high Priest they kept Damascus with a Garrison they sent parties of souldiers to silence and to imprison the Preachers and thought they did God service when they put the Apostles to death and they swore neither to eat nor to drink till they had killed Paul It was an old trick of the Jewish zeal Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti Quaesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpos They would not shew the way to a Samaritan nor give a cup of cold water but to a circumcised brother That was their Zeal But the zeal of the Apostles was this they preached publickly and privately they prayed for all men they wept to God for the hardnesse of mens hearts they became all things to all men that they might gain some they travel'd through deeps and deserts they indured the heat of the Syrian Starre and the violence of Euroclydon winds and tempests seas and prisons mockings and scourgings fastings and poverty labour and watching they endured every man and wronged no man they would do any good thing and suffer any evill if they had but hopes to prevail upon a soul they perswaded men meekly they intreated them humbly they convinced them powerfully the watched for their good but medled not with their interest and this is the Christian Zeal the Zeal of meeknesse the Zeal of charity the Zeal of patience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in these it is good to be zealous for you can never goe farre enough 2. The next measure of zeal is prudence For as charity is the matter of Zeal so is discretion the manner It must alwaies be for good to our neighbour and there needs no rules for the conducting of that provided the end be consonant to the design that is that charity be intended and charity done But there is a Zeal also of Religion or worshipping and this hath more need of measures and proper cautions For Religion can turn into a snare it may be abused into superstition it may become wearinesse in the spirit and tempt to tediousnesse to hatred and despair and many persons through their indiscreet conduct and furious marches and great loads taken upon tender shoulders and unexperienced have come to be perfect haters of their joy and despisers of all their hopes being like dark Lanthorns in which a candle burnes bright but the body is incompassed with a crust and a dark cloud of iron and these men keep the fires and light of holy propositions within them but the darknesse of hell the hardnesse of a vexed he art hath shaded all the light and makes it neither apt to warm nor to enlighten others but it turnes to fire within a feaver and a distemper dwels there and Religion is become their torment 1. Therefore our Zeal must never carry us beyond that which is profitable There are many institutions customes and usages introduced into Religion upon very fair motives and apted to great necessities but to imitate those things when they are disrobed of their proper ends is an importune zeal and signifies nothing but a forward minde and an easie heart and an imprudent head unlesse these actions can be invested with other ends and usefull purposes The primitive Church were strangely inspired with a zeal of virginity in order to the necessities of preaching and travelling and easing the troubles and temptations of persecution but when the necessity went on and drove the holy men into deserts that made Colleges of Religious and their manner of life was such so united so poor so dressed that they must live more non saculari after the manner of men divorc'd from the usuall entercourses of the world still their desire of single life increased because the old necessity lasted and a new one did supervene Afterwards the case was altered and then the single life was not to be chosen for it self nor yet in imitation of the first precedents for it could not be taken out from their circumstances and be used alone He therefore that thinks he is a more holy person for being a virgin or a widower or that he is bound to be so because they were so or that he cannot be a religious person because he is not so hath zeal indeed but not according to knowledge But now if the single state can be taken out and put to new appendages and fitted to the end of another grace or essentiall duty of Religion it will well become a Christian zeal to choose it so long as it can serve the end with advantage and security Thus also a zealous person is to chuse his fastings while they are necessary to him and are acts of proper mortification while he is tempted or while he is under discipline while he repents or while he obeys but some persons fast in zeal but for nothing else fast when they have no need when there is need they should not but call it religion to be miserable or sick here their zeal is folly for it is neither an act of Religion nor of prudence to fast when fasting probably serves no end of the spirit and therefore in the fasting dayes of the Church although it is warrant enough to us to fast if we had no end to serve in it but the meer obedience yet it is necessary that the superiors should not think the Law obeyed unlesse the end of the first institution be observed a fasting day is a day of humiliation and prayer and fasting being nothing it self but wholly the handmaid of a further grace ought not to be devested of its holinesse and sanctification and left like the wals of a ruinous Church where there is no duty performed to God but there remains something of that which us'd to minister to Religion The want of this consideration hath caus'd so much scandall and dispute so many snares and schismes concerning Ecclesiasticall fasts For when it was undressed and stripp'd of all the ornaments and usefull appendages when from a solemn day it grew to be common from thence to be lesse devout by being lesse seldome and lesse usefull and then it passed from a day of Religion to be a day of order and from fasting till night to fasting till evening-song and evening-song to be sung about twelve a clock and from fasting it was changed to a choice of food from eating nothing to eating fish and that the letter began to be stood upon and no usefulnesse remain'd but what every of his own piety should put into it but nothing was enjoyn'd by the Law nothing of that exacted by the superiours then the Law fell into disgrace and the design became suspected and men were first insnared and then scandalized and then began to complain without remedy and at last took remedy themselves without authority the whole affair fell into a disorder and a mischief and zeal was busie on both sides and on both sides was mistaken because they fell not upon the proper remedy which was to reduce the Law to the
own brow it stays not to be tempted by little avocations and to creep into holes but runs into the sea through full and usefull channels So is a mans prayer if it moves upon the feet of an abated appetite it wanders into the society of every trifling accident and stays at the corners of the fancy and talks with every object it meets and cannot arrive at heaven but when it is carryed upon the wings of passion and strong desires a swift motion and a hungry appetite it passes on through all the intermediall regions of clouds and stays not till it dwells at the foot of the Throne where mercy sits and thence sends holy showers of refreshment I deny not but some little drops will turn aside and fall from the full channell by the weaknesse of the banks and hollownesse of the passage but the main course is still continued and although the most earnest and devout persons feel and complain of some loosenesse of spirit and unfixed attentions yet their love and their desire secure the maine portions and make the prayer to be strong fervent and effectuall Any thing can be done by him that earnestly desires what he ought secure but your affections and passions and then no temptation will be too strong A wise man and a full resolution and an earnest spirit can doe any thing of duty but every temptation prevailes when we are willing to die and we usually lend nothing to devotion but the offices that flatter our passions we can desire and pray for any thing that may serve our lust or promote those ends which we covet but ought to fear and fly from but the same earnestnesse if it were transplanted into Religion and our prayers would serve all the needs of the spirit but for want of it we do the Lords work deceitfully 3. Our Charity also must be fervent Malus est miles qui ducem suum gemens sequitur He that follows his Generall with a heavy march and a heavy heart is but an ill souldier but our duty to God should be hugely pleasing and we should rejoyce in it it must passe on to action and doe the action vigorously it is called in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the labour and travail of love A friend at a sneese and an almes-basket full of prayers a love that is lazy and a service that is uselesse and a pity without support are the images and colours of that grace whose very constitution and designe is beneficence and well-doing He that loves passionately will not onely doe all that his friend needs but all that himself can for although the law of charity is fulfilled by acts of profit and bounty and obedience and labour yet it hath no other measures but the proportions and abundance of a good mind and according to this God requires that we be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abounding and that alwayes in the work of the Lord if we love passionately we shall doe all this for love endures labour and calls it pleasure it spends all and counts it a gain it suffers inconveniencies and is quickly reconciled to them if dishonours and affronts be to be endured love smiles and calls them favours and wears them willingly alii jacuere ligati Turpitèr atque aliquis de Diis non tristibus optat Sic fieri turpis It is the Lord said David and I will be yet more vile and it shall be honour unto me thus did the Disciples of our Lord goe from tribunals rejoycing that they were accounted worthy to suffer stripes for that beloved name and we are commanded to rejoyce in persecutions to resist unto bloud to strive to enter in at the strait gate not to be weary of well doing doe it hugely and doe it alwayes Non enim votis neque suppliciis muliebribus auxilia Deorum parantur sed vigilando agendo benè consulendo omnia prosperè cedunt No man can obtain the favour of God by words and imperfect resolutions by lazie actions and a remisse piety but by severe counsells and sober actions by watchfulnesse and prudence by doing excellent things with holy intentions and vigorous prosecutions Ubi socordiae ignaviae te tradideris nequidquam Deos implorabis If your vertues be lazy your vices will be bold and active and therefore Democritus said well that the painfull and the soft-handed people in Religion differ just as good men and bad nimirùm spe bonâ the labouring charity hath a good hope but a coole Religion hath none at all and the distinction will have a sad effect to eternall ages These are the great Scenes of duty in which we are to be fervent and zealous but because earnestnesse and zeal are circumstances of a great latitude and the zeale of the present age is starke cold if compar'd to the fervors of the Apostles and other holy primitives and in every age a good mans care may turne into scruple if he sees that he is not the best man because he may reckon his owne estate to stand in the confines of darknesse because his spark is not so great as his neighbors fires therefore it is sit that we consider concerning the degrees of the intention and forward heats for when we have found out the lowest degrees of zeale and a holy fervour we know that duty dwels there and whatsoever is above it is a degree of excellence but all that is lesse then it is lukewarmnesse and the state of an ungracious and an unaccepted person 1. No man is fervent and zealous as he ought but he that preferres Religion before businesse charity before his own ease the reliefe of his brother before money heaven before secular regards and God before his friend or interest Which rule is not to be understood absolutely and in particular instances but alwayes generally and when it descends to particulars it must be in proportion to circumstances and by their proper measures for 1. In the whole course of life it is necessary that we prefer Religion before any state that is either contrary to it or a lessening of at s duties He that hath a state of life in which he cannot at all in fair proportions tend to Religion must quit great proportions of that that he may enjoy more of this this is that which our blessed Saviour calls pulling out the right eye if it offend thee 2. In particular actions when the necessity is equall he that does not preferre Religion is not at all Zealous for although all naturall necessities are to be served before the circumstances and order of Religion yet our belly and our back our liberty and our life our health and a friend are to be neglected rather then a Duty when it stands in its proper place and is requir'd 3. Although the things of God are by a necessary Zeale to be preferred before the things of the world yet we must take heed that we doe not reckon Religion and orders of worshipping onely to be the
