have not received any more the Spirit of bondage to fear but ye have received the Spirit of adoption whereby ye cry Abba that is Father For those that are led with the hope of temporall promises as all must necessarily be led under that Law which was established upon such must needs be subject to fear of disgrace with God whensoever their sinnes allowed not those promises to take place So then though they were then partakers of Gods Spirit as the Prophet Ezekiel showes us XXXVI 27. XXXVII 14. XXXIX 20. Yet in as much as it is called the Spirit of feare there is due argument that they were not pertaker of that peace and joy in the holy Ghost which Christians afterwards were moved with to indure all persecution for the maintainance of their profession But the Apostle pointeth us ouâ— further the sourse of this feare Heb. II. 14 15. When he saith that our Lord Christ tooke part â—f flesh and bloud that by death he might abolish him that had the power of death â—ven the devil and discharge all those that through the fear of death were all their life long subject unto bondage For so long as the promises of this life ended in death and the punishments thereof conducted to it they who knew that death came into the world upon the transgression of Adam could not think themselves discharged of Gods wrath so long as they found themselves liable to the debt of it No marvaile then if the Spirit of God were the Spirit of fear in them who saw not as yet the kingdom of death dissolved by the rising of our Lord Christ from the dead Another argument I make from the words of our Lord when the disciples were ready to demand fire from heaven upon those Samaritanes that received them not after the example of Elias Luke IX 52-56 Ye know not what Spirit ye are of saith our Lord For the Son of man came not to destroy but to save mens lives Whereby he declareth that because the Gospel bringeth salvation whereas the Law wrought wrath as S. Paul saith by tendring conviction of sinne without help to overcome it Rom. III. 20. IV. 15. VII 8-11 therefore God requireth under the Gospel of those that are his the Spirit that seeketh onely the good of them from whose hands they receive it not Whereas under the Law even his Prophets revenged themselves of their enemies by vengeance obtained at Gods hands And by this meanes we have an answer for that difficulty otherwise insoluble in our Lords words of John Baptist Mat. XI 11. Verily I say to you there never arose among those that are born of women one greater then John the Baptist But the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater then he For if God under the Law required not of his Prophets that perfection of Charity which the Gospel exacteth of all Christians if in those things which they said and did by Gods Spirit they have not expressed it well may it be said that the least of all those that belong to the Gospel in truth which here is called the kingdom of heaven is in a respect of so great concernment greater then the Prophets of the Old Testament As for the example of Jael the wife of Eber the Kenite who being in league with Jabin and Siâ—era for the good of Gods people knocked him on the head being retired into the protection of her house and is commended for it by the Spirit of God in Deborah the Prophetesse Jud. V. 17-21 VI. 24-28 The instance indeed is difficult enough And they that are so ready to condemne the fact of Judith in cutting off Holefernes by deceit and that by the example of her father Simeon that spoiled and destroyed the men of Shecheâ—â— contrary to covenant Judg. IX 2. Gen. XXXIV 23. are not advised how to come clear of it Suppose there was just cause of hostility between them a daughter of the house being dishonoured by the Prince of that people For among Gods people their chastity was alwayes as highly valued as it was little regarded among Idolaters Suppose that they condescended to be circumcised not for love to the true God but for hope of increasing their own power and riches by bringing the Israelites under their Government as there is appearance enough in the words of Hamor Gen. XXXIV 20 21 22. Yet a league being inacted upon such a pretense the zeal of Simeon and Levi in destroying those that were come under the covering of Gods wings so farre very well figures the zeal of the Jewes in persecuting the Apostles and not allowing the Gentiles any room of salvation by their own onely true God And therefore it is excellently observed by S. Jerome Tradit Hebr. in Genesin that the Scribes were of the tribe of Simeon as the Priests of the tribe of Levi in whom the curse of Jacob by the Spirit of God detesting their fact and prophesying the like to those their successors in the case of our Lord Christ and his Apostles I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel Gen. XLIX 5 6 7. was evidently fulfilled in the mysticall sense The tribe of Levi for gathering of Tithes and the tribe of Simeon for imployment of Clarkes and Notaries dwelling dispersed through all the tribes as Solomon Jarchi in his glosse upon the place literally expoundeth it But the case of Judeth is the case of a stratageme in professed hostility which whether Christianity allowe or not certainly no Law of nations disallowes And therefore though she propose to her self the zeale of Simeon and Levi for the honour of their people and the successe they had against their enemies yet if we understand her not to commend the meanes by which they brought it to passe to wit by violating the publick faith we shall not find her contradict the Spirit of God which by Jacob condemns them for it As for the â—act of Jael it is in vaine to alledge any mysticall sense to justify it as some would do unlesse we can undertake that there was no such thing done in the way of historicall truth which I suppose no man will be so madde as to do And therefore if any man will not believe that the Spirit of God in Deborah extolls onely the temporall benefit which the people of God reâ—ped by that fact of hers for which she was alwayes to be famous amongst them leaving to her self the justification of her conscience Let him seek a better answer But he who transgressing that Charity that is fundamentall in Christianity and therefore without which no Christian can obtaine the Spirit of God shall make her example a motive to that which he cannot justify even in Gods ancient people Though I allow him to mistake Christians for Pagans and Idolaters whose professed enmity to Gods people upon the account of Religion was the ground of that revenge which they were allowed then to pursue them with yet I must not allow him
â—omething for the placing of every man every momâ—nâ— â—◠〈◊〉 estate which thereby hee fore-seeth And the possibility oâ— fore-seeing what will follow being something because no conâ—râ—â—iction destroyes the consistence of the terms inâ—errs by the infiâ—â—â—â— perfection of God the actual fore-sight of what will come to pâ—â—â— though not in it self which is nothing yet in God who is all things And all this involving no predetermination of mans will by God the discourse cannot be superfluous which resolveth the foresight of future contingencies into the decree which supposeth the knowledg of things conditionally future not which inferreth the fore knowledg of things absolutely future For by this means nothing that is found in the Scripture will contradict the substance of Faith which predetermination destroyeth though disclaiming all possibility of making evidence to common sense how it may come to pass And though Gods decree to permit sin can be no sufficient ground of his fore sight that what hee hindreth not shall come to pass as I have argued pag. 209. yet if wee consider withall that there is no question of Gods permitting any man to sin but onely him that is prevented with temptation to sin it may not untruly be said that God fore-sees sin in his own deccee of permitting it including the state of him that is tempted in that case wherein God decrees to permit sin In which case God fore-seeth it properly in his decree of placing the man in that estate not of suffering himto sin which the opinion that I contradict in that place absolutely refuseth And upon these terms when it is resolved Chap. XXVI that predestination to the first Grace is absolute you must not understand predestination to the act of conversioâ— but to the helps which effect it For whatsoever be the motives upon which a man actually resolves it in whatsoever circumstance hee meets them nothing but his own freedom determines his conversion though without those helps hee had not or could not have determined it And therefore if it be said that it is a barr to the prayers and indeavors of those that are moved to be Christians to tell them that their resolution depends upon something which is not in their Power To wit that congruity wherein the efficacy of Grace consisteth The answer is That absolutely whatsoever is requisite to the conversion of him who is called to be a Christian is in his Power Though upon supposition of Gods fore-knowledg that may be said to be requisite without which God fore-sees hee will not be converted when absolutely if hee would hee might have been converted and when supposing hee had been otherwise moved hee would have been converted In which case it is absolutely enough to the charging of any man with his duty that absolutely hee wanted nothing requisite to inable him for a right choice Though upon supposition of Gods fore-knowledg the doing of his duty requires whatsoever God fore-sees that it will not be done without it I have no more to say but that the Contents of the Chapters are premised instead of a Table for which they may well serve in books of this nature And that in regard to the difficulty of the Copy and the ordinary faileurs of the Press the Reader is desired to correct the faults that are marked before hee begin and to serve himself in the rest THE CONTENTS OF THE First Book CHAP. I. ALL agree that Reason is to decide controversies of Faith The objection thaâ— Faith is taught by Gods Spirit answered What Reason decideth questions of Faith The resolution of Faith ends not in the light of Reason but in that which Reason evidenceth to come from Gods messengers Page 1 CHAP. II. The question between the Scripture and the Church which of them is Judge in matters of Faith Whether opinion the Tradition of the Church stands better with Those that hold the Scripture to be clear in all things necessary to salvation have no reason to exclude the Tradition of the Church What opinions they are that deny the Church to be a Society or Corporation by Gods Law 3 CHAP. III. That neither the sentence of the Church nor the dictate of Gods Spirit can be the reason why the Scripâ—ures are to be received No man can know that hee hath Gods Spirit without knowing that he is a true Christian Which supposeth the truth of the Scriptures The motives of Faith are the reason why the Scriptures are to be believed And the consent of Gods people the reason that evidences those motives to be infallibly true How the Scriptures are believed for themselves How a circlâ— is made in rendring a reason of the Faith The Scriptures are Gods Law to all to whom they are published by Gods act of publishing them But Civil Law by the act of Soveraign Powers in acting Christianity upon their Subjects 7 CHAP. IV. Neither the Dictate of Gods Spirit nor the aâ—thority of the Church is the reason of believing any thing in Christianity Whether the Church be before the Scripture or the Scripture before the Church The Scriptures contain not the Infallibility of the Church Nor the consent of all Christians 18 CHAP. V. All things necessary to salvation are not clear in the Scriptures to all understandings Not in the old Testament Not in the Gospel Not in the Writings of the Apostles It is necessary to salvation to believe more then this that our Lord is the Christ Time causeth obscurity in the Scriptures aswell as in other Records That it is no where said in the Scriptures that all things necessary to salvation are clear in the Scriptures Neither is there any consent of all Christians to evidence the same 25 CHAP. VI. All interpretation of Scripture is to be consined within the Tradition of the Church This supposeth that the Church is a Communion instituted by God What means there is to make evidence of Gods Charter upon which the corporation of the Church subsisteth The name of the Church in the Scriptures often signifieth the Whole or Catholick Church CHAP. VII That the Apostles delivered to the Church a Summary of Christianity which all that should be baptized were to profess Evidence out of the Scriptures Evidence out of the Scriptures for Tradition regulating the Communion of the Church and the Order of it Evidence for the Rule of Faith out of the records of the Church For the Canons of the Church and the pedegree of them from the order established in the Church by the Apostles That the profession of Christianity and that by being baptized is necessary to the salvation of a Christian CHAP. VIII That the power of Governing the whole Church was in the Apostles and Disciples of Christ and those whom they tooke to assist them in the part of it The power of their Successors must needs be derived from those Why that succession which appears in one Church necessarily holdeth all Churches The holding of Councils evidenceth the Unity of the Church
Of the Prophets and righteous men under the Law Abraham and Rahab the harlot justified by Workes if justified by Faith The promises of the Gospel depend upon works which the Gospel injoyneth The Tradition of the Church 52 CHAP. X. What Pelagius questioneth concerning the Grace of Christ what Socinus further of the state of Christ before his birth The opposition between the first and second Adam in S. Paul evidenceth original sinne Concupisence in the unregenerate and the inability of the Law to subdue it evict the same The second birth by the holy Ghost evidenceth that the first birth propagateth sin 66 CHAP. XI The old Testament chargeth all men as well as the wicked to be sinful from the wombe David complaineth of himself as born in sin no lesse then the Wise man of the children of the Gentiles How Leviticall Laws argue the same And temporal death under the Old Testament The book of Wisdome and the Greek Bible 76 CHAP. XII The Heresie of Simon Magus the beginning of the Gnosticks That they were in being during the Apostles time Where and when the Heresie of Cerintâ—us prevailed and that they were Gnosticks The beginning of the Encratites under the Apostles It is evident that one God in Trinity was then glorified among the Christians by the Fulnesse of the Godhead which they introduced in stead of it 80 CHAP. XIII The Word was at the beginning of all things The apparition of the old Testament Prefaces to the Incarnation of Christ Ambassadors are not honoured with the honour due to their Masters The word of God that was afterwards incarnate was in those Angels that spoke in Gods Name No Angel honoured as God under the New Testament The Word was with God at the beginning of all things as after his return 89 CHAP. XIV The Name of God not ascribed to Christ for the like reason as to creatures The reasons why the Socinians worship Christ as God do confute their limitations Christ not God by virtue of his rising again He is the Great God with S. Paul the true God with S. John the onely Lord with S. Jude Other Scriptures Of the form of God and of a servant in S. Paul 94 CHAP. XV. Not onely the Church but the World was made by Christ The Word was made flesh in opposition to the Spirit How the Prophets how Christians by receiving the Word of God are possessed by his Spirit How the title of Sonne of God importeth the Godhead How Christ is the brightnesse and Image of God 100 CHAP. XVI The testimonies of Christs Godhead in the Old Testament are first understood of the figures of Christ Of the Wisdome of God in Solomon and elsewhere Of the writings of the Jewes as well before as after