gifted as to speak in unknowntongues they should either be altogether silent or speak by one or two Interpreters and this is all they can make of these words as the words going before and after plainly demonstrate But to Ecclesiastical antiquity they have recourse next and from Justin Martyr they argue a Liberty to Priests to model the worship of God because he saith the place is known well enough that the President of the Assemblies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according as he is able prays But that this publick Officer was a Presbyter or Priest and not the Bishop himself is more than they can prove though it lyes upon them For I make no scruple to grant but it was free for the Bishop who is the highest power in the Church to alter several things in the form of worship and to make forms of Prayer according to the exigence of that Church he presided over but never was any such thing allowed to the Presbyter and no longer to the Bishop than a form of publick Worship was agreed to and received which we confess was not until the Gifts of Miracles were ceased and then not all at an instant but by degrees and by orderly consultation and good autority as occasion offered There might also be some Liberty even after such provision made for the solemn service of God by some presumptuous Priests taken to deviate from such Prescriptions but that ever it was left free to them to use or not to use the same or to add or detract from them no where appeareth The Council of Milevis in Affrica provideth by a Canon against such perhaps growing presumption but not then first made it absolutely unlawful as it is cited to that purpose by Sectaries And as for Tertullian who affirmeth it to have been the custom in Christian Apolog. ◠39. assemblies for certain persons to come forth and sing Hymns to God out of the Holy Scriptures or their own Wits I understand him rather of the Actions in the Agape or Love-Feasts which were wont to be distinct from and kept after the more solemn and proper Ecclesiastical service And in such cases spending the time religiously also it might be lawful for private men whether Ecclesiastical persons or otherwise for his words make no more for Priests than Laymen and upon that very ground can avail them but little that draw them to their Ministers only to show their Poetical Gifts whether extempore or premeditate no matter or mention is made in the praising God But finding in Philo Judaeus Philo Judaeus de Vita Contemplat a description of the Ascetical Jews which were mostly of the Sect of the Essens to have such practises amongst them also I make no doubt but such things might be first drawn from them as many ancient Ceremonies of the Christians were and that by the countenance of the Apostles themselves however simpler Zealots will scarce endure to hear so much and continued without prejudice to the more solemn and publick worship For scarce do the leading Sectaries pretend to such Gifts of the Spirit as should enable their wits to make Hymns extemporary or so much as bring in a new Psalm or Hymn into their Assemblies unknown or unheard of to the commoner sort Surely their modesty herein that they have not dared as yet to offer any new Sonnet though of praise and prayer to God to their people as they call them by vertue of this gift of the Spirit doth condemn their boldness in offering every day new prayers whereas there is the very same ground for the one as the other both in Antiquity and the Scriptures Tertullian speaks only of singing out of their own heads St. Paul speaks as expresly of singing as praying by the Spirit yet we hear nothing they have done to declare their spirituality in publick by way of singing or causing any thing of their own devising to be sung But surely singing is no less a duty then praying And if they find it difficult and inconvenient for the people to take the ditty so set by them from their mouths or hands and from thence infer that it is not necessary We reply That is as necessary and accordingly was ever practised in Churches that people should concur with the Priest in prayer too and therefore such ill-form'd forms as are made and used at the same time are not fit for solemn service because though they may be tacitly followed yet are they so ordered and invented that the common sort should have no more to do with them than they may with musical prayers and praises which in heart they may consent to but in act can only say Amen to as is permitted to the people in their extravagant prayers Would the one be scandalous to those of their Party so is the other actually offensive to us and therefore we desire to hear no more of such matters nor should they expect to find relaxation of Duties from those they are bound in Justice to obey before they remove such obstacles of communion with them to those that owe them nothing but charity and this principally in reducing them from such a fond admiration of themselves and gross infatuation of others by the colour of such false gifts It would be too long and tedious to take notice here of all their reasons against Set forms which are of two sorts the one General against All enjoyned forms the other against the English Liturgy in Particular Of this latter we shall speak least and not much of the former because we will take them at their word when they say they are not absolutely against Liturgies prescribed though we know they contradict themselves sufficiently Bishop Whitgift hath of old told them home of this their double dealing For in the Puritans Admonition they directly oppose all forms Cartwright Cartwrights Reply p. 105. Whitgifts Defens p 488 in his Reply to Whitgift endeavouring to bring them off says they explain themselves afterward But they are truly told that such their Explication is a meer retractation and contradiction all their arguments formerly being level'd directly against forms in General And to this day they are always at that game still until they be beaten off and then forsooth 't is only the Liturgies as ill-framed they complain of as Cartwright hath taught them to dissemble upon occasion and shuffle Nevertheless I hold it not amiss to transcribe here a Case of Conscience out of Mr. Perkins thus doubting Perkins Cases of Conscience l. 2. c. 6. Whether it be lawful when we pray to read a Set form of prayer Answer It is no sin This is better then nothing But a man may lawfully and with good conscience do it Reasons First the Psalms of David were delivered to the Church to be used and read in a Set form of words and yet the most of them are prayers Secondly To conceive a form of prayer requires gift of memory and knowledge utterance and the gifts
of grace Now every child of God though he hath an honest heart hath not these gifts And therefore in want of them may lawfully use a Set form of prayers as a man that hath a weak back or a lame legg may lean upon a Crutch This is the meaning and very expression of the modern Puritan when he is in the best humour and would be more generous than ordinary in his concessions For which we requite him saying That it was never lawful nor is lawful at this day for any Minister in publick service to bring in his own conceived prayers besides the intention of the Church And that Thomas Cartwright who at Hartford was the first that dar'd to do so to the offense of both the Queen and Church then did very wickedly and none that imitated him though men no enemies otherwise to the Church did well unless upon a perswasion of an implicit consent of the Church through tract of time But if memory utterance knowledge to which some that have ridiculously written upon the subject of conceiving prayers as if they would teach the Spirit how to speak do adde Fansie and Industry be required how comes this gift to be owing to the Spirit more than Demosthenes his Orations of whom Plutarch writes what great pains he took with himself to pronounce well and to compose aright But let us hear Perkins a little farther answering an Objection It is alledged that Set forms of Prayer do limit and bind the Holy Ghost Answer If Perkins ubi supra we had a perfect measure of Grace it were somewhat but the Graces of God are weak and small in us This is no binding of the Holy Ghost but an helping of the Spirit which is weak in us by a Crutch to lean on It had been much more reverently spoken if it had been said An helping us in whom the Spirit is than the weak and lame Spirit in us It had been much more soundly answered to deny the supposition both of the Spirit and the gift thereof in men praying extempore and by consequence clear'd all fears and suspicions of injuring the Spirit at all Why do they so weakly and lamely take that for granted that the Spirit informs men generally to such ends and nothing wants a Crutch or Staff to support it more than that We deny it we deny it And wonder how they will go about the making it credible But we deny the fact that so it is and not the possibility that so it may be or that the Spirit is able to do such wonderful things Nay we deny they are such wonderful things as are pretended or any more than for a very simple man to become an excellent workman in a curious craft by applying his wits and labours to the mysteries of it And seeing they talk so often at this day of Crutches and Stilts making all creeples and lame in Christianity who cannot or out of humility and obedience to the Discipline which justly interdicts such pretended abilities will not vaunt what they can do they should do well to procure Stilts and Crutches for such halting and weak reasons as these are to make men insolent Here they are wont to come forth with their ill applyed distinction of Gifts and Graces of prayer and tell us that the gift of prayer is to be sought after whereby we edifie the Church as well as the Grace whereby we edifie our selves To which I answer by denying still what they take for granted viz. that such presumed gifts are