When men which had faln in time of persecution and had afterwards repented them but were not as yet received again unto the Fellowship of this Communion did at the hour of their death request it that so they might rest with greater quietness and comfort of minde being thereby assuted of departure in unity of Christs Church which vertuous desire the Fathers did think it great impiety not to satisfie This was Serapions case of necessity Serapion a faithful aged person and always of very upright life till fear of persecution in the end caused him to shrink back after long sorrow for his scandalous offence and sute oftentimes made to be pardoned of the Church fell at length into grievous sickness and being ready to yield up the ghost was then more instant then ever before to receive the Sacrament Which Sacrament was necessary in this case not that Serapion had been deprived of Everlasting Life without it but that his end was thereby to him made the more comfortable And do we think that all cases of such necessity are clean vanished Suppose that some have by mis-perswasion lived in Schism withdrawn themselves from holy and publick Assemblies hated the Prayers and loathed the Sacraments of the Church falsly presuming them to be fraught with impious and Antichristian corruptions Which Error the God of Mercy and Truth opening at the length their eyes to see they do not onely repent them of the evil which they have done but also in token thereof desire to receive comfort by that whereunto they have offered disgrace which may be the case of many poor seduced souls even at this day God forbid we should think that the Church doth sin in permitting the wounds of such to be suppled with that Oyl which this gracious Sacrament doth yield and their bruised mindes not onely need but beg There is nothing which the Soul of Man doth desire in that last hour so much as comfort against the natural terrors of Death and other scruples of Conscience which commonly do then most trouble and perplex the weak towards whom the very Law of God doth exact at our hands all the helps that Christian lenity and indulgence can afford Our general consolation departing this life is the hope of that glorious and blessed Resurrection which the Apostle Saint Paul nameth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to note That as all Men shall have their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and be raised again from the dead so the just shall be taken up and exalted above the rest whom the power of God doth but raise and not exalt This Life and this Resurrection our Lord Jesus Christ is for all men as touching the sufficiency of that he hath done but that which maketh us partakers thereof is our particular Communion with Christ and this Sacrament a principal Mean as well to strengthen the Bond as to multiply in us the Fruits of the same Communion For which cause Saint Cyprian termeth it a joyful solemnity of expedite and speedy Resurrection Ignatius a Medicine which procureth Immortality and preventeth Death Irenaeus the nourishment of our Bodies to Eternal Life and their preservative from corruption Now because that Sacrament which at all times we may receive unto this effect is then most acceptable and most fruitful when any special extraordinary occasion nearly and presently urging kindleth our desires towards it their severity who cleave unto that alone which is generally fit to be done and so make all mens conditions alike may adde much affliction to divers troubled and grieved mindes of whose particular estate particular respect being had according to the charitable order of the Church wherein we live there ensueth unto God that glory which his righteous Saints comforted in their greatest distresses do yield and unto them which have their reasonable Petitions satisfied â—â—â—e same contentment tranquillity and joy that others before them by means of like satisfaction have reaped and wherein we all are or should be desirous finally to take our leave of the World whensoever our own uncertain time of most assured departure shall come Concerning therefore both Prayers and Sacraments together with our usual and received Form of administering the same in the Church of England let thus much suffice 69. As the Substance of God alone is infinite and hath no kinde of limitation so likewise his Continuance is from everlasting to everlasting and knoweth neither Beginning nor End Which demonstrable conclusion being presupposed it followeth necessarily that besides him all things are finite both in substance and in continuance If in Substance all things be finite it cannot be but that there are bounds without the compass whereof their substance doth not extend if in continuance also limited they all have it cannot be denied their set and their certain terms before which they had no Being at all This is the reason why first we do most admire those things which are Greatest and secondly those things which are Ancientest because the one are least distant from the infinite Substance the other from the infinite Continuance of God Out of this we gather that onely God hath true Immortality or Eternity that is to say Continuance wherein there groweth no difference by addition of Hereafter unto Now whereas the noblest and perfectest of all things besides have continually through continuance the time of former continuance lengthned so that they could not heretofore be said to have continued so long as now neither now so long as hereafter Gods own Eternity is the Hand which leadeth Angels in the course of their Perpetuity their Perpetuity the Hand that draweth out Celestial Motion the Line of which Motion and the Thred of Time are spun together Now as Nature bringeth forth Time with Motion so we by Motion have learned how to divide Time and by the smaller parts of Time both to measure the greater and to know how long all things else endure For Time considered in it self is but the Flux of that very instant wherein the Motion of the Heaven began being coupled with other things it is the quantity of their continuance measured by the distance of two instants As the time of a man is a mans continuance from the instant of his first breath till the instant of his last gasp Hereupon some have defined Time to be the Measure of the Motion of Heaven because the first thing which Time doth measure is that Motion wherewith it began and by the help whereof it measureth other things as when the Prophet David saith That a mans continuance doth not commonly exceed Threescore and ten years he useth the help both of Motion and Number to measure Time They which make Time an effect of Motion and Motion to be in Nature before Time ought to have considered with themselves that albeit we should deny as Melissus did all Motion we might notwithstanding acknowledge Time because Time doth but signifie the quantity of Continuance which Continuance
seeketh rather proportion then absolute perfection of goodness So that Woman being created for mans sake to be his Helper in regard of the end before mentioned namely the having and bringing up of Children whereunto it was not possible they could concur unless there were subalternation between them which subalternation is naturally grounded upon inequality because things equall in every respect are never willingly directed one by another Woman therefore was even in her first estate framed by Nature not only after in time but inferiour in excellency also unto Man howbeit in so due and sweet proportion as being presented before our eyes might be sooner perceived then defined And even herein doth lie the Reason why that kind of love which is the perfectest ground of Wedlock is seldome able to yield any reason of it self Now that which is born of Man must be nourished with far more travel as being of greater price in Nature and of slower pace to perfection then the Off-spring of any other Creature besides Man and Woman being therefore to joyn themselves for such a purpose they were of necessity to be linked with some straight and insoluble knot The bond of Wedlock hath been always more or less esteemed of as a thing Religious and Sacred The Title which the very Heathens themselves do thereunto oftentimes give is Holy Those Rites and Orders which were instituted in the Solemnization of Marriage the Hebrews term by the Name of Conjugal Sanctification Amongst our selves because sundry things appertaining unto the Publick Order of Matrimony are called in Question by such as know not from whence those Customs did first grow to shew briefly some true and sufficient Reason of them shall not be superfluous although we do not hereby intend to yield so far unto Enemies of all Church-Orders saving their own as though every thing were unlawful the true Cause and Reason whereof at the first might hardly perhaps be now rendred Wherefore to begin with the times wherein the liberty of Marriage is restrained There is saith Solomon a time for all things a time to laugh and a time to mourn That duties belonging unto Marriage and Offices appertaining to Pennance are things unsuitable and unfit to be matched together the Prophets and Apostles themselves do witness Upon which ground as we might right well think it marvellous absurd to see in a Church a Wedding on the day of a publick Fast so likewise in the self-same consideration our Predecessors thought it not amiss to take away the common liberty of Marriages during the time which was appointed for preparation unto and for exercise of General Humiliation by Fasting and praying weeping for sins As for the delivering up of the woman either by her Father or by some other we must note that in ancient times all women which had not Husbands nor Fathers to govern them had their Tutors without whose Authority there was no act which they did warrantable And for this cause they were in Marriage delivered unto their Husbands by others Which custome retained hath still this use that it putteth Women in mind of a duty whereunto the very imbecillity of their nature and Sex doth bind them namely to be always directed guided and ordered by others although our Positive Laws do not tie them now as Pupils The custome of laying down Money seemeth to have been derived from the Saxons whose manner was to buy their Wives But seeing there is not any great cause wherefore the memory of that custome should remain it skilleth not much although we suffer it to lie dead even as we see it in a manner already worn out The Ring hath been always used as an especial pledge of Faith and Fidelity Nothing more fit to serve as a token of our purposed endless continuance in that which we never ought to revoke This is the cause wherefore the Heathens themselves did in such cases use the Ring whereunto Tertullian alluding saith That in ancient times No Woman was permitted to wear gold saving only upon one finger which her Husband had fastened unto himself with that Ring which was usually given for assurance of future Marriage The cause why the Christians use it as some of the Fathers think is either to testifie mutual love or rather to serve for a pledge of conjunction in heart and mind agreed upon between them But what right and custome is there so harmless wherein the wit of man bending it self to derision may not easily find out somewhat to scorn and jest at He that should have beheld the Jews when they stood with a four-cornered Garment spread over the heads of Espoused Couples while their Espousals were in making He that should have beheld their praying over a Cup and their delivering the same at the Marriage-feast with set Forms of Benediction as the Order amongst them was might being lewdly affected take thereat as just occasion of scornful cavil as at the use of the Ring in Wedlock amongst Christians But of all things the most hardly taken is the uttering of these words With my body I thee worship In which words when once they are understood there will appear as little cause as in the rest for any wise man to be offended First therefore inasmuch as unlawful copulation doth pollute and dishonour both parties this Protestation that we do worship and honour another with our bodies may import a denial of all such Lets and Impediments to our knowledge as might cause any stain blemish or disgrace that way which kind of construction being probable would easily approve that speech to a peaceable and quiet mind Secondly in that the Apostle doth so expresly affirm that parties unmarried have not any longer entire power over themselves but each hath interest in others person it cannot be thought an absurd construction to say that worshipping with the body is the imparting of that interest in the body unto another which none before had save only our selves But if this were the natural meaning the words should perhaps be as requisite to be used on the one side as on the other and therefore a third sense there is which I rather rely upon Apparent it is that the ancient difference between a lawful Wife and a Concubine was only in the different purpose of man betaking himself to the one or the other If his purpose were only fellowship there grew to the Woman by this means no worship at all but the contrary In professing that his intent was to add by his person honour and worship unto hers he took her plainly and cleerly to Wife This is it which the Civil Law doth mean when it maketh a Wife to differ from a Concubine in dignity a Wife to be taken where Conjugal honour and affection do go before The worship that grew unto her being taken with declaration of this intent was that her children became by this mean legitimate and free her self was
had they known how Is it tolerable saith Saint Ambrose that to sue to God thou shouldst be ashamed which blushest not to seek and sue unto Man should it grieve thee to be a Suppliant to him from whom thou canst not possibly hide thy self when to open thy sinnes to him from whom if thou wouldst thou mightest conceal them it doth not any thing at all trouble thee This thou art loath to do in the Church where all being Sinners nothing is more opprobrious indeed than concealment of sinne the most humble the best thought of and the lowliest accounted the justest All this notwithstanding we should do them very great wrong to father any such Opinion upon them as if they did teach it a thing impossible for any Sinner to reconcile himself unto God without confession unto the Priest Would Chrysostom thus perswaded have said Let the enquiry and punishment of thy offences be made in thine own thoughts Let the Tribunal whereat thou arraignest thy self be without witness Let God and only God see thee and thy Confession Would Cassianus so believing have given counsel That if any were withheld with bashfulness from discovering their Faulis to men they should be so much the more instant and constant in opening them by supplication to God himself whose wont is to help without publication of mens shame and not to upbraid them when he pardoneth Finally would Prosper settled in this Opinion have made it as touching Reconciliation to God a matter indifferent Whether men of Ecclesiastical Order did detect their crimes by confession or leaving the World ignorant thereof would separate voluntarily themselves for a time from the Altar though not in affection yet in execution of their Ministry and so bewaile their corrupt life Would he have willed them as he doth to make hold of it that the favour of God being either way recovered by fruits of forcible repentance they should not only receive whatsoever they had lost by sinne but also after this their new enfranchisement aspire to the endless joyes of that supernal City To conclude We every where finde the use of Confession especially publick allowed of and commended by the Fathers but that extream and rigorous necessity of Auricular and private Confession which is at this day so mightily upheld by the Church of Rome we finde nor First it was not then the Faith and Doctrine of God's Church as of the Papacy at this present Secondly That the onely remedy for Sinne after Baptisme is Sacramental Penitency Thirdly That Confession in secret is an essential part thereof Fourthly That God himself cannot now forgive Sin without the Priest That because Forgivenesse at the hands of the Priest must arise from Confession in the Offenders Therefore to confesse unto him is a matter of such necessity as being not either in deed or at the least in desire performed excludeth utterly from all pardon and must consequently in Scripture be commanded wheresoever any Promise or Forgivenesse is made No no these Opinions have Youth in their countenance Antiquity knew them not it never thought nor dreamed of them But to let passe the Papacy For as much as Repentance doth import alteration within the minde of a sinful man whereby through the power of God's most gracious and blessed Spirit he seeth and with unfeigned sorrow acknowledgeth former Offences committed against God hath them in utter detestation seeketh pardon for them in such sort as a Christian should doe and with a resolute purpose settleth himself to avoid them leading as near as God shall assist him for ever after an unspotted life And in the Order which Christian Religion hath taught for procurement of God's mercy towards Sinners Confession is acknowledged a principal duty Yea in some cases Confesion to man not to God onely It is not in Reformed Churches denied by the Learneder sort of Divines but that even this Confession cleared from all Errors is both lawful and behoveful for Gods people Confession by man being either Private or Publick Private Confession to the Minister alone touching secret Crimes or Absolution thereupon ensuing as the one so the other is neither practised by the French Discipline nor used in any of those Churches which have been cast by the French mould Open Confession to be made in the face of the whole Congregation by notorious Malefactors they hold necessary Howbeit not necessary towards the remission of Sinnes But only in some sort to content the Church and that one man's repentance may seem to strengthen many which before have been weakned by one man's fall Saxonians and Bohemians in their Discipline constrain no man to open Confession Their Doctrine is That whose Faults have been Publick and thereby scandalous unto the World such when God giveth them the Spirit of Repentance ought as solemnly to return as they have openly gone astray First for the better testimony of their own unfeigned Conversion unto God Secondly the more to notifie their Reconcilement unto the Church And Lastly that others may make benefit of their Example But concerning Confession in private the Churches of Germany as well the rest as Lutherans agree that all men should at certain times confesse their Offences to God in the hearing of Gods Ministers thereby to shew how their Sinnes displease them to receive instruction for the warier carriage of themselves hereafter to be soundly resolved if any scruple or snare of Conscience do entangle their mindes and which is most material to the end that men may at Gods hands seek every one his own particular pardon through the power of those Keys which the Minister of God using according to our blessed Saviours Institution in that case it is their part to accept the benefit thereof as Gods most merciful Ordinance for their good and without any distrust or doubt to embrace joyfully his Grace so given them according to the Word of our Lord which hath said Whose Sinnes ye remit they are remitted So that grounding upon this assured Belief they are to rest with mindes encouraged and perswaded concerning the forgiveness of all their Sinnes as out of Christ's own Word and Power by the Ministry of the Keyes It standeth with us in the Church of England as touching Publick Confession thus First seeing day by day we in our Church begin our Publick Prayers to Almighty God with Publick acknowledgement of our Sinnes in which Confession every man prostrate as it were before his glorious Majesty cryeth against himself and the Minister with one Sentence pronounceth universally all clear whose acknowledgement so made hath proceeded from a true penitent minde What reason is there every man should not under the general terms of Confession represent to himself his own Particulars whatsoever and adjoyning thereunto that affection which a contrite spirit worketh embrace to as full effect the words of Divine Grace as if the same were severally and particularly uttered with addition of Prayers imposition of hands or all
with our Ministerie God really performing the same which Man is authorized to act as in his Name there shall need for decision of this point no great labour To Remission of Sins there are two things necessary Grace as the only cause which taketh away Iniquity and Repentance as a Duty or Condition required in us To make Repentance such as it should be what doth God demand but inward sincerity joyned with fit and convenient Offices for that purpose the one referred wholly to our own Consciences the other best discerned by them whom God hath appointed Judges in this Court. So that having first the promises of God for pardon generally unto all Offenders penitent and particularly for our own unfeigned meaning the unfallible testimony of a good Conscience the sentence of God's appointed Officer and Vicegerent to approve with unpartial Judgement the quality of that we have done and as from his Tribunal in that respect to assoil us of any Crime I see no cause but that by the Rules of our Faith and Religion we may rest our selves very well assured touching God's most merciful Pardon and Grace who especially for the strengthening of weak timerous and fearful mindes hath so farr indued his Church with Power to absolve Sinners It pleaseth God that men sometimes should by missing this help perceive how much they stand bound to him for so precious a Benefit enjoyed And surely so long as the World lived in any awe or fear of falling away from God so dear were his Ministers to the People chiefly in this respect that being through tyranny and persecution deprived of Pastors the doleful rehearsal of their lost felicities hath not any one thing more eminent than that Sinners distrest should not now know how or where to unlade their Burthens Strange it were unto me that the Fathers who so much every where extol the Grace of Jesus Christ in leaving unto his Church this Heavenly and Divine power should as men whose simplicity had universally been abused agree all to admire the magnifie and needless Office The Sentence therefore of Ministerial Absolution hath two effects touching sin it only declareth us freed from the guiltiness thereof and restored into God's favour but concerning right in Sacred and Divine Mysteries whereof through Sin we were made unworthy as the power of the Church did before effectually binde and retain us from access unto them so upon our apparent repentance it truly restoreth our Liberty looseth and Chains wherewith we were tyed remitteth all whatsoever is past and accepteth us no less returned than if we never had gone astray For in as much as the Power which our Saviour gave to his Church is of two kindes the one to be exercised over voluntary Penitents only the other over such as are to be brought to Amendment by Ecclesiastical Censures the words wherein he hath given this Authority must be so understood as the Subject or Matter whereupon it worketh will permit It doth not permit that in the former kinde that is to say in the use of Power over voluntarie Converts to binde or loose remit or retain should signifie any other than only to pronounce of Sinners according to that which may be gathered by outward signes because really to effect the removal or continuance of Sinne in the Soul of any Offender is no Priestly act but a Work which farr exceedeth their Ability Contrariwise in the latter kinde of Spiritual Jurisdiction which by Censures constraineth men to amend their Lives It is is true that the Minister of God doth then more declare and signifie what God hath wrought And this Power true it is that the Church hath invested in it Howbeit as other truths so this hath by errour been oppugned and depraved through abuse The first of Name that openly in Writing withstood the Churches Authority and Power to remit Sinne was Tertullian after he had combined himself with Montanists drawn to the liking of their Heresie through the very sowreness of his own nature which neither his incredible skill and knowledge otherwise nor the Doctrine of the Gospel it self could but so much alter as to make him savour any thing which carried with it the taste of lenity A Spunge steeped in Worm-wood and Gall a Man through too much severity merciless and neither able to endure nor to be endured of any His Book entituled concerning Chastity and written professedly against the Discipline of the Church hath many fretful and angry Sentences declaring a minde very much offended with such as would not perswade themselves that of Sins some be pardonable by the Keyes of the Church some uncapable of Forgiveness That middle and moderate Offences having received chastisement may by Spiritual Authority afterwards be remitted but greater Transgressions must as touching Indulgence be left to the only pleasure of Almighty God in the World to come That as Idolatry and Bloodshed so likewise Fornication and sinful Lust are of this nature that they which so farr have fallen from God ought to continue for ever after barred from access unto his Sanctuary condemned to perpetual profusion of Tears deprived of all expectation and hope to receive any thing at the Churches hands but publication of their shame For saith he who will fear to waste out that which he hopeth he may recover Who will be careful for ever to hold that which be knoweth cannot for ever be withheld from him He which slackneth the Bridle to sinne doth thereby give it even the spurr also Take away fear and that which presently succeedeth in stead thereof is Licencious desire Greater Offences therefore are punishable but not pardonable by the Church If any Prophet or Apostle be found to have remitted such Transgressions they did it not by the ordinary course of Discipline but by extraordinary power For they also raised the Dead which none but God is able to do they restored the Impotent and Lame men a work peculiar to Jesus Christ Yea that which Christ would not do because executions of such severity beseemed not him who came to save and redeem the World by his sufferings they by their power strook Elymas and Ananias the one blinde and the other dead Approve first your selves to be as they were Apostles or Prophets and then take upon you to pardon all men But if the Authority you have be only Ministerial and no way Soveraign over-reach not the limits which God hath set you know that to pardon capital Sin is beyond your Commission Howbeit as oftentimes the vices of wicked men do cause other their commendable qualities to be abhorred so the honour of great mens vertues is easily a Cloak of their Errours In which respect Tertullian hath past with much less obloquy and reprehension than Novatian who broaching afterwards the same opinion had not otherwise wherewith to countervail the Offence he gave and to procure it the like toleration Novatian at the first a Stoical Phylosopher which kinde of men hath alwayes accounted
