Life or that I should bee separated from Christ though all the world beside were to be blotted out and separated if I staid in The benefit that we are to make of the errors of holy men is not that That man did this therefore I may doe it but this God suffered that holy man to fall and yet loved that good soule well God hath not therefore cast me away though he have suffered me to fall too Bread is mans best sustenance yet there may be a dangerous surfet of bread Charity is the bread that the soule lives by yet there may be a surfet of charity I may mis-lead my selfe shrewdly if I say surely my Father is a good man my Master a good man my Pastor a good man men that have the testimony of Gods love by his manifold blessings upon them and therefore I may be bold to doe whatsoever I see them doe Be perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect Mat. 5.48 1 Cor. 11.1 is the example that Christ gives you Be yee followers of mee as I am of Christ is â—he example that the Apostle gives you Good Examples are good Assistances but no Example of man is sufficient to constitute a certaine and constant rule All the actions of the holiest man are not holy Hence appeares the vanity and impertinency of that calumny with which our adversaries of the Roman perswasion labour to oppresse us That those points in which we depart from them cannot be well established because therein we depart from the Fathers As though there were no condemnation to them that pretended a perpetuall adhering to the Fathers nor salvation to them who suspected any Father of any mistaking And they have thought that one thing enough to discredit and blast and annihilate that great and usefull labour which the Centuriators the Magdeburgenses tooke in compiling the Ecclesiasticall Story that in every age as they passe those Authors have laid out a particular section a particular Chapter De navis Patrum to note the mistakings of the Fathers in every age This they thinke a criminall and a hainous thing inough to discredit the whole worke As though there were ever in any age any Father that mistook nothing or that it were blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to note such a mistaking And yet if those blessed Fathers now in possession of heaven be well affected with our celebrating or ill with our neglecting their works certainly they finde much more cause to complaine of our adversaries then of us Never any in the Reformation hath spoken so lightly nay so heavily so negligently nay so diligently so studiously in diminution of the Fathers as they have done One of the first Jesuits proceeds with modesty and ingenuity and yet sayes Quaelibet aetas antiquitati detulit Salmeron Every age hath been apt to ascribe much to the Ancient Fathers Hoc autem asserimus sayes he Iuniores Doctores perspicaciores This we must necessarily acknowledge that our later Men have seen farther then the elder Fathers did His fellow Jesuit goes farther Hoc omnes dicunt Maldon sed non probant sayes he speaking of one person in the Genealogy of Christ This the Fathers say sayes he and later men too Catholiques and Heretiques All But none of them prove it He will not take their words not the whole Churches though they all agree But a Bishop of as much estimation and authority in the Council of Trent as any Cornel. Mussuâ— goes much farther Being pressed with S. Augustins opinion he sayes Nec nos tantillum moveat Augustinus Let it never trouble us which way S. Augustine goes Hoc enim illi peculiare sayes he ut alium errorem expugnans alteri ansam praebeat for this is inseparable from S. Augustine That out of an earnestnesse to destroy one error he will establish another Nor doth that Bishop impute that distemper onely to S. Augustine but to S. Hierome too Of him he sayes In medio positus certamine ar dore feriendi adversarios premit socios S. Hierome laies about him and rather then misse his enemy he wounds his friends also But all that might better be borne then this Turpiter errarunt Patres The Fathers fell foully into errors And this better then that Eorum opinio opinio Haereticorum The Fathers differ not from the Heretiques concurre with the Heretiques Who in the Reformation hath charged the Fathers so farre and yet Baronius hath If they did not oppresse us with this calumny of neglecting or undervaluing the Fathers we should not make our recourse to this way of recrimination for God knowes if it be modestly done and with the reverence in many respects due to them it is no fault to say the Fathers fell into some faults Yet it is rather our Adversaries observation then ours That all the Ancient Fathers were Chiliasts Millenarians and maintained that error of a thousand yeares temporall happinesse upon this earth betweene the Resurrection and our actuall and eternall possession of Heaven It is their observation rather then ours That all the Ancient Fathers denied the dead a fruition of the sight of God till the day of Judgement It is theirs rather then ours That all the Greek Fathers and some of the Latin assigned Gods foreknowledge of mans works to be the cause of his predestination It is their note That for the first six hundred yeares the generall opinion and generall practise of the Church was To give the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to Infants newly baptized as a thing necessary to their salvation They have noted That the opinion of the Ancient Fathers was contrary to the present opinion in the Church of Rome concerning the conception of the blessed Virgin without Originall sin These notes and imputations arise from their Authors and not from ours and they have told it us rather then we them Indeed neither we nor they can dissemble the mistakings of the Fathers The Fathers themselves would not have them dissembled Hieron De me sayes S. Hierom ubicunque de meo sensu loquor arguat me quilibet August For my part wheresoever I deliver but mine owne opinion every man hath his liberty to correct me It is true S. Augustine does call Iulian the Pelagian to the Fathers but it is to vindicate and redeeme the Fathers from those calumnies which Iulian had laid upon them that they were Multitudo caecorum a herd a swarme of blinde guides and followers of one another And that they were Conspiratio perditorum Damned Conspirators against the truth To set the Fathers in their true light and to restore them to their lustre and dignity and to make Iulian confesse what reverend persons they were S. Aug. cals him to the consideration of the Fathers but not to try matters of faith by them alone Lactant. For Sapientiam sibi adimit qui sine judicio majorum inventa probat That man devests himselfe of all discretion who
Baptisme common to all all that are baptized are baptized from their sins And therefore this of Aquinas not reaching to S. Pauls Quid de illis and Quid illi to these men thus baptized is not that sense neither which we seek But the time will not permit us to pursue the severall interpretations of those Moderni whom directly or comparatively we call Ancients Neither truly though there be many other Interpreters then we have named are there many other interpretations then we have touched upon or then may be reduced to them And therefore to end here this consideration of the Fathers and those whom they esteem Pillars of their Church we are thus much at our liberty for all them That first there is no unanime consent in the interpretation of this place and that which they binde themselves to follow is the unanime consent of the Fathers And then though the Fathers had unanimely consented in one and that one had been the exposition which Bellarmine pursues yet we might by their example have departed from it for in the Roman Church Fathers and Fathers Fathers Popes themselves And howsoever the Fathers may be Fathers in respect of us yet in respect of the Pope who is S. Peter himselfe and alwayes sits in his person the Fathers are but children sayes Bellarmine were of opinion That the Sacrament of the Lords Supper was absolutely necessary for children to their salvation and this opinion lasted in force and in use for divers hundreds of yeares neither was it ever repressed by Authority till the other day in the Councel of Trent but wore out of it selfe long before because it had no foundation So the opinion of the Millenarians That Christ with his Saints should have a thousand years of a temporall raign here upon earth after his second comming had possessed the Fathers in a very great partie The Fathers in a great partie denied that the soules of good men departed were to enjoy the sight of God till the Resurrection And the Fathers affirmed That the cause of Gods election was the foresight of the faith and obedience of the Elect. These errors are so noted even by the Authors of the Roman Church for I depart not herein from their own words and observations as that they still present them so Omnes plurimi All the Fathers Most of the Fathers were of this and this opinion And yet for all these Fathers no man in the Roman Church is so childish now as to give his child that Sacrament or to accompany those Fathers in those other mistakings This hath been done in fact they have departed from the Fathers And then for a Rule Cardinall Cajetan tels us That if a new sense of any place of Scripture agreeable to other places and to the analogy of faith arise to us it is not to be refused Quia torrens patrum because the streame of the Fathers is against it For they themselves have told us why we may suspect the Fathers and by what means the Fathers have falne into many mis-interpretations First they say Quia glaciem sciderunt because the Fathers broke the Ice and undertook the interpretation of many places in which they had no light no assistance from others and so might easily turne into a sinister way And then Rhetoricati sunt say they The Fathers often applyed themselves in figurative and Hyberbolicall speeches to exalt the devotions and stir up the affections of their auditory and therefore must not be called to too severe and literall an account for all that they uttered in that manner And againe Plebi indulserunt as S. Augustine sayes of himselfe sometimes out of a loathnesse to offend the ignorant and sometimes the holy and devout and that he might hold his auditory together and avert none from comming to him he was unwilling to come to such an exact truth in the explication and application of some places as that for the sharpnesse and bitternesse thereof weaker stomachs might forbeare So also they confesse too that ex vehementia declinarunt In heat of disputation and argument and to make things straight they bent them too much on the other hand and to oppose one Heresie they endangered the inducing of another as in S. Augustines disputations against the Pelagians who over-advanced the free will of man and the Manicheans who by admitting Duo principia two Caufes an extrinsique cause of our evill actions as well as of our good annihilated the free will of man we shall find sometimes occasions to doubt whether S. Augustine were constant in his owne opinion and not transported sometimes with vehemency against his present adversary whether Pelagian or Manichean Which is a disease that even some great Councels in the Church and Church-affaires have felt that for collaterall and occasionall and personall respects which were risen after they were met the maine doctrinall points and such as have principally concerned the glory of God and the salvation of soules and were indeed the principall and onely cause of their then meeting there have beene neglected Men that came thither with a fervent zeale to the glory of God have taken in a new fire of displeasure against particular Heretiques or Schismatiques and discontinued their holy zeale towards God till their occasionall displeasure towards those persons might be satisfied and so those Heresies and Heretiques against whom they met have got advantage by that passion which hath overtaken and overswayed them after they were met And whatsoever hath fallen into Councels of that kinde Ecclesiasticall Councels may possibly be imagined or justly be feared or at least without offence be pre-disswaded and deprecated in all Civill Consultations and Councels of State That Occasionall things may not divert the Principall for as in the Naturall body the spleene may suffocate the heart and yet the spleen is but the sewar of the body and the heart is the strength and the Palais thereof so in politique bodies and Councels of State an immature and indigested an intempestive and unseasonable pressing of present remedies against all inconveniencies may suffocate the heart of the businesse and frustrate and evacuate the blessed and glorious purpose of the whole Councell The Basiliske is very sharpe-sighted but he sees therefore and to that end that he may kill So is so does passion Who would wish to be sharper sighted then the Eagle And his strength of sight is in this that he lookes to the Sun To looke to things that are evident The evident danger of the State and the Church The evident malice and power of the enemy The evident storme upon our peace and Religion To looke that God be not tempted by us nor his Lieutenant and Vicegerent wearied and hardened towards us This is the object of the Eagles eye and this is wisdome high enough Where men see a great foundation laid they will thinke that all that is not onely to raise a Spittle to cure or a Church-yard to bury a few diseased
Hast thou found me out O mine enemy when an unrepented sinne comes to thy memory then be not thou sorry that thou remembrest it then nor doe not say I would this sin had not troubled me now I would I had not remembred it till to morrow For in that action first in Thesi for the Rule thou art a Preacher to thy selfe 1 Cor. 11.20 and thou hast thy Text in St. Paul He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himselfe And then in Hypothesi for the application to the particular case thou art a Prophet to thy selfe Thou that knowest in thy selfe what thou doest then canst say to thy selfe what thou shalt suffer after if thou doe ill There are more Elements in the making up of this man many more He waited saies his story Expectavit He gave God his leisure Simeon had informed himselfe out of Daniel and the other Prophets that the time of the Messias comming was neare As Daniel had informed himselfe out of Ieremy and the other Prophets that the time of the Deliverance from Babylon was neare Both waited patiently and yet both prayed for the accelerating of that which they waited for Daniel for the Deliverance Simeon for the Epiphany Those consist well enough patiently to attend Gods time and yet earnestly to solicite the hastning of that time for that time is Gods time to which our prayers have brought God as that price was Gods price for Sodome to which Abrahams solicitation brought God Esay 45.9 and not the first fifty That Prophet that sayes Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker that is that presses God before his time saies also for all that Oh that thou wouldest rent the heavens Esay 64.1 and come downe When thou commest to this seale of thy peace the Sacrament pray that God will give thee that light that may direct and establish thee in necessary and fundamentall things that is the light of faith to see that the Body and Bloud of Christ is applied to thee in that action But for the manner how the Body and Bloud of Christ is there wait his leisure if he have not yet manifested that to thee Grieve not at that wonder not at that presse not for that for hee hath not manifested that not the way not the manner of his presence in the Sacrament to the Church A peremptory prejudice upon other mens opinions that no opinion but thine can be true in the doctrine of the Sacrament and an un charitable condemning of other men or other Churches that may be of another perswasion then thou art in the matter of the Sacrament may frustrate and disappoint thee of all that benefit which thou mightst have by an humble receiving thereof if thou wouldest excercise thy faith onely here and leave thy passion at home and referre thy reason and disputation to the Schoole He waited saies the story And he waited for the consolation of Israel Israel It is not an appropriating of hopes or possessions of those hopes to himselfe but a charitable desire of a communication of this consolation upon all the Israel of God Therefore is the Sacrament a Communion Therefore is the Church which is built of us 1. Pet. 2.5 Gregor Built of lively stones And in such buildings as stones doe Vnusquisque portat alterum portatur ab altero Every stone is supported by another and supports another As thou wouldest be well interpreted by others interpret others well and as when thou commest to heaven the joy and the glory of every soule shall bee thy glory and thy joy so when thou commest to the porch of the Triumphant Church the doore of heaven the Communion table desire that that joy which thou feelest in thy soule then may then be communicated to every communicant there To this purpose to testifie his devotion to the communion of Saints Templum Simeon came into the Temple saies the story to doe a holy worke in a holy place When we say that God is no accepter of persons we doe not meane but that they which are within his Covenant and they that have preserved the seales of his grace are more acceptable to him then they which are not or have not When we say that God is not tied to places we must not meane but that God is otherwise present and workes otherwise in places consecrated to his service then in every prophane place When I pray in my chamber I build a Temple there that houre And that minute when I cast out a prayer in the street I build a Temple there And when my soule prayes without any voyce my very body is then a Temple And God who knowes what I am doing in these actions erecting these Temples he comes to them and prospers and blesses my devotions and shall not I come to his Temple where he is alwaies resident My chamber were no Temple my body were no Temple except God came to it but whether I come hither or no this will be Gods Temple I may lose by my absence He gaines nothing by my comming He that hath a cause to be heard will not goe to Smithfield nor he that hath cattaile to buy or sell to Westminster He that hath bargaines to make or newes to tell should not come to doe that at Church nor he that hath prayers to make walke in the fields for his devotions If I have a great friend though in cases of necessity as sicknesse or other restraints hee will vouchsafe to visit me yet I must make my fuits to him at home at his owne house In cases of necessity Christ in the Sacrament vouchsafes to come home to me And the Court is where the King is his blessings are with his Ordinances wheresoever But the place to which he hath invited me is his house Hee that made the great Supper in the Gospel called in new guests but he sent out no meat to them who had been invited and might have come and came not Chamber-prayers single or with your family Chamber-Sermons Sermons read over there and Chamber-Sacraments administred in necessity there are blessed assistants and supplements they are as the almes at the gate but the feast is within they are as a cock of water without but the Cistern is within habenti dabitur he that hath a handfull of devotion at home shall have his devotion multiplyed to a Gomer here for when he is become a part of the Congregation he is joynt-tenant with them and the devotion of all the Congregation and the blessings upon all the Congregation are his blessings and his devotions He came to a holy place and he came by a holy motion by the Spirit In Spiritu saies his Evidence without holinesse no man shall see God not so well without holinesse of the place but not there neither if he trust onely to the holinesse of the place and bring no holinesse with him Betweene that fearefull occasion
faine reduce it to a narrower compasse of time Hâ—die si vocem ejus audieritis that you would heare his voyce to day and not harden your hearts to day And to a narrower compasse then that Dabitur in illa hora sayes Christ Luk. 12.12 The holy Ghost shall teach you in that houre In this houre the holy Ghost offers himselfe unto you And to a narrower compasse then an houre Beati qui nunc esuritis qui nunc fletis Luk. 6.21 Blessed are ye that hunger now and that mourn now that put not off years nor dayes nor hours but come to a sense of your sins and of the meanes of reconciliation to God now this minute And therefore when ye reade Iusta pondera just weights and Just balances Levit. 19.36 and just measures a just Hin and a just Ephah shall ye have I am the Lord your God Do not you say so I will hereafter I will come to just weights and measures and to deale uprightly in the world as soon as I have made a fortune established a state raised a competency for wife and children but yet I must doe as other men doe Levit. 23. when you reade Remember that you keep holy the Sabbath day and by the way remember that God hath called his other holy dayes and holy convocations Sabbaths too remember that you celebrate his Sabbaths by your presence here doe not you say so I will if I can rise time enough if I can dine soon enough when you reade sweare not at all doe not you say Matt. 5.34 no more I would but that I live amongst men that will not beleeve me without swearing and laugh at me if I did not sweare for duties of this kinde permanent and constant duties arising out of the evidence of Gods word such as just and true dealing with men such as keeping Gods Sabbaths such as not blaspheming his name have no latitude about them no conditions in them they have no circumstance but are all substance no apparell but are all body no body but are all soule no matter but are all forme They are not in Genere deliberativo they admit no deliberation but require an immediate and an exact execution But then for extraordinary things things that have not their evidence in the word of God formerly revealed unto us whether we consider matters of Doctrine Extraordinary and new opinions or matter of Practise and new commands from what depth of learning soever that new opinion seeme to us to rise or from heighth of Power soever that new-Command seeme to fall it is still in genere deliberativo still we are allowed nay still wee are commanded to deliberate Melch. Canus to doubt to consider before we execute As a good Author in the Roman Church sayes Perniciosius est Ecclesiae It is more dangerous to the Church to accept an Apocryphall book for Canonicall then to reject a Canonicall booke for Apocryphall so may it be more dangerous to doe some things which to a distempered man may seeme to be commanded by God then to forbeare some things which are truely commanded by him God had rather that himselfe should be suspected then that a false god should be admitted The easinesse of admitting Revelations and Visions and Apparitions of spirits and Purgatory souls in the Roman Church And then the overbending and super-exaltation of zeale and the captivity to the private spirit which some have fallen into that have not beene content to consist in moderate and middle wayes in the Reformed Church this easinesse of admitting imaginary apparitions of spirits in the Papist and this easinesse of submitting to the private spirit in the Schismatike hath produced effects equally mischievous Melancholy being made the seat of Religion on the one side Basil by the Papist and Phrenzy on the other side by the Schismatick Multi prae studio immoderato intendi in contrarium aberrarunt à medio was the observation and the complaint of that Father in his time and his prophecy of ours That many times an over-vehement bending into some way of our owne choosing does not onely withdraw us from the left hand way the way of superstition and Idolatry from which wee should all draw but from the middle way too in which we should stand and walk And then Leo. the danger is thus great facile in omnia flagitia impulit quos religione decepit diabolus As God doth the devill also doth make Zeal and Religion his instrument And in other tentations the devill is but a serpent but in this when he makes zeale and religion his instrument he is a Lyon As long as the devill doth but say Doe this or thou wilt live a foole and dye a begger Doe this or thou canst not live in this world the devill is but a devill he playes but a devils part a lyer a seducer But when the devill comes to say Doe this or thou canst not live in the next world thou canst not be saved here the devill pretends to be God here he acts Gods part and so prevails the more powerfully upon us And then when men are so mis-transported either in opinions or in actions with this private spirit and inordinate zeale Quibus non potest auferre fidem aufert charitatem sayes the same Father Though the devill hath not quenched faith in that man himselfe yet he hath quenched that mans charity towards other men Though that man might be saved in that opinion which he holds because perchance that opinion destroyes no fundamentall point yet his salvation is shrewdly shaked and endangered in his uncharitable thinking that no body can be saved that thinks otherwise And as it works thus to an uncharitablenesse in private so doth it to turbulency and sedition in the publique Of which Eusebius we have a pregnant and an aplyable example in the life of Constantine the Emperour In his time there arose some new questions and new opinions in some points of Religion the Emperor writ alike to both parties thus De rebus ejusmodi nec omnino rogetis nec rogati respondeatis Doe you move no questions in such things your selves and if any other doe yet be not you too forward to write so much as against them What questions doth he meane That is expressed Quas nulla lex Canonve Ecclesiasticus necessario praescribit Such questions as are not evidently declared and more then evidently declared necessarily enjoyned by some law some rule some Canon of the Church Disturbe not the peace of the Church upon Inferences and Consequences but deale onely upon those things which are evidently declared in the Articles and necessarily enjoyned by the Church And yet though that Emperor declared himselfe on neither side nor did any act in favour of either side yet because he did not declare himselfe on their side those promovers of these new opinions Eo pervenere sayes that Author ut imagines Imperatoris violarint They
