Q. 121. May a Minister pray publickly in his own name singly for himself or others or only in the Churches name as their mouth to God ibid. Q. 122. May the name Priests Sacrifice and Altar be lawfully now used instead of Christs Ministers Worship and the Holy Table p. 882 Q. 123. May the Communion Table be turned Altar-wise and Railed in And is it lawful to come up to the Rails to communicate p. 882 Q. 124. Is it lawful to use David's Psalms in our Assemblies p. 883 Q. 125. May Psalms be used as prayers and praises and Thanksgivings or only as Instructive Even the Reading as well as the singing of them ibid. Q. 126. Are our Church-Tunes Lawful being of mans invention p. 884 Q. 127. Is Church Musick by Organs or such Instruments Lawful ibid. Q. 128. Is the Lords day a Sabbath and so to be called and kept and that of Divine institution And is the seventh day Sabbath abrogated c p. 885 Q. 129. Is it Lawful to appoint humane Holy dayes and observe them ibid. Q. 130. How far is the holy Scriptures a Law and perfect Rule to us p. 886 Q. 131. What Additions or humane Inventions in or about Religion not commanded in Scripture are Lawful or Unlawful p. 887 Q. 132. Iâ— it unlawful to obey in all thâ—se cases where it is unlawful to impose and command or in what cases And how far Pastors must be believed and obeyed p. 888 Q. 133. What are the additions or inventions of mâ—n which are not fâ—rbidden by the Word of God whether by Rulers or by private men invented p. 889 Q 134. What are the mischiefs of unlawful Additions in Religion p. 891 Q. 135. What are the mischiefs of mens errour on the other extream who pretend that Scripture is a Rule where it is not and deny the aforesaid lawful things on pretence that Scripture is a perfect Rule say some for all things p. 892 Q. 136. How shall we know what parts of Scripture precept or example were intended for universal constant obligation and what were but for the time and persons that they were then directed to p. 893 Q. 137. How much of the Scripture is necessary to salvation to be believed and understood p. 894 Q. 138. How may we know the Fundamentals Essentials or what parts are necessary to salvation And is the Papists way allowable that some of them deny that distinction and make the difference to be only in the degrees of mans opportunities of knowledge p 895 Q 139. What is the use and Authority of the Creed And is it of the Apostles framing or not And is it the Word of God or not p 896 Q 140. What is the use of Catechisms p. 897 Q. 141. Could any of us have known by the Scriptures alone the Essentials of Religion from the rest if tradition had not given them to us in the Creed as from Apostolical Collection ibid. Q. 142. What is the best method of a true Catechism or sum of Theologie p. 898 Q. 143. What is the use of various Church-Confessions or Articles of faith ibid. Q. 144. May not the subscribing of the whole Scriptures serve turn for all the foresaid ends without Creeds Catechisms or Confessions ibid. Q. 145. May a man be saved that believeth all the Essentials of Religion as coming to him by verbal Tradition and not as câ—ntained in the Holy Scriptures which perhaps he never knew p. 899 Q 146. Is the Scripture fit for all Christians to read being so obscure ibid. Q. 147. How far is Tradition and mens words and Ministry to be used or truâ—â—ed in in the exercise of faith p. 900 Q 148. How knâ—w we the true Canon of Scripture from Apocrypha ibid. Q. 149. Is the publick Reading of the Scripture the proper wâ—rk of the Minister or may a Lay man ordinarily do it or another officer p. 901 Q 150. Is it Lawful to Read the Apocrypha or any good Books besides the Scriptures to the Church as â—omiliâ—s c ibid. Q 151. May Church Assemblies be held where there is no Minister or what publick Worship may be so performed by Lâ—y men As among Inâ—idels or Papists where persecutiâ—n haâ—h killed imprisoned or expelled the Ministry p. 902 Q. 152. Is it Lawful to subscribe or profess full assent and consent to any religious Books besides the Scriptures seeing all men are fallible ibid. Q. 153. May we lawfully Swear obedience in all things lawful and honest either to Usurpers or to our Lawful Pastors ibid. Q. 154. Must all our Preaching be upon some Text of Scripture p. 904 Q. 155. Is not the Law of Moses abrogated and the whâ—le Old Testament out of date and therefore not to be Read publickly and Preached ibid. Q. 156. Must we believe that Moses Law did ever bind other Nations or that any other parts of the Scripture bound them or belonged to them or that the Iews were all Gods visible Church on earth p. 905 Q. 157. Must we think accordingly of the Christian Churches nâ—w that they are only advanced above the rest of the World as the Iews were but not the only people that are saved p. 906 Q. 158. Should not Christians take up with Scripture wisdom only without studying Philosophy or other Heathens humane Learning p. 907 Q. 159. If we think that Scripture and the Law of Nature are in any point contradictory to each other Which must be the standard by which the other must be tryed p. 908 Q. 160. May we not look that God should yet give us more Revelations of his will than there are already made in Scripture ibid. Q. 161. Iâ— not a third Rule of the Holy Ghost or perfecter Kingdom of Love to be expected as different from the Reign of the Creator and Redeemer p. 909 Q. 162. May we not look for Miracles hereafter p. 910 Q. 163. Is the Scripture to be tryed by the spirit or the Spirit by the Scripture and which of them is to be preferred ibid. Q. 164. How is a pretended Prophet or Revelation to be tryed p. 911 Q. 165 May one be saved who believeth that the Scripture hath any mistake or errours and believeth it not all ibid. Q. 166. Who be they that give too little to the Scriptures and who too much and what is the danger of each extream p. 912 Q. 167. How far do good men now Preach and pray by the spirit p. 913 Q. 168. Are not our own Reasons studies memory strivings Books Forms Methods and Ministry needless yea a hurtful quenching or preventing of the Spirit and setting up our own instead of the spirits operations p. 914 Q. 169. How doth the Holy Ghost set Bishops over the Churches p. 914 Q. 170. Are Temples Fonts Utensils Church-Lands much more the Ministry holy and What reverence is due to them as holy p. 915 Q. 171. What is Sacriledge and what not p. 916 Q. 172. Are all Religious private-meetings forbidden by Rulers unlawful Conventicles or are
more to be regarded in many points which require experience than many of the younger sort that are yet more zealous and of quicker understanding and expression than the elder So those that we call the Fathers or Ancients were indeed in the younger ages of the Church and we that are faln into the later and more exprienced age have all the helps of the wisdom and experience of the Ages that were before us And therefore God will require at our hands an account of these greater talents which we have received As it were unexcusable now in a Physicion that hath the help of such Voluminous institutions observations and experiments of former ages to know no more than those former times that had no such helps so would it be as unexcusable for this present age of the Church to be no wiser than those former ages When Aquinas Scotus Ariminensis and other Schoolmen delivered the Doctrine of Christianity to the Church in a dress so far different from Ignatius Irenaeus Tertullian Cyprian or any of those former ages they certainly thought that they had attained to a far greater excellency and accurateness in the Knowledge of Divinity than those their Ancestors had attained And whatever they swear in the Trent Oâ—th of not expounding any Scripture otherwise than the Fathers do I doubt not but Suarez and Vasquez and others of their modern Schoolmen thought so too and would have been loth to be accounted wise in the measure only of those ancients The later and elder ages of the Church have had abundant experience e. g. of the tendâ—ncy of Ambition and Papal aspirings and usurpations of the mischiefs of composing and imposing the Popish Missals and numerous ceremonies and of their implicite faith and their concealment of the Scriptures from the Vulgar and many such points And if we are never the wiser for all this experience we are the more unexcusable and may be judged as the neglâ—cters of our greater helps § 32. Direct 21. In Controversies which depend most upon skill in the Languages Philosophy or other Direct 21. parts of common learning prefer the judgement of a few that are the most Learned in those matters before the judgement of the most ancient or the most Godly or of the greatest numbers even whole Churches that are unlearned In this case neither Numbers nor Antiquity nor Godliness will serve turn but as one clear eye will see further then ten thousand that are purblind so one Hierome or Origen may judge better of a translation or the Grammatical sense of a Text than a hundred of the other Fathers could One man that understandeth a Language is fitter to judge of it than a whole Nation that understand it not One Philosopher is fitter to judge of a philosophical question than a thousand illiterate persons Every man is most to be regarded in the matters which he is best acquainted with § 33. Direct 22. In Controversies of great difficulty where Divines themselves are disagreed and a Direct 22. clear and piercing wit is necessary regard more the judgement of a few acute judicious well studied Divines that are well verst in those Controversies than of a multitude of dull and common wits that think to carry it by the reputation of their number It is too certainly attested by experience that Judicious Satis triumphâ—t Vâ—ritas si apud paucos bonosque accepta nec indoles ejus est placere multis Lipsius men are very few and that the multitude of the injudicious that have not wit enough to underderstand them nor humility enough to confess it and to learn of them have yet pride and arrogoncy enough to contradict them and often malice enough to vilifie them In such differences it is not only a sign of a wise man to be content with the approbation of a few but also to have but few approvers except where the injudicious do implicitly believe those few that are judicious Commonly a very few that are wiser than the multitude are fain to stand by and compassionate not only the World but the Church and see the disease and the easie remedy and all in vain while they are but neglected or despised by the rest that will not be made wiser by them § 34. Direct 23. In all contentions hold close to that which all sides are agreed in There is so Direct 23. much agreed on even between the Papists and the Protestants as would certainly save them all if all of them did sincerely believe Love and Practise it For they all confess that the whole Canonical Scripture is true Therefore be more studious sincerely to hold and improve those common truths which they all profess than to oppose the particular opinions of any further than that common truth requireth it See that the Articles of the common Creed which all profess be unfeignedly believed by you and that the Petitions in the Lords Prayer be sincerâ—ly and earnestly put up to God and that the ten Commandments be heartily and entirely obeyed and then no errour or difference will be damning to you § 35. Direct 24. Take nothing as necessary to salvation in point of faith nor as universally necessary Direct 24. in point of practice which the universal Church in every age since Christ did not receive For if any thing be necessary to salvation which the Church received not in every age then the Church it self of that age could not be saved and then the Church was indeed no Church For Christ is the Saviour of his body But certainly Christ had in every age a Church of saved-ones who openly professed all that was of common necessity to salvation An opinion may be true which accuseth the generality in the Church of some errour or imperfection For it is most certain that the Church on Earth is composed of none that have the use of reason but erring and imperfect members But no opinion can be true that condemneth all the Church to Hell in any one age For the Head and Husband of the Church must be her Judge § 36. Direct 25. Be not born down by the censoriousness of any to overrun your own understanding Direct 25. and the truth and to comply with them in their errours and extreams But hold to the truth Thus Peter and Barâ—abas erred Gal. 2. and keep your station Jer. 15. 19. Let them return unto thee but return not thou unto them It is too usual for the younger and more injudicious sort of Christians to be most zealous about some little Opinions Ceremonies and Words and to censure all those that differ from them with such bitter censures as ungodly flashearted c. that hereupon some of the more judicious forsake the truth and simplicity of the Gospel to comply with these censurers meerly to escape them or as some say that they may keep an interest in them to do them good But such carnal compliances though with the most zealous men will bring