Children from the Cradle to be his Cardinals He hath fawned upon the Kings and Princes of the Earth and by Spiritual Cozenage hath made them sell their lawful Authority and Jurisdiction for Titles of Catholicus Christianissimus Defensor Fidei and such like he hath proclaimed sale of Pardons to inveigle the ignorant built Seminaries to allure young men desirous of Learning erected Stews to gather the dissolute unto him This is the Rock whereupon his Church is built Hereby the man is grown huge and strong like the Cedars which are not shaken with the winde because Princes have been as Children over-tender hearted and could not resist Hereby it is come to pass as you see this day that the Man of Sinne doth war against us not by men of a Language which we cannot understand but he cometh as Iereboam against Iudah and bringeth the fruit of our own Bodies to eat us up that the bowels of the Childe may be made the Mother's grave and hath caused no small number of our Brethren to forsake their Native Countrey and with all disloyalty to cast off the yoke of their Allegiance to our dread Soveraign whom God in mercy hath set over them for whose safeguard if they carried not the hearts of Tygers in the bosomes of men they would think the dearest blood in their Bodies well spent But now saith Abiah to Ieroboam Ye think ye be able to resist the Kingdom of the Lord which is in the hands of the Sonnes of David Ye be a great multitude the golden Calves are with you which Ieroboam made you for gods Have ye not driven away the Priests of the Lord the Sons of Aaron and the Levites and have made you Priests like the People of Nations Whosoever cometh with a young Bullock and seven Rams the same may be a Priest of them that are no gods If I should follow the Comparison and here uncover the Cup of those deadly and ugly Abominations wherewith this Ieroboam of whom we speak hath made the Earth so drunk that it hath retled under us I know your godly Hearts would loath to see them For my own part I delight not to take in such filth I had rather take a Garment upon my Shoulders and go with my face from them to cover them The Lord open their Eyes and cause them if it be possible at the length to see how they are wretched and miserable and poor and blinde and naked Put it O Lord in their hearts to seek white Rayment and to cover themselves that their filthy nakednesse may no longer appear For beloved in Christ we bow our Knees and lift up our hands to Heaven in our Chambers secretly and openly in our Churches we pray heartily and hourly even for them also though the Pope hath given out as a Judge in a solemn Declaratory Sentence of Excommunication against this Land That our gracious Lady hath quite abolished Prayers within her Realm and his Scholars whom he hath taken from the midst of us have in their published Writings charged us nor onely nor to have any holy Assemblies unto the Lord for Prayer but to hold a Common School of Sinne and Flattery to hold Sacriledge to be God's Service Unfaithfulnesse and breach of Promise to God to give it to a Strumpet to be a Vertue to abandon Fasting to abhor Confession to mislike with Penance to like well of Usury to charge none with restitution to finde no good before God in single life not in no well-working that all men as they fall to us are much worse and more than afore corrupted I do not add one word or syllable unto that which Mr. Bristow a man both born and sworn amongst us hath taught his hand to deliver to the view of all I appeal to the Conscience of every Soul that hath been truly converted by us Whether his heart were never raised up to God by our Preaching Whether the words of our Exhortation never wâ—â—â—g any tear of a penitent heart from his eys Whether his Soul never reaped any joy and comfort any consolation in Christ Jesus by our Sacraments and Prayers and Psalms and Thanksgiving Whether he were never bettered but always worsed by us O merciful God! If Heaven and Earth in this case do not witness with us and against them let us be razed out from the Land of the Living Let the Earth on which we stand swallow us quick as it hath done Corah Dathan and Abiram But if we belong unto the Lord our God and have not forsaken him if our Priests the Sons of Aaron minister unto the Lord and the Levites in their Office if we offer unto the Lord every morning and every evening the Burnt-offerings and sweet Incense of Prayers and Thanksgiving if the Bread be set in order upon the pure Table and the Candlestick of Gold with the Lamps thereof burn every morning that is to say if amongst us God's blessed Sacraments be duly administred his holy Word sincerely and daily preached if we keep the Watch of the Lord our God and if ye have forsaken him then doubt ye not this God is with us as a Captain his Priests with sounding Trumpets must cry alarm against you O ye Children of Israel fight not against the Lord God of your Fathers for ye shall not prosper THE SECOND SERMON Epist. JUDE Verse 17 18 19 20 21. But ye beloved remember the words which were spoken before of the Apostles of our Lord Iesus Christ How that they told you that there should be Mockers in the last time which should walk after their own ungodly lusts These are makers of Sects fleshly having not the Spirit But ye beloved edifie your selves in your most holy Faith praying in the Holy Ghost And keep your selves in the love of God looking for the mercy of our Lord Iesus Christ unto eternal life HAving otherwhere spoken of the words of Saint Iude going next before concerning Mockers which should come in the last time and Backsliders which even then should fall away from the Faith of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ I am now by the aide of Almighty God and through the assistance of his good Spirit to lay before you the words of Exhortation which I have read 2. Wherein first of all whosoever hath an eye to see let him open it and he shall well perceive how careful the Lord is for his Children how desirous to see them profit and grow up to a manly stature in Christ how loath to have them any way mis-led either by examples of the wicked or by inticements of the world and by provocation of the flesh or by any other means forcible to deceive them and likely to estrange their hearts from God For God is not at that point with us that he careth not whether we sink or swim No he hath written our names in the Palm of his Hand in the Signet upon his Finger are we graven in Sentences not onely of Mercy but
overcome by the sword which they were very ready to take into their hands So that those very men that began with tender meek Petitions proceeded to print publick Admonitions and then to Satyrical Remonstrances and at last having like David numbred who was not and who was for their Cause they got a supposed Certainty of so great a Party that they durst threaten first the Bishops and not long after both the Queen and Parliament to all which they were secretly encouraged by the Earl of Leicester then in great favour with her Majestie and the reputed Cherisher and Patron-general of these Pretenders to Tenderness of Conscience whom he used as a sacreligious snare to further his Design which was by their means to bring such an odium upon the Bishops as to procure an Alienation of their Lands and a large proportion of them for himself which Avaritious desire had at last so blinded his Reason that his ambitious and greedy Hopes had almost flattered him into present possession of Lambeth-house And to thse strange and dangerous Undertakings the Non-conformists of this Nation were much encouraged and heightened by a Correspondence and Confederacy with that Brotherhood in Scotland so that here they became so bold that one told the Queen openly in a Sermon She was like an untamed Heyfer that would not be ruled by Gods people but obstructed his Discipline And in Scotland they were more confident for there they declared Her an Atheist and grew to such an height as not to be accountable for any thing spoken against Her No nor for Treason against their own King if spoken in the Pulpit Shewing at last such a disobedience even to Him that His Mother being in England and then in distress and in prison and in danger of Death the Church denied the King their Prayers for Her and at another time when he had appointed a day of Feasting their Church declared for a general Fast in opposition to his Authority To this height they were grown in both Nations and by these means there was distill'd into the mindes of the common people such other venemous and turbulent Principles as were inconsistent with the safety of the Church and State And these vented so daringly that beside the loss of Life and Limbs the Church and State were both forced to use such other severities as will not admit of an excuse if it had not been to prevent Confusion and the perilous consequences of it which without such prevention would in short time have brought unavoidable ruine and misery to this numerous Nation These Errors and Animosities were so remarkable that they begot wonder in an ingenious Italian who being about this time come newly into this Nation writ scoffingly to a Friend in his own Countrey That the common people of England were wiser then the wisest of his Nation for here the very Women and Shop-keepers were able to judge of Predestination and determine what Laws were fit to be made concerning Church Government then what were fit to be obeyed or abolished That they were more able or at least thought so to raise and determine perplex'd Cases of Conscience then the most Learned Colledges in Italy That Men of the slightest Learning and the most ignorant of the common people were mad for a new or Super or Re-Reformation of Religion and that in this they appeared like that man who would never cease to whet and whet his Knife till there was no Steel left to make it useful And he concluded his Letter with this observation That those very Men that were most busie in Oppositions and Disputations and Controversies and finding out the faults of their Governors had usually the least of Humility and Mortification or of the Power of Godliness And to heighten all these discontents and dangers there was also sprung up a Generation of Godless-men Men that had so long given way to their own Lusts and Delusions and had so often and so highly opposed the Blessed Motions of his Blessed Spirit and the inward Light of their own Consciences that they had thereby sinned themselves to a belief of what they would but were not able to believe Into a belief which is repugnant even to Humane nature for the Heathens believe there are many gods but these had sinned themselves into a belief that there is no God And so finding nothing in themselves but what is worse then nothing began to wish what they were not able to hope for That they should be like the Beasts that perish and in wicked company which is the Atheists Sanctuary were so bold as to say so Though the worst of mankinde when he is left alone at midnight may wish but cannot then think it Into this wretched this reprobate condition many had then sinned themselves And now When the Church was pestered with them and with all these other Irregularities when her Lands were in danger of Alienation her Power at least neglected and her Peace torn to pieces by several Schisms and such Heresies as do usually attend that sin When the common people seemed ambitious of doing those very things which were attended with most dangers that thereby they might be punished and then applauded and pittied When they called the Spirit of Opposition a Tender Conscience and complained of Persecution because they wanted power to persecute others When the giddy multitude raged and became restless to finde out misery for themselves and others and the râ—â—ble would herd themselves together and endeavor to govern and act in spight of Authority In this extremity fear and danger of the Church and State when to suppress the growing evils of both they needed a Man of Prudence and Piâ—ty and of an high and fearless Fortitude they were blest in all by Iohn Whitgift his being made Archbishop of Canterbury of whom ingenious Sir Henry Wotâ—on that knew him well hath left this true Character That he was a Man of a Reverend and Sacred Memory and of the Premitive temper A Man of such a temper as when the Church by lowliness of Spirit did flourish in highest examples of Vertue And though I dare not undertake to add to his Character yet I shall neither do right to this Discourse nor to my Reader if I forbear to give him a further and short account of the life and manners of this excellent Man and it shall be short for I long to end this digression that I may lead my Reader back to Mr. Hooker where we left him at the Temple Iohn Whitgift was born in the County of Lincoln of a Family that was ancient and noted to be prudent and affable and gentile by nature He was educated in Cambridge much of his Learning was acquired in Pembroke-Hall where Mr. Bradford the Martyr was his Tutor From thence he was remov'd to Peter-house from thence to be Master of Pembroke-Hall and from thence to the Mastership of Trinity Colledge About which time the Queen made him her Chaplain and not
long after Prebend of Ely and then Dean of Lincoln and having for many years past looked upon him with much reverence and favor gave him a fair testimony of both by giving him the Bishoprick of Worcester and which was not a usual favor forgiving him his First-fruits then by constituting him Vice-President of the Principality of Wales And having for several years experimented his Wisdom his Justice and Moderation in the menage of Her affairs in both these places She in the Twenty sixth of Her Reign made him Archbishop of Canterbury and not long after of Her Privy Council and trusted him to menage all Her Ecclesiastical Affairs and Preferments In all which Removes he was like the Ark which left a Blessing upon the place where it rested and in all his Imployments was like Iehoida that did good unto Israel These were the steps of this Bishops Ascension to this place of Dignity and Cares in which place to speak Mr. Cambdens very words in his Annals He devoutly consecrated both his whole life to God and bit painful labors to the good of his Church And yet in this place he met with many oppositions in the regulation of Church Affairs which were much disordered at his entrance by reason of the age and remisness of Bishop Grindal his immediate Predecessor the activity of the Non-conformists and their cheif assistant the Earl of Leicester and indeed by too many others of the like Sacrilegious Principles With these he was to encounter and though he wanted neither courage nor a good cause yet he foresaw that without a great measure of the Queens favor it was impossible to stand in the Breach that was made into the Lands and Immunities of the Church or to maintain the remaining Rights of it And therefore by justifiable Sacred Insinuations such as St. Paul to Agrippa Agrippa believest thou I know thou believest he wrought himself into so great a degree of favor with Her as by his pious use of it hath got both of them a greater degree of Fame in this World and of Glory in that into which they are now entred His merits to the Queen and Her Favors to him were such that she called him Her little black Husband and called his Servants Her Servants And She saw so visible and blessed a sincerity shine in all his cares and endeavors for the Churches and for Her good that She was supposed to trust him with the very secrets of Her Soul and to make him Her Confessor Of which She gave many Fair testimonies and of which one was That She would never eat flesh in Lent without obtaining a Licence from Her little black Husband And would often say She pioâ—â—ed him because She trusted him and had eased Her-self by laying the burthen of all Her Clergy-cares upon his shoulders which She was certain he managed with Prudence and Piety I shall not keep my self within the promised Rules of Brevity in this account of his Interest with Her Majesty and his care of the Churches Rights if in this digression I should enlarge to particularsâ— and therefore my desire is that one example may serve for a testimony of both And that the Reader may the better understand it he may take notice that not many years before his being made Archbishop there passed an Act or Acts of Parliament intending the better preservation of Church Lands by recalling a Power which was vested in others to Sell or Lease them by lodging and trusting the future care and protection of them onely in the Crown And amongst many that made a bad use of this Power or Trust of the Queens the Earl of Leicester was one and the good Bishop having by his Interest with Her Majesty put a stop to the Earls Sacrilegious designs they two fell to an open Opposition before her after which they both quitted the Room nor Friends in appearance But the Bishop made a sudden and a seasonable return to Her Majesty for he found her alone and spake to her with great Humility and Reverence and to this purpose I beseech your Majesty to hear me with patience and to believe that yours and the Churches Safety are dearer to me than my Life but my Conscience dearer than both and therefore give me leave to do my Duty and tell you that Princes are deputed Nursing Fathers of the Church and owe it a Protection and therefore God forbid that you should be so much as Passive in her Ruines when you may prevent it or that I should-behold it without horrour and detestation or should forbear to tell your Majesty of the Sin and Danger And though you and my self are born in an Age of Frailties when the Primitive Piety and Care of the Churches Lands and Immunities are much decayed yes Madam let me beg that you will but first consider and then you will believe there are such sins at Prophaneness and Sacriledge for if there were not they could not have Names in Holy Writ and particularly in the New-Testament And I beseech you to consider that though our Saviour said He judged no man and to testifie it would not judge nor divide the Inheritance betwixt the two Brethren nor would judge the Woman taken in Adultery yet in this point of the Churches Rights he was so zealous that he made himself both the Accuser and the Iudge and the Executioner to punish these sins witnessed in that he himself made the Whip to drive the Prophaners out of the Temple overthrew the Tables of the Money-changers and drove them out of it And consider that it was S. Paul that said to those Christians of his time that were offended with Idolatry yet Thou that abhorrest Idols dost thou commit Sacriledge Supposing I think Sacriledge to be the greater sin This may occasion your Majesty to consider that there is such a sin as Sacriledge and to incline you to prevent the Curse that will follow it I beseech you also to consider that Constantine the first Christian Emperor and Helena his Mother that King Edgar and Edward the Confessor and indeed many others of your Predecessors and many private Christians have also given to God and to his Church much Land and many Immunities which they might have given to those of their own Families and did not but gave them as an absolute Right and Sacrifice to God And with these Immunities and Lands they have entailed a Curse upon the Alienators of them God prevent your Majesty from being liable to that Curse And to make you that are trusted with their Preservation the better to understand the danger of it I beseech you forget not that besides these Curses the Churches Land and Power have been also endeavoured to be preserved as far as Humane Reason and the Law of this Nation have been able to preserve them by an immediate and most sacred Obligation on the Consciences of the Princes of this Realm For they that consult Magna Charta shall find that as all your Predecessours
much as the Hem of Christs Garment If they do wherefore should I doubt but that Vertue may proceed from Christ to save them No I will not be afraid to say to such a one You erre in your opinion but be of good comfort you have to do with a Merciful God who will make the best of that little which you hold well and not with a captions Sophister who gathereth the worst out of every thing in which you are mistaken But it will be said The admittance of Merit in any degree overthroweth the Foundation excladeth from the hope of Mercy from all possibility of Salvation And now Mr. Hookers own words follow What though they hold the truth sincerely in all other parts of Christian Faith Although they have in some measure all the Vertues and Graces of the Spirit Although they have all other Tokens of Gods Children in them Although they be far from having any proud opinion that they shall be saved by the worthiness of their Deeds Although the onely thing that troubleth and molesteth them be a little too much dejection somewhat too great a fire arising from an erronious conceit That God will require a worthiness in them which they are grieved to finde wanting in themselves Although they be not obstinate in this Opinion Although they be willing and would be glad to forsake it if any one Reason were brought sufficient to disprove it Although the onely cause why they do not forsake it ere they die be their ignorance of that means by which it might be disproved Although the cause why the ignorance in this point is not removed be the want of knowledge in such as should be able and are not to remove it Let me die says Mr. Hooker if it be ever proved That simply an Error doth exclude a Pope or Cardinal in such a case utterly from hope of life Surely I must confess That if it be an Error to think that God may be merciful to save men even when they err my greatest comfort is my error Were it not for the love I bear to this Error I would never wish to speak or to live I was willing to take notice of these two points as supposing them to be very material and that as they are thus contracted they may prove useful to my Reader as also for that the Answers be Arguments of Mr. Hookers great and clear Reason and equal Charity Other Exceptions were also made against him as That he prayed before and not after his Sermons that in his Prayers be named Bishops that be kneeled both when he prayed and he when he received the Sacrament and says Mr. Hooker in his Defence other Exceptions so like these as but to name I should have thought a greater fault then to commit them And 't is not unworthy the noting that in the menage of so great a Controversie a sharper reproof then this and one like it did never fall from the happy Pen of this humble Man That like it was upon a like occasion of Exceptious to which his Answer was Your next Argument consists of Railing and of Reasons to your Railing I say nothing to your Reasons I say what follows And I am glad of this fair occasion to testifie the Dove-like temper of this meek this matchless Man and doubtless it Almighty God had blest the Dissenters from the Ceremonies and Discipline of this Church with a like measure of Wisdom and Humility instead of their pertinacious Zeal then Obedience and Truth had kissed each other then Peace and Piety had flourished in our Nation and this Church and State had been blest like Ierusalem that is at unity with it self but that can never be expected till God shall bless the common people with a belief That Schism is a sin and that there may be offences taken which are not given and that Laws are not made for private men to dispute but to obey And this also maybe worthy of noting That these Exceptions of Mr. Travers against Mr. Hooker were the cause of his transcribing several of his Sermons which we now see Printed with his Books of his Answer to Mr. Travers his Supplication and of his most learned and useful Discourse of Iustification of Faith and Works and by their Transcription they fell into the hands of others that have preserved them from being lost as too many of his other matchless Writings have been and from these I have gathered many observations in this Discourse of his Life After the publication of his Answer to the Petition of Mr. Travers Mr. Hooker grew daily into greater repute with the most Learned and Wise of the Nation but it had a contrary effect in very many of the Temple that were zealous for Mr. Travers and for his Church Discipline insomuch that though Mr. Travers left the place yet the Seeds of Discontent could not be rooted out of that Society by the great Reason and as great Meekness of this humble Man For though the Cheif Benchers gave him much Reverence and Incouragement yet he there met with many neglects and oppositions-by-those of Mr. Travers judgment insomuch that it turned to his extream grief And that he might unbeguile and win them he designed to write a deliberate sober Treatise of the Churches power to make Cannons for the use of Ceremonies and by Law to impose an obedience to them as upon Her Children and this he proposed to do in Eight Books of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity intending therein to shew such Arguments as should force an assent from all Men if Reason delivered in sweet Language and void of any provocation were able to do it And that he might prevent all prejudice he wrote before it a large Preface or Epistle to the Dissenting Brethren wherein there were such Bowels of Love and such a Commixture of that Love with Reason as was never exceeded but in Holy Writ and particularly by that of St. Paul to his dear Brother and Fellow-Laborer Philemon Then which none ever was more like this Epistle of Mr. Hookers So that his dear Friend and Companion in his Studies Doctor Spencer might after his Death justly say What admirable height of Learning and depth of Iudgment dwelt in the lowly minde of this truly humble Man great in all wise mens eyes except his own With what gravity and majesty of Speech his Tongue and Pen uttered Heavenly Mysteries whose eyes in the Humility of his Heart were always cast down to the ground How all things that proceeded from him were breathed as from the Spirit of Love as if he like the Bird of the Holy Ghost the Dove had wanted Gall Let those that knew him not in his Person judge by these living Images of his Soul his Writings The Foundation of these Books was laid in the Temple but he found it no fit place to finish what he had there designed and therefore solicited the Archbishop for a remove to whom he spake to this purpose My Lord
the one and the other Were Christians here forbidden to communicate in Unleavened Bread because the Jews did so being Enemies of the Church He which attentively shall weigh the words will suspect that they rather forbid communion with Jews then imitation of them much more if with these two Decrees be compared a third in the Council of Constantinople Let no man either of the Clergy or Laity eat the Unleavened of the Iews nor enter into any familiarity with them nor send for them in sickness nor take Physick at their hands nor as much as go into the â—ath with them If any do otherwise being a Clergy-man let him be deposed if being a Lay-person let Excommunication be his punishment If these Canons were any Argument that they which made them did utterly condemn similitude between the Christians and Jews in things indifferent appertaining unto Religion either because the Jews were enemies unto the Church or else for that their Ceremonies were abrogated these Reasons had been as strong and effectual against their keeping the Feast of Easter on the same day the Jews kept theirs and not according to the Custom of the West Church For so they did from the first beginning till Constantine's time For in these two things the East and West Churches did interchangeably both confront the Jews and concur with them the West Church using Unleavened Bread as the Jews in their Passover did but differing from them in the day whereon they kept the Feast of Easter contrariwise the East Church celebrating the Feast of Easter on the same day with the Jews but not using the same kinde of Bread which they did Now â— so be the East Church in using Leavened Bread had done well either for that the Jews were enemies to the Church or because Jewish Ceremonies were abrogated How should we think but that Victor the Bishop of Rome whom all judicious men do in that behalf disallow did well to be so vehement and fierce in drawing them to the like dissimilitude for the Feast of Easter Again If the West Churches had in either of those two respects affected dissimilitude with the Jews in the Feast of Easter What reason had they to draw the Eastern Church herein unto them which reason did not enforce them to frame themselves unto it in the ceremony of Leavened Bread Difference in Rites should breed no controversie between one Church and another but if controversie be once bred it must be ended The Feast of Easter being therefore litigious in the days of Constantine who honored of all other Churches most the Church of Rome which Church was the Mother from whose Brests he had drawn that food which gave him nourishment to eternal life fith Agreement was necessary and yet impossible unless the one part were yielded unto his desire was that of the two the Eastern Church should rather yield And to this end he useth sundry perswasive speeches When Stephen Bishop of Rome going about to shew what the Catholick Church should do had alledged what the Hereticks themselves did namely That they received such as came unto them and offered not to Baptize them anew St. Cyprian being of a contrary minde to him about the matter at that time in question which was Whether Hereticks converted ought to be rebaptized yea or no answered the Allegation of Pope Stephen with exceeding great stomach saying To this degree of wretchedness the Church of God and Spouse of Christ is now come that her ways she frameth to the example of Hereticks that to celebrate the Sacraments which Heavenly Instruction hath delivered light it self doth borrow from darkness and Christians do that which Antichrists do Now albeit Constantine have done that to further a better cause which Cyprian did to countenance a worse namely the Rebaptization of Hereticks and have taken advantage at the odiousness of the Jews as Cyprian of Hereticks because the Eastern Church kept their Feast of Easter always the Fourteenth day of the Moneth as the Jews did what day of the week soever it fell or howsoever Constantine did take occasion in the handling of that cause to say It is unworthy to have any thing common with that spightful Nation of the Iews Shall every Motive Argument used in such kinde of Conferences be made a rule for others still to conclude the like by concerning all things of like nature when as probable enducements may lead them to the contrary Let both this and other Allegations suitable unto it cease to bark any longer idly against that truth the course and passage whereof it is not in them to hinder 12. But the weightiest Exception and of all the most worthy to be respected is against such kinde of Ceremonies as have been so grosly and shamefully abused in the Church of Rome that were they remain they are scandalous yea they cannot chuse but be stumbling blocks and grievous causes of offence Concerning this point therefore we are first to note What properly it is to be scandalous or offensive Secondly What kinde of Ceremonies are such And thirdly When they are necessarily for remedy thereof to be taken away and when not The common conceit of the vulgar sort is Whensoever they see any thing which they mislike and are angry at to think that every such thing is scandalous and that themselves in this case are the men concerning whom our Saviour spake in so fearful manner saying Whosoever shall scandalize or offend any one of these little ones which believe in me that is as they construe it Whosoever shall anger the meanest and simplest Artizan which carrieth a good minde by not removing out of the Church such Rites and Ceremonies as displease him better he were drowned in the bottom of the Sea But hard were the case of the Church of Christ if this were to scandalize Men are scandalized when they are moved led and provoked unto sin At good things evil men may take occasion to do evil and so Christ himself was a Rock of Offence in Israel they taking occasion at his poor estate and at the ignominy of his Cross to think him unworthy the Name of that Great and Glorious Mesias whom the Prophets describe in such ample and stately terms But that which we therefore term offensive because it inviteth men to offend and by a dumb kinde of provocation encourageth moveth or any way leadeth unto sin must of necessity be acknowledged actively scandalous Now some things are so even by their very essence and nature so that wheresoever they be found they are not neither can be without this force of provocation unto evil of which kinde all examples of sin and wickedness are Thus David was scandalous in that bloody act whereby he caused the enemies of God to be blasphemous Thus the whole state of Israel was scandalous when their publick disorders caused the Name of God to be ill spoken of amongst the Nations It is of this kinde that Tertullian