he alone for the salvation of all men as it is expresly said for this word in our Text they hath no limitation I came I alone that they all they might be the better Some of the ancient Fathers delivering the mercies of God so Illis omnibus as the articles of our Church enjoyne them to bee delivered that is generally as they are delivered in the Scriptures have delivered them so over-generally that they have seemed loth to thinke the devill himselfe excluded from all benefit of Christs comming Some of the later Authors in the Roman Church who as pious as they pretend to be towards the Fathers are apter to discover the nakednesse of the Fathers then we are have noted in Iustin Martyr and in Epiphanius and in Clement of Alexandria and in Oecumenius and Oecumenius is no single Father but Pater patratus a manifold Father a complicated father a Father that collected Fathers and even in S. Ierome himselfe and S. Ambrose too some inclinations towards that opinion that the devill retaining still his faculty of free will is therefore capable of repentance and so of benefit by this comming of Christ And those Authors of the Roman Church that modifie the matter and excuse the Fathers herein excuse them no other way but this that though that opinion and doctrine of those Fathers bee not true in it selfe yet it was never condemned by any Councell nor by any ancient Father So very far did very many goe in enlarging the mercies of God in Christ to all But waiving this over-large extention and profusion thereof and directing it upon a more possible and a more credible object that is Man S. Cyril of Alexandria speaking of the possibility of the salvation of all men saies by way of objection to himselfe Omnes non credunt How can all be saved since all doe not beleeve but saies he Because actually they do not beleeve is it therefore impossible they should beleeve And for actuall beleefe saies he though all doe not yet so many doe utfacilè qui pereant superent that by Gods goodnesse more are saved then lost saies that Father of tender and large bowels Moses S. Cyril And howsoever he may seeme too tender and too large herein yet it is a good peece of counsaile which that Rabbi whom I named before gives Ne redarguas ca falsitatis de quorum contrariis nulla est demonstratio Be not aptto call any opinion false or hereticall or damnable the contrary whereof cannot be evidently proved And for this particular the generall possibility of salvation all agree that the merit of Christ Jesus is sufficient for all Whether this all-sufficiency grow ex intrinseca ratione formali out of the very nature of the merit the dignity of the person being considered or grow ex pacto acceptatione out of the acceptation of the Father and the contract betweene him and the Son for that let the Thomists and the Scotists in the Roman Church wrangle All agree that there is enough done for all And would God receive enough for all and then exclude some of himselfe without any relation any consideration of sinne God forbid Man is called by divers names names of lownesse enough in the Scriptures But by the name of Enosh Enosh that signifies meere misery Man is never called in the Scriptures till after the fall of Adam Onely sinne after and not any ill purpose in God before made man miserable The manner of expressing the mercy of God in the frame and course of Scriptures expresses evermore the largenesse of that mercy Very often in the Scriptures you shall finde the person suddenly changed and when God shall have said in the beginning of a sentence I will shew mercy unto them them as though he spoke of others presently in the same sentence he will say my loving kindnesse will I not draw from thee not from thee not from them not from any that so whensoever thou hearest of Gods mercy proposed to them to others thou mightest beleeve that mercy to bee meant to thee and whensoever they others heare that mercy proposed to thee they might beleeve it to be meant to them And so much may to good purpose be observed out of some other parts of this Chapter in another translation In the third verse it is said His sheepe heare his voice In the Arabique tranflation it is Oves audit His sheepe in the plurall does heare in the singular God is a plurall God and offers himselfe to all collectively God is a singular God and offers himselfe to every man distributively So also is it said there Nominibus suo He cals his sheepe by their names It is names in the plurall and theirs in the singular whatsoever God proposes to any he intends to all In which contemplation S. Augustine breaks out into that holy exclamation O bone omnipotens qui sic cur as unumquemque nostrûm tanquam solum cures sic omnes tamquam singulos O good and mighty God who art as loving to every man as to all mankind and meanest as well to all mankind as to any man Be pleased to make your use of this note for the better imprinting of this largenesse of Gods mercy Moses desires of God Exod. 33.13 V. 18. V. 19. that he would shew him Vias suas His waies his proceedings his dealings with men that which he calls after Gloriam suam His glory how he glorifies himselfe upon man God promises him in the next verse that he will shew him Omne bonum All his goodnesse Exod. 346. God hath no way towards man but goodnesse God glorifies himselfe in nothing upon man but in his owne goodnesse And therefore when God comes to the performance of this promise in the next Chapter he showes him his way and his glory and his goodnesse in shewing him that he is a mercifull God a gracious God a long-suffering God a God that forgives sins and iniquities and as the Hebrew Doctors note there are thirteen attributes thirteen denotations of God specified in that place and of all those thirteen there is but one that tasts of judgement That he will punish the sins of Fathers upon Children All the other twelve are meerly wholly mercy such a proportion hath his mercy above his justice such a proportion as that there is no cause in him if all men be not partakers of it Shall we say sayes S. Cyril Melius agriculturam non exerceri si quae nocent tolli non possunt It were better there were no tillage then that weeds should grow Melius non creasse better that God had made no men then that so many should be damned God made none to be damned And therefore though some would expunge out of our Litany that Rogation that Petition That thou wouldst have mercy upon all men as though it were contrary to Gods purpose to have mercy upon all men yet S. Augustine enlarges his charity too far Libera nos Domine
kneeling they must not But this I presume that particular Synod did not declare by way of Doctrine to binde other Churches but enjoyned a Discipline for their owne Now for the danger of scandalizing others all that come to Church and are of our profession in Religion are sufficiently catechized and informed of the reason of our kneeling and that we are therein farre from the Adoration of the Romane Practise It is a complaint often made and often to be repeated that one of the greatest illusions and impostures of the Romane Church is That the Book-Doctrine of their learned men and the ordinary practice of their people agree not They know the people doe commit Idolatry in their manner of adoring the Bread in the Sacrament and they never preach against this error of the people nor tell them wherein that Idolatry lies It is true that in their Bookes of Controversies which the people could not understand if they might reade them nor may reade them if they could understand them in those bookes they proceed upon safer grounds There they say that when a man adores the Sacrament he must be sure that he carry not his thoughts upon any thing that he sees not onely not upon Bread and Wine for that they must not beleeve to be there whatsoever they see or taste but not upon those species and apparences of Bread and Wine which they seem to see but he must carry all his thoughts upon the person of Christ who is there though he see him not for otherwise say they if he should adore that which he sees he should commit Idolatry Now if the people were acquainted with this Doctrine and could possibly observe it the danger were not so great in that Adoration of the Sacrament Much lesse is there in our kneeling who as we acknowledge that God is present every where yet otherwise present to us when we throw our selves downe before him in devotion and prayer in our Chamber then he is in the Market or in the street and otherwise in the Congregation at Publike prayer then at private prayer in our Chamber so weacknowledge that he is otherwise present at the Sacrament then at any other act of Divine Service That which Christs Example left indifferent the Authority of that Church in which God hath given thee thy station may make necessary to thee Though not absolutely necessary and Ratione medii that none can be saved that doe not kneele at the Sacrament therefore because they doe not kneele yet necessary Ratione praecepti as it is enjoyned by lawfull authority and to resist lawfull authority is a disobedience that may endanger any mans salvation Now from this Sermon 2. Part. which gave us our Text we passe to the Text which must give us our Sermon the particular Branches of the Text it selfe which we proposed at first for our second part And there our first is Qui sint who they be that are brought into consideration Mundi corde those that are pure of heart first pure and then pure of heart In the purest times of the Primitive Church there crept in false opinions of purity we finde two sorts of Puritanes then The Catharists and the Cathari the Catharists were purifying Puritanes and the Cathari were purified Puritanes The first thought no creatures pure for mans use till they were sanctified by them and thereupon they induced certain charmes and formes of Purification too detestable to be named amongst Christians And then the Cathari the purified Puritanes thought no men pure but themselves and themselves so pure as that they left out that petition out of the Lords prayer Dimitte nobis forgive us our trespasses for they thought they had trespassed in nothing They have a third state of Puritanes above these in the Romane Church where they say that a man come to such a state of purity in this life as that he shall be abstracted not onely a passionibus from all inordinatenesse of affections and passions but a phantasmatibus from apprehending any thing by those lazy degrees of the senses and the phantasie and discourse and reading and meditation and conversation but they shall come to such a familiarity with God as that they shall know all by immediate Revelation They meane and indeed some of them say that a man come to that purity in this life as that in this life hee shall bee in possession of that very Beatificall vision which is the state of glory in heaven In which purity they say also that a man may not onely be empty of all sin but he may be too full of Gods presence over-fraighted with his grace so farre that as they make Philip Nerius the Founder of their last Order their example they shall be put to that exclamation Recede à me Domine O Lord depart farther from me and withdraw some of this grace which thou pourest upon me And then besides these three imaginary and illusory purities The Catharists that think no things pure The Cathari that think no men pure but themselves and the Super-cathari in the Romane Church that think these men as pure as the Saints who are in possession of the sight of God in heaven there is a true purity which will not serve our turns which is a partiall purity that purenesse that cleannesse that innocency to which David so often referres himself in his religious and humble expostulations with God Iudge me and deale with me according to my righteousnesse and mine innocency and cleannesse of heart and hands saies David that is as I am innocent and guiltlesse in that particular which Saul imputes to me and persecutes me for For this purenesse which is this marke of the Saints of God is not partiall but universall it is not a fig-leafe that covers one spot of nakednesse but an intire garment a cleannesse in all our actions We say sometimes and not altogether improperly that a man walks cleane if in a foule way he contract but a few spots of dirt but yet this is not an absolute cleannesse A house is not cleane except Cobwebs be swept downe A man is not cleane except he remove the lightest and slightest occasions of provocation It is the speech of the greatest to the greatest of Christ to the Church Capite vulpeculas Take us the little Foxes for they devoure the Vine It is not a cropping a pilling a retarding of the growth of the Vine that is threatned but a devouring though but from little Foxes It is not so desperate a state to have thy soule attempted by that Lion that seekes whom he may devoure for then in great and apparant sinnes thou wilt be occasioned to call upon the Lion of the tribe of Juda to thine assistance as it is to have thy soule eaten up by vermin by the custome and habit of small sinnes God punished the Egyptians with little things with Hailestones and Froggs and Grashoppers and Pharaohs Conjurers that counterfaited all Moses greater workes failed in the
accrues to us we shall see that though it be presented by Reason before and illustrated by Reason after yet the roote and foundation thereof is in Faith though Reason may chafe the wax yet Faith imprints the seale for the Resurrection is not a conclusion out of naturall Reason but it is an article of supernaturall Faith and though you assent to me now speaking of the Resurrection yet that is not out of my Logick nor out of my Rhetorique but out of that Character and Ordinance which God hath imprinted in me in the power and efficacy whereof I speak unto you as often as I speak out of this place As I say we determine our first part in this How the assurance of this Resurrection accrues to us so when we descend to our second part That is the consolation which we receive whilest we are In via here upon our way in this world out of the contemplation of that Resurrection to glory which we shall have In patria at home in heaven and how these two Resurrections are arguments and evidences of one another we shall look upon some correspondencies and resemblances between naturall death and spirituall death by sin and between the glorious Resurrection of the body and the gracious Resurrection of the soule that so having brought bodily death and bodily Resurrection and spirituall death and spirituall Resurrection by their comparison into your consideration you may anon depart somewhat the better edified in both and so enjoy your present Resurrection of the soule by Grace with more certainty and expect the future Resurrection of the body to glory with the more alacrity and chearfulnesse Though therefore we may hereafter take just occasion of entring into a war 1. Part. in vindicating and redeeming these words seased and seduced by our adversaries to testifie for their Purgatory yet this day being a day of peace and reconciliation with God and man we begin with peace with that wherein all agree That these words Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead If the dead rise not at all why are they baptized for dead must necessarily receive such an Exposition as must be an argument for the Resurrection This baptisme pro mortuis for dead must be such a baptisme as must prove that the Resurrection For that the Apostle repeats twice in these few words Else sayes he that is if there be no Resurrection why are men thus baptized And again if the dead rise not why are men thus baptized Indeed the whole Chapter is a continuall argument for the Resurrection from the beginning thereof to the 35. ver he handles the An sit whether there be a Resurrection or no For if that be denyed or doubted in the roote in the person of Christ whether he be risen or no the whole frame of our religion fals and every man will be apt and justly apt to ask that question which the Indian King asked when he had been catechized so far in the articles of our Christian religion as to come to the suffered and crucified and dead and buried impatient of proceeding any farther and so losing the consolation of the Resurrection he asked only Is your God dead and buried then let me return to the worship of the Sun for I am sure the Sun will not die If Christ be dead and buried that is continue in the state of death and of the grave without a Resurrection where shall a Christian look for life Therefore the Apostle handles and establishes that first that assurance A Resurrection there is From thence he raises and pursues a second question De modo But some man will say sayes he How are the dead raised up and with what body come they forth And in these questions De modo there is more exercise of reason and of discourse for many times The matter is matter of faith when the manner is not so but considerable and triable by reason Many times for the matter we are all bound and bound upon salvation to think alike But for the manner we may think diversly without forfeiture of salvation or impeachment of discretion For he is not presently an indiscreet man that differs in opinion from another man that is discreet in things that fall under opinion Absit superstito Geâ—son hoc est superflua religio sayes a moderate man of the Romane Church This is truly superstition to bring more under the necessity of being beleeved then God hath brought in his Scriptures superfluous religion sayes he is superstition Remove that and then as he addes there Contradictoria quorum utrumque probabile credi possunt Where two contrary opinions are both probable they may be embraced and beleeved by two men and those two be both learned and discreet and pious and zealous men And this consideration should keep men from that precipitation of imprinting the odious and scandalous names of Sects or Sectaries upon other men who may differ from them and from others with them in some opinions Probability leads me in my assent and I think thus Let me allow another man his probability too and let him think his way in things that are not fundamentall They that do not beleeve alike in all circumstances of the manner of the Resurrection may all by Gods goodnesse meet there and have their parts in the glory thereof if their own uncharitablenesse do not hinder them And he that may have been in the right opinion may sooner misse heaven then he that was in the wrong if he come uncharitably to condemne or contemne the other for in such cases humility and love of peace may in the sight of God excuse and recompence many errours and mistakings And after these of the Matter of the Manner of the Resurrection the Apostle proceeds to a third question of their state and condition whom Christ shall finde alive upon Earth at his second comming and of them he sayes onely this Ecce mysterium vobis dico Behold I tell you a mystery a secret we shall not all sleep that is not dye so as that we shall rest any time in the grave but we shall all be changed that is receive such an immutation as that we shall have a sudden dissolution of body and soul which is a true death and a sudden re-union of body and soule which is a true resurrection in an instant in the twinkling of an eye Thus carefull and thus particular is the Apostle that the knowledge of the resurrection might be derived unto us Now of these three questions which he raises and pursues first whether there be a Resurrection then what manner of Resurrection and then what kinde of Resu rrection they shall have that live to the day of Judgement our Text enters into the first For for the first That a resurrection there is the Apostle opens severall Topiques to prove it One is from our Head and Patterne and Example Christ Jesus For so he argues first If the dead be not raised
