we have in good degree answered before and there shewed how that the fore-knowledge in God of mans fixed estate whether by his own will electing as they say freely or Gods will determining which fore-knowledge is yielded to God by these Objectors doth oblige them as well as me to shew what profit it would be to man to move or endeavour towards Grace and Life when he is already determined only this is the difference between them The one seems to hold That God by an antecedent act drives the nail whereby man is immoveably fastned to one thing and the other holds That by a subsequent act of knowledge he clincheth it which man himself drove so that it can never stir St. Augustine Aug. Civ Dei l. 5. c. 5. confuting Tullies opinion of Fate impending over all things doth notwithstanding confess and affirm plainly They are much more to be tolerated who hold a Sydereal Fate than he that takes from God the praescience of things future for says he it is most apparent madness for to grant there is a God and to deny he foresees things future And they that put the cuestion to this issue have mended the matter very little or reliev'd themselves all necessity and certainty being a direct enemy to their design of setting man free to do what he list and change his fortune as we say at his pleasure I find in a very grave and learned Author a distinction which I find no where else designed to ease this doubt between Inevitable and Infallible which in truth are not distinct and therefore he is constrained contrary to the agreed way of speech to make Infallible the same with Necessary whereas the distinction is between Necessity and Infallibility or Inevitability which is the very same For what is infallible but that whose act or object shall have a certain event and this event not to be avoided or declined is called Inevitable But whether the Necessity of Causes be such that this event must in nature succeéd is the question and that notwithstanding the Inevitableness or Infallibility of the event there may not be free motions in the Cause tending to that event So that for instance a man may freely choose and will to do that which he certainly shall choose and consequently be properly and truly said to be author of the same be it his damnation or salvation But you will say If Gods Preterition be such that a man is unable to move himself to saving good without it then must he infallibly fall into sin and necessarily and after this all counsels and commâ—nations and exhortations come to nothing and are in vain Nay unless there be unrighteousness with God man cannot be judged for not doing that which he cannot do is not in his power To this St. Augustines Answer is this Because the whole Mass was Aug. Epist 105 sixte damned deservedly in Adam God repays its deserved reproach and bestows an undeserved honour by Grace not by any prerogative of merit not by necessity of Fate not by the unsteadiness of fortune but by the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God which the Aposile doth not open but admires concealed crying out O the depth of the wisdom c. But if this yet doth not absolutely satisfie as I know it doth not some because say they it is to delude man to offer that and exhort to that which it is impossible to attain to so that though God by his absolute and divine Prerogative might have deserted man yet it stands not with his natural equity or simplicity towards his Creature to exhort and threaten when there is such inevitable necessity upon him and condemn him for not doing that which he knows he cannot do without him refusing effectually to assist him I answer It might very well call in question the fair dealing of God towards his Creature if so be he should make an act for him after he was disabled to observe and perform the same not assisting him to the performance of his will But God doth not so for though the Command stands in force against him yet it was not prepared for him in his destitute condition and no reason that Gods right of ruling should change with the vanity of the Creature It suffices that once it was proportionable to him and that the impotency now pleaded is owing to himself and that Gods Laws now are rather recited and propounded to him than made for him in the condition he is in But secondly Gods Commands indeed though but urged anew should be ludicrous and in vain did they totally miss of their ends in being thus repeated and inculcated if they had no success But so it is not as though the Word of God had taken no effect For they are Rom. 9. 6. not all Israel wh are of Israel as St. Paul hath it that is the case is not the same with all men For as St. Paul afterwards What then Israel Rom. 11. 7. hath not obtained that which he seeketh for but the election hath obtained it and the rest were blinded It sufficiently answers the purpose of God in giving his Law and admonishing and threatning and promising thereupon that it obtaineth its ends upon the election For how many things else might we accuse God and Nature for sending us when they do no good at all that we can perceive but rather mischiefs As deluges of waters in a wet time and in droughts great showers of rain emptying themselves into the Sea or sandy deserts from whence nothing springs answerable to such divine bounty But we are taught that God and Nature made things and ordained them in their kind useful for the Universe and never by a particular purpose that every single act or part should have the same visible and proportionable effect that the whole hath And so in the dispensations of his spiritual Graces it suffices to acquit and justifie divine providence that they have their due ends though not the same that man may expect who certainly would never have it rain might he order matters and choose but at such times and in such places as he thinks fit and then alwayes Again It would go harder against this opinion if so be that the only end why God published his Word and gave his Laws weâ—e to convert men that they might be saved This is indeed a principal but not the only intent God hath but the publication of Gods holiness and justice and righteousness and mercy and the like glorious attributes in which publication God is much more known admired and glorified by wicked men and reprobates than otherwise though they oppose and dislike the same even against their own wills giving such like glory to God on earth as they shall in Hell hereafter And we know that no accession of real good being possible to be made to God the outward manifestation is of principal concernment Last of all Could there be an infallible
bear the place of the Example 27. It may be granted that Images may be worshipped C. 23. improperly and by accident with the same kind of worship C. 24. with which the Exemplar but not for their own sakes and properly and therefore Latria is not properly and for themselves to be given for them 28. A Vow is an Act of Religion due to God only like L. 3. c. 9. De cultu sanctor as an Oath and Sacrifice as appears from the Scriptures whose Vowes are constantly said to be made to God Yet it is most certain that in some manner Vowes may be made to Saints 29. It is not probable that Christ in these words this is De Eucharist l. 1. c. 9. my Body would speak figuratively 30. One Body may be in divers places at once L. 3. c. 3. 31. That the Elements in the Eucharist are turned into L. 3. per. tot Christs Body 32. It is a truth necessary to be believed that whole L. 4. c. 21. 22. Christ is in the kind of Bread and whole Christ is in the kind of Wine 33. No more Grace is contain'd in one kind then in C. 23. both 34. Worshipping the Host excuses from Idolatry because C. 29. they believe there is no Bread remaining and no Catholick holds that Divine Worship is to be given to Bread 35. Our Sacrifice is truly and properly called a Sacrifice L. 2. de missa c. 2. no less than the ancient Sacrifices as is shown in the former Book 36. The Rite of Reconciling Sinners after Baptism which De Paenit lib. consists of Repentance discovered by external signs and the word of Absolution Catholicks affirm to be a true and proper Sacrament 37. There is a treasure of superfluous Merits in the Church De Indulg l. c. 2 3 11. which may by the Pope be applyed to the benefit of other persons by Indulgences 38. The Catholick Church doth openly affirm Extream Unction De Extrem Unct. c. 1. to be truly and properly a Sacrament 39. Orders are a Sacrament truly and properly so called De Ord. c. 1. 40. Matrimony of Believers is a proper Sacrament De Matrim c. 1. To these innumerable other might be added of strange nature to the Word of God and belief and practise of the ancient Church but these are more then sufficient to confront those vainly objected to us by them whereof some are most false others most true others false or true as they may be taken And now the manner of proceeding in this Discourse being propounded to be touched in the second place here must not be forgotten In which I confess I have not a little varied from my first intention and resolution which were in a plain compendious way to set down the Principal Doctrine of Faith and Worship agreeable to God's Holy Word and to the mind of the best Ancient Churches as well as our Own and that without Passion or particular Reflexions on any Party or Person by name knowing that of Synesius to be most true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Synes Ep 57. That Soul which would be a Vessel to receive God must be void of all Passions But finding some things both approved and disproved by me would scarce be credited without such instances I held my self obliged to forsake that resolution in the process of my Discourse and a little in the beginning where I was forced by ill Paper and Ink to write somewhat over the second time to make it legible Otherwise I determined to avoid Names and Testimonies of Authors after the manner of them who before me have written Institutions and Sums of this nature Yet have I not taken upon me in an imperious way to multiply Canons and Axioms and impose them with expectation of greater faith in them then such men will allow to the Decrees of the Holy Councils so called And this with a perswasion I know not how or why wrought into credulous persons that now-a-dayes only Scripture is understood and they only speak Scripture but others humane Inventions Which most bold demand 't is a wonder how many prone naturally to superstitious novelties do without the least suspicion of vanity and falsity readily receive for a most certain and fundamental Truth but is indeed a fundamental Error and the root of all Heresie towards the Faith and of all Schism towards the Church I remember how some years since enquiring of one very near to me what Divinity his Tutor grounded him in he answered me Wollebius And farther inquiring what Wollebius said of a certain point he replyed as he there found it against which when I put in my exception he wondered at me and indeavored to silence me by telling me It was a Canon I have not here proceeded so Canonically as others nor yet so Polemically but considering according to St. Johns distinction that there are Children in Christ 1 John 2. 13. and Young men and Old men commonly call'd Incipientes Prosicientes and perfecti i. e. Beginners Proficients and Perfect men I have here pitched upon the mean sort of these to whom to direct my Labors knowing there were but too many Catechises amongst us for the former and too few Treatises or none for the second And that to write Polemically for the satisfaction of the third required another more proper language and a more Scholastical Person and much more large Volumes then this one though this Book hath increased under my hands well nigh thrice as much as I at first intended And in truth it is to be lamented and blushed at that none of the Learned men of our Church have yet appeared in so noble and necessary a Work as the fuller and more entire managing of the Elenctical part of Divinity to the preventing daily mischiefs arising from the necessity of repairing to our Enemies of both sides to perfect Theological Studies without the due ballance on our side to prevent prejudice I hope God will stir up the spirits of some to set their hands to and enable them to go through so good a Work Voetius of Utrecht than whom I think none of this Age hath Certum autorem ejus qui solidè compendiosè accommodatè ad nestra tempora hee â—gat hâ—ctenus non vidi expectandum est ergo c. Voetius Bibl. l. 2. c. 5. been acquainted with more modern Authors much complains for want of some compendious Body of Elenctical Divinitie which to that day he had not seen And therefore expected that long defired Piece of Famous Altingius should at length come forth which was only in the hands of his Scholars in writing Yet I find this Work of Henricus Altingius to have been published the same year with Voetius his Bibliotheca viz. Anno 1654. and called Theologia Elenctica Nova viz. New Elenctical Divinitie which in truth hath not its name New for nothing in that manner of handling Divinity as none before
private reason perswade him That he hath found out the truth and yet at the same time assure him That he is no less fallible than another man and therefore may possibly embrace and hug a false conception with as much fondness as a true and withal That private Judgements are not in themselves so safe as publique nor single as many What violence were this to his reason nay how much more rational than the first simple Act to comply with the Reason of others whom reason also requires to listen to and obey and Scripture much more From hence we may rightly conclude against both extremes in these days who yet agree in this very ill-grounded opinion That there must be an Infallible Director or Judge or we cannot submit to them in matters of Faith and our Salvation This is absolutely untrue both in humane and divine matters Who sees not indeed that it were to be wished for and above all things desired Who sees not the great inconvenience for want of such a standard of opinions as this But can we rationally conclude therefore that so it is Or hath God or ought he of his necessary goodness and wisdom as some have ventured to affirm to grant all things that are infallibly good for man Is it not sufficient that a fair though not infallible way is opened to attain the truth here and bliss hereafter but every one must find it Is it little or no absurditie That infinite never come to means of truth and so great that many who enjoy them do not receive the benefit by them Again Are good manners and virtues no less essential to Salvation than Faith and is there no infallible Judge of manners Is there no infallible Casuist And must there be of points of Faith How many have the infallible Rule of holy Life and yet mistake either in the sense or application of it so far as to perish in unknown Sins And yet none have to prevent that great and common evil call'd for an infallible Censour whose determinations might settle doubtful consciences in greatest safety and silence all apologies which are wont to be made for our sins and errors and so bring us nec essarily to truth or leave us under self and affected condemnation But The Ground of this mistake being farther searched into will be found very weak and fallacious An infallible Faith say they must have an infallible Judge And of these some assume thus There is no man infallible Therefore no man can be Judge of Faith Others assume thus But there is and must be an infallible Faith Therefore there must be an infallible Judge So that we see both would have infallible Judges but differ only in their choice of them For The former would have the Scriptures Judge and Rule which is very honest but very simple The later would have some external Judge which hath much more of reason in it And fails only in the choice of this Judge or in the description of him For There is nothing more unreasonable than to ordain that which is under debate to be Judge of it self besides the great absurdity of confounding the Rule or Law and the Interpreter and Judge And There is nothing more fallacious than to confound Causes and occasions together as the later opinion doth For If the Church or whatever Judge may be supposed were the true direct cause of our Faith then indeed it would necessarily follow That our Faith could no wayes be infallible unless the Judge were also infallible the effect not exceeding the cause nor the Conclusion the Premises or propositions from whence it was deduced But Because the Church is only on Occasion or a Cause without which we should neither believe the Scriptures in general to be the Word of God nor any sentence to be duly drawn from the same there is no necessity at all of such a consequence For The Infallibility now spoken of is either the thing believed which is the Word of God of which the Church I hope is no Cause or the Grace of Faith excited and exercised by us through the Spirit of Grace in us the mynistery of the Church serving thereunto acording to St. Paul saying We therefore as workers together with 2 Cor. 6. 1. him beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain For as in things natural He that applies Actives to Passives that is the Cause proper to the matter about which the Action is is not the proper or natural cause of the Effect but the occasion only yet is said vulgarly so to be as when a man applies fire to combustible matter he may though improperly be said to burn it when it is the fire and not he that burns it So the Church or Judge of Scriptures sense applying the same to a capable subject the effect is true and infallible Faith but it is not the effect of the Church or instrument or mean rather but of the Holy Spirit of Grace which taketh occasion from thence to produce Faith and that infallible For Were this Infallibility we now speak of the Churches then when ever the Church should so propound and urge points of Faith they must needs have an effect in the Soul For if they say The Church teaches in an humane way they say she teaches in a fallible way which overthrows all And from this is cleared that difficulty which opposeth a Judge of Scripture and Faith because none could be found infallible For not making the Judge the cause of Faith but occasion he may be necessarily required to Faith God who is the only principal cause with his holy word seldom or never concurring without those outward means And therefore though I readily enough grant That the Scriptures are so plainly written that a single simple person wanting greater helps to attain to the abstruser sence of them and using his honest and simple endeavour may easily find so much of the Rule of Faith and holy Life as to be saved by them yet I cannot say the same of any men who presuming on Gods power against his promise which includeth the use of outward meanes or mistaking his promise for absolute when it is conditional shall look no farther than their own wits shall lead them Now The outward meanes to which God hath annexed his promise of Grace may be these First That which we have here handled a general and sober submission to the Guides of our youth and our spiritual Fathers and Pastors in Christ which to forsake is the part of a wanton and fornicating Soul according to Solomon This common Reason and nature it self seem to require of all Prov. 2. 17. under Autority by the disposition of Almighty God That they in the first place hearken unto the voice and explication of the Church wherein they are educated until such time as a greater manifestation of truth shall withdraw them unwillingly from the same For so long as Senses are equally probable on both
Apostolical that which now is so reputed and that which any mans memory might assure him was so in very deed the Apostles Doctrine This controversie then seems to come to this issue First in Reason Whether Oral and Memorial Tradition can be so secure as Scriptural The resolution of which doubt almost every man may make sufficiently of himself and hath been competently treated of above The other Question is about matter of Fact Whether the Church of God did ever so unanimously agree in the necessity validity or Sacredness of any Traditions not contained in the written Word of God as to equal them with this This we absolutely deny And upon the account of Tradition it self There being no such Tradition to be found in all the Records of the Church that Tradition is so highly to be valued Again there appearing consent sufficient in the Church for many ages That as to the Material parts of Christian doctrine the Scriptures do sufficiently instruct us as a Rule and Law of believing For If the Law of Moses as a Law was sufficient before the Prophets added to it for the People of God under that Dispensation And the Law and the Prophets were still sufficient till John and Christ is to believed That the Law of Christians delivered by Christs appointment should fall short of the same ends now It is truly affirmed That what St. Paul writeth in commendation of Scripture was intended chiefly if not only of the books of the Old Testament viz. That they were able to make a man wise unto Salvation through Faith that is in Christ Jesus and All Scripture is given by Inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for correction for instruction in Righteousness That the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works Now if the Scriptures of the Old Testamant were sufficient to bring a man to the Faith of Christ and to instruct him to Salvation can any man reasonably doubt Whether the much clearer and fuller manifestation of the Doctrine of Christ and Salvation by the books of the New Testament are sufficient to the same end joyned to the obscurer of the Old I know there are that say expresly No and endeavour to make it good by several instances very material to Faith and yet not expressed in Scripture and yet again of force to be believed by all that would be good Christians As the Articles of the Trinity and of Christs Person consisting of humane and divine nature Of his being born of the blessed Virgin Some other are added hereunto but they are either such as are neither favoured by Scripture nor good Tradition as Invocation of Saints Purgatory c. or have only a general warrant from Scripture and Tradition and such are they which are of a mutable nature Rites and Ceremonies of the Church which ought not when confirmed by long consent and use in the Church lightly to be refused and cast off so when any Church having power over its own body shall think fit to alter is that Church to be refused as a true Church by others But to the first of these we stick not openly to profess That it suffices to believe so much only as is really contained in and soberly deducible from the Scriptures taking these articles of Faith separately from certain accessory obligations of all good Christians For instance It is not required to believe the doctrine now established in the Catholick Church concerning the Trinity in the forms at present received from the nature of the Articles themselves which may with safety sufficient be assented to as they are simply found in Scripture yet considering That Hereticks have stirred up most dangerous and sacrilegious doubts to the obviating them and securing the main stake which would be endangered if farther explications were not found out and imposed it is needful to receive them also or at least not to oppose and declare against them For 't is very well known there passed some ages before the Articles of the Trinity of Persons were so much stood on or so well setled as now they are and that Tradition was as much to seek as the written Word of God to bring things to that pass they now are in And for Christ's manner of birth I know no such Tradition either written or unwritten which required antiently any more than to believe barely That the eternal Son of God became man and was incarnate and born of a woman who was a pure Virgin but probable circumstances and reverence to the high Mystery of Christs Person obliged to the honorary part of that Article And the like answer may be made to another instance about Paedobaptism which some as occasion offers will say is required in Scripture and again it serving at other times their turn better to deny Bellarmin it will hold the contrary For Baptism of Infants as Infants is not indeed required by Scripture but as persons saveable it is the rule general in Scripture running thus Except a man be born of water and the Holy John 3. 5. Ghost he cannot be saved It is not said unless a man be born by water while he is an infant or Child but absolutely For had it been so expressed just doubt might have been made whether a man baptized at his full age were effectually baptized Neither is Baptism appointed signally and precisely for men in years though none but such at the first preaching of the Gospel who could profess their Faith could be capable of it but indefinitely is it spoken without any limitation and therefore sufficiently implied Other instances against the plenitude of Scripture as a Rule of Faith have either already been touched as that which tells us It is nowhere contained in Scripture that the Scriptures are the word of God neither can it be proved by it for no more can it be demonstrated by Tradition or may be easily brought to the same end To conclude this point having shewed what we mean by Tradition and what it serveth not to it were unreasonable to leave it slurr'd so and not to give it its due in shewing the great use thereof in the Church of Christ For however we make it not supream nor coequal with the written word of God it may without any offence or invasion of Divine Right or Autoritie claim the next place to it and as Joseph to Pharaoh be greater then all the the people besides but inferiour to Pharaoh in the Throne Of God it is said Thou satest in the Throne judging right God now judges by his Word Psalm 9. 4. written as by a Law and Rule of faith as is shewed Yet I see no reason for the injudicious zeal and reverence of such who think they cannot give enough unto the Scriptures unless in word and pretence for t is no more themselves constantly acting contrarie to their profession they ascribe all the Form of Judging unto the Scriptures and all things determinable to their
distinct from Divine and Justifying Faith Of Faith Explicit and Implicit HAving thus spoken of the Rule of Christian Faith and its Auxiliary Tradition we are now to proceed to the Nature and Acts the Effects Subject and Object of it For as all Christian Religion is summed up in one Notion of Christian Faith so all Faith may be reduced unto the foresaid Heads Faith taken in its greatest extent containeth as well Humane as Divine And may be defined A firm assent of the mind to a thing reported And there are two things which principally incline the mind to believe The Evidence of the thing offered to the understanding or the Fidelity and Veracity of him that so delivers any thing unto us For if the thing be Fides est donum divinitùs infusum menti hominis quae citra ullam haesitantiam credit esse verissima quaecunque nobis Deus per utrumque Testtradidit ac promisit Erasm in Symbolum apparent in it self to our reasons or senses we presently believe it And if the thing be obscure and difficult to be discerned by us yet if we stand assured of the faithfulness of him that so reports it to us and his wisdom we yield assent thereunto But Faith properly Divine hath a twofold fountain so constituting and denominating it The Matter believed which is not common nor natural but spiritual and heavenly But more especially that Faith is Divine which is not produced in the soul of Man upon any natural reasons necessarily inferring the same but upon a superior motive inducing unto it that is Autoritie divine and because it hath declared and revealed so much unto us as St. Peter believing Christ to be the Son of God it is said Flesh and Boood hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in heaven This Mat. 16. 17. was a divine Faith upon a double respect 1. by reason of the object Christ a divine person 2. by reason of the Cause God by whose power he believed the same it not being in the power of flesh and blood any natural reason to convince the judgement so far as absolutely to believe That Christ was so the Son of God so that to be revealed is that which makes the Faith properly divine and not the divine object or thing believed For as it hath been observed by others any thing natural and which by natural reason may be demonstrated and so must be believed by a natural Faith being also commended unto us upon divine autority or revelation may be also believed by a divine Faith That there is an invisible Deity is clearly demonstrable from the visible things of this World and accordingly may and ought to be believed upon the warrant of natural reason it self as St. Paul teacheth us saying The Invisible things of him from the Creation of the Rom. 1. 20. world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse That is If God had not revealed all this yet men ought to believe this out of sense and reason but this hinders not but this very thing should become an article of our Creed also and so because it is revealed Form in us a divine Faith But we must be aware of an ambiguity in Revelation which may mislead us For sometimes Revelation is used for the thing revealed And sometimes for the Act Revealing that which we call now The Revelation of St John and in truth all Scriptures as we have them now are the things God did reveal unto his servants but the Act whereby they were revealed or the Act revealing this to them ended with the persons receiving them And this is no superfluous or curious observation because of a received maxim in the Schools That without a supernatural act we cannot give due assent unto a supernatural object nor believe truths revealed by God without a super added aid of Grace illuminating and inclining the mind to assent thereto From whence doth follow That of all divine Faith is most properly if not only divine which doth believe that such things are Revealed of God and not That which supposes them to have been revealed by God and that he said so as is expressed unto us doth believe For this latter even any natural man and greatest infidel in the world would believe who believes there is a God it being included and implied in the very notion of a Deity that God cannot lie or deceive or affirm a thing to be which is not But the Christian Faith mounts much higher then Heathens and by the Grace of God believes that God hath Revealed such things wherein consists his Christian Faith The first thing then a true believer indeed must believe is That the Scriptures are the word of God and this as it is the most fundamental so is it most difficult of all to one not educated in the Faith of Christians because it neither can be proved by Scripture nor whatevermen who promise nothing less in their presumptuous methods then clear demonstrations may say and argue by Tradition The Scriptures though not testimonie of it self yet matter and manner may induce and Tradition fortifie that but the Crown of all true Christian Faith must be set on by Gods Grace A Second thing in order is when we believe that God hath spoken such things that we believe the things themselves so delivered to us of God For though as is said any rational heathen may well do this yet many a Christian doth it not For The foo◠not in knowledge so much as practise 〈◊〉 14. ◠◠Ti◠◠9. hath said in his heart there is no God saith the Psalmist and St. Paul that many out of an evil conscience have made Shipwrack of their Faith which really once they had A third degree of Christian Faith is When not onely we believe that God hath revealed his Law unto us and what he hath so revealed to be most faithful true and holy but obey the same For in Scripture Faith is taken for Obedience and Obedience for Faith as in the famous instance of Abraham who is said to believe God and that his Faith was counted for Righteousness And why is Abraham said to believe God so signally Because he was perswaded that God bade him offer up his Son unto him No but because he did it by Faith as is witnessed in the Epistle to the Hebrews And this acceptation of Faith is much confirmed by the contrary Heb. 11. 17. speech of Scripture in whose sense they who obey not God are commonly said not to believe him as in the Book of Deuteronomie Deut. 9. 23. Likewise when the Lord sent unto you from Kadesh-Barnea saying Go up and possess the Land which I have given you then ye rebelled against the Commandement of the Lord your God and believed him not nor hearkened unto his voice And therefore in the Acts of the Apostles it is said