necessary to the edification of a Church I grant indeed that the Church was at first setled by gifts or I should rather have said founded but continued and edified to this day so I deny I deny as a notorious and pernicious untruth that such is to be the constitution of Churches that they should be managed and maintained by the gifts of men above what by the ordinary industry with Gods blessing may be common to all men Yet more expresly I deny that any Society ought to depend upon any thing extraordinary in men as this gift is cryed up for For that which carries on the mysteries and majesty of Gods worship must be grave sober regular safe and easie even such as they in indignation report children women and Turks may perform and not such as are high staggering uncertain deceitful as are these extraordinary gifts For this barbarous argument is ill grounded supposing that it is more the natural or supernatural parts that qualifie the Ministry than the power of the Keys given which if we may suppose given to such persons we shall declare to be more fit persons to minister in the publick worship of God than such gisted persons I say in the worship of God because there may be much more skill and ability required to the service of God For though preaching and travelling in the conversion of souls to God be to serve God as an act of obedience unto his will it is not as we have often said the proper worship of God as is prayer And to serve God in this manner being an address unto men who must be informed with great skill and industry and then reformed in their lives and conversations by sedulity of Exhortation more is necessary than a commission so to act Moreover to their distinction of gift of prayer and grace we add That we acknowledge no gift of prayer besides the grace of prayer There may be a gift of speaking and that notably with fluencie and readiness and this is vulgarly mistaken and admired for a gift of prayer but it is no such matter For all the gift of prayer as of prayer is nothing but the grace of prayer coming from the truly devout and spiritual heart and not from the operation of the brain as Elocution doth And besides those that have spoken most soberly truly of gifts have determin'd the use of them particularly to the Church and its edification and not to have God for their proper object but God is the object of prayer therefore it is fully compleated in the grace of it which in a larger sense is Gods gift too and is as conspicuous in Set forms as Extemporary But they argue farther in behalf of this manner of prayer That it is a great edification of the people much greater than Set forms which custom hath made ineffectual To which I answer That there is a great deal of truth in what they speak First because not out of Grace or the Spirit but corrupt nature man is much more apt to be affected with variety that is inferiour both in kind and use to constant fare as with a strange monster rather than with a well proportion'd creature to which he hath been accustomed And he that shall pass by in a fools-coat party-colour'd shall have more eyes after him a great many than he that walks in a much more comely costly and grave habit Men therefore should rather correct their judgments and
Place where their Site was And to this purpose is there express provision made by a Council of Ments in the middle age of the Church under Charles the Great in the ninth Chapter that the Monks of Religious Houses should be subject to their proper Bishop and do nothing without his approbation But it is one thing to plead in general for the lawfulness and expediencie of Monastick Life and that of both sexes and another to deliver laws and due prescriptions for the well disciplining of them which is the work of the wisest heads and sincerest hearts to Religion to be here passed over There may yet seem somewhat due to an objection against the said state taken from the vow exacted from such as enter themselves into it which no wonder that they who oppose so blindly the thing it self should much more oppose But they who approve of it can find little reason to quarrel at that bond And that first because such Monastick Life is not alwaies in Society which they call Convents but may be undertaken at a mans own pleasure both for time and place and other circumstances every Christian having power to dispose of himself not prejudicing the general right and inteâ—â—â—t of his Governours over him to what life he pleases and with what â—â—â—cumstances But if a man resolves to become a member of some special Society already formed by certain Rules and Laws to desire to be matriculated into that Body and not to be willing to conform to the constitutions of it is unjust and unreasonable And so Pikewise not to give that outword and common assurance of faithful submission unto the same by an Oath of Vow For do men think it reasonable that Prentises should be bound to be true faithful and keep their Masters secrets even before they know them and when they know them to be none of the justest or honestest or shall men that enter but into civil Companies be it but of Merchant-Taylers or Barber-Surgeons be constrained by Oath to be true and faithful to them but they who are admitted into Religious Societies be left to do and live as the please What were this but to seek an occasion under colour of friendliness and good affection to divide and destroy it as is apparent in the seemingly modest pretenses of dissenters and disaffected persons to our Church who upon condition that they may give and reverse certain orders and laws offer themselves to become one with it Thus the Vulgar take it but in truth it is for the Church to be one with them And is not this a notable piece of modesty condescension and complyance But here let that rest as also what we have to say of the second thing generally to be consider'd in the Worship of God viz. The state of serving God CHAP. VII Of Religious Worship the third thing considerable in it viz. The Exercise of it in the several kinds of it And first of Prayer the chiefest Act of Gods Worship contrary to Sectaries who are Enemies to it in three respects And first by their vain conceit of Preaching wherein consisteth not the proper Worship of God as in Prayer THE third thing wherein the worship of God may be said yet more properly to consist is the Kinds of Worship And these we shall reduce to three Prayer Preaching and Obedience in the due exercise of all Christian Graces and Vertues wherein the Life of Faith properly consisteth And first we shall begin with prayer as that wherein was ever thought the worship of God principally to consist be that Religion Christian or Unchristian unless we be forced to except some modern and immodest pretenders to Reformation For though they keep within such bounds as a grave and judicious defender of our Church says none ever exceeded not to deny prayer absolutely yet have they brought it to that pass so humbled and diluted it that there is little place found for it and less value And surely were they but true to their own principles and arguments no use at all would they acknowledge of prayer more then certain Heathens and Hereticks whose arguments must needs be accepted by them if they will believe conformable to themselves St. Hierome upon Matthew tells us There is sprung up here a certain Hieronymus in Matth. cap. 6. 8. Heresie and Dogme of Philosophers who say If God knows what we pray for and that we have need of such things as we desire before we ask in vain we speak to him who knows all before To whom saith he we answer That we do not so much tell God what we would have as begg of him Clemens Alexandrinus likewise tells us that one Prodius was Clemens Alexa Strom. 7 Authour of that Opinion Thus far profane Sectaries amongst us have not generally proceeded though we have been credibly informed that some have However they unanimously conspire to debase prayer and corrupt Christian worship it self in these three Respects First in advancing preaching much inferiour to it in a Church become Christian infinitely before it Secondly by opposing Set or Prescribed Forms of Prayer And thirdly in expunging the Lords Prayer out of their uncertain and wild Liturgies Which the Presbyterian Sect the Sire of all others was not a little guilty of and so seldome used it that being demanded why they left it out in their prayers thought good to give such a modest reason as this They feared they should be out in the recitation of it so had they accustomed their tongues to liberty and variety of words But they had other reasons which they were ashamed to utter but to their trusty friends But let us first see how preaching transcends prayer and hath insulted and trampled over it For such have been the extreams of late that whereas formerly the Proverb was No Penny no Pater Noster now No Preaching no Pater Noster No Sermon no Prayer in Gods House And whereas it was said by our Saviour Christ of old and by the Prophet before him My House shall be called which almost every ordinary man knows accord-to Matth. 21. 3. the Hebrew Idiom is the very same with shall be the House of Prayer unto all Nations and never was it called or accounted a preaching house but by them that called it a Steeple-house and little otherwise judged of it now have things been so reformed with a witness ot rather a vengeance that Sermoning carries all afore it bears all down to little or nothing But what if all this while preaching be not the worshipping of God at all Will they continue so obstinate as to make it almost the only thing in Gods house That they who with strange boldness profess and in constant practise declare they will have nothing to do with Gods house as Gods house but only as a Vestry-house when they are to take the Parish Accompts unless there be a Sermon do hold that Sermoning active and passive preach'd and heard is the main matter of Religion
