that none can without another extraordinary confirmation rest satisfied that so it is really with him Lastly for our clearer proceeding We are herein to distinguish between the attaining to the true sense of Scripture and the decision or determination of Controversies according to the Scripture And that the most important Query is not so much Whether a man hath the Spirit or not or whether he hath the truest and most genuine meaning of the Spirit speaking in the Scriptures or not but how this should be made known and manifested so far unto others as that they should rationally and soberly rest satisfied in the opinions of the said pretenders to such truths For it s well and smartly said in this doubt The Question is not Whether the Spirit in a Man or Church or the Scripture though this last way is very improperly expressed be the best Judge of the Sense of Scripture but where it resides to such purposes And what a great stir is made to little purpose while the former is so easily granted on all sides and there is nothing done at all to convince a sober man or Christian That such or such persons are they we ought expect the dictates of Gods Spirit from For Judgement properly so called can never be separated from Autority or lawful presiding over others joyned with power to oblige to such sentence as shall be passed but how this should be competible to single or many Persons agreeing in the same thing in their private capacity yea though enabled with the spirit more than ordinary cannot well be understood So that at most they can be judges of controversies only for themselves and that at their own peril and can do no more than perswade advise and exhort not oblige others to think as they do But Judges must and ought to do more or they had as good do nothing So that that which hath found great acceptance and applause by too many doth upon examination prove very insignificant and impertinent to the resolution of the difficultie in hand viz. That things that are necessary are obvious in Scripture and Every man is Judge to himself granting I say This which is yet really untrue yet scarce any thing is said to the purpose which enquired not so much How a man might perswade himself but how and with what influence he may proceed to the conviction and reducing of others so that the essential to a Church be not destroyed as it certainly must be where no communion is and there will infallibly cease all communion where it is meerly arbitrary for Christians to believe and judge and walk and worship as they please For this it is for every man to judge for himself Will it be yet farther said That we should bear with one another and live peaceably and charitably one with another and not molest each other for his Judgement If it be as I know it is I reply first That this plausibility without possibility is not true according to the opinions of them who use it For they certainly hold That Heresie and Schism are not to be endured or born withal Christ and God must not be blasphemed by unsound opinions or prophane or superstitious actions and this diversity yea contrariety of judging must needs find these faults in one another very often and consequently be of opinion That they are not to be suffered and Charity must not be so far mistaken or abused as to licentiate such enormities But What if after all this contention for the Spirit it be not judge at all as in truth it is not in any proper sense For the Spirit is only the due qualification of the Person or Persons not simply to judge for that descends upon them by being ordinarily and orderly constituted over the Church of Christ but to judge aright and to give faithful and unerring sentence in matters under debate and question And the same may be in proportion affirmed of Reason termed by some who would seem to excell others in reason most improperly as well as unreasonably Judge of Controversies For all judgement disquisition and expositions are made by Persons not by things Reason indeed is the Instrument whereby a Person is enabled to judge or find out the truth unto which unless there be a due accession of Autority and Power such reason though very exquisite and happy must keep within its own doors and judge at home for it self and not for others nor contrary to more publick and autoritative determinations without the peril of being taxed of Arrogance and it self justly condemned if not for the Inward errours of the mind for the outward errors in ill managing truths If it were so That Reason in men were infallible we ought not to stand upon nicities of terms or improper language But for men to deny others the Seat and Power of Judicature because they may err and to take it to themselves as if the spirit of Error had no power over them is at the same time a grievous though pleasing error both against Reason and common justice too And if it be said That every man is bound by the Law of nature being indued with reason to use that reason and not bruitishly to suffer himself he knows not or cares not whether to becarried by others Reasons and not his own I retort And every man is obliged by the Law of Nations which is a more refined principle than that of gross Nature properly taken to contain himself in the order of Community he is placed and to submit to the reason of common Judgement no less than his own For undoubtedly until every man in private and particular be unerrable which is not to be expected on this side heaven there will diverse inconsistent judgements prevail and divide one from another and cause such a breach as the society whether divine or humane will soon perish and come to nothing But granting what was before demanded That every man must act according to his reason above the nature of beasts this doth not conclude That therefore he must be let alone and not brought even by force to submit to others against such reason First Because it is not resolved by any but a mans own deceitful opinion That it is really reason which is so presumed to be Secondly Because he that is so constrained to submit his reason is not thereby denyed either the nature or use of his but still much transcendeth the capacity of beasts For He discusses he discourses he judges rationally after the manner of men even when the effect of all these Acts are contrary to reason And lastly In wise men and good humble Christians there is a superior principal of reasonableness to that of meer direct nature For That he that has most reason on his side and when that it self is controverted he that according to appearance of Circumstances may lay the fairest claim to that is to be followed no rational man can deny Therefore should a Mans
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
it is no man can tell further then from the negative notion viz. That it is not true Faith and so no Justifying Faith but a shadow of it not the thing but the foremention'd Faiths are or may be real and Good but Hypocritical can never be so as Hypocritical But we shall conclude this Chapter with an other observation we conceive has occasion'd misbelief concerning Justifying Faith For it is too commonly believed That all Justifying Faith must and doth necessarily and actually Justify all in whom it is But that is not so but that is truly Justifying Faith which in its own nature tendeth thereunto though peradventure defeated of its effect For if natural causes have not alwayes their proper effects through outward impediments may it not be much rather the case of spiritual things which work not naturally but freely To the former distinctions of Faith may be well added another and that of Faith Explicite and Implicite much insisted on and therefore here to be considered And it cannot be neither is it denied but really such cases there are in which good Christians have not that plenitude of Faith desirable and in some cases necessarie For otherwise we must condemn the Faith of St. Peter himself so much commended by Christ himself Mat. 16. 16 17 18. when he openly professed the Deitie of our Saviour Christ For not long after Christ sharply rebuked him for his ignorance of this Passion of him Mat. 16. 23 saying Get thee behind me Satan thou art an offence unto me And so were the Disciples ignorant of the Resurrection of Christ and of the Ascension of Christ supposing his Kingdom should be rather a Temporal than Spiritual and eternal as appeareth by their Question Wilt thou at this time restore Act. 1. 6. again the Kingdom unto Israel And I make no doubt after so much evidence from the Histories of the Primitive times that many Eminently holy persons suffering martyrdome for Christ were very meanly seen and setled in divers of those Articles of Faith which have been since imposed as necessarie on the Church and indeed ought to be How this can be allowed is therefore to be inquired into And to this end First it must be determin'd what may be meant by Implicit and Explicit Faith That we call Explicit Faith which clearly distinctly and expresly believs an article of Faith or any divine truth revealed Implicit then must be such a Faith that believs obscurely and confusedly only Secondly it is necessarie to distinguish this distinction it self For Faith may be said to be Implicit either in respect of its object or of its Act. The First Impliciteness consisteth in this That a Christian believing some one material article of Faith clearly and expressly may be said to believe that which is included in that and necessarily follows from it As he that shall believe that Christ consisteth of a divine and humane nature may be said to believe that article contained as it were under it viz. That Christ had a humane will as well as divine though his ignorance be such as never to have particularly considered the same But the Act of Faith I call implicite is when a man being as they say a Christian or Believer at large and liking that Religion very well shall without search without knowledge of the principal points of Faith shuffle all together and conclude all as he thinks sufficiently in this That he believes as a good Christian or Catholick believes as the Church believes The First of these kinds of Faith must necessarily be allowed as good and laudable provided it be not accompanied with an affected ignorance or sloth hindering a mans proficiencie in the Extent and Intention or degrees of it For surely this means the Holy Scripture when it saith I have fed you with Milk and not with meat for hitherto ye were not able to bear it 1 Cor. 3. 2. 1 Cor. 2. 6. neither yet now are ye able And again Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect yet not the wisdom of this world c. Which intimate unto us That the servants of Christ imitating their Master herein did not presently pour forth all the several Mysteries of the Kingdom of God and of Faith but proceeding gradually laid first the foundation Christ Jesus and according to the capacitie of their Converts opened the rest more Explicitly afterward And I make no doubt but the obscure and narrow Faith of the unlearned being generally more sincere and firm than that of the knowing and inquisitive shall lead them to Heaven no less than that more ample Christs equal proceedings being such as not to require the same of all in quantitie of measure but of proportion to their state and his Gifts and Graces conferred on men But that other sort of Faith which satisfies it self with the sincerity and Catholickness of it and that it is of such a sort not attending to or endeavouring after any further illumination or information in the branches arising from that root we cannot see how men can speak reasonably or conscionably in the commendation of it or such who are owners of it can hope to receive any greater benefit than to be numbred amongst true Believers without the reward For it is expresly against Gods word which requireth that the Word of God should dwell in you richly in all wisdom c. And Col. 3. 16. Ignea res fies est ubicunque ociosa est non est Sed quemadmodum in lucerna oleum alit flammam ne extinguatur ita Charitatis opera fidem alunt ne deficiant Fides gignit bona opera Sed illa vicissim nutriunt Parentem Erasmus in Symbolum the reason hereof is because the obedience of Faith of which before is generally proportionable to the Faith it self from whence it springs How then can any man act as all men are tied with an universal obedience who know not nor believe what they are obliged to do but by that Faith which is wanting in them And rudely and effectedly to rest quietly under the immaginarie protection of believing as the Church believes may indeed keep men which is all commonly lookt after here from being Hereticks but it doth not secure them from being Heathens For what ever is said and pretended such ignorant persons do not believe as the Church believes For when the Church believes Expresly and they believe confusedly do they believe as the Church believes When the Church believes she knows what and they believe they know not what do they believe as the Church believes Lastly when the Church believes directly and positively things as they are propounded and these believe negatively that is no otherwise then the Church not oppositely to the sense of it do they believe as the Church believes May not a Heathen believe no otherwise then the Church and yet be an Heathen Nay the more naturally stupid and indocil men are the safer Catholicks they should be because
Gods Word already confirming this duty and to leave others to every ingenuous Christians diligent use of it to avoid prolixity And for the objections which may be made and are commonly found against what is above delivered for the same reason I pass them over as likewise because I intend not here Controversie but Positive Institutions CHAP. XXVII An Application of the former Discourse of Civil Government to Ecclesiastical How Christs Church is alwayes visible and how invisible Of the Communion of Christ and his Members The Church of Christ taken specially for the Elect who shall infallibly be saved never visible But taken for true Professours of the Faith must alwayes be visible though not Conspicuous in comparison of other Religions or Heresies THE Reasons moving me to insist a while upon Civil Government before I entred upon Ecclesiastical are First because I find Authors of the grounds of Christian Religion to treat of the same generally Secondly because where breaches have been made often in the Faith and Discipline of the Church there necessary provision ought to be made to secure them for the future but for want of due understanding of this Doctrine licencious zeal blinded with presumption hath transported very many into unchristian practises Thirdly because it is a necessary introduction to the more clear and compendious pursuing of our subject of the Spiritual Society of the Church of Christ and particularly its Form The Form of Christs Church may be distinguished according to the vulgar Notion into invisible and visible or inward and outward Invisible we here call that which doth not at all offer it self to our outward sense of seeing cannot be beholden with our eye Or that which may in some manner appear to our sight but not as a Church of Christ though in truth it so may be According to the first acceptation of invisible we understand the Body Mystical of Christ consisting of himself the only proper Head the Holy Spirit animating and influencing the same and the particular members of the holy most happy invisible Spirits in heaven and Saints on earth spiritually united to them by Christ in the divine band of holiness And hitherto do the words of the Apostle to the Ephesians seem to be applyed saying Having made known the mystery of his will That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather Ephes 1. 9 10. together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are in earth even in him signifying hereby the mystical conjunction of Men and Angels in Christ Jesus although there are who not improbably and more literally do understand these words only of the collection and uniting of Jews who in respect of their peculiar exaltation to Gods service and favour are stiled in Scripture heavenly compared with the Gentiles and Gentiles into one Faith and Church of Christ which therefore divers times is called a Mystery as Romans the 16. 25 26. Ephes 3. v. 3 4 5. Col. 1. 26 27. 1 Tim. 3. 16. because as is there expressed it was an hidden and incredible thing to the Jews that the Gentiles should be taken into the like priviledges and rights of serving God as were once esteemed incommunicable to any so fully as to the Jews But whether the Scripture according to its most genuine and literal sense intendeth at any time to comprehend into one Society Angelical Peings and Humane as the Church of Christ as I do not find though the Ancients as well as Modern have held such an opinion so do I not oppose the Mystery of which we now speak being sufficiently verified in the preternatural and invisible conjunction of Christ and his Church in the indissoluble bands of his Spirit guiding the members thereof into all sufficiencie of Grace here and immortal absolute glory hereafter in heaven To understand this co-union or conjunction of Christ and his Members the better we are to call to mind a threefold union intimated in holy Writ unto us First a conjunction of Nature when more are of the same individual nature as the three Persons in the Holy Trinity are united in the same Divine Nature though in themselves distinct which is so proper to that mystery of the Trinity that it is not to be found elsewhere no not in that intimate communion we now speak of between Christ and his Members their natures continuing distinct Again another conjunction proper to Christian Religion is the union of two natures into one Person as in the Mystery of Christs incarnation when the humane and divine Nature become one so far as to constitute but one Person Christ Jesus So do not Christ and his Church But by a third way are Christ and his Church united into one aggregate Spiritual Body or Society which is effected by his Spirit which yet do not make properly a Part of that Body but by its manifold divine Graces do produce and conserve the same Christ thereby and his Church being as St. Paul saith One Spirit He that is joyned unto the Lord is one Spirit And 1 Cor. 6. 17. St. John likewise saith Hereby we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his Spirit This truly and only in a proper sense is invisible and that alwayes and hath two Parts the triumphant in Heaven which is a most perfect pure holy and blessed Society which have through the bloud of the Lamb and the power of his Spirit overcome the three grand Enemies Sin Death and the Devil and reaped the fruits of their sufferings and labours all tears being wiped from their eyes all sorrows being fled away all temptations for ever conquered and ceasing to molest them Now this part of Christ's Church remains alwayes invosible unto us here below And as for the other Part which is called Militant and are described to be A number of faithful and elect people living under the Cross and aspiring towards the perfection of Grace and Glory hereafter supposing at present what may hereafter be farther discussed viz. That such a peculiar number of holy persons there are within the visible Church of Christ which shall infallibly attain to everlasting bliss in heaven yet neither are these as such at any time visible or discernable to our common senses It being scarce if at all possible to judge infallibly who shall be saved and who shall not be saved it being much more difficult for any man to be assured of another mans salvation than of his own seeing that as is said hereunto an inward testimony of Gods Spirit is required which is the ground of that sound hope which is commonly called Assurance but the Promises of God in holy Scripture do not extend in like manner to the assuring of any man that another shall be saved as that he himself shall or that anothers faith shall not fail as that his own shall not but thus far only probably a truer and more certain sentence may
and Beasts neither can there many as different in kind as Man and Beast are distinct nor in number as men differ one from another so neither can there be One differing as it were from it self in Parts or other like composition of nature as man doth For seeing as Boetius hath observed God Boetius Consoâ—â—â— Lib. 3. â—â—os 10. is that which is most absolute and perfect and than which nothing more excellent can be conceived by the mind of man If more than one could be in nature or number there could not be one most absolute but One more absolute and simple might by the Understanding of Man be conceived which necessarily must be thought to be God rather than those diverse ones And if we should suppose the Nature Individual of God to be made up of several sorts of things and naturesas the Body of man then did we not pitch upon the true Notion of God which we must alwayes suppose to be most perfect But we have more than conjectural knowledge that some things in the world are not compounded at least as we are but of a more pure and simple substance such as we call Spirit And we maâ— well believe that all of that nature are not of equal perfection or if possibly they should that still there is a possibility of a more transcendent purity of subsisting than they are of until we come to the most absolute pure and perfect Being than which nothing can be or conceived to be more Pure and Perfect and that must of necessity be God Again such a composition would destroy the nature of God because such it must be that nothing either in act or Cogitation can possibly precede it but where there are distinct parts or humors concurring to make one Entire thing there a real priority at least of nature must needs be because it cannot be supposed but the Cause must in some manner go before the Effect and such supposed compositions have of the nature of a material Cause to such a thing as they so constitute Thirdly all things of a differing nature concurring to make One cannot move themselves nor of themselves meet with such concord as to make one thing without the power and wisdome of some third Superiour Agent bringing them so together So that to suppose such a God is to suppose one Above and before him who should Effect all this which is repugnant to the nature of God Lastly nothing can be so well set together but it may be supposed to be undone and dissolved again either by the nature of things themselves tending to separation or by the same power or if they will fortune as some have called it which brought them together This is yet further confirmed unto us from the Holy Scriptures which were best able to reveal the nature of God unto us so far as was expedient or perhaps for us in this life possible to understand where God most admirably describeth himself thus I am that I am which is his name for Exod. 3. 14 15. ever which no created thing can claim to it The like to which is that name Jehovah whereby he calls himself signifying an absolute essential Being For nothing besides God can define God Every thing but he is defined by another thing which differs in some manner from it but God is defined by himself because nothing can be Higher than he and nothing in him is really distinct from him as in other things And therefore truly may it be said of God The Lord thy God is one Lord i. e. One in number nature Deut. 6. 4. and Simplicity of Being And therefore such definitions of God as Joh. 4. 24. 1 Tim. 1. 25. Psal 90. 2. Jer. 23. 23. 34. Psal 130. v. 7. 1 Tim. 6. 16. this God is a Spirit or Substance Spiritual Uncreated Most Pure Eternal Infinite Incomprehensible Immutable Everliving c. Are rather to be understood Negatively than Positively that is that God is so a Spirit that he is infinitely above the nature of Corporeal Beings though he be not so a Spirit as to be of the Nature of Angels or such like Spirits but much more transcends them in excellency than they do the most gross and earthly Bodies And said to be Infinite because no limitation of his Being or Power or Presence can be supposed which is commonly called the Negative way of attaining knowledg of Gods nature viz by removing or excluding all imperfections of the Creature from God the Creatour And Positively ascribing all things to him which appear to humane understanding most Perfect and Excellent CHAP. III. Of the Vnity of the Divine Nature as to the Simplicity of it And how the Attributes of God are consistent with that Simplicity BUT against the fore said Simplicity seem to make several things ascribed unto God and believed of him as First Attributes of God as Most Holy Most Wise most Just Most Merciful and such like Secondly the descriptions made of God in Holy Scripture Thirdly The Existence of God in a triplicity of Persons Of the first we shall here speak most briefly as no difficulty For we are to understand them not as really distinct things from the Nature of God himself which is most simple but only Relatively and after the manner of mans conception who being able no otherwise than from sensible and natural occasions to understand God must of necessity frame to himself such affections and severally distinguish them for to exercise the several Acts of Service due to God For if Man consider'd God altogether under one manner of Being then could he not sometimes humble himself under his wrath and displeasure conceived for his sins Then could he not at other times rejoyce in his mercy and express his thankfulness for his grace and Goodness received Then could he not implore his aid against unjust dealings and injuries suffered in the world Then could he not Pray unto him to relieve him in his necessities and straits none could crave supply from his bounty and fulness in his wants These distinct conceptions therefore of God are requisite though God be absolutely the same And God having vouchsafed to express himself in such manner in his Word doth thereby give warrant for us to be affected alwayes provided that we proceed not to any gross imagination of him as really so affected and compounded but according to a Metaphorical or Metonymical sense familiarly used in all authors as well as in the Scriptures For it is to be noted the Scriptures do choose to speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost Homil. 15. in Joann in compliance with mans capacity not according to the dignity of the subject of which it treats nor according to the Splendour and illuminated state of the Understandings receiving divine Revelations but according to the proportion of mens ordinary apprehensions to which they are directed as Philosophy hath observed that All Agents do work agreeable to the condition of the
otherwise in the sacred Mystery of the Persons and Nature of God for the Nature of God is numerically the same and yet is without inequality or division communicated totally and entirely to every Person Again other Persons are of a distinct subsistence that is subsist apart but the Vide Ruffinâ—â— Histor Eccles l. 1. c. 29. Persons in the Trinity subsist not distinctly because all equally have their subsistence in that Divine Nature but they may be said to exist distinctly or have a diversity of existence as they are so many Persons From the Point thus briefly opened and stated these four things are to be asserted and believed First That God is but one in Nature Secondly That there is a three-fold Personality in that Divine Nature Thirdly That these three are distinct and how Fourthly That they are the same in subsisting Of the first it hath in the beginning been sufficiently spoken and may well here be taken for granted The second is now to be explained and that in these following Enquiries First By the Grounds of Natural Reason Secondly The Grounds of the Old Testament for the same Thirdly The Opinion of the Church of the Jews concerning the Trinity Fourthly The Grounds of the Gospel founding this Doctrine The reason why the first is called in question is because God is generally affirmed both by the Histories of all Ages and People to be known to the Gentiles naturally i. e. by a connatural Instinct and that many of them did worship the true God according to that Law and State of Nature in which they lived But if God essentially and immutably consists of three Persons in one Nature Divine they that worshipped God otherwise than in the Holy Trinity worshipped him not as he is and they that worship him not as he is worship a false God and they that worship a false God worship an Idol And hence it is that divers learned men have said They who worship God out of the Trinity worship an Idol and not the true God which severe Argument concludes as well against the Jews as Gentiles if as some believe they understood not God in the Trinity but worshipped him in the simplicity of a Deity only according to the way of Nature But if this only men were taught by nature for that men were by a light of nature led to worship not only God but one God Reason and the Scriptures inform us that they should worship a God and him alone and did not intimate withal so much of the true Nature of God as was absolutely necessary to be known to the worshipping the true what benefit could it be to man to have such an imperfect knowledge of him whenas still he must worship an Idol God being the same under the Law of Nature as he is under the Gospel of Grace For as that man who acknowledgeth but one God should commit Idolatry who should strongly imagine and firmly perswade himself that God was of the fashion and foâ—m of Man and worship him as such a one sitting in a fair and glorious room in Heaven So no less in reason doth it seem that he should in like manner offend who doth believe no distinction of the Deity into the Trinity of Persons but acknowledges but one Person in the Divine Nature The reason of both is because he worships him neither way as he is and that not in relative Attributes in order to us but absolute essential manner of Being Now no man that thinks of another otherwise than he is in Essence thinks really of that but some other thing To vindicate then both Jew and Gentile from such gross error even in the Object of Worship and not only them but Nature it self from misinforming them it is said that the Gentile had some light apprehension of the Deity under this notion And that first from Tradition of the most ancient Patriarchs who undoubtedly were sufficiently instructed in that Deity And that this Tradition was so conveyed to the ears of some prime Philosophers or exposed to their view in the monuments of ancient dayes that they have committed the same to writing as divers of their Books still extant intimate unto us though obscurely Secondly The many footsteps of this great Mystery found in the course of Nature do according to many wise men suggest to an attentive mind the Nature of God as now received which others have at large pursued imitating herein St. Augustine in his Book of the Trinity wherein he endeavoureth to describe Lib. 10. 11. the manner of this Mystery from the internal senses of Understanding Will and Memory and external of Apprehension Imagination and common Sensation all which agree in one and proceed from one But in this method no sure footing can be found for more serious and solid certification of a man though we should yield some glimpses of that divine light to shine from thence for the Book of the Creature wherein God is to be read doth not deliver all things equally clear to us But first having plainly made known the thing it self leaves us to seek from what we know imperfectly of God to procure by due worship and Petition a farther insight into that mystery which being in some measure better instructed in from above things below may confirm us in the same Thirdly It seems to me that naturally not taking Nature strictly for a necessary and full assurance but tacit at least intimation there is implied somewhat of the Trinity of Persons from the too common error of acknowledging more Gods than one For as we have said it being a Doctrine of Nature no less apparent that God is one than that he is simply it could scarce become so general an error that men should contrary to such natural light worship a plurality or variety of Gods but that there was somewhat received together with that Principle which might incline and expose them to error and that was a general Notion whether by Tradition or Nature that the Divine Nature was diversified But how this could consist with the other Principle not being capable to understand they easily fell from their first and more sound Notion of the Unity of the Divine Nature and took up the opinion of many Gods distinct as well in Nature it self as Persons And do we wonder that they should forsake the truest notion of a Deity in this abstruseness when in those things that are confessedly clear to ordinary Reasons by nature they degenerated to a little less than brutish stupidity being as the Scriptures tell us of some things willingly ignorant 2 Pet. 3. 5. But it were much more absurd that the peculiar people of God the Jews should be ignorant of this so necessary a Point and yet we find that now-adaâ—s they declare against it expresly denying withal this to have been any branch of the Faith professed by their Progenitors But we need not be very anxious about their Authority now adayes it being most easie to
They are of three sorts Some profess him to be God but deny him to be true and real Man Others believe him to be Man but deny him to be God But the Faith truly Christian professes both viz. That Christ was God and Man We shall remit for brevities sake the Reader to what hath been said before proving the mystery of the Trinity out of the Scriptures and that Christ the second Person in the Trinity is the Son of God by natural Generation supernatural to us And to prove the second out of the word now there is scarce one such Heretick who denyes it may seem superfluous That which is to be demonstrated is That there was time of union of that second Person in the Trinity with Man and that this union was such that it constituted not two Persons but one as St. Paul plainly writeth to Timothy There is one God and one Mediatour between God and man the Man Christ 1 Tim. 2. 5. Jesus And therefore whatever doctrine so speaks of this Mystery as to divide the Natures into two Persons as if there were two Mediatours two Saviours two Christs between God and Man destroyeth the Faith of a Christian no less than that doth which denyes these two Natures to concur in one Person the Eternal and Divine Nature and Person assuming in the fulness of time humane Nature inconfusedly into the Divine To the proving this we take that as a sure ground and founadtion which St. John hath laid to build his Gospel on That there was an Eternal Divine Nature in and from the beginning and that this Divine Nature was diversified by three distinct Persons that one of these Persons is called the Word For he saith In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with John 1. 1. God and the Word was God Ridiculous are the violences offered to these words by Hereticks who first take here Beginning not for that highest and higher than the Creatures comprehension can mount to of all durations which none is afore and none come properly after but for a tearm of time properly fixt and for want of more remarkable do pitch upon the first publication of the Gospel as that beginning answerable forsooth unto that speech of Moses In the beginning God created the heaven and the Gen. 1. 1. earth but the agreement is too little to make such interpretation because it is plain that heaven and earth not only had a beginning but gave beginning to time it self measured and observed by them And it is plain that the Gospel did not begin so soon by almost thirty years as Christ began according to his humane nature And if it be taken of the Person of Christ What can be more absurd than to say In the beginning was the Word that is Christ began when he began Therefore the word here can neither be taken for the Gospel or Word preacht but it must be meant of a word superiour and anteriour to both as doth yet more plainly appear from the phrase used The Word was with God and the Word was God For the heavens and earth which are said in Genesis to be made in the beginning cannot be said either to have been with God or to have been God nor can the humane nature of Christ not extant till some thousands of years after the first Creation be said to have been in the beginning with God and much less to have been God And the like may be said of the Word spoken by Christ and his Apostles which the Scriptures do not reckon to have begun at Christs birth nor many years after For thus saith St. Peter in his Sermon to Cornelius That Word ye know which was published throughout all Acts 10. 37. Judea and began from Galilee after the Baptism which John preached The Word therefore according to this account was not at the beginning but after Johns Baptism But this is not all this is nothing in comparison of what is added The Word was God The humane nature of Christ precisely taken was not God therefore another Word must be allowed to be God And that must be the Word Eternal and Personal And if this be doubted of I thus argue from the words following In that sense that Christ is said to be Light is he said to be the Word but Christ is said to be Light and the Light is said to be Christ and St. John Baptist disavows that Light John 1. 7 8 9 10. and ascribes it to Christ And therefore as the Person of Christ is signified by the Light so is it by Word And how can we possibly make sense of Christs words in St. John if Christ prae-existed not before he came into the World in the flesh And now glorifie thou me O Father with that glory which I had with thee before John 18. 5. the foundation of the World It may be said that before the foundation of the World such decree of glory might be given to one future but thus it cannot be said of him who is described to be actually possessed of it before the foundation of the World and that a man is said to be possessed of which he is said to have had as here And how could Christ say truly Before Abraham was I am when he was not Fifty years old according John 8. 57 58. to the Jews account And that he puts a distinction between his comming from the Father and his seeing the Father otherwise than any before him or of his time proves a prae-existence and presence singular with God Not any man hath seen the Father save he which is of God he hath seen the John 6. 46 62. Father And to this adde what follows What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before Doth not this plainly imply that as Christ did really ascend after his Resurrection and sate at the right hand of God in his humane nature so he was there before some way or other and no way can be thought of but his Divine nature as St. Paul intimated to the Ephesians He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above Ephes 4. 10. all heavens Now if any will be so captious as to except against this because the Divine Nature cannot properly be said to descend because it filleth all things it is true in rigour of speech what they say but not according to the form of speech frequent in Scripture which then affirmeth God to descend when as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrha he appeareth Gen. 18. 21. and revealeth himself more sensibly as Christ did taking humane nature on him And this prae-existent Nature of Christ to his humane being proved that these were so united together must be also shown And to this the single express testimony of St. John may suffice an equal mind The Word John 1. 14. was made Flesh and dwelt amongst us And we beheld his glory the glory
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.
