publickly but the Inconveniences of that appearing and particularly many of those sins being Capital instead of a publick there was a private Confession practised The Bishops either attended upon these themselves or they appointed a Penitentiary Priest to receive them All was in order to the executing the Canons and for keeping up the Discipline of the Church Bishops were warranted by the Council of Nice to excuse the severity of the Canons as the occasion should require The Penitents went through the Penance imposed which was done publickly the Separation and Penance being visible even when the sin was kept secret and when the time of the Penance was finished they received the Penitents by Prayer and Imposition of Hands into the Communion of the Church and so they were received This was all the Absolution that was known during the first Six Centuries Penitents were enjoyned to publish such of their secret Sins as the Penitentiary Priest did prescribe This happened to give great Scandal at Constantinople Socr. Hist. l. 5. c. 19. when Nectarius was Bishop there for a Woman being in a Course of Penance confessed publickly that she had been guilty of Adultery committed with a Deacon in the Church It seems by the Relation that the Historian gives of this matter that she went beyond the Injunctions given her but whether the fault was in her or in the Penitentiary Priest this gave such offence Thirteen Passages out of him cited and explained by Daille de Conf. l. 4. c. 25. that Nectarius broke that Custom And Chrysostom who came soon after him to that See speaks very fully against secret Confession and advises Christians to confess only to God yet the practice of secret Confession was kept up elsewhere but it appears by a vast number of Citations from the Fathers both in different Ages and in the different Corners of the Church that though they pressed Confession much and magnified the value of it highly yet they never urged it as necessary to the Pardon of Sin or as a Sacrament they only prest it as a mean to compleat the Repentance and to give the Sinner an Interest in the Prayers of the Church This may be positively affirmed concerning all the Quotations that are brought in this matter to prove that Auricular Confession is necessary in order to the Priest's Pardon and that it is founded on those Words of Christ Whose sins ye remit c. that they prove quite the contrary that the Fathers had not the sense of it but considered it either as a mean to help to the compleating of Repentance or as a mean to maintain the Purity of the Christian Church and the Rigour of Discipline In the Fifth Century a Practice begun which was no small step to the ruin of the Order of the Church Penitents were suffered instead of the Publick Penance that had been formerly enjoyned to do it secretly in some Monastery or in any other private place in the presence of a few good Men and that at the discretion of the Bishop or the Confessor at the end of which Absolution was given in secret This was done to draw what Professions of Repentance they could from such Persons who would not submit to settled Rules This Temper was found neither to lose them quite nor to let their Sins pass without any Censure But in the Seventh Century all Publick Penance for secret Sins was taken quite away Theodore Archbishop of Canterbury is reckoned the first of all the Bishops of the Western Church that did quite take away all publick Penance for secret Sins Another piece of the ancient Severity was also slackned for they had never allowed Penance to Men that had relapsed into any sin tho' they did not cut them off from all hope of the Mercy of God yet they never gave a second Absolution to the Relapse This the Church of Rome has still kept up in one Point which is Heresy a Relapse being delivered to the Secular Arm without admitting him to Penance The Ancients did indeed admit such to Penance but they never reconciled them Yet in the decay of Discipline Absolution came to be granted to the Relapse as well as to him that had sinned but once About the end of the Eighth Century the Commutation of Penance began and instead of the ancient Severities Vocal Prayers came to be all that was enjoyned so many Paters stood for so many Days of fasting and the rich were admitted to buy off their Penance under the decenter Name of giving Alms. The getting many Masses to be said was thought a Devotion by which God was so much honoured that the Commuting Penance for Masses was much practised Pilgrimages and Wars came on afterwards and in the Twelfth Century the Trade was set up of selling Indulgences By this it appears that Confession came by several steps into the Church that in the first Ages it was not heard of that the Apostacies in time of Persecution gave the first rise to it all which demonstrates that the Primitive Church did not consider it as a thing appointed by Christ to be the Matter of a Sacrament It may be in the Power of the Church to propose Confession as a mean to direct Men in their Repentance to humble them deeper for their Sins and to oblige them to a greater strictness But to enjoyn it as necessary to obtain the Pardon of Sin and to make it an indispensable Condition and indeed the most indispensable of all the parts of Repentance is beyond the Power of the Church for since Christ is the Mediator of this New Covenant he alone must fix the necessary Conditions of it In this more than in any thing else we must conclude that the Gospel is express and clear and therefore so hard a Condition as this is cannot be imposed by any other Authority The Obligation to Auricular Confession is a thing to which Mankind is naturally so little disposed to submit and it may have such consequences on the Peace and Order of the World that we have reason to believe that if Christ had intended to have made it a necessary part of Repentance he would have declared it in express Words and not have left it so much in the dark that those who assert it must draw it by Inferences from those Words Whose Sins ye remit c. Some things are of such a nature that we may justly conclude that either they are not at all required or that they are commanded in plain terms As for the good or evil Effects that may follow on the obliging Men to a strictness in Confession that does not belong to this matter If it is acknowledged to be only a Law of the Church other considerations are to be examined about it but if it is pretended to be a Law of God and a part of a Sacrament we must have a Divine Institution for it otherwise all the advantages that can possibly be imagined in it without that are only so many
these are of no Value being only Inventions to deceive Men and to expose Religion to Mockery But even severe and afflicting Fasting if done only as a Punishment which when it is over the Penance is believed to be compleated gives such a low Idea of God and Religion that from thence Men are led to think very slightly of Sin when they know at what price they can carry it off Such a continuance in Fasting in order to Prayer as humbles and depresses Nature and raises the Mind is a great mean to reform the World but Fasting as a prescribed Task to expiate our Sins is a scorn put upon Religion Prayer when it arises from a serious Heart that is earnest in it and when it becomes habitual is certainly a most effectual mean to reform the World and to fetch down Divine Assistances But to appoint so many vocal Prayers to be gone through as a Task and then to tell the World that the running through these with few or no inward Acts accompanying them is Contrition or Attrition this is liker a Design to root out all the Impressions of Religion and all sense of that Repentance which the Gospel requires than to promote it This may be a Task fit to accustom Children to but it is contrary to the true Genius of Religion to teach Men instead of that reasonable Service that we ought to offer up to God to give him only the Labour of the Lips which is the Sacrifice of Fools Prayers gone through as a Task can be of no value and can find no acceptation in the sight of God And as St. Paul said that if he gave all his goods to the poor and had not Charity he was nothing 1 Cor. 13 1 2. So the greatest profusion of Alms-giving when done in a mercenary Way to buy off and to purchase a Pardon is the turning of God's House from being a house of prayer to be a den of thieves Upon all these Reasons we except to the whole Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome as to the Satisfaction made by doing Penance And in the last place we except to the Form of Absolution in these Words I Absolve thee We of this Church who use it only to such as are thought to be near Death cannot be meant to understand any thing by it but the full Peace and Pardon of the Church For if we meant a Pardon with relation to God we ought to use it upon many other occasions The Pardon that we give in the Name of God is only declaratory of his Pardon or supplicatory in a Prayer to him for Pardon In this we have the whole Practice of the Church till the Twelfth Century universally of our side All the Fathers all the ancient Liturgies all that have writ upon the Offices and the first Schoolmen are so express in this Matter that the thing in Fact cannot be denied Morinus has published so many of their old Rituals that he has put an end to all doubting about it In the Twelfth Century some few began to use the Words I Absolve thee Yet to soften this Expression that seemed New and Bold some tempered it with these Words in so far as it is granted to my frailty and others with those Words as far as the accusation comes from thee and as the pardon is in me Yet this Form was but little practised So that William Bishop of Paris speaks of the Form of Absolution as given only in a Prayer and not as given in these Words I Absolve thee He lived in the beginning of the Fourteenth Century so that this Practice though begun in other Places before that Time yet was not known long after in so publick a City as Paris But some Schoolmen begun to defend it as implying only a declaration of the Pardon pronounced by the Priest And this having an air of more Authority and being once justified by Learned Men did so universally prevail that in little more than sixty Years time it became the universal Practice of the whole Latin Church So sure a thing is Tradition and so impossible to be changed as they pretend when within the compass of one Age the new Form I Absolve thee was not so much as generally known and before the end of it the old Form of doing it in a Prayer with Imposition of Hands was quite worn out The Idea that arises naturally out of these words is that the Priest pardons Sins and since that is subject to such abuses and has let in so much corruption upon that Church we think we have reason not only to deny that Penance is a Sacrament but likewise to affirm that they have corrupted this great and important Doctrine of Repentance in all the Parts and Branches of it Nor is the matter mended with that Prayer that follows the Absolution The Passion of our Lord Iesus Christ Rituale Romanum de sacr poeniten the Merits of the Blessed Virgin and all the Saints and all the good that thou hast done and the evil that thou hast suffered be to thee for the remission of Sins the increase of Grace and the reward of eternal Life The third Sacrament rejected by this Article is Orders which is reckoned the sixth by the Church of Rome We affirm that Christ appointed a Succession of Pastors in different Ranks to be continued in his Church for the Work of the Gospel and the Care of Souls and that as the Apostles setled the Churches they appointed different Orders of Bishops Priests and Deacons And we believe that all who are dedicated to serve in these Ministries after they are examined and judged worthy of them ought to be separated to them by the Imposition of Hands and by Prayer These were the only Rites that we find practised by the Apostles For many Ages the Church of God used no other therefore we acknowledge that Bishops Priests and Deacons ought to be blest and dedicated to the HolyMinistry by Imposition of Hands and Prayer And that then they are received according to the Order and Practice setled by the Apostles to serve in their respective Degrees Men thus separated have thereby Authority to perfect the Saints or Christians that is to perform the Sacred Functions among them to minister to them and to build them up in their most Holy Faith And we think no other Persons without such a Separation and Consecration can lawfully touch the Holy Things In all which we separate the Qualifications of the Functions from the inward Qualities of the Person the one not at all depending on the other The one relating only to the Order and the good Government of the Society and the other relating indeed to the Salvation of him that Officiates but not at all to the Validity of his Office or Service But in all this we see nothing like a Sacrament Here is neither Matter Form nor Institution here is only Prayer The laying on of Hands is only a gesture in Prayer
that imports the Designation of the Person so prayed over In the Greek Church there is indeed a different Form for though there are Prayers in their Office of Ordination Haberti pontif Graecum Morinus de Ordinat Sacâ—is yet the words that do accompany the Imposition of Hands are only Declaratory The Grace of God that perfects the feeble and heals the weak promotes this Man to be a Deacon a Priest or a Bishop let us therefore pray for him By which they pretend only to judge of a divine Vocation All the ancient Rituals and all those that treat of them for the first Seven Centuries speak of nothing as Essential to Orders but Prayer and Imposition of Hands It is true many Rites came to be added and many Prayers were used that went far beyond the first Simplicity But in the Tenth or Eleventh Century a new Form was brought in of delivering the Vessels in ordaining Priests and Words were joined with that giving them Power to offer Sacrifices to God and to celebrate Masses and then the Orders were believed to be given by this Rite The delivering of the Vessels look'd like a Matter and these Words were thought the Form of the Sacrament and the Prayer that was formerly used with the Imposition of Hands was indeed still used but only as a Part of the Office no Hands were laid on when it was used And tho' the Form of laying on of Hands was still continued the Bishop with other Priests laying their Hands on those they Ordained yet it is now a dumb Ceremony not a word of a Prayer being said while they lay on their Hands So that tho' both Prayer and Imposition of Hands are used in the Office yet they are not joined together In the conclusion of the Ofsice a new Benediction was added ever since the Twelfth Century The Bishop alone lays on his Hands saying Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins ye remit they are remitted and whose sins ye retain they are retained The number Seven was thought to sute the Sacraments best so Orders were made one of them and of these only Priesthood where the Vessels were declared to be the Matter and the Form was the delivering them with the words Take thou Authority to offer up Sacrifices to God and to Celebrate Masses both for the Living and the Dead In the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost The Schoolmen have taken a new way of explaining this whole matter borrowed from the Eucharist that is made up of Two parts the Consecration of the Bread and of the Wine both so necessary that without the one the other becomes void So they teach that a Priest has Two Powers of Consecrating and of Absolving and that he is Ordained to the one by the delivery of the Vessels and to the other by the Bishop's laying on of Hands with the words Receive the Holy Ghost and they make the Bishop and the Priest's laying on Hands jointly to be only their declaring as by a Suffrage that such a Person ought to be Ordained So totally have they departed from the Primitive Forms If this is a Sacrament and if the Sacrament consists in this Matter and Form by them assigned then since all the Rituals of the Latin Church for the sirst Ten Centuries had no such Form of Ordaining Priests this cannot be the Matter and Form of a Sacrament otherwise the Church had in a course of so many Ages no true Orders nor any Sacrament in them Nor will it serve in answer to this to say that Christ Instituted no special Matter nor Form here but has left the specifying those among the other Powers that he has given to his Church For a Sacrament being an Institution of applying a Matter designed by God by a particular Form likewise appointed to say that Christ appointed here neither Matter nor Form is plainly to confess that this is no Sacrament In the first Nine or Ten Ages there was no Matter at all used nothing but an Imposition of Hands with Prayer So that by this Doctrine the Church of God was all that while without true Orders since there was nothing used that can be called the Matter of a Sacrament Therefore though we continue this Institution of Christ as he â—nd his Apostles settled it in the Church yet we deny it to be a Sacrament we also deny all the inferior Orders to be Sacred below that of Deacon The other Orders we do not deny might be well and on good reasons appointed by the Church as steps through which Clerks might be made to pass in order to a stricter examination and trial of them like Degrees in Universities But the making them at least the Subdiaconate Sacred as it is reckoned by Pope Eugenius is we think beyond the Power of the Church for here a Degree of Orders is made a Sacrament and yet that Degree is not named in the Scripture nor in the first Ages It is true it came to be soon used with the other Inferior Orders but it cannot be pretended to be a Sacrament since no Divine Institution can be brought for it And we cannot but observe that in the definition that Eugenius has given of the Sacraments which is an Authentical piece in the Roman Church where he reckons Priests Deacons and Subdeacons as belonging to the Sacrament of Orders he does not Name Bishops though their being of Divine Institution is not questioned in that Church Perhaps the Spirit with which they acted at that time in Basil offended him so much that he was more set on depressing than on raising them In the Council of Trent in which so much Zeal appeared for recovering the Dignity of the Episcopal Order at that time so much eclipsed by the Papal Usurpations when the Sacrament of Orders was Treated of they reckoned Seven Degrees of them the highest of which is that of Priest So that though they Decreed that a Bishop was by the Divine Institution above a Priest yet they did not Decree that the Office was an Order or a Sacrament And the Schoolmen do generally explain Episcopate as being a higher Degree or Extension of Priesthood rather than a new Order or a Sacrament the main thing in their Thoughts being that which if true is the greatest of all Miracles the wonderful Conversion made in Transubstantion they seem to think that no Order can be above that which qualifies a Man for so great a Performance I say nothing in this place concerning the power of Offering Sacrifices pretended to be given in Orders for that belongs to another Article The Fourth Sacrament here rejected is Marriage which is reckoned the last by the Roman Account In the Point of Argument there is less to say here than in any of the other but there seems to be a very express warrant for calling it a Sacrament from the Translation of a passage in St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians Ephes. 5.32 in which he makes an allusion while he