Love are the Churches dissolution which first causeth sissures and separations and in process crumbleth us all to dust And therefore the Pastors of the Church are the fittest instruments for the cure who are the Messengers of Love and whose Government is paternal and hurteth not the body but is only a Government of Love and exercised by all the means of Love All Christians in the world confess that LOVE is the very â—â—â—â— and perfection of all Grace and the End of all our other duties and that which maketh us like to God and that iâ— Love dwelleth in us God dwelleth in us and that it will be the everlasting Grace and the work of Heaven and the Happiness of souls and that it is the excellent way and the character of Saints and the Nâ—w Commandmâ—nt And all this being so it is most certain that no way is the 1 â—â—â—â— 4. 7. 8. â—â—â—â— 13 35. 〈…〉 way of God wâ—â—câ—â—â— not the way of Love And therefore what specious pretences soever they may have and one may cry up Truth and another Holiness and another order and another Unity it seâ—â— to jâ—â—â—â—â— their â—nvyings hatred cruelties it is most certain that all such pretences are Satanical deceiâ—â— And â—â— they bile and devour one another they are not like the sheep of Christ but shall be dâ—â—â—â—â—â—d one of another Gal. 5. 15. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour therefore Love is the fulfilling 〈…〉 4. 2. 〈…〉 of the Law Rom. 13. 10. When Papists that shew their love to mens souls by racking their bodies and fryâ—â—g them in the fire can make men apprehensive of the excellency of that kind of Love they may â—â—â—â— it to the healing of the Church In the mean time as their Religion is such is their Concord while all those are called Members of their Union and Professors of their Religion who must be burnt to ashes if they say the contrary They that give God an Image and Carkass of Religion â—â—â—â— 1. 4 are thus content with the Image and Carkass of a Church for the exercise of it And if there were nothing â—llâ— but this to detect the sinfulness of the Sect of Quakers and many more it is enough to satisfie any sober man that it cannot be the way of God God is not the author of that Spirit and way which tends to wrath emulation hatred railing and the extinction of Christian Love to all â—â—vâ— their own Sect and party Remember as you love your souls that you shun all wayes that are destructive to universal Christian Love § 83. Direct 6. Make nothing necessary to the unity of the Church or the communion of Christians Direct 6. which God hath not made necessary or directed you to make so By this one â—olly the Papists are become see 〈…〉 p. 52â— the most notorious Schismaticks on earth even by making new Articles of faith and new parts of worship and imposing them on all Christians to be sworn subscribed professed or practised so as that no man shall be accounted a Catholick or have communion with them or with the Universal Church if they could hinder it that will not follow them in all their Novelties They that would subscribe to all the Scriptures and to all the antient Creeds of the Church and would do any thing that Christ and his Apostles have enjoyned and go every step of that way to Heaven that Peter and Paul went as far as they are able yet if they will go no further and believe no more yeâ— if they will not go against some of this must be condemned cast out and called Schismaticks by these notorious Schismaticks If he hold to Christ the Universal Head of the Church and will not be subject or sworn to the Pope the Usurping Head he shall be taken as cut off from Christ. And there is no certainty among these men what measure of faith and worship and obedience to them shall be judged necessary to constitute a Church-member For as that which served in the Apostles dayes and the following ages will not serve now nor the subscribing to all the other pretended Councils until then will not serve without subscribing to the Creed or Council of Trâ—nt so no body can tell what New Faith or Worship or Test of Christianity the next Council if the world see any more may require and how many thousand that are Trent-Catholicks now may be judged Hereticks or Schismaticks then if they will not shut their eyes and follow them any whither and change their Religion as oft as the Papal interest requireth a change Of this Chillingworth Hales and Dr. H. More have spoken plainly If the Pope had imposed but one lye Dâ— H. More saith Myst. Redemp p. 495. l. 10. c. 2. There is scarce any Church in Christâ—ndome at this day that doth not obtrude not only falshood but such falsehoods that will appear to any free Spirit pure contradictiors and impossibilities and that with the same gravity authority and importunity that they do the holy Oracles of God Now the consequence of this must needs be sad For what knowing and conscientious man but will be driven off if he cannot assert the truth without open asserting of a gross lye Id. p. â—26 And as for Opinions though some may be better than other some yet none should exclude from the fullest enjoyment of either private or publick rights supposing there be no venome of the persecutive spirit mingled with them But every one that professeth the faith of Christ and believeth the Scriptures in the Historical sense c. to be subscribed or one sin to be done and said All Nations and persons that do not this are no Christians or shall have no communion with the Church the man that refuseth that imposed lye or sin is guiltless of the Schism and doth but obey God and save his soul And the Usurper that imposeth them will be found the heinous Schismatick before God and the cause of all those Divisions of the Church And so if any private Sectary shall feign an opinion or practice of his own to be necessary to salvation or Church communion and shall refuse communion with those that are not of his mind and way it is he and not they that is the cause of the uncharitable separation * See Hales of Schisme p. 8. § 84. Direct 7. Pray against the Usurpations or intrusions of intrusions of impious carnal ambitious Direct 7. covetous Pastors into the Churches of Christ. For one wicked man in the place of a Pastor may do more In Ecclesiâ—s plus certaminum gignunt verba hominum quam Dei magâ—sque pugnatur fere de Apolline Petro Paulo quam de Christo Retine divina Relinque humana Bucholcer to the increase of a Schism or faction than many private men can do And carnal men have carnal minds and carnal interests which are both unreconcileable to the spiritual holy mind and interest For the
by decisive Iudicial â—entence Nor any Universal Civil Monarch of the world 2. The publick Governing Decisive judgement obliging others belongeth to publick persons or Officers Eph. 4. 7 13 14 15 16. of God and not to any private man 1 Cor. 12. 28 29. 17. 3. The publick decision of Doubts or Controversies about Faith it self or the true sense of Gods Word and Laws as obliging the whole Church on Earth to believe that decision or not gainsay it Acts 15. See my Key for Catholicks because of the Infallibility or Governing authority of the Deciders belongeth to none but Jesus Christ Because as is said he hath made no Universal Governour nor Infallible Expositor It belongeth to the Law-giver only to make such an Universally obliging Exposition of his own Laws 4. True Bishops or Pastors in their own particular Churches are Authorized Teachers and Guides in Expounding the Laws and Word of Christ And the people are bound as Learners to reverence their Teaching and not contradict it without true cause yea and to believe them fide humanâ in things pertinent to their Office For oportet discentem credere 5. No such Pastors are to be Absolutely believed nor in any case of notorious Error or Heresie where the Word of God is discerned to be against them 6. For all the people as Reasonable creatures have a judgement of private discerning to judge what they must Receive as Truth and to discern their own duty by the help of the Word of God and of their Teachers 7. The same power of Governing-Iudgement Lawful Synods have over their several flocks as a Pastor over his own but with greater advantage 8. The power of Judging in many Consociate Churches who is to be taken into Communion as Orthodox and who to be refused by those Churches as Hereticks in specie that is what Doctrine they will judge sound or unsound as it is Iudicium discernendi belongeth to every one of the Council â—ingly As it is a Iudgement obliging themselves by Contract and not of Governing each other it is in the Contracters and Consenters And for peace and order usually in the Major Vote But with the Limitations before expressed 9. Every true Christian believeth all the Essentials of Christianity with a Divine faith and not by a meer humane belief of his Teachers though by their Help and Teaching his faith is generated and confirmed and preserved Therefore no essential Article of Christianity is left to any obliging decision of any Church but only to a subservient obliging Teaching As whether there be a God a Christ a Heaven a Hell an Immortality of souls whether God be to be believed loved feared obeyed before man Whether the Scripture be Gods Word and true Whether those that contradict it are to be believed therein Whether Pastors Assemblies publick Worship Baptism Sacrament of the Lords Supper be Divine institutions And the same I may say of any known Word of God No mortals may judge in partem utramliâ—et but the Pastors are only Authorized Teachers and helpers of the peoples faith And so they be partly to one another 10. If the Pope or his Council were the Infallible or the Governing Expositors of all Gods Laws and Scriptures 1. God would have enabled them to do it by an Universal Commentary which all men should be obliged to believe or at least not to contradict For there is no Authority and Obligation given to men yea to so many successively to do that for the needful decision of Controversies which they never have Ability given them to do For that were to oblige them to things impossible 2. And the Pope and his Council would be the most treacherous miscreants on earth that in so many hundred years would never write such an Infallible nor Governing Commentary to end the differences of the Christian world Indeed they have judged with others against Arrius that Christ is true God and one with the Father in substance c. But if they had said the contrary must we have taken it for Gods truth or have believed them 11. To judge who for Heresie or Seandal shall be punished by the Sword belongeth to none but the Magistrate in his own dominions As to judge who shall have Communion or be excommunicated from the Church belongeth as aforesaid to the Pastors And the said Magistrate hath first as a man his own Iudgement of discerning what is Heresie and who of his subjects are guilty of it in order to his publick Governing Judgement 12. The Civil Supream Ruler may Antecedently exercise this Judgement of Discerning by the Teaching of their proper Teachers in order to his consequent sentences on offenders And so in his Laws may tell the subjects what Doctrines and practices he will either Tolerate or punish And thus may the Church Pastors do in their Canons to their several flocks in relation to Communion or non-communion 13. He that will condemn particular persons as Hereticks or offenders must allow them to speak for themselves and hear the proofs and give them that which justice requireth c. And if the Pope can do so at the Antipodes and in all the world either per se or per alium without giveing that other his essential claimed power let him prove it by better experience than we have had 14. As the prime and sole-universal Legislation belongeth to Jesus Christ so the final Judgement universal and particular belongeth to him which only will end all Controversies and from which there is no appeal Quest. 29. Whether a Parents power over his Children or a Pastor or many Pastors or Bishops over the same Children as parts of their flock be greater or more obliging in matters of Religion and publick Worship THis being toucht on somewhere else I only now say 1. That if the case were my own I would 1. Labour to know their different Powers as to the matter commanded and obey each in that which is proper to his place 2. If I were young and ignorant Natural necessity and natural obligation together would give my Parents with whom I lived such an advantage above the Minister whom I seldome see or understand as would determine the case de eventu and much de jure 3. If my Parents commanded me to hear a Teacher who is against Ceremonies or certain Forms and to hear none that are for them natural necessity here also ordinarily would make it my duty first to hear and obey my Parents And in many other cases till I came to understand the greater power of the Pastors in their own place and work 4. But when I come to Church or know that the judgement of all Concordant Godly Pastors condemneth such a thing as damnable Heresie or Sin which any Father commandeth me to receive and profess I would more believe and follow the Judgement of the Pastors and Churches Quest. 30. May an Office Teacher or Pastor be at once in a stated Relation of a Pastor and a