Christ 112 CHAP. XVII Answer to those texts of Scripture that seem to abate the true Godhead in Christ Of that creature whereof Christ is the first-born and that which the Wisdome of God made That this beliefe is the originall Tradition of the Church What means this dispute furnisheth us with against the Arians That it is reason to submit to revelation concerning the nature of God The use of reason is no way renounced by holding this Faith 116 CHAP. XVIII The necessity of the grace of Christ is the evidence of Original sinne How the exaltation of our Lord depends upon his humiliation and the grace of Christ upon that All the work of Christianity is ascribed to the grace of Christ Gods predestination manifesteth the same 133 CHAP. XIX Evidences of the same in the Old Testament Of Gods help in getting the Land of Promise and renewing the Covenant And that for Christs sake That Christianity cannot stand without acknowledging the grace of Christ The Tradition of the Church In the Baptism of Infants In the Prayers of the Church In the decrees against Pelagius and other records of the Church 140 CHAP. XX. Wherein Original sinne consisteth What opinions are on foot That it is not Adams sinne imputed to his posterity Whether man were at the first created to a supernatural end or not An estate of meer nature but innocent possible Original sinne is concupisence How Baptism voids it Concerning the late novelty in the Church of England about Original sinne 151 CHAP. XXI The opinion that makes the Predestination of mans will by God the sourse of his freedom And wherein Jansenius differs from it Of necessity upon suppositiou and absolute The necessity of the Will following the last dictate of the understanding is onely upon supposition As also that which Gods foresight creates The difference between indifferent and undetermined 163 CHAP. XXII The Gospel findeth man free from necessity though not from bondage Of the Antecedent and consequent Will of God Praedetermination is not the root but the rooting up of Freedom and Christianity Against the opinion of Jansenius 170 CHAP. XXIII A man is able to do things truly honest under Originall sinne But not to make God the end of all his doing How all the actions of the Gentiles are sinnes They are accountable onely for the Law of nature How all men have or have not Grace sufficient to save 181 CHAP. XXIV Though God determineth not the will immediately yet he determineth the effect thereof by the means of his providence presenting the object so as he foresees it will chuse The cases of Pharoah of Solomon of Ahab and of the Jews that crucified Christ Of Gods foreknowledge of future conditionalls that come not to passe The ground of foreknowledge of future contingencies Difficult objections answered 189 CHAP. XXV The grounds of the difference between sufficient and effectual How naturall occasions conduce to supernatural actions The insufficience of â—ansenius his doctrine Of sufficient grace under the Law of Moses and Nature 202 CHAP. XXVI Predestination to grace absolute to glory respective Purpose of denying effectuall Grace absolute of punishing respective The end to which God predestinates is not the end for which he predestinates Grace the reward of the right use of Grace How much of the question the Gospel dètermines not That our indeavours are ingaged no lâ—sse then if predestination were not it determineth Of the Tradition of the Church and of Semipelagians Predestinatians and Arminians 212 CHAP. XXVII The question concerning the satisfaction of Christ with Socinus The reason why Sacrifices are figures of Christ common to all sacrifices Why and what Sacrifices the Fathers had what the Law added Of our ransom by the price of Christs propitiatory Sacrifice 233 CHAP. XXVIII Christ took away our sinne by bearing the punishment of it The Prophesie of Esay LIII We are reconciled to God by the Gospel inconsidâ—cation of Christs obedience The reconcilement of Jews and Gentiles Men and Angels consequent to the saâ—e Of purging and expiating sinne by Christ and making propitiation for it Of Christs dying for us 238 CHAP. XXIX The grant of Grace in consideration of Christ supposes satisfaction made by him for sinne Neither
I said there can be no sect as communicating in nothing visible as Christians But I need not have recourse to such an obscure Sect as this For the same is necessarily the opinion of all the sect that makes every Congregation Independent and Sovereign in Church maters For if particular Congregations be not obliged to joyn in communion to the constitution of one Church wee may perhaps understand the collection of all Congregations to be signified at once by the name of the Church but wee cannot imagine that the Church so understood can be obliged by any sentence that can passe in it And if this opinion be true it must be acknowledged as of late years it hath been disputed amongst us that there is no crime of Schisme in violating the unity of the Church but when a breach is made in a Congregation obliged to communicate one with another in Church maters For where there is no bond of unity what crime can there be in dissolving it This is then the ground of all Independent Congregations that there is no such thing as the Church understanding by the name of the Church a Society or Corporation founded upon a Charter of Gods which signification the addition of Catholick and Apostolick in our Creed hath hitherto been thought to determine But there is a second opinion in the Leviathan who allowes all points of Ecclesiastical Power in Excommunicating Ordaining and the rest to the Soveraign Powers that are Christian Though before the Empire was Christian hee granteth that the Churches that is to say the several Bodies of Christians that were dwelling in several Cities had and exercised some parts of the same right by virtue of the Scriptures As you may see pag. 274-279 287-292 Making that right which the Scriptures give them for the time to eschete to the Civil Power when it is Christian and dissolving the said Churches into the State or Common-wealth which once Christian is from thenceforth the Church And this I suppose upon this ground though hee doth not expresly allege it to that purpose Because the Scripture hath not the force of a Law obliging any man in justice to receive it till Soveraign Powers make it such to their subjects but onely contains good advice which hee that will may imbrace for his souls health and hee that will not at his peril may refuse Thus hee teacheth pag. 205. 281-287 If therefore the act of Soveraign Power give the Scripture the force of Law then hath it a just claim to all rights and Powers founded upon the Scripture as derived from it and therefore vested originally in it Hence followeth that desperate inference concerning the right of Civil Power in mater of Religion not for a Christian but for an Apostate to publish that if the Soveraign command a Christian to renounce Christ and the faith of Christ hee is bound to do it with his mouth but to believe with his heart And therefore much more to obey whatsoever hee commandeth in Religion besides whether to believe or to do The Reason Because in things not necessary to salvation the obedience due by Gods and mans Law to the Soveraign must take place Now there is nothing necessary to salvation saith hee but to believe that our Lord Jesus is the Christ All that the Scripture commandeth besides this is but the Law of Nature which when the Civil Law of every Land hath limited whosoever observes that Law cannot fail of fulfilling the Law of Nature These things you have pag. 321-330 The late learned Selden in his first book de Synedriis Judaeorum maintaining Erastus his opinion that there is no power of Excommunicating in the Church by Gods Law grants that which could not be denied that the Church did exercise such a Power before Constantine but not by any charter of Gods but by free consent of Christians among themselves pag. 243 244. Which if hee will follow the grain of his own reason hee is consequently to extend to the power of Ordaining and to all other rights which the Church as a Corporation founded by God can claim by Gods Law And upon this ground hee may dissolve the Church into the Common-wealth and make the power of it an eschere to the Civil Power that is Christian with lesse violence than the Leviathan doth Because whatsoever Corporations or Fraternities are bodied by sufferance of the State dissolve of themselves at the will of it and resolve the powers which they have created into the disposition of it And that this was his intent whoso considereth what hee hath written of the indowment of the Church in his History of Tithes of Ordinations in the second book de Synedriis of the right of the Civil Power in limiting causes of divorce in his Vxor Ebraica hath reason to judge as well as I who have heard him say that all pretense of Ecclesiastical Power is an imposture I say not that hee or the rest of Erastus his followers make themselves by the same consequence liable to those horrible consequences which the Leviathan admits But I say that they are to bethink themselves what right they will assign the Civil Power in determining controversies in Religion that may arise And what assurance they can give their subjects that their salvation is well provided for standing to their decrees Besides I was to mention these opinions here that those who take the sentence of the Church to be the first ground of Faith into which it is lastly resolved may see that they are to prove the Church to be a Corporation by divine Right before they can challenge any such power for it For that which is once denied it will be ridiculous to take for granted without proving it And whatsoever may be the right of the Church in deciding controversies of Faith it cannot be proved without evidence for this charter of the Church as you shall see by and by more at large CHAP. III. That neither the sentence of the Church nor the dictate of Gods Spirit can be the reason why the Scriptures are to be received No man can know that hee hath Gods Spirit without knowing that hee is a true Christian Which supposeth the truth of the Scripture The motives of Faith are the reason why the Scriptures are to be believed And the consent of Gods people the reason that evidences those motives to be infallibly true How the Scriptures are believed for themselves How a Circle is made in rendering a reason of the Faith The Scriptures are Gods Law to all to whom they are published by Gods act of publishing them But Civil Law by the act of Soveraign Powers in acting Christianity upon their Subjects IT would not be easie to finde an entrance into such a perplexed Question had not the dispute of it started another concerning the reason why wee believe the Scriptures whether upon the credit of the Church or for themselves or whether nothing but the Spirit of God speaking to each mans heart
is sufficient to evidence that it is the word of God which they contain This if wee can resolve in our way perhaps wee may discover ground to stand upon when wee come to the main Hee that sayes the Scriptures are to be believed for themselves exposes them to the scorn of unbelievers by tying himself to use no other reason for them least for that reason they should finde that credit which the seeking of it showes they had not of themselves Hee that sayes they are to be believed for the authority of the Church is bound to give account how wee shall know both that there is a Church which some persons may oblige And who is the Church that is who be the men whose act obliges the Church And that without alleging Scripture because hitherto wee have no reason to receive it And being but men how their Act obliges the Church which cannot be showed without showing that God hath founded a Corporation of his Church and given power to some men or some qualities or ranks of men in it to oblige the whole Which how it will be showed without means to determine the sense of the Scriptures the parties agreeing in nothing but the truth of Christianity and of the Scriptures is impossible to be said This position then induces that stop to all proceeding by reason which Logicians call a Circle When a man disputes in a round as a mill-horse grindes arguing this power to be in the Church by the Scriptures without which hee can say nothing to it and arguing the truth of the Scriptures back again by alleging the authority of the Church Which destroyes that supposition upon which all dispute of reason proceeds that nothing can be proved but by that which is better known than that which it proveth But are those that allege the spirit for the evidence upon which they receive the Scripture lesse subject to this inconvenience For is it not manifest that men may and do delude themselves with an imagination that Gods Spirit tells them that which their own Spirit without Gods Spirit conceives How then shall it discerned what comes from Gods Spirit what does not without supposing the Scriptures by which the mater thereof is discernable And is not this the same Circle to prove the truth of the Scriptures by the dictate of Gods Spirit and that by alleging the Scriptures To make the ground of this inconvenience still more evident I will here insist upon this presumption That the gift of the Holy Ghost presupposeth Christianity that is the belief and profession of the Christian Faith And therefore that no man can know that hee hath the Holy Ghost but hee must first know the truth of Christianity and of the Scriptures Not that it is my meaning either to suppose or prove in this place that whoso hath the Spirit of God doth or may know that hee hath it For that is one of those controversies which wee are seeking principles to resolve But that no man can know that hee hath the Spirit of God unlesse first hee know himself to be a true Christian That is to say that supposing for the present but not granting that a man can know that hee hath Gods Spirit and that it is Gods Spirit which moves him to believe this or that hee must first know what is true Christianity and by consequence the means to discern between true and false And this I propose for an assumption necessary to the evidencing of that which followes but not questioned by any party in the Church because it is a principle in Christianity that the Grace of the Holy Ghost is a promise peculiar to those that undertake it Who were they on whom the Holy Ghost was first bestowed Was it not the Apostles and the rest of Disciples assembled to serve God with the Offices of the Church that is to say already Christians When Philip had converted the Samaritanes came S. Peter and S. John to give them the Holy Ghost by laying on their hands till they were baptized Concerning the Disciples at Ephesus Acts XIX 1-6 there is some dispute whether they received the Holy Ghost by the imposition of S. Pauls hands by virtue of the Baptism of John which they had received before they met with S. Paul or whether they were baptized over and above with the baptisme of Christ and thereupon received the Holy Ghost by the laying on of S. Pauls hands But of this they that will have them to have been baptized only with S. Johns baptisme make no dispute that they were fully made Christians by it Can any thing be clearer than S. Pauls words Gal. II. 2-5 That by the hearing of Faith that is obeying it they had received the Holy Ghost which by the works of the Law they could not receive And 2 Cor. XI 4. If hee that cometh preach another Jesus whom wee preached not or yee receive another Spirit which yee received not or another Gospel which yee admitted not Another Jesus another Gospel inferreth another Spirit So Gal. III. 14. That the blessing of Abraham may come upon the Gentiles through Christ Jesus that yee may receive the promise of the Holy Ghost by Faith The promise of the Holy Ghost then supposeth the condition of Faith And Gal. IV. 6. Because yee are sons therefore God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying Abba Father Heb. VI. 6. It is impossible for those that were once inlightened and tasted the heavenly gift and became partakers of the Holy Ghost Upon inlightening that is baptisme followes the participation of the H. Ghost And seeing the resurrection of the flesh unto glory is ascribed by S. Paul to the Spirit of God that dwelt in it while it lived upon earth Rom. VIII 10 11. as the resurrection of our Lord Christ is ascribed to the Spirit of holinesse that dwelt in him without measure Rom. I. 4. John III. 34. of necessity the Holy Ghost dwelleth in all them that shall rise to glory But Baptisme assureth resurrection to glory Therefore it assureth the Holy Ghost by which they rise Nor can it be understood how wee are the Temple of God because the Spirit of God dwelleth in us 1 Cor. III. 16. but because the promise of the Holy Ghost dependeth upon that which distinguisheth Christians from other people In fine when our Saviour promiseth John XIV 23. If any man love mee hee will keep my word and my Father will love him and wee will come to him and abide with him Seeing the Father and the Son do dwell in those that love God by the grace of the Holy Ghost the gift of the Holy Ghost of necessity supposeth the love of God in them that have it And yet his discourse is more effectual Rom. VIII 1-9 That there is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit For as hee inferreth that if any man have not the
