it Chap. V. Of the proper Acts of God Creation and Preservation or Providence What is Creation That God created all things And how Of the Ministers of Gods Providence towards Inferiour Creatures the Angels of God Their nature and office towards man especially Chap. VI. Of the Works of God in this visible World Of the Six dayes work of God All things are good which were made by God Chap. VII Of the Creation of man in particular according to the Image of God Of the Constitution of him and of the Original of his Soul contrary to Philosophers and the Errors of Origen concerning it The Image wherein it consists principally Chap. VIII Of the Second General Act of God towards the Creature especially Man his Providence Aristotles Opinion and Epicurus his rejected What is Providence Three things propounded of Providence And first the Ground of it the knowledge of God How God knoweth all things future as present Of Necessity and Contingencies how they may consist with Gods Omniscience Chap. IX The method of enquiring into the Nature and Attributes of God Vorstius his grounds of distinguishing the Attributes of God from his Nature examined Of the Decrees of God depending on his Understanding and Will Of knowledge of Intelligence Vision and the supposed Middle knowledge The Impertinency of this middle knowledge invented in God How free Agents can be known by God in their uncertain choice Indifferent actions in respect of Man not so in respect of God All vision in God supposes certainty in the thing known Chap. X. Four Doubts cleared concerning the Knowledge and Decrees of God and free Agents and contingent Effects How man that infallibly acts is responsable for his Actions The frivolous Evasion of the said difficulties by them of Dort Chap. XI Of the Execution of Gods Providence in the Predestination and Reprobation of Man How the Decrees and Providence of God are distinguished The Reason and Method of Gods Decrees Righteousness is the effect and not cause of Predestination to Life Predestination diversly taken in Scripture as also Election and Vocation God predestinates no man simply to Death without consideration of Evil foregoing as Calvin and some others would have it Chap. XII Of Gods Providence in the Reprobation and Damnation of Man Preterition is without any cause personal but the corruption of the Mass of Humane Nature Damnation alwayes supposes sin Chap. XIII The occasion of treating of sin here What sin is What Evil Monstrousness in things natural and Evil in moral things illustrate each other Sin no positive or real thing God the direct cause of no evil St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans makes nothing for the contra-Remonstrants literally and primarily taken Chap. XIV Of Sin more particularly And first of the fall of Adam Of Original Sin wherein it consisteth and how it is traduced from Father to Children The Proofs of it The nature and evils of it And that it is cured in Baptism That Natural Concupiscence hath not the nature of Sin after Baptism Chap. XV. Of the Restitution of Man after sin The Means and Motives thereunto In what manner Christs Mediation was necessary to the reconciling of Man to God Socinus his Opinion of Christs mediation refuted That Christ truely and properly satisfied by his Death and Passion for us Chap. XVI Of the Nature and Person of the Mediatour between God and Man In the beginning was the Word proved to be spoken of Christ and that he had a being before he was incarnate The Union of two Natures in Christ explained Christ a Mediatour by his Person and by his Office and this by his Sacrificing himself The Scriptures proving this Chap. XVII How Christ was Mediatour according to both Natures Calvins Opinion and others stated Of the effect of Christs Mediation and the extent thereof Of the Designation and Application of Christs death Of the sufficiencie and efficacie of Christs death How Christs death becomes effectual to all The necessity of Gods Grace to incline the will of man to embrace Christ Of the efficacie as well as sufficiencie of Gods Grace on the Will of Man Several Gradations observed in the Grace of God Chap. XVIII Of the effect and benefit of Christs Mediation in suffering and rising again seen in the Resurrection of Man The necessity of believing a Resurrection The Reasons and Scriptural Testimonies proving a Resurrection Objections against the same answered Chap. XIX Of the most perfect effect of Christs Mediation in the salvation of man Several senses of Salvation noted That Salvation is immediately after death to them that truly dye in Christ And that there is no grounds in Antiquity or Scripture for that middle State called Purgatory The Proofs answered Of the Consequent of Roman Purgatory Indulgences The novelty groundlesness and gross abuse of them The Conclusion of the first part of this Introduction The Contents of the Second Part c. Chap. I. OF the worship of God wherein the Second Part of Christian Religion consists Of the necessity of worshipping God It is natural to worship God Socinus holding the contrary confuted Of the name of Religion the Nature of Religious worship wherein it consisteth Chap. II. Of the two parts of Divine worship Inward and Outward The Proof of Outward worship as due to God and that it is both due and acceptable to God Several Reasons proving bodily worship of God agreeable to him Wherein this bodily worship chiefly consists Certain Directions for bodily worship Exceptions against it answered Chap. III. Of the second thing considerable in Divine worship viz. The state wherein we serve God What is a state The formal cause of a state Divine Vowes What is a Vow The proper matter of Vows Evangelical Councils That it is lawful and useful to make Vows under the Gospel contrary to Peter Martyr The nature of Vowes explained Chap. IV. Of the matter of Vows in particular And first of the Virginal state that it is both possible and landable And that it is lawful to vow Celibacie or Widowhood No Presidents in the Old Testament favouring Virginity The Virgin Mary vowed not Virginity no Votary before the Annunciation Chap. V. Of the second State of special serving God the Clerical State or Ministerial Of the necessity and liberty of singleness of Life in a Clergy-man The Opinion and custom of Antiquity concerning it That it is in the power of the Church at this day to restrain or permit the marriage of Priests The Conveniences and Inconveniences of wedded Life in Priests Chrysostom's Judgment of Marriage and Virginity recited Chap. VI. Of the third State of serving God a Life Monastical That it is not only lawful but may be profitable also The Exceptions of Mr. Perkins against it examined The abuses of Monastical Life touched That it is lawful to vow such a kind of Life duly regulated Chap. VII Of Religious worship the third thing considerable in it viz. The Exercise of it in the several kinds
be called Religion And nothing can be more fundamentally Just then for the Creature to refund according to its ability and rank the Fruits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo Judaeus Allegoriarum lib. 2. Papin L. Siquis â—f De Religios of those perfections received from the Cause of all Causes especially considering that such retribution is rather an augmentation then diminution of such Perfections in the Creature For not onely are all things thus freely derived from God to the Creatures but by a perpetual act of Providence called Conservation continued to them together with a most various and bountiful supply of all things requisite thereunto to which no Creature could lay any claim either to have or to hold And therefore most just equal reasonable and honourable it is for it to make such a Re-exhibition to God as is called Religion Therefore that famous Heathen Lawyer said well Summa ratio est quae pro Religione facit The highest Reason of all is that which makes for Religion And Tullie in a certain place defines Religion thus briefly and aptly Religio est Justitia erga deos Religion is Justice towards the gods And Macrobius makes Pietie and Religion two of the seven parts into which he divides Justice These not onely truly Christian but natural grounds of sober Men Macrob. Saâ— c. 7. P. 37. may suffice to put to silence the brutish Philosophie of some of late who acknowledge no other grounds of Dominion either Divine or Humane or of Obedience thereunto but Power and Force enabling to exact and extort the same not considering that Protection on the part of the Governing and Profit and Benefit on the part Governed do create a debt of veneration and service And therefore by the same reason should Justice have no place in the Ruler but onely his Power and Pleasure to incline him to govern well as it should have no place in the Governed to obey well And not only from the special benefits derived from God should Man return the mite of his recompence or recognition by Religion but also from a subordination of Creatures serving him should he be moved to pay the like to God The Psalmist tells us that God hath put all things Psal 8. 6 7 8. under Mans feet All Sheep and Oxen yea and all the beasts of the Field The Fowls of the Air and the Fish of the Sea and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the Seas From this example therefore Subjection and subserviency of all inferiour Creatures to Man by the appointment of God doth appear the reasonableness of Mans subjection unto God Neither was this though forfeited by Man upon his first disobedience against God so lost unto him but it was confirmed unto him after the Flood in these words And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon Gen. 9. 2. every beast of the Earth and upon every Fowl of the Air and upon all that Quod non metuitur contemnitur quod contemnitur utique non colitur Ita fit ut Religio Majestas honor metu constet c. Lactant. de Ira Dei c. 8. Psal 111. 10. Prov. 1. 17. moveth upon the Earth and the Fishes of the Sea into your hand are they delivered This Fear therefore and dread of a Divine Majesty is that which God hath in like manner laid upon Man as the ground and cause of all religious worship of him Man being infinitely more inferiour and subject by nature to God then the Beasts are to him For as Lactantius hath it That which is not feared is contemned that which is contemned cannot be worshiped and so it comes to pass that Religion and Majesty and Honour consists of Fear Which the Scripture assures us of also where it saith by David and Solomon both The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdome And notwithstanding all Creatures do exhibit obedience unto Almighty God yet none may properly be said to be Religions but Man For Religion must be a service and a tendency to Perfection and union with God but the Blessed Spirits of Men and Angels are out of their Apprentiship and imperfect state and consummated in that fruition and reward and union with God which they are capable of And the Apostate Spirits though they give obedience to God cannot be said to be Religious because their wills are constantly and utterly rebellious and all is involuntary and forced but Religion must be free and voluntary as is intimated Psalm 110. by the Psalmist Again Irrational Creatures or Beasts cannot be said to be Religious properly though they may be said to be Obedient For Obedience may consist as with necessity in Devils so with ignorance and necessity both as in Beasts But Religion must be rational as St. Paul implieth in these words I beseech you brethren by the mercies of God Rom. 12. 1. that ye present your bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service Whatsoever worship the Creatures give unto God is principally performed by their Head Man Man being as the first born and eldest Son to God in comparison of them So that as it was a natural Law that the eldest of the Family and most worthy should be as a Priest to the rest to offer Sacrifice unto God for all the rest as Cain and Abel are interpreted to bring their offerings to Adam to present them to God so do the Beasts bringing their several tributes to Man through him offer their bounden service unto God CHAP. II. Of the Constant and Faithful assurance requisite to be had of a Deity The reasons of the necessity of a Divine supream Power Socinus refuted holding the knowledg of a God not natural ALL Religion supposeth a Deity as all Arts and Sciences suppose their foundation upon which they are built and not prove it Yet notwithstanding for the more effectual knowledg and perswasion hereof and for the due exercise of that natural notion of a God which many times is very weak for want of use as men sometimes loose the use of their bodily Limbs for want of due exercise of them we shall briefly recount for methods sake some of those many demonstrations of a Divine supream Being which is God and that by these gradations First That there are purer and superiour Beings to Man though not obvious to any of the five gross senses of man may be gathered from the effects supernatural to all corporeal Creatures and ordinarily visible Such are the suddain and rapid translations of Bodies from one place to another Such are likewise voices heard without any notice given to the eye of persons present Such are Apparitions made to diverse in all ages of Spirits to persons in the likeness of Bodies indeed but declaring by their manner of entrance their manner of motions and actions their manner of departure and disappearing that such forms are only assumed to render their presence more obvious
infinite reasons First from the Object of their worship generally directed to a multitude of Gods and patching up a plenitude of power out of the shreds of innumerable Demi-gods or pieces of Gods whereof one should have power and vertue in one thing and another in another but this is to deny God in effect who if he be not absolute is not at all and indeed all the arguments before used to prove there can be but one God do prove that to be a false and foolish Religion which alloweth and worshippeth more than one Neither can it suffice to excuse them to say that the wiser of the Heathens acknowledged but one God because it availeth nothing at all but to add to their condemnation for any persons to have a right sense and meaning reserved to themselves and to proceed directly contrary to such found judgment in their practice and worship it self And therefore the most absurd and abominable manner of worshipping their pretended Deities is sufficient conviction of the Religion it self For whereas modesty sobriety temperance chastity truth justice and the like moral vertues were such as the Light of Nature did commend to all men and all consented to be excellent and laudable All these were contemned by the admirers of these Gods yea the very Religion it self tempted and incited many to offend against all these and that which is most intolerable from the examples of the pretended gods so chusing to be worshipped from whence must needs follow what St. Paul affirmeth of the Gentiles Religion and gods The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to Devils and not to God They were impure and wicked 1 Cor. 10. 20. spirits delighting in absurd and vitious practises And therefore upon this subject no more need be spoken at present The Neat pretender to true worship may be the Mahometan who worshipping the True God so far as may be discerned yet faileth egregiously in the manner of exhibiting the same the very grounds and end also being false and unreasonable For first that the Author and Coiner of that worship was an impostor and made pretences of Sanctity in the midst of impurities and infirmities he was subject unto is apparent out of Histories of those times and places where he by the assistance of a Fugitive Nestorian Monk laid the plot and whole design of his Religion and that among a people altogether rude ignorant barbarous easie to be deceived and cheated into a credulity of pretended Revelations Again the many absurdities and contradictions of their Law most sacred as misnaming of persons mistiming of Facts mistaking of Histories in the gross impossible prophane blasphemous opinions concerning the nature the will the Actions of God contrary to common philosophy and reason Ridiculous and foolish imaginations of Angels utterly false opinions of the nature of things and such like being duly and soberly weighed and examined do convince the whole Fabrick of that superstition of Idleness and foolish fictions And not to multiply more arguments here The way of propagating this Erroneous Fashion of serving God discovereth the Errour of the thing it self For it is a general and most rational Principle deserving admission and belief of all That Religion being the most excellent act of humane Creatures ought to have the most high and noble Faculty of the soul for its proper seat and fountain from whence it should proceed such as is the intellectual faculty of Man But this superstition is carried on by the ministery of the Senses chiefly And moreover It ought to have for its end the most sublime and divine of all But the Mahometan constituteth the low pleasures of the Senses as the sufficient and proper end of all their service making the beatitude of Heaven to consist in perpetual Licentiousness and fresh delights of senses And therefore no need of insisting on this subject here What is here spoken being for method sake rather then necessity or a formal confutation of those Errours CHAP. V. Of the Jewish Religion The Pretence of the Antiquity of it mulled Their several Erroneous grounds of the Jewish Religion discovered DUT the Religion of the Jew requireth more diligent examination as well because of a notable presumption from ancient Tradition and a certain preoccupation of divine truths and auctority of divine Constitution as because the consideration thereof is an introduction to Christian Religion and the disproof of that a proof of the Christian And if according to Christians own concessions and the eminentest Apostle St. Paul they were once the people and true Church of God To Rom. 3. 2. cap. 9. 4. them were committed the Oracles of God To them pertained the Adoption and the glorie and the Covenant and the giving of the Law and the service of God and the Promises Why not alwayes a Church If once Gods people Why not alwayes so If once confessed to be pure and Faithfull When did they cease to be so When first entred corruptions into their Church Under what High Priest And who brought such errours first in This is the sum of what they can say either for themselves or against the Christians of whose Religion which undoubtedly they do and will call Heresie they can give the time and place when and where it sprang up and the person who first founded and advanced the same And if any Church or Society of men in the world can lay claim to the Promises of perpetuity and infallibility surely the Jewish will pretend much more from the Prerogatives peculiar to them as do witness every where the Law and the Prophets To all this a sufficient answer shall be comprehended in the prosecution of the contrary Grounds which here follows which I reduce to these two whereof One concerns their Errour about their Law and the Other about their Messias The first general Errour concerning their Law is first that they suppose that the word of God given to Moses for their proper use was equally to oblige all Nations saving where certain priviledges were pretended to Jews by birth which they suppose no people were worthy or capable of except the stock of Abraham But that all nations could not be included in that Covenant which was made with Abraham nor were all obliged to the Rites and Ceremonies thereof appears from the ordinary impossibility of being observed by all People For how could people of the remotest parts of the earth appear thrice a year at Jerusalem as was commanded the Israelites by God who dwelt in the Land of Canaan How Levit. 12. 6. could all Nations at any time bring their Sacrifices to the door of the House of the Lord to be there received and offered by the Priests Another Errour concerning their Law received by Moses is that they say It was it whereby men should be justified Which is false and that First because the most ancient holy and renowned Patriarchs of the Jewish Line were not so Justified They were not justified by the
which we have shewed they have not as Jews and he will undoubtedly conclude against their antiquated Religion and Innovated Superstitions CHAP. VII The Christian Religion described The General Ground thereof The Revealed Will of God The Necessity of Gods Revealing himself AFTER the consideration of Religion in General and the reasonableness thereof with the Exclusion of the principal false pretenders of worshipping the true God it follows to treat of the Christian Religion and the Reasonableness and several incomparable Prerogatives thereunto proper And first it is to be known what we mean by Christian Religion and what it is Christian Religion is the worship of the only true God in the unity of nature and trinity of persons through one Mediatour between God and man the Man Christ Jesus according to his Will and Laws revealed in his holy Word commonly called the Scriptures This description whether artificial enough I will not contend but full enough I suppose it is to declare as well What it is in it self as Wherein it is distinct from others And therefore omitting to treat of the more curious and formal part thereof we shall here shew briefly What great advantages it hath above any other to the obliging us to a more faithful and devout observation thereof and that this only and no other can truly please God and lead us to him and crown us hereafter with eternal bliss and glory And it having been proved that by the consent of all Nations there is a God and it following more strongly upon that ground supposed that such a Supream and Infinite being is to be worshiped and that this worship is that which we call Religion and that of the Religions pretending to be divine the others have been found vain and deficient the Right of being received as the only proper worship of God must of necessity devolve upon the Christian Religion as that which is least obnoxious to the same or like exceptions and hath many more sober and rational inducements to perswade the same to any equal judgment Which argument might well be drawn from the very Body of this Religion and the several parts whereof it consisteth together with manifold Pregnant Circumstances attending the same But because this would ask a far longer time and more tedious labour both to Writer and Reader then can consist with this intended Compendium it may abundantly suffice to give such probable and credible proofs of the Scriptures That they are the revealed will of God as Christians do believe without question For the summ and substance of all Christian religion so far as it is truly so called and professed being founded on the Holy Scriptures and there expresly contained if it be evinced that they are of divine Original it will follow That what they deliver is so likewise and consequently the Religion built upon them But because it is one Principle which Christian Religion is built upon in common with all Religions that somewhat must so be believed that no natural reason or Mathematical can invincibly demonstrate And the reason hereof is because the ground of all such demonstations is setled upon the order of Nature between Cause and Effect in point of right rather than matter of fact But that the Scriptures are so the word of God as to be revealed by his Holy Spirit to certain select Persons to that end is altogether matter of fact and that not proceeding from such a necessary and natural Agent as that according to the course of Causes and Effects it could be no otherwise but from a free Agent which certainly might have suspended such acts of Revealing his Will And the same Reason holds against all proper Demonstration from Effect For as it cannot be demonstrated that such a Cause must necessarily have such an Effect it cannot be infallibly proved that such an Effect must have such a Cause For unless it could be proved that fire must necessarily burn it could not be proved that what we see burnt must necessarily proceed from fire For before this can be don it must be shewed that nothing in the world has the same virtue but fire and this supposes that we have a perfect and exact knowledg of every thing and the nature of it in the world Take we an instance yet nearer to our present subject It is a common Maxime amongst the Schoolmen That no Creature can work a Miracle of it self but it must have the Supernatural power of God either immediately or mediately and That whatsoever Effects are wrought by any Spirit inferiour to God deserve not the name of a Miracle And yet it is confessed withall that diverse such works which appear to us as extraordinary and above nature are not of God but some perhaps evil Creature Must it not then first be known what those extraordinary acts are and how they are wrought before it can be concluded that they are of God And how can this infallibly be discern'd but by another miracle and this by a third a third by an infinity of which there can be no knowledg So that in truth the received doctrine of the Schools being thorowly examined the contrary will appear the more reasonable of the two and that we must rather first of all acknowledg a Divine Power precedent and effecting this extraordinary stupendious work before we may call it a Miracle than first admit this to be a Miracle and then and thence infer a Divine Power So that it seems very difficult and dubious to make scientifical conclusions of any thing divine And that after all there may be sufficient presumptions to render a thing credible without lightness and rashness yet the Arguments perswading shall not be so pressing and cogent but due place should remain for a Faith or assent which may not be properly humane and natural which it must needs be if it proceeded simply from sense or reason natural but divine and an admirable temperament be found in that we call The true Christian Faith wherein the Grace of God inwardly moving and inclining the Will to embrace that to which it might notwithstanding all reasons to the contrary not altogether unreasonably have dissented and yet with reason doth assent the Grace of God pulling down 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. strong holds casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledg of God and bringing into Captivity every thought unto the obedience of Christ As St. Paul excellently saith speaking of the carnal warfare of humane ratiocinations either for or against Divine Faith and Doctrine which have no might but through God as he suffers by his justice the reasonings and eloquence of men to take place against his doctrine or to prevail towards the receiving of the truth by the superadded Power of his Holy Spirit as to this end St. Paul speaks in his first Epistle to the Corinthians thus And my speech and my preaching was not 1 Cor. 2. 4 5. with enticing words of mans