state and condition of Christians And where the Reasons and Case is the same the Obligations will be the same In a word the Text it self will one way or other shew us when a Command or Example is universally and durably obligatory and when not Quest. 137. How much of the Scripture is necessary to Salvation to be believed and understood Answ. THis question is the more worthy consideration that we may withal understand the use of Catechisms Confessions and Creeds of which after and the great and tender mercies of God to the weak and may be able to answer the Cavils of the Papists against the Scriptures as insufficient to be the Rule of Faith and Life because much of it is hard to be understood 1. He that believeth God to be true and the Scripture to be his Word must needs believe all to be true which he believeth to be his Word 2. All the Scripture is profitable to our knowledge love and practice and none of it to be neglected but all to be loved reverenced and studied in due time and order by them that have time and capacity to do it 3. All the Holy Scriptures either as to matter or words are not so necessary as that no man can be saved who doth not either believe or understand them But some parts of it are more necessary than others 4. It is not of necessity to salvation to believe every Book or Verse in Scripture to be Canonical or written by the Spirit of God For as the Papists Canon is larger than that which the Protestants own so if our Canon should prove defective of any one Book it would not follow that we could not be saved for want of a sufficient faith The Churches immediately after the Apostles time had not each one all their Writings but they were brought together in time and received by degrees as they had proof of their being written by authorized inspired persons The second of Peter Iames Iude Hebrews and Revelations were received in many Churches since the rest And if some Book be lost as Henocks Prophecy or Pauls Epistle to the Laodiceans or any other of his Epistles not named in the rest or if any hereafter should be lost or doubted of as the Canticles or the second or third Epistles of Iohn the Epistle of Iude c. it would not follow that all true faith and hope of salvation were lost with it It is a Controversie whether 1 Iohn 5. 7. and some other particular Verses be Canonical or not because some Greek Copies have them and some are without them But who ever erreth in that only may be saved 5. There are many hundred or thousand Texts of Scripture which a man may possibly be ignorant of the meaning of and yet have a saving faith and be in a state of salvation For no man living understandeth it all 6. The holy Scripture is an entire comely body which containeth not only the essential parts of the true Religion but also the Integral parts and the ornaments and many accidents which must be Rom. 14. 17 18. Rom. 13. 8 9 10. 1 Cor. 15. 2 3 4 5 6. Mar. 16. 16. distinguished and not all taken to be equal 7. So much as containeth the Essentials of true Religion must be understood and believed of necessity to salvation And so much as containeth the Integrals of Religion doth greatly conduce to our salvation both that we may be the surer and the better Christians as having greater helps to both 8. The very adjuncts also have their use to make us the more adorned Christians and to promote our knowledge of greater things Quest. 138. How may we know the Fundamentals Essentials or what parts are necessary to Salvation And is the Papists way allowable that some of them deny that distinction and make the difference to be only in the degrees of mens opportunities of knowledge Answ. 1. THâ—se Papists perverseness can mean no better than that Christianity it self is not necessary to salvation to those that have not opportunity to know it As Iohnsons Rejoynd to me and Sancta Clara and many others plainly intimate And were that never so true and certain it were nothing to the question between them and us which is What are the Essentials of Christianity And what is necessary to salvation where Christianity is necessary or where the Christian Religion is made known and men may come to the knowledge of it if they will do their best This is the true state of our Controversie with them And whereas they would make all the parts of Christian faith and practice equally necessary where men have a capacity and ability to know believe and practise them It is a gross deceit unworthy of men pretending to a mediocrity of knowledge in the nature of Religion And thereby they make all sins and errors as equal as all duties and James 3. 2. 1 John 1. ult truths Whereas 1. There is no man that hath not some error and some sin 2. There is no man that doth all that ever he was able to do to understand all the truth 3. Therefore there is no man whose errors themselves are not many of them at least culpable or sinful 4. And they that distinguish between Mortal and Venial sins and yet will not distinguish between Mortal and Venial Errors are either blind or would keep others blind As it is not so damning a sin for a man to think a vain thought or to speak a vain word as not to Love God or Holiness no though he was more able to have forborn that idle word than to have Loved God So it is not so mortal a sin that is inconsistent with a justified state to mistake in a small matter as who was the Father of Arpâ—â—xad or what year the world was drowned in c. as to blaspheme the Holy Ghost or deny Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of the world or to deny that there is a God or everlasting life or a difference between Good and Evil. All sins are not equal in magnitude or danger Therefore all errors are not equal in magnitude sinfulness or danger 2. And what Priest is able to know whom to take for a Christian and baptizable upon such terms as these Who knoweth just what opportunities of knowledge other men have had and what impediments And will they indeed baptize a man that is a Heathen because he had not opportunity to come to the knowledge of Christianity I think they will not Or will they deny Baptism to one that knoweth and believeth only all the Articles of the Creed and the chief points of Religion because he knoweth not as much more as he had opportunity to know I think not Do not these men perceive how they condemn themselves For do they not say themselves that Baptism to the due receiver washeth away sin and puts the person in a state of life O when will God deliver his poor Church from factious deceivers
those doctrines against which no Minister shall be allowed to preach and according to which he is to instruct the people 3. To be a testimony to all neighbour or forreign Churches in an heterodox contentious and suspicious age how we understand the Scriptures for the Confuting of scandals and unjust suspicions and the maintaining Communion in Faith and Charity and Doctrine Quest. 144. May not the Subscribing of the whole Scriptures serve turn for all the foresaid ends without Creeds Catechisms or Confessions Answ. BY Subscribing to the Scriptures you mean either Generally and Implicitly that All in them is True and Good though perhaps you know not what is in it Or else particularly and explicitly that every point in it is by you both understood and believed to be true In the first sense it is not sufficient to salvation For this Implicite faith hath really no act in it but a Belief that all that God faith is true which is only the formal object of faith and is no more than to believe that there is a God for a Lyar is not a God And this he may do who never believed in Christ or a word of Scripture as not taking it to be Gods Word yea that will not believe that God forbiddeth his beastly life Infidels ordinarily go thus far In the second sense of an explicite or particular Actual belief the belief of the whole Scriture is enough indeed and more than any man living can attain to No man understandeth all the Scripture Therefore that which no man hath is not to be exacted of all men or any man in order to Ministration or Communion While 1. No man can subscribe to any one Translation of the Bible that it is not faulty being the work of defectible man 2. And few have such acquaintance with the Hâ—brew and Chaldee and Greek as to be able to say that they understand the Original Languages perfectly 2. And no man that understands the words doth perfectly understand the matter It followeth that no man is to be forced or urged to subscribe to all things in the Scriptures as particularly understood by him with an Explicite faith And an Implicite is not half enough 2. The true Mean therefore is the antient way 1. To select the Essentials for all Christians to be believed particularly and explicitely 2. To Collect certain of the most needful Integrals which Teachers shall not preach against 3. And for all men moreover to profess in General that they implicitely believe all which they can discern to be the holy Canonical Scripture and that all is true which is the Word of God Forbearing each other even about the number of Canonical Books and Texts And it is the great wisdom and mercy of God which hath so ordered it that the Scripture shall 1 Cor. 8. 1 2. 13. 1 2 3 4. 1 Cor. 8. 3. Rom. 8. 28. have enough to exercise the strongest and yet that the weakest may be ignorant of the meaning of a thousand sentences without danger of damnation so they do but understand the Marrow or Essentials and labour faithfully to increase in the knowledge of the rest Quest. 145. May not a man be saved that believeth all the Essentials of Religion as Coming to him by Verbal Tradition and not as contained in the holy Scriptures which perhaps he never knew Answ. 1. HE that believeth shall be saved which way ever he cometh by his belief So be it it be sound as to the object and act that is If it contain all the Essentials and they be predominantly Believed Loved and practised 2. The Scriptures being the Records of Christs Doctrine delivered by Himself his Spirit and his Apostles it is the Office of Ministers and the duty of all Instructers to open these Scriptures to those they teach and to deliver particulars upon the authority of these Inspired sealed Records which contain them 3. They that thus receive particular truths from a Teacher explaining the Scripture to them do receive them in a subordination to the Scripture Materially and as to the Teachers part though not formally and as to their own part And though the Scripture authority being not understood by them be not the formal object of their faith but only Gods authority in general 4. They that are ignorant of the being of the Scripture have a great disadvantage to their faith 5. Yet we cannot say but it may be the case of thousands to be saved by the Gospel delivered by Tradition without resolving their faith into the authority of the Scriptures For 1. This was the case of all the Christians as to the New Testament who lived before it was written And there are several Articles of the Creed now necessary which the Old Testament doth not reveal Matth. 16. 16. Rom. 10. 9 10 13 14 15. 2. This may be the case of thousands in Ignorant Countreys where the Bible being rare is to most unknown 3. This may be the case of thousands of Children who are taught their Creed and Catechism before they understand what the Bible is 4. This may be the case of thousands among the Papists where some perverse Priests do keep not only the Reading but the Knowledge of the Scriptures from the people for fear lest they should be taught to resolve their faith into it and do teach them only the Articles of Faith and Catechism as known by the Churches tradition alone Quest. 146. Is the Scripture fit for all Christians to read being so obscure Answ. 1. THe Essentials and points necessary to salvation are plain 2. We are frequently and vehemently commanded to delight in it and meditate John 5. 39. Psalm 1. 2. Deut. 6. 11. Psal. 19. 7 8 9 10 11. 2 Tim. 3. 15. Psal. 119. 98 105. 133. 148. Acts 17. 11. Acts 8. in it day and night to search it to teach it our very children speaking of it at home and abroad lying down and rising up and to write it on the posts of our houses and on our doors c. 3. It is suited to the necessity and understanding of the meanest to give light to the simple and to make the very foolish wise 4. The antient Fathers and Christians were all of this mind 5. All the Christian Churches of the world have been used to Read it openly to all even to the simplest And if they may Hear it they may Read the same words which they hear 6. God blessed the ignorant Ethiopian Eunuch when he found him Reading the Scriptures though he knew not the sense of what he read and sent him Philip to instruct him and convert him 7. Timothy was educated in the knowledge of the Scriptures in his childhood 2 Tim. 3. 15. Rom. 15. 4. Mat. 12. 24. 8. That which is written to and for all men may be read by all that can But the Scripture was written to and for all c. Object But there are many things in it hard to be understood Answ.