just and unjust when it meaneth not the same man nor by imagining the same man learned and unlearned if learned in one skill and in another kinde of learning unskilful because the parts of every true opposition do always both concern the same subject and have reference to the same thing sith otherwise they are but in shew opposite and not in truth So the Will about one and the same thing may in contrary respects have contrary inclinations and that without contrariety The Minister of Justice may for publike example to others virtuously will the execution of that party whose pardon another for cousanguinities sake as virtuously may desire Consider death in it self and nature teacheth Christ to shun it Consider death as a mean to procure the salvation of the World and mercy worketh in Christ all willingness of minde towards it Therefore in these two desires there can be no repugnant opposition Again compare them with the Will of God and if any opposition be it must be onely between his appointment of Christs death and the former desire which wisheth deliverance from death But neither is this desire opposite to the Will of God The Will of God was that Christ should suffer the pains of death Not so his will as if the torment of innocency did in it self please and delight God but such was his Will in regard of the end whereunto it was necessary that Christ should suffer The death of Christ in it self therefore God willeth not which to the end we might thereby obtain life he both alloweth and appointeth In like manner the Son of Man endureth willingly to that purpose those grievous painsâ— which simply not to have shunned had been against Nature and by consequent against God I take it therefore to be an error that Christ either knew not what himself was to suffer or else had forgotten the things he knew The root of which error was an over-restrained consideration of Prayer as though it had no other lawful use but onely to serve for a chosen mean whereby the Will resolveth to seek that which the Understanding certainly knoweth it shall obtain Whereas Prayers in truth both unto are and his were as well sometime a presentation of meer desires as a mean of procuring desired effects at the hands of God We are therefore taught by his example that the presence of dolorous and dreadful objects even in mindes most perfect may as clouds over-cast all sensible joy that no assurance touching future victories can make present conflicts so sweet and easie but nature will shun and shrink from them nature will desire case and deliverance from oppressive burthens that the contrary determination of God is oftentimes against the effect of this desire yet not against the affection it self because it is naturally in us that in such case our Prayers cannot serve us as means to obtain the thing we desire that notwithstanding they are unto God most acceptable sacrifices because they testifie we desire nothing but at his hands and our desires we submit with contentment to be over-ruled by his Will and in general they are not repugnant unto the Natural Will of God which wisheth to the works of his own hands in that they are his own handy-work all happiness although perhaps for some special cause in our own particular a contrary determination have seemed more convenient finally that thus to propose our desires which cannot take such effects as we specifie shall notwithstanding otherwise procure us his Heavenly grace even as this very Prayer of Christ obtained Angels to be sent him as comforters in his Agony And according to this example we are not afraid to present unto God our Prayers for those things which that he will perform unto us we have no sure nor certain knowledge St. Pauls Prayer for the Church of Corinth was that they might not do any evil although he knew that no man liveth which sinneth not although he knew that in this life we always must pray Forgive us our sins It is our frailty that in many things we all do amiss but a vertue that we would do amiss in nothing and a testimony of that vertue when we pray That what occasion of sin soever do offer it self we may be strengthned from above to withstand it They pray in vain to have sin pardoned which seek not also to prevent sin by Prayer even every particular sin by Prayer against all sin except men can name some transgression wherewith we ought to have truce For in very deed although we cannot be free from all sin collectively in such sort that no part thereof shall be found inherent in us yet distributively at the least all great and grievous actual offences as they offer themselves one by one both may and ought to be by all means avoided So that in this sense to be preserved from all sin is not impossible Finally concerning deliverance it self from all adversity we use not to say men are in adversity whensoever they feel any small hinderance of their welfare in this World but when some notable affliction or cross some great calamity or trouble befalleth them Tribulation hath in it divers circumstances the Minde sundry faculties to apprehend them It offereth sometime it self to the lower powers of the Soul as a most unpleasant spectacle to the higher sometimes as drawing after it a train of dangerous inconveniences sometime as bringing with it remedies for the curing of sundry evils as Gods instrument of revenge and fury sometime sometime as a rod of his just yet moderate ire and displeasure sometime as matter for them that spightfully hate us to exercise their poysoned malice sometime as a furnace of tryal for vertue to shew it self and through conflict to obtain glory Which different contemplations of adversity do work for the most part their answerable effects Adversity either apprehended by Sense as a thing offensive and grievous to Nature or by Reason conceived as a snare an occasion of many mens falling from God a sequel of Gods indignation and wrath a thing which Satan desireth and would be glad to behold Tribulation thus considered being present causeth sorrow and being imminent breedeth fear For moderation of which two affections growing from the very natural bitterness and gall of adversity the Scripture much alledgeth contrary fruits which Affliction likewise hath whensoever it falleth on them that are tractable the grace of Gods holy Spirit concurring therewith But when the Apostle St. Paul teacheth That every one which will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution and by many tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of Heaven because in a Forest of many Wolves Sheep cannot chuse bat feed in continual danger of life or when St. Iames exhorteth to account it a matter of exceeding joy when we fall into divers temptations because by the tryal of Faith Patience is brought forth was it suppose we their meaning to frustrate
of words as Alchymy doth or would the substance of Mettals maketh of any thing what it listeth and bringeth in the end all Truth to nothing Or howsoever such voluntary exercise of wit might be born with otherwise yet in places which usually serve as this doth concerning Regeneration by Water and the Holy Ghost to be alledged for Grounds and Principles less is permitted To hide the general consent of Antiquity agreeing in the literal interpretation they cunningly affirm That certain have taken those words as meant of Material Water when they know that of all the Ancients there is no one to be named that ever did otherwise either expound or alledge the place then as implying External Baptism Shall that which hath always received this and no other construction be now disguised with a toy of Novelty Must we needs at the onely shew of a critical conceit without any more deliberation utterly condemn them of Error which will not admit that Fire in the words Iohn is quenched with the Name of the Holy Ghost or with the name of the Spirit Water dried up in the words of Christ When the Letter of the Law hath two things plainly and expresly specified Water and the Spirit Water as a duty required on our parts the Spirit as a Gift which God bestoweth There is danger in presuming so to interpret it at if the clause which concerneth our selves were more then needeth We may by such rate Expositions attain perhaps in the end to be thought witty but with ill advice Finally if at the time when that Baptism which was meant by Iohn came to be really and truly performed by Christ himself we finde the Apostles that had been as we are before Baptized new Baptized with the Holy Ghost and in this their latter Baptism as well a visible descent of Fire as a secret miraculous infusion of the Spirit if on us he accomplish likewise the Heavenly work of our New birth not with the Spirit alone but with Water thereunto adjoyned sith the faithfullest Expounders of his words are his own Deeds let that which his hand hath manifestly wrought declare what his speech did doubtfully utter 60. To this they add That as we err by following a wrong construction of the place before alledged so our second over-sight is that we thereupon infer a necessity over-rigorous and extream The true necessity of Baptism a sew Propositions considered will soon decide All things which either are known Causes or set Means whereby any great Good is usually procured or Men delivered from grievous evil the same we must needs confess necessary And if Regeneration were not in this very sense a thing necessary to eternal life would Christ himself have taught Nicodemus that to see the Kingdom of God is impossible saving onely for those Men which are born from above His words following in the next Sentence are a proof sufficient that to our Regeneration his Spirit is no less necessary then Regeneration it self necessary unto Life Thirdly Unless as the Spirit is a necessary inward cause so Water were a necessary outward mean to our Regeneration what construction should we give unto those words wherein we are said to be new born and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even of Water Why are we taught that with Water God doth purifie and cleanse his Church Wherefore do the Apostles of Christ term Baptism a Bath of Regeneration What purpose had they in giving men advice to receive outward Baptism and in perswading them it did avail to remission of sins If outward Baptism were a cause in it self possessed of that power either Natural or Supernatural without the present operation whereof no such effect could possibly grow it must then follow That seeing effects do never prevent the necessary causes out of which they spring no man could ever receive Grace before Baptism Which being apparently both known and also confest to be otherwise in many particulars although in the rest we make not Baptism a cause of Grace yet the Grace which is given them with their Baptism doth so far forth depend on the very outward Sacrament that God will have it embraced not onely as a sign or token what we receive but also as an Instrument or Mean whereby we receive Grace because Baptism is a Sacrament which God hath instituted in his Church to the end that they which receive the same might thereby be incorporated into Christ and so through his most precious Merit obtain as well that saving Grace of Imputation which taketh away all former guiltiness as also that infused Divine Vertue of the Holy Ghost which giveth to the Powers of the Soul their first disposition towards future newness of life There are that elevate too much the ordinary and immediate means of life relying wholly upon the bare conceit of that Eternal Election which notwithstanding includeth a subordination of means without which we are not actually brought to enjoy what God secretly did intend and therefore to build upon Gods Election if we keep not our selves to the ways which he hath appointed for men to walk in is but a self-deceiving vanity When the Apostle saw men called to the participation of Jesus Christ after the Gospel of God embraced and the Sacrament of Life received he feareth not then to put them in the number of Elect Saints he then accounteth them delivered from death and clean purged from all sin Till then notwithstanding their preordination unto life which none could know of saving God what were they in the Apostles own account but Children of Wrath as well as others plain Aliens altogether without hope strangers utterly without God in this present World So that by Sacraments and other sensible tokens of Grace we may boldy gather that he whose Mercy vouchsafeth now to bestow the means hath also long sithence intended us that whereunto they lead But let us never think i◠safe to presume of our own last end by bare conjectural Collections of his first intent and purpose the means failing that should come between Predestination bringeth not to life without the Grace of External Vocation wherein our Baptism is implied For as we are not Naturally men without birth so neither are we Christian men in the eye of the Church of God but by New birth nor according to the manifest ordinary course of Divine Dispensation new born but by that Baptism which both declareth and maketh us Christians In which respect we justly hold it to be the Door of our Actual Entrance into Gods House the first apparent beginning of Life a Seal perhaps to the Grace of Election before received but to our Sanctification here a step that hath not any before it There were of the old Valentinian Hereticks some which had Knowledge in such admiration that to it they ascribed all and so despised the Sacraments of Christ pretending That as Ignorance had
efficient cause in the work of Baptism What if the Ministers Vocation be a Matter of perpetual necessity and not a Ceremony variable as times and occasions require What if his calling be a principal part of the Institution of Christ Doth it therefore follow that the Ministers authority is of the Substance of the Sacrament and as incident into the nature thereof as the Matter and the Form it self yea more incident For whereas in case of necessity the greatest amongst them professeth the change of the Element of Water lawful and others which like not so well this opinion could be better content that voluntarily the words of Christs Institution were altered and Men baptized in the Name of Christ without either mention made of the Father or of the Holy Ghost nevertheless in denying that Baptism administred by private persons ought to be reckoned of as a Sacrament they both agree It may therefore please them both to consider That Baptism is an Action in part Moral in part Ecclesiastical and in part Mystical Moral as being a duty which men perform towards God Ecclesiastical in that it belongeth unto Gods Church as a publick duty Finally Mystical if we respect what God doth thereby intend to work The greatest Moral perfection of Baptism consisteth in mens devout obedience to the Law of God which Law requireth both the outward act or thing done and also that Religious affection which God doth so much regard that without it whatsoever we do is â—tateful in his sight who therefore is said to respect Adverbs more then Verbs because the end of his Law in appointing what we shall do is our own Perfection which Perfection consisteth chiefly in the vertuous disposition of the Minde and approveth it self to him not by doing but by doing well Wherein appeareth also the difference between Humane and Divine Laws the one of which two are content with Opus operatum the other require Opus operantis the one do but claim the Deed the other especially the Minde So that according to Laws which principally respect the heart of Men Works of Religion being not religiously performed cannot Morally be perfect Baptism as an Ecclesiastical work is for the manner of performance ordered by divers Ecclesiastical Laws providing That as the Sacrament it self is a gift of no mean worth so the Ministery thereof might in all circumstances appear to be a Function of no small regard All that belongeth to the Mystical Perfection of Baptism outwardly is the Element the Word and the serious Application of both unto him which receiveth both whereunto if we add that secret reference which this action hath to liâ—e and remission of sins by vertue of Christs own compact solemnly made with his Church to accomplish fully the Sacrament of Baptism there is not any thing more required Now put the Question Whether Baptism Administred to Infants without my Spiritual Calling be unto them both a true Sacrament and an effectual instrument of Grace or else an act of no more account then the ordinary Washings are The sum of all that can be said to defeat such Baptism is That those things which have no Being can work nothing and that Baptism without the power of Ordination is as a Judgment without sufficient Jurisdiction void frustrate and of no effect But to this we answer That the Fruit of Baptism dependeth onely upon the Covenant which God hath made That God by Covenant requireth in the elder sort Faith and Baptism in Children the Sacrament of Baptism alone whereunto he hath also given them right by special priviledge of Birth within the bosom of the holy Church That infants therefore which have received Baptism compleat as touching the Mystical Perfection thereof are by vertue of his own Covenant and Promise cleansed from all sin for as much as all other Laws concerning that which in Baptism is either Moral or Ecclesiastical do binde the Church which giveth Baptism and not the Infant which receiveth it of the Church So that if any thing be therein amiss the harm which groweth by violation of holy Ordinances must altogether rest where the Bonds of such Ordinances hold For that in actions of this nature it fareth not as in Jurisdictions may somewhat appear by the very opinion which men have of them The nullity of that which a Judge doth by way of Authority without Authority is known to all men and agreed upon with full consent of the whole World every man receiveth it as a general Edict of Nature whereas the nullity of Baptism in regard of the like defect is onely a few mens new ungrounded and as yet unapproved imagination Which difference of generality in mens perswasions on the one side and their paucity whose conceit leadeth them the other way hath risen from a difference easie to observe in the things themselves The exercise of unauthorised Jurisdiction is a grievance unto them that are under it whereas they that without Authority presume to Baptize offer nothing but that which to all men is good and acceptable Sacraments are food and the Ministers thereof as Parents or as Nurses at whose hands when there is necessity but no possibility of receiving it if that which they are not present to do in right of their Office be of pity and compassion done by others shall this be thought turn Celestial Bread into Gravel or the Medicine of Souls into Poyson Jurisdiction is a yoke which Law hath imposed on the necks of men in such sort that they must endure it for the good of others how contrary soever it be to their own particular appetites and inclinations Jurisdiction bridleth men against their wills that which a Judge doth prevails by vertue of his very Power and therefore not without great reason except the Law hath given him Authority whatsoever he doth vanisheth Baptism on the other side being a favor which it pleaseth God to bestow a benefit of Soul to us that receive it and a Grace which they that deliver are but as meer Vessels either appointed by others or offered of their own accord to this Service of which two if they be the one it is but their own honor their own offence to be the other Can it possibly stand with Equity and Right That the faultiness of their presumption in giving Baptism should be able to prejudice us who by taking Baptism have no way offended I know there are many Sentences found in the Books and writings of the Ancient Fathers to prove both Ecclesiastical and also Moral defects in the Minister of Baptism a bar to the Heavenly benefit thereof Which Sentences we always so understand as Augustine understood in a case of like nature the words of St. Cyprian When Infants baptized were after their Parents revolt carried by them in arms to the Stews of Idols those wretched Creatures as St. Cyprian thought were not onely their own ruine but their Childrens also Their Children whom this their Apostasie prophaned did lose
lest the sense and signification we give unto it should burthen us as Authors of a new Gospel in the House of God not in respect of some cause which the Fathers had more then we have to use the same nor finally for any such offence or scandal as heretofore it hath been subject unto by Error now reformed in the mindes of Men. 66. The ancient Custom of the Church was after they had Baptized to add thereunto Imposition of Hands with effectual Prayer for the illumination of Gods most holy Spirit to confirm and perfect that which the Grace of the some Spirit had already begun in Baptism For our means to obtain the Graces which God doth bestow are our Prayers Our Prayers to that intent are available as well for others as for ourselves To pray for others is to bless them for whom we pray because Prayer procureth the blessing of God upon them especially the Prayer of such as God either most respecteth for their Piety and Zeal that way or else regardeth for that their place and calling bindeth them above others unto this duty as it doth both Natural and Spiritual Fathers With Prayers of Spiritual and Personal Benediction the manner hath been in all ages to use Imposition of Hands as a Ceremony betokening our restrained desires to the party whom we present unto God by Prayer Thus when Israel blessed Ephraim and Manasses Iosephs sons he imposed upon them his hands and prayed God in whose sight my Fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk God which hath fed me all my life long unto this day and the Angel which hath delivered me from all evil bless these Children The Prophets which healed diseases by Prayer used therein the self-same Ceremony And therefore when Elizeus willed Naaman to wash himself seven times in Iordan for cure of his foul disease it much offended him I thought saith he with my self Surely the man will come forth and stand and call upon the Name of the Lord his God and put his hand on the place to the end he may so heal the â—â—eprosie In Consecrations and Ordinations of Men unto Rooms of Divine Calling the like was usually done from the time of Moses to Christ. Their suits that came unto Christ for help were also tendred oftentimes and are expressed in such forms or phrases of speech as shew that he was himself an observer of the same custom He which with Imposition of Hands and Prayer did so great Works of Mercy for restauration of Bodily health was worthily judged as able to effect the infusion of Heavenly Grace into them whose age was not yet depraved with that malice which might be supposed a bar to the goodness of God towards them They brought him therefore young children to put his hands upon them and pray After the Ascension of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that which he had begun continued in the daily practice of his Apostles whose Prayer and Imposition of Hands were a mean whereby thousands became partakers of the wonderful Gifts of God The Church had received from Christ a promise that such as believed in him these signs and tokens should follow them To cast one Devils to speak with Tongues to drive away Serpents to be free from the harm which any deadly poyson could work and to cure diseases by Imposition of Hands Which power common at the first in a manner unto all Believers all Believers had not power to derive or communicate unto all other men but whosoever was the instrument of God to instruct convert and baptize them the gift of miraculous operations by the power of the Holy Ghost they had not but onely at the Apostles own hands For which cause Simon Magus perceiving that power to be in none but them and presuming that they which had it might sell it sought to purchase it of them with money And as miraculous Graces of the Spirit continued after the Apostles times For saith Irenaus they which are truly his Disciples do in his Name and through Grace received from him such works for the benefit of other men as every of them is by him enabled to work Some cast one Devils in so much as they which are delivered from wicked spirits have been thereby won unto Christ and do constantly persevere in the Church and Society of Faithful Men Some excel in the knowledge of things to come in the grace of Visions from God and the gift of Prophetical Prediction Some by laying on their hands restore them to health which are grievously afflicted with sickness yea there are that of dead have been made alive and have afterwards many years conversed with us What should I say The gifts are innumerable wherewith God hath inriched his Church throughout the World and by vertue whereof in the Name of Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate the Church every day doth many wonders for the good of Nations neither fraudulently nor in any respect of lucre and gain to her self but as freely bestowing as God on her hath bestowed his Divine Graces So it no where appeareth that ever any did by Prayer and Imposition of Hands sithence the Apostles times make others partakers of the like miraculous gifts and graces as long as it pleased God to continue the same in his Church but onely Bishops the Apostles Successors for a time even in that power St. Augustine acknowledgeth That such gifts were not permitted to last always lest men should wax cold with the commonness of that the strangeness whereof at the first inflamed them Which words of St. Augustine declaring how the vulgar use of these Miracles was then expired are no prejudice to the like extraordinary Graces more rarely observed in some either then or of latter days Now whereas the Successors of the Apostles had but onely for a time such power as by Prayer and Imposition of Hands to bestow the Holy Ghost the reason wherefore Confirmation nevertheless by Prayer and Laying on of Hands hath hitherto always continued is for other very special benefits which the Church thereby enjoyeth The Fathers every where impute unto it that gift or Grace of the Holy Ghost not which maketh us first Christian men but when we are made such assisteth us in all vertue aimeth us against temptation and sin For after Baptism administred there followeth saith Tertullian Imposition of Hands with Invocation and Invitation of the Holy Ghost which willingly cometh down from the Father to rest upon the purified and blessed Bodies as it were acknowledging the Waters of Baptism a fit Seat St. Cyprian in more particular manner alluding to that effect of the Spirit which here especially was respected How great saith he is that power and force wherewith the minde is here he meaneth in Baptism enabled being not onely withdrawn from that pernicious hold which the World before had of it nor onely so purified and made clean that no stain or blemish of
the Enemies invasion doth remain but over and besides namely through Prayer and Imposition of Hands becometh yet greater yet mightier in strength so far as to raign with a kinde of Imperial Dominion over the whole Band of that roming and spoiling Adversary As much is signified by Eusebius Emissenus saying The Holy Ghost which descendeth with saving influence upon the Waters of Baptism doth there give that fulness which sufficeth for innocenty and afterwards exhibiteth in Confirmation an Augmentation of further Grace The Fathers therefore being thus perswaded held Confirmation as an Ordinance Apostolick always profitable in Gods Church although not always accompanied with equal largeness of those External Effects which gave it countenance at the first The cause of severing Confirmation from Baptism for most commonly they went together was sometimes in the Minister which being of inferior degree might Baptize but not Confirm as in their case it came to pass whom Peter and Iohn did confirm whereas Philip had before baptized them and in theirs of whom St. Ierome hath said I deny not but the Custom of the Churches is that the Bishop should go abroad and imposing his hands pray for the Gift of the Holy Ghost on them whom Presbyters and Deacons far off in lesser Cities have already â—aptized Which ancient Custom of the Church St. Cyprian groundeth upon the example or Peter and Iohn in the Eighth of the Acts before alledged The faithful in Samaria saith he had already obtained Baptism onely that which was wanting Peter and John supplied by Prayer and Imposition of Hands to the end the Holy Ghost might be poured upon them Which also is done amongst our selves when they which be already Baptized are brought to the Prelates of the Church to obtain by their Prayer and Imposition of Hands the Holy Ghost By this it appeareth that when the Ministers of Baptism were persons of inferior degree the Bishops did after Confirm whom such had before Baptized Sometimes they which by force of their Ecclesiastical Calling might do as well the one as the other were notwithstanding Men whom Heresie had dis-joyned from the Fellowship of true Believers Whereupon when any Man by them Baptized and Confirmed came afterwards to see and renounce their Error there grew in some Churches very hot contention about the manner of admitting such into the Bosome of the true Church as hath been declared already in the question of Rebaptization But the generally received Custom was onely to admit them with Imposition of Hands and Prayer Of which Custom while some imagined the reason to be for that Hereticks might give Remission of Sins by Baptism but not the Spirit by Imposition of Hands because themselves had not Gods Spirit and that therefore their Baptism might stand but Confirmation must be given again The imbecillity of this ground gave Cyprian occasion to oppose himself against the practice of the Church herein laboring many ways to prove That Hereticks could do neither and consequently that their Baptism in all respects was as frustrate as their Chrism for the manner of those times was in Confirming to use Anointing On the other side against Luciferians which ratified onely the Baptism of Hereticks but disannulled their Confirmations and Consecrations under pretence of the reason which hath been before specified Hereticks cannot give the Holy Ghost St. Ierome proveth at large That if Baptism by Hereticks be granted available to Remission of Sins which no man receiveth without the Spirit it must needs follow that the reason taken from disability of bestowing the Holy Ghost was no reason wherefore the Church should admit Converts with any new Imposition of Hands Notwithstanding because it might be objected That if the gift of the Holy Ghost do always joyn it self with true Baptism the Church which thinketh the Bishops Confirmation after others Mens Baptism needful for the obtaining of the Holy Ghost should hold an error Saint Ierome hereunto maketh answer That the cause of this observation is not any absolute impossibility of receiving the Holy Ghost by the Sacrament of Baptism unless a Bishop add after it the Imposition of Hands but rather a certain congruity and fitness to honor Prelacy with such pre-eminences because the safety of the Church dependeth upon the dignity of her chief Superiors to whom if some eminent Offices of Power above others should not be given there would be in the Church as many Schisms as Priests By which answer it appeareth his opinion was That the Holy Ghost is received in Baptism that Confirmation is onely a Sacramental Complement that the reason why Bishops alone did ordinarily confirm was not because the benefit grace and dignity thereof is greater then of Baptism but rather for that by the Sacrament of Baptism Men being admitted into Gods Church it was both reasonable and convenient that if he Baptize them not unto whom the chiefest authority and charge of their Souls belongeth yet for honors sake and in token of his Spiritual Superiority over them because to bless is an act of Authority the performance of this annexed Ceremony should be sought for at his hands Now what effect their Imposition of Hands hath either after Baptism administred by Hereticks or otherwise St. Ierome in that place hath made no mention because all men understood that in Converts it tendeth to the fruits of Repentance and craveth in behalf of the Penitent such grace as David after his fall desired at the hands of God in others the fruit and benefit thereof is that which hath been before shewed Finally Sometime the cause of severing Confirmation from Baptism was in the parties that received Baptism being Infants at which age they might be very well admitted to live in the Family but because to fight in the Army of God to discharge the duties of a Christian man to bring forth the fruits and to do the Works of the Holy Ghost their time of ability was not yet come so that Baptism were not deferred there could by stay of their Confirmation no harm ensue but rather good For by this means it came to pass that Children in expectation thereof were seasoned with the principles of true Religion before malice and corrupt examples depraved their mindes a good foundation was laid betimes for direction of the course of their whole lives the Seed of the Church of God was preserved sincere and sound the Prelates and Fathers of Gods Family to whom the cure of their Souls belonged saw by tryal and examination of them a part of their own heavy burthen discharged reaped comfort by beholding the first beginnings of true godliness in tender years glorified him whose praise they found in the mouths of Infants and neglected not so fit opportunity of giving every one Fatherly encouragement and exhortation Whereunto Imposition of Hands and Prayer being added our Warrant for the great good effect thereof is the same which Patriarks Prophets Priests Apostles Fathers and Men of God have had