of the World And elsewhere to this effect CHAP. XVII How Christ was Mediatour according to both Natures Calvin's Opinion and others stated Of the effect of Christs Mediation and the extent thereof Of the Designation and Application of Christs death Of the Sufficiencie and Efficacie of Christs death How Christs death becomes effectual to all The Necessity of Gods Grace to incline the will of man to embrace Christ Of the Efficacie as well as Sufficiencie of Gods Grace on the Will of Man Several Gradations observed in the Grace of God BUT from the Evidence of the evidence of the Fact that so it was that Christ suffered to satisfie for our sins let us pass to the Manner how it was and the Effects and Extent for whom he so suffered and satisfied because no small stir and contention hath been touching both but briefly For there seems not to me to be such great cause as is apprehended for such differences For first surely Christs mediation was an Act of his Person and not of his Natures either of them separately considered So that there seems the same reason for this as for all other Acts and Attributes given to him some whereof are naturally proper to the Divine Nature and some to the Humane and yet both these predicable of Christ personally considered by that received rule amongst Divines which maintaineth a communication of Idioms or the ascribing the property of one nature to the entire Person and so denominatively to the other In which sense Christ is said to dye to suffer to hunger to thirst to be weary and Christ is said to be Omniscient Omnipotent Omnipresent yet not according to both Natures but as they are united into one Person So that all Acts and Offices of Christ as Mediatour have a twofold consideration Formal and Real or Vertual and Interpretative as they speak Some Acts are so formally Divine in him that they pertain to the Humane Nature only Vertually and some Acts are so formally and properly Humane that they pertain to the Divine Nature only by way of imputation or interpretation and not immediately or properly So that the Word Incarnate Christ is the immediate cause of his Mediation and our Reconciliation but all the Acts in particular tending tending to Christs mediation as his preaching and travelling and Passion did not proceed equally or alike from both Natures For two things are to be distinguished in the Actions or Passion of Christ mediating for mankind The Act it self and the value and vertue of that Action in order to the reconciling of man to God That the Acts conducing hereunto are only proper to the Humane Nature is true according to Stancarus his opinion See Melancthon Epist ad Mathesium though called Heretick for the same and opposed by Calvine and many of his Equals who held that Christ was Mediatour according to his Divine and Humane Nature And that Calvine and his Company must needs erre is proved because they reject Lombard and those that follow him who are the Romanists Lombards Opinion was That Christ was Mediatour as the Word Incarnate but not according to both Natures For they distinguish Principium Quod and Principium Quo That Principle or Cause of mediation from that Whereby he mediated The first they confess to be the Person of Christ consisting of Divine and Humane Nature The second they make the Humane Nature alone And that Calvine and the rest meant any more it is past the power of their Adversaries to make good however according to their wont they strain all they can and more than honestly they can to make their Opinions foul and odious For in substance they speak the same thing with Lombard though not altogether after the same manner but the Deformer suspected him as justly for restraining Christs mediation and the value thereof to his Humanity as the Romanists do them for comprehending the Divinity in it And rightly do they distinguish between the Thing and the Efficacie of the thing and that according to Lombard himself whom they dislike because he restrained to their apprehension the whole business of mediation to the Humane Nature whereas though the Divine Nature did not formally act or suffer to that end yet it was by vertue of the Hypostatical Union with the Divine Nature that the Humane Nature was in a capacity to mediate and merit for man as St. Austin hath taught us in these words It was requisite that the Mediatour between Mediator autem inter Deum homines oportebat ut haberet Aug. Confes 10. c. 42. Nec tamen ob hoc Mediator est quia Verbum maxime quippe immortate Id. Civitat Dei lib. 9. cap. 15. 1 Tim 2. God and Man should have somewhat like unto God and somewhat like unto Men lest being like God in all things he should be too far from men or being like unto Man in all things he should be too far from God And yet indeed in another place he doth determine the mediation more properly to the Humanity of Christ than to the Word thus speaking Yet he is not for this a Mediatour because he is the Word and that especially because he is immortal and the most blessed Word is far from miserable Mortals But he is Mediatour in that he is Man showing thereby that we ought not to seek any other Mediatours to that not only blessed but beatifical Good by whom we should have access c. And to this agrees that of St. Paul to Timothy There is one God and one Mediatour between God and Man the Man Christ Jesus And this is the chiefest place founding this Opinion yet not simply seeing it is an easie matter by a distinction to avoid the same if one would be contentious but if Charity nay if Justice were done to each side the ground of contention might fairly be removed in this But with much more difficulty do we meet in the effect and extent of the mediation of Christ by his Death and Passion viz. Whether it concerns all Mankind in general or Whether all those who are called to the knowledge faith and profession of Christ and Christian Religion or lastly Whether it was properly and specially so designed and intended for such as were to be infallibly saved that others were capable of no benefit of the same but rather were determined to hardness and impenitencie and persistance in unbelief Concerning the last and harshest part of this doubt we have heretofore answered that though the Holy Scriptures which cannot be denyed do ascribe Exod. 4 21. 14. 17. Rom. 9. 18. Isa 6. 10. Deut. 2. 30. Isa 63. 17. unto God in positive tearms hardening of some yet the meaning can be no more than that from certain persons he so withdraws his mollifying and maturing Grace to Repentance and Faith that an effect of Obduration doth thereupon in such manner follow as if God himself were the proper and direct Author of it For all egregious things are according
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.
give offense to the people contrary to the use of that Church And why so It it not because their doctrine and practise are quite contrary to it Is it not because the native sense of those words is so manifest and obvious that they would certainly understand them aright could they be suffered to come to the true knowledge of them And this is the scandal and offence would be given them And in the Reign of Henry the Eighth of England who opened the Hatches a little whereby men were kept in hold from discerning the clear light above and about them when they could no longer conceal the Second Commandment from the people but it must appear in its own entireness in the English tongue Gardiner and other Romanists would have added for safety sake their own gloss to the Word of God viz. to Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image nor the likeness Antiquit. Brittan 1 ag 338. of any thing c. with that intent to give to them Divine Worship Which sufficiently betrayes the guilt to which they are conscious in their false dealing with this Precept and the common people about it But neither of these being likely to take effect a more effectual and bold coarse is invented and defended That this Commandment was Ceremonial and Judicial and Temporary only ordained to prevent the Jews from falling into Idolatry to which they were so prone 'T is true they were so prone then to Idolatry and however they are now-a-dayes more than enough averse from it yet would they at this day be as prone as ever were but the liberty given of the use of Images in the sense of the Roman Church This they have found by experience of their Forefathers and others of succeeding Generations and therefore hold it safest and best to set a less Superstition to keep at a distance a far greater and to make a scruple of all use of images which can scarce amount to the nature of sin at all though it may of folly to secure themselves from the contagion of the other extream in the superstitious use of them It is controverted between the ancient Hebrew Doctours of which you Petavius Theolog. Dogmati To. 4. l. 15. cap. 6. Grotius Exposst Decal may read Petavius and Grotius whether Gods intent it was here wholly to deny the Jews the use of Images as Philo and Josephus suppose or the use only in a Divine manner as others this later Opinion is chosen by Petavius and the Adversaries to the Iconoclasts or Image-breakers But my opinion is First That all Jews concur in this and all Christians not led by the nose by the Pope of Rome that to make the Image of God at all under what pretence soever is absolutely forbidden And therefore I wonder more at Gerson than at them who lived with and after him that he should endeavour to excuse the Latin Church thus Before the Incarnation when the Law was given there appeared no Image of the Incorporeal God either in wood Gerson To. 2. De 10 Praecept in Praec 1. or stone because the Image of a Spirit cannot be made And therefore all Images were then to be rejected but because that may be now done since the Incarnation of the Son of God therefore from that time it is allowed to be done by him who might dispense Thus he And how weakly who may not see First Why could not the Image of God be made as well before the Incarnation as after And why might not the Image of the Son of God be made before he was Incarnate therebeing some knowledge of the same as we may well suppose amongst the Jews before the Incarnation and some Umbrages and Representations of it in Apparitions made to the ancient Patriarchs without the view of his Colour Stature and Lineaments as well as after when we have certainly lost the truest form of Christ and go by guess and uncertain tradition Again could not there be drawn the Image of a Spirit before Christ and can there now I would fain see how where or by whom What Because Christ who is a Spirit who is God may be drawn according to his Humane nature may be also according to his Divine The Divine Person may indeed but the Divine Nature can no more now than before be resembled and that Deity only by concomitance and implication and not in form at all When the Image of a Man is made the Image of him is made who hath a spiritual and divine Soul but the Image of his Soul is not at all made and much less is the Image of God made unless metonymically as Man is said to be the Image of God when Christ is figured unto us But could this be which neither can nor ought to be what warrant at all can it be to make the Image of God in contradiction to Christ as is pleaded for and usual among Roman Catholicks when they upon a vile fansie occasioned from a vision in Daniel make God the Father like a decâ—epit old man well clothed indeed and most like to the Picture of Winter we have seen but that he wants a pan of coals by him to warm his old and cold fingers over and as it were his Grandchild standing by him Could not all this foul daubing of the Deity have been made before Chrusts Incarnation Or ought it in any sober mans judgment to be made now Lastly because they speak of some special Dispensation to do this now which was never allowed formerly let them be so ingenuous and courâ—eous to show us if not the Original lest they should be cousened of it the Copy or but one word of it and it will satisfie us otherwise we think they have said much more already than they needed For we should have been as well satisfied altogether if they had said only It ought to be so as to give such a Reason which is as incredible as the thing it self viz. that It is dispensed with now under the Gospel Nay in that they say it is dispensed with under the Gospel they impty it was more than Mosaical and Ceremonial under the Law because Rites and Ceremonies are not so much dispensed with as directly abolished and destroyed Secondly I hold it absolutely forbidden the Jews by the same Law to make use of any Images in the worship of God though not to that degree as to worship them but only By them and that for fear of Idolatry and if not in passing by or neglecting God himself and directing and fixing the mind and heart on the visible Object yet by help of that For that contradicts the mind of God as may appear by the whole Body of Gods worship and every part thereof instituted by himself without the least insinuation of such manner of worship Nay it is very strange what Erasmus hath observed That though indeed in practice it hath been connived at yea Nam ut Imagines sint in Templis â—ulla
be convicted of moral evil and so unconcernedly to omit the weightier matters of the Law as Judgment Mercy or Charity in Vnity and Faith what can Charity call this but meer Pharisaism and where must such Pharisaism end at length but in Sadducism even denying of the Blessings and Curses of a Future Life For as Drusius hath Si Patres nostri selvissent mâ—râ—â—â—s resurrecturâ— praemia manere â—ustos â—â—st hanc vitam nâ—n tantoperè râ—bellassent Drusius in Mat. c 3. v. 7. Item in c. 22 23. observed it was one Reason alledged by the Sadduces against the Resurrection If our Fathers had known the dead should rise again and rewards were prepared for the Righteous they would not have rebelled so often not conforming themselves to Gods Rule as is pretended by all but conforming the Rule of Sin and of Faith it self to the good Opinion they had of their own Persons and Actions which Pestilential Contagion now so Epidemical God of his great Mercy remove from us and cause health and soundness of Judgment Affection and Actions to return to us and continue with us to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS Chap. I. OF the Nature and Grounds of Religion in General Which are not so much Power as the Goodness of God and Justice in the Creature And that Nature it self teaches to be Religious Chap. II. Of the constant and faithful assurance requisite to be had of a Deity The reasons of the necessity of a Divine Supream Power Socinus refuted holding the knowledge of a God not natural Chap. III. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature and the Infiniteness of God Chap. IV. Of the diversity of Religions in the World A brief censure of the Gentile and Mahumetan Religion Chap. V. Of the Jewish Religion The pretence of the Antiquity of it nulled The several erroneous grounds of the Jewish Religion discovered Chap. VI. The vanity of the Jewish Religion shewed from the proofs of the true Messias long since come which are many Chap. VII The Christian Religion described The general Ground thereof the revealed Will of God The necessity of Gods revealing himself Chap. VIII More special Proofs of the truth of Christian Religion and more particularly from the Scriptures being the Word of God which is proved by several reasons Chap. IX Of the several Senses and Meanings according to which the Scriptures may be understood Chap. X. Of the true Interpretation of Holy Scriptures The true meaning not the letter properly Scripture Of the difficulty of attaining the proper sense and the Reasons thereof Chap. XI Of the Means of interpreting the Scripture That they who understand Scripture are not for that authorized to interpret it decisively The Spirit not a proper Judge of the Scriptures sense Reason no Judge of Scripture There is no Infallible Judge of Scripture nor no necessity of it absolute The grounds of an Infallible Judge examined Chap. XII Of Tradition as a Means of understanding the Scriptures Of the certainty of unwritten Traditions that it is inferiour to Scripture or written Tradition No Tradition equal to Sense or Scripture in Evidence Of the proper use of Tradition Chap. XIII Of the nature of Faith What is Faith Of the two general grounds of Faith Faith divine in a twofold sense Revelation the formal reason of Faith Divine Of the several senses and acceptations of Faith That Historical Temporarie and Miraculous Faith are not in nature distinct from Divine and Justifying Faith Of Faith explicite and implicite Chap. XIV Of the effects of true Faith in General Good Works Good Works to be distinguish'd from Perfect Works Actions good four wayes Chap. XV. Of the effect of Good Works which is the effect of Faith How Works may be denominated Good How they dispose to Grace Of the Works of the Regenerate Of the proper conditions required to Good Works or Evangelical Chap. XVI Of Merit as an effect of Good Works The several acceptatations of the word Merit What is Merit properly In what sense Christians may be said to merit How far Good Works are efficacious unto the Reward promised by God Chap. XVII Of the two special effects of Faith and Good Works wrought in Faith Sanctification and Justification what they are Their agreements and differences In what manner Sanctification goes before Justification and how it follows Chap. XVIII Of Justification as an effect of Faith and Good Works Justification and Justice to be distinguished and how The several Causes of our Justification Being in Christ the principal cause What it is to be in Christ The means and manner of being in Christ Chap. XIX Of the efficient cause of Justification Chap. XX. Of the special Notion of Faith and the influence it hath on our Justification Of Faith solitary and only Of a particular and general Faith Particular Faith no more an Instrument of our justification by Christ than other co-ordinate Graces How some ancient Fathers affirm that Faith without Works justifie Chap. XXI A third effect of justifying Faith Assurance of our Salvation How far a man is bound to be sure of his Salvation and how far this assurance may be obtained The Reasons commonly drawn from Scripture proving the necessity of this assurance not sufficient c. Chap. XXII Of the contrary to true Faith Apostasie Heresie and Atheism Their Differences The difficulty of judging aright of Heresie Two things constituting Heresie the evil disposition of the mind and the falsness of the matter How far and when Heresie destroys Faith How far it destroys the Nature of a Church Chap. XXIII Of the proper subject of Faith the Church The distinction and description of the Church In what sense the Church is a Collection of Saints Communion visible as well as invisible necessary to the constituting a Church Chap. XXIV A preparation to the knowledge of Ecclesiastical Society or of the Church from the consideration of humane Societies What is Society What Order What Government Of the Original of Government Reasons against the peoples being the Original of Power and their Right to frame Governments Power not revocable by the people Chap. XXV Of the Form of Civil Government The several sorts of Government That Government in general is not so of Divine Right as that all Governments should be indifferently of Divine Institution but that One especially was instituted of God and that Monarchical The Reasons proving this Chap. XXVI Of the mutual Relations and Obligations of Soveraigns and Subjects No Right in Subjects to resist their Soveraigns tyrannizing over them What Tyranny is Of Tyrants with a Title and Tyrants without Title Of Magistrates Inferiour and Supream the vanity and mischief of that distinction The confusion of co-ordinate Governments in one State Possession or Invasion giveth no Right to Rulers The Reasons why Chap. XXVII An application of the former Discourse of Civil Government to Ecclesiastical How Christs Church is alwayes visible and how invisible Of the communion
of Christ and his Members The Church of Christ taken specially for the Elect who shall infallibly be saved never visible But taken for true Professours of the Faith must alwayes be visible though not conspicuous in comparison of other Religions or Heresies Chap. XXVIII Of the outward and visible Form of Christs Church Christ ordained One particularly What that was in the Apostles dayes and immediately after The vanity of such places of Scripture as are pretended against the Paternal Government of the Church 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 Chap. XXX Of the Notes of the true Church in particular Of Antiquity Succession Unity Universality Sanctity How far they are Notes of the true Church Chap. XXXI Of the Power and Acts of the Church Where they are properly posited Of the fountain of the Power derived to the Church Neither Prince nor People Author of the Churches Power But Christ the true Head of the Church The manner how Christs Church was founded Four Conclusions upon the Premisses 1. That there was alwayes distinction of persons in the Church of Christ 2. The Church was alwayes administer'd principally by the Clergy 3. The Rites generally received in the Church necessary to the conferring Clerical power and office 4. All are Usurpers of Ecclesiastical power who have not thus received it In what sense Kings may be said to be Heads of the Church Chap. XXXII Of the exercise of political power of the Church in Excommunication The Grounds and Reasons of Excommunication More things than what is of Faith matter sufficient of Excommunication Two Objections answered Obedience due to commands not concerning Faith immediately Lay-men though Princes cannot Excommunicate Mr. Selden refuted Chap. XXXIII Of the second branch of Ecclesiastical Power which is Mystical or Sacramental Hence of the Nature of Sacraments in general Of the vertue of the Sacraments Of the sign and thing signified That they are alwayes necessarily distinct Intention how necessary to a Sacrament Sacraments effectual to Grace Chap. XXXIV Of the distinction of Sacraments into Legal and Evangelical Of the Covenants necessary to Sacraments The true difference between the Old and New Covenant The Agreement between Christ and Moses The Agreements and Differences between the Law and the Gospel Chap. XXXV Considerations on the Sacraments of the Law of Moses Of Circumcision Of the Reason Nature and Ends of it Of the Passover the Reason why it was instituted It s use Chap. XXXVI Of the Evangelical Sacraments Of the various application of the name Sacrament Two Sacraments univocally so called under the Gospel only The others equivocally Five conditions of a Sacrament Of the reputed Sacraments of Orders Matrimony and Extream Unction in particular Chap. XXXVII Of Confirmation What it is The Reasons of it The proper Minister of it Of Unction threefold in Confirmation Of Sacramental Repentance and Penance The effects thereof Chap. XXXVIII Of the proper Affections of Repentance Compunction Attrition and Contrition Attrition is an Evangelical Grace as well as Contrition Of Confession its Nature Grounds and Uses How it is abused The Reasons against it answered Chap. XXXIX Of Satisfaction an act of Repentance Several kinds of Satisfaction How Satisfaction upon Repentance agrees with Christs Satisfaction for us How Satisfaction of injuries necessary Against Indulgences and Purgatory Chap. XL. Of Baptism The Authour Form Matter and Manner of Administration of it The general necessity of it The efficacie in five things Of Rebaptization that it is a prophanation but no evacuation of the former Of the Character in Baptism Chap. XLI Of the second principal Sacrament of the Gospel the Eucharist Its names Its parts Internal and External It s Matter Eread and Wine and the necessity of them Of Leavened and Unleavened Bread Of breaking the Bread in the Sacrament Chap. XLII Of the things signified in the Sacrament of the Eucharist the Body and Bloud of Christ How they are present in the Eucharist How they are received by Communicants Sacramentally present a vain invention All Presence either Corporal or Spiritual Of the real Presence of the signs and things signified The real Presence of the signs necessarily infer the Presence of the Substance of Bread and Wine Signs and things signified alwayes distinct Chap. XLIII The principal Reasons for Transubstantiation answered Chap. XLIV Of the Sacrifice of the Altar What is a Sacrifice Conditions necessary to a Sacrament How and in what sense there is a Sacrifice in the Eucharist Chap. XLV Of the form of consecrating the Elements Wherein it consisteth Whether only Recitative or Supplicatory Chap. XLVI Of the participation of this Sacrament in both kinds The vanity of Papists allegations to the contrary No Sacramental receiving of Christ in one kind only How Antiquity is to be understood mentioning the receiving of one Element only The pretended inconveniences of partaking in both kinds insufficient Of adoration of the Eucharist Chap. XLVII The Conclusion of the Treatise of the subject of Christian Faith the Church by the treating of Schism contrary to the visible Church Departure from the Faith real Schism not formally as to the outward Form Of the state of Separation or Schism Of Separation of Persons Co-ordinate and Subordinate Of Formal and Virtual Schism All Heresie virtually Schism not formally Separation from an Heretical Society no Schism From Societies not heretical Schism Heretical Doctrine or Discipline justifie Separation How Separation from a true Church is Schism and how not In what sense we call the Roman Church a true Church Some Instances of heretical Errors in the Roman Church Of the guilt of Schism Of the notorious guilt of English Sectaries The folly of their vindications That th Case of them and us is altogether different from that of us and the Church of Rome Not lawful to separate from the Universal Church The Contents of the Second Book of the First Part. Chap. 1. OF the formal Object of Christian Faith Christ An Entrance to the treating of the Objects of Faith in particular Chap. II. Of the special consideration of God as the object of Christian Faith in the Unity of the Divine Nature and Trinity of Persons in that Chap. III. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature as to the simplicity of it And how the Attributes of God are consistent with that simplicity Chap. IV. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature as to number and how the Trinity of Persons may consist with the Unity 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 Chap. V. Of the proper Acts of God Creation and Preservation or Providence What is Creation That God created all things And how Of the Ministers of Gods Providence towards Inferiour Creatures the Angels of God Their nature and office towards man especially Chap. VI. Of the Works of God in this visible World Of the Six dayes work of God All things are good which were made by God 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 Chap. VIII Of the Second General Act of God towards the Creature especially Man his Providence Aristotles Opinion and Epicurus his 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 Chap. IX The method of enquiring into the Nature and Attributes of God Vorstius his grounds of distinguishing the Attributes of God from his Nature examined Of the Decrees of God depending on his Understanding and Will Of knowledge of Intelligence Vision and the supposed Middle knowledge The Impertinency of this middle knowledge invented in God How free Agents can be known by God in their uncertain choice Indifferent actions in respect of Man not so in respect of God All vision in God supposes certainty in the thing known Chap. X. Four Doubts cleared concerning the Knowledge and Decrees of God and free Agents and contingent Effects How man that infallibly acts is responsable for his Actions The frivolous Evasion of the said difficulties by them of Dort Chap. XI Of the Execution of Gods Providence in the Predestination and Reprobation of Man How the Decrees and Providence of God are distinguished The Reason and Method of Gods Decrees Righteousness is the effect and not cause of Predestination to Life Predestination diversly taken in Scripture as also Election and Vocation God predestinates no man simply to Death without consideration of Evil foregoing as Calvin and some others would have it Chap. XII Of Gods Providence in the Reprobation and Damnation of Man Preterition is without any cause personal but the corruption of the Mass of Humane Nature Damnation alwayes supposes sin 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 no evil St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans makes nothing for the contra-Remonstrants literally and primarily taken 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 Chap. XV. Of the Restitution of Man after sin The Means and Motives thereunto In what manner Christs Mediation was necessary to the reconciling of Man to God Socinus his Opinion of Christs mediation refuted That Christ truely and properly satisfied by his Death and Passion for us 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 Union 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 Chap. XVII How Christ was Mediatour according to both Natures Calvins Opinion and others stated Of the effect of Christs Mediation and the extent thereof Of the Designation and Application of Christs death Of the sufficiencie and efficacie of Christs death How Christs death becomes effectual to all The necessity of Gods Grace to incline the will of man to embrace Christ Of the efficacie as well as sufficiencie of Gods Grace on the Will of Man Several Gradations observed in the Grace of God Chap. XVIII Of the effect and benefit of Christs Mediation in suffering and rising again seen in the Resurrection of Man The necessity of believing a Resurrection The Reasons and Scriptural Testimonies proving a Resurrection Objections against the same answered Chap. XIX Of the most perfect effect of Christs Mediation in the salvation of man Several senses of Salvation noted That Salvation is immediately after death to them that truly dye in Christ And that there is no grounds in Antiquity or Scripture for that middle State called Purgatory The Proofs answered Of the Consequent of Roman Purgatory Indulgences The novelty groundlesness and gross abuse of them The Conclusion of the first part of this Introduction The Contents of the Second Part c. Chap. I. OF the worship of God wherein the Second Part of Christian Religion consists Of the necessity of worshipping God It is natural to worship God Socinus holding the contrary confuted Of the name of Religion the Nature of Religious worship wherein it consisteth Chap. II. Of the two parts of Divine worship Inward and Outward The Proof of Outward worship as due to God and that it is both due and acceptable to God Several Reasons proving bodily worship of God agreeable to him Wherein this bodily worship chiefly consists Certain Directions for bodily worship Exceptions against it answered 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 Vowes 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 Vowes explained Chap. IV. Of the matter of Vows in particular And first of the Virginal state that it is both possible and landable And that it is lawful to vow Celibacie or Widowhood No Presidents in the Old Testament favouring Virginity The Virgin Mary vowed not Virginity no Votary before the Annunciation Chap. V. Of the second State of special serving God the Clerical State or Ministerial Of the necessity and liberty of singleness of Life in a Clergy-man The Opinion and custom of Antiquity concerning it That it is in the power of the Church at this day to restrain or permit the marriage of Priests The Conveniences and Inconveniences of wedded Life in Priests Chrysostom's Judgment of Marriage and Virginity recited 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 Chap. VII Of Religious worship the third thing considerable in it viz. The Exercise of it in the several kinds