distinctions and devices thought of for legitimating the worshipping of images And those people that are liberal in their excommunications make men think they have reason to say their Judges are proud or self willed or covetous or ill natured people These that are the faults of Governours and continued are quickly derived upon the sect and cause a disreputation to the whole society and institution And who can think that congregation to be a true branch of the Christian who makes it their profession to kill men to save their souls against their will and against their understanding who calling themselves disciples of so meek a Master do live like bears upon prey and spoil and blood It is a huge dishonour to the sincerity of a mans purposes to be too busie in fingring money in the matters of religion and they that are zealous for their rights and tame in their devotion furious against sacrilege and a companion of drunkards implacable against breakers of a Canon and carelesse and patient enough with them that break the fifth or sixth Commandments of the Decalogue tell all the world their private sense is to preserve their own interest with scruple and curiosity and leave God to take care for his Thus Christ reproved the Pharisees for straining at a gnat and swallowing a Camel the very representation of the manner and matter of fact discovers the vice by reproving the folly of it They that are factious to get a rich proselyte and think the poor not worth saving dishonour their zeal and teach men to call it covetousnesse and though there may be a reason of prudence to desire one more then the other because of a bigger efficacy the example of the one may have more then the other yet it will quickly be discovered if it be done by secular designe and the Scripture that did not allow the preferring of a gay man before a poor Saint in the matter of place will not be pleased that in the matter of souls which are all equal there should be a faction and designe and an acceptation of persons Never let us pollute our religion with arts of the world nor offer to support the arke with unhallowed hands nor mingle false propositions with true nor make religion a pretence to profit or preferment nor do things which are like a vice neither ever speak things dishonorable of God nor abuse thy brother for Gods sake nor be solicitous and over busie to recover thy own little things neither alwayes think it fit to lose thy charity by forcing thy brother to do justice and all those things which are the outsides and faces the garments and most discerned parts of religion be sure that they be dressed according to all the circumstances of men and by all the rules of common honesty and publick reputation Is it not a sad thing that the Jew should say the Christians worship images or that it should become a proverb that the Jew spends all in his passeover the Moore in his marriage and the Christian in his law suits that what the first sacrifice to religion and the second to publick joy we should spend in malice covetousnesse and revenge Pudet haec opprobria nobis dici potuisse non potuisse refelli But among our selves also we serve the Devils ends and minister to an eternal dis-union by saying and doing things which look unhandsomely One sort of men is superstitious phantastical greedy of honour and tenacious of propositions to fill the purse and his religion is thought nothing but policy and opinion Another sayes he hath a good religion but he is the most indifferent and cold person in the world either to maintain it or to live according to it the one dresses the images of Saints with fine clothes the other lets the poor go naked and disrobes the priests that minister in the religion A third uses God worse then all this and sayes of him such things that are scandalous even to an honest man and such which would undo a good mans reputation And a fourth yet endures no governour but himself and pretends to set up Christ and make himself his lieutenant And a fifth hates all government and from all this it comes to passe that it is hard for a man to choose his side and he that chooses wisest takes that which hath in it least hurt but some he must endure or live without communion and every Church of one denomination is or hath been too incurious of preventing infamy or disreputation to their confessions One thing I desire should be observed that here the Question being concerning prudence and the matter of doing reputation to our religion it is not enough to say we can with learning justifie all that we do and make all whole with 3. or 4. distinctions for possibly the man that went to visit the Corinthian Lais if he had been asked why he dishonoured himself with so unhandsome an entrance might finde an excuse to legitimate his act or at least to make himself beleeve well of his own person but he that intends to do himself honour must take care that he be not suspected that he give no ocasion of reproachful language for fame and honour is a nice thing tender as a womans chastity or like the face of the purest mirrour which a foul breath or an unwholesome air or a watry eye can fully and the beauty is lost although it be not dashed in pieces When a man or a sect is put to answer for themselves in the matter of reputation they with their distinctions wipe the glasse and at last can do nothing but make it appear it was not broken but their very abstersion and laborious excuses confesse it was foul and faulty We must know that all sorts of men and all sects of Christians have not onely the mistakes of men and their prejudices to contest withall but the calumnies and aggravation of Devils and therefore it will much ease our accounts of dooms-day if we are now so prudent that men will not be offended here nor the Devils furnished with a libell in the day of our great account To this rule appertains that we be curious in observing the circumstances of men and satisfie all their reasonable expectations and do things at that rate of charity and religion which they are taught to be prescribed in the institution There are some things which are undecencies rather then sins such which may become a just Heathen but not a holy Christian a man of the world but not a man professing godlinesse Because when the greatnesse of the man or the excellency of the Law engage us upon great severity or an exemplar vertue whatsoever is lesse then it renders the man unworthy of the religion or the religion unworthy of its fame Men think themselves abused and therefore return shame for payment We never read of an Apostle that went to law and it is but reasonable to expect that of all men in the
of Judgement A negative Religion is in many things the effects of lawes and the appendage of sexes the product of education the issues of company and of the publick or the daughter of fear and naturall modesty or their temper and constitution and civill relations common fame or necessary interest Few women swear and do the debaucheries of drunkards and they are guarded from adulterous complications by spies and shame by fear and jealousie by the concernment of families and the reputation of their kindred and therefore they are to account with God beyond this civill and necessary innocence for humility and patience for religious fancies and tender consciences for tending the sick and dressing the poor for governing their house and nursing their children and so it is in every state of life When a Prince or a Prelate a noble and a rich person hath reckon'd all his immunities and degrees of innocence from those evils that are incident to inferiour persons or the worser sort of their own order they do the work of the Lord and their own too very deceitfully unlesse they account correspondencies of piety to all their powers and possibilities they are to reckon and consider concerning what oppressions they have relieved what causes and what fatherlesse they have defended how the work of God and of Religion of justice and charity hath thriv'd in their hands If they have made peace and encouraged Religion by their example and by their lawes by rewards and collaterall incouragements if they have been zealous for God and for Religion if they have imployed ten talents to the improvement of Gods bank then they have done Gods work faithfully if they account otherwise and account only by ciphers and negatives they can expect only the rewards of innocent slaves they shall escape the furca and the wheel the torments of lustfull persons and the crown of flames that is reserved for the ambitious or they shall not be gnawn with the vipers of the envious or the shame of the ingratefull but they can never upon this account hope for the crowns of Martyrs or the honorary rewards of Saints the Coronets of virgins and Chaplets of Doctors and Confessors And though murderers and lustfull persons the proud and the covetous the Heretick and Schismatick are to expect flames and scorpions pains and smart poenam sensus the Schooles call it yet the lazie and the imperfect the harmlesse sleeper and the idle worker shall have poenam damni the losse of all his hopes and the dishonours of the losse and in the summe of affairs it will be no great difference whether we have losse or pain because there can be no greater pain imaginable then to lose the sight of God to eternall ages 5. Hither are to be reduced as deceitfull workers those that promise to God but mean not to pay what they once intended * people that are confident in the day of case and fail in the danger * they that pray passionately for a grace and if it be not obtained at that price go no further and never contend in action for what they seem to contend in prayer * such as delight in forms and outsides and regard not the substance and design of every institution * that think it a great sin to tast bread before the receiving the holy Sacrament and yet come to communicate with an ambitious and revengefull soul * that make a conscience of eating flesh but not of drunkennesse * that keep old customes and old sins together * that pretend one duty to excuse another religion against charity or piety to parents against duty to God private promises against publick duty the keeping of an oath against breaking of a Commandement honour against modesty reputation against piety the love of the world in civill instances to countenance enmity against God these are the deceitfull workers of Gods work they make a schisme in the duties of Religion and a warre in heaven worse then that between Michael and the Dragon for they divide the Spirit of God and distinguish his commandements into parties and factions by seeking an excuse sometimes they destroy the integrity and perfect constitution of duty or they do something whereby the effect and usefulnesse of the duty is hindred concerning all which this only can be said they who serve God with a lame sacrifice and an imperfect duty a duty defective in its constituent parts can never enjoy God because he can never be divided and though it be better to enter into heaven with one foot and one eye then that both should be cast into hell because heaven can make recompence for this losse yet nothing can repair his losse who for being lame in his duty shall enter into hell where nothing is perfect but the measures and duration of torment and they both are next to infinite SERMON XIII Part II. 2. THe next enquiry is into the intention of our duty and here it will not be amisse to change the word fraudulentèr or dolosè into that which some of the Latin Copies doe use Maledictus qui facit opus Dei negligentèr Cursed is he that doth the work of the Lord negligently or remissely and it implyes that as our duty must be whole so it must be fervent for a languishing body may have all its parts and yet be uselesse to many purposes of nature and you may reckon all the joynts of a dead man but the heart is cold and the joynts are stiffe and fit for nothing but for the little people that creep in graves and so are very many men if you summe up the accounts of their religion they can reckon dayes and months of Religion various offices charity and prayers reading and meditation faith and knowledge catechisme and sacraments duty to God and duty to Princes paying debts and provision for children confessions and tears discipline in families and love of good people and it may be you shall not reprove their numbers or find any lines unfill'd in their tables of accounts but when you have handled all this and consider'd you will find at last you have taken a dead man by the hand there is not a finger wanting but they are stiffe as Isicles and without flexure as the legs of Elephants such are they whom S. Bernard describes whose spirituall joy is allayed with tediousnesse whose compunction for sins is short and seldome whose thoughts are animall and their designes secular whose Religion is lukewarm their obedience is without devotion their discourse without profit their prayer without intention of heart their reading without instruction their meditation is without spirituall advantages and is not the commencement and strengthning of holy purposes and they are such whom modesty will not restrain nor reason bridle nor discipline correct nor the fear of death and hell can keep from yeelding to the imperiousnesse of a foolish lust that dishonors a mans understanding and makes his reason in which he most glories to be weaker then the