whether wilfully to break and despise the wholesome laws of the Church herein be a thing which offendeth God whether truly it may not be said that penitent both weaping and fasting are means to blot out sin means whereby through Gods unspeakable and undeserved mercy we obtain or procure to our selves pardon which attainment unto any gracious benefit by him bestowed the phrase of Antiquity useth to express by the name of Merit but if either Saint Augustine or Saint Ambrose have taught any wrong opinion seeing they which reprove them are not altogether free from Error I hope they will think it no error in us so to censure mens smaller faults that their vertues be not thereby generally prejudiced And if in Churches abroad where we are not subject to Power or Jurisdiction discretion should teach us for Peace and Quietness sake to frame our selves to other mens example Is it meet that at home where our freedom is less our boldness should be more Is it our duty to oppugn in the Churches whereof we are Ministers the Rites and Customs which in Foreign Churches Piety and Modesty did teach us as strangers not to oppugn but to keep without shew of contradiction or dislike Why oppose they the name of a Minister in this case unto the state of a private man Doth their order exempt them from obedience to Laws That which their Office and place requireth is to shew themselves patterns of reverend subjection not Authors and Masters of contempt towards Ordinances the strength whereof when they seek to weaken they do but in truth discover to the World their own imbecillities which a great deal wiselier they might conceal But the practice of the Church of Christ we shall by so much the better both understand and love if to that which hitherto hath been spoken there be somewhat added for more particular declaration how Hereticks have partly abused Fasts and partly bent themselves against the lawful use thereof in the Church of God Whereas therefore Ignatius hath said If any keep Sundays or Saturdays Fasts one onely Saturday in the year excepted that man is no better then a murtherer of Christ the cause of such his earnestness at that time was the impiety of certain Hereticks which thought that this World being corruptible could not be made but a very evil Author And therefore as the Jews did by the Festival Solemnity of their Sabbath rejoyce in the God that created the World as in the Author of all Goodness so those Hereticks in hatred of the Maker of the World sorrowed wept and fasted on that day as being the birth-day of all evil And as Christian men of sound belief did solemnize the Sunday in joyful memory of Christs Resurrection so likewise at the self-same time such Hereticks as denied his Resurrection did the contrary to them which held it When the one sort rejoyced the other fasted Against those Hereticks which have urged perpetual abstinence from certain Meats as being in their very nature unclean the Church hath still bent herself as an enemy Saint Paul giving charge to take heed of them which under any such opinion should utterly forbid the use of Meats or Drinks The Apostles themselves forbad some as the order taken at Ierusalem declareth But the cause of their so doing we all know Again when Tertullian together with such as were his followers began to Montanize and pretending to perfect the severity of Christian Discipline brought in sundry unaccustomed days of Fasting continued their Fasts a great deal longer and made them more rigorous then the use of the Church had been the mindes of men being somewhat moved at so great and so sudden novelty the cause was presently inquired into After notice taken how the Montanists held these Additions to be Supplements of the Gospel whereunto the Spirit of Prophesie did now mean to put as it were the last hand and was therefore newly descended upon Montanus whose orders all Christian men were no less to obey then the Laws of the Apostles themselves this Abstinence the Church abhorred likewise and that justly Whereupon Tertullian proclaiming even open War of the Church maintained Montanism wrote a Book in defence of the new Fast and intituled the same A Treatise of Fasting against the opinion of the Carnal sort In which Treatise nevertheless because so much is sound and good as doth either generally concern the use or in particular declare the Custom of the Churches Fasting in those times men are not to reject whatsoever is alledged out of that Book for confirmation of the Truth His error discloseth it self in those places where he defendeth Fasts to be duties necessary for the whole Church of Christ to observe as commanded by the Holy Ghost and that with the same authority from whence all other Apostolical Ordinances came both being the Laws of God himself without any other distinction or difference saving onely that he which before had declared his will by Paul and Peter did now farther reveal the same by Montanus also Against us ye pretend saith Tertullian that the Publick Orders which Christianity is bound to keep were delivered at the first and that no new thing is to be added thereunto Stand if you can upon this point for behold I challenge you for Fasting more then at Easter your selves But in fine ye answer That these things are to be done as established by the voluntary appointment of men and not by vertue or force of any Divine Commandment Well then he addeth Ye have removed your first footing and gone beyond that which was delivered by doing more then was at the first imposed upon you You say you must do that which your own judgments have allowed We require your obedience to that which God himself doth institute Is it not strange that men to their own will should yield that which to Gods Commandment they will not grant Shall the pleasure of men prevail more with you then the power of God himself These places of Tertullian for Fasting have worthily been put to silence And as worthily Aerius condemned for opposition against Fasting The one endeavored to bring in such Fasts as the Church ought not to receive the other to overthrow such as already it had received and did observe The one was plausible unto many by seeming to hate carnal loosness and riotous excess much more then the rest of the World did the other drew hearers by pretending the maintenance of Christian Liberty The one thought his cause very strongly upheld by making invective declamations with a pale and a withered countenance against the Church by filling the ears of his starved hearers with speech suitable to such mens humors and by telling them no doubt to their marvellous contentment and liking Our new Prophesies are refused they are despised It is because Montanus doth Preach some other God or dissolve the Gospel of Iesus Christ or overthrow any Canon of Faith and Hope No our crime is We teach
that men ought to Fast more often then Marry the best Feast-maker is with them the perfectest Saint they are assuredly meer Spirit and therefore these our corporal devotions please them not Thus the one for Montanus and his Superstition The other in a clean contrary tune against the Religion of the Church These Set-fasts away with them for they are Iewish and bring men under the yoke of servitude If I will fast let me chuse my time that Christian Liberty be not abridged Hereupon their glory was to fast especially upon the Sunday because the order of the Church was on that day not to Fast. On Church Fasting days and especially the Week before Easter when with us saith Epiphanius Custom admitteth nothing but lying down upon the Earth abstinence from fleshly delights and pleasures sorrowfulness dry and unsavory Diet Prayer Watching Fasting all the Medicines which holy Affections can minister they are up be times to take in of the strongest for the belly and when their veins are well swoln they make themselves mirth with laughter at this our service wherein we are perswaded we please God By this of Epiphanius it doth appear not onely what Fastings the Church of Christ in those times used but also what other parts of Discipline were together therewith in force according to the ancient use and custom of bringing all men at certain times to a due consideration and an open Humiliation of themselves Two kindes there were of Publick Penitency the one belonging to notorious offenders whose open wickedness had been scandalous the other appertaining to the whole Church and unto every several person whom the same containeth It will be answered That touching this latter kinde it may be exercised well enough by men in private No doubt but Penitency is as Prayer a thing acceptable unto God be it in publick or in secret Howbeit as in the one if men were wholly left to their own voluntary Meditations in their Closets and not drawn by Laws and Orders unto the open Assemblies of the Church that there they may joyn with others in Prayer it may be soon conjectured what Christian devotion that way would come unto in a short time Even so in the other We are by sufficient experience taught how little it booreth to tell men of washing away their sins with tears of Repentance and so to leave them altogether unto themselves O Lord what heaps of grievous transgressions have we committed the best the perfectest the most righteous amongst us all and yet clean pass them over unsorrowed foâ— and unrepented of onely because the Church hath forgotten utterly how to bestow her wonted times of Discipline wherein the publick example of all was unto every particular person a most effectual mean to put them often in minde and even in a manner to draw them to that which now we all quite and clean forget as if Penitency were no part of a Christian mans duty Again besides our private offences which ought not thus loosly to be overslipt suppose we the Body and Corporation of the Church so just that at no time it needeth to shew it self openly cast down in regard of those Faults and Transgressions which though they do not properly belong unto any one had notwithstanding a special Sacrifice appointed for them in the Law of Moses and being common to the whole Society which containeth all must needs so far concern every man in particular as at some time in solemn manner to require acknowledgment with more then daily and ordinary testifications of grief There could not hereunto a fitter preamble be devised then that memorable Commination set down in the Book of Common Prayer if our practice in the rest were suitable The Head already so well drawn doth but wish a proportionable Body And by the Preface to that very part of the English Liturgy it may appear how at the first setting down thereof no less was intended For so we are to interpret the meaning of those words wherein restitution of the Primitive Church Discipline is greatly wished for touching the manner of publick penance in time of Lent Wherewith some being not much acquainted but having framed in their mindes the conceit of a new Discipline far unlike to that of old they make themselves believe it is undoubtedly this their Discipline which at the first was so much desired They have long pretended that the whole Scripture is plain for them If now the Communion Book make for them too I well think the one doth as much as the other it may be hoped that being found such a well-willer unto their cause they will more favor it then they have done Having therefore hitherto spoken both of Festival days and so much of solemn Fasts as may reasonably serve to shew the ground thereof in the Law of Nature the practice partly appointed and partly allowed of God in the Jewish Church the like continued in the Church of Christ together with the sinister oppositions either of Hereticks erroneously abusing the same or of others thereat quarrelling without cause we will onely collect the chiefest points as well of resemblance as of difference between them and so end First In this they agree that because Nature is the general Root of both therefore both have been always common to the Church with Infidels and Heathen men Secondly They also herein accord that as oft as joy is the cause of the one and grief the Well-spring of the other they are incompatible A third degree of affinity between them is That neither being acceptable to God of it self but both tokens of that which is acceptable their approbation with him must necessarily depend on that which they ought to import and signifie So that if herein the minde dispose no it self aright whether we rest or fast we offend A fourth thing common unto them is that the greatest part of the World hath always grosly and palpably offended in both Infidels because they did all in relation to false gods godless sensual and careless mindes for that there is in them no constant true and sincere affection towards those things which are pretended by such exercise yea certain flattering over-sights there are wherewith sundry and they not of the worst sort may be easily in these cases led awry even through abundance of love and liking to that which must be imbraced by all means but with caution in as much as the very admiration of Saints Whether we celebrate their glory or follow them in humility whether we laugh or weep mourn or rejoyce with them is as in all things the affection of Love apt to deceive and doth therefore need the more to be directed by a watchful guide seeing there is manifestly both ways even in them whom we honor that which we are to observe and shun The best have not still been sufficiently mindful that Gods very Angels in Heaven are but Angels and that bodily exercise considered in it self is no
Correct his Family The Souls of Men are Gods Treasure committed to the Trust and Fidelity of such as must render a strict account for the very least which is under their Custody God hath not invested them with Power to make a Revenue thereof but to use it for the good of them whom Jesus Christ hath most dearly bought And because their Office therein consisteth of sundry functions some belonging to Doctrine some to Discipline all contained in the Name of the Keys they have for matters of Discipline as well Litigious as Criminal their Courts and Consistories erected by the heavenly Authority of his most Sacred Voice who hath said Dic Ecclesia Tell the Church against rebellious and conâ—umacious Persons which refuse to obey their Sentence armed they are with Power to eject such out of the Church to deprive them of the Honours Rights and Priviledges of Christian Men to make them as Heathens and Publicans with whom society was hateful Furthermore lest their Acts should be slenderly accounted of or had in contempt whether they admit to the Fellowship of Saints or seclude from it whether they bind Offenders or set them again at liberty whether they remit or retain Sins whatsoever is done by way of orderly and lawfull proceeding the Lord himself hath promised to ratifie This is that grand Original Warrant by force whereof the Guides and Prelates in Gods Church first his Apostles and afterwards others following them successively did both use and uphold that Discipline the end whereof is to heal Mens Consciences to cure their Sins to reclaim Offenders from iniquity and to make them by Repentance just Neither hath it of Ancient time for any other respect been accustomed to bind by Ecclesiastical Censures to retain so bound till tokens of manifest Repentance appeared and upon apparent Repentance to Release saving only because this was received as a most expedient method for the cure of sin The course of Discipline in former Ages reformed open Transgressors by putting them into Offices of open Penitence especially Confession whereby they declared their own crimes in the hearing of the whole Church and were not from the time of their first Convention capable of the holy Mysteries of Christ till they had solemnly discharged this duty Offenders in secret knowing themselves altogether as unworthy to be admitted to the Lords Table as the other which were with-held being also perswaded that if the Church did direct them in the Offices of their Penitency and assist them with publique Prayer they should more easily obtain that they sought than by trusting wholly to their own endeavours finally having no impediment to stay them from it but bashfulness which countervailed not the former inducements and besides was greatly cased by the good construction which the charity of those times gave to such actions wherein Mens piety and voluntary care to be reconciled to God did purchase them much more love than their faults the testimonies of common frailty were able to procure disgrace they made it not nice to use some one of the Ministers of God by whom the rest might take notice of their faults prescribe them convenient remedies and in the end after publick Confession all joyn in Prayer unto God for them The first beginner of this Custom had the more followers by means of that special favour which alwaies was with good consideration shewed towards voluntary Penitents above the rest But as Professors of Christian belief grew more in number so they waxed worse when Kings and Princes had submitted their Dominions unto the Scepter of Jesus Christ by means whereof Persecution ceasing the Church immediately became subject to those evills which peace and security bringeth forth there was not now that love which before kept all things in tune but every where Schisms Discords Dissentions amongst Men. Conventicles of Hereticks bent more vehemently against the sounder and better sort than very Infidels and Heathens themselves faults not corrected in Charity but noted with delight and kept for malice to use when the deadliest opportunities should be offered Whereupon forasmuch as publick Confessions became dangerous and prejudicial to the safety of well-minded Men and in divers respects advantagious to the Enemies of Gods Church it seemed first unto some and afterwards generally requisite that voluntary Penitents should surcease from open Confession Instead whereof when once private and secret Confession had taken place with the Latins It continued as a profitable Ordinance till the Lateran Council had Decreed that all Men once in a year at the least should confess themselves to the Priest So that being a thing thus made both general and also necessary the next degree of estimation whereunto it grew was to be honoured and and lifted up to the Nature of a Sacramentâ— that as Christ did institute Baptism to give life and the Eucharist to nourish life so Penitence might be thought a Sacrament ordained to recover life and Confession a part of the Sacrament They define therefore their private Penetency to be a Sacrament of remitting sins after Baptism The vertue of Repentance a detestation of wickedness with ful purpose to amend the same and with hope to obtain pardon at Gods hands Wheresoever the Prophets cry Repent and in the Gospel Saint Peter maketh the same Exhortation to the Jews as yet unbaptized they would have the vertue of Repentance only to be understood The Sacrament where he adviseth Simon Magus to repent because the Sin of Simon Magus was after Baptism Now although they have onely external Repentance for a Sacrament internal for a Vertue yet make they Sacramental Repentance nevertheless to be composed of three parts Contrition Confession and Satisfaction which is absurd because Contrition being an inward thing belongeth to the Vertue and not to the Sacrament of Repentance which must consist of external parts if the nature thereof be external Besides which is more absurd they leave out Absolution whereas some of their School Divines handling Penance in the nature of a Sacrament and being not able to espie the least resemblance of a Sacrament save only in Absolution for a Sacrament by their doctrine must both signifie and also confer or bestow some special Divine Grace resolved themselves that the duties of the Penitent could be but meer preparations to the Sacrament and that the Sacrament it self was wholly in Absolution And albeit Thomas with his Followers have thought it safer to maintain as well the services of the Penitent as the words of the Minister necessary unto the essence of their Sacrament the services of the Penitent as a cause material the words of Absolution as a formal for that by them all things else are perfected to the taking away of Sin which opinion now reigneth in all their Schools since the time that the Councel of Trent gave it solemn approbation seeing they all make Absolution if not the whole essence yet the very form whereunto they ascribe chiefly the whole force
that respect meet before men to be acknowledged particularly But in Sins between Man and God there is no necessity that Man should himself make any such open and particular recital of them to God they are known and of us it is required that we cast not the memory of them carelesly and loosly behind our backs but keep in mind as near as we can both our own debt and his grace which remitteth the same Wherefore to let pass Jewish confession and to come unto them which hold confession in the ear of the Priest commanded yea commanded in the nature of a Sacrament and thereby so necessary that Sin without it cannot be pardoned let them find such a Commandment in holy Scripture and we ask no more Iohn the Baptist was an extraordinary person his Birth his Actions of Life his Office extraordinary It is therefore Recorded for the strangeness of the Act but not set down as an everlasting Law for the World That to him Ierusalem and all Iudea made confession of their Sins Besides at the time of this confession their pretended Sacrament of Repentance as they grant was not yet instituted neither was it Sin after Baptism which Penitents did there confess When that which befel the seven sons of Seeva for using the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in their conjurations was notisied to Jews and Grecians in Ephesus it brought an universal fear upon them insomuch that divers of them which had believed before but not obeyed the Laws of Christ as they should have done being terrified by this example came to the Apostle and confessed their wicked deeds Which good and vertuous act no wise man as I suppose will disallow but commend highly in them whom Gods good Spirit shall move to do the like when need requireth Yet neither hath this example the force of any general Commandment or Law to make it necessary for every man to pour into the ears of the Priest whatsoever hath been done amiss or else to remain everlastingly culpable and guilty of Sin in a word it proveth Confession practized as a vertuous act but not commanded as a Sacrament Now concerning St. Iames his Exhortation whether the former branch be considered which saith Is any sick among you let him call for the Ancients of the Church and let them make their prayers for him or the latter which stirreth up all Christian Men unto mutual acknowledment of faults amongst themselves Lay open your minds make your confessions one to another is it not plain that the one hath relation to that gift of healing which our Saviour promised his Church saying They shall lay their hands on the sick and the sick shall recover health relation to that gift of healing whereby the Apostle imposed his hands on the Father of Publius and made him miraculously a sound man relation finally to that gift of healing which so long continued in practice after the Apostles times that whereas the Novatianists denyed the power of the Church of God in curing Sin after Baptism St. Ambrose asked them again Why it might not as well prevail with God for spiritual as far corporal and bodily health yea wherefore saith he do ye your selves lay hands on the diseased and believe it to be a work of benediction or prayer if haply the sick person be restored to his former safety And of the other member which toucheth mutual confession do not some of themselves as namely Cajeâ—an deny that any other Confession is meant then only that which seeketh either association of Prayers or reconciliation or pardon of wrongs is it not confessed by the greatest part of their own retinue that we cannot certainly affirm Sacramental Confession to have been meant or spoken of in this place Howbeit Bellarmine delighted to run a course by himself where colourable sâ—â—ifts of wit will but make the way passable standeth as formally for this place and not less for that in St. Iohn than for this St. Iohn saith If we confess our Sins God is faithful and just to forgive our Sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness doth St. Iohn say If we confess to the Priest God is righteous to forgive and if not that our Sins are unpardonable No but the titles of God just and righteous do import that he pardoneth Sin only for his promise sake And there is not they say any promise of forgiveness upon confession made to God without the Priest Not any promise but with this condition and yet this condition no where exprest Is it not strange that the Scripture speaking so much of Repentance and of the several duties which appertain thereunto should ever mean and no where mention that one condition without which all the rest is utterly of none effect or will they say because our Saviour hath said to his Ministers Whose sins ye retain c. and because they can remit no more than what the offenders have confest that therefore by vertue of his promise it standeth with the Righteousness of God to take away no mans Sins until by auricular confession they be opened unto the Priest They are men that would seem to honour Antiquity and none more to depend upon the reverend judgement thereof I dare boldly affirm that for many hundred years after Christ the Fathers held no such opinion they did not gather by our Saviours words any such necessity of seeking the Priests Absolution from Sin by secret and as they now term it sacramental confession Publick confession they thought necessary by way of Discipline not private confession as in the nature of a Sacrament necessary For to begin with the purest times it is unto them which read and judge without partiality a thing most clear that the ancient 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Confession defined by Tertullian to be a Discipline of humiliation and submission framing mens behaviour in such sort as may be fittest to move pity the confession which they use to speak of in the exercise of Repentance was made openly in the hearing of the whole both Ecclesiastical Consistory and Assembly This is the reason wherefore he perceiving that divers were better content their sores should secretly fester and eat inward then be laid so open to the eyes of many blameth greatly their unwise bashfulness and to reform the same perswadeth with them saying Amongst thy brethren and fellow servants which are partakers with thee of one and the same nature fear joy grief sufferings for us was common Lord and Father we have all received one spirit why shouldest thou not think with thy self that they are but thine own self wherefore dost thou avoid them as likely to insult over thee whom thou knowest subject to the same haps At that which grieveth any one part the whole body cannot rejoyce it must needs be that the whole will labour and strive to help that wherewith a part of it self is molested St. Cyprian being grieved with the dealings