that this was a Book fit to serve a Turn but only that this Book was necessary at that time to instruct the Nation aright and so was of great use then But though the Doctrine in it if once true must be always true yet it will not be always of the same necessity to the People As for Instance There are many Discourses in the Epistles of the Apostles that relate to the Controversies then on foot with the Judaizers to the Engagements the Christians then lived in with the Heathens and to those Corrupters of Christianity that were in those days Those Doctrines were necessary for that time but though they are now as true as they were then yet since we have no Commerce either with Iews or Gentiles we cannot say that it is as necessary for the present time to dwell much on those matters as it was for that time to explain them once well If the Nation should come to be quite out of the danger of falling back into Popery it would not be so necessary to insist upon many of the Subjects of the Homilies as it was when they were first prepared ARTICLE XXXVI Of Consecration of Bishops and Ministers The Book of Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops and ordering of Priests and Deacons lately set forth in the time of Edward the Sixth and confirmed at the same time by Authority of Parliament doth contain all things necessary to such Consecration and Ordering neither hath it any thing that of it self is superstitious and ungodly And therefore whosoever are Consecrated and Ordered according to the Rites of that Book since the Second Year of the aforenamed King Edward unto this time or hereafter shall be Consecrated or Ordered according to the same Rites we decree all such to be rightly orderly and lawfully Consecrated and Ordered AS to the most essential parts of this Article they were already examined when the pretended Sacrament of Orders was explained where it was proved that Prayer and Imposition of Hands was all that was necessary to the giving of Orders and that the Forms added in the Roman Pontifical are new and cannot be held to be necessary since the Church had subsisted for many Ages before those were thought on So that either our Ordinations without those Additions are good or the Church of God was for many Ages without true Orders There seems to be here insinuated a Ratification of Orders that were given before this Article was made which being done as the Lawyers phrase it ex post facto it seems these Orders were unlawful when given and that Error was intended to be corrected by this Article The opening a part of the History of that time will clear this matter There was a new Form of Ordinations agreed on by the Bishops in the Third Year of King Edward and when the Book of Common-Prayer with the last Corrections of it was Authorized by Act of Parliament in the Fifth Year of that Reign the New Book of Ordinations was also enacted and was appointed to be a part of the Common-Prayer-Book In Queen Mary's time these Acts were repealed and those Books were condemned by Name When Queen Elizabeth came to the Crown King Edward's Common-Prayer-Book was of new enacted and Queen Mary's Act was repealed But the Book of Ordination was not expresly named it being considered as a part of the Common-Prayer-Book as it had been made in King Edward's time so it was thought no more necessary to mention that Office by Name than to mention all the other Offices that are in the Book Bishop Bonner set on foot a Nicety That since the Book of Ordinations was by name condemned in Queen Mary's time and was not by name revived in Queen Elizabeth's time that therefore it was still condemned by Law and that by consequence Ordinations performed according to this Book were not legal But it is visible that whatsoever might be made out of this according to the Niceties of our Law it has no relation to the Validity of Ordinations as they are Sacred Performances but only as they are Legal Actions with relation to our Constitution Therefore a Declaration was made in a subsequent Parliament That the Book of Ordination was considered as a part of the Book of Common-Prayer And to clear all Scruples or Disputes that might arise upon that matter they by a Retrospect declared them to be good and from that Retrospect in the Act of Parliament the like Clause was put in the Article The chief Exception that can be made to the Foâ—m of giving Oâ—deâ—s amongst us is to those words Receive ye the Holy Ghost which as it is â—o Antient Form it not being above Five hundred Years old so it is taken from Words of our Saviour's that the Church in her besâ— times thought were not to be applied to this It was proper to him to use them who had the Fulness of the Spirit to give it at pleasure He made use of it in constituting his Apostles the Governours of his Church in his own stead and therefore it seems to have a Sound in it that is too bold and assuming as if we could convey the Holy Ghost To this it is to be answered That the Churches both in the East and West have so often changed the Forms of Ordination that our Church may well claim the same Power of appointing New Forms that others have done And since the several Functions and Administrations that are in the Church are by the Apostle said to flow from one and the same Spirit all of them from the Apostles down to the Pastors and Teachers we may then reckon that the Holy Ghost though in a much lower degree is given to those who are inwardly moved of God to undertake that Holy Office So that though that extraordinary Effusion that was poured out upon the Apostles was in them in a much higher degree and was accompanied with most amazing Characters yet still such as do sincerely offer themselves up on a Divine Motion to this Service receive a lower Portion of this Spirit That being laid down these Words Receive ye the Holy Ghost may be understood to be of the nature of a Wish and Prayer as if it were said May thou receive the Holy Ghost and so it will better agree with what follows And be thou a faithful Dispenser of the Word and Sacraments Or it may be observed That in those Sacred Missions the Church and Church-men consider themselves as acting in the Name and Person of Christ. In Baptism it is expresly said I baptize in the Name of the Father c. In the Eucharist we repeat the Words of Christ and apply them to the Elements as said by him So we consider such as deserve to be admitted to those Holy Functions as Persons called and sent of God and therefore the Church in the Name of Christ sends them and because he gives a Portion of his Spirit to those whom he sends therefore the Church in his Name
institutam non habeant Sacramenta non in hoc instituta sunt a Christo ut spectarentur aut circumferentur sed ut â—ite illis uterentur in his duntaxat qui digni percipiunt salutarem habent effectum Qui vero indigne percipiunt damnationem ut inquit Paulus sibi ipsis acquirunt De vi institutionum divinarum quod eam non tollat malitia Ministrorum QUâ—mvis in Ecclesia visibili bonis mali semper sunt admixti atque interdum ministeâ—io verbi Sacramentorum adminstrationi praesint tamen cum non suo 〈◊〉 Christi nomine agant ejusque mandato authoritate ministrent illorum ministerio uti licet cum in verbo Dei audiendo tum in Sacramentis percipiendis Neque per illorum malitiam â—ffectus institutorum Christi tollitur aut gratia donorum Dei minuitur quoad eos qui fide rite sibi oblata percipiunt quae propter institutionem Christi promissionem efficacia sunt licet per malos adminisâ—rentur Ad Ecclesiae tamen disciplinam pertinet ut in malos ministros inquiratur accusentuâ—que ab his qui eorum flagiâ—ia noverint atque tandem justo convicti judicio deponanâ—ur De Baptismo BAptismus non est tantum professionis signum ac discriminis nota qua Christiani a non Christianis discernantur sed etiam est signum regenerationis per quod tanquam per instrumentum recte baptismum suscipientes Ecclesiae inseruntur promissionis de remissione peccatorum atque adoptione nostra in filios Dei per Spiritum sanctum visibiliter obsignantur fides confirmatur vi divinae invocationis gratia augetur Baptismus parvulorm omnino in Ecclesia retinendus est ut qui cum Christi institutione optime congruat De Coena Domini COena Domini non est tantum signum mutuae benevolentiae Christianorum inter sese verum potius est Sacramentum nostrae per mortem Christi redemptionis Aâ—que adeo rite digne cum fide sumentibus panis quem â—rangimus est communicatio corporis Christi similiter poculum benedictionis est communicatio sanguinis Christi Panis Vini Transubstantiatio in Eucharistia ex sacris literis probari non potest Sed apertis Scripturae verbis adversatur Sacramenti naturam evertit multarum superstitionum dedit occasionem Corpus Christi datur accipitur manducatur in Coena tantum coelesti spirituali ratione Medium autem quo corpus Christi accipitur manducatur in Coena fides est Sacramentum Eucharistiae ex instiâ—utione Chrisâ—i non servabatur circumferebatur elevebatur nec adorabatur De manducatione corporis Christi impios illud non manducare IMpii fide viva destituti licet carnaliter visibiliter ut Augustinus loquitur corporis sanguinis Christi Sacramentum dentibus premâ—nt nullo tamen modo Christi participes efficiuntur Sed potius tantae rei Sacramentum seu Symbolum ad judicium sibi manducant bibunt De utraque specie CAlix Domini laicis non est denegandus utraque enim pars Dominici Sacramenti ex Christi institutione praecepto omnibus Christanis ex aequo administrari debet De unica Christi oblatione in cruce perfecta OBlâ—tio Christi semel sacta perfecta est redemptio propitiatio satisfactio pro omnibus peccatis totius mundi tam originalibus quam actualibus Neque praeter illam unicam est ulla alia pro peccatis expiatio unde missarum sacrificia quibus vulgo dicebatur sacerdotem offerre Christum in remissionem poenae aut culpae pro vivis defunctis blasphema figmenta sunt perniciosae imposturae De conjugio Sacerdotum EPiscopis presbyteris diaconis nullo mandato divino praeceptum est ut aut coelibatum voveant aut a matrimonio abstineant Licet igitur etiam illis ut caeteris omnibus Christianis ubi hic ad pietatem magis facere judicaverint pro suo arbitratu matrimonium contrahere De excommunicatis vitandis QUi per publicam Ecclâ—siae denuntiationem rite ab unitaâ—e ecclesiae praecisus est excommunicatus is ab universa fidelium multitudine donec per poenitentiam publice reconciliatus fuerit arbitrio Judicis competentis habendus est tanquam Ethnicus publicanus De traditionibus Ecclesiasticis TRaditiones atque caeremonias easdem omnino necessarium est esse ubique aut prorsus consimiles Nam ut variae semper fuerunt mutari possunt pro Regionum temporum morum diversitate modo nihil contra verbum Dei instituatur Traditiones caeremonias Ecclesiasticas quae cum verbo Dei non pugnant sunt authoritate publica institutae aâ—que probatae quisquis privato consilio volens data opera publice violaverit is ut qui peccat in publicum ordinem Ecclesiae quique laedit authoritatem Magistratus qui infirmorum fratrum conscientias vulnerat publice ut caeteri timeant arguendus est Quaelibet Ecclesia particularis sive Nationalis authoritatem habet instituendi mutandi aut abrogandi Caeremonias aut ritus Ecclesiasticos humana tantum authoritate institutos modo omnia ad aedificationem fiant De Homiliis TOmus secundus Homiliarum quarum singulos titulos huic articulo subjunximus continet piam salutarem doctrinam his temporibus necessariam non minus quam prior Tomus Homiliarum quae editae sunt tempore Edwardi sexti Itaque eas in Ecclesiis per ministros diligenter clare ut a populo intelligi possint recitandas esse judicavimus De nominibus Homiliarum Of the right use of the Church Against peril of Idolatry Of repairing and keeping clean of Churches Of good works First Of fasting Against gluttony and drunkenness Against excess of Apparel Of Prayer Of the place and time of Prayer That common Prayers and Sacraments ought to be ministred in a known tongue Of the reverent estimation of God's Word Of Alms-doing Of the Nativity of Christ. Of the Passion of Christ. Of the Resurrection of Christ. Of the worthy receiving of the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. Of the gifts of the Holy Ghost For the Rogation days Of the State of Matrimony Of Repentance Against Idleness Against Rebellion De Episcoporum Ministrorum consecratione LIbellus de consecratione Archiepiscoporum Episcoporum de ordinatione presbyterorum diaconorum editus nuper temporibus Edwardi VI. authoritate Parliamenti illis ipsis temporibus confirmatus omnia ad ejusmodi consecrationem ordinationem necessaria continet nihil habet quod ex se sit aut superstitiosum aut impium itaque quicunque juxta ritus illius libri consecrati aut ordinati sunt ab anno secundo praedicti regis Edwardi usque ad hoc tempus aut imposterum juxta eosdem ritus consecrabuntur aut ordinabuntur rite atque ordine atque legitime sâ—atuimus esse fore consecratos ordinatos De civilibus
Tell the Church Ibid. Hâ—w the Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth 206 Christ's Promise I am with you alway even to the end of the world Ibid. Of that It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us Ibid. Some Generâ—l Councils have ereed 207 ARTICLE XXII 217 THE Dâ—ctrine of Purgatory Ibid. Sins once pardâ—ned are not punished 218 Vnlâ—ss with chastisements in this life 219 No state of satisfaction aftâ—r death Ibid. No mention made of that in Scripture 220 But it is plain to the contrary 221 Different Opinions among the Ancients Ibid. The Original of Purgatory 222 A pâ—ssâ—ge in Maccabees considered Ibid. A pâ—ssâ—ge in the Epistle to the Corinthians câ—nsidered 223 The prâ—gress â—f the â—elief of Purgatory 2â—4 Prayers for the dead among the Ancients 225 Endâ—wments for redeeming out of Purgâ—toâ—y 226 Whether these ought to be sacred or nâ—t 227 The Doctrine of Pardons and Indulgences 228 It is only the excusing from Penance 229 Nâ— Foundation for it in Scripâ—ure Ibid. General Rules concerning Idolatry 230 Of the Iâ—olatry of Hâ—athens 231 Laws given to the Jews against it Ibid. The Expostulâ—â—ions of the Prophets 232 Concerning the Golden Calf Ibid. And The Calves at Dan and Bethel 233 The Ap stles opposed all Idolatry Ibid. St. Paul at Athens and to the Romans 334 The sense of the Primitive upon it 235 The first use of Images among Christians Ibid. Pictures in Churches for Instruction 236 Were afterwards worshipped Ibid. Contests abâ—ut that Ibid. Images of the Deity and Trinity 237 On what theWorship of Images terminates 238 The due Worship settled by the Council at Trent Ibid. Images consecrated and how 239 Arguments for worshipping them answered Ibid. Arguments against the use or worship of Images 240 The worship of Relicks 241 A due regard to the Bodies of Martyrs Ibid. The progress of Superstition Ibid. No warrant for this in Scripture 242 Hezekiah broke the Brazen Serpent Ibid. The memorable passage concerning the Body of St. Polycarp 243 Fables and Forgeries prevailed Ibid. The Souls of the Martyrs believed to hover about their Tombâ— 244 Nothing of this kind objected to the first Christians Ibid. Disputes between Vigilantius and St. Jerom 245 No Invocation of Saints in the Old Testament 246 The Invocating Angels condemned in the New Tâ—stament 247 No Saints invocated Christ only Ibid. No mention of this in the three first Ages 248 In the Fourth Martyrs invocated Ibid. The progrâ—ss that this made 249 Scandalous Offices in the Church of Rome Ib. Arguments against this Invocation 2â—0 An Apology for those who begun it Ibid. The Scandal given by it 251 Arguments for it ansâ—ered 252 Whethâ—r the Saints see all things in God Ib. This no part of the Communion of Saints 253 Prayers ought to be directed only to God Ib. Revealed Religion designed to deliver the World from Idolatry 254 ARTICLE XXIII 255 A Succâ—ssiâ—n of Pastors ought to be in the Church Ibid. 〈◊〉 was settlâ—d by the Apostles 256 And must continue to the end of the World Ibid. It was settlâ—d in the first Age of the Church 257 The danger of mâ—ns taking to themselves this Authority without a due Vocation Ibid. The difference between means of Salvation and precâ—pts for orders sake 258 What is lawful Authority Ibid. What may be done upon extraordinary occasions 259 Necessity is above Rules of Order Ibid. The High Priests in â—ur Saviour's time 260 Baptism by Women 261 ARTICLE XXIV 262 THE chief end of worshipping God Ib. The Practice of the Jews 263 Rules given by the Apostles Ibid. The Prâ—ctice â—f the Church 264 Arguments for Worship in an unknown Tongue answered Ibid. ARTICLE XXV 266 DIfference between Sacraments and Rites Ibid. Sacraments do not imprint a Character 267 But are not mere Ceremâ—nies 268 What is necessary to constitute a Sacrament 269 That applied to Baptism Ib. And to the Eucharist 270 No meâ—tion of seven Sacraments before Peter Lombard Ibid. Confirmation no Sacrament Ibid. How practised among us Ibid. The use of Chrism in it is new 271 Oyl early used in Christian Rituals Ibid. Bishops only consecrated the Chrism 272 In the Greek Church Presbyters appliâ—d it Ibid. This used in the Western Church but condemned by the Popes Ibid. Disputes concerning Confirmation 273 Concerning Penance Ibid. The true Notion of Repentance Ibid. Confâ—ssion not the matter of a Sacrament 274 The use of Confession Ibid. The Priâ—st's Pardon Ministerial 275 And restrained within bounds Ibid. Auricular Confâ—ssion not necessary 276 Not commanded in the New Testament Ibid. The beginnings of it in the Church 277 Many Canons about Penance Ibid. Confession forbid at Constantinople 278 The ancient Dâ—scipline slâ—ckâ—n'd Ibid. Confâ—ssion may be advised but not commanded 279 The good and bad effâ—cts it may have Ibid. Of Contrition and Attrition 280 The ill effects of the Doctrine of Attrition Ibid. Of doing the Penance or Satisfaction 281 Concerning sorrow for sin Ibid. Of the ill effects of hasty Absolutions 282 Of Fasting and Prayer Ibid. Of the Form I absolve thee 283 Of Hâ—ly Orders 284 Of the ancient Form of Ordinations Ibid. Of delivering the Vessels 285 Orders no Sacrament Ibid. Whether Bishops and Priests are of the same Order 286 Of Marriage Ibid. It can be no Sacrament 287 Intention not necessary Ibid. How Marriage is called a Mystery or Sacrament 288 Marriage dissolved by Adultery Ibid. The Practice of the Church in this matter 289 Of Extreme Vnction Ibid. St. James's words explained 290 Oyl much used in ancient Rituals 291 Pope Innocent's Epistle considered Ibid. Anointing used in order to Recovery 292 Afterwards as the Sacrament of the dying 293 The Sacraments are to be used Ibid. And to be received worthily 294 ARTICLE XXVI 295 SAcraments are not effectual as Prayers are Ibid. Of the Doctrine of Intention 296 The ill consâ—quences of it 297 Of a just Severity in Discipline Ibâ—d Particularly towards the Clergy 298 ARTICLE XXVII 299 COncerning St. John's Baptism Ibid. The Jews used Baptism Ibid. The Christian Baptism 300 The difference between it and St. John's Ib. The necessity of Baptism 301 It is a Precept but not a Mean of Salvation Ibid. Baptism unites us to the Church 302 It also saves us Ibid. St. Peter's words explained 303 St Austin's Doctrine of Baptism Ibid. Baptism is a Foederal Stipulation 304 In what sense it was of more value to preach than to baptize Ibid. Of Infant-Baptism 305 It is grounded on the Law of Nature Ibid. And the Law of Moses and warranted in the New Testament Ibid. In what sense Children can be holy 306 It is also very expedient Ibid. ARTICLE XXVIII 308 THE change made in this Article in Queen Elizabeth's time Ibid. The Explanation of our Doctrine 309 Of the Rituals in the Passover Ibid. Of the words This is my Body 310 And This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood Ibid. Of the horror the Jews had at Blood 311 In what sense only the Disciples could understand our
Saviour's words Ibid. The discourse Joh. 6. explained 312 It can only be understood spiritually 313 Bold Figures much used in the East Ibid. A plain thing needs no great proof 314 Of unworthy Receivers and the effect of that sin 315 Of the effects of worthy receiving Ibid. Of Foederal Symbols 316 Of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ Ibid. Of the like Phrases in Scripture 317 Of our Sense of the Phrase Real Presence Ib. Transubstantiation explained 318 Of the words of Consecration 319 Of the Consequences of Transubstantiation Ibid. The grounds upon which it was believed 320 This is contrary to the Testimony of all our Faculties both Sense and Reason Ibid. We can be sure of nothing if our Senses do deceive us 321 The Objection from believing Mysteries answered 322 The end of all Miracles considered Ibid. Our Doctrine of a Mystical Presence is confessed by those of the Church of Rome 323 St. Austin's Rule about Figures Ibid. Presumptions concerning the belief of the Ancients in this matter 324 They had not that Philosophy which this Doctrine has forced on the Church of Rome 325 This was not objected by Heathens 326 No Heresies or Disputes arose upon this as they did on all other Points 327 Many new Rituals unknown to them have sprung out of this Doctrine Ibid. In particular the adoring the Sacrament 328 Prayers in the Masses of the Saints inconsistent with it Ibid. They believed the Elements were Bread and Wine after Consecration Ibid. Many Authorities brought for this 329 Eutychians said Christ's Humanity was swallowed of his Divinity 330 The Fathers argue against this from the Doctrine of the Eucharist Ibid. The Force of that Argument explained 331 The Fathers say our Bodies are nourished by the Sacrament Ibid. They call it the Type Sign and Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ 332 The Prayer of Consecration calls it so 333 That compared with the Prayer in the Missal Ibid. The progress of the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence 334 Reflection on the Ages in which it grew 335 The occasion on which it was advanced in the Eastern Church 336 Paschase Radbert taught it first 337 But many wrote against him Ibid. Afterwards Berengarius opposed it 338 The Schoolmen descanted on it Ibid. Philosophy was corrupted to support it 339 Concerning Consubstantiation Ibid. It is an Opinion that may be born with 340 The Adoration of the Eucharist is Idolatry Ibid. The Plea against that considered Ibid. Christ is not to be worshipped though present 341 Concerning reserving the Sacrament Ibid. Concerning the Elevation of it 342 ARTICLE XXIX 343 THE wicked do not receive Christ Ibid. The Doctrine of the Fathers in this Point Ibid. More particularly St. Austin's 344 ARTICLE XXX 345 THE Chalice was given to all Ibid. Not to the Disciples as Priests Ibid. The breaking of Bread explained 346 Sacraments must be given according to the Institution Ibid. Nâ— Arguments from ill consequences to be admitted unless in cases of necessity 347 Concomitance a new Notion Ibid. Vniversal practice for giving the Chalice Ibid. The case of the Agrarii 348 The first beginning of taking away the Cup Ibid. The Decree of the Council of Constance 349 ARTICLE XXXI 350 THE term