that as the case now stands as they speak in Acts 4. 12. sensu composito God having determined that no other name under heaven be given whereby men must be saved that there is no salvation in any other but in Christ Jesus But secluding that Decree it doth not appear why God out of the Abyss of his Counsels and Immensness of his Wisdome and absoluteness of his Free Grace might not have compassed Mans salvation some other way My Reason besides those I find used by others is that now intimated If God could entertain such favourable thoughts towards Man as to decree his Salvation without intuition of Christ surely he might have effected it without Christ For 't is neither just nor reasonable to imagine that God could decree any thing absolutely and not absolutely bring it to pass for we cannot so judge of Gods Counsels as we do of Mans who alwayes determines with supposition of means and ability to bring to pass what he determined but all causes out of himself being without exception subject to his will nay his will needing no outward means to attain its purpose or resolution it is sufficient argument that such a thing may be that God without consideration of any means decrees it and at his liberty chooses those means he pleases Neither upon this supposition is the advantage such as the Socinian Heretick expects to his cause It is one of his pernicious heresies That Christ satisfied not by his Passion he expiated not the offense of Man thereby but left him many a good lesson to direct and instruct him in the way to heaven set him an excellent and fair example to follow Makes now at last being in heaven not before intercession and mediates for man but his death was no satisfaction for the wrath of God conceived against the sinner And to make way to this opinion he says that God might without any satisfaction have freely remitted mans offence and therefore it was not absolutely and indispensably requisite that Christ should dye If we should yield all this which is here taken for granted which yet if it be not granted is not so easie to be demonstrated there appears no great advantage to their cause For if it be assured unto us out of holy Writ that God hath determined that no salvation should be attained no recovery had without the mediation of Christ and his satisfaction what availeth it them that possibly it might have been otherwise I confess the advantage to the other side would have been much greater if it could be proved that Gods justice of absolute necessity must have been satisfied by fulfilling the penal part of the Law but however there remains evidence enough from the conditional will of God which according to Scriptures admits of no other way now For so saith St. Paul to the Colossians It pleased the Father that in Col. 1. 19 20. him should all fulness dwell And having made peace through the bloud of his Cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself by him I say whether they be things in heaven or things on earth And Christ himself in St. Luke saith Luke 24 46. Thus it is written and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day And that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his Name among all Nations beginning at Jerusalem And St. Peter 2 Pet. 2. 24. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead unto sin should live unto righteousness by whose stripes we were healed And what can be more plain than that of the Epistle to the Hebrews Without Heb. 9. 22 23. shedding of bloud is no remission And lest some may presume to restrain the Apostles words to the state of the Old Law it is added It was therefore necessary that the paterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these but the heavenly things themselves with better Sacrifices than these And what doth the Apostle mean by the better Sacrifices but the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross St. John declares so much exprefly where he saith If we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another 1 John 1. 7. and the bloud of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin And in the fore-cited place of the Hebrews more fully and expresly making a comparison Hebr. 9. 