be called Religion And nothing can be more fundamentally Just then for the Creature to refund according to its ability and rank the Fruits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo Judaeus Allegoriarum lib. 2. Papin L. Siquis â—f De Religios of those perfections received from the Cause of all Causes especially considering that such retribution is rather an augmentation then diminution of such Perfections in the Creature For not onely are all things thus freely derived from God to the Creatures but by a perpetual act of Providence called Conservation continued to them together with a most various and bountiful supply of all things requisite thereunto to which no Creature could lay any claim either to have or to hold And therefore most just equal reasonable and honourable it is for it to make such a Re-exhibition to God as is called Religion Therefore that famous Heathen Lawyer said well Summa ratio est quae pro Religione facit The highest Reason of all is that which makes for Religion And Tullie in a certain place defines Religion thus briefly and aptly Religio est Justitia erga deos Religion is Justice towards the gods And Macrobius makes Pietie and Religion two of the seven parts into which he divides Justice These not onely truly Christian but natural grounds of sober Men Macrob. Saâ— c. 7. P. 37. may suffice to put to silence the brutish Philosophie of some of late who acknowledge no other grounds of Dominion either Divine or Humane or of Obedience thereunto but Power and Force enabling to exact and extort the same not considering that Protection on the part of the Governing and Profit and Benefit on the part Governed do create a debt of veneration and service And therefore by the same reason should Justice have no place in the Ruler but onely his Power and Pleasure to incline him to govern well as it should have no place in the Governed to obey well And not only from the special benefits derived from God should Man return the mite of his recompence or recognition by Religion but also from a subordination of Creatures serving him should he be moved to pay the like to God The Psalmist tells us that God hath put all things Psal 8. 6 7 8. under Mans feet All Sheep and Oxen yea and all the beasts of the Field The Fowls of the Air and the Fish of the Sea and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the Seas From this example therefore Subjection and subserviency of all inferiour Creatures to Man by the appointment of God doth appear the reasonableness of Mans subjection unto God Neither was this though forfeited by Man upon his first disobedience against God so lost unto him but it was confirmed unto him after the Flood in these words And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon Gen. 9. 2. every beast of the Earth and upon every Fowl of the Air and upon all that Quod non metuitur contemnitur quod contemnitur utique non colitur Ita fit ut Religio Majestas honor metu constet c. Lactant. de Ira Dei c. 8. Psal 111. 10. Prov. 1. 17. moveth upon the Earth and the Fishes of the Sea into your hand are they delivered This Fear therefore and dread of a Divine Majesty is that which God hath in like manner laid upon Man as the ground and cause of all religious worship of him Man being infinitely more inferiour and subject by nature to God then the Beasts are to him For as Lactantius hath it That which is not feared is contemned that which is contemned cannot be worshiped and so it comes to pass that Religion and Majesty and Honour consists of Fear Which the Scripture assures us of also where it saith by David and Solomon both The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdome And notwithstanding all Creatures do exhibit obedience unto Almighty God yet none may properly be said to be Religions but Man For Religion must be a service and a tendency to Perfection and union with God but the Blessed Spirits of Men and Angels are out of their Apprentiship and imperfect state and consummated in that fruition and reward and union with God which they are capable of And the Apostate Spirits though they give obedience to God cannot be said to be Religious because their wills are constantly and utterly rebellious and all is involuntary and forced but Religion must be free and voluntary as is intimated Psalm 110. by the Psalmist Again Irrational Creatures or Beasts cannot be said to be Religious properly though they may be said to be Obedient For Obedience may consist as with necessity in Devils so with ignorance and necessity both as in Beasts But Religion must be rational as St. Paul implieth in these words I beseech you brethren by the mercies of God Rom. 12. 1. that ye present your bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service Whatsoever worship the Creatures give unto God is principally performed by their Head Man Man being as the first born and eldest Son to God in comparison of them So that as it was a natural Law that the eldest of the Family and most worthy should be as a Priest to the rest to offer Sacrifice unto God for all the rest as Cain and Abel are interpreted to bring their offerings to Adam to present them to God so do the Beasts bringing their several tributes to Man through him offer their bounden service unto God CHAP. II. Of the Constant and Faithful assurance requisite to be had of a Deity The reasons of the necessity of a Divine supream Power Socinus refuted holding the knowledg of a God not natural ALL Religion supposeth a Deity as all Arts and Sciences suppose their foundation upon which they are built and not prove it Yet notwithstanding for the more effectual knowledg and perswasion hereof and for the due exercise of that natural notion of a God which many times is very weak for want of use as men sometimes loose the use of their bodily Limbs for want of due exercise of them we shall briefly recount for methods sake some of those many demonstrations of a Divine supream Being which is God and that by these gradations First That there are purer and superiour Beings to Man though not obvious to any of the five gross senses of man may be gathered from the effects supernatural to all corporeal Creatures and ordinarily visible Such are the suddain and rapid translations of Bodies from one place to another Such are likewise voices heard without any notice given to the eye of persons present Such are Apparitions made to diverse in all ages of Spirits to persons in the likeness of Bodies indeed but declaring by their manner of entrance their manner of motions and actions their manner of departure and disappearing that such forms are only assumed to render their presence more obvious
to us Such are lastly the many Predictions and Revelations of closest and deepest secrets of men not possible to be known but by a preternatural subtilty All which are so frequently reported in Histories of all sorts Divine and Humane that who ever will call in question must be judged purposely to have taken on him such incredulity that he might deny this thing seeing there are infinite other things which upon no greater evidence he firmly believeth And what greater absurdity need a man be forced to than this singularity of judging in this cause For can they who resolve to doubt of this matter alledge any sense or demonstration contrary to this If they can Why have they kept it from the World all this while If they cannot Why should they not yield to better grounds for it than they have any against it Viz. the concurrent testimony of so many and sober persons affirming the same from their experience But if this be admitted then by due gradations may we easily ascend unto the most supream Being of all which is God No man being able to determine any point which may not be exceeded until we come to infinity it self And this present visible World being but a draught of that superâ—â—â— God was pleased to ordain Man to bear his Image in a Supremacy over all earthly Creatures that from hence we may learn that as one Creature serves another and all Man so Man is subordinate to Spirits and created Spirits to God as their onely absolute Lord. And therefore in Scripture it is said of them They are all Ministring Spirits i. e. under Hebr. 1. 9. Hebr. 12. 9. God to them that believe And that he is the Father of Spirits Which necessary and harmonious dependence of all things on One is so consonant to the common reason of Man that the contrary introducing a Deity or independence doth withal bring in a manifest Anarchy and confusion in the Universe repugnant as well to nature as reason Furthermore the several Arts and Sciences minister several proofs of this as might be shewn in particular would it not be too long and were it not to be found performed by divers already That taken from the course of Nature may here suffice Nature it self and common observation tell us that there is diversity in Cause and Effect and that there is Generation and Corruption and that nothing in the World can produce it self And for instance he that lived many thousand years ago could no more make himself then he that lived but yesterday or was born this morning So that either Man and if Man other creatures also for there is the same reason made himself or was from eternity or was made by another The first is disproved The second is false First because nothing hath been esteemed more absurd in reason than for to arise to an Infinity of Causes one above another Secondly then certainly would the same man yea all men be eternal consequently as well as antecedently but the contrary to this we daily see and therefore may conclude the contrary to the other Thirdly The very nature of Creatures constituted of divers and contrary natures which are opposite and avers to all union as Fire and Water Wet and Dry Heat and Cold cannot move of themselves to that which is contrary to them but every thing naturally covers to be of it self and in it self Fire making towards Fire and Water to Water and Earth to Earth so that there must be a superiour power as well to bring them and joyn them together in one as to contain and continue them there Which must be the first Cause and that first Cause is God Fourthly That common ground of all Societies humane Justice which is an immoveable and indelible principle in the mind of Man approved of by all doth evince this For Justice supposes and infers a Deity For all Justice doth suppose a Rule according to which it is said to be just and a Law to contradict and oppose which is to be unjust and injurious For otherwise it would be at the pleasure and arbitrement of every man to make a Rule to himself and for another according to which all that pleased should be reputed just But this would be one of the most absurd ridiculous and unjust things in the world Therefore must there of necessity be a common Rule of Right and Just which can proceed from none but the Author of all Beings and humane Society it self without which Meo judiciâ— Pietas est sumdamentum omnium virtutum Cicero pro Plancio it would be as reasonable if it were profitable and safe for any man to murder his Prince or his Father as to kill a Nitt or Flea that troubled him For the Civil Sanction of Laws to the contrary doth not make the foresaid impieties sins neither are they simply evil because they are forbidden thereby But they are forbidden by Man and fenced by humane Laws because they are evil and evil they were absolutely because God had so decreed them And as the Laws of all Soveraigns receive their Original vigour from God so were it not that Gods Law fortified confirmed and secured Kings they and their Laws both would be no better then trifles impertinencies and impostures which every wise man might shake off and confound when ever it lay in his power For where obedience and subjection is due it is for some reason which reason is form'd into a Law But no man can make a Law whereby he of no King should become a King for before he can make any Law he must be a King or Supream And therefore this reason or Law must be Antecedent and being so must have an Author And who can that be but God the King of Kings and Lord of Lords Fifthly Add hereunto that argument which is commonly taken from the common consent and agreement of all Men esteemed most rational all People all Nations concurring hereunto Which must needs be the effect of a Divine power and influence so inclining mens minds so that one saith It is so apparent that there is a God that I can scarce think him to Cicero be in his right mind who denies it And when we speak of Nature and a Law of Nature we would not be so understood as some would needs take them to help them out here for such a necessary and inevitable principle and impulse as none should be able to dissent from for there is no such Law to be found but so natural we make it to all indifferently and equally disposed that the thing once fairly and duly propounded shall not find contradiction without violence offered at first to the mind of man bent to such a truth Sixthly It is no weak argument of an over-ruling and supream Power which may be taken from the contrary attempts the vanity and infelicity of them For it was just now granted that great Wits as they would be called may nay have disowned this truth
But first consider we the silliness of their reasons and weakness of their arguments against a Deity who will yield to nothing but manifest palpable and invincible demonstrations for it and it will be sufficient to confirm any sober mind in the faith of it For how many hath Pride to be thought some body extraordinary in maintaining Paradoxes Singularity to find out somwhat new as Lactantius observed of those Philosophers that were reputed Atheists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysoft In Hebraeos Ser. 4. that took upon them such opinions because they could find out nothing else to make themselves talkt on and famous How many hath boldness and impudency vain-glory and to appear free and illimited in their opinions and practices How many hath Riot Lust and such like excesses converted to this kind of infidelity more then Sobriety or Philosophie It is alas no wit no choice no freedom or generousness of mind at all If as Chrysostome hath said the nobleness of the mind consisteth in believing the high and noble things but a contracted stupidity or sordid servility and unavoidable necessity to enjoy themselves in their low and base courses which constrain them to these perswasions unnatural to them But I deny not but some of the Learned and for ought we know grave Philosophers have inclined to Atheisin as have many Great Rich and Powerful But first however some Princes have been dogmatical within themselves and Practical Atheists in their unjust dealings towards others yet never dared they to commend or incourage such principles in their Subjects nor discover professedly such to their Neighbours by reason of the visible and monstrous mischiefs presently and naturally rushing out of them to the ruin of themselves and others And can that be a truth which is so pernicious to the Authors and promoters of it all over the World Again Can there be any thing more required to prove a thing to be irrational and absurd then that it should never by all countenance and advantages given to it by Power and Learning be able to prosper into any one Society upon earth That it should never prevail so far as to be generally and publickly owned in any one Land or Nation But like a flash of wild-fire make a noise and a show and presently come to nothing Never could Atheists yet from the Creation to this present unite into a Body or become a Commonwealth but against all endeavours and devices when Religion has for a time been discountenanced and crushed by impious Agents it hath recovered it self again in despite of its adversaries Which shews that it is implanted in Man as a natural principle which may be oppressed but never extinguished For whereas Socinus and his crew of late would prove that Religion is not natural to Man from some remote Indians who he says acknowledg no God It is hard for any to make that good But were it so It doth not overthrow our opinion here which teaches chiefly such a naturalness as upon presentation of the thing to the mind of man outwardly doth meet with such compliance inwardly as may well be called Natural And besides a principal doubt was whether infinite People directly and positively asserting and believing a Deity any one can be found which dogmatically oppose the same None of Socinus his instances reach to this And it is not so improbable but inhumanity it self may have prevailed over some people so far as to have buried all Civility in them And what wonder is it or what weakning to our Cause in hand that they who have ceased to be men should have layd aside Religion I do not think Divinity or the belief of a God more inseparable from Man then common humanity and yet I may hold it natural too CAHP. III. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature and the Infiniteness of God NOthing is so intimate and necessary to the very Being of a thing as the Unity of it as say Philosophers Of the Unity of the Deity therefore as necessary to Faith we shall here briefly speak Where first it is to be noted to the advantage of the Faith holding there can be but one God that though many great Wits have attempted boldly to deny a God yet none of them who have granted a Deity have ever so much as denyed the reasonableness of that Opinion which asserts the Unity of such a Deity All generally looking on it as an Excellency to the Divine Nature to be but One However it is written of some ancient Hereticks what is scarce to be found amongst the wiser sort of ancient Natural Philosophers that there was a God of Evil as well as of Good conceiving indeed so far aright that the most Perfect absolute good cannot produce directly what is evil but erring herein that they either thought that to be evil which was not so in it self as evil Beasts poysonous Plants excessive Tempests and the like or supposing that what was really evil must have some positive and direct Agent to produce it which upon due examination will be found contrary to reason And surely though the first thing and most obvious to common apprehensions is that there is a God absolutely yet this being granted and supposed it is much more easie to convince an adversary who shall call in question the Unity of God that he is but one then that he is simply So immediately and necessarily does it follow from the very subject it self For what does the very notion of God imply and include in it Deum cum audis substantiam intellige sine initio sine fine simplicem sine uâ—la admistione invisibilem incorpoream ineffabilem inestâ—â—abilem in quo nihil â—adjanctum nihil crentum sit sine autore Ruffinus in symbolum but a thing most absolute most perfect most glorious most entire and whatsoever and more then what ever the mind of Man can comprehend of excellency But if there be more then one God and these distinct and separate in nature or space then is there in one what is not in the other and the one is what the other is not for else they were not divers or many but one which is argued against by Doubters And if the properties or perfections of one be not communicated to the other but remain peculiar to each nothing can be more certain and apparent than that all perfections are not united into one Being and so consequently that Being imperfect and defective in something and so not absolutely and simply perfect and so not God whom we suppose to be most perfect or not at all And the general and wise concord and harmony found in the World do strongly convince the unity of the First Cause and mover thereof Athan. cont Gentes p. 41. Tom. 1. True indeed some contrarieties and contentions are seen in particular creatures of opposite natures and qualities but this doth rather argue the Unity of a Sovereign power which doth reconcile them into a commodious
agreement and ornament of the Whole So that as in Musick some light passing Notes of discord do add grace and sweetness to the Parts the petty particular disagreement of Creatures illustrate and commend the excellency of the Order of Creatures in the World And as it Athanas ib. p. 42. is yet further impossible but if two several Musicians should compose a Lesson or Song consisting of several Voices not consulting with one another but from their several phansies and humours these put together must needs make horrible jarring and discord so were there more then One God who should have an hand in framing this Universe it could not possibly have been avoided but the infinite and destructive inconveniencies in the parts thereof would betray the absurdness of such different Agents Again if there were more Gods then one there may as well be believed Si sint duo quare non plures Terrul cont Marcionem l. 1. c. 5. to be more then a hundred then a thousand then ten thousand and so on For who shall limit or determine them And so the World would be like a Common-wealth which should have more Soveraigns then Subjects Neither can it be imagined with any reason that such a multitude of gods should hold a Common Counsel and lay their heads together as Poets have devised for the wiser management of their Kingdom of this world because all such deliberations and consultations do imply a particular defect Quid intersint Numeri quum duo paria non differant uno Una enim res est quae cadem in duobui Id. ibid. of power and knowledge which are made up in some manner by the concurrence of many supplying such single defects But this supposition quite overthrows the Divine Nature And farther either these supposed Gods must be equal or inferiour to one another in their Attributes If the latter then must such inferiour ones be turned out of the List as insufficient and incapable of such an Equidem unum esse Deum sine initio sine prole naturae sew Patrem magnum atque magnificum quis tam demens tam mente captus neget esse certissimum high dignity If equal to what purpose are many invented when two or more differ not from One Sixthly Infiniteness and Unity are convertible in the inquiry after the nature of God For if God be Infinite he must necessarily be but One if he be One he must necessarily be Infinite Nothing less then Infinite answering the onely less then Infinite necessities of Creatures in the World which all stand in need as well of support and governance as of a First Cause to produce them 7. Lastly The same consent of Nations and People as hath been intimated Hujus nos virtutes per mundum esse diffusas multis vocabulis vocamus c. Maximus Mad. August Epist 43. agreeing in but one GOD as well as in this That there is a God sufficiently evinceth this For not to speak of the more stupid who are no competent Judges in such cases who notwithstanding readily assent to this noble truth once propounded but the more Learned and Wise who upon disquisition and search duly and thorowly made have ever unanimously received this for a most certain truth CHAP. IV. Of the diversity of Religions in the World A Brief censure of the Gentile and Mabomitan Religion HItherto have we treated of Natural Religion as it were that which all men by the light and force of principles put into Man by the hand of God who made him so that scarce doth the Infant turn more naturally to the breast of the Mother than doth Man arrived to the years of reason and common understanding seek to God by way of recognition and dependance on him But this one end to which all tend so unanimously admitteth of many roads leading thereunto which particularly to enumerate were both superfluous and tedious and therefore may well be reduced to these four Heathenish Jewish Mahometan and Christian which are so many Religions according to which One God is worshipped The Heathen or Gentile as the Scripture calls him worship a God and surely desiring as all men naturally do not to err or be deceived especially in such matters as are of greatest importance as the choice of a Deity is do likewise rudely intend to adore none but the true God For as St. Paul well noteth and teaches us in his Epistle to the Romans Rom. 8. 20. the Creature was made subject unto vanity not willingly but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope By which creature he doth certainly mean the Gentile who according to the phrase of Holy Writ speaking according to the received sense and opinion of the highly opinion'd Jews was reputed no more of then a simple creature and nature in opposition to which St. Paul often makes mention of another and New creature as He that is in Christ Jesus is a New creature and elsewhere And by Vanity 2 Corin. 5. 17. Gal. 5. 10. Jonah 2. 8. is commonly understood False Gods and Idols as in Jonah They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercies meaning False Gods as the Prophet Jeremie likewise affirmeth of the Heathens Gods They are but Jerem. 10. 15. vanity the works of mens hands Now the Creature or Gentiles were unwillingly made subject to these Vanities and false worships in respect of that general Principle inserted in Man whereby he chooses truth before error and consequently the true God before the false however through some particular Blindness of their understanding and darknes their Ephes 4. 18. hearts be alienated from the Life of God or from the living God which is the same Which Darkness of the heart may well be imputed to that Original defect or sin traduced from Adam to all his Posterity Yet notwithstanding even after that general waste made in the Soul of Man God as St. Paul well tells them left not himself without a witness in that he Acts. 14. 17. did good and gave us Rain from Heaven and fruitful seasons filling our hearts with food and gladness So that the Invisible things of him as saith the Rom. 1. 20. same St. Paul from the beginning of the VVorld are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and godhead so that they are without excuse And the reason hereof goeth before Viz. V. 19. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath shewed it unto them The invisible things of God are said to be seen clearly because they are sufficiently exposed to be seen and therefore if they do not see them it must be the affectation of some sensual error which so darkens their mind that they cannot or will not And being thus first corrupted no marvel if their Religion be like unto it not only false but unreasonable and abominable as may appear from these few amongst
wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of Power That your Faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God Signifying unto us that the power of God is no more than necessary to concur with humane reason to the heightning it to such great effects though the Grace of God be all sufficient of it self to produce such effects without yea contrary to such reasons as humane Philosophy or Eloquence can minister to a man And this I have held not unnecessary to be premised to this great difficulty of asserting and evidencing the Scriptures to be the word of God as well ingenuously to profess there appear no such convincing reasons to prove the same as some make shew of and promise as to discover the error of such who would have Christian Religion to stand upon humane Faith For if Christian Faith be built upon the Scripture as is most undeniable and the assurance we have that the Scriptures are the word of God can be absolutely wrought by outward reasons which cannot be drawn from the Scriptures being supposed at present under question certainly all our Faith must hang upon the veracity and certainty of such Reasons Therefore must this middle way be chosen to acknowledg such prerogatives even of outward reason preparing and disposing mens hearts that no other Religion or writing can lay any tolerable claim to and yet such as shall stand in need of a divine concourse to perfect the same to the nature of a truly divine and Christian assent and Faith Now the foresaid preparatory and justly inclining motives may be these following peculiar to the Scriptures The first thing then which must be supposed in this case is that which all Religions and even common Reason require that it is the will of God that some of mankind should be saved that is become blessed and happy after this Life is ended in heaven But this cannot be supposed without due obedience and worship given unto that great and bountiful Creatour and Saviour and this Obedience or worship cannot be given unto God in a manner acceptable to him unless this manner be first of all known unto man and this cannot Vid. Thomam 1. â—â— q. 1. 1 cor be known unless God teaches him that knowledg And this teaching of him must either beby inward or outward Revelation Inward Revelation is the natural endowment of the understanding given by God unto Man enabling him to judge of things and this all People equally share in not that there is a necessary equality or so much as disposition to knowledg in all men but that no order of People are denied this benefit which some persons stir up and improve to a more high and excellent degree of knowledg yet not so but we see many persons and almost people so degenerate as not to perceive those things which conduce necessarily to the ends of common humanity and civility Therefore God at first in creating of man purposely instituted him least the greatest part of his own workmanship and that by his own intention should miscarrie in the due ends of being or the defects of him originally redound on himself To determine this more accurately is the office of some other place only this may suffice here to note that man apparently being defective in this so necessary a point standeth in need of some supply to perfect him in it divine inward Revelation failing him generally even in matters of an inferiour nature to devine worship Wherefore that his will be cleared and revealed outwardly which inwardly is obscured and corrupted is necessary to the foresaid ends And therefore that the Word of God which is received by Christians as proceeding from him and a Declaration of his Will to mankind is to be made appear so far as it may be credible to an indifferent and imprejudicate mind and serve the ends for which it was ordained of God viz. Instruction of man in the mind and will of God and leading him unto eternal happiness CHAP. VIII More special proofs of the truth of Christian Religion and more particularly from the Scriptures being the Word of God which is proved by several Reasons IT coming to the same end to prove the Scriptures to be the Word of God and the Religion built upon them to be of God we shall here endeavour to give farther evidence of both together in this order First If the Scriptures and Christian Religion have been preserved and asserted by God himself it is plain that they proceed originally from God For as the Scripture telleth us not without the assent of rational men Whatsoever plant God hath not planted shall be rooted out Mat. 15. 13. But God hath specially and wonderfully owned and maintained the Doctrine of the Scriptures therefore by his appointment were they ordained For it is a Rule in Natural Philosophy which holds no less true in Supernatural We are nourished and conserved by those things of which we consist Neither is it probable that God should give any direct countenance to that as Divine which is forged and counterfeit But we see that whereas many eminent and Learned mens Works highly approved and applauded have perished the Holy Scriptures have been preserved entire And this attestation of God to them hath been more apparent in the concomitant Acts and Miracles wrought by Christ the immediate Author of them and his Apostles and Servants under him Christ saith expresly My Doctrine is not mine but his that sent me This he thus proves elsewhere Joh. 7. 16. Joh. 10. 25. Joh. 14. 11. The works that I do in my Fathers name they bear witness of me And again Believe me for the very works sake And again If I do not the works of my Father believe me not From all which fair dealing it appears that Christ Joh. 10. 37. intended not to impose a groundless and reasonless Faith upon the world but to commend such an one as had such competent demonstrations as that subject was capable of or the like Moral things Now that such miracles were wrought by Christ and that not by sleight of hand after the manner of cunning Impostours the Effects themselves in himself and which is much more his Followers and Servants in his name is matter of Credit as much as any thing delivered unto us in humane Histories Besides Christs Apostles professed they delivered nothing but from God and Christ to us and this they prosecuted with many and great difficulties dangers distresses and generally with the loss of their very bloud cheerfully poured out and their lives prodigally spent in that testimonie that no men of reason or common sense would have gone through so much dry service but upon a divine impulse and assurance of the truth they delivered an expectation of an everlasting reward for it Here therefore both Jews and Gentiles enter their Caveat and affirm That what Christ did was by indirect means of Evil Spirits Some Jews specially
In his state of innocencie and perfection or imperfection and blindness of mind God certainly knew that man was frail and apt to mistake when he delivered his Law How then is this an Apologie sufficient for him who gave such a Law as was disproportionable to his understanding at the time of giving it But then secondly considering that the understanding and the thing to be understood are Relatives and that it comes to the same end whether the Facultie be unapt to conceive or the Object unapt to be conceived such an excuse is to no purpose But yet withal wo must note that man is not to be excused from guilt in misunderstanding First be cause he willingly brought this defect upon himself by his Original â—â—lly and Falâ— of Secondly Because he through vile and vitious affections doth oftentimes contract a greater darkness and disorder than is natural to him even in this state of Original sin And God as all other Law-givers did not proportion the Law given according to the contingent dispositions of particular mens understanding but according to that common Scantling found generally in Man So that undoubtedly some men are the proper authors of their own ignorance in divine matters through their affected evil manners as the Scripture and the Fathers jointly shew A second General reason is from God 1. Calling man to the knowledge of himself and that by his word and never intending to alter the course of nature and general state of man in this life which was and is to be fallible Infallibilitie being the portion of the blessed in the life to come â—t were not impossible that God should either by so framing his word or so reframing man have secured him from erring about it but he hath not so done neither doth it appear how such Exemptions and priviledges could consist with his Providence more general For Secondly The Providence of God having determined to preserve humane and divine Societies as he had constituted this can hardly be understood to be more readily and safely effected than by mutual obligations and a necessity of mutual offices to be done one towards another And the first thing conducing hereunto is the Order of Governors and Governed of Masters and Scholars of such as teach and such as are taught in the Word But if every man were wise in the Laws of man had the power of the Sword justly given into his own hands or the power of the Word in his own breast then would there be no need at all of Rulers or teachers to teach or instruct or reprove and redress errours in manners because Every man is supposed to be an independent Prince and though he should offend against nature it self was not to be punished by one who had no autority over him Hence there fore it is that God most wisely hath suffered an inequalitie of Persons in all Ages all Faculties all Policies as well divine as humane that the more strickt the bond is the more intire the societie and unity might also be Thirdly As this discrimination secures the necessary relations between men within themselves so doth it the dependance between God and Man which must never be forgotten For as for the Father to deliver all the writings of his Estate to his son and to put him in present and full possession of all his wealth is the next way to tempt his son to forget and disrespect him and no more to acknowledg any duty to him in like manner were it so that God at once should have put man in ample and absolute knowledg of his holy writings and will without reserving to himself the farther manifestation of difficulter matters there would be no address to God no worship no seeking to him for satisfaction and information in the Care of his Soul One main end and office of prayer would be extinct So we read that God designing the Law to the Israelites provided aforehand That the ordinary Rulers should judg the people at all time but the hard causes they should bring to Moses and Moses himself cases too hard for him to God As in the Case of him that gathered sticks on the Sabbath day and of Zelophehads daughters Fourthly God suffers this to the end he might quicken and excite our Endeavours and industry in the search after his holy will so reveiled unto us For were it so that all things were presently and readily obvious unto us there would be wanting that excellent vertue of labour to which God hath ordained all men since the fall to perserve them from greater mischiefs incident to weak man And besides contempt and slighting are Besides those Texts of Scripture which by reason of wisdom and depth of sense and mystery laid up in them are not yet conceived there are in Scripture of things that are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seemingly confused 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 carrying semblance of Contrariety and Achronisms Metachronisms and the like which brings infinite obscurity to the text There are I say more of them in Scripture then in any writer that I know secular or divine Dr. Hales Serm. 1. p. 22. alwaies the consequent of what is plain and familiar to us And therefore that argument which some use to prove all things evident in Scripture and others contrariwise that all things are unquestionable in the Church so that according to the opinion of the one a man committing himself to the holy Scriptures and according to the other submitting himself to the Church in all things he may promise himself security rather than safety do make more against this It being more certainly the Will of God while we war in the Church militant we should never rest secure from due solicitudes and temptations but by often contentions with him to preserve our selves from falling from the true Faith or falling into a false Faith A third General reason of the obscurities in Scripture may be taken from the Scriptures themselves which not compared with the general ability of mans reason and understanding only but with other writings also are of difficult access and that will be thought no calumnie if it be considered First That the languages in which they were originally written are so far perished now adayes that they are familiar to no nation neither can the many Idioms and proprieties of the phrase be well understood by us Secondly The Histories thereof and the several customes rites Civil and Religious amongst the Heathens as well as Jews and Christians the habits gestures and acts very easily known and readily apprehended by such as lived in those dayes and places are now hardly to be understood Thirdly The difficulty of distinguishing between Canonical and Uncanonical Writings Fourthly The subtilty and artifices of Heretiques in their corrupting if not the Letter yet perverting the genuine sense Yea the very Orthodox Expositors are themselves so various and unconsenting in the true meaning that they much more distract and unsettle