of them who in time of persecution had through fear betrayed their faith and notwithstanding thought by shift to avoid in that case the necessary Discipline of the Church wrote for their better instruction the book intituled De lapsis a Treatise concerning such as had openly forsaken their Religion and yet were loth openly to confess their fault in such manner as they should have done In which book he compareth with this sort of men certain others which had but a purpose only to have departed from the Faith and yet could not quiet their minds till this very secret and hidden fault was confest How much both greater in faith saith St. Cyprian and also as touching their fear better are those men who although neither sacrifice nor libel could be objected against them yet because they thought to have done that which they should not even this their intent they dolefully open unto Gods Priests They confess that whereof their conscience accuseth them the burthen that presseth their minds they discover they foreslow not of smaller and slighter evils to seek remedy He saith they declared their fault not to one only man in private but revealed it to Gods Priests they confest it before the whole Consistory of Gods Ministers Salvianus for I willingly embrace their conjecture who ascribe those Homilies to him which have hitherto by common error past under the counterfeit name of Eusebius Emesenus I say Salvianus though coming long after Cyprian in time giveth nevertheless the same evidence for his truth in a case very little different from that before alleadged his words are these Whereas most dearly beloved we see that pennance oftentimes is sought and sued for by holy souls which even from their youth have bequeathed themselves a precious treasure unto God let us know that the inspiration of Gods good Spirit moveth them so to do for the benefit of his Church and let such as are wounded learn to enquire for that remedy whereunto the very soundest do thus offer and obtrude as it were themselves that if the vertuous do bewailâ— small offences the others cease not to lament great And surely when a man that hath less need performeth sub oculis Ecclesiae in the view sight and beholding of the whole Church an office worthy of his faith and compunction for Sin the good which others thereby reap is his own harvest the heap of his rewards groweth by that which another gaineth and through a kind of spiritual usury from that amendment of life which others learn by him there returneth lucre into his cossers The same Salvianus in another of his Homilies If faults haply be not great and grievous for example if a man have offended in word or in desire worthy of reproof if in the wantonness of his eye or the vanity of his heart the stains of words and thoughts are by daily prayer to be cleansed and by private compunction to be scoured out But if any man examining inwardly his own Conscience have committed some high and capital offence as if by hearing false witness he have quelled and betrayed his faith and by rashness of perjury have violated the sacred name of Truth if with the mire of lustful uncleanness he have sullied the veil of Baptism and the gorgeous robe of Virginity if by being the cause of any mans death he have been the death of the new man within himself if by conference with Southsayers Wizards and Charmers he hath enthralled himself to Satan These and such like committed crimes cannot throughly be taken away with ordinary moderate and secret satisfaction but greater causes do require greater and sharper remedies they need such remedies as are not only sharp but solemn open and publick Again Let that soul saith he answer me which through pernicious shame fastness it now so abasht to acknowledge his Sin in conspectu fratrum before his brethren as he should have been abasht to commit the same What will be do in the presence of that Divine Tribunal where he is to stand arraigned in the Assembly of a glorious and celestial host I will hereunto adde but St. Ambrose's testimony For the places which I might alledge are more then the cause it self needeth There are many saith he who fearing the judgement that is to come and feeling inward remorse of conscience when they have offered themselves unto penitency and are enjoyned what they shall do give back for the only skar which they think that publick supplication will put them unto He speaketh of them which sought voluntarily to be penanced and yet withdrew themselves from open confession which they that were penitents for publick crimes could not possibly have done and therefore it cannot be said he meaneth any other then secret Sinners in that place Gennadius a Presbyter of Marsiles in his book touching Ecclesiastical assertions maketh but two kinds of confession necessary the one in private to God alone for smaller offences the other open when crimes committed are hainous and great Although saith he a man be bitten with conscience of Sin let his will be from thenceforward to Sin no more let him before he communicate satisfie with tears and prayers and then putting his trust in the mercy of Almighty God whose want is to yield godly confession let him boldly receive the Sacrament But I speak this of such as have not burthened themselves with capital Sins Them I exhort to satisfie first by publick penance that so being reconciled by the sentence of the Priest they may communicate safely with others Thus still we hear of publick confessions although the crimes themselves discovered were not publick we hear that the cause of such confessions was not the openness but the greatness of mens offences finally we hear that the same being now held by the Church of Rome to be Sacramental were the onely penitential Confessions used in the Church for a long time and esteemed as necessary remedies against Sin They which will find Auricular Confessions in St. Cyprian therefore must seek out some other passage then that which Bellarmine alledgeth Whereas in smaller faults which are not committed against the Lord himself there is a competent time assigned unto Penitency and that confession is made after that observation and tryal had been bad of the Penitents behaviour neither may any communicate till the Bishop and Clergy have laid their hands upon him how much more ought all things to be warily and stayedly observed according to the Discipline of the Lord in these most grievous and extream crimes S. Cyprians speech is against rashness in admitting Idolaters to the holy Communion before they had shewed sufficient Repentance considering that other offenders were forced to stay out their time and that they made not their publick confession which was the last act of Penitency till their Life and Conversation had been seen into not with the eye of Auricular Scrutiny but of Pastoral Observation according to that in the
Councel of Nice where thirteen years being set for the Penitency of certain offenders the severity of this Degree is mitigated with special caution That in all such cases the mind of the Penitent and the manner of his Repentance is to be noted that as many as with fear and tears and meekness and the exercise of good works declared themselves to be Converts indeed and not in outward appearance only towards them the Bishop at his discretion might use more lenity If the Councel of Nice suffice not let Gratian the Founder of the Canon Law expound Cyprian who sheweth that the stine of time in Penitency is either to be abridged or enlarged as the Penitents Faith and behaviour shall give occasion I have easilier found out men Saith S. Ambrose able to keep themselves free from crimes then conformable to the rules which in Penitency they should observe S. Gregory Bishop of Nisse complaineth and enveigheth bitterly against them who in the time of their Penitency lived even as they had done alwaies before Their countenance as chearful their attire is neat their dyet as costly and their sleep as secure as ever their worldly business purposely followed to exile pensive thoughts for their minds repentance pretended but indeed nothing less express These were the inspections of life whereunto St. Cyprian alludeth as for Auricular Examinations he knew them not Were the Fathers then without use of private Confession as long as publick was in use I affirm no such thing The first and ancientest that mentioneth this Confession is Origen by whom it may seem that men being loth to present rashly themselves and their faults unto the view of the whole Church thought it best to unfold first their minds to some one special man of the Clergy which might either help them himself or referre them to an higher Court if need were Be therefore circumspect saith Origen in making choice of the party to whom thou meanest to confess thy Sin know thy Physitian before thou use him If he find thy malady such as needeth to be made publick that other may be the better by it and thy self sonner helpt his counsel must be obeyed That which moved sinners thus voluntarily to detect themselves both in private and in publick was fear to receive with other Christian men the mysteries of heavenly grace till Gods appointed Stewards and Ministers did judge them worthy It is in this respect that St. Ambrose findeth fault with certain men which sought imposition of Penance and were not willing to wait their time but would be presently admitted Communicants Such people saith he do seek by so rash and preposterous desires rather to bring the Priest into bonds then to loose themselves In this respect it is that S. Augustine hath likewise said When the wound of Sin is so wide and the disease so far gone that the medicinable body and blood of our Lord may not be touched men are by the Bishops authority to sequester themselves from the Altar till such time as they have repented and be after reconciled by the same authority Furthermore because the knowledge how to handle our own sores is no vulgar and common art but we either carry towards our selves for the most part an over-soft and gentle hand fearful of touching too near the quick or else endeavouring not to be partial we fall into timerous scrupulosities and sometime into those extream discomforts of mind from which we hardly do ever lift up our heads again men thought it the safest way to disclose their secret faults and to crave imposition of Penance from them whom our Lord Jesus Christ hath left in his Church to be Spiritual and Ghostly Physitians the Guides and Pastors of redeemed Souls whose Office doth not onely consist in generall perswasions unto amendment of life but also in the private particular cure of diseased minds Howsoever the Novatianists presume to plead against the Church saith Salvianus that every man ought to be his own Penitentiary and that it is a part of our duty to exercise but not of the Churches Authority to impose or prescribe Repentance the truth is otherwise the best and strongest of us may need in such cases direction What doth the Church in giving Penance but shew the remedies which Sin requireth or what do we in receiving the same but fulfill her precept what else but sue unto God with tears and salts that his merciful ears may be opened St. Augustines exhortation is directly to the same purpose Let every man whilst he hath time judge himself and change his life of his own accord and when this is resolved Let him from the disposers of the holy Sacraments learn in what manner be is to pacifie Gods displeasure But the greatest thing which made men forward and willing upon their knees to confess whatsoever they had committed against God and in no wise to be with-held from the same with any fear of disgrace contempt or obloquy which might ensue was their servent desire to be helped and assisted with the Prayers of Gods Saints Wherein as St. Iames doth exhort unto mutual confession alledging this onely for a reason that just mens devout prayers are of great avail with God so it hath been heretofore the use of Penitents for that intent to unburthen their minds even to private persons and to crave their Prayers Whereunto Cassianus alluding counselleth That if men possest with dulness of spirit be themselves unapt to do that which is required they should in meek affection seek health as the least by good and vertuous mens prayers unto God for them And to the same effect Gregory Bishop of Nisse Humble thy self and take unto thee such of thy brethren as are of one mind and do bear kind affection towards thee that they may together mourn and labour for thy deliverance Show me thy bitter and abundant tears that I may blend mine own with them But because of all men there is or should be none in that respect more fit for troubled and distressed minds to repair unto then Gods Ministers he proceedeth further Make the Priest as a Father partaker of thine affliction and grief be bold to impart unto him the things that are most secret he will have care both of thy safety and of thy credit Confession saith Leo is first to be offered to God and then to the Priest as to one which maketh supplication for the sins of Penitent offenders Suppose we that men would ever have been easily drawn much less of their own accord have come unto publick Confession whereby they know they should sound the trumpet of their own disgrace would they willingly have done this which naturally all men are loth to do but for the singular trust and confidence which they had in the publick prayers of Gods Church Let thy Mother the Church weep for thee saith Ambrose let her wash and bathe thy faults with
her tears Our Lord doth love that many should become suppliant for one In like sort long before him Tertullian Some few assembled make a Church and the Church is as Christ himself When thou dost therefore put forth thy hands to the knees of thy brethren thou touchest Christ it is Christ unto whom thou art a supplicant so when they pour one tears over them it is even Christ that taketh compassion Christ which prayeth when they pray Neither can that easily be denyed for which the Son is himself contented to become a suitor Whereas in these considerations therefore voluntary Penitents had been long accustomed for great and grievous crimes though secret yet openly both to repent and confess as the Canons of Antient Discipline required the Greek Church first and in processe of time the Latine altered this order judging it sufficient and more convenient that such offenders should do Penance and make confession in private onely The cause why the Latins did Leo declareth saying Although the ripeness of faith be commendable which for the fear of God doth not fear to incur shame before all men yet because every ones crimes are not such that it can be free and safe for them to make publication of all things wherein repentance is necessary let a custome so unfit to be kept be abrogated lest many forbear to use remedies of penitency whilst they either blush or are afraid to acquaint their enemies with those acts for which the Laws may take hold upon them Besides it shall win the more Repentance if the Consciences of Sinners be not emptied into the peoples ears And to this only cause doth Sozomen impure the change which the Grecians made by ordaining throughout all Churches certain Penitentiaries to take the Confessions and appoint the Penances of secret offenders Socrates for this also may be true that more inducements then one did set forward an alteration so generally made affirmeth the Grecians and not unlikely to have specially respected therein the occasion which the Novatianists took at the multititude of publick Penitents to insult over the Discipline of the Church against which they still cryed out wheresoever they had time and place He that sheweth Sinners favour doth but teach the innocent to Sin And therefore they themselves admitted no man to their Communion upon any Repentance which once was known to have offended after Baptism making Sinners thereby not the fewer but the closer and the more obdurate how fair soever their pretence might seem The Grecians Canon for some one Presbyter in every Church to undertake the charge of Penitency and to receive their voluntary Confessions which had sinned after Baptism continued in force for the space of above some hundred years till Nectarius and the Bishops of Churches under him begun a second alteration abolishing even that Confession which their Penitentiaries took in private There came to the Penitentiary of the Church of Constantinople a certain Gentlewoman and to him she made particular Confession of her faults committed after Baptism whom thereupon he advised to continue in Fasting and Prayer that as with tongue she had acknowledged her Sins so there might appear likewise in her some work worthy of Repentance But the Gentlewoman goeth forward and detecteth her self of a crime whereby they were forced to dis-robe an Ecclesiastical person that is to degrade a Deacon of the same Church When the matter by this mean came to publick notice the people were in a kind of tumult offended not onely at that which was done but much more because the Church should thereby endure open infamy and scorn The Clergy was perplexed and altogether doubtfull what way to take till one Eudemon born in Alexandria but at that time a Priest in the Church of Constantinople considering that the causes of voluntary Confession whether publick or private was especially to seek the Churches ayd as hath been before declared lest men should either not communicate with others or wittingly hazard their Souls if so be they did communicate and that the inconvenience which grew to the whole Church was otherwise exceeding great but especially grievous by means of so manifold offensive detections which must needs be continually more as the world did it self wax continually worse for Antiquity together with the gravity and severity thereof saith Sozomen had already begun by little and little to degenerate into loose and careless living whereas before offences were less partly through bashfulness in them which open their own faults and partly by means of their great austerity which sate as judges in this business these things Eudaemon having weighed with himself resolved easily the mind of Nectarius that the Penitentiaries office must be taken away and for participation in Gods holy mysteries every man be left to his own Conscience which was as he thought the onely means to free the Church from danger of Obloquie and Disgrace Thus much saith Socrates I am the bolder to relate because I received it from Eudaemons own mouth to whom mine answer was at that time Whether your counsel Sir have been for the Churches good or otherwise God knoweth But I see you have given occasion whereby we shall not now any more reprehend one anothers faults nor observe that Apostolick precept which saith Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of Darknesse but rather be ye also Reprovers of them With Socrates Sozomen both agreeth in the occasion of abolishing Penitentiaries and moreover testifieth also that in his time living with the younger Theodosius the same Abolition did still continue and that the Bishops had in a manner every where followed the example given them by Nectarius Wherefore to implead the truth of this History Cardinal Baronius alledgeeth that Socrates Sozomen and Eudaemon were all Novatianists and that they falsifie in saying for so they report that as many as held the Consubstantial Being of Christ gave their assent to the abrogation of the forehearsed Canon The summe is he would have it taken for a Fable and the World to be perswaded that Nectarius did never any such thing Why then should Socrates first and afterwards Sozomen publish it To please their Pew-fellows the Disciples of Novatien A poor gratification and they very silly Friends that would take Lyes for Good-turns For the more acceptable the Matter was being deemed true the lesse they must needs when they found the contrary either credit or affect him which had deceived them Notwithstanding we know that joy and gladness rising from false information do not onely make men so forward to believe that which they first hear but also apt to scholie upon it and to report as true whatsoever they wish were true But so farr is Socrates from any such purpose that the Fact of Nectarius which others did both like and follow he doth disallow and reprove His speech to Eudemon before set down is proof sufficient that he writeth nothing but what was famously known to all
and what himself did wish had been otherwise As for Sozomen his correspondency with Hereticks having shewed to what end the Church did first ordain Penitentiaries he addeth immediately that Novatianists which had no care of Repentance could have no need of this Office Are these the words of a Friend or Enemy Besides in the entrace of that whole Narration Not to sinne saith he at all would require a Nature more divine than ours is But God hath commanded to pardon Sinners yea although they transgresse and offend often Could there be any thing spoken more directly opposite to the Doctrine of Novatian Eudaemon was Presbyter under Nectarius To Novatianists the Emperour gave liberty of using their Religion quietly by themselves under a Bishop of their own even within the City for that they stood with the Church in defence of the Catholick Faith against all other Hereticks besides Had therefore Eudaemon favoured their heresie their Camps were not pitched so farr off but he might at all times have found easie accesse unto them Is there any man that hath lived with him and hath touched him that way if not why suspect we him more than Nectarius Their report touching Grecian Catholick Bishops who gave approbation to that which was done and did also the like themselves in their own Churches we have no reason to discredit without some manifest and clear evidence brought against it For of Catholick Bishops no likelihood but that their greatest respect to Nectarius a man honored in those parts no lesse than the Bishop of Rome himself in the Western Churches brought them both easily and speedily unto conformity with him Arrians Eunomians Apollinarians and the rest that stood divided from the Church held their Penitentiaries as before Novatianists from the beginning had never any because their opinion touching Penitency was against the practice of the Church therein and a cause why they severed themselves from the Church so that the very state of things as they then stood giveth great shew of probability to his speech who hath affirmed That they onely which held the Sonne consubstantial with the Father and Novatianists which joyned with them in the same Opinion had no Penitentiaries in their Churches the rest retained them By this it appeareth therefore how Baronius finding the Relation plain that Nectarius did abolish even those private secret Confessions which the People had been before accustomed to make to him that was Penitentiary laboureth what he may to discredit the Authors of the Report and to leave it imprinted in mens mindes that whereas Nectarius did but abrogate publick Confession Novatianists have maliciously forged the abolition of Private as if the oddes between these two were so great in the ballance of their Judgement which equally hated or contemned both or as if it were not more clear than light that the first alteration which established Penitentiaries took away the burthen of Publick Confession in that kinde of Penitents and therefore the second must either abrogate Private or nothing Cardinal Bellarmine therefore finding that against the Writers of the History it is but in vain to stand upon so doubtful terms and exceptions endeavoureth mightily to prove even by their report no other Confession taken away then Publick which Penitentiaries used in Private to impose upon Publick Offenders For why It is saith he very certain that the Name of Penitents in the Fathers Writings signifieth onely Publick Penitents certain that to hear the Confessions of the rest now more than one could possibly have done certain that Sozomen to shew how the Latine Church retained in his time what the Greek had clean cast off declareth the whole Order of Publick Penitency used in the Church of Rome but of Private he maketh no mention And in these Considerations Bellarmine will have it the meaning both of Socrates and Sozomen that the former Episcopal Constitution which first did erect Penitentiaries could not concern any other Offenders than such as Publickly had sinned after Baptisme That onely they were prohibited to come to the Holy Communion except they did first in secret confesse all their Sinnes to the Penitentiary by his appointment openly acknowledge their open Crimes and doe publick Penance for them That whereas before Novatian's uprising no man was constrainable to confesse publickly any Sinne this Canon enforced Publick Offenders thereunto till such time as Nectarius thought good to extinguish the Practice thereof Let us examine therefore these subtile and fine Conjectures whether they be able to hold the touch It seemeth good saith Socrates to put down the office of these Priests which had charge of Penitency what charge that was the kindes of Penitency then usual must make manifest There is often speech in the Fathers Writings In their Books frequent mention of Penitency exercised within the Chambers of our Heart and seen of God and not communicated to any other the whole charge of which Penitency is imposed of God and doth rest upon the Sinner himself But if Penitents in secret being guilty of Crimes whereby they knew they had made themselves unfit Guests for the Table of our Lord did seek direction for their better performance of that which should set them clear it was in this case the Penitentiaries Office to take their Confessions to advise them the best way he could for their Souls good to admonish them to counsel them but not to lay upon them more than private Penance As for notorious wicked Persons whose Crimes were known to convict judge and punish them was the Office of the Ecclesiastical Consistory Penitentiaries had their Institution to another end But unlesse we imagine that the antient time knew no other Repentance then publick or that they had little occasion to speak of any other Repentance or else that in speaking thereof they used continually some other Name and not the name of Repentance whereby to express private Penitency how standeth it with reason that whensoever they write of Penitents it should be thought they meant only Publick Penitents The truth is they handle all three kindes but private and voluntary Repentance much oftner as being of farr more general use whereas Publick was but incident unto few and not oftner than once incident unto any Howbeit because they do not distinguish one kinde of Penitency from another by difference of Names our safest way for Construction is to follow circumstance of Matter which in this Narration will not yield it self applyable onely unto Publick penance do what they can that would so expound it They boldly and confidently affirm That no man being compellable to confesse publickly any Sinne before Novatius time the end of instituting Penitentiaries afterwards in the Church was that by them men might be constrained unto publick Confession Is there any Record in the World which doth testifie this to be true There is that testifie the plain contrary For Sozomen declaring purposely the cause of their Institution saith That whereas men openly craving Pardon at