14. between the expiations of the Law and Gospel sayes thus For if the bloud of Bulls and Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh how much more shall the bloud of Christ who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God If therefore God under the Mosaical Law might have passed over the errours and uncleanness of his people Israel but never would remit them without expiations and sacrifices to that end ordained how can it be imagined that the moral errours and impurities of the soul of Man by sin should be expiated or passed over without that Sacrifice and shedding of the bloud of Christ appointed to that purpose Surely therefore a sense there is wherein it is impossible God should remit sins without due punishment for the same inflicted and the least and lowest is that which we call conditional supposing that God hath so decreed that no sin should be expiated but that way A way which besides the excellent agreement it hath with the Justice of God and Mercy also is full of pregnant advices and instructions to the Offender partly informing of the foul and mortal nature of sin which cannot otherwise be pardoned than by such satisfaction of bloud partly by humbling him and moving him to cry God mercy bitterly and heartily and lastly by possesing his mind with a dread and terrour of the nature of sin so as to avoid the same for the time future CHAP. XVI Of the Nature and Person of the Mediatour between God and Man In the beginning was the Word proved to be spoken of Christ and that he had a Being before he was Incarnate The Vnion of two Natures in Christ explained Christ a Mediatour by his Person and by his Office and this by his Sacrificing himself The Scriptures proving this THUS far of the necessity and use of Mediation between God and Man for the reconciling them at this great distance Now it remains to speak more particularly of the Person or Mediatour himself whom Christian Faith acknowledges to be Christ Jesus who as the Scripture tells us came unto the world to save sinners and to save them by his Mediation 1 Tim. 1. 15. And that this is a faithful saying that is a truth to be embraced by true Faith without which there is no Salvation But of the Condition of this Mediatour we find no small differences amongst such who are called Christians
ventantia ad hoec decem redigant Capitalium peccatorum species quae septem numerantur in aliquod horum referum sed sedulâ diligentiâ magis quam serid Erasm Cateches 6. in Decal Thom 22. qu. 148. 2. ad 1. Contrivers of them may as well as many other things be refused at pleasure as an humane Invention For mine own particular I think Erasmus has spoken judiciously and truly in the Case Here I see some labouring hard to reduce all Precepts whether commanding or forbidding to these Ten and to refer the seven deadly sins to some of these but with diligence more sedulous than serious And no other instance needs be given of an incapacity in the Decalogue of Regular reduction of this nature than what Thomas has given us whose Logical head was able to do as much in this kind as any mans Framing an Objection to himself that Gluttony was no mortal sin because it was not contrary to any of the Ten Commandments answers thus Gluttony is a mortal sin in as much as it averts us from the Ultimate end and according to this by a Certain Reduction by which every thing may be reduced to every thing is opposed to the Command of Sanctifying the Sabbath in which is required our rest in the Ultimate End If this be fair and allowable what needed we any more Commandments than that of keeping holy the Sabbath day For surely all sin as well as Gluttony turns us away from our Last End which is God and our resting in him and therefore by this reason all sin should be Sabbath-breaking St. James James 2. 10. indeed saith Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all that is a breaker of all But he very well explains himself immediately after that he meant not so much in respect of the matter of the Law that a man could not sin against it in one case but he must sin against it in another but in respect of the Manner For saith he He that said unto thee do not commit adultery said also do not kill c. implying thus much that the same evil mind that disposes a man to disobey God in one point of the Law will incline him to the like in others and the Cords of Fear and Love of God being broken to offend God in one sin leave him at liberty to offend him in any other whatever Not that a man doth directly or actually commit sin against the whole Law As in the case of Moral Vertues according to Philosophers all are so connected and dependent upon one another in Prudence that whoever wants that lies open to all vices But our enquiry is concerning the connexion of vertues and vices in the matter of them whether the offender in one sin is guilty of all whether the Drunkard be a Thief or the Sabbath-breaker an Adulterer For according to the large extent of Rules commonly given either of these may be made good and without such a latitude drunkenness will hardly find a proper place in any of the Ten Commandments unless we say as some more wittily than solidly Drunkenness slaggers through all the Commands And in the like sense What sin doth not And therefore Thom. ibid. Thomas is constrained to acknowledge that Not all Mortal sins are directly contrary to the Precepts of the Decalogue but those only which contain injustice because the Precepts of the Decalogue in especial manner pertain to Justice and the parts thereof That so many Ancient as well as Modern Doctors of Christs Church have endeavoured to bring all Sins and Graces and