the Name of Flesh and sometimes the whole Church is said to be the Body of Christ. So Tertullian says Christ calls the Bread his Body and names the Bread by his Body Tertul. Lib. 4. adv Marci c. 40. The Fathers do not only call the consecrated Elements Bread and Wine They do also affirm that they retain their proper Nature and Substance and are the same thing as to their Nature that they were before And the Occasion upon which the Passages that I go next to mention are used by them does prove this Matter beyond Contradiction Apollinaris did broach that Heresy which was afterwards put in full Form by Eutycheâ— and that had so great a Party to support it that as they had one General Council a pretended one at least to favour them so they were condemned by another Their Error was that the human Nature of Christ was swallowed up by the Divine if not while he was here on Earth yet at least after his Ascension to Heaven This Error was confuted by several Writers who lived very wide one from another And at a distance of above a hundred Years one from another St. Chrysostom at Constantinople Theodoret in Asia Ephrem Patriarch of Antioch and Gelasius Bishop of Rome All those write to Prove that the human Nature did still remain in Christ not changed nor swallowed up but only sanctified by the Divine Nature that was united to it They do all fall into one Argument which very probably those who came after St. Chrysostom took from him Epist. ad Celarium So that though both Theodoret and Gelasius's Words are much fuller yet because the Argument is the same with that which St. Chrysostom had urged against Apollinaris I shall first set down his Words He brings an Illustration from the Doctrine of the Sacrament to shew that the human Nature was not destroyed by its Union with the Divine and has upon that these Words As before the Bread is sanctified we call it Bread but when the Divine Grace has sanctified it by the means of the Priest it is freed from the name of Bread and is thought worthy of the name of the Lord's Body though the nature of Bread remains in it And yet it is not said there are two Bodies but one Body of the Son So the divine Nature being joined to the Body Both these make one Son and one Person In Photi Bibli Cod. 229. Ephrem of Antioch says The Body of Christ which is received by the faithful does not depart from its sensible Substance So Baptism says he does not lose its own sensible Substance and does not lose that which it was before Dial. 1st and 2d â—ont Eutych Theodoret says Christ does honour the Symbols with the name of his Body and Blood not changing the nature but adding grace to nature In another Place pursuing the same Argument he says The mystical Symbols after the sanctification do not depart from their own nature For they continue in their former substance figure and form and are visible and palpable as they were before But they are understood to be that which they are made Pope Gelasius says The Sacraments of the Body and Blood of Christ are a divine thing Lib. de duâ—bus nat Christ for which reason we become by them partakers of the divine Nature and yet the substance of Bread and Wine does not cease to exist And the image and likeness of the Body and Blood of Christ are celebrated in holy Mysteries Upon all these Places being compared with the Design with which they were written which was to prove that Christ's Human Nature did still subsist unchanged and not swallowed up by its Union with the Divinity some Reflections are very obvious â—irst If the corporal Presence of Christ in the Sacrament had been then received in the Church the natural and unavoidable Argument in this Matter which must put an end to it with all that believed such corporal Presence was this Christ has certainly a natural Body still because the Bread and the Wine are turned to it and they cannot be turned to that which is not In their Writings they argued against the possibility of a substantial Change of a Human Nature into the Divine but that could not have been urged by Men who believed a substantial Mutation to be made in the Sacrament For then the Eutychians might have retorted the Argument with great Advantage upon them The Eutychians did make use of some Expressions that were used by some in the Church which seemed to Import that they did argue from the Sacrament as Theodoret represents their Objections But to that he answers as we have seen denying that any such substantial Change was made The Design of those Fathers was to prove that things might be united together and continue so united without the change of their Substances and that this was true in the two Natures in the Person of Christ And to make this more Sensible they bring in the Matter of the Sacrament as a thing known and confessed For in their arguing upon it they do suppose it as a thing out of dispute Now according to the Roman Doctrine this had been a very odd Sort of an Argument to prove that Christ's Human Nature was not swallowed up of the Divine because the Mysteries or Elements in the Sacrament are changed into the Substance of Christ's Body only they retain the outward appearances of Bread and Wine To this an Eutychian might readily have answered that then the Human Nature might be believed to be destroyed And though Christ had appeared in that likeness he retained only the Accidents of Human Nature but that the Human Nature it self was destroyed as the Bread and the Wine were destroyed in the Eucharist This had been a very absurd way of arguing in the Fathers and had indeed delivered up the Cause to the Eutychians Whereas those Fathers make it an Argument against them to prove that notwithstanding an Uninion of two Beings and such an Union as did communicate a Sanctification from the one to the other yet the two Natures might remain still distinguish'd and that it was so in the Eucharist Therefore it might be so in the Person of Christ. This seems to be so evident an Indication of the Doctrine of the whole Church in the Fourth and Fifth Century when so many of the most eminent Writers of those Ages do urge it so home as an Argument in so great a Point that we can scarce think it possible for any Man to consider it fully without being determined by it
our Saviour's speaking of giving his Flesh to them to eat it he adds They foolishly and carnally thought Lib. 20. con Faust. c. 21. in Psal. 98. v. 5. that he was to cut off some parcels of his Body to be given to them but he shews that there was a Sacrament hid there and he thus Paraphrases that Passage The words that I have spoken to you they are spirit and life Vnderstand spiritually that which I have said for it is not this Body which you see that you are to eat or to drink this Blood which they shall shed who crucifie me But I have recommended a Sacrament to you which being spiritually understood shall quicken you And tho' it be necessary that it be celebrated visibly yet it must be understood invisibly Primasius compares the Sacrament to a Pledge Comm. in 1 Ep. ad Cor. which a dying Man leaves to any one whom he loved But that which is more Important than the Quotation of any of the words of the Fathers is that the Author of the Books of the Sacraments which pass under the Name of St. Ambrose Lib. 4. dâ— Sacram. c. 5. tho' it is generally agreed that those Books were writ some Ages after his Death gives us the Prayer of Consecration as it was used in his time He calls it the Heavenly Words and sets it down The Offices of the Church are a clearer Evidence of the Doctrine of that Church than all the Discourses that can be made by any Doctor in it the one is the Language of the whole Body whereas the other are only the private reasonings of particular Men And of all the Parts of the Office the Prayer of Consecration is that which does most certainly set out to us the sense of that Church that used it But that which makes this Remark the more Important is that the Prayer as set down by this pretended St. Ambrose is very near the same with that which is now in the Canon of the Mass only there is one very Important variation which will best appear by setting both down That of St. Ambrose's is Fac nobis hanc oblationem ascriptam rationabilem acceptabilem quod est figura Corporis Sanguinis Domini nostri Iesu Christi qui pridie quam pateretur c. That in the Canon of the Mass is Quam oblationem tu Deus in omnibus quae sumus benedictam ascriptam ratam rationabilem acceptabilemque facere digneris ut nobis Corpus Sanguis fiat dilectissimi filii tui Domini nostri Iesu Christi We do plainly see so great a resemblance of the later to the former of these two Prayers that we may well conclude that the one was begun in the other but at the same time we observe an Essential difference In the former this Sacrifice is called the Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ. Whereas in the later it is Prayed that it may become to us the Body and Blood of Christ. As long as the former was the Prayer of Consecration it is not pofsible for us to imagine that the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence could be received for that which was believed to be the true Body and Blood of Christ could not be called especially in such a part of the Office the Figure of his Body and Blood and therefore the change that was made in this Prayer was an evident proof of a change in the Doctrine and if we could tell in what Age that was done we might then upon greater certainty fix the time in which this change was made or at least in which the inconsistency of that Prayer with this Doctrine was observed I have now set down a great variety of Proofs reduced under different Heads from which it appears evidently that the Fathers did not believe this Doctrine but that they did affirm the contrary very expresly This Sacrament continued to be so long considered as the Figure or Image of Christ's Body that the Seventh General Council which met at Constantinople in the Year 754 and consisted of above Three hundred and thirty Bishops when it condemned the Worship of Images affirmed that this was the only Image that we might lawfully have of Christ and that he had appointed us to offer this Image of his Body to wit the Substance of the Bread That was indeed contradicted with much confidence by the Second Council of Nice in which in opposition to what appears to this day in all the Greek Liturgies and the Greek Fathers they do positively deny that the Sacrament was ever called the Image of Christ and they affirm it to be the true Body of Christ. In conclusion I shall next shew how this Doctrine crept into the Church for this seems plausible that a Doctrine of this nature could never have got into the Church in any Age if those of the Age that admitted it had not known that it had been the Doctrine of the former Age and so upwards to the Age of the Apostles It is not to be denied but that very early both Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus thought that there was such a Sanctification of the Elements that there was a Divine Vertue in them And in those very Passages which we have urg'd from the Arguings of the Fathers against the Eutychians tho' they do plainly prove that they believed that the Substance of Bread and Wine did still remain yet they do suppose an Union of the Elements to the Body of Christ like that of the Human Nature's being united to the Divine here a Foundation was laid for all the Superstructure that was afterwards raised upon it For tho' the Liturgies and Publick Offices continued long in the first simplicity yet the Fathers who did very much study Eloquence chiefly the Greek Fathers carried this matter very far in their Sermons and Homilies They did only apprehend the Profanation of the Sacrament from the unworthiness of those who came to it and being much set on the begetting a due reverence for so holy an action and a seriousness in the performance of it they urg'd all the Topicks that sublime Figures or warm Expressions could help them with and with this exalted Eloquence of theirs we must likewise observe the state that the World fell in in the Fifth Century Vast Swarms out of the North over-run the Roman Empire and by a long continued Succession of new Invaders all was sackt and ruined In the West the Goths were followed by the Vandals the Alans the Gepides the Franks the Sweves the Huns and the Lombards some of these Nations but in conclusion the Saracens and Turks in the East made Havock of all that was polite or learned by which we lost the chief Writings of the first and best Times but instead of these many spurious ones were afterwards produced and they passed easily in dark and ignorant Ages All fell under much oppression and misery and Europe was so over-run with Barbarity and Ignorance that it cannot be easily
For so great and so important a Matter as this is must be supposed to be either expresly declared in the Scriptures or not at all The Article affirming That some General Councils have erred must be understood of Councils that pass for such and that may be called General Councils much better than many others that go by that Name For that at Arimini was both very Numerous and was drawn out of many different Provinces As to the strict Notion of a General Council there is great Reason to believe that there was never any Assembly to which it will be found to agree And for the Four General Councils which this Church declares she receives they are received only because we are persuaded from the Scriptures that their Decisions were made according to them That the Son is truly God of the same Substance with the Father That the Holy Ghost is also truly God That the Divine Nature was truly united to the Human in Christ and that in One Person That both Natures remain distinct and that the Human Nature was not swallowed up of the Divine These Truths we find in the Scriptures and therefore we believe them We reverence those Councils for the sake of their Doctrine but do not believe the Doctrine for the Authority of the Councils There appeared too much of Human Frailty in some of their other Proceedings to give us such an Implicite Submission to them as to believe things only because they so Decided them ARTICLE XXII Of Purgatory The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory Pardons Worshipping and Adoration as well of Images as of Relicks and also Invocation of Saints is a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture but rather repugnant to the Word of God THERE are two small Variations in this Article from that published in King Edward's Reign What is here called the Romish Doctrine is there called the Doctrine of School-men The plain reason of this is that these Errors were not so fully espoused by the Body of the Roman Church when those Articles were first published so that some Writers that softened matters threw them upon the School-men and therefore the Article was cautiously worded in laying them there But before these that we have now were published the Decree and Canons concerning the Mass had passed at Trent in which most of the Heads of this Article are either affirmed or supposed though the formal Decree concerning them was made some Months after these Articles were published This will serve to justifie that diversity The second difference is only the leaving out a severe word Perniciously repugnant to the Word of God was put at first but perniciously being considered to be only a hard word they judged very right in the Second Edition of them that it was enough to say repugnant to the Word of God There are in this Article five Particulars that are all Ingredients in the Doctrine and Worship of the Church of Rome Purgatory Pardons the Worship of Images and of Relicks and the Invocation of Saints that are rejected not only as ill grounded brought in and maintained without good warrants from the Scripture but as contrary to it The first of these is Purgatory concerning which the Doctrine of the Church of Rome is that every Man is liable both to Temporal and to Eternal Punishment for his Sins that God upon the Account of the Death and Intercession of Christ does indeed pardon Sin as to its Eternal Punishment but the Sinner is still liable to Temporal Punishment which he must expiate by Acts of Pennance and Sorrow in this World together with such other Sufferings as God shall think fit to lay upon him but if he does not expiate these in this Life there is a State of Suffering and Misery in the next World where the Soul is to bear the Temporal punishment of its Sins which may continue longer or shorter till the Day of Judgment And in order to the shortening this the Prayers and Supererogations of Men here on Earth or the Intercession of the Saints in Heaven but above all things the Sacrifice of the Mass are of great Efficacy This is the Doctrine of the Church of Rome asserted in the Councils of Florence and Trent What has been taught among them concerning the Nature and the Degrees of those Torments though supported by many pretended Apparitions and Revelations is not to be imputed to the whole Body and is indeed only the Doctrine of Schoolmen though it is generally preached and infused into the Consciences of the People Therefore I shall only examine that which is the established Doctrine of the whole Roman Church And first as to the Foundation of it that Sins are only pardoned as to their Eternal Punishment to those who being justified by faith have peace with God through our Lord Iesus Christ. Rom. 5.1 There is not a colour for it in the Scriptures Remission of Sins is in general that with which the Preaching of the Gospel ought always to begin and this is so often repeated without any such reserve that it is a high assuming upon God and his Attributes of Goodness and Mercy to limit these when he has not limited them but has expresly said that this is a main part of the New Covenant Jer. 31.34 Heb. 8.12 that he will remember our sins and iniquities no more Now it seems to be a Maxim not only of the Law of Nations but of Nature that all offers of Pardon are to be understood in the full extent of the Words without any secret Reserves or Limitations unless they are plainly expressed An Indemnity being offered by a Prince to persuade his Subjects to return to their Obedience in the fullest Words possible without any reserves made in it it would be lookt on as a very perfidious thing if when the Subjects come in upon it trusting to it they should be told that they were to be secured by it against Capital Punishments but that as to all Inferior Punishments they were still at Mercy We do not dispute whether God if he had thought fit so to do might not have made this distinction nor do we deny that the Grace of the Gospel had been infinitely valuable if it had offered us only the Pardon of Sin with relation to its Eternal Punishment and had left the Temporal Punishment on us to be expiated by our selves but then we say this ought to have been expressed The Distinction ought to have been made between Temporal and Eternal and we ought not to have been drawn into a Covenant with God by words that do plainly import an intire Pardon and Oblivion upon which there lay a limited Sense that was not to be told the World till it was once well engaged in the Christian Religion Upon these Reasons it is that we conclude that this Doctrine not being contained in the Scriptures is not only without any warrant in them but that it is contrary to those full offers of