that was risen again it followes Then opened hee their mindes to understand the Scriptures which were onely then those of the Old Testament Surely Justine the Martyr in many places of his dispute with Typho the Jew as truly as manifestly professes that the understanding of Christianity in the Old Testament was a grace given to the Disciples of Christ among the rest of distributions of his Spirit upon his ascension into heaven shed forth upon the Church Eph. IV. 8 which being showed the Jews their eyes were darkened as their hearts hardened that they could not understand the truth in them Now it is not my purpose to say that thereby hee challenges to himself the same miraculous grace of the Spirit and that the Prophesies that concern Christ are by that grace interpreted by him in his writings and therefore as truly as those in the writings of the Apostles It is enough that the true meaning of the Scriptures in that behalf was first revealed to the Disciples of Christ by the immediate and extraordinary operation of Gods Spirit Though Christians building on that which they received from persons so inspired may have added many things inconsequent to those principles Now I suppose it is manifest to all mens reason that those things are not clear in the Scriptures to all understandings that could not be discerned in it without a miraculous operation of Gods Spirit But nothing can be more manifâ—st than those particulars of the Law which our Lord and his Apostles in the New Testament have by way of allegory expounded to be meant of his Person and Gospel and Kingdome That the first Adam was to be the figure of the second though to a contrary effect of life by Christ in stead of death by Adam and that hee took our flesh to be the Lord of all things in it as to the effect of the Gospel which the first Adam was made as to the dominion of the creature is clearly declared by the Apostles Rom. V. 12-14 1 Cor. XV. 45-49 Ebr. II. 6-15 That Noe and what befell the world hy the deluge under him was the figure of what befalls the Church under Christ by Baptisme is no lesse manifestly the doctrine of the Apostle 1 Pet. III. 20 21 22. And not onely this particular but all the rest that befell the Fathers and Prophets and Martyrs under the Old Testament is evidently made a figure of what befalls the Disciples of Christ under the Gospel Ebr. XI As it is also evident that the pilgrimages of the Patriarchs Abraham Isaac and Jacob and of their posterity the Israelites from Aegypt through the Wildernesse into the land of Promise is there declared and of all Christians received for the figure of that Journey which all professe to travail from sinne wherein it findeth them to the Kingdome of heaven and happinesse How else should the argument hold which the Apostles draw from that which befell the Children of Israel travailing through the Wildernesse to the land of Canaan to the duty of Christians in their Journey toward everlasting happinesse 1 Cor. X. 1-11 Ebr. III. 7 -IV 11. But after their coming into the land of Promise as the persecutions which the Prophets indured Ebr. XI 36 37 38. Mat. XXIII 34 evidence them to be the figures of Christs Crosse as the expiation made by all High Priests is evidently expounded by the Apostle to the Ebrewes to shadow the taking away of sinne by Christ So it is no lesse evident that all the Judges and Kings and High Priests and Prophets of Gods people anointed by God were figures of our Lord both in regard of his Church and the enemies of it than it is evident that our Lord Jesus is the Christ foretold by the Prophets Which things unlesse wee say as no man in his right senses will say that they are manifest to all that reade the Old Testament though they never heard of Christianity or the New wee cannot imagine that the substance of Christianity necessary to the salvation of all Christians is clear to all understandings in the Old Testament No lesse clear is it by the sayings and doings of our Lord recorded in the Gospels that it was not his intent freely and openly at least all waies and every where to declare the truth and substance of it by the said sayings and doings Manifest indeed it is that hee did publickly and freely declare himself to be that Christ whom the Prophets had foretold and the Nation expected and of this no doubt can be made by any man that with common reason examines all that is written in the Gospels Though not all times so free in declaring even this truth As it is evident by the words of the Jewes to him John X. 24. How long holdest thou our mindes in suspense If thou be the Christ freely tell us it And wee see Mat. XII 14 20. what difference of opinions there were about it in his life time forbidding his Disciples to declare it till his death But granting this to be manifest by the Gospels neither is it manifest by them that nothing else is requisite to salvation to be believed concerning his Person and Kingdome nor that thereby hee intended to make manifest what hee knew requisite to be believed of them that should imbrace it when it was become requisite This is enough to answer the Leviathan with pretending that it is not necessary to the salvarion of a Christian to believe any more than this that our Lord Jesus is the Christ Which if it could appear by the Gospels alone then would I not dispute any further that all the truth that is necessary to salvation is clearly delivered by the Gospels I do for my part believe that the substance of Christianity necessary to salvation is contained in the badge and cognisance which our Lord hath marked it with by his Commission to his Apostles Mat. XXVIII 19 20. Go make all nations Disciples baptizing them in the Name of the Father the Sonne and the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you But shall I say it is clearly contained in these words about the intent and effect whereof there hath been and is so much dispute The Church it is well enough known hath alwaies rejected those that acknowledge not the Holy Trinity Father Sonne and Holy Ghost subsisting in one and the same Godhead At this day Socinus and his followers will have us believe onely that wee are to professe whether wee be baptized or not that our Lord Jesus is a man that was born of a Virgin by the power of God which is the Holy Ghost And for undertaking or for doing Gods message tendring reconcilement with God to mankinde hath by Gods gift the same power with God to govern his Kingdome and is to be honored as God for it Whether or no they would have us to believe this sense of theirs positively or would not be tyed to believe positively the sense of the
large vvord to make good But if vve look upon the intent of those that spake it and the mater vvhich they had in hand it will appear very unreasonable to extend it to any thing else Now I suppose upon the premises that the Prophets Esay and Ieremy in the first and literal and obvious sense intend to soretell the return of the people of Israel from Captivity and the great change that should be seen in their faithfulnesse to God though figuring thereby that knowledge of God and that fidelity of Christians which the preaching of the Gospel should produce And truly I do challenge all them that are best acquainted with the state of that people from the beginning to show me any greater change in it then that which we see came to passe upon their return from the Captivity To wit that they who formerly before the Captivity had been every day falling away from their own the true God to the worship of imaginary Deities should from thenceforth continue constant to him when tempted with the greatest torments in the world to renounce him for the worship of Idols as we see by the relations of the Maccabees And is it strange then that I should say that this is the change which these Prophesies intend to declare Especially when I say not that this is all they intend because I know that the Apostles have declared them to be intended of the times of the Gospel But that this is that which they intend in the first instance which by the premises must be a figure and step to that which the Gospel intends to declare And yet in regard of the manifold Idolatries which prevailed before the Captivity it shall be most truly and significantly understood that the people of God who after the Captivity never departed from the true God shall not then teach one another to know the true God because that Law the summe of the old Law should be written in their hearts and entrails so that they should have no need to teach one another to know the true God If this be true referring this Prophene to the Gospel of which the Apostle expounds it in the mystical sense Heb. VIII 8 it will be much more evident how those that are baptized upon the profession of the Christian faith who are the new Israel according to the Spirit shall have no need to teach one another to know the true God who both know God and the way to God which is the Law of God which they bear in their hearts if their Christianity be not counterfeit So that when God promiseth to establish this new Covenant he promiseth neither more nor lesse then the conversion of the world to the Christian faith Accordingly S. John truly tells the Christians to whom he writes that they knew all things and had no need that any man should teach them because the unction that was in them taught them the truth because he doth not mean that they knew the secrets of Geometry or the mysteries of nature or whatsoever is or is done in the utmost parts of the world or any thing else impertinent to his present discourse But because they had in them a principle sufficient to condemn those errors which he writes against there to wit those that deny both the Father and the Son by denying Jesus to be the Christ which saith the Apostle is the spirit of Antichrist For surely he that hath unfainedly professed the Christian Faith upon being catechized in it hath in him a principle sufficient to preserve him from such gross infections which the Holy Ghost wherewith he is anointed upon being baptized into this profession out of a good conscience sealeth up in his heart so that such corruptions can have no access to infect it And therefore the Apostle might well call upon them to try such Spirits whither of God or not seeing that the comparing of their pretenses with that which they had once received must needs be sufficient to condemn that which is opposite to it by the judgement of any man that unfainedly adhereth to it So that S. Paul when he bids the Thessalonians try all things but hold that which is good demands no unreasonable thing at their hands if we understand those things which he would have tried to be such as are triâ—ble by the rule of faith common to all Christians Indeed the same Apostle when he writeth to the Corinthians that the spiritual man is judged by no man but himselfe judgeth all things seems to speak more generally not onely of the rule of Faith but of the secret counsel and good pleasure of God in dispensing the revelation thereof one way to the ancient Prophets another way to the Apostles both by the Spirit of God and Christ Which secret counsel those spiritual men that he speaketh of were able to interpret in the Scriptures of the Old Testament by comparing spiritual things with spiritual things That is the revelations granted under the Law with those which the Gospel had brought forth Which though the Apostles could do yet the grace of understanding the Scriptures of the Old Testament by the Holy Ghost was no more common to all Christians at that time then now that the understanding of the Scriptures is to be purchased by humane indeavours it can be common to all Christians to be Divines By all which it appeareth not that the Scriptures con in all things necessary to salvation clearly to all that want it but that Christianity affordeth sufficient means of instruction in all things necessary to the salvaâ—ion of all that learn it And those who to find this instruction turn simple plain meaning Christians to that translation of the Bible which they like to find resolution in the pretenses of the sects which can arise cannot be said either to teach them Christianity or sufficient means to learn it For he who hath not only acknowledged the substance of Christianity but grounded the hope of his salvation upon it will rather deny his own senses then admit any thing contrary to it to be the true meaning of the Scripture whatsoever be the sound of the words of it But he that onely knoweth the Scriptures to be Gods truth and believeth he hath the spirit of God to conduct him in seeking the sense of it not supposing the beliefe of Christianity to be a condition requisite to the having of Gods spirit may easily be seduced by his inbred pride to devise and set up new positions sounding like the Scriptures which the Church acknowledgeth no more then that meaning of the Old Testament which our Lord and his Apostles first declared was acknowledged by the Scribes and Pharisees And thinking he doth it by the same right as they had must needs take himselfe and his followers for our Lord and his Apostles but the Church for the Scribes and Pharisees As for that extravagant conceit of Cartwright I will once more stand amazed at it A man of so much