decision I wish with all my heart so far am I from an evil eye or niggardly affection towards Scripture they could make their words good when they tell us all things are contained in Scripture It is a perfect Rule of all emergent doubts and acts in the Church It is Judge and Law both of Controversies but alas they cannot For they take away from it more then by this rank kindness they give to it Gods word is Perfect as a Law and so far as he intended it but it must cease to be a Law and take another nature upon it if it were a Judge too in any proper sense And the Canon of Scripture must be it self variable and mutable if it could particularly accommodate it self to all occasions and exigencies of Christians But this is not only absurd but needless For God when he made men Christians did not take away from them what they before had as Men but required and ordained that humane judgement and reason should be occupied and sanctified by his divine Revelations He in brief gave them another and far better Method Aid and Rule to judge by and did not destroy or render altogether useless their Judgement even in matters sacred To the Law and Esay 8. 20. to the Testimonie saies the holy Prophet if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them This indeed plainly declares the Rule by which we are to walk and Judge but it doth not tell us that the Law it self doth speak but men according to it And this is to Judge Now because no one man no one age no one Church should judge for all no nor for it self contrary to all doth the necessity and expediencie of Tradition not to affront or violate but secure the written word of God and that in two special respects appear First as giving great light and directions unto the Rulers of the Church and limiting the uncertain and loose wit of man which probably would otherwise according to its natural pronitie flie out into new and strange senses dayly of holy Scripture The Records of the Church like so many Presidents and Reports in our Common Law giving us to understand Low Consuetudo etiam in Civilibus rebus pro Lege suscipitur cùm deficit Lex nec differt Scripturd an ratione consistat quando Legem ratio commendet Tertul. de coron mil. cap. 4. such places of Scripture were formerly understood and on which side the case controverted passed And why this course in divine matters should not be approved I see not unless unquiet and guilty persons shall seek under colour of a more absolute appeal to Scripture which is here supposed to be sincerely appealed unto before to wind themselves into the seat of Judicature and at length not only as fallibly but also usurpingly decree for themselves and others too This event hath so manifestly appeared that there is no denying of it or defending it They therefore who professedly introduce Tradition to the defeating and nulling of Scripture deal indeed more broadly and in some sense more honestly as being what they seem than they who give all and more then all due to it in language but in practise overthrow it But we making Tradition absolutely subordinate and subservient to Scripture and in a word of the nature of a Comment and not of the Text it self we are yet to seek not what deceitfully and passionately for we know enough of that already but soberly can be objected against it For if it be said Tradition is it self uncertain it is obscure it is perished it contradicts it self and so can be of little use we readily joyn with them so far as to acknowledge that such traditions and to them to whom they so appear can with no good reason be appealed to But we deny that there are none but such and that such as prove themselves to be true and honest men upon due trial and examination ought to be hang'd out of the way because they were found in company with thieves and Cheats Supposing then That such honest Traditions are to be found in the Church another great benefit redoundeth to the Church from thence in that it doth in some cases supply the defects of the Law it self the Scripture But here I must first get clear of this reputed Scandal given in that I suppose the Scriptures defective or imperfect I have already and do again profess its plenitude and sufficiency as far as a Rule or Law is well capable of Now what God by his infinite wisdom and power might have done I cannot question in contriving such an ample Law as should comprehend all future and possible contingencies in humane affairs but this I say That he disposing things by another Rule viz. to act according to humane capacity and condition never did or so much as intended to deliver such an infinite Law Is not Moses and Gods dealing to him and his ministry to God and the people frequently alledged as a notable argument to convince us of the amplitude of the New Testament Moses say they was faithful in all his house And therefore much Heb. 3. 2. more was Christ Very good and what of all this As much as comes to nothing For wherein did the faithfulness of Moses consist In powring out unmeasurably all that might be said touching divine matters Or rather in delivering faithfully and exactly all that God commanded him This truly did Moses and therefore was very true and faithful to him that sent him and gave him his charge This did Christ and this did the Apostles of Christ and his inspired servants and therefore were all no less faithful to God than Moses But did not Moses leave more cases untouched in the Administration of the Jewish Policie then were litterally expressed Yes surely judging it sufficient that he had laid down general Rules and Precepts according to which Emergencies which might be infinite should by humane prudence be reduced and accordingly determined And so choose they or refuse they must they grant did Christ and his Instruments leave the Law of the Gospel which yet not wanting all that can be expected from a Law cannot modestly be pronounced imperfect notwithstanding as is said manifold particulars are not there treated of Now those are they we say Tradition doth in some measure supply unto us and the defect of Tradition it self which hath not considered all things is made good by the constant power of the Church given by the Scriptures themselves in such cases which require determination of circumstances of time place order and manner of Gods service according to the Edification of the Church of Christ CHAP. XIII Of the nature of Faith What is Faith Of the two general grounds of Faith Faith divine in a twofold sense Revelation the Formal reason of Faith Divine Of the several senses and acceptations of Faith That Historical Temperance and Miraculous Faith are not in nature
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
they do not believe contrary to the Faith of the Church It may be said that Baptism alone is sufficient to distinguish such implicit believers from Heathens which I grant as to the Essence or nature of Christianity but not to the Life and exercise of a Christian for that as St. Paul hath by his word and example certified us is by the Faith Col. 2. 20. of the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us Therefore as I am so charitable to all well-disposed Christians to be perswaded there is no necessity for all to have either the like measure or manifestation of Faith in any one point of Faith our Saviour Christ requiring Faith but as a grain Math. 17. 20. of Mustard-seed sometimes so am I to all Churches as to be perswaded That they all require and that in all a some measure of Faith explicite as necessary to Salvation and that besides this Believing as the Church believes For in truth this is nopoint of Faith in the Actus Signatus or general notion though to believe the Church Catholick may be For who sees not a vast difference between believing the Church it self and believing what the Church believes And that may be compleated in believing the Being and Extent of it which is much short of the body of Faith which it receives and professes CHAP. XIV Of the Effects of True Faith in General Good Works Good Works to be distinguished from Perfect Works Actions good four wayes THere is a great difference between Good works and Perfect works For the first hath respect unto the thing done and the other unto the manner of doing it agreeable to all due forms and Circumstances And every work that is good is not Perfect though every work that is perfect must of necessity be Good And to the doing of a Good work there seems to be no more absolutely Act. 17. 11. Rom. 10. 17. Si Fidelis fecerit opus bonum hic ei prodest liberans eum a malis in illo saeculo ad percipiendum regnum coelesto magis autem ibi quam hîc Si autem Infidelis fecerit bonum opus hîc ei prodest opus ipsius hîc ei reddit Deus pro opere su◠In illo autem saeculo nihil ei prodest opus ipsius Opus imperfectum in Math. Hom. 26. required than that a man should act according to well informed and regulated reason and true affection So that the works of natural men may be good though heathens such as are Visiting the sick and relieving the poor defending the Fatherless and widow oppressed and especially such outward moral Acts as may be done by natural men tending to their Conversion and Salvation as willing hearing and equal judging of the doctrine of Faith even before actual Faith conceived for which St. Paul esteemed the Bereans praise worthy* So that they are not absolutely Splendid Sins for were it so they were by no means to be done and no man did well who before his Conversion went to hear Christ preach or gave any attentive ear to what St. Paul wrote or taught for want of Faith whereas we are taught by common reason as well as by St. Paul that Faith it self cometh by hearing of the word of God For how can any man possibly believe what he never heard of So then some duties and Acts are laudable and acceptable to God without Faith though not arising to the perfection of Evangelical Goodness by which a man pleaseth God and is acceptable unto him even to his Justification and Salvation There may therefore be distinguished a fourfould goodness in Actions 1. Natural when a man acteth agreeable to the perfection of the Rule of natural Beings as a man acteth agreeable to the perfection of the Rule of natural Beings as a man is said to walk well when he goes according to the nature of man and limps not nor halts and to write a good hand when his letters and words do answer exactly a Perfect Rule or Copie This Religion taketh no notice of at all 2. A man is said to do a Good Act when it is so morally and in its kind as tending to the honour of his Creator whose Instruments meer Moral men are in exercising his Paternal providence and to the benefit of others For it being the proper Character of God which is spoken of him by the Psalmist viz. Thou art Good and thou doest Good They whom God Psal 119. 68. chooseth and stirreth up to minister under him in good and useful things to the Communitie or any particular do that which is good however not absolute 3. There is a Religious or divine goodness in Actions which are done agreeable to the Revealed Will of God passing natures sagacitie or search And this is twofold Legal and Evangelical both exceeding the former but the one exceeded of the other viz. Legal of Evangelical Vere enim quando declinamus d malo facimus bonum quantum ad comparationem caeterorum hominum nolentium declinare à malo facere bonum dicuntur bona quae agimus quantum autem ad Veritatem secundum quod dic itur in hoc loco Quia unus est bonus bonum nostrum non est bonum Orig. Hom. 8. in Matthaeum For as Natural Acts are good done according to natures intention and institution by themselves but are not good compared with moral duty performed and moral Acts are Good in themselves but not so in respect of a Superiour Order and end of working instituted of God in his holy Law So are Legal Acts wrought according to Gods word given to the Israelites under that dispensation or Covenant as required of God and serving to those ends God propounded to himself and his people Wherefore it is that the Children of Israel revolting from God and forsaking that instituted worship of his Law are thus censured by the Prophet * Hos 8. 3. Hosea Israel hath cast off the thing that is good the enemie shall pursue him And St. Paul than whom no divine writer more opposes the Law occasion being offered yet giveth his suffrage †1 Tim. 1. 8. The Law is good if a man useth it Lawfully And the Gospel it self is not good unless used Lawfully Therefore were the works of the Law also good works within their bounds but not so compared with the Perfection of the Gospel but displeasing to God and pernicious to men who being delivered in the fulness of time by the coming of Christ from the Pedagogie and beggerly Elements of the Mosaical Law should presume to retain that vail which was done away in Christ and embrace those shadows the body Christ being present Hence it is that St. Paul as in many other places writing to the Corinthians speaketh thus at large The Letter killeth i. e. the Literal sense and observation of the 2 Cor. 3. 6. Old Law after the New became of force destroyeth rather than
saveth the observer of it but the Spirit i. e. the Spiritual Law giveth Life But if the ministration of death written and graven in Stones was glorious so that 7. the Children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his Countenance which glory was to be done away How shall not the ministration 8. of the Spirit be rather glorious For even that which was made glorious 10. had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth All this doth shew the great disparitie between the Law and the Gospel and the preheminence of This above That So be the Law in it self and for that season and for that people glorious and good yet upon the approach of the Gospel and its being in force all that perished and the works thereof no longer good works much less justifying because they were not done in Faith not in the Faith of Christ but in the Faith of Moses The principal then yea only Good works that are now of any account as to absolute acceptation at Gods hands are those which are done in an Evangelical manner Now the manner of acting thus Evangelically to the denomination of our works Good is thus described by St. Paul For by Grace are Ephes 2. 8. ye saved through Faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Not 9. of works least any man should boast For we are his workmanship created in 10. Christ Jesus unto Good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them Which certainly implieth that Grace being taken for the Gospel of Grace in opposition to the Law Christ in opposition to Moses and Faith to the belief of Moses Law we are no longer of the Old man but the New man we are created anew in Christ and that Good works from him and through Faith in him are they only that properly can be so called and to these we are fashioned and as it were created by the Gospel So that if we should describe Good works of Christians we may call them Acts done in the Faith of Christ according to the tenor of the Gospel as a Rule directing us to the manner and End of working Nevertheless though these be good and every Good and Faithful Christian stands obliged by vertue of his Holy Faith professed and the Covenant of Grace entred into with God under the Gospel and the hope of obtaining the special promises of the Gospel yet are they not in themselves Good as to the perfection prescribed by that Rule and in Justice might be exacted by God through the ordinarily inseparable defects from humane frailty so long as we are in this world And how far they avail it now follows to be examined CHAP. XV. Of the Effect of Good Works which is the Effect of Faith How Works may be denominated Good How they dispose to Grace Of the Works of the Regenerate Of the proper conditions required to Good Works or Evangelical SUpposing then that there are such works which both God and man esteem Good it is next to be sought into how far their Goodness does extend and of what efficacie they are or what are the Effects of them Remembring withall that here Faith is no way excluded but advanced rather seing Good works being the Effects of Faith the Effects of Good works must of necessity be likewise the Effects of Faith as the fruit ows no less to the Root which gives life and growth to the whole tree than it doth to the branch from which it immediately proceeds Yet is it here to be noted answerable to what is said before That all good works do not proceed from Faith For the works of the Gentiles have a real goodness in them and that much more than they of the Jew as they are Jewish and yet not done in Faith nor attaining to the Decorum or perfection of the Gospel and therefore frequently called sinful and no ways conducing directly to salvation or Justification as do the works wrought in Faith I say directly because as in nature a man is said to live the Life of a sensible Creature before he come to the perfection of humane nature so may there be a preparatory or previous goodness in the works of Infidels which may dispose to not merit the life or form of Faith But because the Regeneration called sometimes the Creation of the New man to shew the absoluteness and independence of the Divine power and pleasure in such Acts doth not proceed as nature doth For that which may be as predisposing is not simply requisite to the introducing the form of Spiritual Life but by the most free and powerful providence many are elected and brought to Spiritual Life without any such previous goodness And if we should grant natural or moral Justice were necessary as an Antecedent to Faith it would not follow that it were so by way of merit or disposing God to perfect that rude beginning with the accession of his Grace For we are to make a necessary difference between Preparation to Grace so much talked of For there is a preparation of a mans self or the subject which is to receive this holy impression and there is a preparation of the Agent which conferrs this by moving or inclining him to such an End I suppose the Schools and severer assertors of the Freeness of Gods Grace to which a man cannot by acts of nature dispose himself do mean the latter viz. that no man by any principle of nature or habits of virtue acquired and exercised according to the Rules of Justice and wisdom can thereby be said to have done any thing which of it self might incline God to regenerate him by his Grace For it seems to me keeping to the Rules and sense of Scripture as unlikely that a Christian should be author any more of Spiritual Life than a man is of his Natural But no man can with any sense be said to contribute to his natural Life no more can he to his Spiritual Life which is commonly called the First Grace But that the natural man living soberly Justly and temperately is not thereby in a greater readiness and less distant from the divine Grace perfecting the same were hard to affirm as well considering the method that God usually takes though not alwaies nor is bound to any is to proceed not per saltum as they say or from one extream to another on the suddain but by apt gradations as the encouragement is from hence given to immortality it self And yet as wood being orderly laid can never thereby merit or claim a kindling or as a conveiance of a great Mannor being fully and fairly drawn can never deserve nor so much as for its sake dispose the Lord whose it is to pass it away by setting his hand and seal to it so neither can any fair hand of natural works induce God to conferr on a man the State of Grace For this
Passive preparedness we speak of doth not so much as either open the eye to discover the use or benefit of Grace nor in the least incline the Will to desire it Now because the holy Fathers and especially St. Augustine and moderner Divines do speak of the Works of the Unregenerate as not only insufficient and imperfect but sinful yea sin it is very requisite to take their true meaning which cannot possibly be as if they were simply evil for then were they simply to be forborn and omitted but Synecdochically they intend alwayes to intimate a sinfulness in defect of what was due to such Actions compared with the divine Rule Or they called them Sin not so much from the nature of the Actions themselves as the inseparable evil of Commission alwayes accompanying them as was Pride and presumption upon their such laudable works as sufficing of themselves without a Saviour or Sanctifier Extraordinarie which they were either wholly ignorant of or contemptuously rejected to intitle them to exact Philosâ—phers and observers of the law of Nature wheâ—ein the blessedness of a man in this life consisted according to them and afterward to open the door of a Paradise framed to themselves Of these Good works thus mischievously attended as constantly they were in Natural men truly might be said by St. Austine on the Psalms Good works without Faith do but help Aug. in Psal 31. men to go faster out of the way And by Chrysostom sometimes speaking more than enough of the use of works preparatory Nothing without Faith is Good and that I may use such a Similitude as this they seem to me who flourish with good works and are ignorant of Gods worship to be like the Reliques of dead persons finely adorned And the voice of Scripture is so clear that there is no need to alleadg the same against the inefficacie of the best natural Acts to spiritual ends and purposes The more principal and useful enquiry then is concerning the works of the Regenerate done upon the grounds by the vertue and to the proper ends of Faith what they may avail a true Believer For that they are beneficial and that most of all to the benefactor himself Man is in a manner consented to unanimously or if it be not we shall make no great scruple plainly and stoutly to affirm so much after the holy Scriptures have so clearly and positively delivered the same as amongst many in these places Finally brethren whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest Phil. 4. 8. whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue if there be any praise think on these things Those things which ye have both received 9. and learned and heard and seen in me do and the God of peace shall be with you And Heb. 6. 8. For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh Heb. 6. 7. oft upon it and bringeth forth Herbs meet for them for whom it is dressed receiveth blessing from God But that which beareth Thorns and Briars is rejected 8. and is nigh unto cursing whose end is to be burned Who sees not here that a good Christian fruitful in good works is compared to good ground which is blessed of God and evil Christians barren and unfruitful compared to ill ground next to cursing And elsewhere This 2 Cor. 9. 6. I say he that soweth the seed of good works sparingly shall reap sparingly but he that soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully And the Psalmist Psalm 62. 12. agreeable hereunto saith Unto thee O Lord belongeth mercy for thou renderest to every man according to his works And Jeremie rendereth it as a Jerem. 32. 19. reason of Gods greatness which is an inseparable and essential attribute of God that he is so equal in this case saying Great in Counsel mighty in work For thine eyes are open upon all the wayes of the Sons of men to give every man according to his wayes and according to the fruit of his doings And yet more plainly St. Paul to the Romans speaking of God Who will Rom. 2. 6 7 8 9. render every man according to his deeds to them who by patient continuing in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life But unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish to every soul of man that doth evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile But glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first and also to the Gentile I shall add but one more Text and that found in the Epistle to Titus which not only in sense but almost in terms proves what I laid down concerning the beneficialness of good works This is a faithful saying and these things Tit. 3. 8. I will that thou affirm constantly That they which have believed in God might be careful to maintein good Works these things are good and profitable unto men And so far as we now urge good Works the answer is very sufficient to that place alledged against the Effect of good Works in general Luk. 17. 10. where our Saviour saith in St. Luke And when ye shall have done all things which are commanded you say We are unprofitable servants We have done that which was duty to do To this I say it is fully answered though more might be said We are unprofitable to God our Master who commanded us to work for so saith David likewise My Goodness extendeth Psal 16. 3. not to thee but it is not said We are unprofitable unto our selves or that no good accreweth unto our selves thereby And I would to God that though no good Christian can deny the usefulness of Good works in general that do not denie the Scriptures or common sense yet they would be more firmly setled in the belief hereof than too many are and suffer this Faith to have its proper influence upon their lives which might be safely admitted and that without any offense or prejudice to the freeness of Gods grace as will yet further appear For the Effect of Good works doth not only confine it self to certain temporal blessings of this world and outward prosperties which in truth was the proper portion and promise made by God to the Jew under the Old Law so far as it was Ritual and Mosaical upon their obedience but it extendeth it self plainly to the spiritual blessings upon earth and immortal in heaven as our blessed Lord expresly teaches us in his Sermon on the mount saying Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter Mat. 7. 21. into the Kingdom of heaven but he doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven that he shall is to make no criminal addition to Scripture the sense being so plain And so St. Paul to Timothy teaches It is a
without blame before him in love And it hath been shewed before how that when in the New Testament we read of Gods Calling and choosing and electing we are not so much to understand the eternal purpose or decree of God but the execution thereof in Gods actual calling and electing certain persons to the profession and belief of the Faith of Christ which he effected by the fulfilling of the Prophesie made by Christ in St. Matthews Gospel relating to the Matth. 24. 31. destruction of the Jewish Polity and Church and erecting of the Christian instead thereof viz. And he shall send his Angels that is his Messengers and Ministers with a great sound of a trumpet i. e. the Gospel preached and published and they shall gather together his elect i. e. such as he shall make choice of from the four winds i. e. from all quarters of the world from one end of heaven to the other Now these persons by Gods word and good-will called from such vanities ignorances and vices are in the Scripture called Saints not so much because they were all so throughly or absolutely sanctified from their former natural or moral impieties contracted in their state of Nature and Gentilism as that they should retain no sin and none of them should fail of heaven hereafter But first either from the better part the whole was denominated actually holy which is not unusual in all speech Or because having made renunciation of the World and Flesh and Devil in Baptism they were called and consecrated to Holiness Or lastly because they made open and solemn profession thereof however some so called might be and did appear to be reprobates And names and appellations are given not from any inward affection or quality which sense cannot judge of but from such things as are visible and apparent And thus in the Old Testament as well as New it is used As in the Psalmes Gather my Saints Psalm 50. 5. together unto me those that have made a Covenant with me by Sacrifice which imply the whole body of the people of Israel as the words going immediately before do also declare And wherever in the Book of Psalms which is in divers places we find the Congregation of the Saints is meant the Israelites in general And in Daniel Chap. 7. v. 8. 21 22 25 27. is the word necessary taken Now it being most customary with the Penmen of the New Testament to borrow the phrase of the Old this tearm Saints was translated from the Jewish Synagogue to the Christian Church by St. Paul expresly to the Romans saying To all that be in Rome beloved of Rom. 1 7. God called Saints so the original better then the insertion of to be made in the translation As likewise in his first Epistle to the Corinthians To the Church of God which is at Corinth to them that are sanctified in Christ 1 Cor. 1. v. 2. Jesus called to be Saints withall that in every place call upon the name Jesus Christ their Lord and ours And the like salutation we shall find in most of St. Pauls Epistles as also most frequently in the body of them as may be obvious to any reader though I deny not but sometimes in the New Testament it is taken in a more restrained sense signifying especially the victorious and triumphant not Militant Saints From all which it doth sufficiently appear in what sense the Church may and ought to be described a Society or Collection of Saints And withal how miserably and mischievously they err who giving that title to a Party hold themselves bound to gather a certain select number out of Christians not accusable of any notorious errour from the Faith of Christ as the Apostles of Christ did out of Heathens and Jews and to constitute and call them Saints Another thing requisite to the constitution of a Church is That it be a Communion of Saints it sufficing not that persons elected or selected as above-said be many in number but holy by nature or institution as God ordained of old in the forming of the Jewish Church Deut. 7. 6. Thou art Deut. 7. 6. 26 19. 18 9. an holy people unto the Lord thy God The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself above all the people that are upon the face of Earth Which words are with advantage applyed unto the Christian Church by St. Peter Whence it is that the same St. Peter maketh it an 1 Pet. 2. 9 10. 2 Pet. 1. 4. end of calling this company together That they may be partakers of the Divine Nature or as it is otherwise more plainly render'd Of a Divine Nature Holiness drawing us near unto the Nature of God himself As the Wiseman also writeth The giving heed unto her Laws is the assurance Wisdom 6. 18 19. of Incorruption and Incorruption maketh us near unto God And not only must they be holy but to that end must of necessity hold a twofold communion The one Invisible with one Head Christ The other Visible and external with one another For the Apostle tells us speaking of Christians The head of every man is Christ And to the Ephesians The 1 Cor. 11. 3. Ephes 5. 23. husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the Church and and he is the Saviour of the world There can therefore no question be made but it is most essential as well to the Church in general as every particular Christian or Member of the same that Christ be the Head of his Church as St. Paul yet more clearly expresseth it to the Colossians excepting against such Professors of Christian Religion as held not the Head from which all the Body by joynts and bands having nourishment ministred and knit 2 Col. 2. 19. together encreaseth with the increase of God Therefore leaving that as on all hands granted we come to the external communion of the Church CHAP. XXIV A Preparation to the knowledge of Ecclesiastical Society or of the Church from the consideration of humane Societies What is Society What Order What Government Of the Original of Government Reasons against the Peoples being the Original of Power and their Right to frame Governments Power not Revocable by the People IN the outward Communion of the Church two things are to be enquired into First the Nature of it wherein it consisteth Secondly the Adjuncts or Affections thereof First we shall treat Civitas à conversatione multorum dicta est pro eo quod plurimorum in unum constituat contineat vitas Origin Homil. 5. in Genesim briefly of the Nature of this Communion To understand which clearly it will be expedient to begin with the definition of Communion in General or Society humane For Communion is nothing else but Humane Society And Humane Society is nothing else but a conversation of men out of natural reason inclining and moving them thereunto for the mutual supply of the