yet it seems more reasonable to think that God has put us under such an Order of Being from which that does naturally follow than that he himself should interpose in every Thought The difficulty of apprehending how a thing is done can be no prejudice to the belief of it when we have the Infinite Power of God in our Thoughts who may be as easily conceived to have once for all put us in a method of receiving such Sensations by a general Law or Course of Nature as to give us new ones at every Minute But the greatest difficulty against this is That it makes God the first Physical cause of all the Evil that is in the World Which as it is contrary to his Nature so it absolutely destroys all Liberty and this puts an end to all the distinctions between Good and Evil and consequently to all Religion And as for those large Expressions that are brought from Scripture every word in Scripture is not to be stretched to the utmost Physical sense to which it can be carried It is enough if a sense is given to it that agrees to the Scope of it Which is fully Answered by acknowledging That the Power and Providence of God is over all things and that it directs every thing to Wise and Good Ends from which nothing is hid by which nothing is forgot and to which nothing can resist This Scheme of Providence fully agrees with the Notion of a Being Infinitely perfect and with all that the Scriptures affirm concerning it and it lays down a firm Foundation for all the Acts and Exercises of Religion As to the Power and Providence of God with relation to Invisible Beings we plainly perceive that there is in us a Principle capable of Thought and Liberty of which by all that appears to us Matter is not at all capable After its utmost Refinings by Fires and Furnaces it is still passive and has no Self-Motion much less Thought in it Thought seems plainly to arise from a single Principle that has no Parts and is quite another thing than the Motion of one subtle piece of Matter upon another can be supposed to be If Thought is only Motion then no part of us thinks but as it is in Motion So that only the moving Particles or rather their Surfaces that strike upon one another do think But such a Motion must end quickly in the Dissipation and Evaporation of the whole thinking-Substance nor can any of the quiescent Parts have any Perception of such Thoughts or any Reflection upon them And to say that Matter may have other Affections unknown to us besides Motion by which it may think is to affirm a thing without any sort of Reason It is rather a flying from an Argument than an Answering it No man has any reason to affirm this nor can he have any And besides all our Cogitations of Immaterial Things Proportions and Numbers do plainly show that we have a Being in us distinct from Matter that rises above it and commands it We perceive we have a freedom of Moving and Acting at pleasure All these Things give us a clear Perception of a Being that is in us distinct from Matter of which we are not able to form a compleat Idea We having only four Perceptions of its Nature and Operations 1. That it thinks 2. That it has an inward Power of Choice 3. That by its Will it can move and command the Body And 4. That it is in a close and intire Union with it That it has a dependance on it as to many of its Acts as well as an Authority over it in many other Things Such a Being that has no Parts must be immortal in its Nature for every single Being is immortal It is only the Union of Parts that is capable of being dissolved that which has no parts is indissoluble To this Two Objections are made One is That Beasts seem to have both Thought and Freedom though in a lower Order if then Matter can be capable of this in any Degree how low soever a higher Rectification of Matter may be capable of a higher Degree of it It is therefore certain That either Beasts have no Thought or Liberty at all and are only pieces of finely Organised Matter capable of many subtile Motions that come to them from Objects without them but that they have no Sensation nor Thought at all about them or since how prettily soever some may have dressed up this Notion it is that which Human Nature cannot receive or bear there being such evident Indications of even high degrees of Reason among the Beasts it is more reasonable to imagine That there may be Spirits of a lower order in Beasts that have in them a capacity of Thinking and Chusing but that so intirely under the Impressions of Matter that they are not capable of that largeness either of Thought or Liberty that is necessary to make them capable of Good or Evil of Rewards and Punishments And that therefore they may be perpetually rouling about from one Body to another Another Objection to the belief of an Immaterial Substance in us is That we feel it depends so intirely on the Fabrick and State of the Brain that a Disorder a Vapour or Humour in it defaces all our Thoughts our Memory and Imagination and since we find that which we call Mind sinks so low upon a disorder of the Body it may be reasonable to believe That it Evaporates and is quite Dissipated upon the Dissolution of our Bodies So that the Soul is nothing but the livelier Parts of the Blood called the Animal Spirits In Answer to this we know that those Animal Spirits are of such an Evanid and Subtile Nature that they are in a perpetual Waste new ones always succeeding as the former go off but we perceive at the same time that our Soul is a Stable and Permanent Being by the steddiness of its Acts and Thoughts We being for many Years plainly the same Beings and therefore our Souls cannot be such a Loose and Evaporating Substance as those Spirits are The Spirits are indeed the inward Organs of the Mind for Memory Speech and bodily Motion and as these flatten or are wasted the Mind is less able to Act As when the Eye or any other Organ of Sense is weakned the Sensations grow feeble on that side And as a Man is less able to work when all those Instruments he makes use of are blunted so the Mind may sink upon a decay or disorder in those Spirits and yet be of a Nature wholly different from them How a Mind should work on Matter cannot I confess be clearly comprehended It cannot be denied by any that is not a direct Atheist That the Thoughts of the Supreme Mind give Impressions and Motions to Matter So our Thoughts may give a Motion or the Determination of Motion to Matter and yet rise from Substances wholly different from it Nor is it unconceivable That the Supreme Mind should
My God My God Why hast thou forsaken me It is not easy for us to apprehend in what that Agony consisted For we understand only the Agonies of Pain or of Conscience which last arise out of the Horror of Guilt or the Apprehension of the Wrath of God It is indeed certain That he who had no Sin could have no such horror in him and yet it is as certain That he could not be put into such an Agony only through the Apprehension and Fear of that violent Death which he was to suffer next day Therefore we ought to conclude That there was an inward Suffering in his Mind as well as an outward visible one in his Body We cannot distinctly apprehend what that was since he was sure both of his own spotless Innocence and of his Father's unchangeable love to him We can only imagine a vast sense of the heinousness of Sin and a deep Indignation at the Dishonour done to God by it a melting Apprehension of the Corruption and Miseries of Mankind by reason of Sin together with a never-before-felt withdrawing of those Consolations that had always filled his Soul But what might be further in his Agony and in his last Dereliction we cannot distinctly apprehend only this we perceive That our Minds are capable of great pain as well as our Bodies are Deep horror with an inconsolable sharpness of Thought is a very intolerable thing Notwithstanding the Bodily or Substantial Indwelling of the fulness of the Godhead in him yet he was capable of feeling vast pain in his Body So that he might become a compleat Sacrifice and that we might have from his Sufferings a very full and amazing apprehension of the Guilt of Sin all those Emanations of joy with which the Indwelling of the Eternal Word had ever till then filled his Soul might then when he needed them most be quite withdrawn and he be left merely to the firmness of his Faith to his patient Resignation to the Will of his heavenly Fâ—ther and to his willing readiness of drinking up that Cup which his Father had put in his hand to drink There remains but one thing to be remembred here though it will come to be more specially Explained when other Articles are to be opened which is That this Reconciliation which is made by the Death of Christ between God and Man is not absolute and without conditions He has Established the Covenant and has performed all that was Incumbent on him as both the Priest and the Sacrifice to do and to suffer and he offers this to the World that it may be closed with by them on the terms on which it is proposed and if they do not accept of it upon these conditions and perform what is enjoined them they can have no share in it ARTICLE III. Of the going down of Christ into Hell As Christ died for us and was buried so also is it to be believed that he went down into Hell THIS was much fuller when the Articles were at first prepared and published in King Edward's Reign For these words were added to it That the body of Christ lay in the Grave untill his Resurrection but his Spirit which he gave up was with the Spirits which were detained in Prison or in Hell and preached to them as the place in St. Peter testifieth Thus a determined sense was put upon this Article which is now left more at large and is conceived in words of a more general Signification In order to the explaining this it is to be premised That the Article in the Creed of Christ's descent into Hell is mentioned by no Writer before Ruffin who in the beginning of the Fifth Century does indeed speak of it But he tells us That it was neither in the Symbol of the Roman nor of the Oriental Churches and that he found it in the Symbol of his own Church at Aquileia But as there was no other Article in that Symbol that related to Christ's Burial so the words which he gives us descendit ad Inferna he descended to the lower parts do very naturally signify Burial according to these words of St. Paul Eph. 4.9 He ascended what is it but that he also descended first to the lower parts of the Earth and Ruffin himself understood these words in that sense None of the Fathers in the first Ages neither Irenaeus Tertullian Clemens nor Origen in the short Abstracts that they give us of the Christian Faith mention any thing like this And in all that great variety of Creeds that was proposed by the many Councils that met in the Fourth Century this is not in any one of them except in that which was agreed to at Arimini and was pretended though falsly to have been made at Sirmium In that it is set down in a Greek word that does exactly answer Ruffin's Inferna 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it stood there instead of Buried When it was put in the Creed that carries Athanasius's Name tho' made in the Sixth or Seventh Century the word was changed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Hell But yet it seems to have been understood to signify Christ's Burial there being no other word put for it in that Creed Afterwards it was put into the Symbol of the Western Church That was done at first in the words in which Ruffin had expressed it as appears by some Ancient Copies of Creeds which were published the Great Primate Usher We are next to consider what the Importance of these words in themselves is for it is plain that the use of them in the Creed is not very Ancient nor Universal We have a most unquestionable Authority for this that our Saviour's Soul was in Hell In the Acts oâ— the Apostles St. Peter in the first Sermon that was preached after the wonderful Effusion of the Spirit at Pentecost applies these words of David concerning God's not leaving his Soul in Hell nor suffering his Holy one to see corruption to the Resurrection of Christ. Now since in the composition of a Man there is a Body and a Spirit and since it is plain that the raising of Christ on the Third day was before that his Body in the course of Nature was corrupted The other Branch seems to relate to his Soul though it is not to be denied but that in the Old Testament Soul in some places stands for a dead Body But if that were the sense of the word there will be no opposition in the two Parts of this period The one will be only a redundant repetition of the other Therefore it is much more natural to think that this other Branch concerning Christ's Soul's being left in Hell must relate to that which we commonly understand by Soul if then his Soul was not to be left in Hell then from thence it plainly follows that once it was in Hell and by consequence that Christ's Soul descended into Hell Some very Modern Writers have thought that this is to be understood
Figuratively of the Wrath of God due for Sin which Christ bore in his Soul besides the Torments that he suffered in his Body And they think that these are here mentioned by themselves after the Enumeration of the several steps of his bodily Sufferings And this being equal to the Torments of Hell as it is that which delivers us from them might in a large way of Expression be called a descending into Hell But as neither the word descend nor Hell are to be found in any other place of Scripture in this sense nor in any of the Ancients among whom the Signification of this Phrase is more likely to be found than among Moderns So this being put after Buried it plainly shews that it belongs to a period subsequent to his Burial There is therefore no regard to be had to this Notion Othets have thought That by Christ's descent into Hell is to be understood his continuing in the State of the Dead for some time But there is no Ground for this conceit neither these words being to be found in no Author in that Signification Many of the Fathers thought That Christ's Soul went locally into Hell and preached to some of the Spirits there in Prison 1 Pet. 3.19 that there he triumphed over Satan and spoiled him and carried some Souls with him into Glory But the account that the Scriptures give us of the Exaltation of Christ begins it always at his Resurrection Nor can it be imagined That so memorable a Transaction as this would have been passed over by the Three first Evangelists and least of all by St. Iohn who coming after the rest and designing to supply what was wanting in them and intending particularly to magnify the Glory of Christ could not have passed over so wonderâ—ul an Instance of it We have no reason to think that such a matter would have been only insinuated in general words and not have been plainly related The Triumph of Christ over Principalities and Powers is ascribed by St. Paul to his Cross and was the Effect and Result of his Death The place of St. Peter seems to relate to the Preaching to the Gentile World by virtue of that Inspiration that was derived from Christ which was therefore called his Spirit and the Spirits in Prison were the Gentiles who were shut up in Idolatry as in Prison Eph. 2.2 2 Cor. 4.4 Isa. 61.2 and so were under the Power of the Prince of the Power of the Air who is called the God of this World that is of the Gentile World It being one of the ends for which Christ was Anointed of his Father to open the prisons to them that were bound So then though there is no harm in this Opinion yet it not being Founded on any part of the History of the Gospel and it being supported only by passages that may well bear another sense we may lay it aside notwithstanding the Reverence we bear to those that asserted it and that the rather because the first Fathers that were next the Source say nothing of it Another Counceit has had a great course among some of the latest Fathers and the Schoolmen They have fancied that there was a place to which they have given a peculiar name Limbus Patrum a sort of a Partition in Hell where all the Good Men of the Old Dispensation that had died before Christ were detained and they hold that our Saviour went thither and emptied that Place carrying all the Souls that were in it with him to Heaven Of this the Scriptures say nothing not a word either of the Patriarchs going thither or of Christ's delivering them out of it And though there are not in the Old Testament express Declarations and Promises made concerning a Future State Christ having brought life and immortality to light through his Gospel yet all the Hints given of it shew that they looked for an Immediate Admission to Blessedness after death So David Thou wilt shew me the path of life Psal. 16.11 Acts 2.31 Psal. 73.27 Isa. 37.2 in thy presence is fulness of joy and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore Thou shalt guide me here by thy counsel and afterwards receive me to glory Isaiah says That the righteous when they dye enter into peace In the New Testament there is not a Hint given of this for though some Passages may seem to favour Christ's delivering some Souls out of Hell yet there is nothing that by any management can be brought to look this way There is another Sense of which these words descended into Hell are capable See Bishop Person on the Creed by Hell may be meant the Invisible Place to which departed Souls are carried after their death For though the Greek word so rendred does now commonly stand for the Place of the Damned and for many Ages has been so understood yet at the time of writing the New Testament it was among Greek Authors used indifferently for the place of all departed Souls whether good or bad and by it were meant the Invisible Regions where those Spirits were lodged So if these words are taken in this large sense we have in them a clear and literal account of our Saviour's Soul descending into Hell it imports that he was not only dead in a more common acceptation as it is usual to say a man is dead when there appear no signs of life in him and that he was not as in a deep Extasy or Fit that seemed Death but that he was truly dead that his Soul was neither in his Body noâ— hovering about it ascending and descending upon it as some of the Iews fancied Souls did for some time after death but that his Soul was really removed out of his Body and carried to those unseen Regions of departed Spirits among whom it continued till his Resurrection That the Regions of the Blessed were known then to the Iews by the name of Paradise as Hell was known by the name of Gehenna is very clear from Christ's last Words To day thou shalt be with me in Paradise â—uke 23 4â— â—6 and into thy hands do I commend my spirit This is a plain and full account of a good Sense that may be well put on the Words though after all it is still to be remembred That in the first Creeds that have this Article that of Christ's Burial not being mentioned in them it follows from thence as well as from Ruffin's own Sense of it that they understood this only of Christ's Burial ARTICLE IV. Of the Resurrection of Christ. Christ did truly rise again from Death and took again his Body with Flesh Bones and all things appertaining to the Perfection of Man's Nature wherewith he ascended into Heaven and there sitteth until he return to judge all Men at the Last Day THere are Four Branches of this Article The First is concerning the Truth of Christ's Resurrection The Second concerning the Compleatness of it That he took to him again his whole
taken from the Power of Evil Spirits is sometimes to be made use of when extraordinary things are well attested and urged in proof of that which upon other Reasons we are assured is false It is certain That as we have a great power over vast quantities of gross and heavy Matter which by the motion of a very subtile Body our Animal Spirits we can master and manage So Angels Good or Bad may by virtue of subtile Bodies in which they may dwell or which upon occasion they may assume do many things vastly above either our Force to do or our Imagination to apprehend how it is done by them Therefore an Action that exceeds all the known Powers in Nature may yet be done by an Evil Spirit that is in Rebellion against its Maker and that designs to impose upon us by such a mighty performance But then the measure by which we must judge of this is by considering what is the End or Design driven at in such a wonderful Work If it is a good one if it tends to reform the Manners of Men to bring them off from Magick Idolatry and Superstition to the Worship of one Pure and Eternal Mind And if it tends to Reform their Actions as well as their Speculations and their Worship to turn them from Immorality Falsehood and Malice to a Pure a Sincere and a Mild Temper if it tends to Regulate Society as well as to Perfect the Nature and Faculties of every single man Then we may well conclude That no evil Spirit can so far depart from its own Nature as to join its Forces and co-operate in such a Design Mat. 12 25 26. For then the Kingdom of Satan could not stand if he were thus divided against himself according to what our Saviour said when this was Objected against the Miracles that he wrought These are all the General Considerations that concur to prove the Truth of the History of the Gospel of which the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ are the Two main Articles for they being well proved give Authority to all the rest As to the Resurrection in particular it is certain the Apostles could not be deceived in that matter They saw Christ frequently after he Rose from the Dead they met him once with a great Company of Five hundred with them They heard him Talk and Argue with them he opened the Scriptures to them with so peculiar an Energy that they felt their Hearts set on fire even when they did not yet perceive that it was He himself They did not at first either look for his Resurrection nor believe those who reported him risen They made all due Enquiry and some of them went beyond all reasonable bounds in their doubting So far were they from an easy and scon-imposed-on Credulity His Sufferings and their own Fears had so amazed them that they were contriving how to separate and disperse themselves when he at first appeared to them Men so full of Fear and so far from all Hope are not apt to be easy in believing So it must be concluded That either the account which the Apostles gave the World of Christ's Resurrection is true or they were gross Impostors since it is clear That the Circumstances and Numbers mentioned in that History shew there could be no deception in it And it is as little possible to conceive that there could be any Imposture in it For not to repeat again what has been already said That they were under no Temptations to set about any such Deceit but very much to the contrary and that there is no reason to think they were either bad enough to enter upon such a design or capable and skilful enough to manage it they being many of 'em illiterate Fishermen of Galilee who had no Acquaintance at Ierusalem to furnish them with that which might be necessary for executing such a contrivance The Circumstanâ—es of that Transaction are to be well examined and then it will appear that no Number of bold and dextrous men furnished with all Advantages whatsoever could have effected this matter Great Numbers had been engaged in the procuring our Saviour to be Crucified The whole Sanhedrim besides Multitudes of the People who upon all occasions are easily drawn in to engage in Tumultuary Commotions All these were concerned to examine the Event of this matter He was Buried in a New Sepulchre lately hewed out of a Rock so that there was no coming at it by any secret ways A Watch was set and all this at a time in which the Full-Moon gave a great Light all the Night long And Ierusalem being very full of People who were then there in great Numbers to keep the Passover that being the second Night of so vast a Rendevouz it is reasonable to think That great Numbers were walking in the Fields or at least might be so some later and some earlier Now if an Imposture was to be set about the Guard was to be frighted or mastered which could not be done without giving the Alarm and that must have quickly brought a Multitude upon them Christ's Body must have been disposed of Some other Tomb was to be lookt for to lodge it in The Wounds that were in it would have made it to be soon known if found Here a bold Attempt was to be undertaken by a company of poor irresolute Men who must trust one another intirely otherways they knew all might be soon discovered One of their Number had betrayed Christ a few days before Another had forsworn him and all had forsaken him And yet these men are supposed all of the sudden so firm in themselves and so sure of one another as to venture on the most daring thing that was ever undertaken by men when not a Circumstance could ever be found out to fix upon them the least suspicion The Priests and the Pharisees must be thought a strange stupid fort of Creatures if they did not examine where the Apostles were all that Night Besides many other particulars which might have been a thread to lead them into strict Inquiries unless it was because they believed the Report that the Watch had brought them of Christ's Rising again When they had this certain reason to believe it and yet resolved to oppose it the only thing they could do was to seem to neglect the Matter and only to decry it in general as an Imposture without going into Particulars which certainly they would not have done if they themselves had not been but too sure of the Truth of it When all this is laid together it is the most unreasonable thing imaginable to think that there was an Imposture in this Matter when no Colour nor shadow of it ever appeared and when all the Circumstances and not only probabilities but even Moral possibilities are so full to the contrary The Ascension of Christ has not indeed so full a proof Nor is it capable of it neither does it need it for the Resurrection well proved makes