Sacrifice of a large signification Ibid. The Primitive Christians denied that they had any Sacrifices Ibid. The Eucharist has no virtue but as it is a Communion 351 Strictly speaking there is only one Priest and one Sacrifice in the Christian Religion 352 The Fathers did not think the Eucharist was a Propitiatory Sacrifice 353 But call it a Sacrafice in a larger sense Ibid. Mâ—sses without a Communion not known then 354 None might be at Mass who did not communicate Ibid. The Importance of the Controversies concerning the Eucharist 355 ARTICLE XXXII 356 NO Divine Law against a Married Clergy Ibid. Neither in the Old or New Testament but the contrary 357 The Church has not Power to make a perpetual Law against it Ibid. The ill consequences of such a Law 358 No such Law in the first Ages Ibid. When the Laws for the Celibate began 359 The practice of the Church not uniform in it Ibid. The progress of these Laws in England 360 The good and the bad of Celibate balanced Ibid. It is not lawful to make Vows in this matter 361 Nor do they bind when made Ibid. Oaths ill made are worse to be kept 362 ARTICLE XXXIII 363 A Temper to be observed in Church Discipline Ibid. The necessity of keeping it up Ibid. Extremes in this to be avoided 364 Concerning the delivering any to Satan Ibid. The Importance of an Anathemea 365 Of the effect of Church-Censures Ibid. What it is when they are wrong applied 366 The causless jealousy of Church-Power Ibid. How the Laity was once taken into the exercise of it 367 The Pastors of the Church have Authority Ibid. Defects in this no just cause of Separation 368 All these brought in by Popery Ibid. A Correction of them intended at the Reformation 369 ARTICLE XXXIV 370 THE Obligation to obey Canons and Laws Ibid. The great Sin of Schism and Disobedience 371 The true Notion of Scandal Ibid. The fear of giving Scandal no warrant to break established Laws 372 Human Laws are not unalterable Ibid. The Respect due to Ancient Canons 373 The Corruptions of the Canon Law Ibid. Great Varieties in Rituals Ibid. Every Church is a compleat Body 374 ARTICLE XXXV 375 THE occasion of compiling the Homilies Ibid. We are not bound to every thing in them Ibid. But only to the Doctrine 376 This illustrated in the Charge of Idolatry Ib. What is meant by their being necessary for those times Ibid. ARTICLE XXXVI 377 THE occasion of this Article Ibid. An Explanation of the words Receive ye the Holy Ghost 378 ARTICLE XXXVII 379 QVeen Elizabeth's Injunction concerning the Supremacy Ibid. The Popes Vniversal Iurisdiction not warranted by any of the Laws of Christ 380 Nor acknowledged in the first Ages 381 Begun on the occasion of the Arian Controversy Ibid. Contested in many places 382 The Progress that it made Ibid. The Patriarchal Authority founded on the division of the Roman Empire sunk with it 383 The Power exercised by the Kings of Judah in Religious Matters Ibid. That is founded on Scriptures 384 Practised in all Ages Ibid. And particularly in England 385 Methods used by Popish Princes to keep the Ecclesiastical Authority under the Civil Ibid. The Temporal Power is over all persons 386 And in all causes Ibid. The Importance of the Term Head 387 The Necâ—ssity of Capital Punishments Ibid. The measure of these 388 The Lawfulness of War Ibid. Our Saviour's words explained Ibid. In what cases War is juâ—t 389 Warranted by the Laws of God 390 How a Subject may serve in an unlawful War Ibid. ARTICLE XXXVIII 391 COncerning Property and Charity Ibid. The Proportion of Charity to the Poor 392 ARTICLE XXXIX 393 THE Lawfulness of Oaths proved Ibid. From Natural Religion and
a piece of the Fiction of the Parable which cannot enter into any part of the Application of it Col. 1.24 What St. Paul says of his filling up that which was behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for his body's sake which is the Church is as appears by the words that follow whereof I am made a Minister only applicable to the Edification that the Church received from the Sufferings of the Apostles It being a great confirmation to them of the Truth of the Gospel when those who preached it suffered so constantly and so patiently for it by which they both confirmed what they had preached and set an Example to others of adhering firmly to it And since Christ is related to his Church as a Head to the Members it is in some sort his suffering himself when his Members suffer and that Conformity which they ought to express to him as their Head was necessary to make up the due Proportion that ought to be between the Head and the Members So St. Paul rejoyced in his being made conformable to him And this as it is a Sense that the words will well bear so it is certain they are capable of no other sense for if the sufferings of the Apostles were meritorious in behalf of the other Christians some plain account must have been given of this in the New Testament at least to do honour to the Memory of such Apostles as had then died for the Faith If it is suggested that the living Apostles were too modest to claim it to themselves that will not satisfy all runs quite in a contrary Stile The Mercies of God and the blood of Christ being always repeated whereas these are never once named Now to imagine that there can be any thing of such great use to us in which the Scripture should be not only silent but should run in a strain totally different from it is not conceivable For if in any thing the Gospel ought to be full and explicite in all that which concerns our Peace and Reconciliation with God and the means of our escaping his Wrath and obtaining his Favour There is another Doctrine that does also belong to this Head which is Purgatory that is not to be entred on here but is referred to its proper place Thus it appears how ill this Doctrine of Works of Supererogation is founded and upon how many accounts it is evidently false and yet upon it has been built not only a Theory of a Communication of those Merits and a Treasure in the Church but a Practice of so foul a nature that in it the words of our Saviour spoken to the Iews My house is a house of Prayer Mark 11.17 but ye have made it a den of Thieves are accomplished in a high and most scandalous manner It has been pretended that this was of the nature of a Bank of which the Pope was the Keeper and that he could grant such Bills and Assignments upon it as he pleased This was done in so base and so crying a manner that all who had any sense of Probity in their own Church were ashamed of it In the Primitive Church there were very severe Rules made obliging all that had sinned publickly and they were afterwards applied to such as had sinned secretly to continue for many Years in a state of Separation from the Sacrament and of Penance and Discipline But because all such general Rules admit of a great variety of Circumstances taken from Mens Sins their Persons and their Repentance there was a Power given to all Bishops by the Council of Nice to shorten the time and to relax the severity of those Canons and such Favour as they saw cause to grant was called Indulgence This was just and necessary and was a Provision without which no Constitution or Society can be well governed But after the Tenth Century as the Popes came to take this Power in the whole extent of it into their own hands so they found it too feeble to carry on the great Designs that they grafted upon it They gave it high Names and called it a plenary Remission and the pardon of all Sins which the World was taught to look on as a thing of a much higher nature than the bare excusing of Men from Discipline and Penance Purgatory was then got to be firmly believed and all Men were strangely possessed with the terror of it So a deliverance from Purgatory and by consequence an immediate admission into Heaven was believed to be the certain effect of it And to support all this the Doctrine of Counsels of Perfection of Works of Supererogation and of the Communication of those Merits was set up and to that this was added That a Treasure made up of these was at the Pope's disposal and in his keeping The use that this was put to was as bad as the Forgery it self Multitudes were by these means engaged to go to the Holy Land to recover it out of the hands of the Saracens Afterwards they armed vast Numbers against Hereticks to extirpate them They fought also all those Quarrels which their ambitious Pretensions engaged them in with Emperors and other Princes by the same Pay and at last they set it to Sale with the same Impudence and almost with the same Methods that Mountebanks use in the venting of their Secrets This was so gross even in an Ignorant Age and among the ruder sort that it gave the first Rise to the Reformation and as the progress of it was a very signal Work of God so it was in a great measure owing to the Scandals that this shameless Practice had given the World And upon this single reason it is that this matter has been more fully examined than was necessary for the thing is so plain that it has no sort of difficulty in it ARTICLE XV. Of Christ alone without Sin Christ in the truth of our nature was made like unto us in all things sin only except from which he was clearly void both in his flesh and in spirit He came to be a Lamb without spot who by sacrifice of himself once made should take away the sins of the World and sin as St. John saith was not in him But all we the rest although baptized and born again in Christ yet offend in many things and if we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us THis Article relates to the former and is put here as another Foundation against all Works of Supererogation for that Doctrine with the Consequences of it having given the first Occasion to the Reformation it was thought necessary to overthrow it entirely and because the Perfection of the Saints must be supposed before their Supererogation can be thought on that was therefore here opposed That Christ was holy without spot and blemish harmless undefiled and separate from sinners Heb. 7.26 that there was no guile in his mouth that he never did amiss but
Decree is either Presumption or Despair since a Man upon that bottom reckons That which way soever the Decree is made it must certainly be accomplished They also argue That because we must receive the Promises of God as conditional we must also believe the Decree to be conditional for Absolute Decrees exclude conditional Promises An Offer cannot be supposed to be made in earnest by him that has excluded the greatest number of Men from it by an antecedent Act of his own And if we must only follow the revealed Will of God we ought not to suppose that there is an Antecedent and Positive Will of God that has decreed our doing the contrary to what he has commanded Thus the one side argues That the Article as it lies in the plain meaning of those who conceived it does very expresly establish their Doctrine And the other argues from those Cautions that are added to it That it ought to be understood so as that it may agree with these Cautions And both sides find in the Article it self such grounds that they reckon they do not renounce their Opinions by subscribing it The Remonstrant side have this further to add That the Universal Extent of the Death of Christ seems to be very plainly affirmed in the most solemn part of all the Offices of the Church For in the Office of Communion and in the Prayer of Consecration we own That Christ by the one Oblation of himself once offered made there a full perfect and sufficient Sacrifice Oblation and Satisfaction for the Sins of the whole World Though the others say That by full perfect and sufficient is not to be understood that Christ's Death was intended to be a compleat Sacrifice and Satisfaction for the whole World but that in its own Value it was capable of being such This is thought too great a stretch put upon the words And there are yet more express words in our Church-Catechism to this purpose which is to be considered as the most solemn Declaration of the sense of the Church since that is the Doctrine in which she instructs all her Children And in that part of it which seems to be most important as being the short Summary of the Apostles Creed it is said God the Son who hath redeemed me and all Mankind Where all must stand in the same Extent of Universality as in the precedent and in the following words The Father who made me and all the World the Holy Ghost who sanctifieth me and all the Elect People of God which being to be understood severely and without exception this must also be taken in the same strictness There is another Argument brought from the Office of Baptism to prove that men may fall from a state of Grace and Regeneration for in the whole Office more particularly in the Thanksgiving after the Baptism it is affirmed That the Person baptized is Regenerated by God's Holy Spirit and is received for his own Child by Adoption Now since it is certain that many who are baptized fall from that state of Grace this seems to import That some of the Regenerate may fall away Which tho' it agree well with St. Austin's Doctrine yet it does not agree with the Calvinists Opinions Thus I have examined this matter in as short a compass as was possible and yet I do not know that I have forgot any important part of the whole Controversy though it is large and has many Branches I have kept as far as I can perceive that Indifference which I proposed to my self in the prosecuting of this matter and have not on this occasion declared my own Opinion though I have not avoided the doing it upon other occasions Since the Church has not been peremptory but that a Latitude has been left to different Opinions I thought it became me to make this Explanation of the Article such And therefore I have not endeavoured to possess the Reader with that which is my own sense in this matter but have laid the Force of the Arguments as well as the Weight of the Difficulties of both Sides before him with all the Advantages that I had found in the Books either of the one or of the other Persuasion And I leave the Choice as free to my Reader as the Church has done ARTICLE XVIII Of obtaining Eternal Salvation only by the Name of Christ. They also are to be accursed that presume to say That every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth so that he be diligent to frame his Life according to that Law and the Light of Nature For Holy Scripture doth set out unto us only the Name of Iesus Christ whereby men must be saved THE Impiety that is condemned in this Article was first taug htby some of the Heathen Oraters and Philosophers in the Fourth Century who in their Addresses to the Christian Emperors for the Tolerance of Paganism started this Thought that how lively soever it may seem when well set off in a piece of Eloquence will not bear a severe Argument That God is more honoured by the Varieties and different Methods of worshipping and serving him than if all should fall into the same way That this diversity has a Beauty in it and a suitableness to the Infinite Perfections of God and it does not look so like a mutual agreement or concert as when all Men worship him one way But this is rather a Flash of Wit than true Reasoning The Alcoran has carried this matter further to the asserting That all Men in all Religions are equally acceptable to God if they serve him faithfully in them The infusing this into the World that has a shew of Mercy in it made Men more easy to receive their Law and they took care by their extream Severity to fix them in it when they were once engaged for though they use no Force to make Men Musselmans yet they punish with all extremity every thing that looks like Apostacy from it if it is once received The Doctrine of Leviathan that makes Law to be Religion and Religion to be Law that is that obliges Subjects to believe that Religion to be true or at least to follow that which is enacted by the Laws of their Countrey must be built either on this foundation That there is no such thing as Revealed Religion but that it is only a Political Contrivance or that all Religions are equally acceptable to God Others having observ'd that it was a very small part of Mankind that had the advantages of the Christian Religion have thought it too cruel to damn in their thoughts all those who have not heard of it and yet have lived morally and virtuously according to their Light and Education And some to make themselves and others easy in accommodating their Religion to their secular Interests to excuse their changing and to quiet their Consciences have set up this Notion that seems to have a largeness both of good Nature and Charity in
that there were many very effectual ways to prevent and avoid or at least to shorten those Sufferings and if the Apostles knew this and yet said not a Word of it neither in their first Sermons nor in their Epistles here was a great Treachery in the discharge of their Function and that to the Souls of Men not to warn them of their Danger nor to direct them to the proper Methods of avoiding it but on the contrary to speak and write to them just as we can suppose Impostors would have done to terrify those who would not receive their Gospel with Eternal Damnation but not to say a Word to those who received it of their danger in case they lived not up to that Exactness that their Religion required and yet upon the main adhered to it and followed it This is a Method that does not agree with common Honesty not to say Inspiration A fair way of proceeding is to make Men sensible of Dangers of all sorts and to shew them how to avoid them The Apostles told their Converts That through much tribulation we must enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Acts 14.22 Rom. 8.18 they assurâ—d them That their present sufferings were not worthy to be compared to the Glory that was to be revealed and that those light afflictions which are for a moment wrought for them a more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory 2 Cor. 4.17 Here if they knew any thing of Purgatory a powerful Consideration was past over in silence that by these Afflictions they should be delivered from those Torments This Argument goes further than meer Silence though that is very strong The Scriptures speak always as if the one did immediately follow the other and that the Saints or true Christians pass from the Miseries of this State to the Glories of the next So does our Saviour represent the matter in the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Gluâ—ton whose Souls were presently carried to their different abodes the one to be comforted as the other was tormented He promised also to the repenting Thief To day thou shalt be with me in Paradise 〈◊〉 24.43 St. Paul comforts himself in the apprehension of his dissolution that was approaching with the prospect of the crown of righteousness that should be given him after death 2 Tim. 4.8 and so he states these two as certain Consequents one of another to be dissolved and to be with Christ Phil. 1.2 3. 2 Câ—r 5.6.8 v. 1 2. Heb. 1 10. to be absent from the body and present with the Lord And he makes it appear that it was no peculiar Privilege that he promised to himself but that which all Christians had a Right to expect for he says in general this we know that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle be dissolved we have a building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens In the Epistle to the Hebrews the Patriarchs under the Old Dispensation are represented as looking for that City whose builder and founder is God Though in that State the manifestations of another Life were more imperfect than in this In which life and immortality are brought to light they being veiled and darkned in that State And finally St. Iohn heard a voice commanding him to Write Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord that is being true Christians from henceforth or immediately yea Rev. 14 13. saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them The solemnity in which these words are delivered carry in them an Evidence sufficient to determine the whole matter So that we must have very hard thoughts of the sincerity of the Writers of the New Testament and very much disparage their Credit not to say their Inspiration if we can imagine that there are Scenes of Suffering and those very dismal ones to be gon through of which they gave the World no sort of notice But spoke in the same style that we do who believe no such dismal Interval between the Death of good Men and their final Blessedness The Scriptures do indeed speak of a full reward and of different Degrees in Glory as one Star exceeds another They do also represent the Day of Judgment upon the Resurrection of the Body 2 Ep. John v. 8. 1 Cor. 15.41 as that which gives the full and entire possession of Blessedness so that from hence some have thought upon very probable Grounds that the Blessed though admitted to Happiness immediately upon their Death yet were not so compleatly Happy as they shall be after the Resurrection And in this there arose a diversity of Opinions which is very natural to all who will go and form Systems out of some general Hints Some thought that the Souls of good Men were at Rest and in a good measure Happy but that they did not see God before the Resurrection Others thought that Christ was to come down and Reign visibly upon Earth a Thousand Years before the End of the World And that the Saints were to rise and to Reign with him some sooner and some later Some thought that the last Conflagration was so to affâ—ct all that every one was to pass through it and that it was to give the last and highest Purification to those Bodies that were then to be glorified but that the better Christians that any had been they should feel the less of the Pain of that last Fire These Opinions were very early entertained in the Church An itch of intruding too far into things which Men did not throughly understand concerning Angels began to disturb the Church even in the days of the Apostles which made St. Paul charge the Colossians to beware of vain Philosophy Plato thought there was a middle Sort of Men who though they had sinned yet had repented of it and were in a curable condition and that they went down for some time into Hell to be purged and absolved by grievous Torments The Iews had also a Conceit that the Souls of some Men continued for a Year going up and down in a state of Purgation From these Opinions somewhat of a Curiosity in describing the Degrees of the next State began pretty early to enter into the Church As for that Opinion of the Platonists and the Fictions of Homer and Virgil setting forth the Complaints of Souls departed for their not being relieved by Prayers and Sacrifices though these perhaps are the true Sources of the Doctrine of Purgatory and of redeeming Souls out of it yet we are not so much concerned in them as in what is represented to us by the Author of the Second Book of the Maccabees concerning the Sacrifice that was offered by Iudas Maccabeus for those about whom after they were killed they found such things as shewed that they had defiled themselves with the Idolatry of the Heathens All this is of less Authority with us who do not acknowledge that Book to be Canonical According
