And if the salt have lost his savour wherewith shall it be seasoned Nor can we be ignorant that this Episcopacy-power was set up in England many years after Reformation-ingress by the ambitious policy of som men who falling from their former humility-spirit set up that chair of a State-spirituall for themselves which when another sate in it they used all kind of endeavour force and power to throw it down Can prelate-affecters deny that Episcopacy-power was by the first and purest reformation-light utterly subverted If you know it not the smallnes of your judgment will comdemn you if you know it and do the contrary you are condemned in your own judgment and if the Reformation was impure in this then was Protestant Reformation corrupt both in its first birth and the most glorious of all its enterprises wherein our consciences were withdrawn from the tyrant-yoaks of inveigling men unto the sweet influences of Christ who as he is the great pastour of souls so he is sure not to mislead his flock by any such passions as do frequenty domineer in man when he is once set over his fellow servants pride ignorance self-will and interest And if we be once brought again to the same ancient servil yoak of conscience-tyranny to receive our light and influences from men as before we did under Popery why may we not by the same strong tide of an irresistable self-leading power be driven uncontroulably to the same or greater errours Except you will say that the Archbishop of Canterbury is a surer and more unerring guide than the Romish byshop both of them I am sure be men and equally fallible who standing either of them betwixt us and home may by their usurped power over consciences which be only subject to the invisible Lord of truth lead us again either into our ancient or some new invented errour and if they impose the yoak who can resist them But the Lord of truth cannot lye and the beams of his light falling immediately upon his peace-messengers as once upon the apostles in cloven tongues of fire untainted with the interposition of any intervening obstacle must needs be both clear and true I will teach you all things saith he to his apostles he said not that one of them should teach another nor did those cloven tongues descend first from Christ upon Peter from Peter to Andrew from Andrew to John and so forward in an hierarchical line which Papists imagine in their Church but from Christ alone immediately upon them all Nor can you move us at all by telling us as you do of ancient tradition for Episcopacy-power even from Christ time unto this present age sith all those times and places are concluded by the pious Reformation under popish darknes which began even in Pauls time when the mystery of iniquity even this mystery of papall tiranny began to work and so overwhelmed the whole earth till at length the Lord was pleased by the foolishnes of preaching to enlighten those little ones who were predestined to beleev a truth aforetime hidden to all the sons of men Did we not all appeal from such popish traditions to the oracle to the gospel to the word of God and to the truth that cannot lye And what other instrument did we make use of to the abolishing of that human supremacy over mens souls which now again by erroneous tradition you would contrary to your own principles obtrude upon us than that very word and oracle And the gospel which as it is now by Reformation-purity put into every mans hand so is every man the ministers successors to the apostles by the help of Christs light which by frequent prayer they unite to themselvs the people by light they receiv from gospel-ministers to interpret and understand it is totally with us and for us Look into the gospel of Matthew c. Hic subauditur longus textuum catalogus ab initio ad finem Biblii contra episcopatum If you reply that we must for the sense of all these places have recours unto the Church what Church do you mean yours out of which you say we are fallen or the popish Church which both you and we deserted Take which you will for the same reasons and gospel-verities equally reject them both and if we must hearken to your Church out of which you say we are fallen why then did not you obey that Church out of which you sell your selves if that were in errour and therefore to be deserted yours is in no better condition but the invisible congregation of the faithfull which in our first reformation we took to be the Church can never fail And if you begin now to take the Church in a popish sense for any hierarchicall prelacy you do at once condemn your selves both of inconstancy and dissimulation and also of violation of gospell and rebellion against that visible Church our forefathers found themselves in unto which it seems now by this tenour of your speech they were bound by their Christianity to obey Scripture autority you have none for you nay it is all against you human words and practises being now rid by Christ of all those servil yoaks we valiew not and the true light of purest Reformation which you have deserted sith it is with us as at the beginning we must not forfeit nor do any thing may obstruct the ingoings and out-goings of little Christ within us Whiles the Presbyterian is hotly busied in this his plea against the Prelate-Protestant the Independent touches his