that very credible For this we have only the Testimony of the Apostles who did all attest that they saw it being all together in an open Field When Christ was Walking and Discoursing with them and when he was Blessing them he was parted from them They saw him Ascend till a Cloud received him and took him out of their sight And then Two Angels appeared to them and assured them Acts 1. â—1 That he should come again in like manner as they had seen him Ascend Here is a very particular Relation with many Circumstances in it in which it was not possible for the Apostles to be mistaken So that there being no reason to suspect their Credit this rests upon that Authority But Ten days after it received a much clearer Proof When the Holy Ghost was poured out on them in so visible a manner and with most remarkable effects Immediately upon it they spoke with divers Tongues and wrought many Miracles and all in the Name of Christ. They did often and solemnly disclaim their doing any of those wonderful things by any power of their own They owned that all that they had or did was derived to them from Iesus of Nazareth Acts 3.12 16. of whose Resurrection and Ascension they were appointed to be the Witnesses Christ's coming again to judge the World at the last day is so often affirmed by himself in the Gospel and is so frequently mentioned in the Writings of his Apostles that this is a main part of his Doctrine So that his Resurrection Ascension together with the Effusion of the Holy Ghost having in general proved his Mission and his whole Doctrine this is also proved by them Enough seems to be said in Proof of all the parts of this Article it remains only that somewhat should be added in Explanation of them As to the Resurrection it is to little purpose to Enquire whether our Saviour's Body was kept all the while in a compleat Organisation that so by this Miracle it might be preserved in a Natural State for his Soul to re-enter it Or whether by the Course of Nature the vast Number of the inward Conveyances that are in the Body were stopt and if all of a sudden when the time of the Resurrection came all was again put in a vital State fit to be animated by his Soul There must have been a Miracle either way So it is to little purpose to enquire into it The former though a continued Miracle yet seemes to agree more fully to these words Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption It is to as little purpose to enquire how our Saviour's new Body was supplied with Blood Since he had lost the greatest part of it on the Cross. Whether that was again by the power of God brought back into his Veins or whether as he himself had formerly said That Man lives not by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God Blood was supplied by Miracle Or whether his Body that was then of the Nature of a Glorified Body though yet on Earth needed the supplies of Blood to furnish new Spirits for serving the natural Functions He Eating and Drinking so seldom that we may well believe it was done rather to satisfy his Apostles than to answer the Necessities of Nature These are Curiosities that signify so little if we could certainly resolve them that it is to no purpose to enquire about them since we cannot know what to determine in them This in general is certain that the same Soul returned back to the same Body so that the same Man who died rose again and that is our Faith We need not trouble our selves with enquiring how to make out the Three Days of Christ's being in the Grave Days stand in the common acceptation for a Portion of a Day We know the Iews were very exact to the Rest on the Sabbath so the Body was without question laid in the Grave before the Sun-set on Friday so that was the First day the Sabbath was a compleat one and a good part of the Third day that is the Night with which the Iews began to count the day was over before he was raised up As for his stay on Earth forty days we cannot pretend to give an account of it whether his Body was passing through a slow and Physical Purification to be meet for Ascending or whether he intended to keep a proportion between his Gospel and the Law of Moses that as he suffered at the time of their killing the Passover so the Effusion of the Holy Ghost was fixed for Pentecost and that therefore he â—ould stay on Earth till that time was near not to put his Apostles upon too long an expectation without his Presence which might be necessary to animate them till they should be endued with Power from on high As to the manner of his Ascension it is also questioned whether the Body of Christ as it ascâ—nded was so wonderfully changed as to put on the Subtility and Purity of an Ethereal Body or whether it 〈…〉 same Form in Heaven that it had on Earth or iâ— it puâ— on a new one It is more probable that it did and that the wonderful Glory that appeared in his Countenance and whole Person at his Trâ—â—sâ—â—gurâ—tion was a manifestation of that more permanent Glory to which it was to be afterwards exalted It seems probable from what St. Paul says 1 Coâ— 15.50 That flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God which relates to our glorified Bodies when we shall bear the Image of the second and the heavenly Adam that Christ's Body has no more the modifications of Flesh and Blood in it and that the Glory of the Celestial Body is of another Nature and Texture than that of the Terrestrial It is easily imagined how this may be and yet the Body to be numerically the same Ver. 40. For all Matter being uniform and capable of all sort of Motion and by consequence of being either much grosser or much purer the same Portion of Matter that made a thick and Heavy Body here on Earth may be put into that Purity and Fineness as to be no longer a fit Inhabitant of this Earth or to breath this Air but to be meet to be transplanted into Ethereal Regions Christ as he went up into Heaven so he had the whole Government of this World put into his hands and the whole Ministry of Angels put under his Command even in his Human Nature So that all things are now in subjection to him All Power and Authority is derived from him 1 Cor. 15.27 28. and he does whatsoever he pleases both in Heaven and Earth In him all fulness dwells And as the Mosaical Tabernacle being filled with Glory the Emanations of it did by the Urim and Thummim enlighten and direct that People so out of that Fulness that dwelt Bodily in Christ there is a constant Emanation of his
therefore to such Arguments as may be well insisted upon and maintained The Canon of the New Testament as we now have it is fully proved from the Quotations out of the Books of the New Testament by the Writers of the First and Second Centuries such as Clemens Ignatius Iustin Irenaeus and several others Papias who conversed with the Disciples of the Apostles is cited by Eusebius in confirmation of St. Matthew's Gospel which he says was writ by him in Hebrew Lib. 3. Hist. c 39. c. 25. He is also cited to prove that St. Mark writ his Gospel from St. Peter's Preaching which is also confirmed by Clemens of Alexandria not to mention later Writers Irenaeus says St. Luke writ his Gospel according to St. Paul's Preaching Eus. l. 2. Hist. c. 15. which is supported by some Words in St. Paul's Epistles that relate to Passages in that Gospel yet certainly he had likewise other Vouchers those who from the beginning were Eye-witnesses and Ministers of the Word though the whole might receive its full Authority from St. Paul's Approbation St. Iohn writ later than the other Three so the Testimonies concerning his Gospel are the fullest and the most particular Lib. 3. cap. 11. Irenaeus has laboured the Proof of this matter with much Care and Attention He lived within an Hundred years to St. Iohn and knew Policarp that was one of his Disciples After him come Tertullian and Origen who speak very copiously of the Four Gospels Tert. l. 4. cont Mar. cap. 1. Orig. apud Eus. lib. 6. cap. 25. and from them all the Ecclesiastical Writers have without any doubting or Controversy acknowledged and cited them without the least shadow of any Opposition except what was made by Marcion and the Manichees Next to these Authorities we appeal to the Catalogues of the Books of the New Testament that are given us in the Third and Fourth Centuries by Origen a Man of great Industry and that had examined the State of many Churches by St. Athanasius by the Council of Laodicea and Carthage Athan. in Synops. Conc. cap. 60. Carth. 3. c. 47. and after these we have a constant Succession of Testimonies that do deliver these as the Canon universally received All this laid together does fully prove this Point and that the more clearly when these Particulars are considered 1. That the Books of the New Testament were read in all their Churches and at all their Assemblies so that this was a Point in which it was not easy for men to mistake 2 dly That this was so near the Fountain that the Originals themselves of the Apostles were no doubt so long preserved 3 dly That both the Iews as appears from Iustin Martyr and the Gentiles Dial. cum Trypho as appears by Celsus knew that these were the Books in which the Faith of the Christians was contained 4 thly That some question was made touching some of them because there was not that clear or general knowledge concerning them that there was concerning the others yet upon fuller enquiry all acquiesced in them No doubt was ever made about Thirteen of St. Pauls Epistles because there were particulaâ— Churches or Persons to whom the Originals of them were directed Tertul. de Presc cap. â—6 But the Strain and Design of that to the Hebrews being to remove their Prejudices that high one which they had taken up against St. Paul as an Enemy to their Nation was to be kept out of view that it might not blast the good Effects which were intended by it yet it is cited oftner than once by Clemens of Rome And though the Ignorance of many of the Roman Church who thought that some Passages in it favoured the Severity of the Novatians Orig. Ep. ad African Orig. Exhort ad Martyr Eusec Hist. lib. 6. c. 20. Hieron Ep. ad Dardan Cyr. Catech 4. that cut off Apostates from the hopes of Repentance made them question it of which mention is made both by Origen Eusebius and Ierome who frequently affirm that the Latin Church or the Roman did not receive it yet Athanasius reckons both this and the Seven General Epistles among the Canonical Writings Cyril of Ierusalem who had occasion to be well informed about it says that he delivers his Catalogue from the Church as she had received it from the Apostles the Ancient Bishops and the Governors of the Church and reckons up in it both the Seven General Epistles and the Fourteen of St. Paul So does Ruffin and so do the Councils of Laodicea and Carthage Apud Hieron Tom. 4. the Canons of the former being received into the Body of the Canons of the Universal Church Can. 60. Can. 47. Irenaeus Origen and Clemens of Alexandria cite the Epistle to the Hebrews frequently Some question was made of the Epistle of St. Iames Iren. l. 3. c. 38. Orig. l. 3. 7. con Cels. Dial. con Marc. Ep. ad Afric Clem. Alex. Ignat. Ep. ad Ephe. Orig. Hom. 13. in Genes Eus. Hist. l. 2. c. 22. l. 3. c· 24 27. Hieron Pref. in Ep. Jac. Orig. cont Marcion Firmil Ep. 75. ap Cypr. Eus. Hist. l. 3. c. 3. the Second of St. Peter the Second and Third of St. Iohn and St. Iude's Epistle But both Clemens of Rome Ignatius and Origen cite St. Iame's Epistle Eusebius says it was known to most and read in most Christian Churches The like is testified by St. Ierom. St. Peter's Second Epistle is cited by Origen and Firmilian and Eusebius says it was held very useful even by those who held it not Canonical But since the First Epistle was never questioned by any the Second that carries so many Characters of its Genuineness such as St. Peter's Name at the Head of it the mention of the Transfiguration and of his being an Eye-witness of it Iren. l. 1. c. 13. Clem. Alex. Strom. 2. Tertul. de Carne Chr. c. 24. Euseb. Hist. l. 6. c. 24. Tertul. de cultu faem are evident Proofs of its being writ by him The Second and Third Epistles of St. Iohn are cited by Irenaeus Clemens and Dennis of Alexandria and by Tertullian The Epistle of St. Iude is also cited by Tertullian Some of those General Epistles were not addressed to any particular Body or Church that might have preserved the Originals of them but were sent about in the nature of Circular Letters so that it is no wonder if they were not received so early and with such an Unanimity as we find concerning the Four Gospel's the Acts of the Apostles and Thirteen of St. Paul's Epistles These being first fixed upon by an unquestioned and undisputed Tradition made that here was a Standard once ascertained to judge the better of the rest So when the matter was strictly examined so near the Fountain that it was very possible and easy to find out the Certainty of it then in the beginning of the Fourth Century the Canon was settled and universally agreed to
who do not acknowledge the New Testament The Ceremonial Parts of the Mosaical Law which comprehends all both the Negative and the Positive Precepts were enjoined the Iews either with relation to the Worship of God and Service at the Temple or to their Persons and course of Life That which is not Moral of its own nature or that had no relation to Civil Society was commanded them to separate them not only from the Idolatrous and Magical Practices of other Nations but to distinguish them so entirely as to all their Customs even in the Rules of Eating and of Cleanness that they might have no familiar Commerce with other Nations but live within and among themselves since that was very likely to corrupt them of which they had very large experience Some of those Rituals were perhaps given them as Punishments for their frequent Revolts and were as a Yoke upon them who were so prone to Idolatry They were as Rudiments and Remembrances to them They were as it were subdued by a great variety of Precepts which were matter both of much Charge and great Trouble to them By these they were also amused for it seems they did naturally love a Pompous Exterior in Religion They were also by all that Train of Performances which were laid on them kept in mind both of the great Blessings of God to them and of the Obligations that lay on them towards God and many of those particularly their Sacrifices and Washings were Typical All this was proper and necessary to restrain and govern them while they were the only People of the World that renounced Idolatry and worshipped the true God And therefore so soon as that of which they had anEmblem in the Structure of theirTemple of a Court of the Gentiles separated with a middle Wall of Partition from the place in which the Israelites worshipped was to be removed and that the House of God was to become a House of Prayer to all Nations then all those distinctions were to be laid aside and all that Service was to determine and come to an end The Apostles did declare that the Gentiles were not to be brought under that heavy Yoke which their Fathers were not able to bear yet the Apostles themselves as born Iews and while they lived among the Iews did continue in the Observance of their Rites as long as God seemed to be waiting for the Remnant of that Nation that was to be saved before his Wrath came upon the rest to the uttermost They went to the Temple they purified themselves and in a word to the Iews they became Iews and in this compliance the first Converts of the Iewish Nation continued till the destruction of Ierusalem after which it became impossible to observe the greatest part of their most important Rituals even all those that were tied to the Temple But that Nation losing its Genealogies and all the other Characters that they formerly had of a Nation under the Favour and Protection of God could no more know after a few Ages whether they were the Seed of Abraham or not or whether there were any left among them of the Tribe of Levi or of the Family of Aaron So that now all those Ceremonies are at an end many of them are become impossible and the rest useless as the whole was abrogated by the Authority of the Apostles who being sent of God and proving their Mission by Miracles as well as Moses had done his they might well have loosed and dissolved those Precepts upon Earth upon which according to our Saviour's words they are to be esteemed as loosed in Heaven The Judiciary Parts of the Law were those that related to them as they were a Society of Men to whom God by a special Command gave Authority to drive out and destroy a wicked Race of People and to possess their Land which God appointed to be divided equally among them and that every Portion should be as a Perpetuity to a Family so that though it might be mortaged out for a number of Years yet it was afterwards to revert to the Family Upon this bottom they were at first set and they were still to be preserved upon it so that many Laws were given them as they were a Civil Society which cannot belong to any other Society And therefore their whole Judiciary Law except where any parts of it are founded on Moral Equity was a complicated thing and can belong to no other Nation that is not in its first and essential Constitution made and framed as they were For instance The Prohibition of taking Use for Money being a Mean to preserve that Equality which was among them and to keep any of them from becoming excessively rich or others from becoming miserably poor this is by no means to be applied to other Constitutions where men are left to their Industry and neither have their Inheritance by a Grant from Heaven nor are put by any special Appointment of God all upon a level So that it is certain and can bear no debate That the Mosaical Dispensation as to all the parts of it that are not of their own nature Moral is determined and abrogated by the Gospel The Descisions which the Apostles made in this matter are so clear and for the Proof of them the whole Tenor of the Epistles to the Galatians and the Hebrews is so full that no doubt can rest concerning this with any man who reads them The last Branch of the Article that remains to be considered is concerning the Moral Law by which the Ten Commandments are meant together with all such Precepts as do belong to them or are Corollaries arising out of them By Moral Law is to be understood in opposition to Positive a Law which has an antecedent Foundation in the nature of things that arises from Eternal Reason is suitable to the Frame and Powers of our Souls and is necessary for maintaining Human Society All such Laws are commanded because they are in themselves good and suitable to the staâ—e in which God has put us here The two Sources out of which all the Notions of Morality flow are first the considerations of our selves as we are single Individuals and that with relation both to Soul and Body and next the consideration of Human Society what is necessary for the Peace and Order the Safety and Happiness of Mankind There are two Orders of Moral Precepts some relate to things that of their own nature are inflexibly good or evil such as Truth and Falshood whereas other things by a variety of Circumstances may so change their nature that they may be either morally good or evil A merciful or generous Temper is always a good Moral Quality and yet it may run to excesses There may be many things that are not unalterably Moral in themselves which yet may be fit Subjects of perpetual Laws about them For instance in the Degrees of Kindred with relation to Marriage there are no degrees but direct Ascendents