frequency in prayers and that part of zeal which relates to it is to be upon no account but of an holy spirit a wise heart and reasonable perswasion for if it begins upon passion or fear in imitation of others or desires of reputation honour or phantastick principles it will be unblessed and weary unprosperous and without return or satisfaction therefore if it happen to begin upon a weak principle be very curious to change the motive and with all speed let it be turned into religion and the love of holy things then let it be as frequent as it can prudently it cannot be amisse 2. When you are entred into a state of zealous prayer and a regular devotion what ever interruption you can meet with observe their causes and be sure to make them irregular seldome and contingent that your omissions may be seldome and casuall as a bare accident for which no provisions can be made for if ever it come that you take any thing habitually and constantly from your prayers or that you distract from them very frequently it cannot be but you will become troublesome to your self your prayers will be uneasie they will seem hinderances to your more necessary affairs of passion and interest and the things of the world and it will not stand still till it comes to Apostasie and a direct despite and contempt of holy things For it was an old rule and of a sad experience Tepiditas si callum obduxerit fiet apostasia if your lukewarmnesse be habituall and a state of life if it once be hardned by the usages of many daies it changes the whole state of the man it makes him an apostate to devotion Therefore be infinitely carefull in this particular alwayes remembring the saying of St. Chrysostome Docendi praedicandi officia alia cessant suo tempore precandi autem nunquam there are seasons for teaching and preaching and other outward offices but prayer is the duty of all times and of all persons and in all contingences From other things in many cases we can be excused but from prayer never In this therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is good to be zealous 2. Concerning the second instance I named viz. To give almes above our estate it is an excellent act of zeal and needs no other caution to make it secure from illusion and danger but that our egressions of charity do not prejudice justice See that your almes do not other men wrong and let them do what they can to thy self they will never prejudice thee by their abundance but then be also carefull that the pretences of justice do not cousen thy self of thy charity and the poor of thine almes and thy soul of the reward He that is in debt is not excused from giving almes till his debts are paid but only from giving away such portions which should and would pay them and such which he intended should do it There are lacernae divitiarum and crums from the table and the gleanings of the harvest and the scatterings of the vintage which in all estates are the portions of the poor which being collected by the hand of providence and united wisely may become considerable to the poor and are the necessary duties of charity but beyond this also every considerable relief to the poor is not a considerable diminution to the estate and yet if it be it is not alwaies considerable in the accounts of Justice for nothing ought to be pretended against the zeal of almes but the certain omissions or the very probable retarding the doing that to which we are otherwise obliged He that is going to pay a debt and in the way meets an indigent person that needs it all may not give it to him unlesse he knowes by other means to pay the debt but if he can do both he hath his liberty to lay out his money for a Crown But then in the case of provision for children our restraint is not so easie or discernible 1. Because we are not bound to provide for them in a certain portion but may do it by the analogies and measures of prudence in which there is a great latitude 2. Because our zeal of charity is a good portion for them and layes up a blessing for inheritance 3. Because the fairest portions of charity are usually short of such sums which can be considerable in the duty of provision for our children 4. If we for them could be content to take any measure lesse then all any thing under every thing that we can we should finde the portions of the poor made ready to our hands sufficiently to minister to zeal and yet not to intrench upon this case of conscience But the truth is we are so carelesse so unskil'd so unstudied in religion that we are only glad to make an an excuse and to defeat our souls of the reward of the noblest grace we are contented if we can but make a pretence for we are highly pleased if our conscience be quiet and care not so much that our duty be performed much lesse that our eternall interest be advanced in bigger portions We care not we strive not we think not of getting the greater rewards of Heaven and he whose desires are so indifferent for the greater will not take pains to secure the smallest portion and it is observable that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the least in the Kingdome of heaven is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as good as none if a man will be content with his hopes of the lowest place there and will not labour for something beyond it he does not value it at all and it is ten to one but will lose that for which he takes so little pains and is content with so easie a security He that does his almes and resolves that in no case he will suffer inconvenience for his brother whose case it may be is into erable should do well to remember that God in some cases requires a greater charity and it may be we shall be called to dye for the good of our brother and that although it alwaies supposes a zeal and a holy fervour yet sometimes it is also a duty and we lose our lives if we go to save them and so we do with our estates when we are such good husbands in our Religion that we will serve all our own conveniences before the great needs of a hungry and afflicted brother God oftentimes takes from us that which with so much curiosity we would preserve and then we lose our money and our reward too 3. Hither is to be reduced * the accepting and choosing the counsels Evangelicall * the virgin or widow estate in order to Religion * selling all and giving it to the poor * making our selves Eunuchs for the Kingdome of Heaven * offering our selves to death voluntary in exchange or redemption of the life of a most usefull person as Aquila and Priscilla who ventur'd their lives for St.
usefulnesse and advantages of its first intention But this I intended not to have spoken 2. Our Zeal must never carry us beyond that which is safe Some there are who in their first attempts and entries upon Religion while the passion that brought them in remains undertake things as great as their highest thoughts no repentance is sharp enough no charities expensive enough no fastings afflictive enough then totis Quinquatribus orant and finding some deliciousnesse at the first contest and in that activity of their passion they make vowes to binde themselves for ever to this state of delicacies The onset is fair but the event is this The age of a passion is not long and the flatulent spirit being breathed out the man begins to abate of his first heats and is ashamed but then he considers that all that was not necessary and therefore he will abate something more and from something to something at last it will come to just nothing and the proper effect of this is indignation and hatred of holy things an impudent spirit carelessenesse or despair Zeal sometimes carries a man into temptation and he that never thinks he loves God dutifully or acceptably because he is not imprison'd for him or undone or design'd to Martyrdome may desire a triall that will undoe him It is like fighting of a Duell to shew our valour Stay till the King commands you to fight and die and then let zeal do its noblest offices This irregularity and mistake was too frequent in the primitive Church when men and women would strive for death and be ambitious to feel the hangmans sword some miscarryed in the attempt and became sad examples of the unequall yoking a frail spirit with a zealous driver 3. Let Zeal never transport us to attempt anything but what is possible M. Teresa made a vow that she would do alwaies that which was absolutely the best But neither could her understanding alwaies tell her which was so nor her will alwayes have the same fervours and it must often breed scruples and sometimes tediousnesse and wishes that the vow were unmade He that vowes never to have an ill thought never to commit an error hath taken a course that his little infirmities shall become crimes and certainly be imputed by changing his unavoidable infirmity into vow-breach Zeal is a violence to a mans spirit and unlesse the spirit be secur'd by the proper nature of the duty and the circumstances of the action and the possibilities of the man it is like a great fortune in the meanest person it bears him beyond his limit and breaks him into dangers and passions transportations and all the furies of disorder that can happen to an abused person 4. Zeal is not safe unlesse it be in re probabili too it must be in a likely matter For we that finde so many excuses to untie all our just obligations and distinguish our duty into so much finenesse that it becomes like leaf-gold apt to be gone at every breath it can not be prudent that we zealously undertake what is not probable to be effected If we do the event can be nothing but portions of the former evill scruple and snares shamefull retreats and new fantastick principles In all our undertakings we must consider what is our state of life what our naturall inclinations what is our society and what are our dependencies by what necessities we are born down by what hopes we are biassed and by these let us measure our heats and their proper businesse A zealous man runs up a sandy hill the violence of motion is his greatest hinderance and a passion in Religion destroys as much of our evennesse of spirit as it sets forward any outward work and therefore although it be a good circumstance and degree of a spirituall duty so long as it is within and relative to God and our selves so long it is a holy flame but if it be in an outward duty or relative to our neighbours or in an instance not necessary it sometimes spoils the action and alwaies endangers it But I must remember we live in an age in which men have more need of new fires to be kindled within them and round about them then of any thing to allay their forwardnesse there is little or no zeal now but the zeal of envie and killing as many as they can and damning more then they can 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 smoke and lurking fires do corrode and secretly consume therefore this discourse is lesse necessary A Physitian would have but small imployment near the Riphâ—an Mountains if he could cure nothing but Calentures Catarrhes and dead palsies Colds and Consumptions are their evils and so is lukewarmnesse and deadnesse of spirit the proper maladies of our age for though some are hot when they are mistaken yet men are cold in a righteous cause and the nature of this evill is to be insensible and the men are farther from a cure because they neither feel their evill nor perceive their danger But of this I have already given account and to it I shall only adde what an old spirituall person told a novice in religion asking him the cause why he so frequently suffered tediousnesse in his religious offices Nondum vidisti requiem quam speramus nec tormenta quae timemus young man thou hast not seen the glories which are laid up for the zealous and devout nor yet beheld the flames which are prepared for the lukewarm and the haters of strict devotion But the Jewes tell that Adam having seen the beauties and tasted the delicacies of Paradise repented and mourned upon the Indian Mountains for three hundred years together and we who have a great share in the cause of his sorrowes can by nothing be invited to a persevering a great a passionate religion more then by remembring what he lost and what is laid up for them whose hearts are burning lamps and are all on fire with Divine love whose flames are fann'd with the wings of the holy Dove and whose spirits shine and burn with that fire which the holy Jesus came to enkindle upon the earth Sermon XV. The House of Feasting OR THE EPICVRES MEASVRES Part I. 1 Cor. 15. 32. last part Let us eat and drink for to morrow we dye THis is the Epicures Proverb begun upon a weak mistake started by chance from the discourses of drink and thought witty by the undiscerning company and prevail'd infinitely because it struck their fancy luckily and maintained the merry meeting but as it happens commonly to such discourses so this also when it comes to be examined by the consultations of the morning and the sober hours of the day it seems the most witlesse and the most unreasonable in the world When Seneca describes the spare diet of Epicurus and Metrodorus he uses this expression Liberaliora sunt alimenta carceris sepositos ad capitale supplicium non tam angustè qui occisurus est pascit The prison keeps a