particular defects and exigencies each man is subject unto in a separate condition And this Society thus combining or concurring together is commonly called a Republick the word signifying The common good it being the design and end of all Republicks or Common-wealths for men first in order to seek the common interest and good of the whole Society and so through that to derive particular and private benefit to each member thereof and not as some blindly and brutishly addicted to their private personal profits to begin at home and not to secure the Publick stock These are no better than such Pilferers and Thieves who being in partnership with others pocket up in the first place all that they can lay hold on and contribute no more to the common stock than they are by force constrained unto Now this Society may be divided into three sorts Natural Civil Divine or Ecclesiastical Natural is that Order and Regiment constituted Ordâ— est parium disparium rerum sua cuique loco triâ—uens dispositio Aug. Civ Dei 19. 13. Bernardus Gerson entitiloquio Gubernare est movere aliquos indebitum finem sicut nanta gubernat navem emendo eam ad portum Thomas 22. Q. 102. 2. co by God in every mans soul which consisteth of the Superiority of the Rational faculties and the Subjection and Obedience of the Inferiour or Sensitive Affections For Order as several of the Ancient have described it is nothing else but The Disposition or placing of equal and inequal things into their proper places which Order is the foundation of Government And Government according to Thomas is the moving of men to their due end There being therefore a twofold end of man secular and spiritual Government likewise must be answerable And both agree in this viz. to be the Administration of the Weal Publick to ends agreeable unto them In which we are yet farther to consider these things 1. The Original of Government 2. The Form of Government 3. The Rule and Reasons of Government 4. The Obligation upon Men under Government And of these briefly as a necessary Introduction to the Doctrine of the Church And concerning the first the Cause and Fountain of all Government Some pretending to fetch the Fountain head of all humane Rule from its first rise have quite forgot what they went about and inverting the order of nature have begun at the end which is rather the effect then cause For now we do not enquire why or to what end it is but who made it and whose hand it was that framed this Tool to bring to pass such a work as humane safety and tranquility That this must be the same cause with that of man himself seems reasonable to me to conclude from the necessity of the same and the wisdom of Divine Providence which having given generally such instinct and common prudence unto Creatures to do nothing which shall serve for nothing nor to erect any thing but with competent provision to conserve and continue the same in that being so far as the Supream Wisdom shall not oppose the same How is it credible that God should make that Master-piece of his Man upon earth and not at the same time provide for that subsistance and continuance Sevorum bestiarum inquit Aristoteles Polit. 3. cap. 6 non est Civitas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are necessary But it is plain that man though as brutish and a sensible creature he may wear out possibly an unhappy ignoble life yet without society and community and unity through the bands and ligaments of sound and reasonable Laws cannot subsist as civil or rational or as easily improvable to perfection of natural state upon earth but must necessarily degenerate into the rank of Brutes Therefore sure Divine Wisdome left him not destitute of such helps as were proper to this end but together with his very nature instills into him an inclination to Society and by his own Act and Ordinance whereby he ordained that man should propagate and multiply prescribed the best and only manner of civil Regiment investing some with a natural right of dominion over others As the man over the woman and the parents over the children from whence it is ready and easie to approach to a community and that with a subordination This is so plain that the perspicuity and simplicity doth rather then any thing else offend the unsatisfied acuteness of rarer wits and move them to pry farther to confound themselves others and the Order God hath set in the world beginning at the feet and ending in the head and putting counsel into the tail to teach the head how it should rule the body and empowring children to enact Laws for Parents how they ought to govern which they certainly do who affirm that the grosser body of the people did first of all agree upon Government and constitute their Ruler which dogmes have no fewer nor higher arguments to confute and oppress them than these First they are Ridiculous Secondly Sacrilegious and Impious Thirdly Impossible Fourthly Pestilential and Pernicious to all Government It is first ridiculous as that opinion which inverts all order and contrary to a much more sound and sober Rule in Politicks viz. That no man can create one greater than himself And if it be said that therefore no single one can confer greater power than he himself is possessed of on another but Many who are greater than one may I answer This is true where the supposition which is here false and taken for true is granted viz. That many men have in such cases as these any more power then one For I wholly deny that any are or altogether have any right whatsoever power they may usurp to create such Powers And it still remains absurd to suppose that any or all whose only place and capacity it is to serve should more then command For 't is a true saying It is more to make a King than to be a King For still I hold this which I have not found shaken by the many attempts of innovating Wits that there is a real Paternal Power in lawful Princes And though we should suppose that which was rarely if ever done that a man should adopt any man into the place of a Father as men usually did some as their sons yet can we not suppose that hereby any paternal Power is really conferred on such an one but only imaginary and impediments removed whereby Paternal power which hath an acknowledged common right to Rule take place over such a person as hath so submitted unto it So in like manner it cannot be denyed against innumerable instances to be given that the People in certain exigencies and faileurs have as it were adopted one man specially as their civil Parent whom we call commonly a King and hereupon absurdly and proudly conclude they have made a King but we know this to be nothing so For 't is not choice but Power that makes a King and
me that such supposed power ought not to be translated from that subject to which God had annexed it to that which the people liketh better man here in mending Gods ordinance Therefore surely there being found a necessity of having power otherwise posited than in the people and it being an egregious absurdity of altering that God had ordained it must follow to reconcile these things That there never was any such power in the people at all but what they have is unto them derived from another Power originally And this is further confirmed from the Impossibility as well as impiety of making any such translation of power from its natural subject the People because it cannot ever fairly or justly be brought about seeing that the People cannot unanimously much less ever did concur to the Election of any one Government or Governour They cannot all give in their Votes to such an end alwayes some were dissenting and if they did not enter their Protest against the proceedings of their fellows it must be because they were deterred curbed and oppressed by a more prevalent faction obliging them and constraining them most unjustly to comply with their Opinions and Decrees For there appears no sound reason why a more numerous and powerful faction may not as well take away my Estate because they are stronger than I as take away my birth-right which Liberty is here asserted to be So that the very first step to Liberty must be founded in injustice in taking away that from me which I might no less in natural reason spoil them of and in servitude too in bringing me whom they acknowledge to be naturally free into unwilling subjection Neither is the difficulty solved in saying That Reason and Nature also require that for order sake and regulating humane Society the Minor part must yield to the Major For upon this supposition indeed that power is so absurdly and inconveniently posited there doth presently appear such a necessity But my Argument is taken from the absurdity of any such necessity of natures creating that the supposition is very false And if it were true yet were not that Maxime true which is here brought to controul and correct the same For Nature doth not teach us much less necessitate us in any case to follow the most numerous but rather reason and experience and the judgment of diligent and wise discussers of this Point inform us That the multitude are more inconsiderate undiscerning and injudicious then the fewer in number many times the world being generally thicker set with fools than wise men and fools being commonly more apt to be led by fools than with deeper and sounder reasons of the Wise Now as to the right of Revocation resting still in the People even after the supposed investiture of Power made to a Prince or other Magistrates I must confess upon supposition of a native right in them it to be very reasonable yea though the contract be very binding upon them to the securing of the persons so inaugurated in that State And that from the grounds already laid down which prove that no alteration ought to be made contrary to Divine or Natural Institutions and consequently the People being by natures Law Proprietaries in that Power all alienations attempted must needs be void any farther then they judge fit yea and farther too because they themselves are bound to keep themselves to such innate Rights and observe them duly And besides Civil and artificial Law as I may well call Humane can never extinguish Natural absolutely and justly And therefore what they gave the People they may require back again because they received that entailed upon them and their Posterity which they ought not nor can cut off And this I say not being ignorant what others have said to the contrary who are said to yield supream Power in the body of the People which they may dispose of to another but not revoke again any more than a man may recover back his Estate once lawfully made over to another But the disparity of the cases makes the answer very easie which is That no man being so naturally invested with a temporal estate as is here supposed the People to be with this Right of Dominion that may without any violation of a superiour Law be parted with and not this For supposing equally that God who hath given only a general right to man to possess the earth and not assigned any particular Lands to particular persons to be holden of Divine Right had done this latter it would have followed That he ought not to sell them and that such sale made were void before God As doth plainly appear in the distribution of the Land of Canaan unto several Tribes by no means to be confounded and of entailing of Lands unto particular Families by no means so to be alienated but they might return at a time prefixed to the same House But the Right of Rule in the People is lookt upon as by Nature and Divine ordinance belonging to them and therefore cannot de Jure be transferred or if attempted must needs by the same Right be revokable But I look not upon that Argument much used as concluding against the pretended power of the People which stands thus No man hath power of life and death over himself Therefore he cannot communicate this power essential to the Supream to any other For is it not possible a man who hath no such power over himself as in truth no man hath may yet have over another and this give unto another from a concurrence wherein One may receive a general dominion over many But if no man could give the power of Life and Death to another who cannot dispose of his own Life How could Kings themselves grant that power to inferiour Magistrates whenas themselves have no power to take away their own lives neither can they give power to another to take them away The last thing to be censured in the doctrine of the Peoples power is the perniciousness of it to all Empires and States where it is infused into the minds of the Commonalty and improved to actions naturally flowing from thence as experience hath sufficiently proved as well as reason informed of which latter omitting here the odious instances Histories and our own senses have ministred unto us we shall give these three only First That if it were true that such Power were radically and revocably in the people the people never being able to judge with general consent aright of the same thing nor soberly and quietly to concur to the same conclusion through the infinite variety and dâ—scord found in several free minds such licence of constituting and repealing their own Acts must of necessity produce great divisions and confusions amongst them without any insinuations or instigations of subtiller and more turbulent heads which do constantly watch and improve such occasions to bring ruin to a Nation upon some remote contemplation of a possible advantage arising out of
a Church in two things principally First in the matter The material part of a believer as he is a Christian not as he is a man is his Faith consisting of its several Articles and Branches But the matter of the Church is the Christians themselves whereof it consisteth Secondly they differ in their Form too For no man is properly a Christian though he believes all the Articles of a Christian and lives accordingly unless he be formed and fashioned Formale autem Ecclesiae Catholicae est professio fi dei Christi intâ—gra sub suis Legitimis Rectoribus à Christo institut â—â— ministris cum Sacramentorum obsignatione participatione Sec. Marcus Anton. Spalat Lib. 7. cap 10. §. 26. by the Sacrament of Regeneration which is Baptism But the Form of Christs Church doth consist in that outward disposition and order of Superiour and Inferiour communicating mutually in all Christian Acts and Offices necessary to the conservation of the whole Body and the edification and encrease of every Member thereof This Description of Christs Church is warranted us from St. Paul to the Ephesians who expresly maketh * Eph. 4. 15 16. Colos 2. 19. Christ the Head of his Church From whom the whole Body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every Part maketh increase of the Body unto the edifying its self in Love The like words to which we find to the Colossians chap. 2. 19. It must therefore from hence be granted That there is to be Government in Christs Church and that the Government ought to be proportionable to the Body thereby ordered and ruled To the Internal Body of Christ or Mystical Church not visible to us an Internal Mystical and Invisible administration is very agreeable and sufficient from Christ the Head and by the influence of the Holy Spirit but the external Church standeth in need necessarily of external Rule and Direction as much as it doth of external Doctrine Instructions and Sacraments though it be inwardly informed by the Spirit of Christ Now if it be enquired what that Government is whereby Christ would have his Church directed which is the most famous Question of late dayes though scarce ever call'd in question for some hundred years after Christ the resolution will be facilitated from what we delivered concerning Government civil For first if Government Ecclesiastical be so essential to the subsistence of a Church that without it it cannot be of any continuance without a Miracle it cannot be imagined with any probability of Reason that God or Christ should make one part of his Church and leave it to the liberty and pleasure of Man to make the other but least of all can they be of this opinion who think so sacredly of all Ecclesiastical Orders that to admit any of humane invention or prudence is to prophane the whole Systeme Again upon the grounds laid down in civil Government If Christ be the Author of Government Ecclesiastical in General he must also be the Cause of some one Government in Particular otherwise he could not be the Authour of any at all seeing Institution Political as well as Creation Natural must of necessity have some Object to terminate it as its effect Generals in all cases following Particulars in the things themselves though the way of knowledge or learning these things is to begin with the General and so to descend to Particulars Thirdly to understand what kind of Government Christ instituted in his Church what more certain and compendious way what more equal than to judge rather from matter of Fact than long and uncertain Disputations built on Arguments which are subject to diverse casualties from mans Passion and Interests prosecuted thereby whereas there is evidence sufficient from the thing it self to settle belief in that Point Fourthly we are here to note That when we speak of Government we intend not to comprehend therein all Accruments Ornaments or Additions which happened after the thing it self For these may be and doubtless oftentimes have been the effects of humane Prudence regulated by general Precepts but we speak of the Form it self or the Kind of Government For though we said God was the Author of All well grounded Government and do not mean that every particle thereof or inferiour additional Grace must proceed from the same hand For God having permitted if not ordered that every nation should conform it self in outward matters to the condition of the time and place God must have made for several Ages and several Places several Regiments which no man hath presumed to affirm the Divine Right or Institution extending only to those things wherein all at first agreed So that as children receive from the Nature of man at first created by God in Adam their fouls and bodily shape with the several parts necessarily thereunto belonging but their behaviours gestures gates favour and complexions are commonly derived from their immediate Pareâ—â—s So doth every true Body of Christ every Church receive common forms and shapes from the first Institution of Christ extant in the Primitive times but their particular modifications and customes are owing to to their Spiritual Fathers whether mediate or immediate Which frowardly and peevishly to reject or disobediently to oppose without higher warrant what is it else but to imitate such graceless and unnatural children who are ashamed of their own Parents Fifthly A distinction ought to be put between the nature and degrees of any thing and especially of the Church which had its conception in the womb of the Jewish Church its infancy during our blessed Saviours Tum maxime Deus ex memoria hominum labitur cum beneficiis ejus fruentes honorem dare divinae indulgentiae deberent Lactantius lib. 2. cap. 1. de Origine Erroris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazienz Orat 1. contra Julianum abode upon the earth its minority during the Apostolical Age of One hundred years its perfect state soon after the first Christian Emperours advanced it and augmented it with secular strength and glory And it is certain that as the Roman Empire became more corrupt and declined so Christs Empire degenerated in many things contracting deformities in Doctrine and Discipline even from secular advantages granted unto it by the Devotion and Bounty of the best Wishers to it We are not then to be so narrow in our judgment of the Churches state to allow no more to it then when it but just crept out of the womb or when having gathered a little strength it could stand alone but not act according to the prime Institutours intention but as it was habited and affected in its riper years when we may behold that in more conspicuous manner which at first was obscurer yet essentially the same For as nothing is more evident to all but such as resolve they will understand nothing that they dislike than that in nature the Father is made before
may reconcile many otherwise contrary opinions found amongst the Ancient Fathers sometimes ascribing much of the Ecclesiastical Power to Christian Emperours and sometimes calling the same in question The Church of England so far as she hath declared herself herein seemeth to take the mean way and follow herein the Prescriptions of the Old Testament and the Precedents of Christian Emperors found in the Antient Church under the Gospel and doth profess to be the due of our Kings as much as ever any Kings upon earth to sway in Ecclesiastical matters In execution of which power as there was alwayes approbation moderated according to the customes of the Church so was there always Opposition when the bounds were exceeded And undoubtedly true is That we are taught by our Church to acknowledge That whatever in Church Constitutions and Canons Church of England Can. 2. matters was the Right of Jewish Kings or Christian Emperours of Old is so now the Right of our Kings But some not content herewith have out of the Title of Head given at the first attempts of Reformation to our King and made by acts of State Hereditary to his successors drawn an argument to prove all that power which rested in the Church to be devolved on the Kings of this Nation But this hath ever been disowned and disclaimed in such a large sense by themselves as appears by Queen Elizabeths Injunctions and an Act of Parliament in confirmation whereof I shall here only recite the opinion or testimony of Bishop Jewel in his view of Pius Quintus his seditious Bull Bishop Jewel against the Bull of Pius 5th against her in these his own word Where is the called Supream Head Peruse the Acts of Parliament the Records the Rolls and the Writs of Chancery or Exchequer which pass in her Graces name Where is she ever called Supream Head of the Church No No brethren she refuseth it she would not have it nor be so called Why then doth Christs Vicar blaze and spread abroad so gross an untruth c. This was her Judgement and modesty then when there was greatest cause to apprehend some such thing and what she thought of it I never could learn was ever otherwise interpreted by her Successors For notwithstanding that according to the most ancient and undoubted Rights of this Emperial Crown our Kings are supream Governors of the Church as well as State yet never was it expounded of the Church as they were Ecclesiastical but as they were of Civil capacity For herein differeth the Right of Kings according to our Reformation from that of Roman Perswasion That Clergy men becoming Sons of the Church in more especial manner than they of the Laity are not thereby exempted from the Civil Power either in matter of propertie or Criminalness But the Roman Church so far exalted and extended their Ecclesiastical Power as to withdraw such Persons and their Cases civil from Civil cognizance and judgement and assume it to themselves And this the Pope claiming very injuriously as Head of the Church To root up this usurpation Henry the eight null'd that his pretence and took the title to himself intending nothing more then to vindicate his Prerogative in that particular For though it cannot be denied that many and great Priviledges to this effect have been of Old granted by Christian Emperours to eminent Bishops to judge of their own Sons as they were called within themselves yet did they never claim this as a Native Right of the Church or Christianity but as an act of Grace from the Civil Power And though the Church following therein the Councel of St. Paul to go to Law rather before 1 Cor. 6. 1. the Just than unjust and that Christians should rather determine Causes of differences amongst themselves by arbitration than scandalously apply themselves to the Judgement Seat of Heathen did ever endeavour to determine business within it self and yet more especially the Clergy Yet they never denied a Right in Civil Autority to call them in question upon misdemeanours or to decide their Cases of Civil nature And for the other of Divine nature or purely Ecclesiastical Princes never expected or desired to intermeddle therewith This the Roman Deputy of Achaia Gallio understood not to concern his Juridical power when Act. 18. he refused to be a Judge of such matters as were esteemed Religious though in that violence was offered to the body of St. Paul before his face he might and ought to have shewn his Autority But when the Soveraign Power became Christian it was not thought unlawful at all nor scandalous to address themselves to it for decision of Controversies And this is it which is intended to be demanded now by our Kings in their Supremacy in Cases Ecclesiastical and Civil and acknowledged by the Clergy of this Church to be his due without that servile way of seeking leave from the Bishop of Rome or any under him Onely where it may be showed that Peculiar Grants of Exemptions from the common course of Justice have been made by Princes to the Clergy of the Church may it not seem equal that they should enjoy the benefit of them as well as others in other Cases But nothing is more unreasonable or intollerable then the impudence of those spitefully and malitiously bent against the Religion professed in our Church who argue from the Kings Supremacy over the Church such an absolute dominion there as they will by no means acknowledge due to him in the State If by Acts of Parliament a thing be confirmed to the Commonwealth it is lookt on as inviolable by the King and unalterable without the like solemn Revocation as was the Constitution But by vertue of the Ancient Right of the Crown they would have it believed the King may at his pleasure alter such solemn Acts made in behalf of the Church Without the concurrence of the Three Estates nothing is lookt upon as a standing Law to the Civil State but by vertue of this Supremacy Ecclesiastical they would have it believed that without any more ado without consent or counsel of the Church he may make what alteration of Religion he pleases which was never heard or dreamt of Yea and whereas not only his Civil but Ecclesiastical Power always acknowledged the Bounds of common benefit and extended not to destruction they would have it thought that he may when he pleaseth by vertue of such Headship destroy the Body of the Church and Religion and leave none at all so far at least as the withdrawing of all secular aid and advantage do hasten its ruine But they will not be of this opinion any longer than they have brought about their mischievous purposes Surely St. Paul who had 1 Cor. 5. 12. nothing to do at all with State matters and could not touch one that was without the Church by Ecclesiastical censure was as much the Head of the Church as ever any Prince in Christendom doth expressly declare that whatsoever
accepted if done by her more soberly and seriously as it ought by all whether Minister or otherwise And that this Act of Zipporah was not so exorbitant in the manner of doing as vulgarly supposed more learned Men have shewed at large And secondly That is was not so extraordinary doth appear from the practice of the Jews who as P. Fagius hath observed upon Deuteronomy Fagius in Deuteron C. 10. 16. Cap 10. v. 16. do believe if a Man be wanting to whom it belongs one Uncircumcised as a Servant a Woman so not an Heathen or Infidel a Youth may circumcise an Infant Neither was Circumcision to be repeated made by what man soever though an Heathen or Infidel And in brief We find no person excluded by the Catholick Church from doing this office for one desiring it or capable otherwise of it but a Mans self And yet we are told by searchers into the ancient practice of the Jews that a man might circumcise himself And thus much of the First Proper and Generally necessary Sacrament to Salvation Baptism adding only one thing more for a conclusion and that is about the Repetition of Baptism or Anabaptism Of which prophanation of that solemn Sacrament I find many really guilty but not so much nor upon those grounds they are Generally charged For I have not met with any that directly affirm it to be requisite or lawful to reiterate Baptism though in fact they do so For the Novatians the Donatists the Arrians and they of Late years who are called from the Renewing of their Baptism Anabaptists have none of them that we find declared it reasonable that Baptism once truly performed should be acted over again but all these suppose it not done and therefore they do it It was always the opinion of the Catholick as well as Heretical and Schismatical Churches That all outward words or washings sufficed not to the due effect of baptism There were three several incapacities which render'd pretended baptism void so far that the Person so baptized was held obliged to be again baptized The incapacity of the Minister or Baptizer The incapacity of the Person or subject to be baptized Thirdly the incapacity of the Form used in Baptism If the Minister had any time fallen from or denied the Christian Faith or was of impure and Scandalous manners he was reputed by the Novatians and Donatists uncapable of such a sacred Office and consequently in that though a Priest did not effectually administer that Holy Sacrament imagining that he who was so defiled himself could not by his Ministration cleanse another and therefore he was baptized not as repeating former baptism but as not being baptized at all The Arrians being enemies to the second Person in the Trinity and judging the Catholicks to be so too in ascribing too much unto Christs divine nature looked on the form of baptizing as corrupt and insufficient to such an end and therefore thought another necessary And our modern Anabaptists as they are called not thinking Infants capable of that Sacrament for want of Faith and Repentance which they hold absolutely necessary to Salvation and that in the properest sense deny any effect to follow upon those Actions used So that we see there are no proper Anabaptists such I mean who hold it so much as needful to baptize any persons above once Though in Fact they stand guilty of this prophanation upon the grounds of others not hard to be made Good against them as we have against these last shewing the Capacity children are in of receiving Baptism as also that the unworthiness of the Person ministring Sacraments doth not impede the effect of those Sacraments while he hath a proper subject to work upon and observes the proper form required Now this form according as the Arrians excepted against at doth depend upon the disputation of the Divine Nature of Christ proper to another place It may here be doubted whether the zeal of some of the Ancients but of most of the Schoolmen hath not too far transported them who damn all such as repeat Baptism once rightly administer'd it being impossible in their opinion that Baptism should be twice acted but the Former must be renounced and truly if Baptism once truly performed be renounced that which follows is also renounced being in it self good For there is but One Baptism as St. Paul saith But this can never be proved as necessarily Ephes 4. and perpetually true They indeed of whom now we have spoken who were so engaged in heretical opinions and societies as to believe the imperfection and insufficiency of that Baptism they received could not admit of another but they must reject the first But then whether absolutely they rejected true Catholick Baptism may be a doubt For he only renounces his Baptism properly who rejecteth the Form it self and the Faith therein implied And this is the One Baptism of which St. Paul is certainly to be understood that is necessarily One in nature but that it should be also so One in number as multiplied both should be made void no reason is given And surely St. Paul intended no such thing though he may be said much less to have intended the multiplication of it The more probable opinion therefore of the two is That the Second Baptism is void rather than the first As if two married persons being joyned together in Lawful Matrimony once should presume a Second time to go through the same Ceremony it may be only to confirm them in that state this were to baffle and prophane such Ordinances but it were not to make the former Vows and Rites void And for the reasons given against Iteration of Baptism though I yield the Conclusion that it ought not so to be I do not hold them convincing used to this purpose Not that taken from the indelibleness of that Character supposed to be imprinted in the soul by that Sacrament 'T is true Circumcision had a visible character made in the body which could scarce be altered or removed But that therefore to answer this there must be a proportionable impresâ—â—on the soul which is invisible follows not St. Paul calls Circumcision a sign and a seal and it is Baptism in a Metaphorical sense And the Fathers who many times mention such things intended nothing more than an immutable Obligation on our part to God and an infallible communication of Gods grace to them who duly are partakers of his Sacraments It is also true a Man can be born but once spiritually as naturally and therefore supersluous and prophane are all attempts to a Regeneration a second time the principles of spiritual life being preserved intire in themselves though in a way to be extinguished upon pertinacy in sin and dying in impenitency And for those places of Scipture where St. Paul tells us we are sealed by Gods spirit alledged 2 Cor. 1. 21 22. Eph. 1. 13 14. Eph. 4. 30. to prove that we have a Character made in Baptism