amongst themselves as to have nothing more than a blind presumption and credulity that all is or will be well But what should we protract an argument of this nature any longer against them who are arrived to such an unnatural height of admiring fresh phrases inverted numbers of words when the matter is much the same that their own uttered conceptions to day affecting themselves and others wonderfully and lookt on as spiritual and divine tomorrow nay on the afternoon nay next hour shall be sentenced by themselves and auditors as an humane invention and injurious to God and Man Nay which is yet more The form which Christ gave his Disciples and left to all to be practised who would be his Disciples hath met with such hard entertainment amongst these illuminated ones that 't is well it escapes a reproach when it is rehearsed Tell them here how the ancient and eminent Saints and Servants of Christ did use it in terms and that daily and that frequently every day and that often in the service of the Church in publick you make the matter worse for them Tell them how diverse of our own holy Martyrs blessed God for what they saw that day wherein they were redeemed not only from blind obedience but worship had the comfortable opportunity of worshipping God according to this manner so contemned they stick a little and premise some small respect to such good men as would dye against Popery but for such devout and constant adherence to the Liturgy of the Church they have no good words for them But it must be either their unhappiness that they knew no better their weakness they were so fond of that their want of zeal for a thorow reformation and of light to see what they did so clearly as they at this day And many such pieces of tattle have they in readiness having neither truth nor judgment nor charity in them but declare plainly they who thus discourse and practise to the contrary are not of the same Religion with them as to speak what I hold my self bound to profess I am not of theirs who refuse such publick communion with our Church and hold it utterly unlawful to give so much as ear to them in their will-worship and especially such as use that way in dislike of opposition to the established And so let this end CHAP. IX A third abuse of the Worship of God by Sectaries in neglecting publick Prayers without Sermons censured That Prayer in a publick Place appointed for Gods Worship ought at all times to be offered to God Scripture and Vniversal Tradition require it above that in private Places The frivolousness of such Reasons as are used against it The Reasons for it WE come now to take notice of another instance of their injuriousness to the Glory of God in their vile and low opinion of publick Prayer in Gods House Whither it should seem they would scarce ever invite Christian people but for the Sermons sake And this they may do for their own sakes because they love to be encouraged as who doth not by a full appearance of Auditors For whoever saw a Sectary at prayers alone in the Church as was the manner and ought to be the practise at this day of devout Christians even upon all occasions to visit Gods house of Prayer to pour out their hearts before him to put up the private requests of their soul to God there as the properest place I am ashamed to hear and much more to utter what they have to say against this excellent practice 'T is out of one of their Common-places which fights against most of what they approve not amongst us and there 's an end of it It makes I am sure ten times more for the reputation of them whom they bitterly enough hate then they are aware of Shall all Jews be not only permitted but excited to frequent Gods house even at those hours of Prayer in which the publick Sacrifice was not offered Shall the Apostles of Christ after the Resurrection as did Peter and John Acts 3. 1. in express manner and without all peradventure the rest who are not expressed observe the publick place as well as common time of prayer Shall our Saviour Christ himself often resort to the Temple and that of the corrupt Jews to pray Nay shall this end be especially mention'd as to which the Temple was ordained by Solomon that men in private may offer 1 Kings 8. 38 39 c. up their Prayers to God And shall it not become Christians much more We know not of any publick prayers the Jews had in their Temple at all but he that shall prove they had any even at their offering Sacrifice which I neither positively deny nor know of but should gladly learn from others must I am confident prove it a Set form But every man likely pray'd for himself as his own heart and occasions moved him but commonly in a Set form For when I doubted of prayer in the Temple it was of any which was common publick or general as with Christians So that the principal end of Gods house then next to sacrificing was that particular men might come and worship God and pray to him And to this end the Temple doors were not then only opened when the Sacrifice was made and that ended clap'd to again presently to shut men out from praying there at any time of the day Nay the doors of the Gentile Temples were not shut up against commers in to worship And much less they of the ancient Christians when a publick and peculiar place was appointed for their worship whatever they were before If it were so that in the infant and extreamly persecuted state of the Church before Christian Religion dar'd to show its face abroad the doors of places appointed for Gods worship were shut from the time the service was over nay and at the very time of assembling will John 20. 19. they bring us back to that again We find it indeed to be their Negative use of Antiquity and Prescriptions That if it cannot be prov'd that such a thing was in use from the first beginning of Christians they hold themselves sufficiently exempted from the same but if it can they will not hold themselves bound to do it One of their fair dealings But we think it altogether sufficient in unquestionable Presidents to alledge them as imitable and binding that such were so early and general as could well consist with the safety and advantage of Christianity it self and its Professours And this we have beyond all doubt to favour and commend to us an open Church even when there were no publick prayers though that was daily and much less a Sermon which was rarely and yet God serv'd I speak modestly as well as any where since the Reformation and free and frequent access was had to the House of God to pray in This was continued in all Ages and all Christian Countries
to the world Upon this Innovating Hereticks were forced to seek subterfuge from revelations and extraordinary discoveries promised as they corruptly understood Scripture by Christ in St. John saying I have yet many things to say unto you but ye Joh. 16 12 13. cannot bear them now Howbeit when the Spirit of truth shall come he will guide you unto all truth c. Hence they collected That Christ communicated not all to his immediate Disciples but reserved diverse things to be imparted extraordinarily to them and the phansie of such extraordinary favours from God is such a bewitching device that few not soundly setled in Faith can chose but expect and thirst after and at last conceit that so God doth deal with them when there is no such matter And of this Sacrilegious and Heretical folly are those Churches no less than simple single persons guilty which under pretense of power in the Church which must not be denyed of declaring the sense of Scripture and Faith do in very deed invent and introduce new Articles of Faith and absurd Scholies unheard of before either in substance or form and say They do but explain only what was before implyed and included in holy Writ For all Articles of Faith all necessary and due Discipline all true Administration of Sacraments wherein the truth of Christian Churches are generally affirmed to consist must long since have been discovered from the Rule of all these or otherwise they who were ignorant of or defective in these could not lay any just claim to be true Churches of Christ So that in truth Antiquity thus understood is an excellent Note of the true Faith and the true Faith not contradicted in worship as is possible more than a Note or Sign of a true Church it is the very Being it self But where Antiquity it self is obscure the condition of a Note according to the Canvasers of this point being to be more cleer than that which is in question it cannot do this good office for us And to argue backward as too many do very incongruously endeavouring to prove that which should prove is to discover the fondness of their opinions and falsness of their cause at the same time For instance to say the Church cannot err in Doctrine therefore we must believe this to be most ancient And to affirm that no man can precisely declare the time and place when such a Doctrine entred the Church taxed for innovation is very absurd as commonly and confidently as it is used For St. Augustine on whose grounds they seem to build this supposition supposed that First no time could be instanced in when such an usance was not in the Church but many times this can be done against pretences to Apostolicalness though the direct time when it began may not be instanced in For whenas most Doctrines of Faith have some practical worship proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristoteles Polit Lib 5. 8. 