nor too narrow and rigorous The Reason hereof may be first taken from the name which imports such 〈◊〉 dictae Gâ—â—â—â— voce ex interpretatieâ—â— electionas quâ— quis sive ad instituendas suâ—cipiendas utitur c. Tertullianus Praescript cap. 6. Vide 〈◊〉 Hispalens Origin lib. â—3 a singularity of choice and addiction to an opinion which may as well be true as false good as evil Thus the ancient Heathens as well Roman as Grecian used the word and so did the Christians too for some hundred years after Christ And when it began to be restrain'd to the evil part a second thing made the notion of it no less difficult and obscure viz. the largeness of it for those errors which were not material or of any great consequence to the Christian Faith or Church as for to stigmatize them which were of note and moment in the same And a third thing obscuring the true nature is the manner of asserting and maintaining great as well as small Errours The word Heresie generally signifies any opinion either good or bad More especially it signifies an Errour in Religion Thus Ecclesiastical Writers take it Yet most properly it is an Errour in the Foundation of Christian Religion taught and defended with obstinacy Perkins on Galat. 5. v. 20. To understand this we must know how that a twofold Criminalness in Heresie according to the two more essential parts constituting it according to opinions generally received The one is called the formal part which relates to the manner of holding such opinions as are erroneous Inter Haereticâ—s non sunt deputandi qui aut ab Ecclesiasticis seducti sunt à parentibus in errorem lapsi nullà pertinaci animâ—sitate defendunt quaerunt autem 〈◊〉 solicitudine veritatem corrigi parati quum invenerint Augustin Epist 168. For lighter errours against the Doctrine of the Scriptures and peace of the Church being maintained with obstinacy and against due proposal of the truth do characterize and constitute an Heretick The other is the material part namely That about which men do err in Faith And this hath a peculiar difficulty in it arising from the undetermined points of Faith and I think a moral impossibility as they call it to define what are those so necessary points of Faith to be believed the denyal where of makes an Heretick This is thought generally to be sufficiently explained in the Creeds of the Church by some But others find many considerable points not therein comprehended unless by such a reduction whereby any thing almost may be compelled to come under anothers wing There are therefore that hold that the decrees and resolutions of Counsels fully and only can satisfie this scrupulousness and no question but all these conduce very much to the acquiring a settled Judgment in matters of Faith and espeially this latter against which notwithstanding there may be made these following exceptions First That all things defined by Councels and that with the affixing of Anathema's are confessedly not of Faith but of Rites and Order also Secondly That those Canons which are of Faith are so variously and miserably handled and distracted by Learned Interpreters that a sober well-meaning Christian may without any heretical pravity of mind fall involuntarily into a reputed Heresie Thirdly That contrary things have sometimes been determined in several ages From all which it is manifest That it is much more easie to define Heresie then an Heretick because there is an ingredient of personal aversion from or opposition to the Truth which can scarce be discovered but in the abstract Heresie may properly enough be defined to be not an opinion but a False Proposition contrary to the Catholick Faith And if it be thus uncertain and obscure what Heresie is through so many various kinds and degrees thereof answerable to the several branches therefore it cannot be easie to prove all Heresie in the common notion as opposite to Faith to be destructive to Faith That it destroyes that Part of Faith against which it is bent is undeniable but that any particular Errour should destroy the whole any farther than it is opposite to the whole Body of Faith is incredible Some Heresies pluck up the Tree of Life Faith by the roots some cut it down to the root some lop off the arms some lesser branches and some which have been reputed Heresies do only brush and beat off the leaves and ornaments An example of the former is given by St. Paul to the Corinthians some of whom it should seem denied the Resurrection in general and by necessary implication of Christ who was as dead as any mortal man else But if there be no resurrection 1 Cor. 15. 13 14. of the dead then is Christ not risen And if Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain It were to no purpose to believe any point in Christian Religion dis-believing that of the resurrection And in short to deny any thing expressed or necessarily and immediately included in the form of words used in Baptism is to root up all our Creed and render all our Faith vain in other Articles An instance of the second sort of Heresie may be to deny the Mediation of Christ by way of satisfaction for us restraining the intercession of him to that supposed one now in Heaven Of the third may be Errours about Free-will and affirming a positive necessity to commit sin against God Of the denyal of the efficacy of Good works done in Christ towards our salvation and the affirming a meritoriousness in them towards the same Of the last the affirming it unlawful to use any Ceremonies in Gods service but what are specially commanded in his word And from hence it seemeth necessary to distinguish Heresies and Hereticks into Formal or direct and Virtual and real A Formal Heresie is Propositio sapiens haeresim est ex cujus concessione co-assumpto aliquo quod non potest rationabiliter negari sequitur â—aeresis in fide vt siquis diceret quod beatus Gregorius non fuisset Papa Gerson de necessitate Salutis that which is expresly maintained and asserted in tearms but denied in the inference and consequence whichyet certainly and necessarily follows upon such positions as supposing a man should with the Monothelites of old affirm that Christ had but one Will. This is a formal and direct Heresie but if as it is possible the same person should deny the true consequence hereof viz. That he consisted but of one Nature He were not a formal Heretick in this latter because though this Errour doth certainly arise from the former yet all Heresies being erroneous apprehensions and affections of the mind this Errour being not received into his mind doth not so affect him as to denominate him formally an Heretick Yet must he answer for Heresie in his account before God because the movers and promoters of such shall no more escape then he shall from the punishment of
in this case no power at all is given or can be given nor in truth ought to be taken away as the manner is from Princes entring through the populacie into the Throne For God only is the proper and immediate Author of Right and Power which he hath inserted into Parents over their Children and hath proportionably prescribed to Kings and Princes without ever advising with the People or expecting their consent or confirmation This the Scripture it self calls Jus Imperii or 1 Sam. 8. 9. lefs significantly with us The Manner of the King Reason calls the same Justice which never takes its measure from earth originally but from heaven not from the People but from God And that Similitude found in the works of a very judicious and learned man to shew the Prophets right to institute at first Kings from their right to restore Kingly Power lapsed by reason of the visible Heir to it ceasing viz. That as the Lord of a Mannour resuming the estate of a Tenant whose legal Heirs are unknown to himself doth argue that it first proceeded from him so the right of the People to constitute a Prince over them upon a total cessation of legal Pretenders do imply an original right to be in the People of founding Monarchs doth to my apprehension infer the contrary being better stated For it sheweth no more than this That in truth God being the true and proper Lord of the Mannour this dominion is devolved unto him and not to the People And that even in such cases a tacit hand of God is seen by many eminent Instances in Histories designing the Person receiving that Rule the People being but so many Stewards of Gods Court in admitting a new Tenant to Kingly Power For by me saith the Prov. 8. 15. Dan. 2. 23 â—â—testas 〈◊〉 est apud Electores ergo nec ab ipsis datur sed ab ipsis tamen certae personae applicatur Grotius De Imperio Summarum Potestat cap. 10. §. 2. Idem de Jure Bel. Pa. lib. 3. c. 3. § 8. 1. Simpliciter esse verum negat Populum creare Magistratus Scripture Kings reign and Princes decree Justice And the like doth Daniel assert to God He changeth the times and seasons he removeth Kings and setteth up Kings he giveth wisdome unto the wise and knowledge c. The most therefore that the People do when they act most in creating Kings is under God to apply the Person to the Place or Office of Governing And therefore in the second place it is no better than Sacrilegiously done by them to mutilate that Power which God hath given by the necessary and common Laws of Natural Justice to Supream Rulers and transfer of it to themselves as it would be for a Guardian to an Orphans estate to pare and pill it and bestow it on himself although perhaps out of terrour the consent of the party so defrauded be obtained lest he should loose all Yet doth not all this contradict the general practise of Subjects who having long continued under equal and reasonable Laws explaining and particularly applying the common Supream Law of Justice to a State or People do present such Rules of Regiment to their future Prince for his confirmation unless they be so far urged on him who hath a Personal Right by Birth to succeed in the Throne as to deny absolutely to submit to him without such conditions yielded unto Indeed could they prove the Right of Choice of the Person to be the same with the Power belonging to the Place they might mangle alterate and adulterate it as they pleased For 't is a Law that a man free from Rulers as these are supposed now to be may do what he will with his own and choose whether he will part with any of it or not and what and how much he will give away but it not being so and a duty lying upon him of being Just He that as our Saviour saith is unjust in the Luke 16. 10. least is unjust also in much But thirdly to shew that there can neither be Divine nor Natural Right in the People to choose or create Governours and much less Government the impossibility of the real and just execution of this power abundantly sufficeth For if men as some have been so blind and bold to affirm were naturally free untill they brought this subjection upon themselves Then first this were general and without exceptions or but partial and with exceptions If this latter be true and some were naturally subject This will destroy the principal dogme it self and open a way to the unanswerable reasons against natural freedom For that which we have by nature we have in common and without exception of the thing it self though peradventure with some discrimination in the degree and measure But if the first be granted That all are free then must cease of necessity subjection natural of children to their parents which hath been with better advice and reason received then it hath by some been well-nigh quite disowned to the making way for Novel Politicks And again Grant that all men were once but no body could never tell when and in a certain place but no body could ever tell where equally free or at least all of years of discretion which is most uncertain It would be known first How men dare to be so presumptuous as to make such a breach of the Law of Nature as this must be viz. To part with their birth-right and to imbezel that which God had given them concomitantly with their own lives I say what a notorious ingratitude and an offense against God to alter nature it self who we may well suppose doth all things most consonantly to Divine reason If therefore men had this Liberty naturally in them I hold it no less a sin to give it away than for one to cut off a member of his body or to destroy ones reason if it lay in his power And to say that the People in such cases do not absolutely devest themselves of power nor part with what God and Nature hath placed in them because they commit only to such the Administration of such power as is resident in them radically it being neither commodious nor possible for the universal Body to manage it self to the due ends of civil Society but reserve unto themselves a right of Revocation upon the Male-administration or abuse of Power so delegated This is to traduce Divince Providence and Wisdom notoriously For what can be a greater reproach to a wise man or the most wise God than to admit such a gross errour as to so constitute and frame a thing to such ends and purposes which it can never attain and to endow a people or person with such a faculty which can never avail nor succeed to the intention of it and never be executed as certainly Supream in the People cannot but must be delivered over to another more capable subject Thus it seemeth to
hath instituted Government in General but not limited it to any one kind but left it to the wisdom and choice of men to pitch upon what Government best agrees with a Nation But to what mens wisdom to some few or to many or to all men of that Nation All or the major part have no wisdom nor possibility to choose Few or many choosing doth manifest injustice to the others But what needs repetition of what is said quite opposite to all this This therefore is only here to be added That the supposition here made is utterly false and incongruous to the nature of all things else constituted by God and contrary to the course of nature and Gods manner of working which apparently is not to begin with Generals and so to proceed to Particulars but first he makes Particulars â—nd creates only Individuums single beings and by a necessary consequence whatever existence the General Nature hath it borroweth from thence As God did not at first make man in General and then left some body else as they thought to make Adam and Eve and the rest nor did he irst and only make a living Creature in General and then left the Angels or some other unknown Creatures to us to make what special Animals they pleased out of that but he first made Adam and so mans nature was made He first made the Sun and Moon so far as we read and upon that followed that he made great Lights And the like method must of necessity be acknowledg'd in Gods Institutions Moral and Civil and he must inevitably so far as humane wit can reach first ordain some one Government in particular before he could be said to be the Author of Government generally taken Now if it doth not at all appear That God had any more than a common hand whereby evil as well as good doth spring up in the World in the institution of any more than one sort of Government and that he did particularly pitch upon one and gave instances and intimation of his choice of one and nothing can be alleadged in behalf of the opposite to that as proceeding in any direct special manner from him then will the form of Government we now seek after commend it self unto us And this we shall do by giving the Divine Prerogatives which Monarchical Government hath above others invented by man to stand in competition with it And this not by wading deep or wandring far into an uncertain and tedious Disputation of finding out reasons on both sides which may seem to commend and prefer one above another and so consequently to conclude a divineness in one especially but by certain visible indications and motives evidencing this to every imprejudic'd mind And they are these First Consider we that simple and imperfect Regiment which is Natura enim commenta est Regeâ—â— quod ex aliis animalibus licet cognoscere ex apibus quarum regi amplissimum cubile est medióque ac tutissimo loco Seneca de Clement lib. 1. cap. 9. Vide etiam Hieron Epist 4. Isidorum Pelusiat Epist lib. 2. ep 216. Origen cont Cels lib. 4. pag. 217. Basil Ma. Hom. 8. in Hexaem Chrysost in Rom. Serm. 23. pag. 189. found in Animals and there will appear a resemblance of this Monarchical power only as in herds of Deer and Cattle and Bees in which is observed the Superiority of one over all so far as there is any subjection at all Yea St. Cyprian and divers other Fathers writing against Gentile Idolatry do prove the Monarchy of God over all the World from the Unity of Inanimate things as the Sun in the firmament raigning as it were over all the other Celestial Bodies Secondly The more proper and refined Law of Nature written in mens heart and inclining them to this kind of Government only do not a little argue the hand of God in its institution That being received for a Law of God natural to which all people without syncretizing consulting or combining mutually do consent and practise Now it is evident so far as any History doth inform us That all Nations were at first governed by a single person And whereas Nimrod is reported by some first to have usurped Regal Power over men because the Scriptures tell us how he was a mighty hunter before the Lord it hath more of phansie thaâ— substance in it Yet possibly he might be the first that collected many petty Princes of Families together constraining them to lay aside their Domestick Monarchy and to be subject unto him Or that he brought his neighbour Princes all to his Dominion and so became a Tyrant overthem And at this day if we advise with those People in both Indies discovered we shall find that they scarce ever heard of any other Government but that of Monarchy and that almost Paternal being extended to very few Persons compared with the multitude of which Kingdoms or Governments generally consist And in truth it may give some repuâ—e to the Government of many that Christian Religion favoureth it but it can give no credit to Christian Religion That it only practises and acknowledges a different way of Ruling people from all the known world besides For it will be hard to find any other but Regal Power out of Europe and in Europe not the tenth part owning Antimonarchical Government And of those that do differ from Monarchical Power not two agreeâ—ng in the same form but only negatively against a single Persons Suprenacy So that we may see they have no general Rule to go by but every Nation are a Rule to themselves Thirdly the Paternal Power being acknowledged to be natural and of Divine institution and differing from Monarchical and Regal but as Magis and Minus the lesser degree doth from the greater the thing is in a manner yielded But fourthly Divine Presidents and Examples do further confirm this and that taken from the Word of God in all which there is no mention at all made of any Government but Regal though not alwayes under that name For before the children of Israel went into Egypt the Father or Patriarch of them had this power without competitor In the the Captivity and Servitude of Egypt they had no publick Government besides that of the Kings of Egypt unless peradventure every Tribe had a Chief by succession over them without any Civil Autority From their departure out of Egypt to the death of Joshuah the Supremacie was in one notwithstanding subordinate Councels and Rulers constituted by Moses After Joshuah arose Judges by Gods special appointment not many at once thereby framing an Aristocracie but one Eminent person giving Law to all others And these differed from that of more formal Regal Persons instituted by God at the desire of the discontented people in that before Saul God kept the choice of their Governours more immediately in his own hand and ordained them Deliverers and Judges according to his pleasure and occasions offered which was the
Tim. 2. 1 2. prayers and intercessions and giving thanks for all men For Kings and all that are in authority c. which hath been so understood by some as if he had intended here to distinguish and establish a co-ordination of Governours over the same people but there is no necessity at all of such a consequence and St. Peter expresly distinguisheth their relations 1 Pet. 2. 13 14. not to be co-ordinate but subordinate saying Submit your selves to every ordinance of man that is not as some weakly and presumptuously would interpret the Apostle as if Kings and Princes were mens creatures and by them constituted but humane Creature which is the word in the Original doth signifie such Persons as have authority over men as men and not as Christians such as were then Civil Governours amongst the Gentiles which the phrase of the Jews commonly called Creatures barely and Humane as having no such Divine Graces conferred on them as had the Jews for the Lords sake whether it be unto Kings as Supream or unto Governours as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise of them that do well Here Governours are said to be of two sorts not co-ordinate and subordinate but Supream and Subordinate such as have authority immediately and absolutely in themselves without dependence upon others and such as are of an Inferiour order and under the said Supream rule and execute Justice So that nothing can be more absurdly and sediciously taught than to make such as are constituted by another to have any authority at all over their Founder and Lord the author of their power I know infinite instances may be brought of Common-wealths which have admitted and been governed by such a Co-ordination or at least a power reserved in store in the hands of certain persons whose proper office and care it should be to regulate and reduce to a safe mean the extreams which single and absolute Monarchs may easily fall into But all these varying so exceedingly from the natural form of Government sway not much with me For that which is natural and of Divine Ordinance and Institution cannot possibly be uncertain and mutable so that no man shall be able to know where to place his duty of Obedience which God requires to be paid to such as are in Authority And obedience being due only to the Supream himself immediately or to those that derive authority from him how is it possible to understand but by the sad effects of power pressing and afflicting a man where he is to yield his obedience Therefore surely God can have no hand in such modellings of States which shall perplex a man in rendring his subjection For it is not a great empty and ridiculous Title which maketh a Supream but entire power and absolute freedom at least from subjection to others especially of his own Dominion All Titles without this are honourable Mockeries but the real Supremacy is actual I say not how justly or injuriously in those Tutours of Princes and Keepers of the Liberties of the people as is commonly given out and in this case supposing that Right and Power are not separated not these Proveditors or Senatours who thus chastise Princes are rebellious but they who bearing the name of Kings and Princes being in truth but meer subjects refuse to submit to the decrees of their Superiours But if possession giveth not Right which is the most Christian as well as rational opinion it may be doubted how a just title can be acquired by any Persons in co-ordination to the Supream power when as we have shown the People never had any such themselves and therefore can transferr none nor such select persons had any of themselves who assume this nor is it to be conceived how any natural Right should descend upon many persons as the Paternal power doth upon one from whence Monarchical Power and Right may flow And If Senatours as they call them or suck like States-men cannot regularly found their title in nature or Divine Writ or revelation It was no act of Rebellion that greatest act of Hostility in Julius Caesar to reduce the Roman Common-wealth to Monarchy For there are two things to be considered in Civil Authority The Government it self in its form and kind and the Governour invested with this The Person Governing may doubtless offend notoriously though I dare not say forfeit to any other his Authority but the Government it self being abused cannot be in fault or for any miscarriages of the Person lapse to other The Government is religiously to be observed and secured from adulterations and corruptions even when the Monarch is irreligiously discarded and dethroned So that the Tyranny of a single person invading the Government administred by States and arrogating the Supremacy to himself alone must needs be less criminal than for many conspiring into a Common-wealth to change both Person and Government from the Natural to the Artificial and meerly of Humane invention and pleasure Now that Possession doth not alwayes include a Title nor Might Right in Civil Affairs is both most reasonable and Christian to believe Reasonable from several heads First from the notoriousness of the mischiefs which croud in upon all Societies of Men where this Tenet is received For what a powerful motive will it be to all discontented persons to invade others and dispossess them when there lies no other difficulty before them but the means to attach successfully whom they intend to destroy but having overcome that by whatever villanies they shall be reputed as legal owners of what they are become Masters as the most innocent and just person of all But can ever any peace or security be expected by that Society wherein it shall be lawful for any man to intrude himself into Power No say some Power acquired and possessed doth give Right to hold but not justifie the Act of inordinate acquiring the same But if it be true in Logick That the Conclusion doth alwayes partake of the weakness of the Premisses and in Nature That an evil cause be it but of the nature of a Circumstance corrupteth the whole effect is it not altogether as rational that such an hainous act in the acquiring such Power here should quite marr the effect Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one saith holy Job 14. 4. Recte factum est ut id quod male caeptum est Autoritate publica destrucretur Damasus Epist Acholio Eurydico c. apud Holstennii Collectionem pa. 40. Part. 1. Job So not one can by an unrighteous Act produce a righteous effect Neither can the inveterateness of an Evil any wayes mitigate the same nor tract of time wipe away that Guilt which was at first acquired For prescription in such cases never gives just Title but where other Titles are extinguished which is by accident Then indeed Possession it self giveth not a good Title but hath less evil and inconvenience
be in them before and which doth more than countervail such antecedent liberty of simply teaching as was then in some manner fixed Thirdly there was in such cases as this added a Power and Right of instituting others as occasion offered which is unknown to have been in them as Evangelists From it follows that of all the forementioned kinds of Government that of the Church approached neerest to that call'd Monarchical which was only absolute and universal in Christ the Soveraign Head thereof but Ministerially under him and over the Church under their circuit Politically as proper Heads and Rulers and whatever power after extraordinary Callings by Revelation from God ceased any one dispartake of in the Church was ctrtainly at first derived from such single Persons alone however to the solemnity of such ordination others of an inferiour Order concurred thereto And as the Government of the civil World was originally without exception so far as search can be made by the most curious Antiquaries Monarchical though it were not governed by one man alone but by Civil Supream Princes of several Dominions into which the earth was parcelled So though no one Father or Bishop ever presided over all the Christian world yet several single Persons in their respective Provinces governing the Church as Principal the Government of the Church may rightly be termed Monarchical in Particular but Aristocratical as to the whole For as the Apostles were all Monarchs compared with their Proselites Converts and Churches by them founded but were but Peers compared one with another So was it with the Bishops and Patriarchs of the Church succeeding them whereby the Prophesie of Christ in St. Matthew was verified spoken not so much as some mistake it of his Heavenly Kingdome but earthly his Church and its ensuing glory Verily I say unto you that ye which M … â—â— have followed me in the regeneration when the son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel That when the Church of Christ should flourish then there should be such as in lieu of the twelve Tribes of Israel should Rule as in Thrones the Church of God under the Gospel They who object against this the words of Christ in Saint Matthew Ye know that the Princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them and Mâ—tt 20 25. 26. they that are great exercise autority upon them But it shall not be so among you Do declare no less against Aristocratical then Monarchical Government yea all Government over the Church And their favourable gâ—osS in behalf of one will be as valid for that which they reject For as it was not at all the mind of Christ that there should be no Governours at all over his Church so doth it not at all appear that what was lawful for many to do was not lawful for one But here the old cheat again takes place to suppose that the Government of one is in it self tyrannical and of many free but neither Christ nor nature ever taught them how to prove this presumptuous imagination And to this may we add another such mistake from St. Peters words That men should not be Lords over Gods heritage And what then Must there be more 1 Pet. 5. 3. than one over a Church and not onely one May a company of Presbyters oblige Christians to do or believe such things and not Lord it but if by a principal Person bearing Rule this same thing be done then is the Precept violated Besides who sees not that hath not a mind to be blind That the Apostle speaks nothing at all in these words of the kind of Government but the exercise of it and abuse Surely if Episcopal Government could not choose but tyrannize and Presbyterial could do nothing but according to Scripture and equity this Objection were unanswerable otherwise not worth the mentioning much less answering as common as it is and as confidently urged And as to that Pretense intended to overthrow our prime ground of Christs institution taken from what was first actually found in the Church viz. That Imparity of Christs Ministers was not found in the Church till about an hundred and forty or fifty years after Christ when it is confessed by the Enemies of Ecclesiastical Hierarchies that it prevailed Let the Huggers of this Device First consider what a pitiful addition is made to their cause from hence seeing that it is undenyable there was a disparity all the Apostles dayes who in order excelled all Ecclesiastical Persons and that almost one hundred years were spent of the said tearm in their time So that about fifty or sixty years only this imaginary Government had its being and then was lost again for fourteen hundred and then was better lost then found and taken up again But a far worse inconvenience spoils this jest as being founded and raised only from conjecture and that conjecture upon the obscurity of those ages not so clearly known as afterwards CHAP. XXIX Of the necessity of holding visible Communion with Christs Church Knowledge of that visible Church necessary to that Communion Of the Notes to discern the true Church how far necessary Of the Nature or Condition of such Notes in General IT being so necessary as we have above shewed to be in communion with the visible Church of Christ and the Nature of things themselves being more intrinsick many times than to characterize sufficiently them to the Enquirer into them it hath been thought necessary to explain them farther by more apparent and observable notices given of them And in the Doctrine of the Church these seem to be of greatest consequence Visibility Universality or Catholickness Sanctity and Perpetuity Of all which we shall briefly speak in order yet first premising somewhat concerning Notes in General For seeing as we have said it is necessary to know the true Church from the false and the Natures of things are often-times so abstruse and hidden from us that we cannot discover them from their own Light therefore it hath been judged very reasonable to pitch upon certain outward Notes eading us unerringly to the knowledge of the thing it self And in truth I cannot wholly approve of that course chosen to certifie us and point out to us the-true Church taken from the very being of it such as are Faithful and sincere Doctrine taught therein Sacraments duly administred Worship purely performed and Discipline rightly constituted because these are rather of the very intrinsick nature and definition it self of the Church than notes and characters outward whereby the nature it self should be certainly known We all indeed without exception consent that that Church is the true Church which is thus qualified and affected believeth aright is governed aright administreth the Sacraments aright and worshippeth aright and in one word which followeth most exactly the Rules of Holy Scripture but in the Assumption and Application is all the doubt and infinite