eternally if he never does repent And if he does repent and yet untimely he is not the better and if he does not repent with an intire a perfect and complete repentance he is not the better But if he does yet repentance is a duty full of fears and sorrow and labour a vexation to the spirit an asslictive paenal or punitive duty a duty which suffers for sin and labours for grace which abides and suffers little images of hell in the way to heaven and though it be the onely way to felicity yet it is beset with thorns and daggers of sufferance and with rocks and mountains of duty Let no man therefore dare to sin upon hopes of repentance for he is a foole and a hypocrite that now chooses and approves what he knows hereafter he must condemn 2. The second generall consideration is The necessity the absolute necessity of holy living God hath made a Covenant with us that we must give up our selves bodies and souls not a dying but aliving and healthfull sacrifice He hath forgiven all our old sins and we have bargained to quit them from the time that we first come to Christ and give our names to him and to keep all his Cominandements We have taken the Sacramentall oath like that of the old Romane Militia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must beleeve and obey and do all that is commanded us and keep our station and fight against the flesh the world and the devil not to throw away our military girdle and we are to do what is bidden us or to die for it even all that is bidden us according to our power For pretend nor that Gods Commandements are impossible It is dishonourable to think God enjoyns us to do more then he enables us to do and it is a contradiction to say we cannot do all that we can and through Christ which strengthens me I can do all things saith S. Paul however we can do to the utmost of our strength and beyond that we cannot take thought impossibilities enter not into deliberation but according to our abilities and naturall powers assisted by Gods grace so God hath covenanted with us to live a holy life For in Christ Jesus nothing avayleth but a new creature nothing but faith working by charity nothing but keeping the Commandements of God They are all the words of S. Paul before quoted to which he addes and as many as walk according to this rule peace be on them and mercy This is the Covenant they are the Israel of God upon those peace and mercy shall abide if they become a new creature wholly transformed in the image of their minde if they have faith and this faith be an operative working faith a faith that produces a holy life a faith that works by charity if they keep the Commandements of God then they are within the Covenant of mercy but not else for in Christ Jesus nothing else avayleth * To the same purpose are those words Hebr. 12. 14. Follow peace with all men and holinesse without which no man shall see the Lord. Peace with all men implies both justice and charity without which it is impossible to preserve peace Holinesse implies all our duty towards God universall diligence and this must be followed that is pursued with diligence in a lasting course of life and exercise and without this we shall never see the face of God I need urge no more authorities to this purpose these two are as certain and convincing as two thousand and since thus much is actually required and is the condition of the Covenant it is certain that sorrow for not having done what is commanded to be done and a purpose to do what is necessary to be actually performed will not acquit us before the righteous judgement of God * For the grace of God hath appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodlinesse and worldly lusts we should live godly justly and soberly in this present world for upon these termes alone we must look for the blessed hope the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ * I shall no longer insist upon this particular but onely propound it to your consideration To what purpose are all those Commandements in Scripture of every page almost in it of living holily and according to the Commandements of God of adorning the Gospel of God of walking as in the day of walking in light of pure and undefiled religion of being holy as God is holy of being humble and meek as Christ is humble of putting on the Lord Jesus of living a spirituall life but that it is the purpose of God and the intention and designe of Christ dying for us and the Covenant made with man that we should expect heaven upon no other termes in the world but of a holy life in the faith and obedience of the Lord Jesus Now if a vitious person when he comes to the latter end of his dayes one that hath lived a wicked ungodly life can for any thing he can do upon his death-bed be said to live a holy life then his hopes are not desperate but he that hopes upon this onely for which God hath made him no promise I must say of him as Galen said of consumptive persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the more they hope the worse they are and the relying upon such hopes is an approach to the grave and a sad eternity Peleos Priami transit vel Nestoris aetas fuerat serum jant tibi desinere Eja age rumpe moras quo te spectabimus usque Dum quid sis dubitas jam potes esse nihil Mart. l. 2. ep 64. And now it will be a vain question to ask whether or no God cannot save a dying man that repents after a vitious life For it is true God can do it if he please and he can raise children to Abraham out of the stones and he can make ten thousand worlds if he sees good and he can do what he list and he can save an ill living man though he never repent at all so much as upon his death-bed All this he can do but Gods power is no ingredient into this question we are never the better that God can do it unlesse he also will and whether he will or no we are to learn from himself and what he hath declared to be his will in holy Scripture Nay since God hath said that without actuall holinesse no man shall see God God by his own will hath restrained his power and though absolutely he can do all things yet he cannot do against his own word * And indeed the rewards of heaven are so great and glorious and Christs burden is so light his yoke is so easie that it is a shamelesse impudence to expect so great glories at a lesse rate then so little a service at a lower rate then a holy life It cost the Eternall Son of God his life blood to obtain heaven
obliged person to a benefactor is a greater undecency then if an enemy should storm his house or revile him to his head Augustus Caesar taxed all the world and God took no publick notices of it but when David taxed and numbered a petty province it was not to be expiated without a plague because such persons besides the direct sin adde the circumstance of ingratitude to God who hath redeemed them from their vain conversation and from death and from hell and consigned them to the inheritance of sons and given them his grace and his spirit and many periods of comfort and a certain hope and visible earnests of immortality nothing is baser then that such a person against his reason against his interest against his God against so many obligations against his custome against his very habits and acquired inclinations should do an action Quam nisi Seductis nequeas committere Divis Which a man must for ever be ashamed of and like Adam must run from God himself to do it and depart from the state in which he had placed all his hopes and to which he had designed all his labours The consideration is effective enough if we sum up the particulars for he that hath lived well and then falls into a deliberate sin is infinitely dishonoured is most imprudent most unsafe and most unthankful 2. Let persons tempted to the single instances of sin in the midst of a laudable life be very careful that they suffer not themselves to be drawn aside by the eminency of great examples For some think drunkennesse hath a little honesty derived unto it by the examples of Noah and Adultery is not so scandalous and intolerably dishonorable since Bathsheba bathed and David was defiled and men think a flight is no cowardise if a General turns his head and runs Pompeio fugiente timent Well might all the gowned Romans fear when Pompey fled and who is there that can hope to be more righteous then David or stronger then Samson or have lesse hypocrisy then Saint Peter or be more temperate then Noah These great examples bear men of weak discourses and weaker resolutions from the severity of vertues But as Diagoras to them that shewed to him the votive garments of those that had escaped shipwrack upon their prayers and vows to Neptune answered that they kept no account of those that prayed and vowed and yet were drowned So do these men keep catalogues of those few persons who broke the thrid of a fair life in sunder with the violence of a great crime and by the grace of God recovered and repented and lived But they consider not concerning those infinite numbers of men who died in their first fit of sicknesse who after a fair voyage have thrown themselves over boord and perished in a sudden wildnesse One said well Si quid Socrates aut Aristippus contra morem et consuetudinem fecerunt idem sibi ne arbitretur licere Magnis enim illi divinis bonis hanc licentiam assequebantur If Socrates did any unusual thing it is not for thee who art of an ordinary vertue to assume the same licence For he by a divine and excellent life hath obtained leave or pardon respectively for what thou must never hope for till thou hast arrived to the same glories First be as devout as David as good a Christian as Saint Peter and then thou wilt not dare with designe to act that which they fell into by surprize and if thou doest fall as they did by that time thou hast also repented like them it may be said concerning thee that thou dist fall and break thy bones but God did heal thee and pardon thee Remember that all the damned soules shall bear an eternity of torments for the pleasures of a short sinfulnesse but for a single transient action to die forever is an intolerable exchange and the effect of so great a folly that whosoever falls into and then considers it it will make him mad and distracted for ever 3. Remember that since no man can please God or be partakers of any promises or reap the reward of any actions in the returnes of eternity unlesse he performs to God an intire duty according to the capacities of a man so taught and so tempted and so assisted such a person must be curious that he be not cozened with the duties and performances of any one relation 1. Some there are that think all our religion consists in prayers and publick or private offices of devotion and not in moral actions or entercourses of justice and temperance of kindnesse and friendships of sincerity and liberality of chastity and humility of repentance and obedience indeed no humour is so easie to be counterfeited as devotion and yet no hypocrisy is more common among men nor any so uselesse as to God for it being an addresse to him alone who knows the heart and all the secret purposes it can do no service in order to heaven so long as it is without the power of Godlinesse and the energy and vivacity of a holy life God will not suffer us to commute a duty because all is his due and religion shall not pay for the want of temperance if the devoutest Hermit be proud or he that fasts thrice in the week be uncharitable once or he that gives much to the poor gives also too much liberty to himself he hath planted a fair garden and invited a wilde boar to refresh himself under the shade of the fruit trees and his guest being something rude hath disordered his paradise and made it become a wildernesse 2. Others there are that judge themselves by the censures that Kings and Princes give concerning them or as they are spoken of by their betters and so make false judgements concerning their condition For our betters to whom we show our best parts to whom we speak with caution and consider what we represent they see our arts and our dressings but nothing of our nature and deformities Trust not their censures concerning thee but to thy own opinion of thy self whom thou knowest in thy retirements and natural peevishnesse and unhandsome inclinations and secret basenesse 3. Some men have been admired abroad in whom the wife and the servant never saw any thing excellent a rare judge and a good common-wealths man in the streets and publick meetings and a just man to his neighbour and charitable to the poor for in all these places the man is observed and kept in awe by the Sun by light and by voices But this man is a Tyrant at home an unkinde husband ill Father an imperious Master and such men are like prophets in their own countreys not honoured at home and can never be honoured by God who will not endure that many vertues should excuse a few vices Or that any of his servants shall take pensions of the Devil and in the profession of his service do his enemy single advantages 4. He that hath past