Heaven and Hell But we deny not that the Ancients prayed for the Dead nor do we dissent much from them in that pious act our selves however there are quarrellers amongst us well known by their other affected and morose follies who oppose it because they have no express Scripture for it but we deny they ever prayed for the pardon of their sins or ease of torments so anciently but for an happy rest and restauration in a Resurrection So that we peremptorily deny and well may notwithstanding all proofs brought to the contrary that Prayer for the Dead necessarily infers Roman Purgatory And for the Consequence of this Opinion of Roman Purgatory Indulgences it is so rank a Corruption such a novel and impudent invention as the Church of Rome under that defection it now is never did so great a miracle as to get it any place in sober and knowing mens minds both thing it self and the abuse of it being such as alone may suffice to disgrace the Authours of it and make their pretenses to infallibility alwaies false very ridiculous We know indeed that scarce any thing was of ancienter use in the Church then some Indulgences but no more like these than Earth is like Purgatory Indulgences were made by such who were in autority in the Church towards Penitents who had their Penances allotted them for scandalous Crimes committed against the Faith and Church which Penances were often relaxed and mittigated by the favour and indulgences of the Fathers of the Church good cause appearing for to do so But that ever it was in the power of the Church to give ease to such as were punished in that other Life to come was never heard of for above a thousand years after Christ Alphonsus de Castro is worth the Alphonsus de Castro lib. 8. Adv. Haer. de Indulg reading upon this who is positive for Indulgences but going about to prove them prepares his Reader with a long Preface for such a short Discourse telling him that He ought not to expect for all points of Faith Antiquity or express Scripture For many things are known to the moderner which those ancient Writers were altogether ignorant of For seldome any mention is made in ancient Writers of the transubstantiation of the Bread into Christs Body of the Spirits proceeding from the Son much rarer of Purgatory almost none at all especially among Greek Writers for which reason Purgatory is not believed of the Greek to this day c. The ancient Church caused men to satisfie in this life and would leave nothing to be punished in the Life to come and therefore there is no mention of Indulgences Thus he But adds Amongst the Romans the use of them is said to be very ancient as may in some manner be collected from their stations And it is reported of Gregory the First of whom we even now spake that he granted some in his dayes It is said and reported by where and by whom he could not tell us But he tells us indeed how Innocent the Third that great Innovator and Corrupter of the Church constituted it in the Latherane Council and the Council of Constance after that much which was not before the Year 1200. Judge we from hence what great account is to be made of the many sayings of the Fathers pretended to approve this devise And judge we farther what great Reason or Scripture there is for the Popish faction to derogate so far as they do from the efficacy of Gods Holy Spirit of Grace in the repenting sinner though straitened of time in the exercise and demonstration of his true Conversion and from the fullness of Christs mediation and merits which are ordained for the remission of all sins upon true Repentance For the bloud of Christ cleanseth from all sin saith St. John and so say they understood as in this Life and the Life to come but St. John nor any other holy Writer of Scripture gives us the least intimation of any other season of pardon then that of this Life Therefore here to end this First Part with the end of Man in this world seeing Gods Promises are so liberally revealed unto penitent sinners in this Life without exceptions of matter time or place of venial or mortal sins Seeing Christs merits are absolutely sufficient to acquit the sinner and no limitation is to be found upon Faith and Repentance in Scripture Seeing lastly that Gods Spirit of Grace is of vertue sufficient to sanctifie to the washing away of all filthiness both of flesh and spirit and this life is only mentioned in Scripture for the exerting of this work and perfecting this cure of the soul Let us rather thankfully embrace so great salvation and work it out for St. Paul supposes we may with fear and trembling in this life that so as St. Peter hath 2 Pet. 1. 11. it An entrance may be ministred abundantly unto us into the everlasting Kingdem of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ The End of the First Part. THE Second Part OF THE INTRODUCTION To the Knowledge of the True Catholick Religion CHAP. I. Of the worship of God wherein the Second Part of Christian Religion consists Of the Necessity of worshipping God It is natural to worship God Socinus holding the contrary confuted Of the Name of Religion the Nature of religious worship wherein it consisteth REligion we have defined to be A due Recognition and Retribution made by the Creature to God the Fountain of all Being communicating himself freely to inferiour Beings And this description we have in substance given us by David in his last and most serious charge to Solomon his Son saying And thou Solomon my Son know thou the God of 1 Chron. 28. 9. thy Fathers and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind c. From whence we take the ground of our distinction of Religion into two Parts The true knowledge of God which is attained by the Doctrine of Faith revealed in Gods holy Word and the worship of him there in likewise contained Of the former having already spoken we now proceed more briefly to treat of the second The worship of God And that God is to be worshipped is such an inseparable notion from the acknowledgment of God as nothing can follow more necessarily then that doth from this And it were more reasonable though that be brutish for to deny God absolutely then to deny him worship and service And therefore Seneca saith well The first worshipping of God is to believe there is a God The next to yield to him his Majesty to yield him Sen. Epist 95. his Goodness to understand that he or they governs the world And afterward He sufficiently worships God who imitates him And Tully The Cicero de Natura Deor. lib. 2. worship of God ought to be most excellent and pure and holy and full of piety so that we may constantly worship him with a pure intire and uncorrupt mind and voice
amongst themselves as to have nothing more than a blind presumption and credulity that all is or will be well But what should we protract an argument of this nature any longer against them who are arrived to such an unnatural height of admiring fresh phrases inverted numbers of words when the matter is much the same that their own uttered conceptions to day affecting themselves and others wonderfully and lookt on as spiritual and divine tomorrow nay on the afternoon nay next hour shall be sentenced by themselves and auditors as an humane invention and injurious to God and Man Nay which is yet more The form which Christ gave his Disciples and left to all to be practised who would be his Disciples hath met with such hard entertainment amongst these illuminated ones that 't is well it escapes a reproach when it is rehearsed Tell them here how the ancient and eminent Saints and Servants of Christ did use it in terms and that daily and that frequently every day and that often in the service of the Church in publick you make the matter worse for them Tell them how diverse of our own holy Martyrs blessed God for what they saw that day wherein they were redeemed not only from blind obedience but worship had the comfortable opportunity of worshipping God according to this manner so contemned they stick a little and premise some small respect to such good men as would dye against Popery but for such devout and constant adherence to the Liturgy of the Church they have no good words for them But it must be either their unhappiness that they knew no better their weakness they were so fond of that their want of zeal for a thorow reformation and of light to see what they did so clearly as they at this day And many such pieces of tattle have they in readiness having neither truth nor judgment nor charity in them but declare plainly they who thus discourse and practise to the contrary are not of the same Religion with them as to speak what I hold my self bound to profess I am not of theirs who refuse such publick communion with our Church and hold it utterly unlawful to give so much as ear to them in their will-worship and especially such as use that way in dislike of opposition to the established And so let this end CHAP. IX A third abuse of the Worship of God by Sectaries in neglecting publick Prayers without Sermons censured That Prayer in a publick Place appointed for Gods Worship ought at all times to be offered to God Scripture and Vniversal Tradition require it above that in private Places The frivolousness of such Reasons as are used against it The Reasons for it WE come now to take notice of another instance of their injuriousness to the Glory of God in their vile and low opinion of publick Prayer in Gods House Whither it should seem they would scarce ever invite Christian people but for the Sermons sake And this they may do for their own sakes because they love to be encouraged as who doth not by a full appearance of Auditors For whoever saw a Sectary at prayers alone in the Church as was the manner and ought to be the practise at this day of devout Christians even upon all occasions to visit Gods house of Prayer to pour out their hearts before him to put up the private requests of their soul to God there as the properest place I am ashamed to hear and much more to utter what they have to say against this excellent practice 'T is out of one of their Common-places which fights against most of what they approve not amongst us and there 's an end of it It makes I am sure ten times more for the reputation of them whom they bitterly enough hate then they are aware of Shall all Jews be not only permitted but excited to frequent Gods house even at those hours of Prayer in which the publick Sacrifice was not offered Shall the Apostles of Christ after the Resurrection as did Peter and John Acts 3. 1. in express manner and without all peradventure the rest who are not expressed observe the publick place as well as common time of prayer Shall our Saviour Christ himself often resort to the Temple and that of the corrupt Jews to pray Nay shall this end be especially mention'd as to which the Temple was ordained by Solomon that men in private may offer 1 Kings 8. 38 39 c. up their Prayers to God And shall it not become Christians much more We know not of any publick prayers the Jews had in their Temple at all but he that shall prove they had any even at their offering Sacrifice which I neither positively deny nor know of but should gladly learn from others must I am confident prove it a Set form But every man likely pray'd for himself as his own heart and occasions moved him but commonly in a Set form For when I doubted of prayer in the Temple it was of any which was common publick or general as with Christians So that the principal end of Gods house then next to sacrificing was that particular men might come and worship God and pray to him And to this end the Temple doors were not then only opened when the Sacrifice was made and that ended clap'd to again presently to shut men out from praying there at any time of the day Nay the doors of the Gentile Temples were not shut up against commers in to worship And much less they of the ancient Christians when a publick and peculiar place was appointed for their worship whatever they were before If it were so that in the infant and extreamly persecuted state of the Church before Christian Religion dar'd to show its face abroad the doors of places appointed for Gods worship were shut from the time the service was over nay and at the very time of assembling will John 20. 19. they bring us back to that again We find it indeed to be their Negative use of Antiquity and Prescriptions That if it cannot be prov'd that such a thing was in use from the first beginning of Christians they hold themselves sufficiently exempted from the same but if it can they will not hold themselves bound to do it One of their fair dealings But we think it altogether sufficient in unquestionable Presidents to alledge them as imitable and binding that such were so early and general as could well consist with the safety and advantage of Christianity it self and its Professours And this we have beyond all doubt to favour and commend to us an open Church even when there were no publick prayers though that was daily and much less a Sermon which was rarely and yet God serv'd I speak modestly as well as any where since the Reformation and free and frequent access was had to the House of God to pray in This was continued in all Ages and all Christian Countries
it is That divine Adoration receives its specification from the intention which is an act principally of the will so that be the object what it will yet if I have no intention to worship any other than the true God I worship him when I direct my worship to that which we may suppose not to prove upon tryal God But this is not to be granted that intention is sufficient to denominate worship or constitute it true and Catholick though it suffices abundantly to make a worship false when it is intended for such And then may a man be said to intend false worship not only when he knows it to be false but when he might possibly know it to be so and when he intends to worship that which actually is a false object For as hath been said Idolatry consists principally in the understanding as also the Scripture intimateth when it charges the Idolatrous Israelites with ignorance 2 King 17. 26. Isa 4. 9. of God For were not the Samaritans Idolaters who knew not the manner of the God of Israel And what saith the Prophet Isaiah They that make a graven Image i. e. to worship it are all of them vanity and their delectable things shal not profit and they are their own witnesses they see not nor know that they may be ashamed Surely if any man saw and were convinced of his error he would be ashamed of it but 't is his ignorance that detains him as well as precipitates him into such errors Ephes 4. 18. as St. Paul witnesses of the Gentiles Having their understanding darkened through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart Fifthly There is no reason to grant that simplicity and sincerity of Intention and Resolution of worshipping none but the true God may not consist and hold good in worshipping more than one God as in the Act. 17. 23. case of the Athenians worshipping the unknown God in the Acts For as Pausanias in Eliacis taking notice of this inscription hath it The Persians threatning Greece with War the Athenians sent to the Lacedemonians to beg aid of them Pan met their Embassador Philippides and expostulated with him why the Athenians had made no statue to him but left him our adding that if they received him he would stand by them Hereupon they erected this Monument To the unknown God Others say That they being miserably harrassed with the Pestilence and finding no relief from them they worshipped bethought themselves there might be a God neglected by them who might relieve them and so dedicated an Altar To the unknown God Might not all these things stand with very great sincerity of intention And yet I suppose it was Idolatry So that sincere resolution and intention of worshipping none but the true God only may be found where many are worshipped For though to us as St. Paul saith * Toletus Instruct Sacerdotum l. 4. c. 14. § 6. There is but one God and one Lord yet with all Nations it was not so they might really and stedfastly believe there were more Gods than one And therefore Tolet the Jesuit well writeth thus Therefore Idolatry is the exhibiting of a Divine worship to a false God For to worship him for true God who is not God either by praising him or invoking him or Sacrificing to him or any wayes prostrating our selves to him is to commit Idolatry False adoration which is Idolatry is never but where an Error in the understanding goeth before †De Ratione lure definiend pag. 273. Num ut Supersationis caput est Id. 〈◊〉 iâ—a emnus Dei caltus non solum extrav ritatem fidei sed etiam extra uniatem Ecclesis alterius Dei cultum in se contnet ab coquem Fides Christiarorum communis intra Ecclesiam colendum propâ—nit Omnis enim Commentitia religio talem sibi Deum colendum pâ—â—ponit qualem sibi ipsa commenta sit non qualem se ipse ostendit Quod Idololatrioe instar quoddam est And besides all this the Author of this tenet in another place acknowledges it to be a sort of Idolatry to feign or device a worship of God otherwise than was instituted of God and that not only to worship God out of the verity of Faith but out of the unity of the Church containeth in it a worship of another God than is propounded by the Christian Faith to be worshiped in the Church And again All commentitions religion propounds such a God to be worshipped as it hath feigned to it self not as he hath declared himself to be By which words I understand him to explain himself and draw nearer to the common notion of Idolatry than he is commonly taken to do For granting that it is a kind of Idolatry to offer any superstitious worship interdicted by God and that in thus doing a man doth in effect frame to himself a God distinct from the true God it may be easily granted that all Idolatry consisteth in Polytheism or plurality of Gods because in effect a man makes strange Gods though not formally as he that constituteth one of purpose to worship as the object of his Devotion And this agreeth with what othet learned men have written of Idolatry Quicunque de Deo secus sentit quam revera est c. Erasm in symbolum Catechesm 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epict. Cap. 38. Perkins Cases of Conscience l. 2. c. 11. Luther Colloq Mensalia p. 91. extending it to a false notion or judgment of the one true God For Erasmus in his Catechism on the Creed saith Whosoever thinketh otherwise of God than in truth he is or doth not believe him to be such as the Authority of the Holy Scriptures hath described him to us believeth not in God but in an Idol To the same purpose speaketh Mr. Perkins thus If adoration be given to the true God with a false and erroneous intention it makes him an Idol For example if the body be bowed with this intent to worship God out of the Trinity as the Turk doth Or if he be worshipped out of his Son with the Jews thus doing we worship not the true God but an Idol To these I add these words of Luther All manner of Religion let it have never so great a name and lustre of Holiness when people will serve God without his word and command is nothing else but plain Idolatry It may be said in behalf of Jews and Turks that they are not Idolaters because they worship God according to the true Light of Nature asserting and magnifying above all men the unity of God and directing their worship after the manner of the service of God before Christ To which answering I shall wave the question about the measure of knowledg the Jews had of the Trinity before Christ of which somewhat hath been said before and rather distinguish between the manner of their believing or disbelieving those mysteries For it is much different
the matter before such as they find startled and impatient at such plain derogation of Gods honor But they who openly profess to give Divine honor to Saints thus state the matter as doth Azorius Hoeretiques Azor. Instit Moral l. 9. c. 10. Quinto quaeritur c. saith he no wayes deny that Saints are to be honoured with that worship and honor which men eminent for vertue power wisedom nobility and Authority may be worshipped with for such honor as this is altogether civil and human but they tax Catholiques for worshipping them as God that is that they give divine honor to them But greatly are they mistaken For Catholiques worship them not as God but for Gods sake worship and honor them For as before Minime cols pro Deo sâ—d propter Deum c. we said Catholiques worship not the Image for God but for Gods sake So in like manner we honor not Saints only with that honor wherewith we honor vertuous wise and noble men but with divine honor and worship which is an Act of Religion But we give not divine honor to them for their own sakes but for Gods sake Thus he Against which we object sacriledg and Idolatry thus loosly delivered For as for the distinction it serves their turn nothing at all It implies with us a contradiction For to give Divine honor to any Creature is Idolatrous for what reason or for whose sake soever it be given Neither is it possible a man should give it to a Creature for Gods sake meaning as I suppose they do for the honor of God For divine worship being proper to God and incommunicable to any but him can no more be given for his sake to the Creature than supream honor to a Villain for the Kings sake And therefore as he goes on to erect Temples and Altars and offer Sacrifices in honor of Saints which is to tell us more plainly what they mean by Divine worship and this as they say for Gods sake is with us Idolatry who deny that any such things can be done really to Gods honor and much more that God would have them so honour'd or himself by them And whereas a little before he saith It was the Heresy of Eustathius as Socrates writeth in his History l. 2. c. 33. That Saints were not to be worshipped but God alone as being against the first Commandment There is no such thing to be found in that place but this we find which expresses the dealing of the Romanists in this and other controversies viz. how that Sccrat l. 2. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eudoxius being in Julians dayes placed in the Episcopal Throne of Constantinople he uttered these words in publique God the Father is impious but God the Son is pious at the hearing whereof the minds of all present being much troubled and beginning to mutiny He added Let not this saying trouble you For 't is true thus God the Father is impious because he worshippeth none but God the Son is pious because he worshippeth the Father Which being heard the tumult was appeased and instead of it they all fell out into laughter and so was that saying ever after look'd on as ridiculous In like manner when these new Divines come with great swelling language of divine honor to be given to the Creature in their interpreting themselves they must be very heretical and prophane or very ridiculous Or rather it is both to say We must give divine honor to Saints for Gods sake yea an abomination yet greater to make God the author of his own injury and degradation as it were to set up a competitor to a King against his will or at least without his will for his sake But suppose what may not be granted that there is a favourable interpretation and tolerable practise in the Church of Rome of these things I am sure this is not tolerable that such sayings as these and many more should pass untouched or uncersur'd by them yea are kept and nourished and preferred much by the most Visible autority of their Church and the other softer inferior sense allowed and made use of chiefly to dispute with and to decline the force of a resolute accuser and to satisfie green proselytes with who are not able to digest the stronger and ranker Divinity they have for them in store when it shall be too late to see the truth and must have their mouths stopt and all objections and scruples answered with this The Church cannot err It is most apparent that God neither in Old nor New Testament hath given any such warrant as Ahasuerus did to Haman to exalt Mordecai or Pharaoh to honor Joseph for us to honor Saints in exhibiting any thing of divine worship to them I shall not need therefore trouble this place with their citations to that purpose which is not to the purpose when it was there manifest to all that such honor was the honor not of a King but a principal subject and Minister of state Neither do Scriptural reasons advance their cause Whereof some are so parabolical and forced that they fall to nothing before they come to us as that of Mat. 24. 26. and that of Saint Peter 2 Pet. 1. 14. 15. being plainly intended of the records he would leave with them he wrote to to bear in memory what he delivered to them as Cajetane hath noted And the Power promised Rev. 2. 26. to them that overcome is not as they violently give out a power to dispense blessings and therefore to be sought to by Invocation but a power to be victorious in the Faith against all persecutions And those reasons drawn from Apoc. 5. 8. and 6. 10. and 8. 3 4. Are all besides the vanity of the form of the argument it self upon a false foundation and supposition viz. as if those things there related were acted in Heaven and not upon earth True it is as hath been noted before that the Vision of the Apostle is implyed to have been in Heaven concerning things there revealed to him but it was of things only to be fulfilled on earth And though it is most easie fit and obvious to interpret the Angel offering incense as the servent prayers of the holy Saints upon earth to God the Father yet it is I conceive more literal and agreeable to the intent of the Revelations made to interpret them partly as descriptions of things doing then in the Church and partly as prophesies of the future condition of the Church in the publique Service of God where by the Angel we are to understand the Bishop who in the first dayes of the Church was wont in presence and behalf of the people to offer up the common prayers of the People at the golden Altar viz. The special place of his ministration which prayers and worship did like incense ascend unto the holy Throne of God And the fire which is said to be cast from the Censer and Altar unto the earth is