the walls of the Temple though they commend King Ezekias for causing them to be done out when it appeared that the virtue of them was such that the people forgot their recourse to and dependence upon God because they knew so ready help elsewhere And truly it is nothing strange to mee that the Jews living under the Persian Empire and seeing that there were seven chief Princes which had the great credit in it next the King the successors of the seven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is those seven that killed him that usurped after the death of Cambyses as sometimes I have conceived who having the privilege of perpetual accesse to the King as Herodotus testifieth are therefore said to see the Kings face Esther I. 10 14 Esther VII 14. I say it seems not strange that expressing and thinking of God as of a great Prince as doth the whole Scripture speaking in those terms that men are most apt to conceive they should attribute unto him the like attendance of seven Angels as his principal Ministers the book de Mundo under Aristotles name comparing him also with the King of Persia And yet I will not grant that the seven Spirits before the Throne of God in the Revelation I. 4. IV. 5. V. 6. are those seven Angels because there are seven virtues of Gods Spirit recounted in Esay XI 2 3. which the seven Spirits before Gods Throne may well serve to express The seven Angels that blow the seven Trumpâ—ts Revel VIII 2. being onely that number of Angels whether the principal of Gods Ministers or not who appear seven to represent the plagues of the Trumpets and Vials in seven as the seals of the Book afore Neither is there any hope or fear that any mater of historical truth can be discovered in them which may justly charge them with imposture as if the authors of them could be thought ignorant of the state of Gods people living as they did so high in time In vain it is to imagine that when Judith VIII 6. is said to have kept not onely the Sabbaths New-moons and Festivals of the Law but also the dayes afore which by the Talmud Doctors wee know were afterwards in use among the dispersions of the Jews Hee who writ this book forges when hee sayes they were so anciently in use For either hee must prophesie or they must have been in use when the book was writ And whether in use or not when the story is said to have come to passe will be of no consequence to him that believes it to be of no consequence whether a Parable or not As for the pretense of superstition which the credit thereof may be said thereby to maintain if it be no superstition for the people to whom our Lord preached to observe all that the Scribes and Pharisees injoyned them because they sate in Moses his chair much lesse shall it be superstition for Judith or for those that lived when the book of Judith was penned to have served God two dayes by the appointment of those that sate in Moses chair when as Gods Law named but one And so when the history of Susanna saith that the Jews were allowed in their dispersions to judge maters of life and death among themselves though this perhaps was otherwise under the Chaldeans and that hee who penned it mistook in that circumstance yet justly and certainly might it have been presumed though Origen had never interposed to justifie a thing which upon better because ancienteâ— credit of this author had been justified before that such a power had been exercised at some times by the Jewes in their dispersions Before I go further it will be requisite to answer an objection which I must confess to be material but withall apprehended for more dangerous than it need To wit that some part now received for Scripture of the New Testament the Epistle to the Ebrews and that of S. James by name the Revelation of S. John and some other small pieces have been sometimes questioned and since are received in that nature And what then should hindet those books that sometimes have been questioned whether of the Old Testament or not to be now received for such upon the decree of the Council of Trent I say then that is manifest to him that will take the pains to consider it that the writings of the Apostles were first deposited with those parts of the Church upon occasion and for use whereof they were first penned As for the purpose their Epistles with those Churches to which they were sent where Tertullian in his prescription against Hereticks testifies that the authenticks and originals of them were extant and the Revelation of S. John with the seven Churches Neiâ—her is it to be imagined that the Collection which now wee call the New Testament was then any where extant Nay it is manifest by the beginning of S. Luke there went about certain Gospels which Origen and S. Ambrose upon that place following him sayes were afterwards disallowed Adding that the gift of discerning Spirits mentioned by S. Paul 1 Cor. X. 10. was then extant in the Church as in the Synagogue when it was to be discerned whether true Prophets or not that the Church might rest assured of the writings of those whose commission had been so verified It is therefore reasonable to think that those writings that had been received by some Churches upon the credit of their Authors known to have been inspired by the Holy Ghost gave others an umbrage of something not agreeable with Christianity as the Epistle to the Ebrews of refusing Penance the Revelation of the Kingdom of a thousand years when they came first to know them which from the beginning they had not done much lesse the doubt whether inspired by God or not Neither is the case otherwise excepting terms of scorn which may have been used either in Luthers refusing S. James his Epistle or when the Epistle to the Ebrews is questioned by Erasmus or Cardinal Cajetane as that of S. Jude of late by Salmasius But there is alwayes means to redresse any part of the Church or any Doctor of it in any such mistake so long as there remains means to certifie them from what hand they have been received to wit from persons in whom the Church was certified that the Holy Ghost spoke Which being certified reason would that not onely particular persons but Churches lay down their jealousies by understanding such words as cause jealousies so as they may best agree with the common Christianity But what is all this to the writings of those who can by no means be supposed to have written by the Holy Ghost Shall any act any decree of the Church create them the credit of writings inspired by Gods Spirit which before that act they had not And therefore the case is not the same which the writings which we know never could nor can be received standing the evidence that no evidence can ever be made
out of which that excellent translation into the Syriack which to the great benefit of Christianity these last ages have brought into Europe was made The antiquity of this later and the eminent helps which it hath contributed toward the understanding of the New Testament being so great as the Vulgar Latine though very learned and therefore very helpfull can never out-shine And yet will I never grant that either one or both of them and that with the help of the Arabick and other the most ancient Translations which the Church beside may have are not to give account to the consent of many Copies now extant nay to the credit of some one if it should so fall out in any passage that the sense of the Scripture which cannot be made out by the rest is clear to common reason according to that one Whether such a case do ever fall out in any part of the Scripture or not The assurance of Christianity not standing in this that either this or that is or must needs be true but in this that the Church is assured in all cases But by this it may appear how innocent the resolution of the authentick Original of the Old Testament vvhich I have premised is and hovv safely I ground my self not upon the credit of the Jevvs Copy but upon all the records vvhereby the Church assureth the Tradition of the Scripture In that it is freely confessed that the difference of reading vvhich can become questionable notvvithstanding the superstitious diligence of the Jevvs in preserving their Copy is neither so frequent nor any thing so vveighty as in the Nevv Which hovv much more considerable it is tovvards the upholding of our common Christianity is plain enough to him that shall have perused but the premises And surely vvere it not true as hath been premised that a certain Rule of Faith vvas from the beginning delivered to the Church it vvould seem strange that wee cannot deny that there have considerable differences crept into the reading of the New Testament so much more nearly concerning our salvation than the Old in the reading whereof through the diligence of the Jews there remains no considerable difference But if wee remember that S. Paul makes the ministery of Preaching the Gospel to be the ministery of the Spirit in opposition to the ministery of Moses in giving the Law which was the ministeâ—y of the leter wee shall finde that Faith the receiving whereof qualified Christians to be indowed with the Holy Ghost to be of such sufficience that remaining intire wee need not think the Church disparaged if the records thereof suffer decay so long as the effect of them remains written by the Holy Ghost in the hearts and lives of Christians Alwayes it being unquestionable that there are considerable differences remaining in the reading of the New Testament it will be a very great impertinence to fore-cast any danger in granting that some question may be made to the Jews Copy of the Old Testament though neither so frequent nor so considerable And all that hath been said hath issue in this consequence to justifie and to recommend to the world the usefulnesse of the design lately set on foot in London for printing the Bible with the most ancient and learned Translations in columns most agreeably to the design of Origen in his Teâ—rapla Hexapla and Octapla that is Old Testament of four six and eight columns recording the several numbers of Translations or columns whereof his several Editions consisted For in a word this furniture and that which serves to the same purpose for who will undertake that one book shall contain all is the Instrument I appeal to for evidence of the Scripture which wee have And further here is the original means of determining the sense of the same though besides this I have claimed many other helps to be requisite to that purpose The end of the First Book LAUS DEO OF THE COVENANT OF GRACE The second BOOK CHAP. 1. Two parts of that which remains How the dispute concerning the Holy Trinity with Socinus belongs to the first The Question of justification by Faith alone The Opinion of Socinus concerning the whole Covenant of Grace The opinion of those who make justifying Faith the knowledge of a mans Predestination opposite to it in the other extream The difference between it and that of the Antinomians That there are mean Opinions THE greatest difference that is to be discerned among those things that concern the duty of all Christians consists in this that some of them concern Christians as Christians others as members of the Church For though all Christians as Christians are bound to be members of the Church in as much as it is a part of their profession to believe one Catholick Church yet their obligation to be Christians being in order of nature and reason before their obligation to be members of the Church because the very being of the Church presupposeth all that are members of it to be Christians that obligation which is originall and more ancient must needs be presupposed to that which is grounded upon it Of what consequence it may be to distinguish this difference in the matter of Christian duties will perhaps appear in due time In the mean I shall freely say my opinion that all the Divines in the Christian world cannot more pertinently and to better purpose comprise the subject which they professe to be imployed about then by dividing it into that which concerns Christians as Christians and that which concerns them as members of the Church For mine own present purpose it is evident that the disputes which divide us do concern either the state of particular Christians towards God or the obligation they have to other Christians as members of the Church So that the matter which I propose to my insuing discourse is sufficiently comprised in two heads one of the Covenant of Grace the other of the Laws of the Church I know it may be said that the heresie of Socinus is of the number of those that have footing among us and that the principal point of it concerning the faith of the holy Trinity comes not properly under either of these heads And I deny not that it is very dangerous for us in regard of two points that have so great vogue among us The first is the cleare sufficience of the Scriptures commonly passing so without any limits that it seems to follow of good right that what is not clear out of the Scriptures to all understandings cannot be necessary for the salvation of all Christians to believe So that no man can be bound to take that for an Article of his Faith against which they can show him arguments out of the Scriptures which he cannot clearly assoile The other is that they put it in the power of Christians to erect Churches at their pleasure though supposing the Faith which Socinus teacheth and pretending to serve God according to the same without
of penance failing of that which they had undertaken by it What is reformation in the Church and what is not is the subject of this present dispute therefore I cannot here grant that which some of the reformation may have done to be well done Otherwise I am secure no man will choke me with naming a Church that had no discipline of penance But that so it was I refer my self to that which I have said in the first book I demand here what is the ground and reason that so it must be For supposing the Keys of Gods Kingdom exercised in the first place in limiting the terms upon which baptisme is granted not in ministring of it Of necessity it followeth that in the second place it be seen and exercised in limiting the terms upon which those that have failed of that which they undertook at their Baptism may be restored to the visible communion of the Church upon presumption that they are restored to the invisible communion of those promises which the Gospel tendreth Not supposing this there is no reason why it should signifie any more than a scene acted upon a stage as it is taken to signifie by those who understand not this Lastly I will mention here the expresse Doctrine of the Church of England in the beginning of the Catechism declaring three things to have been undertaken in behalfe of him that is baptized That he shall forsake the Devil and all his works the pomp and vanities of this world and the evil desires of the flesh and not to be seduced by him either from believing the faith of Christ or from keeping Gods Commandements And again in the admonition to the Sureties after Baptism you must remember that it is your parts and duties to see that these Infants be taught so soon as they shall be able to learn what a solemn vow promise and profession they have made by you For all that come to Christianity believing what promises they get right to by it and being admitted to it uppon those terms there can remain no question upon what terms they attain the said promises Nor can or ought any Doctrine of that Church to what purpose soever cautioned be interpreted to the prejudice of that wherein the salvation of all consisteth But further in the Introduction to the Office of Baptism For asmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin and that our Saviour Christ saith None can enter into the Kingdome of God except he be regenerate and born anew of water and of the Holy Ghost I beseech you to call upon God that these children may be baptized with water and the Holy Ghost and received into Christs holy Church and be made lively members of the same Proceeding to pray That they comming to thy holy baptisme may receive remission of their sins by their spirituall regeneration In the exhortation after the Gospel Doubt ye not therefore but earnestly believe that he will likewise favourably receive these present Infants that he will imbrace them with the arms of his mercie that he will give unto them the blessing of eternall life and make them partakers of his everlasting Kingdome Again Ye have heard also that our L. Jesus Christ hath promised in his Gospel to grant all these things that ye have praied for And after the Sacrament Seeing now that these children be regenerate and graffed in the bodie of Christs congregation And again We yield thee heartie thanks that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this Infant with thy holy Spirit to receive him for thine own child by adoption and to incorporate him into thy holy Congregation All this can leave no doubt of the communion of the Church of England with the whole Church in this point so nearly concerning the salvation of all Christians CHAP. V. The Preaching of our Lord and his Apostles evidenceth that some act of Mans free choice is the condition which it requireth The correspondence betwen the Old and New Testament inferreth the same So do the errors of Socinians and Antinomians concerning the necessity of Baptism Objections deferred THe whole tenor of the Scripture