to the Church by one Sermon still our Christnings were equall to our burials at least Therefore when Christ saies to the Church Luke 12.32 Feare not little flock it was not Quia de magnominuitur sed quia de pusillo crescit saies Chrysologus Not because it should fall from great to little but rise from little to great Such care had Christ of the growth thereof and then such care of the establishment and power thereof as that the first time that ever he names the Church Mat. 16.18 he invests it with an assurance of perpetuity Vpon this Rock will I build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevaile against it Therein is denoted the strength and stability of the Church in it selfe and then the power and authority of the Church upon others in those often directions Dic Ecclesiae complaine to the Church and consult with the Church and then Audi Ecclesiam Harken to the Church be judged by the Church heare not them that heare not the Church And then Ejice de Ecclesia let them that disobey the Church be cast out of the Church In all which we are forbidden private Conventicles private Spirits private Opinions For as S. Augustine saies well Psal 49. and he cites it from another whom he names not Quidam dixit If a wall stand single not joyned to any other wall he that makes a doore through the wall and passes through that doore Adhuc foris est for all this is without still Nam domus nonest One wall makes not a house One opinion makes not Catholique Doctrine one man makes not a Church for this knowledge of God the Church is our Academy there we must be bred and there we may be bred all our lives and yet learne nothing Therefore as we must be there so there we must use the meanes And the meanes in the Church are the Ordinances and Institutions of the Church The most powerfull meanes is the Scripture Medium Institutie But the Scripture in the Church Not that we are discouraged from reading the Scripture at home God forbid we should think any Christian family to be out of the Church At home the holy Ghost is with thee in the reading of the Scriptures But there he is with thee as a Remembrancer The Holy Ghost shall bring to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you saies our Saviour Here Iohn 14.26 in the Church he is with thee as a Doctor to teach thee First learne at Church and then meditate at home Receive the seed by hearing the Scriptures interpreted here and water it by returning to those places at home When Christ bids you Search the Scriptures he meanes you should go to them who have a warrant to search A warrant in their Calling To know which are Scriptures To know what the holy Ghost saies in the Scriptures apply thy selfe to the Church Not that the Church is a Judge above the Scriptures for the power and the Commission which the Church hath it hath from the Scriptures but the Church is a Judge above thee which are the Scriptures and what is the sense of the Holy Ghost in them So then thy meanes are the Scriptures That is thy evidence but then this evidence must be sealed to thee in the Sacraments and delivered to thee in Preaching and so sealed and delivered to thee in the presence of competent witnesses the Congregation When S. Paul was carried up In raptu 2 Cor. 12.4 in an extasie into Paradise that which he gained by this powerfull way of teaching is not expressed in a Vidit but an Audivit It is not said that he saw but that he heard unspeakeable things The eye is the devils doore before the eare for though he doe enter at the eare by wanton discourse yet he was at the eye be fore we see before we talke dangerously But the eare is the Holy Ghosts first doore He assists us with Rituall and Ceremoniall things which we see in the Church but Ceremonies have their right use when their right use hath first beene taught by preaching Therefore to hearing does the Apostle apply faith And as the Church is our Academy and our Medium the Ordinances of the Church so the light by which we see this that is know God so as to make him our God is faith and that is our other Consideration in this part Those Heretiques against whom S. Chrysostome and others of the Fathers writ Lumen fides The Anomaei were inexcusable in this that they said They were able to know God in this life as well as God knew himselfe But in this more especially lay their impiety that they said They were able to doe all this by the light of Nature without Faith By the light of Nature in the Theatre of the World by the Medium of Creatures we see God but to know God by beleeving not only Him but in Him is only in the Academy of the Church only through the Medium of the Ordinances there and only by the light of Faith The Schooledoes ordinarily designe foure wayes of knowing God and they make the first of these foure waies to be by faith but then by faith they meane no more but an assent that there is a God which is but that which in our former Considerations we called The seeing of God and which indeed needs not faith for the light of Nature will serve for that to see God so They make their second way Contemplation that is An union of God in this life which is truly the same thing that we meane by Faith for we do not call an assent to the Gospell faith but faith is the application of the Gospell to our selves not an assent that Christ dyed but an assurance that Christ dyed for all Their third way of knowing God is by Apparition as when God appeared to the Patriarchs and others in fire in Angels or otherwise And their fourth way is per apertam visionem by his cleare manifestation of himself in heaven Their first way by assenting only and their third way of apparition are weak and uncertain wayes The other two present Faith and future Vision are safe wayes but admit this difference That that of future Vision is gratiae consummantis such a knowledge of God as when it is once had can never be lost nor diminished But knowledge by faith in this world is Gratiae communis it is an effect and fruit of that Grace which God shed upon the whole communion of Saints that is upon all those who in this Academy the Church do embrace the Medium that is the Ordinances of the Church And this knowledge of God by this faith may be diminished and encreased for it is but In aenigmate sayes our Text darkly obscurely Clearly in respect of the naturall man but yet but obscurely in respect of that knowledge of God which we shall have in heaven for sayes the Apostle As long as we
committed their first sin to the time that they were cast down into hell they whom we call the more subtile part of the Schoole say That In illa moâ—â— la during that space between their falling into their sin and their expulsion from heaven the Angels might have repented and been restored for so long say they those Angels were but in statu viatorum in the state and condition of persons as yet upon their way as all men are as long as they are alive and not In termino in their last and determined station And that which is so often cited out of Damascen concerning the fall of Angels Quod hominibus mors est Angelis casus That as death works upon man and concludes him and makes him impenitible for ever so works the fall upon the Angels and concludes them for ever too they interpret to have been intended by Damascen not of the Angels fall in heaven but their fall from heaven for till then they were not say they Intermino in their last state and so not impenitible Apoc. 12.7 And those Ancients which expound that battle in heaven between Michael and the Dragon and their severall Angels to have been fought at that time after their fall and between Lucifers rebellion and his expulsion as the Ancients abound much in that sense of that place argue rationally That that battle what kinde of battle soever it were must necessarily have spent some time They conceive it to have been a battle of Disputation of Argumentation of Perswasion and that those good Angels which are so glad of our Conversion would have been infinitely glad to have reduced their rebellious brethren to their obedience And during that time which could not be a sudden instant they were not Inadeptivi gratiae Hiesolom incapable of repentance and of mercy S. Cyril comes towards it comes neare it nay if it be well observed goes beyond it Of Gods longanimity and patience toward man sayes he we have in part spoken Quanta ille Angelis condonaverit nescimus how great transgressions he hath forgiven in the Angels we know not only this we know sayes he Solus qui peccdre non possit Iesus est There is none impeccable none that cannot sin Man nor Angel but only Christ Jesus Nay after the expulsion of the Angels Angels lapsi in Infernum not onely after their fall in Heaven but their fall from Heaven many of the Ancients seeme loath to exclude all wayes of Gods mercy even from hell it selfe De statu moti sed non irremediabiliter moti saies Origen The Angels are fallen fallen even into hell but not so irrecoverably fallen Vt Institutionibus bonorum Angelorum non possint restitui But that by the counsaile and labour of the good Angels they may be restored againe Origen is thought to be single singular in this doctrine Eph. 3.10 but he is not Even S. Ambrose interpreting that place That S. Paul saies He was made a Minister of the Gospel Vt innotesceret to the intent that the wisdome of God might by the Church be made knowne to Powers and Principalities interprets it of fallen Angels That they the fallen Angels might receive benefit by the preaching of the Gospell in the Church Prudentius saies not so but this he does say That upon this day when our blessed Saviour arose from hell Poenarum celebres sub Styge feriae And Suppliciis mitibus Nee forvent solito flumina sulphure Some relaxation some ease in their torments at some time some very good men have imagined even in hell And more then that they have not absolutely cryed downe for so much it deserves that fable of Traian That after that Emperour had beene some time in hell yet upon the prayers of Pope Gregory he was removed to Heaven 〈…〉 Nay more then that for that was but of one man But an Author of our age and much esteemed in the Roman Church delivers as his owne opinion and thinks he hath the subtiler part of the Schoole on his side That that which is so often said from hell there is no redemption is only to be understood of them whom God sends to hell as to their last place to them certainely there is no redemption But saies he God may send soules of the heathen who had not the benefit of any Christian Church and yet were good morall men to burne out certaine errors or ignorances or sins in hell and then remove them to Heaven for for so long time they are but Viatores they are but in their way and not concluded Beloved that we might have something in the balance to weigh downe the curelty and the petulancy and the pertinacy of those men who in these later times have so attenuated the mercy of God as that they have almost brought it to nothing for there is no mercy where there is no misery and they place all mercy to have beene given at once and that before man was fallen into misery by sin or before man was made and have pronounced that God never meant to shew mercy to all them nor but to a very few of them to whom he pretended to offer it that we might have something in the balance to weigh against these unmercifull men I have staid thus long upon these over-mercifull men that have carried mercy upon the Saints of God in temporall abundances after the Resurrection and upon the Heathen who never heard Gospell preached and upon the Angels fallen in Heaven and upon those Angels fallen from Heaven into hell and upon the soules of men there not onely in the ease of their torments but in their translation from thence to Heaven That so our later men might see that the Ancients thought God so far from beginning at Hate That God should first for his glory hate some and then make them that he might execute his hate upon them as that they thought god implacable inexorable irreconciliable to none therfore to these unmercifull have we opposed these overmercifull men But yet to them wee must say Numquid Deus indiget mendacio vestro Iob 13.7 ut pro eo Ioquamini dolos Shall wee lye for God or speake deceitfully for him deceive your soules with over-extending his mercy wee may derive mercy from hell though wee carry not mercy to hell Gehenna non solum eorum qui puniendi causa facta Origen sed eorum qui salvandi Hell was not onely made for their sakes who were to suffer in it but for theirs who were to be warned by it and so there is mercy in hell Cooperatur regno saies S. Chrysostome elegantly Hell hath a co-operation with Heaven Chrysost It works upon us in the advancement of our Salvation as well as Heaven Nec saevitiaeres est sed misericordiae Hell is not a monument of Gods cruelty but of his mercy Et nisi fuisset intentata gehenna in gehennam omnes cecidissemus If we were not told of hell we
see Death we answer It may be that those Men whom Christ shal find upon the earth alive at his returne to Judge the World shall dye then and it may be they shall but be changed and not dye That Christ shall judge quick and dead is a fundamentall thing we heare it in S. Peters Sermon Acts 10.42 to Cornelius and his company and we say it every day in the Creed Hee shall judge the quick and the dead But though we doe not take the quick and the dead August Chrys as Augustine and Chrysostome doe for the Righteous which lived in faith and the unrighteous which were dead in sinne Though wee doe not take the quick and the dead as Ruffinus and others doe for the soule and the body He shall judge the soule which was alwaies alive and he shall the body which was dead for a time though we take the words as becomes us best literally yet the letter does not conclude but that they whom Christ shall finde alive upon earth shall have a present and sudden dissolution and a present and sudden re-union of body and soul again Saint Paul sayes Behold I shew you a mystery Therefore it is not a cleare case and presently 1 Cor. 15.51 and peremptorily determined but what is it We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed But whether this sleeping be spoke of death it self and exclude that that we shall not die or whether this sleep be spoke of a rest in the grave and exclude that we shall not be buried and remain in death that may be a mystery still S. Paul sayes too 1 Thes 4.17 The dead in Christ shall rise first Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the ayre But whether that may not still be true that S. Augustine sayes that there shall be Mors in raptu August An instant and sudden dis-union and re-union of body and soul which is death who can tell So on the other side when it is said to him in whom all we were to Adam Pulvis es Dust thou art Gen. 3.19 1 Cor. 15.22 Rom. 5.12 and into dust thou shalt return when it is said In Adam all die when it is said Death passed upon all men for all have sinned Why may not all those sentences of Scripture which imply a necessity of dying admit that restriction Nisi dies judicii natur ae cursum immutet Pet. Mar. We shall all die except those in whom the comming of Christ shall change the course of Nature Consider the Scriptures then and we shall be absolutely concluded neither way Consider Authority and we shall finde the Fatherrs for the most part one way and the Schoole for the most part another Take later men and all those in the Romane Church Then Cajetan thinks that they shall not die and Catharin is so peremptory Cajetan Catharinus that they shall as that he sayes of the other opinion Falsam esse confidenter asserimus contra Scripturas sat is manifestas omnino sine ratione It is false and against Scriptures and reason saith he Take later men and all those in the reformed Church Calvin and Calvin sayes Quia aboletur prior natura censetur species mortis sed non migrabit anima à corpore S. Paul calls it death because it is a destruction of the former Beeing but it is not truly death saith Calvin and Luther saith Luther That S. Pauls purpose in that place is only to shew the suddennesse of Christs comming to Judgement Non autem inficiatur omnes morituros nam dormire est sepeliri But S. Paul doth not deny but that all shall die for that sleeping which he speaks of is buriall and all shall die though all shall not be buried saith Luther Take then that which is certain It is certain a judgement thou must passe If thy close and cautelous proceeding have saved thee from all informations in the Exchequer thy clearnesse of thy title from all Courts at Common Law thy moderation from the Chancery and Star-Chamber If heighth of thy place and Authority have saved thee even from the tongues of men so that ill men dare not slander thy actions nor good men dare not discover thy actions no not to thy self All those judgements and all the judgements of the world are but interlocutory judgements There is a finall judgement In judicantes judicatos against Prisoners and Judges too where all shal be judged again Datum est omne judicium All judgement is given to the Son of man John 5. and upon all the sons of men must his judgement passe A judgement is certain and the uncertainty of this judgement is certain too perchance God will put off thy judgement thou shalt not die yet but who knows whether God in his mercy do put off this judgement till these good motions which his blessed Spirit inspires into thee now may take roote and receive growth and bring forth fruit or whether he put it off for a heavier judgement to let thee see by thy departing from these good motions and returning to thy former sins after a remorse conceived against those sins that thou art inexcusable even to thy self and thy condemnation is just even to thine own conscience So perchance God will bring this judgement upon thee now now thou maist die but whether God will bring that judgement upon thee now in mercy whilest his Graces in his Ordinance of preaching work some tendernesse in thee and gives thee some preparation some fitnesse some courage to say Veni Domine Iesu Come Lord Iesu come quickly come now or whether he will come now in judgement because all this can work no tendernesse in thee who can tell Thou hearest the word of God preached as thou hearest an Oration with some gladnesse in thy self if thou canst heare him and never be moved by his Oratory thou thinkest it a degree of wisdome to be above perswasion and when thou art told that he that feares God feares nothing else thou thinkest thy self more valiant then so if thou feare not God neither Whether or why God defers or hastens the judgement we know not This is certain this all S. Pauls places collineate to this all the Fathers and all the Schoole all the Cajetans and all the Catharins all the Luthers and all the Calvins agree in A judgement must be and it must be In ictu oculi In the twinkling of an eye and Fur in nocte A thiefe in the night Make the question Quis homo What man is he that liveth and shall not passe this judgement or what man is he that liveth and knowes when this judgement shall be So it is a Nemo scit A question without an answer but ask it as in the text Quis homo Who liveth and shall not die so it is a problematicall matter and in such
Solomon do for the most part hold in Christ Christ is for the most part the Wisdome of that book And for that book which is called altogether The book of Wisdome Isidore sayes that a Rabbi of the Jews told him That that book was heretofore in the Canonicall Scripture and so received by the Jews till after Christs Crucifying when they observed what evident testimonies there were in that book for Christ they removed it from the Canon This I know is not true but I remember it therefore because all assists us to consider Wisdome in Christ as that does also That the greatest Temple of the Christians in Constantinople was dedicated in that name Sophia to Wisdome by implication to Christ And in some apparitions where the Son of God is said to have appeared he cals himself by that name Sapientiam Dei He is Wisdome therefore because he reveales the Will of the Father to us and therefore is no man wise but he that knowes the Father in him Isidore makes this difference Inter sapientem prudentem that the first The wise man attends the next world the last The prudent man but this world But wisdome even heavenly wisdome does not exclude that prudence though the principall or rather the ordinary object thereof be this world And therefore sins against the second Person are sins against Wisdome in either extreame either in affected and grosse ignorance or in overrefined and sublimed curiosity As we place this Ignorance in Practicall things of this world so it is Stupidity and as we place it in Doctrinall things of the next world so Ignorance is Implicite Beliefe And Curiosity as we place it upon Practical things is Craft and upon Doctrinal things Subtilty And this Stupidity and this Implicite faith and then this Craft and this Subtilty are sins directed against the Son who is true and onely Wisdome First then A stupid and negligent passage through this world as though thou wert no part of it without embarking thy selfe in any calling To crosse Gods purpose so much Stupiditas as that whereas he produced every thing out of nothing to be something thou wilt go so far back towards nothing againe as to be good for nothing that when as our Lawes call a Calling an Addition thou wilt have no Addition And when as S. Augustine saies Musca Soli praeferenda quia vivit A Fly is a nobler Creature then the Sun in this respect because a Fly hath life in it selfe and the Sun hath none so any Artificer is a better part of a State then any retired or contemplative man that embraces no Calling These chippings of the world these fragmentary and incoherent men trespasse against the Son against the second Person as he is Wisdome And so doe they in doctrinall things that swallow any particular religion upon an implicite faith When Christ declared a very forward knowledge in the Temple at twelve yeares with the Doctors yet he was there Audiens interrogans He heard what they would say and he moved questions to heare what they could say for Ejusdem scientiae est scire quid interroges quidve respondeas Luke 2.46 Origen It is a testimony of as much knowledge to aske a pertinent question as to give a pertinent answer But never to have beene able to give answer never to have asked question in matter of Religion this is such an Implicitenesse and indifferency as transgresses against the Son of God who is Wisdome It is so too in the other extreame Curiosity And this in Practicall things is Craft Curiositas in Doctrinall Subtilty Craft is properly and narrowly To go towards good ends by ill wayes And though this be not so ill as when neither ends nor wayes be good yet this is ill too The Civilians use to say of the Canonists and Casuists That they consider nothing but Crassam aequitatem fat Equity downe-right Truths things obvious and apprehensible by every naturall man and to doe but so to be but honest men and no more they thinke a diminution To stay within the limits of a profession within the limits of precedents within the limits of time is to over-active men contemptible nothing is wisdome till it be exalted to Craft and got above other men And so it is with some with many in Doctrinall things too To rest in Positive Divinity and Articles confessed by all Churches To be content with Salvation at last and raise no estimation no emulation no opinion of singularity by the way only to edifie an Auditory and not to amaze them onely to bring them to an assent and to a practise and not to an admiration This is but home-spun Divinity but Country-learning but Catechisticall doctrine Let me know say these high-flying men what God meant to doe with man before ever God meant to make man I care not for that Law that Moses hath written That every man can read That he might have received from God in one day Let me know the Cabal that which passed betweene God and him in all the rest of the forty dayes I care not for Gods revealed Will his Acts of Parliament his publique Proclamations Let me know his Cabinet Counsailes his bosome his pocket dispatches Is there not another kinde of Predestination then that which is revealed in Scriptures which seemes to be onely of those that beleeve in Christ May not a man be saved though he doe not and may not a man bee damned though he doe performe those Conditions which seeme to make sure his salvation in the Scriptures Beloved our Countrey man Holkot upon the booke of Wisdome sayes well of this Wisdome which we must seeke in the Booke of God After he hath magnified it in his harmonious manner which was the style of that time after he had said Cujus authore nihil sublimius That the Author of the Scripture was the highest Author for that was God Cujus tenore nihil solidius That the assurance of the Scripture was the safest foundation for it was a Rock Cujus valore nihil locupletius That the riches of the Scripture was the best treasure for it defrayed us in the next World After he had pursued his way of Elegancy and called it Munimentum Majestatis That Majesty and Soveraignty it selfe was established by the Scriptures and Fundamentum firmitatis That all true constancy was built upon that and Complementum potestatis That the exercise of all power was to be directed by that he reserves the force of all to the last and contracts all to that Emolumentum proprietatis The profit which I have in appropriating the power and the wisdome of the Scriptures to my selfe All wisdome is nothing to me if it be not mine and I have title to nothing that is not conveyed to me by God in his Scriptures and in the wisdome manifested to me there I rest I looke upon Gods Decrees in the execution of those Decrees and I try whether I be within that Decree