God's hands for Publick Confession the last act of Penitency was alwayes made in the form of a contrite Prayer unto God it could not be avoided but they must withall confesse what their offences were This is the opinion of their Prelate seemed from the first beginning as we may probably think to be somewhat burthensome that men whose Crimes were unknown should blaze their own Faults as it were on the Stage acquainting all the People with whatsoever they had done amisse And therefore to remedy this Inconvenience they laid the charge upon one onely Priest chosen out of such as were of best Conversation a silent and a discreet man to whom they which had offended might resort and lay open their Lives He according to the quality of every one's Transgressions appointed what they should do or suffer and left them to execute it upon themselves Can we wish a more direct and evident testimonie that the Office here spoken of was to ease voluntary Penitents from the burthen of publick Confessions and not to constrain notorious Offenders thereunto That such Offenders were not compellable to open Confessions till Novatian's time that is to say till after the dayes of Persecution under Decius the Emperour they of all men should not so peremptorily avouch which whom if Fabian Bishop of Rome who suffered Martyrdom in the first year of Decius be of any authority and credit it must inforce them to reverse their Sentence his words are so plain and clear against them For such as commit those Crimes whereof the Apostle hath said They that do them shall never inherit the Kingdom of Heaven must saith he be forced unto amendment because they slipp down to Hell if Ecclesiastical Authority stay them not Their conceit of Impossibility that one man should suffice to take the general charge of Penitency in such a Church as Constantinople hath risen from a meer erroneous supposal that the Antient manner of private Confession was like the Shrift at this day usual in the Church of Rome which tyeth all men at one certain time to make Confession whereas Confession was then neither looked for till men did offer it nor offered for the most part by any other than such as were guilty of haynous Transgressions nor to them any time appointed for that purpose Finally The drift which Sozomen had in relating the Discipline of Rome and the Form of publick Penitency there retained even till his time is not to signifie that onely publick Confession was abrogated by Nectarius but that the West or Latin Church held still one and the same Order from the very beginning and had not as the Greek first cut off publick voluntary Confession by ordaining and then private by removing Penitentiaries Wherefore to conclude It standeth I hope very plain and clear first against the one Cardinal that Nectarius did truly abrogate Confession in such sort as the Ecclesiastical History hath reported and secondly as clear against them both that it was not publick Confession onely which Nectarius did abolish The Paradox in maintenance whereof Hessels wrote purposely a Book touching this Argument to shew that Nectarius did but put the Penitentiary from his Office and not take away the Office it self is repugnant to the whole advice which Eudaemon gave of leaving the People from that time forward to their own Consciences repugnant to the Conference between Socrates and Eudamon wherein complaint is made of some inconvenience which the want of the Office would breed Finally repugnant to that which the History declareth concerning other Churches which did as Nectarius had done before them not in deposing the same man for that was impossible but in removing the same Office out of their Churches which Nectarius had banished from his For which cause Bellarmin doth well reject the opinion of Hessels howsoever it please Pamelius to admire it as a wonderful happy Invention But in sum they are all gravelled no one of them able to go smoothly away and to satisfie either others or himself with his own conceit concerning Nectarius Only in this they are stiff that Auricular Confession Nectarius did not abrogate left if so much should be acknowledged it might enforce them to grant that the Greek Church at that time held not Confession as the Latin now doth to be the part of a Sacrament instituted by our Saviour Jesus Christ which therefore the Church till the Worlds end hath no power to alter Yet seeing that as long as publick voluntary Confession of private Crimes did continue in either Church as in the one it remained not much above 200. years in the other about 400. the only acts of such Repentance were first the Offender's intimation of those Crimes to some one Presbyter for which imposition of Penance was sought Secondly the undertaking of Penance imposed by the Bishop Thirdly after the same performed and ended open Confession to God in the hearing of the whole Church Whereupon Fourthly ensued the Prayer of the Church Fifthly then the Bishop's imposition of hands and so Sixthly the Parties reconciliation or restitution to his former right in the holy Sacrament I would gladly know of them which make onely private Confession a part of their Sacrament of Penance how it could be so in those times For where the Sacrament of Penance is ministred they hold that Confession to be Sacramental which he receiveth who must absolve whereas during the fore-rehearsed manner of Penance it can no where be shewed that the Priest to whom secret information was given did reconcile or absolve any For how could he when Publick Confession was to goe before Reconciliation and Reconciliation likewise in publick thereupon to ensue â— So that if they did account any Confession Sacramental it was surely publicke which is now abolish'd in the Church of Rome and as for that which the Church of Rome doth so esteem the Ancient neither had it in such estimation nor thought it to be of so absolute necessity for the taking away of Sinne But for any thing that I could ever observe out of them although not onely in Crimes open and notorious which made men unworthy and uncapable of holy Mysteries their Discipline required first publicke Penance and then granted that which Saint Hierona mentioneth saying The Priest layeth his hand upon the Penitent and by invocation intreateth that the holy Ghost may return to him again and so after having enjoyned solemnly all the People to pray for him reconcileth to the Altar him who was delivered to Satan for the destruction of his Flesh that his Spirit might be safe in the day of the Lord. Although I say not onely in such Offences being famously known to the World but also if the same were committed secretly it was the custom of those times both that private Intimation should be given and publick Confession made thereof in which respect whereas all men did willingly the one but would as willingly have withdrawn themselves from the other
the Ceremonies and Solemnities that might be used for the strengthening of men's affiance in God's peculiar mercy towards them Such Complements are helps to support our Weaknesse and not Causes that serve to procare or produce his Gifts as David speaketh The difference of general and particular Formes in Confession and Absolution is not so material that any man's safety or ghostly good should depend upon it And for private Confession and Absolution it standeth thus with us The Minister's power to absolve is publickly taught and professed the Church not denyed to have Authority either of abridging or enlarging the use and exercise of that Power upon the People no such necessity imposed of opening their Trangression unto men as if Remission of Sinnes otherwise were impossible neither any such opinion had of the thing it self as though it were either unlawfull or unprofitable saving onely for these inconveniences which the World hath by experience observed in it heretofore And in regard thereof the Church of England hitherto hath thought it the safe way to referre men's hidden Crimes unto God and themselves onely Howbeit not without special caution for the Admonition of such as come to the Holy Sacrament and for the comfort of such as are ready to depart the World First because there are but few that consider how much that part of Divine Service which consists in partaking the Holy Eucharist doth import their Souls what they lose by neglect thereof and what by devout Practise they might attain unto therefore lest carelesnesse of general Confession should as commonly it doth extinguish all remorse of mens particular enormous Crimes our Custome whensoever men present themselves at the Lords Table is solemnly to give themselves fearfull Admonition what woes are perpendicularly hanging over the heads of such as dare adventure to put forth their unworthy hands to those admirable Mysteries of Life which have by rare Examples been proved Conduits of irremediable Death to impenitent Receivers whom therefore as we repel being known so being not known we cannot but terrifie Yet with us the Ministers of God's most Holy Word and Sacraments being all put in trust with the custody and dispensation of those Mysteries wherein our Communion is and hath been ever accounted the highest Grace that men on earth are admitted unto have therefore all equally the same power to with-hold that sacred Mystical Food from notorious Evil-Livers from such as have any way wronged their Neighbours and from Parties between whom there doth open hatred and malice appear till the first sort have reformed their wicked Lives the second recompensed them unto whom they were injurious and the last condescended unto some course of Christian Reconciliation whereupon their mutual accord may ensue In which cases for the first branch of wicked Life and the last which is open Enmity there can arise no great difficultie about the exercise of his Power In the second concerning Wrongs there may if men shall presume to define or measure Injuries according to their own Conceits depraved oftentimes as well by Errour as Partialitie and that no lesse to the Minister himself then in another of the People under him The knowledge therefore which he taketh of Wrongs must rise as it doth in the other two not from his own Opinion or Conscience but from the evidence of the Fact which is committed Yea from such evidence as neither doth admit Denyal nor Defence For if the Offender having either colour of Law to uphold or any other pretence to excuse his own uncharitable and wrongful Dealings shall wilfully stand in defence thereof it serveth as barr to the power of the Minister in this kinde Because as it is observed by men of very good Judgment in these Affairs although in this sort our separating of them be not to strike them with the mortal wound of Excommunication but to stay them rather from running desperately head-long into their owne harm yet it is not in us to sever from the Holy Communion but such as are either found culpable by their own Confession or have been convicted in some Publick Secular or Ecclesiastical Court. For who is he that dares take upon him to be any man 's both Accuser and Judge Evil Persons are not rashly and as we lift to be thrust from Communion with the Church insomuch that if we cannot proceed against them by any orderly course of Judgement they rather are to be suffered for the time then molested Many there are reclaimed as Peter Many as Iudas known well enough and yet tolerated Many which must remain un-deseryed till the day of appearance by whom the secret corners of Darknesse shall be brought into open Light Leaving therefore unto his Judgement them whom we cannot stay from casting their own Souls into so great hazard we have in the other part of Penitential Jurisdiction in our Power and Authoritie to release Sinne joy on all sides without trouble or molestation unto any And if to give be a thing more blessed than to receive are we not infinitely happyer in being authorized to bestow the Treasure of God than when Necessitie doth constrain to with-draw the same They which during Life and Health are never destitute of wayes to delude Repentance do notwithstanding oftentimes when their last hour draweth on both feel that sting which before lay dead in them and also thirst after such helps as have been alwayes till then unsavoury Saint Ambrose his wordstouching late Repentance are somewhat hard If a man be penitent and receive Absolution which cannot in that case be denyed him even at the very point of death and so depart I dare not affirm he goeth out of the world well I will counsel no man to trust to this because I am loath to deceive any man seeing I know not what to think of it Shall I Iudge such a one a Cast-away Neither will I avouch him safe All I am able to say is Let his Estate be left to the will and pleasure of Almighty God Wilt thou be therefore delivered of all doubt Repent while yet thou art healthy and strong If thou defert it till time give no longer possibility of sinning thou canst not be thought to have left Sinne but rather Sinne to have forsaken thee Such admonitions may in their time and place be necessary but in no wise prejudicial to the generality of God's own high and heavenly promise Whensoever a Sinner doth repent from the bottom of his heart I will put out all his iniquity And of this although it have pleased God not to leave to the world any multitude of Examples lest the carelesse should too farr presume yet one he hath given and that most memorable to withhold from despair in the mercies of God at what instant so ever man's unfeigned conversion be wrought Yea because to countervail the fault of delay there are in the latest Repentance oftentimes the surest tokens of sincere dealing Therefore upon special Confession made
cruel were a sinne most grievous considering that the people of God should be easie to relent as Joseph was towards his Brethren Finally if so it fall out that the death of him which was injured prevent his submission which did offend let him then for so they determine that he ought goe accompanied with ten others unto the Sepulchre of the Dead and there make confession of the Fault saying I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel and against this man to whom I have done such or such injury and if Money be due let it be restored to his Heirs or in case he have none known leave it with the house of Iudgement That is to say with the Senators Ancients and Guides of Israel We hold not Christian people tyed unto Jewish Orders for the manner of Restitution but surely Restitution we must hold necessary as well in our own Repentance as theirs for Sinnes of wilful oppression and wrong Now although it suffices that the Offices wherewith we pacifie God or private men be secretly done yet in Cases where the Church must be also satisfied it was not to this end and purpose unnecessary that the antient Discipline did farther require outward signes of Contrition to be shewed Confession of Sinnes to be made openly and those Works to be apparent which served as Testimonies for Conversion before men Wherein if either Hypocrisie did at any time delude their Judgment they knew that God is he whom Maskes and Mockeryes cannot blinde that he which seeth mens hearts would judge them according unto his own evidence and as Lord correct the Sentence of his Servants concerning matters beyond their reach Or if such as ought to have kept the Rules of Canonical Satisfaction would by sinister means and practises undermine the same obtruding presumptuously themselves to the participation of Christ's most sacred Mysteries before they were orderly re-admitted thereunto the Church for contempt of holy things held them incapable of that Grace which God in the Sacrament doth impart to devout Communicants and no doubt but he himself did retain bound whom the Church in those cases refused to loose The Fathers as may appear by sundry Decrees and Canons of the Primitive Church were in matter specially of publick Scandal provident that too much facility of pardoning might not be shewed He that casteth off his lawful wife saith Saint Basil and doth take another it adjudged an Adulterer by the verdict of our Lord himself and by our Fathers it is Canonically ordained that such for the space of a year shall mourn for two years space hear three years be prostrate the seventh year assemble with the faithful in Prayer and after that be admitted to communicate if with tears they bewail their fault Of them which had fallen from their faith in the time of Emperour Licinius and were not thereunto forced by any extream usage the Nicene Synod under Constantine ordained that earnestly repenting they should continue three years Hearers seven years be prostrate and two years communicate with the people in prayer before they came to receive the oblation Which rigour sometimes they tempered nevertheless with lenity the self-same Synod having likewise defined That whatsoever the cause were any man desirous at the time of departure out of this life to receive the Eucharist might with examination and tryal have it granted him by the Bishop Yea besides this case of special commiseration there is a Canon more large which giveth always liberty to abridge or extend out the time as the Parties meek or sturdy disposition should require By means of which Discipline the Church having power to hold them many years in suspence there was bred in the mindes of the Penitents through long and daily practise of submission a contrary habit unto that which before had been their ruine and for ever afterwards wariness not to fall into those snares out of which they knew they could not easily winde themselves Notwithstanding because there was likewise hope and possibility of shortning the time this made them in all the Parts and Offices of their Repentance the more fervent In the first station while they onely beheld others passing towards the Temple of God whereunto for themselves to approach it was not lawful they stood as miserable forlorn men the very patterns of perplexity and woe In the second when they had the favour to wait at the doors of God where the sound of his comfortable word might be heard none received it with attention like to theirs Thirdly being taken and admitted to the next degree of Prostrates at the feet yet behinde the back of that Angel representing God whom the rest saw face to face their tears and entreaties both of Pastour and People were such as no man could resist After the fourth step which gave them liberty to hear and pray with the rest of the People being so near the haven no diligence was then flacked which might hasten admission to the Heavenly Table of Christ their last desire It is not therefore a thing to be marvelled at though Saint Cyprian took it in very ill part when open Back-sliders from the faith and sacred Religion of Christ laboured by sinister practise to procure from imprisoned Saints those requests for present absolution which the Church could neither yield unto with safety of Discipline nor in honour of Martyrdom easily deny For what would thereby ensue they needed not to conjecture when they saw how every man which came so commended to the Church by Letters thought that now he needed not to crave but might challenge of duty his peace taking the matter very highly if but any little forbearance or small delay was used He which is overthrown saith Cyprian menaceth them that stand the wounded them that were never toucht and because presently he hath not the body of our Lord in his foul imbrued hands nor the blood within his polluted lips the miscreant fumeth at God's Priests Such is thy madness O thou furious man thou art angry with him which laboureth to turn away God's anger from thee him thou threatnest which sueth unto God for grace and mercy on thy behalf Touching Martyrs he answereth That it ought not in this case to seem offensive though they were denied seeing God himself did refuse to yield to the piety of his own righteous Saints making suit for obdurate Iews As for the Parties in whose behalf such shifts were used to have their desire was in very truth the way to make them the more guilty Such peace granted contrary to the rigour of the Gospel contrary to the Law of our Lord and God doth but under colour of merciful relaxation deceive Sinners and by soft handling destroy them a grace dangerous for the Giver and to him which receiveth it nothing at all available The patient expectation that bringeth health is by this means not regarded recovery of soundness not sought for by the only medicine available which is
Satisfaction Penitency thrown out of men's hearts the remembrance of that heaviest and last Judgement clean banish'd the wounds of dying men which should be healed are covered the stroke of death which hath gone as deep as any bowels are to receive it is over-cast with the sleight shew of a cloudy look From the Altar of Satan to the holy Table of the Lord men are not afraid to come even belching in a manner the sacrificed morsels they have eaten yea their jaws yet breathing out the irksome savour of their former contagious wickedness they seize upon the blessed body of our Lord nothing terrified with that dreadful commination which saith Whosoever eateth and drinketh unworthily is guilty of the body and blood of Christ. They vainly think it to be peace which is gotten before they be purged of their faults before their crime be solemnly confest before their Conscience be cleared by the sacrifice and imposition of the Priest's hands and before they have pacified the indignation of God Why term they that a Favour which is an Injury Wherefore cloak they Impiety with the name of charitable Indulgence Such facility giveth not but rather taketh away peace and is it self another fresh Persecution or tryal whereby that fraudulent Enemy maketh a secret havock of such as before he had overthrown and now to the end that he may clean swallow them he casteth Sorrow into a dead sleep putteth Grief to silence wipeth away the memory of Faults newly done smothereth the sighs that should rise from a contrite Spirit dryeth up Eyes which ought to send forth rivers of Tears and permitteth not God to be pacified withfull repentance whom haynous and enormous crimes have displeased By this then we see that in Saint Cyprian's judgement all Absolutions are void frustrate and of no effect without sufficient Repentance first shewed Whereas contrariwise if true and full Satisfaction have gone before the sentence of man here given is ratified of God in Heaven according to our Saviours own sacred Testimony Whose sins ye remit they are remitted By what works in the Vertue and by what in the Discipline of Repentance we are said to satisfie either God or men cannot now be thought obscure As for the Inventors of Sacramental Satisfaction they have both altered the natural order heretofore kept in the Church by bringing in a strange preposterous course to absolve before Satisfaction be made and moreover by this their misordered practise are grown into sundry errours concerning the end whereunto it is referred They imagine beyond all conceit of Antiquity that when God doth remit Sin and the punishment eternal thereunto belonging he reserveth the torments of hell-fire to be nevertheless endured for a time either shorter or longer according to the quality of men's Crimes Yet so that there is between God and man a certain Composition as it were or Contract by vertue whereof works assigned by the Priest to be done after Absolution shall satisfie God as touching the punishment which he otherwise would inflict for sin pardoned and forgiven Now because they cannot assure any man that if he performeth what the Priest appointeth it shall suffice This I say because they cannot do in as much as the Priest hath no power to determine or define of equivalency between Sins and Satisfactions And yet if a Penitent depart this life the debt of Satisfaction being either in whole or in part un-discharged they stedfastly hold that the Soul must remain in unspeakable torment till all be paid Therefore for help and mittigation in this Case they advise men to set certain Copes-mates on work whose Prayers and Sacrifices may satisfie God for such Souls as depart in debt Hence have arisen the infinite Pensions of their Priests the building of so many Altars and Tombs the enriching of so many Churches with so many glorious costly Gifts the bequeathing of Lands and ample Possessions to Religious Companies even with utter forgetfulness of Friends Parents Wife and Children all natural affection giving place unto that desire which men doubtful of their own estate have to deliver their Soals from torment after death Yet behold even this being done how farr forth it shall avail they are not sure And therefore the last upshot unto all their former Inventions is that as every action of Christ did both ment for himself and satisfie partly for the eternal and partly for the temporal punishment due unto men for sin So his Saints have obtained the like priviledge of Grace making every good work they do not only meritorious in their own behalf but satisfactory too for the benefit of others Or if having at any time grievously sinned they do more to satisfie God then he in justice can exact of look for at their hands the surplusage runneth to a common stock out of which treasury containing whatsoever Christ did by way of Satisfaction for temporal punishment together with the satisfactory force which resideth in all the vertuous works of Saints and in their Satisfactions whatsoever doth abound I say From hence they hold God satisfied for such arrerages as men behinde in accompt discharge not by other means and for disposition hereof as it is their Doctrine that Christ remitteth not eternal death without the Priests Absolution so without the grant of the Pope they cannot but teach it a like unpossible that Souls in Hell should receive any temporal release of pain The Sacrament of Pardon from him being to this effect no lesse necessary than the Priests Absolution to the other So that by this Postem-gate commeth in the whole mark of Papal Indulgences a Gain unestimable to him to others a Spoyl a scorn both to God and Man So many works of satisfaction pretended to be done by Christ by Saints and Martyrs so many vertuous acts possessed with satisfactory force and vertue so many supererogations in satisfying beyond the exigence of their own necessity And this that the Pope might make a Monopoly of all turning all to his own gain or at least to the gain of those which are his own Such facilitle they have to convert a pretended Sacrament into a Revenue Of Absolution of Penitents SIn is not helped but by being assecured of Pardon It resteth therefore to be considered what warrant we have concerning Forgivenesse when the Sentence of man absolveth us from Sinne committed against God At the words of our Saviour saying to the sick of the Palsey Son thy Sins are forgiven-thee Exception was taken by the Scribes who secretly reasoned against him Is any able to forgive Sins but only God Whereupon they condemned his speech as blasphemy the rest which believed him to be a Prophet sent from God saw no cause wherefore he might not as lawfully say and as truly to whomsoever amongst them God hath taken away thy Sins as Nathan they all knew had used the very like speech to whom David did not therefore impute blasphemy but imbraced as became him the words of truth
Stupidity the highest top of Wisdom and Commiseration the deadlyest sin became by Institution and Study the very same which the other had been before through a secret natural Distemper upon his Conversion to the Christian Faith and recovery from Sickness which moved him to receive the Sacrament of Baptisme in his Bed The Bishops contrary to the Canons of the Church would needs in special love towards him ordain him Presbyter which favour satisfied not him who thought himself worthy of greater Place and Dignity He closed therefore with a number of well-minded men and not suspicious what his secret purposes were and having made them sure unto him by fraud procureth his own Consecration to be their Bishop His Prelacy now was able as he thought to countenance what he intended to publish and therefore his Letters went presently abroad to sundry Churches advising them never to admit to the Fellowship of Holy Mysteryes such as had after Baptisme offered Sacrifice to Idols There was present at the Council of Nice together with other Bishops one Acesius a Novatianist touching whose diversity in opinion from the Church the Emperour desirous to hear some reason asked of him certain Questions for Answer whereunto Acesius weaveth out a long History of things that hapned in the Persecution under Decius And of men which to savelife forsook Faith But in the end was a certain bitter Canon framed in their own School That men which fall into deadly sin after holy Baptism ought never to be again admitted to the Communion of Divine Mysteries That they are to be exhorted unto Repentance howbeit not to be put in hope that Pardon can be bad at the Priest's hands but with God which hath Soveraign Power and Authority in himself to remit sins it may be in the end they shall finde Mercy These Followers of Novatian which gave themselves the Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clean pure and unspotted men had one point of Montanism more than their Master did professe for amongst Sinnes unpardonable they reckoned second Marriages of which opinion Tertullian making as his usual manner was a salt Apology Such is saith he our stony hardness that defaming our Comforter with a kinde of enormity in Discipline we dam up the doors of the Church no less against twice-married men then against Adulterers and Fornicators Of this sort therefore it was ordained by the Nycene Synod that if any such did return to the Catholick and Apostolick unity they should in Writing binde themselves to observe the Orders of the Church and Communicate as well with them which had been often married or had fallen in time of Persecution as with other sort of Christian people But further to relate or at all to refel the errour of mis-believing men concerning this point is not now to our present purpose greatly necessary The Church may receive no small detriment by corrupt practice even there where Doctrine concerning the substance of things practised is free from any great or dangerous corruption If therefore that which the Papacy doth in matter of Confessions and Absolution be offensive if it palpably serve in the use of the Keyes howsoever that which it teacheth in general concerning the Churches power to retain and forgive sinnes be admitted true have they not on the one side as much whereat to be abasht as on the other wherein to rejoyce They binde all men upon pain of everlasting condemnation and death to make Confessions to their Ghostly Fathers of every great offence they know and can remember that they have committed against God Hath Christ in his Gospel so delivered the Doctrine of Repentance unto the World Did his Apostles so preach it to Nations Have the Fathers so believed or so taught Surely Novatian was not so merciless in depriving the Church of power to Absolve some certain Offenders as they in imposing upon all a necessity thus to confess Novatian would not deny but God might remit that which the Church could not whereas in the Papacy it is maintained that what we conceal from men God himself shall never pardon By which over-sight as they have here surcharged the World with multitude but much abated the weight of Confessions so the careless manner of their Absolution hath made Discipline for the most part amongst them a bare Formality Yea rather a mean of emboldening unto vicious and wicked life then either any help to prevent future or medicine to remedy present evils in the Soul of man The Fathers were slow and alwayes fearful to absolve any before very manifest tokens given of a true Penitent and Contrite spirit It was not their custom to remit sin first and then to impose works of satisfaction as the fashion of Rome is now in so much that this their preposterous course and mis-ordered practises hath bred also in them an errour concerning the end and purpose of these works For against the guiltiness of sin and the danger of everlasting condemnation thereby incurâ—ed Confession and Absolution succeeding the same are as they take it a remedy sufficient and therefore what their Penitentiaries do think to enjoyn farther whether it be a number of Ave-Maries dayly to be scored up a Journey of Pilgrimage to be undertaken some few Dishes of ordinary Diet to be exchanged Offerings to be made at the shrines of Saints or a little to be scraped off from Mens superfluities for relief of poor People all is in lieu or exchange with God whose Justice notwithstanding our Pardon yet oweth us still some Temporal punishment either in this or in the life to come except we quit it our selves here with works of the former kinde and continued till the ballance of God's most strict severity shall finde the pains we have taken equivalent with the plagues which we should endure or else the mercy of the Pope relieve us And at this Postern-gate cometh in the whole Mart of Papal Indulgences so infinitely strewed that the pardon of Sinne which heretofore was obtained hardly and by much suit is with them become now almost impossible to be escaped To set down then the force of this Sentence in Absolving Penitents There are in Sinne these three things The Act which passeth away and vanisheth The Pollution wherewith it leaveth the Soul defiled And the Punishment whereunto they are made subject that have committed it The act of Sin is every deed word and thought against the Law of God For Sinne is the transgression of the Law and although the deed it self do not continue yet is that bad quality permanent whereby it maketh the Soul unrighteous and deformed in God's sight From the Heart come evil Cogitations Murthers Adulteries Fornications Thefts false Testimonies Slanders These are things which defile a man They do not only as effects of impurity argue the Nest no be unclean out of which they came but as causes they strengthen that disposition unto Wickedness which brought them forth They are both fruits and seeds