seldom awakened But what is the proper proportion of Time that can best agree both with mens Bodies and Minds is only known to the great Author of Nature Howsoever from what has been said it appears that this is a very fit matter to be fixed by some sacred and perpetual Law and that from the first Creation because there being then no other method for conveying down Knowledge besides Oral Tradition it seems as highly congruous to that State of Mankind as it is agreeable to the words in Genesis to believe That God should then have appointed one day in seven for commemorating the Creation and for acknowledging the great Creator of all things But though it seems very clear that here a perpetual Law was given the World for the separating the Seventh day yet it was a meer Circumstance and does not at all belong to the standing use of the Law in what end of the Week this day was to be reckoned Whether the first or the last So that even a less Authority than the Apostles and a less occasion than the Resurrection of Christ might have served to have transferred the day There being in this no Breach made on the good and moral design of this Law which is all in it that we ought to reckon sacred and unalterable The degree of the Rest might be also more severely urged under the Mosaical Law than either before it or after it Our Saviour having given plain Intimations of an Abatement of that rigour by this general Rule That the Sabbath was made for man Mark 2.27 and not man for the Sabbath We who are called to a state of freedom are not under such a strictness as the Iews were Still the Law stands for separating a Seventh day from the common Business of Life and applying it to a Religious rest for acknowledging at first the Creator and now by a higher Relation the Redeemer of the World These Four Commandments make the first Table and were generally reckoned as four distinct Commandments till the Roman Church having a mind to make the Second disappear threw it in as an Appendix to the First and then left it quite out in her Catechisms Though it is plain that these Commandments relate to two very different Matters the one being in no sort included in the other Certainly they are much more different than the coveting the Neighbour's Wife is from the coveting any of his other concerns Which are plainly two different Acts of the same Species And the House being set before the Wife in Exodus though it comes after it in Deuteronomy Exod. 20.17 Deut. 5.21 which being a repetition is to be governed by Exodus and not Exodus by it stands for the whole Substance which is afterwards branched out in the particulars and so it is clear that there is no colour for dividing this in two But the first two Commandments relating to things of such a different sort as is the worshipping of more Gods than one and the worshipping the true God in an Image ought still to be reckoned as different And though the reason given from the Jealousy and Justice of God may relate equally to both yet that does not make them otherwise one than as both might be reduced to one common Head of Idolatry so that both were to be equally punished In the Second Table this Order is to be observed There are Four Branches of a man's Property to which every thing that he can call his own may be reduced His Person his Wife and Children his Goods and his Reputation So there is a Negative precept given to secure him in every one of these against Killing committing Adultery Stealing and bearing false Witness To which as the chief acts of their kind are to be reduced all those acts that may belong to those Heads Such as Injuries to a man in his person though not carried on nor designed to kill him every Temptation to uncleanness and all those excesses that lead to it every act of Injustice and every Lye or Defamation To these Four are added two Fences the one Exterior the other Interior The Exterior is the settling the Obedience and Order that ought to be observed in Families according to the Law of Nature And by a parity of Reason if Families are under a Constitution where the Government is made as a common Parent the establishing the Obedience to the Civil Powers or to such Orders of Men who may be made as Parents with Relation to Matters of Religion This is the Foundation of Peace and Justice of the security and happiness of Mankind And therefore it was very proper to begin the Second Table and those Laws that relate to human Society with this without which the World would be like a Forest and Mankind like so many Savages running wildly through it The last Commandment is an inward Fence to the Law It checks Desires and restrains the Thoughts If free Scope should be given to these as they would very often carry men to unlawful Actions for a man is very apt to do that which he desires so they must give great disturbance to those that are haunted or overcome by them And therefore as a mean both to secure the quiet of mens minds and to preserve the World from the ill effects which such desires might naturally have this special Law is given Thou shalt not covet It will not be easy to prove it Moral in the strictest sense yet in a Secondary Order it may be well called Moral The Matter of it being such both with relation to our selves and others that it is a very proper Subject for a perpetual Law to be made about it And yet as St. Paul says Rom. 7.7 he had not known it to be a Sin if it had not been for the Law that forbids it for after all that can be said it will not be easy to prove it to be of its own nature Moral Thus by the help of that distinction of what is Moral in a primary and in a secondary Order the Morality of the Ten Commandments is demonstrated That this Law obliges Christians as well as Iews is evident from the whole Scope of the New Testament Instead of derogating from the Obligation of any part of that Law our Saviour after he had affirmed That he came not to dissolve the Law but to fulfil it and that Heaven and Earth might pass away Matth. 5.17 18. but that one tittle of the Law should not pass away he went through a great many of those Laws and shewed how far he extended the Commentary he put upon them and the Obligations that he laid upon his Disciples beyond what was done by the Iewish Rabbies All the rest of his Gospel and the Writings of his Apostles agree with this in which there is not a Tittle that looks like a slackning of it but a great deal to the contrary A strictness that reaches to idle Words to passionate Thoughts and to
from the Scope of the whole Epistle and the beginning of that Chapter understand only of the state that St. Paul represents himself to have been in while yet a Iew and before his Conversion Whereas others understand it of him in his converted and regenerated state Very plausible things have been said on both sides but without arguing any thing from words the sense of which is under debate Gal. 5.17 Rom. 8.13 there are other places which do manifestly express the struggle that is in a good Man The flesh is weak though the spirit is willing The flesh lusteth against the spirit as the spirit lusteth against the flesh We ought to be still mortifying the deeds of the body and we feel many Sins that do so easily beseâ— us that from these things we have reason to conclude that there is a Corruption in our Nature which gives us a biass and propensity to Sin Now there is no reason to think that Baptism takes away all the Branches and Effects of Original Sin It is enough if we are by it delivered from the Wrath of God and brought into a State of Favour and Acceptation We are freed from the Curse of Death by our being Entitled to a Blessed Resurrection And if we are so far freed from the Corruption of our Nature as to have a foederal right to such Assistances as will enable us to resist and repress it though it is not quite extinct in us so long as we live in these frail and mortal Bodies here are very great Effects of our Admission to Christianity by Baptism though this should not go so far as to root out all Inclinations to Evil out of our Nature The great Disposition that is in us to Appetite and Passion and that great heat with which they Inflame us the Aversion that we naturally have to all the Exercises of Religion and the Pains that must be used to work us up to a tolerable Degree of Knowledge and an ordinary Measure of Virtue shews that these are not natural to us Whereas Sloth and Vice do grow on us without any care taken about them so that it appears that they are the natural and the other the forced growth of our Souls These ill Dispositions are so universally spread through all Mankind and appear so early and in so great a Diversity of ill Inclinations that from hence it seems reasonable and just to infer That this Corruption is spread through our whole Nature and Species by the Sin and Disobedience of Adam And beyond this a great many among our selves think that they cannot go in asserting of Original Sin But there is a further step made by all the Disciples of S. Austin who believe That a Covenant was made with all Mankind in Adam as their First Parent That he was a Person Constituted by God to represent them all and that the Covenant was made with him so that if he had obeyed all his Posterity should have been happy through his Obedience but by his Disobedience they were all to be esteemed to have sinned in him his Act being Imputed and Transferred to them all S. Austin considered all Mankind as lost in Adam and in that he made the Decree of Election to begin There being no other Reprobation asserted by him than the leaving Men to continue in that state of Damnation in which they were by reason of Adam's Sin so that though by Baptism all Men were born again and recovered out of that lost state yet unless they were within the Decree of Election they could not be saved but would certainly fall from that state and perish in a state of Sin But such as were not Baptized were shut out from all hope Those words of Christ's Except ye be born again of the water and of the Spirit Joh. 3.3 5 ye cannot enter into the kingdom of God being Expounded so as to Import the Indispensable Necessity of Baptism to Eternal Salvation All who were not Baptized were reckoned by him among the Damned Yet this Damnation as to those who had no Actual Sin was so mitigated that it seemed to be little more than an Exclusion out of Heaven without any Suffering or Misery like a state of Sleep and Inactivity This was afterwards dressed up as a Division or Partition in Hell called the Limbo of Infants so by bringing it thus low they took away much of the horror that this Doctrine might otherwise have given the World It was not easy to Explain the way how this was propagated They wished well to the Notion of a Soul's propagating a Soul but that seemed to come too near Creation So it was not received as certain It was thâ—refore thought That the Body being propagated defiled the Soul was created and infused at the time of Conception And the though God did not Create it impure yet no time was interposed between its Creation and infusion So that it could never be said to have been once pure and then to have become impure All this as it afforded an easy Foundation to Establish the Doctrine of Absolute Decrees upon it no care being taken to shew how this Sin came into the World whether from an Absolute Decrâ—e or not so it seem'd to have a great Foundation in that large Discourse of St. Paul's where in the 5th of the Romans he compares the Blessings that we receive by the Death of Christ with the Guilt and Misery that was brought upon us by the Sin of Adam Now it is confessed That by Christ we have both an Imputation or Communication of the Merits of his Death and likewise a Purity and Holiness of Nature convey'd to us by his Doctrine and Spirit In opposition then to this if the comparison is to be closely pursued there must be an Imputation of Sin as well as a Corruption of Nature transfused to us from Adam This is the more considerable as to the Point of imputation because the chief design of St. Paul's Discourse seems to be levelled at that since it is begun upon the Head of Reconciliation and Attonement Upon which it follows That as by one man sin entred into the world Rom. 5.12 to the end and death by sin and death passed upon all men for that or as others render it in whom all have sinned Now they think it is all one to their Point Whether it be rendered for that or in whom For though the later words seem to deliver their Opinion more precisely yet it being affirm'd That according to the other rendring all who die have sinned and it being certain That many Infants die who have never actually sinned these must have sinned in Adam they could sin no other way It is afterwards said by St. Paul That by the offence of one many were dead That the judgment was by one to Condemnation That by one man's offence death reigned by one That by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to Condemnation And that by one man's disobedience
and dwelling in us and by our being rooted and grounded in him 2 Cor. 6.16 Heb. 4.16 Jam. 1.5 1 Joh. 39. our being the Temples of God a holy habitation to him through his Spirit our being sealed by the Spirit of God to the day of Redemption by all those directions to pray for grace to help in time of need and to ask wisdom of God that gives liberally to all men as also by the Phrases of being born of God and the having his seed abiding in us These and many more places which return often through the New Testament seem to put it beyond all doubt that there are inward Communications from God to the Powers of our Souls by which we are made both to apprehend the Truths of Religion to remember and reflect on them and to consider and follow them more effectually How these are applied to us is a great difficulty indeed but it is to litle purpose to amuse our selves about it God may convey them immediately to our Souls if he will but it is more intelligible to us to imagine that the Truths of Religion are by a Divine direction imprinted deep upon our Brain so that naturally they must affect us much and be oft in our Thoughts And this may be a Hypothesis to explain Regeneration or habitual Grace by When a deep Impression is once made there may be a direction from God in the same way that his Providence runs through the whole Material World given to the Animal Spirits to move towards and strik upon that Impression and so to excite such Thoughts as by the Law of the Union of the Soul and Body do correspond to it This may serve for a Hypothesis to explain the Conveyance of Actual Grace to us But these are only proposed as Hypotheses that is as methods or possible ways how such things may be done and which may help us to apprehend more distinctly the manner of them Now as this Hypothesis has nothing in it but what is truly Philosophical so it is highly congruous to the Nature and Attributes of God That if our Facultiâ—s aâ—â— fallen under a decay and corruption so that bare Instruction is not like to prevail over us he should by some secret methods rectify this in us Our Experience tells us but too often what a fâ—eble thing Knowledge and Speculation is when it engages with Nature strongly assaulted How our best Thoughts fly from us and forsake us whereas at other times the sense of these things lies with a due weight on our Minds and has another effect upon us The way of conveying this is invisible our Saviour compared it to the wind that bloweth where it listeth Joh. 3.8 no man knows whence it comes and whither it goes No man can give an account of the sudden changes of the Wind and of that vast force with which the Air is driven by it which is otherwise the most yielding of all Bodies to which he adds so is every one that is born of the Spirit This he brings to illustrate the meaning of what he had said That except a man was born again of Water and of the Spirit he could not enter into the kingdom of God And to shew how real and internal this was he adds That which is born of the flesh is flesh that is a Man has the Nature of those Parents from whom he is descended by Flesh being understood the Fabrick of the Human Body animated by the Soul in opposition to which he subjoins That which is born of the Spirit is spirit that is to say a Man thus regenerated by the Operation of the Spirit of God comes to be of a Spiritual Nature With this I conclude all that seemed necessary to be proved That there are inward Assistances given to us in the New Dispensation I do not dispute whether these are fitly called Grace for perhaps that word will scarce be found in that Sense in the Scriptures it signifying more largely the Love and Favour of God without restraining it to this Act or Effect of it The next thing to be proved is That there is a preventing Grace by which the Will is first moved and disposed to turn to God It is certain that the first Promulgation of the Gospel to the Churches that were gathered by the Apostles is ascribed wholly to the Riches and Freedom of the Grace of God This is fully done in the Epistle to the Ephesians in which their former Ignorance and Corruption is set forth under the Figures of blindness of being without hope Eph. 2.2.12 and without God in the world and dead in trespasses and sins they following the course of this world and the prince of the power of the Air and being by nature children of wrath that is under Wrath I dispute not here concerning the meaning of the word by Nature whether it relates to the Corruption of our Nature in Adam or to that general Corruption that had overspread Heathenism and was become as it were another Nature â—o them In this single Instance we plainly see that there was no previous disposition to the first preaching of the Gospel at Ephesus Many expressions of this kind though perhaps not of this force are in the other Epistles St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans puts God's chusing of Abraham upon this That it was of grace not of debt Rom. 4.2 otherwise Abraham might have had whereof to glory And when he speaks of God's casting off the Iews and grafting the Gentiles upon that Stock from which they were cut off he ascribes it wholly to the Goodness of God towards them Rom. 11.20 and charges them not to be high-minded but to fear In his Epistle to the Corinthians he says That not many wise mighty nor noble were chosen but God had chosen the foolish the weak and the base things of this world 1 Cor. 1.26 so that no flesh should glory in his presence And he urges this further in words that seem to be as applicable to particular Persons as to Communities or Churches Who maketh thee to differ from another and what hast thou 1 Cor. 4.7 that thou didst not receive now if thou didst receive it why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it From these and many more passages of the like nature it is plain that in the Promulgation of the Gospel Isa. 65.1 God was found of them that sought not to him and heard of them that called not upon him that is he prevented them by his Favour while there were no previous dispositions in them to invite it much less to merit it From this it may be inferred That the like method should be used with relation to particular Persons We do find very express Instances in the New Testament of the Conversion of some by a Preventing Grace It is said Acts 16.14 That God opened tâ—e heart of Lydia so that she attended to the things that were spoken