bear the place of the Example 27. It may be granted that Images may be worshipped C. 23. improperly and by accident with the same kind of worship C. 24. with which the Exemplar but not for their own sakes and properly and therefore Latria is not properly and for themselves to be given for them 28. A Vow is an Act of Religion due to God only like L. 3. c. 9. De cultu sanctor as an Oath and Sacrifice as appears from the Scriptures whose Vowes are constantly said to be made to God Yet it is most certain that in some manner Vowes may be made to Saints 29. It is not probable that Christ in these words this is De Eucharist l. 1. c. 9. my Body would speak figuratively 30. One Body may be in divers places at once L. 3. c. 3. 31. That the Elements in the Eucharist are turned into L. 3. per. tot Christs Body 32. It is a truth necessary to be believed that whole L. 4. c. 21. 22. Christ is in the kind of Bread and whole Christ is in the kind of Wine 33. No more Grace is contain'd in one kind then in C. 23. both 34. Worshipping the Host excuses from Idolatry because C. 29. they believe there is no Bread remaining and no Catholick holds that Divine Worship is to be given to Bread 35. Our Sacrifice is truly and properly called a Sacrifice L. 2. de missa c. 2. no less than the ancient Sacrifices as is shown in the former Book 36. The Rite of Reconciling Sinners after Baptism which De Paenit lib. consists of Repentance discovered by external signs and the word of Absolution Catholicks affirm to be a true and proper Sacrament 37. There is a treasure of superfluous Merits in the Church De Indulg l. c. 2 3 11. which may by the Pope be applyed to the benefit of other persons by Indulgences 38. The Catholick Church doth openly affirm Extream Unction De Extrem Unct. c. 1. to be truly and properly a Sacrament 39. Orders are a Sacrament truly and properly so called De Ord. c. 1. 40. Matrimony of Believers is a proper Sacrament De Matrim c. 1. To these innumerable other might be added of strange nature to the Word of God and belief and practise of the ancient Church but these are more then sufficient to confront those vainly objected to us by them whereof some are most false others most true others false or true as they may be taken And now the manner of proceeding in this Discourse being propounded to be touched in the second place here must not be forgotten In which I confess I have not a little varied from my first intention and resolution which were in a plain compendious way to set down the Principal Doctrine of Faith and Worship agreeable to God's Holy Word and to the mind of the best Ancient Churches as well as our Own and that without Passion or particular Reflexions on any Party or Person by name knowing that of Synesius to be most true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Synes Ep 57. That Soul which would be a Vessel to receive God must be void of all Passions But finding some things both approved and disproved by me would scarce be credited without such instances I held my self obliged to forsake that resolution in the process of my Discourse and a little in the beginning where I was forced by ill Paper and Ink to write somewhat over the second time to make it legible Otherwise I determined to avoid Names and Testimonies of Authors after the manner of them who before me have written Institutions and Sums of this nature Yet have I not taken upon me in an imperious way to multiply Canons and Axioms and impose them with expectation of greater faith in them then such men will allow to the Decrees of the Holy Councils so called And this with a perswasion I know not how or why wrought into credulous persons that now-a-dayes only Scripture is understood and they only speak Scripture but others humane Inventions Which most bold demand 't is a wonder how many prone naturally to superstitious novelties do without the least suspicion of vanity and falsity readily receive for a most certain and fundamental Truth but is indeed a fundamental Error and the root of all Heresie towards the Faith and of all Schism towards the Church I remember how some years since enquiring of one very near to me what Divinity his Tutor grounded him in he answered me Wollebius And farther inquiring what Wollebius said of a certain point he replyed as he there found it against which when I put in my exception he wondered at me and indeavored to silence me by telling me It was a Canon I have not here proceeded so Canonically as others nor yet so Polemically but considering according to St. Johns distinction that there are Children in Christ 1 John 2. 13. and Young men and Old men commonly call'd Incipientes Prosicientes and perfecti i. e. Beginners Proficients and Perfect men I have here pitched upon the mean sort of these to whom to direct my Labors knowing there were but too many Catechises amongst us for the former and too few Treatises or none for the second And that to write Polemically for the satisfaction of the third required another more proper language and a more Scholastical Person and much more large Volumes then this one though this Book hath increased under my hands well nigh thrice as much as I at first intended And in truth it is to be lamented and blushed at that none of the Learned men of our Church have yet appeared in so noble and necessary a Work as the fuller and more entire managing of the Elenctical part of Divinity to the preventing daily mischiefs arising from the necessity of repairing to our Enemies of both sides to perfect Theological Studies without the due ballance on our side to prevent prejudice I hope God will stir up the spirits of some to set their hands to and enable them to go through so good a Work Voetius of Utrecht than whom I think none of this Age hath Certum autorem ejus qui solidè compendiosè accommodatè ad nestra tempora hee â—gat hâ—ctenus non vidi expectandum est ergo c. Voetius Bibl. l. 2. c. 5. been acquainted with more modern Authors much complains for want of some compendious Body of Elenctical Divinitie which to that day he had not seen And therefore expected that long defired Piece of Famous Altingius should at length come forth which was only in the hands of his Scholars in writing Yet I find this Work of Henricus Altingius to have been published the same year with Voetius his Bibliotheca viz. Anno 1654. and called Theologia Elenctica Nova viz. New Elenctical Divinitie which in truth hath not its name New for nothing in that manner of handling Divinity as none before
him and the Matter it self far from judicious or solid in many places Much more wisely and learnedly had Joannes Forbesius of Aberdeen in Scotland set forth his Controversial Work called Instruct Hist Theol. l. 4. c. 4. § 29. Instructiones Historico Theologicae yet imperfect as it should seem by himself who refers us to the twenty forth and twenty fifth Book of that Work there being extant only sixteen And surely as the Book argues great Learning in the Author so might it have proved no less beneficial to the Christian World had there been less complyance with Calvin in it which might be the reason that it found not that entertainment in England that otherwise it might have had but was commended and published to the World by Andrew Rivett the Dutch Divines giving full approbation thereunto to whom it should seem declining the judgment of that Church he stood more obliged to he submitted his Work which yet might be excused in part it being a time viz. 1645. when such havock and dissipation of the English Church was made by the Calvinizing Scots and Scotizing English as were not to be excused nor ever forgotten For mine own particular I would not have any to expect here a Book of Preaching or Devotion of both which and especially the former there seems to be little want amongst us so neither purely Scholastical but serving to all these purposes And therefore I have wrote it in the English Tongue aiming at no higher end than to profit those of our own Church and Nation And therefore I call it An Introduction intimating my principal Intention to be to prepare the way to the Readers ascent from this to more high and ample Disquisitions And this farther according to the mind of the Church of England I say this was my Purpose I do not say that this I have alwayes exactly and infallibly attained any more than those Learned Writers before me who have endeavoured to give us the sum of the Laws of our Nation as I have of the Religion of our Church have attained their ends according to their desires and therefore much less to the expectation of others Wherefore the Apology which Learned Dr. Cowell used to the Reader of his Institutions of the English Laws with some little variation may aptly enough serve my turn against the proneness of some Censurers whom it may offend that I take upon me to determine what the Church of England holds when as there is and alwayes will be and that in all Churches some Diversity in the Writers But as Littleton of old advised his Son so would I advise Vt autem Littletonus suum … um sic ego vâ—â— praemonitus multâ—o magis esse cupio ne omnia huc congesta Juri nâ—stro consentanea statim exâ—â—…iâ—etis Neque enim hoc opus est nâ—strae â—talia tamen esse non injuriâ forte polliceor c. Johan Cowellus Praefat. Institut Juris Anglic. you much more that ye do not presently perswade your selves that all things here collected are agreeable to our Law for this is past our power Yet such I may promise them to be as will not be unprofitable And I may safely adde I have not invented any thing which I know to be repugnant to the Established Faith or Worship amongst us The Method that I here use I hope is not obscure nor unuseful to the Reader nor Illogical but consisting of parts cohering with one another and succeeding each other visibly enough though I know well I might have subdivided several Chapters and Heads into more distinct Sections and peradventure might have erred and offended more on the other hand as Seneca hath observed Philosâ—phiam in partes nâ—n in frusira dividamidividi enim illam non concidi utile est Nam comprehendere quemadmedum maxima iâ— minima dist â—â—le est Senec. Epist 89. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nyssâ—de virâ Mosis p. 180. and daily may be seen in the Compendiums on this Subject of Forrein Writers they do who are too curious confounding by distinguishing In the general Division of this into two Parts I follow Gregorie Nyssene who summeth up all Religion under these two Heads Worship which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the other a Right Understanding of the true Nature of God Only Natural Reason teaching every man that he must Know aright before he can Do aright I have set Knowledge which is the same with Faith in a Christian in the first place and Worship in the Second Part of this Draught of Religion It remains now that according to the custom of Adventurers into the Censure of this captious Age I should bespeak the favourable opinion and friendly or rather in this case charitable acceptance of my present endeavours from the true Christian Reader for from others my hopes are very small but I shall only crave the removing of that prejudice and improving of that Purity of Intention in the reading which I may with a good Conscience profess to have had in the writing And especially shall pray God to prosper it to those dissenting Brethren amongst us who I fear are no less apt to take offense then our professed Enemies as disagreeing from their perswasions in many things But that is none of my fault But my hearts desire and prayer to God is with St. Paul Rom. 10. 1. that they might be saved For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge To inform therefore such was my principal design as likewise to exhort them in the fear and for the love of God and the Truth to consider at length and lay seriously to heart the scandalous and most pernicious evil of that Division for which as yet they have given no tolerable reason which they can with any confidence perswade themselves will hold before God And having themselves wrote so many and horrible things against such Schism all their allegations and complaints against their Governours for hard usage of their tender Consciences are no more to be regarded by the Church than the froward cryes and carriage of Children when their Parents would look their Heads and take out their Vermine For what is that moderation and compounding with us they sometimes offer and excuse themselves from the foresaid accusations by as if they sought Peace and Vnity but to imitate the worst of Bankrupts and thrive by breaking now their open and most cruel dealings towards us have failed them And which is most unreasonable of all neither can nor will give any just assurance of persevering in a true and cordial communion with the Church so modelled as they propound in their Moderation until it becomes such as they could wish and that is quite to overthrow the whole visible constitution of it as their Oaths and Covenants not disclaimed bind them And to stick so immoveably as too many do at lighter things such as Rites and Ceremonies which cannot possibly
of it And first of Prayer the chiefest act of Gods worship contrary to Sectaries who are enemies to it in three respects And first by their vain conceit of Preaching wherein consisteth not the proper worship of God as in Prayer Chap. VIII A second Corruption of the worship of God not especially in Prayer by opposing Setforms of publick worship Reasons against extemporary Prayers in publick The places of Scripture and Reasons and Antiquity for Extemporary Prayers answered Chap. IX A third abuse of the worship of God by Sectaries in neglecting publick Prayers without Sermons censured That Prayer in a publick place appointed for Gods worship ought at all times to be offered to God Scripture and Universal Tradition require it above that in private places The frivolousness of such reasons as are used against it The Reasons for it Chap. X. A fourth Corruption of the worship of God by confining it to an unknown Tongue Scripture and Tradition against that custom A fifth abuse of Prayer in denying the People their Suffrage contrary to the ancient practise of the Church Chap. XI Of the Circumstances of Divine worship and first of the proper place of Divine worship called the Church the manner of worshipping there Of the Dedication of Churches to God their Consecration and the effects of the same That no man can convert any part of the Church to his private use without profanation of it and Sacriledge Against the abuse of Churches in the burial of dead bodies erecting Tombs and enclosing them in Churches or Chancels Rich men have no more Right to any part of the Church than the Poor The Common Law can give no Right in such Cases Chap. XII Of the second Circumstance of Gods worship Appointed times Of the Sabbath or Seventh-day how it was appointed of God to the Jews but not by the same Law appointed to Christians Nor that one day in Seven should be observed The Decalogue contains not all moral duties directly Gentiles observed not a Seventh day The New Testament no where commands a Seventh day to be kept holy Chap. XIII Of the Institution of the Lords Day That it was in part of Apostolical and partly Ecclesiastical Tradition Festival dayes and Fasting derived unto us from the same fountain and accordingly to be observed upon the like grounds Private Prayers in Families to the neglect of the publick worship unacceptable to God Of the Obligation all Priests have to pray daily according to their Office Of the abuse of Holy-dayes in the Number and unjustifiable occasions of them Of the seven Hours of Prayer approved by the Ancient Church and our first Reformers Mr. Prins Cavils against Canonical Hours refuted Chap. XIV The third thing to be considered in the worship of God viz. The true object which is God only That it is Idolatry to misapply this Divine worship What is Divine worship properly called Of the multitude and mischiefs of New distinctions of worship Dulia and Latria though distinct of no use in this Controversie What is an Idol Origen s criticism of an Idol vainly rested on What an Image What Idolatry The distinction of Formal and Material Idolatry upon divers reasons rejected The Papists really Idolatrous notwithstanding their good Intentions pretended Intention and Resolution to worship the true God excuses not from Idolatry Spalato Forbes and others excusing the Romanists from thence disproved That Idolatry is not always joyned with Polytheism or worshipping more Gods than one How the Roman Church may be a true Church and yet Idolatrous Chap. XV. Of Idolatry in the Romish Church particularly viz. In worshipping Saints Angels Reliques and especially the supposed Bloud of Christ No good foundation in Antiquity or the Scriptures for the said worship Chap. XVI Of the fourth thing wherein the worship of God consisteth viz. Preaching How far it is necessary to the Service of God What is true Preaching Of the Preaching of Christ wherein it consisteth Of painful Preaching That the Ministery according to the Church of England is much more painful then that of Sectaries The negligence of some in their duty contrary to the rule and mind of the Church not to be imputed to the Church but to particular Persons in Authority Chap. XVII The fifth general Head wherein the exercise of the worship of God doth consist Obedience That Obedience is the end of the Law and Gospel both That the Service of God principally consisteth therein Of Obedience to God and the Church The Reasons and Necessity of Obedience to our Spiritual as well as Civil Governours The frivolous cavils of Sectaries noted The severity of the Ancient and Latter Greek Church in requiring obedience The folly of Pretenders to obedience to the Church and wilfully slight her Canons and Laws more material than are Ceremonies Chap. XVIII Of Obedience to the Church in particular in the five Precepts of the Church common to all viz. 1. Observation of Festival dayes 2. Observation of the Fasts of the Church Of the Times Manner and Grounds of them Exceptions against them answered 3. Of the Customs and Ceremonies of the Church 4. Frequentation of the publick worship 5. Frequent Communicating and the due preparation thereunto Chap. XIX A Preparation to the Explication of the Decalogue by treating of Laws in General What is a Law Several kinds of Laws Of the obligation of Laws from Justice not Force only Three Conditions required to obliging Of the Ten Commandments in special Their Authour Nature and Use Chap. XX. Of the Ten Commandments in Particular and their several sense and importance Chap. XXI Of Superstition contrary to the true Worship of God and Christian Obedience AN INTRODUCTION TO THE Knowledge of the true Catholick Religion Part the First Book the First CHAP. 1. Of the Nature and Grounds of Religion in general Which are not so much Power as the Goodness of God and Justice in the Creature And that Nature it self teaches to be Religious RELIGION is the supream act of the Rational Creature springing from the natural and necessary Relation it beareth to the Creatour of all things God Almighty Or a due Recognition of the Cause of all Causes and Retribution of service and worship made to the same as the fountain of all Goodness derived to inferiour Creatures For there being a most excellent order or rather subordination of Causes in the Universe there is a necessary and constant dependance one upon another not by choice but natural inclination And the Perfection of all Creatures doth consist in observing that station and serving those ends and acting according to those Laws imposed by God on all things Thus the Heavenly Bodies moving in a perpetual and regular order and Psal 148. the Earth being fruitful in its seasons and the course of the Waters observing the Laws given them by God may be said to worship and obey him Which worship being performed according to that more perfect state of the Rational Creature and the prescriptions given to it may