would afford matter of Argument to inforce this consequence But it shall be enough to have thus far pointed out the ground upon which the meaning of the rest is to proceed The reasons of this position from the principles of Christianity can be no other than those which have been touched upon occasion of treating the passages of Scripture hitherto alledged Yet to make the consequence still more evident I will here repeat first the consideration of Gods sending our Lord Christ to show the world sufficient motives why they should imbrace his Gospel as well as to teach them what it is and wherein it consisteth I will not here insist upon any supposition of the clear sufficience of the Scriptures or the necessity of Tradition besides the Scriptures But I will appeal to the common sense of all men to judge whether it be within the compass of reason that our Lord Christ should come to preach and to exhort men to acknowledge him to be come from God and to take up his Cross should show them reasons to believe that all which he preached is true that so they might be perswaded willingly to follow him Should give certain proofs of his rising again from death to inforce the same If men have no will no choice no freedom to do what he requires them or not to do it whether in other things they have it or not The same to be said of his Apostles and Disciples who were strange Creatures to expose their lives for a Warrant of the truth of what they said if they had not willingly and freely imbraced that profession themselves which they pretended to induce the world with the like freedome of choice to imbrace Thus far then we are assured by common sense that the condition required by the Covenant of Grace on our part must be some act of mans free choice the doing whereof at Gods demand must qualifie us for those promises which it tenders But this is not all that may appeare to common reason by the proceeding of our Lord and his Apostles The preaching of the Gospel-premises for a supposition upon which it proceedeth That mankind are become enemies unto God through sin and subjects of his wrath Proposing therepon the termes upon which they may be reconciled to God and intitled presently to and in due time possessed of everlasting happiness Suppose these terms purchased by the satisfaction of Christ though not granting it because all that call themselves Christians in the West do not is it possible to imagine that they who declare all mankind to be Gods enemies for sinne should have commission to declare them heires of his Kingdome not supposing them turned from sin to that righteousnesse which shall be as universally according to Gods will as their sin is against it As on the contrary supposing this do you not suppose
to those works which go before faith that is before baptisme and are done without faith not to those that issue upon it and therfore placing that faith which alone justifieth in the profession of Christianity by Baptisme and that justification which insueth upon it not in effecting that faith but in those rightes which God alloweth him that hath it upon the account of it S. Jerome upon that of Zach. VIII 10. There was no reward for man or beast Priusquam fidem Christi quis recipiat in eo Spiritus Sancti fundamenta radicantur nullus audire poterit Est merces operi tuo Sive ille Judaeus sit sive Haereticus sive Gentilis quiequid boni operis fecerit nisi in Christi nomine fecerit mercedem sui operis non habebit Videmus Haereticorum virgines Philosophorum rigorem Judaeorum in escarum varietate observantiam tamen dicimus juxta Aggaeum quod comedant non satientur bibant non inebrientur operiantur non calescant qui mercedes congregat mittat eas in sacculum pertusum Before a man receive the faith of Christ and the foundations of the Holy Ghost be laid in him no man shall be able to hear There is a reward for thy work Be he Jew or Heretick or Gentile whatsoever good work he shall do not doing it in the Name of Christ he shall have no reward for his worke We see the Virgines of Hereticks the rigor of Philosophers the scrupulosity of Jews in diversities of meates and yet we say according to Aggai They eat and are not filled they drink and are not merry they are clothed and not warmed and he that gathers wages puts them into a purse with a hole in it Upon Galat. III. 2. Consideremus autem diligenter quid non dixerit Vtrum ex operibus Spiritum accepistis Sed adjecerit ex operibus Legis Sciebat enim Cornelium Centurionom Spiritum ex operibus accepisse sed non ex operibus Legis quam nesciebat Si enime contrario dicatur ergo sine eruditione fidei accipi Spiritus Sanctus potest nos respondebimus accepisse quidem eum Spiritum sed ex auditu fidei naturali lege quae loquitur in cordibus nostris bona quaeque facienda vitanda mala per quam dudum quoque Abraham Mosen caeteris Sanctos justificatos retulimus quam augere deinceps potest operum observatio legis quoque notitia non tamen carnalis legis quae praeterit sed spiritualis quia lex spiritualis est Neque vero quia sidem praeferimus legis opera destruimus aut dicimus secundum quosdam Faciamus mala donec eveniant bona quorum damnatio justa est Sed servituti gratiam anteponimus dicimusque quod Judaei propter metum faciunt id nos facere propter charitatem Illos cogi ad bonum nos bonum sponte suscipere Non igitur ex fide Christi licentia nascitur delinquendi sed ex dilectione fidei voluntas boni operis augetur dum bona ideo facimus non quia judicem formidamus sed quia scimus ei placere in quem credimus Now let us diligently consider that he saith not Whether have ye received the spirit by works but addeth by the workes of the Law For he knew that even Cornelius the Centurion received the spirit by workes but not by the workes of the Law which he knew not For if it be said on the other side That then the holy Spirit may also be received without the hearing of faith We will answer That he received the Spirit but by the hearing of faith and the Law of nature which sayes in our hearts that all good is to be done and evil avoided whereby we told you afore that Abraham Moses and the rest of the Saints were justified which the observation of workes succeeding may increase and knowledge of the Law but not the carnal law which is past but the Spirituall because the law is spirituall Nor do we destroy the workes of the Law because we preferre faith or say according to some let us do evil till good come whose damnation is just But we preferre Grace before bondage and say that we do for love that which Jewes do for feare That they are constrained to that good which we do of our own accord Therefore there rises no license to sinne from the faith of Christ but from the Law of Faith the lust of well doing increaseth while we do good not because we are afraide of the Judge but because we know it pleases him in whom we believe Here the difference which I make betweene workes and workes of the Law is S. Jeromes Here the righteousnesse of the Fathers under the Law of nature is ascribed to Faith out of which they submitted themselves to it as also Cornelius his title to that grace of the holy Ghost which the Gospel promiseth Here the reason is set forth why the workes of the Law justifie not because the preaching of the Gospel supposeth that the Law can effect no more then an outward and carnal obedience to the precepts thereof for fear of punishment Whereby it appeareth that those workes which justifie not are not onely those of the ceremonial Law but all that goes before the preaching of Faith whether as under Christianity or as before it according to S. Jerome The Gospel both requiring and effecting that inward and spirituall obedience which love constraineth I am not afraid after this to name the short commentary upon S. Pauls Epistles which usually goeth with S. Jeromes workes though I will suppose it to be Pelagius his upon Gal. III. 10. Quaeritur sant hoc loco si fides sola sufficiat Christiano utrum non sit maledictus qui praecepta Evangelica contemnit Sed fides ad hoc proficit ut in promitiis credulitatis accedentes ad Deum justificet si deinceps in justificatione permaneat lege permaneant caeterum sine operibus fidei non Legis mortua est fides Qui enim non credunt mandatis qui precepta Evangelica contemnunt maledictos esse servator edocuit dicens Discedite a me maledicte in ignem aeternum Et Jacobus Apostolus unius mandati transgressorem omnium reum esse ostendit Here forsoeth it is questionable whether faith alone be enough for a Christian and whether he be not accursed that shall neglect the praecepts of the Gospel But faith availeth so farre as in the beginning of belief to justifie those that come to God if they abide in justification thenceforth But without the workes of Faith not of the Law Faith is dead For that those who believe not the commandments and neglect the precepts of the Gospel are accursed even our Saviour hath taught saying Go ye cursed from me into everlasting fire And the Apostle James sheweth that he who transgresseth one commandment is guilty of all Againe upon 1 Tim. II. 15. Notandum quod sola fides ei
in the same regard of the flesh Which is therefore the common principle by meanes whereof true righteousnesse can take no place without the Gospel of Christ neither in Jews nor Gentiles And therefore that which follows in S. Pauls discourse Rom. VII 14 leaving for the present the dispute how farre it takes place in the regenerate in all opinions must take place in the unregenerate upon a principle common to all mankind Which is this that as the Law of God is spirituall so man is carnall and by consequence sold under sinne For in whom there is a contradiction to the Law of God and that righteousnesse which it requireth of man from the inward motions of the heart so soon as the understanding becoms convict that this it requireth â—n him there is unquestionably a principle of rebellion against God for something that he is inclined to desire for himselfe without and against all respect of God Now by the processe of S. Pauls discourse all Christians that admit S. Paul must allow that it supposeth such a principle in all that come to Christianity whether or no it inferre the like in those that are already come to it To wit not to do what they like but what they hate and approving the Law to be good that forbids it to do the evil which they would not do not the good which they are willing to do So that though there be a Law of God which in their judgement they approve yet there is another Law in their menbers which prevailes against it to captive them to the law of sinne Which law be it the custome of sinne as much as you will provided that this custome have passed over all mankinde all that the Gospel is tendred to Seeing it is the choice of no man no nation but common to Adams posterity it must needs be derived by propagation from his sinne whom his posterity not knowing could not purpose to imitate The words of S. Paul Gal. V. 16 17. are to the same purpose Now I say Walk in the spirit and fulfill not the desires of the flesh For the flesh Iusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are opposite to one another so that ye may not do that ye would For supposing the same dispute whether they be meant of Christians or of the unregenerate at least when Christianity is tendered when men are exhorted to imbrace it then is there in man a principle opposite to that which the spirit of God bringing the Gospel and brought by the Gospel requires And that inferrs the same consequence as afore But I must not forget the passage of S. Paul Ephes I. 1 2 3. And you being dead in trespasses and sins in which once ye walked according to the age of this world according to the Ruler of the dominion of the aire the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience among whom all we also conversed once in the lusts of our flesh doing the desires of our flesh and thoughts and were by nature the children of wrath as the rest also For I must observe that Paul writing to a Church of Gentiles converted to be Christians himself of a Jew first concludeth the Gentiles to be under the power of Satan And then least it should be thought that the Jews of whom himselfe was one were invited to be Christians upon other termes he inferreth of them that we also among them Gentiles were by nature children of wrath Where it is plaine that S. Paul having expressed the sinnes of the Gentiles in which he saith they were dead and having aequalled the Jewes to them for walking according to their lusts cannot possibly be understood to speake of the common birth of all men when he saith we were by nature the children of wrath as well as others Whosoever shall peruse Epiphanius a Christian Writer but in such a stile as those that were not bred to the learning and elegance of the Greeks language may be supposed to use and therefore much resembling the stile of the Apostles and of very good use for them who would inwardly be acquainted with their language he shall find this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very ordinarily used by him not to signifie as commonly it doth by nature or by birth but truly and really Which signification how well it suits with the words of S. Paul when he saith We Jewes were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 really the children of wrath as also the rest that were Gentiles Let any man that can judge of learning judge So I insist not upon this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but upon S. Pauls discourse and upon the ground hitherto perswaded I argue That Jewes as well as Gentiles being thus concluded under the necessity of the Gospel which is the grace of Christ the ground of it can be no other then the corruption of all the posterity of the first Adam which onely the second Adam can cure I come now to our Saviours instruction to Nicodemus when of a Doctor of the Jews he became first a disciple of Christ John III. 3 5 6. Verily verily I say unto thee Vnlesse a man be born againe that is of water and of the holy Ghost he cannot see or enter into the kingdom of God That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit Marvaile not that I said to thee We must be born again And to the same effect S. John himself speaking in his own person of our Lord Christ John I. 12 13. But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the children of God to wit to those that believe in his name Who were not born of blouds or of the will of the flesh but of God In these words I acknowledge a very considerable difficulty though perhaps it is not that which most men do forecast But I that do maintaine that the Baptisme of Christ was not instituted when these words were said having said already that the Baptisme of Christ is that to which the promise of remission of sinnes is allowed must needs find it hard to answer what our Lord meant when he said Vnlesse a man be born of water and of the holy Ghost For if the Sacrament of Baptisme were not then instituted when our Saviour spake these things to Nicodemus how shall we say that originall sinne is signified by these words wherein there is no mention of the cure of it Surely upon the ground afore setled that the second birth is by the holy Ghost and the holy Ghost given in consideration of the profession of Christianity by being baptized For this being setled it may remaine questionable what Nicodemus could then understand by the name of water but it cannot be questionable that there is no regeneration without the holy Ghost and no holy Ghost without that condition upon which the gift of the holy Ghost is due that is without Baptisme To