went about always doing good and was as a lamb without spot is so oft affirmed in the New Testament 1 Pet. 1.19 that it can admit of no Debate This was not only true in his Rational Powers the superior part called the Spirit in opposition to the lower part but also in those Appetites and Affections that arise from our Bodies and from the Union of our Souls to them called the Flesh. For tho' in these Christ having the Human Nature truly in him had the Appetites of Hunger in him yet the Devil could not tempt him by that to distrust God or to desire a miraculous supply sooner than was fitting He overcame even that necessary Appetite whensoever there was an occasion given him to do the will of his heavenly Father Joh. 4.34 He had also in him the aversions to pain and suffering and the horror at a violent and ignominious Death which was planted in our Natures and in this it was natural to him to wish and to pray that the Cup might pass from him But in this his Purity appeared the most eminently That tho' he felt the weight of his Nature to a vast degree he did notwithstanding that limit and conquer it so entirely that he resigned himself absolutely to his Father's Will Not my will but thy will be done Besides all that has been already said upon the former Articles to prove that some taint and degree of the Original Corruption remains in all Men the peculiar Character of Christ's Holiness so oft repeated looks plainly to be a distinction proper to him and to him only We are called upon to follow him to learn of him and to imitate him without restriction whereas we are required to follow the Apostles only as they were the followers of Christ 1 Cor. 11.1 1 Pet. 1.15 Mat. 5.48 And though we are commanded to be holy as he was holy in all manner of conversation that does no more prove that any man can arrive at that pitch than our being commanded to be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect will prove that we may become perfect as God is The Importance of these words being only this That we ought in all things to make God and Christ our patterns and that we ought to endeavour to imitate and resemble them all we can There seems to be a particular design in the Contexture and Writing of the Scriptures to represent to us some of the Failings of the best Men For though Zacharias and Elizabeth are said to have been blameless that must only be meant of the Exterior and Visible part of their Conversation that it was free from blame Luk. 1.6 and of their being accepted of God but that is not to be carried to import a sinless Purity before God For we find the same Zachary guilty of misbelieving the Message of the Angel to him to such a degree Ver. 20. that he was punished for it with a Dumbness of above Nine Months continuance Perhaps the Virgin 's Question to the Angel had nothing blame-worthy in it Luk. 2.49 Joh. 2.4 but our Saviour's Answers to her both when she came to him in the Temple when he was Twelve Years old and more particularly when she moved him at the Marriage in Cana to furnish them with Wine look like a Reprimand The Contentions among the Apostles about the Preheminence and in particular the Ambition of Iames and Iohn cannot be excused St. Peter's Dissimulation at Antioch in the Judaizing Controversy Matth. 20.20 24. Gal. 2.11 12 13 14. Act. 15.39 and the sharp Contention that happened between Paul and Barnabas are recorded in Scripture and they are both Characters of the Sincerity of those who Penned them and likewise Marks of the Frailties of Human Nature even in its greatest Elevation and with its highest Advantages So that all the high Characters that are given of the best Men are to be understood either comparatively to others whom they exceeded or with relation to their outward Actions and the visible parts of their Life Or they are to be meant of their Zeal and Sincerity which is valued and accepted of God and as it was to Abraham is imputed to them for Righteousness Yet this is not to be abused by any to be an encouragement to live in Sin for we may carry this Purity and Perfection certainly very far by the Grace of God In every Sin that we commit we do plainly perceive that we do it with so much freedom that we might not have done it here is still just Matter for Humiliation and Repentance By this Doctrine our Church intends only to repress the Pride of vain-glorious and hypocritical Men and to strike at the Root of that filthy Merchandise that has been brought into the House of God under the pretence of the Perfection and even the over-doing or supererogating of the Saints ARTICLE XVI Of Sin after Baptism Note very deadly sin willingly committed after Baptism is the sin against the Holy Ghost and unpardonable Wherefore the grant of Repentance is not to be denied to such as fall into sin after Baptism After we have received the Holy Ghost we may depart from grace given and fall into sin and by the grace of God we may arise again and amend our Lives And therefore they are to be condemned which say they can no more sin as long as they live here or deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly repent THis Article as it relates to the Sect of the Novatians of old so it is probable it was made a part of our Doctrine upon the Account of some of the Enthusiasts who at that time as well as some do in our Days might boast their Perfection and join with that part of the Character of a Pharisee this other of an unreasonable rigour of Censure and Punishment against Offenders By deadly Sin in the Article we are not to understand such Sins as in the Church of Rome are called mortal in opposition to others that are venial As if some Sins though Offences against God and Violations of his Law could be of their own nature such slight things that they deserved only Temporal Punishment and were to be expiated by some piece of Pennance or Devotion or the Communication of the Merits of others The Scripture no where teaches us to think so slightly of the Majesty of God or of his Law There is a curse upon every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them Gal. 3.10 And the same Curse must have been on us all if Christ had not redeemed us from it The wages of Sin is death And St. Iames asserts that there is such a Complication of all the Precepts of the Law of God both with one another and with the Authority of the Lawgiver that he who offends in one point Jam. 2.10 11. is guilty of all So since God has in his Word given
were to deliver him up â— Sam. 23. â—1 12. and yet both the one and the other was upon the condition of his staying there and he going from thence neither the one nor the other ever happen'd Here was a Conditionate Prescience Such was Christ's saying That those of Tyre and Sidon Sodom and Gomorrah would have turned to him Matth. 11. â—1 22. if they had seen the Miracles that he wrought in some of the Towns of Galilee Since then thisPrescience may be so certain that it can never be mistaken nor misguide theDesigns orProvidence of God and since by this both the Attributes of God are vindicated and the due Freedom of the Will of Man is asserted all difficulties seem to be easily cleared this way As for the giving to some Nations and Persons the Means of Salvation and the denying these to others the Scriptures do indeed ascribe that wholly to the Riches and Freedom of God's Grace but still they think that he gives to all Men that which is necessary to the state in which they are to answer the Obligations they are under in it And that this Light and common Grace is sufficient to carry them so far that God will either accept of iâ— or give them further degrees of Illumination From which it must be inferâ—â—d That all Men are inexcusable in his sight and that God is always just and clear when he judges Psal. 51.4 since every Man had that which was sufficient if not to save him yet at least to bring him to a state of Salvation But besides what is thus simply necessary and is of it self sufficient thâ—râ—â—re innumerable Favours like Largesses of God's Grace and Goodness these â—od gâ—ves freely as he pleases And thus the great Designs of Providence go on according to the Goodness and Mercy of God None can complain tho' some have more cause 〈◊〉 rejoice and glory in God than others What happens to Nations in a Body may also happen to Individuals some may have higher Privileges â—e put in happier Circumstances and have such Assistances given them as God foresees will become effectual and not only those which though they be in their nature sufficient yet in the Event will be ineffectual Every Man ought to complain of himself for not using that which was sufficient as he might have done and all good Men will have matter of rejoycing in God for giving them what he foresaw would prove effectual After all they acknowledge there is a depth in this of God's not giving all Nations an equal measure of Light nor putting all Men into equally happy Circumstances which they cannot unriddle but still Justice Goodness and Truth are saved tho' we may imagine a Goodness that may do to all Men what is absolutely the best for them And there they confess there is a difficulty but not equal to those of the other side From hence it is that they expound all those Passages in the New Testament concerning the Purpose the Election the Foreknowledge and the Predestination of God so often mentioned All those they say relate to God's design of calling the Gentile World to the knowledge of the Messias This was kâ—pt secret tho' Hints of it are given in several of the Prophets so it was a Mystery but it was then revealed when according to Christ's Commission to his Apostles to go and teach all Nations they went Preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles This was a Stumbling-block to the Iews and it was the chief Subject of Controversy betwixt them and the Apostles at the time when the Epistles were writ So it was necessary for them to clear this very fully and to come often over it But there was no need of amusing People in the beginnings of Christianity and in that first infancy of it with high and unsearchable Speculations concerning the Decrees of God Therefore they observe that the Apostles shew how that Abraham at first Isaac and Iacob afterwards were chosen by a discriminating Favour That they and their Posterity should be in Covenant with God And upon that occasion the Apostle goes on to shew that God had always designed to call in the Gentiles though that was not executed but by their Ministry With this Key one will find a plain coherent sense in all St. Paul's Discourses on this Subject without asserting antecedent and special Decrees as to particular Persons Things that happen under a permissive and directing Providence may be also in a largeness of expression ascribed to the Will and Counsel of God for a permissive and directing Will is really a Will though it be not antecedent nor causal The hardning Pharaoh's heart may be ascribed to God though it is said that his heart hardned it self Exod. 7.22 Exod. 8.15 19 32. because he took occasion from the stops God put in those Plagues that he sent upon him and his People to encourage himself when he saw there was a new Respite granted him And he who was a cruel and bloody Prince deeply engaged in Idolatry and Magick had deserved such Judgments for his other Sins so that he may be well considered as actually under his final Condemnation only under a Reprieve not swallowed up in the first Plagues but preserved in them and raised up out of them to be a lasting Monument of the Justice of God against such hardned Impenitency Whom he will he hardneth Rom. 9.18 must be still restrained to such Persons as that Tyrant was It is endless to enter into the discussion of all the Passages cited from the Scripture to this purpose this Key serving as they think it does to open most of them It is plain these Words of our Saviour concerning those whom the Father had given him are only to be meant of a Dispensation of Providence and and not of a Decree since he adds And I have lost none of them Joh. 17.12 Phil. 2.12 Acts 13.48 except the son of Perdition For it cannot be said that he was in the Decree and yet was lost And in thâ— same Period in which God is said to work in us both to will and to do we are required to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling The Word rendered ordained to eternal life does also signify fitted or predisposed to Eternal Life That Question Who made thee to differ 1 Cor. 4.7 seems to refer to those Gifts which in different degrees and measures were poured out on the first Christians in which Men were only passive and discriminated from one another by the freedom of those Gifts without any thing previous in them to dispose them to them Christ is said to be the Propitiation for the sins of the whole world 1 Joh. 2.2 2 Pet. 2.1 and the wicked are said to deny the Lord that bought them and his Death as to its extent to all men is set in opposition to the Sin of Adam so that as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men
a Foederal State of Salvation but Christians To them is given the Covenant of Grace and to them the promises of God are made and offered So that they have a certainty of it upon their performing those conditions that are put in the promises All others are out of this Promise to whom the Tidings of it were never brought but yet a great difference is to be made between them and those who have been invited to this Covenant and admitted to the outward Profession and the common Privileges of it and that yet have in effect rejected it These are under such positive denunciations of Wrath and Judgment that there is no room left for any charitable Thoughts or Hopes concerning them So that if any part of the Gospel is true that must be also true that they are under Condemnation Joh. 3.19 for having lov d darkness more than light when the Light shone upon them and visitâ—d them But as for them whom God has left in Darkness they are certainly out of the Covenant out of those Promises and Declarations that are made in it So that they have no Foederal Right to be saved neither can we affirm that they shall be saved But on the other hand they are not under those positive denunciations because they were never made to them Therefore since God has not declared that they shall be damned no more ought we to take upon us to damn them Instead of stretching the severity of Justice by an Inference we may rather venter to stretch the Mercy of God since that is the Attribute which of all others is the most Magnificently spoken of in the Scriptures So that we ought to think of it in the largest and most comprehensive manner But indeed the most proper way is for us to stop where the Revelation of God stops And not to be wise beyond what is written but to leave the secrets of God as Mysteries too far above us to examine or to sound their depth We do certainly know on what terms we our selves shall be saved or damned And we ought to be contented with that and rather study to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling than to let our minds run out into uncertain Speculations concerning the Measures and the Conditions of God's uncovenanted Mercies We ought to take all possible care that we our selves come not into Condemnation rather than to define positively of others who must or who must not be condemned It is therefore enough to fix this according to the Design of the Article That it is not to free Men to chuse at pleasure what Religion they will as if that were left to them or that all Religions were alike which strikes at the Foundation and undermines the Truth of all Revealed Religion None are within the Covenant of Grace but true Christians and all are excluded out of it to whom it is offered who do not receive and believe it and live according to it So in a word all that are saved are saved through Christ but whether all these shall be called to the Explicite Knowledge of him is more than we have any good ground to affirm Nor are we to go into that other Question Whether any that are only in a state of Nature live fully up to its Light This is that about which we can have no certainty no more than whether there may be a Common Grace given to them all proportioned to their State and to the Obligations of it This in general may be safely believed That God will never be wanting to such as do their utmost endeavours in order to the saving of their Souls But that as in the Case of Cornelius an Angel will be sent and a Miracle be wrought rather than that such a Person shall be left to perish But whether any of them do ever arrive at that state is more than we can determine and it is a vain attempt for us to endeavour to find it out ARTICLE XIX Of the Church The Uisible Church of Christ is a Congregation of faithful men in the which the pure Word of God is preached and the Sacraments be duely administred according to Christ's Ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same As the Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch have erred so also the Church of Rome hath erred not only in their Living and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith THIS Article together with some that follow it Relates to the Fundamental difference between us and the Church of Rome They teaching that we are to judge of Doctrines by the Authority and the Decisions of the Church whereas we affirm That we are first to examine the Doctrine and according to that to judge of the Purity of a Church Somewhat was already said on the Sixth Article relating to this matter What remains is now to be considered The whole Question is to be reduced to this Point Whether we ought to Examine and Judge of Matters of Religion according to the Light and Faculty of judging that we have or if we are bound to submit in all things to the Decision of the Church Here the matter must be determined against private Judgment by very express and clear Authorities other wise the other side proves it self For we having naturally a Faculty of judging for our selves and using it in all other things this freedom being the greatest of all our other Rights must be still asserted unless it can be made appear that God has in some things put a Bar upon it by his Supreme Authority That Authority must be very express if we are required to submit to it in a Point of such vast Importance to us We do also see that Men are apt to be mistaken and are apt likewise willingly to mistake and to mislead others and that particularly in matters of Religion the World has been so much imposed upon and abused that we cannot be bound to submit to any sort of persons implicitely without very good and clear grounds that do assure us of their Infallibility Otherwise we have just reason to suspect that in matters of Religion chiefly in Points in which Human Interests are concerned Men may either through Ignorance and Weakness or Corruption and on Design abuse and mislead us So that the Authorities or Proofs of this Infallibility must be very express since we are sure no Man nor Body of Men can have it among them but by a Privilege from God and a Privilege of so extraordinary a nature must be given if at all in very plain and with very evident Characters since without these Human Nature cannot and ought not to be so tame as to receive it We must not draw it from an Inference because we think we need it and cannot be safe without it That therefore it must be so because if it were not so great Disorder would arise from the want of it This is certainly a wrong way of arguing