not so much enquired into how absolutely one man may be known from another nor how one Church may be distinguished from another as the Roman from the Greek or the English from the French Church for this thought it be very easie is scarce worth the labour but the doubt and material difficulty is How to know which of these are Catholick and true Churches of Christ and which are Heretical or Erroneous in any degree I say the Enquiry is not which is which Church as a man might be known to be such an one by name from his stature his hair or the like but which of these are true and orthodox Churches This can be by no other notes infallibly but such as are truly and constantly proper to true Churches and are no less found in other true Churches than in this And therefore it is most true what is commonly said That the true Church is known by the true Faith professed right Discipline administred and the holy Sacraments duly used but not before it be certainly known that all these are actually so observed and really not pretendedly only And so is it as true That it being known certainly which is the true Church it must be known likewise by necessary consequence that all these three are faithfully observed in that Church which could not be true without them Now if we first must judge of Churches by the three General Instances and Indications we must first judge of these Ingredients into its Nature and before we can do so must run through a whole body of Divinity and that with fallible judgment in the search of it On the other side if we would know which is the true Religion from the true Church to know the true Church first we must pass through infinite Disputes and Controversies with the like uncertainty of judging aright as before and in doing both these we forsake the pretended method of judging by Notes for we are hereby immers'd in the indagation of the thing it self without consideration of Notes which if they could be had apparently and infallibly would prevent that long and tedious labour of examining the matter it self But such as I have said I know none positive the neerest we can come to the point is Negatively when there is apparently wanting such things as declare at least the unsoundness and imperfection of the whole Body so defective CHAP. XXX Of the Notes of the true Church in Particular Of Antiquity Succession Vnity Vniversality Sanctity How far they are Notes of the true Church THE four principal Notes of the true or rather false Church not found in it are Antiquity Unity Succession Universality and as moderner Controverters in England especially the name of Catholick it self To the first of these we say That her Antiquity is not to be compared with things of quite another nature but with things of the same nature and comprehended in some eminent Period of time For the Natural worship was more ancient than the Mosaical and the Mosaical than the Christian in such things wherein they differed For we have before shown That Christian Religion according to the material and natural Part of it which was that connatural light and reason shining cleerly in the heart of man and directing him to the belief and worship of one God exceeded in time the Jewish worship yet was not to be preferred before it and the like may be said of the Jewish and Christian But the enquiry is chiefly about those of the same Oeconomy the same profession and denomination As if it should be demanded which of the natural Religions were the truest answer might well be made That which was most ancient and agreeable to prime Institution And in like manner That must be the purest of the Jewish or Mosaical which agrees most exactly with the most ancient and first instituted of that kind and so of the Christian undoubtedly that which retained most of the divine Truths and Worship ought to be preferred as the best of that kind as is plain from the Prophet Jeremiah advising that degenerous people and Church thus Stand ye in the wayes and see and ask for the old paths where is the good way and walk therein and ye shall find rest for your souls Nay we may extend this to the Mahometan Religion thus far truly viz. to be informed from antiquity which of all the several Sects are most truly Mahometan weighing their agreement to or discrepancie from the Institutions of the first Author of that Superstition But here it will be necessary to distinguish between things agreeable to the institution things instituted and things contrary to institution and that as well for our better satisfaction in the following notes as this present though I confess all this is overthrown if that be taken for granted which some mischievously would obtrude upon the Christian Church in these last dayes That nothing whether intrinsick or extrinsick to Religion it self in the substance must be instituted but by Christ and such as were divinely inspired by him But this at present I shall take for groundless sensless and unpracticable by the Assertours and Defenders of it some other place being more proper for its confutation But this diversity being allowed as all reason requires the resolution of this case will be much facilitated For surely that Church have it never so many and fair advantages otherwise to commend it to the world which shall either have lost any material Article of Christian Faith or notably corrupted and perverted or introduced any Tenet which is contrary to the first Institution and for which no good ground or reason can be alledged out of the all-sufficient Rule of Faith must needs be false and that no such warrant can be there had the total silence or contrary Doctrine of the Ages next under the Date of Scriptures which we here make the Rule do prove For where neither the Scriptures most ancient expresses or necessarily infers any Doctrine of Faith nor Tradition hath never so understood the Scriptures there no greater evidence can be found upon earth to discern truth from falshood and consequently the Catholick and Apostolick Faith from the Spurious and Heretical And from this head it was that we find the ancient Fathers to oppose and confute the Heretical Inventions and Innovations of men contrary to sound Faith For supposing that Christ was the first founder and dispenser of Christian Doctrine and that he delivered this to the Apostles to be farther propagated in the world what could be said more effectually against perverters of the same than to shew that such fond and impous tenets as Hereticks obtruded upon the world could never have Christ for their Author because those who immediately drew from that Fountain never taught any such thing but the contrary rather And that they did not they proved from instances in all the principal Sees of the Apostles and their immediate and following Successors who never delivered any such Doctrine
well as Southern Scaliger exercit 292. ¶ 4. people who have no such Grain amongst them as we have mentioned For 't is very hard to acknowledg an ordinary necessity of this blessed Sacrament Plerosque nos vidimus frumenti usum et vini penitus ignorantes Ammian Marcellinus Lib 14. Cap. 12. to the having life spiritual in us to the comfort of our souls to the strengthening of our Faith to the resisting the temptations of the Devil and in fine to the salvation of our souls and yet supposing what St. Paul testifieth that God would have all men to be saved there should be a natural incapacity of the means of the ordinary means of Salvation And considering withal that Bread may be easily taken not for that only which is made of our common Corn but for that also which supplies the 1 Tim. 2. 4. use and fulfils the natural ends of Bread and bears sufficient proportion to the agreements between the Natural and Spiritual Bread as St. Paul hath stated it We being many are one bread for we are all partakers of that 1 Cor. 10. 17. onebread In the first he compares the conjunction of Christians in this communion with the union of the many several grains into one bread And so though the parts constituting one Loaf be more distinct than they which may concurr to the compounding one body of this Supplemental bread yet are the Parts distinguishable so far as to truly denominate that body a Compound In the latter Analogy of St. Pauls saying We are all Ejusmodi esse debet Eucharistiae ut multa in unum redigantur Aug. Tract 26. in Joann partakers of that one Bread that is as we all in the Communion partake of one Loaf outwardly so we inwardly all partake of that one Bread of God that came down from heaven Christ Jesus no less in some other one body than in proper bread I say not absolutely determining that so actually it is but that the Representation makes no such difference but so it may be And this methinks they should be most inclinable to who religiously observe the mixing of water in the other Element Wine which otherwise must needs infinitely and inextricably perplex the minds of the Consecrater and Communicant both For it being not at all determined in nature what the Schools in general determine viz that so much water may be mixed with wine till it ceaseth to be truly wine and yet the Element capable of effectual consecration I say it being not determinable in nature by the acutest judgement precisely what quantity of water destroyeth a quantity of wine it may so fall out that by the undue mixture of water the wine ceases to be wine and then what becomes of that Sacrament which they say essentially and indispensably requires wine It is very hard and presumptious to affirm that none but natural no artificial water drawn from distillations have any efficacy in baptism especially if they have a cleansing nature with them as all or most in some degree have seeing they may signify the same for which Natural water was ordained For otherwise we may say that Hot water being in some sense artificial was not in any case to be used to such ends And distilled waters are certainly not absolutely made for then there might be more reason to exclude it but is that Elemental water of which the natural Body doth consist though not distilling naturally but praeternaturally from the body out of which it is forced and retaining more mixture than the common sort doth And so may we affirm much more of Bread that the commonly known Bread is that which should be preferred without all doubt yea not without greatest scruple should be neglected but when that which is in place and common use amongst some Nations seems to them more natural and ours more unnatural and artificial doth there not appear great reason to admit that Or can we imagine that Christ whom we find the least superstitions or scrupulous of all men of his age in things not directly limited by a Law but of themselves indifferent would not have followed the customs and opinions of men in such Regions had he conversed with them Is it not a reason rendred by the Ancients and that a very sufficient too against the Perpetuity and Universality of the Jews worship Eusebius Demonst Evang 1. that all Nations could not possibly be concerned in it or obliged by it because of an incapacity they were in by the extreme distance from Jerusalem the place of principal worship to fulfil the Laws and Precepts of it And will not it or at least may it not be alledged as strongly against the proper Catholickness of Christian Religion that the Laws thereof and that one of the most solemnand necessary cannot be observed by all Nations It will be said That such things as are so necessarly required may be imported from other places Very true And surely where it may it ought But to make any Countrey which Gods Providence extendeth it self to of it self uncapable of receiving as good Christians as any place in the World or to make the Religion of Christians to depend on Merchandizing necessarily is more than in modesty can be said or by reason maintained Neither doth the condemnation of the Heresie of the Aquarii of old or such as solemnized this Sacrament with water alone condemn absolutely the use of all other Liquors besides Wine in it because they condemned the use of all besides Water in that Sacrament contrary to Christs Institution Christ without doubt celebrated with proper wholesome Wine of the fruit of the Vine And this argues sufficiently that the like is to be used and none other where it is attainable And the argument of the Schoolmen which say That neither Sider nor Perry nor liquor pressed out of Raisins nor Vinegar nor such like are apt matter for consecration because they are not proper Wine may be allowed taking apt for proper and convenient but scarce if taken for Possible as if they were not susceptible of Sacramental consecration where they are in common use And though Vinegar seems to draw neerest to the nature of Wine and in that respect more apt than other Liquors yet in this it is more unapt because it is the drink of no people And yet Alexander Alensis granteth that in some Regions they consecrate altogether of Vinegar because to them Wine in its pure nature cannot be brought This they understand rather of Wine degenerated of it self into such an acidity or sowrness than of that which is studiously made so But if nothing which art hath counterfeited and adulterated can be received as the matter of this Sacrament how many Sacraments in Christendom would be absolutely void and Communicants deluded of their expectations And seeing in the corruptions of Wine by other ingredients as well as Water the Casuists determine that it ceases then only to be capable of this sacred use
is so defended as to call in question the truth of Christs divine nature and to commend and command the direct worship of those objects so mistaken then certainly it is Heresie and somewhat more And so their doctrine of Communicating in one Kind contrary to all the mention we have of celebrating the Eucharist in the Scriptures and those deserving the name of Fathers in the Church may rightly be termed Heretical when it shall be drawn into such a Proposition as this as of necessity it must viz. That it is of equal vertue and use to receive the Sacrament in one kind alone as both Kinds whereas only to deny the use of it is no more than an unjust and sacrilegious piece of Tyranny over the Laicks To these it were easie to add more of like natures as sufficient Grounds to leave such a Church as maintains them But for those who are not in Episcopal nor yet so much as Metropolitan subordination and subjection to that Church but only Patriarchal which obliges cheifly if not only to a recognition of a Remote Right of Order and Principle of unity when the Church is united in bringing them to Councels and keeping them to those Laws which are prescribed by General Consent of the Church and this not originally by first planting and forming a Christian Church in a Nation but restoring and augmenting it the case is yet more plain that it is free for such Churches to relinquish communion of any Church subject to less Errours than are properly called Heresies But for persons educated in a Church and thereby subject to it and owing Canonical obedience not only as they most weakly and wickedly imagine to the Rule of Faith therein asserted and maintained but to the Rule of Unity and Communion outward for such I say to divide from that Church which hath not by falling into notorious Heresies or Idolatrous practices first fallen from Christian Faith is to profess Schism For to alledg that they would incorporate with the Church if certain things which may possibly be parted with without destroying the Faith at least immediately were granted to them is to demand that their Superiors should bow to them rather than they to their Superiors and in effect to make the condition of their obedience and uniting with the Church to be this That first the Church should be of their Religion the difference between them consisting in things in their own nature mutable For though Faith consisteth in those things which are judged necessary in themselves to be received Yet Religion is made up as well of the manner of serving God as the material grounds of it And therefore it is according to the manner of their treaties of peace in other Cases to require the thing in debate to be granted them before they will bear of a commodation or reconciliation This senseless Charity is that of most Desperate Schismaticks Yet not absolutely to despair of reducing some few of them and much less of preventing the like ruine of souls in others we shall now conclude with a few words concerning the Second thing in the beginning of this Point viz. The guilt of Schism Supposing then what is above said that Schism is a Causeless Separation from the Church of Christ meaning by Causeless not want of all reasons or causes but Sufficient as are errours now mention'd in Faith we farther understand by Separation not that of the inward and hidden man but outward and Visible answerable to that we have called and acknowledged to be properly called a Church i. e. Visible For possible we grant it is what we do scarce believe to be actually true though we hear such things sometimes spoken that dissenters may have a tolerable good opinion of a Church as that it is a true Church in their private senses they may pretend some general kindness and Charity to the Members of it Nay they may hold it no grievous sin to communicate with it for some persons especially and yet for all this be rank Schismaticks For Schismatizing in its remoter Cause may spring from evil opinions and dispositions of the inward man but its formality is altogether in outward profession of averseness separation and opposition to a Church This is it which hath raised so much just clamour of the Ancient and even of those very modern Persons who stomach nothing more than to be reduced to their own general Rules and have worthily brandished their swords and pens to bring people to the unity of that Cause which never was the true Faith and to that Visible Company which never was a Church and yet cannot understand their own language nor receive their own reasons and arguments in Cases infinitely more capable of such vindications than the Party they created and asserted Herein surely they have exceeded all other Factions in immodesty and undauntedness that whereas those have been very scrupulous and sparing in delivering doctrines of coercion and constraint to unity and therefore may though with no reason with some little colour stand out against Unity and oppose all Coaction thereunto They of the Presbyterian Sect have preach'd spoken and written so much and expresly against Schism and the Liberty which tends necessarily to it that it is beyond not only reason but admiration they should neither be affected with what other men have said against them nor what they have unanswerably said against themselves but proceed no otherwise than brutishly to hold their Conclusion and stick to their invet eraâ—e errours as if they could find no Church to unite to or had no souls to save or did not even according to their own principles run the apparent hazard of loosing them by that sin which they confess is one of the Greatest Size viz unnecessary division And unnecessary division themselves call what is not for to avoid Idolatrous practises or Heretical errours and yet in their Apologies for themselves alledge none but frivolous instances tending as they judge to Superstition wherein they prove themselves much more superstitious by such religious opposition as they make against them and deeply concerning their best Consciences than they possibly can be who for order sake solemness of worship and conformity to the ancient Customs of Christs Church and to avoid offence unto other Churches sticking inseparably unto them retain rather than invent such adjuncts to Divine Religion It is hard to search out any new Topick from whence to draw out reasons against this hainous sin of Schismatizing wherein I am not prevented by them disputing upon the false suppositions that they at any time were a Church and if they had been that they who opposed them could be said to Divide Schismatically from them of whose communion they never were nor ever were obliged to be They are therefore with others to consider How solemn and severe a command of Christ they slight and contemn who divide from a Church without more weighty exceptions than hitherto have been offered by them or heard
And it is very wonderful if any thing can be strange which we find comming from that monstrous wit that Socinus should profess Christianity and yet deny that which common humanity taught others as great wits as himself For denying that Religion or Worship of God is natural to man as in divers places he doth what account can he give of many Heathen who never heard of or received any such revelations as he holds necessary to make God known in the world And why because there are certain people in the Indies saith he which have no reverence of a Deity But doth he think that nature teacheth us just so much as we actually know and no more It should seem so indeed by his reasonings and conclusions But that was his folly and mistake as much as it would be to hold an opinion that the Preacher of the Gospel doth not instruct or advise men in Religion the knowledge and service of God because they profit not by him but live profanely and vitiously For that we say is natural to us and that we have by the Law and light of Nature which we have so within us as that by the help of them we may arrive to the knowledge of the truth not that whether we will or no we shall necessarily attain it And surely it is but as the opening of the eyes of the body in a drowfie person to discern the light of the day for a man to perceive such notices as these by vertue of that natural light in him and those legible Characters writ by Gods finger in the heart of man He is franck enough to man and more than enough more then any good Christian in magnifying mans natural reason and natural freedom of will and his power in choosing good and refusing evil and living regularly without those Divine aids judged necessary by all good Christians But how can this be done without the acknowledgment of a Deity and the worship of it But it seems he must give place to Tully in Christianity Cicero pro Plancio whose words are these In my judgment Piety is the Foundation of all Vertues which if true as true it is how can he hold that a man can have any one moral vertue without devotion towards God And can devotion to God be separated from the knowledge of God There are it may be some Nations which are so inhumane and barbarous as to regard neither truth nor justice Doth it therefore follow they have no such seeds of both these sown in their hearts as are naturally apt if not violently choaked to increase to vertuous and laudable actions and habits Many men we see lay violent hands on themselves and take away their own lives should any wise man then conclude from hence Nature never taught him to preserve it It may further be argued for a naturalness in man to be Religious and to agnize and worship a Deity from the absolute necessity of it to the subsistance of humane society Man is naturally sociable saith the Philosopher but without Religion no Civil society can long or well hold together and therefore if Nature hath disposed man to the one and this cannot be attain'd without the other it will follow that the necessary means must in some manner be provided to that end by the author of that first design unless we will grant that too as commonly one absurdity tumbles in upon the neck of another as Aristotle observes that nature designs things in vain Of this natural necessity of Religion diverse have treated whom I might imitate but that I study compendiousness and upon that reason instance no more than in the Original of the Roman Monarchy begun rudely and barbarously by Romulus and so in all likelyhood to have suddenly vanished and expired had not Numa stay'd and secur'd it by Religion and the fear of the Gods as is observed by Florus He brought a fierce people Florus Lib. 1. C. 2. Id. C. 8. to that pass that what they had by force and injustice possess'd themselves of they should manage by Justice and Religion And afterward What was more Religious than Numa So the case required that a fierce people should be softened by the fear of the God We shall therefore take it for granted that Religion is and ought to be in all persons and amongst all people and leaving the common Criticisms about the name Religion whether it proceeds from Religando as Hierome Hier. in Amâ—s C. ult thinks which implies a double obligation upon man towards God natural and Moral or of Election very commodiously Or whether as St. Augustine it comes from Religendo Recognizing a Deity not unfitly Aug. Civit. de Lib. 10. 4. Enchirid. c. 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Salvian ad Cath. Eccl. lib. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pan. c. 3. Paris C. 3. we pass in a word to the Nature and proper Offices of Religion as taken here for the worship of God For so necessary and natural are these two general Parts of Religion we have laid down Knowledg of God and Worship of God that some both Heathen as well as Christian Philosophers define it by each of them Epictetus declares it the primest thing in Religion to have a Right Judgment of the Gods And Mercurius that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the knowledg which Salvian literally translates and uses as his definition On the other side the Scholiast on Aristophenes saith He that is religious does those things that are pleasing unto God And Tully where we above quoted him describes it to be The worship of God And Guilielmus Parisiensis describes it thus The sum of Religion is to persevere immoveably against all the provocatious of temptations and to ascend upward towards God and inseparably to cleave to him And surely that Question moved in the Schools Whether Theology or Religion be a speculative or Practical vertue is never like to be decided until the different Parties agree to compound the matter by taking in both and making it both Speculative and Practical as we do For undoubtedly as it delivers rules and Articles of Faith it is speculative as it delivers Rules and preceps of Holy and divine Life it is Practical and both these it doth as we have shew'd But it is the practical part of it or worship we are at present concerned in and of which no small doubt may be made whether it consists more in the Fear or Love of God but I suppose it may be as be before disided It being an Affection of the Inward man consisting of Reverence and love of God and demonstrating the same in Acts proper and proportionable thereunto And this is all the definition needful to be given of Serving God so essential that the word of God doth nothing more frequently than put the fear of God simply for the Service of God Abraham saith in Genesis The Fear of God is not in this Gen. 20. 11. Psal 36. 6. 2 Cor.