that will rule them and not â—e ruled by them that will not suffer them to take their pleasure nor enjoy their riches but hold them to a life which they cannot endure and even undo them in the world he is then no longer a guest for them Whereas if Christ had been received as Christ and Truth and Godliness deliberately entertained for their welldiscerned Excellency and Necessity the deep rooting would have prevented this Apostacie and cured such Hypocrifie § 4. But alas poor Ministers find by sad experience that all prove not Saints that flock to hear them and make up the crowd nor that for a season rejoyce in their light and magnifie them and take their parts The blossom hath its beauty and sweetness but all that blossometh or appeareth in the bud doth not come to perfect fruit Some will be blasted and some blown down some nipt with â—â—osts some eaten by Worms some quickly fall and some hang on till the strongest blasts do cast them down some are deceived and poysoned by false Teachers some by worldly cares and the deceitfulness of riches become unfruitful and are turned aside The lusts of some had deeper rooting then the Word And the friends of some had greater interest in them than Christ and therefore they forsake him to satisfie their importunity some are corrupted by the hopes of preferment or the favour of man some feared from Christ by their threats and frowns and choose to venture on damnation to scape persecution And some are so worldly wise that they can see reason to remit their zeal and can save their souls and bodies too and prove that to be their duty which other men call sin if the end will but answer their expectations And some grow weary of truth and duty as a dull and common thing being not supplyed with that variety which might still continue the delights of Novelty § 5. Yet mistake not what I have said as if all the affection furthered by Novelty and abated by Commonness and use were a sign that the person is but an Hypocrite I know that there is something in the Nature of man remaining in the best which disposeth us to be much more passionately affected with things when they seem New to us and are first apprehended than when they are old and we have known or used them long There is not I believe one man of a thousand but is much more delighted in the Light of Truth when it first appeareth to him than when it is trite and familiarly known and is much more affected with a powerful Minister at first than when he hath long â—ate under him The same Sermon that even transported them at the first hearing would affect them less if they had heard it preach'd an hundred times The same Books which greatly affected us at the first or second reading will affect us less when we have read them over twenty times The same words of Prayer that take much with us when seldom used do less move our affections when they are daily used all the year At our first conversion we have more passionate sorrow for our sin and love to the godly than we can afterwards retain And all this is the case of learned and unlearned the sound and unsound though not of all alike Even Heaven it self is spoken of by Christ as if it did participate of this when he saith that Joy shall be in Heaven over One sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance Luke 15. 7 10. And I know it is the duty of Ministers to take notice of this disposition in their hearers and not to dull them with giving them still the same but to profit them by a pleasant and profitable variety Not by preaching to them another Christ or a new Gospel It is the same God and Christ and Spirit and Scripture and the same Heaven the same Church the same faith and hope and repentance and obedience that we must preach to them as long as we live Though they say we have heard this an hundred times Let them hear it still and bring them not a new Creed If they hear so oft of God and Christ and Heaven till by Faith and Love and Fruition they attain them as their end they have heard well But yet there is a grateful variety of subordinate particulars and of words and methods and seasonable applications necessary to the right performance of our Ministry and to the profitting of the flocks Though the Physicion use the same Apothecaries Shop and Dispensatory and Drugs yet how great a variety must he use of compositions and times and manner of administration § 6. But for all this though the best are affected most with things that seem new and are dulled with the long and frequent use of the same expressions yet they are never weary of the substance of their Religion so as to desire a change And though they are not so passionately affected with the same Sermons and Books or with the thoughts or mention of the same substantial matters of Religion as at first they were Yet do their Iudgements more solidly and tenaciously embrace them and esteem them and their wills as Resolvedly adhere to them and use them and in their lives they practise them better than before Whereas they that take up their Religion but for Novelty will lay it down when it ceaseth to be New to them and must either change for a Newer or have none at all § 7. And as unsound are they that are Religious only because their education or their friends or the Laws or judgement of their Rulers or the Custom of the Countrey hath made it necessary to their Reputation These are Hypocrites at the first setting out and therefore cannot be saved by continuance in such a carnal Religiousness as this I know Law and Custom and education and friends when they side with Godliness are a great advantage to it by affording helps and removing those impediments that might stick much with carnal minds But truth is not your own till it be received in its proper evidence nor your faith divine till you believe what you believe because God is true who dâ—th reveal it nor are you the Children of God till you Love him for himself nor are you truly Religious till the Truth and Goodness of Religion it self be the principal thing that maketh you Religious It helpeth much to discover a mans sincerity when he is not only Religious among the Religious but among the prophane and the enemies and scorners and persecutors of Religion And when a man doth not pray only in a praying family but among the prayerless and the deriders of fervent constant prayer And when a man is heavenly among them that are earthly and temperate among the intemperate and riotous and holdeth the truth among those that reproach it and that hold the contrary When a man is not carried only by a stream of
to needless recreations and from the deadly plague of youthful lusts when your daily labour is a greater pleasure to you § 21. Direct 10. Get some judicious man to draw you up the titles of a threefold Common-place-Book Direct 10. One part for definitions distinctions axioms and necessary doctrines Another part for what is useful for ornament and oratory And another for References as a common Index to all the Books of that Science which you read For memory will not serve for all § 22. Ordinarily Students have not judgement enough to form their own Common-place-Books till they are old in Studies and have read most of the authors which they would remember And therefore the young must here have a judicious helper And when they have done injudiciousness will be apt to fill it with less necessary things and to make an unmeet choice of matter if they have not care and an instructer § 23. Direct 11. Highly esteem of a just Method in Divinity and in all your studies and labour to Direct 11. get an accurate Scheme or Skeleton where at once you may see every part in its proper place But remember Since the writing of this I have begun a Methodus Theologiae that if it be not sound it will be a snare and one error in your Scheme or Method will be apt to introduce abundance more § 24. It s a poor and pitiful kind of knowledge to know many loose parcels and broken members of truth without knowing the whole or the place and relation which they have to the rest To know letters and not syllables or syllables and not words or words and not sentences or sentences and not the scope of the discourse are all but an unprofitable knowledge He knoweth no Science rightly that hath not anatomized it and carryeth not a true Scheme or Method of it in his mind But among the many that are extant to commend any one to you which I most esteem or take to be without error is more than I dare do § 25. Direct 12. Still keep the primitive fundamental verities in your mind and see every other Direct 12. truth which you learn as springing out of them and receiving their life and nourishment from them And Read well Vincentius Lirinencâ—sis still keep in your minds a clear distinction between the Truths of several Degrees both of Necessity and Certainty alwayes reducing the less Necessary to the more Necessary and the less certain to the more certain and not contrarily § 26. If God had made all points of faith or Scripture revelation of equal necessity our Baptism would not only have mentioned our Belief in the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost nor should we ever have seen the antient Creed nor the ten Commandments And if all points were of equall Evidence and plainness and certainty to us we should not have some so much controverted above others Some things in Scripture are hard to be understood but not all things 2 Pet. 3. 16. To pretend that any Truth is more necessary than it is doth tend to uncharitableness and contention And to say that any is less necessary than it is doth tend to the neglect of it and to the danger of souls To pretend any point to be more plain and certain than it is doth but shew our pride and ignorance But to set up uncertain and unnecessary points and make a Religion of them and reduce things certain or necessary to them this is the method of turbulent Hereticks § 27. Direct 13. Take nothing as universally Necessary in Religion which was not so taken in the Direct 13. dayes of the Apostles and Primitive Church and take that for the safest way to Heaven which the Apostles went who certainly are there value the Apostolical purity simplicity charity and unity and follow not them that by being wise and pious overmuch corrupt our sacred pattern by their additions and fill the Church with uncharitableness and strife § 28. If it were not a thing too evident that Dominion and Riches go for Religion with them and gain for Godliness and honour and money instead of argument it would be a most stupendious wonder that so many learned men should be found among Christians in the world to hinder the peace and unity of the Church as do it vehemently and implacably in the Church of Rome when so easie a thing and so reasonable would unite almost all the Christian world as is the requiring no more as necessary to our Union than what was made necessary in the dayes of the Apostles and the obtruding nothing as necessary to salvation which the Apostles and primitive Church were saved without This easie reasonable thing which no man hath any thing of seeming sense and weight to speak against would end all the ruinating differences among Christians § 29. Direct 14. Be desirous to know all that God would have you know and be willing to be ignorant Direct 14. of all that God would have you ignorant of and pry not into unrevealed things and much less make them the matter of any uncharitable strife § 30. Abundance of contentious Volumes between the Dominicans and Jesuites and many others are stuft with bold enquiries wranglings or determinations of unsearchable mysteries utterly unknown to those that voluminously debate them and never revealed in the Word or Works of God Keep off with reverence from concealed mysteries Talk not as boldly of the Divine influx and the priority posteriority dependance or reason of Gods Decrees as if you were talking of your common affairs Come with great reverence when you are called of God to search into those high and holy truths which he hath revealed But pretend not to know that which is not to be known For you will but discover your ignorance and arrogance and know never the more when you have doted about Questions never so long § 31. Direct 15. Avoid both extreams of them that study no more but to know what others have Direct 15. written and held before them and of them that little regard the discoveries of others Learn all of your Teachers and Authors that they can teach you but make all your own and see things in their proper evidence and improve their discoveries by the utmost of your diligence abhorring a proud desire of singularity or to seem wiser than you are § 32. Most Students through slothfulness look no further for knowledge than into their Books and their learning lyeth but in knowing what others have written or said or held before them especially where the least differing from the judgement of the party which is uppermost or in reputation doth tend to hazzard a mans honour or preferments there men think it dangerous to seem to know more than is commonly known and therefore think it needless to study to know it Men are backward to take much pains to know that which tendeth to their ruine to be known but doth