in this Article is a full instance of it which is the Worship of Relicks It is no wonder that great care was taken in the beginnings of Christianity to shew all possible respect and tenderness even to the Bodies of the Martyrs There is something of this planted so deep in Human Nature that though the Philosophy of it cannot be so well made out yet it seems to be somewhat more than an universal Custom Humanity is of its side and is apt to carry Men to the profusions of Pomp and Cost all Religions do agree in this so that we need not wonder if Christians in the first fervour of their Religion believing the Resurrection so firmly as they did and having a high sense of the Honour done to Christ and his Religion by the sufferings of the Martyrs if I say Ep. Ecc. Smirn. apud Euseb l. 4. c. 15. they studied to gather their Bones and Ashes together and Bury them decently They thought it a sign of their being joined with them in one Body to hold their Assemblies at the places where they were buried Jul. Ap. Cyril lib. 6. lib. 10. Ennap in vita Aedess This might be also considered as a motive to encourage others to follow the example that they had given them even to Martyrdom And therefore all the marks of Honour were put even upon their Bodies that could be thought on except Worship After the Ages of Persecution were over a fondness of having and keeping their Relicks began to spread it self in many places Monks fed that humour by carrying them about We find in St. Austin's Works that Superstition was making a great progress in Africk upon these heads of which he complains frequently Aug. de opere monach c. 28. Vigilantius had done it more to purpose in Spain and did not only complain of the excesses but of the thing in it self Hieron adv Vigilant To. 2. St. Ierom fell unmercifully upon him for it and sets a high value upon Relicks yet he does not speak one word of worshipping them he denies and disclaims it and seems only to allow of a great fondness for them and with most of that Age he was very apt to believe that Miracles were oft wrought by them When Superstition is once suffered to mix with Religion it will be still gaining ground and it admits of no bounds So this matter went on and new Legends were invented but when the Controversy of Image-worship began it followed that as an accessary The Enshrining of Relicks occasioned the most excellent sort of Images and they were thought the best preservatives possible both for Soul and Body no Presents grew to be more valued than Relicks and it was an easy thing for the Popes to furnish the World plentifully that way but chiefly since the discovery of the Catacombs which has furnished them with Stores not to be exhausted The Council of Trent did in this as in the point of Images it appointed Relicks to be Venerated but did not determine the degree so it left the World in possession of a most excessive dotage upon them They are used every where by them as sacred Charms Kissed and Worshipped they are served with Lights and Incense In opposition to all this we think that all decent Honours are indeed due to the Bodies of the Saints which were once the Temples of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6.19 Deut. 34.6 But since it is said that God took that care of the Body of Moses so as to Bury it in such a manner that no Man knew of his Sepulchre there seems to have been in this a peculiar caution guarding against that Superstition which the Iews might very probably have fallen into with relation to his Body And this seems so clear an indication of the Will of God in this matter that we reckon we are very safe when we do no further honour to the Body of a Saint than to Bury it And though that Saint had been ever so Eminent not only for his Holiness but even for Miracles wrought by him by his shadow or even by looking upon him yet the History of the Brazen Serpent shews us that a fondness even on the Instruments that God made use of to work Miracles by 2 Kings 18.4 degenerates easily to the superstition of burning Incense to them but when that appears it is to be check'd even by breaking that which was so abused Hezekiah is commended for breaking in pieces that noble Remain of Moses's time till then preserved neither its Antiquity nor the signal Miracles once wrought by it could balance the ill use that was then made of it That good King broke it for which he might have had a worse Name than an Iconoclast if he had lived in some Ages It is true Miracles were of old wrought by Aaron's Rod by Elisha's Bones after his death and the one was preserved but not worshipped 2 Kings 13.21 nor was there any Superstition that followed on the other Not a word of this fondness appears in the beginnings of Christianity though it had been an easy thing at that time to have furnished the World with pieces of our Saviour's Garments Hair or Nails and great store might have been had of the Virgin 's and the Apostle's Relicks St. Stephen's and St. Iames's Bones might have been then parcelled about And if that Spirit had then reigned in the Church which has been in the Roman Church now above a Thousand Years we should have heard of the Relicks that were sent about from Ierusalem to all the Churches But when such things might have been had in great abundance and have been known not to be Counterfeits we hear not a word of them If a fondness for Relicks had been in the Church upon Christ's Ascension what care would have been taken to have made great Collections of them Then we see no other care about the Body of St. Stephen but to Bury it and not long after that time upon St. Polycarp's Martyrdom when the Iews who had set on the Prosecution against him suggested that if the Christians could gain his Body they would perhaps forsake Christ and worship him they rejected the accusation with horror for in the Epistle which the Church of Smirna writ upon his Martyrdom after they mention this Insinuation they have those remarkable words which belong both to this head and to that which follows it of the Invocation and Worship of Saints Ep. Euseb. l. 4. c. 15. These Men know not that we can neither forsake Christ who suffered for the salvation of all that are saved the Innocent for the Guilty nor worship any other Him truly being the Son of God we adore But the Martyrs and Disciples and Followers of the Lord we justly love for that extraordinary good mind which they have expressed toward their King and Master of whose happiness God grant that we may partake and that we may learn by their Examples The Iews had so
Linnen St. Ierom though excessively fond of them denies this very positively and that in very injurious Terms being offended at the injustice of the Reproach Yet as long as the Bodies of the Martyrs were let lie quietly in their Memories the fond Opinion of their being present and hearing what was said to them made the Invocating them look like one Mans desiring the Assistance of another good Man's Prayers so that this Step seemed to have a fair colour But when their Bodies were pulled asunder and carried up and down so that it was believed Miracles abounded every where about them and when their Bones and Relicks grew to encrease and multiply so that they had more Bones and Limbs than God and Nature had given them then new Hypotheses were to be found out to justify the calling upon them every where as their Relicks were spread St. Ierom in his careless way says Hieron ad Vigil they followed the lamb whithersoever he went and seems to make no doubt of their being if not every where yet in several places at once Aug. cura pro mortuis c. 16. But St. Austin who could follow a consequence much further in his Thoughts though he doubted not but that Men were much the better for the Prayers of the Martyrs yet he confesses that it passed the strength of his Understanding to determine whether they heard those who called upon them at their Memories or wheresoever else they were believed to have appeared or not But the Devotions that are spoken of by all of that Age are related as having been offered at their Memories so that this seems to have been the general Opinion as well as it was the common Practice of that Age though it is no wonder if this Conceit once giving some colour and credit to the Invocating them that did quickly encrease it self to a general Invocation of them every where And thus a fondness for their Relicks joined with the opinion of their Relation and nearness to them did in a short time grow up to a direct worshipping of them And by the fruitfulness that always follows Superstition did spread it self further to their Cloaths Utensils and every thing else that had any relation to them There was cause given in St. Austin's time to suspect that many of the Bones which were carried about by Monks Aug. de opere Monach c. 28. were none of their Bones but Impostures Which very much shakes the Credit of the Miracles wrought by them since we have no reason to think that God would support such Impostures with Miracles As on the other hand there is no reason to think that false Relicks would have passed upon the World if Miracles had been believed to accompany true ones unless they had their Miracles likewise to attest their Value so let this Matter be turned which way it may the credit both of Relicks and of the Miracles wrought by them is not a little shaken by it But in the following Ages we have more than Presumptions that there was much of this false Coin that went abroad in the World It was not possible to distinguish the False from the True The freshness of Colour and Smell so often boasted might have been easily managed by Art the varieties of those Relicks the different Methods of discovering them the Shinings that were said to be about their Tombs with the Smells that broke out of them the many Apparitions that accompanied them and the signal Cures that were wrought by them as they grew to fill the World with many Volumes of Legends many more lying yet in the Manuscripts in many Churches than have been published all these I say carry in them such Characters of Fraud and Imposture on the one hand and of Cruelty and Superstition on the other so much Craft and so much Folly that they had their full Effect upon the World even in contradiction to the clearest Evidence possible The same Saints having more Bodies and Heads than one in different Places and yet all equally celebrated with Miracles A great profusion of Wealth and Pomp was laid out in honouring them new Devotions were still invented for them And though these things are too palpably False to be put upon us now in Ages of more Light where every thing will not go down because it is confidently affirmed yet as we know how great a Part of the Devotion of the Latin Church this continued to be for many Ages before the Reformation so the same Trade is still carried on where the same Ignorance and the same Superstition does still continue I come now to consider the last Head of this Article which is the Invocation of Saints of which much has been already said by an Anticipation For there is that Connection between the Worship of Relicks and the Invocation of Saints that the treating of the one does very naturally carry one to say somewhat of the other It is very evident that Saints were not Invocated in the Old Testament God being called so oft the God of Abraham Isaac and Iacob seems to give a much better warrant for it than any thing that can be alledged from the New Testament Moses was their Lawgiver and their Mediator and Intercessor with God and his Intercession as it had been very effectual for them so it had shewed it self in a very extraordinary Instance of his desiring that his Name might be blotted out of the Book which he had written rather than the People should perish Exod. 32. â—2 when God had offered to him that he would raise up a New Nation to himself out of his Posterity God had also made many Promises to that Nation by him So that it might be natural enough considering the Genius of Superstition for the Iews to have called to him in their Miseries to obtain the Performance of those Promises made by him to them We may upon this refer the Matter to every Mans judgment whether Abraham and Moses might not have been much more reasonably Invocated by the Iews according to what we find in the Old Testament than any Saint can be under the New Yet we are sure they were not prayed to Elijah's going up to Heaven in so miraculous a manner might also have been thought a good Reason for any to have prayed to him But nothing of that kind was then practised They understood Prayer to be a Part of that Worship which they owed to God only So that the praying to any other had been to a certain Degree the having another God before or besides the true Iehovah They never prayed to any other they called upon him and made mention of no other The Rule was without exception Call upon me in the time of trouble 〈◊〉 52.15 I will hear thee and thou shalt glorify me Upon this Point there is no dispute In the New Testament we see the same method followed with this only exception that Jesus Christ is proposed as our Mediator And that
Opus operatum it is conveyed to the Souls of those to whom they are applied unless they themselves put a Bar in the way of it by some mortal Sin In consequence of this they reckon that by the Sacraments given to a Man in his Agonies though he is very near past all Sense and so cannot joyn any lively Acts of his Mind with the Sacraments yet he is justified not to mention the common practice of giving Extreme Unction in the last Agony when no appearance of any Sense is left This we reckon a Doctrine that is not only without all Foundation in Scripture but that tends to destroy all Religion and to make Men live on securely in Sin trusting to this that the Sacraments may be given them when they die The Conditions of the New Covenant are Repentance Faith and Obedience and we look on this as the corrupting the Vitals of this Religion when any such means are proposed by which the main Design of the Gospel is quite overthrown The business of a Character is an unintelligible Notion We acknowledge Baptism is not to be repeated but that is not by virtue of a Character imprinted in it but because it being a Dedication of the Person to God in the Christian Religion what is once so done is to be understood to continue still in that State till such a Person falls into an open Apostacy In case of the Repentance of such a Person we finding that the Primitive Church did reconcile but not rebaptize Apostates do imitate that their Practice but not because of this late and unexplicable Notion of a Character We look on all Sacramental Actions as acceptable to God only with regard to the Temper and the inward Acts of the Person to whom they are applied and cannot consider them as Medicines or Charms which work by a Virtue of their own whether the Person to whom they are applied co-operates with them or not Baptism is said by St. Peter to save us not as it is an Action that washes us Not the putting away the filth of the flesh 1 Pet. 3.21 but the answer of a good conscience towards God And therefore Baptism without this Profession is no Baptism but seems to be used as a Charm unless it is said that this Answer or Profession is implied whensoever Baptism is desired When a Person of Age desires Baptism he must make those Answers and Sponsions otherwise he is not truly Baptized and though his outward making of them being all that can fall under Human Cognizance he who does that must be held to be truly baptized and all the outward Priviledges of a baptized Person must belong to him yet as to the effect of Baptism on the Soul of him that is baptized without doubt that depends upon the sincerity of the Professions and Vows made by him The Wills of Infants are by the Law of Nature and Nations in their Parents and are transferred by them to their Sureties the Sponsions that are made on their behalf are considered as made by themselves but there the outward Act is sufficient for the inward Acts of one Person cannot be supposed necessary to give the Sacrament its Virtue in another 1 Cor. 10 1â— In the Eucharist by our shewing forth our Lord's Death till he comes we are admitted to the Communion of his Body and Blood To a share in Partnership with other Christians in the Effects and Merits of his Death But the unworthy Receiver is guilty of his Body and Blood and brings thereby down Judgments upon himself so that to fancy a Virtue in Sacraments that works on the Person to whom they are applied without any inward Acts accompanying it and upon his being only Passive is a Doctrine of which we find nothing in the Scriptures which teach us that every thing we do is only accepted of God with regard to the Disposition of Mind that he knows us to be in when we go about it Our Prayers and Sacrifices are so far from being accepted of God that they are Abomination to him if they come from wicked and defiled Hearts The making Men believe that Sacraments may be effectual to them when they are next to a State of Passivity not capable of any sensible thoughts of their own is a sure way to raise the Credit of the Clergy and of the Sacrament but at the same time it will most certainly dispose Men to live in Sin hoping that a few Rites which may be easily procured at their Death will clear all at last And thus we reject not without great Zeal against the fatal Effects of this Error all that is said of the Opus operatum the very doing of the Sacrament we think it looks liker the Incantations of Heathenism than the Purity and Simplicity of the Christian Religion But the other Extream that we likewise avoid is that of sinking the Sacraments so low as to be meer Rites and Ceremonies St. Peter says Baptism saves us St. Paul calls it The laver of Regeneration to which he joyns the renewing of the Holy Ghost Tit. 3.5 Mark 16.16 John 3.3 5. Our Saviour saith He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and except ye are born again of Water and of the Spirit ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of God These Words have a Sense and Signification that rises far above a meer Ceremony done to keep up Order and to maintain a settled Form The Phrase Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ is above the Nature of an Anniversary or Memorial Feast This Opinion we think is very unsuitable to those high Expressions and we do not doubt but that Christ who instituted those Sacraments does still accompany them with a particular Presence in them and a Blessing upon them so that we coming to them with Minds well prepared with pure Affections and holy Resolutions do certainly receive in and with them particular largesses of the Favour and Bounty of God They are not bare and naked Remembrances and Tokens but are actuated and animated by a Divine Blessing that attends upon them This is what we believe on this Head and these are the Grounds upon which we found it A Sacrament is an Institution of Christ in which some material thing is sanctified by the use of some Form or Words in and by which federal Acts of this Religion do pass on both sides on ours by Stipulations Professions or Vows and on God's by his secret Assistances by these we are also united to the Body of Christ which is the Church It must be Instituted by Christ for though Ritual Matters that are only the Expressions of our Duty may be appointed by the Church yet federal Acts to which a conveyance of Divine Grace is tied can only be instituted by him who is the Author and Mediator of this New Covenant and who lays down the Rules or Conditions of it and derives the Blessings of it by what Methods and in what Channels he thinks fit
Whatsoever his Apostles settled was by Authority and Commission from him therefore it is not to be denied but that if they had appointed any Sacramental Action that must be reckoned to be of the same Authority and is to be esteemed Christ's Institution as much as if he himself when on Earth had appointed it Matter is of the Essence of a Sacrament for Words without some material thing to which they belong may be of the Nature of Prayers or Vows but they cannot be Sacraments Receiving a Sacrament is on our part our Faith plighted to God in the use of some material Substance or other for in this consists the difference between Sacraments and other Acts of Worship The latter are only Acts of the Mind declared by Words or Gesture whereas Sacraments are the Application of a material Sign joyned with Acts of the Mind Words and Gestures With the Matter there must be a Form that is such Words joyned with it as do appropriate the Matter to such an use and separate it from all other uses at least in the Act of the Sacrament For in any piece of Matter alone there cannot be a proper suitableness to such an end as seems to be designed by Sacraments and therefore a Form must determine and apply it and it is highly suitable to the nature of Things to believe that our Saviour who has Instituted the Sacrament has also either Instituted the Form of it or given us such hints as to lead us very near it The end of Sacraments is double the one is by a Solemn Federal Action both to unite us to Christ and also to derive a secret Blessing from him to us And the other is to joyn and unite us by this publick Profession and the joynt partaking of it with his Body which is the Church This is in general an Account of a Sacrament This it is true is none of those Words that are made use of in Scripture so that it has no determined Signification given to it in the Word of God yet it was very early applied by Pliny to those Vows by which the Christians tied themselves to their Religion Lib. 10. Ep. 97. taken from the Oaths by which the Soldiery among the Romans were sworn to their Colours or Officers and from that time this Term has been used in a Sense consecrated to the Federal Rites of Religion Yet if any will dispute about Words we know how much St. Paul condemns all those curious and vain Questions which have in them the Subtilties and Oppositions of Science falsly so called If any will call every Rite used in Holy Things a Sacrament 1 Tim. 6.20 we enter into no such Contentions The Rites therefore that we understand when we speak of Sacraments are the constant Federal Rites of Christians which are accompanied by a Divine Grace and Benediction being instituted by Christ to unite us to him and to his Church and of such we own that there are Two Baptism and the Supper of our Lord. In Baptism there is Matter Water there is a Form the Person Dipped or Washed with words I baptize thee in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Matth. 28.19 There is an Institution Go preach and baptize there is a Federal Sponsion 1 Pet. 3.21 Matth. 26.26 27. The answer of a good Conscience there is a Blessing conveyed with it Baptism save us there is one baptism as there is one body and one spirit we are all baptized into one body So that here all the constituent and necessary Parts of a Sacrament are found in Baptism In the Lord's Supper there is Bread and Wine for the Matter The giving it to be Eat and Drunk with the Words that our Saviour used in the first Supper are the Form Do this in remembrance of me is the Institution Ye shew forth the Lord's death till he come again 1 Cor. 11.23 to 27. is the Declaration of the Federal Act of our part It is also the Communion of the body and of the blood of Christ that is the conveyance of the Blessings of our Partnership in the Effects of the Death of Christ. 1 Cor. 10.16 17. And we being many are one Bread and one Body for we are all partakers of that one Bread this shews the Union of the Church in this Sacrament Here then we have in these two Sacraments both Matter Form Institution Federal Acts Blessings conveyed and the Union of the Body in them All the Characters which belong to a Sacrament agree fully to them In the next place we must by these Characters examine the other pretended Sacraments It is no wonder if the word Sacrament being of a large extent there should be some Passages in Ancient Writers that call other Actions so besides Baptism and the Lord's Supper for in a larger Sense every Holy Rite may be so called But it is no small prejudice against the number of Seven Sacraments that Peter Lombard a Writer in the Twelfth Century is the first that reckons Seven of them From that Mystical Expression of the Seven Spirits of God there came a conceit of the sevenfold Operation of the Spirit Lib. 3. Dist. 2. and it looked like a good Illustration of that to assert Seven Sacraments This Pope Eugenius put in his Instruction to the Armenians which is published with the Council of Florence and all was finally settled at Trent Now there might have been so many fine Allusions made on the number Seven and some of the Ancients were so much set on such Allusions that since we hear nothing of that kind from any of them we may well conclude that this is more than an ordinary Negative Argument against their having believed that there were Seven Sacraments To go on in order with them The first that we reject which is reckoned by them the second is Confirmation But to explain this we must consider in what respect our Church receives Confirmation and upon what reasons it is that she does not acknowledge it to be a Sacrament We find that after Philip the Deacon and Evangelist had converted and baptized some in Samaria Peter and Iohn were sent thither by the Apostles Acts 8.12 14 15 16 17. who laid their hands on such as were baptized and prayed that they might receive the Holy Ghost upon which it is said that they received the Holy Ghost Now though ordinary Functions when performed by the Apostles such as their laying on of Hands in those whom they Ordained or Confirmed had extraordinary Effects accompanying them but when the extraordinary Effects ceased the end for which these were at first given being accomplished the Gospel having been fully attested to the World yet the Functions were still continued of Confirmation as well as Ordination And as the laying on of Hands Heb. 6.2 that is reckoned among the Principles of the Christian Doctrine after Repentance and Faith and subsequent to Baptism seems very