his face which is one of those outward Acts we here mean I will worship God and report that God is in you of a truth 1 Cor. 14. 25. 2 Cor. 9. 12. And in his Second Epistle he saith Your zeal hath provoked very many Which zeal was manifested in external works And who may not observe not only an Influence of the inward affections moving the outward parts but a Refluence as one may say of such outward acts upon the inward faculties to the exciting them And that speaking cholericly doth not only proceed from a principle of Angriness but augments the passion inward and so in love and zeal in matters as well divine as prophane acting humility and devotion outwardly doth wonderfully excite those graces in the inward man I shall add but one more argument to beget a better opinion of external and bodily services in Gods worship than vulgarly prevails And that is The general practice of the ancientest and best Christians I say best Christians and purest and perfectest worship of God in open defiance of them of late times who insolently magnifie themselves and modern inventions to the contempt of their much superiours in piety and years They had many outward rites and ceremonies adorning the worship of God which I prefer infinitely before the sowre and severe nakedness of Gods service amongst them 'T is not to be denied that in process of time Ceremonies multiplied to the prejudice of Religion but I think scarce at any so much as the affected prophaneness hath on the other side damnified it And they that argue from the great opinion some have of Ceremonies to the total abolition of them put an argument into the mouths of others to renounce communion with them that hate them and detest them to that superstitious excess as to have none at all and by the same rule to love them because they detest them who have been so scandalous in their opposition to them Now this external Worship we here plead for is an Adoration of God An humiliation of the Body by external Acts and gestures upon the consideration and reverent esteem of the Divine Presence and the small and low esteem we have of our selves which is so necessary and natural that it is to be admired how the contrary carriage could ever be received as pleasing to God or man were it not that the Tempter to irreligion knoweth no shame nor they who are abused by him and his Instruments no mean in flying Extreams What is more frequent in Scripture than examples of such as thus humbled themselves before God Falling down in Scripture which necessarily is bodily Adoration hath been alwayes such an inseparable concomitant of Divine inward worship such an excellent part of it that by a current Synecdoche it is put for the worship of God entirely and absolutely For what else may we understand by that Prophetical speech of Christ All Kings shall fall down before him all nations shall worship And so in the Prophet Esay Shall I fall down to the stock of a tree That is Psal 77. 11. Esay 44. 19. And so in the Prophet Esay Shall I fall down to the stock of a tree That is worship it in this bodily manner And so in the next Chapter and the 46. Chapter They fall down yea they worship by which words the Prophet Es 45. 14. Es 46. 6. condemns the Idolatrous practise then in use And as hath been said if there were nothing good in such outward adoration which might be pleasing to God it could not displease him to have it given unto Idols or false Gods as every where in Scripture it doth What a piece of matter had it been for the three Children of God to have fallen down before Nebuchadnezar's Dan. 3. â— Image in Daniel if there were no account to be made of such outward Acts not so much surely as of disobedience to the Kings command Nay what hurt would there be to fall down to the Devil as Christ was tempted to do by that Evil and ambitious Spirit if it did not at all belong to Mat. 4. 9. God Or what good do they what glory do we understand given by the 24 Elders to God in the Revelation when they fall down before the throne Rev. 4. 10. of God if so be there is nothing in it Surely therefore it is a part of our duty and service thus to adore the Divine Majesty thus to humble our bodies in his presence And it is seen commonly in Bowing or inclining any part of the body and sometimes of the whole by casting it upon the earth as unworthy to stand before God and to beget the deeper sense of our own vileness and to move God to pitty our prostrated body and dejected mind Sometimes it may suffice to Luk. 18. 33. incline the head as it were blushing to lift it up with any confidence towards God and heaven Sometimes incurvation of the Body sometimes bending of the knee and sometimes constant and devout kneeling according as occasion and opportunity shall be offered and the spring of inward devotion move the outward parts of the body For all this while we urge not so necessarily any much less all these outward acts so as to require them simply to divine worship as if a Man could not be accepted without them Yet so far again we do that where just autority competent opportunity and means expect any of these from us wilfully and contemptuously to neglect them doth make me really believe that God will not hear or accept the pretended real devotion of the inward man as being corrupted with disobedience and irreverence and exclusive of part of his Right And an other rule for directing this manner of worship is this that we are not singly and of our own head in publick to put in use or act any such ceremonious devotion to the offence of the more general custom and warranted practise of the Churches of which we are Members For all Acts of Reverence are to be estimated not by private opinions but by publick and general approbation For seeing scarce any ceremony is natural but all by institution and reputation of men judged proper or indecent this Decency the Custom of places and Sentence of Superiours must determine lest the Church falls into that unhappy state of which Austin complains and be subjected to more burdensome and contrary Rites than the Jewish Church suffered while it is thought lawful under the Gospel which was not tolerated under the Law for every single man either to devise a form of worshipping God out of his own head or to bring those Rites into that Church in which he lives by his own will which he had observed to be in use in others whereof perhaps he hath read or which in his Travels he hath seen which the farther they have been and more strange always pass for the most commendable a thing which St. Austin in that Epistle condemns and
Place where their Site was And to this purpose is there express provision made by a Council of Ments in the middle age of the Church under Charles the Great in the ninth Chapter that the Monks of Religious Houses should be subject to their proper Bishop and do nothing without his approbation But it is one thing to plead in general for the lawfulness and expediencie of Monastick Life and that of both sexes and another to deliver laws and due prescriptions for the well disciplining of them which is the work of the wisest heads and sincerest hearts to Religion to be here passed over There may yet seem somewhat due to an objection against the said state taken from the vow exacted from such as enter themselves into it which no wonder that they who oppose so blindly the thing it self should much more oppose But they who approve of it can find little reason to quarrel at that bond And that first because such Monastick Life is not alwaies in Society which they call Convents but may be undertaken at a mans own pleasure both for time and place and other circumstances every Christian having power to dispose of himself not prejudicing the general right and inteâ—â—â—t of his Governours over him to what life he pleases and with what â—â—â—cumstances But if a man resolves to become a member of some special Society already formed by certain Rules and Laws to desire to be matriculated into that Body and not to be willing to conform to the constitutions of it is unjust and unreasonable And so Pikewise not to give that outword and common assurance of faithful submission unto the same by an Oath of Vow For do men think it reasonable that Prentises should be bound to be true faithful and keep their Masters secrets even before they know them and when they know them to be none of the justest or honestest or shall men that enter but into civil Companies be it but of Merchant-Taylers or Barber-Surgeons be constrained by Oath to be true and faithful to them but they who are admitted into Religious Societies be left to do and live as the please What were this but to seek an occasion under colour of friendliness and good affection to divide and destroy it as is apparent in the seemingly modest pretenses of dissenters and disaffected persons to our Church who upon condition that they may give and reverse certain orders and laws offer themselves to become one with it Thus the Vulgar take it but in truth it is for the Church to be one with them And is not this a notable piece of modesty condescension and complyance But here let that rest as also what we have to say of the second thing generally to be consider'd in the Worship of God viz. The state of serving God CHAP. VII Of Religious Worship the third thing considerable in it viz. The Exercise of it in the several kinds of it And first of Prayer the chiefest Act of Gods Worship contrary to Sectaries who are Enemies to it in three respects And first by their vain conceit of Preaching wherein consisteth not the proper Worship of God as in Prayer THE third thing wherein the worship of God may be said yet more properly to consist is the Kinds of Worship And these we shall reduce to three Prayer Preaching and Obedience in the due exercise of all Christian Graces and Vertues wherein the Life of Faith properly consisteth And first we shall begin with prayer as that wherein was ever thought the worship of God principally to consist be that Religion Christian or Unchristian unless we be forced to except some modern and immodest pretenders to Reformation For though they keep within such bounds as a grave and judicious defender of our Church says none ever exceeded not to deny prayer absolutely yet have they brought it to that pass so humbled and diluted it that there is little place found for it and less value And surely were they but true to their own principles and arguments no use at all would they acknowledge of prayer more then certain Heathens and Hereticks whose arguments must needs be accepted by them if they will believe conformable to themselves St. Hierome upon Matthew tells us There is sprung up here a certain Hieronymus in Matth. cap. 6. 8. Heresie and Dogme of Philosophers who say If God knows what we pray for and that we have need of such things as we desire before we ask in vain we speak to him who knows all before To whom saith he we answer That we do not so much tell God what we would have as begg of him Clemens Alexandrinus likewise tells us that one Prodius was Clemens Alexa Strom. 7 Authour of that Opinion Thus far profane Sectaries amongst us have not generally proceeded though we have been credibly informed that some have However they unanimously conspire to debase prayer and corrupt Christian worship it self in these three Respects First in advancing preaching much inferiour to it in a Church become Christian infinitely before it Secondly by opposing Set or Prescribed Forms of Prayer And thirdly in expunging the Lords Prayer out of their uncertain and wild Liturgies Which the Presbyterian Sect the Sire of all others was not a little guilty of and so seldome used it that being demanded why they left it out in their prayers thought good to give such a modest reason as this They feared they should be out in the recitation of it so had they accustomed their tongues to liberty and variety of words But they had other reasons which they were ashamed to utter but to their trusty friends But let us first see how preaching transcends prayer and hath insulted and trampled over it For such have been the extreams of late that whereas formerly the Proverb was No Penny no Pater Noster now No Preaching no Pater Noster No Sermon no Prayer in Gods House And whereas it was said by our Saviour Christ of old and by the Prophet before him My House shall be called which almost every ordinary man knows accord-to Matth. 21. 3. the Hebrew Idiom is the very same with shall be the House of Prayer unto all Nations and never was it called or accounted a preaching house but by them that called it a Steeple-house and little otherwise judged of it now have things been so reformed with a witness ot rather a vengeance that Sermoning carries all afore it bears all down to little or nothing But what if all this while preaching be not the worshipping of God at all Will they continue so obstinate as to make it almost the only thing in Gods house That they who with strange boldness profess and in constant practise declare they will have nothing to do with Gods house as Gods house but only as a Vestry-house when they are to take the Parish Accompts unless there be a Sermon do hold that Sermoning active and passive preach'd and heard is the main matter of Religion
and worship of God is apparent and undenyable and that it is only for the Sermons sake that ever they meet as Christians in the Church Now if it doth appear that this sort of Religion is no worship of God at all and that God is not served at all by that by which they imagine they serve him entirely what becomes of these mens Christianity it self For Christian Religion as this whole work proves consists of Doctrine and Worship and if they have not both of them they cannot be Christians And if they have no prayer they have no worship and if they rest on preaching as that which contains all they loose all For in making or hearing a Sermon we serve not God at all in propriety of speech but rather he serves us I confess we have propounded preaching as one of the kinds of worship but intended not so to do as equalling it with that of prayer but only reductively and remotely so calling it as that whose end it is that God should be worshipped and no other at all And that which ministers good matter and prescribes excellent manners and rules of worship may by a figure not unusual be called the thing which it so promotes but in strictness of speech it is not nor in its own nature the reasons whereof may be these First Because all true worship of God consisteth necessarily in somewhat of action and not in meer passiveness But hearing of Sermons and so reading of Scriptures or other good Books have nothing of Divine action in them but the person therein concerned is meerly passive and suffers somewhat it may be with patience and content to be done unto him but himself does nothing There is indeed somewhat of a natural act in writing Sermons and reading Books but this action is not nor can properly be directed to God but to a mans own self that he may make himself more capable of that benefit which he seeks thereby to himself but this is to give nothing to God but still to be of the taking hand from him But in all proper worship we are to exercise some act towards God For hearing is not doing And secondly All worship of God requires somewhat exhibited unto God as our service due naturally to him but in hearing of Sermons we render nothing at all to him therefore we serve him not at all but rather we receiving those blessed means of serving him and attaining grace here and glory hereafter He at whose appointment and charge this is done to us doth serve us and do us honour and not we him though as he that scornfully turns his bach and stops his ear against the words of his betters we may be said to dishonou and sin against him if we refuse to hear his Law according to that of Solomon He that turneth away his ear from hearing the Prov. 28. 9. Law even his prayer shall be an abomination though I take the true intent of these words to be of obeying and living according to the Law of God and as much as if it had been said He that liveth wickedly and breaketh Gods commands which is not to hear it his prayers shall not be accepted of Vis scire quam praetiosa sit Oratio Nulla justitia Thymiamati assimilitur nisi Oratiâ— Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum Hom. 13. Exod. 23. 15. God But still the true service of God consists in offering something to him there being no difference in the nature of the Service or Sacrifice given to God under the Gospel from that under the Law but only in the matter This was material and corporal that is to be spiritual but yet an offering God laid a charge upon his people of old Thou shalt not appear before the Lord empty Meaning surely that none should believe they had done their duty in any competent manner when they came to the Temple and there saw what was done lik'd it well enough heard what was said but offered nothing themselves God would have no such service But such like service do they give to God who come to Church and only hear a Sermon for they come empty to him and perhaps to be filled with good things but what think we will that stand for when he requires that we should be offerers as well as receivers and doers as well as sufferers And whereas in the true spiritual Sacrifice we pray to God In preaching according to the language of the Scriptures God prays to us For saith the Apostle to the Corinthians Now then we are Embassadours for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead to be reconciled to God And truly God often complains of the empty and superficial service of the lip without the heart but yet even that as dilute a thing as it is hath much more of worship of God than hath hearing of Sermons For that is an outward part but this is neither outward nor inward Thirdly The means only of serving of God is not the service of God it self no more than the means is the end They whose religion lies in preaching and hearing do very aptly and currently call Sermons the Means in a signal sense I suppose they intend thereby the Means to Salvation and Means of Grace and so indead Teaching and Instruction are according to that special place upon which all their good opinion of Sermons above prayer is grounded viz. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word Rom. 10. 17. of God 'T is most certain but must that which is first in order be likewise first in honour too Or that which is most necessary be most excellent Yea that which is excellent only as a way and means carry it from the end which it serves and is designed to This is supposed or nothing is concluded but this is weakly taken for granted and therefore the conclusion from thence must needs be weak and pitiful The Grace of Nature which I call Reason is much more necessary in the ordinary way of Gods saving us then the Grace of the Gospel Faith because without that humane apprehension of what is delivered no man can believe what is said and so the hearing of the Ear than Reason because Reason depends upon it and so doth Faith on preaching and the worship of God on preaching going before and directing to do it aright is it therefore any more then they the worthier or is it at all the very service of God The quite contrary is easily proved from this very reason seeing it must necessarily be that the End is much more desirable than the Means and preaching is accounted rightly but as the Means to the means of Grace and Salvation believing doing the will of God as St. Augustine hath in a certain place rightly observed But before we can appropriate the worship of God to prayer in contradistinction to preaching an Objection must be here noted which calls in question prayer it self as incapable of
that little For they may say that in prayer we offer not so much to God as we receive from him For prayer is a begging of favour and benefits of God To which our Answer is that taking prayer strictly and precisely for that one part of prayer which consisteth in craving a supply of our wants or deprecation only then indeed this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Cremens Alexand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Asterius apud Phoetum not so properly a Sacrifice But we are to take prayer in its usual latitude for all the parts of it such as Confession Deprecation of Evil Petition of Good Agnition and Profession of Mercies received Thanksgiving Praise for all Gods hand of Grace towards us and thus prayer is the offering up of a spiritual Sacrifice to God An offering of our heart and an assent of the soul to God as some devout men and learned have defined it And not so only but in effect and intention it by acknowledging of the free mercie of God in outward or inward blessings received from him is the rendring of them all to him again and a Sacrifice of that back again which once he conferred on us Thirdly prayer and worship so properly called bear the name of Sacrifices from the ground of all prayers though some parts of prayer be not so expresly such For he that acknowledges the Omnipotence of God the Omniscience Omnipresence the Alsufficiencie doth thereby render unto God his due but he that prayeth unto God supposeth and confesseth and implicitly offers all these as his duty to God But whoever heard of Offering up the Sacrifice of a Sermon unto God For Lastly If there be any thing of worship or the nature of a Sacrifice in Sermons certainly great Idolatry is committed by them it being most manifest that preaching is offered to Man and not to God and if it be a Divine worship what can it be less For what is more true and common then this That in prayer men speak to God but in preaching they speak to man So that from hence we may safely conclude that that Religion which hath nothing to commend it but preaching or nothing so much as preaching is quite contrary to the Apostle Whose praise is not of God but of Men and in truth deserves not so much the Name of Religion as of Superstition unheard of unthought of until of late years and coming nearest to that grossest part of truly Popish Superstition or as some call it Sacriledge communicating in one kind But here it will be warmly interposed and replyed God forbid they should oppose praying it is a manifest slander For these good people have prayers in private and prayers in publick too It is no proper place now by and by it will be to examine what manner of prayers worship these they mean are insufficient God knows to the constituting of a Church in true Christian communion But here we tell them that we have not disputed against them as having no worship of God at all But first that at all they make preaching and hearing Sermons a proper part of Gods service Secondly that they make it the most eminent and chief against both which our reasons stand good still And that they so do is demonstrated from their practise no less than Doctrines in that they never amongst us pray in publick never enjoy Christian communion but by vertue of a Sermon And though being pressed hard they confess with much ado as Cartwright against Bishop Whitgift that it is possible and valid to celebrate the Sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist without a Sermon yet it seems so notoriously inconvenient and incongruous as it ought never to be done where the Sermon is possible to be had A foul and ungodly mistake So that we have done them no wrong as yet CHAP. VIII A second Corruption of the worship of God not espicially in Prayer by opposing Set-forms of Publick Worship Reasons against Extemporary Prayers in Publick The Places of Scripture and Reasons and Antiquity for Extemporary Prayers answered A Second thing whereby they have abused both the holy duty of prayer and well-meaning Christians is in their traducing and prophanation of all prescribed forms of prayer wherein they forget not to shew themselves in their arts and colours For when the power is in their hands and their Faction can domineer then do they condemn directly in word by preaching printing and covenanting solemnly against Set-forms in publick and there hath been nothing under heaven acted by them more industriously than the utter abolition of all such Divine Offices And when they can go no farther their Chariots wheels are taken off and they begin to find themselves to sink that they bethink themselves how possibly they may stand in need of that moderation that they contemned and that indulgence they condemned their study is not how to repent and retract absolutely their former ungodly counsels and practises as all good Christians that meant seriously to be saved ought to do but with what artifices they may at the same time hold to their old principles of mischief to others and save themselves from harm from others For we must not say now they did any thing so disorderly good people that they are and innocent against Set-forms Province of London but the Parliament as they are obstimately bent to grace their cause without any ground for such a title say they call'd them to it when of the two they if we may distinguish them from their pretended Parliament for which there is no ground rather called their Parliament to such counsels and pranks as they after play'd as appeareth by their early Smectymnuus and their incessant instances with them to pursue those Schismatical Dogms to the subverting of all received Discipline and forms of Worship And that they have disowned their principles upon which they then proceeded we find not though we have more than enough of tricks and turnings and windings and straining them to the fairest sense they can possibly bear and sometimes farther too For instance they say now their Covenant was not against Episcopal Government but an Hierarchy They say They are not against Set forms for they suffer them in private Nay they say they are no enemies to publick Forms nor many other Rites but they would not have them imposed upon any But we shall presume to tell them we neither believe the one nor other until they as publickly retract what they have done in deposing all Set forms and taught and writ and imposing Unset forms upon all that would live by them And in that they would not have them now imposed they imply more strongly they are against them wholly than they express they any wayes favour them when God be thanked as ill as at present it is it is not in their power to oppose and damn them as formerly Can there be any thing more ridiculous than for men to do as much mischief as