thus spoken of the Political Power of the Church which we so call because it imitates that which is so more properly called in directing the visible Body of the Church to its proper end as the Pilot doth the ship to its proper Haven and hath both Visible Acts and Effects We are now to treat of that Power We in distinction to that other do call Mystical because the End and Effect thereof is not outward or visible but inward spiritual and Mysterious and therefore also call it Sacramental Sacrament and Mystery being the same in the Original Phrase of the New Testament For to the Church as they are more peculiarly called who are Officers in the same doth it of Right appertain to celebrate these Mysteries Wherefore first we shall speak of the Sacraments in General as the manner is and then in Particular The word Sacrament is rather of Gentile than Christian original there being no word in the New Testament proper to it but the vulgar Translation Sacramentum est invisibilis gratiae invisibilis forma ita ut ejus similitudinemgerat et causa existat Gulielmus Antissiodorensis Sum. Lib. 4. Cap. 1. thinking fit to render Mystery Sacrament in Latin the Antienter Latin Church hath made use of it to express certain Mysterious Rites of sacred and necessary use in the Church of God about which word so long since received no contention ought to be had The Nature Number Minister and Use of them deserving principal enquiry A Sacrament is defin'd as is commonly known by St. Augustine a Visible sign of an Invisible Grace which being taken rigorously seemeth not to comprehend the whole nature of it therefore Antissiodorensis would have its defect supplied thus A Sacrament is a visible form of an Invisible Grace whereof it is also the Cause But considering the many and sharp disputes upon this subject I suppose it may be more fully described to be A visible sign ordained by God to produce an invisible effect of Grace in the soul of Man This definition may be collected from the several parts of it contained in the word of God as first from St. Paul to the Romans speaking of Circumcision a prime Sacrament given by God to Abraham and his seed And he received the sign of Circumcision a Seal of the Righteousness Rom. 4. 11. of Faith which he had being yet uncircumcised For there are three special properties of a Sacrament commonly acknowledged To Signifie To Seal To Effect Grace but in strickness of speech these make but two Acts. For either a Thing doth barely signify and declare another or it concurreth to the being of another where things are Related one to another For seals are no more than signs binding more firmly to the fulfilling of the contents of an Instrument or Conveyance For as in such Cases the Free good will of the Donour is the only cause of an inheritance given the Instrument of Conveyance consisting of so many words are the signs of the inward will the seals are but signs of the signs of words that is an assurance that what was signified in the said Instrument should hold good And the Actual Delivery of this is the immediate Cause of entring into possession or enjoyment of this Gift In like manner The word of God promising his Graces to us signifies the will of God to that end The Sacraments superadded do likewise sensibly signifie unto us the earnest God is in when he made promises unto us as Seals And the actual exhibiting of these signs or seals on Gods Part by his Proxy or Ministers and the due receiving of them on our Part do put us into a fruition of those things which were so signified and promised First then They must be a sign that is a Representation of a thing and not the thing it self and that to add to our knowledge and Faith for if there were no agreement between the thing signifying and the thing signified the word of God alone had sufficed to that end Secondly they must be ordained of God For if no man in common justice can give away another mans estate but the true owner of it how should it be possible or equal or credible that any other besides God himself the Owner of his graces should by instruments of his own forging convey such heavenly benefits to mankind which properly belong to God This were supream folly and presumption to attempt Or can any man know Gods mind or methods of working before he hath revealed them Therefore it is said that God gave Abraham the Sign and Seal of Circumcision Thirdly they must rather be ordained Arbitrarily of God and by special Institution then Naturally least the Free Grace of God therein contained should suffer and the effect be ascribed rather to natural than supernatural Causes For though the cutting off of the foreskin of the flesh by explication intimate the cutting off of the filth of the Soul yet naturally it could not be so well understood And God might if he had pleased ordained the cutting off of the tip of the ear to serve the same ends And so in baptism Water doth naturally cleanse bodily filthiness but without notice given of Gods will and grace it could never have been believed possible to affect the soul and purify it Fourthly as there must be some agreement between the thing signifying and signified there must also be a real difference in their nature For nothing in nature or reason can signify it self because nothing can be clearer than it self For when a thing is obvious to our senses or otherwise apparent Sicut Signum et res ipsa aliquando possint esse diversa ita saepenumero et in multis eadem esse possunt Tunstal 9. de Eucharistia fol 16. we do not say we have a sign of such a thing but the thing it self Yet this most certain Rule is sought to be bafled and overthrown by Cavillers who would bring in their false doctrine of the Eucharist and would shew from bread on a Stall or Cloath which signifies bread and Cloath as well as is bread and Cloath that the same body of Christ may be a sign of it self But their attempts in their Instance fail them because that Bread which is exposed to be sold or that Cloath is not a sign of it self viz. That it is cloath or bread but is so only but it is only a sign that either it is to be sold which is quite another thing from Cloath it self or it is a sign of other cloath which doth not appear And so the body of Christ in the Eucharist is not a sign of that Body which doth appear but of that which doth not appear And therefore a Fifth condition of a Sacrament is That it should visibly signify something invisible and spiritual Lastly that Sacraments are to be not only significant or which comes to the same Sealing but efficacious in themselves upon the souls of men which may deserve further explication
according to the judgment of many of the Ancients it was Christs intention we should have but two Sacraments when he shed from his Divine side water and blood insinuating thereby Baptism and the Sacrament of his Blood And another argument intimating 1 Cor. 10. 1 2 3 4. that Christ ordained but two Sacraments in the New Testament is taken from the due conformity between the Shadows and Types of the Law and the Substance of the Gospel The Law had but two Sacraments proper Circumcision and the Passover and therefore that these two should prefigure only two in the Gospel is most probable But not only the Fathers of old but Schoolmen did alwayes acknowledge a due proportion to be observed between these And it makes nothing against this That the Fathers do often call some at least of the other five Sacraments because then they spoke at large as we said before A second general Reason may be That as they have no precept so have they no promise from Christ of Grace or favour Spiritual For Ordination indeed hath an ordinary Gift of Ecclesiastical Power but no assurance of special Grace belonging to it Confirmation hath a good and laudable end but no special Promise to it Repentance hath a promise but hath no outward visible sign upon which the word is built to make it a Sacrament for this is a Third Reason of the equality of Sacraments Because all true and proper Sacraments must consist as well of outward signs to which the word and Grace are annext as of the Grace it self therein given But all these Sacraments have not these Signs and they which have an appearance of visible signs have them not by Gods institution Fourthly The Sacraments of the Gospel are of concernment to all true Christians according to their Capacities but all Christians are not by the confession of the Patrons of seven Sacraments bound to marry or to be in Holy Orders Nay some are absolutely interdicted the use of some of the reputed Sacraments as are women from Holy Orders therefore whatever may possibly be said concerning the not circumcising of Women under the Law under the Gospel there being neither Male nor Female as St. Paul affirmeth that cannot be a Sacrament equal in sacredness or necessity of which Women are not capable Fifthly The general Nature of Sacraments is such as renders the due Partakers of them more holy than they are who receive them not but no man saies that marriage faithfully observed doth make any person more holy then Virginity therefore it cannot be a Sacrament If they here say That Marriage is not a Sacrament absolutely but only as it is Christian and a representation of Christs conjunction with his Church and as it is blessed by the Priest I answer First to this latter That blessing doth not alter the kind of the thing but only sanctifies the thing it self and therefore Marriage in Heathens and Christians is the same in nature but not in the circumstances of Holiness And whenas St. Paul saith in his Epistle to the Ephesians having before treated of solemn Marriage This Eph. 5. 31 32 is a great mystery from whence commonly is drawn an argument of a Sacramentalness in Marriage of Christians the reply is easie which quite nulls the conclusion First Because it is as manifest as a thing need be that St. Paul doth speak rather of Heathens marriage than Christian as appears from his citation of the first institution of Marriage which comprehends all and therefore according to themselves could not intend to make a Sacrament of it seeing it is no Sacrament but as Christian Secondly The word being Mystery doth not properly signifie a Sacrament however the Vulgar Translation might be allowed to translate it so but not men upon that tearm given at large to draw it into the number of Sacraments St. Paul saith to the Corinthians Behold I show you a mystery 1 Cor. 15. we shall not all dye but we shall all be changed Is this a Sacrament also But many of the Fathers have so called it It may be so in the sense before spoken of in which many more things may so be called But lastly The Apostle in that Place to the Ephesians doth expresly remove that tearm Mystery from the natural or civil conjunction of Man and Woman Eph. 5. 27 29. in Matrimony and restrain it to Christ and his Church and doth not so much as say that Marriage is a mystery For having drawn an Argument for the due observation of Wedlock and its Rights that seeing Christ loved his Church man should love his Church he addeth afterward This is a great mystery but I speak of Christ and the Church which is as 32. if it had been said Here is a great Mystery but this Mystery I mean not So much of external Marriage but internal between Christ and his Church But after all this seeing we grant with many of the Ancients That the name Sacrament is communicable to more than two it is not much worth the contending whether we make more or fewer than seven while we reserve a peculiar sacredness to these two above others Let us rather touch upon them in their nature than name as best worthy to be rightly understood And first of Orders briefly as having spoken thereof in treating of the Political Power of the Church and there shown the necessity of them according to Christs intention and institution which was to make a discrimination between Persons and the several Members of that Body the Church of which he is the Head as is also sufficiently insinuated by St. Paul to the Corinthians saying But now hath Göd set the Members every one of 1 Cor. 12. 18. them in the Body as it hath pleased him where he doth not speak of moral but Political excellency and order of Inferiour and Superiour From whence the name of the Function is taken For as St. Augustine defines it Order is Civ Dei Lib. 19. 13. the disposing or ranking of equal and unequal things in their proper places And therefore sometimes the Church is divided by the Ancients into Clergy and Laity as two Orders Again The Clergy by the Ancienter into three only Bishop Priest and Deacon as Optatus Afterwards some made Isidorus Hispalens Orig. Lib. 7. c. 12. six some seven some nine as Hispalensis who likewise subdivideth the Bishop into four Orders Patriarch Metropolitane Arch-Bishop and simple Bishop So that it were not worth the labour to strive about words here and especially in distinguishing Order from Degree in the Church For though the distinction in nature be manifest between the first importing a diversity in kind and the other in condition of the same kind yet the Church cannot be though to speak so circumspectly at all times and so precisely as not to use them promiscuously divers times so that because she sometimes speaks of Degrees they should deny the Order of the same thing Neither
saved but he that believeth not shall be damned This Covenant was typified by the Sacrament of Circumcision made between God and Abraham with his seed thus This is my Covenant Gen. 17. 10. which ye shall keep between me and you and thy seed after thee Every Man-child among you shall be circumcised c. And this was yet more cleerly prophesied of by Ezekiel saying Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and Ezek. 36. 35 ye shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your Idols will I cleanse you And as with men that is no sure Covenant which doth not consist of proper matter mutually passed from one Party to another and of due form of words thereunto required So neither is that proper Baptism which makes no express or implicite stipulation between God and man and that with that form of words and Action by Christ enjoyned And the Matter of this Sacrament is expressed already to be water by many places of Scripture as Mat. 3. 6 11. Joh. 1. 26. Joh. 3. 23. Act. 8. 36 c. And having none other mentioned by Christ we are not so much to argue presumptuously of insufficiency of that Element to effect so great matters upon the soul and thence conclude That it is unlikely God should be so rigorous to exact indispensably a little water or cause the party to perish in his sins for 1. This way of reasoning holds no less against Gods severe imposition of Circumcision which was the cutting off of a small pitifull piece of Flesh and yet that omitted God threatneth positively to cut off the soul of the child from his people Exod. 17. 14. 2. This takes away the Liberty and power of God to dispose of his Graces upon what terms he pleases for the manner of conveying whereof he may choose what means he pleases though never so improbable to sense to attain such ends that it may appear the vertue is not in the thing so much as God 3. God in such Cases doth not so much tye himself as tie us He doth indeed oblige himself to those means himself hath ordained but not confine so himself to them that he cannot or may not work the same effect without them Yet as he so restrains that he threatens wrath and makes no promise at all but upon our dutiful observation of such his Prescriptions But as when a man not by any wilful neglect or disesteem of the usefulness of this Sacrament shall by invincible necessity be detained from it with a fervent desire to be partakers of it God by his abundant Grace may supply the want of it In like manner where there is no proper natural water to be had rather then the solemnity should wholly be omitted and denied to one earnestly craving the same Use may be made of that which comes nearest to it so of a nature cleansing But this needs farther determination to put out of doubt than any private Doctour can give For we read in Scripture of no other element though in Ecclesiastical History we do than water And there appears no greater inconvenience Pallad Lausic Historiâ or ill consequence for men to be brought to that extremity for want of natural water than to want the general means of Christianity itself or Children to die unbaptized But the manner of applying this water to the party baptized by Immersion or dipping into the water or by Aspersion or Sprinkling and that thrice or once only is not much to be insisted upon For though 't is undeniable that it was a general Ablution by sinking the Baptized into the water as St. Paul intimateth when he speaketh of being buried with Christ in Rom. 6. 4. Col. 2. 12. Math. 3. 16. Act. 8. 38. Baptism that as Christ was laid under the earth after his death so Christians under the water and were buried unto sin And other phrases of Scripture which speak of ascending out of the waters and descending into the waters Yet that any washing by aspersion or sprinkling sufficed appears from the Analogy between the Sacramental Purgations of the Old Law and the New For as infinite places certifie us the blood of the Sacrifices and waters of Purification were to be sprinkled on the Persons therein concerned And so the end of the Sacrament of Baptism is to signify and conferr Grace on the baptized by such outward Elements to Exod. 29. 2. Levit. 14. 7. which the vertue of the Sacrament not consisting in the nature of the thing but in the Institution of God greater quantity can conduce no more then less provided so small quantity be not taken which should hide and hinder the significancy of the Elements And besides Gods rule being I will have mercy and not Sacrifice and never intending to save the Soul by such means as in common probability may destroy the Body the condition of some persons being so frail and weak and of some Climates so hard and hurtful he is pleased to accept the most safe way the substance of the duty being entirely observed And such persons are not only Infants but the Sick and very Aged too who were baptized with water and that upon a necessity of entring into the Kingdome For could scarce any thing betray Calvine with his Followers such as Perkins and Cartwright more to suspicion of insolence and singularity than his seeking to elude the plain precept of Christ concerning Elemental not Spiritual water Job 3. 5. 6. and washing only contrary to the universal consent of all Catholicks and Hereticks before him as if he had taken the rise of his Fancy from these two famous Anabaptists Balthazar and Satelare in Germany who Cassand Praefar ad Anabaptist Mat. 19. 13. 14. reading in the Scripture one Ground of Paedobaptism to be Christs saying Suffer little Children to come unto me for of them is the Kingdom of heaven interpreted the same of Children in Spirit and not in Age with the like probability both And of the subject of Baptism or the persons to be baptized and capable of that Sacrament this in sum may be said out of the Scripture as the foundation of all as even now out of St. John Unless a man be born Tit. 3. 5. of water and the Holy Ghost he shall not enter into the Kingdom of God And St. Paul to Titus saith that According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost And to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 12. 13 Cap. 12. For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one Body c. And the like is comprehended in that General Law of Christ given to his Disciples to be Executed Matthew 28. 29. Now from these general Rules laid down by Christ in his word a just and particular inference may be made to the entitling Children to a Right in this Sacrament it being a Rule which holds no less in Divine than Humane Laws That where the Law
Patient or thing that suffereth not according to the full force and vertue which it hath in it self For fire doth not equally prey upon stone and wood nor doth the Physitian give the same strong Physick to a weak body as he doth to a strong nor are Men informed of God after the manner of Angels who behold much more purely and cleerly the Nature of God But mans knowledge is generally taken from the Effects And so comparing those works of God and Acts of God which have some similitude with those of men For as all works of note do imply some care and pains to produce them by men So is God said to labour when he created all things in this world and to rest when he had finished and ended all because this is the manner of men And to be Angry when either just cause is offered by offending him in breaking of his holy Laws or the effects of wrath commonly seen when men are so affected appear by the severe punishments inflicted upon offenders And what is said of the inward affections ascribed unto God may be easily applied to those outward descriptions made of God in Scripture under the form of Man as of Hands Arms Head Heart Eyes and such like which the ancient Fathers against the Heresie of the Anthropomorphites who as Epicurus in Tully took God to be of the same fashion and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 often mentioned by St. Chrysostome Suidas form with Man do affirm to be by Condescension to Man which Condescension is thus described by one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Condescension is when God doth seem to be what he is not but so declares himself to be as he that is to conceive of him is best able to behold him proportioning the revelation of himself to the imbecillity of the contemplator CHAP. IV. Of the Vnity of the Divine Nature as to number and how the Trinity of Persons may consist with the Vnity and simplicity of the Deity Of the proper Notions pertaining to the Mystery of the Trinity viz. Essence Substance Nature Person The Distinction of the Persons in the Trinity Four Enquiries moved How far the Gentiles and Jews understood the Trinity The Proof of the Doctrine of the Trinity from the New Testament and the Explication of it BUT to the exception taken from the Mystery of the Holy Trininity greater regard ought to be had as well for the explication and confirmation of that Doctrine as for the satisfaction of humble enquirers into the same And for more clear and gradual proceeding herein it will be requisite first to explain such terms as this Doctrine much depends on as Essence Substance Nature Person and Trinity it self Essence is of somewhat larger extent than Substance because Substance signifies properly only that which is opposite to Accident or that which adheres or inheres to Substance but Essence signifies all kinds of Beings as well of Accidents as Substances Nature is the restraint of Essence and Substance both in their general Being to some more special kind of thing as there is the Nature of Man and the Nature of Beast the Nature of Accidents and the Nature of Substances the Nature of Colours and the Nature of Quantities so that Nature is not that whereby a thing simply and absolutely is but whereby it is what it is Hence we say also the Nature of God or the Creator and the Nature of the Creature Nature being that by which as is said a thing is what it is and distinct from others And as for the word Trinity it is true what hath been objected by some of old that it is not in terms t◠be found in Scripture for the word doth not import any one or more things absolutely but rather the manner of such things being the better to settle the mind in the apprehension of that great Mystery Now the Holy Scriptures doth very often only propound the Article of Faith to be believed by us but leaves the manner of expressing and conceiving the same to the holy prudence of Men whom he hath for the instruction of inferior persons ordained in his Church which have agreed so to term that three-fold personal Relation in the Deity A Person is defined to be an entire and absolute Being of reasonable nature Man in general is not a Person because he subsisteth not by himself A Beast in particular is not a Person because void of knowledge and reason The soul of Man though endowed with reason is not a Person because not of it self entire and perfect being part of another thing i e. Man But Peter and John are Persons because single Substances absolute in themselves and rational To collect therefore and conclude from what is thus briefly premised we say that these Notions of Essence Substance and Nature are sometimes taken more strictly and properly according to which we must alwayes hold it as a most fundamental Truth in Christian Religion as it is in the Religion of all civilized People that God is but one in Essence Substance or Nature i. e. the Being and Nature of God as God are but one But if we take the said Notions more largely for that which expresses the manner of Being as well as Being it self then may we speak of the nature of a Person as when we say that the nature of a Person is different from the nature of things simply taken And if Nature be taken as sometimes for the condition of a thing or Person we may truly say that in the Trinity the Three Persons as Persons are of a different nature though they differ not in the nature of the Deity For that they really and not imaginarily or by mans fancy and conception different from one another is a received Truth by all reputed true Believers but nothing can be distinct from another but by somewhat peculiar to it and whatever is peculiar to a thing and ingredient into its Being may be and is commonly called the nature of it in which sense we may say Three Persons are of a different nature because the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Ghost Father or Son for the nature of the Father as Father is to beget the nature of the Son as Son to be begotten the nature of the Holy Ghost as Holy Ghost to proceed But all this hindereth not in the Nature of God they should be one and the same and so but one distinct God and this makes the Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity For were not the Persons distinct by somewhat real and not so notional as to be fictitious there could not be said to be a Triplicity or Trinity of Persons And again if in nature they were not the same there could be no Identity worthy of that Mystery For other Creatures differing one from another in subsisting distinctly agree in the unity of a general nature as three men agree in the common nature of man But 't is
consisting of eight Sphears with a Primum Mobile or First Mover and an Empyreal Heaven and a special Court as it were where God sets more especially enthron'd arched over with the roof of another Heaven for all which there is no more solid reason than Scripture to be found though some for want of soberness and better proofs as the Jewish Rabbi have presumed to determine the number of the Sphears from the expression in the eighth Psalm where it is said The Heavens are the work of thy fingers ten fingers Psal 8. 3. ten Heavens but the Scriptures speak of no more than three 2 Cor. 12. 2. And that they are rather to be understood as so many Regions distinguishable in the air than such superior bodies appears from the synonymous use of the Fowls of the air and the Fowls of Heaven as in Psal 79. 2. and Psal 104. 12. Jer. 7. 33. Ezek. 31. 6. Gen. 1. 26 28. Yet as no man can out of Philosophy or Scripture determine the nature or number of Heavens is it not to be peremptorily denied that there are distinctions of places of Bliss And though it be little otherwise than blasphemous to confine God to the highest largest fairest room called 2 Chron. 2. 6. an Heaven as that there should be any â—imits set to his Court or Throne of Glory yet may we well believe God is somewhere more gloriously revealed than commonly he is in all places though he be in all places and where he displays his Glory and beatifies his more immediate servants there is Heaven as we say There is the Court where the King is It is true we gather reasonably from the position and motion of celestial Lights a distinction in distance and motion of them and that a peculiar tract there is for most of them but that this space should be roof'd over round with a pellucide solid aetherial substance is an absurd collection of Philosophers no ways favoured by Scripture which as it hath touched things of this nature with greater simplicity so with much more probability inviting us rather to an admiration of the divine Power and adoration of its Providence in ordaining so admirably those bodies as for his Glory so for our instruction and edification in his service The same reason doubtless there is of Time and Place as weâ—l â—n respect of the Creator as the Creature It is impossible but the Creature should be limitable by time and space both and it is impossible God should by either be so and therefore no less derogatory to his Being is it to imagine God terminated by space than by time The other part of this visible World is that which we call Earth with the several bodies pertaining unto the same as Water Fire and Air all which though of very different nature or use to us are properly earthly The solid part and grosser which we signally call Earth and that liquid fluid and purer substance we caâ—l Water being the two most principal parts and elements out of which all things here proceed Fire and Air being no distinct bodies of themselves but subsisting upon their grounds and especially Air being nothing else but a purer composition of the substance of Earth and Water flying about the earth and ministring continuall refreshment to all earthly living things Fire indeed is of a wonderful subtil nature and operation most active but whether any thing in substance distinct from the other and not only in quality is scarce to be understood And though Philosophy busies it self to the losing of its way in the search after these things and presumes to determine and impose upon others its uncertain Conclusions yet the modesty of Religion contents it self to keep a mannerly distance where God by the Mysteries of Nature and much more of Theology seems to say Stand off which we shall contenting our selves at present with that brief narration of the manner and order of the Creation of all things found in the first Chapter of Genesis where we note the way of Gods working to be most like himself without any pains or trouble but by the simple and absolute word of his command given Let there be Light It is said indeed that God in six days made all things in Heaven and Earth as if the Creation took him up both time and pains to compleat it whence some fearing to make the matter too gross on Gods part have as Austin introduced an Evening and Morning relating rather to the Angels than Men making that the Morning when those holy Spirits beheld things to be Created in the divine Nature and Vision and that Vespertine when they were actually seen in themselves existing which interpretation hath not been received in the Church as solid But rather this Morning and Evening which could not be natural until the Sun was created which it was not at the first is understood of a competent distance of time which it might please God not out of necessity but free choice to work in to declare his order and give us a more distinct knowledge of things and especially to prevent that error to which man was too inclinable in conceiving all things were eternal which we now see For if they were so then could there be no distinction or distance of time between one thing and another but where there is such a diversity of time there of necessity must be posteriority and priority and so no eternity For that which some bring out of Ecclesiasticus to prove the production Eccles 18. 1 of all things in one moment viz. He that liveth for ever created all things together is a mistake in the Latin Translation only which renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek so which is better translated as we do In general intimating that nothing subsisted but by him Or it may be said All things were created together or at once meaning that what God did produce he did it not after the manner of men who bring their work to perfection by degrees and many acts but every thing that was made by him was made at once in an instant And this general consideration of the six dayes Work of God may suffice here not descending to each particularly only we shall speak of the Creation of Man in particular as the chief of Gods wayes and the Rule and end of other Creatures CHAP. VII Of the Creation of Man in particular according to the Image of God Of the Constitution of him and of the Original of his Soul contrary to Philosophers and the errors of Origen concerning it The Image wherein it consists principally CREATION we have shewed is the production of a thing from nothing and so the first man was not created immediately for it is said God formed man of the dust of the ground and Gen. 2. 7. breathed into his nostrils the breath of life And St. Paul likewise to the Corinthians saith The first man was of the earth 1 Cor. 15. 47.