it may be applied to the Persecution that was soon to break out in that day those who had true Notions generous Principles and suitable Practices would weather that Storm Whereas others that were entangled with weak and superstitious Conceits would then run a great risk though their firm believing that Jesus was the Messias would preserve them Yet the weakness and folly of those Teachers would appear their Opinions would involve them in such danger that their escaping would be difficult like one that gets out of a House that is all on fire round about him So that these words cannot possibly belong to Purgatory but must be meant of some signal discrimination that was to be made in some very dreadful appearances which would distinguish between the true and the false Apostles and that could be no other but either in the destruction of Ierusalem or in the persecution that was to come on the Church though the first is the more probable It were easy to pursue this Argument further and to shew that the Doctrine of Purgatory as it is now in the Roman Church was not known in the Church of God for the first six hundred Years that then it began to be doubtfully received But in an ignorant Age Visions Legends and bold Stories prevailed much yet the Greek Church never received it Some of the Fathers speak indeed of the last probatory Fire but though they did not think the Saints were in a state of consummate Blessedness enjoying the Vision of God yet they thought they were in a state of ease and quiet and that in Heaven St. Austin speaks in this whole matter very doubtfully he varies often from himself Aug. de Civit. Dâ—i l. 21. c. 18. ad 22. Enâ—â—â—r c. 67 68 69. Ad Dulcid 〈◊〉 primâ— he seems sometimes very positive only for two States at other times as he asserts the last probatory Fire so he seems to think that good Souls might suffer some grief in that sequestred state before the last Day upon the account of some of their past Sins and that by degrees they might arise up to their Consummation All these Contests were proposed very doubtfully before Gregory the Great 's days and even then some Doubts seem to have been made But the Legends were so copiously plaid upon all those Doubts that this Remnant of Paganism got at last into the Western Church Tertul. de Câ—r mil. c. â— de Ex. 〈◊〉 c. 13. â—â—prian 〈◊〉 34.37 〈…〉 75. l. 3. â—3 It was no wonder that the Opinions formerly mentioned which began to appear in the Second Age had preduced in the Third the practice of Praying for the Dead of which we find such full evidence in Tertullain and St. Cyprian's Writings that the matter of Fact is not to be denied This appears also in all the Antient Liturgies And Epiphanius charges Aerius with this of rejecting all Prayers for the Dead asking why were they prayed for The Opinions that they fell into concerning the State of departed Souls in the Interval between their Death and the Day of Judgment gave occasion enough for Prayer they thought they were capable of making a Progress and of having an early Resurrection They also had this Notion among them That it was the peculiar Priviledge of Jesus Christ to be above all our Prayers but that no Men not excepting the Apostles nor the Blessed Virgin were above the Prayers of the Church They thought this was an Act of Church-Communion that we were to hold even with the Saints in Heaven to pray for them Thus in the Apostolical Constitutions in the Books of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and in the Liturgies that are ascribed to St. Basil and St. Chrysostom Dion de Eccl. Hierar Cap. 7. they offer unto God these Prayers which they thought their reasonable Service for those who were at rest in the Faith their Forefathers Fathers Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles Preachers Evangelists Martyrs Confessors Religious Persons and for every Spirit pâ—rfected in the Faith especially for our most Holy Immaculate most Blessed Lady the Mother of God the ever Virgin Mary Particular Instances might also be given of this out of St. Cyprian St. Ambrose Nazianzen and St. Austin Aug. Conf. l. 9. c. 19. who in that famous and much cited Passage concerning his Mother Monica as he speaks nothing of any Temporal Pains that she suffered so he plainly intimates his belief that God had done all that he desired Thus it will appear to those who have examined all the Passages which are brought out of the Fathers concerning their Prayers for the Dead that they believed they were then in Heaven and at rest and by consequence though these Prayers for the Dead did very proâ—ably give the chief rise to the Doctrine of Purgatory yet as they then made them they were utterly inconsistent with that Opinion Tertullian who is the first that is cited for them says we make Oblations for the Dead Supra and we do it for that Second Nativity of theirs Natalitia once a year The Signification of the word Natalitia as they used it was the Saint's Days of Death in which they reckoned he was born again to Heaven So though they judged them there yet they offered up Prayers for them And when Epiphanius brings in Aerius asking Why those Prayers were made for the Dead Though it had been very natural and indeed unavoidable if he had believed Purgatory to have answered that it was to deliver them from thence yet he makes no such answer but only asserts that it had been the Practice of the Church so to do The Greek Church retains that Custom though she has never admitted of Purgatory Here then an Objection may be made to our Constitution that in this of praying for the Dead we have departed from the practice of the Ancients We do not deny it both the Church of Rome and we in another Practice of equal Antiquity of giving the Eucharist to Infants have made changes and let that Custom fall The Curiosities in the Second Century seem to have given rise to those Prayers in the Third and they gave the rise to many other Disorders in the following Centuries Since therefore God has commanded us while we are on Earth to pray for one another and has made that a main Act of our Charity and Church-Communion but has no where directed us to pray for those that have finished their Course and since the only pretence that is brought from Scripture of St Paul's praying that Onesiphorus might find mercy in the day of the Lord cannot be wrought up into an Argument for it cannot be proved that he was then Dead and since the Fathers reckon this of praying for the Dead only as one of their Customs for which they vouch no other Warrant but Practice since also this has been grosly abused and has been applied to support a Doctrine totally different from theirs we think that we have as good a Plea
But we have not so learned Christ. We ought not to lie even for God much less for our selves or for any other pretended ends of keeping the World in awe and order therefore all the Advantages that are said to arise out of this and all the Mischief that may be thought to follow on the rejecting of it ought not to make us presume to carry on the Ends of Religion by unlawful Methods This were to call in the Assistance of the Devil to do the Work of God If the just Apprehensions of the Wrath of God and the Guilt of Sin together with the Fear of Everlasting Burnings will not Reform the World nor Râ—strain Sinners we must leave this Matter to the wise and unsearchable Judgments of God The next Particular in this Article is the condemning the Romish Doctrine concerning Pardons That is founded on the Distinction between the Temporal and Eternal Punishment of Sin and the Pardon is of the Temporal Punishment which is believed to be done by a Power lodged singly in the Pope derived from those Words Feed my Sheep and To thee will I give the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven This may be by him derived as they Teach not only to Bishops and Priests but to the Inferior Orders to be dispensed by them and it excuses from Penance unless he who purchases it thinks fit to use his Penance in a medicinal way as a Preservative against Sin So the Virtue of Indulgences is the applying the Treasure of the Church upon such Terms as Popes shall think fit to prescribe in order to the redeeming Souls from Purgatory and from all other Temporal Punishments and that for such a number of Years as shall be specified in the Bulls some of which have gone to Thousands of Years one I have seen to Ten hundred thousand And as these Indulgences are sometimes granted by special Tickets like Tallies struck on that Treasure so sometimes they are affixed to particular Churches and Altars to particular Times or Days chiefly to the Year of Jubilee they are also affixed to such things as may be carryed about to Agnus Dei's to Medals to Rosaries and Scapularies they are also affixed to some Prayers the Devout saying of them being a mean to procure great Indulgences The granting these is left to the Pope's Discretion who ought to distribute them as he thinks may tend most to the Honour of God and the Good of the Church and he ought not to be too profuse much less to be too scanty in dispensing them This has been the received Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome since the Twelfth Century and the Council of Trent in a hurry in its last Session did in very general Words approve of the Practice of the Church in this Matter and Decreed that Indulgences should be continued only they restrained some Abuses in particular that of selling them yet even those Restraints were wholly referred to the Popes themselves So that this crying Abuse the Scandal of which had occasioned the first beginnings and progress of the Reformation was upon the matter established and the correcting the Excesses in it was trusted to those who had been the Authors of them and the chief Gainers by them This Point of their Doctrine is more fully opened than might perhaps seem necessary if it were not that a great part of the Confutation of some Doctrines is the exposing of them For though in Ages and Places of Ignorance these things have been and still are Practised with great assurance and to very extravagant excesâ—es yet in Countries and Ages of more Light when they come to be questioned they are disowned with an assurance equal to that with which they are Practised elsewhere Among us some will perhaps say that these are only exemptions from Penance which cannot be denied to be within the Power of the Church and they argue that though it is very fit to make severe Laws yet the execution of these must be softened in practice This is all that they pretend to justify and they give up any further Indulgences as an abuse of corrupt Times Whereas at the same time a very different Doctrine is Taught among them where there is no danger but much profit in owning it All this is only a pretence for the Episcopal Power in the inflicting abating or commuting of Penance is stated among them as a thing wholly different from the power of Indulgences They are derived from different Originals and designed for Ends totally different from one another The one is for the outward Discipline of the Church and the other is for the inward quiet of Consciences and in order to their future State The one is in every Bishop and the other is asserted to be peculiar to the Pope Nor will they escape by laying this Matter upon the Ignorance and Abuses of former Times It was published in Bulls and received by the whole Church So that if either the Pope or the diffusive Body of the Church are Infallible there must be such a Power in the Pope and the Decree of the Council of Trent confirming and approving the Practice of the Church in that Point must bind them all For if this Doctrine is False then their Infallibility must go with it For in every Hypothesis in which Infallibility is said to be lodged whether in the Pope or in Councils this Doctrine has that Seal to it As for the Doctrine it self all that has been already said against the distinction of Temporal and Eternal Punishment and against Purgatory overthrows it since the one is the Foundation on which it is built and the other is that which it pretends to secure Men from And therefore this falls with those All that was said upon the Head of the Sufficiency of the Scriptures comes also in here For if the Scriptures ought to be our Rule in any thing it must be chiefly in those Matters which relate to the Pardon of Sin to the quiet of our Consciences and to a future State Therefore a Doctrine and Practice that have not so much as Colours from Scripture in a matter of such Consequence ought to be rejected by us upon this single Account If from the Scripture we go to the Practice and Tradition of the Church we are sure that this was not thought on for above Ten Centuries all the Indulgences that were then known being only the abatements of the severity of the Penitentiary Canons But in the Ages in which aspiring and insolent Popes imposed on Ignorant and Superstitious multitudes a jumble was made of Indulgences formerly granted of Purgatory and of the Papal Authority that was then very implicitly submitted to and so out of all that mixture this arose Which was as ill managed as it was ill grounded The natural tendency of it is not only to relax all publick Discipline but also all secret Penance when shorter Methods to Peace and Pardon may be more easily purchased The vast Application to the
not only in the point of Redemption which is not denied by those of the Church of Rome but even in the point of Intercession for when St. Paul is treating concerning the Prayers and Supplications that are to be offered for all Men he concludes that Direction in these Words For there is one God and one Mediator between God and Man 1 Tim. 2. the Man Christ Iesus We think the silence of the New Testament might be a sufficient Argument for this But these Words go farther and imply a Prohibition to address our Prayers to God by any other Mediator All the Directions that are given us of trusting in God and praying to him are upon the matter Prohibitions of trusting to any other or of calling on any other Invocation and Faith are joyned together How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed Rom. 10.14 So that we ought only to pray to God and to Christ according to those words Ye believe in God believe ye also in me John 14.1 We do also know that it was a part of Heathenish Idolatry to Invocate either Demons or departed Men whom they considered as good Beings subordinate to the Divine Essence and imployed by God in the Government of the World and they had almost the same Speculations about them that have been since introduced into the Church concerning Angels and Saints In the condemning all Idolatry no reserve is made in Scripture for this as being faulty only because it was applied wrong or that it might be set right when directed better On the contrary when some Men under the pretence of Humility and of Will-worship Col. 2.18 did according to the Platonick Notions offer to bring in the Worship of Angels into the Church of Colosse pretending as is probable that those Spirits who were imployed by God in the Ministry of the Gospel ought in gratitude for that Service and out of respect to their Dignity to be worshipped St. Paul condemns all this without any reserves made for lower degrees of Worship he charges the Christians to beware of that vain Philosophy Verse 8 9 10. and not to be deceived by those shews of Humility or the Speculations of Men who pretended to explain that which they did not know as intruding into things which they had not seen vainly puffed up by their fleshly Mind If any degrees of invocating Saints or Angels had been consistent with the Christian Religion this was the proper place of declaring them But the condemning that matter so absolutely looks as a very express Prohibition of all sort of Worship to Angels And when St. Iohn fell down to Worship the Angel that had made him such glorious Discoveries upon two several Occasions The Answer he had was See thou do it not Rev. 19.10 Rev. 22.9 worship God I am thy fellow servant It is probable enough that St. Iohn might imagine that the Angel who had made such Discoveries to him was Iesus Christ but the Answer plainly shews that no sort of Worship ought to be offered to Angels nor to any but God The reason given excludes all sort of Worship for that cannot be among Fellow-Servants As Angels are thus forbid to be worshipped so no mention is made of worshipping or invocating anySaints that had died for theFaith such as St. Stephen and St. Iames. In the Epistle to the Hebrews Heb. 13.7 they are required to Remember them which had the rule over them and to follow their faith but not a word of praying to them So that if either the Silence of the Scriptures on this Head or if plain Declarations to the contrary could decide this Matter the Controversy would be soon at an end Christ is always proposed to us as the only Person by whom we come unto God And when St. Paul speaks against the worshipping of Angels he sets Christ out in his Glory in Opposition to it For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily and ye are compleat in him which is the Head of all Principality and Power Col. 2.9 10. pursuing that reason in a great many particulars From the Scriptures if we go to the first Ages of Christianity we find nothing that favours this but a great deal to the contrary Irenaeus disclaims the Invocation of Angels The memorable Passage of the Church of Smirna formerly cited is a full Proof of their Sense in this matter Clemens Alexandrinus and Tertullian do often mention the Worship that was given to God only Clem. Protrep Tertul. Apol. c. 17. by Prayer and so far were they at that time from praying to Saints that they prayed for them as was formerly explained They thought they were not yet in the Presence of God so they could not pray to them as long as that Opinion continued That Form of praying for them is in the Apostolical Constitutions In all that Collection which seems to be a Work of the Fourth or Fifth Century there is not a word that intimates their Praying to Saints In the Council of Laodicea there is an express Condemnation of those who invocated Angels Con. Laod. c. 35. Just. Mart. Apol. 2. Iren. l. 2. c. 35. Orig. Con. Cels. l. 8. Tert. de Orat. c. 1. Athanas. cont Arian Orat. 1 3 4. Greg. Nazianz. Orat. 40. Greg. Niss in Basil. cont Eunap Basil. Hom. 27. cont Eunom l. 4. Epiph. Haeres 64 69 78 79. Theod. de Haer. Fabul l. 5. c. 3. Chrysost. de Trinit this is called a Secret Idolatry and a forsaking of our Lord Iesus Christ. The first Apologists for Christianity do arraign the Worship of Demons and of such as had once lived on Earth in a Stile that shewed they did not apprehend that the Argument could be turned against them for their worshipping either Angels or departed Saints When the Arian Controversy arose the Invocation of Christ is urged by Athanasius Basil Cyril and other Fathers as an evident Argument that he was neither made nor created since they did not pray to Angels or any other Creatures from whence they concluded that Christ was God These are convincing Proofs of the Doctrine of the Three first and of a good part of the Fourth Century It is true as was confessed upon the former Head they began with Martyrs in the end of the Fourth Century They fancied they heard those that called to them and upon that it was no wonder if they invocated them and so private Prayers to them began But as appears both by the Constitutions and several of the Writers of that time the Publick Offices were yet preserved pure St. Austin says plainly The Gentiles built Temples raised Altars ordained Priests and offered Sacrifices to their Gods Aug. con Serm. Ar. c. 29. con Max. l. 13. c. 4. Aug. de Civ Dei l. 22. c. 10. l. 8. c. 27. but we do not erect Temples to our Martyrs as if they were Gods but Memories as to dead Men whose Spirits live with