and sending other false Apostles as I said afore in thebeginning to Antiochia and other places saying that unless ye be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses ye cannot be saved there came no small trouble as I said afore and these are they that in Paul are called false Apostles deceitfull workers transforming themselves into Apostles of Christ. For here Epiphanius distinguishing two kinds of false Apostles one that pretended to be sent by our Lord Christ another by his Apostles applyes unto them the words of S. Paul 2 Cor. XI 23. by virtue of that of the Synodicall Letter of the Apostles Acts XV. 24. to whom we gave no such charge and sayes that whatsoever they pretended they were neither sent by our Lord Christ nor yet by his Apostles commission from Christ Herewith agrees all that which the Apostle writes against eating things sacrificed to Idols in the VIII and X. Chapters of this first Epistle For there is no question to be made that the Sect of Cerinthus was one of the Gnosticks because it is expressed in Epiphanius that they also taught the unknown God whom they pretended to make known And therefore when S. Paul saith in the beginning of that eighth chapter As concerning things offered to Idols we know that we all have knowledge knowledge indeed puffeth up but charity edifieth It is manifest that he civily reproveth that pretense of knowledge which some weak Christians were then in danger to be carried away with to believe That those who knew the true God whom their masters pretended to teach and the Idols of the Gentiles to be nothing might without scruple of conscience communicate in the worship of those whom they scorned and thought to be nothing Intending in the X. Chapter to protest that they could not communicate in the same without renouncing their Christianity And if any man say that Cerinthus according to Epiphanius saith That our Lord Christ is not to rise againe till the last day and therefore that the opinion of those that deny the resurrection which S. Paul disputes against 1 Cor. XV. can neither be imputed to Cerinthus nor the Câ—rintâ—ians It is answered that Epiphanius himself declares that the Cerinthians were not all of a minde Some of them denying the resurrection of Christ and by consequence of Christians against whom the maine of that Chapter argues Others affirming that Christ was not to rise again till all should rise againe at the worlds end And truly I see not why S. Paul should argue that it is necessary that we should believe the resurrection of Christ saying If Christ be not risen againe then is our preaching vaine and we are found false witnesses then is your faith vain and yâ— are yet in your sinnes 1 Cor. XV. 14-17 Unlesse among those whom he argues against the resurrection of Christ had been questioned which is Epiphanius his argument And I would faine hear who can give a better account of that everlasting difficulty in S. Pauls words that follow 1 Cor. XV. 29. For what shall those that are baptized for the dead do if the dead rise not againe why are they baptized for the dead then Epiphanius gives according to this supposition and that upon the credit of Historical truth not of any conjecture of his owne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 .. For in this countrey I mean Asia and Galatia this Sect flourished much Among whom a point of Tradition is come to us how some of them dying before Baptisme others are baptized for them in their name that rising at the resurrection they may be liable to no sentence of punishment as not having received Baptisme and become obnoxious to the power of him that made the world Where by the way you see the Cerinthians were Gnosticks because by baptisme they pretended to free men from the bad principle which made the world This being the doctrine of the Gnosticks Now if it be true as Epiphanius understood that the Cerinthians in Asia and Galatia baptized others for those that were dead without baptisme shall we think it strange that those false Apostles who transformed themselves into Apostles of Christ as Satan into an Angel of light should teach the Corinthians to do the same And what need S. Paul stand to condemne this condemning all their impostures by the dispute of both Epistles Neither is it more difficult to discerne those whom S. Paul disputes against in the second Chapter of his Epistle to the Colossians to be of the same stamp if we observe two points of his reproofe The one the worship of Angels the other abstinence from certaine meats and from women which S. Paul couches in these words Colos II. 21. Touch not taste not come not nigh those things which all tend to perish in the using This you may perceive by the warning he gives Timothy of the like men who afterwards should depart from the faith giving â—eed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of devils who should forbid marriage and injoyne abstinence from meats which God hath made to be received of those that know him with thanksgiving 1. Tim. IV. 1 2 3. I know there is a plausible opinion abroad that these doctrines of devils as I translate it are the Traditions which have crept into the Church for the worshiping of the souls of holy men departed which some Christians have brought into the ranke of those secondary gods which the Gentiles call daemones or daemonia But this opinion cannot be true First because it is plaine that the second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 serves to interpret the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now it is manifest that by seducing spirits S. Paul can mean nothing but those inspirations true or pretended which the devil and his ministers corrupted Christianity with And therefore when he declares himself further by adding and doctrines of devils He meanes doctrines taught by devils Secondly because the word daemones or daemonia is never used in a good sense among Christians as it is among Pagans For those that knew not the difference between good spirits and bad but in effect as S Paul saith 1 Cor. X. 20 21. worshiped devils it is not to be expected that they should expresse a meaning to scorne or detest those whom they worshipped And whatsoever opinions those Philosophers which followed Plato and Pithagoras had of the vulgar Idolatries of their countryes seeing there is so much appearance as I have shewed in another place that they were Magicians it is no marvaile that they make not the difference between good and evil spirits which Christianity alone fully declareth The Jewes themselves not having sufficiently discovered it in and by the Scriptures of the Old Testament But as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Idol signifying of it self indifferently any image or representation to Christians and Jewes who understand the Gentiles to worship false gods signifies the image of those Gods in an ill sense So to those that understand the devils to put themselves
sent into the world thou blasphemest because I said I am the Sonne of God Where they say it is manifest that he challengeth not the title of God properly but as it is communicated to creatures as here to the Judges of Israel It is to be granted that our Lord here imployes that which S. Chrysostome often calles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is good husbandry or sparingâ—esse in his language Expressing in more reserved terms that which he intends not to renounce For seeing the Jewes ready to stone him for that which they understood by it no marvaile if he abated his plea without quitting it arguing from the lesse if they to whom the Word of God came are called Gods much more he that is sanctified and sent into the World by the Father may call himself so and plead this reason too without disclaiming the property of the title because of that which immediately followes If I do not the works of my Father believe me not But if I do them though you believe not me believe the workes That ye may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him Where it is plaine he holds up his claime by pleading the evidence of it As for that of S. Paul Phil. II. 6-11 Let the same minde be in you as in Christ Jesus who being in the form of God made it not an occasion of pride or of advantage that he was equal with God But emptied himself having taken the form of a servant and become in the likenesse of men And being found in figure as a man humbled himself becoming obedient to death even the death of the Crosse Wherefore God also hath overexalted him and given him the name that is above every name That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow both of things in heaven and upon the earth and under the earth and every tongue confesse that J. Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father Here I admit with Grotius the speech to be of Christ incarnate that the man Jesus is said to have emptied himself and taken the form of a slave becoming obedient to death For this man it is who when he so emptied himself was presently in the form of God of which he emptied himself thinking it no occasion of pride so I allow him to translate it though some words of Eusebius make me think it more properly translated advantage that he was â—qual to God but condescending so far to dissemble what he was as to be crucified But supposing this I demand how came Jesus to be in this forme of God before he humbled himself and wherein it consisted For if they say that in consideration of his undertaking the message of God when being thirty years old he was taken up to heaven as they say he was exalted to it then can they not say that he was indowed with it from his birth as being conceived by the H. Ghost But if as S. Paul saies he was so when he emptied himself of it then it is to be demanded by virtue of what he was so For by virtue of being conceived by the H. Ghost and born of a Virgin according to them he will no more be so then the first Adam being formed of Virgin earth and the breath of God breathed in him But if by virtue of the power and glory of God that is of God dwelling in him according to Grotius then by virtue of the hypostatical union which afore you saw he confesseth But the name above every name at which all things in heaven and earth and under the earth bow importing the honour that is proper to God which no man can give to any creature without making it God though given to the man Jesus yet signifies the reason for which it is given to stand in the Godhead that is communicated to his manhood And that alwaies due since he was man though not declared to be due nor published to the world while he was in it till he was overexalted to it upon his rising againe and the holy Ghost sent to inable his Apostles to preach it CHAP. XV. Not onely the Church but the World was made by Christ The Word was made flesh in opposition to the Spirit How the Prophets how Christians by receiving the Word of God are possessed by his Spirit How the title of Sonne of God importeth the Godhead How Christ is the brightnesse and Image of God THis is the next argument which the next words of S. John point out to us when he saith All things were made by him and without him was nothing made Which because they are peremptory in this cause so long as they are understood as all Christians have hitherto understood them That the World was made by that word of God which we believe to have been incarnate in our Lord Christ Socinus hath playd one of his Masteerpeeces upon them to perswade us to believe that they mean no more but that our Lord Christ is the Author of the Gospell whereby Christians are as it were new made and created a Church Seeing it is manifest that the Prophets do often describe the deliverances and restorings of Gods people by comparing them to the making of a new World with a new Sun and Moon and Stars and all Creatures new But when rhey do so it is first understood that they speak as Prophets for whom it is proper to express things to come in figurative speeches because it is not the intent of Gods Spirit that the particulars signified should be plain aforehand that the dependance of Gods people upon him and his word may be free Then by the consequence of the Prophesies compared with the events argument enough is to be had that these speeches are not properly but figuratively meant As for example when the Prophet Esay saith Behold I make a new Heaven and a new Earth In that very addition of new there is argument enough to conclude that he speaks by a propheticall figure which if a man read on he shall find still more to conclude But had he sayd Behold I make Heaven and Earth Either we must understand make for have made or that he means to make indeed such as these are And that supposing these destroyed In asmuch as these abiding those that might be made could not be called Heaven and Earth but a Heaven and an Earth Now in these words there is nothing added to intimate any abatement in the proper signification of all things And therefore S. John speaking in such terms as he that writeth dogmatically would be thought so to use as not to be mistaken must needs be understood to mean that the World was made at first by Gods word which by and by he will tell us that it was incarnate Especially that we may not make him to spend words to tell Christians such a secret as this That Christ is the first Author of the Gospel and Founder of his Church which they
thus proceedeth Heb. IX 13 14. For if the blood of Bulls and Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkled sanctify the polluted to the purifying of the flesh how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the everlasting spirit offered himself to God blamelesse cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living God For though the Soul of Christ raised from the dead have immortality which is life indissoluable yet it hath not the virtue of it which is to be ascribed to the Spirit which raised him from the dead as vvell as us according to S. Paul Rom. VIII 10. 11. If Christ be in you though the body be dead because of sin yet the Spirit is life because of righteousness But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised Iesus from the dead shall quicken your mortall bodies also through his Spirit that dwelleth in you And whether the cleansing of sin can be ascribed to any gift bestowed upon the humane Soule of Christ as here they vvould have it ascribed to the immortality thereof let all the World judge I deny not indeed that Christ offers the Sacrifice of himself to the Father in the Heaven of Heavens as the Priest offered him the blood of those Sacrifices which were burnt without the Camp in that Holy of Holies But if I should deny that he offered himself to God vvhen he vvas crucified I might as vvell deny that the Priests offered therein Sacrifices to God when they killed them at the Altar and burnt them upon it So manifest so certain it is that the eternall Spirit by virtue whereof the blood of Christ being offered cleanseth sin was in Christ before his rising again And this is that which S. Paul saith 1 Tim. III. 16. And without crontroversie Great is the mystery of Godliness God was manifested in the Flesh justified in the Spirit preached to the Gentiles seen of Angels believed of the World taken up into Glory It is sayd indeed that the Syriack the Vulgar Latine the Arabick and the Commentaries under S. Ambrose his name all want 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here and understand S. Paul to speak of the Gospel all the while And that the Gospel being sayd to be preached before it is sayd to be taken up into Glory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must be no more then that it is exalted and glorified As if the order of the words did inforce that which is first sayd to have been first done or as if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did not signifie the taking of him up to God but the making of the Gospel famous Such violence will a prejudicate supposition offer even to Gods words rather then to quit an argument For to what sense can the Gospel be sayd to be manifested in the flesh because preached by the man Christ And suppose it may be sayd to be justified by the Spirit as Wisdome is justified by the Children of Wisdome Mat. XI 9. Luke VII 35. how much more proper is it to understand that God who appeared in the flesh should be sayd to be justified so to be in or by the Spirit the Works whereof shewed him so to be as afore Neither shall we need to make any greater doubt of the reading of those vvords of S. Paul Acts XX. 28. Look therefore to your selves and to the whole Flock ever which the Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops to feed the Church of God which he hath gotten with his blood Though the written Copy at S. James and the Syriack read here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because that the Church over which the Holy Ghost makes Bishops it bought with the blood of Christ is the same with that of the Apostle afore that the blood of Christ offered by the eternall Spirit cleanseth sin Neither is it so easie to avoyd the words of the Apostle Heb. XI 16. as some imagine For he took not Angels but the Seed of Abraham he took Suppose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be to challenge which is done by laying hands on that which we challenge Is the ground therefore void upon which he challenges these to life as his own that through feare of death were in bondage does not the whole Epistle argue that this is done by the offering of our flesh saith he not expresly that it behoved him to become like his Brethren in all things and that he is not ashamed to call them Brethren because he that sanctifieth and those who are sanctified are all of one Heb. XI 11. 