home Thou mayest pray indeed but thy prayer not have the like efficacie as when it is made with the proper members as when the entire body of the Church sendeth up its Petition with one consent with one voice the Priests being present and offering up the prayers of the whole multitude Wouldst thou know of what great force the prayer that is made in the Church is Peter was bound in Prison c. Acts 12. 5. And is it not most strange to consider the bold ignorance of the common sort who dare to turn the words of Solomon and that even in that prayer of Dedication and signalizing the House of God above all places else for Gods worship against that and all other Houses to that holy intent and to make all places alike when there is nothing so manifest as that that place was only assigned by God with special injunctions and promises For when Acts 7. 48. c. 17. 24. 1 Kings 8. 27. they say God doth not dwell in Temples made with hands out of the Acts of the Apostles what do they say more than Solomon at the time of dedication But will God indeed dwell on the earth Behold the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee how much less this House which I have built Doth not the argument prove that God is no where to be worshipped because he is locally no where contain'd in a place Or does it prove that he is to be worshipped in private Houses or contained in them rather then in the publick The Gentiles as St. Pauls words intimate imagined that by certain Images they could bind their Gods to be present and limit them to certain places from whence they could not well stir And this is the reason that some ancient Fathers as Arnobius and Minutius Felix denyed the Christians had any Temples then meaning such charmed Images and Shrines to hold God fast to them The Jews imagined as appears by St. Stephens words that Gods promises and blessings were so precisely determined to that One Temple amongst them that he would by no means impart himself in like manner in any other place To this fond and superstitious conceit it was very proper to quote their own Prophets against them who imply what St. Paul expresses else where Is he the God of the Jews only Is he not Rom. 3. 29. also of the Gentiles Yes of the Gentiles also c. And by vertue hereof whatsoever the Scripture may seem to ruder readers of it to speak by way of disesteem of material and visible Temples implies no more than an equal right of the Gentile Temples dedicated to God under the Gospel with the Jewish under the Law But that even the publick places of Christians should be looked upon with no greater respect or religion then that which comes next to hand is no where to be found and far from being the purpose of Christs words out of which another exception is made viz. Where two or three are gathered together Matth. 18. 20. in my Name there am I in the midst of them For what I pray is it to meet in the Name of Christ Only to take his Name into our mouths To turn over the Scriptures and to turn them this way and that way and prosess great matters out of them By no means 'T is true this is somewhat towards it But notwithstanding this men may meet in the name of the Devil rather than of Christ and do the works of the Devil rather than of Christ For to do the will and work of either is to meet in the name of either And no men who in their very meeting it self as such are enemies unto Christ can be said to meet in the Name of Christ speak they never so gracious and glorious things of Christ and Religion But they who lightly vainly and causlesly affect separation and dismember themselves from the visible I say visible Body of Christ the Society of Saints by Election and Profession are thereby direct enemies to Christ and can never meet in Christs Name according to Christs intention though as the worshippers of Baal on Baal they call on Christ with never so much zeal and earnestness from morning to evening as we have already shewed where we treated of Schism And when at length will they who under such obscure and fond pretenses separate produce any one thing which may countervail the notoriousness of the evil of separation as a reason to warrant them so to do But this either the gross insensateness of the vulgar in such points or the desperate resolution to hold their own whatever may be said against them is little or nothing look't after till it be too late CHAP. X. A fourth corruption of the Worship of God by confining it to an unknown tongue Scripture and Tradition against that custom A fifth abuse of Prayer in denying the People their Suffrage contrary to the ancient practise of the Church BUT before we leave this publick worship we are to observe somewhat of the manner how it ought to be performed and that to rescue it from two abuses principally crept into it The first of the Papist and the other of the Puritan unluckily falling into the same condemnation with the other Two things are as evident as Tradition not to say Scripture can make any thing First that all publick and private prayers were instituted in a known tongue Secondly that there was a concurrence of the vulgar Christians with the publick Minister of such Offices Both these are now quite almost worn out of use amongst the Romanists and being disused a defense framed studiously against the practise of them The latter hath been practised and maintained by Puritans though first invented by Papists The authority of Scripture for the publick prayers to be made in a known tongue seems to us and not only to us but to our more ingenuous adversaries very express in St. Pauls Epistle to the Corinthians The subject 1 Cor. 14. of the fourteenth Chapter of the first Epistle is to redress the vanity of certain gifted persons who presumed to teach and pray in such a forreign tongue which no man understood but themselves For whereas it is commonly replyed by the Learned Romanists that the Apostle speaks of preaching chiefly and not of praying in publick It matters not much if he doth speak of preaching as certainly he doth so it be evident that he speaketh of prayer also nor that he principally teacheth of prophesying if he omitteth not publick prayer Is there any thing need be plainer than this on our side If I pray in an unknown tongue my spirit prayeth but v. 14 15. my understanding is unfruitful What is it then I pray with the Spirit and I will pray with the understanding also I will sing with the spirit I will sing with the understanding also Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned
say Amen at thy giving of thanks seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest These words are plain enough one would think to declare that the Apostle intended publick prayer as well as preaching or prophesying Therefore no arts are omitted to obscure and pervert his meaning but with such ill success that it is thereby much more illustrated and confirmed to the loss of such corrupters of Scripture to make it agree with their doctrine and practise For Bellarmine confesses 't is very hard to make it good that the Aposte means Bellarm. de Verbo D. lib. 2. cap. 16. only preaching and so in truth it must needs be but that there is nothing to necessity and a willing mind And therefore to mend the matter he says The Apostle there treateth not of Divine Offices but of Spiritual Songs which Christians were wont to compose to praise God and give him thanks And what if this were so For that they had any formed Liturgies in those early unsetled dayes of the Church while the gifts of the Spirit were so ordinary I much question excepting the Lords Prayer which was ever in publick use as well as private if it be not undoubtedly true what is affirmed by no mean Authors That St. Peter celebrated the Mass taking here Mass in the ancient and innocent signification with the Lords prayer only Doth not the argument of the Apostles hold altogether as valid in the ordinary as extraordinary Praises and Service But when the same Authour can bring scarce any ancienter than himself who are of his opinion and doth bring Haymo Primasius Lombard Thomas and others that he means the Ordinary service what worth can there be in such an evasion Hence it is that another is invented in the same Authour which acknowledges that there is meant Common worship But that the whole Congregation is not thereby to understand but only the Clerk of the Parish who is instead of the unlearned or Idiot to say Amen For Papists make no doubt but such an one there was who should in such manner answer for the rest of the people But I make no doubt but they are miserably mistaken For no records among the Jews from whom most customs of the ancientest Christians descended report any such thing No custom of the primitive Christians warrant this but the contrary whatever Ledesima the Jesuit saith For as shall by and by shewed the people in general without any such discrimination of persons made their solemn returns unto their Bishop or Priest who so celebrated in publick And therefore Bellarmine honestly and learnedly rejecteth this interpretation showing that the phrase of the Apostle which we render Supplyeth the place of the unlearned comprehendeth no less all the vulgar then the pretended Clerk And reason good he should so think because questionless by Unlearned is not there meant general ignorance of men but ignorance of that language which was spoken so extraordinarily For as Salmeron noteth upon the place of St. Paul by Place is meant the order of setting in such Assemblies where the Teachers had one place and the Hearers who for that were called Unlearned had another Hence it is that Salmeron would make clearer work affirming Salmer Com. in 1 Cor. 14. Disp 30. That it is not the end of Divine Service that the people should be instructed but the worshipping of God This Bellarmine approveth but betrays his cause in another point granting that of old prayers publick were for the instruction of the people but now is not this to own a forsaking of antitiquity the chief use of prayers is not the edification or consolation of the people but the worship of God And the Reason which Bellarmine gives is exactly the same which Sectaries amongst us give to silence the people in publick Devotion because The Minister speaketh not to man but unto God To both which we answer briefly and against both viz. The Priest speaketh unto God only in prayer as the proper object and to the people only in preaching as the proper object of that But he also in prayer speaks to the people instrumentally i. e. as to so many instruments or causes concurring to the same end and effect and therefore ought to understand what is petitioned for and obliged to concur with the principal Agent the Minister of God in such worship For though we are far from denying what the Papists and Puritans may say That any prayer is unfruitful or unnecessary which is not understood by the people in whose behalf it is put up for it may avail them who are many miles distant we all grant and consequently a prayer not heard may be useful as well not understood when heard Yet this holds only when inconveniencies or impossibilities obstruct the due exercise of prayer For as to such who are deaf and cannot hear yet come with general reverence to the publick place and so far as they can joyn with the prayers of the Church I make no question but considerable benefit to accrew so such as shall ignorantly scornfully or uncharitably neglect to give their general consent and suffrage to the publick communion in prayer I make no doubt but they bereave themselves of the benefit both of the publick service and their own private worship But this cometh not home to the purpose For of extraordinary acts in Religion as of particular things in Philosophy there is no knowledge and nothing can be determined but this may That generally and ordinarily publick prayers are more prevalent with God when understood and concurred to by publick devotion And herein doth consist the vulgar errour of the Romish Doctours that they suppose St. Paul should mean which I confess as I have said before our Translation too much favours that when he saith The understanding is unfruitful the understanding of the speaker in an unknown tongue whenas the context will certainly inform us he meant the understanding of the hearer who knew nothing of what was so delivered which some of their own Expositors agree to as also they do to the great expediencie as well as antiquity of that custom of the peoples bearing a share in the publick Worship To demonstrate which I shall here at large transcribe what I find in sober and learned Cassander It were to be wisht that according to the precept of the Cassand Defens Lib. De Officio Pii Viri p. 865. Op. Apostle and the ancient Rite of the Church that some consideration were had of the people in the publick prayers of the Church singings and lessons which are undertaken for the peoples sake and that the common sort of Believers should not wholly and constantly be driven from all communion of prayers and divine lessons St. Pauls words are manifest that what is said cannot be understood unless you express it by a tongue signifying your speech and that he who through ignorance understandeth not what is said can by no means answer Amen at the giving of thanks of another
exposed to any other actions than for which they were consecrated nor should any go unpunished who in them shall not accommodate himself altogether to such sacred religiousnesses And must that odious name of Papist render such excellent acts and customs odious as all the Christian world for many hundred years before Popery prevailed frequented be blasted with the slaunder of Popery and no more objected against it but they defend and practise it Away with such fond to speak more moderately than the case requires inferences out of Christians sober mens mouths It is no better than prophaneness all this For proof hereof saith Perkins they alledge the practise of some particular persons in Scriptures which is much more then can be alledged against the practise Of Anna who prayed privately in the Temple Luke 2. 37. Of David who in his exile desired greatly to have recourse unto the Temple And of Daniel who is said to look out of the window towards the Temple and pray Dan. 6. 10. Of these likewise we have spoken above and shown in what sense they oblige to imitation For that the Temple of Jerusalem and the prayers and worshippers in it may be in some case Presidents to us Bertram himself a Genevan doth grant drawing a determinate place for Gods worship in peculiar manner from the dayes of Adam himself and not only from Solomons Temple writing thus It is manifest that a place is due in peculiar manner Bertram de Rep. Judaeor cap. 2. Constat locum debitum esse c. to Divine worship And some of the ancient Expositours of the Jews do not unfitly draw from Gen. 4. 3 4. that the Sacrifices of Cain and Abâ—â— were brought to Adam for there was a place to that purpose c. But let us hear how Perkins comes off from the allegations of Papists as he calls them to the advantage of his Cause These places saith he are abused by the Popish Church For there is a great difference between the Temple of Jerusalem in the Old Testament and our Churches in the New That was built by particular commandment from God so were not our Churches That was a type of the very body and Manhood of Christ Heb. 9. 11. and of his mystical body Again the Ark in the Temple was a pledge and signification of the Covenant a sign of Gods Presence a pledge of his mercy and that by his own appointment for it was his will there to answer his people but the like cannot be shewed of our Churches or Chappels And whither tends all this so much as to shew that the Jews Religion was a better Religion than the Christian For surely that Religion which hath God nearest and most of his holy presence is better than that which wants it And if it be said That this was the outward presence of God chiefly and not so spiritual and therefore inferiour to the Christian which is true Then will I say that notwithstanding the said instances of Gods presence be not to be found with us in our Churches yet the more spiritual and properly divine is in a greater degree in our Churches then that Temple And therefore those places of Scripture are not abused by Papists 2. It doth no where appear in Scripture that they were commanded to build a Temple to God as is there supposed but when David entertained the thoughts of it and Solomon prosecuted the same design they had special directions how they should build it 3. There needs no Evangelical precept to enjoyn that which both by the light of nature as we have seen and such a President of the Law was propounded sufficiently to Christians without a new Revelation 4. The Temple of the Jews was not a proper type of Christs body Christ indeed in the Gospel compares his body to a Temple but every similitude is not to be held a type for then should every common shepheard have been a type of Christ as well as David and the Vine should have been a type of Christ and what not that bears any similitude unto Christ But properly they only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys Serm. 3. in Judaeos can be called types of Christ which were ordained and instituted of God to prefigure and shadow out Christ to come And the Temple had not this for its end but only it was a thing meerly incidental to it 5. Our Temples or Churches are no less types of Christs mystical Body then was the Jewish And the presence of God is more eminently though not sensibly in ours than in them Nay that Temple as the worship in it seemed to be a type of our Temples and Religion as our Temples are a type of Heaven the Holy of Holiest As their Sabbath is granted by all to be but a type of our Evangelical and our Evangelical of the Celestial Of which Evangelical Sabbath we are in the next place to speak CHAP. XII Of the Second Circumstance of Gods Worship Appointed times Of the Sabbath or Seventh Day how it was appointed of God to the Jews but not by the same Law appointed to Christians Nor that one day in seven should be observed The Decalogue contains not all moral duties directly Gentiles observed not a Seventh Day The New Testament no where commands a Seventh Day to be kept holy THE Question and Scruple moved by ignorant unquiet and superstitious persons against observation of Days in order to Gods Service is propounded and well answered by the wise Man in Ecclesiasticus saying Why doth one day excel another whenas all the light of every day in the year is of Eccles 33. 7. the same By the knowledge of God they were distinguished and he altereth 8. Seasons and Feasts Some of them hath he made high days and hallowed them 9. and some of them hath he made ordinary days I make no doubt but here it will be answered presently That God did this and appointed solemn days and seasons to the Jews and to them only which things as St. Paul speaks Gal. 4. 10 11. are to be done away in Christ And this is very true in great part For those Judaical days were appointed by Gods immediate order and by his will again evacuated and revers't at the coming of Christ But then all days in use among the Jews were not so ordained by God as the Feast of Purim and the Feast of Dedication but by humane prudence which when they would disgrace sufficiently and acquit themselves from they are wont to call Humane Inventions as if because God hath in his Word signaliz'd for evil such humane inventions as were quite contrary to his institution none other agreeable to his word and subservient to it were to be patiently endured St. Paul then when he saith Which things are done away in Christ doth undoubtedly mean the Jewishness and figurativeness of them and not absolutely the days and times instituted to the service of God in Christ God suffered God approved
not Composito viz. before some one place be determined and dedicated especially to his worship and not after or from the contempt of Gods house or from dislike of the Publique worship or from admiration of our own Gifts and a delight to show them or lastly a design to breed a faction in private against the publique profession I know likewise and grant that several just Impediments there are to the publique service and in such Cases most necessary it is that Gods service should be performed within doors But it is not necessary that this should be performed as the affected manner is in a service quite distinct from the publique yea often quite contrary What men speak in prayer and spiritual devotion between God and their own souls privately they are the only proper judges of and Christian not Liberty only but piety requires they should so be But surely when Men speak before others as well as God and there is nothing so much as the Place which diversifies the worship in a Family from that in the Church that of the Church is most proper And not to say any thing of the Laity no Priest or Minister of our Church ought upon common occasions to officiate in Prayers in Private Families any otherwise than he is bound to do in Publique especially if they to whom he officiates and himself have not performed their duties in that manner before in Publique which when they have then only is the proper place for another free-will offering unprescribed I shall not here insist on the obligation all Priests have to recite their Office as I could but only give this general reason That every Priest is ordained of God by man as a constant intercessour between God and Man in behalf of the People and especially them of whom he hath a Pastoral charge and not only the nature of his Office but condition of his Benefice requires that this he doth constantly or daily twice the old rule being very reasonable viz. Beneficium requirit officium the temporal benefits received by the Clergy require spiritual office The first is daily and so should the second also be And this is no such innovation as the contrary that the Priest should have nothing to do but when he preaches or that he should pray and offer to God as liketh best every single Christian which is impossible and ridiculous and an intolerable presumption in any man to prescribe to their Minister how he should minister to them when he is lawfully prescribed his duty before and if he were not he ought to prescribe to others not of the same order with himself and not take Laws from them which is the corruptest and modernest of all Innovations But the Recitation of the Office by the Priest is a constitution of above a thousand years standing according Barthol Gavantus in Rubricam Brev. Tom. 2. Sect. 2. c. 5. Tit. 1. Compilatio Chronolog ad An. 490. to the account of them who set it Jowest Sigebert in his Chronicle affirmeth it began in the year 540 as Gavantus out of him But I find another Chronologer to place it in the year 490 saying Anastasius the fifty second Pope ordained that no Clergyman should omit his Divine Office the office of the Mass or Eucharist only excepted And therefore with excellent wisdom and advice it is in these words prescribed by the Church before the Liturgy All Priests and Deacons are to say daily the Morning and Evening Prayer either privately or openly not being let by sickness or some other urgent cause And surely as there is an Obligation upon Priests to use these prayers there must be implied an obligation in all the true sons of the Church to be present at them and to joyn with the Priest Which because it cannot be expected that all men well inclin'd should be always in a capacity to do the Priest doubtless may comply with the exigencies of others so it be not to the pre judice of the Publique And now considering also the many extraordinary days of Festivals and ordinary days of Fasting wherein especial obligation lies upon all Good Christians so far as they can without justifiable impediment to appear in the house of God and worship him not omitting their personal and private devotions at home and comparing the same with the practice of Puritans who are so strangely deluded with the great vertue of a Sermon and extemporary prayers at home that it goes quite against the hair if not conscience of them to visit Gods house upon the account of prayers and adoration only let it be fairly judged whether they have such cause to insult over our Religion and not be ashamed of their gross defects and dissonancy from all that ever professed Christianity before their days Will their bold pretences to Giftedness think they in their rare way of worship cover these foul blemishes from God when they do not from men But this upon the occasion of the contrary abuse of times in order to Religion wherein the Româ—n Church hath exceeded and departed from the practice of the Ancient Church which indeed had some other solemn times of worship before the fourth Century besides Sundays and Easter day but very Erasinus in Matth. 11. v. 30. Id. in Romanos cap. 14. 5. few Truly and learnedly saith Erasmus upon Matthew The Age of Hieromne knew very few Feasts except the Lords day And in another place he writes thus With the Jews some days were prophane and some days holy but with the Christians every day is equally this he speaks according to the sense of Origen not excepting the Lords day holy Not that Festivals are not to be observed which the holy Fathers instituted afterward to the more commodious assembling of Christian People and to the worship of God but that they were very few to wit The Lords day Easter and Pentecost and some such like reckoned up by Hieromne But I know not whether it be expedient to add Feast upon Feast especially since we see the manners of Christians to come to that pass that so much reason as there was of old to institute them for pieties sake so great seems there to be to antiquitate them Thus he And this hath been the opinion of the Church of England and the course taken in the Reforming the abuse in the number of them And a second abuse hath been pared off by us seen in the end of them which is rather to the honour of Saints than of God or Christ among Papists I know at the long run as we may so speak they ascribe in their doctrine all to God but not half of them have this sense and little or nothing many times comes from them but what is directed to the Saint they then worship Bishop Whitgift doth distinguish ours from theirs many ways This one shall suffice at present out of him Neither Whit gifts Answer to the admonition pag. 175. are they Holy days called by the name