175. to them and evidencing them such as are the form the matter the rites of prayer none of which recorded in the Church insinuate any such opinions in that age of the Church especially of publick approbation is it not an argument more than conjectural there was then no such thing believed in the Church though we be not able to determine when it first sprung up Again it is very weak and frivolous which is presumed as unquestionable that all abuses and corruptions in the Church had some proper period wherein they must needs show themselves according to that formality as afterwards they appeared in and became notorious No doubt is to be made but points of Doctrine had their conceptions augmentations and progressions insensible as infinite other things in nature and manners have had and daily have A man may better demand the hour in which an Apple began first to rot or the week in which an old Groat began first to be defaced and loose its form than require a determinate point of time or perhaps the year in which such a Doctrine began to be corrupted into an heretical sense and practise But many of these are very exactly and faithfully set down and found short of immemorialness of Tradition as they term it For Succession another note of the Church I find it by some divided into Succession Doctrinal and Personal meaning better than they speak For I know nothing properly succeeding but where something is departed or lost Now the Doctrine of the Church being incessant and perpetual and not diverse from it self cannot be said so properly to succeed it self as to persevere in the Church But if we should pass that order and allow this language yet the thing it self seems here quite to be mistaken it being not at present enquired into the Faith of the Church which if it were granted to be sound and Catholick doth not of it self necessarily and fully infer a true Church and upon the reasons before agreed to viz. Due administration of Discipline to be essential to a true Church but into the Form constituting it a Visible and Formal Church to which is indispensably required proper Pastors and that by the appointment of Christ as St. Paul thus witnesseth speaking of Christ leaving Ephes 4. 11 12 the earth and ascending into heaven and deputing thereupon certain Officers in his stead in a visible ministration which he ceaseth now to exercise He gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ Now it is not necessary here to determine the quarrel about the kind of Officers here mentioned it sufficing to our purpose what is very evident that they who are Governours of the Church must be given to the Church by Christ But Christ acting no longer politically or visibly as hath been said and must be yielded but mystically he cannot be said to ordain any immediately in his own person but by the ministry of others Now how is it possible to distinguish them whom Christ hath appointed to constitute others in the Church from them to whom he hath given no such order but by this succession we now speak of namely a traduction of that faculty which is in one deriving it originally though by many intermediate hands from Christ himself to another succeeding him because as the Apostle to the Hebrews speaks the Priests are not suffered to continue by reason of Death This Hebr. 7. 23. surrogation then of Pastors and Priests is not to be at the pleasure or arbitrement of men to institute but must be by the will of Christ and this will of Christ must be revealed unto us either by the ordinary line and course from himself and Apostles or else must by some extraordinary and miraculous way be made known to men For though we deny it to be Christs practise to commission men to these ends we do not deny it to be
that little For they may say that in prayer we offer not so much to God as we receive from him For prayer is a begging of favour and benefits of God To which our Answer is that taking prayer strictly and precisely for that one part of prayer which consisteth in craving a supply of our wants or deprecation only then indeed this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Cremens Alexand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Asterius apud Phoetum not so properly a Sacrifice But we are to take prayer in its usual latitude for all the parts of it such as Confession Deprecation of Evil Petition of Good Agnition and Profession of Mercies received Thanksgiving Praise for all Gods hand of Grace towards us and thus prayer is the offering up of a spiritual Sacrifice to God An offering of our heart and an assent of the soul to God as some devout men and learned have defined it And not so only but in effect and intention it by acknowledging of the free mercie of God in outward or inward blessings received from him is the rendring of them all to him again and a Sacrifice of that back again which once he conferred on us Thirdly prayer and worship so properly called bear the name of Sacrifices from the ground of all prayers though some parts of prayer be not so expresly such For he that acknowledges the Omnipotence of God the Omniscience Omnipresence the Alsufficiencie doth thereby render unto God his due but he that prayeth unto God supposeth and confesseth and implicitly offers all these as his duty to God But whoever heard of Offering up the Sacrifice of a Sermon unto God For Lastly If there be any thing of worship or the nature of a Sacrifice in Sermons certainly great Idolatry is committed by them it being most manifest that preaching is offered to Man and not to God and if it be a Divine worship what can it be less For what is more true and common then this That in prayer men speak to God but in preaching they speak to man So that from hence we may safely conclude that that Religion which hath nothing to commend it but preaching or nothing so much as preaching is quite contrary to the Apostle Whose praise is not of God but of Men and in truth deserves not so much the Name of Religion as of Superstition unheard of unthought of until of late years and coming nearest to that grossest part of truly Popish Superstition or as some call it Sacriledge communicating in one kind But here it will be warmly interposed and replyed God forbid they should oppose praying it is a manifest slander For these good people have prayers in private and prayers in publick too It is no proper place now by and by it will be to examine what manner of prayers worship these they mean are insufficient God knows to the constituting of a Church in true Christian communion But here we tell them that we have not disputed against them as having no worship of God at all But first that at all they make preaching and hearing Sermons a proper part of Gods service Secondly that they make it the most eminent and chief against both which our reasons stand good still And that they so do is demonstrated from their practise no less than Doctrines in that they never amongst us pray in publick never enjoy Christian communion but by vertue of a Sermon And though being pressed hard they confess with much ado as Cartwright against Bishop Whitgift that it is possible and valid to celebrate the Sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist without a Sermon yet it seems so notoriously inconvenient and incongruous as it ought never to be done where the Sermon is possible to be had A foul and ungodly mistake So that we have done them no wrong as yet CHAP. VIII A second Corruption of the worship of God not espicially in Prayer by opposing set-Set-forms of Publick Worship Reasons against Extemporary Prayers in Publick The Places of Scripture and Reasons and Antiquity for Extemporary Prayers answered A Second thing whereby they have abused both the holy duty of prayer and well-meaning Christians is in their traducing and prophanation of all prescribed forms of prayer wherein they forget not to shew themselves in their arts and colours For when the power is in their hands and their Faction can domineer then do they condemn directly in word by preaching printing and covenanting solemnly against Set-forms in publick and there hath been nothing under heaven acted by them more industriously than the utter abolition of all such Divine Offices And when they can go no farther their Chariots wheels are taken off and they begin to find themselves to sink that they bethink themselves how possibly they may stand in need of that moderation that they contemned and that indulgence they condemned their study is not how to repent and retract absolutely their former ungodly counsels and practises as all good Christians that meant seriously to be saved ought to do but with what artifices they may at the same time hold to their old principles of mischief to others and save themselves from harm from others For we must not say now they did any thing so disorderly good people that they are and innocent against Set-forms Province of London but the Parliament as they are obstimately bent to grace their cause without any ground for such a title say they call'd them to it when of the two they if we may distinguish them from their pretended Parliament for which there is no ground rather called their Parliament to such counsels and pranks as they after play'd as appeareth by their early Smectymnuus and their incessant instances with them to pursue those Schismatical Dogms to the subverting of all received Discipline and forms of Worship And that they have disowned their principles upon which they then proceeded we find not though we have more than enough of tricks and turnings and windings and straining them to the fairest sense they can possibly bear and sometimes farther too For instance they say now their Covenant was not against Episcopal Government but an Hierarchy They say They are not against Set forms for they suffer them in private Nay they say they are no enemies to publick Forms nor many other Rites but they would not have them imposed upon any But we shall presume to tell them we neither believe the one nor other until they as publickly retract what they have done in deposing all Set forms and taught and writ and imposing Unset forms upon all that would live by them And in that they would not have them now imposed they imply more strongly they are against them wholly than they express they any wayes favour them when God be thanked as ill as at present it is it is not in their power to oppose and damn them as formerly Can there be any thing more ridiculous than for men to do as much mischief as