14. 17. does Christ vindicate mankind or the Seed of Abraham For though this is written to the Hebrews alone yet it was written at such time as all christians understood that it belongs no less to the Gentiles Wherfore it is manifest that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which might seem to signifie Christs challenging mankind or vindicating them into freedome from death as well here as elswhere is restrained by the Text and consequence of the Apostles discourse to signifie the assuming of mans nature by the means whereof he won mankind into freedome and maintains it in the same In fine when the Apostle sayth 1 Pet. I. 11. That the ancient Prophets did search against what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ that was in them did declare and profess the sufferings to come upon Christ and the glories following the same He sheweth plainly that the same Spirit by which they spake by fits dwelt in the flesh of Christ for ever having once assumed it Of which Spirit the Evangelist sayth Marke XI 8. That Jesus knew by the Spirit how the Pharises reasoned of him within themselves For as I sayd afore that when it is sayd in the Old Testament that the word of God came to this or that Prophet an Angel appeared unto him speaking in the person of God vvho vvas therefore vvorshiped as God because the Word of God for vvhich being incarnate our Lord Jesus is for ever to be Worshiped as God vvas in that Angel at the present for that Service So I must further note here that upon such Word of God coming to a Prophet he became inspired that is possessed and acted by the Spirit of God for the time of that Service vvhich God by such a message imployed him about Not that all Prophets did receive such Word by such message from God before they spake those things which we believe still they spake by the Spirit of God For there is a great deal of appearance in the Scripture for that which the Jewes doctors deliver unto us Abarbanel by name alleging Maimoni for his saying upon Numb XI that there are inferior degrees of Prophesie which comes not by apparitions in which a man saw one that spake to him in Gods Name but sometimes meerly by inspiration of Gods Spirit inwardly moving either to act or to speak as
the world of Judgement because the Prince of theis world is condemned by the conversion of those who forefook him to become Christians Therefore S Steven upbraideth the Jews saying Ye stisnecked and uncircumcised in hearts and eares ye do alwaies resist the Holy Ghost even you also as did your fathers Acts VII 51. Because being convicted by the Holy Ghost which spoke in him that he spoke from God neverthelesse they submit not to his message Therefore our Lord Mark III. 28. 29 30 All sins shall be forgiven the sons of men and blasphemies which they shall blaspheme But whoso shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath no remission for ever but is liable to everlasting damnation Because they said he hath an unclean spirit which you have againe Math. XII 31 32. Luke XII 10. Because being convicted that our Lord spoke did his miracles by the Holy Ghost they blasphemed saying that he spoke and did them by an uncleane spirit For these words and these workes are the meanes by which our Lord accomplished â—his promise Iohn XIV 23. If any man love me he will keep my word and my Father will love him and we will come to him and abide with him For before the condition If any man love me be fulfilled the case is that which our Lord expresseth Apoc. III. 20. Behold I stand at the dore and knock And if any man heare my voice and open the dore I will come in to him and sup with him â—e with me But being fulfilled the words of our Lord take place Iohn XVI 15 16 17. If yee love me ye will keep my commandements And I will aske the Father and he will give you an other Advocate to abide with you for ever even the spirit of truth which the world cannot receive because they â—ee it not nor know it but you know it because it abideth with you and is in you For seeing it is manifest by the premises that the undertaking of Christianity is the condition upon which the Holy Ghost is granted as a gift to abide with Christians the preaching of Christianity that is the proposing of those reasons which God by his word hath shewed us why wee should be Christians is the knocking of our Lord Christ by the spirit at the dore of the heart that he may enter and dwell in us by the same spirit according to the words of S. Paul 2. Cor. II. 16. For ye are the Temple of the living God as God hath said To wit I will dwell and converse among them and will be their God and they shall be my people That which some Philosophers say of the naturall generation of man That the soule frames its owne dwelling being fulfilled in the worke of generation by grace when the Holy Ghost by his actuall assistance frameth the man to be fit for the habituall gift of the Holy Ghost by becoming a true Christian If then we believe that the Holy Ghost was given by God and obtained by Christ as well to make the Gospell effectuall as to move the Apostles to preach it there can no doubt remaine that the preaching of the Gospell that is to say the meanes which the Holy Ghost provideth to make it either sufficient or effectual to convince the world of it is the instrument whereby he frameth himself that invisible house of true believers in which he dwelleth And therefore the meanes whereby Gods grace becomes effectuall to those who imbrace it is the same that renders it sufficient for those who refuse it the difference lying as well in the disposition which it meets with for which the man is accountable as in the spirit of God that presenteth it which renders God the praise when it takes effect and leaves men accountable when it does not If this reason had been in consideration with Socinus and perhaps with Pelagius he would have found it necessary acknowledging as all that read the Scriptures must needs acknowledge that which they find so frequent and so cleare in the Scriptures that the habituall gift of the Holy Ghost is granted to inable those who undertake Christianity to performe it to acknowledge also that the actuall help of it is necessary to make the motives of Christianity effectuall to subdâ—e men to it And by consequence that the coming of the second Adam was necessary to restore the breach which the first had made seeing it was not to be repaired without the same Nor is it to be marveled at that naturall meanes conducted by the grace of Christ should produce supernaturall effects such as I have shewed the obediencâ— of Christianity to be which supposing the Covenant of grace and freedome of mans will cannot be otherwise The reasons which appeare to the understanding and move the will to act contrary to the inclination of originall concupâ—scence in professing Christianity and living according to the same being sufficient to convict it to give sentence that so the man ought to doe And the circumstances in which the spirit of Christ conducteth these motives to the heart which it knocketh at by their means being able to represent them valuable to take effect with him who is moved to the contrary by his originall concupiscence And though meanes naturall because they move a man to proceed according to right reason which nature requires him to doe yet as they are brought to passe and conducted by a supernaturall cause nothing hinders the effect to be supernaturall in such a nature as is by them made capable of acting above nature I do much approve the discourse of some that have indeavoured to shew how this comes to passe thus supposing the covenant of the Law to be the renewing of that which was made with Adam in Paradise for the maintaining of him in the happnesse of his naturall life Which we may suppose though we suppose not that God covenanted not with him at all for the life to come For the dispensation of those blessings of this life which the covenant of nature limited by Moses Law to the happinesse of the land of promise tendreth may well be the advantage which God taketh to make the covenant of Grace acceptable especially to those who by Gods blessing failing of the blessings of the first covenant by that meanes becoming out of love with this present worlâ— meeâ— with the Covenant of Grace in such a disposition as may render it acceptable For so long as things goe well with men in this world it seemes haâ—sh to require them to takeup the Crosse of Christ that they may obtain the world to come But when the comforts of this world faile it is no marvell if any condition that tenders hope in the world to come be welcome If it be said that this renders the grace of Christ effectuall onely to the poore and men oâ— meane condition in the world who have cause to be weary of their estâ—te in it It is answered that it is no marvell if the
bring all that might be alleged Because I may make this generall inference from the premises that all precepts all exhortations all promises all threats made to induce man to perseverance in that estate to which the promises of the Gospell are any way signified to be due are necessary arguments to show that those to whome they are made may faile of the perseverance to which they induce And this by virtue of the generall reason premised that they are all evidences of that free will of men which the grace of God destroyeth not but cureth And therefore as when they are used to induce men to imbrace Christianity they containe an evidence that he may doe otherwise So also when they are used to induce man to persevere in that profession which he hath once undertaken they must necessarily by the same reason containe an evidence that it is possible for any man not to persevere who is induced by them to persevere in the course of a Christian For if it be said that without the grace of God they cannot with it they cannot but be effectual Either it is supposed the grace of God here named shal become effectuall to induce them to persevere to the end supposing that God foresees that they shall soâ—persevere or something else including the fore-sight of the perseverance it selfe or not If so it is no mervaile that the said exhortations cannot but prove effectuall because God foresees they shall be effectuall and that which shall not be can never be foreseene But if not supposing this any man undertake to say that the exhortation of the Gospell with the helpe of Gods inward grace must necessarily prove effectuall he will necessarily fall into all the inconvenience which I have charged them with who maintaine that the will of man is immediately determined by the will and operation of God to doe whatsoever it doeth Which is no lesse then the destruction aswell of all civility as of Christianity But let us see what the Apostle writes Heb. VI. 4-7 For it is not possible to renew unto repentance those that being once inlightned and having tasted the heavenly gift and been partakers of the Holy Ghost and relished the good word of God and the powrs of the world to come fall a way and crucify to themselves and traduce the Sonne of God For the earth that drinkes the raine that oft comes upon it and beares herbes fit for them by whome it is tilled receives a blessing from God But that which beares thornes and thistles is reprobate and neare a curse the end whereof is to be burned Could more have been said to expresse the state of grace For if any man can undertake to have the Spirit of God without premising Christianity I say confidently there is no cause why any man should be a Christian Therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here as Ebr. X. 32. signifieth neither more nor lesse then Christened 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the ancient Church signifies Baptisme because of the darknesse of Hethenisme or Judaisme which it dispelleth What is then the heavenly Gift which Christian tast be it remission of sinnes or be it the Gift of the Holy Ghost that followes expressing the same thing in severall parallel termes my businesse is done if the Gift of the Holy Ghost be not granted but upon that condition which makes all other promises of the Gospell due Wherefore I am content that relishing the good word of God shall signify no more then that conditon to wit That sense of Christianity which resolveth a man to undertake it But to relish the powers of the world to come no man can be understood but he that upon supposition of the said condition becomes sensible of that peace and joy of the Holy Ghost which under Christianity onely Christianity can give And therefore though I dispute not here how he means that it is impossible to renew those that fall from Christianity to repentance yet I challenge that impossibility of renewing to contain both a former right in and a possession of that estate to which they are renewed by repentance and also the present losse of it by falling from the condition which gâ—ves it So that the comparison which followes of fruitful and barren land upon tillage as it expresses a promise of following helpes of grace to them that use those which went a fore aright contained in the promise of giving the Holy Ghost to inable them who sincerely professe Christianity to performe that which they undertake So it convinceth the fruitlesse to be liable to the curse of fire which it is said to be neare because it is called reprobate The same is the effect of the like exhortation Ebrews X. 26 -29. For if we sinne voluntarily after receiving the acknowledgement of the truth there remaines no more any sacrifice for sinne but a certaine terrible expectation of vengeance and glowing of firâ— that is to consume opposers If one set at naught the Law of Moses without mercy he dies upon two or three witnesses Of how much worse punishment think you shall he be thought worthy that treads the Sonne of God under foot and esteems the blood of the Covenant by which he is sanctified unâ—leane and doth despite to the Spirit of Grace I say this is to the same effect if it be once granted that this sinne may be committed by a true Christian which no man can deny For can a Christian be thought to doe that despite to the Spirit of Grace which the Scribes and Pharises are said in the Gospell Matt XII 28. 32. Marke III. 29. Luke XII 10. to doe in sinning that sinne against the Holy Ghost which our Lord there pronounces irremissible Is it not manifest that their sinne consisted in attributing the miracles by which our Lord sought to convert them to the uncleane spirit being in Judgment convinced that by the Holy Ghost alone they were done And is it not as manifest that a Christian having received the Spirit of Grace promised to those that are baptized out of a sincere resolution of Christianity abuses the spirit which is so given him and which he hath and which had allready wrought that worke of conviction which the scribes and Pharises sufferd not to take effect in their harts Especially when the Apostle expressely premiseth the washing of them called here sanctifying by the blood of the Covenant which is the cleansing of that vessell by remission of sinnes into which the new wine of the Holy Ghost is to be put Wherefore I will not say that the faith of these men is true faith if you meane that onely to be true faith which lasts to the end which is many times in common language that which truth signifieth But if you meane that to be true faith which effecteth remission of sinnes and qualifieth for the world to come he must set the scripture upon the rack that will make it confesse any other sense Now consider what the Apostle