fault Harshnesse and morosity in behaviour rusticity and coorsenesse of language are no arguments in themselves of a plaine and a direct meaning and of a simple heart Abraham was an hundred yeares old and that might in the generall indispose him And it was soone after his Circumcision which also might be a particular disabling He was sitting still and so not onely enjoying his bodily ease but his Meditation for his eyes were cast downe But as soon as he lift up his eyes and had occasion presented him to doe a curtesie for all his age and infirmity and possession of rest he runs to them and he bowes himselfe to them and salutes them with words not onely of curtesie but of reverence Explorat itinera sayes S. Ambrose he searches and inquires into their journey that he might direct them or accompany or accommodate them A dest non quaerentibus He prevents them and offers before they aske Rapit praetergressuros when they pretended to goe farther he forced them by the irresistible violence of curtesie to stay with him and he calls them or one amongst them Dominum Lord and professes himselfe their servant But Abraham did not determine his curtesie in words and no more We must not think that because onely man of all creatures can speak that therefore the onely duty of man is to speake faire Apparell makes some shew in a wardrobe but not halfe so good as when it is upon a body faire language does ever well but never so well as when it apparels a reall curtesie Abraham entreated them faire and entertained them well he spoke kindly and kindly performed all offices of ease and refocillation to these way-faring strangers Now here is our copie but who writes after this copie Abraham is pater multitudinis A father of large posterity but he is dead without issue or his race is failed for who hath this hospitall care of relieving distressed persons now Thou seest a needy person and thou turnest away thine eye but it is the Prince of Darknesse that casts this mist upon thee Thou stoppest thy nose at his sores but they are thine owne incompassionate bowels that stinke within thee Thou tellest him he troubles thee and thinkest thou hast chidden him into a silence but he whispers still to God and he shall trouble thee worse at last when he shall tell thee in the mouth of Christ Jesus I was hungry and ye fed me not Still thou sayest to the poore I have not for you when God knowes a great part of that which thou hast thou hast for them if thou wouldst execute Gods commission and dispense it accordingly as God hath made thee his steward for the poore Give really and give gently Doe kindly and speake kindly too for that is Bread and Hony Abraham then tooke these for men An Angeli and offered curtesies proper for men for though hee called him to whom hee spoke Dominum Lord yet it is not that name of the Lord which implyes his Divinity it is not Iehovah but Adonai it is the same name and the same word Iohn 20. which his wife Sara after gives him And Mary Magdalen when she was at Christs Sepulchre speaks of Christ and speaks to the Gardiner as she thought in one and the same word Tulerunt Dominum she sayes of Christ They have taken away my Lord And to the Gardiner she sayes Domine si sustulisti for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the word in both places was but a name of civill curtesie and is well enough translated by our men in that later place Sir Sir if you have taken him away c. Abraham then at their first appearing had no evidence that they were other then men but we have for that place of the Apostle Heb. 13.2 Be not forgetfull to entertaine strangers for thereby some have entertained Angels unawares hath evermore by all Expositors had reference to this action of Abrahams which proves both these first branches That he knew it not and That they were Angels The Apostles principall purpose there is to recommend to us Hospitality but limited to such hospitality as might in likelihood or in possibility be an occasion of entertaining Angels that is of Angelicall men good and holy men Hospitality is a vertue more recommended by the Writers in the Primitive Church then any other vertue but upon this reason That the poore flock of Christ Jesus being by persecution then scattered upon the face of the earth men were necessarily to be excited with much vehemence to succour and relieve them and to receive them into their houses as they travailed Tertullian sayes well That the whole Church of God is one houshold He sayes every particular Church is Ecclesia Apostolica quia soboles Apostolicarum An Apostolicall Church if it be an off-spring of the Apostolicall Churches He does not say quia soboles Apostolicae because that Church is the off-spring of the Apostolicall Church as though there were but one such which must be the mother of all for sayes he Omnes primae omnes Apostolicae Every Church is a supreme Church and every Church is an Apostolicall Church dum omnes unam probant unitatem as long as they agree in the unity of that doctrine which the Apostles taught and adhere to the supreme head of the whole Church Christ Jesus Which S. Cyprian expresses more clearly Episcopatus unus est The whole Church is but one Bishoprick Cujus à singulis in solidum pars tenetur Every Bishop is Bishop of the whole Church and no one more then another The Church then was and should be as one houshold And in this houshold sayes Tertullian there there was first Communicatio pacis a peaceable disposition a charitable interpretation of one anothers actions And then there was Appellatio fraternitatis sayes he That if they did differ in some things yet they esteemed themselves sons of one Father of God and by one Mother the Catholique Church and did not break the band of Brotherhood nor separate from one another for every difference in opinion And lastly sayes he There was Contesseratio Hospitalitatis A warrant for their reception and entertainment in one anothers houses wheresoever they travailed Now because for the benefit and advantage of this ease and accommodation in travailing men conterfeited themselves to be Christians that were not the Councel of Nice made such provision as was possible though that also were deluded after which was That there should be literae formatae as they called them certaine testimoniall letters subscribed with foure characters denoting Father Son and holy Ghost and those letters should be contesseratio hospitalitatis a warrant for their entertainment wheresoever they came Still there was a care of hospitality but such as Angels that is Angelicall good and religious men and truly Christians might be received Beloved Baptisme in the name of the Father Son and holy Ghost is this Contesseration all that are truly
of the Reformed Religion which are not likely to admit them but in the Dominions of the Turk himselfe And into the Councel of Trent they threw and thrust they shov'd and shoveld in such Bishops in abundance They created that their numbers might carry all new Titular Bishops of every place in the Eastern the Greek Church where there had ever been Bishops before though those very places were now no Cities Not onely not within his Jurisdiction but not at all upon the face of the earth But in better times then these though times in which the Church was much afflicted too S. Cyril of Alexandria mentions six thousand Bishops at once against Nestorius Now if the Church had six thousand Bishops at once certainly all of them had not Diocesses to reside upon sometimes collaterall necessities enforce a departing from exact regularity in matter of government So it did when S. Ambrose was chosen Bishop of Milan in the West and Nectarius Bishop of Constantinople in the East when they were both not onely Lay-men but unbaptized But yet though there be divers cases in which Bishops may justly be excused from residence for they are still resident upon the Church of God if not upon the Church of that City yet naturally and regularly an obligation falling upon them of Residence the Apostles were more bound to certaine limits by being Bishops then S. Paul was of whom it does not appeare that he was ever so I know some later men have thought S. Paul a Bishop And they have found some satisfaction in that That Niger Acts 13.3 and Lucius and Manaen laid their hands upon Barnabas and Paul and that Imposition of hands say they was a Consecration And this reason supplyes them too That Paul did consecrate other Bishops as Timothy of Ephesus and Titus of Crete But since Niger Tit. 1.5 and Lucius and Manaen that laid their hands upon Paul were not Bishops themselves Paul cannot therefore be concluded to be a Bishop because he laid his hands upon others Neither hath any of those few Authors which have imagined him to be a Bishop ever assigned or named any place of which he should be Bishop So that S. Paul had still another manner of liberty and universality over the Church then the rest had and therefore still avowes his Transivi his peregrination I have gone among you So then our blessed Saviour having declared this to be his way for the propagation of the Gospel that besides the men that reside constantly upon certaine places there should be Bishops that should spread farther then to a Parish and Apostles farther then to a Diocesse and a Paul farther then to a Nation As in the first Plantation Christ found this necessary so may it be still convenient that in some cases some persons at some times may be admitted to forbeare their service in some particular place so they doe not defraud the whole Church of God by that forbearance For so S. Paul though he accuse himselfe That he robbed other Churches taking wages of them 2 Cor. 11.11 and yet served the Corinthians thinks himselfe excusable in this That he did this service in some part of the Church of Christ though not alwayes to them in particular from whom he received that recompence Now as this condemnes our Brownists abroad that have published their opinion to be That no particular Church given to one mans cure may consist of more persons then may alwayes heare that man all together so neither doth this afford any favour to those men who absent themselves from their charge unnecessarily and every thing is unnecessary in a Church-man that is not done for the farther advancement of the Church of God in generall and doth prejudice or defraud a particular Church Therefore is S. Pauls Transivi in this Text accompanied with a Praedicavi I have not resided in one place I have gone among you but I have gone among you preaching Athanasius in his Epistle to Dracontius who refused to be Bishop sayes Praedicando If all men had been of your mind who should have made you a Christian who should have been enabled to have ministred Sacraments unto you if there had been no Bishop But when he saw that he refused it therefore because men when they come to that state give themselves more liberty then such as laboured in inferiour places did and Dracontius seemed loath to open himselfe to the danger of that tentation Athanasius sayes Licebit tibi in Episcopatu esurire sitire Feare not I warrant you you may be poore enough in a Bishoprick or if you be rich no man will hinder you from living soberly in a plentifull fortune Novimus Episcopos jejunantes sayes he Monachos comedentes I have knowne a Bishop fast when a Monke or an Hermit hath made a good meale Nec corona pro locis sed pro factis redditur God doth not crowne every man that comes to the place but him onely that doth the duties of the place when he is in it And here one of the Duties that induce our crowne is Preaching I have gone among you preaching Howsoever it be in practise in the Church of Rome that Church durst not appeare to the world but in that Declaration Praecipuum Episcoporum munus est praedicatio Conc. Trid. Sess 5. c. 2. The principall office of the Bishop is to preach And as there is no Church in Christendome nay let us magnifie God in the fulnesse of an evident truth not all the Churches of God in Christendome have more or more usefull preaching then ours hath from those to whom the Cure of Soules belongs so neither were there ever any times in which more men were preferred for former preaching nor that continued it more after their preferments then in these our times There may bee there should be a Transiverunt A passing from place to place but still it is as it should bee Praedicando A passing for Preaching and a passing to Preaching And then a Preaching conditioned so as S. Pauls was I have gone among you preaching the Kingdome of God The Kingdome of God Regnum Dei. is the Gospel of God that Gospel which the Apostle calls the glorious Gospel of God A Kingdome consists not of slaves slaves that have no will of their owne The children of the Kingdome have so a will of their own as that no man is damned but for that which he would not avoid nor saved against his will So wee preach a Kingdome A Kingdome acknowledges all their happinesse from the King So doe we all the good use of all our faculties will and all from the grace of the King of heaven so we preach a Kingdome A Kingdome is able to subsist of it selfe without calling in Forrainers The Gospel is so too without calling in Traditions and so we preach a Kingdome A Kingdome requires besides fundamentall subsistence grounded especially in offensive and defensive power a support also of honour
without examination captivates his understanding to the Fathers It is ingenuously said by one of their later Writers if hee would but give us leave to say so too Sequamur Patres Cajetan tanquam Duces non tanquam Dominos Let us follow the Fathers as Guides not as Lords over our understandings as Counsellors not as Commanders Nicephor Chrysost It is too much to say of any Father that which Nicephorus sayes of S. Chrysostome In illius perinde at que in Dei verbis quiesco I am as safe in Chrysostomes words as in the Word of God Sophron. Leo. That is too much It is too much to say of any Father that which Sophronius sayes of Leo That his Epistles were Divina Scriptura tanquam ex ore Petri prolata fundamentum fidei That he received the Epistles that Leo writ as holy writ as written by S. Peter himselfe and as the foundation of his faith that is too much It is too much to say of S. Peter himselfe that which Chrysologus sayes Chrysolog That he is Immobile fundamentum salutis The immoveable foundation of our salvation Mediator noster apud Deum The Mediator of man to God Azorius Their Jesuit Azorius gives us a good Caution herein Hee sayes it is a good and safe way in all emergent doubts to governe our selves Per communem opinionem by the the common opinion by that in which most Authors agree But sayes he how shall we know which is the common opinion Since not onely that is the common opinion in one Age that is not so in another The common opinion was in the Primitive Church that the blessed Virgin was conceived in Original sin The common opinion now is that she was not But if we confider the same Age that is the common opinion in one place in one countrey which is not so in another place at the same time That Jesuit puts his example in the worship of the Crosse of Christ and sayes That at this day in Germany and in France it is the common opinion and Catholique Divinity That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divine worship is not due to the Crosse of Christ In Italy and in Spain it is the common opinion and Catholique Divinity that it is due Now how shall hee governe himselfe that is unlearned and not able to try which is the common opinion Or how shall the learnedest of all governe himselfe if he have occasion to travaile but to change his Divinity as often as he changes his Coine and when he turnes his Dutch Dollers into Pistolets to go out of Germany into Spain turn his Devotion and his religious worship according to the Clime To end this Consideration The holy Patriarchs in the Old Testament were holy men though they straid into some sinfull actions the holy Fathers in the Primitive Church were holy men though they straied into some erronious opinions But neither are the holiest mens actions alwaies holy nor the soundest Fathers opinions alwaies sound And therefore the question hath beene not impertinently moved whether this that S. Paul did here were justifiably done Who when he perceived that one part were Sadduces and the other Pharisees c. And so wee are come to our second part from the consideration of Actions in generall to this particular action of S. Paul In this second part we make three steps First we shall consider what Councell 2 Part. what Court this was before whom S. Paul was convented He cryed out in the Councell sayes the text whether they were his competent Judges and so he bound to a cleare and direct proceeding with them And secondly what his end and purpose was that he proposed to himselfe which was to divide the Judges and so to put off his tryall to another day for when he had said that sayes the text that that he had to say there arose a Dissention and the multitude All both Judges and spectators and witnesses were divided And then lastly by what way he went to this end which was by a double protestation first that Men and brethren I am a Pharisee And then that Of the hope and Resurrection of the dead I am called in question First then for the competency of his Judges Whether a man be examined before a competent Judge or no he may not lye we can put no case Iudex Competens in which it may be lawfull for any man to lye to any man not to a midnight nor to a noone thiefe that breaks my house or assaults my person I may not lye And though many have put names of disguise as Equivocations and Reservations yet they are all children of the same father the father of lies the devill and of the same brood of vipers they are lyes To an Incompetent Judge if I be interrogated I must speake truth if I speake but to a Competent Judge I must speak With the Incompetent I may not be false but with the Competent I may not be silent Certainely that standing mute at the Bar which of late times hath prevailed upon many distempered wretches is in it selfe so particularly a sin as that I should not venture to absolve any such person nor to administer the Sacrament to him how earnestly soever he desired it at his death how penitently soever he confessed all his other sins except he repented in particular that sin of having stood mute and refused a just triall and would be then content to submit himself to it if that favour might possibly at that time be afforded him To an incompetent Judge I must not lie but I may be silent to a competent I must answer Consider we then the competency of S. Pauls Judges what this Councel this Court was It was that Councel which is so often in the New Testament called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in our Translation the Councel The Jews speake much of their Lex Oralis their Oral their Traditionall Law that is That Exposition of the Law which say they Moses received from the mouth of God without writing in that forty dayes conversation which he had with God in the Mount for it is not probable say they that Moses should spend forty dayes in that which another man would have done in one or two that is in receiving onely that Law which is written But he received an exposition too and delivered that to Ioshuah and he to the principal men and according to that exposition they proceeded in Judgement in this Councel in this their Synedrion Which Councell having had the first institution thereof Numb 11.16 where God said to Moses Gather me seventy men of the Elders of Israel Officers over the people Numb 11.16 and I will take of the Spirit that is upon thee and put it upon them and they shall beare the burden that is I will impart to them that exposition of the Law which I have imparted to thee and by that they shall proceed in Judgement