subjection and obedience to his will he should not dye So that Adam was not simply and in his own nature immortal as were Angels and immaterial Spirits but by this Supernatural Priviledg and Grace of Justice given of God whereby he was well able to persevere in that state of Holiness and secure himself from falling into sin And a sufficient argument of the former is that Man before his fall did or was to eat and drink as appeareth from the indulgence of God to him saying Of every tree of the Garden Gen. 2. 16. thou mayst eat Now eating and drinking do necessarily of themselves inferr such an alteration both in the body eating and eaten as tendeth to corruption and therefore a more immediate hand and power of God was required to obviate that propensity And the manner of propagation being contrary to the imagination of some of the Ancients by that natural way that now it is though much purer prove the same inclination to dissolution and the necessity of a Divine Grace to secure man from Corruption And thirdly it is proved from the manner of the Fall which spoiled us not of any thing natural in a proper sense to us but lost to us the Supernatural Aids which otherwise should never have forsaken us Lastly a Fifth Beam of the Image of God in man was and is the Dominion he hath over the inferiour Creatures and the subserviency of them to him For this an express Charter is given to him as Gods Vicegerent on Earth in Genesis in this manner And God blessed them and God said unto Gen. 1. 28 them Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the Sea and over the foul of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth Which Right of Rule was not altogether extinguished after the Fall but as experience sheweth that man partly by strength and partly by wit and understanding bringeth all things under him so the Scripture affiâ—meth Every Jam. 3. 7. kind of Beasts and of Birds and things in the sea is tamed and hath been tamed of Mankind And after the Flood God in especial manner re-enstated man in his right of dominion saying The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every Beast of the Earth and upon every Foul Gen. 3. 2. of the Air upon all that moveth upon the Earth and upon all the Fishes of the Sea into your hand are they delivered CHAP. VIII Of the Second General act of God towards the Creature especially Man his Providence Aristotles opinion and Epicurus's rejected What is Providence Three things propounded of Providence And First the Ground of it the Knowledge of God How God knoweth all things future as present Of Necessity and Contingencies how they may consist with Gods Omniscience THUS far of the Power of God exemplified chiefly in man It follows now that we speak of the Second General Act of God towards the Creature and specially Man known to be his Providence The Providence of God is one of those things Clem. Alex. Strom. 5. pag. 547. Vid Theodor. Haereticar Fabul L. 5. C. 10. saith Clemens Alexandrinus of which to desire a demonstration or proof is most absurd it so manifestly displaying itself over the whole Universe And therefore next to that opinion of Epicurus denying God to take any Care of things in the world lest it should trouble him too much is that of Aristotle in absurdity and impiety that his Care and providence extended no farther than the Heavens committing as it were the management of this inferiour world to inferiour Officers both so unworthy of wise men to affirm that we shall bestow no other confutation of them than what obliquely may be inferred from the positive assertion of this divine Attribute of God For God being in Being and Power infinite and as the Apostle saith upholding all things by the word of his Power that is meer will Heb. 4. 3. and pleasure declared it were ridiculous to conceive any toil or labour in Gods conservation and administration of all the things in the world As it were most absurd to say that the glorious body of the Sun and the influences thereof should be be disparaged in giving vertue unto Gnats and Nits and pittiful weeds growing out of the earth and not confining it self to more high and excellent Offices But Providence is as Boetius defines it that Boetius de Consolat Lib. 4. Pros 6. Highest Reason residing in that Supream Prince of all things which disposes all things And surely if God did not foul his fingers or degrade himself in making man as well as Angels and Beasts as well as Man and Earth and Water and Air as well as Beasts and that to us there may be such things which we call clean and unclean but to God there is no such distinctions in the natures of things then truly could it be no blemish to him to regard them being made And if to make them was no labour properly so called though it is so termed by the Scripture for our instruction to preserve them can be nothing of molestation to God My Father worketh Joh. 5. 17 hitherto and I work saith Christ of God and himself in St. John meaning nothing more than a continued Creation as Conservation is well called by Philosophers or an Act of Providence proportionable to the Act of Creation infinitely â—asie to God as well as Effectual towards the Creature The thing then being thus declared and supposed we shall consider it in this threefold manner First in the foundation and Ground or Prepararation of his Divine Providence Secondly in the Execution of it Thirdly in the Object of it And concerning the First Providence being an Act of infinite Supream wisdom as Boetius saith doth suppose knowledg in God And the exercise or Execution hereof implies a Will in God so inclined And the Object the Effect of both For as the Apostle saith Who hath resisted his will Rom. 9. 19. And as to the Knowledg of God it hath been before shewed how it must be commensurate unto God himself and that is Infinite He must be and is Omniscient And therefore well hath Lactantius said If there be Lactan. de Iâ—a Cap. 9. a God certainly he is Providential as God neither can Deity be otherwise ascribed to him but as he retaineth things past knows things present and foresees things future or to come And truly I cannot but here insert besides my General purpose the most excellent saying of the Heathen Salust It Salust ad Câ—sar de Repub. Ordinan appears to one as a certain truth that the Divine Nature inspects the life of all Mortals and that neither the Good nor Evil Acts of men go for nothing but naturally there follows different rewards for Good and Evil men This Reward is that outward ground inferring Providence but the Inward taken from
God himself is his Knowledg or Omniscience which the better to judge of we may distinguish according to the Object of it into knowledg of it into knowledg of things within himself or of himself which is more Internal and things without himself external For if we should speak more Properly God knoweth nothing by an ababsolute direct knowledg but himself and all other things Relatively rather according as they bare relation to him in being or not being in being â—ike him as that which is Good or dislike him by which manner he understandeth Evil. And nothing but God himself can perfectly know God no not the highest and most divine Spirits attending him more immediately in the state of Glory because perfect knowledg doth not consist in an Apprehension that God is or that he is infinitely glorious and Perfect but in comprehension to know him as he is True St. John saith 1 Joh. 3. 2. We shall know him as he is meaning that in the state of glory we should have a much nearer and clearer access unto his divine nature than we can have here by the Organ of our Faith And that so we shall see him that there will be no more use of Faith or outward information from revealed doctrines but Inward Revelations and illuminations shall immediately flow into us from God to the fuller apprehension of him and satisfaction of the restless mind of man But to know him as he is is the Property of himself incommunicable to any Creature For to comprehend a thing saith Austin is nothing else but so to know it that nothing of it should be unknown to the Knower As a Vessel is said to contain such a quantity of liquor that nothing should be left out And thus God only and no Created being conceiveth God comprehensively The Relative knowledg of God in order to things external is to be estimated according to the Variety of things so known by him yea not only the knowledg but even the very Being of God is described unto us according to the manner of outward things All things of reality and not merely imaginary are by general consent divided into three sorts according to the three distinctions of time Into things Past Future and Present And therefore God is said to be He which is and which was and Rev. 1. 4. 8. which is to come Therefore surely the distinction of Gods knowledge most agreably to the nature of God and things known too is into that of things Past Present and to Come And there being no great difficulty or difference among Christians concerning the two former viz. Knowledge of things past and present all concurring that the knowledge of things passed never passes with God nor of things present nor of future but the Knowledge of all these being immediately and immoveably present with God so that many more warily will have all understanding in God to be rather Science than Prae-science and Knowledge rather than fore-knowledge It were needless as well as endless to enlarge thereupon The third about things to come deserves more accurate enquiry For as to the distinction of Gods knowledge into that of Vision whereby he beholds all really existent things whether in themselves past present or future And that of Intelligence it may be questioned as common as it is For we speak not of possible but actual knowledge but that which may possibly be but never shall be the object of the supposed Intelligence of God is only a possible knowledge and not a real and therefore not to be matched with real knowledge For to say God knows the possibilities is no more than to say not that he knows the things but himself in whom and to whom all things are possible Therefore confining our Discourse only to things future we are to observe such to be either necessary or contingent there being no mean between these two And here first What is that which denominates a thing necessary and what contingent or accidental and then in what respect they are so called and distinguished And here first we are to distinguish of necessity it self with the Schools For there is a simple and absolute Necessity the contrary to which is altogether impossible and so nothing but God is of Necessity For God being absolute and supream over all things as nothing can by way of anticipation lay a necessity upon him so neither can any thing afterward obstruct or necessarily impede his will For as St. Paul saith Who hath resisted his will It neither hath been at any time nor can possibly be That Gods resolute Will should be opposed so as not to obtain its designed end But there is a conditional Necessity which they call Hypothetical which hath no such simple and original certainty but dependent upon somewhat else And this Dependance or Conditionalness is either upon The first Cause which is God or some second Cause the Creature For there was no such absolute Necessity that this visible world should have a Being but this Being depended upon the Will and Pleasure of God And this world being there was no necessity that it should consist of so many parts or several kinds of things but this depended upon the wisdome and pleasure of God also The other Hypothetical Necessity was founded by the First Cause God in the Creature upon supposition that it had a Being that such should be the nature of it As that supposing the Sun it necessarily followed it should give light and supposing there be such a thing as Fire in the world there is a necessity it should heat and burn Of all which there can no other reason be render'd but that which Scotus gives Because this is this and that is that And because the Creatour of them and all things else hath imposed such a Law unalterable upon the very natures of things themselves that upon supposal they have a Being such and such it should be And this I take to be that Necessity which Philosophers call a Necessity of Consequent viz. that which is immediately consequent to the being of a Thing that of Consequence as they call it being nothing else but a rational Inference following upon some Particular supposed As the Genus is alwayes supposed to the Species and not on the contrary For example He that runs must of necessity move and he that moves must of necessity be but not on the contrary And the ground of these and all such things Necessity is taken from the immutable decree of God who hath so determined that things should be And not only is this true in things apparent and visible to us but must necessary be no less true in things invisible and to us obscure and uncertain viz. That upon supposal Nihil est adâ—o contingens quin in se aliquid necessarium habe it Thom. 1. Q. 86. art 3. co of such a peremptory Decree and Cause from God that which seems to us most contingent and casual must have a
most certain and inevitable event even not inferiour to any of those necessities we have touched and the reason is plain because here is supposed the same will and same power to effect this as them and the variety and uncertainty of the means whereby a thing is brought about makes nothing at all against this because this proceeds only form the relation such means have to our understanding and apprehension which not being able to descern any connexion natural between the Cause and the Effect do look upon the effect as meer chance For instance that a fly should kill a man by choking him is as contingent a thing as can ordinarily happen And who could believe it that should be told that such a fly moving lightly and wildly it knows not whether it self perhaps a mile off from the place where this falls out and many dayes before the fact should certainly be the death of such a man yet no man of reason and conscience can deny but Gods providence and decree may impose an inevitable necessity upon this creature so opportunely and fitly to move as that it should certainly kill him and that at such a time and in such a place And if any should hereof doubt the express asseveration of our Saviour Christ in the Gospel may satisfie him herein saying One Sparrow shall not fall on the ground without your Father If any should so Matth. 10. 29. contrive our Saviours words as to understand without Gods will to be contrary only to Gods will and not of Gods will concurring and his knowledge noting the same St. Luke will instruct him otherwise who renders Luke 12. 6. the same speech Not one is forgotten which implies Observation and Providence That therefore those things which seem to us most free irregular and contingent may have a tacit and unknown determination from God which should fix and infallibly limit them to some special ends I may presume no man can piously doubt and especially after that great Opposer of Gods Providence over humane actions hath been constrained to acknowledge so much I mean Socinus who granteth God the liberty and power so to determine Praelâ—ct car 6. the Salvation as well as the acceptation and improvement of Grace offered to Peter and to Paul that the effect should inevitably follow which being allowed all the arguments usually brought by him and others not of his rank of the inconsistency of such inevitable decrees with the freedom of Mans will will lie as heavy upon him to solve or answer in his cases as on any other who should extend the same to many more than he pleases to do For can we any more conceive that Gods good will to them should first make them brutes before it made them Saints in limiting their choice and determining the same to one side rather than others or that he should extinguish a natural humane principle in them to bring them to salvation but secure it to others I hope not Therefore if a necessity destroyed not their humane Liberty how can it be concluded that it doth it in others Oâ— that there is no possible concord between Necessity and Contingencie Indeed in the same respect it must necessarily be true whether we regard God or Man For neither to God nor to Man can the same thing be allowed to be necessary and contingent at the same time but there appears no reason why the same thing which is necessarily to follow on the part of God may not be said on the part of man to be fortuitous free and chance as it is called For we indeed vulgarly call that only necessary where there appears a necessary connexion in nature between cause and effect and according to the degree of evidence and assurance to us we hold a thing necessary or contingent in which sense we hold it necessary that an heavy body out of its natural place should left to it self descend to it and possess it And we hold it not so necessary that the Sun going down in a cleer red evening towards the West should portend the day following to be fair and cleer Our Saviour when he affirmed this spake after the observations and opinion of men which generally herein fail not So that the being of a thing reaâ—y and the appearing of it so to be being so far different in nature it follows not at all that so it is intrinsecally and of it self because we can make no other judgment of it than in such a manner and that because we perceive no natural connexion between the cause and effect necessitating it therefore there neither is nor can be any Some things God hath ordained so openly inseparable one from the other that we easily and readily infer the one from or by the other and this is all we call necessity in nature But if God more covertly and subtilty hath likewise ordained the like connexion not by a Law of constant Nature but his singular will for which we can find out no reason this we presently call Contingent though it be as certain as the other And names being given to things by man according as they are apprehended the distinction of things into Necessary and Contingent is very reasonable and serviceable to man as signifying to him such a diversity of Effects in the world that some have apparent natural necessary cause to produce them and these things we call Necessary and some things have no such natural causes but more immediately are ordered by God bringing causes by his special Providence together besides their nature to produce such an Effect and that certainly though not naturally and this we call Contingent That this manner of proceeding of the Providence of God is possible is impossible to be desired And in many things seeming to us as casual as may be that actually they are all granted For to us considering all circumstances it was a thing meerly indifferent and undetermined whether Peter should believe unto Salvation or not but considering the resolute Providence of God disposing certainly outward causes it was certain and infallible The great question must then be about the General viz. Whether God hath two immutable Laws whereby a necessity doth attend all effects as well such as we tearm free and contingent as such as are necessary with this difference only that on some things he hath laid a Law natural which ordinarily and necessarily moveth to one certain effect and end as are seen in natural generations and corruptions as that as St. Paul saith Every seed should have its own body i. e. produce it And 1 Cor. 15. that whatever is so generated should by a Law of Nature also incline to dissolution again And that by a private invisible Law which reserves to him or particular decree he certainly bringeth to pass even those things of which we can give no reason and there appears to us no connexion or order of causes but causes are by his special hand brought to