contrary A Third abuse noted by Mr. Perkins is That a man may say the Canonical hours of one day for another which may be an abuse or no abuse as the matter is ordered To neglect wilfully ones usual prayers is certainly ill but having so done to double his prayers the next day is no such error as may be supposed Much besides this may be said out of the Authority of the Church and more out of Scripture than may be found for some things by Puritans religiously observed Much likewise is here wont to be said about the Hours themselves the reason and number of them but I cut off all them at present and resolve all into the general reasonableness and piety of such a practice and the manifold benefit which may accrue unto the serious and devout user of them though he ties not himself to any one form strictly and so shall rest till I can hear what can be objected worthy of a Christian against them more than I have found already which may be as well objected against Morning and Evening prayer as them CHAP. XIV The Third thing to be considered in the Worship of God viz. The true Object which is God only That it is Idolatry to misapply this Divine Worship What is Divine Worship properly called Of the multitude and mischiefs of New distinctions of Worship Dulia and Latria though distinct of no use in this Controversie What is an Idol Origen's criticisme of an Idol vainly rested on What an Image What Idolatry The distinction of Formal and Material Idolatry upon divers reasons rejected The Papists really Idolatrous notwithstanding their good Intentions pretended Intention and Resolution to worship the true God excuse not from Idolatry Spalato Forbes and others excusing the Romanists from thence disproved That Idolatry is not always joyned with Polytheism or worshipping more Gods than one How the Roman Church may be a true Church and yet Idolatrous FRom the nature kinds acts circumstances of Place and Times of Prayer we pass to the object of this worship of Invocation and Adoration which is the most important of all and which as duly observed is the end complement and perfection of all Religion so mistaken is the foulest of all errors and the highest of all provocations and affronts of almighty God who Isa 42. 8. protesteth by his Prophet upon this occasion I am the Lord that is my name and my glory will I not give unto another neither my praise unto graven Images This therefore it were superfluous to prove which all Christians yea almost all the world as well Unchristian as Christian doth readily and unanimously assent to That God only is the proper object of Divine or Religious worship And they that glory that they stick firmly to this what do they more than do Infidels and Heathens who all hold that God is to be worshipped with supreamest worship and that Idolatry is a notorious errour and offence against him This I say all rational men assent to in the notion that the worship of the true God or which seems to be the very same the true worship of God is to be given only to God and yet fall flat into the Practice of that great sin For though Idolatry be so odious in its name yet in its nature it is very pleasing and ravishing of our senses and hath of late days been so fairly and neatly trimmed up by the fine wits and curious hands of men and they especially Christians and they more especially Catholiques God bless us that now there is either no such thing to be found in the world or that the least sin one of them in the world And this is brought about by the ministry and help of innumerable distinctions which I think may be reduced to these two heads viz. to those concerning the Act of worshipping and those concerning the Object of worship Concerning the Act we find such as these very common and current first Natural and Civil and Divine and Religious And these again Properly Divine or Improperly supream and Inferior Direct and Indirect Absolute and Relative Ultimate and subalternate or subordinate Mediate and Immediate For it s own sake or for anothers sake Again for its own sake which we worship as a thing in it self or as a Representation of another All these but these are not all to be found in Learned Authors books to rectifie the worlds errours in its Religion And besides these more may be found concerning the Object but this one shall I only name which is their strongest Hold and Refuge That to secure them from all assauls of Adversaries this to receive them when they shall by strong hand at any time be beaten out of their fastnesses And that is that modern but very famous distinction of Material and Formal So that some of no mean knowledge have thus defended themselves What if for instance in the Mass we should by errour worship that as God which is not God yet this would be but Material Idolatry at the most and not Formal seeing we believe that to be very God which we so adore and Material Idolatry with such circumstances we must suppose is one of the least sins that we can be subject to Thus have some discoursed to me though 't is well known some others of them as Costerus do acknowledge that if Costerus Enchirid Catholicks miss their mark and that be not really God which they with divine worship adore in the Sacrament they are gross Idolaters Of this we shall speak more by and by Now are we to consider first of the first sort of distinctions to pass over all which by a particular examination would be too tedious a task for my self and Reader too I shall therefore only examine the most reasonable and comprehensive of them and them I take to be that of Worship Civil and Divine and of Absolute and Relative not omitting altogether others And to understand clearly what is meant by Divine Worship we are to enquire whether the Act makes the Worship or the Object For all worship as other Acts moral takes it specification from the Object as Philosophers say then unless the Object be Divine or God himself cannot the Worship be Divine and so by consequence a man cannot give Divine Worship though he would never so fain unto an object not Divine and so cannot though he would commit Idolatry because the worship it self is not Divine but much inferior because the object is such which constitutes not Divine Worship being some Creature But if the Act in its own nature be intrinsecally Divine it would be known what is that which makes it so For they say all acts external are equivocal and dubious in themselves and indifferent to Civil Religious Inseriour or Supream worship and that nothing can be concluded from thence Idolatrous For we bow the head we bend the knee we fall down at the feet of men many times whom we give no Idolatrous worship unto
which themselves grant to be so viz. To worship that as God which is not God For first this is most generally believed by the Church of Rome that they have many small Remains of the bloud of Christ Next it is generally believed and required that Divine worship is to be given unto that blood in like manner as to Christ Now that this reputed bloud of Christ is not really the bloud of Christ not we only but the learneder of themselves teach directly yea Thomas proves it Thomas Sum. 3. Qu. 54. 2. corp ad 3. cannot possibly be because all the bloud that was shed from Christs body must of necessity be recollected and so was miraculously restored to his body again otherwise Christ had not risen again in that integrity of his human nature that he suffered in But it is manifest saith Thomas That flesh bones and bloud are pertaining to the human nature of Christ and therefore must all rise perfectly with him Now because the scruple is obvious to all Whence that reputed bloud presented solemnly as the very bloud of Christ should proceed if not from Christs body from whence we hear it cannot come He answers thus That bloud which in some Churches is preserved in Reliques of his did not flow from Christs side but is affirmed to have flown miraculously from a certain Image of Christ which was smitten Thus he And I could give an account of diverse Images which according to their own writers having been so smitten by spiteful Jews have bled in this manner And is it not as plain as can be that this is not Christs bloud And if it be not Christs bloud is it not also as evident that Idolatry is committed when divine adoration is given to it I make no doubt but there are innumerable in the Church of Rome who have more Faith and knowledg than to throw themselves thus heedlesly into such precipices of Superstition as are to be found there And therefore Grotius his design of a Reconciliation with the Church of Rome quite overthrown as he imagineth by holding it Idolatrous was not well laid For he that affirms that the Church of Rome is Animad in Animad Rivet Artic. 21. Idolatrous doth not say that all who hold communion with the Church of Rome are Idolaters as he supposeth Though they hold it unlawful upon peril if not of personal guilt of Idolatry very hardly to be avoided there of Communicative Idolatry which all true Christians ought to shun with greatest care and resolution CHAP. XVI Of the Fourth thing wherein the Worship of God consisteth viz. Preaching How far it is necessary to the Service of God What is true Preaching Of the Preaching of Christ wherein it consisteth Of Painful Preaching That the Ministery according to the Church of England is much more Painful than that of Sectaries The negligence of some in their Duty contrary to the Rule and Mind of the Church not to be imputed to the Church but to particular Persons in Authority VVE come now to speak of the Fifth General wherein the exercise of Gods worship consisteth and that is Preaching of which having so far already treated as to make discovery of the great error of Sectaries about it and the sacrilegious abuse of the true and proper Worship of God by Idolizing a Sermon and making the House of God and all acts of Religion void in comparison of it we may be here briefer in what remains of that subject For we find an opinion too prevalent amongst Christians which not only overthroweth the worship of God for Preachings sake but which is more to be wonder'd at overthroweth Preaching too for the Sermons sake For to that Superstition are they arrived in their opinions of teaching and hearing that if it be not performed without book if not out of the Pulpit if not a text formally taken out of the Bible If this text be not reduced to Doctrine and Use If there be not a formal I do not mean a Form of Prayer before and after it with the common sort it scarce deserves the name of Preaching And when all those conditions concur it is not only Preaching and a Sermon indeed but the Word of God without more ado and accordingly to be reverenced and valued And it were to be wish'd that were all and the Scriptures themselves not esteemed or not much listen'd to in comparison of them Thomas Cartwright the Great Church-wright as I may so call him of Schismatiques hath expresly affirm'd That the Scriptures avail little unless expounded by themselves surely and yet they also hold an opinion which no man can reconcile to this that the Scriptures contain all things necessary to Salvation and that plainly but let that go And let us know how a Sermon in its formalities now mentioned became the Word of God and in what sense and in what age and by what autority It is more than probable that Christ and his Apostles seldom used a Prayer before or after their Preaching It is most apparent out of Justine Martyrs second apology and Tertullians Apologetique that Preaching was used in their publique Assemblies and that principally as subservient to Prayer and Communicating and not set to domineer over them and be made the chief of Gods worship And so long as their Prayers were unprescribed was Preaching unstudied for and extemporary chiefly according to the manner insinuated in the Acts of the Apostles where it is said After the reading of the Law and Prophets the Rulers of the Synagogue sent unto them Acts. 13. 15. Paul and his company saying Ye men and Brethren If ye have any word of Exhortation for the People say on And by St. Paul to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 14. 29 30. saying Let the Prophets speak two or three and let the rest judge If any thing be revealed to another that sitteth by let the first hold his Peace These speeches were after the President of the Jewish Assembly had either himself read or caused the Law to be read and never without leave first obtained from him Which custom was for some time imitated by Christians When the Bishop only first spake to the people and then by his leave some other began an Exhortation to the People But this bringing certain inconveniences into Christian Assemblies in tract of time quite ceased and nothing was said but by the Bishop himself and that not every time much less in every place where Christians assembled to the Service of God there being for a long time after Christians were multiplyed and spread far not above one Sermon in a Diocess and that in the Principal City of that Country whither people that had a mind to hear a Sermon or communicate resorted for the good of their souls as men do now adayes to Market for the food of their bodies Which being there purchased the faithful Christian carried it home to his Family and dispensed to it of the same following herein the Counsel
outward shew of self denyal and preaching Christ in sincerity Christ is no less deserved Religion no less endangered and men no less preach themselves as they say than they who with much ambition of honor profit and applause debauch the noble and Majestick Simplicity of the Gospel and preaching of Christ with the vain and impertinent mixture of human learning and eloquence the difference is only in this that the one hath his end the making of the Common people the other the making of the Court and they perhaps somewhat worse than these from whence they suck no small advantage Much and high talk there hath been of late about Preaching of Christ And scarce any body hath been thought worthy to be accounted such a Preacher who hath not first layd aside modesty manners civility prudence and gravity and flown out into certain exotique tones actions and barbarous demeanures unworthy of a man which Christ nor his Apostles nor Apostolical persons after them never taught nor practised themselves never required of them but have been taken up to serve their own turns rather than Gods and hath been a direct preaching themselves as any they could ever instance in on the contrary side There are two things surely wherein generally consisteth the preaching of Christ Sober and sincere manner of composing a mans self to that Great work and the matter he is to treat of according to which latter Mr. Perkins well noteth four things to be requisite Fist Generally Perkins on Gal. c. l. v. 15. 16. to teach the doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ and of his three Offices his Kingly Office his Prophetical Office and his Priesthood with the execution thereof This in good earnest is so much Preaching of Christ that scarce any thing else is meant in Holy Scriptures where it speakes so much of Preaching of Christ they ayming chiefly thereby at the manifestation of Christ as the true Messias promised of Old and then come into the world What is said above this is or may be true but somewhat besides the Letter of the Scripture Secondly to teach that Faith is an Instrument ordained of God to apprehend and apply Christ with his benefits Which is very true in the signification of Faith common in Scriptures viz. as it is taken for that Complex Evangelical Grace comprehending all particular Christian vertues and Graces springing from that Head but not so as Faith signifies now adayes a single Grace contradistinct to others Thirdly To certifie and reveal to every hearer that it is the will of God to save him by Christ in particular so he will receive Christ 1 John 1. 11. It were to be wished this Author had kept closer to this opinion here expressed Fourthly to certifie and to reveal to every particular hearer that he is to apply Christ with his benefits to himself in particular and that effectually by his Faith Grant we now that this is to preach Christ yet that this must be done in such unnatural and uncouth manner both of Speech and Gestures as are no less than ridiculous we must not grant this is for them who affect and use it to preach themselves Again this preaching of Christ or hearing of Christ thus preached is not Worshipping of God as it hath been mistaken grossely to have been The reading of the word of God was ever looked upon as a necessary part of the service of God amongst Jews of Old and Christians to this day Believers thereby declaring their Faith towards God no small act of serving God But the Sermons of men since the Apostles never till this superstitious age were advanced to that esteem or dignity For no man can without derogation from the Scriptures call them though sound and Scriptural the word of God but with limitations Well saith a learned and grave Preacher However the whole Sermon is Dr. Donne Serm. 33. on Whitsunday the ordinance of God the whole Sermon is not the word of God meaning that it is the Precept of God that Christian people should be taught by those that have the spiritual care and tuition of their Souls but that what is taught is not worthy of the glorious title of the word of God no though it be very agreeable unto it It may much more properly be said to be the will of God than the word of God But what falls short in the nature they hope to make up in the measure of their Worship And therefore frequentation of Sermons and painful preaching as they call it must and doth carry it from all other Pretensions to the true Service of God and those they traduce with the reproach of a lazy Ministry must without farther dispute yield to be reformed by them and to their modes too And truly Industry and painfulness are such undeniable vertues in all Moral and Civil matters that no man can object against no man but must commend And in spiritual matters often arise to the nature of divine Graces which are rewardable with proportionable glory when the Great Lord of us all shall take an account of every servants improving his Talent and to the fruitful say Well done thou good and faithful Servant Thou hast been faithful in a little be thou ruler over much But what is all this and more which may be added to the nature of the work it self which God requires at our hands as our bounden service as a man may do a good thing negligently so he may do an ill thing diligently and industriously We are now enquiring whether Preaching be worshipping God or God is served principally by it If it be then no doubt but diligence therein is the more commendable But if it be not as we have shewed it is not then our diligence were better placed elsewhere namely on that wherein consisteth more formally the worship of God which is prayer But what if after all this cry of Laboriousness on their side rather than on their Adversaries part their Ministry is the lazy Ministry rather than ours as in truth it is I compare not here Persons which would be infinite but Religions and the manner of Ministration and worship constituted by the Church of England and that of any Sect whatever Let them tell which Religion requires most vigilance attendance and pains That which prescribes every Parish-Priest to officiate three dayes in a week and propounds dayly Ministration in the Publique place of worship or that which sets men free all the week unless on the Lords day That which prescribes so strictly visiting the sick upon all occasion or that which is maintain'd chiefly by their Minister visiting the Well and gutling from house to house amongst their favourers and benefactors of their Faction That which observes or commands the observation of constant Fasts or that which derides them and accuses them contrary to all Examples of former Churches of Superstition That Religion which requires a punctual observation of that Liturgy which they profess to be grievous