thou be tempted with over-valuing thine owne purity finde an Example to answer that Job 14.27 Pro. 20.9 Quis mundum Who can bring a cleane thing out of uncleannesse Or that Who can say I have made my heart cleane I am pure from sinne There is no Example No man ever did it No man can say it If thou be tempted to worship God in an Image be able to answer God something to that To whom will yee liken God or what likenesse will yee compare unto him Esay 40.18 There can be no example no patterne to make God by for that were to make God a Copy and the other by which he were made the Originall If thou have a tentation to withdraw thy selfe from the Discipline of that Church in which God hath given thee thy Baptisme finde an Example to satisfie thy Conscience and Gods people in what age in what place there was any such Church instituted or any such Discipline practised as thou hast fancied to thy selfe Beleeve nothing for which thou hast not a Rule Doe nothing for which thou hast not an Example for there is not a more dangerous distemper in either Beliefe or Practise then singularity for there onely may we justly call for Miracles if men will present to us and binde us to things that were never beleeved never done before David therefore in this Psalme his Psalme of Instruction as himselfe calls it doth both He lays downe the Rule he establishes it by Example and that was our first Consideration and we have done with that Our second is That he goes not far for his Example 2 Part. Exemplum ipse He labors not to shew his reading but his feeling not his learning but his compunction his Conscience is his Library and his Example is himselfe and he does not unclaspe great Volumes but unbutton his owne breast and from thence he takes it Men that give Rules of Civill wisedome and wise Conversation amongst men use to say that a wise man must never speak much of himselfe It will argue say they a narrow understanding that he knows little besides his own actions or els that he overvalues his own actions if he bring them much into Discourse But the wise men that seeke Christ for there were such wise men in the world once Statesmen in the kingdome of heaven they goe upon other grounds and wheresoever they may finde them they seeke such Examples as may conduce most to the glory of God And when they make themselves Examples they doe not rather choose themselves then others but yet they doe not spare nor forbeare themselves more then other men David proposes his owne Example to his owne shame but to Gods glory For David was one of those persons Qui non potuit solus perire Bernar. He could not sin alone his sin authorized sin in others Princes and Prelates are Doctrinall men in this sense and acceptation that the subject makes the Princes life his Doctrine he learns his Catechisme by the eye he does what he sees done and frames to himselfe Rules out of his Superiors Example Therefore for their Doctrine David proposes truly his own Example and without disguising tells that of himselfe which no man else could have told Christ who could doe nothing but well proposes himselfe for an example of humility Iohn 3.15 Titus 2.7 I have given you an example Whom what That you should doe as I have done So S. Paul instructs Titus In all things shew a patterne of good works But whom for Titus might have shewed them many patternes but Shew thy selfe a patterne sayes the Apostle and not onely of assiduous and laborious preaching but of good works 1 Cor. 16.10 And this is that for which he recommends Timothy to the Church Hee works the work of the Lord And not without a patterne nor without that patterne which S. Paul had given him in himselfe He works so as I also doe S. Paul who had proposed Christ to himselfe to follow might propose himselfe to others and wish as he does I would all men were even as my selfe 1 Cor. 7.7 For though that Apostle by denying it in his owne practise 2 Cor. 4.5 seeme to condemne it in all others To preach our selves We preach not our selves but Christ Iesus the Lord yet to preach out of our owne history so farre as to declare to the Congregation to what manifold sins we had formerly abandoned our selves how powerfully the Lord was pleased to reclaime us how vigilantly he hath vouchsafed to preserve us from relapsing to preach our selves thus to call up the Congregation to heare what God hath done for my soule is a blessed preaching of my selfe And therefore Solomon does not speak of himselfe so much nor so much propose and exhibit himselfe to the Church in any Book as in that which he calls the Preacher Ecclesiastes In that Book he hides none of his owne sins none of those practises which he had formerly used to hide his sins He confesses things there which none knew but himselfe nor durst nor should have published them of him the King if they had knowne them So Solomon preaches himself to good purpose and poures out his owne soule in that Book Which is one of the reasons which our Interpreters assigne why Solomon cals himselfe by this name Lorin Proleg C. 5. Ecclesiastes Coheleth which is a word of the Foeminine gender and not Concionator but Concionatrix a Shee-preacher because it is Anima Concionatrix It is his soule that preaches he poures out his owne soule to the Congregation in letting them know how long the Lord let him run on in vanities and vexation of spirit and how powerfully and effectually he reclaimed him at last For from this Book the Preacher the she-Preacher the soule-Preacher Solomon preaching himselfe rather her selfe the Church raises convenient arguments and the best that are raised for the proofe of the salvation of Solomon of which divers doubted And though Solomon in this Book speak divers things not as his owne opinion but in the sense of worldly men yet as we have a note upon Plato's Dialogues that though he doe so too yet whatsoever Plato sayes in the name and person of Socrates that Plato alwayes meanes for his owne opinion so whatsoever Solomon sayes in the name of the Preacher the Preacher sayes this or sayes that that is evermore Solomons own saying When the Preacher preaches himselfe his owne sins and his owne sense of Gods Mercies or Judgements upon him as that is intended most for the glory of God so it should be applied most by the hearer for his own edification for he were a very ill natured man that should think the worse of a Preacher because he confesses himselfe to be worse then he knew him to be before he confessed it Therefore David thought it not enough to have said to his Confessor to Nathan in private Peccavi I have sinned but here before
thy strength and thy labors in Then when the dishes upon thy table are doubled and thy cup overflows and the hungry and thirsty soules of the poore doe not onely feed upon the crums under thy table and lick up the overflowings of thy cup but divide dishes with thee and enter into the midst of thy Bolls Then when thou hast temporall blessings that is Gods silver and his grace to use those blessings well that is Gods gold then is the best time of finding the Lord for then he looks upon thee in the Sun-shine and then thy thankfull acknowledgement of former blessings is the most effectuall prayer thou canst make for the continuance and enlargement of them In a word then is a fit time of finding God Nunc. whensoever thy conscience tells thee he calls to thee for a rectified conscience is the word of God If that speake to thee now this minute now is thy time of finding God That Now that I named then that minute is past but God affords thee another Now he speaks againe he speaks still and if thy conscience tell thee that he speaks to thee now is that time This word of God thy conscience will present unto thee but that one condition which Moses presented to Gods people and that is That thou seeke the Lordwith all thy heart and all thy soule It is a kinde of denying the Infinitenesse of God to serve him by pieces and ragges God is not Infinite to me if I thinke a discontinued service will serve him It is a kinde of denying the Unity of God to joyne other gods Pleasure or Profit with him He is not One God to me if I joyne other Associates and Assistants to him Saints or Angels It is a kinde of diffidence in Christ as though I were not sure that he would stand in the favour of God still as though I were afraid that there might rise a new favorite in heaven to whom it might concerne me to apply me selfe If I make the balance so eaven as to serve God and Mammon if I make a complementall visit of God at his house upon Sunday and then plot with the other faction the World the Flesh and the Devill all the weeke after Jor. 9.13 The Lord promised a power of seeking and an infallibility of finding but still with this totall condition Ye shall seeke mee and ye shall finde me because ye shall seek mee with all your heart This he promised for the future that he would doe This he testified for the house of Iudah 2 Chro. 15.15 that he had done Iudah sought him with a whole desire and he was found of them and the Lord gave them rest round about And the Lord shall give you rest round about rest in your bodies and rest in your estates rest in your good name with others and rest in your consciences in your selves rest in your getting and rest in your injoying that you have got if you seeke him with a whole heart and to seek him with a whole heart is not by honest industry to seeke nothing else for God weares good cloathes silk and soft raiment in his religious servants in Courts as well as Cammels haire in Iohn Baptist in the Wildernesse and God manifests himselfe to man as well in the splendor of Princes in Courts as in the austerity of Iohn Baptist in the Wildernesse but to seeke God with the whole heart is to seeke nothing with that Primary and Radicall and Fundamentall affection as God To seek nothing for it selfe but God not to seeke world things in excesse because I hope if I had them I should glorifie God in them but first to finde established in my selfe a zealous desire to glorifie God and then a modest desire of meanes to be able to doe it And for this every one that is holy shall pray unto thee in a time when thou maist be found And so we have done with our first Part and the foure pieces that constitute that The Person Omnis sanctus Every godly man that is Sanctificatus and Sanctificandus Hee that is godly enough to pray and prayes that he may be more godly And the Object of prayer Ad te God alone for God alone can heare and God alone can give And then the Subject of prayer Hoc This this which David expresses forgivenesse of the punishment and of the iniquity of fin In which respect that David proposes and specificates the subject of prayer wee are fairely directed rather to accustome our selves to those prayers which are recommended to us by the Church then to extemporall prayers of others or of our owne effusion And lastly the Time of finding God that is Then when we seeke him with a whole heart seeke him as Principal and then receive temporall things as accessory and conducible to his glory Thus much hath fallen into the first Part the duty of Prayer A little remaines to be said of the benefit here assured Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him Taking these waters 2. Part. Hâ—â—r Aquae either Distributively to every one that is godly or Collectively as S. Hierome does to the whole Church the use will be all one The Holy Ghost who is a direct worker upon the soule and conscience of man but a Metaphoricall and Figurative expresser on himselfe to the reason and understanding of man abounds in no Metophor more then in calling Tribulations Waters particularly He would bring in waters upon Tyrus Eâ—â—k 26.3 Hosâ—â— 5. And He would poure out his wrath upon his enemies like waters Neither doth he onely intimate temporall but spirituall afflictions too in the name of Waters And as S. Hierome understands this whole place of the Church Hieron August collectively so S. Augustine understands these waters to be Varia Doctrinae those diverse opinions that disquiet and trouble the Church And though the Church of God were built upon a hill and compassed and environed and fenced with the blood of him that built it and defended and guarded by the vigilancy of the Apostles yet into this Jerusalem did these waters breake even in the Apostles time as we see by those severall those manifold those contradictory Heresies that sprung up them Christ and his Apostles had carried two Waters about his Church The water of Baptisme that is Limen Ecclesiae and Ianua Sacramentorum Argust The first Ferry by which we passe into the Church and by this Water came three thousand and five thousand at once to the Church upon particular Sermons of S. Peter And then Christ gave another Water by which they came to another Ablution to Absolution from actuall fins the water of contrite teares and repentance which he had promised before Eâ—â—k 24.35 I will poure cleane water upon you and you shall be cleane And by this water came Peter himselfe when his faith had failed And by this water came Mary Magdalen when her life had
to splendor He hath preserved this Church from perplexities If they say we are perplexed with differences of opinions amongst our selves let this satisfie them that we doe agree all in all fundamentall things And that in things much nearer the foundation then those in which our differences lie they differ amongst themselves with more acrimony and bitternesse then we doe If they thinke to perplex us with the Fathers we are ready to joyne that issue with them where the Fathers speak unanimously dogmatically in matters of faith we are content to be tried by the Fathers If they thinke to perplex us with Councels we will goe as farre as they in the old ones and as farre as they for meeting in new Councels if they may be fully that is Royally Imperially called and equally proceeded in and the Resolutions grow and gathered there upon debatements upon the place and not brought thither upon commandment from Rome If there be no way but Force and Armes if they will admit no triall but that God bee blessed that keepes us from the necessity but God bee blessed also that he preserves us from perplexity or not being able to defend his cause if he call us to that triall And therefore let them never call it a Perplexity in us let them never say that we know not what to doe when we acknowledge the Church of Rome to be truly a Church for the Pest-house is a house and theirs is such a Church But the Pest-house is not the best ayre to live in nor the Romane Church the best Church to die in Thou hast preserved me from perplexities may the Primitive Church say and so may the Reformed too and so also may every particular soule say which is a Consideration that from the beginning we proposed for every Part and are now come to it in this When we were upon this consideration in our former Part Anima we shewed you that no over-tender or timorous soule might hide it selfe in a retired life from the offices of society but though every particular age bring a new sin with it every complexion a new sin every occupation a new sin every friend a new sin that must be loved for his sake yet Para te foro Thou art bound to come abroad and trust upon Gods hiding thee there from tentations and so assure thy self that he will preserve thee from perplexities Now wee consider in the Schoole Perplexities which are such onely by mis-understanding and Perplexities which are such in the true nature of the thing Those of the first kinde perplexities in a mis-understanding should fall upon no man perplexities of the second kinde in the nature of the thing it selfe can fall upon no man Of the first kinde this is an example A man sweares to conceale all his friends secrets and he tells him of a treasonable purpose against the State Either way he must offend Against his oath if he reaveale it or against his Allegeance if he doe not This is no perplexity for in a right understanding he must know that such an Oath bindes not Of the second kinde there was an example in Origen who must by the commandement of the Persecutor either offer sacrifice to an Idol or prostitute his body to an adominable abuse with another man Which should he doe Neither God gives a man an issue in such cases by death August Et vitam potiùs finire dèbet quà m maculare He is bound to give his life rather then to staine his life This timorous soule then feares where no feare is He would hide himselfe he is loath to come into the world because he thinks hee must needs sin Hee needs not Is there a necessity laid upon him that he must die as rich as the richest of his profession and that he cannot doe without sin That he must leave his wife such a Joynture and his children such Portions and all that he cannot doe without sin First all that he may doe without sin We have seene in all Professions honest men die as rich Mark 10.29 as dishonest If thou do not he that hath said There is no man that hath left wife or children for my sake but shall have a hundred fold here and everlasting life which is a blessed Codicil to a Will that was abundant before will also say There is no man that hath left wife and children poore for my sake but I will enlarge my providence upon them even in this life and my glory in the next And this was our second Part considered in the Church and in our selves Thou shalt preserve c. There remaines yet a third Part 3. Part. that as God hides us from tentations that they reach us not or preserves us from intricacies and perplexities so that they hurt us not so if they doe yet he compasses us with a joyfull Deliverance as our former or with songs of Deliverance as this Translation hath it that is imprints in us a holy certitude a faire assurance that he will never forsake us And this voyce we may heare from the Church first and then from every particular soule for to both as we have told you all the way doe all the parts of this Psalme appertaine As it is an exaltation of Gods indignation Compasse Lament 3.5 when he is said to Compasse by way of siege so Jerusalem complaines He hath builded against me he hath compassed me with gall and travell he hath hedged me about that I cannot get out So God threatens I will camp against thee round about Esay 39.3 and I will lay siege against thee for this intimates such a displeasure of God as that he does not onely leave us succourlesse joylesse comfortlesse in our selves but cuts off those supplies which might relieve us He compasses us he besieges us hee camps round about us that no reliefe can enter so when his love and mercy is expressed in this phrase that he compasses us it signifies both an intire mercy that no enemy shall break in in any part whilst he doth compasse us and a permanent and durable mercy that as no force of the enemy so no wearinesse in himselfe shall make him discontinue his watches or his guard over us but that he will compasse us still Thy faithfulnesse is round about thee sayes David to God that is our first comfort Psal 89.8 that God compasses himselfe with his owne faithfulnesse that is is never unmindfull of his owne promises and purposes And then He is round about our habitations Psal 78.28 God compasses himselfe with his owne faithfulnesse and then he compasses us with himselfe That as Satan told God one day after another Circuivi terram perambulavieam Job 1.8 I have compassed the earth and walked it round Job 2.2 but could never say that he had broke into Iobs quarter for hee found the impossibility in that The Lord had made a hedge about him Where note that Gods first
capable of his Mercies and his Retributions as here in this Text he names onely those who are Recti corde The upright in heart They shall be considered rewarded The disposition that God proposes here in those persons Recti whom he considers is Rectitude Uprightnesse and Directnesse God hath given Man that forme in nature much more in grace that he should be upright and looke up and contemplate Heaven and God there And therefore to bend downwards upon the earth to fix our breast our heart to the earth to lick the dust of the earth with the Serpent to inhere upon the profits and pleasures of the earth and to make that which God intended for our way and our rise to heaven the blessings of this world the way to hell this is a manifest Declination from this Uprightnesse from this Rectitude Nay to goe so far towards the love of the earth as to be in love with the grave to be impatient of the calamities of this life and murmur at Gods detaining us in this prison to sinke into a sordid melancholy or irreligious dejection of spirit this is also a Declination from this Rectitude this Uprightnesse So is it too to decline towards the left hand to Modifications and Temporisings in matter or forme of Religion and to thinke all indifferent all one or to decline towards the right hand in an over-vehement zeale To pardon no errors to abate nothing of heresie if a man beleeve not all and just all that we beleeve To abate nothing of Reprobation if a man live not just as we live this is also a Diversion a Deviation a Deflection a Defection from this Rectitude this Uprightnesse For the word of this Text Iashar signifies Rectitudinem and Planiciem It signifies a direct way for the Devils way was Circular Compassing the Earth But the Angels way to heaven upon Iacobs ladder was a straight a direct way And then it signifies as a direct and straight so a plaine a smooth an even way a way that hath been beaten into a path before a way that the Fathers and the Church have walked in before and not a discovery made by our curiosity or our confidence in venturing from our selves or embracing from others new doctrines and opinions The persons then whom God proposes here to be partakers of his Retributions Recti Corde are first Recti that is both Direct men and Plaine men and then recti corde this qualification this straightnesse and smoothnesse must be in the heart All the upright in heart shall have it Upon this earth a man cannot possibly make one step in a straight and a direct line The earth it selfe being round every step wee make upon it must necessarily bee a segment an arch of a circle But yet though no piece of a circle be a straight line yet if we take any piece nay if wee take the whole circle there is no corner no angle in any piece in any intire circle A perfectt rectitude we cannot have in any wayes in this world In every Calling there are some inevitable tentations But though wee cannot make up our circle of a straight line that is impossible to humane frailty yet wee may passe on without angles and corners that is without disguises in our Religion and without the love of craft and falsehood and circumvention in our civill actions A Compasse is a necessary thing in a Ship and the helpe of that Compasse brings the Ship home safe and yet that Compasse hath some variations it doth not looke directly North Neither is that starre which we call the North-pole or by which we know the North-pole the very Pole it selfe but we call it so and we make our uses of it and our conclusions by it as if it were so because it is the neerest starre to that Pole He that comes as neere uprightnesse as infirmities admit is an upright man though he have some obliquities To God himselfe we may alwayes go in a direct line a straight a perpendicular line For God is verticall to me over my head now and verticall now to them that are in the East and West-Indies To our Antipodes to them that are under our feet God is verticall over their heads then when he is over ours To come to God there is a straight line for every man every where But this we doe not if we come not with our heart Praebe mihi fili cor tuum saith God Pro. 23.26 My sonne give me thy heart Was hee his sonne and had hee not his heart That may very well bee There is a filiation without the heart not such a filiation as shall ever make him partaker of the inheritance but yet a filiation The associating our selves to the sonnes of God in an outward profession of Religion makes us so farre the sonnes of God as that the judgement of man cannot and the judgement of God doth not distinguish them Iob 1.6 Because then when the sonnes of God stood in his presence Satan stood amongst the sons of God God doth not disavow him God doth not excommunicate him God makes his use of him and yet God knew his heart was farre from him So when God was in Councell with his Angels about Ahabs going up to Ramoth Gilead 1 King 22.22 A spirit came forth and offered his service and God refuses not his service but employes him though hee knew his heart to be farre from him So no doubt many times they to whom God hath committed supreme government and they who receive beames of this power by subordination and delegation from them they see Satan amongst the sonnes of God hypocrites and impiously disposed men come into these places of holy convocation and they suffer them nay they employ them nay they preferre them and yet they know their hearts are farre from them but as long as they stand amongst the sonnes of God that is appeare and conforme themselves in the outward acts of Religion they are not disavowed they are not ejected by us here they are not But howsoever wee date our Excommunications against them but from an overt act and apparant disobedience yet in the Records of heaven they shall meet an Excommunication and a conviction of Recusancy that shall beare date from that day when they came first to Church with that purpose to delude the Congregation to elude the lawes in that behalfe provided to advance their treacherous designes by such disguises or upon what other collaterall and indirect occasion soever men come to this place for though they bee in the right way when they are here at Church yet because they are not upright in heart therefore that right way brings not them to the right end And that is it which David lookes upon in God and desires that God should looke upon in him 2 Sam. 7.21 According to thine owne heart saith David to God hast thou done all these great things unto us For sometimes God doth give