defines it 1. Qu. 8. Ar. 1. 2. The communication of one thing with another so many waies as a Body imparts it self to another so many may it be said to be Present to it And these ways are commonly resolved to be two First by immediate contact and conjunction Secondly by a Virtual or Effectual communication with it the Substance it self continuing remote So that though Christs body should be determined to one certain place in Heaven yet may it by its vertue communicate it self to us in the Sacrament and be said to be Present really though not Corporally after the manner of bodies in their natural state by contiguity And what we now say of the Subject of this Sacrament will hold no less in the Case of Participation of Christs Body and Blood in the Eucharist For as Christs Body may be said to be really though not Corporally Present and immediately So may it be said to be received Really and not Phantastically only though not Corporally after the manner that other bodies are received For they that affirm that Christs body is Corporally Sacramentally received do say if not what they know not themselves yet what no body but themselves can apprehend For either these terms are really distinct or Not. If they be not then are they either superfluous or at most explicatory one of another but this latter cannot be said because Sacramentally is more obscure than Corporally and Corporally signifies a much grosser degree of Presence than the Framers of this distinction will admit to agree with these Divine Mysteries If they be distinct whence shall we fetch the nature of this Sacramental Presence whenas there is nothing to be found in Nature to resemble or explain it but it must be described by it self And Sacramentally Present is no more than to be present in the Sacrament But what it is to be present in the Sacrament or how a thing may be said to be present in the Sacrament otherwise than in other Cases we shall ever be to seek and consequently never learn Therefore we must be constrained at length to reduce this large and unintelligible Presence Sacramental to one of the two old sorts of the Presence of Influence only or Presence of Substance it self or Suppositum So that either the Influence only of Christs Body and Blood should be found in the Eucharist and the vertue of them be therein communicated unto us or the very natural Substance also We have hitherto spoken of the Presence it self precisely taken from its Causes and manner external For according to Philosophers there is a Modus Essentialis and a Modus Accidentalis The Essential manner is simply to be after the intrinsique natureof a thing as the intrinsique nature and manner of a Body is to be Corporally and of a Spirit to be Spiritually that is As a Body and as a Spirit But as a Body ordinarily and naturally palpable and visible may remain a true real Body and yet not be seen or felt so may a Spirit remain a Spirit in substance and yet appear as a Body So that it is possible Christs Body may be present corporally in the essentials and formal nature of a Body and yet not appear in the accidental or separable formalities of a Body which are actually to be seen and felt at a competent distance These I call accidental because they may be wanting as well by reason of the defect of the senses which should perceive them as of the sensiblenes of such objects For a Divine power may take away the one as well as the other by impeding the sense though seeing the very nature and essence of a Body consisteth in being extended and quantitative it cannot be conceived how a Divine Power can divide them which mutually constitute one another though it may render them imperceptible to outward sense And so Christs Body may be in the Eucharist so far corporally as to have all real and essential modifications of a Body but not so Corporally as to appear in the proper forms of a Body But granting or supposing rather that Christs Body were in this Latter sense present in the Sacrament there appears no great reason why this should be called a Sacramental Presence more than that presence when he was with his Disciples at Supper and as the Scripture saith Vanished out of their sight Luk. 24. 31. that is as the word and sense import not translating his Body suddainly to another place but disappearing in that place or ceasing to be seen by them answerable to the contrary power shewn in his sudden appearing without any previous Act and standing in the midst of them before they V. 36. could be aware of it or suppose any such thing which was occasion of their great Affrightment and amazement supposing him to be a Spirit 37. But it is one thing to be Possibly and another Actually so to be And yet farther Actually for Christs Body and Blood so to be present and to be so Present as there should remain nothing substantial or material besides them and the Signs to be changed into the things signified by them absolutely and totally the shew or Accident only excepted So that the Question is double First Whether those Substances of Bread and Wine remain after consecration really the same they were before or be totally abolished Secondly It is inquired not so much whether Christs Body and Blood be really present in the Sacrament but whether it be really the Sacrament it self as it must necessarily be if so be that they be in such manner really present as there remains no other substance besides them For the former of these the knowledge of the Real Presence of Signs Bread and Wine do exceedingly conduce to the understanding of the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ under or through those Signs And it should seem that the Roman Advocates of the New sense of a Real Presence of Christs Body and Blood proceed not in the proper and natural method rightly to found their Doctrine For as according to them there must be in order of nature though not of time a Desition or abolition of the Elemental substances before there can succeed those Divine substances so should they have first by sound and sufficient arguments proved the destruction of the preceeding Bodies and then have inferred the succeeding But on the contrary They first presume on the Second upon what grounds we shall hereafter see viz That Christs Body is so really subsisting there and then conclude that the Elements are not there subsistent For he that holds that the Sacramental Signs do not exclude the Body and Blood of Christ doth likewise hold that the Body and Blood of Christ are not inconsistent with the Real Presence of the Elements It must not be denied that those texts of Scripture which are commonly alleadged to Parallel Christs words and consequently to give a more favourable sense than that of Transubstantiation do not exactly
Divine power should be of the nature of Substance but such confusion and havock in nature to bring in an unnatural Dogm is no ways to be admitted not out of any defect in the Divine Power but an incapacity of the Creature to be so order'd against its nature And as this Condition of Species subsisting or existing separately of themselves is contrary to their nature So the significativeness of these Species is contrary to Christs Intention and Institution which were to make a representation of his death and passion by Bread and Wine and not by the Similitudes of Bread and Wine And this is to be noted That when the Ancient Fathers both Greek and Latin do affirm that Christs Body or Blood are present under the Species and Forms of Bread and Wine they do not mean such Species as the Schools of Aristotle have introduced for I find not that they took any notice of them distinct from the subject to which they relate but they took them in a more plain sense for the thing it self so affected and formed and Under the Species signified with them as much as Under the Kinds of Bread and Wine Christs Body was present And they never destroyed the Sacrament it self to give an extraordinary Being to the Body of Christ therein CHAP. XLIII The principal Reasons for Transubstantiation answered AND If this be once made good That there is a Proper Sacrament remaining after Consecration it will be much less difficulty to agree upon the manner of Christs presence in the Sacrament For the doubt will not be so much about the Concomitance and co-existence of it with the Sacramental Signs as Whether that which we See with our eys and touch and taste be properly and not denominatively and Figuratively only the Body of Christ And in effect Whether it be the very Sacrament it self or whether only in the Sacrament The Doctrine of the Church of Rome determines not only that There it is but directly and expresly This it is and this we deny as that which indeed must include such a Transubstantiation as is by them affirmed and the chiefest grounds whereof we are now to examine And First from Scripture they are wont to argue and that from the Old Bellarm Lib. 1. Cap. 3. De Sacram. Eucharist Testament where are recorded many Types and Figures of Christ and particularly his Passion which were no less if not much more clear than the representations in the Eucharist if Christ himself be not there otherwise than Figuratively For the Paschal Lamb slain seems to represent Christs Passion more Lively and expresly than the Sacramental Elements Therefore if that the Sacraments of the Gospel might exceed them of the Law it is necessary that what was done there Figuratively only should be properly and really performed in our Sacraments Answ But first supposing Transubstantiation is Christ more clearly in the Sacrament than if there were no such thing Or can the Sacrament of the Gospel be said to be more clear for this when in truth it is more Mystical and abstrufe But though it be not more clear to the sense or Reason yet it is in it self more really present For otherwise the Legal Sacrament must have been only a Figure of this Figure of Christs Body and not of the Bertramus Body it self But the answer of Bertram to this about eight hundred years ago is sufficient to this purpose that both the Paschal Lamb and the Sacramental Elements both Figured and represented Christs body The former Christs Body future and its Passion and the other Instant as at the Institution or Part and compleated So that in truth a great preheminence there is in the Sacraments of the New Testament above them of the Old which is the thing contended for But Christ was really received in both The next Argument taken from Christs words in the sixth of John where he saith amongst many other things I am the Bread of Life And again Verily Joh. 6. 48. 53. 54. Verily Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood ye have no life in you For my Flesh is meat indeed and my Blood is drink indeed Is answer'd two ways First from a consent on both sides by some of the Learnedest That Christ spake not of a Sacramental Eating and Drinking of him but Ordinary in receiving him by Faith preached But because as many on both sides affirm that he pointed at the Eucharist in these words therefore I think it most reasonable and equal to take in both senses and that Christ intended the receiving of him by Faith in the word preached and in the Eucharist too And though Christs Flesh be meat indeed and his Blood drink indeed it doth not follow at all that it is properly so For things Metaphorically such are really though not Properly And Christ doth not say Caro mea est verus cibus or Sanguis meus verus est potus i. e. My Flesh is true meat or Proper My Blood is true Drink but My Flesh is Meat indeed and my Blood is drink indeed that is verily and really And besides the difference before intimated between these expressions and that at the Celebration of the Eucharist when he calls the Bread his Body is very great especially with the precise stickers to the Letter For according to these Christ Transubstantiated Bread into his Body but here according to the same Rule of interpretation he should convert his Body into Bread the words being alike operative But if Christ did at no time make a Transubstantiation of his Flesh or body into bread though he affirmed his Body to be bread What reason is there we should believe upon no better grounds than he affirming bread to be his Body should thereby change it into his proper Body A Third principal Argument is taken from the words of Christ at the Celebration viz This is my Body and This is my Blood And upon the proper acceptation of these words they make no doubt to put to silence all seeming oppositions and contradictions and impossibilities in nature For be it say they how it will Christ saying it who is truth it self no doubt is to be made of it For as they teach the vulgar to speak If Christ should say that this stone were his Body we ought to believe it All which is granted But we must distinguish as all sober men do between Loquela and Sermo He that rehearses a certain number of Articulate words doth Loqui or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but he only who doth deliver the word conceived in his mind which is his meaning at his mouth doth Sermocinari or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now if it can be proved by any certain Circumstance that Christ meant these words in a proper sense and not improper in which he delivered no small part of his doctrine in the Gospel we have done the Controversy is at an end we are to lay our hands on our mouths and
is so defended as to call in question the truth of Christs divine nature and to commend and command the direct worship of those objects so mistaken then certainly it is Heresie and somewhat more And so their doctrine of Communicating in one Kind contrary to all the mention we have of celebrating the Eucharist in the Scriptures and those deserving the name of Fathers in the Church may rightly be termed Heretical when it shall be drawn into such a Proposition as this as of necessity it must viz. That it is of equal vertue and use to receive the Sacrament in one kind alone as both Kinds whereas only to deny the use of it is no more than an unjust and sacrilegious piece of Tyranny over the Laicks To these it were easie to add more of like natures as sufficient Grounds to leave such a Church as maintains them But for those who are not in Episcopal nor yet so much as Metropolitan subordination and subjection to that Church but only Patriarchal which obliges cheifly if not only to a recognition of a Remote Right of Order and Principle of unity when the Church is united in bringing them to Councels and keeping them to those Laws which are prescribed by General Consent of the Church and this not originally by first planting and forming a Christian Church in a Nation but restoring and augmenting it the case is yet more plain that it is free for such Churches to relinquish communion of any Church subject to less Errours than are properly called Heresies But for persons educated in a Church and thereby subject to it and owing Canonical obedience not only as they most weakly and wickedly imagine to the Rule of Faith therein asserted and maintained but to the Rule of Unity and Communion outward for such I say to divide from that Church which hath not by falling into notorious Heresies or Idolatrous practices first fallen from Christian Faith is to profess Schism For to alledg that they would incorporate with the Church if certain things which may possibly be parted with without destroying the Faith at least immediately were granted to them is to demand that their Superiors should bow to them rather than they to their Superiors and in effect to make the condition of their obedience and uniting with the Church to be this That first the Church should be of their Religion the difference between them consisting in things in their own nature mutable For though Faith consisteth in those things which are judged necessary in themselves to be received Yet Religion is made up as well of the manner of serving God as the material grounds of it And therefore it is according to the manner of their treaties of peace in other Cases to require the thing in debate to be granted them before they will bear of a commodation or reconciliation This senseless Charity is that of most Desperate Schismaticks Yet not absolutely to despair of reducing some few of them and much less of preventing the like ruine of souls in others we shall now conclude with a few words concerning the Second thing in the beginning of this Point viz. The guilt of Schism Supposing then what is above said that Schism is a Causeless Separation from the Church of Christ meaning by Causeless not want of all reasons or causes but Sufficient as are errours now mention'd in Faith we farther understand by Separation not that of the inward and hidden man but outward and Visible answerable to that we have called and acknowledged to be properly called a Church i. e. Visible For possible we grant it is what we do scarce believe to be actually true though we hear such things sometimes spoken that dissenters may have a tolerable good opinion of a Church as that it is a true Church in their private senses they may pretend some general kindness and Charity to the Members of it Nay they may hold it no grievous sin to communicate with it for some persons especially and yet for all this be rank Schismaticks For Schismatizing in its remoter Cause may spring from evil opinions and dispositions of the inward man but its formality is altogether in outward profession of averseness separation and opposition to a Church This is it which hath raised so much just clamour of the Ancient and even of those very modern Persons who stomach nothing more than to be reduced to their own general Rules and have worthily brandished their swords and pens to bring people to the unity of that Cause which never was the true Faith and to that Visible Company which never was a Church and yet cannot understand their own language nor receive their own reasons and arguments in Cases infinitely more capable of such vindications than the Party they created and asserted Herein surely they have exceeded all other Factions in immodesty and undauntedness that whereas those have been very scrupulous and sparing in delivering doctrines of coercion and constraint to unity and therefore may though with no reason with some little colour stand out against Unity and oppose all Coaction thereunto They of the Presbyterian Sect have preach'd spoken and written so much and expresly against Schism and the Liberty which tends necessarily to it that it is beyond not only reason but admiration they should neither be affected with what other men have said against them nor what they have unanswerably said against themselves but proceed no otherwise than brutishly to hold their Conclusion and stick to their invet eraâ—e errours as if they could find no Church to unite to or had no souls to save or did not even according to their own principles run the apparent hazard of loosing them by that sin which they confess is one of the Greatest Size viz unnecessary division And unnecessary division themselves call what is not for to avoid Idolatrous practises or Heretical errours and yet in their Apologies for themselves alledge none but frivolous instances tending as they judge to Superstition wherein they prove themselves much more superstitious by such religious opposition as they make against them and deeply concerning their best Consciences than they possibly can be who for order sake solemness of worship and conformity to the ancient Customs of Christs Church and to avoid offence unto other Churches sticking inseparably unto them retain rather than invent such adjuncts to Divine Religion It is hard to search out any new Topick from whence to draw out reasons against this hainous sin of Schismatizing wherein I am not prevented by them disputing upon the false suppositions that they at any time were a Church and if they had been that they who opposed them could be said to Divide Schismatically from them of whose communion they never were nor ever were obliged to be They are therefore with others to consider How solemn and severe a command of Christ they slight and contemn who divide from a Church without more weighty exceptions than hitherto have been offered by them or heard
may clear our selves thus First by putting a difference between the Church so united as is here supposed to rightly denominate it the Catholick or Universal Church and the Church disunited and divided long before any Reformation came to be so much as called for in these western Parts with attempts to put such desires into practice The division or Schism between the Western and Eastern Churches happened about the years 860 and 870 under Nicholas the first of Constantinople and Adrian the Second Bishop of Rome Where the guilt was is of another subject But the Schism rested not here but infested the Greek Church also subdividing the Armenian from the Constantinopolitan Now in such Case as this which is as much different from that of the Donatists who divided from all these entirely united together as may be who can conclude a Division from the Church so divided long before a Schism ipso facto because a Division was made from one Part of it calling itself indeed the Catholick Church Had therefore Reformers so divided from the Catholick Church united as did the Donatists it were more than probable that their division might from thence be known to be Schism without any more ado but it is certain it was quite otherwise And therefore some other Conviction must be expected besides that Characteristick And what must that be The Infallibility of any one Eminent Church which like a City on a Mountain a Beacon on a Hill a Pharus or Lighttower to such as are like to shipwrack their Faith may certainly direct them to a safe Station and Haven And all this to be the Church or See of Rome But alas though this were as desirable as admirable yet we have nothing to induce us to receive it for such but certain prudent inferences that such there is because such there ought to be for the ascertaining dubious minds in the truth and therefore so say they actually it is and lest humane reason should seem too malapert to teach what divine Autority ought to do therefore must the Scripture be canvas'd and brought against the best Presidents in Antiquity to the Contrary to Patronize such necessary Dogms The matter then returns to what we at first propounded viz. the Judging of Schism from the Causes and of the Causes from the Scriptures and the more Genuine and ancient Traditions of Christs Church before such Schism distracted the same These two things therefore we leave to be made Good by Romanists in which they are very defective First that there is any One Notorious infallible Judge actually constituted whereby we may certainly discern the Schismaticalness or Hereticalness of any one Church varying from the truth and this because It were to be wish'd a Judg were somewhere extant Secondly that what ever Security or Safety of Communion is to be found in the Visible Church properly and inseparably belongs to the Roman Church because some of the Ancients tell the time when it did not actually err But if our proofs be much more strong and apparent which declare that actually it doth err and wherein it doth err what an empty and bootless presumption must it needs be to invite to its communion upon her immunity from Erring or to condemn men of Schism for this only That they communicate not with it which is the bold method of Roman Champions THE Second BOOK OF THE FIRST PART CHAP. I. Of the Formal Object of Christian Faith Christ An Entrance to the treating of the Objects of Faith in Particular AND Thus far have we treated of Religion in General and specially of Christian Religion or Faith in its Rule the Scriptures Its Causes its Effects its Contraries its Subject the Church in its several Capacities Now we are briefly to treat of the Particular Object Christian Faith That as God is the true and proper Author of Christian Faith he is also the principal Object is most certain and apparent and is therefore by the Schools called the Formal Object that is either that which it immediately and most properly treats of or for whose sake other things spoken of besides God and Christ are there treated of For other Religions as well as Christian treat of God and the works of God but none treat of God or his works as consider'd in Christ his Son but the Christian For the two Greatest Acts which have any knowledge of of God being Creation and Redemption both these are described unto us in Holy Writ to be wrought by God through Christ Jesus as the Book of Proverbs and of Wisdom intimate to us when they shew how God in Wisdom made the Worlds Christ being the true Wisdom of the Father And more expresly in the entrance into the Gospel of St. John Joh. 1. 2 â— the Word of God being Christ is said to be in the beginning with God and All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made And St. Paul to the Ephesians affirmeth All things to be created by God Eph. 3. 9. Col. 1. 15 16. by Jesus Christ And to the Colossians speaking of Christ the Image of the Invisible God addeth For by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in the Earth Visible and Invisible c. This therefore discriminates the treating of things natural in Christian Theologie from all other Sciences and Theologies that all is spoken of in relation to Christ Jesus Therefore having in the beginning of this Tract spoken of God in General as supposed rather than to be proved in Divinity viz. of his absolute Being his Unity being but one His Infiniteness being all things in Perfection and Power we are here to resume that matter and continue it by a more particular enquiry into the Nature Attributes Acts and Works of God here supposing what before we have spoken of the First notion of Gods Being and those immediately joined with them His Unity and Infiniteness which Infiniteness necessarily inferreth all other Attributes proper to him as of Power Prefence in all places and all times and Omniscience and therefore here we shall speak only of the Nature or Being of God in the more peculiar sense to Christians that is being distinct in Persons as well as One in Nature CHAP. II. Of the special consideration of God as the object of Christian Faith in the Vnity of the Divine Nature and Trinity of Person FROM the Unity or singularity of Gods nature as to number doth flow an Unity and Simplicity of that one Individual Nature in it self For as the Nature of God cannot be found in several and separate Persons subsisting by themselves as may the nature of man so neither ought we to imagin that there is multiplicity of natures constituting the same God For as there are not many Gods differing Generically as there are Bodies Celestial and Podies Terrestial and again of Terrestial some Bodies Elemental and uncompounded naturally Other Mixt and compounded and such are Fish Foul
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
be made apparent in how many and great things they have degenerated in their Doctrine and Worship since it pleased God to withdraw his holy Spirit from that Church upon their rejecting of the true Messias sent them and to translate it to the Church of the Gentiles And no wonder that they who observe not that now should argue against it as a thing not to be done and moreover deny that ever it was believed or practised by their Forefathers for there remains no other way to excuse themselves in their present error but to maintain that it was never otherwise held This is a common evasion of all Hereticks and Sectaries But that the Scriptures of the Old Testament contained this Doctrine in substance though the more perspicuous and glorious manifestation of the same was reserved for the New is not to be denied especially if we consider how that many of their own Doctors and Rabbies have so interpreted the same And some have admired the Hebrew Language as the holy Tongue not so much as some of moderner standing amongst them have given out because of the neat and modest expression of things of impure and obscene nature for it is very plain that the most obscene things are there as broadly and manifestly expressed as elsewhere but from the matter which it treats of generally very divine and particularly from the nature of that Tongue in every word of which being a Radix or original the Mystery of the Trinity is implied in that it consists but of three principal Letters which Letters make but one word But there are more sure words of Prophesie than they and such are these together with the Comment and approbation of the Chaldee Paraphrast Gen. 3. v. 8. it is said They heard the voice of the Gen 3. 8. Lord God walking in the Garden which words Onkelos renders thus And they heard the voice of the Word of the Lord God where we see that Voice and Word are distinguished the one being taken for the Word spoken the other for the Word subsisting or personal And again v. 22. where the Hebrew hath And the Lord God said c. Jonathans or as some more properly the Hierusalem Targum hath The Word of the Lord said And the same Hierusalem Targum on Deuteronomy the 33. 7. hath The Word of the voice of the Lord heard Judah where the Original and other Translations have Hear Lord or receive Lord the voice of Judah And so in other places which doth argue a Personality ascribed unto the Word of God Which doth farther appear for that the action of Creation extending the Heavens and Repenting is attributed unto the Word of God But I leave the asserting of the Mystery of the Trinity from the Scriptures of the Old Testament interpreted by the learnedst and most renowned of the Jewish Doctors to such who have made it their design to convince them from testimonies of their own Authors as Petrus Galatinus and more exactly Josephus de Voisin in his Comments on Prigro Christianae Fidei and especially de Trinitate I shall only add here that memorable passage in Bibliander out of the Jewish Rabbies upon that place in Bibliander de Paschate Israel Gen. 28. 11. Gen. 28. And he lighted upon a certain place and tarried there all night because the Sun was set and he took of the stones of the place and put them for his pillows and lay down in that place to sleep Where some Rabbies saith Bibliander do understand that he took two stones but others as Rabbi Nechemias that he took three and in this manner prayed to God If God shall write his Name upon me as he did his Name upon mine Ancestors let all these become one and he found them all one By which type of the stone they give to understand God to be the Original of all things for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in Hebrew is a stone implies in a mystery the Trinity for in Aben Ab intimates the Father Ben signifies the Son and ◠or N. Neshanna or Spirit Thus they Which their interpretation whether it hath not more of wit than solid Argument I am not here to determine it sufficing our present purpose to shew that the Doctrine of the Trinity is no invention of Christians as moderner Jews vainly give out for if their forefathers mention the same though their grounds may not be of the soundest it argues they knew and received it Other Texts from the Old Testament implying this Mystery are chiefly these 2 Sam. 23. 2. Isa 48. 16 17. and chap. 61. 1. and chap. 63. 9. Psal 33. 6. compared with Joh. 11. 1 2 3. Haggai 2. 5. compared with Gen. 1. 26. Isa 6 3 c. Concerning all which it is to be observed First That it is not to be expected the testimonies of the Old Testament whose design it was to deliver all things more covertly and obscurely should be altogether so literally and expresly taken as that none other may be found as proper as that sence given by Christians but it may suffice that an apt accommodation may be made to the confirmation of our Faith and that by the chief enemies to it Secondly That the Tradition of the Jewish Church differed from the historical or literal sence Hence our Saviour Christ proves the Messias to be God out of Psalm 110. v. 1. The Lord said Psal 110. Matth. 22. 42. unto c. arguing to this effect He who was greater than David himself from whom the Messias should come must needs be God David calling him in Spirit Lord but David in Spirit calls the Messias his Lord whereas David being himself absolute Soveraign had no mortal greater than he therefore he must be God This was then generally received amongst the wisest of them That the Messias was there intended though the words might be capable of a more literal sence And the like may we judge of the Arguments of St. Paul drawn out of the Old Testament to confirm the Doctrine of the New and particularly this for it is confessed that he bringeth many proofs as do also the other sacred Pen-men out of the Books of the Old Testament which have a literal sence much differing from that purpose to which they are alledged But it is certain that the ancient Jews did maintain two sences a Literal and a Mystical and that St. Paul being educated in the prime Traditions and Mysteries of their Divinity used them according to the known sence of the learned For otherwise it had been as easie then for the Jews to have put in their exceptions against his Doctrine as now it is for Jews to cavil at them But besides the Autority of the Old Testament principally to be used against Jews the Autority of the New must be enforced against the Heresies of Christians against this great Mystery Go ye saith Christ in St. Matthew and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father Matth.