unless we do thus believe It were not suteable to the Truth and Holiness of the Divine Nature to void a Covenant so solemnly made and that in favour of wicked men who will not be reformed by it So Faith is the certain and necessary Mean of our Salvation and is so put by Christ since upon our having it we shall be saved as well as damned upon our not having it On the other hand the nature of a Ritual Action even when commanded is such that unless we could imagine that there is a Charm in it which is contrary to the Spirit and Genius of the Gospel which designs to save us by reforming our Natures we cannot think that there can be any thing in it that is of it self effectual as a Mean therefore it must only be considered as a Command that is given us which we are bound to obey if we acknowledge the Authority of the Command But this being an Action that is not always in our power but is to be done by another it were to put our Salvation or Damnation in the power of another to imagine that we cannot be saved without Baptism and therefore it is only a Precept which obliges us in order to our Salvation and our Saviour by leaving it out when he reversed the words saying only he that believeth not without adding and is not Baptized shall be damned does plainly insinuate that it is not a Mean but only a Precept in order to our Salvation As for the Ends and Purposes of Baptism St. Paul gives us two the one is that we are all baptized into onâ— body we are made members one of another 1 Cor. 12.13 We are admitted to the Soâ—â—â—ty of Christians and to all the Rights and Priviledges of that Body which is the Church And in order to this the outward action of Baptism when regularly gone about is sufficient We cannot see into the sincerity oâ— mens Hearts Outward Professions and regular Actions are all that fall under mens Observation and Judgment But a second End of Baptism is Internal and Spiritual Of this St. Paul speaks in very high terms when he says that God has saved us according to his mercy Tit. 3.5 by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost It were a strange perverting the design of these words to say that somewhat Spiritual is to be understood by this washing of regeneration and not Baptism when as to the word save that is here ascribed to it St. Peter gives that undeniably to Baptism and St. Paul elsewhere in two different places Rom. 6. Col. 2. makes our Baptism to represent our being dead to sin and buried with Christ and our being risen and quickned with him and made alive unto God which are words that do very plainly import Regeneration So that St. Paul must be understood to speak of Baptism in these words here then is the inward effect of Baptism It is a death to sin and a new life in Christ in imitation of him and in conformity to his Gospel So that here is very expresly delivered to us somewhat that rises far above the Badge of a Profession or a Mark of difference That does indeed belong to Baptism it makes us the visible Members of that one Body into which we are Baptized or admitted by Baptism but that which saves us in it which both deadens and quickens us must be a thing of another nature If Baptism were only the receiving us into the Society of Christians there were no need of saying I Baptize thee in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost It were more proper to say I Baptize thee in the Name or by the Authority of the Church Therefore these august words that were dictated by our Lord himself shew us that there is somewhat in it that is Internal which comes from God that it is an admitting men into somewhat that depends only on God and for the giving of which the authority can only be derived by him But after all this is not to be believed to be of the nature of a Charm as if the very act of Baptism carried always with it an inward Regeneration Here we must confess that very early some Doctrines arose upon Baptism that we cannot be determined by The words of our Saviour to Nicodemus were expounded so as to import the absolute necessity of Baptism in order to Salvation for it not being observed that the Dispensation of the Messias was meant by the Kingdom of God but it being taken to signifie Eternal Glory that expression of our Saviour's was understood to import this that no Man could be saved unless he were Baptized so it was believed to be simply necessary to Salvation A natural consequence that followed upon that was to allow all Persons leave to Baptize Clergy and Laity Meâ— and Women since it seemed necessary to suffer every Person to do that without which Salvation could not be had Upon this these hasty Baptisms were used without any special Sponsion on the part of those who desired it of which it may be reasonably doubted whether such a Baptism be true in which no Sponsion is made and this cannot be well answered but by saying that a general and an implied Sponsion is to be considered to be made by their Parents while they desire them to be Baptized Another Opinion that arose out of the former was the mixing of the outward and the inward effects of Baptism It being believed that every Person that was born of the Water was also born of the Spirit and that the renewing of the Holy Ghost did always accompany the washing of Regeneration And this obliged St. Austin as was formerly told to make that difference between the regenerate and the predestinated for he thought that all who were Baptized were also regenerated St. Peter has stated this so fully that if his words are well considered they will clear the whole matter He after he had set forth the miserable state in which Mankind was under the figure of the Deluge in which an Ark was prepared for Noah and his Family says upon that The like figure whereunto even Baptism doth also now save us 1 Pet. 3 21. Upon which he makes a short digression to explain the nature of Baptism not the putting away the filth of the flesh but the answer or the Demand and Interrogation of a good conscience towards God by the Resurrection of Iesus Christ who is gone into Heaven The meaning of all which is that Christ having risen again and having then had all power in heaven and in earth given to him he had put that vertue in Baptism that by it we are saved as in an Ark from that miserable state in which the world lies and in which it must perish But then he explains the way how it saves us that it is not as a Physical action as it washes away the filthiness of the flesh
and the full Evidence of an Object that is before us and that is clearly apprehended by us So there is a great difference to be made between our Reasonings upon Difficulties that we can neither understand nor resolve and our Reasonings upon clear Principles The one may be false and the other must be true We are sure that a Thing cannot be one and three in the same respect our Reason assures us of this and we do and must believe it but we know that in different respects the same thing may be one and three And since we cannot know all the possibilities of those different respects we must believe upon the Authority of God revealing it that the same thing is both one and three tho' if a Revelation should affirm that the same thing were one and three in the same respect we should not and indeed could not believe it This Argument deserves to be fully opened for we are sure either it is true or we cannot be sure that any thing else whatsoever is true In confirmation of this we ought also to consider the nature and ends of Miracles They put Nature out of its channel and reverse its fixed Laws and Motions and the end of God's giving Men a power to work them is that by them the World may be convinced that such Persons are Commissionated by him to deliver his Pleasure to them in some Particulars And as it could not become the Infinite Wisdom of the Great Creator to change the Order of Nature which is his own Workmanship upon slight Grounds so we cannot suppose that he should work a Chain of Extraordinary Miracles to no purpose It is not to give credit to a Revelation that he is making for the Senses do not perceive it on the contrary they do reject and contradict it and the Revelation instead of getting credit from it is loaded by it as introducing that which destroys all credit and certainty In other Miracles our Senses are appealed to but here they must be appealed from nor is there any Spiritual end served in working this Miracle for it is acknowledged that the effects of this Sacrament are given upon our due coming to it independent upon the Corporal Presence So that the Grace of the Sacrament does not always accompany it since unworthy Receivers tho' according to the Romish Doctrine they receive the true Body of Christ yet they do not receive Grace with it And the Grace that is given in it to the worthy Receivers stays with them after that by the destruction of the Species of the Bread and Wine the Body of Christ is withdrawn So that it is acknowledged that the Spiritual effect of the Sacrament does not depend upon the Corporal Presence Here then it is supposed that God is every day working a great many Miracles in a vast number of different Places and that of so extraordinary a nature that it must be confessed they are far beyond all the other Wonders even of Omnipotence and yet all this is to no end that we can apprehend neither to any sensible and visible end nor to any Internal and Spiritual one This must needs seem an amazing thing that God should work such a Miracle on our behalf and yet should not acquaint us with any end for which he should work it To conclude this whole Argument We have one great advantage in this matter that our Doctrine concerning the Sacrament of a Mystical Presence of Christ in the Symbols and of the effects of it on the worthy and unworthy Receivers is all acknowledged by the Church of Rome but they have added to this the Wonder of the Corporal Presence So that we need bring no Proofs to them at least for that which we teach concerning it since it is all confessed by them But as to that which they have added it is not necessary for us to give Proofs against it it is enough for us if we shew that all the Proofs that they bring for it are weak and unconcluding They must be very demonstrative if it is expected that upon the authority and evidence of them we should be bound to believe a thing which they themselves confess to be contrary both to our Sense and Reasons We cannot by the Laws of Reasoning be bound to give Arguments against it it is enough if we can shew that neither the words of the Institution nor the Discourse in the sixth of St. Iohn do necessarily infer it and if we shew that those Passages can well bear another sense which is agreeable both to the words themselves and to the style of the Scriptures and more particularly to the Phraseology to which the Iews were accustomed upon the occasion on which this was Instituted and if the words can well bear the Sense that we give them then the other advantages that are in it of its being simple and natural of its being suitable to the design of a Sacrament and of its having no hard consequences of any sort depending upon it then I say by all the Rules of expounding Scripture we do justly infer that our Sense of those words ought to be preferred This is according to a Rule that St. Augustin gives to judge what Expressions in Scripture are Figurative and what not Lib. 3. de Doct. Chris. c. 16. If any place seems to command a Crime or horrid Action it is Figurative And for an Instance of this he cites those Words Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man you have no life in you Which seems to command a Crime and an horrid Action and therefore it is a Figure commanding us to communicate in the Passion of our Lord and to lay up in our Memory with delight and profit that his Flesh was crucified and wounded for us And this was given for a Rule by the great Doctor of the Latin Church so the same Maxim had been delivered almost two Ages before him Hom. 7. in Levit. by the great Doctor of the Greek Church Origen who says that the understanding our Saviour's words of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood according to the Letter is a Letter that kills These Passages I cite by an Anticipation before I enter upon the enquiry into the Sense of the ancient Church concerning this Matter because they belong to the words of the Institution at least to the Discourse in St. Iohn Now if the Sense that we give to these Words is made good we need be at no more pains to prove that they are capable of no other Sense Since this must prove that to be the only true Sense of them So that for all the Arguments that have been brought by us against this Doctrine arising out of the Fruitfulness of the Matter we were not bound to use them For our Doctrine being confessed by them it wants no Proof and we cannot be bound to prove a Negative Therefore though the Copiousness of this Matter has afforded us many
is not done to this day in the Greek Church and of which there is no mention made by all those who writ of the Offices of the Church in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries so copiously this I say of their not adoring it is perhaps more than a presumption that this Doctrine was not then thought on But since it was established all the Old Forms and Rituals have been altered and the Adoring the Sacrament is now become the main act of Devotion and of Religious Worship among them One ancient Form is indeed still continued which is of the strongest kind of Presumptions that this Doctrine came in much later than some other Superstitions which we condemn in that Church In the Masses that are appointed on Saints-days there are some Collects in which it is said that the Sacrifice is offered up in honour to the Saint and it is prayed that it may become the more valuable and acceptable by the Merits and Intercessions of the Saint Now when a practice will well agree with one Opinion but not at all with another we have all possible reason to presume at least that at first it came in under that Opinion with which it will agree and not under another which cannot consist with it Our Opinion is that the Sacrament is a federal act of our Christianity in which we offer up our highest Devotions to God through Christ and receive the largest Returns from him It is indeed a Superstitious conceit to celebrate this to the honour of a Saint but howsoever upon the supposition of Saints hearing our Prayers and Interceding for us there is still good sense in this but if it is believed that Christ is Corporally present and that he is offered up in it it is against all Sense and it approaches to Blasphemy to do this to the Honour of a Saint and much more to desire that this which is of infinite value and is the foundation of all God's Blessings to us should receive any addition or increase in its value or acceptation from the Merits or Intercession of Saints So this tho' a late practice yet does fully evince that the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence was not yet thought on when it was first brought into the Office So far I have gone upon the Presumptions that may be offered to prove that this Doctrine was not known to the Ancients They are not only just and lawful Presumptions but they are so strong and violent that when they are well considered they force an assent to that which we infer from them I go next to the more plain and direct Proofs that we find of the Opinion of the Ancients in this Matter They call the Elements Bread and Wine after the Consecration Iustin Martyr calls them Bread and Wine Apolog. 2. and a nourishment which nourished He indeed says it is not common Bread and Wine which shews that he thought it was still so in Substance And he illustrates the Sanctification of the Elements by the Incarnation of Christ in which the human Nature did not lose or change its Substance by its Union with the Divine So the Bread and the Wine do not according to that Explanation lose their proper Substance when they become the Flesh and Blood of Christ. Irenoeus calls it that Bread over which thanks are given and says it is no more common Bread but the Eucharist consisting of two things an earthly and a heavenly Lib. 4. de haer c. 34. Lib. 1. adver Marcion c. 14. Lib. 3 adver Marcion c. 19. Tertullian arguing against the Marcionites who held two Gods and that the Creator of this Earth was the bad God but that Christ was contrary to him urges against them this that Christ made use of the Creatures And says he did not reject Bread by which he represents his own Body And in another Place he says Christ calls Bread his Body That from thence you may understand that he gave the figure of his Body to the Bread Origen says we eat of the Loaves that are set before us Lib. 8. contâ—a Celsum Which by prayer are become a certain holy body that sanctifies those who use them with a sound purpose St. Cyprian says Christ calls the Bread that was compounded of many grains Ep. â—6 Ep. 63. his Body And the Wine that is pressed out of many grapes his Blood to shew the Vnion of his People And in another Place writing against those who used only Water but no Wine in the Eucharist He says we cannot see the Blood by which we are Redeemed when Wine is not in the Chalice by which the Blood of Christ is shewed Epiphanius being to Prove that Man may be said to be made after the Image of God though he is not like him urges this In Anchoreto That the Bread is not like Christ neither in his invisible Deity nor in his Incarnate likeness for it is round and without feeling as to its vertue Gregory Nyssen says the Bread in the beginning is common In orat de baptis Christi but after the Mystery has consecrated it it is said to be and is the Body of Christ To this he compares the Sanctification of the mystical Oil of the Water in Baptism and the Stones of an Altar or Church dedicated to God St. Ambrose calls it still Bread De Benedict Patriarch c. 9. Hom. 24. in Ep. ad Cor. and says this Bread is made of the food of the Saints St. Chrysostom on these words the Bread that we break says What is the bread The Body of Christ What are they made to be who take it The Body of Christ. Which shews that he considered the Bread as being so the Body of Christ as the worthy Receivers became his Body which is done not by a change of Substance but by a Sanctification of their Natures St. Ierom says Christ took Bread Comm. in St. Matth. c. 26. that as Melchisedeck had in the figure offered Bread and Wine he might also represent the truth that is in Opposition to the Figure of his Body and Blood St. Augustin does very largely compare the Sacraments being called the Body and Blood of Christ Cit. apud Fulgent de Baptismo with those other Places in which the Church is called his Body and all Christians are his Members Which shews that he thought the One was to be understood Mystically as well as the other He calls the Eucharist frequently our daily Bread and the Sacrament of Bread and Wine All these call the Eucharist Bread and Wine in express Words But when they call it Christ's Body and Blood they call it so after a sort or that it is said to be or with some other mollifying Expression St. Augustin says this plainly Aug. Ep. 23. ad Bonifac Serm. 2. in Psal. 33. Chrys. Ep. ad Caesâ—r in coâ—ment in Ep. ad Gaâ— c. 5. after some sort the Sacrament of the Body of Christ is his Body and