Duties to the Ten Commandments I take to proceed from this three-fold cause First in Imitation of the Jews who agreed with Christians in the Use of the Decalogue Novatianus Epistâ—de Judaicis apud Tertul cap. 3. Deniqu dâ—eem sermones â—lh in tabulis nibil novum dacent c. Grot. in Decalogum as being no more than a restoring the decayed Law of Nature in man and reprinting it in his mind as well hath Novatianus observed thus Lastly those ten sayings in Tables teach no new thing but what was blurred they admonish that Justice contained in them as fire buried might as it were by the breath of the Law be re-enkindled And Philo testifieth of the Jews not only of his Times but ancienter that they were wont to reduce All the Precepts of Moses his Law to these Ten not that they did believe that they were all contained in them as Grotius hath observed but that those things we have here belong to such general heads of Actions unto which for memory sake others may be reduced in like manner as Philosophers are wont to Sixt. Sen. Bib. l. 4. reduce all things to Aristotles Ten Categories or Predicaments though by the way it is observed by Sixtus Senensis out of ancient Authors that Aristotle was not the true Author of the Ten Predicaments but rather Architas Tarentinus And this Christians did more accurately as being better endowed with the Holy Spirit and obliged to higher vertues A second reason might be for that the Decalogue as we have already said though it be not such an exquisite and ample Rule as to contain all things without great straining and force yet it being the most significant is any where extant in Scripture Christians chose that for their Compendium to which other duties might relate And this Thirdly because of the expediency of advancing some one Form of Words to be a Rule of Practise as were the Creed and Lords Prayer instituted as Forms of Faith and all Prayers and that chiefly for help to the Memory of men in their compleat duty towards God and Man The first that I have observed who brought this way of Reduction of all things to the Commandments was St. Hieromne who hath delivered such General Rules for this purpose as have been much improved and multiplied by many Catechises and Commentators upon them To which I shall refer the Reader at present passing or rather posting from the Use in General to the Particular Use of it in the Third thing viz. The Explication CHAP. XX. Of the Ten Commandments in Particular and their several sense and importance IN all Laws three things are to be considered saith a late excellent Die â—mâ—bi Hâ—los-phasier Oretzere si non tres Leâ—uâ— partes dâ—â—mmâ—â— Philosophis Platone Possidonio Cicerone alits consittuantur nempe Preoemium Lex ipsa Epilogus sive sanctio Goldastus Replicat ad Gretz c. 11. person in the Civil Law The Preface the Law it self and the Epilogue or Conclusion to it or Sanction And these are all found in the Decalogue And where some have no special Preface there the General Prologue is to be current and applyed unto them And so where other particular precepts want the enforcement of them in the conclusion they may well borrow it from some other as for Example I am the Lord thy God set
Heaven and Hell But we deny not that the Ancients prayed for the Dead nor do we dissent much from them in that pious act our selves however there are quarrellers amongst us well known by their other affected and morose follies who oppose it because they have no express Scripture for it but we deny they ever prayed for the pardon of their sins or ease of torments so anciently but for an happy rest and restauration in a Resurrection So that we peremptorily deny and well may notwithstanding all proofs brought to the contrary that Prayer for the Dead necessarily infers Roman Purgatory And for the Consequence of this Opinion of Roman Purgatory Indulgences it is so rank a Corruption such a novel and impudent invention as the Church of Rome under that defection it now is never did so great a miracle as to get it any place in sober and knowing mens minds both thing it self and the abuse of it being such as alone may suffice to disgrace the Authours of it and make their pretenses to infallibility alwaies false very ridiculous We know indeed that scarce any thing was of ancienter use in the Church then some Indulgences but no more like these than Earth is like Purgatory Indulgences were made by such who were in autority in the Church towards Penitents who had their Penances allotted them for scandalous Crimes committed against the Faith and Church which Penances were often relaxed and mittigated by the favour and indulgences of the Fathers of the Church good cause appearing for to do so But that ever it was in the power of the Church to give ease to such as were punished in that other Life to come was never heard of for above a thousand years after Christ Alphonsus de Castro is worth the Alphonsus de Castro lib. 