their Rule Audivistis ab antiquis says he you have heard heard by them of old but now I tel you otherwise So Audivimus ab antiquis we have heard and heard by them of old That the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ is so absolutely necessary as that Children were bound to receive it presently after Baptisme and that no man could be saved without it more then without Baptisme Maldon in Iohn 6.35 This we have heard and heard by them of old for we have heard S. Augustin to have said so and the practise of the Church for some hundreds of yeares to have said so So Audivimus ab antiquis We have heard and heard by them of old That the Saints of God departed out of this life after their resurrection and before their ascension into heaven shall enjoy all worldly prosperity and happinesse upon the earth for a thousand yeares This we have heard and heard by them of old for we have heard Tertullian say so and Ireneus and Lactantius and so many more as would make the balance more then even So also Audivimus ab antiquis We have heard and heard by them of old That in how good state soever they dye yet the souls of the departed do not see the face of God nor enjoy his presence till the day of Judgement This we have heard and from so many of them of old as that the voyce of that part is louder then of the other And amongst those reverend and blessed Fathers which straied into these errors some were hearers and Disciples of the Apostles themselves as Papias was a Disciple of S. Iohn and yet Papias was a Millenarian and expected his thousand yeares prosperity upon the earth after the Resurrection some of them were Disciples of the Apostles and some of them were better men then the Apostles for they were Bishops of Rome Clement was so and yet Clement was one of them who denied the fruition of the sight of God by the Saints till the Judgement And yet our Adversaries will enjoy their liberty to depart from all this which they have heard and heard from them of old in the mouths of these Fathers And where the Fathers are divided in two streames where all the Fathers few scarce any excepted till S. Augustine Histâ—â— Vossiâ— l. 7. Thes 8. so 538. c. Bemus ca. 26. Petetius Ro. 8. disp 22. placed the cause of our Election in Gods foresight and fore-knowledge of our faith and obedience and as generally after S. Augustin they placed it in the right Center that is onely in the free goodnesse and pleasure of God in Christ halfe the Roman Church goes one way and halfe the other for we may be bold to call the Jesuits halfe that Church And in that point the Jesuits depart from that which they had heard and heard of old from the Primitive Fathers and adhere to the later And their very heavy and very bitter adversaries the Dominicans apply themselves to that which they have heard of old to the first opinion In that point in the Roman Church they have Fathers on both sides but in a point where they have no Father where all the Fathers are unanimely and diametrally against them in the point of the Conception of the most blessed Virgin Canus Etsi omnes Sancti uno ore asseverent sayes a wise Author of theirs Though all the Ancient Fathers with one intire consent affirme that she was conceived in Originall sin Etsi nullus Author contravenerit sayes he Though no one ancient Author ever denyed it yet sayes he Infirmum est ex omnium patrum consensu argumentum Though our opinion have no ground in Scriptures that sayes he I confesse Though it bee no Apostolicall Tradition that sayes he I confesse yet it is but a weake argument sayes he that is concluded out of all the Fathers against it because It was a doctrine manifested to the Church but about five hundred yeares since and now for two hundred yeares hath beene well followed and embraced As the Jesuit Maldonat sayes in such another case whatsoever the ancient Fathers have thought or taught or said or writ that the marriage of Priests after Orders taken and chastity professed was a good marriage Contrarium nunc verum est whatsoever was true then the contrary is true now If then these men who take to themselves this liberty will yet say to me in some other points Si quo minus Surely if you were in the right some of the ancient Fathers would have told you so And then if I assist my selfe by the Fathers they will say Si quo minus If it were not otherwise some generall Councell would have told you so And againe if I support my selfe by a Councell Si quo minus if that Councell were to be followed some Pope would have confirmed that Councell And if I show that to have beene done yet they will say that that Confirmation reaches not to that Session of the Councell or not to that Canon of that Session or not to that period in that Canon or not to that word in that period And then of every Father and Councell and Session and Canon and period and word Ejus interpretatio est sensus Spiritus Sancti His sense and interpretation must be esteemed the Interpretation and the Sense of the Holy Ghost as Bellarmine hath concluded us why will they not allow me a juster liberty then that which they take That when they stop my prayers in their way to God and bid me turne upon Saints when they stop my faith in the way to Christ and bid me turne upon mine owne or others merits when they stop my hopes of Heaven upon my death-bed and bid me turne upon Purgatory That when as yet it is in debatement and disputation whether man can performe the Law of God or no they will multiply their Laws above the proportion of Moses Tables And when we have Primogenitum Ecclesiae The eldest son by the Primitive Church The Creed of the Apostles they will super-induce another son by another venter by a step-mother by their sick and crazy Church and as the way of step-mothers is will then make the portion of the later larger then the elders make their Trent-Creed larger then the Apostles That in such a case they will not allow me neither in my studies in the way nor upon my death-bed at mine end to hearken unto this voyce of my Saviour Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you this is not onely to preclude the liberty but to exclude the duty of a Christian But the mystery of their Iniquity is easily revealed their Arcana Imperii the secrets of their State easily discovered All this is not because they absolutely oppose the Scriptures or stiffly deny them to be the most certain and constant rule that can be presented for whatsoever they pretend for their own Church or
for the Super-soveraigne in that Church their transcendent and hyperbolicall supreme Head they will pretend to deduce out of the Scriptures But because the Scriptures are constant and limited and determined there can be no more Scriptures And they should be shrewdly prejudiced and shrewdly disadvantaged if all emergent cases arising in the Christian world must be judged by a Law which others may know before-hand as well as they Therefore being wise in their own generation they choose rather to lay up their Rule in a Cupboard then upon a Shelfe rather in Scrinio pectoris in the breast and bosome of one man then upon every deske in a study where every man may lay or whence every man may take a Bible Therefore have so many sad and sober men amongst them repented that in the Councell of Trent they came to a finall resolution in so many particulars because how incommodious soever some of those particulars may prove to them yet they are bound to some necessity of a defence or to some aspersion if they forsake such things as have been solemnly resolved in that manner Therefore it was a prudent and discreet abstinence in them to forbeare the determination of some things which have then and since falne into agitation amongst them Be pleased to take one in the Councell and one after for all Long time it had and then it did and still it doth perplex the Consciences of penitents that come to Confession and the understandings of Confessors who are to give Absolution how far the secular Lawes of temporall Princes binde the Conscience of the Subject and when and in what cases he is bound to confesse it as a sin who hath violated and transgressed any of those Lawes And herein sayes an Author of theirs who hath written learnedly De legibus Carbo of the hand and obligation of Lawes The Pope was solicited and supplicated from the Councell in which it was debated that he would be pleased to come to a Determination but because he saw it was more advantage to him to hold it undetermined that so he might serve others turnes and his own especially it remains undetermined and no Confessor is able to un-entangle the Conscience of his penitent yet So also in another point of as great consequence at least for the peace of the Church if not for the profit which is those differences which have arisen between the Jesuits and the Dominicans about the concurrence of the Grace of God and the free will of man Though both sides have come to that vehemence that violence that virulency as to call one anothers opinion hereticall which is a word that cuts deepe and should not be passionately used yet he will not be brought to a decision to a determination in the point but onely forbids both sides to write at all in that point and in that inhibition of his we see how he suffers himselfe to be deluded for still they write with protestation that they write not to advance either opinion but onely to prepare the way against such time as the Pope shall be pleased to take off that inhibition and restore them to their liberty of writing for this way hath one of their last Authors Arriba taken to vent himselfe In a word if they should submit themselves to try all points and cases of Conscience by Scripture that were to governe by a knowne and constant Law but as they have imagined a Monarchy in their Church so have they a prerogative in their Monarchy a secret judgement in one breast however he who gives them all their power make this protestation Si quo minus If it were not thus and thus I would have told you so So then this proposition in our Text falls first upon them who doe not beleeve All things to be contained in the Scriptures And it falls also upon them who doe not beleeve All persons to be intended in the Scriptures who seeme to be concerned therein The first sort dishonor God in his Scriptures in that kinde That there is not enough in the Scriptures for any mans salvation And the other in this kinde That that that is is not intended as it is pretended not in that largenesse and generality as it is proposed but that God hath set a little Diamond in a great deale of gold a narrow purpose in large promises and thereupon they impute to God in their manner of expressing themselves Dolos bonos and Fraudes pias holy deceits holy falshoods holy illusions and circumventions and over-good husbands of Gods large and bountifull Grace contract his generall promises I dispute not but I am glad to heare the Apostle say Rom. 5.14 That as all were dead so one dyed for all and to put the force of his argument there in that That except we can say That one dyed for all we cannot say that all were dead I argue not but I am glad to heare another Apostle say 1 Joh. 2.2 That Christ is the propitiation for the sinnes of all the world for if any man had been left out how should I have come in I am not exercised nor would I exercise these Auditories with curiosities but I heare the Apostle say Rom. 14.11 1 Cor. 8.11 Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ dyed And I heare him say Through thy knowledge may thy weake brother perish for whom Christ dyed and me thinks he meanes That though they might be destroyed though they might perish yet Christ dyed for them Onely to deliver God from all aspersions and to defend particular Consciences from being scandalized with dangerous phrases and in a pious detestation of those impious Doli and Fraudes holy deceits holy falshoods I onely say God forbid that when our Saviour Christ called the Pharisee hypocrite that Pharisee should have been able to recriminate that upon Christ and to have said So are you for you pretend to offer salvation where you meane it not God forbid that when Christ had made that the mark of a true Israelite in the person of Nathaniel In quo non est dolus In whom there is no deceit Joh. 1.47 any man should have been able to have said to Christ Then Nathaniel is a better Israelite then you for you pretend to offer salvation where you meane it not Psal 35.3 David hath joyned those two words together The words of their mouth are Iniquity and Deceit If there be Deceit there is Iniquity too Our Saviour hath joyned all these together Mar. 7.22 Adulteries Murders Blasphemies and Deceit where there is Deceit all mischiefe is justly presumed The Apostle S. Paul discharges himselfe of nothing with more earnestnesse then that 2 Cor. 12.16 Acts 13.10 Have I deceived you have I circumvented you with fraud Neither doth he charge him whom he calls The childe of the Devill Elymas the sorcerer farther then so O plene omni dolo That he was full of all Deceit And therefore they that
without recourse to God without acknowledging God in that action he is for that particular an Atheist he is without God in that and if hee doe so in most of his actions he is for the most part an Atheist If he be an Atheist every where but in his Catechisme if onely then he confesse a God when hee is asked Doest thou beleeve that there is a God and never confesse him never consider him in his actions it shall do him no good to say at the last day that he was no speculative Atheist he never thought in his heart that there was no God if hee lived a practique Atherst proceeded in all his actions without any consideration of him But accustome thy selfe to find the presence of God in all thy gettings in all thy preferments in all thy studies and he will be abundantly sufficient to thee for all Quantumlibet sis avarus saith S. Augustine sufficit tibi Deus Be as covetous as thou wilt bee as ambitious as thou canst the more the better God is treasure God is honour enough for thee Avaritia terram quaerit saith the same Father adde Coelum wouldst thou have all this world wouldst thou have all the next world too Plus est qui fecit coelum terram He that made heaven and earth is more then all that and thou mayest have all him And this appropriates him so neare to us Noster as that hee is thereby Deus noster For it is not enough to finde Deum a God a great and incomprehensible power that sits in luce in light but in luce inaccessibili in light that we cannot comprehend A God that enjoyes his owne eternity his owne peace his owne blessedness but respects not us reflects not upon us communicates nothing to us But it is a God that is Deus noster Ours as we are his creatures ours as we are like him made to his image ours as he is like us in assuming our nature ours as he hath descended to us in his Incarnation and ours as we are ascended with him in his glorification So that wee doe not consider God as our God except we come to the consideration of God in Christ God and man It is not enough to find Deum a God in generall nor to find Deum meum a God so particularly my God as that he is a God of my making That I should seeke God by any other motions or know God by any other notions or worship God in any other fashions then the true Church of God doth for there he is Deus noster as hee is received in the unanime consent of the Catholique Church Sects are not bodies they are but rotten boughes gangrened limmes fragmentary chips blowne off by their owne spirit of turbulency fallen off by the waight of their owne pride or hewen off by the Excommunications and censures of the Church Sects are no bodies for there is Nihil nostrum nothing in common amongst them nothing that goes through them all all is singular all is meum and tuum my spirit and thy spirit my opinion and thy opinion my God and thy God no such apprehension no such worship of God as the whole Church hath evermore been acquainted withall and contented with It is true that every man must appropriate God so narrowly as to find him to be Deum suum his God that all the promises of the Prophets and all the performances of the Gospell all that Christ Jesus said and did and suffered belongs to him and his soule but yet God is Deus meus as he is Deus noster my God as he is our God as I am a part of that Church with which he hath promised to be till the end of the world and as I am an obedient sonne of that Mother who is the Spouse of Christ Jesus For as S. Augustine saith of that Petition Give us this day our daily bread Vnde dicimus Da nostrum How come we to ask that which is ours Quomodo nostrum quomodo da if we be put to ask it why doe wee call it ours and then answers himselfe Tuum confitendo non eris ingratus It is a thankfull part to confesse that thou hast some that thou hast received some blessings and then Ab illo petendo non eris vacuus It is a wise and a provident part to ask more of him whose store is inexhaustible So if I feele God as hee is Deus meus as his Spirit works in me and thankfully acknowledge that Non sum ingratus But if I derive this Pipe from the Cistern this Deus meus from Deus noster my knowledge and sense of God from that knowledge which is communicated by his Church in the preaching of his Word in the administration of his Sacraments in those other meanes which he hath instituted in his Church for the assistance and reparation of my soule that way Non er o vacuus I shall have a fuller satisfaction a more abundant refection then if I rely upon my private inspirations for there he is Deus noster Now as we are thus to acknowledge a God and thus to appropriate that God Dominus so we must be sure to confer this honour upon the right God upon him who is the Lord. Now this name of God which is translated the Lord here is not the name of God which presents him with relation to his Creatures for so it is a problematicall a disputable thing Whether God could be called the Lord before there were any Creatures Tertullian denies absolutely that he could be called Lord till then S. Augustin is more modest he sayes Non audeo dicere I dare not say that he was not but he does not affirme that he was Howsoever the name here is not the name of Relation but it is the name of his Essence of his Eternity that name which of late hath beene ordinarily called Iebovah So that we are not to trust in those Lords Whose breath is in their nostrils Esay 2. ult as the Prophet sayes For wherein are they to be esteemed sayes he we are lesse to trust in them whose breath was never in their nostrils such imaginary Saints as are so far from hearing us in Heaven as that they are not there and so far from being there as that they were never here so farre from being Saints as that they were never men but are either fabulous illusions or at least but symbolicall and allegoricall allusions Our Lord is the Lord of life and being who gave us not onely a well-being in this life for that other Lords can pretend to doe and doe indeed by preferments here nor a beginning of a temporary being in this life for that our Parents pretend and pretend truly to have done nor onely an enlarging of our being in this life for that the King can doe by a Pardon and the Physitians by a Cordiall but he hath given us an immortall being which neither our Parents began in
thunder a fearefull apprehension of Gods Judgements upon you And when you have had your contrition too that you have purged your soule in an humble confession and have let your soule blood with a true and sharpe remorse and compunction for all sinnes past and put that bleeding soule into a bath of repentant teares and into a bath of blood the blood of Christ Jesus in the Sacrament and feele it faint and languish there and receive no assurance of remission of sinnes so as that it can levy no fine that can conclude God but still are afraid that God will still incumber you with yesterdayes sinnes againe to morrow If this be their way they doe not preach the Gospell because they doe not preach all the Gospell for the Gospell is repentance and remission of sinnes that is the necessity of repentance and then the assurednesse of remission goe together Thus farre then the Crediderit is carried Baptizate wee must beleeve that there is a way upon earth to salvation and that Preaching is that way that is the manner and the matter is the Gospell onely the Gospell and all the Gospell and then the seale is the administration of the Sacraments as we said at first of both Sacraments of the Sacrament of Baptisme there can be no question for that is literally and directly within the Commission Goe and Baptize and then Qui non crediderit Hee that beleeves not not onely he that beleeves not when it is done but he that beleeves not that this ought to be done shall bee damned wee doe not joyne Baptisme to faith tanquam dimidiam solatii causam as though Baptisme were equall to faith in the matter of salvation for salvation may bee had in divers cases by faith without Baptisme but in no case by Baptisme without faith neither doe wee say that in this Commission to the Apostles the administration of Baptisme is of equall obligation upon the Minister as preaching that he may be as well excusable if hee never preach as if hee never Baptize Wee know S. Peter commanded Cornelius and his family to be Baptized Acts 10. ult wee doe not know if hee Baptized any of them with his owne hand So S. Paul sayes of himselfe that Baptizing was not his principall function 1 Cor. 1.17 Christ sent not me to Baptize but to preach the Gospell saith he In such a sense as God said by Ieremy Jer. 7.22 I spake not unto your fathers nor commanded them concerning burnt offerings but I said obey my voyce so S. Paul saith hee was not sent to Baptize God commanded our fathers obedience rather then sacrifice but yet sacrifice too and hee commands us preaching rather then Baptizing but yet Baptizing too For as that is true Hiero. In adultis in persons which are come to yeares of discretion which S. Hierome sayes Fieri non potest It is impossible to receive the Sacrament of Baptisme except the soule have received Sacramentum fidei the Sacrament of faith that is the Word preached except he have been instructed and chatechized before so there is a necessity of Baptisme after for any other ordinary meanes of salvation that God hath manifested to his Church and therefore Quos Deus conjunxit those things which God hath joyned in this Commission Ioh. 3.5 let no man separate Except a man bee borne againe of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of heaven Let no man reade that place disjunctively Of Water or the Spirit for there must bee both S. Peter himselfe knew not how to separate them Acts 2. Repent and bee baptized every one of you saith he for for any one that might have beene and was not Baptized S. Peter had not that seale to plead for his salvation The Sacrament of Baptisme then Eucharistia is within this Crediderit it must necessarily be beleeved to be necessary for salvation But is the other Sacrament of the Lords Supper so too Is that within this Commission Certainly it is or at least within the equity if not within the letter pregnantly implyed if not literally expressed For thus it stands they are commanded Matt. 28. ult 1 Cor. 11.23 To teach all things that Christ had commanded them And then S. Paul sayes I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you That the Lord Iesus tooke bread c. and so hee proceeds with the Institution of the Sacrament and then he addes that Christ said Doe this in remembrance of mee which is not onely remember me when you doe it but doe it that you may remember me As well the receiving of the Sacrament as the worthy receiving of it is upon commandment In the Primitive Church there was an erronious opinion of such an absolute necessity in taking this Sacrament as that they gave it to persons when they were dead a custome which was growne so common as that it needed a Canon of a Councell Carthag 3. c. 6. to restraine it But the giving of this Sacrament to children newly baptized was so generall even in pure times as that we see so great men as Cyprian and Augustine scarce lesse then vehement for the use of it Musculus and some learned men in the Reformed Church have not so far declined it but that they call it Catholicam consuetudinem a Catholique an universall custome of the Church But there is a farre greater strength both of naturall and spirituall faculties required for the receiving of this Sacrament of the Lords Supper then the other of Baptisme But for those who have those faculties that they are now or now should be able to discerne the Lords body and their owne soules besides that inestimable and inexpressible comfort which a worthy receiver receives as often as he receives that seale of his reconciliation to God since as Baptisme is Tessera Christianorum I know a Christian from a Turke by that Sacrament so this Sacrament is Tessera orthodoxorū I know a Protestant from a Papist by this Sacrament it is a service to God and to his Church to come frequently to this Communion for truly not to shake or afright any tender conscience I scarce see how any man can satisfie himselfe that he hath said the Lords Prayer with a good conscience if at the same time he were not in such a disposition as that he might have received the Sacrament too for if he be in charity he might receive and if he be not he mocked Almighty God and deluded the Congregation in saying the Lords Prayer There remaines one branch of that part Docete servare Preach the Gospell Docete servare administer the Sacraments and teach them to practise and doe all this how comes matter of fact to be matter of faith Thus Qui non crediderit he that does not beleeve that he is bound to live aright is within the penalty of this text It is so with us and it is so