that is in the sense even now Jude 4. explained given over to condemnation by God If we may make humane methods of any use to us in arriving at the knowledge of Gods proceedings as hath been generally received why may we not judge thus of Gods order of Causes Especially having the consent of the Scripture which thus speaks frequently according to the several occasions given And if it be said to be absurd thus to judge of God as unsetled in his knowledge and judgment and being regulated by emergencies We can well answer as in other points of Anthropapathie or Gods complyance with Mans capacity in speaking after humane manner And if God condescends on purpose that we should understand something of him to our edification shall we transcend unnecessarily the limits of modesty and content our selves with no other order or less knowledge than God himself hath of himself and wayes Gods acts several in respect of us may be simple in respect of himself and one but denominated and discriminated variously from the divers habitude of the Object The simple eternal Will and Law of God is this that the Righteous shall be saved and the Unrighteous damned This is his Predestination in general of all mankind subordinate to this are the several intermediate changes the first being immutable And it concerneth not to enquire What kind of Righteousness this is or whence or how man comes by it Whether he hath it as original Justice given him immediately of God at his first institution or whether he hath it superadded and derived from Christ This is certain which St. John saith He that doth righteousness is righteous even as he is â— John 3. 7. righteous whether this Righteousness comes by Nature or Grace And this is another infallible Rule which St. Peter delivereth in his Sermon to Acts 10. 34 35 Cornelius That God is no respecter of Persons But in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him Which is his most immutable Counsel and Decree of saving men and the consideration whereof we should firmly and immoveably stick to and put in practise But because it is one principal part of our Righteousness to agnize the Author and ground of it that famous doubt ought here to be touched Whether Righteousness be an effect of Predestination and Election or the Cause thereof with God The answer to this doth require that we be first satisfied in these three things Predestination Election and Vocation and the importance of them and principally to note in order hereunto that however later Authours especially from St. Austins time downward have invented and that usefully and reasonably enough several significations and importances of them which are not to be neglected yet the Scriptures use them promiscuously as may be seen from these instances amongst many Ephesians the first the fourth and fifth the Apostle saith According as he hath chosen i. e. Elected us in him before the foundation Ephes 1. 4 5. of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will Where Beza himself in his Annotations will allow Election in the fourth verse to signifie the same as doth Predestination in the fifth And that Vocation is taken for both 1 Pet. 1. 10. may be gathered from St. Peters words saying Who hath called us unto his eternal glory And it is as certain that St. Austine also so confounds them diverse times nevertheless they have their distinct conceptions which may be these For first Predestination or Fore-ordination according to Scripture it self will admit of a contrary object And there is a Predestination to Evil as well as to Good but in a different sense For as we have shown when God is said to ordain to Evil it must be rather understood in the Negative sense when he ordains not to Good but delivers over men to the commission of sin But Election is alwayes in a good sense as is also Vocation and are but so many progressions of Divine Providence in the salvation of the Faithful and not specifically distinct Species or kinds of acts as doth appear from St. Pauls accurate use and Rom. 8. 25 30 placing of them in his Epistle to the Romans Whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to Moreover whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them be also glorified Where the Apostle explaining the order of Gods proceeding in the saving of man makes a commutation of tearms expressing it For here Fore-knowledge is not that simple Intuition whereby he knows all things but that effectual knowledg founded on a precedent Decree which is the same with Predestination as now commonly used And that Predestination here is the same with Election is probable from that it is added to be conformed to the image of his Son and Calling is actuating of that Election and Predestination So that Predestination is alwayes understood as an act of Gods counsel and Election when taken properly as distinct from that is an act outward whereby it pleaseth God to take to his special favour certain persons and pass over others And Vocation seemeth to be nothing else strictly taken than that outward means or ministry whereby such are chosen to God As a man first propounds several objects to himself next he pitches upon one and determines to take it thirdly he actually makes choice of the same by some special signal of his will And this God commonly doing by word of mouth calling him to him hath given ground to that form of speech in Scripture of being called and calling the publication and ministration of the Gospel of Grace being that word of Gods mouth by which a man is selected from the rout and refuse of the World to the means of Grace Justification and Glory This I take to be the simplest and soberest state of this perplexed mystery In which I suppose it necessary to be advised how we stick too religiously to the tearms Predestination Election and Vocation because of their mutable signification in Scripture which must needs confound an immutable adherer to any one sense precisely and that such words must be understood rather from the relation they have one to another and the matter treated of as also the occasions than according to any simple sound of them And therefore to return to the Question moved concerning Righteousness as an effect or cause of Predestination Election and Vocation it must be answered from the distinct consideration of these tearms For when all these as sometimes are Synonymous and the same with that Pre-determination of Almighty God to Grace For there is a Predestination and Election and Vocation to Grace as the means as well as to Glory the End then it can be in no tolerable sense said
discriminating note made between the incorrigible reprobates destined to destruction and the corrigible offender ordained to life then indeed much more colour would appear to justifie the refusal of dispensing the means of salvation to such and the denial in the reprobate to give ear to such offers but flesh and bloud cannot reveal this to us and the Spirit of God hath not Doth not God send his Prophet Ezekiel with Ezek. 3. 4. 7. express commission to warn the house of Israel though he expresly assures him They will not hearken unto thee for they will not hearken unto me If the child in the womb being certainly determin'd to one sex long before it is brought forth yet this certainty being hid from our eyes though but for such a small time is thought by Parents a matter of prayer many times that it may be a Son How should not we much rather take the just occasion of applying our selves to acts of Religion though possibly the event with God is determined The summe then of this Chapter comes to this That God by his soveraign dominion and by his inscrutable counsels doth out of the corrupted and forlorn mass of fallen man elect whom he pleases to effectual Grace and from thence brings them to infallible Glory but never without their own acts of embracing his offers and persevering faithfully in his service So that though he purely chooses them to the means of Grace without consideration of their worth or fruitfulness yet he never ordains any or elects them to Glory but upon an intuition of faith and obedience to his will And on the other side he passes by others leaving them in great part as he found them from whence spring works of wickedness freely invented and acted and tending infallibly unto damnation So that God doth not in like manner influence the wicked as he doth the righteous that is for no other cause but his own will taking occasion justly from that common deformity wherein he finds them but never simply destinates any man to damnation but upon beholding the deserts of their sins But how it can come to pass that God thus ordaining the end damnation should not also appoint the means sin without which he condemns no man shall be answered in a more proper place Here only I add for their sakes who measure opinions by famous Patrons to which they are addicted that as I have said nothing to comply with or spitefully to oppose Calvin and his followers so neither to cross Arminius But this I must say that though I look upon Arminius as a much more modest man and more judicious Disputant than Calvin in these deep points yet in their followers we shall easily see a great disparity to the disadvantage of the Remonstrants For very many of Calvins followers have mitigated and fairly interpreted his too harsh and scandalous expressions and opinions and I think none have gone beyond him But on the other side what Arminius with much modesty and gravity delivered erroneously his abettors and followers have pursued and improved many of them to such an intollerable height that they fall often into direct Pelagianism and from thence which is much worse into Socinianisin as experience plainly sheweth And to that Dutch Physician Emperick in this part of Divinity who Beverovicius protested against all ministration of Physick to sick persons unless he could be assured of a mutability in the term of his Patients life for I must openly profess the same reason of Gods Providence and pre-determination to temporal life and death as spiritual and eternal and they are equally fixt and moveable both of them it suffices to answer Then he may let it alone and no absurdity follows But because a very learned and grave Divine of ours seemeth to have given some weight to the argument by citiug him to our present purpose I answer further That no such thing is said to be so precisely and simply â—ecreed â—ut it is as necessary the means should be determined as the end God hath determined no effect but he hath determined the proper cause thereto conducing And it is as false that God hath determined that such a man should recover his health as that he shaâ—l do it without such proper means The means comming under the decree as well as the end It will be said that this takes away all liberty from man as well in the way as to the end And probably Beverovicius if he had thought on this though he had been assured that the tearm of mans life was moveable but the means-thereto unmoveable would never have read book about physick nor stir'd off his seat to any patient because whatever he did or not did the means should have been applyed and succeeded to the sick party But because we are sure we cannot go out of our Island on foot shall we not stir out of doors at all Because we cannot do what we would and go as far as we would shall we not do any thing at all Because our Liberties do not reach beyond Gods Mannor and priviledge the second cause from the autority and influence of the first shall we be sulle in and dogged and refuse that which we Certainly whatever plausible suggestions may of late have been instilled into the common peoples minds of a free subjection it can never be rightly and honestly understood of a freedom from the Supream Power and Justice And so whatever liberty of will may be claimed to man in his actions must be interpreted rather in relation to his fellow creatures and subjects and outward causes which cannot impose upon his will but the first cause may in that cannatural way we before mentioned and in the next place shall have occasion offered farther to explain CHAP. XIII The Occasion of treating of Sin here What sin is What Evil. Monstrousness in things natural and Evil in Moral things illustrate each other Sin no positive or real Thing God the direct Cause of Evil. St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans makes nothing for the contra Remonstrants literally and primarily taken THE near respect that Sin hath to what is passed and the aspect it hath to what is before us concerning the Providence of God in the Fall of Man from his native Righteousness oblige us here to enquire farther into the nature of it And slightly passing over that doubt of some Philosophers and Ancient Hereticks How if there were a God who is supreamly and infinitely good and no more but one Evil should find any being amongst the beautiful works of God its nature being so foul monstrous and contrary to God because it is touched above and in truth do adde rather a greater beauty and lustre to God works than if no such thing were to be found and because as the glory so the power of God is much more manifested thereby in that he curbs and checks its excess and exorbitancie at his pleasure and forces it by his providence to
a good event in general if not particular we are now to satisfie our selves What that we call Evil and Sin is And what relation God hath to it First then we are to note that Evil and Sin differ only as Genus and Species so that all Sin is Evil but all Evil is not Sin Evil is that which is contrary to nature or natural Good Sin is that which is contrary to grace and moral good And that which is contrary to the order rule and form of Nature is called Monstrous that which is contrary to the Rule of Justice and Holiness is called Sin And as monstrosity in nature is divided into defects and excesses So Sin in morality is divided into Omissions and Commissions And of neither of these can God be said to be the Authour or Nature under him For if Nature according to Philosophers which is but Gods Instrument doth not intend monstrous effects much less may God be said so to do whose acts are alwayes more constant and steady the higher they are and nearer to himself For to give an instance when we see a want of a limb in a monstrous birth it may so far be imputed to Divine Providence that it could not so happen without the knowledge and consent of the Supream Cause in whose power it was to have disposed outward and second causes to the effecting of a regular and perfect work yet directly and with a positive purpose to have assisted in the production of such a Monster we cannot safely nor wisely say seeing the denyal of that ordinary and more necessary concurrence to such an end is altogether sufficient to it and such defects arise not from Gods positive Will to have them so but from his not willing to have them otherwise There may seem somewhat more difficulty in Monsters in excess when any Creatures have more parts than are naturally proper to them as four hands or three leggs and the like But this proves not any direct intention to this but only an intention not to keep things in their proper limits and to their Rule A Master or Father when he holds not a severe hand over his child or servant cannot but by inference and consequence be said to be the cause of the exorbitant carriages of them because though he wills not to prevent such mischiefs he doth not will they should be God in like manner willeth redundance of matter as a thing real and positive but that it should meet together as to constitute such an unnatural effect is rather the suspence and with-holding his Providence then the exercising of the same This I premise as leading to the due apprehension of Moral Evil which to hold as such to have a positive Existence in the world is inevitably to become Manichean and to make God the Authour of sin as St. Austin in these words declareth Here we are to be careful that we fall not into the Herisee of the Manichees who said there was a certain Nature of Evil and a certain people of darkness with their Princes And afterward So they erre so they are blinded so they make themselves the people Gentem Tenebrarum of darkness by believing that which is false against him who created them for every Creature is good but it is corrupted by the depraved will of Man Thus he and were it so that Evil had a positive being from whom could it proceed but from God And it is repugnant to the Nature of the good God to be the Author of any thing simply Evil so far the Manicheans were in the right therefore they that hold this must with the Manichees invent and introduce another God I know the modern defenders of the positive nature of sin alledge several Schoolmen and some Fathers for the same but I know there are more express testimonies of the Ancient against it and the Modern of any account had either another sense than we now state the doubt in or must be rejected with their Relater It is not a place here to examine and encounter all nor to alledge the Reasons or Authorities to the contrary which might easily be done Only that Argument taken from the distinction of Sins of Omission and Commission deserves to be considered For say they if Sins of Omission consist only in defect of duty and are thereby distinguished from of Commission which are such as not only fall short of what is due but act the quite contrary as when a man instead of praying and praising God contumeliously abuses his Name and Worship this hath more in it than a meer negation or privation of good Thus indeed it seems but thus it is not For both these are evil upon the account of privation and the absence of good the difference only is in this that in sins of Omission the privativeness or negation is immediately seated in the Subject owing such an Act and in such a manner and here in no Action at all but the absence of it which renders a man and denominates him immediately evil or defective But in sins of Commission the case is far otherwise for here privation or defect relateth not immediately to the Subject as the Man himself but to the Action it self and by that is the Man made guilty and evil because though the act be in its nature positive yet is defective as to its circumstances according to which it ought to be performed For when God hath appointed and Justice and Reason directeth that a man should observe in his action such a time and season and such a place and have respect to such a person such a manner and measure and he neglecteth all or any of these doth he not plainly offend in the negative though the act it self be in nature positive But in the case we are about the Nature as we said of things is not to be valued but the Morality and the Morality may be evil when the Nature is good and the Morality may be privative when the Act is positive Hatred of God is an act of Man than which none can be instanced in to contain more evil or malice Therefore as this is an act Natural and Vital it is good and hath God for its direct and first cause but as this act is directed to God and so relates to a wrong object so it is evil and hath neither countenance nor concurrence from him For as is above-touched we are to distinguish Omne bonum viva substantia est vita est Vita autem Christus Omne autem malum sine substantia est nihil est tamen perdere protest Opus Imperf in Matth. Hom. 41. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost Homil 2. in Act. Apost Anselmus de Casu Diaboli Tom. 3. the Act of Sin from the Sin of the Act and that upon the received Maxime amongst the Philosophers That all Evil is in somewhat that is Good for having no subsistence of it self it must rest upon some other thing that hath a
real being as a ruinous and crased house resteth upon a sound foundation And it is distinguished from it as the matter from the form for though evil hath no such proper matter as other real Beings have for if it had it should it self also be real in nature and of it self yet hath it somewhat proportionable and answerable thereunto in that it affecteth such a Person immediately as sins of omission or such an act as proceedeth from him whereupon Aristotle saith well in a certain place Privation is a certain habit though taken properly nothing is more contrary to habit than Privation whose nature it is to be the absence and want of Habit and nothing by that Philosopher opposed more to habit than Privation I might here set down the opinions and testimonies of diverse Philosophers and Fathers expresly declaring against the positive nature of sin but I shall rather compose the disputation by giving Anselmes judgment of the case than whom none have disputed the matter more acutely of his Age. In his eleventh Chapter of his Dialogue concerning the fall of the Devil he asks How Nothing and Evil should signifie any thing whereas Evil is altogether Privative and there he answers Although Evil and Nihil signifieth something yet that which is signified is not Evil or Nothing but some other manner whereby they signifie something And that which is signified is somewhat but yet not really somewhat but as it were somewhat Many things are spoken after a certain form which are not in very deed And to fear according to the form of the word doth signifie somewhat Active when as it is Passive according to the thing it self And so Blindness c. And afterward in the 26th Chapter of that Treatise he speaketh thus Evil which is called unrighteousness is alwayes Nothing But Evil which is Incommodiousness sometimes without doubt is Nothing as Blindness Aliquando est aliquid Sometimes is something as Sadness and Pain And Chapter the 27th He gives the general reason why Evil cannot be Any thing viz. Because if it were any thing it must be of God Thus he who we see distinguisheth Evil first into that of sin and that of punishment or Incommoditas as he calls it And that of punishment he again distinguishes into meerly Privative as blindness and Positive which is in suffering Pâ—â—na Damni and paena Sensus pains which is the same with the common distinction of Punishment of dammage or loss and punishment of sense so well known in the Schools And we may easily yield that all Evil of Punishment is positive though it be not and yet retain our opinion which runs only upon the Evil of Sin I know Augustine than whom it is well known no man speaks more expresly for the privative nature of all Sin and Thomas and Cajetane and others are alledged to have asserted a real Being of Concupiscence in man which undoubtedly is Sin But they may be interpreted according to our former ground where we allowed all sins to have a subject in which they are and when this subject is somewhat active and positive as such acts of Original Concupiscence are and of our other Passions and Affections then is the Evil of them taking its denominations from its matter to which it relates said to be positive for distinction sake from those sins we call Sins of Omission From these grounds laid we may now adventure farther into the causality God may be said to have in reference to the Evil of Sin for as to that of Punishment the difficulty is not great There are two Parties in the Roman Church which go contrary wayes making two several Propositions which joyned together do make God directly the Authour of Sin So that a man may with better Reason make it a reason against communion with the Roman Church than Companion against the Reformed one of whose ten Reasons against the Reformed that they made God the Authour of sin For this by the confession of some of the Romanists must follow For the Dominicans do directly profess That God doth concurr to the act of Evil and with the Will not only determined by it self but determining it self to an evil On the contrary The Jesuits affirm that God awaiting and expecting the inclination and self-determination of the will doth not concurr to the very act of sin but follows that motion which is evil adding and professing as in particular doth Suarez That if God should first according Suarez in Thom. 22dâ—â— Disputat 6. Tract 4. to nature move and apply the will to an act which is sin before it had determined it self He should then in very deed be the Authour of sin This we make the major Proposition The Assumption is made by the Dominicans who constantly affirm That God doth concurr to a sinful act as doth Medina Medina in Thom. Quaest 79. Art 2. Therefore by these two joyned together God should be the Author of Sin Nay Medina goes farther and of himself will do the work before he is aware He denies I grant that God is the Authour of Sin and so will Calvine and Beza and Zuinglius and such others who are so warmly charged by their Enemies with that pernicious Errour But he by consequence and they do no more doth thus plainly inferr so much in the place cited saying When God is the cause of any act he is also the Cause of the Privation which naturally follows upon that Act. But yet saith he concurreth not to the deformity of sin Here is a mystery if any man could find it out The deformity of Sin consisteth only in the privation of the act or which is the very same want of conformity to the Rule of Actions and the will of God And yet it is here said That God may be the Author of the Act and the Author of the Privation that is found in that act which Privation is nothing else but a want of due conformity and yet not the Author of the deformity of that Act. This is a contradiction The true and simple account then of this matter may be this That God is never any direct cause of Privations or Deformity of any Act though he be the true Cause of the Act it self And his not willing to prevent by his effectual concurse such an Evil in the Act is all can be imputed unto him and that is far from being the Cause of sin unless it could be proved that there lay an obligation any time upon God as many times there does upon man That he should exert his Divine power to the utmost for the preventing all the mischiefs he can and hindring sin And here if querulous man as 't is often seen doth repiningly reply upon God for hard dealing towards him in that he punishes him for that sin which he foresees cannot be avoided by him Gods grace withdrawing it self from him St. Paul commands him silence whether he understands the reason Rom. 9. 20 21.