of the world III. If laying the hand on the Book and Kissing it be unlawful for any special matter or manner forbidden more than other significant acts it is for some of the reasons named by you which now I will answer I. Object It savoureth of the Romish superstition Answ. 1. Not at all Prove that if you can 2. Superstition is the feigning of things to be Pleasing or Displeasing to God which are not and using or disusing them accordingly whatever be the Etymologie of the word Superstitum Cultus or supra Statutum c. it is certain that the common use of it among Heathens as Plutark at large and Christians was for an erroneous undue fear of God thinking this or that was displeasing or pleasing to him to be done or to be avoided which was not so but was the conceit of a frightned mistaking mind Therefore to say that God is displeased with this signification of the mind when it is not so nor can be proved is superstition And this is not the solitary instance of Satans introducing superstition under pretense of avoiding superstition 3. The sense of the Law is to be judged of by the Law and by the notorious doctrine and profession of the Law-makers and of the Land which here renounceth the superstitious use of it But I confess I was more afraid that the Papists had too much derogated from the Scripture than given too much to it And they profess that they swear not by a creature Vid. Perer. ubi sup in Gen. 24. 2. Object But Paraeus c. in Gen. 24. 2. saith Non absque superstitione fit cum super crucifixum aut codicem Evangelii digitis impositis juratur ut fit in Papatu Answ. 1. But that same Act which in Papatu is superstitious because of superstitious conceits and ends is not so in all others that have none such 2. It is no new thing to be quick in accusing our adversaries But Paraeus addeth not a syllable of proof And if he had it must have been such as toucht not us or else invalid Object Some good men have scrupled it Answ. 1. Ten thousand to one such have not scrupled it 2. They are not our Gods nor Law 3. The Quakers and the old Anabaptists and they say Origen scrupled yea condemned all swearing or all imposed Oaths And if we avoid all as sin which some good men have scrupled we shall make superstition a great part of our Religion And when on the same grounds we have but practised all as Duty which some good men have taken for Duty we shall quite out-go the Papists He that readeth Beda Boniface and abundance such pious writers will soon see that Godly or Fanatical Religious persons dreams visions strict opinions confident assertions and credulous believing one another with the hope of improving such things against Pagans and Jews for Christianity brought in almost all the Legends and superstitions of the Papists II. Object 2. Our Common-Law Commissions that give authority to examine persons direct it to be Object done super sacramenta sua per sancta Dei evangelia fideliter prestanda And in the form of Administrations in Ecclesiastical Courts the words are Ad sancta Dei Evangelia rite legitime jurati Whether these forms do not infer that in their first use at least persons either swore by the Evangelists or offended in that mode of swearing And our Common-Law calls it a Corporal Oath from touching the Book Answ. 1. To know the sense of our present Law it is not necessary that we know the sense of the Answ. first users of the form For the Law is not now the Kings Law that first made it He hath no Law that hath no Government but the Kings Law that now Reigneth and beareth his sense 2. To justifie our obedience to a Law it is not necessary that we prove every phrase in that Law to be fitly expressed 3. But examine it well and try whether it be not also fit and laudable 1. There are three things conjoyned in the Oaths in question 1. A testimony assertory or a promise 2. An Oath 3. An Imprecation The Assertory Testimony here is the first thing intended and the Oath and Imprecation are but as a means to make that Testimony or Promise valid 2. The published Doctrine of England in the 39. Articles the book of Ordination c. is that the Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary to Salvation as being Gods Law or Rule of our Faith and Life All our Duty to God is there commanded All the promises on which we hope are there contained All the punishments which the perjured or any sinner must feel and should fear are there threatned Therefore 3. The Laying on the hand and Kissing the book is an Action directly related to the Imprecation and not to the Oath but only by consequence as the Imprecation is subservient to the Oath as the Oath is to the Assertion So that this is the plain paraphrase of the whole I do believe that God the Ruler of all the world is the Iudge of secrets which are above mans judgement the searcher of hearts and the hater and avenger of perjury according to this his holy word by which he governeth us And to this God I appeal as to the truth of this my testimony consenting my self to lose all the benefit of his promises to the just and to bear all the punishments here threatned to the Perjured if I lie And what could be said more fitly 1. To own the Protestant doctrine that the Scripture is Gods perfect word that the evil to be feared and the good to be hoped for is all there contained and is all the fulfilling of that word 2. And to put the word in its due subordination to God And our ordinary form of swearing sheweth this So help you God and the Contents of this Book Whether you will call this swearing upon or by the Gospel or call it a corporal Oath or a spiritual Oath is only de nomine and is nothing to the matter thus truly described Sacramentum signifieth the Oath it self and Ad sancta evangelia is a fit phrase or if super sacramenta signifie the two Sacraments of the Gospel it can mean no more than As one that by the reception of the Sacrament doth profess to believe this Gospel to be true I do renounce the benefits of it if I lie And in this sense it hath been some mens custom to receive the Sacrament when they would solemnly swear III. Object Some seem to object against kissing the Book as having the greater appearance of giving Object too much to it or putting some adoration on it and because this Ceremony of kissing is held to be of later date than laying on the hand Answ. The Ceremony signifieth that I love and approve the Gospel and place the hope of my salvation Answ. in it And the publick Doctrine of the Kingdom before cited sheweth as a
satisfaction for our sins and Risen from the dead and conquered death and Satan and is ascended and Glorified in Heaven and that he is the King and Teacher and High Priest of the Church That he hath made a new Covenant of Grace and pardon and offered it in his Scriptures and by his Ministers to the World and that those that are sincere and faithful in this Covenant shall be saved and those that are not shall remedilâ—sly be damned because they reject this Christ and Grace which is the last and only remedy And here open to them the nature of this Covenant that God doth offer to be our Reconciled God and Father and Felicity and Christ to be our Saviour to forgive our sins and reconcile us unto God and renew us by his spirit and the Holy Spirit to be our sanctifier to illuminate and regenerate and confirm us and that all that is required on our part is such an unfeigned consent as will appear in the performance in our serious endeavours Even that we wholly give up our selves to be renewed by the holy spirit to be justified taught and Governed by Christ and by him to be brought again to the Father to Love him as our God and End and to live to him and with him for ever But whereas the temptations of the Devil and the allurements of this deceitful world and the desires of the flesh are the great enemies and hinderances in our way we must also consent to renounce all these and let them go and deny our selves and take up with God alone and what he seeth meet to give us and to take him in Heaven for all our portion And he that consenteth unfeignedly to this Covenant is a member of Christ a justified reconciled Child of God and an heir of Heaven and so continuing shall be saved and he that doth not shall be damned This is the Covenant that in Baptism we solemnly entred into with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as our Father and Felicity our Saviour and our Sanctifier This in some such brief explication you must familiarly open to them again and again § 10. Direct 10. When you have opened the Baptismal Covenant to them and the Essentials of Direct 10. Christianity cause them to learn the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandments And tell them the Uses of them that man having three Powers of soul his Understanding his Will and his Obediential or executive power all these must be sanctified and therefore there must be a Rule for each And that accordingly the Creed is the summary Rule to tell us what our Understandings must Believe and the Lords Prayer is the summary Rule to direct us what our wills must desire and our tongues must ask and the Ten Commandments is the summary Râ—le of our Practice And that the Holy Scripture in general is the more large and perfect Rule of all And that all that will be taken for true Christians must have a General implicite Belief of all the Holy Scriptures and a particular explicite Belief Desire and sincere practice according to the Creeds Lords Prayer and ten Commandments § 11. Direct 11. Next teach them a short Catechism by memory which openeth these a little Direct 11. more fully and then a larger Catechism The shorter and larger Catechism of the Assembly are very well fitted to this use I have published a very brief one my self which in eight Articles or Answers containeth all the essential points of Belief and in One Answer the Covenant-consent and in four Articles or Answers more containeth all the substantial parts of Christian duty The answers are some of them long for Children But if I knew of any other that had It is in my 〈…〉 and by it self so much in so few words I would not offer this to you because I am conscious of its imperfections But there are very few Catechisms that differ in the substance Which ever they learn let them as they go have your help to understand it and let them keep it in memory to the last § 12. Direct 12. Next open to them more distinctly the particular part of the Covenant and Catechism Direct 12. And here I think this Method most profitable for a family 1. Read over to them