mend their hearts and bring them to conform to sound forms of words than to please them in their carnal appetites after novelties no new occasions requiring But this is not all We except much more against the matter and manner of their prayers in that they have quite lost and depraved the nature of prayer For that they give such loose rains unto their tongues generally that instead of Confession Petition and Thanksgiving of which prayer ought principally to consist they fly out into preaching and jumble and confound those duties so together that many times in preaching they mourn and pray and this is with the wondering multitude accounted the best Sermon They likewise in their prayers fall on preaching and this is the powerful praying But they are to consider that to convert men is not the office of prayer but of preaching I shall add but one of their Objections more the rest being easily solved out of the premises They say If a prescribed Form or Liturgy had been good or profitable for the Church Christ without question would have delivered one for his Church To which on the contrary I return If extemporary conceived prayer had been so necessary as is pretended surely Christ would some where or other have ordained that we should use extemporary prayers and conceive that Sacrifice just as we offer it But the misery of these Arguers is that whereas the Scripture commends and commands nothing so much as prayer not one the least precept have they been able to find through the whole Scripture requiring prayer extemporary And then is not this an humane invention Is it not Will-worship But that Christ hath prescribed a form and matter of prayer too we hold it proved out of the two Evangelists I know well they hold the contrary What more equal and just way to find out the truth than to hear both ancient and modern Interpreters upon that doubt to their dayes Do they find any that say the Lords Prayer is so a Rule or Form that it is not to be the very matter of our prayer too in terms If not Is not this another humane invention hammer'd out of the Crowns of perverse and unskilful men What would they say if this very Lords Prayer as we call it was by Christ himself drawn from some received forms amongst the Jews before Christs time This is affirmed by divers very learned men in Judaical Antiquities They were set against it enough and more than enough before this surely would turn their stomachs worse Yet shall we take leave here to recite that sober and most probable Judgment of the Magdeburgenses concerning the use of the Lords Prayer Without Magdeburgens Centur. 1. lib. 2. cap. 4. doubt the Apostles propounded the form of prayer delivered by Christ to the Churches and required all to pray after that manner although they themselves used other forms of prayers Much may be said in the defense and confirmation of the received forms of communicating in publick But what more than what answers the vain cavils against it which is done Or the general concurrence of Heathen Jewish and Christian practise all which where it can be shewed they had any common service show that it was constantly determined and of one form and never changed but by advice of Authority Which to prove because the Affirmative is insinite we here put in a challenge to give any one instance to the contrary viz. of any one Church Jewish or Christian where the publick Service was arbitrary and left to the private Priest or Minister to form or model as he pleased He that shall advise with Gennadius Massiliensis shall find that one solemn point in his Gennad Massil Eccles Dog cap. 30. dayes for the administration of the publick Worship was this to keep to the solemnities of Sacerdotal Prayers which from the Apostles were deliver'd to the whole world and were celebrated in all the Catholick Church uniformly that there might be an agreement between the Law or Rule of believing and praying And where there is a liberty to pray what men list in publick manner there will soon spring up a liberty to preach what men list and upon that for the common sort to believe what they list unless that Law of Arms which themselves have exclaimed against in Religion keep them in awe For if we should speak truly and properly they who have no publick known received form of Worship amongst them can have no Christian Communion one with another and therefore they desire they know not what and we should do we know not what if we should joyn with them I prove it thus All Communion properly so called is in prayer and administration of Sacraments therefore signally called the Communion and not at all or least of all in Faith or Sermons because a man may believe as much as any Church or Preacher requires of him and yet be a cursed Schismatick and Alien from the Church But he that communicates in Prayers and the Sacraments hath full conjunction with that Body with which he so communicates Now farther to the intent that men may agree in one they certainly must first know that one thing For what is Communion but a common union in One thing which is a bond so to unite them But where this is uncertain moveable and new as the day and hour in which it is produced how is it possible men should know it or agree to it And if not How can they be said to enjoy communion in it Communion is much mistaken if it be look't on as a thing transient or consisting only in the act and passing away with it and ending and coming again at the returning of the like act but it is a thing habitual and permanent So that if we should suppose a man hath heard and approved for no man but he that means to be guilty of worse than Popish implicit Faith can approve a thing meerly future as extemporary prayers are such prayers and thereupon freely assented to them How can this last longer than the very instant of having passed such a sentence for before he heard them he could by no means yield rational assent and after he hath heard them it can last little longer than the sound doth in his head for at the next meeting he is as far behind and to seek as before and suspends communion But in forms once heard judged and compared with the Rule of Faith and Worship a man holds constant real though not actual Communion exercised with that Body of which he is a member And upon common humane probability may with general devotion joyn with and in such service of God though he be out of hearing especially which is most easie being acquainted with the method of the Liturgy and the purport of the several Actions Postures and Gestures relating to the several parts thereof And can these men in consciscience require that we should joyn with them who are so ill set together
affirmeth that it is Desecrated by the interrment of Hereticks there But certainly the words in the Revelation expressing a Vision meant no such thing as they are alledged for but only that in that Vision the holy Apostle beheld the souls of Saints and Martyrs departed humbled before or at the foot of the Altar as the manner was anciently to pray especially at the time v. 10. of offering crying aloud and with great importunity for justice and revenge upon the Persecutors of the Church and Murderers of them for the Testimony of Christ Jesus But because such hath been and I fear ever will be the corruption of Christian Religion that he that hath power in his hands and money good store in his purse shall be Sainted so far as outward ceremonies and priviledges can advance him he that would be at the charge of breaking up of the ground hath not been denyed nor dare any that I know whatever they ought to do deny him the liberty of being buried in the Church This may be and must be passed over but the affectation or irreligious ambition of building stately Seats and making that which is common to all Christians peculiar to some house so as upon no occasion it must be used by others is wicked and sacrilegious and much more the taking in of any the least part of Gods ground as the Church is to the prophane uses of making Tombs and Sepulchres and no other They are wont to say There is room enough besides It may be so for they commonly who thus enclose or usurp Gods Land have thin'd the inhabitants of the place where they live by illegal enclosures of the Common belonging to the Parish and so almost dispeopled the place But what is that to them more than any body else And why may not any man upon the same reason violently or fraudulently take away certain Acres of Land from him and say in his defense He hath left him enough still And least such as are Patrons of Churches and have certain supposed Prerogatives over the Chancels above what can be pretended to by the common sort of people should conceive they may there do as they please they are to know That in right and conscience such fore-mention'd practises can least of all be done For as the Founder of the Church so likewise the Builders of Chancels from whence only they can pretend such priviledge and as the maintainers of it in repair do at the time of the consecration consent to a total alienation of all civil propriety from themselves they can neither build nor bury there nor incommodate the place more than any other man for they are only Guardians and not Owners of that place upon which they may and ought to exclude and refuse all such incommodations of others as may any way deface or straiten or empair the same but they have no more right to do any such things there themselves then he that is Trustee or Guardian to an Orphan to seize upon his estate or any part thereof to his own use And it is only civil custom which hath given him a peculiar right of burial there rather then any body else And this may seem sufficient if not too much to have said of the Negative force of Dedication of Churches against Usurpers of Gods and Christians Rights The positive effect which is a veneration and worship therein of God Almighty doth farther confirm this and is contained in the end expressed as well as in the form of Dedication used by Solomon as the constant practise of the Jews whose Tabernacle or Temple had nothing of constant preaching or instruction of the people but only Prayers and Sacrifices Afterward their Synagogues called also Proseuchae for convenience because Acts 13. 