inducement for us to believe That whensoever God by his Providence brings Christians under a visible necessity of being either without all Order and joint Worship or of joining in an unlawful and defiled Worship or finally of breaking through Rules and Methods in order to the being United in Worship and Government that of these Three of which one must be chosen the last is the least Evil and has the fewest Inconveniences hanging upon it and that therefore it may be chosen Our Reformers had also in view two famous Instances in Church-History of Lay-men that had Preached and Converted Nations to the Faith It is true they came as they ought to have done to be regularly Ordained and were sent to such as had Authority so to do So Frumentius preached to the Indians and was afterwards made a Priest and a Bishop by Athanasius The King of the Iberians before he was Baptised himself did Convert his Subjects and as says the Historian he became the Apostle of his Country before he himself was Initiated It is indeed added that he sent an Embassy to Constantine the Emperor desiring him that he would send Priests for the further establishment of the Faith there These were regular practices but if it should happen that Princes or States should take up such a jealousy of their own Authority and should apprehend that the suffering their Subjects to go elsewhere for Regular Ordinations might bring them under some dependance on those that had Ordained them and give them such influence over them that the Prince of such a Neighbouring and Regular Church should by such Ordinations have so many Creatures Spies or Instruments in their own Dominions and if upon other Political reasons they had just cause of being jealous of that and should thereupon hinder any such thing in that case neither our Reformers nor their Successors for near Eighty Years after those Articles were published did ever question the Constitution of such Churches We have reason to believe that none ought to Baptise but Persons Lawfully Ordained yet since there has been a practice so universally spread over the Christian Church of allowing the Baptism not only of Laicks but of Women to be Lawful though we think that this is directly contrary to the Rules given by the Apostles yet since this has been in fact so generally received and practised we do not Annul such Baptisms nor Rebaptise Persons so Baptised though we know that the original of this bad practice was from an Opinion of the indispensable necessity of Baptism to Salvation Yet since it has been so generally received we have that regard to such a common practice as not to Annul it though we Condemn it And thus what Thoughts soever private Men as they are Divines may have of those Irregular steps the Article of the Church is conceived in such large and general Words that no Man by Subscribing it is bound up from freer and more comprehensive Thoughts ARTICLE XXIV Of speaking in the Congregation in such a Tongue as the People understandeth It is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God and the Custom of the Primitive Church to have Publick Prayer in the Church or to Minister the Sacraments in a Tongue not understanded of the People This Article though upon the Matter very near the same yet was worded much less positively in those at first set forth by King Edward It is most fit and most agreeable to the Word of God that nothing be read or rehearsed in the Congregation in a Tongue not known unto the People which St. Paul hath forbidden to be done unless some be present to Interpret In King Edward's Articles they took in Preaching with Prayer but in the present Article this is restrained to Prayer The former only affirms the use of a known Tongue to be most fit and agreeable to the Word of God the later denies the Worship in an Unknown Tongue to be lawful and affirms it to be repugnant to the Word of God to which it adds and the Custom of the Primitive Church THIS Article seems to be founded on the Law of Nature The Worship of God is a Chain of Acts by which we acknowledge God's Attributes rejoyce in his Goodness and lay claim to his Mercies In all which the more we raise our thoughts the more Seriousness Earnestness and Affection that animates our Mind so much the more acceptably do we serve God who is a Spirit and will be worshipped in Spirit and Truth John 4.23 24. All the Words used in Devotion are intended to raise in us the thoughts that naturally belong to such words And the various Acts which are as it were the Breaks in the Service are intended as Rests to our Minds to keep us the longer without weariness and wandring in those Exercises One great end of continuance in Worship is that by the frequent repeating and often going over of the same things they may come to be deeply rooted in our Thoughts The chief Effect that the Worship of God has by its own Efficiency is the infixing those things about which the Branches of it are imployed the deeper on our Minds upon which God gives his Blessing as we grow to be prepared for it or capable of it Now all this is lost if the Worship of God is a Thread of such sounds as makes the Person who officiates a Barbarian to the rest They have nothing but noise and shew to amuse them which how much soever they may strike upon and entertain the Senses yet they cannot affect the Heart nor excite the Mind So that the natural effect of such a way of Worship is to make Religion a Pageantry and the Publick Service of God an Opera If from plain Sense and the natural Consequences of things we carry on this Argument to the Scriptures we find the whole practice of the Old Testament was to Worship God not only in a Tongue that was understood for it may be said there was no occasion then to use any other but that the Expressions used in the Prayers and Psalms that we find in the Old Testament shew they were intended to affect those who were to use them and if that is acknowledged then it will clearly follow that all ought to understand them for who can be affected with that which he does not understand So this shews that the end of Publick Devotion is the exciting and inflaming those who bare a share in it Neh. 8.8 Neh. 9.5 When Ezra and Nehemiah were instructing the People out of the Law they took care to have it read distinctly one giving the Sense of it After they were long in Captivity though it had not worn out quite the knowledge of the Hebrew yet the Chaldee was more familiar to them so a Paraphrase was made of the Hebrew into that Language though it was rather a different Dialect than another Language and by the Forms of their Prayers we see that one cried with a loud
probably to belong to this so from these Warrants we find in the earliest Writings of Christianity mention of a Confirmation after Baptism which for the greater Solemnity and Awe of the Action and from the precedent of St. Peter and St. Iohn was reserved to the Bishop to be done only by him Upon these Reasons we think it is in the Power of the Church to require all such as have been baptized to come before the Bishop and renew their Baptismal Vow and pray for God's Holy Spirit to enable them to keep their Vow and upon their doing this the Bishop may solemnly pray over them with that ancient and almost natural Ceremony of laying his Hands upon them which is only a Designation of the Persons so prayed over and blest that God may seal and defend them with his Holy Spirit in which according to the nature of the New Covenant we are sure that such as do thus Vow and Pray do also receive the Holy Spirit according to the Promise that our Saviour has made us In this Action there is nothing but what is in the Power of the Church to do even without any other Warrant or Precedent The doing all things to Order and to Edifying will authorize a Church to all this especially since the now universal Practice of Infant Baptism makes this more necessary than it was in the first times when chiefly the Adult were baptized It is highly reasonable that they who gave no actual Consent of their own should come and by their own express Act make the Stipulations of Baptism It may give greater impressions of awe and respect when this is restrained to the highest Order in the Church Upon the sincere Vows and earnest Prayers of Persons thus Confirmed we have reason to believe that a proportioned degree of God's Grace and Spirit will be poured out upon them And in all this we are much confirmed when we see such warrants for it in Scripture A thing so good in it self that has at least a probable Authority for it and was certainly a practice of the first Ages is upon very just grounds continued in our Church Would to God it were as seriously gone about as it is lawfully established But after all this here is no Sacrament no express Institution neither by Christ nor his Apostles no Rule given to practise it and which is the most essential there is no matter here for the laying on of Hands is only a gesture in Prayer nor are there any federal Rites declared to belong to it it being indeed rather a Ratifying and Confirming the Baptism than any new Stipulation To supply all this the Church of Rome has appointed Matter for it The Chrism which is a mixture of Oil Olive and Balm Opobalsamum the Oil signifying the clearness of a good Conscience and the Balm the savour of a good Reputation This must be peculiarly blessed by the Bishop who is the only Minister of that Function The Form of this Sacrament is the applying the Chrism to the Forehead with these words Signo te signo crucis confirmo te chrismate salutis in Nomine Patris Filii Spiritus Sancti I sign thee with the sign of the Cross and confirm thee with the Chrism of Salvation in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost They pretend Christ did Institute this but they say the Holy Ghost which he breathed on his Disciples being a thing that transcended all Sacraments he settled no determined Matter nor Form to it And that the succeeding Ages appropriated this Matter to it We do not deny but that the Christians began very early to use Oil in Holy Functions The Climates they lived in making it necessary to use Oil much for stopping the Perspiration that might dispose them the more to use Oil in their Sacred Rites It is not to be denied but that both Theophilus and Tertullian in the end of the Second Theophil l. 1. ad Autolyc Tert. de Bapt. c. 7 8. de Resur caâ— c. 8. Cypr. Ep. 70. and the beginning of the Third Century do mention it The frequent mention of Oil and of Anointing in the Scripture might incline them to this It was Prophesied of Christ That he was to be anointed with the oil of joy and gladness above his fellows And the Names of Messias and Christ do also import this but yet we hold all that to be Mystical and that it is to be meant of that fulness of the Spirit which he received without measure Upon the same account we do understand those words of St. Paul in the same mystical Sense he that establisheth us with you in Christ and hath anointed us is God who hath also sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts 2 Cor. 1.21 22. 1 John 2.20 27. As also those words of St. Iohn but ye have an Vnction from the holy one and ye know all things The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that any man teach you but as the same anointing teacheth you all things These words do clearly relate to somewhat that the Christians received immediately from God and so must be understood figuratively For we do not see the least hint of the Apostles using of Oil except to the sick of which afterwards So that if this Use of Oil is considered only as a Ceremony of a natural Signification that was brought into the Rituals of the Church it is a thing of another Nature But if a Sacrament is made of it and a divine Vertue is joined to that we can admit of no such thing without an express Institution and Declaration in Scripture The Invention that was afterwards found out by which the Bishop was held to be the only Minister of Confirmation Con. Araus c. 1 2. Cod. Affr. Can. 6. Con. Tol. c. 20. even tho' Presbyters were suffered to Confirm was a piece of Superstition without any colour from Scripture It was settled that the Bishop only might consecrate the Chrism and tho' he was the ordinary Minister of Confirmation yet Presbyters were also suffered to do it the Chrism being consecrated by the Bishop Presbyters thus Confirming was thought like the Deacons giving the Sacrament tho' Priests only might consecrate the Eucharist In the Latin Church Ierom tells us Hieron ad Lucifer that in his Time the Bishop only Confirmed and tho' he makes the Reason of this to be rather for doing an Honour to them than from any necessity of the Law yet he positively says the Bishops went round praying for the Holy Ghost on those whom they Confirmed It is said by Hilary that in Egypt the Presbyters did Confirm in the Bishops absence So that custom joined with the distinction between the Consecration Hilar. in cap. 4. ad Ephes. ut Supra and the applying of the Chrism grew to be the universal Practice of the Greek Church The greatness of Diocesses with the
increasing Numbers of the Christians made that both in France in the Councils of Orange and in Spain in the Council of Toledo the same Rule was laid down that the Greeks had begun In Spain some Priests did consecrate the Chrism but that was severely forbid in one of the Councils of Toledo Yet at Rome the ancient Custom was observed of appropriating the whole business of Confirmation to the Bishop Greg. Ep. l. 3. Ep. 9. even in Gregory the Great 's time Therefore he reproved the Clergy of Sardinia because among them the Priests did Confirm and he appointed it to be reserved to the Bishop But when he understood that some of them were offended at this he writ to the Bishop of Carali that tho' his former Order was made according to the ancient Practice of the Church of Rome yet he consented that for the future the Priests might Confirm in the Bishops absence But Pope Nicholas in the IX Century pressed this with more rigor For the Bulgarians being then converted to the Christian Religion and their Priests having both Baptized and Confirmed the new Converts Pope Nicholas sent Bishops among them with Orders to Confirm even those who had already been Confirmed by Priests Upon which the contest being then on foot between Rome and Constantinople Photius got it to be decreed in a Synod at Constantinople That theChrism being hallowed by a Bishop it might be administred by Presbyters And Photius affirmed that a Presbyter might do this as well as Baptize or Offer at the Altar But Pope Nicholas with the confidence that was often assumed by that See upon as bad grounds did affirm that this had never been allowed of And upon this many of the Latins did in the Progress of their Disputes with the Greeks say that they had no Confirmation This has been more enlarged on than was necessary by the designed shortness of this Work because all those of â—he Roman Communion among us have now no Confirmation In decr Con. Florent unless a Bishop happens to come amongst them And therefore it is now a commonDoctrine among them that tho' Confirmation is a Sacrament yet it is not necessary About this there were fierce Disputes among them about Sixty years ago whether it was necessary for them to have a Bishop here to Confirm according to the ancient Custom or not The Jesuites who had no mind to be under any Authority but their own opposed it for the Bishop being by Pope Eugenius declared to be the ordinary Minister of it from thence it was inferred that a Bishop was not simply necessary This was much censured by some of the Gallican Church If Confirmation were considered only as an Ecclesiastical Rite we could not dispute the power of the Church about it but we cannot allow that a Sacrament should be thus within the power of the Church or that a new Function of Consecrating Oil without applying it distinct from Confirmation and yet necessary to the very essence of it could have been set up by the power of the Church for if Sacraments are federal conveyances of Grace they must be continued according to their first Institution The Grace of God being only tied to the Actions with which it is promised We go next to the Second of the Sacraments here rejected which is Penance that is reckoned the Fourth in order among them Penance or Penitence is formed from the Latin Translation of a Greek word that signifies a change or renovation of Mind which Christ has made a necessary condition of the New Covenant It consists in several acts all which when joined together and producing this real change we become then true Penitents and have a right to the Remission of Sins which is in the New Testament often joined with Repentance and is its certain consequent The first act of this Repentance is Confession to God before whom we must humble our selves and confess our Sins to him upon which we believe that he is faithful and true to his Promises and just to forgive us our sins and if we have wronged others 1 John 1.9 or have given publick offence to the Body or Church to which we belong we ought to confess our faults to them likewise and as a mean to quiet Mens Consciences James 5.16 to direct them to compleat their Repentance and to make them more humble and ashamed of their Sins we advise them to use secret Confession to their Priest or to any other Minister of God's Word leaving this matter wholly to their discretion When these acts of sorrow have had their due effect in reforming the natures and lives of Sinners then their Sins are forgiven them In order to which we do teach them to Pray much to give Alms according to their Capacity and to fast as often as their Health and Circumstances will admit of and most indispensably to restore or repair as they find they have sinned against others And as we teach them thus to look back on what is past with a deep and hearty sorrow and a profound shame so we charge them to look chiefly forward not thinking that any acts with relation to what is past can as it were by an account or compensation free us from the guilt of our former Sins unless we amend our Lives and change our Tempers for the future The great design of Repentance being to make us like God Pure and Holy as he is Upon such a Repentance sincerely begun and honestly pursued we do in general as the Heralds of God's Mercy and the Ministers of his Gospel pronounce to our People daily the offers that are made us of Mercy and Pardon by Christ Jesus This we do in our daily Service and in a more peculiar manner before we go to the Holy Communion We do also as we are a Body that may be offended with the sins of others forgive the Scandals committed against the Church and that such as we think die in a state of Repentance may die in the full Peace of the Church we join both Absolutions in one in the last Office likewise praying to our Saviour that he would forgive them and then we as the Officers of the Church authorised for that end do forgive all the Offences and Scandals committed by them against the whole Body This is our Doctrine concerning Repentance in all which we find no Characters of a Sacrament no more than there is in Prayer or Devotion Here is no Matter no application of that Matter by a peculiar Form no Institution and no peculiar federal acts The Scene here is the Mind the acts are Internal the effect is such also and therefore we do not reckon it a Sacrament not finding in it any of the Characters of a Sacrament The matter that is assigned in the Church of Rome are the acts of the Penitent his Confession by his Mouth to the Priest the Contrition of his Heart and the satisfaction of his Work in doing the enjoined