elbow and advises him to bethink himself least with the same weapon he wound his adversary and kill himself For if such reasonings saith he be of value what will then becom of the clerical Presbyterian black coat which being derived from popery finds no more grounds in scripture than episcopacy hath Are not all men equally subject to Christ and capable alike of his divine influences and so indeed it is said of the times of Christianity And they shall be all taught of God How then com other teachers to intrude betwixt us and God to obstruct and taint and variously infect his light those upon whom the Holy Ghost descended were all lay men as we be and som of them women too But as soon as the Presbyterian turning upon him called him fanatick the protestant cried In neither barrel better herring ye are both so It was presently replied by them both when did the spirit leav us to speak unto you by what light or scripture can you make that good you that are blinded in your own errours The Catholick coming by When theeves fall out quoth he honest men may hope to come to their own goods again §. 14. Protestant pro and con WHat advantage then can the pious Quaker have against the zealous Presbyterian or both of them against the honest Protestant whiles all of them find words enough out of scripture and reasons thence deduced to throw at one another and each side is both
the scales But whether she do this or no is not to my purpos now in hand who intend onely to insinuate unto such as multiply opinions about religion both without and against that Church that even nature it self is vastly obscure and unknown to man who lives in it and nothing in a manner but only what enters our senses can be so certainly known and concluded by any that he may prudently either swagger or fight for his opinion And religion and the things of another world must needs be yet more obscure than those of this It is observable that Christ and Moses and other holy Apostles and Prophets when in their discours they touch incidentally upon things of nature their chief purpos being ever to teach the way of vertue and true piety they comply oftentimes to the capacity and judgement of the hearer what ever it be So Christ our Lord told us that at the finall day the stars shall fall from heaven insinuating by that amongst his other expressions the great disturbance of nature then to happen wherein comets which the vulgar calls stars may shoot indeed but the Philosophers stars cannot fall upon us out of the firmament except all return to the old Chaos and one System mix with another Moses calls the sun and moon the two greater lights and the stars of the firmament the lesser altho contrary to philosophicall truth when he intended to declare unto the people that have vulgarly such conceptions of them that sun and moon and all the other stars and planets were created by that God he revealed The Psalmist under the similitude of an Eagle which renews his youth expresses moral renovation which he might well do sith men had so fansied of the eagle whether indeed he do so or not The like compliance was used by him who told the people that the stars in their ranks fought against their enemies in which phrase he insinuated Gods providence in battles condescending to the peoples imagination who looked upon the stars as a pitched field of champions under the Lord of those hosts of heaven to defend the innocent Thus leaving us in the same imagination about things of nature they found us in they endeavoured all of them onely to chalk us out the right way unto that felicity whereof the knowledg of these and other wonderments of Gods power shall be the least part by serving him as we ought from whom have issued prodigies we shall never know in this life and who is himself the wonder of all wonders onely to be seen and known in the other Having seriously perused the Schools and learning of the ancient Pagan Philosophers this I finde that their disciples however conceited of their demonstration and knowledg did rather beleev than know any thing and the first maister invented himself properly speaking not so much a philosophy as faith Take Aristotle and his School on one side Democritus and Epicure on the other these two schools were mainly opposite both in their principles and whole body of learning And yet none that understand them well can tell by any strength of nature or force of their arguments which of them is with truth According to learned Democritus and Epicure all things began in time by a fortuite concours of atomes which in all eternity filled the immensity of space and as these made the world so do they by their incessant mobility work continually insensible alterations till after long time they fly all asunder again and make casually another world either here again or in som other part of the immens space quite of another mode and fashion unto this so that matter upon this account is all and does all According to Aristotle the world had no beginning but partiall generations daily wherin form gives the act and essence and matter is so far from being all that it is but a pure potentiallity and prope nihil almost just nothing These were the opposite principles of two differing Philosophies But were they known or evident to either of the maisters If they had