extraordinary spirit if they pretend to teach according to Scripture must be examined by the measures of Scripture and then their extraordinary must be judged by the ordinary spirit and stands or falls by the rules of every good mans religion and publike government and then we are well enough But if they speak any thing against Scripture it is the spirit of Antichrist and the spirit of the Devil For if an Angel from heaven he certainly is a spirit preach any other doctrine let him be accursed But this pretence of a single and extraordinary spirit is nothing else but the spirit of pride errour and delusion a snare to catch easie and credulous souls which are willing to die for a gay word and a distorted face it is the parent of folly and giddy doctrine impossible to be proved and therefore uselesse to all purposes of religion reason or sober counsels it is like an invisible colour or musick without a sound it is and indeed is so intended to be a direct overthrow of order and government and publike ministeries It is bold to say any thing and resolved to prove nothing it imposes upon willing people after the same manner that Oracles and the lying Daemons did of old time abusing men not by proper efficacy of its own but because the men love to be abused it is a great disparagement to the sufficiency of Scripture and asperses the Divine providence for giving to so many ages of the Church an imperfect religion expressely against the truth of their words who said they had declared the whole truth of God and told all the will of God and it is an affront to the Spirit of God the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge of order and publike ministeries But the will furnishes out malice and the understanding sends out levity and they marry and produce a phantastick dream and the daughter sucking winde instead of the milk of the word growes up to madnesse and the spirit of reprobation Besides all this an extraordinary spirit is extremely unnecessary and God does not give immissions and miracles from heaven to no purpose and to no necessities of his Church for the supplying of which he hath given Apostles and Evangelists Prophets and Pastors Bishops and Priests the spirit of Ordination and the spirit of instruction Catechists and Teachers Arts and Sciences Scriptures and a constant succession of Expositors the testimony of Churches and a constant line of tradition or delivery of Apostolical Doctrine in all things necessary to salvation And after all this to have a fungus arise from the belly of mud and darknesse and nourish a gloworm that shall challenge to out-shine the lantern of Gods word and all the candles which God set upon a hill and all that the Spirit hath set upon the candlesticks and all the starres in Christs right hand is to annull all the excellent established orderly and certain effects of the Spirit of God and to worship the false fires of the night He therefore that will follow a Guide that leads him by an extraordinary spirit shall go an extraordinary way and have a strange fortune and a singular religion and a portion by himself a great way off from the common inheritance of the Saints who are all led by the Spirit of God and have one heart and one minde one faith and one hope the same baptisme and the helps of the Ministery leading them to the common countrey which is the portion of all that are the sons of adoption consigned by the Spirit of God the earnest of their inheritance Concerning the pretence of a private spirit for interpretation of the confessed doctrine of God the holy Scriptures it will not so easily come into this Question of choosing our spirituall Guides Because every person that can be Candidate in this office that can be chosen to guide others must be a publike man that is of a holy calling sanctified or separate publikely to the office and then to interpret is part of his calling and imployment and to do so is the work of a publike spirit he is ordained and designed he is commanded and inabled to do it and in this there is no other caution to be interposed but that the more publike the man is of the more authority his interpretation is and he comes neerest to a law of order and in the matter of government is to be observed but the more holy and the more learnd the man is his interpretation in matter of Question is more likely to be true and though lesse to be pressed as to the publick confession yet it may be more effective to a private perswasion provided it be done without scandal or lessening the authority or disparagement to the more publick person 8. Those are to be suspected for evil guides who to get authority among the people pretend a great zeal and use a bold liberty in reproving Princes and Governours nobility and Prelates for such homilies cannot be the effects of a holy religion which lay a snare for authority and undermine power and discontent the people and make them bold against Kings and immodest in their own stations and trouble the government Such men may speak a truth or teach a true doctrine for every such designe does not unhallow the truth of God but they take some truthes and force them to minister to an evil end but therefore mingle not in the communities of such men for they will make it a part of your religion to prosecute that end openly which they by arts of the Tempter have insinuated privately But if ever you enter into the seats of those Doctors that speak reproachfully of their Superiours or detract from government or love to curse the King in their heart or slander him with their mouths or disgrace their persons blesse your self and retire quickly for there dwells the plague but the spirit of God is not president of the assembly and therefore you shall observe in all the characters which the B. Apostles of our Lord made for describing and avoiding societies of hereticks false guides and bringers in of strange doctrines still they reckon treason and rebellion so S. Paul In the last dayes perillous times shall come the men shall have the form of Godlinesse and denie the power of it they shall be Traitors heady high minded that 's their characteristic note So Saint Peter the Lord knoweth how to deliver the Godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgement to be punished But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleannesse and despise government presumptuous are they self willed they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities The same also is recorded and observed by Saint Jude likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh despise dominion and speak evil of dignities These three testimonies are but the declaration of one great contingency they are the same prophesy declared by three Apostolical men that
though we be not rapacious of estates and we may be moderate exactors of Obedience to human laws though we do not dispense with the breach of the divine and the Clergy may represent their calling necessary though their persons be full of modesty and humility and we may preserve our rights and not lose our charity For this is the meaning of the Apostle Try all things and retain that which is good from every sect and communitie of Christians take any thing that is good that advances holy religion and the Divine honour For one hath a better government a second a better confession a third hath excellent spiritual arts for the conduct of souls a fourth hath fewer errours and by what instrument soever a holy life is advantaged use that though thou grindest thy spears and arrows at the forges of the Philistines knowing thou hast no Master but Christ no religion but the Christian no rule but the Scriptures and the laws and right reason other things that are helps are to be used accordingly These are the general rules of Christian prudence which I have chosen to insist upon there are many others more particular indeed but yet worth not onely the enumerating but observing also and that they be reduced to practise For the prudence of a Christian does oblige and direct respectively all the children of the institution * that we be careful to decline a danger * watchful against a temptation * alwayes choosing that that is safe and fitted to all circumstances * that we be wise in choosing our company * reserved and wary in our friendships * and communicative in our charity * that we be silent and retentive of what we hear and what we think * not credulous * not unconstant * that we be deliberate in our election * and vigorous in our prosecutions * that we suffer not good nature to discompose our duty but that we separate images from substances and the pleasing of a present company from our religion to God and our eternal interest for sometimes that which is counselled to us by Christian prudence is accounted folly by humane prudence and so it is ever accounted when our duty leads us into a persecution * Hither also appertain that we never do a thing that we know we must repent of * that we do not admire too many things nor any thing too much * that we be even in prosperity * and patient in adversity but transported with neither into the regions of despair or levity pusillanimity or Tyranny dejection or Garishnesse * alwayes to look upon the sear we have impressed upon our flesh and no more to handle dangers and knives * to abstain from ambitious and vexatious suits * not to contend with a mighty man * ever to listen to him who according to the proverb hath four ears Reason Religion wisdom and experience * rather to lose a benefit then to suffer a detriment and an evil * to stop the beginnings of evil * to pardon and not to observe all the faults of friends or enemies * of evils to choose the least * and of goods to choose the greatest if it be also safest * not to be insolent in successe but to proceed according to the probability of humane causes and contingencies * ever to be thankful for benefits * and profitable to others and useful in all that we can * to watch the seasons and circumstances of actions * to do that willingly which cannot be avoided lest the necessity serve anothers appetite and it be lost to all our purposes Insignis enim est prudentiae ut quod non facere non possis id facere ut libenter fecisse videaris * not to pursue difficult uncertain and obscure things with violence and passion These if we observe we shall do advantage to our selves and to the religion and avoid those evils which fools and unwary people suffer for nothing dying or bleeding without cause and without pity I end this with the saying of Socrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vertue is but a shadow and a servile imployment unlesse it be adorned and instructed with prudence which gives motion and conduct spirits and vigourousnesse to religion making it not onely humane and reasonable but Divine and caelestial Sermon XXIII OF CHRISTIAN SIMPLICITY Matthew 10. latter part of Ver. 16. And harmlesse as doves OUR Blessed Saviour having prefac'd concerning Prudence addes to the integrity of the precept and for the conduct of our religion that we be simple as well as prudent innocent as well as wary harmlesse and safe together do well for without this blessed union prudence turns into craft and simplicity degenerates into folly Prudens simplicitas is Martial's character of a good man a wary and cautious innocence a harmlesse providence and provision Verâ simplicitate bonus a true simplicity is that which leaves to a man arms defensive his castles and strong forts but takes away his swords and spears or else his anger and his malice his peevishnesse and spite But such is the misery and such is the iniquity of mankinde that craft hath invaded all the contracts and entercourses of men and made simplicity so weak a thing that it is grown into contempt sometimes with and sometimes without reason Et homines simplices minimè malos the Romans called parum cautos saepè stolidos unwary fools and defenselesse people were called simple and when the innocency of the old simple Romans in Junius Brutus time in Fabritius and Camillus began to degenerate and to need the Aquilian law to force men to deal honestly quickly the mischief increased till the Aquilian law grew as much out of power as honesty was out of countenance And there and every where else men thought they got a purchase when they met with an honest man and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristotle calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A fool is a profitable person and he that is simple is little better then mad And so it is when simplicity wants prudence He that because he means honestly himself thinks every man else does so and therefore is unwary in all or any of his entercourses is a simple man in an evil sence and therefore Saint Gregory Nazianzen remarks Constantius with a note of folly for suffering his easie nature to be abused by Georgius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Princes simplicity so he calls it for reverence but indeed it was folly for it was zeal without knowledge But it was a better temper which he observed in his own father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such a simplicity which onely wanted craft or deceit but wanted no prudence or caution and that is truly Christian simplicity or the sincerity of an honest and ingenious and a fearlesse person and it is a rare band not onely of societies and contracts but also of friendships and advantages of mankinde We do not live in an age in which there is so much