the best expositions that you can get on the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandments which are not too large to confound them nor too brief so as to be hardly understood For a summary Mr. Brinsleyes True watch is good but thus to read to them such as Mr. Perkins on the Creed and Dr. King on the Lords Prayer and Dod on the Commandments are fit so that you may read one Article one Petition and one Commandment at a time And read these over to them divers times 2. Besides this in your familiar discourse with them open to them plainly one Head or Article of Religion at a time and another the next time and so on till you come to the end And here 1. Open in one discourse the nature of man and the Creation 2. In another or before it the nature and attributes of God 3. In another the fall of man and especially the Corruption of our nature as it consisteth in an inordinate inclination to earthly and fleshly things and a backwardness or averseness or enmity to God and Holiness and the Life to come and the nature of sin and the impossibility of being saved till this sin be pardoned and these natures renewed and restored to the Love of God and Holiness from this Love of the world and fleshly pleasures 4. In the next discourse open to them the doctrine of Redemption in general and the Incarnation and natures and person of Christ particularly 5. In the next open the Life of Christ his fulfilling the Law and his overcoming the Tempter his humble life and contempt of the world and the end of all and how he is exemplary and imitable unto us 6. In the next open the whole Humiliation and suffering of Christ and the pretenses of his persecutors and the Ends and Uses of his suffering death and burial 7. In the next open his Resurrection the proofs and the Uses of it 8. In the next open his Ascension Glory and Interâ—ession for us and the Uses of all 9. In the next open his Kingly and Prophetical offices in General and his making the Covenant of Grace with man and the nature of that Covenant and its effects 10. In the next open the Works or Office of the Holy Ghost in General as given by Christ to be his Agent in men on earth and his great witness to the world and particularly open the extraordinary gift of the spirit to the Prophets and Apostles to plant the Churches and indite and seal the holy Scripture and shew them the authority and use of the holy Scriptures 11. In the next open to them the ordinary works of the Holy Ghost as the Illuminater Renewer
antient formulae agree not in words among themselves 5. It is not to be doubted of but the Apostles did appoint and use a Creed commonly in their ☞ dayes And that it is the same with that which is now called the Apostles and the Nicene in the main but not just the same composure of words nor had they any such precise composure as can be proved But this much is easily provable 1. That Christ Composed a Creed when he made his Covenant and instituted Baptism Matth. 28. 19. 2. That in the Jewish Church where men were educated in the knowledge of the Scriptures and expectation of the Mâ—ssiah it was supposed that the people had so much preparatory knowledge as made them the more capable of Baptism as soon as they did but seriously profess to Believe and Consent to the terms of the Covenant And therefore they were presently baptized Acts 2. 38 39 40. 3. That this could not be rationally supposed among the Gentiles and common Ignorant people of the world And Ignorantis non est Consensus He doth not Covenant who understandeth not the Covenant as to what is promised him and what he promiseth 4. That the Apostles baptized and caused others to baptize many thousands and settle many Churches before any part of the New Testament was written even many and many years 5. That the Apostles did their work as well and better than any that succeeded them 6. That their successors in the Common Ministery did as far as any Church History leadeth us up Instruct and Catechise men in the meaning of the Baptismal Covenant which is the Christian faith before they baptized them Yea they kept them long in the state of Catechumens usually before they would baptize them And after baptized but twice a year at Easter and Whitsontide as our Liturgy noteth And they received an account of their tolerable understanding of Religion before they would receive them into the Church 7. No doubt then but the Apostles did cause the baptizable to understand the three Articles of Christs own Creed and Covenant and to give some account of it before they baptized them ordinarily among the Gentiles 8. No doubt therefore but they used many more Explicatory words to cause them to understand those few 9. There is neither proof nor probability that they used a Composure of just the same words and no more or less Because they had to do with persons of several capacities some knowing who needed fewer words and some ignorant and dull who needed more Nor is any such Composure Heb. 5. 11 12. 6. 1 2 3. come down to our hands 10. But it is more than probable that the Matter opened by them to all the Catechumens was still the same when the words were not the same For Gods Promises and mans Conditions are still the same where the Gospel cometh Though since by the occasion of Heresies some few material clauses are inserted For all Christians had one Christianity and must go one way to Heaven 11. It is also more than probable that they did not needlesly vary the words lest it should teach men to vary the matter But that all Christians before baptism did make the same profession of faith as to the sense and very much the same as to the very words using necessary caution and yet avoiding unnecessary preciseness of formality But so as to obviate damnable Heresies that the Christian profession might attain its ends 12. Lastly No doubt but this practice of the Apostles was exemplary and imitated by the Churches and that thus the Essentials of Religion were by the tradition of the Creed and Baptism delivered 2 Tim. 1 13. 2 Cor. 3. 2 3 7. Heb. 8. 10. 10. 16. by themselves as far as Christianity went long before any Book of the New Testament was written And every Christian was an Impress or Transcript or Specimen of it And that the following Churches using the same Creed wholly in sense and mostly in words might so far well call it The Apostles Creed As they did both the Western and the Nicene Quest. 140. What is the use of Catechisms Answ. TO be a more familiar explication of the Essentials of Christianity and the principal Integrals in a larger manner than the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue do that the ignorant may the more easily understand it Every man cannot gather out of the Scripture the Greatest matters in the true method as distinct from all the rest And therefore it is part of the work of the Churches Teachers to do it to the hands and use of the ignorant Quest. 141. Could any of us have known by the Scriptures alone the Essentials of Religion from the Rest if Tradition had not given them to us in the Creed as from Apostolical Collection Answ. YEs For the Scripture it self telleth us what is necessary to salvation It describeth to us the Covenant of Grace both Promises and Conditions And it were strange if so large a Volume should not as plainly tell us what is necessary to salvation as fewer words The Scripture hath not Less than the Creed but more Quest. 142. What is the best Method of a true Catechism or Summ of Theology Answ. GOd willing I shall tell the Church my opinion of that at large in a peculiar Latin Treatise called Methodus Theologiae which here I cannot do Only I shall say that among all the great variety of Methods used in these times I think none cometh nearer the Order of the Matter which is the true Commendation of a Method than those which open Theology 1. In the breviate of the Baptismal Covenant 2. In the three explicatory summs the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue with the added Gospel Precepts 3. In the Largest form which is the whole Scripture And that our common English Catechism and Paraeus or Ursine and many such who use that common easie Method are more truly Methodical than most that pretend to greater accu 〈…〉 ness Though I much commend the great industry of such as Dudley Fenner Gomarrus and 〈…〉 cially George Sohenius Quest. 143. What is the use of various Church Confessions or Articles of Faith Answ. I Will pass by the very ill use that is made of them in too many Countreys where unnecessary opinions or uncertain are put in and they that can get into favour with the Secular Power take advantage under pretence of Orthodoxness and Uniformity Truth and Peace to set up their opinions and judgements to be the common rule for all to bow to though wiser than themselvâ—s And to silence all Ministers and scatter and divide the flocks that will not say or swear as they do that is that they are wise men and are in the right The true and commendable use of various Church Professions or Confessions of faith is 1. To be an Instruction to the more ignorant how to understand the Scriptures in most of the most weighty points 2. To be an enumeration of
Acosta de Convers. Bâ—eganius de Theol. Gentil Vossius de Idolol Vâ—ssius de Theol. natur Collius de Animabus paganorum Eugubinus Fotherby Mersennus in Genesin XVI Cates of Conscience more Filliucius Tolet de sacerdot Reginald Cajetane Navarrus See Montaltus against the Jesuits Casuists and the Iesuits Morals Downames and Whateleys Tables on the Commandments Sanderson de Iuramento Fragoso aforenamed XVII Of Councils more and Canonists and Liturgies Ius Orientale Graecorum per Leunclavium Bochelli Decreta Gallic Sirmondi Concil Gall. Longus Actus Conventus Thorunensis Formula Concordiae Germ The Westminster Assemblies Acts. English Canons Fasti Siculi Morini exercit Eccles. Zepper Polit. Eccles. Hammond Le strange of Liturgies Antiqâ—itates Liturgicae Cassanders Works Claud. Sainctes Gavantus de Ritibus Vicecomes XVIII More of the Fathers I need not name If you can get and read them you may find their names e. g. in Bellarmin de Script Eccles. Get the Bibliothec. Patrum of de la Bigne and Macarius Hom. Ephrem Syâ—us plain honest things Theodoret Cyril Hieros Cyril Alexand. Isidore Pelusiota Theophilact Occumenius Sâ—dulius Primasius Remigius Beda c. But many of them are very weak and dry The chief use of the Fathers is to know Historically what Doctrine was then taught XIX Schoolmen more Bonaventure Alensis Cajetane Bannez Biel Cameracensis Franc. Mayro Capreolus Ri. Armachanus Bradwardine Faber Faventinus Hervaeus Ioh. Fr. Pici Mirandul Fr. Victoria Suarâ—z Vasquez Albertinus in Thom. Aquila Scottellus Ripalda nameth more if you would have more XX. Antipapists Pappus of their Contradictions Gentiletus Mortons Apology and Grand Imposture He that would have more Books may see Voctiâ—s Bibliother and many other Catalogues Buckeridge Râ—ffeusis for Kings Crakenthorpe Paraeus cont Bellarm. Iunius on Bellar. Birkbeck's Protestants Evidence Hunnii Eccles. Rom. non est Christ. Hottoman Brutum fulmen c. Eusebius Captivus Ioh. Crocius de schismate Iewel all Whitaker Andrews Tortura Torti Wotton Dr. Ier. Tailors Disswasive But they are almost numberless Note 1. THat these may seem too many though they are few to a full and rich Library 2. That it is not my advice that you read over all these or half For that would but make them a snare for sinning and waste of time But a Minister of the Gospel should have more Books by him than he can read over for particular uses and to see the Authors judgement occasionally and to try other mens Citations 3. That a Minister must neither study the matter without the help of other mens studies by Reading much nor yet Read much without studying the Thing it self 4. That though a man must not speak or write before he knoweth what and how yet