the First Innocent Ep. 1. ad Decent how much soever it is insisted on is really an Argument that proves against it and not for it For not to enlarge on the many idle things that are in that Epistle which have made some think that it could not be genuine and that do very much sink the credit both of the Testimony and of the Man for it seems to be well proved to be his The passage relating to this matter is in answer to a demand that was made to him by the Bishop of Eugubium Whether the Sick might be Anointed with the Oil of the Chrism And whether the Bishop might Anoint with it To these he answers That no doubt is to be made but that St. Iames's words are to be understood of the Faithful that were sick who may be Anointed by the Chrism which may be used not only by the Priests but by all Christians not only in their own necessities but in the necessities of any of their Friends and he adds that it was a needless doubt that was made whether a Bishop might do it For Presbyters are only mentioned because the Bishop could not go to all the Sick but certainly he who made the Chrism it self might Anoint with it A Bishop asking these Questions of another and the answers which the other gives him do plainly shew that this was no Sacrament practised from the beginnings of Christianity for no Bishop could be ignorant of those It was therefore some newly begun Custom in which the World was not yet sufficiently instructed And so it was indeed for the subject of these questions was not pure Oil such as now they make to be the matter of Extreme Unction But the Oil of Chrism which was made and kept for other occasions and it seems very clear that the miraculous power of Healing having ceased and none being any more Anointed in order to that some begun to get a Portion of the Oil of Chrism which the Laity as well as the Priests applied both to themselves and to their Friends hoping that they might be Cured by it Nothing else can be meant by all this but a superstitious using the Chrism which might have arisen out of the memory that remained of those who had been cured by Oil as the use of Bread in the Eucharist brought in the Holy Bread that was sent from one Church to another and as from the use of Water in Baptism sprung the use of Holy Water This then being the clear meaning of those words it is plain that they prove quite the contrary of that for which they are brought and though in that Epistle the Pope calls Chrism a kind of a Sacrament that turns likewise against them to shew that he did not think it was a Sacrament strictly speaking Besides that the Ancients used that word very largely both for every mysterious Doctrine and for every holy Rite that they used In this very Epistle when he gives directions for the carrying about that Bread which they Blessed and sent about as an Emblem of their Communion with other Churches he orders them to be sent about only to the Churches within the City because he conceived the Sacraments were not to be carried a great way off so these Loaves are called by him not only a kind of Sacrament but are simply reckoned to be Sacraments We hear no more of Anointing the Sick with the Chrism among all the Ancients which shews that as that practice was newly begun so it did not spread far nor continue long No mention is made of this neither in the first Three Ages nor in the Fourth Age though the Writers and particularly the Councils of the Fourth Age are very copious in Rules concerning the Sacraments Nor in all their penitentiary Canons when they define what Sins are to be forgiven and what not when Men were in their last Extremities is there so much as a hint given concerning the last Unction The Constitutions and the pretended Dionisius say not a word of it though they are very full upon all the Rituals of that time in which those Works were Forged in the Fourth or Fifth Century In none of the Lives of the Saints before the Ninth Century is there any mention made of their having Extreme Unction tho' their deaths are sometimes very particularly related and their receiving the Eucharist is oft mentioned Nor was there any question made in all that time concerning the Persons the Time and the other Circumstances relating to this Unction which could not have been omitted especially when almost all that was thought on or writ of in the Eighth and Ninth Century relates to the Sacraments and the other Rituals of the Church It is true from the Seventh Century on to the Twelfth they began to use an Anointing of the Sick Lib. Sacram Gregor Menardi Nota. according to that mentioned by Pope Innocent and a peculiar Office was made for it but the Prayers that were used in it shew plainly that it was all intended only in order to their recovery Of this anointing many Passages are found in Bede and in the other Writers and Councils of the Eighth and Ninth Century But all these do clearly express the Use of it not as a Sacrament for the Good of the Soul Bede Hist. Ang. l. 3. c. 15. Euchol Gra. p. 408 but as a Rite that carried with it Health to the Body and so it is still used in the Greek Church No doubt they supported the Credit of this with many reports of which some might be true of Persons that had been recovered upon using it But because that failed so often that the Credit of this Rite might suffer much in the Esteem of the World they began in the Tenth Century to say That it did Good to the Soul even when the Body was not healed by it and they applied it to the several Parts of the Body This begun from the Custom of applying it at first to the diseased Parts This was carried on in the Eleventh Century And then in the Twelfth those Prayees that had been formerly made for the Souls of the Sick though only as a Part of the Office Decr. Eug. in Con. Flor. Con. Trid. Sess 14. the Pardon of Sin being considered as Preparatory to their Recovery came to be considered as the main and most essential Part of it Then the Schoolmen brought it into shape and so it was decreed to be a Sacrament by Pope Eugenius and finally established at Trent The Argument that they draw from a parity in reason that because there is a Sacrament for such as come into the World there should be also One for those that go out of it is very trifling for Christ has either Instituted this to be a Sacrament or it is not One If he has not Instituted it this pretended fitness is only an Argument that he ought to have done somewhat that he has not done The Eucharist was considered by
they may make the holy things to be loathed by the aversion that will naturally follow upon them yet after all though that aversion may go too far we must still distinguish between the things that the Ministers of the Church do as they are publick Officers and what they do as they are private Christians Their Prayers and every thing else that they do as they are private Christians have their effect only according to the state and temper that they are in when they offer them up to God but their publick Functions are the appointments of Christ in which they Officiate they can neither make them the better nor the worse by any thing that they join to them And if miraculous Vertues may be in Bad Men so that in the great Day some of those to whom Christ shall say I never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity Mat. 7.22 may yet say to him Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy name and in thy name have cast out devils and in thy name done many wonderful works then certainly this may be concluded much more concerning those standing Functions and Appointments that are to continue in the Church Nor can any difference be made in this matter between publick Scandals and secret Sins for if the former make void the Sacraments the latter must do so too The only reason that can be pretended for the one will also fall upon the other for if the vertue of the Sacraments is thought to be derived upon them as an Answer of Prayer then since the Prayers of Hypocrites are as little effectual as the Prayers of those who are openly Vicious the Inference is good that if the Sacraments Administred by a scandalous Man are without any effect the Sacraments Administred by a Man that is inwardly Corrupted though that can be only known to God will be also of no effect and therefore this Opinion that was taken up perhaps from an inconsiderate Zeal against the sins and scandals of the Clergy is without all foundation and must needs cast all Men into endless scruples which can never be cured The Church of Rome though they reject this Opinion yet have brought in another very like it which must needs fill the Minds of Men with endless distractions and fears chiefly considering of what necessity and efficacy they make the Sacraments to be They do teach that the Intention of him that gives the Sacrament is necessary to the Essence of it so that without it no Sacrament can be Administred This was expresly affirmed by Pope Eugenius in his Decree and an Anathema past at Trent against those that deny it They do indeed define it to be only an Intention of doing that which the Church intends to do and though the surest way they say is to have an actual Intention yet it is commonly taught among them that a habitual or virtual Intention will serve But they do all agree in this that if a Priest has a secret Intention not to make a Sacrament that in that case no Sacrament is made and this is carried so far Miss Rom. Rubr. de defectu Intent art 1. that in one of the Rubricks of the Missal it is given as a Rule that if a Priest who goes to Consecrate Twelve Hosties should have a general Intention to leave out one of them from being truly Consecrated and should not apply that to any one but let it run loosely through them all that in such case he should not Consecrate any one of the Twelve that loose exception falling upon them all because it is not restrained to any one particular And among the Articles that were condemned by Pope Alexander the Eighth the 7th of December 1690. the 28th runs thus Valet Baptismus collatus a Ministro qui omnem ritum externum formamque Baptisandi observat intus vero in corde suo apud se resolvit non intendo quod facit Ecclesia And thus they make the secret acts of a Priest's mind enter so far into those Divine Appointments that by his Malice Irreligion or Atheism he can make those Sacraments which he visibly Blesses and Administers to be only the outward shews of Sacraments but no real ones We do not pretend that the Sacraments are of the nature of Charms so that if a Man should in a way of open Mockery and Profanation go about them that therefore because Matter and Form are observed they should be true Sacraments But though we make the serious appearances of a Christian action to be necessary to the making it a Sacrament yet we carry this no further to the inward and secret acts of the Priest as if they were essential to the being of it If this is true no Man can have quiet in his Mind It is a Profanation for an Unbaptized Person to receive the Eucharist so if Baptism is not true when a Priest sets his Intention cross to it then a Man in Orders must be in perpetual doubts whether he is not living in a continual state of Sacriledge in Administring the other Sacraments while he is not yet Baptized and if Baptism be so necessary to Salvation that no Man who is not Baptized can hope to be Saved here a perpetual scruple must arise which can never be removed Nor can a Man be sure but that when he thinks he is Worshipping the true Body of Jesus Christ he is committing Idolatry and Worshipping only a piece of Bread for it is no more according to them if the Priest had an Intention against Consecrating it No Orders are given if an Intention lies against them and then he who passes for a Priest is no Priest and all his Consecrations and Absolutions are so many invalid things and a continued course of Sacriledge Now what reason soever Men may have in this case to hope for the pardon of those sins since it is certain that the Ignorance is invincible yet here strange thoughts must arise concerning Christ and his Gospel if in those actions that are made necessary to Salvation it should be in the power of a false Christian or an Atheistical Priest or Bishop to make them all void so that by consequence it should be in his power to damn them for since they are taught to expect Grace and Justification from the Sacraments if these are no true Sacraments which they take for such but only the Shadows and the Phantasms of them then neither Grace nor Justification can follow upon them This may be carried so far as even to evacuate the very being of a Church for a Man not truly Baptized can never be in Orders so that the whole Ordinations of a Church and the Succession of it may be broke by the Impiety of any one Priest This we look on as such a chain of Absurdities that if this Doctrine of Intention were true it alone might serve to destroy the whole credit of the Christian Religion in which the Sacraments are taught to be both so
necessary and so efficacious and yet all this is made to depend on that which can neither be known nor prevented The last Paragraph of this Article is so clear that it needs no explanation and is so evident that it wants no proof 1 Sam. 3.11 Eli was severely threatned for suffering his Sons to go on in their Vices when by their means the Sacrifice of God was abhorred God himself struck Nadab and Abihu dead when they offered strange Fire at his Altar and upon that these words were uttered I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me Levit. 10.3 and before all the People will I be glorified Timothy was required to receive an accusation of an Elder when regularly tendered to him 1 Tim. 5.1 19 20.6 c. 3 4 5. and to rebuke before all those that sinned and he was charged to withdraw himself from those teachers who consented not to wholsome words and that made a gain of godliness A main part of the Discipline of the Primitive Church lay heaviest on the Clergy and such of them as either Apostatized or fell into scandalous Sins even upon their Repentance were indeed received into the Peace of the Church but they were appointed to Communicate among the Laity and were never after that admitted to the Body of the Clergy or to have a share in their Priviledges Certainly there is nothing more incumbent on the whole Body of the Church than that all possible care be taken to discover the bad practices that may be among the Clergy which will ever raise strong prejudices not only against their Persons but even against their Profession and against that Religion which they seem to advance with their Mouths while in their Works and by their Lives they detract from it and seem to deny its Authority But after all our Zeal must go along with Justice and Discretion Fame may be a just ground to enquire upon but a Sentence cannot be founded on it The Laity must discover what they know that so these who have Authority may be able to cut off those that trouble the Church Gal. 5.12 Discretion will require that things which cannot be proved ought rather to be covered than exposed when nothing but clamour can follow upon it In sum this is a part of the Government of the Church for which God will reckon severely with those who from partial regards or other feeble or carnal Considerations are defective in that which is so great a part of their Duty and in which the Honour of God and of Religion and the Good of Souls as well as the Order and Unity of the Church are so highly concerned ARTICLE XXVII Of Baptism Baptism is not only a Sign of Profession and Mark of difference whereby Christian Men are discerned from others that be not Christened but it is also a Sign of Regeneration or New Birth whereby as by an Instrument they that receive Baptism rightly are Grrafted into the Church The Promises of the Forgiveness of Sin of our Adoption to be the Sons of God by the Holy Ghost are visibly Signed and Sealed Faith is confirmed and Grace increased by virtue of Prayer to God The Baptism of Young Children is in any wise to be retained in the Church as most agreeable with the Institution of Christ. WHEN St. Iohn Baptist began first to Baptize we do plainly see by the first Chapter of St. Iohn's Gospel that the Iews were not surprised at the Novelty of the Rite for they sent to ask who he was and when he said he was not the Messias nor Elias nor that Prophet they asked Why Baptizest thou then Which shews not only that they had clear Notions of Baptism John 1.25 but in particular that they thought that if he had been the Messias or Elias or that Prophet he might then have Baptized St. Paul does also say that the Iews were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea which seems to relate to some Opinion the Iews had 1 Cor. 10.2 that by that Cloud and their passing through the Sea they were purified from the Egyptian Defilements and made meet to become Moses's Disciples Yet in the Old Testament we find no clear Warrants for a practice that had then got among the Iews which is still taught by them that they were to receive a Proselyte if a Male by Baptism Circumcision and Sacrifice and if a Female only by Baptism and Sacrifice Thus they reckoned that when any came over from Heathenism to their Religion they were to use a Washing to denote their Purifying themselves from the uncleanness of their former Idolatry and their entring into a Holy Religion And as they do still teach that when the Messias comes they are all bound to set themselves to repent of their former sins so it seems they then thought or at least it would have been no strange thing to them if the Messias had received such as came to him by Baptism St. Iohn by Baptizing those who came to him took them obliged to enter upon a course of Repentance and he declared to them the near approach of the Messias and that the Kingdom of God was at hand and it is very probable that those who were Baptized by Christ that is by his Apostles for though it is expresly said that he Baptized none yet what he did by his Disciples he might in a more general sense be said to have done himself that these I say were Baptized upon the same Sponsions and with the same Declarations and with no other for the Dispensation of the Messias was not yet opened nor was it then fully declared that he was the Messias howsoever this was a preparatory Initiation of such as were fitted for the coming of the Messias by it they owned their expectations of him as then near at hand and they professed their Repentance of their Sins and their purposes of doing what should be enjoined them by him Water was a very proper Emblem to signify the passing from a Course of Defilement to a greater degree of Purity both in Doctrine and Practice Our Saviour in his state of Humiliation as he was subject to the Mosaical Law so he thought fit to fulfil all the Obligations that lay upon the other Iews which by a Phrase used among them he expresses thus to fulfil all righteousness For tho' our Saviour had no sins to Confess yet that not being known he might come to Profess his Belief of the Dispensation of the Messias that was then to appear But how well soever the Iews might have been accustomed to this Rite and how proper a Preparation soever it might be to the Manifestation of the Messias yet the Institution of Baptism as it is a federal Act of the Christian Religion must be taken from the Commission that our Saviour gave to his Disciples Matth. 28.19 to go preach and make disciples to him in all Nations for that is the strict signification of
our Saviour's speaking of giving his Flesh to them to eat it he adds They foolishly and carnally thought Lib. 20. con Faust. c. 21. in Psal. 98. v. 5. that he was to cut off some parcels of his Body to be given to them but he shews that there was a Sacrament hid there and he thus Paraphrases that Passage The words that I have spoken to you they are spirit and life Vnderstand spiritually that which I have said for it is not this Body which you see that you are to eat or to drink this Blood which they shall shed who crucifie me But I have recommended a Sacrament to you which being spiritually understood shall quicken you And tho' it be necessary that it be celebrated visibly yet it must be understood invisibly Primasius compares the Sacrament to a Pledge Comm. in 1 Ep. ad Cor. which a dying Man leaves to any one whom he loved But that which is more Important than the Quotation of any of the words of the Fathers is that the Author of the Books of the Sacraments which pass under the Name of St. Ambrose Lib. 4. dâ— Sacram. c. 5. tho' it is generally agreed that those Books were writ some Ages after his Death gives us the Prayer of Consecration as it was used in his time He calls it the Heavenly Words and sets it down The Offices of the Church are a clearer Evidence of the Doctrine of that Church than all the Discourses that can be made by any Doctor in it the one is the Language of the whole Body whereas the other are only the private reasonings of particular Men And of all the Parts of the Office the Prayer of Consecration is that which does most certainly set out to us the sense of that Church that used it But that which makes this Remark the more Important is that the Prayer as set down by this pretended St. Ambrose is very near the same with that which is now in the Canon of the Mass only there is one very Important variation which will best appear by setting both down That of St. Ambrose's is Fac nobis hanc oblationem ascriptam rationabilem acceptabilem quod est figura Corporis Sanguinis Domini nostri Iesu Christi qui pridie quam pateretur c. That in the Canon of the Mass is Quam oblationem tu Deus in omnibus quae sumus benedictam ascriptam ratam rationabilem acceptabilemque facere digneris ut nobis Corpus Sanguis fiat dilectissimi filii tui Domini nostri Iesu Christi We do plainly see so great a resemblance of the later to the former of these two Prayers that we may well conclude that the one was begun in the other but at the same time we observe an Essential difference In the former this Sacrifice is called the Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ. Whereas in the later it is Prayed that it may become to us the Body and Blood of Christ. As long as the former was the Prayer of Consecration it is not pofsible for us to imagine that the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence could be received for that which was believed to be the true Body and Blood of Christ could not be called especially in such a part of the Office the Figure of his Body and Blood and therefore the change that was made in this Prayer was an evident proof of a change in the Doctrine and if we could tell in what Age that was done we might then upon greater certainty fix the time in which this change was made or