8. Adv. Haer. de Indulg reading upon this who is positive for Indulgences but going about to prove them prepares his Reader with a long Preface for such a short Discourse telling him that He ought not to expect for all points of Faith Antiquity or express Scripture For many things are known to the moderner which those ancient Writers were altogether ignorant of For seldome any mention is made in ancient Writers of the transubstantiation of the Bread into Christs Body of the Spirits proceeding from the Son much rarer of Purgatory almost none at all especially among Greek Writers for which reason Purgatory is not believed of the Greek to this day c. The ancient Church caused men to satisfie in this life and would leave nothing to be punished in the Life to come and therefore there is no mention of Indulgences Thus he But adds Amongst the Romans the use of them is said to be very ancient as may in some manner be collected from their stations And it is reported of Gregory the First of whom we even now spake that he granted some in his dayes It is said and reported by where and by whom he could not tell us But he tells us indeed how Innocent the Third that great Innovator and Corrupter of the Church constituted it in the Latherane Council and the Council of Constance after that much which was not before the Year 1200. Judge we from hence what great account is to be made of the many sayings of the Fathers pretended to approve this devise And judge we farther what great Reason or Scripture there is for the Popish faction to derogate so far as they do from the efficacy of Gods Holy Spirit of Grace in the repenting sinner though straitened of time in the exercise and demonstration of his true Conversion and from the fullness of Christs mediation and merits which are ordained for the remission of all sins upon true Repentance For the bloud of Christ cleanseth from all sin saith St. John and so say they understood as in this Life and the Life to come but St. John nor any other holy Writer of Scripture gives us the least intimation of any other season of pardon then that of this Life Therefore here to end this First Part with the end of Man in this world seeing Gods Promises are so liberally revealed unto penitent sinners in this Life without exceptions of matter time or place of venial or mortal sins Seeing Christs merits are absolutely sufficient to acquit the sinner and no limitation is to be found upon Faith and Repentance in Scripture Seeing lastly that Gods Spirit of Grace is of vertue sufficient to sanctifie to the washing away of all filthiness both of flesh and spirit and this life is only mentioned in Scripture for the exerting of this work and perfecting this cure of the soul Let us rather thankfully embrace so great salvation and work it out for St. Paul supposes we may with fear and trembling in this life that so as St. Peter hath 2 Pet. 1. 11. it An entrance may be ministred abundantly unto us into the everlasting Kingdem of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ The End of the First Part. THE Second Part OF THE INTRODUCTION To the Knowledge of the True Catholick Religion CHAP. I. Of the worship of God wherein the Second Part of Christian Religion consists Of the Necessity of worshipping God It is natural to worship God Socinus holding the contrary confuted Of the Name of Religion the Nature of religious worship wherein it consisteth REligion we have defined to be A due Recognition and Retribution made by the Creature to God the Fountain of all Being communicating himself freely to inferiour Beings And this description we have in substance given us by David in his last and most serious charge to Solomon his Son saying And thou Solomon my Son know thou the God of 1 Chron. 28. 9. thy Fathers and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind c. From whence we take the ground of our distinction of Religion into two Parts The true knowledge of God which is attained by the Doctrine of Faith revealed in Gods holy Word and the worship of him there in likewise contained Of the former having already spoken we now proceed more briefly to treat of the second The worship of God And that God is to be worshipped is such an inseparable notion from the acknowledgment of God as nothing can follow more necessarily then that doth from this And it were more reasonable though that be brutish for to deny God absolutely then to deny him worship and service And therefore Seneca saith well The first worshipping of God is to believe there is a God The next to yield to him his Majesty to yield him Sen. Epist 95. his Goodness to understand that he or they governs the world And afterward He sufficiently worships God who imitates him And Tully The Cicero de Natura Deor. lib. 2. worship of God ought to be most excellent and pure and holy and full of piety so that we may constantly worship him with a pure intire and uncorrupt mind and voice