27. all people could not meet at the Temple were erected where as the Scripture tells us the Law was read and Moses preached every Sabbath day but they had their special denomination fâ—ouâ— the Office and Acts of Prayer Synagogue signifying no more than an Assembly in general From whence if not also from the consent of all Nations besides who had Temples to their Gods it may appear that the most principal end of Gods House was alwayes till an ignorant irregular Generation sprang up esteemed the House of Prayer and Worship and teaching and instruction of people very necessary indeed as the foundation upon which all worship must be built was not that main end as is pretended And this worship being in its proper place in the Church was always and ought to be performed in most publique manner and most solemn as to outward appearance as well as inward affection to which too many deluded by a gross and cheap piece of Sophistry would confine Gods worship It is time we have no direct precept in the New Testament that I can call to mind enjoyning any particular behaviour at the time of Gods service nor yet in the Law And why so were not that very necessary in case any outward carriage were necessary Yes truly if so be such a Religious manner of worship could be known to us no other way than by Revelation extraordinary For Gods word is very sparing in those things of which we may by the common light of Nature attain to the knowledge For who is there that knows there is a God that knoweth not also that he is to be worshipped Who is there that knoweth that God is to be worshipped thar knoweth not also that he is to worshipped in the most lowly and reverent manner And that reverence outward is mutable and various according to the opinion of several Countries and therefore no one general Rule could be made comprehending and obliging all people but this is laid down to us that what is accounted in any Nation most solemn humble and reverent is that which is required of us in the worship of God But surely kneeling bowing the body uncovering the head yea and prostration of the body in convenient time and place are acts of worship such as were in use among the Jews of old continued by the Apostles and successors in Faith and Devotion as innumerable places of Holy Writ in the Old and New Testament intimate unto us where falling low at Gods footstool bowing the knee and such like outward acts of reverence are put for prayer it self which they never would have been had not they been the known manner of worship And Salvian describes Salvian de Provid lib. 7. Ad domos statim dominicas 〈◊〉 c. to us the custom of Christians in his early days thus We presently haste to the Lords house we cast our bodies on the floor and pray with weeping and joy mixt together And I am not advis'd of more then one place which interdicts any one piece of irreverence as unnatural and that the superstition of Puritans hath cast them into and that is covering of mens faces in the time of publique prayer when the hat as an instance
contrary A Third abuse noted by Mr. Perkins is That a man may say the Canonical hours of one day for another which may be an abuse or no abuse as the matter is ordered To neglect wilfully ones usual prayers is certainly ill but having so done to double his prayers the next day is no such error as may be supposed Much besides this may be said out of the Authority of the Church and more out of Scripture than may be found for some things by Puritans religiously observed Much likewise is here wont to be said about the Hours themselves the reason and number of them but I cut off all them at present and resolve all into the general reasonableness and piety of such a practice and the manifold benefit which may accrue unto the serious and devout user of them though he ties not himself to any one form strictly and so shall rest till I can hear what can be objected worthy of a Christian against them more than I have found already which may be as well objected against Morning and Evening prayer as them CHAP. XIV The Third thing to be considered in the Worship of God viz. The true Object which is God only That it is Idolatry to misapply this Divine Worship What is Divine Worship properly called Of the multitude and mischiefs of New distinctions of Worship Dulia and Latria though distinct of no use in this Controversie What is an Idol Origen's criticisme of an Idol vainly rested on What an Image What Idolatry The distinction of Formal and Material Idolatry upon divers reasons rejected The Papists really Idolatrous notwithstanding their good Intentions pretended Intention and Resolution to worship the true God excuse not from Idolatry Spalato Forbes and others excusing the Romanists from thence disproved That Idolatry is not always joyned with Polytheism or worshipping more Gods than one How the Roman Church may be a true Church and yet Idolatrous FRom the nature kinds acts circumstances of Place and Times of Prayer we pass to the object of this worship of Invocation and Adoration which is the most important of all and which as duly observed is the end complement and perfection of all Religion so mistaken is the foulest of all errors and the highest of all provocations and affronts of almighty God who Isa 42. 8. protesteth by his Prophet upon this occasion I am the Lord that is my name and my glory will I not give unto another neither my praise unto graven Images This therefore it were superfluous to prove which all Christians yea almost all the world as well Unchristian as Christian doth readily and unanimously assent to That God only is the proper object of Divine or Religious worship And they that glory that they stick firmly to this what do they more than do Infidels and Heathens who all hold that God is to be worshipped with supreamest worship and that Idolatry is a notorious errour and offence against him This I say all rational men assent to in the notion that the worship of the true God or which seems to be the very same the true worship of God is to be given only to God and yet fall flat into the Practice of that great sin For though Idolatry be so odious in its name yet in its nature it is very pleasing and ravishing of our senses and hath of late days been so fairly and neatly trimmed up by the fine wits and curious hands of men and they especially Christians and they more especially Catholiques God bless us that now there is either no such thing to be found in the world or that the least sin one of them in the world And this is brought about by the ministry and help of innumerable distinctions which I think may be reduced to these two heads viz. to those concerning the Act of worshipping and those concerning the Object of worship Concerning the Act we find such as these very common and current first Natural and Civil and Divine and Religious And these again Properly Divine or Improperly supream and Inferior Direct and Indirect Absolute and Relative Ultimate and subalternate or subordinate Mediate and Immediate For it s own sake or for anothers sake Again for its own sake which we worship as a thing in it self or as a Representation of another All these but these are not all to be found in Learned Authors books to rectifie the worlds errours in its Religion And besides these more may be found concerning the Object but this one shall I only name which is their strongest Hold and Refuge That to secure them from all assauls of Adversaries this to receive them when they shall by strong hand at any time be beaten out of their fastnesses And that is that modern but very famous distinction of Material and Formal So that some of no mean knowledge have thus defended themselves What if for instance in the Mass we should by errour worship that as God which is not God yet this would be but Material Idolatry at the most and not Formal seeing we believe that to be very God which we so adore and Material Idolatry with such circumstances we must suppose is one of the least sins that we can be subject to Thus have some discoursed to me though 't is well known some others of them as Costerus do acknowledge that if Costerus Enchirid Catholicks miss their mark and that be not really God which they with divine worship adore in the Sacrament they are gross Idolaters Of this we shall speak more by and by Now are we to consider first of the first sort of distinctions to pass over all which by a particular examination would be too tedious a task for my self and Reader too I shall therefore only examine the most reasonable and comprehensive of them and them I take to be that of Worship Civil and Divine and of Absolute and Relative not omitting altogether others And to understand clearly what is meant by Divine Worship we are to enquire whether the Act makes the Worship or the Object For all worship as other Acts moral takes it specification from the Object as Philosophers say then unless the Object be Divine or God himself cannot the Worship be Divine and so by consequence a man cannot give Divine Worship though he would never so fain unto an object not Divine and so cannot though he would commit Idolatry because the worship it self is not Divine but much inferior because the object is such which constitutes not Divine Worship being some Creature But if the Act in its own nature be intrinsecally Divine it would be known what is that which makes it so For they say all acts external are equivocal and dubious in themselves and indifferent to Civil Religious Inseriour or Supream worship and that nothing can be concluded from thence Idolatrous For we bow the head we bend the knee we fall down at the feet of men many times whom we give no Idolatrous worship unto