sought for an argument to prove them they had laboured in vain one therfor conceited that matter was all things the other that matter was nothing c. and upon this conceit which nothing but the autority of the maister to whom they would adhere fastened upon the disciples they raised a Philosophy which being thus founded upon a human faith or fansy all their following ratiocinations could never effect that it should be rather called knowledg than beleef or fantosme And this is the reason why the ancient Christian Priests grave and learned men who had entertained an esteem of their maister above all mortall men would never give way that the articles of Christian faith should be tried by the principles either of Aristotelian or Epicurean beleef and since the disciples of those men would adhere so firmly to fals and indemonstrated principles of human teachers they thought it much more reasonable that they should hold constantly what they had received from a divine maister and not submit to the test of such ungrounded inevident and contradicting principles of men as much opposite one to another as all perhaps to Christian faith even Aristotles philosophy as well as the rest What more assured pillars be there in Aristotles school than these Ex nihilo nihil fit 2. quod incipit esse desinit esse 3 quae conveniunt in aliquo tertio conveniunt inter se 4 accidentis esse est inesse 5. ex duobus entibus in actu non fit unum 6. Ã privatione ad habitum non datur regressus not to mention others And yet those catholik priests perceived well enough that Christian principles were contrary unto these and these to them the first to creation the second to the souls immortality the third to the Trinity fourth to the Eucharist fifth to the Incarnation sixth to the resurrection Some ages after rose our Christian philosophers whom we commonly call Schoolmen and raised a fine piece of art upon Christian principles defended and made good even in Aristotles way And these becaus the forenamed and such other Aristotelian axioms carried a plausible appearance of truth in the ear they did accept them indeed but in a sens of their own so that they do not in this Christian school make out that sens they did in the others though they bear the same sound And it is pretty to see how one and the same axiom is made in several schools to butteres up waies that be destructive to one another God made the world in time saith the Christian and none but he could do it for it is not in the power of any creature no not of the highest intelligence to make a thing of nothing for ex nihilo nihil fit of nothing is nothing made namely by the power and force of nature though it may by God the first caus so speaks he The world is eternal saith Aristotle and could not be made
not in that manner the Evangelist uses or if he did he could not intend to affirm that which neither he nor God himself can make good Nor will we grant any thing to Christ but what we can do our selves or understand at least how it may be don If there were upon earth any speaking oracle unto whom all parties would submit in these affairs disputes would soon end if such a one be excluded or denied the very rising of them is as ominous as the blazing of a comet or coming of a whale into a river and portends great disturbance and desolation The world had that fearful apprehension when they first beard that Luther would shine with his own light and defy the stars of heaven But they were more than assured of much approaching mischief when they once understood that Calvin had left the Roman Sea to show himself and domineer and sport in the fresh waters of Geneva §. II. Reason WHo shall then set up himself for a guide to his neighbour in affairs of religion which must needs carry an obscurity far above all that is in nature and how and which way will he do it that a good disinterested judgment may approve of his pretensions There can no other way whereby any should now afresh after Christian religion has been above sixteen hundred years profest in the world set up himself a new extraordinary directour be thought of or imagined but either som high inconfutable reason internal special light or purer interpretation of formerly received Scripture And what man is there in the world can now wisely begin to pretend any of these things to the disparagement of the rest of the Christian world Reason carries the fairest show and seems most civil and manly and if it lean upon principles of faith formerly received it may do much good for the strengthning or securing of religion in weak beleevers but then it makes not saith but supposes it and must know withal and if it be right reason cannot but know that all argumentations are answerable which if they rely upon obscure suppositions may according to the height of the maisters conceit pretend much but can prove nothing irrefragably Did religion com at first by reason or must it only begin now A good beleever cannot but think that Christ the great maister had a reason for what he taught but he must beleeve first before he can think so and altho he had a reason himself yet since he taught us none we can have from him no other reason but his autority and this may be beleeved but not evidently proved for his miracles recorded and not seen are as pure an object of faith