28. 19. and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost which plainly distinguishes three Persons And Take heed saith St. Paul in the Acts therefore unto your Acts 20. 28. selves and to all the Flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Overseers to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own bloud Here we have two persons distinct expressed The Holy Ghost whose act of making Overseers doth infer an Agent and that Agent a Person And in that it is said God purchased the Church with his bloud there is an express Character of Christ in his Passion to whom is expresly given the title of God for that God the Father died nor Christ as God though Christ God is manifest Now of God the Father no Christian can make doubt after so many manifest Texts expressing the same And Rom. 9. v. 5. Whose Rom. 9. 5. are the Fathers and of whom concerning the flesh Christ came who is over all God blessed for ever The Scholie of Socinus and his followers being meerly cavillous and forced contrary to common reading The Confession likewise of Thomas upon the Miracle wrought by Christ proveth the Deity of Christ crying out My God and my Lord. And in the Epistle to the Colossians Joâ— 20. v. 28. Col. 2. 9. the God-head is said to dwell in Christ bodily i. e. in opposition to figuratively or improperly To these bare Testimonies add we these rational proofs from the Attributes proper to God given to Christ 1. Eternity Micah 5. 2. His goings-out are from everlasting 2. Omnipotence Micah Joh. 3. 31. Joh. 3. 31. He that cometh from above is above all but only God is above all An instance likewise of Christs Omnipotency is given us by St. Paul to the Philippians where speaking of Christ he saith Who shall change our vile Phil. 3. 21. body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself 3. Immensity another property of God is given to Christ Mat. 18. 20. Where he promiseth Where two or three shall be gathered together in his Name he will be in the midst of them which is not possible for him that is not God Christs Church being in all places diffused 4 Divine worship given to Christ implies a divine nature in him but both Old and New Testaments agree herein that Christ the Messias is to be worshipped In the Psalms thus it Psal 72. is written of him Yea all Kings shall fall down before him and all Nations shall worship him And in the second Psalm David adviseth to kiss the Son Psal 2. that is worship him lest he be angry and ye perish from the right way when his wrath is kindled but a little blessed are all they that put their trust in him Now we know the same Psalmist saith Put not your trust in Princes Psal 146. 3. nor in any Son of man in whom there is no help And believing in Christ is a special part of worship but this is required by Christ of his Disciples saying Ye believe in God believe also in me Prayer likewise is made to Joh. 14. 1. Acts 7. Christ by St. Stephen for in the Acts it is written how Stephen was stoned calâ—ing upon Christ and saying Lord Jesus receive my spirit The third Person in the holy Trinity is the holy Ghost which we have shewed in part that the learnedest of the ancient Jews were not ignorant of though more obscurely delivered in the Old Testament than in the New The first thing then we are to prove is That the holy Ghost is a Person for that it is there needs no other proof than the words themselves so often used in Scripture And that it subsists personally and not only as an Act or Grace will appear from these two general heads The Acts of it an the Attributes given to it And first In what sense the Scriptures use evil Spirit in the same sense may it be said to use the good Spirit but evil Spirit is frequently used for a Person who is the author of mischief to mankind and therefore the good Spirit must be a Person the author of 1 Joh. 4. 6. Rom. 11. 8. Eph. 2. 2. 1 Sam. 16. 14. 2 Chron. 18. 20 21. good to man We read in Scripture of a Spirit of error and the Spirit of slumber and the Spirit of disobedience and of an evil Spirit that possessed Saul and of a lying Spirit that entred into and moved the false Prophets and in the New Testament as well as humane Authors of divers who have been infested with evil Spirits Now all these were real and personal Subsistences and therefore in parity of reason so should the good Spirit of which we so often read both in the Old and New Testament under the appellation of the Spirit of the Lord as the Spirit of the Lord moved upon the waters at the beginning and the Spirit of the Lord fell upon such persons And if it be here replyed That we are to understand the good Spirits after the same manner we understand the evil and that the evil Spirits being evil Angels the good Spirit should be good Angels only We answer not denying That Spirit may be so used in Scripture divers times and that by the same parity of reason that it is insinuated unto us that the evil Spirit hath one Prince and chief amongst them called Lucifer so the good Spirits have one supreme over them that good Spirit of God Secondly That where Scripture speaks of Spirit absolutely there the divine Spirit is constantly to be understood as St. Hierome hath observed Again We read from the Acts of the Spirit as interceding for us being Rom 8. 26. Eph. 4. 30. Mat. 3. 16. grieved and descending upon Christ in a bodily shape at his Baptism and Christs speech to his Disciples saying in St. John I will ask the Father and he shall give you another Comforter Christ was the one Comforter not only by his Graces but personal presence among his Disciples and answerable to this must the holy Spirit be also here promised And that this divine Person is distinct from the other appeareth from the general Doctrine of the Trinity above and specially out of St. Matthew where Christ saith Baptizing them in the Name of the Father Mat. 28. and of the Son and of the holy Ghost which must imply a distinction And St. John Chap. 1. He that sent me to baptize with water the same said unto Joh. 1. 33. me Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him the same is he which baptizeth with the holy Ghost And so Joh. 14. 16. Joh. 15. 26. From the same place of St. Matthew appeareth the equality of all these three Persons and especially from the immediate operation the Spirit had upon Christ who was God and Man for of it Isaiah thus
prophesieth Isa 61. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for that he hath annointed me to c. which Christ himself applied to himself Luk. 4. 18. Secondly The Attributes of the same Spirit infer a Deity as Omniscience 1 Cor. 2. The Spirit searcheth all things yea the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2. 10 11. And lest this should be understood of a search without success or full knowledge it followeth For what man knoweth the things of man save the spirit of a man which is in him Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God Creation The Spirit of God hath made me and the Job 33. 4. breath of the Almighty hath given me life saith holy Job And Christ casting out Devils by the Spirit of God and the Apostles miraculous acts demonstrating Mat. 12. 28. 1 Cor. 2. 4. the Spirit of God in them the preaching of St. Paul being in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power i. e. being so powerful in outward acts and miracles that it was sufficient conviction that he spake and wrought by the Spirit but miracles cannot be wrought by any thing less than a divine Power And by St. Peter it is called The Spirit of Glory 1 Pet. 4. 14. 1 Cor. 3. 16 17 and of God By St. Paul it is called God himself where he saith Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you If any man defile the Temple of God him shall God destroy for the Temple of God is holy which Temple are ye Here we plainly see how the Temple of God and the Temple of the holy Ghost are the same thing And thus we see confirm'd what St. John very plainly and positively 1 Joh. 5. 7. asserteth of this Mystery That there are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the holy Ghost and these three are one And this may suffice to have spoken according to our purpose compendiously as well of the Unity as Trinity of these Persons in the God-head only adding without any long or curious enquiry the several Notions and Idioms whereby they are distinct in our Faith The Property of the first Person is to be the Fountain and after the manner of first Principle of the other to whom therefore some ascribe a dignity of order above the other two though not of time or duration being all co-eternal and the one not to be conceived anterior to the other Nor of Nature as if the divine Nature were unequally communicated to them but that they are coequal in Being and in Power or Acting externally Another Property of the first Person is to be a Father in respect of the Son the second Person and together with the Son to bear such a relation to the third the holy Spirit for which no proper name hath been yet found out and whether it be possible to express the same aptly in one word I much question It is commonly called Procession on the part of the holy Ghost and in general on the parts of the other two Persons Production which yet is â—imited to the excluding of such a Production as answers Generation and much more of Creation besides which natural Reason can comprehend no other But Christian Faith obliges us to contain our selves modestly in the general Notion of Proceeding Some have indeed presumed to distinguish the production of the Son by the Father from the production of the holy Ghost by the Father and the Son in that the Son proceeds from the Father Intellectually as a word is conceived in the mind but the holy Spirit as act of the joynt will of Father and Son by way of Love Of which explication I shall suspend all sentence leaving others to judge CHAP. V. Of the proper Acts of God Creation and Preservation or Providence What is Creation That God created all things and how Of the Ministers of Gods Providence towards inferior Creatures the Angels of God Their Nature and Office towards Man especially THAT God is the proper Object of Christian Faith or Divinity not only as principal but as all other things therein treated relate to him is before shewed Now therefore we proceed from the Creator to the Creature to which the two hands of God are more visibly and eminently extended or stretched out The first In the Creation it self The other In the Providence of God over the works of his hands as the Scriptures phrase is And first Of Creation we understanding it to be after the nature of an Act must find out the proper term or object of it which is contained in that received definition thereof Creation is the production of a thing out of nothing or more plainly a making something of nothing In which we are not so grosly to conceive of Gods Act as if he made the world so of nothing as a man makes a Statue of something but of nothing or out of nothing is as much as from nothing or nothing concurring by way of pre-existent matter to produce such an effect For if any thing had been which had not its first Being from the first Cause of all God that must have been God also or there could not be said to have been any God at all because there could be no order where was no first and second and where matter is supposed to have been eternal there no priority of time can be admitted So that either such thing must have been God as we have seen in the Relations in the Trinity or no God at all because that is not God to which an equal in any respect distinct in nature from him may be found for Gods Nature is to be above all Neither can any reason be possibly alledged whereby it should appear that if simple matter as some call it might have subsisted before it was made simply by God the Sun and Moon and other compound bodies in Nature might not have pre-existed and prevented Gods workmanship or why an imperfect Being should have the dignity denied to a more perfect but at the pleasure and will of the supream Agent disposing all things For that which was not at all produced by another must necessarily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athanasius dâ— Incarnat spring out of nothing or of it self And why might not a Man or Horse or any other thing do so as well as infamous Matter Furthermore Unless there were a productive Power in God of something out of nothing the Power of God would not answer the Nature of God The Nature of God is infinite so therefore must his Power be but the Power of God could not be known to be infinite if such an infinite effect were not producible by him Lastly This denial of Gods Power to produce even the first imaginable matter would also destroy his Power in creating any thing not consisting of such matter and so should the production of Spirits utterly be
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
effect such things as in their general nature they had no tendencie unto The distinction common amongst Philosophers of Fortuna and Casus i. e. Fortune and Casualty and calling that Fortune which contingently falls out to free Intelligent Agents acting and that Casualty which besides natural intention happens to fall out may seem to clear this For if we should affirm that in natural things there were no such indifferencie really but all things were precisely and particularly determined by God in his private counsel however a wide latitude seemeth to us to be left them to move and act or not to act or to move and act thus or not thus but contrariwise no great absurdity or inconvenience would follow For what absurdity could be inferred if a man should say That the Eagle letting fall a Tortoise upon the bald head of the Philosopher of Syracuse walking in the field and so beating out his brains was determined necessarily so to do of God or that the tree that fell down in a wind and killed him that walked out to preserve himself from the fall of his house which he feared was inevitably appointed so to do These effects did not proceed from the nature of these causes themselves but a Superiour hand and yet might be no less necessary than such effects of which the common reason of man can give an ordinary and easie account And if this be granted in some things it doth lye upon them who deny it in all to render a reason of the difference and not on them who affirm a paritie by infinite instances to prove it being sufficient to say There can nothing be shown to the contrary But in things rational and endowed with a power of Election and Rejection it must be confessed that the difficulty is much greater because there seems to be a repugnancie to free will in such tacit necessity and God should seem to take away with one hand what he had given with the other And therefore of this in a more convenient place after we have spoken somewhat preparatory thereunto concerning the Decrees of God which are internal acts of the Providence of God CHAP. IX The method of enquiring into the Nature and Attributes of God Vorstius his grounds of distinguishing the Attributes of God from his Nature examined Of the Decrees of God depending on his Vnderstanding and Will Of knowledge of Intelligence Vision and the supposed Middle knowledge The Impertinencie of this Middle knowledge invented in God How Free Agents can be known by God in their uncertain choice Indifferent Actions in respect of Man not so in respect of God All Vision in God supposes certainly in the thing known IF the Holy Scriptures leaving us many precedents have thereby warranted or at least permitted us to speak of God after the manner of Mans body ascribing unto him head eyes mouth hands and feet and the better to perceive the things of God much more may we be allowed if at all to search into Gods nature to regulate our enquiry of God from the nature of mans mind and the more supream acts of his soul The first Act of which is his apprehension and knowledge with judgment following thereupon The next in order is the Act of his will and this Order we may best follow in the enquiry into Gods Providence which is constituted according as we can judge of knowledge and will whose proper act it is to decree And here first It is requisite that we take notice of the folly and gross impiety of Vorstius a late Pragmatick in Divine Mysteries who would needs distinguish God from himself and taking him at his word wherein speaking after the manner of men such diversity is mentioned concludes that God and his Attributes are really distinct in nature one from another And why did he not by the same rule conclude that Gods very Being his Essence was distinct really from it self as well as from the supposed Accidents he Epicurean-like feigns to God For God is no less affirmed to have heart hands and feet than to have Understanding and Will And if it be granted there is a figurative and no proper sense in the one case why may it not be in the other And that God is all these things Eminently but not after the formality of mankind The matter will be cleared better by examining his prime arguments taken from the Decrees of God our present subject First sayes he The decrees of God are various and many but the Essence of God is but one therefore they must be really distinct To which the answer is as obvious as the argument presumptuous That if the Decrees were really many they must of necessity be really distinct as well from themselves as God But their plurality is rather Relative than Absolute All the Acts of God being but one pure simple Act as in him but denominated divers from the event or relation they bear to the Creature This is one of the first principles in his Christian Catechise and why did he pretending to reason leap over this and not first disprove it and then proceed to his arguments It was a great piece of folly therefore in him to prove a real distinction of Gods Attributes before he had proved that the Nature of God was compounded or would admit of any such opposition For they who deny this will certainly deny that Another of his reasons is The decrees of God are free because they might have not been as well as have been But Gods nature is not so Answ There is a twofold freedom in the Decrees of God The one in respect of the Nature of God as God is precisely considered which abstracting from all Acts was indifferent to others as well as those Decrees made And the other in respect of the Creature or object which was capable of other Decrees and therefore were Gods Decrees said to be free but we all know that distinction of Instants in Order and Nature do not infer a necessary distinction in duration but that both Nature and Decrees might be coequal in eternity Now all things that are eternal are in some case necessary And the Schools have such a distinction of Decrees as they have of nature viz. Decretum Decretans and Decretum Decretatum meaning that the Decrees of God are sometimes used for the Act of God decreeing and sometimes for the thing decreed And of this latter it may be said That the Decree of God is produced and made which is a third special argument of Vorstius but of the other it cannot so be affirmed but it may flow from him by an eternal Law or Volition within himself and not at all occasioned by the Creature And it is therefore said to be free because it was not imposed upon him and therefore necessary because not accessary to him or contingent but proceeding from him as a natural and necessary yet voluntary Agent For we must not look upon God as subject to the condition of the
here total Causes But here I call to mind a Maxime amongst Logicians and others teaching of Natural Causes That it is not possible that Two total Causes should be subordinate as principal and instrumental Cause one to the other but must alwayes be Co-ordinate as two horses moving a Chariot no otherwise than one might well do alone and two Candles giving but one light to the same place I might question this Axiome and the Instances both because in the first though both Horses are the Causes equally of such a motion and so total yet the immediate causes are not total For it is certain that the same force which is used by one not rising to that of both would not in like manner move the Chariot that both actually do though there be nothing more easie then for one so to move it Neither are two Candles total Causes of that degree of light which is in the Room though of light they may be But whethen these mine exceptions against the presumed Rule be rational or not it matters not at present it being to me certain that it holds only in secondary Causes jovntly working and not in the concurrent motions of first and secondary Causes because of the essential dependence the second Cause hath upon the first So that St. Basil saith highly and truly The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bas in Hexaen Hom. 8. Divine word and that is here as much to say as the Divine vertue is the nature of things produced There remains yet one more difficulty to be here touched to which many may be reduced and that is That Man being thus determined and lying under this necessity of Acting he cannot in justice be responsable for his Actions whether good or evil He cannot be the subject of praise or dispraise All preaching by Exhortation and Dehortation All reward of Punishment and Benefits Lastly All Prayers and the use of it must needs cease To these in order briefly And first in general denying the reasonableness or validity of such consequences upon this common ground That if indeed this were a necessity from a Co-ordinate Cause not natural to the Agent moved by it then it were to be lookt on as no act proper and free in the Creature but strange to it and violent and by consequence refunding all praise and dispraise upon the unresistible impulse of that external Cause but this is internal natural and one act really of the first and second Mover and so properly principally as any Creature can be said to be principal Agent under the Creature and totally is the act of the second Cause which in external motions otherwise than from God it is not And if it be said that from hence would follow The Creature acting evilly that this Evil might be equally imputable unto God and to the Creature It may be replayed that two things are to be consider'd in Actions the nature of the Action it self and the morality of it And that all things being good in nature the act it self is good and may be imputed to God though the morality of the act be otherwise But it may be demanded yet further Have not this morality it self a Nature and consequently upon the grounds laid imputable to God as well when the act offends against justice and honesty as when it agrees with both To this Nature indeed as hath upon another occasion been shewed is sometimes taken very largely for any thing that hath a being but here we take it only in the physical sense whereby things are said to have a proper being But Good and Evil are rather modi reales as they speak in Metaphysicks then res Manners of Being rather than proper Beings of themselves Again we must and do hold with Austine that Evil morally taken hath not such a real being as Good hath but is only the absence or privation of Good being no real Entity and we pity rather than fear such an argument as we have found against this that if Evil be nothing then God should be angry for nothing when he is offended at sin For surely there is a great difference between Gods being angry for nothing and Gods being angry with nothing What would they say I marveil when the Father in the Gospel commanded his Son to go work in his vineyard and he would not go might he not be angry even because there was nothing done And must this be called being angry for nothing So surely God may be angry with mans doing nothing Here in order to a more full account may be given of the objection we leave in pawn this distinction of the Act of Sin and the Sin of the Act And that God may concur to the former constantly and never have a singer in the latter which is properly the sinfulness Now to the matter of praise or dispraise of which they are only said to be capable who act freely and upon election and not upon necessity I make no seruple directly to deny the truth of it as famous as it is amongst the Fathers Philosophers absolutely taken Nothing is more plain than the contrary every day For we praise handsome Horses and handsome Men and infinite other things when there was not the least concurrence of the will but God and Nature did all to such a laudable state much less any act conducing thereunto And do we not in our Judgments discommend the disproportions of natural monsters and creeples though we out of affection and pity declare not so much to their reproach And this seems to have deceived Aristotle in his Ethicks who laid it down for a current Rule that he distinguished not these two For certainly Commendation and Discommendation rightly used are the effects of our Judgment and Will and Affections But more nearly to the case we answer That such Praise and Dispraise are only vacated by such a necessity as is extrinsecal to and contrary to the will but where the Act is affectedly done there a supposed necessity doth not exempt from such Rewards of Praise and Dispraise or Punishment or Benefits But it is certain a man may strongly affect that which he cannot choose but do And the like may be answered to that of Instruction Exhortation and Dehortation all which they say ought to cease and would become unnecessary if mans will were so immoveably determined to one thing Yea all Prayers and Deprecations were to no purpose And why so because it is not in mans power to relieve himself and whatever he saith believeth or doth nothing can do any good if the Decree be so against him and nothing of all these omitted or the contrary committed hurt or endanger him such a Decree being for him And what grounds of comfort to a troubled mind may be laid the Case thus standing This is the sum of all we are here at least bound to take notice of And this were much more than it seems to be were it so that they who hold the contrary opinions were
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
which Seneca noted but could give no reason of No man saith he is of a good mind before he is of a bad one we are all prevented And in the same place he saith No body is with difficulty reduced to Nature but he that hath made a defection from it Now supposing that God made all things perfect and instituted the nature of man more inclinable to acts agreeable to that perfection than to the contrary whence can it come that contrariwise Man naturally inclineth to that which is base and unworthy and is hardly taken off that corrupt way of acting contrary to reason and vertue and reduced to a perfection becoming his Institution and End but that the very principle of his nature is hurt and the root corrupt And because nothing can be Author of its own Principles by which it subsists no man can be said by his own act to have corrupted them Indeed we say a Man is of corrupt Principles when he hath contracted some evil habits disposing to wickedness but that is accessorie and not innate to him And if it be farther urged That no man can be guilty by anothers fault nor corrupted by anothers principle it is answered as before so long as it is only that others and not his own in some degree For as Thomas hath distinguished There is a Principle of Nature and a Principle of a Person and a Sin of Nature and a Sin of a Person Adam had not only principles whereby he himself subsisted but also was the principle of all his Successours So that Original sin was as well the sin of the one as the other So that from the depraved will of Adam as the first principle of all came the corruption of the Will of all Whereupon speaking strictly as we have said this Original sin is not properly sin in the Infant but a want of Original Justice seizing him and exposing him to destruction as Thomas and Catharinus also have taught which two are the effects of the sin of Adam upon himself and children but the very formal Reason of sin in his Posterity For where as some say It is natural Concupiscence moving to Evil and others That it is the absence of Divine Justice and Grace they differ rather in the niceties of speech than in the matter it self For to me it seems that the loss of Divine Perfection and Grace superadded to the nature of Man whereby he was abundantly able to secure himself and glorifie God in that state of happiness most neerly expresses the nature of it as in the sons of Adam For in Adam himself it was actual disobedience but Concupiscence inordinate doth rather express the consequence of it For upon that desolation in the soul of Man quickly arose a disorder of the inferiour Affections which by a general name is called Concupiscence or Lust by the Apostle in his Seventh Chapter to the Romans And Natural it is called because as out of the cursed ground sprang up briers thorns weeds and thistles where more useful fruit of the earth was intended so upon this curse of mans soul Evil motions arose to the hurrying him to Actual sin being themselves really sinful Again it is observable for the true resolution of the Question That there is commonly an ambiguity in this tearm Concupiscence it being sometimes taken for the act and exercise of that vitious principle in man fallen and sometimes for the Pravitie and degenerate temper of the soul making it prone to actual sins This latter is that which is properly called Original Sin though more properly Original unholiness or want of that instituted Integrity with which man was at first endowed and in it three things are to be considered First the privation of Supernatural Good Secondly Proneness to unnatural Evil against God Thirdly Odiousness and Culpableness before God who must needs be offended at the sight of so much deformity in his Creature contrary to his first Institution of it and Intention though this evil habitude should never break out into actual Rebellion against him by the exercise or putting it in execution by actual Concupiscence against the Law of God St. James seemeth Jam. 1. 14. to justifie this distinction where he saith Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed This gives us the original Lust or Concupiscence which inclines and moves to sin and to this is it to be imputed that a man so easily is withdrawn from truth and righteousness and noble acts becoming his high nature He goeth on Then when Lust hath conceived it bringeth forth Sin c. that is when the Radical Concupiscence or Concupiscibleness in man becomes impregnated and matured by outward opportunities and occasions of sinning it bringeth forth into outward act sin and the event and consequence of this sin is death So that the innate Lust lurking in the Soul and not actuated by outward occasions either inwardly to effect and desire or outwardly to act sin is not properly sin but metonymically only either as it is the effect of Adams sin or the cause of our sins but it is properly odious to God and exposing us to his heavy wrath so far at least as is seen in the deprivation of that be atitude to which man was at first designed And this exactly agrees with the nature of that sin For as that which was in Adam was actual disobedience in his Posterity is only want of that perfection which was due to their nature So Adam not only incurred the loss of that bliss he was capable of and in the ready way to enjoy but likewise the punishment of Sense answerable to his Sin of Commission and his Posterity was made subject to the punishment and loss of Gods favour and that bliss they were in Adam once ordained unto But when their Sins become Actual they are subject to punishment of Pain and torment for the same And by this the way is well prepared to make answer to that common doubt concerning the effect of Baptism and the state of the Regenerate in reference to Original sin and Concupiscence viz. whether Concupiscence remaining after Baptism in the Regenerate be sin or not Scriptures are alledged with great colour on both sides It is observed by Bishop Davenant that St. Paul calls Original Concupiscence sin in fourteen Davenant Deâ—â—rm â— several places in his sixth seventh and eighth Chapter to the Romans which if so Original sin it self must needs be oftner mentioned in Scripture than will be granted by many For mine own particular I see none of those places so exprest in the description of it that the law of Sin the Body Lex Peccati est violentiâ— consuctudinis qua trabit tenetur etiam invitus animus â—â— merito quo in cam volens illabitur Aug. in Confess Lib 3 c. 5. of Sin the Law of the Members the Lust of the Mind and Flesh and some other expressions to the same effect may not be