thus Exercising the Knowledge that we have doth greatly increase it And no Minister must be studying when he should be Preaching Praying Catechizing or visiting or instructing his flock 5. It is but few men that are born with an acumen fit for Writings and Controversies Those few must read the more to be fit for it The rest may take up with such Preparations as they have use for and exercise them viz. in the Pastoral oversight of the flocks and propagating plain and necessary truths And therefore though I am one that have been thought to burden mens understandings with Methods distinctions directions and controversies it is but few that I perswade to use them and am as much as any for most mens adhering to plain fundamentals and truths of daily use and Love and honour those that go no further and are faithful in this work so be it they have not the Pride to think that they know more than they do and to wrangle against that which they understand not and set not the Church on fire as ancient Ignorance did by accusing those of Heresie that knew more than themselves when they got but the Throne or the Major Vote 6. That though I chiefly commend Systemes of Theologie I know not one whose method satisfieth me as well agreeing with Scripture and the matter else I had not troubled my self so much to seek a right method and propose what I found And I think no common Method more genuine than theirs that expound the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue and the Sacraments as the sum of all 7. I mention none of my own Writings for it will seem vanity But as many as they are I wrote none which I thought needless at the time of writing them 8. Though none should have so great fitness for the holy education of Children and Government of Families as Ministers yet so great is the work of Overseeing the flock requiring more time and parts than all that we have and so great are the matters of our studies and labours requiring our total and most serious thoughts that I earnestly advise all that can possibly to live single and without a Family lest they marr their work by a divided mind For nunquam bene fit quod fit prae-occupato animo saith Hierome truly The whole man and whole time is all too little in so great a work The End of the third TOME A Christian Directory Or A SUMM of PRACTICAL DIVINITY By Way of DIRECTION The Fourth Part. Christian Politicks CONTAINING All the Duties of the Six last Commandments in our Political Relations and towards our Neighbours With the principal CASES of CONSCIENCE about them By RICHARD BAXTER Rom. 13. 1 2 3 4 5 6. Let every soul be subject to the Higher Powers For Rulers are not a terror to good works but to the evil For he is the Minister of God to thee for good Matth. 17. 27. Lest we should offend them give unto them for me and thee Matth. 19. 19. Thou shalt Love thy Neighbour as thy self Matth. 7. 12. Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them For this is the Law and the Prophets LONDON Printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons at the Sign of the Princes Arms in St. Pauls Church-yard 1673. READER THink not by the title of this Part that I am doing the same work which I lately revoked in my Political Aphorisms Though I concluded that Book to be quasi non scriptum I told you I recanted not the Doctrine of it which is for the Empire of God and the Interest of Government Order and honesty in the World This is no place to give you the Reasons of my revocation besides that it offended my Superiours and exercised the tongues of some in places where other matters would be more profitable Pass by all that concerneth our particular State and Times and you may know by that what principles of Policy I judge Divine And experience teacheth me that it is best for men of my Profession to meddle with no more but leave it to the Contzeus the Arnisaeus's and other Jesuits to promote their cause by Voluminous politicks The Popes false-named Church is a Kingdom and his Ministers may write of Politicks
be so in seriousness and not hypocrisie and jeast It being no such small contemptible matter to be turned into dissembling complement § 8. Memorand 8. Endeavour the Unity and Concord of all the Churches and Christians that are Memor 8. under your Government and that upon the terms which all Christs Churches have sometime been united in that is In the Holy Scriptures implicitly as the General Rule In the ancient Creeds explicitly as the sum of our Credenda and in the Lords Prayer as the summary of our Expetenda and in the Decalogue as the summary of our Agenda supposing that we live in peaceable Obedience to our Governours whose Laws must rule us not only in things Civil but in the Ordering of those circumstances of Worship and discipline which God hath left to their determination § 9. Memorand 9. Let all things in Gods Worship be done to Edification decently and in Order Memor 9. and the body honour God as well as the soul But yet see that the Ornaments or garments of Religion be never used against the substance but that Holiness Unity Charity and Peace have alway the precedency § 10. Memorand 10. Let the fear of sinning against God be cherished in all and let there be Memor 10. a tenderness for such as are over scrupulous and fearful in some smaller things and let not things August Ep. â—o isaâ— Omnes Reges qui populo Dei non prohibuerunt nec everterunt quae contra Dei praecepta fuerunt instituta culpantur Qui prohibuerunt everterunt super aliorum merita laudantur be ordered so as shall most tend to the advantage of debauched Consciences that dare say or do any thing for their carnal ends For they are truest to their Governours that are truest to their God And when it is the wrath of God and Hell that a man is afraid of it is pity he should be too eagerly spurred on The unconscionable sort will be true to their Governours no longer than it serves their interest Therefore Conscientiousness should be encouraged § 11. Memorand 11. If the Clergy or most Religious people offend let their punishment be such Memor 11. as falleth only on themselves and reacheth not Christ nor the Gospel nor the Church Punish When Hunnerichus the Arrian Vandal King was resolved to banish imprison and otherwise persecute the Orthodox Bishops and Pastors he first tryeth them by threatnings and divers cruelties and after appointeth a publick Disputation where his Bishops and Officers having no better pretence cruelly beat the people and Pastors and then falsly tell the King that by tumult and clamour they avoided disputing And at last he calleth together all the Pastors that were met for the disputation and to ensnare them putteth an Oath upon them that after the Kings death they would take his Son for their King and that they would send no Letters beyond Sea This Oath divided the Orthodox among themselves For one part of the Bishops and Pastors said If we refuse a Lawful Oath our people will say that we forsake them and the dissolution oâ— the Churches will be imputed to â—s The other part perceiving the snare were fain to pretend Christs command Swear not at all The King having separated them and the Officers took all their names sendeth them all to prison To those that took the Oath they said Because that contrary to the command of the Gospel you would swear you shall see your Cities and Churches no more but be sent into the Countrey to till the ground but so that you presume not to sing Psalms or Pray or carty a Book or Baptize or Ordain or absolve To those that refused the Oath they said Because you desired not the Reign of the Kings Son and therefore refused the Oath you shall be banished to the Isle of Corsica to cut Wood for the Ships Victor Utic p. mihi 456 457. Generalis Jesuitarum ex nimio absoluti imperii amore delâ—turas in sciâ—nia sua admittit iisque credit non audito eo qui accusatur quod injustitiae genus ab ethnicis ipsis improbatur Imperando non bonis Regibus se facit similem qui senatum magni fecerunt sed Tyrannos mavult imitari e. g. Tarquinium superbum qui ante omnia conatus est debilitare senatus numerum authoritatem ut omnia suo libitu facere posset similiter Generalis cum Assistenâ—ibus suis odit synodos generales omniaque experitur ne tales instituantur conventus quibus rerum gesâ—arum reddere rationem necesse habeat Generalis Jesuit in eligendis officialibus non curat quod sit cujusque talentum aut dotes eminentiores sed quam benè secum aut cum Provinciali suo CONFORMETUR quae causa est â—uâ— homines viles abjecti animi officiis praeponantur qui à superioribus duci se sinant ut nervis alienis mobile ligâ—um Mariana de Refor Iesuit c. 13 15 16 18. in Arcan Iâ—sâ—it p. 131 132. recit in Apoloâ— Giraldi Nulla est latronum societatas in qua Justitia non plus loci habeat quam in societate nostra c. Ubi non modo scientia ignorantia in aequo sunt sed etiam scientia impedimento est quo minus quis consequatur praemia humano aâ— diuino jure debita Marian. Aphor. 84. c. 12. c. 14 89. Aph. 87 c. The rest is worth the reading as a warning from a Jesuite to the Governours of State and Church Aph. 80. c. 11. Superiores societatis nostrae sunt homines indigni qui officiis praesint cum Generalis metuat ac sublatos velit quorum eminentes sunt virtutes Boni quam mali ei suspectiores sunt This and abundance more saith Mariana a Jesuite of 96 years of age learned in Hebrew Chaldee Syriack Greek and Latine of his own Society not Christ for his servants failings nor the Gospel for them that sin against it nor the souls of the people for their Pastors faults But see that the interest of Christ and mens souls be still secured § 12. Memorand 12. If the dissentions of Lawyers or States-men make factions in the Common-wealth Memor 12. let not the fault be laid on Religion though some Divines fall into either faction When the difference is not in Divinity but in Law Cases blame not Religion for that which it hath no hand in And watch against Satan who alway laboureth to make Civil factions or differences tend to the dishonour of Religion and the detriment of the Church and Gospel § 13. Memorand 13. Take those that are Covetous ambitious or selfish and seek for preferment Memor 13. to be the unfittest to be consulted with in the matters of Religion and the unfittest to be trusted with the charge of souls And let the humble mortified self-denying men be taken as fitter Pastors for the Churches § 14. Memorand 14. Side not with any faction of contentious