as his autority and person nay if I had seen them I could not have told my self unto whom the intricacies of whole nature are so much unknown whether nature and art might compas them or no and so might I conclude him to be some ingenious person or great naturallist but not a god Nor is it likely that Christ ever meant that reason should frame our religion both becaus he constituted such men to plant faith as were not any maisters of arts and if reason had been the business it had been fitter to send them about the world to learn than to teach as also becaus himself though he did oftentimes with subtil and most rational argumentations confute the Pharisees errours yet did he never by any reason that I can remember establish his own doctrin nor answer to any Quomodo though he was often put to it but still when the Jews demanded How can this or that be How can man forgiv sins How can this man give us his flesh to eat he repeated again his own assertion and doctrin and might perhaps confirm it by miracle but he proved it not by reason And it was very fitting if so be he were such a person as we beleev him to be that he should be taken upon his word and not stand to give his vassails a reason of his will If Christ our Lord had been no more than an ordinary wise legislatour yet could he not rationally intend at once both the unity of his Church upon earth and the guidance of all men in it onely by reason of their own for my reason is not his and may well prove contrary as well to it as that of my neighbours whence will result together not onely not one religion but also no religion whiles one neighbours reason differs from another and perhaps both from Gods Wherfore wise and holy Church hath in all ages both forbid her children to dispute their principles of religion in the sense they had received them and also refused to be tried before any Senate by the philosophy of any pure man to stand or fall by his axioms This is apparent not only by ancient writings of Christian doctours but by a fact of Emperour Julian who falling from Christian religion amongst other oppressions he deprived Christians of their schools of literature throughout the Roman Empire telling them by way of jeer that Christians need not any learning unto whom this one word Credo is sufficient And indeed it is sufficient for faith and must needs be both the sufficient and only means of conserving a Church in uniformity for religion must be somthing which may be common to all persons that profess it and equally proportioned to all capacities and conditions and such a thing is to Beleeve but not to ratiocinate all men both rich and poor wise and unlearned prince and peasant may equally beleev one and the same thing and so hold it uniformly from time to time but if that very thing were to be set up unto each one by his own proper reason the several kinds of beings in sensitiv or vegetative nature even from the oak to the mustard seed would not more differ than that one judgment in several men have there not been fifty or threescore several interpretations of these few words Hoc est corpus meum c. and almost a hundred opinions amongst the masters of reason about their summum bonum And if any say that it is enough for som great master in these times by the strength of his reason to rais a religion that is onely to be accepted and others of weaker abilities may either take all that from him or only follow and hold what themselvs are able by their own reason to reach This cannot satisfie at all for first if I must take a religion upon the credit of some great masters reason which my self cannot judg or comprehend I had as good take it from the first master and beleev as I do and not suffer another in these dayes to make himself lord over me and lead me another way of his own and he indeed that does so does not only by this slight put himself into the place of Him who conveighes faith but of Christ himself who made it for the sense is the life and spirit of all
words and Christ then should but only administer matter for this great new rising Sun to quicken On the other side if I be not to follow anothers reason but my own what variety would there be in the world about the same thing not only betwixt man and man but betwixt one man to day and the self same man to morrow for the opinions which be totally from our selves we change continually upon the variety either of our own intrinsick dispositions or casual alterations from without and in each seaven years resolution we find a whole volum of new thoughts and judgments within us contrary to former ones we had of the same things diet clothing pastimes company nature providence books and yet all must ever be true for generally in all the ages of our life we are equally obstinate in that we set upon so that whiles reason is licensed to create a religion not only all the religions which any particular man shall run through in his life time but those also what ever they be which whole kingdoms and nations shall at any time accept of in a word all the religions of the whole earth must needs be justified And he can mean no less who would have that to be religion and only that which reason makes forth Both heretick and catholick both Jew and Christian pagan and Mahometan do all and every one stifly defend that