to them not only because it is a Liturgy prescribed but because it is too long and painful or that which prayes what it pleases and as long and short as it pleases and with what lazy crude matter it pleases never more troubling themselves or being sollicitous what or how they shall pray extemporary than he is or needs be that reads all out of the book And surely it is less trouble thus to pray without book than with it to any man that will give his mind to it or will boldly enough offer at it And for their Sermons what have they in them to commend them for elaborate or the Speaker of them for laborious Have they not fallen into admiration of one kind of order and method in preaching and which with so much Superstition they cleave to as neither to care nor dare to vary that half their Sermons are made before they begin For the Form they have constantly by them and that shall serve for all texts and occasions whatever and that brings the matter in naturally almost and so neither their invention nor memory are so pained or hard put to it that they should need to boast much of their painful Preaching Surely then it must be their preaching twice a day that they have to trust to for being accounted deservedly painful Preachers But if we consider how they that preach twice spread and beat out their metal and so slip it into two pieces we shall perceive we have but two Six pences for a Shilling which may make more noise and number but weigh no more than one And in truth upon tryal considering likewise what constant Repetitions and Introductions they make to their second Sermon it will be found that to pass to a new subject on Afternoons by Catechizing and treating for half an hour on the principal heads of Christian doctrine and worship as it is more profitable and to the edification of the Generality who are not puff'd up in their fleshly mind with the name of preaching and the place from whence it comes the Pulpit which is their High Altar so is it more difficult to the Performer of it Now these things being so that there is as much work cut out by order of the Church for Ministers to finish as ordinarily one mans strength of Body and Spirit can go through with not prejudicing the health of him which God no ways requires how spiteful and groundless is that charge viz. That we have a lazy Ministry which they promise to out do when they are uppermost If these Rules and Prescriptions of the Church which will certainly keep him from Idleness that observes them more than their Discipline will be not practised as becometh themselves that accuse are in fault chiefly who have shamefully traduced and opposed the same and to gratifie whom negligence hath been countenanced too far in these things And so are they whoever they be that can content themselves with the titles dignitys and profits of Governors of the Church and withdraw themselves from their bounden duty and service to it in seeing better execution done I know their Apology is the strong hand of the Adversary opposing their endeavors in that behalf which would have justifyed and vindicated them much more than now it doth if they had not given evidence of their little sincerity and zeal for Religion in those things which were free and easie for them to do and for which they might have thanks on all sides But Prudence forsooth hath been so infinitely cryed up and magnified and that consisting chiefly in doing nothing and offending no body but God Almighty that Piety and zeal are no better then incivility and Pragmatiqueness the Rule most sacredly observed by them being this We do not do it therefore it ought not or need not be done And thus while we are doubting what Government we should have and how we should be ruled are we made subject to the Triumvirate of Pride Folly and Laziness nothing being done without their consent and approbation But this belongs more properly to the next place CHAP. XVII The Fifth General head wherein the Exercise of the Worship of God doth consist Obedience That Obedience is the end of the Law and Gospel both That the service of God principally consisteth therein Of Obedience to God and the Church The Reasons and Necessity of Obedience to our Spiritual as well as Civil Governors The frivolous cavills of Sectaries noted The Severity of the ancient and latter Greek Church in requiring Obedience The Folly of Pretenders to Obedience to the Church and wilfully slight her Canons and Laws more material than are Ceremonies THE Third and last General head wherein consisteth the proper worship of God is Obedience The distinction of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot the Philosopher of Practise into Acts and Facts holdeth very good in Religion as well as Nature or Morality For besides the Contemplative part which imploies it self in the knowledg and consideration of the doctrine of Faith there must of necessity be a Practical or Operative Part which is the end of the former as is apparent out of holy Scriptures as well as books of Philosophers For we read in Deuteronomy how that Obedience was the end of the Deut. 4. 5. Commandments given to the Israelites Behold I have taught you Statutes and judgments even as the Lord my God commanded me that ye should do so in the Land whither ye go to possess it Keep therefore and do them for this 6. is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of all Nations And in the beginning of the fifth Chapter propounding the Law and Commandements given them by God it followeth That thou mightest fear the Lord Chap. 6. 1 2. thy God and keep all his Statutes and Commandements which I command thee Thou and thy Son and thy Sons Son all the dayes of thy life and that thy dayes may be prolonged Hear therefore O Israel and observe to do it that it may be well with thee Which condition and injunction is constantly annexed unto the Promises of Life and Salvation in the Gospel We read indeed frequently of being justifyed by Faith and saved by Faith and in what sense we have explained in its proper place viz. as it implies the works and fruits of Faith together with the acts of believing and no otherwise which is plainly affirmed by the Apostle to the Hebrews speaking Heb. 5. 9. of Christ our High Priest who being made perfect he became the author of Salvation to all them that obey him Sometimes Obedience is in Scripture put for believing it self because Faith is a principal act of the will bowing and yielding to God assent as in the Acts of the Apostles We are his witnesses of these things and so is also the Holy Ghost whom God Acts. 5. 32. hath given to them that obey him That is surely to them that did believe that testimony
parts both of which retain with them inseparably the necessary ingredient of Fear excessive and needless And the one is a Fear of omitting something judged necessary to be done though in truth it be not The other is a Fear as vain and groundless of committing something necessarily to be avoided as either unlawful in it self or interdicted of God when there is no such matter though he be loudly told there is Both these are really Superstitions the first Positive and the latter Negative being both influenced from Conscience which terrifies the one to do and deters the other from doing without cause not without suspicion or presumption For Conscience taken in the Religious sense cannot be affected but at the apprehension of Apparent Good or Evil at the least And if this be but only an Apparence and not a Reality then is the conscience mistaken and falls into superstitious acts and places Religion in those things which are not capable of such high acts Thus for instance If a man should ascribe as much to the worship of the Body given to God as he doth to the Soul or Heart he were undoubtedly superstitious in excess And on the other side if a man having heard much of the excellencie of Spiritual Worship above outward or Visible should think so contemptibly of this and all acts thereof as unlawful and sinful or superstitious without doubt he were notoriously guilty of Superstition Why Because according to his own principles and phrase he places Religion where God hath not and makes a conscience of that which God no where willeth him to do but rather contrariwise adviseth him to comply with though not by a particular express Law by general and implicite First requiring as really though not so primarily bodily acts and outward reverence as inward and spiritual Secondly by endowing his Substitutes Governours Ecclesiastical with such power as we have before proved to belong to the Church by Gods concession And this agrees very well with the most received definition of Superstition amongst Christians till of very late years when men having a mind to secure their own stake and to blast and traduce the opinions of such as think otherwise than they do fansied and framed to themselves definitions of that and other things as might best agree with their own perswasions and impugn their Adversaries By which unlearned and unjust proceedings they grosly define Superstition by Popery it may be or somewhat else they dislike answerably and Popery by Superstition or a little more regularly not more truly by Will-worship or Humane Inventions for which there appear at least to them no grounds in the Word of God But this they are mistaken much in as well in respect of the Rule by which they would try and condemn Superstition as of the Cause Humane Prudence which they will have no otherwise termed than Humane Inventions when it sutes not with their pleasure which is too commonly called called Conscience For the Scripture hath no where tyed up Christian Authority so strictly as not to permit it to interpose in any thing concerning the Worship of God without special and manifest warrant from thence But the contrary is most certain that it hath granted so much Liberty to Christian Churches as to fashion themselves and modellize their Worship without fear of incurring the violation of it or the offence of God so far as manifest restraints and inhibitions do not appear to the contrary And this Calvin himself once well noted if his own Interests would have suffered him to have been constant to what he delivered against the Anabaptists Improbare quod numquan imprâ—baâ—it Deus niâ—â—ae est homini c. Calvinus contr Anabapt p. 27. 8o. viz. To oppose what God never opposed I must tell you is more rashness and arrogance than is fit for man But let us constantly hold to this that the Authority of God is usurped when that is condemned which he hath permitted They therefore who set their Consciences against those things be they Rites Ceremonies or Traditions by good Ecclesiastical Authority enjoyned which God hath no where forbidden do certainly fall into flat Superstition and that as themselves describe it though not intend it For they without Gods word frame to themselves Fears and Scruples They as the Prophet saith Fear where no fear is creating Good and Evil out of their own heads and at their own pleasures yea contrary very often to the express general Licence and Warrant of Gods Word And whereas Humane Inventions are much cryed out against and made very formidable to such superstitious fearful Heads they are to be earnestly desired to be willing to understand what we can scarce think them so weak as not to be able to understand How that in no place either of Moses or the Prophets or the New Testament Inventions of Men are used in an evil sense but as they imply somewhat rather contrary to then besides the Divine Precepts Sometimes they are used for gross defection from Gods prescribed Worship and for Idolatrous Superstition and sometimes for opinions and practises inconsistent with Gods Law as the Traditions of the Jews condemned by Christ in the Gospel And what is all this to those usances against which after more then an hundred years eager search of the Scripture to this evil intent nothing hath been found or alledged contrary to them But general exceptions tinctur'd speciously with Scripture phrases to no real effect There is no more pernicious Humane Invention than this their fundamental Maxim Nothing must be commanded by Man which is not commanded by God and It is against Christian Liberty to obey Lawful Superiours but where they show Scripture particularly for what they command whereas the truth is these ought according to all reason and good conscience to produce sufficient testimonies of Scripture exempting them from submission under the guilt of disobedience and superstition too both plainly condemned by God in his Word before they oppose themselves to Authority And to this do well agree the Definition given by Thomas of Superstition Thom. 22. Q. 92. 1. Superstition is a Vice opposite to Religion in the excess or extream Not that a man can give more of Divine Worship than is due to God but that he gives Divine Worship either to that he ought not or in a manner he ought not To the first part belong all Direct Idolatry and all Indirect such as are Divinations and innumerable vain Observations of superstitious Heads who from every light unusual occurrence in the Earth of Beasts in the Air of Birds and Fowls in the Water or Fire or Heavens do collect and conclude unlikely things to the great disquiet and fear of their mind their distrust or neglect of Gods Providence and the forsaking of the common rule of Reason and the word of God which ought to regulate mens hopes and fears above all things in the world To the other appertain both that we call Positive Superstition
which is an endless and causeless pursuit of outward sensible acts and ceremonies to the corrupting of the more sound and necessary part of Religion starving this by bestowing all cost and care on that and seeking to quiet the restless and suspicious mind by new and vain inventions in which the Roman Church and especially the vulgar there knoweth no mean And that we term Negative Superstition which on the contrary thinks every small matter a load unsupportable which is imposed upon them thinking it no less necessary to salvation not to do such things than the other to observe them and imagining they cannot serve God in Spirit and in Truth with such things as the opposite party suppose they cannot serve God without when both are false and both vainly deceived We may first give an Instance of both in the Indians as a great Traveller hath reported The Indians saith he Vincent le Blanck Trav. Par. 1. adjacent to the River Ganges impute such Worth and Sanctity to it that they believed it washed them from all their sins and value it as the best water in the world for which reason the Portugals hate it extreamly and will not but upon great necessity make use of it a superstitious humor This is exactly the Case between the superstitious Papist and the superstitious Puritan The Papists have sundry Intolerable superstitions next to Idolatry of these we speak not They have likewise many ancient and laudable Rites and Ceremonies innocent in themselves and very useful to Christians being not extolled above their Nature and Office which are to be subservient to and not to domineer over the more material part of Religion to the extinguishing or oppressing of it But they being advanced to such an unreasonable and dangerous esteem with them the Puritans fearful Religion tells him he can never sufficiently quit himself of them nor detest the number and nature of them enough this is their superstitious humor too Calvin in the treatise even now mentioned disputing against the Anabaptists Calv. contra Anabapt p. 8. in 8o. who opposed Pedobaptism or Baptism of Children argueth from the antiquity of the practice against which because they were wont to put in an exception as not Scriptural but rather Popish he proceedeth to shew that It was not brought in under the raign of the Pope which Ut simpsiciores faciam hos Fanaticos impudenter calumniari c. saith he I thought good to touch for no other reason but because I would advertise the simpler sort that these Fanatiques do impudently slander when they would perswade men that this so eminent Observation is a new Superstition and fein it to proceed from the Pope whereas the universal Church held it before it understood what the Popes Kingdom meant or had heard any thing at all of it Thus he And how many Rites and Customs do the Fanatiques now-a-days detest and declaim against right loudly and ignorantly because they hear and that many times by most false and vain Relaters that Popish Churches do use them as if they were the Authors and inventors of them who received most of their ancientest Ceremonies as they did the Scriptures and Councils themselves from the Eastern Churches and that before the Roman Church ever so much as pretended to that Power or was infected with that Leaven it now is And this doth plainly appear to any unprejudiced eye able to read but a little way into the monuments of the Church And I remember to have been within hearing of a great Zealot but God knows of little knowledge preaching up his Directory and consenting and advising that the Three Creeds now in our Liturgy should be taken into the Body of the Directory to garnish it as his own word was But because they were not pure Scripture and were admitted into the impure Missal what should be here done He resolved this by saying there was no great danger herein because these were not made nor brought in by the Pope but they were in use before the Pope was Antichrist It were to be wished they would extend this somewhat farther and the greatest number of grievances and superstitious scruples would easily vanish But Seneca de Ira. l. 2. c. 12. truly said Sencca of such persons Vana vanis terrori sunt Vain men are soon scar'd with vain things especially where there shall be invented such a supream piece of Religion which shall perswade men that the more full of exceptions doubts scruples and fears the more godly and the more tender Conscienced men not distinguishing between a sore Conscience and a tender one nor a distemper'd one and a quick sens'd We know very well that they who are sick are soonest a waked and those parts that are inflam'd and swell'd with corruption are most tender of all And so is it with such Consciences which are no more nor so much moved as others in matters of undoubted Good or Evil such as are division disobedience and uncharitableness and scandal and on the contrary humility and study of unity but so sore and tender in lighter matters that the least touch offends them and enrages them Which Tully according to his natural Superstitio qua qui est imbutus quietus esse nunquamposset Cicero de Natur. D. l. 1. wit found to be most true when he said Superstition was such a thing that he who is affected with can never be quiet Every thing but what he devises to himself molests and confounds him And out of this unsetled and unsatisfied humor every man would very gladly have the constituting and modelling the worship of God to prevent all superstition but what he himself is full of and to avoid the imaginary Idolatry of others inventions fall into the subtile and pleasant idolizing of his own imaginations But if way should be given to this not only Religion but even the world it self would soon come to an end if we believe that wise and Learned Doctour of the Jews Maimonides writing thus For the judgment of man is small and Maimonides deIdol cap. 2. §. 4. weak neither can all mortal men attain the pure truth But if every man should yield to his own conceits we should find the world run to destruction through the weakness of his understanding There can therefore be no more deadly superstition than for a man to fear no man but him that flatters him and every thing but what pleases him and to require much more clear demonstrations for the satisfaction of his pretended and superstitious fears than possibly he can give to ground them and so become contumacious under such colours But to rip up this sore disease at the Core we shall see so little Religion in the tempers of these obstinately superstitious people that there will appear nothing of common reason justice or ingenuity at the bottom of all For striking into mens minds hearts the sparks of their dividing and factious principles as men do fire into a
of St. Paul that 1 Cor. 14. 35. women should ask their husbands and learn at home And St. Chrysostom often exhorts his hearers to consider of what they hear in publique at home and meditate of the Scriptures at home which was either privately with every mans self or to such as could not have access to the Publique And this publique way of Preaching had for a long time no prescribed subject but what the Bishop thought proper or seasonable for instruction or Exhortation was uttered by him But in Saint Bafils Nazianzens Chrysostoms and Augustines Sermons we find mention made of the Scriptures read before and Sermons made by way of Exposition of them after the manner that Epistles and Gospels are in use with us and commended as proper subjects to instruct Christian People the one giving us matter of Instruction from the history of the Life Doctrine Miracles and Death of our only Saviour Christ and the other principally moving us to the exercise of all Christians Graces and Vertues conformable to our calling and knowledg of God and Christ Far were our Christian Ancestors and well they might from the modern perswasion of Erratick Christians that the Sermon was more necessary than the Scriptures or that reading of the Scriptures was not Preaching or that Catechizing and instructing Novices in Christian Religion was not Preaching I confess I am of opinion that there is a distinction to be made between a Preaching and a Sermon taking here a Sermon for an Oration made by un-Christian as well as Christian Orators to inform and perswade to what they aimed at in such speeches And no instance can be given of any Orator Gentile or Christian for many hundred years that presumed to speak to the People out of his own writings rehearsed to them Poets were wont in Publique to recite their verses in Publique out of their book by reading and therefore could never in my judgment comply with the very modern practise of it there being no reason why it should be more tolerated in Divine than Humane Orations or why setting the custome of the place aside which must needs be corrupt and absurd as it is singular and new it is less ridiculous to rehearse a Divine Oration which we call a Sermon by reading than Humane I am sure the ancient Fathers whom we pretend to imitate and all modern Churches without exception of any but our own abhor it And are not at all sensible of the vulgar arguments weight to justifie it viz. because the matter is the same And what difference is there between a Sermon deliver'd without reading and with it if the hearer sees him not or looks not on him that Preaches But it is very expedient the Hearers eye should be attent as well as his ear and yet that is not all might be said neither but all I will here say But undoubtedly they erregregiously on the other hand who imagine such sermoning as we now speak of is only Preaching according to the mind of the Apostle and that which is the only proper means of Salvation We are not saved but by Faith we cannot believe but by hearing we cannot hear without a Preacher as the Apostle most undeniably concluding from thence the absolute necessity of Preaching But what Preaching When I said Recitation of a Speech concerning divine matters and our Salvation was not properly a Sermon or Oration unless pronounced after the universal Law of all Orators which is to denominate things aright I said not that it was not Preaching taking preaching from the end of it and not so much from the form The end is undoubtedly knowledg first of the Christian Faith The next end is Assent to that Doctrine of Faith The third end is Obedience to the Faith The last end is the Salvation of such a true believer Now all these may without doubt be obtained without the Forms of Oratory and by so many wayes as we are made capable of these great ends so many wayes are we preacht to And therefore reading to and writing to another as the Apostles did their their Epistles to several Churches or any communication may be called the word of God and Preaching as really as the most Oratorical Sermon Though still considering the nature of man and the ordinary course of perswading settled all the world over I cannot grant that such wayes are so effectual or operative upon the partakers of the same instructions By what is said may be gathered what I propounded at first viz. in what sense Preaching and Hearing may be reduced to the Worshipping of God and become part of his Service For taking the service of God strictly and properly neither of both of them are such but they are a necessary foundation to build our worship of God on They have of late dayes amongst Sectaries been called The Means in so high and signal sense as if they need say no more and they comprehended all Religious acts eminently which is nothing so They are indeed The Means and that of Faith worship and Salvation But worshipping of God in prayer and praises c. and obeying his will and living godly and soberly in this present world are much more effectual and excellent Means of our Salvation than they They are but Means to the more excellent means of Salvation as Faith Hope and Charity and therefore must know their place and keep their distance and Mr. Thorndyck Epilog l. 3. c. 25. their limits too For as an excellent person hath at large showed the vain abuse of this preaching by Presbyterians which shall cause me to contract here Preaching is not so much as the Means of Salvation unless it contains it self within the limits of the doctrine of the Church To the confirmation of whose opinion I shall here give St. Austins Judgment Nobis autem ad certam regulam loqui fas est ne verbâ—rum licentia etiam rebus quae his significantur impiam gignat opinicnem Aug. Civit. Dei l. 10. c. 23. who would have not only limits set to the matter but manner of preaching too by obliging to the phrase of the Church saying We Christians must speak by certain Rule lest by a License taken of wording it a wicked opinion be begot of the things themselves signified thereby And concerning this we know St. Paul hath thus provided in his directions to Timothy Hold fast the Form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in Faith and Love which is in Christ Jesus It was very well known to the ancient Church that if Preachers kept not themselves in the compass of sober words and phrases to which faithful ears had been accustomed though their new Forms and phantastique phrases might possibly admit of a fair construction yet naturally they tended to the dissetling of mens minds from the truth and drawing them to novelty of doctrine and worship By which means as also by affected postures gestures pronunciation and such like carrying with them an