or equity of it or not saying Nay but O man What art thou that replyest against God Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it Why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour No man that acknowledges and every Christian must acknowledge the like and greater power and prerogative in God over Man than the Potter hath of his clay can deny that God may order the work of his hands as he pleases neither can he deny but the drift of the Apostle in this comparison was to show the absolute power and dominion of God over all Creatures and therefore let them see how they aggravate matters of this nature and multiply fond ratiocinations which they cannot but know agree not with St. Pauls stating and decision of this Question I do freely grant the adverse Party that St. Paul doth not at all concern himself with that kind of Predestination Election or Vocation as very many confidently presume he doth in his Eighth and Ninth Chapters to the Romans I mean not particular or personal Prae-determination and the like the whole letter and the occasion of his discourse there being concerning the Election of the Gentile Church and the uncessant protection thereof against all threatnings and Oppositions and disputing the equity of Gods deserting the Jewish Church yet thus far his argument being general holds good in particular persons that if it be free to God without any just exceptions to choose and leave a Church or Nation at his pleasure and according to the counsel of his own will it is also reasonable and just for him to favour or show disfavour to any single person in like acts of his Providence without being called in question for what he doth or not doth CHAP. XIV Of Sin more particularly And first of the Fall of Adam Of Original sin wherein it consisteth and how it is traduced from Father to children The Proofs of it The Nature and Evils of it And that it is cured in baptism That Natural Concupiscence hath not the Nature of Sin after baptism BY what is said competent satisfaction may be had in that mystery of Gods Providence in the fall and sin of the first Man created as we have shewed in such perfection of natural Faculties and divine Grace the reason absolute and demonstrative whereof cannot be rendred by the witâ— of Man viz. Why God should make such a fine and exquisite piece and deliver it over presently to ruin and loss It may suffice that God was not the direct cause of such his Fall by impelling him though his Free-will embracing the Temptation he was privy to his errour As it was in that memorable case of the death of Benhadad King of Syria in the second of the Kings when Hazael was sent to enquire Whether he should recover 2 Kings 8. 10. of that Sickness The Prophet Elisha answered Go say unto him thou mayest certainly recover how be it the Lord hath shewed me that he shall surely dye And this was the true case of Adam whom God knew to have full power certainly to stand and yet he knew he would surely fall As therefore God in that case spake after the method and manner of mans apprehension so he here acted In that he first said the King might surely recover and this was according to the common order of natural Causes which then were upon him in his sickness which were such as were easily resisted and like to have no such effect But then God withal beholding that which was not seen of man perhaps not thought on by the Actour himself at that time he saw withal a necessary dependencie and connexion between another cause and that effect which followed and so declared surely the contrary to the other In like manner God beholding Adam in that integrity and vigour of gifts and Graces with which he had furnished him saw him in a certain condition to persevere in that state but seeing withal the future outward cause of Temptation he might well see the effect what it would be infallibly So that when we say a thing is contingent we cannot say so in respect of all causes but in respect of some special cause to which in our opinion and observation such an effect may seem properly to belong For it is a true Axiome amongst Logicians All causes accidental are reducible to proper and direct causes So that there was no necessity by Gods appointment of Adams Fall as he was framed of God but somewhat might occurr outwardly which by Gods permission might have as certain effect upon the will of Man though Free of it self and indifferent as had the wet cloath laid by Hazael 2 Kings 8. 15. upon the face of Benhadad this only excepted That what natures simple Act did in this the will of man combining freely against himself with those outward causes suffered in that The thing therefore principally to be here enquired after is rather about the Nature of this Sin in Adam and the Effects thereof And as to the former it is to be observed That what was in him an Actual sin became in us an Original and what was free to him to be subject to it or void of it becomes necessary to us and inevitable It might be called in some sense an Original sin in him as it was the first in nature and time he stood guilty of but not as if his Nature was from the beginning so corrupt as to dispose him unto it Again in him it was of it self purely sinful and a transgression of Gods Law upon which followed evil effects but in us it seems to partake originally of both sin and punishment but chiefly of this latter For though they speak truly in the larger sense who make three things proper and inseparable from Sin Guilt Stain and Punishment yet restraining our selves to the true Nation of it there are these two things only essential to it The matter it self which is the evil act committed against the Law of God or which commeth to the same omitted contrary to the same And the manner or formality of it which consisteth in the perversness and pravity of the will which is so essential to it that it both distinguishes the errours of rational men from them of beasts and mad-men and them of the same Man from one another so that what was done voluntarily and freely differs wholly from that done with incogitancie so not affected for then the will concurs with it and infects it and without any intention so to do as to point of moral Goodness or Evil. And according to the bent or averseness of the will to evil commonly are estimated the degrees of evil But though in Adam all these things concurred to the heightening of his Actual sin yet in those that inherit that evil from him the sin must needs be much less in Nature and lighter because
Apostle speaks of the state of Evil or Condemnation in the next of the state of Restitution and Justification For as all persons were included in the Condemnation of Adam so were all included in the Justification of Christ But as of all them only some many were through his disobedience made Sinners that is became such sinners as not to return to actual Righteousness and Salvation so by the obedience of Christ not all who were called and chosen came to Life and Holiness but many only were made Righteous actually and not all Or if we take the word Sin as he of whom we speak doth not so much for the real inward vitiousness of the soul but for any outward defect and which is yet more for the Punishment of Sin in which sense the Sacrifice for sin was called Sin in the Old Law and Christ in the New Testament is said to be made Sin for us that is a Sacrifice for Sin so that to be made sinners should import as much as to be made lyable to the punishment of sin the matter is the same But because this Authour not only inclines to the Opinion of Pelagius and of Socinus after him making the corruption of nature nothing and therefore exempting Infants from any such natural infection as we here suppose but uses the same evasion of Imitation of Adams sin and not propagation as the original of all Evil to us therefore let us hear what St. Austins argument was against that Opinion If saies he the Apostle spake Aug. Epist 87. of Sin by imitation and not propagation entring into the world he could not have said that by one Man Sin entred into the world but rather by the Devil for he sinned before man and as the Wiseman saith Through envie Wisd 2. 24. of the Devil came death into the world And Christ tells us how aptly the Devil may be said to propagate sin by imitation as well as Adam thus reprehending the Jews Ye are of your Father the Devil and the Lusts of John 8. 44. your Father ye will do he was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him when he speaketh a lye he speaketh it of his own for he is a lyar and the Father of it And when St. Paul saith We were by nature the children of wrath as well Ephes 2. 3. Psalm 51. 5. as others And the Psalmist Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in Sin did my mother conceive me that these places must be accounted hyperbolical and not to have a proper sense is the special evasion of Modern Wits not comparable to Ancienter Judgments more simply understanding them I know a more colourable interpretation is made by others who interpret Conceiving in sin as relating to the Parents and not to the Children But this is less probable than the ordinary and obvious sense applying it to David For though it may be probable enough that Parents may offend in acts of Procreation and so the child may be said to be conceived by them in sin yet David being at the speaking of these words in deepest repentance for his own sins cannot be said to leave off that subject and to confess the sins of others and charge his parents with that which concerned him not Again when he says He was shapen in iniquity nothing could he say more intimately to signifie his proper state at the time of his first conception But the Scriptures do not only barely say we are originally thus infected and sinful but by the effects and certain other indications declare the same The first and chiefest of which may be Death and punishments sticking close to infants at their birth and even before they come into the world Now the Law of God being unalterable that punishment should follow and not go before sin it must be that somewhat of the nature of sin must prepare the way for such sufferings Secondly That all men come to years of discretion are effected with Actual sin few of the opposers of Original sin deny But according to Reason and Scripture both the fountain being so infected and corrupted whatever flows from it must of necessity partake of the same evil For Job 14. 4. Jam. 3 11 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Anâ—ae Gazaei Thâ—â—â—hrastus Biblioth P P. pag. 392. To. 8. Non eniâ— es ex â—â—lis qui modo nova quaedam gannire câ—perunt dicentes nullum reatum esse ex Adam tractum qui per baptisâ—um in infante sâ—lvatur Aug. Epist 28. Hieronymo Ad neminem ante bona mens â—enit quam mala Omnes prâ—â—ccupati sumus Sen. Ep. 50. Nemo difficulter ad naturam reducitur nisi qui ab â—a defecit ibid. who saith Job can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one And St. James Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter Can a fig-tree my brethren bear olive-berries either a vine figs so can no fountain yield both salt water and fresh From whence it follows by way of just Analogy That the Fountain being corrupt there must be derived to the Rivolets the like unsoundness And thirdly we see this by experience that both bodily and mental infirmities and disorders are traduced from Father to Son in actual Evils as the Gout Stone and Leprosie are transinitted to posterity from the Father and Anger and other passions in like manner It may as well be said That the Son hath the Gout and halts by imitation and not by propagation as that such other affections which are common to Father and Son so proceed Fourthly The Argument which St. Augustine could never by the Pelagians be answered taken from Baptism For this they could not deny but the Church universally practised Paeda-baptism that is held an opinion manifested in practise that Children were capable of that Sacrament and received the benefit of it however some particular persons deferred the same and held it of use unto them for the entring into the Kingdom of Heaven Therefore surely there must be some impediment and that impediment could be nothing but what hath the nature of sin in it therefore they bring sin with them into the World Pelagius had a good mind indeed as Austin observed to have denyed the use of Baptism but as bold as he and his great second Julian of Capua was the general Judgment of the Church declared in the practise of it put a stop to his inclinations but Socinus bolder than any Heretick before him sticks at no such thing but flatly denyes the use of it to all but such as are converted newly to the Christian Faith as in the times of the Apostles This was freely and roundly invented and uttered and which suffices alone to convince us of the former errour denying Original Sin which was alwayes held a principal cause of Baptism Lastly Thus much may be observed by natural Reason to the confirmation of Original Sin
that as the case now stands as they speak in Acts 4. 12. sensu composito God having determined that no other name under heaven be given whereby men must be saved that there is no salvation in any other but in Christ Jesus But secluding that Decree it doth not appear why God out of the Abyss of his Counsels and Immensness of his Wisdome and absoluteness of his Free Grace might not have compassed Mans salvation some other way My Reason besides those I find used by others is that now intimated If God could entertain such favourable thoughts towards Man as to decree his Salvation without intuition of Christ surely he might have effected it without Christ For 't is neither just nor reasonable to imagine that God could decree any thing absolutely and not absolutely bring it to pass for we cannot so judge of Gods Counsels as we do of Mans who alwayes determines with supposition of means and ability to bring to pass what he determined but all causes out of himself being without exception subject to his will nay his will needing no outward means to attain its purpose or resolution it is sufficient argument that such a thing may be that God without consideration of any means decrees it and at his liberty chooses those means he pleases Neither upon this supposition is the advantage such as the Socinian Heretick expects to his cause It is one of his pernicious heresies That Christ satisfied not by his Passion he expiated not the offense of Man thereby but left him many a good lesson to direct and instruct him in the way to heaven set him an excellent and fair example to follow Makes now at last being in heaven not before intercession and mediates for man but his death was no satisfaction for the wrath of God conceived against the sinner And to make way to this opinion he says that God might without any satisfaction have freely remitted mans offence and therefore it was not absolutely and indispensably requisite that Christ should dye If we should yield all this which is here taken for granted which yet if it be not granted is not so easie to be demonstrated there appears no great advantage to their cause For if it be assured unto us out of holy Writ that God hath determined that no salvation should be attained no recovery had without the mediation of Christ and his satisfaction what availeth it them that possibly it might have been otherwise I confess the advantage to the other side would have been much greater if it could be proved that Gods justice of absolute necessity must have been satisfied by fulfilling the penal part of the Law but however there remains evidence enough from the conditional will of God which according to Scriptures admits of no other way now For so saith St. Paul to the Colossians It pleased the Father that in Col. 1. 19 20. him should all fulness dwell And having made peace through the bloud of his Cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself by him I say whether they be things in heaven or things on earth And Christ himself in St. Luke saith Luke 24 46. Thus it is written and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day And that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his Name among all Nations beginning at Jerusalem And St. Peter 2 Pet. 2. 24. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead unto sin should live unto righteousness by whose stripes we were healed And what can be more plain than that of the Epistle to the Hebrews Without Heb. 9. 22 23. shedding of bloud is no remission And lest some may presume to restrain the Apostles words to the state of the Old Law it is added It was therefore necessary that the paterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these but the heavenly things themselves with better Sacrifices than these And what doth the Apostle mean by the better Sacrifices but the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross St. John declares so much exprefly where he saith If we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another 1 John 1. 7. and the bloud of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin And in the fore-cited place of the Hebrews more fully and expresly making a comparison Hebr. 9. 14. between the expiations of the Law and Gospel sayes thus For if the bloud of Bulls and Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh how much more shall the bloud of Christ who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God If therefore God under the Mosaical Law might have passed over the errours and uncleanness of his people Israel but never would remit them without expiations and sacrifices to that end ordained how can it be imagined that the moral errours and impurities of the soul of Man by sin should be expiated or passed over without that Sacrifice and shedding of the bloud of Christ appointed to that purpose Surely therefore a sense there is wherein it is impossible God should remit sins without due punishment for the same inflicted and the least and lowest is that which we call conditional supposing that God hath so decreed that no sin should be expiated but that way A way which besides the excellent agreement it hath with the Justice of God and Mercy also is full of pregnant advices and instructions to the Offender partly informing of the foul and mortal nature of sin which cannot otherwise be pardoned than by such satisfaction of bloud partly by humbling him and moving him to cry God mercy bitterly and heartily and lastly by possesing his mind with a dread and terrour of the nature of sin so as to avoid the same for the time future CHAP. XVI Of the Nature and Person of the Mediatour between God and Man In the beginning was the Word proved to be spoken of Christ and that he had a Being before he was Incarnate The Vnion of two Natures in Christ explained Christ a Mediatour by his Person and by his Office and this by his Sacrificing himself The Scriptures proving this THUS far of the necessity and use of Mediation between God and Man for the reconciling them at this great distance Now it remains to speak more particularly of the Person or Mediatour himself whom Christian Faith acknowledges to be Christ Jesus who as the Scripture tells us came unto the world to save sinners and to save them by his Mediation 1 Tim. 1. 15. And that this is a faithful saying that is a truth to be embraced by true Faith without which there is no Salvation But of the Condition of this Mediatour we find no small differences amongst such who are called Christians
as of the only begotten of the Father And when St. Paul saith that God sent Rom. 8. 3. his Son in the likeness of sinful Flesh and for sin condemned sin in the Flesh he implyeth that there were two tearms considered in Christ as in all other things sent First there is the Person by whom or from whom the Party is sent and that here was God Secondly there was the Party or tearm to whom and that was either to the World in general or to that individual substance of Flesh so assumed by him and which is here intended Now it cannot be that the Act of sending should be the same with making but first a Thing is before it is sent and the rearm to which must be distinct from that which is sent Therefore Christ according to the Phrase of holy Scriptures being sent to take Flesh must have of necessity a subsistence before which subsistence must be of a Divine Nature as is also witnessed in the Epistle to the Hebrews For as much then as children Hebr. 2. 14. are partakers of flesh and bloud he also himself took part of the same That is the person of Christ took part of the mass of humane Flesh and Nature when he was formed of the substance of his Mother in her womb And in that it follows Verily he took not on him the nature of Angels but the seed of Abraham v. 16. What can be more necessarily implyed than a Person prae-existing to whom according to the nature of the thing it was indifferent to have taken the nature of Angels or the Flesh of man and that it pleased God to send his Son to man and it also pleased his Son to elect humane nature to dwell in so that the manner of Christ thus consisting of two Natures is matter of difficulty rather than the thing it self i. e. how two Natures can be and how they were and are actually united in Christ Suidas observes ten sorts of unions to be found in the World of which Suidas in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. Qu. 2. 1. we cannot stay here to speak Thomas reduces all unto three One union is of things that are absolute and perfect in themselves as many stones make one heap Another is when things in nature perfect are so united that they cease thereby to be perfect of themselves as when the Elements concurr to make one perfect mixt body Thirdly when diverse things being in nature imperfect not absolutely but in that they are naturally capable of greater perfection and tend thereunto as the soul and body and the several members of the body constitute one man But after none of these exactly can Christ be said to consist of two natures united Not the first way because such things are rather relatively and denominatively one than really Not the second because it were to suppose that the Divine Nature could be alterable and mutable and because if such a composition were made both the Divine and Humane nature must loose their natural being and kind and so neither of both remain but a third thing Not the last because both Divine and humane nature are perfect of themselves in their kind So that in truth speaking strictly no precedent in Nature can be found answering this Union called Hypostatical or Persâ—nal because it is the union of two intire Natures into one Person and that the Second person of the Trinity God blessed for evermore But of the former the last representeth this Mystery most clearly and is often used by the ancient Fathers to express the same and especially by Athanasius in his Creed who thus declareth this mistery sufficiently to the sober and modest and not curious mind Christ is God of the substance of the Father begotten before the worlds and man of the substance of his mother born in the world Perfect God and perfect man of a reasonable soul and humane flesh subsisting Equal to God as touching his God-head and inferior to his Father as touching his Manhood Who although he be God and man yet he is not two but one Christ One not by conversion of the Godhead into Flesh but by taking of the manhood into God One altogether not by confusion of substance but by unity of person For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man so God and Man is one Christ Now the ground of this great mistery is taken partly from the testimonies and descriptions of Christ the Mediator made in the Scripture where besides those already given diverse proper to God are ascribed to him and many which are proper to humane nature are attributed to him and because there can be nothing more absurd in nature or Christian Religion than to imagine that Christ is more than one Person one Son one Mediator therefore it follows necessarily that this one Person must consist of more than one nature and partly because the end of Christ being Incarnate seemed to require this most necessarily As First there was all reason that the nature which sinned and offended should suffer and satisfie but none but humane nature had so sinned Secondly that he should be a Prophet to instruct and teach his Church Thirdly that he should be a King to rule and direct his Church according to the Prophesies of old concerning him For Moses truly said unto the Fathers a Prophet shall Acts 3. 22. the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me which must be of humane condition Now according to this union of the Divine and Humane nature in one Person may Christ in some sense be said to be a Mediator Essential being a Mean Person not simply God nor simply Man but this is not the proper Mediation of Christ between God and Man but this rather consisteth in Acts performed and Offices of Christ And these acts of Christ may be distinguished into two sorts Preparatory and Consummatory The former I call preparatory because they were ordained as useful expediencies not as essential to Reconciliation between the parties at distance And the first act of this nature was after the manner of Civil Arbitrements to take the Case into serious consideration and to deliberate with himself about the most proper means of attaining an amicable composure of differences on foot And as the Scripture Heb. 2. 14. saith forasmuch then as the children of God to be redeemed are partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part of the same that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death that is the Devil It appearing unto him that there was no such proper or convenient means to Arbitrate between God and Man as the taking upon him humane nature For by this means as Moses is said to be the Intercessour medius et sequester between God and the People of Israel and therefore the Law is said to have been given in the hand of a Mediatour Deut. 5. 5. Gal. 3. Hebr. 9. 15.
to the phrase of Scripture often ascribed unto God As where we read a Sleep from the Lord was fallen upon the servants of Saul that is a prosound or as it 1 Sam. 26. 12. is there said a deep sleep though I deny not but this might be literally verified And we read according to the original of Oaks of God and Hills of God which import no more than exceeding high and stately ones And I make no doubt but when it is said The sons of God saw the daughters of Genes 6. 2. men that they were fair c. Angels are not thereby intended and doubt whether as is commonly conjectur'd The children of God or holy Seed be there aimed at For no reason can be given why Gyants should be rather born of them than wicked men but rather that they were a race of Men of extraordinary stature called therefore the Sons of God because of their excessive greatness as all other mighty things are said to be of God in which sense egregious hardness is imputed unto God But to the main difficulty we must answer from the various manifestations of Gods love to Mankind And where can we better begin to judge hereof than from the first and second state of Man his Institution and Restauration It is here taken for granted That whole Mankind fell at once in Adam from its pristine perfection And it is no less apparent that God purposing to restore Man again and recover him treated as it were and concluded with the same person Adam and in the same capacity that he fell in He fell as is said equally to all men future without any discrimination of worse or better higher or lower and God treated and covenanted with him without any clause of distinction or exception of any one single person For in truth though all actions relate immediately to persons yet the substance of the Treaty concerned principally the nature in general of Man the promises of God being made with the Seed of the Woman and Man without any restriction or limitation as St. Paul teaches thus saying God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself by which 2 Cor. 5. 19. is signified a general and indistinct gift of God towards the lapsed mass of Mankind which gift likewise is expressed in the same latitude by St. John For God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever Joh. 3. 16. believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life But if there were in the first intention of God any disparity in exhibiting his son to the world of that nature that thereby certain persons should be excluded remedilesly from the number for whom Christ dyed then could it no more be said that Christ became incarnate for them then for the Devils whose nature Christ took not But surely there was a distinction made between reprobate Men and reprobate Spirits But this is not answered by the distinction in general of Sufficiencie and Efficiencie or efficacie of Christs death used by Perkins saying That Christs death was sufficient for all but became not effectual to all This is notoriously true and undenyable and that as he sayes it was sufficient for the redemption of many worlds if case required For so it might be said It was sufficient for the redemption of Devils too for ought we know And what of this But Perkins seems to make a little bolder and farther step where he grants a kind of efficacie too but somewhat of the harshest sense For distinguishing between Potential and Actual Efficacie he addeth Christ dyed potentially effectually for all men but not actually effectually But this potential efficacie rightly understood amounts to no more than a simple Sufficiencie in regard that this Vertue according to him was never intended by God to be actuated in the behalf of the unpredestinated to life and glory A second prejudice against that interpretation is That the Scripture speaking of the death of Christ and his Passion doth not speak of it as of a sufficient rate and price in general but a payment also actually made for all for such is the importance of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which signifie an actual payment in relation to an obligation of Debt or Bondage which places of Scripture we have before given Thirdly the Decree of exhibiting Christ actually and effectually in special manner to some elect persons who receive him by Faith being thereunto moved and enabled by Gods inspirations is altogether posteriour to the exhibition of Christ to Mankind in general and therefore can be no real cause of Gods distinct intention then or that God should at his first propounding put a difference in the manner of exhibiting Christs Persons For all this while we must allow two distinct Periods of Gods favourable Providence toward Man in restoring him the one in his general Ordination of his Son to redeem him the other in the special collation and application of that benefit to man God gave his Son and in him his Obedience both in life and death to All men But the effect and benefit of these redounded actually only to some select persons This latter is undenyable by all sides For who did ever say that all men were actually saved by Christ I know the former i. e. That Christ was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Payment made for all is rejected by Perkins and his Assertour and Apologist Twisse And true it is that in very tearms above-mentioned it is scarce to be found that Christ gave himself without a note of Restitution and Limitation such as Many or To them that receive him and believe in him But then as the Scripture saith not in express tearms that Christ was a Ransom or Payment made for all so neither doth it say Only for the Elect exclusively And when it saith Christ was the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World And that God John 1. 29. John 3. 16. 1 John 4. 14. so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son And elsewhere That the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the World We shall not need to shew how the Scripture doth frequently use the word World in opposition to true Believers as where St. John hath these words The World knew him John 1. John 17. 9. not And again I pray for them I pray not for the World c. and so in other places which do imply a Right the very Wicked and Reprobates have in Christ And whereas a principal argument is drawn from the words in St. John last cited to prove an inequality of interest in Christs death and mediation thus Christ only dyed for them he prayed for but Christ prayed not for the World i. e. the Wicked Therefore he dyed not for them If this were true that Christ never prayed for the wicked or for those that were not then given actually
And it is very wonderful if any thing can be strange which we find comming from that monstrous wit that Socinus should profess Christianity and yet deny that which common humanity taught others as great wits as himself For denying that Religion or Worship of God is natural to man as in divers places he doth what account can he give of many Heathen who never heard of or received any such revelations as he holds necessary to make God known in the world And why because there are certain people in the Indies saith he which have no reverence of a Deity But doth he think that nature teacheth us just so much as we actually know and no more It should seem so indeed by his reasonings and conclusions But that was his folly and mistake as much as it would be to hold an opinion that the Preacher of the Gospel doth not instruct or advise men in Religion the knowledge and service of God because they profit not by him but live profanely and vitiously For that we say is natural to us and that we have by the Law and light of Nature which we have so within us as that by the help of them we may arrive to the knowledge of the truth not that whether we will or no we shall necessarily attain it And surely it is but as the opening of the eyes of the body in a drowfie person to discern the light of the day for a man to perceive such notices as these by vertue of that natural light in him and those legible Characters writ by Gods finger in the heart of man He is franck enough to man and more than enough more then any good Christian in magnifying mans natural reason and natural freedom of will and his power in choosing good and refusing evil and living regularly without those Divine aids judged necessary by all good Christians But how can this be done without the acknowledgment of a Deity and the worship of it But it seems he must give place to Tully in Christianity Cicero pro Plancio whose words are these In my judgment Piety is the Foundation of all Vertues which if true as true it is how can he hold that a man can have any one moral vertue without devotion towards God And can devotion to God be separated from the knowledge of God There are it may be some Nations which are so inhumane and barbarous as to regard neither truth nor justice Doth it therefore follow they have no such seeds of both these sown in their hearts as are naturally apt if not violently choaked to increase to vertuous and laudable actions and habits Many men we see lay violent hands on themselves and take away their own lives should any wise man then conclude from hence Nature never taught him to preserve it It may further be argued for a naturalness in man to be Religious and to agnize and worship a Deity from the absolute necessity of it to the subsistance of humane society Man is naturally sociable saith the Philosopher but without Religion no Civil society can long or well hold together and therefore if Nature hath disposed man to the one and this cannot be attain'd without the other it will follow that the necessary means must in some manner be provided to that end by the author of that first design unless we will grant that too as commonly one absurdity tumbles in upon the neck of another as Aristotle observes that nature designs things in vain Of this natural necessity of Religion diverse have treated whom I might imitate but that I study compendiousness and upon that reason instance no more than in the Original of the Roman Monarchy begun rudely and barbarously by Romulus and so in all likelyhood to have suddenly vanished and expired had not Numa stay'd and secur'd it by Religion and the fear of the Gods as is observed by Florus He brought a fierce people Florus Lib. 1. C. 2. Id. C. 8. to that pass that what they had by force and injustice possess'd themselves of they should manage by Justice and Religion And afterward What was more Religious than Numa So the case required that a fierce people should be softened by the fear of the God We shall therefore take it for granted that Religion is and ought to be in all persons and amongst all people and leaving the common Criticisms about the name Religion whether it proceeds from Religando as Hierome Hier. in Amâ—s C. ult thinks which implies a double obligation upon man towards God natural and Moral or of Election very commodiously Or whether as St. Augustine it comes from Religendo Recognizing a Deity not unfitly Aug. Civit. de Lib. 10. 4. Enchirid. c. 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Salvian ad Cath. Eccl. lib. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pan. c. 3. Paris C. 3. we pass in a word to the Nature and proper Offices of Religion as taken here for the worship of God For so necessary and natural are these two general Parts of Religion we have laid down Knowledg of God and Worship of God that some both Heathen as well as Christian Philosophers define it by each of them Epictetus declares it the primest thing in Religion to have a Right Judgment of the Gods And Mercurius that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the knowledg which Salvian literally translates and uses as his definition On the other side the Scholiast on Aristophenes saith He that is religious does those things that are pleasing unto God And Tully where we above quoted him describes it to be The worship of God And Guilielmus Parisiensis describes it thus The sum of Religion is to persevere immoveably against all the provocatious of temptations and to ascend upward towards God and inseparably to cleave to him And surely that Question moved in the Schools Whether Theology or Religion be a speculative or Practical vertue is never like to be decided until the different Parties agree to compound the matter by taking in both and making it both Speculative and Practical as we do For undoubtedly as it delivers rules and Articles of Faith it is speculative as it delivers Rules and preceps of Holy and divine Life it is Practical and both these it doth as we have shew'd But it is the practical part of it or worship we are at present concerned in and of which no small doubt may be made whether it consists more in the Fear or Love of God but I suppose it may be as be before disided It being an Affection of the Inward man consisting of Reverence and love of God and demonstrating the same in Acts proper and proportionable thereunto And this is all the definition needful to be given of Serving God so essential that the word of God doth nothing more frequently than put the fear of God simply for the Service of God Abraham saith in Genesis The Fear of God is not in this Gen. 20. 11. Psal 36. 6. 2 Cor.