harmlesse and without an evil sting 3. Christian simplicity relates to promises and acts of grace and favour and its caution is that all promises be simple ingenuous agreeable to the intention of the promiser truly and effectually expressed and never going lesse in the performance then in the promise and words of the expression concerning which the cases are several 1. First all promises in which a third or a second person hath no interest that is the promises of kindnesse and civilities are tied to passe into performance secundum aequum bonum and though they may oblige to some small inconvenience yet never to a great one and I will visit you to morrow morning because I promised you and therefore I will come etiamsi non concoxero although I have not slept my full sleep but Si febricitavero if I be in a feaver or have reason to fear one I am disobliged For the nature of such promises bears upon them no bigger burthen then can be expounded by reasonable civilities and the common expectation of kinde and the ordinary performances of just men who do excuse and are excused respectively by all rules of reason proportionably to such small entercourses and therefore although such conditions be not expressed in making promises yet to perform or rescind them by such laws is not against Christian simplicity 2. Promises in matters of justice or in matters of grace as from a superiour to an inferiour must be so singly and ingenuously expressed intended and performed accordingly that no condition is to be reserved or supposed in them to warrant their non-performance but impossibility or that which is next to it an intolerable inconvenience in which cases we have a natural liberty to commute our promises but so that we pay to the interested person a good at least equal to that which we first promised And to this purpose it may be added that it is not against Christian simplicity to expresse our promises in such words which we know the interested man will understand to other purposes then I intend so it be not lesse that I mean then that he hopes for When our Blessed Saviour told his disciples that they should sit upon twelve thrones they presently thought they had his bond for a kingdom and dreamt of wealth and honour power and a splendid court and Christ knew they did but did not disintangle his promise from the enfolded and intricate sence of which his words were naturally capable but he performed his promise to better purposes then they hoped for they were presidents in the conduct of souls Princes of Gods people the chief in sufferings stood neerest to the crosse had an elder brothers portion in the Kingdom of grace were the founders of Churches and dispensers of the mysteries of the kingdom and ministers of the spirit of God and chanels of mighty blessings under mediators in the Priesthood of their Lord and their names were written in heaven and this was infinitely better then to groan and wake under a head pressed with a golden crown and pungent cares and to eat alone and to walk in a croud and to be vexed with all the publick and many of the private evils of the people which is the sum Total of an earthly Kingdom When God promised to the obedient that they should live long in the land which he would give them he meant it of the land of Canaan but yet reserved to himself the liberty of taking them quickly from that land and carrying them to a better He that promises to lend me a staffe to walk withal and instead of that gives me a horse to carry me hath not broken his promise nor dealt deceitfully And this is Gods dealing with mankinde he promises more then we could hope for and when he hath done that he gives us more then he hath promised God hath promised to give to them that fear him all that they need food and raiment but he addes out of the treasures of his mercy variety of food and changes of raiment some to get strength and some to refresh something for them that are in health and some for the sick And though that skins of buls and stagges and foxes and bears could have drawn a vail thick enough to hide the apertures of sin and natural shame and to defend us from heat and cold yet when he addeth the fleeces of sheep and beavers and the spoiles of silk worms he hath proclaimed that although his promises are the bounds of our certain expectation yet they are not the limits of his loving kindnesse and if he does more then he hath promised no man can complain that he did otherwise and did greater things then he said thus God does but therefore so also must we imitating that example and transcribing that copy of divine truth alwayes remembring that his promises are yea and Amen And although God often goes more yet he never goes lesse and therefore we must never go from our promises unlesse we be thrust from thence by disability or let go by leave or called up higher by a greater intendment and increase of kindnesse And therefore when Solyman had sworn to Ibrahim-Bassa that he would never kill him so long as he were alive he quitted himself but ill when he sent an Eunuch to cut his throat when he slept because the Priest told him that sleep was death His act was false and deceitful as his great prophet But in this part of simplicity we Christians have a most especiall obligation for our religion being ennobled by the most and the greatest promises and our faith made confident by the veracity of our Lord and his word made certain by miracles and prophecies and voices from heaven and all the testimony of God himself and that truth it self is bound upon us by the efficacy of great endearments and so many precepts if we shall suffer the faith of a Christian to be an instrument to deceive our brother and that he must either be incredulous or deceived uncharitable or deluded like a fool we dishonour the sacrednesse of the institution and become strangers to the spirit of truth and to the eternall word of God Our Blessed Lord would not have his disciples to swear at all no not in publick Judicature if the necessities of the world would permit him to be obeyed If Christians will live according to the religion the word of a Christian were sufficient instrument to give testimony and to make promises to secure a faith and upon that supposition oathes were uselesse and therefore forbidden because there could be no necessity to invoke Gods name in promises or affirmations if men were indeed Christians and therefore in that case would be a taking it in vain but because many are not and they that are in name oftentimes are so in nothing else it became necessary that man should swear in judgment and in publick courts but consider who it was that invented and made the necessitie of
despiser of base things hugely loving to oblige others and very unwilling to be in arrear to any upon the stock of courtesies and liberality so free in all acts of favour that she would not stay to hear her self thanked as being unwilling that what good went from her to a needful or an obliged person should ever return to her again she was an excellent friend and hugely dear to very many especially to the best and most discerning persons to all that conversed with her and could understand her great worth and sweetnesse she was of an Honourable a nice and tender reputation and of the pleasures of this world which were laid before her in heaps she took a very small and inconsiderable share as not loving to glut her self with vanity or to take her portion of good things here below If we look on her as a Wife she was chast and loving fruitful and discreet humble and pleasant witty and complyant rich and fair wanted nothing to the making her a principal and a precedent to the best Wives of the world but a long life and a full age If we remember her as a Mother she was kinde and severe careful and prudent very tender not at al fond a greater lover of her childrens souls then of their bodies and one that would value them more by the strict rules of honour and proper worth then by their relation to her self Her servants found her prudent and fit to Govern and yet open-handed and apt to reward a just Exactor of their duty and a great Rewarder of their diligence She was in her house a comfort to her dearest Lord a guide to her children a Rule to her Servants an example to all But as she related to God in the offices of Religion she was even and constant silent and devout prudent and material she loved what she now enjoyes and she feared what she never felt and God did for her what she never did expect Her fears went beyond all her evil and yet the good which she hath received was and is and ever shall be beyond all her hopes She lived as we al should live and she died as I fain would die Et cum supremos Lachesis perneverit annos Non aliter cineres mando jacere meos I pray God I may feel those mercies on my death-bed that she felt and that I may feel the same effect of my repentance which she feels of the many degrees of her innocence Such was her death that she did not die too soon and her life was so useful and so excellent that she could not have lived too long Nemo parum diu vixit qui virtutis perfectae perfecto functus est munere and as now in the grave it shall not be enquired concerning her how long she lived but how well so to us who live after her to suffer a longer calamity it may be some ease to our sorrows and some guide to our lives and some securitie to our conditions to consider that God hath brought the piety of a yong Lady to the early rewards of a never ceasing and never dying eternity of glory And we also if we live as she did shall partake of the same glories not onely having the honour of a good name and a dear and honoured memory but the glories of these glories the end of all excellent labours and all prudent counsels and all holy religion even the salvation of our souls in that day when all the Saints and amongst them this excellent Woman shall be shown to all the world to have done more and more excellent things then we know of or can describe Mors illos consecrat quorum exitum qui timent laudant Death consecrates and makes sacred that person whose excellency was such that they that are not displeased at the death cannot dispraise the life but they that mourn sadly think they can never commend sufficiently The end CLERVS DOMINI OR A DISCOURSE OF THE DIVINE INSTITUTION Necessity Sacrednesse and Separation OF THE OFFICE MINISTERIAL TOGETHER WITH THE NATURE AND MANNER OF its Power and Operation WRITTEN By the speciall command of our late KING BY JER TAYLOR D. D. ACADEMIA â—† OXONIENSIS â—† LONDON Printed by James Flesher for R. Royston at the Angel in Ivie-Lane 1651. THE Divine institution and necessity OF THE OFFICE MINISTERIAL c. SECT I. WHen severall Nations and differing Religions have without any famous mutuall intercourse agreed upon some common rites and formes of Religion because one common effect cannot descend from chance it is certain they come to them by reason or tradition from their common Parents or by imitation something that hath a common influence If reason be the principle then it is more regular and lasting and admits of no other variety then as some men grow unreasonable or that the reason ceases If tradition be the fountain then it is not onely universall and increases as the world is peopled but remains also so long as we retain reverence to our Parents or that we doe not think our selves wiser then our forefathers But these two have produced Customes and Laws of the highest obligation for whatsoever we commonly call the Law of Nature it is either a custome of all the world derived from Noah or Adam or else it is therefore done because naturall reason teaches us to doe it in the order to the preservation of our selves and the publique But imitation of the customes of a wise nation is something lesse and yet it hath produced great consent in externall rites and offices of Religion And since there is in ceremonies so great indifferency there being no antecedent law to determine their practise nothing in their nature to make them originally necessary they grow into a Custome or a Law according as they are capable For if a wise Prince or a Governour or a Nation or a famous family hath chosen rites of common Religion such as were consonant to the Analogy of his duty expressive of his sense decent in the expression grave in the forme or full of ornament in their representment such a thing is capable of no greater reason and needs no greater authority but hath been and may reasonably enough be imitated upon the reputation of their wisdome and disinterested choice who being known wise persons or nations took them first into their religious offices Thus the Jews and the Gentiles used white garments in their holy offices and the Christians thought it reasonable enough from so united example to doe so too Example was reason great enough for that The Gentile Priests were forbid to touch a dead body to eate leavened bread to mingle with secular imployments during their attendance in holy offices these they took up from the pattern of the Jews and professed it reasonable to imitate a wise people in the rituals of their religion The Gentile Priests used Ring and Staffe and Mitre saith Philostratus the Primitive