his religion is rational that his best reason is with it and for it and that no right reason can be against it If reason that should follow once go before and lead religion it will sodainly thrust Christ out of his chair and separate at once all his Church from him For if I hold nothing but what reason dictates then is not Christ my master nor will there be any Church that may any more belong to Christ than to Democritus Aristotle or at least dame Nature If any reply that we must take the words from Christ and his gospel but the proper sense which words of themselves cannot carry with them our own reason must make out This indeed is true thus far that as we do understand languages and human words so are we accordingly to conceiv of their meaning as we know those words were either at first imposed or by long use have got the power to make out and if those words speak faith the same Church gives both words and sens together expounding them by her very practis which we daily convers withal but if any will further by his pretens of reason give power to any or all men to make out at his pleasur a particular sense of his own differing from the ancient meaning conveighed together with those words this must needs justifie Calvins private interpretation from which this new doctrin differs but in words whiles that is here called reason which he calls spirit and both do equally exclude the guidance of any Church besides the temple of their own heads in both wayes every one is in deed and reality chief byshop to himself and equally will religion be as various and mutable as our thoughts and answerable to the natur either of our reason or spirit here wide there narrow there none at all Nay what is there in christianity that one reason or other as well as peculiarity of spirit may not deprave and frustrate the gospel may be made to speak Mahometisme with one reason the Alcoran to Evangelise by another S. Paul had no doubt a very sublime intellect and yet he declares that his own and every understanding in the world is to be captivated unto the obedience of Christ and his faith and that all Christians walk by faith and not by species or evidence which is a quite contrary way to this that would have no religion but what coms from reason According to this all are to walk by sight and not by faith but in St. Pauls judgment all Christians are to walk by faith and not by sight this would have faith captivated to the obedience of the understanding St. Paul would have the understanding captivated to the obedience of faith And good reason it should be so for are not most part of the things our Lord revealed contingent and hid from our eyes And if there can be made no demonstration in nature of the things we do see and touch and convers withall as is sufficiently insinuated how can things invisible be reached and confined and concluded by reason and this indeed is the very ratiocination of Jesus Christ to Nicodemus whose word I should beleev although I did not my self know either the antecedent to be true or the inference certain and necessary In my mind it is a poor imagination to think that doctrinal words delivered beleeved and practised in the world for almost two thousand years should now at length be to receiv their true sens from a new doctour in our times which hitherto the whole Christian world wanted and through the universall ignorance of mankind could not till now finde it out and to adde for further countenance of the way that the Church hath three times 't is pitty she is not allowed her quatuor tempora in the first she walked by credulity in the second by probability and in the third which begins in these daies of ours by scientifical demonstration is as weak a fansy as the other for one and the same Church must have the same motives and grounds and practise and articles of religion which must needs be all of them excessively divers if that were true The same conclusions and articles can never issue from a dark credulity a purblind probability and a staring demonstration I know that in the second and all ages of the Church preachers and doctours explicated and declared their faith by congruous similitudes and reasons but neither then nor in any time of Christianity did they frame their faith either by reason or probability nor yet allowed it either to stand or fall by those means St. Austin Eusebius and St. Bernard lived in that which is by our new Rationalists called the age of probability and yet the first in his book de utilitate credendi confutes the Manichees for saying that faith is not to be admitted till a clear reason of every thing be given Eusebius in the fifth book of his history condemns the Arthemonites for straitning faith within the limits of human wit St. Bernard in his epistles confutes Abailard for the same fault And they were all three backt with that great apostle who speaks confidently that fides est rerum non apparentium Heb. 11. And again by another if not the same as great as he who said we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a scandal to the Gentiles folly for the Jews ask a sign and the Gentiles require wisdom 1 Cor. 1. So that in St. Pauls divinity as 't is Judaisme not to beleev without a sign so likewise to suspend our faith upon philosophicall reason is pure paganisme