of uncleanness they nourish the root out of which they grow they breed that iniquity which bred them The blot therefore of Sin abideth though the act be transitory And out of both ariseth a present debt to endure what punishment soever the evil which we have done deserveth an Obligation in the Chains whereof Sinners by the Justice of Almighty God continue bound till Repentance loose them Repent this thy Wickedness saith Peter unto Simon Magus beseech God that if it be possible the thought of thine heart may be pardoned for I see thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of Iniquity In like manner Solomon The Wicked shall be held fast in the cords of his own sin Nor doth God only binde Sinners hand and foot by the dreadful determination of his own unsearchable Judgment against them but sometime also the Church bindeth by the Censures of her Discipline So that when Offenders upon their Repentance are by the same Discipline absolved the Church looseth but her own Bonds the Chains wherein she had tyed them before The act of Sin God alone remitteth in that his purpose is never to call it to account or to lay it unto mens charge The stain he washeth out by the sanctifying Grace of his Spirit And concerning the punishment of Sinne as none else hath power to cast Body and Soul into Hell fire so none power to deliver either besides him As for the Ministerial Sentence of private Absolution it can be no more than a Declaration what God hath done It hath but the force of the Prophet Nathan's Absolution God hath taken away thy Sin Than which construction especially of words judicial there is not any thing more vulgar For example the Publicans are said in the Gospel to have justified God The Jews in Malachi to have blessed Proud men which sinne and prosper not that the one did make God righteous or the other the wicked happy But to bless to Justifie and to Absolve are as commonly used for words of Judgement or Declaration as of true and real efficacy Yea even by the opinion of the Master of Sentences It may be soundly affirmed and thought that God alone doth remit and retain Sinnes although he have given Power to the Church to do both But he one way and the Church another He only by himself forgiveth Sinne who cleanseth the Soul from inward blemish and looseth the Debt of Eternal death So great a Priviledge he hath not given unto his Priests who notwithstanding are authorized to loose and binde that is to say declare who are bound and who are loosed For albeit a man be already cleared before God yet he is not in the Church of God so taken but by the vertue of the Priests Sentence who likewise may be said to binde by imposing Satisfaction and to loose by admitting to the Holy Communion Saint Hierom also whom the Master of the Sentences alledgeth for more countenance of his own opinion doth no less plainly and directly affirm That as the Priests of the Law could only discern and neither cause nor remove Leprosies So the Ministers of the Gospel when they retain or remit Sin do but in the one judge how long we continue guilty and in the other declare when we are clear or free For there is nothing more apparent than that the Discipline of Repentance both Publick and Private was ordained as an outward mean to bring men to the vertue of inward Conversion So that when this by manifest tokens did seem effected Absolution ensuing which could not make served only to declare men innocent But the cause wherefore they are so stiff and have forsaken their own Master in this point is for that they hold the private Discipline of Penitency to be a Sacrament Absolution an external sign in this Sacrament the signs external of all Sacraments in the New Testament to be both causes of that which they signifie and signs of that which they truly cause To this opinion concerning Sacraments they are now tyed by expounding a Canon in the Florentine Council according to the former Ecclesiastical invention received from Thomas For his device it was that the mercy of God which useth Sacraments as Instruments whereby to work indueth them at the time of their Administration with supernatural force and ability to induce Grace into the Souls of men Even as the Axe and Saw doth seem to bring Timber into that fashion which the minde of the Artificer intendeth His Conceipt Scotus Occam Petrus Alliacensis with sundry others do most earnestly and strongly impugn shewing very good reason wherefore no Sacrament of the new Law can either by vertue which it self hath or by force supernatural given it be properly a cause to work Grace but Sacraments are therefore said to work or conferr Grace because the will of Almighty God is although not to give them such efficacy yet himself to be present in the Ministry of the working that effect which proceedeth wholly from him without any real operation of theirs such as can enter into men's Souls In which construction seeing that our Books and Writings have made it known to the World how we joyn with them it seemeth very hard and injurious Dealing that Bellarmine throughout the whole course of his second Book De Sacramentis in genere should so boldly face down his Adversaries as if their opinion were that Sacraments are naked empty and ineffectual signes whererein there is no other force than only such as in Pictures to stir up the minde that so by theory and speculation of things represented Faith may grow Finally That all the operations which Sacraments have is a sensible and divine Instruction But had it pleased him not to hud-wink his own knowledge I nothing doubt but he fully saw how to answer himself it being a matter very strange and incredible that one which with so great diligence hath winowed his Adversarys Writings should be ignorant of their minds For even as in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ both God and Man when his human nature is by it self considered we may not attribute that unto him which we do and must ascribe as oft as respect is had unto both natures combined so because in Sacraments there are two things distinctly to be considered the outward sign and the secret concurrence of Gods most blessed Spirit in which respect our Saviour hath taught that Water and the Holy Ghost are combined to work the mysterie of new birth Sacraments therefore as signs have only those effects before mentioned but of Sacraments in that by God's own Will and Ordinance they are signs assisted alwayes with the power of the Holy Ghost we acknowledge whatsoever either the places of the Scripture or the Authority of Councels and Fathers or the proofs and arguments of reason which he alledgeth can shew to be wrought by them The Elements and words have power of infallible signification for
any longer under him but he together with them under God receiving the joyes of everlasting triumph that so God may be in all all misery in all the Wicked through his Justice in all the Righteous through his love all felicity and blisse In the mean while he reigneth over the World as King and doth those things wherein none is Superiour unto him whether we respect the works of his Providence and Kingdom or of his Regiment over the Church The cause of Errour in this point doth seem to have been a misconceit that Christ as Mediatour being inferiour to his Father doth as Mediatour all Works of Regiment over the Church when in truth Regiment doth belong to his Kingly Office Mediatourship to his Priestly For as the High-Priest both offered Sacrifices for expiation of the Peoples sins and entred into the holy Place there to make intercession for them So Christ having finished upon the Cross that part of his Priestly Office which wrought the propitiation for our Sinnes did afterwards enter into very Heaven and doth there as Mediatour of the New Testament appear in the sight of God for us A like sleight of Judgement it is when they hold that Civil Authority is from God but not immediately through Christ nor with any subordination to God nor doth any thing from God but by the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ. They deny it not to be said of Christ in the Old Testament By me Princes rule and the Nobles and all the Iudges of the Earth In the New as much is taught That Christ is the Prince of the Kings of the Earth Wherefore to the end it may more plainly appear how all Authority of Man is derived from God through Christ and must by Christian men be acknowledged to be no otherwise held then of and under him we are to note that because whatsoever hath necessary being the Son of God doth cause it to be and those things without which the World cannot well continue have necessary being in the World a thing of so great use as Government cannot choose but be originally from Him Touching that Authority which Civil Magistrates have in Ecclesiastical Affairs it being from God by Christ as all other good things are cannot chuse but be held as a thing received at his hands and because such power is of necessity for the ordering of Religion wherein the essence and very being of the Church consisteth can no otherwise slow from him than according to that special care which he hath to govern and guide his own People it followeth that the said Authority is of and under him after a more special manner in that he is Head of the Church and not in respect of his general Regency over the World All things saith the Apostle speaking unto the Church are yours and ye are Christs and Christ is God's Kings are Christ's as Saints because they are of the Church if not collectively yet divisively understood It is over each particular Person within that Church where they are Kings Surely Authority reacheth both unto all mens persons and to all kindes of causes also It is not denyed but that they may have and lawfully exercise it such Authority it is for which and for no other in the World we term them Heads such Authority they have under Christ because he in all things is Lord overall and even of Christ it is that they have received such Authority in as much as of him all lawful Powers are therefore the Civil Magistrate is in regard of this Power an under and subordinate Head of Christ's People It is but idle where they speak That although for several Companies of Men there may be several Heads or Governours differing in the measure of their Authority from the Chiefest who is Head over all yet it cannot be in the Church for that the reason why Head-Magistrates appoint others for such several places it Because they cannot be present every where to perform the Office of an Head But Christ is never from his Body nor from any Part of it and therefore needeth not to substitute any which may be Heads some over one Church and some over another Indeed the consideration of Man's imbecillity which maketh many Heads necessary where the burthen is too great for one moved Iethro to be a Perswader of Moses that a number of Heads of Rulers might be instituted for discharge of that duty by parts which in whole he saw was troublesome Now although there be not in Christ any such defect or weakness yet other causes there be divers more than we are able to search into wherefore it might seem unto him expedient to divide his Kingdom into many Provinces and place many Heads over it that the Power which each of them hath in particular with restraint might illustrate the greatness of his unlimited Authority Besides howsoever Christ be Spiritually alwayes united unto every part of his Body which is the Church Nevertheless we do all know and they themselves who alledge this will I doubt not confess also that from every Church here visible Christ touching visible and corporal presence is removed as farr as Heaven from the Earth is distant Visible Government is a thing necessary for the Church and it doth not appear how the exercise of visible Government over such Multitudes every where dispersed throughout the World should consist without sundry visible Governours whose Power being the greatest in that kinde so farr as it reacheth they are in consideration thereof termed so farr Heads Wherefore notwithstanding the perpetual conjunction by vertue whereof our Saviour alwayes remaineth spiritually united unto the parts of his Mystical Body Heads indeed with Supream Power extending to a certain compasse are for the exercise of a visible Regiment not unnecessary Some other reasons there are belonging unto this branch which seem to have been objected rather for the exercise of mens wits in dissolving Sophismes than that the Authors of them could think in likelyhood thereby to strengthen their cause For example If the Magistrate be Head of the Church within his own Dominion then is he none of the Church For all that are of the Church make the Body of Christ and every one of the Church fulfilleth the place of one member of the Body By making the Magistrate therefore Head we do exclude him from being a Member subject to the Head and so leave him no place in the Church By which reason the name of a Body Politick is supposed to be alwayes taken of the inferiour sort alone excluding the Principal Guides and Governors contrary to all Mens customes of speech The Errour ariseth by misconceiving of some Scripture-sentences where Christ as the Head and the Church as the Body are compared or opposed the one to the other And because in such comparisons ooppositions the Body is taken for those only parts which are subject unto the Head they imagine that who so is the Head of any
lawful must grant that the Canons even of General Councils have but the face of Wise-mens opinions concerning that whereof they-treat till they be publickly assented unto where they are to take place as Laws and that in giving such publick assent as maketh a Christian Kingdome subject unto those Laws the King's authority is the chiefest That which an University of Men a Company or Corporation doth without consent of their Rector is as nothing Except therefore we make the King's Authority over the Clergy less in the greatest things than the power of the meanest Governour is in all things over the Colledge or Society which is under him how should we think it a matter decent that the Clergy should impose Laws the Supream Governours assent not asked Yea that which is more the Laws thus made God himself doth in such sort authorize that to despise them is to despise in them him It is a loose and licentious opinion which the Anabaptists have embraced holding that a Christian man's liberty is lost and the Soul which Christ hath redeemed unto himself injuriously drawn into servitude under the Yoke of Human power if any Law be now imposed besides the Gospel of Christ in obedience whereunto the Spirit of God and not the constraint of men is to lead us according to that of the blessed Apostle Such as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God and not such as live in thraldom unto men Their Judgement is therefore That the Church of Christ should admit of no Law-makers but the Evangelists no Courts but Presbyteries no Punishments but Ecclesiastical censures As against this sort we are to maintain the use of Human laws and the continual necessity of making them from time to time as long as this present World doth last so likewise the Authority of Laws so made doth need much more by us to be strengthened against another sort who although they do utterly condemn the making of Laws in the Church yet make they a great deal less account of them than they should do There are which think simply of Human laws that they can in no sort touch the Conscience That to break and transgress them cannot make men in the sight of God culpable as Sin doth onely when we violate such Laws we do thereby make our selves obnoxious unto external punishment in this World so that the Magistrate may in regard of such offence committed justly correct the Offender and cause him without injury to endure such pains as Law doth appoint but further it reacheth not For first the Conscience is the proper Court of God the guiltiness thereof is Sin and the punishment Eternal death men are not able to make any Law that shall command the Heart it is not in them to make Inward-conceit a Crime or to appoint for any crime other punishment than corporal their Laws therefore can have no power over the Soul neither can the heart of man be polluted by transgressing them St. Austine rightly desineth Sin to be that which is spoken done or desired not against any Laws but against the Law of the Living God The Law of God is proposed unto Man as a Glass wherein to behold the stains and the spots of their sinful Souls By it they are to judge themselves and when they feel themselves to have transgressed against it then to bewail their offences with David Against thee onely O Lord have I sinned and done wickedly in thy sight that so our present tears may extinguish the flames which otherwise we are to feel and which of God in that day shall condemn the Wicked unto when they shall render account of the Evil which they have done not by violating Statute-Laws and Canons but by disobedience unto his Law and his Word For our better instruction therefore concerning this point first we must note That the Law of God it self doth require at our hands Subjection Be ye subject saith S. Peter and S. Paul Let every Soul be subject subject all unto such Powers as are set over us For if such as are not set over us require our subjection we by denying it are not disobedient to the Law of God or undutiful unto Higher Powers Because though they be such in regard of them over whom they have lawful Dominion yet having not so over us unto us they are not such Subjection therefore we owe and that by the Law of God we are in Conscience bound to yield it even unto every of them that hold the seats of Authority and Power in relation unto us Howbeit not all kindes of subjection unto every such kinde of Power concerning Scribes and Pharisees our Saviour's Precept was Whatsoever they shall tell ye do it Was it his meaning that if they should at any time enjoyn the People to levy an Army or to sell their Lands and Goods for the furtherance of so great an enterprize and in a word that simply whatsoever it were which they did command they ought without any exception forth-with to be obeyed No but whatsoever they shall tell you must be understoud in pertinentibus ad Cathedram it must be construed with limitation and restrained unto things of that kinde which did belong to their place and power For they had not Power general absolutely given them to command all things The reason why we are bound in Conscience to be subject unto all such Power is because all Powers are of God They are of God either instituting or permitting them Power is then of Divine institution when either God himself doth deliver or men by light of nature finde out the kinde thereof So that the power of Parents over Children and of Husbands over their Wives the power of all sorts of Superiors made by consent of Common-wealths within themselves or grown from agreement amongst Nations such power is of God's own Institution in respect of the kinde thereof Again if respect be had unto those particular Persons to whom the same is derived if they either receive it immediately from God as Moses and Aaron did or from nature as Parents do or from men by a natural and orderly course as every Governor appointed in any Common wealth by the order thereof doth then is not the kinde of their Power only of God's instituting but the derivation thereof also into their Persons is from him He hath placed them in their rooms and doth term them his Ministers Subjection therefore is due unto all such Powers inasmuch as they are of God's own institution even then when they are of man's creation Omni Humanae Creaturae Which things the Heathens themselves do acknowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As for them that exercise Power altogether against Order although the kinde of Power which they have may be of God yet is their exercise thereof against God and therefore not of God otherwise than by Permission as all Injustice is Touching such Acts as are done by that power which is according to
two faults predominant would tire out any that should answer unto every point severally un apt speaking of School-Controversies and of my words so untoward a reciting that he which should promise to draw a Man's Countenance and did indeed expresse the parts at leastwise most of them truly but perversely place them could not represent a more offensive Visage than unto me my own speech seemeth in some places as he hath ordered it For answer whereunto that Writing is sufficient wherein I have set down both my words and meaning in such sort that where this Accusation doth deprave the one and either mis-interpret or without just cause mis-like the other it will appear so plainly that I may spare very well to take upon me a new needlesse labour here 12. Onely at one thing which is there to be found because Mr. Travers doth here seem to take such a special advantage as if the matter were unanswerable he constraineth me either to detect his oversight or to confesse mine own in it In settling the Question between the Church of Rome and us about Grace and Justification lest I should give them an occasion to say as commonly they doe that when we cannot refute their Opinions we propose to our selves such instead of theirs as we can refute I took it for the best and most perspicuous way of teaching to declare first how farâ— we doe agree and then to shew our disagreement not generally as Mr. Travers his words would carry it for the easier fastning that upon me wherewith saving onely by him I was never in my life touched but about the matter onely of Justification for further I had no cause to meddle at this time What was then my Offence in this Case I did as he saith so set it out as if we had consented in the greatest and weightiest Points and differed onely in smaller matters It will not be found when it commeth to the balance a light difference where we disagree as I did acknowledge that we doe about the very essence of the Medicine whereby Christ cureth our Disease Did I goe about to make a shew of Agreement in the weightiest Points and was I so fond as not to conceal our disagreement about this I doe with that some indifferency were used by them that have taken the weighing of my words 13. Yea but our Agreement is not such in two of the chiefest Points as I would have men believe it is And what are they The one is I said They acknowledge all men sinners even the Blessed Virgin though some of them free her from sin Put the case I had affirmed That onely some of them free her from sin and had delivered it as the most current opinion amongst them that she was conceived in sin doth not Bonaâ— Tature say plainly Omnesfere in a manner all men do bold this â— doth he not bring many reasons wherefore all men should hold it Were their voyces since that time ever counted and their number found smaller which hold it than theirs that hold the contrary Let the question then be Whether I might say The most of them acknowledged all men sinner even the Blessed Virgin her selfe To shew that their general received opinion is the contrary the Tridentine Council is alledged peradventure not altogether so considerately For if that Council have by resolute determination freed her if it held as Mr. Travers saith it doth that she was free from sin then must the Church of Rome needs condemn them that hold the contrary For what thee Council holdeth the same they all doe and must hold But in the Church of Rome who knoweth not that it is a thing indifferent to think and defend the one or the other So that by this Argument the Council of Trent holdeth the Virgin free from sinne ergo it is plain that none of them may and therefore untrue that most of them do acknowledge her a Sinner were for able to overthrow my supposed Affection if it were true that the Council did hold this But to the end it may clearly appear how it neither holdeth this not the contrary I will open what many do conceive of the Canon that concerneth this matter The Fathers of Trent perceived that if they should define of this matter it would be dangerous howsoever it were determined If they had freed her from her Original sinne the reasons against them are unanswerable which Bonaveâ—ture and others do alledge but especially Thomas whose line as much as may be they follow Again if they did resolve the other way they should control themselves in another thing which iâ— no case might be altered For they profess to keep no day holy in the honour of an â—â—â—â—holy thing and the Virgin Conception they honour with a Feast which they could not abrogate without cancelling a Constitution of â—ystem Quoâ—â—â—â— And that which is worse the World might parhaps suspect that if the Church of Rome didâ— amisse before in this it is not impossible for her to fail in other things In the end they did wisely quoâ—â— out their Canon by a middle thred establishing the Feast of the Virgin 's Conception and leaving the other question doubtful as they found it giving onely a Cavent that no man should take the Decree which pronounceth all Mankinde originally sinfull for a definitive Sentence concerning the Blessed Virgin This in my sight is plain by their own words Declarat hac ipsa sancta Synodâ—â— c. Wherefore our Country-men at Rheâ—â—s mentioning this Point are marvellous wary how they speak they touch it as though it were a hot coal Many godly devout men judge that our blessed Lady was neither burn not couâ—â—â—d in sin Is it their wont to speak ainely of things definitively set down in that Councell In like sort we finde that the rest which have since that time of the Tridentine Synod written of Original sin are in this Point for the mostpart either silent or very sparing in speech and when they speak either doubtful what to think or whatsoever they think themselves fearfull to set down any certain Determination If I be thought to take the Canon of this Council otherwise than they themselves doe let him expound in whose Sentence was neither last asked not his Penne least occupied in setting it down I mean Androdius whom Gregory the thirteenth hath allowed plainly to confest that it is a matter which neither expresse evidence of Scripture not the Tradition of the Fathers nor the Sentence of Church hath determined that they are too surly and self-willed which defending their opinion are displeased with them by whom the other is maintained Finally that the Father of Trent have not set down any certainty about this Question but lest it doubtful and indifferent Now whereas my words which I had set down in Writing before I uttered them were indeed these Although they imagine that the Mother of our Lord Iesus Christ were for his honour and