that worthily and gravely and not all Rites introduced ordinarily and orderly into the Church by good Councels and autority as many vainly have imagined and drawn his words with wonted ignorance or spite against the use of Ceremonies But what we were saying is this that all Reverence and gravity and decency are wholly such by humane agreement and opinion and that of the Region wherein they are used For if any posture or gesture or Habit were naturally good or Evil decent or indecent it would be so to all countries and people the contrary to which is most certain viz. That what one people judgeth grave and decent another esteemeth ridiculous and uncomely To bare the Head in the Western parts of the world is a token and Act of Reverence to whom it is done but absurd and grievous to the Eastern Parts Again in the Western Parts for Men to move their hats and to bend the Knee to one is Reverence but for women to do so is foolish and ungrateful to any Black clothes and habit in the European Parts and amongst Christians are generally looked on as comely grave and decent for persons of the soberest rank but odious to the Turks and so might instances be given in many things of like nature Which are not for any intrinsick worth in them or natural received into the service of God but for that they are partly by consent of men where we live acknowledged for proper notes of Reverence or else are by express constitution declared to be such which are designed by the Church to signifie and express veneration and esteem of what we do and upon that become such For neither do words themselves naturally signifie what we mean by them nor do letters naturally give such a sound to a word compounded of them but altogether by human agreement and appointment no more do these signs and ceremonies of themselves but by consent and institution imply reverence and devotion Where then do these frivolous and quarrelsome fellows appear who resolving to undo something done before them and do somewhat that better suits with their own humours and unchristian tempers devise monstrous things in such rites malitiously apply them zealous enforce the contrary upon such absurd errours And will take no denial when they are pleased to utter such slanders as these That we urge them as of absolute necessity We prefer them before the more material service of God We make them conditions of Communion with us The first and second of which are directly false and never can be made good The Third is indirectly true For by consequence indeed they become conditions of Communion in all Churches and their mouths are opened directly and expresly according to their manner only against our Church yet all are no less concerned than ours yea their own Conventicles are in as much danger of this argument as our Churches For I appeal unto themselves whether they would not thrust out from among them such as should dare against their Orders to do what they list amongst them Would they suffer one amongst that should constantly take the Communion kneeling while the rest sat or stood Would they not severely censure and being obstinate eject such an one as should bow at the name of Jesus against their will and perhaps him that should own he makes a conscience of being covered in the house of God Must they not here interpret themselves better in their famous modern Maxime Of making outward Rites conditions of Communion and so that their adversaries shall come off as well as they Or they suffer as much mischief by their own weapon as any else But what they will say we regard not no more than what they have said in that Rule it self frivolous and fallacious That which we say to it is the quite contrary That we do not make such Orders or customes conditions of our communion so much as they make them causes of non-communion and Separation Let the matter then be brought fairly before all equal Judges who are to be blamed they who have no autority either to appoint or put down any Ceremonie and yet upon that which they can never prove to be forbidden or unlawful but as it likes them not by which they argue us out of all but their own inventions refuse communion with that Church to which they have all general obligations to joyn themselves Or they who being over them in the Lord whether they will or not do form outwardly by such Ceremonies and Rites the more intrinsick parts of Gods Worship requiring under the sin of disobedience and pain of Ecclesiastical censures following thereupon submission unto them In fine We accuse them and believe we are much better able as we are always ready to prove it of making innocent I do not say inoffensive for where shall we find that thing that offends not some body rites and orders the only ground of Schism rather than we make them conditions of Communion And so what they will get by this justification of themselves they may and hope will at length put in their eyes and cause tears of repentance to fall from them for their many groundless prevarications and slanders of both Powers God had set over them CHAP. III. Of the Second thing considerable in Divine Worship viz. The state wherein we serve God What is a State The formal cause of a State Divine Vows What is a Vow The proper matter of Vows Evangelical Councils That it is lawful and useful to make Vows under the Gospel contrary to Peter Martyr The nature of Vows explained THE Second thing wherein religious worship doth consist in general is the special state which a true Believer chooseth to serve God in The state of any thing doth import in it Inde est quod etiam in actionibus humanis dicitur negotium habere aliquem statum Secundum ordinem propriae dispositionis cum quadam immobilitate seu quiete Thomas 2 dae Qu. 183. c. 1. constancie and subtilty as Thomas hath not amiss described it in general saying In humane actions a matter is said to have a state according to its particular constitution with a certain immutability and rest Whatever therefore is by nature uncertain and mutable and becomes determined and fixed may be said to be in such a state in which it is so fixed And though by the vanity and natural wantonness of Mans will he is too often unresolved and fickle in his due Obligations towards God yet by Reason and much more Religion every man is bound to God and his liberty is to serve God in the common state of Religion which restrains his irregular motions and confines him to the will of God And under this due subjection is every man especially brought by being baptized and therein vowing faith and Christian obedience unto God But as Religion in general is the stating and establishing a man towards God and as Christian Religion is yet an higher stricter and holyer obligation
certain supposals made of having for instance greater measure of Grace from God But such as this last cannot prejudice the two former because we are not now speaking of Particulars which are infinite according to emergent occasions and so can be no rule to direct men by but of those things which may be reduced to general Rules nothing personal is considered in them And thus the former Opinion holds good which distinguisheth two Classes of Christians from the two several methods and ways before them And that though Martha may certainly attain heaven Yet Mary may set above her there and that by reason that she had on earth chosen the better part For the better concluding this point I shall transcribe Gersons modest and moderate sense of it as that which I hold very fair and reasonable in a Treatise on purpose of these things Though it be acknowledged that Counsels conduce to the perfection of Christian life Si Concilia ad vitae Christianae perfectionem facere dinoscantur non tamen essentialiter hominem perficiunt c. Gerson de Consiliis Egelic yet they are not essentially requisite to Christian perfection The first of these is clear from the discourse of the Gospel For the second it is thus argued Because many have been perfect in a spiritual life without the observation of Evangelical Counsels as appears from Abraham and from Job From whence it is manifest that Evangelical Counsels so far pertain to perfection of Spiritual Life and conduce to it because they are as so many Instruments exceedingly expediting and furthering perfection of Spiritual Life to be obtain'd and preserves it being once had Thus he and no more nor less do I mean or intend to say at present concerning the use of them which being rightly understood and fairly considered is sufficient to plead for it self But could this be only said for it that no man hath dar'd directly to condemn it it might suffice an equal mind For though there were more than a good many that deny the Institution of them in Scriptures they cannot deny the things so commended to be lawful and consonant to Christian Religion and the Scriptures nor that those methods duly observed make not towards the high ends of Christianity only sundry Cases they are able to put and I make no doubt but might give many Instances of the not only vain but evil success of such means But so may they of many more things which they hold requisite to edification and increase of Grace Was not Judas much worse after the Eucharist received for that he did receive it contrary to some mens opinion I here suppose than he was before And we can instance in many who by zealous preaching and prayer have exposed themselves and others to greater damnation than if they had never taken on them that holy function or these had not so devoutly throng'd them Dr. Humphrey therefore against Campian speaketh as much Humphredus contra 2 Ration Campiani as I think the Church of Rome it self demands in this though he showes an aversness to agreement therein as suspecting what is no wayes to be feared as being a contradiction to the state of the Question it self which supposeth that those perfections are rather voluntary than necessary free and not constrained and the very tearms of the question declare they are Counsels and not Commands and yet he pleases to write thus They call them Evangelical Counsels which are not commanded in the Gospel And what Christ speaks of Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heavens sake in the Gospel and what Saint Paul speaks of Virginity we oppose not greatly Let it be a Counsel to whom it is given but we have already shewed that Counsels no less than Precepts are given to all though all do not and none are bound to take them simply so they consent that it is not commanded Let it be free so it be not constrain'd Let it be voluntary so it be not necessary not by a vowing Law not obtruded upon men It were a manifest contradiction to hold that such Counsels should be so necessary or forced None does none can hold them so There are not wanting indeed too many Instances of these states imposed upon persons without any consent of theirs and this is a notorious and unsufferable abuse of them not in a sober mode defended by the practisers of it In such Cases until at least there shall be a free consent postnate to that state it can neither be called Counsel nor Perfection but on the one hand extream and barbarous tyranny and villany and on the other unprofitable misery and compulsion But that which troubles many is the Vow annext to and confirming such like righteous resolutions For a Vow say they makes it necessary and destroys liberty Indeed if this liberty were taken away by any man besides ones self no small invasion of both natural and Christian liberty to the reproach of such bonds But when a man freely binds himself he is more afraid than hurt in his precious jewel Liberty And is there not a Vow in marriage as well as in single life Should therefore a man refuse to marry because he thereby doth apparently take away his liberty as St. Paul expresly teaches where he tells us A man that is married hath not power over his own body 1 Cor. 7. 4. nor a woman power of her body Indeed this he may do out of prudence humane if he pleases But if he pleases to marry and not pleases to vow Chastity and Constancie in marriage he would be a profaner of that sacred Order If they say that this is necessary but the other is not necessary and therefore this may be lawful and useful but not the other I answer first this begs the thing in question which is that we are not to vow but in things in themselves good or evil which contradicts all examples of commendable vows in Scripture Secondly That it is equally necessary a man should live in Chastity whether in single or wedded life and it is certain there is no invincible necessity of seeking remedy against the temptations of a single life by marriage And it is certain likewise that marriage doth not infallibly prevent the mischiefs of incontinence of an higher nature And seldom is it found but the same person if he used the like care and conscience over himself before his marriage that he doth and hath bound himself to do after his marriage but he might live continently out of marriage as well as in marriage For very many accidents do occur and some constantly in wedlock which renders that remedy useless to men Now if it be argued that a man ought not to vow Virginal or Vidual Chastity because many times which is true the Devil takes an occasion from thence to tempt him worse the same will be said against the Vow of Fidelity to God and Man in the state of Matrimony For the fall is much worse and the
disputation of St. Chrysostome thus rendred Thou thy self saith the Heretick against whom he had before argued forbiddest marriage By no means Far be it I should be as mad as you How then dost thou exhort me to marry Because I am perswaded that Virginity is much Chrysost â—â—â— supra better than marriage I do not therefore place marriage amongst evil things but I commend it highly For it is the haven of Continence to such as will use it aright not permitting nature to be outragious For prefixing as bounds lawful mixture and hereby receiving the waves of Lust it secures and preserves us in great calmness But some there are who not wanting this safeguard instead of this do tame the madness of Nature by fastings and watchings lodging on the ground and such like hard usage These I exhort not to marry not forbidding them to marry But there is a vast distance between these two even as great as there is between necessity and choice For he that advises suffers his hearer to be master of the choice of his own matters concerning which he gives counsel but he that forbiddeth taketh away from him this power Moreover I do not in exhorting do wrong to the other thing nor do I condemn him that is not perswaded by me But you speaking evil and calling it wicked and taking upon you the person of a Law-giver and not of a Counseller in all likelyhood do hate those that will not be perswaded by you But I nothing so but admire such as list themselves for this combate but I accuse not them who continue out of this conflict For then only doth accusation take place when a man tends to that which is naught But he that attains to the less good not arriving at the greater deprives himself of the praise and admiration which the other hath but deserves not to be blamed How then do I forbid marriage not blaming them that marry I forbid fornication I forbid Adultery but not at all marriage These indeed that practise such things I punish and drive them from the Body of the Church But those that do this if they contain commending I advance For thus two benefits arise One that Gods Institution is not slandered Another that the dignity of Virginity is not taken away but rather appears much more honorable Thus far he and much more in the following discourse against both the condemners of Marriage and contemners of Virginity CHAP. VI. Of the third state of serving God a Life Monastical That it is not only lawful but may be profitable also The Exceptions of Mr. Perkins against it examined The Abuses of Monastical Life touched That it is lawful to Vow such a kind of Life duly regulated THE last state of worshipping God which we mentioned is that of Separation from the world and devoting a mans self more entirely to the fulfilling the high ends of Christian Religion under the wise sober and strict Discipline drawn out of the Word of God and compleated from the wise and holy Rules and Observations of Gods most faithful holy and renowned Servants This state of life is by a current Antinomasie signally and peculiarly called Religion which name may seem to imply much of Arrogance and Pride if it be so given to that State as to undervalue the secular state of serving God as not worthy the name of Religion compared with that commonly called Regular But if no more be thereby intended than a certain degree of living holily to God and his service that presumption may be passed over For according to its first Institution and Intention no question can fairly and reasonably be made of the excellent use and ends thereof it being no other than Thomas describes it to be viz. Status Thomas 22. Qu. 187. 6. co Poenitentiae contemptus mundi A state of repenting and contempt of the world And as we may so speak that though men of one profession may sometimes do the work as well and sometimes better of another trade than he whose proper calling it is yet this is no rule to deny it needful to be bound to such a Trade so in Religion no doubt is to be made but many living in the world as they speak may exceed in holiness and devotion diverse who live secluded as to outward profession from the world yet this is no good argument to conclude therefore such a life is vain and needless much less that it is superstitious and worse then I will say after some light heads and loose tongues For in truth it is the trade to which Monastical persons are bound all their lives the more constant and spiritual service of God And if they do not profit more therein then other persons conversing in the world more busily they are worthily to be condemn'd as well by Man as God But as before against the Clergy against vowed Celebacie so here against Monastick life for men to rake in the Canals for durt and filth taken from single persons to cast in the face of the Orders themselves and to cry not only them down but all the most eminent servants of Christ from the most primitive Ages and downwards for many Ages who have either been so Ascetical themselves or unanimously approved and magnified the same is extream folly and insolence as St. Augustine in like case calls it Many things objected against this state are in common with Vows and Virginity of which we have spoken and therefore now pass over And do moreover grant such to have been the corruptions and abuses of that Deus merit ò contemptun effadit in Monachos propter vitiâ— Vide Schasnaburgenside Rebus German Ann. 1071. Ambros 10. Epist 82. Quid enim aliud fuere Monasteria quam efficinae virtutum Et August Epist 137. Simpliciter eutem faâ—â—r charitati vesâ—â—ae â—â—am Dâ—mino Dec c. Aug. Ep. 16. holy state of late years yea for some Generations past that the hand of God was justly against them but not so the hand of Man And were it so that the like depravations of the ends were inseparable from them the Church might be as holy without them But God forbid any man should think men may not live at least as civilly and soberly in Monasteries as in private Families or Kings Courts which I hope ought not to be ruined and destroyed for abuses their reigning St. Ambrose in an Epistle calls Monasteries The shops of Vertue Abstinence Fasting Patience and Labours c. Yet St. Austin speaketh thus clearly and ingenuously of them in an Epistle likewise I speak unfeignedly to your Goodness before our Lord God whom I call to record upon my soul since the time I began to serve God that as I could scarce find any better than such as have profited in Monasteries so have I no where found any worse than they who in Monasteries have fallen Yet though this were granted they never took up an opinion against Monastick life absolutely A few
that little For they may say that in prayer we offer not so much to God as we receive from him For prayer is a begging of favour and benefits of God To which our Answer is that taking prayer strictly and precisely for that one part of prayer which consisteth in craving a supply of our wants or deprecation only then indeed this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Cremens Alexand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Asterius apud Phoetum not so properly a Sacrifice But we are to take prayer in its usual latitude for all the parts of it such as Confession Deprecation of Evil Petition of Good Agnition and Profession of Mercies received Thanksgiving Praise for all Gods hand of Grace towards us and thus prayer is the offering up of a spiritual Sacrifice to God An offering of our heart and an assent of the soul to God as some devout men and learned have defined it And not so only but in effect and intention it by acknowledging of the free mercie of God in outward or inward blessings received from him is the rendring of them all to him again and a Sacrifice of that back again which once he conferred on us Thirdly prayer and worship so properly called bear the name of Sacrifices from the ground of all prayers though some parts of prayer be not so expresly such For he that acknowledges the Omnipotence of God the Omniscience Omnipresence the Alsufficiencie doth thereby render unto God his due but he that prayeth unto God supposeth and confesseth and implicitly offers all these as his duty to God But whoever heard of Offering up the Sacrifice of a Sermon unto God For Lastly If there be any thing of worship or the nature of a Sacrifice in Sermons certainly great Idolatry is committed by them it being most manifest that preaching is offered to Man and not to God and if it be a Divine worship what can it be less For what is more true and common then this That in prayer men speak to God but in preaching they speak to man So that from hence we may safely conclude that that Religion which hath nothing to commend it but preaching or nothing so much as preaching is quite contrary to the Apostle Whose praise is not of God but of Men and in truth deserves not so much the Name of Religion as of Superstition unheard of unthought of until of late years and coming nearest to that grossest part of truly Popish Superstition or as some call it Sacriledge communicating in one kind But here it will be warmly interposed and replyed God forbid they should oppose praying it is a manifest slander For these good people have prayers in private and prayers in publick too It is no proper place now by and by it will be to examine what manner of prayers worship these they mean are insufficient God knows to the constituting of a Church in true Christian communion But here we tell them that we have not disputed against them as having no worship of God at all But first that at all they make preaching and hearing Sermons a proper part of Gods service Secondly that they make it the most eminent and chief against both which our reasons stand good still And that they so do is demonstrated from their practise no less than Doctrines in that they never amongst us pray in publick never enjoy Christian communion but by vertue of a Sermon And though being pressed hard they confess with much ado as Cartwright against Bishop Whitgift that it is possible and valid to celebrate the Sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist without a Sermon yet it seems so notoriously inconvenient and incongruous as it ought never to be done where the Sermon is possible to be had A foul and ungodly mistake So that we have done them no wrong as yet CHAP. VIII A second Corruption of the worship of God not espicially in Prayer by opposing Set-forms of Publick Worship Reasons against Extemporary Prayers in Publick The Places of Scripture and Reasons and Antiquity for Extemporary Prayers answered A Second thing whereby they have abused both the holy duty of prayer and well-meaning Christians is in their traducing and prophanation of all prescribed forms of prayer wherein they forget not to shew themselves in their arts and colours For when the power is in their hands and their Faction can domineer then do they condemn directly in word by preaching printing and covenanting solemnly against Set-forms in publick and there hath been nothing under heaven acted by them more industriously than the utter abolition of all such Divine Offices And when they can go no farther their Chariots wheels are taken off and they begin to find themselves to sink that they bethink themselves how possibly they may stand in need of that moderation that they contemned and that indulgence they condemned their study is not how to repent and retract absolutely their former ungodly counsels and practises as all good Christians that meant seriously to be saved ought to do but with what artifices they may at the same time hold to their old principles of mischief to others and save themselves from harm from others For we must not say now they did any thing so disorderly good people that they are and innocent against Set-forms Province of London but the Parliament as they are obstimately bent to grace their cause without any ground for such a title say they call'd them to it when of the two they if we may distinguish them from their pretended Parliament for which there is no ground rather called their Parliament to such counsels and pranks as they after play'd as appeareth by their early Smectymnuus and their incessant instances with them to pursue those Schismatical Dogms to the subverting of all received Discipline and forms of Worship And that they have disowned their principles upon which they then proceeded we find not though we have more than enough of tricks and turnings and windings and straining them to the fairest sense they can possibly bear and sometimes farther too For instance they say now their Covenant was not against Episcopal Government but an Hierarchy They say They are not against Set forms for they suffer them in private Nay they say they are no enemies to publick Forms nor many other Rites but they would not have them imposed upon any But we shall presume to tell them we neither believe the one nor other until they as publickly retract what they have done in deposing all Set forms and taught and writ and imposing Unset forms upon all that would live by them And in that they would not have them now imposed they imply more strongly they are against them wholly than they express they any wayes favour them when God be thanked as ill as at present it is it is not in their power to oppose and damn them as formerly Can there be any thing more ridiculous than for men to do as much mischief as