of any Saint in any other respect then that the Scriptures which that day are read in the Church be concerning that Saint and contain either his calling preaching persecution martyrdom or such like A third and yet worse abuse in the Roman Church is that they celebrate the memory of some who have been no Saints and of others who have been no good Christians as their highly applauded Thomas a Becket who indeed was villanously slain and with gross Circumstances but by no better authority than a man may be murther'd upon the high-way and that for none of his vertues but for sticking closser to the usurping Pope than to Christ or his Prince to whom he was a much greater Rebel than was Cranmere which a very late impudent railer hath in print so termed to disgrace him and the Reformation so far as naked lies can prevail without the least instance against which of those Princes he lived under or in what he died an impenitent Traitor as he calls him This we know the Hall of the Jesuites Seminary in Rome is hung round almost with such Saints as have died convicted of treason against their Prince and Country as Judicially as ever any were But no more of this There yet remains somewhat to be said under this head of Times and Seasons of Prayer and that is concerning Hours of Prayers called Canonical which were retained and published by our Church at the beginning of the Reformation by the confession of that unsatisfied and unquiet Puritan Mr. Prinne himself who wrote against them and the Prinne against Consens pag. 32. excellent design of the Reverend Publisher of them with great wrath and bitterness and all the reason he could which was little enough God knows In the year saith he 1560 was printed Orarium or a Book of Prayers which mentioned Canonical Hours But in the second impression in the year 1564 these hours were quite obliterated and so in the Edition 1573. But if these things be so the First Edition is with me much more Authentique than the following unless it can be proved that such alterations were made with the like authority with the first For we have divers instances of Puritans busie zeal to make alterations in impressions of such books as offend their corrupt humor and that upon their private heads watching Presses that print any thing that troubles them and purging them Hath not the late Arch-bishop Laud in his Lauds speech in the Star-chamber An. 1637. pag. 64 65 66 67 c. solid and judicious refutations of their contumelies and scurrilous slanders against their Governors found out their falseness in contriving the expunging of that clause in the twentieth of the nine and thirtieth Articles of Queen Elizabeth viz. The Church hath power to decree Rites and Ceremonies and authority in matters of Faith And having caused the Article with this rasure to be printed to argue from that Copy and flie most boldly in the faces of the Prelates as forgers of Articles in latter Editions when there were so many ancienter Copies retaining that Clause as that of the year 1593 and 1563 and 1605 and in the publique Records of them And having so done to say the Article was never so printed before the year 1628 But the reason there given makes the matter more clear For many scrupling such Right in the Church refused to swear to the Articles so framed and thereupon made no scruple to purge them of such troublesom matter and having so done to cover their wickedness the better to begin to clamour loudly against the Bishops as if in their Edition they had foisted as they speak that into them of their private heads And what can be a greater or more bold presumption in them to attempt than in the Title of the Singing Psalms which never had the least approbation of either Civil or Ecclesiastical Authority to print these words Set forth and allowed to be sung in all Churches of all the people together before and after Morning and Evening prayer and also c whereas they could never yet produce the least colour of Authority more than gross connivance at that will-worship of their own heads For the Church never owned any other Psalms or Singing but what she warranted by her practice in Cathedrals which as it was much more ancient and solemn so much more easie also for common people to learn and more easie to be understood by those who are not able to joyn with them that so sing And yet what will not affectation of mens own invention and spite against others drive men to say they boldly argue against that manner of singing as not easily intelligible or to be learnt and also as a way most unfit to address ones self to a Prince in and much more to God as if their contrived Psalming of it were not much more obnoxious to these exceptions and more ridiculous to be used towards any man than the other The only advantage these have above the Churches grave plain and chearful way of Reciting the Psalms being that they are fallen into this their own way but cannot tell