Bishops did so too and in the highest detestation of their follies thought they might wisely enough imitate their innocent customes and Priestly ornaments and hoped they might better reconcile their mindes to the Christian Religion by compliance in ceremonials then exasperate them by rejecting their ancient and innocent ceremonies for so the Apostles invited and inticed Judaisme into Christianity And Tertullian complains of the Devils craft who by imitating the Christian rites reconciled mens mindes with that compliance to a more charitable opinion of the Gentile superstition The Devill intending to draw the professors of truth to his own portion or to preserve his own in the same fetters he first put upon them imitates the rites of our religion adopting them into his superstition He baptizes some of his disciples and when he initiates them to the worship of Mithra promiseth them pardon of sins by that rite he signes his souldiers in their forehead he represents the oblation of bread and introduces representments of the resurrection and laboriously gets martyrs to his cause His Priests marry but once he hath his virgins and his abstemious and continent followers that what Christians love and the world commends in them being adopted into the rituals of Idolatry may allure some with the beauty and fair imagery and abuse others with colour and phantastick faces And thus also all wise men that intended to perswade others to their religion did it by retaining as much as they innocently could of the other that the change might not be too violent and the persons be more endeared by common rites and the relation and charity of likenesse and imitation Thus did the Church and the Synagogue thus did the Gentiles both to the Jews and to the Christians and all wise men did so The Gentiles offered first fruits to their Gods and their tithes to Hercules kept vigils and anniversaries forbad marriages without the consent of Parents and clandestine contracts these were observed with some variety according as the people were civill or learned and according to the degree of the tradition or as the thing was reasonable so these customes were more or lesse universall But when all wise people nay when absolutely all the world have consented upon a rite it cannot derive from a fountain lower then the current but it must either be a command which God hath given to all the world and so Socrates in Xenophon Quod ab omnibus gentibus observatum est id non nisi à Deo sancitum esse dicendum est or a tradition or a law descending from our common parents or a reason derived from the nature of things there cannot in the world be any thing great enough to take away such a rite except an expresse divine commandement and a man by the same reason may marry his nearest relative as he may deny to worship God by the recitation of his prayses and excellencies because reason and a very common tradition have made almost all the world consent in these two things that we must abstain from the mixtures of our nearest kindred and that we must worship God by recounting and declaring excellent things concerning him I have instanced in two things in which I am sure to finde the fewest adversaries I said the fewest for there are some men which have lost all humanity but these two great instances are not attested with so universall a tradition and practise of the world as this that is now in question For in some nations they have married their sisters so did the Magi among the Persians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Tatianus in Clemens Alexandrinus and Bardisanes Syrus in Eusebius And the Greeks worshipped Hercules by railing and Mercury by throwing stones at him But there was never any people but had their Priests and Presidents of religious rites and kept holy things within a mure that the people might not approach to handle the mysteries and therefore besides that it is a recession from the customes of mankinde and charges us with the disrespect of all the world which is an incuriousnesse next to infinite it is also a doing against that which all the reason of all the wise men of the world have chosen antecedently or ex post facto and he must have a strange understanding who is not perswaded by that which hath determined all the world For religion cannot be at all in communities of men without some to guide to minister to preserve and to prescribe the offices and ministeries What can profane holy things but that which makes them common and what can make them common more then when common persons handle them when there is no distinction of Persons in their ministration For although places are good accessories to religion yet in all religions they were so accidentall to it that a sacrifice might hallow the place but the place unlesse it were naturally impure could not desecrate the sacrifice and therefore Jacob worshipped upon a stone offered upon a turfe and the Arke rested in Obed-Edoms house and was holy in Dagons Temple and hils and groves fields and orchards according to the severall customes of the nations were the places of addresse But a common person ministring was so near a circumstance and was so mingled with the action that since the materiall part and exteriour actions of Religion could be acted and personated by any man there was scarce any thing left to make it religious but the attrectation of the rites by a holy person A Holy place is something a separate time is something a prescript form of words is more separate and solemn actions are more yet but all these are made common by a cōmon person therfore without a distinction of persons have not a natural and reasonable distinction of solemnity exterior religion And indeed it were a great disreputation to religion that all great and publique things and every artifice or profitable science should in all the societies of men be distinguished by professors artists and proper ministers and onely religion should lie in common apt to be bruised by the hard hand of mechanicks and sullied by the ruder touch of undiscerning and undistinguished persons for although the light of it shines to all and so farre every mans interest is concerned in religion yet it were not handsome that every man should take the taper in his hand and religion is no more to be handled by all men then the laws are to be dispensed by all by whom they are to be obeyed though both in religion and the laws all men have a common interest For since all meanes must have some equality or proportion towards their end that they may of their own being or by institution be symbolicall it is but reasonable that by elevated and sublimed instruments we should be promoted towards an end supernaturall and divine now besides that of all the instruments of distinction the
give us these gifts and when he hath finished the prayers and thanksgiving all the people that is present with a joyfull acclamation say Amen Which when it is done by the Presidents and people those which amongst us are called Deacons and Ministers distribute to every one that is present that they may partake of him in whom the thanks were presented the Eucharist bread wine and water and may beare it to the absent Moreover this nourishment is by us called the Eucharist which it is lawfull for none to partake but to him who beleeves our doctrine true and is washed in the Laver for the remission of sins and regeneration and that lives so as Christ delivered For we doe not take it as common bread common drink but as by the word of God Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world was made flesh and for our salvation sake had flesh and bloud after the same manner also we are taught that this nourishment in which by the prayers of his word which is from him the food in which thanks are given or the consecrated food by which our flesh bloud by mutation or change are nourished is the flesh bloud of the incarnate Jesus For the Apostles in their commentaries which they wrote which are called the Gospells so delivered that Jesus commanded For when he had given thanks and taken bread he said Doe this in remembrance of me This is my body And likewise taking the Chalice and having given thanks he said This is my bloud and that he gave it to them alone This one testimony I reckon as sufficient who please to see more may observe the tradition full testified and intire in Ignatius Clemens Romanus or who ever wrote the Apostolicall constitutions in his name Tertullian S. Cyprian S. Athanasius Epiphanius S. Basil S. Chrysostome almost every where S. Hierome S. Augustine and indeed we cannot look in vain into any of the old writers The summe of whose doctrine in this particular I shall represent in the words of the most ancient of them S. Ignatius saying that he is worse then an infidell that offers to officiate about the holy Altar unlesse he be a Bishop or a Priest And certainly he could upon no pretence have challenged the Appellative of Christian who had dared either himselfe to invade the holy rites within the Cancels or had denyed the power of celebrating this dreadfull mystery to belong onely to sacerdotall ministration For either it is said to be but common bread and wine and then if that were true indeed any body may minister it but then they that say so are blasphemous they count the bloud of the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Paul calls it in imitation of the words of institution The bloud of the Covenant or new Testament a profane or common thing they discerne not the Lords body they know not that the bread that is broken is the communication of Christs body But if it be a holy separate or divine and mysterious thing who can make it ministerially I mean and consecrate or sublime it from common and ordinary bread but a consecrate separate and sublimed person It is to be done either by a naturall power or by a supernaturall A naturall cannot hallow a thing in order to God and they onely have a supernaturall who have derived it from God in order to this ministration who can show that they are taken up into the lot of that Deacon-ship which is the type and representment of that excellent ministery of the true Tabernacle where Jesus himselfe does the same thing in a higher and a more excellent manner This is the great secret of the kingdome to which in the Primitive Church many who yet had given up their names to Christ by designation or solemnity were not admitted so much as to the participation as the Catechumens the Audientes the Poenitentes Neophytes and Children and the ministery of it was not onely reserved for sacred persons but also performed with so much mysterious secrecy that many were not permitted so much as to see This is that rite in which the Priest intercedes for and blesses the people offering in their behalfe not onely their prayers but applying the sacrifice of Christ to their prayers and representing them with glorious advantages and tithes of acceptation which because it was so excellent celestiall sacred mysticall and supernaturall it raised up the persons too that the ministeriall Priesthood in the Church might according to the nature of all great imployments passe an excellency and a value upon the ministers And therefore according to the naturall reason of religion and the devotion of all the world the Christians because they had the greatest reason so to doe did honour their Clergy with the greatest veneration and esteem It is without a Metaphor regale sacerdotium a royall Priesthood so S. Peter which although it be spoken in generall of the Christian Church and in an improper large sense is verified of the people yet it is so to be expounded as that parallel place of the books of Moses from whence the expression is borrowed Yee shall be a kingdome of Priests and an Holy Nation which plainly by the sense and Analogy of the Mosaick law signifies a nation blessed by God with rites and ceremonies of a separate religion a kingdome in which Priests are appointed by God a kingdome in which nothing is more honourable then the Priesthood for it is certain the nation was famous in all the world for an honorable Priesthood and yet the people were not Priests in any sense but of a violent Metaphor And therefore the Christian ministery having greater privileges and being honoured with attrectation of the body and bloud of Christ and offices serving to a better Covenant may with greater argument be accounted excellent honorable and royall and all the Church be called a royall Priesthood the denomination being given to the whole from the most excellent part because they altogether make one body under Christ the head the medium of the union being the Priests the collectors of the Church and instrument of adunation and reddendo singula singulis dividing to each his portion of the expression the people is a peculiar people the Clergy a holy Priesthood and all in conjunction and for severall excellencies a chosen Nation so that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Priesthood of the kingdome that is the ministery of the Gospell for in the new Testament the kingdome signifies the Gospell and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Kingly is of or belonging to the Gospell for therefore it is observable it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not well rendred by the vulgar Latine regale sacerdotium as if Kingly were the Appellative or Epithete of this Priesthood it