which themselves grant to be so viz. To worship that as God which is not God For first this is most generally believed by the Church of Rome that they have many small Remains of the bloud of Christ Next it is generally believed and required that Divine worship is to be given unto that blood in like manner as to Christ Now that this reputed bloud of Christ is not really the bloud of Christ not we only but the learneder of themselves teach directly yea Thomas proves it Thomas Sum. 3. Qu. 54. 2. corp ad 3. cannot possibly be because all the bloud that was shed from Christs body must of necessity be recollected and so was miraculously restored to his body again otherwise Christ had not risen again in that integrity of his human nature that he suffered in But it is manifest saith Thomas That flesh bones and bloud are pertaining to the human nature of Christ and therefore must all rise perfectly with him Now because the scruple is obvious to all Whence that reputed bloud presented solemnly as the very bloud of Christ should proceed if not from Christs body from whence we hear it cannot come He answers thus That bloud which in some Churches is preserved in Reliques of his did not flow from Christs side but is affirmed to have flown miraculously from a certain Image of Christ which was smitten Thus he And I could give an account of diverse Images which according to their own writers having been so smitten by spiteful Jews have bled in this manner And is it not as plain as can be that this is not Christs bloud And if it be not Christs bloud is it not also as evident that Idolatry is committed when divine adoration is given to it I make no doubt but there are innumerable in the Church of Rome who have more Faith and knowledg than to throw themselves thus heedlesly into such precipices of Superstition as are to be found there And therefore Grotius his design of a Reconciliation with the Church of Rome quite overthrown as he imagineth by holding it Idolatrous was not well laid For he that affirms that the Church of Rome is Animad in Animad Rivet Artic. 21. Idolatrous doth not say that all who hold communion with the Church of Rome are Idolaters as he supposeth Though they hold it unlawful upon peril if not of personal guilt of Idolatry very hardly to be avoided there of Communicative Idolatry which all true Christians ought to shun with greatest care and resolution CHAP. XVI Of the Fourth thing wherein the Worship of God consisteth viz. Preaching How far it is necessary to the Service of God What is true Preaching Of the Preaching of Christ wherein it consisteth Of Painful Preaching That the Ministery according to the Church of England is much more Painful than that of Sectaries The negligence of some in their Duty contrary to the Rule and Mind of the Church not to be imputed to the Church but to particular Persons in Authority VVE come now to speak of the Fifth General wherein the exercise of Gods worship consisteth and that is Preaching of which having so far already treated as to make discovery of the great error of Sectaries about it and the sacrilegious abuse of the true and proper Worship of God by Idolizing a Sermon and making the House of God and all acts of Religion void in comparison of it we may be here briefer in what remains of that subject For we find an opinion too prevalent amongst Christians which not only overthroweth the worship of God for Preachings sake but which is more to be wonder'd at overthroweth Preaching too for the Sermons sake For to that Superstition are they arrived in their opinions of teaching and hearing that if it be not performed without book if not out of the Pulpit if not a text formally taken out of the Bible If this text be not reduced to Doctrine and Use If there be not a formal I do not mean a Form of Prayer before and after it with the common sort it scarce deserves the name of Preaching And when all those conditions concur it is not only Preaching and a Sermon indeed but the Word of God without more ado and accordingly to be reverenced and valued And it were to be wish'd that were all and the Scriptures themselves not esteemed or not much listen'd to in comparison of them Thomas Cartwright the Great Church-wright as I may so call him of Schismatiques hath expresly affirm'd That the Scriptures avail little unless expounded by themselves surely and yet they also hold an opinion which no man can reconcile to this that the Scriptures contain all things necessary to Salvation and that plainly but let that go And let us know how a Sermon in its formalities now mentioned became the Word of God and in what sense and in what age and by what autority It is more than probable that Christ and his Apostles seldom used a Prayer before or after their Preaching It is most apparent out of Justine Martyrs second apology and Tertullians Apologetique that Preaching was used in their publique Assemblies and that principally as subservient to Prayer and Communicating and not set to domineer over them and be made the chief of Gods worship And so long as their Prayers were unprescribed was Preaching unstudied for and extemporary chiefly according to the manner insinuated in the Acts of the Apostles where it is said After the reading of the Law and Prophets the Rulers of the Synagogue sent unto them Acts. 13. 15. Paul and his company saying Ye men and Brethren If ye have any word of Exhortation for the People say on And by St. Paul to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 14. 29 30. saying Let the Prophets speak two or three and let the rest judge If any thing be revealed to another that sitteth by let the first hold his Peace These speeches were after the President of the Jewish Assembly had either himself read or caused the Law to be read and never without leave first obtained from him Which custom was for some time imitated by Christians When the Bishop only first spake to the people and then by his leave some other began an Exhortation to the People But this bringing certain inconveniences into Christian Assemblies in tract of time quite ceased and nothing was said but by the Bishop himself and that not every time much less in every place where Christians assembled to the Service of God there being for a long time after Christians were multiplyed and spread far not above one Sermon in a Diocess and that in the Principal City of that Country whither people that had a mind to hear a Sermon or communicate resorted for the good of their souls as men do now adayes to Market for the food of their bodies Which being there purchased the faithful Christian carried it home to his Family and dispensed to it of the same following herein the Counsel
be true what St. John saith that No man hath seen God at any time and what the John 1. 18. Schools teach as I believe that fleshly eyes cannot possibly discern God immediately may we not much more truly say that we cannot hear Gods voice with our fleshly ears and live any more than see God and live But God says expresly No man shall see me and live But as God maketh certain Exod. 33. 20. representations of himself to our eye which are not himself but yet bear his name in Scripture so God produceth or causeth to be produced audible sounds which are not really and properly his voice yet represent so much to the ear of man which when it comes attended with more than natural or ordinary circumstances as did the voice at the giving of the Law it is more especially and signally ascribed unto God as his Lastly It is said in Exodus that Moses wrote upon the Tables the words of Exod. 34 28. the Covenant the Ten Commandments which in the beginning of the Chapter God is said to write I will write upon these Tables the words that were Exod. 34. 1. in the first c. which moved the Fathers as Cyprian and Austin whom Lyra follows to understand them so that God wrote Autoritatively and Moses Ministerially But later Jewish and Christian Expositours have thought good rather to refer the later part of these words And he was there with the Lord fourty dayes and fourty nights he did neither eat bread nor drink water and he wrote upon the Tables the words of the Covenant the Ten Commandments to God not without some violence to the sense more current otherwise But in such variety and obscurity as is here I see no remedy but men must judge for themselves However I suppose the second thing propounded is from hence competently clear concerning the Nature of this Law That as it is undoubtedly Divine so from the Authority delivering it it hath no more force or obligation upon us than other words of God extant in holy Scripture Nor is it easily to be conceived how any thing can be said to be more or less divine which is acknowledged to come from God by vertue of any manner of delivering it whether mediately or immediately by a still and quiet inspiration or by a publick and majestick declaration but from the matter it may And Buxtorf in his forementioned Tractate on Buxtorf in Decalog num 51. Priscis temporibus c. the Decalogue hath these words In ancient times it was a custome among the Jews that the Decalogue should every day in the Morning Prayers be publickly and privately rehearsed and repeated This laudable custom in latter times they have abolished the reason whereof the Talmud renders to be lest the people should believe that the Decalogue had any â—ore divineness in it than other parts of Scripture From whence we may observe First That anciently the Jews had a constant Form of Worship Secondly That there is no such ridiculousness in Prayers publick and private to repeat the Creed and Ten Commandments as certain pretenders to giftedness have presumed Thirdly That the Jewish Doctours discerning the great inconvenience that might happen from admitting degrees of Sacredness in Divine Revelations chose to prevent such errours by taking away the presumed occasion For however some have distinguished between Divine Right and Apostolical