him for his ease that is compound with him easily and continue him in his estate and errors but Cape nobis Take him for us so detect him as he may thereby be reduced to Christ and his Church Neither onely this counsel of Christ to his Church but that commandment of God in Levit. Exod. 23.3 Lev. 19.15 is also applyable to this Non misereber is pauperis in judicio Thou shalt not countenance a poore man in his cause Thou shalt not pity a poore man in judgement Though a new opinion may seeme a poore opinion able to doe little harme though it may seem a pious and profitable opinion and of good use yet in judicio if it stand in judgement and pretend to be an article of faith and of that holy obligation matter necessary to salvation Non misereberis Thou shalt not spare thou shalt not countenance this opinion upon any collaterall respect but bring it to the onely tryall of Doctrines the Scriptures In the beginning of the Reformation in Germany there arose a sect whom they called Intermists and Adiaphorists who upon a good pretence were like to have done a great deale of mischiefe They said Since all the hope of a Reformation that we can promise our selves must come from a generall Councell and of such a Councel we can have no hope but by the Pope it were impertinent and dis-conducing to our owne ends to vexe or exasperate the Pope in this Interim till the Councel be setled and so the Reformation put into a way and in the Interim for this short time till the Councel these Adiaphora the indifferent things in which mild word they involved all the abuses and all the grievances that were complained of may be well enough continued But if they had continued so long they had continued yet If they had spared their little foxes then they had destroyed their vines If they had pitied the poore in judgement the cause had been judged against them If they had reprieved those abuses for a time they had got a pardon for ever And therefore blessed were they in taking those children and dashing them against the stones In taking those new-born opinions and bringing them to the true touch-stone of all Doctrines An ab initio whether they had been from the beginning or could consist with the Scriptures Neither doth this counsel of Christs Take us these little foxes nor this commandment of God Thou shalt not pity the poor in judgment determine it self in the Church or in the publique only but extends it self rather contracts it self to every particular soul and conscience Capite vulpeculas Take your litle foxes watch your first inclinatiōs to sins for if you give them suck at first if you feed them with the milke and hony of the mercy of God it shall not be in your power to weane them when you would but they will draw you from one to another extreme from a former presumption to a future desperation in Gods mercy So also Non misereberis Thou shalt not pity the poore in judgement now that thou callest thy selfe to judgement and thy conscience to an examination thou shalt not pity any sin because it pretends to be a poore sin either poore so that it cannot much endanger thee not much encumber thee or poore so as that it threatens thee with poverty with penury with disability to support thy state or maintaine thy family if thou entertaine it not Many times I have seene a suitor that comes in forma pauperis more trouble a Court and more importune a Judge then greater causes or greater persons And so may such sins as come in forma pauperis either way That they plead poverty That they can doe little harme or threaten poverty if they be not entertained Those sins are the most dangerous sins which pretend reason why they should be entertained for sinnes which are done meerely out of infirmity or out of the surprisall of a tentation are in comparison of others done as sins in our sleep but in sins upon deliberation upon counsell upon pretence of reason we doe see the wisdome of God but we set our wisdome above his we do see the law of God but we insert and interline non obstantes of our own into Gods Law If therefore thou wilt corruptly and vitiously and sinfully love another out of pity because they love thee so If thou wilt assist a poore man in a cause out of pretence of pity with thy countenance and the power of thy place that that poore man may have something and thou the rest that is recovered in his right If thou wilt embrace any particular sin out of pity lest thy Wife and Children should be left unprovided If thou have not taken these little foxes that is resisted these tentations at the beginning yet Nunc in judicio now that they appeare in judgement in examination of thy conscience Non misereberis Thou shalt not pity them but as Moses speakes of false Prophets Deut. 13. and by a faire accommodation of all bewitching sins with pleasure or profit If a Dreamer of Dreames have given thee a signe and that signe be come to passe If a sin have told thee it would make thee rich and it have made thee rich yet if this Dreamer draw thee to another God If this profit draw thee to an Idolatrous that is to an habituall love of that sin for Tot habemus recentes Deos quot vitiae sayes S. Hierom Hieron Every man hath so many Idols in him as he hath habituall sins yet Though this dreamer as God proceeds there be thy brother or thy son or thy friend which is as thine owne soule How neare how deare how necessary soever this sin be unto thee Non misereberis sayes Moses Thine eye shall not pity that Dreamer thou shalt not keepe him secret but thine owne hand shall be upon him to kill him And so of this pleasurable or profitable sin Non misereberis Thou shalt not hide it but poure it out in Confession Non misereberis Thou shalt not pardon it no nor reprieve it but destroy it for the practise presently Non misereberis Thou shalt not turne out the Mother and retaine the Daughter not leave the sin and retaine that which was sinfully got but devest all roote and body and fruits by confession to God by contrition in thy selfe by restitution to men damnified Elfe that will fall upon thee and thy soule which fell upon the Church That because they did not take their little foxes they endangered the whole vine Because they did pity the poore in judgement that is as S. Augustine sayes they were loath to wrastle with the people or force them from dangerous customes they came from that supine negligence in tolerating prayer for the Dead to establish a doctrinall point of Purgatory and for both prayer for the Dead and Purgatory they detort this text Else that is if no Purgatory why then are these men
baptized for the Dead As in the Old Testament there is no precept no precedent 2 Part no promise for prayer for the Dead So in the Old Testament they confesse there was no Purgatory no such place as could purifie a soule to that cleannesse as to deliver it up to Heaven For thither to Heaven no soule say they had accesse till after Christs ascension But as the first mention of prayer for the dead was in time of the Maccabees so much about the same time was the first stone of Purgatory laid and laid by the hands of Plato For Plato Tertul. Hareticorum Patriarchae Philosophi sayes Tertullian The Philosophers were the Patriarchs of Heretiques evermore they had recourse to them And then Plato being the Author of Purgatory we cannot deny but that the Greeke Church did acknowledge Purgatory that is that Greeke Church of which Plato is a Patriarch for for the Christian Greeke Church that never acknowledged Purgatory so as the Roman that is A place of torment from which our prayers here might deliver soules there But yet Platoes invention or his manner of expressing it Eusebius Anno 326. tooke such roote and such hold as that Eusebius when he comes to speake of Purgatory delivers it in the very words of Plato and makes Platoes words his words and Plato his Patriarch for the Greeke Church The Latin Church had Patriarchs too for this Doctrine though not Philosophers yet Poets for of that which Virgil sayes of Purgatory Virgil. Lactantius Anno 290. Lactantius sayes propemodum vera Virgil was very neere the truth Virgil was almost a Catholique but then later men say Haec prorsus vera This is absolutely true that Virgil sayes and Virgil is a perfect a downe-right Catholique for an upright Catholique in the point of Purgatory were hard to finde These then are the first Patriarchs of the Greek and Latin Church Philosophers and Poets And when it came farther to Christians it gained not much at first for the first mention of Purgatory amongst Christians hath this double ill lucke that first it is in a Booke which no side beleeves the Booke called Pastor whose Author is said to bee Hermes Hermes and he fancied to be S. Pauls Disciple And then that which is said of Purgatory in that Booke is put into an old womans mouth and so made an old wives tale she tels that she had a vision of stones fallen from a towre and then mended after they were fallen and laid in the building againe And this Towre must be the Church and these fallen stones must be soules in Purgatory and then they must be made fit to be placed in the uppermost part of the building in the Triumphant Church But to consider this plant in better grounds then Philosophers or Poets or old wives tales Clem. Alexan. or supposititious books amongst men of more waight and gravity Clement of Alexandria within little more then two hundred yeares after Christ spake doubtfully uncertainly suspiciously disputably of Purgatory And within twenty yeares after him Origen Origen who was evermore transported beyond the letter upon mysteries somewhat directly But yet when all is done Origens Purgatory is a purgatory that would do them no good for it would bring them in no money and they could be as well content that there were none as that it were nothing worth except they may have the letting and setting of Purgatory at their price they care not though it were pulled downe And Origens Purgatory is such a purgatory as the best men must come into it even Martyrs themselves that are re-baptized in their owne blood and will this purgatory serve their turnes And it is such a purgatory as the worst of all even the Devill himselfe may and shall get out of it And will this purgatory serve their turnes Neither is this an error peculiar to Origen That all soules must passe through Purgatory but common with others of the Fathers too Sive Paulus sive Petrus sayes Origen whether it be S. Paul or S. Peter Ambrose thither he must come And sive Petrus sive Iohannes sayes S. Ambrose whether it be the Disciple that loved Christ S. Peter or the Disciple whom Christ loved S. Iohn thither he must come And S. Hilary extends it farther he drawes in the blessed Virgin Mary her selfe into purgatory And that we may see cleerely that that Purgatory which the Fathers intended is not the Purgatory now erected in the Roman Church S. Ambrose consigns to his Purgatory even the Patriarchs and Prophets of the Old Testaments Igne filii Levi igne Ezekiel igne Daniel The holiest generation the Sons of Levi and the greatest of the Prophets must passe through this fire And will such a purgatory serve their turnes as was kindled in the Old Testament Well Interrogant nos They are very loath to be put to their speciall plea very loath to answer what Purgatory of the Fathers they will stand to They would not be put to answer They chuse rather to interrogate us and they ask us Since the Fathers are so pregnant so frequent in the name of Purgatory one Purgatory or other will you beleeve none None upon the strength of that argument that the Fathers mention Purgatory except they will assigne us a Purgatory in which those Fathers agree and agree it to be matter of faith to beleeve it for from how many things which passe through the Fathers by way of opinion and of discourse are they in the Romane Church departed onely upon that That the Fathers said it but said it not Dogmatically but by way of discourse or opinion But then they aske us againe Since it is cleare that they did use prayer for the dead what could they meane by those prayers but a Purgatory a place of torment where those soules needed helpe and from whence those prayers might helpe them What could they meane els Certainly we cannot tell them what they meant If they should aske them who made those prayers they could hardly tell them If a man should have surprized S. Ambrose at his prayers and stood behinde him and heard him say Non dubitamus Ambrose etiam Angelorum testimoniis credimus Lord I cannot doubt it for thou by thine Angels hast revealed it unto me Fide ablutum aeterna voluptate perfrui That my dead Master the Emperour was baptized in his faith and is now in possession of all the joyes of heaven and yet have heard S. Ambrose say sometimes to God sometimes to his dead Master Si quid preces if my prayers may prevaile with thee O God and then Oblationibus vos frequentabo I will waite upon you daily with my Oblations I will accompany you daily with my Sacrifices And for what Vt des Domine requiem That thou O Lord wouldest afford rest and peace and salvation to that soule And if this man after all this should have asked S. Ambrose What he meant to pray
as well that because Christ is called Porta A Gate therefore when Samson is said to have carried a Gate Samson must be a Christopher and carry Christ And because Christ is a vine and a way and water and bread wheresoever any of these words are they must be intended of Christ not to stand upon the argument and inconsequence I say this word Baptisme hath not that signification which he would have it have here in any of those other places of Scripture which he cites to this purpose They are but two and may quickly be considered The first is when Christ askes the ambitious Apostles Mat. 20.20 Luk. 12.50 Are yee able to drinke of the Cup that I shall drinke of and to be baptized with the baptisme that I shall be baptized with The second is in S. Luke I must be baptized with a Baptisme and how am I grieved till it be ended In both which places Christ doth understand by this word Baptisme his Passion That is true And so ordinarily in the Christian Church as the dayes of the death of the Martyrs were called Natalitia Martyrum The Birth-dayes of the Martyrs so Martyrdome it selfe was called a Baptisme Baptisma sanguinis The Baptisme of Blood That is also true but what then was the Passion of Christ himselfe such an affliction as Bellarmine speakes of here and argues from in this place that is an affliction so inflicted upon himselfe and undertaken by himselfe as that then when he did beare it he might have forborne it and refused to beare it Though nothing were more voluntary then Christs submitting himselfe to that Decree of dying for man yet when that Decree was passed to which he had a privity nothing was more necessary nor unavoydable to any man then the Death of the Crosse was to Christ neither could he not onely not have saved us but not have been exalted in his humane nature himselfe if he had not dyed that death for all that was wrapped up in the Decree and from that grew out the propterea exaltatus and the oportuit pati That all those things Christ ought to suffer And therefore therefore because he did suffer all that he was exalted And will Bellarmine say that the Martyrdome of the Martyrs in the primitive Church was so voluntarily sustained as that they might have forsaken the cause of Christ and refused Martyrdome and yet have been saved and satisfied the purpose or the commandement of God upon them If from us Bellarmine will not heare it let him heare a man of his own profession not onely of his own Religion but so narrowly of his own profession as to have been a publique Reader of Divinity in a great University as well as he Estius And he sayes Sunt aliqui recentiores qui baptizari interpretantur affligi There are some sayes he not all nor the most and therefore it is not so manifest a place Sunt aliqui recentiores There are some of the later men sayes he not of the Fathers or Expositors in the primitive Church and therefore it is not so reverend and uncontrolable an opinion But onely some few later men there are sayes he that thinke that Baptisme in this place is to be understood of Affliction But sayes the same Doctor It is an Interpretation valde figurata rara wholly relying upon a figure and a figure very rarely used so rarely sayes he Vt non ab alio quam à Christo usurpetur That never any but Christ in the Scriptures called Affliction Baptisme So that it lacks thus much of being a manifest proofe for Purgatory as Bellarmine pretends That it is neither the common sense but of a few nor the ancient sense but of a few later men nor a sense obvious and ordinary and literall but figurative and that figure not communicated to others but onely applied by Christ and appropriated to his Passion which was not a passion so undergone as that then when he suffered it he might have refused it which is necessary for that Doctrine which Bellarmine would evict from it But because Bellarmine in whom perchance the Spirit of a Cardinall hath not overcome the Spirit of a Jesuit will admit no competition nor diversity of opinion except it be from one of his own Order we have Iustinian a man refined in that Order Iustinian a Jesuit as well as he an Italian and so hath his naturall and nationall refining as well as he and one whose books are dedicated to the Pope as well as his and so hath had an Oraculous refining by an allowance Oraculo vivae vocis by the breath of life the Oracle of truth the Popes approbation as well as he and thus much better That Iustinians never were but Bellarmines books have been threatned by the Inquisition And Iustinian never was but Bellarmine hath been put to his Retractations And he sayes onely this of this place Aliqui referunt ad corporis vexationes pro Mortuis Some men refer these words to bodily afflictions sustained by men alive for the Dead Et haec sententia multis vehementer probatur sayes he This interpretation hath much delighted and satisfied many men Sed potest dici sayes he By their leaves this may be said If S. Paul aske Why doe men afflict themselves in the behalfe of them that are dead it may be answered sayes he That if they doe so they are fools in doing so S. Paul intends certainly to prove the Resurrection by these words neither sayes he could the Resurrection of the body be proved by all S. Pauls argument if that were admitted to be the right sense of the place for what were all this to the Resurrection of the body which is S. Pauls scope and purpose in the place If men were baptized that is as Bellarmine would have it if they did suffer voluntarily and unnecessarily affliction for the Dead that is to deliver their soules out of Purgatory what would all this conduce to the proofe of the Resurrection of the body But that we may have a witnesse against him in all his capacities as wee have produced one as he is a Jesuit and another equall to him as he was publique Professor so to consider him as a Cardinall for as a Cardinall Bellarmine hath changed his opinion in some things that he held before he was hood-wincked with his Hat to consider him therefore so we have a witnesse against him in the Consistory Cardinall Cajetan Cajetan who finds no baptisme of teares nor penance in these words no application of any affliction sustained voluntarily by the living in the behalfe and contemplation of the dead but adhering to that which is truly the purpose of the Apostle to prove the resurrection of the body hee sayes In hoc quòd merguntur sub aqua mortuos gerunt When in Baptisme they are as it were buried under the water as the forme of Baptizing was then by Immersion of the whole body and not onely