how or why and admire it infinitely But to return Can we knowing they have been guilty of such vile Artifices make any great scruple to think that they might play false with the said Orarium too of which Mr. Prinne speaks Such doings and the disuse of these might give occasion to the Rhemists in their Comments to affirm that The Church of England hath utterly rejected Canonical Hours of Prayers Which is not so Indeed she doth not impose them with that rigour as doth the Roman Church but commendeth the same as very godly and profitable And there is not one book in more esteem with her next to the Office of the Liturgy it self than that book to that end published by the late Reverend Bishop of Durham Dr. Cosens notwithstanding all the dirt cast in the face of it and him by Mr. Prinne And notwithstanding the three notable abuses noted amongst the Papists by Master Perkins in the use of the Canonical Hours First Perkins Cases of Conscience p. 79. in binding to them upon mortal sin This we acknowledge to be an abuse unless the persons have brought themselves under any Rule or Order which requires such services as such may lawfully be and wilfully neglect the same Secondly binding only to those hours whereas those hours differ not from others But here we are to distinguish first between binding to those hours only as if it were not permitted to use them at any other hours which I know none do and not binding them to any others but them only this is lawful secondly between binding to hours for the Hours sakes and for Orders sake Indeed Hours as is solidly and very philosophically argued differ not in nature one from another But emergencies and occasions may diversifie them and the devotions belonging to them without any just objection to be made to the
non esse peccatum mortale Thom. ib. But Thomas speaks soundly and plainly It is therefore an Heresie to say simple Fornication is no mortal sin And if simple Fornication be as certainly it is a mortal sin then surely it is much more grievous when it hath the aggravations of Constupration or Deflouring of a Virgin her Virginity being her natural grace and glory And much more Ravishing or invading violently the chastity of others And so Incest committed against the Laws of Nature of God or the Religion we profess concerning consanguinity and affinity And there is another Degree of Lust which is called Sacriledge extending the word a little of the farthest to express the great wickedness of abusing those who have dedicated themselves in a state of Virginity to Gods Service For as we have shown before as it is not only lawful but very commendable in any good Christian upon sober and mature consideration of the probability of being able to make good such holy resolutions to devote himself or her self to such excellent means of serving God and that by a Vow so can it not be but a notorious offence against God to mock him either with committing fornication or entring into marriage otherwayes lawful If indeed Marriage were such a Law as some grosly conceive of it that not to comply with it were to offend God then were it not lawful to design any such life as Virginity nor yet widowhood being in ordinary capacity and then were most of their arguments good urged against the state of Virginity chosen by way of Vow But it being a Jus or Right rather that every man hath of God then a Lex or Law that he should marry their reasons prove very fallacious and vain And they who shall go about to seduce to marriage and much more other more scandalous and vitious acts them that have so decreed in their heart to live to God do very wickedly notwithstanding so great a President as Luther may be alledged to the contrary and the judgment of Perkins and others Lastly To these may be reduced all outward acts and signs of Lightness and Lasciviousness tending to Wantonness and Lust Evil Dalliances and Speeches and Gestures and Attire and Ornaments to insinuate evil to others or to tempt them as likewise Intemperance fomenting the Law of the Members as St. Paul speaks against the Law of the mind The Eighth Commandment is Thou shalt not steal In the Second Table §. VIII Gods principal intention it was to preserve one man from offering violence or injury to another Injury is done to man two wayes in General To his Person or To his Goods and Possessions The Injury done to a mans Person is either committed against him simply and this is forbidden under the Commandment Thou shalt do no murder or against him joyntly as he is one with another For so God saith They two shall be one flesh man and wife making in several senses but one Person and therefore to offend against the Person of one is to wrong both And therefore it is said Thou shalt not commit Adultery For hereby notorious injustice is done to the person so united to the Party suffering evil Neither can it be alledged what too often happens that there is consent on one part