making this a mean between humane purely and divine yet in propriety of speech all Constitutions are either divine purely or purely humane And therefore Apostolical Right can be no more than humane Right when it is distinguished from Divine This we speak of Constitutions taken in their formality not as oftentimes they are used for the things themselves so ordained For no doubt but as there are degrees of sins against Laws so these degrees are estimated from the weightiness or lightness of the matter against which offences are committed And thus we may hold that the Ten Commandments are more Sacred that is contain more important matters than generally the rest of the Scriptures do that is again in the like number words being certainly the most perfect and plain and compendious form of serving God that the Jews had any where revealed unto them if not a more absolute sum of our practical duties towards God and Man then we find collected together in so few words in the Gospel and therefore not unworthily inserted into the Second part of the Office of our Church But whether this Decalogue was ever intended by God as such a perfect and compleat Rule of Obedience that nothing to which Jew or Christian was obliged hath escaped it may well be question'd understanding the Question not so much of ceremonial or extrinsecal Duties of Religion as moral and perpetual Many have this last age brought forth who though they look upon it little less than ridiculous to make any use of the Ten Commandments in our worship of God yet ascribe so great perfection to it as a Rule that they suppose they have convinced you of absurdity enough if they drive you to either of these straits To deny any Moral duty to be contained in the Decalogue or to affirm any Ceremonial to be therein included For then they loudly cry concerning the First you make the Law of God an Imperfect Rule And concerning the Second as by name doth Dr. Twisse in his Treatise on the Sabbath with innumerable others If for instance the Fourth Commandment be not Moral what doth it among the Ten Commands And having said this they need they think say no more to confound their adversaries To the former therefore we say that improving the Art of Reduction to the height no doubt but all Moral and Ceremonial duties too may be reduced to some of the Ten Commandments For if our Saviour Christ our Great and Infallible Master reduced these Ten to two and again all things contained in the Law and Prophets which must be all Moral duties to Love of God and Love of our Neighbour in St. Matthews Gospel saying On these two Commandements hang all the Law and the Prophets Nay and Matth. 22. 37 38 39 40. which is yet more St. Paul brings all Christian duties under one Head of Love saying Love is the fulfilling of the Law Do we wonder at or can Rom. 13. 10. we censure those who would have all Christian vertues included and vices and sins excluded by the Decalogue But surely they who contend for such a comprehension as may be useful to a man do not intend that it self should be incomprehensible and illimited which at this rate it must be reducing every thing to any thing but certain Rules have been invented for the limiting and directing of men in this matter which being not taken from the Reason of the thing it self so much as the Arbitrary wit of the Hic video quosdam in hoc elaborasse ut universa proecepta sive jubentia sive
ventantia ad hoec decem redigant Capitalium peccatorum species quae septem numerantur in aliquod horum referum sed sedulâ diligentiâ magis quam serid Erasm Cateches 6. in Decal Thom 22. qu. 148. 2. ad 1. Contrivers of them may as well as many other things be refused at pleasure as an humane Invention For mine own particular I think Erasmus has spoken judiciously and truly in the Case Here I see some labouring hard to reduce all Precepts whether commanding or forbidding to these Ten and to refer the seven deadly sins to some of these but with diligence more sedulous than serious And no other instance needs be given of an incapacity in the Decalogue of Regular reduction of this nature than what Thomas has given us whose Logical head was able to do as much in this kind as any mans Framing an Objection to himself that Gluttony was no mortal sin because it was not contrary to any of the Ten Commandments answers thus Gluttony is a mortal sin in as much as it averts us from the Ultimate end and according to this by a Certain Reduction by which every thing may be reduced to every thing is opposed to the Command of Sanctifying the Sabbath in which is required our rest in the Ultimate End If this be fair and allowable what needed we any more Commandments than that of keeping holy the Sabbath day For surely all sin as well as Gluttony turns us away from our Last End which is God and our resting in him and therefore by this reason all sin should be Sabbath-breaking St. James James 2. 10. indeed saith Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all that is a breaker of all But he very well explains himself immediately after that he meant not so much in respect of the matter of the Law that a man could not sin against it in one case but he must sin against it in another but in respect of the Manner For saith he He that said unto thee do not commit adultery said also do not kill c. implying thus much that the same evil mind that disposes a man to disobey God in one point of the Law will incline him to the like in others and the Cords of Fear and Love of God being broken to offend God in one sin leave him at liberty to offend him in any other whatever Not that a man doth directly or actually commit sin against the whole Law As in the case of Moral Vertues according to Philosophers all are so connected and dependent upon one another in Prudence that whoever wants that lies open to all vices But our enquiry is concerning the connexion of vertues and vices in the matter of them whether the offender in one sin is guilty of all whether the Drunkard be a Thief or the Sabbath-breaker an Adulterer For according to the large extent of Rules commonly given either of these may be made good and without such a latitude drunkenness will hardly find a proper place in any of the Ten Commandments unless we say as some more wittily than solidly Drunkenness slaggers through all the Commands And in the like sense What sin doth not And therefore Thom. ibid. Thomas is constrained to acknowledge that Not all Mortal sins are directly contrary to the Precepts of the Decalogue but those only which contain injustice because the Precepts of the Decalogue in especial manner pertain to Justice and the parts thereof That so many Ancient as well as Modern Doctors of Christs Church have endeavoured to bring all Sins and Graces and Duties to the Ten Commandments I take to proceed from this three-fold cause First in Imitation of the Jews who agreed with Christians in the Use of the Decalogue Novatianus Epistâ—de Judaicis apud Tertul cap. 3. Deniqu dâ—eem sermones â—lh in tabulis nibil novum dacent c. Grot. in Decalogum as being no more than a restoring the decayed Law of Nature in man and reprinting it in his mind as well hath Novatianus observed thus Lastly those ten sayings in Tables teach no new thing but what was blurred they admonish that Justice contained in them as fire buried might as it were by the breath of the Law be re-enkindled And Philo testifieth of the Jews not only of his Times but ancienter that they were wont to reduce All the Precepts of Moses his Law to these Ten not that they did believe that they were all contained in them as Grotius hath observed but that those things we have here belong to such general heads of Actions unto which for memory sake others may be reduced in like manner as Philosophers are wont to Sixt. Sen. Bib. l. 4. reduce all things to Aristotles Ten Categories or Predicaments though by the way it is observed by Sixtus Senensis out of ancient Authors that Aristotle was not the true Author of the Ten Predicaments but rather Architas Tarentinus And this Christians did more accurately as being better endowed with the Holy Spirit and obliged to higher vertues A second reason might be for that the Decalogue as we have already said though it be not such an exquisite and ample Rule as to contain all things without great straining and force yet it being the most significant is any where extant in Scripture Christians chose that for their Compendium to which other duties might relate And this Thirdly because of the expediency of advancing some one Form of Words to be a Rule of Practise as were the Creed and Lords Prayer instituted as Forms of Faith and all Prayers and that chiefly for help to the Memory of men in their compleat duty towards God and Man The first that I have observed who brought this way of Reduction of all things to the Commandments was St. Hieromne who hath delivered such General Rules for this purpose as have been much improved and multiplied by many Catechises and Commentators upon them To which I shall refer the Reader at present passing or rather posting from the Use in General to the Particular Use of it in the Third thing viz. The Explication CHAP. XX. Of the Ten Commandments in Particular and their several sense and importance IN all Laws three things are to be considered saith a late excellent Die â—mâ—bi Hâ—los-phasier Oretzere si non tres Leâ—uâ— partes dâ—â—mmâ—â— Philosophis Platone Possidonio Cicerone alits consittuantur nempe Preoemium Lex ipsa Epilogus sive sanctio Goldastus Replicat ad Gretz c. 11. person in the Civil Law The Preface the Law it self and the Epilogue or Conclusion to it or Sanction And these are all found in the Decalogue And where some have no special Preface there the General Prologue is to be current and applyed unto them And so where other particular precepts want the enforcement of them in the conclusion they may well borrow it from some other as for Example I am the Lord thy God set