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
c. and these are such But to this I demand first What they mean by a thing being in our power Do they mean in our natural power without Gods blessing and grace above our natural ability then indeed this and many more Christian duties are beyond our power and strength to do of our selves Our whole Vow of Baptism consists of such particulars as the Catechise tells us truly We are not able to do of our selves Shall the Vow therefore in Baptism be judged rash unreasonable and unlawful because we have vowed more than we can make good of our selves Oh but say they this Vow is necessary and commanded by God but the other are unnecessary and uncommanded But this is but little to the purpose supposing all were true that is in the exception supposed For we are now enquiring abstractly and in general after the nature of a vow whether a Vow may not be made of those things that are not naturally in our power For the necessity or the command of God himself cannot make that reasonable for us to do or vow to do which we are wholly unable to do And by consequence this sort of vowing would be much worse than the other as bringing Gods Providence and Justice into question as well as mans Wisdom and Piety that he should command us to do that which we are not able to do and to vow what we are not able to perform But if they take Gods Grace his Promise and Goodness in to the assistance of mans natural or reasonable abilities as they ought to do how can they say directly that the matter of such Vows are not in our power St. Paul could do all things through him Phil. 4 13. 1 Cor. 12. 31. that strengthened him And so surely may other good Christians do so far as he requires And we know the Scripture requires Covet earnestly the best gifts The question then will return again upon us with no less force than before whether these states be not more perfect and better than others For if so they may be coveted and aspired after though they be not absolutely in our Power I confess according to the Doctrine of St. Paul all men have not the same gifts either of Nature or Grace Every man hath his proper gift of God c. And withal that such may be 1 Cor. 7. 7. the natural tempers and inclination of some persons towards Conjugal and Political Society that they may wholly distrust themselves in the due execution of such Vows And therefore such Vows may be unlawful in those circumstances and junctures But when a man considers first the Grace and Promise of God when he considers again the vertue of ordinary means to attain these graces in withdrawing a mans self from the outward Incentives to transgress and denying himself the common occasions disposing to such things against which he vows and lastly the efficacie of a Vow duly made which upon reflexion may quench all sparks falling into the heart or mind of man he can scarce affirm positively that such a thing is not in his power but because it is not in his will And doth not St. Paul plainly suppose as a certain truth that a man may have power over his own will even in such things as these where he saith Nevertheless he that 1 Cor. 7. 37. standeth stedfast in his heart having no necessity but hath power over his own will and hath decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin doth well And doth it not in like manner from hence follow that this power that a man hath over his own will may be lawdably exerted and exercised in decreeing stedfastly such a state of Life as we now speak of and that this is well done This evidence of truth against the frivolous exceptions of some hath occasioned another more favourable and moderate and most reasonable of all the Objections I can call to mind on this subject They dare not determine against the matter of such Evangelical perfections and waving their opposition to Vows of this nature they persist to deny that if such perfect state there be it is free to accept or refuse it if we have such a measure of Divine Grace whereby we are enabled to walk so perfectly And that in such cases there is the obligation of a Precept upon us to live so rather then the nature of a Counsel and it is the distinction of Counsel and Command which is so much stomached by them The reason hereof is because God in justice doth exact answerable service to his Talents lent unto his servants And so having given them grace and power to do an acceptable piece of worship to him doth rather command than advise that it should be performed To the solution of this may be useful that distinction of Gerson rarely Monitio dâ—cituâ— quod plus ligaâ— quam Concilium minus quam praeceptum Gerson de Vita Spirituali Lect. 5. Praeceptum est imperium obligans ad observationem rei vel actus Imperati Gerson de Decem praeceptis To. 1. Par. 2. Praeceptum est hoc cui non obedire peccatum est Concilium quo si uti nolucris minus boni adipiscaris nomen mali aliquid perpetrabis Aug. de Sta. Virginit cap. 15. 17. to be found in others For he finds another thing between Precept and Counsel and that is Monition or Admonition which says he binds more than Counsels and less than Precepts And so I conceive it true that in the Case above put of Gods grace more enabling a man a disposing him to greater perfections then are common to Christians that there doth thereupon follow a tacite admonition and particular injunction to improve the same to the best effects and ends but this cannot properly be called a Precept or a Command according to the received manner of speech which to alter for no other reason but to gratifie squamish minds and stomachs is no reason For a Precept according to Gerson in another Treatise is A Command obliging to observation of a thing or act commanded which description I suppose he borrowed from St. Austin who saith A Precept is such a thing that it is sin not to obey it A Counsel is that which if you refuse to make use of you obtain less good but commit no evil So that as Ambrose and Prosper and innumerable other Fathers as well Greek as Latin speak in this case A Precept is that which keeps the Law Counsel that which transcends the Law Now to apply this more particularly Commands and Counsels are general and extend to all but with this difference that a Precept or Command is general and absolute binding all without exception under the penalties of sin and punishment Counsels bind all but not absolutely but conditionally upon such considerations of aiming at more then ordinary perfection of vertue and reward Admonition can be nothing else but a personal advice and exhortation upon
contrary A Third abuse noted by Mr. Perkins is That a man may say the Canonical hours of one day for another which may be an abuse or no abuse as the matter is ordered To neglect wilfully ones usual prayers is certainly ill but having so done to double his prayers the next day is no such error as may be supposed Much besides this may be said out of the Authority of the Church and more out of Scripture than may be found for some things by Puritans religiously observed Much likewise is here wont to be said about the Hours themselves the reason and number of them but I cut off all them at present and resolve all into the general reasonableness and piety of such a practice and the manifold benefit which may accrue unto the serious and devout user of them though he ties not himself to any one form strictly and so shall rest till I can hear what can be objected worthy of a Christian against them more than I have found already which may be as well objected against Morning and Evening prayer as them CHAP. XIV The Third thing to be considered in the Worship of God viz. The true Object which is God only That it is Idolatry to misapply this Divine Worship What is Divine Worship properly called Of the multitude and mischiefs of New distinctions of Worship Dulia and Latria though distinct of no use in this Controversie What is an Idol Origen's criticisme of an Idol vainly rested on What an Image What Idolatry The distinction of Formal and Material Idolatry upon divers reasons rejected The Papists really Idolatrous notwithstanding their good Intentions pretended Intention and Resolution to worship the true God excuse not from Idolatry Spalato Forbes and others excusing the Romanists from thence disproved That Idolatry is not always joyned with Polytheism or worshipping more Gods than one How the Roman Church may be a true Church and yet Idolatrous FRom the nature kinds acts circumstances of Place and Times of Prayer we pass to the object of this worship of Invocation and Adoration which is the most important of all and which as duly observed is the end complement and perfection of all Religion so mistaken is the foulest of all errors and the highest of all provocations and affronts of almighty God who Isa 42. 8. protesteth by his Prophet upon this occasion I am the Lord that is my name and my glory will I not give unto another neither my praise unto graven Images This therefore it were superfluous to prove which all Christians yea almost all the world as well Unchristian as Christian doth readily and unanimously assent to That God only is the proper object of Divine or Religious worship And they that glory that they stick firmly to this what do they more than do Infidels and Heathens who all hold that God is to be worshipped with supreamest worship and that Idolatry is a notorious errour and offence against him This I say all rational men assent to in the notion that the worship of the true God or which seems to be the very same the true worship of God is to be given only to God and yet fall flat into the Practice of that great sin For though Idolatry be so odious in its name yet in its nature it is very pleasing and ravishing of our senses and hath of late days been so fairly and neatly trimmed up by the fine wits and curious hands of men and they especially Christians and they more especially Catholiques God bless us that now there is either no such thing to be found in the world or that the least sin one of them in the world And this is brought about by the ministry and help of innumerable distinctions which I think may be reduced to these two heads viz. to those concerning the Act of worshipping and those concerning the Object of worship Concerning the Act we find such as these very common and current first Natural and Civil and Divine and Religious And these again Properly Divine or Improperly supream and Inferior Direct and Indirect Absolute and Relative Ultimate and subalternate or subordinate Mediate and Immediate For it s own sake or for anothers sake Again for its own sake which we worship as a thing in it self or as a Representation of another All these but these are not all to be found in Learned Authors books to rectifie the worlds errours in its Religion And besides these more may be found concerning the Object but this one shall I only name which is their strongest Hold and Refuge That to secure them from all assauls of Adversaries this to receive them when they shall by strong hand at any time be beaten out of their fastnesses And that is that modern but very famous distinction of Material and Formal So that some of no mean knowledge have thus defended themselves What if for instance in the Mass we should by errour worship that as God which is not God yet this would be but Material Idolatry at the most and not Formal seeing we believe that to be very God which we so adore and Material Idolatry with such circumstances we must suppose is one of the least sins that we can be subject to Thus have some discoursed to me though 't is well known some others of them as Costerus do acknowledge that if Costerus Enchirid Catholicks miss their mark and that be not really God which they with divine worship adore in the Sacrament they are gross Idolaters Of this we shall speak more by and by Now are we to consider first of the first sort of distinctions to pass over all which by a particular examination would be too tedious a task for my self and Reader too I shall therefore only examine the most reasonable and comprehensive of them and them I take to be that of Worship Civil and Divine and of Absolute and Relative not omitting altogether others And to understand clearly what is meant by Divine Worship we are to enquire whether the Act makes the Worship or the Object For all worship as other Acts moral takes it specification from the Object as Philosophers say then unless the Object be Divine or God himself cannot the Worship be Divine and so by consequence a man cannot give Divine Worship though he would never so fain unto an object not Divine and so cannot though he would commit Idolatry because the worship it self is not Divine but much inferior because the object is such which constitutes not Divine Worship being some Creature But if the Act in its own nature be intrinsecally Divine it would be known what is that which makes it so For they say all acts external are equivocal and dubious in themselves and indifferent to Civil Religious Inseriour or Supream worship and that nothing can be concluded from thence Idolatrous For we bow the head we bend the knee we fall down at the feet of men many times whom we give no Idolatrous worship unto
most sincerely to worship only that true God though possibly they should err in the object yet the crime of Idolatry cannot cleave unto them and especially when we hear them so solemnly and zealously protest against worshipping any Creature what ever we can possibly instance in as God The vanity of this protestation we may have occasion to discover by and by Now we call in question the foundation of all and that is their distinction of Formal and Material Idolatry upon this fourfold account First that if it were reasonable it were notwithstanding altogether superfluous For what more can be honestly implied hereby than was of old in that distinction of Ignorantia facti and Juris Ignorance of the thing done and Ignorance of the Law against which this fact is committed Ignorance that such a Law there is which prohibits divine or supream worship to be given to the Creature no man can plead but Ignorance of actual Idolatry in such kind of worship as by error and false supposition is committed a man may possibly alledge and that colourably Now what can they make Formal Idolatry but such a Divine Worship as is given to that which is not God knowingly and willingly And what else do they mean by Material Idolatry but Divine Worship falsely applied to that which by nature is not capable of it as not God though it be really believed to be God And what is this else but Ignorance of the fact And if so what makes this new Invented distinction here of Formal and Material Idolatry Secondly this distinction is very rudely and ignorantly made against the Rules of Logick I know there is nothing more ordinary than to distinguish a thing and consider it Materially and Formally but there never was received any such division as good which made Matter and Form of the same thing distinct Kinds or made Parts several Species A man may be considered according to his Matter or according to his Form but who ever went about to divide human nature or humanity into a Formal Man and a Material Man Or to take an instance nearer to our purpose of Adultery A man may consider it in its Formality and Materiality but no advised man can divide Adultery into Formal and Material For the general Rule makes against all such attempts which tells us that nothing can be or subsist without its form so that either there is no Adultery or Idolatry at all or it must be as well Formal as Material unless we would be so vain and ridiculous to call them Formal as we sometimes do a Formal Man when he is phantastical and affected or we should use the term Formal for that which doth appear in all its outward formalities as we before distinguished Schisme into Formal and Real or Material or Vertual and Formal And in this sense the contrary sense is much more true For in exhibiting outward worship in Divine manner unto that which is not God all the formalities of Idolatry do appear what ever the intention which doth not appear may be It will here doubtless be said that in that common case put by Casuists of a Man who companies with a woman in a conjugal way stedfastly and unfainedly believing that she is his own lawful wife doth commit material adultery but not formal and so in Idolatry as the case may be put But I make no doubt to affirm that such an Act of Adultery so far as it is Adultery and such Idolatry so far as it is Idolatry are both Formal as well as Material and the only difference between them and those they call Formal consists only in Ignorance or knowledge of the Fact done For either such Acts are sins or not sins If not sins then neither Formal nor Material Adultery or Idolatry if they be sins to what can they be reduced but to Adultery and Idolatry And that when they have the most favourable circumstances they are sinful Parisiensis thus clearly determines If a Si quis mulierem cagnoscat non suam pro uxore vel adoret Luciferum c. Gulielm Parisiensis de Leg. c. 21. man knows a woman not his own for his own wife or worships Lucifer instead of Christ he sins because God would have turn'd away his heart from such a great Evil if his sins hindered not which he had before committed Thus he So that the issue of this question comes truly to that which some Romanists acknowledge that all Idolatry derives it self originally from the understanding though it be an Act of the will principally and that it is because a man knows not actually what he does when he commits Idolatry For surely unless to grant something to quarrellers which prejudices little our Cause we except some prodigious persons and desperate no man worships what he is perswaded is not God with supream worship and so consequently no man commits wilful Idolatry And therefore the only equal way of estimating the Criminalness of Idolatry is from the measure of knowledge in man and the means of discerning an Increated from a Created Object of Worship It is therefore to very little purpose that the Arch-bishop of spalato and after him Forbes Bishop of Edinburge and after them other very learned men of these present days alledge in excuse of Papists from Idolatry in the Mass when they accept of their detestation of worshiping Bread or any thing Created but only God For 't is no demonstration or proof at all that they do not do it because they say they do not do it For here are two contrary suppositions made by contrary Parties The one holds that the natural bodies of the Eucharistical Elements are not present nor have any being the other holds that they are there as really as ever Again both agree that they worship that which is there what ever it be therefore deny they it a thousand times they have nothing to save themselves from the actual adoration of those Creatures but a supposition that they are not there but our opinion affirming positively that there they are no man of us can hold opinion that they worship not the Creature and Maimonides More Neboc Part. 1. c. 71. so are not Idolatrous For as Maimonides quotes Themistius the Philosopher speaking well Natura rerum nonsequitur opiniones hominum sed opiniones hominum debent sequi naturam rerum The Nature of things do not follow the perswasions of men but the perswasions or opinions of men ought to follow Nature That is not only Idolatry which men are perswaded is Idolatry but that which in it self is so though men be perswaded of the contrary yea though they mean nothing less then to commit Idolatry as will appear from Tannerus in this his explication of Idolatry Adamus Tanâ—erus Theologiae Scâ—olast Tom. 3. Disput 5. Qâ—aest 7. Dub. 1. num 2. He is judged saith he to give Divine Worship to the Creature who directly and expresly or indirectly and implicitely intendeth to beget
fit the Case For when the Scripture saith Christ is a Door or Christ is a Vine or a Lamb it is not the same formally as to say that a Lamb is Christ or a Door or a Vine is Christ Yet if that rigour must be observed in Scripture Propositions to have them true that without a Trope or Figure they must be understood otherwise we must be reproached to deny Scripture the foresaid speeches must as necessarily inferr a Transubstantiation of Christ into the Nature of a Door or Vine or Lamb as his bare words at the Celebration do inferr a Transubstantiation of the Elements into his Nature And no apparence of disparity can be here shown if so be Christs Literal meaning must be here urged as they do Now That the Signs which were before are Really Present in the Sacrament after Consecration doth appear from the most-Essential thing to a Sacrament A Sacrament we have defined to be a Visible Sign with Austin and infinite others I say a Visible and Real Sign and not Visibly Apparently or Seemingly a Sign or a Sign of a Sign as the deluding Specieses remaining after supposed Transubstantiation are said to be And it is an Impossible thing as is before shewed in the general treating of Sacraments that the Sign should be the thing signified For if some Sign could be the thing signified then something signified should be a Sign and so both wayes the Relate and Cor-relate should be the same too and two should be one and one should be two and if this may be what may not be or at least said to be For as to the instances given That in some Cases a thing may be a Sign and the thing signified it hath been showed how defective they are in that they are a Sign of the same nature perhaps or rather some qualification of it and not of the same thing numerically as the individual Sign in the Lords Supper is believed to be of that it is Therefore from hence they are put to their choice Whether of the two they will suffer the loss of the Sacrament or the absence of Christs Body in their sense For not only the nature of the thing now expressed require Sacramental Signs as well as the thing signified but the manifold Autorities of the Ancientest of the Greek and Latin Fathers have for this reason called the Sacramental Elements Signs Figures Representations Types Antitypes of Christs Body and Blood as might at large be shewed our Adversaries not denying it But what answer do they make to them The Modern Greeks as Cardinal Bessario who is herein followed by some more modern than himself Latinizing answer confessing that the Fathers Bessario Do Eucharist Sacramento often so speak but say they they speak only of the Bread and Wine before Consecration and not after Here is some wit in this shuffle and evasion but no truth at all For before Dedication and Consecration they are not Signs or Figures or Antitypes at all They have no more relation to the Body and Blood of Christ than the like Elements at our Common tables and therefore they must be understood to speak of them after Consecration But the Answer of the Scholastical managers of this controversy in the Latin Church shows less modesty and no more truth For Aūg. in Psal 3. they say St. Austin who calls the consecrated Elements a Figure of Christs Body spake not of every empty Figure but of a Figure of a thing really present All this we grant willingly viz that the Signs Sacramental are not Signs of things future or Absent This is nothing at all to the purpose And the Second answer is notoriously and boldly false saying That St. Austin might there speak as Manichee who denied the Real Body Contra Adamant C. 12. of Christ For it was in confutation of Manicheans And of Tertullians words who likewise calls the consecrate Elements Signs they make non-sense joyning head and tail together that they may really signifie nothing least they should signify that for which we alleadg them Tertullian saies Hoc est Corpus meum Id est Figura Corporis mei Figura Corporis mei saies one after his greater Doctors is referred not unto Corpus meum as an Fisher Jes explication thereof but unto Hoc in this manner Hoc id est Figura Corporis mei est Corpus meum i. e. This that is the Figure of my Body is my Body If it be not sufficient conviction of their Errour and confusion that they are driven to such unnatural tossing of mens words against common sense and Grammar and having so done to affect nothing but what is directly false or unintelligible as this Scholie is making the Figure and the Body the very same thing I confess I have nothing to say For this is the subject we have at present in hand That the Sign and thing signified must by eternal necessity be distinct but this opinion of Transubstantiation destroys this and destroying this destroys the Sacrament For whereas they say That the remaining Species supply the place of the Substance abolished and are Signs This cannot consist with the impossibility of such Accidents without a subject in that contrary to their definition they should stick and not stick to a thing in that they are Accidents their nature requires that they should have a subject and the nature of this mutation requires they should have none And where as they argue That what any Creature can do the Creatour can much more do and therefore if the Creature can sustain Accidents the Creatour God Almighty can I answer If the Creature could sustain Accidents without a subject then doubtless could God the Creatour but doth it follow that because the Creature can be a subject to them therefore the Creatour can also All that a Creature can Do the Creatour can do but all that the Creature can Suffer I trow the Creatour cannot But to be the subject to Accidents is a Passion and imperfection and no Action and therefore nothing can be concluded from hence Therefore they proceed one strain higher not doubting to say That what the Creature can do by its Passive Capacity the Creatour can do by his Active which if it did not imply a contradiction in nature itself I should easily grant but this it doth For first it is to make an Accident a Substance For t is the nature of a Substance to subsist of it self without the aid or support of any other thing distinct from it Not that the Secondary being can subsist without the First God himself but without any thing Created And therefore seeing that Substance it self cannot continue in its Being without Gods omnipotent hand supporting it this doth equalize the nature of Accidents to that of Substance in that it supposeth that Accidents by a divine power may subsist of themselves as well as Substance For substance cannot subsist at all without a Divine power and thus Accidents by a