at least in which the inconsistency of that Prayer with this Doctrine was observed I have now set down a great variety of Proofs reduced under different Heads from which it appears evidently that the Fathers did not believe this Doctrine but that they did affirm the contrary very expresly This Sacrament continued to be so long considered as the Figure or Image of Christ's Body that the Seventh General Council which met at Constantinople in the Year 754 and consisted of above Three hundred and thirty Bishops when it condemned the Worship of Images affirmed that this was the only Image that we might lawfully have of Christ and that he had appointed us to offer this Image of his Body to wit the Substance of the Bread That was indeed contradicted with much confidence by the Second Council of Nice in which in opposition to what appears to this day in all the Greek Liturgies and the Greek Fathers they do positively deny that the Sacrament was ever called the Image of Christ and they affirm it to be the true Body of Christ. In conclusion I shall next shew how this Doctrine crept into the Church for this seems plausible that a Doctrine of this nature could never have got into the Church in any Age if those of the Age that admitted it had not known that it had been the Doctrine of the former Age and so upwards to the Age of the Apostles It is not to be denied but that very early both Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus thought that there was such a Sanctification of the Elements that there was a Divine Vertue in them And in those very Passages which we have urg'd from the Arguings of the Fathers against the Eutychians tho' they do plainly prove that they believed that the Substance of Bread and Wine did still remain yet they do suppose an Union of the Elements to the Body of Christ like that of the Human Nature's being united to the Divine here a Foundation was laid for all the Superstructure that was afterwards raised upon it For tho' the Liturgies and Publick Offices continued long in the first simplicity yet the Fathers who did very much study Eloquence chiefly the Greek Fathers carried this matter very far in their Sermons and Homilies They did only apprehend the Profanation of the Sacrament from the unworthiness of those who came to it and being much set on the begetting a due reverence for so holy an action and a seriousness in the performance of it they urg'd all the Topicks that sublime Figures or warm Expressions could help them with and with this exalted Eloquence of theirs we must likewise observe the state that the World fell in in the Fifth Century Vast Swarms out of the North over-run the Roman Empire and by a long continued Succession of new Invaders all was sackt and ruined In the West the Goths were followed by the Vandals the Alans the Gepides the Franks the Sweves the Huns and the Lombards some of these Nations but in conclusion the Saracens and Turks in the East made Havock of all that was polite or learned by which we lost the chief Writings of the first and best Times but instead of these many spurious ones were afterwards produced and they passed easily in dark and ignorant Ages All fell under much oppression and misery and Europe was so over-run with Barbarity and Ignorance that it cannot be easily
this was one that they came among the Assemblies of the Christians and did receive the Bread but they would not take any Wine this is mentioned by Pope Leo in the Fifth Century Leo Serm. 4. in Quadrag Decret de Consecr dist 2. upon which Pope Gelasius hearing of it in his time appointed that all Persons should either communicate in the Sacrament intirely or be intirely excluded from it for that such a dividing of one and the same Sacrament might not be done without a heinous Sacriledge In the Seventh Century a practice was begun of dipping the Bread in the Wine and so giving both kinds together This was condemned by the Council of Bracara as plainly contrary to the Gospâ—l Christ gave his Body and Blood to his Apostles distinctly the Bread bâ— it sâ—lf Decret de Consecr dist 2. and the Chalice by it self This is by a mistake of Gratian's put in thâ— Canon-Law as a Decree of Pope Iulius to the Bishops of Egypt It is probable that it was thus given first to the Sick and to Infants but tho' this got among many of the Eastern Churches and was it seems practised in some parts of the West yet in the end of the Eleventh Century Pope Vrban in the Council of Clermont Decreed That none should communicate without taking the Body apart Concil Claramont Can. 28. and the Blood apart except upon necessity and with caution to which some Copies add and thâ—t by reason of the Heresie of Berengarius that was lately condemned which said that the Figure was compleated by one of the kinds We need not examine the Importance or Truth of these last words it is enough for us to observe the continued practice of Communicating in both kinds till the Twelfth Century and even then when the Opinion of the Corporal Presence begot a Superstition towards the Elements that had not been known in former Ages so that some drops sticking to Mens Beards and the â—pilling some of it its freezing or becoming sowr grew to be more considered than the Institution of Christ yet â—or a while they used to suck it up through small Quills or Pipes called Fistulae in the Ordo Romanus which answered the Objection from the Beards In the Twelfth Century the Bread grew to be giâ—en generally dipt in Wine The Writers of that time tho' they justifie this practice yet they acknowledge it to be contrary to the Institution Ivo of Chartres says the People did Communicate with dipt Bread not by authority but by necessity for fear of spilling the Blood of Christ. Pope Innocent the Fourth said that all might have the Chalice who were so cautious that nothing of it should be spilt In the Antient Church the Instance of Serapion is brought to shew that the Bread alone was sent to the Sick Eus. Hist. l. 6. c. 44. which he that carried it was ordered to moisten before he gave it him Iustin Martyr does plainly insinuate that both kinds were sent to the absents Just. Mart. Apol. 2. so some of the Wine might be sent to Serapion with the Bread and it is much more reasonable to believe this than that the Bread was ordered to be dipt in Water there being no such Instance in all History Paulinus in vita Ambros. whereas there are Instances brought to shew that both kinds were carried to the Sick St. Ambrose received the Bread but expired before he received the Cup This proves nothing but the weakness of the Cause that needs such supports Nor can any Argument be brought from some Words concerning the Communicating of the Sick or of Infants Rules are made from ordinary and not from extraordinary Practices The small Portions of the Sacrament that some carried Home and reserved to other Occasions does not prove that they communicated only in one kind They received in both only they kept out of too much Superstition some Fragments of the one which could be more easily and with less Observation saved and preserved than of the other And yet there are Instances that they carried off some Portions of both kinds The Greek Church communicates during most of the Days in Lent in Bread dipt in Wine and in the Ordo Romanus there is mention made of a particular Communion on Good-Friday some of the Bread that had been formerly Consecrated was put into a Chalice with unconsecrated Wine This was a Practice that was grounded on an Opinion that the unconsecrated Wine was sanctified and consecrated by the Contact of the Bread And though they used not a formal Consecration yet they used other Prayers which was all that the Primitive Church thought was necessary even to Consecration it being thought even so late as Gregory the Great 's time that the Lord's Prayer was at first the Prayer of Consecration These are all the Colours which the studies and subtilties of this Age have been able to produce for justifying the Decree of the Council of Constance that does acknowledge that Christ did institute this Sacrament in both kinds Conc. Constan. Sess. 11. and that the faithful in the Primitive Church did receive in both kinds Yet a Practice being reasonably brought in to avoid some Dangers and Scandals they appoint the Custom to continue of consecrating in both kinds and of giving to the Laity only in one kind Since Christ was entire and truly under each kind They established this Practice and ordered that it should not be altered without the Authority of the Church So late a Practice and so late a Decree canot make void the Command of Christ nor be set in â—pposition to such a clear and universal Practice to the contrary The Wars of Boheme that followed upon that Decree and all that Scene of Cruelty which was acted upon Iohn Hus and Ierom of Prague at the first Establishment of it shews what Opposition was made to it even in dark Ages and by Men that did not deny Transubstantiation These prove that plain Sense and clear Authorities are so strong even in dark and corrupt Times as not to be easily overcome And this may be said concerning this Matter that as there is not any one Point in which the Church of Rome has acted more visibly contrary to the Gospel than in this so there is not any one thing that has raised higher Prejudices against her that has made more forsake her and has possessed Mankind more against her than this This has cost her dearer than any other ARTICLE XXXI Of the one Oblation of Christ finished upon the Cross. The Offering of Christ once made is that perfect Redemption Propitiation and Satisfaction for all the Sins of the whole World both Original and Actual and there is none other Satisfaction for Sin but that alone Wâ—erefore in the Sacrifices of Masses in the which it was commonly said that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of Pain and Guilt were blasphemous Fables and dangerous Deceits IT
were a mere question of Words to dispute concerning the term Sacrifice to consider the Extent of that Word and the many various respects in which the Eucharist may be called a Sacrifice In general all Acts of Religious Worship may be called Sacrifices because somewhat is in them offered up to God Let my Prayer be set forth before thee as Incense and the lifting up of my Hands as the evening Sacrifice Psal. 141.2 Psal. 51.17 The Sacrifices of God are a broken Spirit A broken and a contrite Heart O God thou wilt not despise These shew how largely this Word was used in the Old Testament So in the New we are exhorted by him that is by Christ to offer the Sacrifice of Praise to God continually that is the Fruit of our Lips giving Thanks to his Name A Christian's dedicating himself to the Service of God Hebr. 13.15 Rom. 12.1 is also expressed by the same Word of presenting our Bodies a living Sacrifice holy and acceptable to God All Acts of Charity are also called Sacrifices an odour of a sweet smell Phil. 4.10 a Sacrifice acceptable well pleasing to God So in this large Sense we do not deny that the Eucharist is a Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving And our Church calls it so in the Office of the Communion In two other respects it may be also more strictly called a Sacrifice One is because there is an Oblation of Bread and Wine made in it which being sanctified are consumed in an Act of Religion To this many passages in the Writings of the Fathers do relate This was the Oblation made at the Altar by the People And though at first the Christians were reproached as having a strange sort of a Religion in which they had neither Temples Altars nor Sacrifices because they had not those things in so gross a manner as the Heathens had yet both Clemens Romanus Ignatius and all the succeeding Writers of the Church do frequently mention the Oblations that they made And in the Antient Liturgies they did with particular Prayers offer the Bread and Wine to God as the Great Creator of all things Those were called the Gifts or Offerings which were offered to God in imitation of Abel who offered the Fruits of the Earth in a Sacrifice to God Both Iustin Martyr Irenaeus the Constitutions and all the antient Liturgies have very express Words relating to this Another respect in which the Eucharist is called a Sacrifice is because it is a Commemoration and a Representation to God of the Sacrifice that Christ offered for us on the Cross In which we claim to that as to our Expiation and Feast upon it as our Peace-offering according to that antient Notion that Covenants were confirmed by a Sacrifice and were concluded in a Feast on the Sacrifice Upon these Accounts we do not deny but that the Eucharist may be well called a Sacrifice But still it is a commemorative Sacrifice and not propitiatory That is we do not distinguish the Sacrifice from the Sacrament as if the Priests consecrating and consuming the Elements were in an especial manner a Sacrifice any other way than as the communicating of others with him is one Nor do we think that the consecrating and consuming the Elements is an Act that does reconcile God to the Quick and the Dead We consider it only as a federal Act of professing our Belief in the Death of Cstrist and of renewing our Baptismal Covenant with him The Virtue or effects of this are not General they are limited to those who go about this piece of Worship sincerely and devoutly they and they only are concerned in it who go about it And there is no special Propitiation made by this Service It is only an Act of Devotion and Obedience in those that eat and drink worthily and though in it they ought to pray for the whole Body of the Church yet those their Prayers do only prevail with God as they are devout Intercessions but not by any peculiar Virtue in this Action On the other hand the Doctrine of the Church of Rome is that the Eucharist is the highest Act of Homage and Honour that Creatures can offer up to the Creator as being an Oblation of the Son to the Father So that whosoever procures a Mass to be said procures a new piece of Honour to be done to God with which he is highly pleased and for the sake of which he will be reconciled to all that are concerned in the procuring such Masses to be said whether they be still on Earth or if they are now in Purgatory And that the Priest in offering and consuming this Sacrifice performs a true Act of Priesthood by reconciling Sinners to God Somewhat was already said of this on the Head of Purgatory It seems very plain by the Institution that our Saviour as he blessed the Sacrament said Take eat St. Paul calls it a Communion of the Body and Blood of the Lord and a Partaking of the Lord's Table and he through his whole Discourse of it speaks of it as an Action of the Church and of all Christians but does not so much as by a Hint intimate any thing peculiar to the Priest So that all that the Scripture has delivered to us concerning it represents it as an Action of the whole Body in which the Priest has no special share but that of officiating In the Epistle to the Hebrews there is a very long Discourse concerning Sacrifices and Priests in order to the explaining of Christ's being both Priest and Sacrifice There a Priest stands for a Person called and consecrated to offer some living Sacrifice and to slay it and to make reconciliation of Sinners to God by the shedding offering or sprinkling the Blood of the Sacrifice This was the Notion that the Iews had of a Priest And the Apostle designing to prove that the Death of Christ was a true Sacrifice brings this for an Argument that there was to be another Priesthood after the order of Melchisedec He begins the fifth Chapter with settling the Notion of a Priest Heb. 5.10 according to the Iewish Ideas And then he goes on to prove that Christ was such a Priest called of God and Consecrated But in this Sense he appropriates the Priesthood of the New Dispensation singly to Christ in opposition to the many Priests of the Levitical Law And they truly were many Priests because they were not suffered to continue by reason of Death But this Man Heb. 7.24 because he continueth ever hath an unchangeable Priesthood It is clear from the whole Thread of that Discourse that in the strictest Sense of the Word Christ himself is the only Priest under the Gospel and it is also no less evident that his Death is the only Sacrifice in opposition to the many Oblations that were under the Mosaical Law to take away Sin Which appears very plain from these Words Who needeth not daily as those High-Priests to offer up
Sacrifice v. 27. first for his own Sins and then for the People for this he did once when he offered up himself He opposes that to the Annual Expiation made by the Iewish High-Priest Christ entred in once to the Holy Place having made Redemption for us by his own Blood And having laid down that general Maxim 9. ch 22. v. 28. that without shedding of Blood there was no Remission he says Christ was offered once to bear the Sins of many He puts a Question to shew that all Sacrifices were now to cease When the Worshippers are once purged then would not Sacrifices cease to be offered 10. ch v. 11. And he ends with this as a full Conclusion to that Part of his Discourse v. 12. Every Priest stands daily ministring and offering oftentimes the same Sacrifices which can never take away Sin But this Man after he had offered up one Sacrifice for Sins for â—ver sat down on the right Hand of God Here are not general Words ambiguous Expressions or remote Hints but a Thread of a full and clear Discourse to shew that in the strict Sense of the Words we have but one Priest and likewise but one Sacrifice under the Gospel Therefore how largely soever those Words of Priest or Sacrifice may have been used yet according to the true Idea of a propitiatory Sacrifice and of a Priest that reconciles Sinners to God they cannot be applyed to any Acts of our Worship or to any Order of Men upon Earth Nor can the Value and Virtue of any instituted Act of Religion be carried by any Inferences or reasonings beyond that which is put in them by the Institution And therefore since the Institution of this Sacrament has nothing in it that gives us this Idea of it we cannot set any such Value upon it and since the reconciling Sinners to God and the pardoning of Sin are free Acts of his Grace it is therefore a high Presumption in any Man to imagin they can do this by an Act of theirs without Powers and Warrants for it from Scripture Nor can this be pretended to without assuming a most Sacrilegious Sort of Power over the Attributes of God Therefore all the Virtue that can be in the Sacrament is that we do therein gratefully commemorate the Sacrifice of Christ's Death and by renewed Acts of Faith present that to God as our Sacrifice in the Memorial of it which he himself has appointed By so doing we renew our Covenant with God and share in the Effects of that Death which he suffered for us All the antient Liturgies have this as a main Part of the Office that being mindful of the Death of Christ or commemorating it they offered up the Gifts This is the Language of Iustin Martyr Irenaeus Tertullian Cyprian and of all the following Writers They do compare this Sacrifice to that of Melchisedec who offered Bread and Wine And though the Text imports only his giving Bread and Wine to Abraham and his Followers yet they applied that generally to the Oblation of Bread and Wine that was made on the Altar But this shews that they did not think of any Sacrifice made by the offering up of Christ. It was the Bread and the Wine only which they thought the Priests of the Christian Religion did offer to God And therefore it is remarkable that when the Fathers answer the Reproach of the Heathens who charged them with Irreligion and Impiety for having no Sacrifices among them they never answer it by saying That they offered up a Sacrifice of inestimable Value to God which must have been the first Answer that could have occurred to a man possessed with the Ideas of the Church of Rome On the contrary Iustin Martyr in his Apology says They had no other Sacrifices but Prayers and Praises Apol. 2. And in his Dialogue with Trypho he confesses That Christians offer to God Oblations according to Malachi's Prophecy when they celebrate the Eucharist Leg. pro Christ. Minut. in Octav. Lib. 8. con Celsum Tert. A. -pol c. 30. Clem. Strom. l. 7. Arnob. lib. 7. in which they commemorate the Lord's Death Both Athenagoras and Minutius Felix justify the Christians for having no other Sacrifices but pure Hearts clean Consciences and a stedfast Faith Origen and Tertullian refute the same Objection in the same manner They set the Prayers of Christians in opposition to all the Sacrifices that were among the Heathens Clemens of Alexandria and Arnobius write in the same strain and they do all make use of one Topick to justify their offering no Sacrifices That God who made all things and to whom all things do belong needs nothing from his Creatures To multiply no more Quotations on this Head Iulian in his time objected the same thing to the Christians which shews that there was then no Idea of a Sacrifice among them otherwise he who knew their Doctrine and Rites had either not denied so positively as he did their having Sacrifices or at least he had shewed how improperly the Eucharist was called one When Cyril of Alexandria towards the middle of the Fifth Century came to answer this Cyr. Al. lib. 10. cont Jul. he insists only upon the inward and spiritual Sacrifices that were offered by Christians which were sutable to a pure and spiritual Essence such as the Divinity was to take pleasure in and therefore he sets that in opposition to the Sacrifices of Beasts Birds and of all other things whatsoever Nor does he so much as mention even in a Hint the Sacrifice of the Eucharist which shews that he did not consider that as a Sacrifice that was propitiatory These things do so plainly set before us the Ideas that the First Ages had of this Sacrament that to one who considers them duly they do not leave so much as a doubt in this matter All that they may say in Homilies or Treatises of Piety concerning the Pure Offering that according to Malachi all Christians offered to God in the Sacrament concerning the Sacrifice and the unbloody Sacrifice of Christians must be understood to relate to the Prayers and Thanksgivings that accompanied it to the Commemoration that was made in it of the Sacrifice offered once upon the Cross and finally to the Oblation of the Bread and Wine which they so often compare both to Abel's Sacrifice and to Melchisedec's offering Bread and Wine It were easy to enlarge further on this Head and from all the Rituals of the Antients to shew that they had none of those Ideas that are now in the Roman Church They had but one Altar in a Church and probably but one in a City They had but one Communion in a day at that Altar So far were they from the many Altars in every Church and the many Masses at every Altar that are now in the Roman Church They did not know what Solitary Masses were without a Communion All the Liturgies and all the Writings of the Antients are as