whether formally or substantially or some other way Some Schoolmen thought that the Matter of Bread was destroyed but that the Form remained to be the Form of Christ's Body that was the Matter of it Others thought that the Matter of the Elements remained and that the Form only was destroyed But that to which many inclined was the Assumption of the Elements into an Union with the Body of Christ or a hypostatical Union of the eternal Word to them by which they became as truly a Body to Christ as that which he has in Heaven Yet it was not the same but a different Body Stephen Bishop of Autun was the First that fell on the Word of Transubstantiation Amalric in the beginning of the Thirteenth Century denied in express Words the corporal Presence De Sacram Altaris c. 13. He was condemned in the Fourth Council of the Lateran as an Heretick and his Body was ordered to be taken up and burnt And in opposition to him Transubstantiation was decreed Yet the Schoolmen continued to offer different Explanations of this for a great while after that But in conclusion all agreed to explain it as was formerly set forth It appears by the crude Way in which it was at first explained that it was a Novelty And that Men did not know how to mould and frame it but at last it was licked into shape the whole Philosophy being cast into such a Mould as agreed with it And therefore in the present Age in which that Philosophy has lost its Credit great Pains are taken to suppress the New and freer Way of Philosophy as that which cannot be so easily subdued to support this Doctrine as the Old one was And the Arts that those who go into the New Philosophy take to reconcile their Scheme to this Doctrine shew that there is nothing that subtile and unsincere Men will not venture on For since they make Extension to be of the Essence of Matter and think that Accidents are only the Modes of Matter which have no proper being of themselves it is evident that a Body cannot be without its Extension and that Accidents cannot subsist without their Subject so that this can be in no sort reconciled to Transubstantiation And therefore they would willingly avoid this special Manner of the Presence and only in General assert that Christ is corporally Present But the Decrees of the Lateran and Trent Councils make it evident that Transubstantiation is now a Doctrine that is bound upon them by the Authority of the Church and of Tradition And that they are as much bound to believe it as to believe the corporal Presence it self Thus the going off from the Simplicity in which Christ did deliver the Sacrament and in which the Church at first received it into some sublime Expressions about it led Men once out of the way and they still went farther and farther from it Pious and Rhetorical Figures pursued far by Men of heated Imaginations and of inflamed Affections were followed with Explanations invented by colder and more designing Men afterwards and so it increased till it grew by degrees to that which at last it settled on But after all if the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence had rested only in a Speculation tho' we should have judged those who held it to be very bad Philosophers and no good Criticks yet we could have endured it if it had rested there and had not gone on to be a matter of practice by the Adoration and Processions with every thing else of that kind which followed upon it for this corrupted the Worship The Lutherans believe a Consubstantiation and that both Christ's Body and Blood and the Substance of the Elements are together in the Sacrament That some explain by an Vbiquity which they think is communicated to the Human Nature of Christ by which his Body is every where as well as in the Sacrament Whereas others of them think that since the words of Christ must needs be true in a literal sense his Body and Blood is therefore in the Sacrament but in with and under the Bread and Wine All this we think is ill grounded and is neither agreeable to the words of the Institution nor to the nature of things A great deal of that which was formerly set forth in defence of our Doctrine falls likewise upon this The Vbiquity communicated to the Humane Nature as it seems a thing in it self impossible so it gives no more to the Sacrament than to every thing else Christ's Body may be said to be in every thing or rather every thing may be said to be his Body and Blood as well as the Elements in the Sacrament The impossibility of a Bodies being without extension or in more places at once lies against this as well as against Transubstantiation But yet after all this is only a Point of Speculation nothing follows upon it in practice no Adoration is offered to the Elements and therefore we judge that Speculative Opinions may be born with when they neither fall upon the Fundamentals of Christianity to give us false Ideas of the Essential parts of our Religion nor affect our practice and chiefly when the Worship of God is maintained in its Purity for which we see God has expressed so particular a concern giving it the Word which of all others raises in us the most sensible and the strongest Ideas calling it Iealousie that we reckon we ought to watch over this with much caution We can very well bear with some Opinions that we think ill grounded as long as they are only matters of Opinion and have no Influence neither on Mens Morals nor their Worship We still hold Communion with Bodies of Men that as we judge think wrong but yet do both live well and maintain the Purity of the Worship of God We know the great design of Religion is to govern Men's Lives and to give them right Ideas of God and of the Ways of Worshipping him All Opinions that do not break in upon these are things in which great forbearance is to be used large Allowances are to be made for Mens Notions in all other things and therefore we think that neither Consubstantiation nor Transubstantiation how ill grounded soever we take both to be ought to dissolve the Union and Communion of Churches But it is quite another thing if under either of these Opinions an Adoration of the Elements is taught and practised This we believe is plain Idolatry when an Insensible piece of Matter such as Bread and Wine has Divine Honours paid it when it is believed to be God when it is called God and is in all respects Worshipped with the same Adoration that is offered up to Almighty God This we think is gross Idolatry Many Writers of the Church of Rome have acknowledged that if Transubstantiation is not true their Worship is a strain of Idolatry beyond any that is practised among the most depraved of all the Heathens The only excuse that
in that time From the Institution and Command which are express and positive we go next to consider the nature of Sacramental Actions They have no virtue in them as Charms tyed either to Elements or to words they are only good because commanded A different state of things may indeed justifie an alteration as to Circumstances The danger of dipping in cold Climates may be a very good reason for changing the Form of Baptism to Sprinkling and if Climates were inhabited by Christians to which Wine could not be brought we should not doubt but that whensoever God makes a real necessity of departing from any Institution of his he does thereby allow of such a change as that necessity must draw after it So we do not condemn the License that is said to have been granted by Pope Innocent the Eighth to celebrate without Wine in Norway nor should we deny a Man the Sacrament who had a natural and unconquerable aversion to Wine or that Communicated being near his last Agonies and that should have the like aversion to either of the Elements When those things are real and not pretended Mercy is better then Sacrifice The punctual observance of a Sacramental Institution does only oblige us to the essential parts of it and in ordinary Cases The pretence of what may be done or has been done upon extraordinary occasions can never justifie the deliberate and unnecessary alteration of an essential part of the Sacrament The whole Institution shews very plainly that our Saviour meant that the Cup should be considered every whit as essential as Bread and therefore we cannot but conclude from the nature of things that since the Sacraments have only their effects from their Institution therefore so total a change of this Sacrament does plainly evacuate the Institution and by consequence destroy the effect of it All reasoning upon this Head is an arguing against the Institution as if Christ and his Apostles had not well enough considered it but that 1200 years after them a Consequence should be observed that till then had not been thought of which made it reasonable to alter the manner of it The Concomitance is the great thing that is here urged since it is believed that Christ is intirely under each of the Elements and therefore it is not necessary that both should be received because Christ is fully received in any one But this subsists on the Doctrine of Transubstantiation so if that is false then here upon a controverted opinion an uncontroverted piece of the Institution is altered And if Concomitance is a certain consequence of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation then it is a very strong Argument against the Antiquity of that Doctrine that the World was so long without the notion of Concomitance and therefore if Transubstantiation had been sooner received the Concomitance would have been more early observed The Institution of the Sacrament seems to be so laid down as rather to make us consider the Body and Blood as in a state of Separation than of Concomitance the Body being represented apart and the Blood apart and the Body as broken and the Blood as shed Therefore we consider the design of the Sacrament is to represent Christ to us as dead and in his Crucified but not in his Glorified state And if the opinion be true that the Glorified Bodies are of another Texture than that of flesh and Blood which seems to be very plainly asserted by St. Paul in a Discourse intended to describe the nature of the Glorified Bodies then this Theory of Concomitance will fail upon that account But whatsoever may be in that an Institution of Christ's must not be altered or violated upon the account of an Inference that is drawn to conclude it needless He who instituted it knew best what was most fitting and most reasonable and we must choose rather to acquiesce in his Commands than in our own reasonings If next to the Institution and the Theory that arises from the nature of a Sacrament we consider the practice of the Christian Church in all Ages there is not any one point in which the Tradition of the Church is more express and more universal than in this particular for above a thousand years after Christ. All the accounts that we have of the Antient Rituals both in Iustin Martyr Cyril of Ierusalem the Constitutions Apol. 2. Catech. Mist. 4ta Const. Apost l. 2. c. 57. Eccles. Hiera c. 3. and the pretended Areopagite do expresly mention both kinds as given separately in the Sacrament All the Antient Liturgies as well these that go under the Names of the Apostles as those which are ascribed to St. Basil and St. Chrysostom do mention this very expresly all the Offices of the Western Church both Roman and others the Missals of the latter Ages I mean down to the Twelfth Century even the Ordo Romanus believed by some to be a work of the Ninth and by others of the Eleventh Century are express in mentioning the distribution of both kinds All the Fathers without excepting one do speak of it very clearly as the universal practice of their Time They do not so much as give a hint of any difference about it So that from Ignatius down to Thomas Aquinas Aquin. Com. in 6. Johan v. 53. In Summa par 9. quast 80. art 12. there is not any one Writer that differs from the rest in this point and even Aquinas speaks of the taking away the Chalice as the practice only of some Churches other Writers of his time had not heard of any of these Churches for they speak of both kinds as the Universal practice But besides this general concurrence there are some Specialties in this matter in St. Cyprian's time some thought it was not necessary to use Wine in the Sacrament they therefore used Water only and were from thence called Aquarii It seems they found that their Morning Assemblies were smelt out by the Wine used in the Sacrament and Christians might be known by the smell of Wine that was still about them they therefore intended to avoid this and so they had no Wine among them which was a much weightier reason than that of the Wine sticking upon the Beards of the Laity Yet St. Cyprian condemned this very severely Cyp. Ep. 63. ad Cecil in a long Epistle writ upon that occasion He makes this the main Argument and goes over it frequently and that we ought to follow â—hrist and do what he did And he has those memorable words If it be not lawful to loose any one of the least Commands of Christ how much more is it unlawful to break so great and so weighty a one that does so very nearly relate to the Sacrament of our Lord's Passion and of our Redemption or by any Human Institution to change it into that which is quite different from the Divine Institution This is so full that we cannot express our selves more plainly Among the other Profanations of the Manicheans
particular or National Church hath Authority to ordain change and abolish Ceremonies or Rights of the Church ordained only by mens Authority so that all things be done to edifying THIS Article consists of two Branches The first is That the Church hath Power to appoint such Rites and Ceremonies as are not contrary to the Word of God and that private Persons are bound to conform themselves to their Orders The second is That it is not necessary that the whole Church should meet to determine such maters the Power of doing that being in every National Church which is fully empowr'd to take care of it self and no Rule made in such matters is to be held unalterable but may be changed upon occasion As to the first it hath been already considered when the first words of the Twentieth Article were explained There the Authority of the Church in matters indifferent was stated and proved It remains now only to prove That private Persons are bound to conform themselves to such Ceremonies especially when they are also enacted by the Civil Authority It is to be considered That the Christian Religion was chiefly designed to raise and purify the Nature of man and to make Human Society perfect now Brotherly Love and Charity does this more than any one Virtue whatsoever It raises a man to the Likeness of God it gives him a Divine and Heavenly Temper within himself and creates the tenderest Union and firmest Happiness possible among all the Societies of Men. Our Saviour has so enlarged the Obligation to it as to make it by the Extent he has given it a great and new Commandment by which all the World may be able to know and distinguish his Followers from the rest of Mankind And as all the Apostles insist much upon this in every one of their Epistles not excepting the shortest of them so St. Iohn who writ last of them has dwelt more fully upon it than upon any other Duty whatsoever Our Saviour did particularly intend that his Followers should be associated into one Body and join together in order to their keeping up and inflaming their mutual Love and therefore he delivered his Prayer to them all in the Plural to shew that he intended that they should use it in a Body He appointed Baptism as the way of receiving men into this Body and the Eucharist as a joint Memorial that the Body was to keep up of his Death For this end he appointed Pastors to teach and keep his Followers in a Body And in his last and longest Prayer to the Father he repeats this That they might be one That they might be kept in one Body and made perfect in one in five several Expressions Joh. 17.11 21 22 23. which shews both how necessary a part of his Religion he meant this should be and likewise intimates to us the danger that he foresaw of his Followers departing from it which made him intercede so earnestly for it One Expression that he has of this Union shews how entire and tender he intended that it should be for he prayed that the Union might be such as that between the Father and himself was The Apostles use the Figure of a Body frequently to express this Union than which nothing can be imagined that is more firmly knit together and in which all the parts do more tenderly sympathize with one another Upon all these considerations we may certainly gather That the dissolving this Union the dislocating this Body and the doing any thing that may extinguish the Love and Charity by which Christians are to be made so happy in themselves and so useful to one another and by which the Body of Christians grows much the firmer and stronger and shines more in the World that I say the doing this upon slight grounds must be a Sin of a very high nature Nothing can be a just Reason either to carry men to it or justify them in it but the imposing on them unlawful Terms of Communion for in that case it is certain that we must obey God rather than man that we must seek Truth and Peace together Acts 24.16 and that the rule of keeping a good Conscience in all things is laid thus To do it first towards God and then towards man So that a Schism that is occasioned by any Church's imposing unlawful Terms of Communion lies at their door who impose them and the Guilt is wholly theirs But without such a necessity it is certainly both in its own nature and in its consequences one of the greatest of Sins to create needless Disturbances in a Church and to give occasion to all that alienation of Mind all those rash Censures and unjust Judgments that do arise from such Divisions This receives a very great Aggravation if the Civil Authority has concurred by a Law to enjoyn the Observance of such indifferent things for to all their lawful Commands we owe an Obedience not only for fear but for conscience sake since the Authority of the Magistrate is chiefly to be imployed in such matters Rom. 13.3 As to things that are either commanded or forbidden of God the Magistrate has only the Execution of these in his hands so that in those his Laws are only the Sanctions and Penalties of the Laws of God The Subject-matter of his Authority is about things which are of their own nature indifferent but that may be made fit and proper means for the maintaining of Order Union and Decency in the Society And therefore such Laws as are made by him in those things do certainly bind the Conscience and oblige the Subjects to Obedience Disobedience does also give Scandal to the weak Scandal is a Block or Trap laid in the way of another by which he is made to stumble and fall So this Figure of giving Scandal or the laying a stumbling-block in our Brother's way is applied to our doing of such Actions as may prove the occasions of Sin to others Every man according to the influence that his Example or Authority may have over others who do too easily and implicitely follow him becomes thereby the more capable of giving them Scandal that is of drawing them after him to commit many Sins And since men are under Fetters according to the Persuasions that they have of things he who thinks a thing sinful does sin if he does it as long as he is under that apprehension because he deliberately ventures on that which he thinks offends God even while he doubts of it or makes a distinction between Meats for the word rendered doubts Rom. 14.23 signifies also the making a difference he is damned that is self-condemned as acting against his own sense of things if he does it Another ma n that has larger Thoughts and clearer Ideas may see that there is no sin in an Action about which others may be still in doubt and so upon his own account he may certainly do it But if he has reason to believe that his