preservation of the family in peace If children cry or fight or chide or make any fowle or troublesome work the mother will not therefore turn them out of doors or use them like strangers but remember that it is her place and duty to bear with that weakness which she cannot cure The proud impatience of the Pastors hath frequently brought them into the guilt of persecution to the alienating of the peoples hearts and the distraction and division of the Churches when poor distempered persons are offended with them and it may be revile them and call them seducers or antichristian or superstitious or what their pride and passion shall suggest or if some weak ones raise up some erroneous opinions alas many Pastors have no more wit or grace or pity than presently to be rough with them and revile them again and seek to right themselves by wayes of force and club down every errour and contention when they should overcome them by evidence of truth and by meekness patience and love Though there be place also for severity with turbulent implacable impenitent hereticks § 55. Direct 33. Time of learning and overcoming their mistakes must be allowed to those that are Direct 33. mis-informed We must not turn those of the lower forms out of Christs School because they learn not as much as those of the higher forms in a few weeks or years The Holy Ghost teacheth those who for the time might have been Teachers of others and yet had need to be taught the first Principles Heb. 5. 11 12. He doth not turn them out of the Church for their non-proficiency And where there is ignorance there will be errour § 56. Direct 34. Some inconveniences must be expected and tolerated and no perfect Order or Concord Direct 34. expected here on earth It is not good reasoning to say If we suffer these men they will cause this or that disorder or inconvenience But you must also consider whither you must drive it if you suffer them not and what will be the consequents He that will follow his Conscience to a prison will likely follow it to death And if nothing but death or prison or banishment can restrain them from what they take to be their duty it must be considered how many must be so used and whether if they were truly faulty they deserve so much and if they do yet whether the evils of the Toleration or of the Punishment are like to be the greater Peace and Concord will never be perfect till Knowledge and Holiness be perfect § 57. Direct 35. You may go further in restraining than in constraining in forbidding men to Direct 35. preach against approved doctrines or practices of the Church than in forcing them to preach for them or to subscribe or speak their approbation or assent If they be not points or practices of great necessity a man may be sit for the Ministry and Church-communion who meddleth not with them but Preacheth the wholsome truths of the Gospel and lets them alone And because no duty is at all times a duty a sober mans judgement will allow him to be silent at many an errour when he dare not subscribe to or approve the least But if here any proud and cruel Pastors shall come in with their lessâ—â— selfish incommodities and say If they do not approve of what we say and do they will secretly foment a faction against us I should answer them that as good men will foment no faction so if such Proud impatient turbulent men will endure none that subscribe not to all their opinions or differ from them in a circumstance or a Ceremony they shall raise a greater faction if they 'l call it so against themselves and make the people look on them as tyrants and not as Pastors and they shall see in the end when they have bought their wit by dear experience that they have but torn the Church in pieces by preventing divisions by carnal means and that they have lost themselves by being over zealous for themselves and that DOCTRINE and LOVE are the instruments of a wise Shepheard that loveth the flock and understands his work § 58. Direct 36. Distinguish between the making of new Laws or articles of belief and the punishing Direct 36. of men for the Laws already made And think not that we must have new Laws or Canons every time the old ones are broken or that any Law can be made which can keep it self from being broken Perversness in this errour hath brought the Church to the misery which it endureth God hath made an Universal Law sufficient for the Universal Church in matters of faith and holy practice leaving it to men to determine of necessary circumstances which were unfit for an universal Law And if the sufficiency of Gods Law were acknowledged in mens practices the Churches would have had more peace But when particular Countreys have their particular Volumes of Articles Consessions Liturgies and I know not what else to be subscribed to and none must Preach that will not say or write or swear that he believeth all this to be true and good and nothing in it to be against the Word of God this Engine wracks the limbs of the Churches all to pieces And then what 's the pretense for this epidemical calamity Why no better than this Every Heretick will subscribe to the Scriptures and take it in his own sense And what followeth Must we needs therefore have new Laws which Hereticks will not subscribe to or which they cannot break It is the Commendation of Gods Law as fit to be the means of Unity that all are so easily agreed to it in terms and therefore would agree in the sense if they understood it But they will not do so by the Laws of men All or many Hereticks in the primitive times would profess assent to the Churches Creed no doubt in a corrupt and private sense But the Churches did not therefore make new Creeds till above 300 years after Christ they began to put in some particular words to obviate Hereticks which Hilary complained of as the Cause of all their divisions And what if Hereticks will subscribe to all you bid them and take it in their own corrupted sense Must you therefore be still making new Laws and Articles till you meet with some which they cannot mis-understand or dare not thus abuse What if men will mis-interpret and break the Laws of the Land Must they be made new till none can mis-expound or violate them Sure there is a wiser way than this Gods word containeth in sufficient expressions all that is necessary to be subscribed to Require none therefore to subscribe to any more in matters of faith or holy practice But if you think any Articles need a special interpretation let the Church give her sense of those Articles and if any man Preach against that sense and corrupt the Word of God which he hath subscribed let his fault be
proved and let him be admonished and censured as it deserves Censured I say not for not subscribing more than Scripture but for corrupting the Scriptures to which he hath subscribed or breaking Gods Laws which he promised to observe § 59. Direct 37. The Good of men and not their ruine must be intended in all the Discipline Direct 37. of the Church Or the good of the Church when we have but little hope of theirs If this were done it would easily be perceived that persecution is an unlikely means to do good by § 60. Direct 38. Neither unlimited Liberty in matters of Religion must be allowed nor unnecessary Direct 38. force and rigour used but Tolerable differences and parties must be tolerated and intolerable ones by the wisest means supprest And to this end by the Counsel of the most prudent peaceable Divines the Tollerable and the Intollerable must be statedly distinguished And those that are only Tolerated must be under a Law for their Toleration prescribing them their terms of good behaviour and those that are Approved must moreover have the Countenance and Maintenance of the Magistrate And if this were done 1. The advantage of the said Encouragement from Governours 2. With the regulation of the the toleration and the Magistrates careful Government of the Tolerated would prevent both persecution and most of the divisions and calamities of the Church Thus did the ancient Christian Emperours and Bishops And was their experience nothing The Novatians as good and Orthodox men were allowed their own Churches and Bishops even in Constantinople at the Emperours nose Especially if it be made the work of some Justices 1. To judge of persons to be tolerated and grant them Patents 2. And to over-rule them and punish them when they deserve it No other way would avoid so many inconveniences § 61. Direct 39. The things intolerable are these two 1. Not the believing but the Direct 39. preaching and propagating of principles contrary to the essentials of Godliness or Christianity or Government Iustice Charity or Peace 2. The turbulent unpeaceable management of those opinions which in themselves are tollerable If any would Preach against the Articles of the Creed the Petitions of the Lords Prayer or any of the Ten Commandments he is not to be suffered And if any that is Orthodox do in their separated meetings make it their business to revile at others and destroy mens Charity or to stir men up to rebellion or sedition or contempt of Magistracy none of this should be endured § 62. As for those Libertines that under the name of Liberty of Conscience do plead for a liberty of such vitious practices and in order thereto would prove that the Magistrate hath nothing to do in matters of Religion I have Preached and wrote so much against them whilest that Errour raigned and I find it so unseasonable now the constitution of things looks another way that I will not weary my self and the Reader with so unnecessary a task as to confute them Only I shall say that Rom. 13. telleth us that Rulers are a terrour to them that do evil and that Hereticks and turbulent firebrands do evil therefore Rulers should be a terrour to them And that if all things are to be done to the Glory of God and his interest is to be set highest in the World then Magistrates and Government are for the same end And if no action which we do is of so base a nature as ultimately to be terminated in the concernments of the flesh much less is Government so vile a thing when Rulers are in Scripture called Gods as being the Officers of God § 63. Direct 40. Remember Death and live together as men that are neer dying and must live Direct 40. together in another world The foolish expectation of prosperity and long life is it which setteth men together by the ears When Ridley and Hooper were both in Prison and preparing for the flames their contentions were soon ended and Ridley repented of his persecuting way If the persecutors and persecuted were shut up together in one house that hath the Plague in the time of this lamentable Contagion it 's two to one but they would be reconciled When men see that they are going into another World it takes off the edge of their bitterness and violence and the apprehensions of the righteous judgement of God doth awe them into a patience and forbearance with each other Can you persecute that man on Earth with whom you look to dwell in Heaven But to restrain a man from damning souls by Heresie or turbulencie or any such course my Conscience would not forbid it me if I were dying § 64. Direct 41. Let the Proud themselves who will regard no higher motives remember how Direct 41. fame and History will represent them to posterity when they are dead There is no man that desireth his name should stink and be odious to future Generations There is nothing that an ambitious man desireth more than a great surviving name And will you knowingly and wilfully then expose it to perpetual contempt and hatred Read over what History you please and find out the name of one Persecutor if you can that is not now a word of ignominy and doth not rott as God hath threatened If you say that it is only in the esteem of such as I or the persecuted party neither your opinion shall be judge nor mine but the opinion and language of Historians and of the wisest men who are the masters of fame Certainly that report of Holy Scripture and History which hath prevailed will still prevail And while there are Wise and Good and Merciful men in the World the Names and Manners of the Foolish and Wicked and Cruel will be odious as they continue at this day § 65. I have wrote these Directions to discharge my duty for those that are willing to escape the guilt of so desperate a sin But not with any expectation at all that it should do much good with any considerable number of persecutors For they will not read such things as these And God seldom giveth professed Christians over to this sin till they have very grievously blinded their minds and hardened their hearts and by malignity and obstinacy are prepared for his 2 Tim. 3. 11 12. Mat 5. 11 12. Luk. 14. 26 33. sorest judgements And I know that whoever will live Godly in Christ Iesus It is not said Who professeth to believe in Christ Iesus but to live Godly shall suffer persecution and that the Cross must still be the passage to the Crown CHAP. XII Directions against Scandal as given § 1. SCandal being a murdering of souls is a violation of the general Law of Charity and of the sixth Commandment in particular In handling this subject I shall 1. Shew you what is true scandal given to another 2. What things go under the Name of Scandal which are not it but are falsly so