and so no injury because first Neither God nor the other Party to both which the will of the Offender is to be no less subject than to himself doth consent A Second Injury is done to the Goods of a man by sustaining loss or detriment and against this evil doth God here provide by saying Thou shalt not steal Concerning which we are to consider briefly The Ground The Extent or Kinds and lastly The Evil of Thefts The Original and Cause of this Commandment is certainly Justice and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Equity to be observed between man and man in all Common-wealths and without which no humane and much less Divine or Religious Society can long continue Justice is or may be taken two wayes Abstractly as it may be considered in it self as a Divine Rule and Law propounded by God according to which he requireth all men to conform their Actions And therefore Plutarch speaketh divinely God not only hath Justice sitting by him but is himself Justice and Right and the ancientest and perfectest of all Laws In which yet he seems to be prevented by more Divine David saying of God Psal 9. 4. Thou satest or sittest in the throne judging right God is Justice and so is his Will revealed as a Rule of humane affairs And Justice is in man too concretely as they speak and so is defined A perpetual and constant will of giving every man his due though Gerson would have Gerson de Vita Spirituali Lect. 3. this to relate principally to God And that of Fact it doth is most true it being impossible God should do or desire to do injury to any man but as of Form and Right it concerneth man no less because he is perpetually and immutably obliged to do justly though actually he doth it not For Aug. Civ Dei c. 4. without this what are Kingdoms or Common-wealths saith Austin but Slaughter-houses And much more may we say What is Religion without Justice but extreamest Villany there being nothing so ridiculous to all men or blasphemous to Christ as to imagine a man can be a good Christian before he is an honest and just man This Justice hath two parts as Lactantius writeth Piety to God and Equity Lactan. l. 5. cap. 14. to man For Justice as we have showed in the beginning of this Work it is to be Religious towards God and to worship him and greatest Injustice to deny him such his due Equity towards Man is that we even now described and which is in this Law commanded But because Justice or Equity are said to be Vertues whereby a Man gives every one his due or own they must be grounded upon Dominion and Dominion is nothing else but a Propriety a man hath to use a thing which he possesseth as he pleaseth The principal act of Injustice then is to violate this Propriety or withdraw or withhold any thing from another which of right belongs to him not observing our Saviours rule in his Sermon on the Mount Whatsoever Matth. 7. 12. ye would that men should do to you do you also unto them for this is the Law and the Prophets The Law and the Prophets both contained and here signifie the whole substance of Religion of the Church under the Law and therefore such moral honesty and justice as this being the chief subject of these Books is likewise the substance of Religion it self improved by Christ to some higher perfections Now the Extent of this sin of stealing or injustice is First to open violence in Robbery and spoiling of others of that which they are rightly possessed of without colour of Justice which is indeed the most notorious of all because
though it were invented by another yea though it should prove true Again this signification may as well be in work act or sign outward whereby such a thing is commonly understood and is intended should be the signifier of his mind and in such manner be so taken as if that thing were which really is not For otherwise a man could not lye to a deaf man which certainly he may as Qui sic loquitur ut credit etsi vera non lâ—quitur fideliter lâ—quitur qui autem non credit quae loquitur â—tsi vera loquitur infideiter lâ—quitur Aug Ep. 135. Item Enchiridio ad Laurentium cap. 18. well as to a blind man And yet farther Not every thing that we say of and from our selves as true is a lye though it be false Why because according to this definition a man must willingly and studiously design the belief of what is false to make it a proper lye For if he believes sincerely he speaks truth and intends no otherwise to be credited by another he doth not lye saith Austin any more than he steals who taketh that which belongs to another man as his own presuming without fraud or wilful errour that it is so or he committeth adultery who contrary to his intentions and will useth another woman as his wife Yet may all these partake of the sin of their respective kinds when that due and sober attention is neglected which may inform a man better for if there are offered unto him competent means of knowing the truth and judging more faithfully