and quite forgetting of strife together with the Causes that have either bred it or brought it up that things of small moment never disjoyn them whom one God one Lord one Faith one Spirit one Baptism bands of so great force have linked that a respectively eye towards things wherewith we should not be disquieted make us not as through infirmity the very Patriarchs themselves sometimes were full gorged unable to speak peaceably to their own Brother Finally that no strife may ever be heard of again but this Who shall hate strife most who shall pursue peace and unity with swiftest paces To The Christian Reader WHereas many desirous of resolution in some Points handled in this learned Discourse were earnest to have it Copied out to case so many labours it hath been thought most worthy and very necessary to be printed that not onely they might be satisfied but the whole Church also hereby edified The rather because it will free the Author from the suspition of some Errors which he hath been thought to have favoured Who might well have answered with Cremutius in Tacitus Verba mea arguuntur adeò factorum innocens sum Certainly the event of that time wherein he lived shewed that to be true which the same Author spake of a worse Cui deerat inimicus per amicos oppressus and that there is not minus periculum ex magna fama quà m ex mala But he hath so quit himself that all may see how as it was said of Agricola Simul suis virtutibus simul vitiis aliorum in ipsam gloriam praeceps agebatur Touching whom I will say no more but that which my Author said of the same man Integritatem c. in tanto viro referre injuria virtutum fuerit But as of all other his Writings so of this I will adde that which Velleius spake in commendation of Piso Nemo fuit qui megis quae agenda erant curaret sine ulla ostentatione agendi So not doubting good Christian Reader of thy assent herein but wishing thy favourable acceptance of this Work which will be an inducement to set forth others of his Learned labours I take my leave from Corpus Christi Colledge in Oxford the sixth of July 1612. Thine in Christ Jesus HENRY IACKSON A LEARNED DISCOURSE OF Justification Works and how the Foundation of FAITH is overthrown HABAK. 1. 4. The wicked doth compass about the righteous therefore perverse Iudgement doth proceed FOR the better manifestation of the Prophets meaning in this place we are first to consider the wicked of whom he saith that They compass about the righteous Secondly the righteous that are compassed about by them and Thirdly That which is inferred Therefore perverse judgement proceedeth Touching the first There are two kinds of wicked men of whom in the fist of the former to the Corinthians the blessed Apostle speaketh thus Do ye not judge them that are within But God judgeth them that art without There are wicked therefore whom the Church may judge and there are wicked whom God onely judgeth wicked within and wicked without the walls of the Church If within the Church particular persons be apparently such as cannot otherwise be reformed the rule of the Apostolical judgment is this Separate them from among you if whole Assemblies this Separate your selves from among them For what society hath light with darkness But the wicked whom the Prophet meaneth were Babylonians and therefore without For which cause we heard at large heretofore in what sort he urgeth God to judge them 2. Now concerning the righteous their neither it nor ever was any meer natural man absolutely righteous in himself that is to say void of all unrighteousness of all sin We dare not except no not the blessed Virgin her self of whom although we say with St. Augustine for the honour sake which we owe to our Lord and Saviour Christ we are not willing in this cause to move any question of his Mother yet for asmuch as the Schools of Rome have made it a question we may answer with Eusebius Emissenus who speaketh of her and to her in this effect Thou didst by special Prerogative nine months together entertain within the Closet of the Flesh the hope of all the ends of the Earth the honour of the World the common joy of Men. He from whom all things had their beginning had his beginning from thee of the Body he took the blood which was to be shed for the life of the World of thee he took that which even for thee be payed A peccati enim veteris nexu per se non est immunis ipsa genitrix Redemptoris The Mother of the Redeemer himself is not otherwise loosed from the bond of antient sinne than by redemption if Christ have paid a ransom for all even for her it followeth that all without exception were Captives If one have died for all then all were dead in sinne all sinful therefore none absolutely righteous in themselves but we are absolutely righteous in Christ. The World then must shew a righteous man otherwise not able to shew a man that is perfectly righteous Christ is made to us Wisdome Iustice Sanctification and Redemption Wisdom because he hath revealed his Fathers will Iustice because he hath offered up himself a Sacrifice for sin Sanctification because he hath given us his Spirit Redemption because he hath appointed a day to vindicate his Children out of the bonds of Corruption into liberty which is glorious How Christ is made Wisdom and how Redemption it may be declared when occasion serveth But how Christ is made the Righteousness of men we are now to declare 3. There is a glorifying Righteousness of men in the World to come as there is a justifying and sanctifying Righteousness here The Righteousness wherewith we shall be clothed in the World to come is both perfect and inherent That whereby here we are justified is perfect but not inherent That whereby we are sanctified is inherent but not perfect This openeth a way to the understanding of that grand question which hangeth yet in controversie between us and the Church of Rome about the matter of justifying Righteousness 4. First although they imagine that the Mother of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ were for his honour and by his special protection preserved clean from all sinne yet touching the rest they teach as we doe That Infants that never did actually offend have their Natures defiled destitute of Justice averted from God That in making man righteous none do efficiently work with God but God They teach as we do that unto Justice no man ever attained but by the Merits of Jesus Christ. They teach as we do That although Christ as God be the efficient as Man the meritorious cause of our Justice yet in us also there is some thing required God is the cause of our natural life in him we live but he quickneth not
that he denieth us not no not when we were laden with Iniquity leave to commune familiarly with him liberty to crave and intreat that what Plagues soever we have deserved we may not be in worse case than Unbelievers that we may not be hemmed in by Pagans and Infidels Ierusalem is a sinful polluted City but Ierusalem compared with Babylon is righteous And shall the Righteous be over-born shall they be compass'd about by the Wicked But the Prophet doth not onely complain Lord how commeth it to passe that thou handlest us so hardly of whom thy Name is called and bearest with the Heathen-Nations that despise thee No he breaketh out through extremity of grief and inferreth violently This proceeding is perverse the Righteous are thus handled therefore perverse judgment doth proceed 9. Which illation containeth many things whereof it were better much both for you to hear and me to speak if necessity did not draw me to another task Paul and Barnabas being requested to preach the same things again which once they had preached thought it their Duty to satisfie the godly desires of men sincerely affected to the truth Nor may it seem burdenous for me nor for you unprofitable that I follow their example the like occasion unto theirs being offered me When we had last the Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrew in hand and of that Epistle these words In these last dayes he hath spoken unto us by his Son After we had thence collected the nature of the visible Church of Christ and had defined it to be a community of men sanctified through the profession of the Truth which God hath taught the World by his Son and had declared That the scope of Christian Doctrine is the comfort of them whose hearts are over-charged with the burden of sinne and had proved that the Doctrin professed in the Church of Rome doth bereave men of comfort both in their lives and in their deaths The conclusion in the end whereunto we came was this The Church of Rome being in Faith so corrupted as she is and refusing to be reformed as she doth we are to sever our selves from her the example of our Fathers may not retain us in communion with that Church under hope that we so continuing may be saved as well as they God I doubt noâ— was merciful to save thousands of them though they lived in Popish Superstitions inasmuch as they sinned ignorantly but the Truth is now laid before our Eys The former part of this last Sentence namely these words I doubt not but God was merciful to save thousands of our Fathers living in Popish Superstitions inasmuch as they seemed ignorantly This Sentence I beseech you to mark and to fist it with the severity of austere judgement that if it be found to be gold it may be suitable to the precious foundation whereon it was then laid for I protest that if it be hay or stubble my own hand shall see fire on it Two questions have risen by this speech before alledged The one Whether our Fathers infected with Popish Errours and Superstitions may be saved The other Whether their ignorance be a reasonable inducement to make us think they might We are then to examine first what possibility then what probability there is that God might be merciful unto so many of our Fathers 10. So many of our Fathers living in Popish Superstitions yet by the mercy of God be saved No this could not be God hath spoken by his Angel from Heaven unto his People concerning Babylon by Babylon we understand the Church of Rome Go out of her my People that ye be not Partakers of her Plagues For answer whereunto first I do not take the words to be meant onely of Temporal plagues of the Corporal death sorrow famine and fire whereunto God in his wrath had condemned Babylon and that to save his chosen People from these Plagues he saith Go out with like intent as in the Gospel speaking of Ierusalem's desolations he saith Let them that are in Judea flye unto the Mountains and them that are in the midst thereof depart one or as in the former times to Lot Arise take thy Wife and thy Daughters which are there lest thou be destroyed in the punishment of the City but forasmuch as here it is said Go out of Babylon we doubt their everlasting destruction which are Partakers therein is either principally meant or necessarily implyed in this Sentence How then was it possible for so many of our Fathers to be saved since they were so farr from departing out of Babylon that they took her for their Mother and in her bosome yielded up the Ghost 11. First for the Plagues being threatned unto them that are Partakers in the sins of Babylon we can define nothing concerning our Fathers our of this Sentence unless we shew what the sins of Babylon be and what they be which are such Partakers of them that their everlasting plagues are inevitable The sins which may be common both to them of the Church of Rome and to others departed thence must be severed from this question He which saith Department of Babylon lest ye be partakers of her sons sheweth plainly that he meaneth such sins as except we separate ourselves we have no power in the World to avoid such impieties as by their Law they have established and whereunto all that are among them either do indeed assent or else are by powerful means forced in shew and appearance to subject themselves As for example in the Church of Rome it is maintained That the same credit and reverence that we give to the Scriptures of God ought also to be given to unwritten verities That the Pope is Supream head ministerial over the Universal Church-militant That the Bread in the Eucharist is transubstantiated into Christ That it is to be adored and to be offered up unto God as a Sacrifice propitiatory for quick and dead That Images are to be worshipped Saints to be called upon as Intercessors and such like Now because some Heresies do concern things only believed as the transubstantiation of the Sacramental Elements in the Eucharist some concern things which practised and put in ure as the adoration of the Elements transubstantiated we must note that erroneously the practice of that is sometime received whereof the doctrine that teacheth it is not heretically maintained They are all partakers of the maintenance of Heresies who by word or deed allow them knowing them although not knowing them to be Heresies as also they and that most dangerously of all others who knowing Heresie to be Heresie do notwithstanding in worldly respects make semblance of allowing that which in heart and judgment they condemn But Heresie is heretically maintained by such as obstinately hold it after wholsome admonition Of the last sort as of the next before I make no doubt but that their condemnation without an actual repentance is inevitable Lest any man therefore
the web of Salvation is spun Except your Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Stribes and Pharisees ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven They were rigorous exacters of things not utterly to be neglected and left undone washing and tything c. As they were in these so must we be in judgement and the love of God Christ in Works Ceremonial giveth more liberty in moral much less than they did Works of Righteousness therefore are added in the one Proposition as in the other Circumcision is 31. But we say our Salvation is by Christ alone therefore howsoever or whatsoever we adde unto Christ in the matter of Salvation we overthrow Christ. Our Case were very hard if this Argument so universally meant as it is proposed were sound and good We our selves do not teach Christ alone excluding our own Faith unto Justification Christ alone excluding our own Works unto Sanctification Christ alone excluding the one or the other unnecessary unto Salvation It is a childish Cavil wherewith in the matter of Justification our Adversaries do so greatly please themselves exclaiming that we tread all Christian vertues under our feet and require nothing in Christians but Faith because we teach that Faith alone justifieth whereas by this speech we never meant to excluded either Hope or Charity from being always joyned as inseparable Mates with Faith in the man that is justified or Works from being added as necessary Duties required at the hands of every justified man But to shew that Faith is the onely hand which putteth on Christ unto Justification and Christ the onely Garment which being so put on covereth the shame of our defiled natures hideth the imperfection of our Works preserveth us blameless in the sight of God before whom otherwise the weaknesse of our Faith were cause sufficent to make us culpable yea to shut us from the Kingdom of Heaven where nothing that is not absolute can enter That our dealing with them he not as childish as theirs with us when we hear of Salvation by Christ alone considering that alone as an exclusive Particle we are to note what it doth exclude and where If I say Such a Iudge onely ought to determine such a case all things incident to the determination thereof besides the Person of the Judge as Laws Depositions Evidences c. are not hereby excluded Persons are not excluded from witnessing herein or assisting but onely from determining and giving Sentence How then is our Salvation wrought by Christ alone Is it our meaning that nothing is requisite to man's Salvation but Christ to save and he to be saved quietly without any more adoe No we acknowledge no such Foundation As we have received so we teach that besides the bare and naked work wherein Christ without any other Associate finished all the parts of our Redemption and purchased Salvation himself alone for conveyance of this eminent blessing unto us many things are of necessity required as to be known and chosen of God before the foundation of the World in the World to be called justified sanctified after we have lest the World to be received unto glory Christ in every of these hath somewhat which he worketh alone Through him according to the Eternal purpose of God before the foundation of the World Born Crucified Buried Raised c. we were in a gracious acceptation known unto God long before we were seen of men God knew us loved us was kinde to us in Jesus Christ in him we were elected to be Heirs of Life Thus farr God through Christ hath wrought in such sort alone that our selves are mere Patients working no more than dead and senseless Matter Wood Stone or Iron doth in the Artificers hands no more than Clay when the Potter appointeth it to be framed for an honourable use nay not so much for the matter whereupon the Craftsman worketh he chuseth being moved by the fitness which is in it to serve his turn in us no such thing Touching the rest which is laid for the foundation of our Faith it importeth farther That by him we are called that we have Redemption Remission of sins through his blood Health by his stripes Justice by him that he doth sanctifie his Church and make it glorius to himself that entrance into joy shall be given us by Him yea all things by him alone Howbeit not so by him alone as if in us to our Vocation the hearing of the Gospel to our Justification Faith to our Sanctification the fruits of the Spirit to our entrance into rest perseverance in Hope in Faith in Holinesse were not necessary 32. Then what is the fault of the Church of Rome Not that she requireth Works at their hands which will be saved but that she attributeth unto Works a power of satisfying God for Sinne yea a vertue to merit both Grace here and in Heaven Glory That this overthroweth the foundation of Faith I grant willingly that it is a direct elenyal thereof Iutterly deny What it is to hold and what directly to deny the foundation of Faith I have already opened Apply it particularly to this Cause and there needs no more adoe The thing which is handled if the form under which it is handled be added thereunto it sheweth the foundation of any Doctrine whatsoever Christ is the Matter whereof the Doctrin of the Gospel treateth and it treateth of Christ as of a Saviour Salvation therefore by Christ is the foundation of Christianity as for works they are a thing subordinate no otherwise than because our Sanctification cannot be accomplished without them The Doctrine concerning them is a thing builded upon the foundation therefore the Doctrin which addeth unto them the power of satisfying or of meriting addeth unto a thing sabordinated builded upon the foundation not to the very foundation it self yet is the foundation by this addition consequently overthrown forasmuch as out of this addition it may be negatively concluded He which maketh any work good and acceptable in the sight of God to proceed from the natural freedom of our will he which giveth unto any good works of ours the force of satisfying the wrath of God for sinne the power of meriting either earthly or heavenly rewards he which holdeth Works going before our Vocation in congruity to merit our Vocation Works following our first to merit our second Justification and by condignity our last Reward in the Kingdom of Heaven pulleth up the Doctrin of Faith by the roots for out of every of these the plain direct denial thereof may be necessarily concluded Not this onely but what other Heresie is there that doth not raze the very foundation of Faith by consequent Howbeit we make a difference of Heresies accounting them in the next degree to infidelity which directly deny any one thing to be which is expresly acknowledged in the Articles of our Belief for out of any one Article so denied the denial of
than perhaps it seemeth to them which know not the deepnesse of Satan as the blessed Divine speaketh For although this be proof sufficient that they doe not directly deny the foundation of Faith yet if there were no other leaven in the lump of their Doctrine but this this were sufficient to prove that their Doctrine is not agreeable to the foundation of Christian Faith The Pelogians being over-great friends unto Nature made themselves Enemies unto Grace for all their confessing that men have their Souls and all the faculties thereof their wills and all the ability of their wills from God And is not the Church of Rome still an Adversary unto Christ's Merits because of her acknowledging that we have received the power of meriting by the blood of Christ Sir Thomas Moor setteth down the odds between us and the Church of Rome in the matter of Works thus Like as we grant them that no good work of man is rewardable in Heaven of its own nature but through the meer goodnesse of God that lists in set so high a price upon so poor a thing and that this price God setteth through Christ's Passion and for that also they be his own Works with us for good works to God-word worketh no man without God work in him and as we grant them also that no man may be proud of his works for his imperfect working and for that in all that man may doe he can doe God no good but is a Servant unprofitable and doth but his bare duty as we I say grant unto them these things so this one things or twain doe they grant us again That men are bound to work good works if they have time and power and that whose worketh in true faith most shall be most rewarded but then set they thereto That all his Rewards shall be given him for his Faith alone and nothing for his Works at all because his Faith is the thing they say that forceth him to work well I see by this of Sir Thomas Moor how easie it is for men of the greatest capacity to mistake things written or spoken as well on the one side as on the other Their Doctrine as he thought maketh the work of man rewardable in the World to come through the goodnesse of God whom it pleased to set so high a price upon so poor a thing and ours that a man doth receive that eternal and high reward not for his Works but for his Faiths sake by which he worketh whereas in truth our Doctrine is no other than that we have learned at the feet of Christ namely That God doth justifie the believing man yet not for the worthinesse of his belief but for the worthinesse of him which is believed God rewardeth abundantly every one which worketh yet not for any meritorious dignity which is or can be in the Work but through his mere mercy by whose Commandment he worketh Contrariwise their Doctrine is That as pure Water of it self hath no savour but if it passe through a sweet Pipe it taketh a pleasant smell of the Pipe through which it passeth so although before Grace received our Works doe neither satisfie nor merit yet after they doe both the one and the other Every vertuous Action hath then power in such to satisfie that if we our selves commit no mortal sinne no hainous crime whereupon to spend this treasure of satisfaction in our own behalf it turneth to the benefit of other mens release on whom it shall please the Steward of the House of God to bestow it so that we may satisfie for our selves and others but merit onely for our selves In meriting our Actions do work with two hands with one they get their morning stipend the encrease of Grace with the other their evening hire the everlasting Crown of Glory Indeed they teach that our good Works doe not these things as they come from us but as they come from Grace in us which Grace in us is another thing in their Divinity than is the mere goodnesse of God's mercy towards us in Christ Jesus 34. If it were not a long deluded Spirit which hath possession of their Hearts were it possible but that they should see how plainly they doe herein gain-say the very ground of Apostolick Faith Is this that Salvation by Grace whereof so plentiful mention is made in the Scriptures of God Was this their meaning which first taught the World to look for Salvation onely by Christ By Grace the Apostle saith and by Grace in such sort as a Gift a thing that commeth not of our selves nor of our Works lest any man should boast and say I have wrought out my own Salvation By Grace they confesse but by Grace in such sort that as many as wear the Diadem of Blisse they wear nothing but what they have won The Apostle as if he had foreseen how the Church of Rome would abuse the World in time by ambiguous terms to declare in what sense the name of Grace must be taken when we make it the cause of our Salvation saith He saved us according to his mercy which mercy although it exclude not the washing of our new birth the renewing of our Hearts by the Holy Ghost the Means the Vertues the Duties which God requireth of our hands which shall be saved yet it is so repugnant unto Merits that to say We are saved for the worthiness of any thing which is ours is to deny we are saved by Grace Grace bestoweth freely and therefore justly requireth the glory of that which is bestowed We deny the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we abuse disanul and annihilate the benefit of his bitter passion if we test in these proud imaginations that life is deservedly ours that we merit it and that we are worthy of it 35. Howbeit considering how many vertuous and just men how many Saints how many Martyrs how many of the Antient Fathers of the Church have had their sundry perilous Opinions and amongst sundry of their Opinions this that they hoped to make God some part of amends for their sinnes by the voluntary punishment which they laid upon themselves because by a Consequent it may follow hereupon that they were injurious unto Christ shall we therefore make such deadly Epitaphs and set them upon their Graves They denied the foundation of Faith directly they are damned there is no Salvation for them Saint Austin saith of himself Errare passum Hareticus isse nolo And except we put a difference between them that erre and them that obstinately persist in Errour how is it possible that ever any man should hope to be saved Surely in this Case I have no respect of any Person either alive or dead Give me a man of what estate or condition soever yea a Cardinal or a Pope whom in the extreme point of his life affliction hath made to know himself whose heart God hath touched with true sorrow for all his sinnes and filled with love
for the Children unto Dog and he bringeth into the Pasture which is provided for the Sheep Swine and unclean Beasts contrary to the Faith and Trust that ought to be in a Steward of the Lords House as he is For albeit that I doubt not but many of those which are now Papists pertain to the Election of God which God also in his good time will call to the knowledge of his Truth Yet notwithstanding they ought to be unto the Minister and unto the Church touching the Ministring of Sacraments as Strangers and as unclean Beasts The Ministring of the holy Sacraments unto them is a Declaration and Seal of Gods favor and reconciliation with them and a plain Preaching partly that they be washâ—d already from their sin partly that they are of the Houshold of God and such as the Lord will feed to Eternal Life which is not lawful to be done unto those which are not of the Houshold of Faith And therefore I conclude That the compelling of Papists unto the Communion and the dismissing and letting of them go when as they be to be punished for their stubbornness in Popery with this condition if they will receive the Communion is very unlawful when as although they would receive it yet they ought to be kept back till such time as by their Religious and Gospel-like behavior c. T. C. lib. 1. pag. 147. 2 Chro. 30.13 Psal 12â— 1. Luk. 14. 23. T. C. lib 1. pag. 145. a 1 Cor. 15. 21. b Phil. 3. 11. c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theophyl 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ammon Vide 1 Thes. 4. 17. d Maturatae Resurrection 's laethunila solemnia Cypr. de Coea Deut. cap. 1â— e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ignat. Epist. ad Ephes Iren. lib. 4. cap. 34. f Eâ—st â—ih I serile murandum est ex solemnibus tamen ubi aequiras evidens praser sâ—â—irâ—iendum est Lib. 183. ff de Reg. Jur. Of Festival Days and the Natural cause of their convenient Institution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hippâ—â— l. qua Praterproâ—â— in â—â—abitur Exod. 3. 5. Psal. 118 24. Ecclus. 33. 5. The manner of celebrating Festival Days a Grande vialrâ—â—cer octiciurn seces se choros in pub licurn endurete vicatim epuiaâ— ebitatem taâ—â—rna â—alun â—ole â—â—â— vino lucâ—â— cugrâ—e catervarim cursirare ad injurias ad iniurin ad impuâ—â—citias ad Iâ—biâ—inis illecebras Siccine exprimiâ—â— publicum qanâ—inst per publicum dedecus Tert. Apol. â—p 35. Dies sellos Majestiri altiâ—same dedicarâ—s â—ulli â—â—â—â—â—us voluptatiâ—â—tes accupâ—ri â—l 12. tit 12. lib. 1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thess. â—â—â—iraâ— liâ—iâ— Ser. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo. lib. de Abâ—aba Deut. 15. 14. Nehe 8. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. 1 Chro. 23.30 Esâ—h 9. 27. Joh. 10. 21. 1 Mac. 4. 3â— Gal 4. 10. Si omnem la torum devotionem temporum dierum menlium annorum eralis Apostolus ear Pâ—neta celebramus nanca cireâ—â— in mense primo Cur quinquagiâ—ta â—xinde â—â—â—bus in omai exulrainne decuâ—rimiâ— Lib adver Psyth Aug. de Civir Dci lib 10. cap. 4. Luk 1. 25. Luk. 2. 21. Exceptions against our keeping of other Festival days besides the Sabbath T. C. lib. 6. pag. 151. If they had been never abused neither by the Papists nor by the Jews as they have been and are daily yet such making of Holidays is never without some great danger of bringing in some evil and currupt opinions into the mindes of men I will use an example in one and that the chief of Holidays and most generally and of longest time observed in the Church which is the Feast of Easter which was kept of some more days of some sewer How many thousands are there I will not say of the ignorant Papists but of those also which profess the Gospel which when they have celebrated those days with diligent heed taken unto their life and with some earnest devotion in praying and hearing the Word of God do not by and by think that they have well celebrated the Feast of Easter and yet have they thus notably deceived themselves For Saint Paul reacheth 1 Cor. 5. 8. That the celebrating of the Feast of the Christians Easter is not as the Jews was for certain days but sheweth That we must keep this Feast all the days of our life in the Unleavened Bread of Sincerity and of Truth By which we see that the observing of the Feast of Easter for certain days in the year doth pull out of our mindes ere ever we he aware the Doctrine of the Gospel and causeth us to rest in that near consideration of our duties for the space of a few days which should be extended in all our life * T. C. lib. 1. Pag. 152. I confess that it is in the power of the Church to appoint so many days in the Week or in the Year in the which the Congregation shall assemble to hear the Word of God and receive the Sacraments and offer up Prayers unto God as it shall â—hink sâ—â—l according to the Rules which are before alledged But that it hath power to make so many Holidays as we have wherein men are commanded to â—â—â—se from their daily Vocation ofâ— lâ—ughing and exercising their Malieâ—â—â—s â—â—â— 1 dâ—ny to be in the power of the Church For proof whereof I will take the Fourth Commandment and no other interpretation of it then Mr. Doctor alloweth of which is That God lirâ—â—oâ—â—th and leaâ—eth it at the liberty of every man to work six days in the Week so that he rest the Seventh day Seeing therefore that the Lord hath lest it to all Men at Liberty that they might Labor if they think good Six days I say the Church nor no Man can take this Liberty away from them and drive them to a necessary Rest of the â—â—â—ly And if it be lawful to abridge the Liberty of the Church in this point and instead that the Lord saith Six days thou â—â—ist labor if thou wilt to say Thou shalt not labor Six days I do not see why the Church may not as well whereas the Lord saith Thou shalt rest the Seventh day command That thou shalt not rest the Seventh day For if the Church may â—â— strain the Liberty which God hath given them it may take away the yoke also which God hath put upon them And whereas you say That notwithstanding this Fourth Commandment the Jews has certain other Feast which they observed indeed the Lord which gave this General Law might make as many Exceptions as he thought good and so long as he thought good But it followeth not because the Lord did it that therefore the Church may do it unless it hath Commandment and Authority from God so to do As when there is any General Plague or Judgment of God either upon the Church or coming towards it the Lord commandeth in such a case Ioel 2. 15. That they should sanctifie a General â—aâ—â—