the concurrence of other Churches In the way of managing this every Body of Men has somewhat peculiar to it self and the Pastors of that Body are the properest Judges in that matter We know that the several Churches even while under one Empire had great varieties in their Forms as appears in the different Practices of the Eastern and Western Churches And as soon as the Roman Empire was broken we see this Variety did increase The Gallican Churches had their Missals different from the Roman And some Churches of Italy followed the Ambrosian But Charles the Great in compliance with the desires of the Pope got the Gallican Churches to depart from their own Missals and to receive the Roman which he might the rather do intending to have raised a New Empire to which a Conformity of Rights might have been a great Step. Even in this Church there was a great Variety of Usages which perhaps were begun under the Heptarchy when the Nation was subdivided into several Kingdoms It is therefore suitable to the Nature of Things to the Authority of the Magistrate and to the Obligations of the Pastoral Care That every Church should act within her self as an entire and independent Body The Churches owe only a Friendly and Brotherly Correspondence to one another but they owe to their own Body Government and Direction and such Provisions and Methods as are most likely to promote the great Ends of Religion and to preserve the Peace of the Society both in Church and State Therefore we are no other way bound by Antient Canons but as the same reason still subsisting we may see the same cause to continue them that there was at first to make them Of all the Bodies of the World the Church of Rome has the worst Grace to reproach us for departing in some Particulars from the Antient Canons since it was her ill Conduct that had brought them all into desuetude And it is not easy to revive again Antiquated Rules even though there may be good reason for it when they fall under that tacit Abrogation which arises out of a long and general disuse of them ARTICLE XXXV Of Homilies The Second Book of Homilies the several Titles whereof we have joined under this Article doth contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine and necessary for these Times as doth the Former Book of Homilies which were set forth in the Time of Edward the Sixth and therefore we judg them to be read in Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be understanded of the People The Names of the Homilies 1. Of the right use of the Church 2. Against Peril of Idolatry 3. Of repairing and keeping clean of Churches 4. Of Good Works First Of Fasting 5. Against Gluttony and Drunkenness 6. Against Excess of Apparel 7. Of Prayer 8. Of the Place and time of Prayer 9. That common Prayers and Sacraments ought to be ministred in a known tongue 10. Of the reverent estimation of God's Word 11. Of Alms-doing 12. Of the Nativity of Christ. 13. Of the Passion of Christ. 14. Of the Resurrection of Christ. 15. Of the worthy receiving of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. 16. Of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost 17. For the Rogation-days 18. Of the state of Matrimony 19. Of Repentance 20. Against Idleness 21. Against Rebellion AT the time of the Reformation as there could not be found at first a sufficient Number of Preachers to instruct the whole Nation so those that did comply with the changes which were then made were not all well-affected to them so that it was not safe to trust this matter to the Capacity of the one side and to the Integrity of others Therefore to supply the Defects of some and to oblige the rest to teach according to the Form of sound Doctrine there were two Books of Homilies prepared the first was published in King Edward's time the second was not finished till about the time of his Death so it was not published before Queen Elizabeth's time The Design of them was to mix Speculative Points with Practical matters Some explain the Doctrine and others enforce the Rules of Life and Manners These are plain and short Discourses chiefly calculated to possess the Nation with a Sense of the Purity of the Gospel in opposition to the Corruptions of Popery and to reform it from those crying Sins that had been so much connived at under Popery while men knew the Price of them how to compensate for them and to redeem themselves from the Guilt of them by Masses and Sacraments by Indulgences and Absolutions In these Homilies the Scriptures are often applied as they were then understood not so critically as they have been explained since that time But by this Approbation of the two Books of Homilies it is not meant that every Passage of Scripture or Argument that is made use of in them is always convincing or that every Expression is so severely worded that it may not need a little Correction or Explanation All that we profess about them is only that they contain a godly and wholesom Doctrine This ratheâ— relates to the main Importance and Design of them than to every Passagâ— in them Though this may be said concerning them That considering thâ— Age they were written in the Imperfection of our Language and some lesser Defects they are Two very extraordinary Books Some of them arâ— better writ than others and are equal to any thing that has been writ upon those Subjects since that time Upon the whole matter every one whâ— subscribes the Articles ought to read them otherwise he subscribes a Blank he approves a Book implicitely and binds himself to read it as he may be required without knowing any thing concerning it This Approbation is not to be stretched so far as to carry in it a special Assent to every Particular in that whole Volume but a man must be persuaded of the main of the Doctrine that is taught in them To instance this in one particular since there are so many of the Homilies that charge the Church of Rome with Idolatry and that from so many different Topicks no man who thinks that Church is not guilty of Idolatry can with a good Conscience subscribe this Article That the Homilies contain a good and wholesom Doctrine and necessary for these times for according to his sense they contain a false and an uncharitable Charge of Idolatry against a Church that they think is not guilty of it and he will be apt to thâ—nk that this was done to heighten the Aversion of the Nation to it Therefore any who have such favourable thoughts of the Church of Rome are bound by the force of that Persuasion of theirs not to sign this Article but to declare against it as the authorizing of an Accusation against a Church which they think is ill grounded and is by consequence both unjust and uncharitable By necessary for these times is not to be meant
one Wife He adds upon that this is a great Mystery That is from hence another Mystical Argument might be brought to shew that Iew and Gentile must make one Body for since the Church was the Spouse of Christ he must according to that Figure have but one Wife and by consequence the Church must be One Otherwise the Figure will not be answered unless we suppose Christ to be in a State answering a Polygamy rather than a single Marriage Thus a clear Account of these Words is given which does fully agree to them and to what follows But I speak concerning Christ and the Church This which is all the Foundation of making Marriage a Sacrament being thus cleared there remains nothing to be said on this Head but to Examine one Consequence that has been drawn from the making it a Sacrament which is that the Bond is Indissoluble And that even Adultery does not void it The Law of Nature or of Nations seems very clear that Adultery at least on the Wife's part should dissolve it For the end of Marriage being the ascertaining of the Issue and the Contract it self being a mutual transferring the Right to one anothers Person in order to that End the breaking this Contract and destroying the End of Marriage does very naturally infer the Dissolution of the Bond And in this both the Attick and Roman Laws were so severe that a Man was Infamous who did not Divorce upon Adultery Our Saviour when he blamed the Iews for their frequent Divorces Matth. 5.32 Matth. 19.9 Mark 10.11 Luke 16.18 established this Rule that whosoever puts away his Wife except it be for Fornication and shall marry another committeth Adultery Which seems to be a plain and full Determination that in the Case of Fornication he may put her away and Marry another It is True St. Mark and St. Luke repeat these Words without mentioning this Exception so some have thought that we ought to bring St. Matthew to them and not them to St. Matthew But it is an universal Rule of expounding Scriptures that when a Place is fully set down by one inspired Writer and less fully by another that the Place which is less full is always to be expounded by that which is more full So tho' St. Mark and St. Luke report our Saviour's Words generally without the Exception which is twice mentioned by St. Matthew the other two are to be understood to suppose it for a general Proposition is true when it holds generally and Exceptions may be understood to belong to it though they are not named The Evangelist that does name them must be considered to have reported the matter more particularly than the others that do it not Since then our Saviour has made the Exception and since that Exception is founded upon a natural equity that the Innocent Party has against the Guilty there can be no reason why an Exception so justly grounded and so clearly made should not take place Both Tertullian Basil Chrysostom and Epiphanius allow of a Divorce in case of Adultery Tertul. lib. 4. cont Marcion c. 34. Basil. Ep. ad Amphil c. 9. Chrysos hom 17. in Matth. Epiph. haeres 59. Cath. Conc. Elib c. 65. Conc. Arel c. 10. Conc. Affric c. 102. Causa 32. q. 7. In decr Eug. in Conc. Flor. Erasm. in 1. Ep. ad Cor. 7. Cajetan in Matth. 19. c. 9. Cathar in 1. Ep. ad Cor. 7. l. 5. Annot. and in those days they had no other Notion of a Divorce but that it was the Dissolution of the Bond the late Notion of a Separation the Tie continuing not being known till the Canonists brought it in Such a Divorce was allowed by the Council of Elliberis The Council of Arles did indeed recommend it to the Husband whose Wife was guilty of Adultery not to Marry which did plainly acknowledge that he might do it It was and still is the constant practice of the Greek Church and as both Pope Gregory and Pope Zachary allowed the Innocent Person to Marry so in a Synod held at Rome in the Tenth Century it was still allowed When the Greeks were reconciled to the Latins in the Council of Florence this matter was past over and the care of it was only recommended by the Pope to the Emperor It is true Eugenius put it in hisInstruction to the Armenians but tho' that passes generally for a part of the Council of Florence yet the Council was over up before that was given out This Doctrine of the Indissolubleness of Marriage even for Adultery was never settled in any Council before that of Trent The Canonists and Schoolmen had indeed generally gone into that Opinion but not only Erasmus but both Cajetan and Catharinus declared themselves for the Lawfulness of it Cajetan indeed used a Salvo in case the Church had otherwise Defined which did not then appear to him So that this is a Doctrine very lately settled in the Church of Rome Our Reformers here had prepared a Title in the new Body of the Canon Law which they had Digested allowing Marriage to the Innocent Party And upon a great occasion then in Debate they declared it to be Lawful by the Law of God And if the Opinion that Marriage is a Sacrament falls the conceit of the absolute Indissolubleness of Marriage will fall with it The last Sacrament which is rejected by this Article that is the Fifth as they are reckoned up in the Church of Rome is Extreme Vnction In the Commission that Christ gave his Apostles among the other Powers that were given them to confirm it one was to cure diseases and heal the sick pursuant to which St. Mark tells Mark 6.13 that they anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them The Prophets used some Symbolical actions when they wrought Miracles so Moses used his Rod often Elisha used Elijah's Mantle our Saviour put his Finger into the deaf Man's Ear and made Clay for the blind Man and Oil being upon almost all occasions used in the Eastern Parts the Apostles made use of it But no hint is given that this was a Sacramental Action It was plainly a Miraculous Virtue that healed the Sick in which Oil was made use of as a Symbol accompanying it It was not prescribed by our Saviour for any thing that appears as it was not blamed by him neither It was no wonder if upon such a president those who had that extraordinary Gift did apply it with the use of Oil not as if Oil was the Sacramental Conveyance it was only used with it The end of it was Miraculous it was in order to the recovery of the sick and had no relation to their Souls though with the cure wrought on the Body there might sometimes be joined an operation upon the Soul and this appears clearly from St. Iames's words James 5.14 15. Is any sick among you let him call for the elders of the church and let him pray over him anointing him with
oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up All hitherto is one Period which is here closed The following words contain new matter quite of a different kind and if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him It appears clearly that this was intended for the recovery of the sick Person which is the thing that is positively promised the other concerning the pardon of Sins comes in on the by and seems to be added only as an accessary to the other which is the principal thing designed by this whole matter Therefore since Anointing was in order to healing either we must say that the Gift of healing is still deposited with the Elders of the Church which no body affirms or this Oil was only to be used by those who had that special Gift and therefore if there are none now who pretend to have it and if the Church pretends not to have it lodged with her then the Anointing with Oil cannot be used any more and therefore those who use it not in order to the recovery of the Person delaying it till there is little or no hope left use not that Unction mentioned by St. Iames but another of their own devising which they call the Sacrament of the dying It is a vain thing to say that because saving and raising up are sometimes used in a Spiritual sense that therefore the saving the sick here and that of the Lord 's raising him up are to be so meant For the forgiveness of sin which is the Spiritual Blessing comes afterwards upon supposition that the sick Person had committed sins The saving and raising up must stand in opposition to the sickness so since all acknowledge that the one is Literal the other must be so too The supposition of sin is added because some Persons upon whom this Miracle might have been wrought might be eminently Pious and if at any time it was to be applied to ill Men who had committed some notorious sins perhaps such sins as had brought their sickness upon them these were also to be forgiven In the use of miraculous Powers those to whom that Gift was given were not empowered to use it at pleasure they were to feel an inward Impulse exciting them to it and they were obliged upon that firmly to believe that God who had given them the Impulse would not be wanting to them in the execution of it This confidence in God was the faith of Miracles Matth. 21.21 of which Christ said If ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seâ—d ye shall say to this mountain remove hence to yonder place and nothing shall be impossible unto you 1 Cor. 13.2 Of this also St. Paul meant when he said If I have all faith So from this we may gather the meaning of the prayer of faith and the anointing with Oil that if the Elders of the Church or such others with whom this Power was lodged felt an inward Impulse moving them to call upon God in order to a miraculous Cure of a sick Person then they were to anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord That is by the Authority that they had from Christ to heal all manner of Diseases And they were to Pray believing firmly that God would make good that inward motion which he had given them to work this Miracle and in that case the effect was certain the sick Person would certainly recover for that is absolutely promised Every one that was sick was not to be Anointed unless an Authority and Motion from Christ had been secretly given for doing it but every one that was Anointed was certainly healed Christ had promised that whatsoever they should ask in his name â—ohâ— 14 1â— he would do it His Name must be restrained to his Authority or pursuant to such secret Motions as they should receive from him This is the Prayer of Faith here mentioned by St. Iames it being an earnest application to God to join his Omnipotent Power to perform a wonderful Work to which a Person so divinely qualified felt himself inwardly moved by the Spirit of Christ. The supposition of the sick Persons having committed sins which is added shews that sometime this vertue was applied to Persons of that eminent Piety that though all Men are guilty in the sight of God yet they could not be said to have committed sins in the sense in which St. Iohn uses the phrase signifying by it either that they had lived in the habits of sin or that they had committed some notorious sin But if some should happen to be sick who had been eminent Sinners and those sins had drawn down the Judgments of God upon them which seems to be the natural meaning of these words if he have committed sins then with his bodily Health he was to receive a much greater Blessing even the Pardon of his Sins And thus the Anointing mentioned by St. Iames was in order to a miraculous Cure and the Cure did constantly follow it so that it can be no president for an Extreme Unction that is never given till the recovery of the Person is despaired of and by which it is not pretended that any Cure is wrought The Matter of it is Oil Olive Blessed by the Bishop the Form is the applying it to the Five Senses with these words Per hanc Sacram Vnctionem Rituale Rom. Con Trid. Seâ—s 14. suam piissimam Misericordiam Indulgeat tibi Deus quicquid peccasti per visum auditum olfactum gustum tactum The proper word to every Sense being repeated as the Organ of that Sense is Anointed It is Administred by a Priest and gives the final Pardon with all necessary assistances in the last Agony Here is then an Institution that if warranted is matter of great Comfort and if not warranted is matter of as great Presumption Cons. Apost l. 3. c. 16. l. 7. cap. 42 44. Tertul. de bapt c. 10. Cypr. Ep. 70. â—lem Alex. paedag l. 11. c. 8. Dionys. Areop de Eccles. hier c. 7 8. In the first Ages we find mention is made frequently of Persons that were Cured by an Anointing with Oil Oil was then much used in all their Rituals the Catechumens being Anointed with Oil before they were Baptized besides the Chrism that was given after it Oil grew also to be used in Ordinations and the dead were Anointed in order to their Burial So that the ordinary use of Oil on other occasions brought it to be very frequently used in their Sacred Rites yet how customary soever the practice of Anointing grew to be we find no mention of any Unction of the sick before the beginning of the Fifth Century This plainly shews that they understood St. Iames's words as relating to a miraculous Power and not to a Function that was to continue in the Church and to be esteemed a Sacrament That earliest mention of it by Pope Innocent