and these not being worthily improved the errour doth redoung to the will and that weak and general intention can neither excuse from a lye or Adultery or Idolatry Lastly not the intention of telling a lye doth absolutely constitute a lyer but the intention and will to be believed as true For of the Three kinds of Lyes frequent amongst Schoolmen and other The Officious Lye The Pernicious Lye and The Merry and Jesting Lye The Two first are alwayes Lyes properly taken The Second alwayes and without all doubt evil The first may in some cases be commendable as killing of a man may be when the ground is just and the case deserves death one may be put to death by another with the warrant of legal Authority And that a man may not deceive that man whom he may lawfully kill wants proof I mean by a simple lye wherein the Name of God is not used or taken in vain For though such case may be put in which a man may ruin him with a lye whom he may slay with the sword or strangle with an halter being lawfully required yet must not God be so far abused or his sacred Name prophaned as to be brought to attest a falsity We find none of those holy or eminent persons in Scripture that are brought for to authorize lying who committed this great errour I shall by an Instance out Nisi salubri mendacio Consul fugere hostes ab cornâ— altero clamitans concitasset aciem c. Livius lib. 2. of Livie express my meaning who tells us that the Volscians and the Romans being in fight the Roman army began to give way and turn their backs and all had like to have been lost had not the Consul by a saving Lye cryed out aloud from the other Wing and said That the Enemies fled and were running away and thereby encouraged his Army to fall on again with greater violence and so get the victory And if to destroy a man may not the same be done to save a Life and that a mans own no prejudice thereby happening to others It will be said A man must not commit a sin to save his life And to this it will be answered by granting all is said But they who defend such an officious lye do deny it under those Aug. ad Consent Tom. 4. cap. 9. De Mendacio Pro salute quorundam mentimur Peccatum ergo est sâ—d ventale quâ—d benevolentia excusat Aug in Enchiridio ad Laurent cap. 22. Circumstances to be a Sin Augustine in the Treatise above mentioned affirmeth a Lye to be lawful to the end thereby the evil carnal pollution may be avoided scarce otherwise And no man more rigorous than he and he scarce less constant in any thing then that For in the Third Chapter of the said Treatise he declares That in no case a lye is to be endured for the good event it may have And yet in his Enchiridion he saith We lye for the safety of some men It is therefore a sin but a venial one which good meaning excuses What Austine meant by a Venial sin is not very clear but that he extended it not so far as moderne Divines is to me clear But in his Ennarration of the Sixth Psalm he directly holds that Jocosum Mendacium is not a sin which is certain y the truth when a man doth not speak a thing to the end he may be be ieved but for recreation This may come under the reprehension of Saint Paul to the Ephesians advising that Neither filthiness Ephes 5. 4. nor foolish talking nor jesting which are not convenient should be used but rather giving of thanks but not as the particular sin of lying of which we now speak But Mr. Perkins would prove such lying in jest a sin 1. Because though it Perkins on Galat. ch 1. v. 20. hurts not our neighbour yet it is to the hurt and prejudice of truth This is new too subtile seeing Truth abstractly taken is inviolable invulnerable as God himself is who is Truth And therefore truth is then only wronged when some person is wronged for want of Truth and Justice Darkness doth not hurt the light but such persons only or things as are bereaved of it But thus to tell a lye is to tell a pernicious lye which plainly was St. Austins mind who saith Omnis autem qui mentitur ea contra id quod animo sentit loquitur Id ib. 2. He saith But men are deceived hereby But first we so limit the innocencie of Jocular Lyes that they be not spoken seriously or with any intention to deceive Secondly He himself grants it lawful to deceive by dissimulation or simulation of what is not intended in some cases as in the case of God threatning the abolition of the Israelites Exod. 32. v. 10. And of Joshuah counterfeiting a flight before Ay Josh 8. 5 6. and of Physicians deceiving averse and unruly Patients And how can this possibly stand with that opinion 3. He that tells a lye hurts himself though it be for the good of others for when he speaks the truth indeed he is less believed This is true when a man tells a lye indeed but not when he professes not to speak truth 4. There ought to be a conformity between the speech and mind which is not when a lye is uttered This rule fails in many cases For if a man minds or intends