way of naturall or proper operation it is not vis but facultas not an inherent quality that issues out actions by way of direct emanation like naturall or acquired habits but it is a grace or favour done to the person and a qualification of him in genere politico he receives a politick publick and solemn capacity to intervene between God and the people and although it were granted that the people could do the externall work or the action of Church ministeries yet they are actions to no purpose they want the life and all the excellency unlesse they be done by such persons whom God hath called to it and by some means of his own hath expressed his purpose to accept them in such ministrations And this explication will easily be verified in all the particulars of the Priests power because all the ministeries of the Gospell are in genere orationis unlesse we except preaching in which God speaks by his servants to the people the minister by his office is an intercessor with God and the word used in Scripture for the Priests officiating signifies his praying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they were ministring or doing their Liturgy the work of their supplications and intercession and therefore the Apostles positively included all their whole ministery in these two but we will give our selves to the word of God and to prayer the prayer of consecration the prayer of absolution the prayer of imposition of hands they had nothing else to doe but pray and preach And for this reason it was that the Apostles in a sense neerest to the letter did verifie the precept of our blessed Saviour Pray continually that is in all the offices acts parts and ministeries of a dayly Liturgy This is not to lessen the power but to understand it for the Priests ministery is certainly the instrument of conveying all the blessings of the people which are annexed to the ordinary administration of the Spirit But when all the office of Christs Priesthood in heaven is called intercession for us and himself makes the sacrifice of the Crosse effectuall to the salvation and graces of his Church by his prayer since we are ministers of the same Priesthood can there be a greater glory then to have our ministery like to that of Jesus not operating by virtue of a certain number of syllables but by a holy solemn determined and religious prayer in the severall manners and instances of intercession according to the analogy of all the religions in the world whose most solemn mystery was then most solemn prayer I mean it in the matter of sacrificing which also is true in the most mysterious solemnity of Christianity in the holy Sacrament of the Lords supper which is hallowed and lifted up from the common bread and wine by mysticall prayers and solemn invocations of God And therefore S. Dionysius calls the forms of consecration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prayers of consecration and S. Cyrill in his 3 mystagogique Catechism says the same The Eucharisticall bread after the invocations of the holy Ghost is not any longer common bread but the body of Christ. For although it be necessary that the words which in the Latin Church have been for a long time called the words of consecration which indeed are more properly the words of institution should be repeated in every consecration because the whole action is not completed according to Christs pattern nor the death of Christ so solemnly enunciated without them yet even those words also are part of a mysticall prayer and therefore as they are not onely intended there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of history or narration as Cabasil mistakes so also in the most ancient Liturgies they were not onely read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as a meer narrative but also with the form of an addresse or invocation Fiat hic panis corpus Christi fiat hoc vinum sanguis Christi Let this bread be made the body of Christ c. So it is in S. James his Liturgy S. Clement S. Marks and the Greek Doctors And in the very recitation of the words of institution the people ever used to answer Amen which intimates it to have been a consecration in genere orationis called by S. Paul benediction or the bread of blessing and therefore S. Austin expounding those words of S. Paul Let prayers and supplications and intercessions and giving of thanks be made saith Eligo in his verbis hoc intelligere quod omnis vel pene omnis frequent at ecclesia ut precationes accipiamus dictas quas fecimus in celebratione sacramentorum antequam illud quod est in Domini mensâ accipiat benedici orationes cum benedicitur ad distribuendum comminuitur quam totam orationem pene omnis ecclesia Dominicâ oratione concludit The words and form of consecration he calls by the name of orationes supplications the prayers before the consecration preces and all the whole action oratio and this is according to the stile and practise and sense of the whole Church or very neer the whole And S. Basil saith that there is more necessary to consecration then the words recived by the Apostles and by the Evangelists * The words of invocation in the shewing the bread of the Eucharist and the cup of blessing who of all the Saints have left to us For we are not content with those which the Apostle and the Evangelists mention but both before and after we say other words having great power towards the mystery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we have received by tradition These words set down in Scripture they retained as a part of the mystery cooperating to the solemnity manifesting the signification of the rite the glory of the change the operation of the Spirit the death of Christ and the memory of the sacrifice but this great work which all Christians knew to be done by the holy Ghost the Priest did obtain by prayer and solemn invocation according to the saying of Proclus of C. P. speaking of the tradition of certain prayers used in the mysteries and indited by the Apostles as it was said but especially in S. James his Liturgy By these prayers saith he they expected the coming of the holy Ghost that his divine presence might make the bread and the wine mixt with water to become the body and bloud of our blessed Saviour And S. Justin Martyr very often calls the Eucharist food made sacramentall and eucharisticall by prayer and Origen we eat the bread holy and made the body of Christ by prayer Verbo Dei per obsecrationem sanctificatus bread sanctified by the word of God and by prayer viz. the prayer of consecration prece mystica is S. Austins expression of it Corpus Christi sanguinem dicimus illud tantum quod ex fructibus terrae acceptum pree mystica consecratum ritè sumimus That onely we call the
body and bloud of Christ which we receive of the fruits of the earth and being consecrated by the mysticall prayer we take according to the rite And S. Hierom chides the insolency of some Deacons towards Priests upon this ground Who can suffer that the Ministers of widdows and tables should advance themselves above those at whose prayers the body and bloud of Christ are exhibited or made presentiall I adde onely the words of Damascen The bread and wine are changed into the body and bloud of Christ supernaturally by invocation and coming of the Holy Ghost Now whether this consecration by prayer did mean to reduce the words of institution to the sense and signification of a prayer or that they mean the consecration was made by the other prayers annexed to the narrative of the institution according to the severall senses of the Greek and Latin Church yet still the ministery of the Priest whether in the words of consecration or in the annexed prayers is still by way of prayer Nay further yet the whole mystery it self is operative in the way of prayer saith Cassander in behalf of the School and of all the Roman Church and indeed S. Ambrose and others of the Fathers in behalf of the Church Catholick Nunc Christus offertur sed offertur quasi homo quasi recipiens passionem offert seipsum quasi Sacerdos ut peccata nostra dimittat hic in imagine ibi in veritate ubi apudpatrem quasi advocatus intervenit So that what the Priest does here being an imitation of Christ does in heaven is by the sacrifice of a solemn prayer and by the representing the action and passion of Christ which is effectuall in the way of prayer and by the exhibiting it to God by a solemn prayer and advocation in imitation of and union with Christ. All the whole office is an office of intercession as it passes from the Priest to God and from the people to God And then for that great mysteriousnesse which is the sacramentall change which is that which passes from God unto the people by the Priest that also is obtained and effected by way of prayer For since the Holy Ghost is the consecrator either he is called down by the force of a certain number of syllables which that he will verifie himself hath no where described and that he means not to do it he hath fairly intimated in setting down the institution in words of great vicinity to expresse the sense of the mystery but yet of so much difference and variety as will shew this great change is not wrought by such certain and determined words The bloud of the New Testament so it is in S. Matthew and S. Mark The new Testament in my bloud so S. Paul and S. Luke My body which is broken My body which is given c. and to think otherwise is so neer the Gentile rites and the mysteries of Zoroastes and the secret operations of the Enthei and heathen Priests that unlesse God had declared expressely such a power to be affixed to the recitation of such certain words it is not with too much forwardnesse to be supposed true in the spirituality of the Gospel But if the Spirit descends not by the force of syllables it follows he is called down by the prayers of the Church presented by the Priests which indeed is much to the honour of God and of religion an endearment of our duty is according to the analogy of the Gospell and a proper action or part of spirituall sacrifice that great excellency of Evangelicall religion For what can be more aptand reasonable to bring any great blessing from God then prayer which acknowledges him the fountain of blessing and yet puts us into a capacity of receiving it by way of morall predisposition that holy graces may descend into holy vessels by holy ministeries and conveyances and none are more fit for the employment then prayers whereby we blesse God and blesse the symbols and aske that God may blesse us and by which every thing is sanctified viz. by the word of God and prayer that is by Gods benediction and our impetration according to the use of the word in the saying of our blessed Saviour Man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God that is by Gods blessing to which prayer is to be joyned that we may cooperate with God in a way most likely to prevail with him and they are excellent words which Cassander hath said to the purpose Some Apostolicall Churches from the beginning used such solemn prayers to the celebration of the mysteries and Christ himself beside that he recited the words of institution he blessed the Symbols before and after sung an Ecclesiasticall hymn And therefore the Greek Churches which have with more severity kept the first and most ancient forms of consecration then the Latin Church affirm that the consecration is made by solemn invocation alone and the very recitation of the words spoken in the body of a prayer are used for argument to move God to hallow the gifts and as an expression and determination of the desire And this Gabriel of Philadelphia observes out of an Apostolical Liturgy The words of our Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 antecedently and by way of institution and incentive are the form together with the words which the Priest afterwards recites according as it is set down in the divine Liturgy It is supposed he meanes the Liturgy reported to be made by S. James which is of the most ancient use in the Greek Church and all Liturgies in the world in their severall Canons of communion doe now and did for ever mingle solemn prayers together with recitation of Christs words The Church of England does most religiously observe it according to the custome and sense of the primitive Liturgies who always did beleeve the consecration not to be a naturall effect and change finished in any one instant but a divine alteration consequent to the whole ministery that is the solemn prayer and invocation Now if this great ministery be by way of solemn prayer it will easier be granted that so the other are For absolution and reconciliation of penitents I need say no more but the question of S. Austin Quid est aliud manus impositio quam or atio super hominem And the Priestly absolution is called by Saint Leo Sacerdotum supplicationes the prayers of Priests and in the old Ordo Romanus and in the Pontificall the forms of reconciliation were Deus te absolvat the Lord pardon thee c. But whatsoever the forms were for they may be optative or indicative or declarative the case is not altered as to this question for whatever the act of the Priest be whether it be the act of a Judge or of an Embassadour a Counsellor or a Physitian or all this the blessing which he ministers is by way of a solemn prayer