naturall interpretation and that it doth not wound nor violate the purpose and intention of the Apostle as sayes he all the other interpretations which Beza produces doe And yet Beza himselfe as well as Piscator in their translatitions retaine the Super which is in Luther and make it so a baptisme upon the dead and not for the dead To be baptized then for the dead or upon the dead is in their understanding an expectation of a Resurrection for themselves together with them in sight of whose dead bodies they were baptized Here is no figurative speech but the words taken in their proper and present and first signification And this is not of a generall baptisme common to all but of a custome taken up by some in the Church of Corinth out of speciall devotion and testification of the Resurrection And lastly this had reference not onely to the immortality of the soule but to the resurrection of the body also which was then in their contemplation in which Circumstance most of the former interpretations of the Ancients were defective for still it might have been answered to S. Pauls question Quid illi Quid de illis What meane they and what becomes of them We doe all this for the salvation of soules though we doe not binde our selves to beleeve a resurrection of bodies So that all the particulars that S. Paul proposed to himselfe meet fully and strongly in this interpretation Nothing can be opposed against it if the history be true if the matter of fact be cleare and evident if it appeare fully that this was a custome in the Apostles time that those Christians did use to receive baptisme upon the graves of the dead I doubt not but Luther had ground for it I doubt not but Melancton had Authors for he sayes Aliqui scribunt some have written it They may have seene Authors whom I have not for my part I confesse I never found this Custome in the Ecclesiastique Story to my remembrance And when the Centuriators who gathered the Story of the Church with some diligence and who were of the perswasion whom the world calls Lutherans when they say Constat It is manifest that in the Church of Corinth Cent. 1. l. 2. c. 6. they did baptize in that manner upon the graves of the dead they never cite any testimony of History for their Constat nor for their evidence of this matter of fact but onely this very place of Scripture this text and the directer and the fuller way had been to have proved the text from the story then the story from the text The Exposition is very faire and very likely if the matter of fact be proved and the fact may be proved by some whom those reverend persons have read and I have not There is one Interpretation more which is open to no imputation spotted with no aspersion subject to no objection and therefore fittest to be embraced which is also grounded upon a Custome which came very early into the Church of God so early as that we can assigne no beginning and of which Custome for the matter of fact wee are sure it was in practise which was that upon an opinion that at the time of Baptisme there was an absolute washing away and a deliverance from all sinnes men did ordinarily or very often defer their baptisme till their death-bed that so they might have their transmigration and passage out of this world in that purity that baptisme restored them to without contracting any more sinnes after baptisme This we are too sure was in use for we see the Ecclesiasticall Story full of Examples of it in great persons great in power and authority for Constantine the Emperour deferred his baptisme long after his resolution to be a Christian And great in estimation and merit and knowledge for S. Augustine remembers it with much compunction That in an extreame sicknesse Conf. l. 1. c. 11. Flagitavi baptismum à Matre he begged at his Mothers hands that he might be baptized and obtained it not because he was a person in her observation like enough to fall into more sinnes after he had been delivered of those by baptisme He notes the generall disposition of his time Sonat undique It is every mans voyce every mans saying Sine eum faciat quid vult nondum baptizatus est Let him alone yet let him doe what he will yet for yet he is not baptized But sayes that blessed Father there would they say to a man that lay wounded and weltring in his blood Sine eum vulneretur ampliùs nondum enim sanatus est Let him lie or give him two or three wounds more for the Surgeon is not come yet to cure him And yet sayes he his and my case is all one Before his time which was after foure hundred yeares we may see that this custome of late baptizing was not onely tolerated but advised and counselled in the Church when Tertullian two hundred yeares before S. Augustine chides away young children from comming to Baptisme so soone before sayes he they need it Quid festinat innocens aetas ad remissionem peccatorum Why are they brought to the washing away of sinnes which as yet have committed no sinne And he makes Baptisme so occasionall a thing and subject to so many Circumstances that very many other occasions might put off Baptisme Innuptis procrastinandus baptismus sayes Tertullian quia eis praeparata tentatio He would not have them baptized that meant to marry soone after because they were to wrastle with a great tentation as long as their fancy and imagination was full of their future marriage So soone and so deeply was this opinion rooted that it was to little purpose to baptize till towards our death that S. Basil was faine to oppose it expresly in the Easterne Church And both the Gregories Nazianzen and Nyssen and then S. Ambrose and others in the Westerne all arguing against it as a custome long before in use and none assigning any beginning of it Upon this custome then S. Paul argues If men upon their death-bed when they are esteemed pro Mortuis as good as dead no better then dead for so the phrase is ordinarily used pro derelicto pro perdito when we esteeme a man forsaken or a thing lost If men desire baptisme when they are held pro mortuis no other then dead given over for dead and are to have no fellowship with themilitant Church here in this life doe they not in this care of this act to be done upon their bodies imply a confession of the Resurrection These were they whom those times called Clinicos Bed-baptists Bed-Christians which either deferred their baptisme upon the reasons mentioned before that they might be sure to have a pure transmigration presently after Baptisme Or els they were Catechumeni such Convertits to the Christian faith as the Church had undertaken to instruct and catechize but did not baptize till a certaine time Easter
faith apply thy selfe to both Regulate thy faith by the Rule that is the Word and by Example that is Beleeve those things which the Saints of God have constantly and unanimely beleeved to be necessary to salvation The Word is the Law and the Rule The Church is the Practise and the Precedent that regulates thy faith And if thou make imaginary revelations and inspirations thy Law or the practise of Sectaries thy Precedent thou doest but call Fancie and Imagination by the name of Reason and Understanding and Opinion by the name of Faith and Singularity and Schisme by the name of Communion of Saints The Law of thy faith is That that that thou beleevest be Universall Catholique beleeved by all And then that the Application be particular To beleeve that as Christ dyed sufficiently for all so he dyed effectually for thee And of this effectuall dying for thee there arises an evidence from thy selfe in thy conformity to him Thy conformity consists in this That thou art willing to live according to his Gospell and ready to dye for him that dyed for thee For till a man have resisted unto blood he cannot know experimentally what degrees towards perfection his faith hath And though he may conceive in himselfe a holy purpose to dye for Christ yet till he have dyed for Christ or dyed in Christ that is as long as we are in this valley of tentations there is nothing no not in spirituall things not in faith it selfe perfect It is not In credendis in our embracing the object of faith we doe not that perfectly Spes It is not In petendis in our directing our prayers faithfully neither we doe not that our faith is not perfect nor our hope is not perfect for so argues the Apostle Ye aske Iames 4.3 and receive not because ye aske amisse you cannot hope constantly because you doe not pray aright And to make a Prayer a right Prayer there go so many essentiall circumstances as that the best man may justly suspect his best Prayer for since Prayer must bee of faith Prayer can be but so perfect as the faith is perfect and the imperfections of the best faith we have seene Christ hath given us but a short Prayer and yet we are weary of that Some of the old Heretiques of the Primitive Church abridged that Prayer and some of our later Schismatiques have annihilated evacuated that Prayer The Cathari then left out that one Petition Dimitte nobis Forgive us our trespasses for they thought themselves so pure as that they needed no forgivenesse and our new men leave out the whole Prayer because the same Spirit that spake in Christ speakes in their extemporall prayers and they can pray as well as Christ could teach them And to leave those whom we are bound to leave those old Heretiques those new Schismatiques which of us ever ever sayes over that short Prayer with a deliberate understanding of every Petition as we passe or without deviations and extravagancies of our thoughts in that halfe-minute of our Devotion We have not leasure to speake of the abuse of prayer in the Roman Church where they wil antidate and postdate their prayers Say to morrows prayers to day and to dayes prayers to morrow if they have other uses and employments of the due time betweene where they will trade and make merchandise of prayers by way of exchange My man shall fast for me and I will pray for my man or my Atturney and Proxy shall pray for us both at my charge nay where they will play for prayers and the loser must pray for both To this there belongs but a holy scorne and I would faine passe it over quickly But when we consider with a religious seriousnesse the manifold weaknesses of the strongest devotions in time of Prayer it is a sad consideration I throw my selfe downe in my Chamber and I call in and invite God and his Angels thither and when they are there I neglect God and his Angels for the noise of a Flie for the ratling of a Coach for the whining of a doore I talke on in the same posture of praying Eyes lifted up knees bowed downe as though I prayed to God and if God or his Angels should aske me when I thought last of God in that prayer I cannot tell Sometimes I finde that I had forgot what I was about but when I began to forget it I cannot tell A memory of yesterdays pleasures a feare of to morrows dangers a straw under my knee a noise in mine eare a light in mine eye an any thing a nothing a fancy a Chimera in my braine troubles me in my prayer So certainely is there nothing nothing in spirituall things perfect in this world Not In credendis Charitas In things that belong to Faith not In petendis In things that belong to Hope nor In agendis In things that belong to Action to Workes to Charity there is nothing perfect there neither I would be loath to say That every good work is a sin That were to say That every deformed or disordered man were a beast or that every corrupt meat were poyson It is not utterly so not so altogether But it is so much towards it as that there is no worke of ours so good as that wee can looke for thanks at Gods hand for that worke no worke that hath not so much ill mingled with it as that wee need not cry God mercy for that worke There was so much corruption in the getting or so much vaine glory in the bestowing as that no man builds an Hospitall but his soule lies though not dead yet lame in that Hospitall no man mends a high-way but he is though not drowned yet mired in that way no man relieves the poore but he needs reliefe for that reliefe In all those workes of Charity the world that hath benefit by them is bound to confesse and acknowledge a goodnesse and to call them good workes but the man that does them and knows the weaknesses of them knows they are not good works It is possible to Art to purge a peccant humour out of a sick bodie but not possible to raise a dead bodie to life God out of my Confession of the impuritie of my best actions shall vouchsafe to take off his eyes from that impurity as though there were none but no spirituall thing in us not Faith not Hope not Charitie have any puritie any perfection in themselves which is the generall Doctrine wee proposed at first And our next Consideration is how this weakenesse appeares in the Action and in the Words of Martha in our Text Lord if thou hadst beene here my brother had not dyed Now lest we should attribute this weakenesse Marthae fides onely to weake persons upon whom we had a prejudice to Martha alone we note to you first that her sister Mary to whom in the whole Story very much is ascribed when she comes to Christ comes also
disease both in Church and State that Occasionall things have diverted the principall and hindered them from being done 797. C Often contemplation of death takes much from the feare of it 473. E Old against growing old in sinne 543. C Opinion in a middle station between ignorance and knowledge 354. C Foolish and fantasticall Opinions should not so much as be disputed against ibid. D Of gayning a good Opinion amongst men 481. E Oppression against Oppression and Extortion 94. A Originall sin how full we are of it 2. E It is a Naturall poyson in us and how it workes 313. D The Gentiles how purged of Originall sin in the judgement of some Romanists 314. D How Originall sin is voluntarie in us 363. A Ostracisme amongst the Athenians what 479. C P PAinting and adorning of themselves how used how abused of men and women 196. B. C. 541. C. 714. A The limits of it not so narrow as some conceive them 643. C Parents the honour due unto them 217. D Patience in suffering of injuries the power and benefit of it 410. B Peace the consideration and the benefit of it 145. E. 146. A. B The lovelinesse and amiablenesse of it considered 753. B. C Of Peace and plenty ibid. Penance different Penances upon different sinnes yet practised in our Church 402. B Publick Penances in the Primitive Church and why 545. D No satisfaction to Gods justice in them 544 B. C. D How to understand the Fathers enclining that way 545. E Perplexities of the severall kinds of them 606. C Persecution of the Primitive Church described 185. B. C Perfect there is nothing in the world perfect no not in spirituall things 817. D. 818. A Of Persevering and not trusting to our former goodnes 165. C. D. 303. A. B. 331. A. 547. D. E Petalisme amongst the Syracusians what it was 479. C S. Peters being at Rome how believed and how not 404. E. 733. E. 744. D S. Peter and S. Paul how magnified by S. Chrysostome 462. B. C Philosophers what knowledge many of them had of Christ 68. E Pilgrimages how they begun and grew on in the Church of Rome 252. B The abuses of them taxed by the Romanists themselves ibid. C And by sundry Fathers ibid. D Places Consecrated of their honour use 251. D Against being over-homely and over-fellowly with God and them 691. C Place and Precedency the fond contentions about it 730. E Especially amongst the severall Orders of Friars who all pretend to the most humble Names that can be 731. D Against the sinne of night-Pollutions 129. C. D Popularity the sinne and danger of it 482. C The vanitie of it 660. A Poverty and Riches which occasioneth most sinnes 658. D. 659. D What kind of Poverty is a blessing 728. D. E Power of that Power that is in us to discerne our owne Actions and assist our selves in our own Salvation 118. B. C. D Prayer for the dead no precept no example of it in the Law or Gospel 780. A First used of the Gentiles and of them taken up by the Jewes ibid. B. C Then of the Christians and how ibid. D. E Why the Fathers did not oppose the practise of it 780. D. E. 781. B Turtullian the first that tooke knowledge of it 781. A Aerius did oppose it but not harkened to and why 781. C How farre allowed by Epiphanius ibid. D. What the Fathers meant by Praying for the dead out of Dennis the Areopagite 735. E which is allowed by the Apologie for the Confession of Auspourg 786. B Prayer A set forme of Prayer used of the Gentiles 689. A The Office of Conditor precum what it was ib. Their Prayers received every five yeares ibid. A. 771. E Prayer how wee may Pray earnestly and yet wait the Lords leisure 34. D Of Prayer at home and at Church 35. C. c 90. B. 264. E. 370. B. 688. E Unseasonable Prayers not accepted of God 50. E. 521. B Prayers to be said kneeling 72. E Prayer and Preaching 89. E Against ex tempore Prayers 90. C. 130. C. 668. B. C. And Praying to severall Saints for severall things 90. D What Prayer is properly called Ours 130. A The condition of pure Prayer 131. A Not alwayes heard of God and why 133. B. C. 553. C. Against fashionall and customary Prayer 512. E Of the importunity impudency and violence of Prayer 522. B Against incogitancy in Prayer 555. B Against irreverence in Gods House in the time of Prayer 692. A Of the severall errours that are easily committed and doe all frustrate our Prayers 692. D The duties and dignities of Prayer 804. B Repeating the same Prayer often no idle thing 812 B Of those distractions which the best of us have in Prayer 820. B. C. Of the abuses of Prayer in the Church of Rome ibid. We are to descend to particulars in our Prayers 822. A Of that fervency and importunity which is required in our Prayers ibid. B. C Praise and thanksgiving all our Religion is nothing else 88. C The necessity and benefit of it ibid. D Of such Praise as is due to the good actions of men 167 A. B. C. c. Praise what it is 679. D That it may be fought of good men ibid. Praise to be directed upon three Objects 680. C We may Praise and yet not flatter D. E Of Praying and Praising 804. C. 805. B Preaching and Praying the benefit and use of either 689. B. C. D Preaching more frequent in the Primitive Times than now and good reason why 324. C Preaching often ex tempore and Preaching of other mens Sermons ordinary ibid. D Against the sodaine extemporall Preaching of this time 325. A Some points of Divinity not fit to bee Preached 561. D. E In what sense it is good for a man to Preach himselfe 574. B. C. D Against popular Preaching 660. B Of Abuses offered to Preaching 693. A The severall Names of Preaching 758. D No resemblance of Preaching amongst the Gentiles 771. E Preisthood the honour and dignitie of it 32. D 391 D. E That the particular way of ennobling men amongst the Jewes ibid. 32. E The Priest to be sent for before the Physitian 110. C In extraordinary cases above the King but not otherwise 396. B The Egyptian Kings killed themselves when the Priest bid them 485. C Of the Pretences and coverings and excuses which we find out for our sinnes 570. B Against Pride 65. A Pride the first sin of the Angels 622. C All Pride is not forbidden Man ibid. D What is not Pride 623. B. 727. D How early a sin Pride is 726. D Nothing so contrary to God as Pride is 727. E 728. A Against Prodigalitie 94. C Of that Progresse which a man is to make be he never so learned or religious 427. B. C. D. 616. D Promises the difference betweene the Promises of the Messias and the Performance of them by Christs comming in the Flesh 68. B. 406. E Prophet no visible calling
that should worke their torment as he suspended the rage of the Lyons for Daniel and the heat of the fire in the furnace for the others Sometimes by imprinting a holy stupefaction and unsensiblenesse in the person that suffers So S. Laurence was not onely patient but merry and facetious when he lay broyling upon the fire and so we reade of many other Martyrs that they have beene lesse moved lesse affected with their torments then their Executioners or their Persecutors have beene That which troubled others never troubled them Or els the phrase must have this sense That though they be troubled with their troubles though God submit them so far to the common condition of men that they be sensible of them yet he shall preserve them from that trouble so as that it shall never overthrow them never sinke them into a dejection of spirit or diffidence in his mercy They shall finde stormes but a stout and strong ship under foote They shall feele Thunder and lightning but garlands of triumphant bayes shall preserve them They shall be trodden into the earth with scornes and contempts but yet as seed is buried to multiply to more So far this word of our Translators assist our devotion Thou shalt preserve me from trouble Thou shalt make me unsensible of it or thou shalt make me victorious in it But the Originall word Tzur hath a more peculiar sense Perplexity It signifies a straite a narrownesse a difficulty 2 Sam. 1.26 a distresse I am distressed for thee my brother Ionathan sayes David in this word when he lamented his irremediable his irrecoverable death So is it also Esa 21.3 Pangs have taken hold of me as the pangs of a woman that travaileth And so the word growes to signifie Psal 89.43 Aciem gladii Thou hast turned the edge of the sword and to signifie the top and precipice of a rock Psal 78.15 He clave the rocks in the wildernesse So that the word expresses Angustiam narrownesse pressure precipitation inextricablenesse in a word that will best fit us Perplexity and The Lord shall preserve me from perplexity And this may the Church and this may every good soule comfort it selfe in Thou shalt preserve me from perplexity Consider it first in the Church and then in our selves and first in the Primitive Ecclesia Primitiva and then in the reformed Church When God had brought his Church ex abscondito from his hiding place from poverty and contempt and solitarinesse and glorified it in the eyes of the world by many royall endowments and possessions with which Princes then become Christians and other great persons piously and graciously invested her though these were tentations to aspire to greater yet God preserved her from perplexities of all kinds from perplexing of Princes with her claims that they might not marry nor make leagues nor levy Armies but by her permission The Church called nothing her own but that which God had called His and given her that is Tithes All the rest shee acknowledged to have received from the bounty of pious benefactors This was her plea The Lord is my rock and my fortresse and my deliverer my strength my buckler Psal 18.2 and my high tower In all this Inventory in all this Armory and furniture of the Church there is never a sword Rocks and fortresses and bucklers and Towers but no sword no materiall sword in the Churches hand Arma nostra preces fletus Ambrose The Church fought with nothing but prayers and teares And as God delivered her from these perplexities from perplexing the affayres of Princes with her interest in their government so he delivered her from any perplexities in her own government No usurpation no offer of any Prince that attempted to invade or violate the true right of the Church no practise of any Heretiques how subtile how potent soever though they equalled though they exceeded the Church in number and in power as at some times the Arians did ever brought the Church to a perplexitie or to an apprehension of any necessitie of yeelding to sacrilegious Princes or to irreligious Heretiques in any point to procure their peace or to enjoy their rest but still they kept the dignitie of Priesthood intire and still they kept the truth of the Christian Religion intire no perplexity how they should subsist if they were so stiffe ever brought them to goe lesse to any prevarications or modifications either in matter of Religion towards Heretiques or in the execution of their religious function towards facrilegious usurpers So God preserved the Primitive Church from perplexitie shee was ever thankfull and submisse towards her benefactors shee was ever erect and constant against usurpers And this preservation from perplexity we consider in the reformed Church also When the fulnesse of time was come Ecclesia Reformata and that Church which lay in the bowels of the putative Church the specious Church the Romane Church that is those soules which groaned and panted after a Reformation were enabled by God to effect it when the Iniquity of Babylon was come to that height That whereas at first they tooke of Almes afterwards Monachi emunt Nobiles vendunt Monkes bought and Lords sold Hieron Ep. ad Demetr nay Monasteries bought and the Crowne sold when they went so far as to forgea Donation of Constantin by which they laid hold upon a great temporall state and after that so much farther as to renounce the Donation of Constantin by which for a long time the Roman Church claimed all their temporall state S. Peters patrimony and so at last came to say That all the states of all Christian Princes are held of the Church and really may be and actually are forfeited to her and may at her pleasure be re-assumed by her when for the art and science of Divinity it selfe they had buried it in the darknesse of the Schoole and wrapped up that that should save our soules in those perplexed and inextricable clouds of Schoole-divinitie and their Schoole-divinitie subject to such changes as that a Jesuit professes that in the compasse but of thirty yeares Tanner in Aquin p. 1. ad Lector since Gregory de Valentia writ Verè dici possit novam quodammodo Theologiam prognatam esse We may truly say that we have a new art of Divinity risen amongst us The Divinity of these times sayes he is not in our Church the same that it was thirty yeares since since all parts of the Christian Church were so incensed both with their heresie and their tyranny as that the Greeke Church which generally they would make the world beleeve is absolutely as they are is by some of their own Authors confessed to be more averse from them Stenartius Ep. Dedic ante Calecam and more bitter against them then Luther or Calvin since upon all these provocations God was pleased to bring this Church the Reformed Church not onely to light but