is nothing but Examples and they not peculiar to that day From whence I would conclude no more than this That the true ground of dedicating a day to the Service of God is to be fetch'd from the light of Nature in which all Nations religious consent but the ground of keeping the Seventh Day as Chrys Homil. 12. pag. 542. Antioch the Seventh was meerly Mosaical and Judaical as Chrysostome also hath well gathered from the reason annexed unto it For in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth and rested the Seventh day whereas saith he God hath given us no reason why we should not commit Murder or Adultery c. because the command is so agreeable to nature Again the ground of keeping that Seventh Day which we do is to be taken wholly from Christian Principles Thirdly the form or manner of observing that Day is to be taken from the Prescriptions of the Apostles so far as they stand recorded in the New Testament and from Apostolical practises shining successively in the following Ages of the Churches Yet not so as if it were not lawful for this Age of the Church to keep it more strictly and sacredly than did the very first Age of the Church and some following it and the rather because it is certain that the Primitive Christians did keep two days Festival in one week to the honour of God the ancient Seventh Day of the Jews and the newly instituted day of the Christians as might here be made apparent Centur. 1. l. 2. cap. 6. But I shall here only add the judgment of the Magdeburgenses concerning the first Century of years where they write thus Mention is made of the Lords Day Apocaâ— 1. 7. but at what time Christians separated themselves from the Jews and began to rest on the Lords Day is no where mentioned in Records but that some rested on the Lords Day and some on the Saturday in this Age the contentions in the following Age do witness Thus they And for the Translation they speak of to be made of the Service of God from the Saturday to the Sunday they speak altogether without the Book of God or of the ancient Historians of the Church For that had had little of Christianity in it and could serve to no end so much as to spite and reproach the Jews as Calvin hath noted For it had made indeed both against the Jews and Christians too Them to have the precise command of God to them so directly violated These to retain the same thing which could not consist with Christianity imposed upon them with the Circumstance of time only varied For they who speak of Translation of a thing cannot mean here the natural day it self translated or more properly adjourned to the First nor can they mean the worship of that day transmitted to this For that was Judaical and Antichristian And if neither of these can be allowed what mean they to talk of changing or translating of one day to another And why do they not speak the truth roundly and dare to say That Christians instituted the First Day of the week in commemoration of the Benefits they received by Christ without any consideration at all of any command in the Old Testament and that it was a cessation of the Jewish Sabbath and an introduction of a Christian quite of another nature And that so it is appeareth from the concessions made by the greatest defenders of a Sabbatical Lords Day which I shall here contract as necessary to satisfie the Scruples and Doubts bred by careless handlers of this subject Things temporary in the Sabbath are these saith Mr. Perkins First the Jew might not go forth on the Sabbath day or take any journey or do any Perkins Cases of Conscien lib. 2. cap. 16. other business of his own Exod. 16. 29. 2. He might not kindle a fire on the Sabbath day Exod. 25. 3. 3. Nor carry a burden Jerem. 13. 21. These things are temporary altogether and do not concern the times of the New Testament c. Secondly It was temporary and ceremonial as it was a special sign between God and his People of the blessings that were propounded and promised in the Covenant Exod. 31. 13. Thirdly The set Day namely the Seventh was temporary Deut. 5. 14. Numb 28. 9 10. Fourthly That it was to be observed in remembrance of their deliverance out of Egypt Deut. 5. 15. Thus he of things not moral in the Fifth Commandment Now hear we what he accounts Moral They are these three First a Day of Rest This we also account Moral but not so much by the Fourth Commandment as by a Superiour Law as we have said and so of the Second That it be sanctified and of the Third That a Seventh Day should be sanctified to an holy rest is meerly craved and believed before it be proved from any text of Scripture Yea in his following Discourse he granteth that St. Paul wrought with Aquila and Priscilla on the Sundays and observed the Jews Sabbath out of Acts 18. 3 4. but he adds That it was out of Charity and necessity of the Salvation of them with whom he so conversed and answereth secondly That though he did not keep the Sabbath he meaneth the Lords Day for he constantly calls the Lords Day The Sabbath and too many have imitated his phrase publickly he might privately He might indeed but such privacie of which we have no knowledge can be no Rule or Law to us It is said by Perkins in another place and by his blind Followers That Perkins his Digest or Harmony p. 766. Vol. 2. the Sabbath of the Old world is the Seventh Day from the Creation which was consecrated for Divine Service in Paradise before the Fall And from hence they have drawn an argument for the Morality and that worthily could it be proved what they presume But others that have sifted the matter more Curcelleus diatrib de Sabbato c. 6. narrowly and accurately deliver the contrary for a certain truth viz. That the first Sabbath observed by the Jews in the Desart was not reckoned from the beginning of the creation but from the day in which Manna was first rain'd down as may be seen out of Exod. 16. v. 4 5 13. which two are supposed to meet together but upon no good foundation But this is certain that we find a breach of the Sabbath and severe punishment executed upon the breakers of it before the promulgation of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinah But to this the best argument I find for the Antiquity of it it is well answered That the same reason is for the Antiquity of the Tabernacle too which most certainly was not made till a long time after the first mention we have of it For Exod. 33. 7. Moses is said to take the Tabernacle and pitch it without the Camp whenas the history following relateth the particular materials and form and solemn erection of it to be
outward shew of self denyal and preaching Christ in sincerity Christ is no less deserved Religion no less endangered and men no less preach themselves as they say than they who with much ambition of honor profit and applause debauch the noble and Majestick Simplicity of the Gospel and preaching of Christ with the vain and impertinent mixture of human learning and eloquence the difference is only in this that the one hath his end the making of the Common people the other the making of the Court and they perhaps somewhat worse than these from whence they suck no small advantage Much and high talk there hath been of late about Preaching of Christ And scarce any body hath been thought worthy to be accounted such a Preacher who hath not first layd aside modesty manners civility prudence and gravity and flown out into certain exotique tones actions and barbarous demeanures unworthy of a man which Christ nor his Apostles nor Apostolical persons after them never taught nor practised themselves never required of them but have been taken up to serve their own turns rather than Gods and hath been a direct preaching themselves as any they could ever instance in on the contrary side There are two things surely wherein generally consisteth the preaching of Christ Sober and sincere manner of composing a mans self to that Great work and the matter he is to treat of according to which latter Mr. Perkins well noteth four things to be requisite Fist Generally Perkins on Gal. c. l. v. 15. 16. to teach the doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ and of his three Offices his Kingly Office his Prophetical Office and his Priesthood with the execution thereof This in good earnest is so much Preaching of Christ that scarce any thing else is meant in Holy Scriptures where it speakes so much of Preaching of Christ they ayming chiefly thereby at the manifestation of Christ as the true Messias promised of Old and then come into the world What is said above this is or may be true but somewhat besides the Letter of the Scripture Secondly to teach that Faith is an Instrument ordained of God to apprehend and apply Christ with his benefits Which is very true in the signification of Faith common in Scriptures viz. as it is taken for that Complex Evangelical Grace comprehending all particular Christian vertues and Graces springing from that Head but not so as Faith signifies now adayes a single Grace contradistinct to others Thirdly To certifie and reveal to every hearer that it is the will of God to save him by Christ in particular so he will receive Christ 1 John 1. 11. It were to be wished this Author had kept closer to this opinion here expressed Fourthly to certifie and to reveal to every particular hearer that he is to apply Christ with his benefits to himself in particular and that effectually by his Faith Grant we now that this is to preach Christ yet that this must be done in such unnatural and uncouth manner both of Speech and Gestures as are no less than ridiculous we must not grant this is for them who affect and use it to preach themselves Again this preaching of Christ or hearing of Christ thus preached is not Worshipping of God as it hath been mistaken grossely to have been The reading of the word of God was ever looked upon as a necessary part of the service of God amongst Jews of Old and Christians to this day Believers thereby declaring their Faith towards God no small act of serving God But the Sermons of men since the Apostles never till this superstitious age were advanced to that esteem or dignity For no man can without derogation from the Scriptures call them though sound and Scriptural the word of God but with limitations Well saith a learned and grave Preacher However the whole Sermon is Dr. Donne Serm. 33. on Whitsunday the ordinance of God the whole Sermon is not the word of God meaning that it is the Precept of God that Christian people should be taught by those that have the spiritual care and tuition of their Souls but that what is taught is not worthy of the glorious title of the word of God no though it be very agreeable unto it It may much more properly be said to be the will of God than the word of God But what falls short in the nature they hope to make up in the measure of their Worship And therefore frequentation of Sermons and painful preaching as they call it must and doth carry it from all other Pretensions to the true Service of God and those they traduce with the reproach of a lazy Ministry must without farther dispute yield to be reformed by them and to their modes too And truly Industry and painfulness are such undeniable vertues in all Moral and Civil matters that no man can object against no man but must commend And in spiritual matters often arise to the nature of divine Graces which are rewardable with proportionable glory when the Great Lord of us all shall take an account of every servants improving his Talent and to the fruitful say Well done thou good and faithful Servant Thou hast been faithful in a little be thou ruler over much But what is all this and more which may be added to the nature of the work it self which God requires at our hands as our bounden service as a man may do a good thing negligently so he may do an ill thing diligently and industriously We are now enquiring whether Preaching be worshipping God or God is served principally by it If it be then no doubt but diligence therein is the more commendable But if it be not as we have shewed it is not then our diligence were better placed elsewhere namely on that wherein consisteth more formally the worship of God which is prayer But what if after all this cry of Laboriousness on their side rather than on their Adversaries part their Ministry is the lazy Ministry rather than ours as in truth it is I compare not here Persons which would be infinite but Religions and the manner of Ministration and worship constituted by the Church of England and that of any Sect whatever Let them tell which Religion requires most vigilance attendance and pains That which prescribes every Parish-Priest to officiate three dayes in a week and propounds dayly Ministration in the Publique place of worship or that which sets men free all the week unless on the Lords day That which prescribes so strictly visiting the sick upon all occasion or that which is maintain'd chiefly by their Minister visiting the Well and gutling from house to house amongst their favourers and benefactors of their Faction That which observes or commands the observation of constant Fasts or that which derides them and accuses them contrary to all Examples of former Churches of Superstition That Religion which requires a punctual observation of that Liturgy which they profess to be grievous
before all the Commandments ought to have the same influence upon all as upon the first And so that in the end of the Second For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God and visit the sins of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth Generation of them that hate me and shew mercy unto them that love me and keep my Commandments is of force upon all the other Commandments exacting obedience to each in particular under the like Promises upon obedience and Judgments upon disobedience Concerning the division or disposition of the Ten Commandments in the Decalogue because the disputation about that conduces but little to the benefit of the curious enquirer I shall not insist on it only premise a caution against superstitious adhering to any one Faith in the case For the truth is It matters not how they are numbred provided that we loose not of their number in which case the modern Romanists with great impudence offend in expurging the Decalogue it self and expunging the Second Commandment Their Apology or Excuse is no less presumptuous and pernicious and to be had in more detestation than the Fact Better a great deal they had so done and given no reason at all or their Common one That we must not enquire into the Acts of our Superiours and especially of the Infallible Church of Rome than to bring such a reason as may justifie them or any body else in taking away half a douzen more Precepts out of the Decalogue For doubtless as hath been said the vertue of those Ten Commands may be contained in a less number than they are Shall we therefore implicitly at least tax Gods Spirit of tautologie and superfluity and mend what it hath unartificially delivered unto us But it is well they can endure to leave them in their Bibles as they find them For surely they must either deny themselves or the Reasons why they leave it out of their Catechises and Books of Devotion that I mean especially which tells us It is contained in the First though the true reason perswades them otherwise viz. lest the Second Command standing inviolate as God ordained should be an offense and stumbling-block to the weak and unlearned And there is no danger in it standing where they neither must nor can come at it in the Bible But why may not weak and ignorant people understand that Commandment as well as the others which are no plainer at al then that The truest answer is Lest they stumble so as to fall into an inevitable truth And whereas they adde â—arther That it is Ceremonial First we reply That it is not ceremonial or proper to the Jews as set down there entirely with its end and qualification Bowing down or Worshipping any thing representing God whether Image or Statue and so the Eastern Churches alwayes did and still do understand it of general and immutable nature though they be too great admirers of Imagery otherwise Again if it were so peculiar to the Jews as is vainly pretended that they were to make no Images to themselves is it also so proper to them Quarto modo as Logicians speak that Christians are not capable of it or must not take it in that sense also if they please It is granted lawful to Christians in a Civil sense to use Images but is it not also lawful for them to let them alone Against what part of the Decalogue should they offend yea what any other part of Old or New Testament if they refused to make any Images at all Time certainly was and that for Two Centuries together notwithstanding some fabulous Records to the contrary when Christians scrupuled to make any Image in order to any Religious use though but to call to mind things Historically or help Devotion after many Centuries they never farther used them than for meditation And what one Precept of Gods Word would suffer by it if they should have persevered in that simplicity to this day I am sure many are violated by the iâ—limited or ill limited use of them And now what danger would the common sort run into if such words had been found in their Books of Instruction as the Second Commandment contains Would they have fallen into Idolatry the worst of all sins next Atheism as by the confession and concession of divers of the soberer sort of Romanists they do in the use of them Austin indeed comprehended the Second Commandment in the First as they pretend towards their justification but can they so much as pretend that he so reduced it to that that he contented himself with the words only of the First and left out as insignificant or dangerous the Second No surely For it is plain he joyned them entirely together which if Papists had done they had herein little offended Augustinus in Speculo ex Exodo initio us Yea so far was St. Augustine from so doing that on the contrary in that Abbreviation he gives us of the Book of Exodus he leaves out the First viz. Thou shalt have no other Gods but me and begins with this Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image nor the likeness of any thing c. For as I was saying we are not such superstitious admirers of Numbers or Measures in these cases that we would have contended so much as now if they had made but Two Commandments of the Ten provided they had given us the Substance of them without mutulation but to make themselves more jealous for God than he is for himself who here stileth himself a Jealous God is supream folly and much worse The Scripture seems to divide the Commandments into two Parts when it saith that they were written in two Tables as Exod. 32. 15. and 34. 1. and Deut. 4. 13. cap. 5. 22. and 10. 1 4. But this doth not prove that they were so distinguished as many have imagined that those duties which concerned the worship of God immediately should be placed distinctly in one Table and those which more immediately concern our Neighbour should have another Table for themselves as common Painters have contrived them For in all probability what was written Originally by God was connected together so closely that though there were Two Tables to contain all the Commandments there was no such chasmes or distances left as are to be seen in the more modern distinction of the Scripture into particular Verses but as it fell out so the words proceeded from one Table to another coheringly The Jews as may be seen in Philo Judaeus and Josephus divided the Law Philo Jud. p. 579. Genevâ— Joseph Antiq lib. 3 4. into two equal Parts not according to the matter respecting God and Man but the manner or number and made Five Precepts in One Table and Five in the other Austine Prosper and such as follow them make but Three Precepts in the First Table and Seven in the Second But later Ages not without the consent and concurrence of ancienter
non esse peccatum mortale Thom. ib. But Thomas speaks soundly and plainly It is therefore an Heresie to say simple Fornication is no mortal sin And if simple Fornication be as certainly it is a mortal sin then surely it is much more grievous when it hath the aggravations of Constupration or Deflouring of a Virgin her Virginity being her natural grace and glory And much more Ravishing or invading violently the chastity of others And so Incest committed against the Laws of Nature of God or the Religion we profess concerning consanguinity and affinity And there is another Degree of Lust which is called Sacriledge extending the word a little of the farthest to express the great wickedness of abusing those who have dedicated themselves in a state of Virginity to Gods Service For as we have shown before as it is not only lawful but very commendable in any good Christian upon sober and mature consideration of the probability of being able to make good such holy resolutions to devote himself or her self to such excellent means of serving God and that by a Vow so can it not be but a notorious offence against God to mock him either with committing fornication or entring into marriage otherwayes lawful If indeed Marriage were such a Law as some grosly conceive of it that not to comply with it were to offend God then were it not lawful to design any such life as Virginity nor yet widowhood being in ordinary capacity and then were most of their arguments good urged against the state of Virginity chosen by way of Vow But it being a Jus or Right rather that every man hath of God then a Lex or Law that he should marry their reasons prove very fallacious and vain And they who shall go about to seduce to marriage and much more other more scandalous and vitious acts them that have so decreed in their heart to live to God do very wickedly notwithstanding so great a President as Luther may be alledged to the contrary and the judgment of Perkins and others Lastly To these may be reduced all outward acts and signs of Lightness and Lasciviousness tending to Wantonness and Lust Evil Dalliances and Speeches and Gestures and Attire and Ornaments to insinuate evil to others or to tempt them as likewise Intemperance fomenting the Law of the Members as St. Paul speaks against the Law of the mind The Eighth Commandment is Thou shalt not steal In the Second Table §. VIII Gods principal intention it was to preserve one man from offering violence or injury to another Injury is done to man two wayes in General To his Person or To his Goods and Possessions The Injury done to a mans Person is either committed against him simply and this is forbidden under the Commandment Thou shalt do no murder or against him joyntly as he is one with another For so God saith They two shall be one flesh man and wife making in several senses but one Person and therefore to offend against the Person of one is to wrong both And therefore it is said Thou shalt not commit Adultery For hereby notorious injustice is done to the person so united to the Party suffering evil Neither can it be alledged what too often happens that there is consent on one part and so no injury because first Neither God nor the other Party to both which the will of the Offender is to be no less subject than to himself doth consent A Second Injury is done to the Goods of a man by sustaining loss or detriment and against this evil doth God here provide by saying Thou shalt not steal Concerning which we are to consider briefly The Ground The Extent or Kinds and lastly The Evil of Thefts The Original and Cause of this Commandment is certainly Justice and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Equity to be observed between man and man in all Common-wealths and without which no humane and much less Divine or Religious Society can long continue Justice is or may be taken two wayes Abstractly as it may be considered in it self as a Divine Rule and Law propounded by God according to which he requireth all men to conform their Actions And therefore Plutarch speaketh divinely God not only hath Justice sitting by him but is himself Justice and Right and the ancientest and perfectest of all Laws In which yet he seems to be prevented by more Divine David saying of God Psal 9. 4. Thou satest or sittest in the throne judging right God is Justice and so is his Will revealed as a Rule of humane affairs And Justice is in man too concretely as they speak and so is defined A perpetual and constant will of giving every man his due though Gerson would have Gerson de Vita Spirituali Lect. 3. this to relate principally to God And that of Fact it doth is most true it being impossible God should do or desire to do injury to any man but as of Form and Right it concerneth man no less because he is perpetually and immutably obliged to do justly though actually he doth it not For Aug. Civ Dei c. 4. without this what are Kingdoms or Common-wealths saith Austin but Slaughter-houses And much more may we say What is Religion without Justice but extreamest Villany there being nothing so ridiculous to all men or blasphemous to Christ as to imagine a man can be a good Christian before he is an honest and just man This Justice hath two parts as Lactantius writeth Piety to God and Equity Lactan. l. 5. cap. 14. to man For Justice as we have showed in the beginning of this Work it is to be Religious towards God and to worship him and greatest Injustice to deny him such his due Equity towards Man is that we even now described and which is in this Law commanded But because Justice or Equity are said to be Vertues whereby a Man gives every one his due or own they must be grounded upon Dominion and Dominion is nothing else but a Propriety a man hath to use a thing which he possesseth as he pleaseth The principal act of Injustice then is to violate this Propriety or withdraw or withhold any thing from another which of right belongs to him not observing our Saviours rule in his Sermon on the Mount Whatsoever Matth. 7. 12. ye would that men should do to you do you also unto them for this is the Law and the Prophets The Law and the Prophets both contained and here signifie the whole substance of Religion of the Church under the Law and therefore such moral honesty and justice as this being the chief subject of these Books is likewise the substance of Religion it self improved by Christ to some higher perfections Now the Extent of this sin of stealing or injustice is First to open violence in Robbery and spoiling of others of that which they are rightly possessed of without colour of Justice which is indeed the most notorious of all because
grasped Church possessions great usurpations of this kind serving no farther and doing no more good than a Jugg of Beer doth a good Fellow I will favour mine own Country so far as to forbear all instances might here be given and only mention that I find in Paggius Petrus de Vineis an Italian and prudent Counseller and Secretary to Frederick the Emperour called Barbarossa who had wars with Pope Alexander the Third and advanced far into Italy against him was by the calumnies of the Barbaria Faction intimate and prevalent with the Emperour turned out of office and had for his punishment both his eyes put out But the Emperour afterward being convinced of the wrong he had done him received him to favour again and being at Pisa onwards of his way against the Pope and much pressed with straits how to pay his Army took this Peter into Counsel what he should do to raise moneys Peter answered Your war being against the Church it is good policie and reason to make use of the wealth of it against it self and therefore should do well to seize on the rich plate and wealth of the Churches of Pisa and convert them to your service The Emperour liked the advice very well and accordingly spoiled the Churches of their riches and so raised an Army Which when Peter heard he came boldly to the Emperour and said Now I am revenged sufficiently of you for my two eyes You stirred up to your self the hatred of men but I have made God your enemy through your Sacriledge From this time forward all things will go worse and worse with you And so it fell out for Alexander at length brought down his pride and him to great shame and misery even to be kicked by the Pope But thirdly he that would understand the heinousness of the sin of Theft and the heinousness of all Thefts Sacriledge may for his satisfaction find infinite examples of saddest nature of Gods vengeance against it and the Scriptures thus declareth against them Ecclesiasticus 34. 11. Habakkuk 2. 6. Proverbs 10. 2. Esay 61. 8. Habakkuk 2. 9. c. There yet remains one more abomination to God under this Commandment and that is abuse and injustice in weights and measures contrary to the Law of Nature God and common Commerce which is thereby destroyed God saith in Deuteronomie Thou shalt not have in thy bagg diverse Deut. 25. 13 14 15. weights a great and a small Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures a great and a small But thou shalt have a perfect and a just weight a perfect and a just measure shalt thou have that thy days may be lengthened in the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee For all that do such things and all that do unrighteously are abomination unto the Lord thy God And so in Leviticus Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment in meteyard in weight or Lev. 19. 35. in measure Just weights just balances c upon which words Paulus Fagius notes out of Jewish Doctours a fivefold iniquity committed by him that offends in weights and measures 1. He pollutes the Land 2. He abuses or prophanes the name of God 3. He causes Gods Majesty Glory and Presence to forsake the place 4. Causes Israel to fall by the Sword 5. Causes them to be driven into Exile in a strange Land Adde hereunto what Solomon saith against this wicked practise Proverbs 11. v. 1. and Prov. 20. 23. as abominable in the eyes of God above other sins This kind of cheating hath more aggravations of villany than I can stand here to enumerate It is worse then downright common filching stealing and robbing upon the High-way because it extends to innumerable persons more than they do and is seldomer a great deal repented of and consequently more damnable For as the Psalmist saith he flattereth himself in his own eyes till his iniquity Psal 36. 2. be found to be hateful And being infatuated with the stupifying charm of present gain supposeth too often that if he civilly hears Sermons and hath recourse at the last to the Doctrine of Justifying Faith all scores between him and God will be quitted But how much happier how much honester how much holier are they who loose their ears in the publick Pillory than such solemn and grave Cheats in their Shops who loose their souls customariness and commonness extenuating the sin and the course of trading and art of growing rich apace as requiring so almost justifying such abominations But no more though not enough of this We are now briefly to touch and recommend to the true Christian practise not only justice in doing right to all men but doing good to all men Gal. 6. 10. as the Apostle exhorteth and the Rule of Contraries in expounding the Commandments which is that where a Sin is forbidden expresly there implicitly is a vertue commanded as where a vertue is enjoyned there the contrary vice is much more interdicted And surely the first place is here to be given to repentance and repentance of such sin as this doth indispensably require restitution or satisfaction without which if men did not tacitly hold they might be saved by the common false notion of Justifying Faith so many would not shipwrack their Souls and Consciences in acting living and dying in such unjust wayes as are above mentioned Of Satisfaction and Restitution we have already spoken as necessary to Repentance as Repentance is necessary to Salvation and this satisfaction not as relating to God but unto Man wronged And therefore I shall more fully give Saint Augustine's judgment in the Case and so leave it In his Epistle to the Macedonians he writeth thus If what belongs to another Aug. Ep. 54. ad Macedon the ground of the sin be not restored when it may be restored Repentance is counterfeited and not real But if it be real the sin will never be forgiven unless there be a restitution of the thing ill gotten but as I said where it can be restored But besides and above this acts of Mercy and Charity are here required of all good Christians and not only to keep our hands from any open or clandestine violence to others but to extend and open our hands to the benefit and comfort of others Not only are we forbidden to take what is not our own but to keep what is our own so to our selves that the exigencies of our brother and neighbour requiring we should withhold it from him Withhold not good from them to whom it is due saith God when it is in Prov. 3. 27. the power of thine hand to do it And in case of the distress of thy brother that thou hast is in some measure due to him in the eyes of God and by his Law of Charity though not by the Law of the Land In the Ninth Commandment it is said Thou shalt not bear false witness against § IX Luâ—e 1â— thy Neighbour What is meant by Neighbour