apprehend that the Scripture representing the friendship of God with his children according to his Gospel by the patern of that love which the best men show to those whom they intertaine friendship with doth intend to expresse him disobliged upon every offense But unlesse we thinke it commendable for God to love men more then righteousnesse for the love of Christ to whom the same righteousnesse is no lesse deare then to God will never thinke it agreeable to the honor of the Gospell to propose the reward of that righteousnesse which it requireth but upon supposition of performing of it Certainly Celsus had done the Christians no wrong in slandering them that they received all the wicked persons whom the world spued out into an assurance of everlasting happinesse nor could Zosimus be blamed for imputing the change of Constantine the Great to a desire of easing his conscience of the guilt of those sinnes which Paganisme could show him no means to expiate had the Christians of that time acknowledged that they tendred assurance of pardon to any man but upon supposition of conversion from his sinne These thinges supposed it will be easy to resolue that the assurance of salvation which the Gospell inables a good Christian to attaine is not the act of justifying Faith but the consequence of it Indeed if a man were justifyed by believing that he is justifyed so farre as a man hath the act of justifying Faith so farre he must necessarily rest assured not onely of his right to salvation at present but of his everlasting salvation in the world to come But neither is that opinion which maketh justifying Faith to consist in the trust and confidence which a Christian reposeth in God through Christ for the obtaining of his promises liable to the horrible and grosse consequence of the same To exclude all Christians from salvation that are not as sure that they shall be saved at they are of theire Creede is a consequence as desperate as it is grosse to make that assurance the act of justifying Faith The true act of justifying Faith which is constancy in Christianity the more lively and resolute it is the more assurance it createth of those consequences which the Gospell warranteth For no man is ignorant of his owne resolutions Nor can be lesse assured that it is Gods Spirit that creates this assurance then he is assured that his owne resolusions are not counterfeit And therefore his trust in God not as reconcileable but as reconciled must needes be answerable And the same trust may warrant the same assurance though not of it selfe but upon the conscience of that Christianity whereupon it is grounded And by those things which were disputed not onely during the Council of Trent but also since the deâ—ree thereof it is manifest that the Church of Rome doth not teach it to be the duty of a good Christian to be allwayes in doubt of Gods grace But alloweth that opinion to be maintained which maketh assurance of salvation attainable upon these termes and therefore incourageth good Christians to contend for it As for the assurance of future salvation which dependeth upon the assurance of preseverance till death or a mans departure in the state of Grace you see S. Paul involveth all Christians in it with himselfe by saying I am perswaded that neither life nor death shall bee able to separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord And therefore I conceive is was a very great impertinence to dreame of any privilege of immediate revelation for the means by which he hadde it Whosoever is a Christian so farre as he is a Christian hath it Adouble minded man that is unconstant in all his wayes as S. James speakes that is who is not resolved to live and dy a good Christian cannot have it Whosoever hath that resolution in as much as he hath that resolution that is so firme as his resolution is so firme is his assurance For knowing his owne resolutions he knowes them not easily changeable in a water importing the end of a mans whole course And therefore knowing God unchangeable while he so continues is able to say full as much as Saint Paul saith I am perswaded that neither life nor death shall be able to separate â—e from the love of God in Christ Jesus As for the sense of the primitive and Catholick Church putting you in mind of that which I said before to show that it placeth justifying Faith in professing Christianity the effect whereof in justifying must needes fail so soon as a man faileth of performing that Christianity in the profession whereof his justification standeth I shall not need to allege the opinions of particulare Fathers to make evidence of it having Lawes of the Church to make evidence that those who were ruled by them must needs thinke the promises of the Gospell to depend upon the Covenant of our Baptisme and therefore that they become forfeit by transgressing the same The promise of persevering in the profession of the Faith untill death and of living like a Christian was allways expressely exacted of all that were baptized as now in the Church of England And upon this promise and not otherwise remission of sinne right to Gods kingdome and the Gift of his Spirit was to be expected As if it were not made with a serious intent at the present baptisme did nothing but damne him that received it So if it were transgressed by grosse sins not to be imputed to the surprizes of concupiscence For the condition failing that which dependeth upon the same must needs faile For the means by which they expected to recover the state of Grace thus forfeited we have the Penitentiall Canons which as they had the force of Law all over the Church all the better times of the Church So I show from the beginning that they had theire beginning from the Apostles themselves to assure us that all beleived that without which there could be no ground for that which all did practice Can any man imagine that the Church should appoint severall times and severall measures of Penance for severall sinnes to be debarred the Communion of the Eucharist and to demonstrate unto the Church by theire outward conversation the sincerity of theire conversion to theire first profession of Christianity had not all acknowledged that the promises of the Gospell forfeited by transgressing the profession of baptisme were not to be recovered otherwise And that the deeper the offense was the more difficulty was presumed in replanting the resolution of Christianity in that heart which was presumed to have deserted it according to the measure of the sinne whereby it had violated the same This is enough to prescribe unto reasonable men against such little consequences as now and then are made upon some passages of the Fathers which upon by occasions seeme to speake otherwise S. Augustine is the maine hope of the cause so farre as it hath any joy in
as our Lord was when hee spoke the words that I indeavor to clear When therefore the properties of the divine nature are attributed to the Manhood of our Lord supposing as all good Christians do that neither natures nor properties are confounded what can wee say but this That by such attributions as these in the Language of his Prophets the Apostles God would have us understand a supernatural conjunction and union of two natures in one person of our Lord And what shall wee then say when the name of Christs body and bloud is attributed to the bread and wine of the Eucharist but that God would have us understand a supernatural conjunction and union between the body and bloud of Christ and the said bread and wine whereby they become as truly the instrument of conveying Gods Spirit to them who receive as they ought as the same Spirit was alwaies in his natural body and bloud For it maters not that the union of the two natures is indissoluble that of Christs body and bloud onely in order to the use of the elements that is speaking properly from the consecration to the receiving The reason of both unions being the same that makes both supernatural to wit the will of God passed upon both and understood by the Scriptures to be passed upon both though to several effects and purposes Therefore I am no way singular in this sense All they of the Confession of Auspurg do maintain it before mee and think it enough to say that it is an unusual or extraordinary maner of speech when one thing is said to be another of a several kinde and nature but which the unusual and extraordinary case that is signified both expounds and justifies They indeed maintain another reason of this presence and therefore another maner of it For if by virtue of the hypostatical union the omnipresence of the God-head is communicated to the flesh and bloud of Christ in the Eucharist then is the flesh and bloud of Christ there not onely mystically but bodily But if supposing both the elements and the flesh and bloud of Christ bodily present it may neverthelesse truly be said This is my flesh This is my bloud How much more if as I say the elements onely be there bodily but the flesh and bloud of Christ onely mystically and spiritually And therefore I finde it reasonable for mee to argue that the sense of so many men both learned and others understanding the words of our Lord in this sense ought to convince any man that it is not against common sense and therefore tending so much to make good the words of our Lord and the holy Scripture it not to be let go I do not intend neverthelesse hereby to grant that the sense of these words This is my body this is my bloud for This is the signe of my body and bloud is a true sense because abundance of learned as well as ordinary people take it so to be But well and good that it might have been maintained to be the true sense of them had no more been expressed by the Scripture in that businesse For then I suppose the sense of the Church of which I say nothing as yâ—t could not have evidenced so much more as I have deduced by consequence from the rest of the Scripture But the mystical presence of the Body and Bloud of Christ in the Eucharist being further deduced from the Scripture by good consequence I conceive the common understanding of all those men who granting that do not grâ—nt the Elements to be abolished sufficient ground for mee that the signification of these words This is my body this is my bloud inforceth it not Whereas on the other side the substance of the Elements is not distinguishable by common sense from their accidents for whether the quantity and the mater be all one or not whether beside the mater and accidents which the quantity is invested with a substantial form berequisite is yet disputable among Philosophers And therefore no reason can presume that the Apostles to whom these words were spoken did understand This of which our Lord speaks to signifie the sensible accidents of bread an swine severed from the material substance of the same I may therefore very well undertake to say that this sense of the words is more proper than conceiving the substance of bread and wine to be abolished the effect of grace to the Church remaining the same For the property of speech is not to be judged by the signification of a single word but by the tenor of the speech wherein it stands and the intent of him that speaks declared by his actions and the viâ—ible circumstances of the same Now our Lord having taught those to whom this was spoken that the eating of his flesh and drinking of his bloud is done by living faith must be supposed by appointing this Sacrament tendring his flesh to eat and his bloud to drink to limit and determine an office in the doing whereof his flesh and bloud is either eaten and drunk or crucified according to the premises If then the eating and drinking of his flesh and bloud out of the Sacrament be meerly spiritual by living faith shall not the presence thereof in the Sacrament be according Shall it not be enough that they are mystically present in the Sacrament to be spiritually eaten by them that receive them with living faith to be crucified of them that do not Is it any way pertinent to the spiritual eating of them that they are bodily present Is it not far more proper to that which our Lord was about tending without question to the spiritual union which hee seeks with his Church that hee should be understood to promise the mystical than the bodily presence of them in the Sacrament which is nothing else than a Mystery by the proper signification and intent of it I grant an abatement of that which the terms of body and bloud were originally imposed to signifie being without question that which is visible and subject to sense But if the nature of the action which our Lord was about of the subject which his words expresse be such as requires this abatement then cannot the original sense of these words be so proper for this place as this abatement Here I will observe that the Council of Trent it self Sess XIII cap. I. speaketh so warily in this mater as not to exclude all maner of tropes from the right sense of these words saying Indignissimum sanè flagitium est ea à quibusdam contentiosis pravis hominibus ad sictitia imaginarios trapos quibus veritas caernis sanguinis Christi negatur contra universum Ecclesiâ— sensum detorqueri It is indeed a very great indignity that they are by some contentious and perverse persons wrested aside to contrived and imaginary tropes whereby the truth of Christs flesh and bloud is denied contrary to the whole sense of the Church They were wiser than to
Sacrament mystically I conceive I am excused of any further answer and am not obliged to declare the maner of that which must be mystical when I have said what I can say to declare it Onely I will take leave to tell him that hee will remain neverthelesse obliged to believe the truth both of the sign and of the thing signified and that by virtue of the Sacrament that is of the consecration that makes it a Sacrament not of the faith of him that receives it though I answer not all that hee demands upon the question What the Sacramental presence of the body and bloud of Christ in or with or under the Elements of the Eucharist signifies I would now consider wherein the Consecration of the Eucharist consists that I might thereupon inferre what kind of presence it inforceth But I hold it fit first to set aside those two opinions the one whereof I said ascribeth it to the Faith of them that receive being accidental to the Consecration and not included in it The other to the Hypostatical Union and that communication which it inferreth between the properties of the united natures That which I have already said I suppose is enough to evidence the mystical and spiritual presence of the flesh and bloud of Christ in the Elements as the Sacrament of the same before any man can suppose that spiritual presence of them to the soul which the eating and drinking Christs flesh and bloud spiritually by living Faith importeth Onely that I may once conclude how faith effecteth the Sacramental presence in the Elements as well as the spiritual in the Soul I will distinguish between the outward profession of Christianity which maketh us Members of Gods visible Church and the inward performance or faithful purpose of performing the same which makes a man of that number whom God owns for Heirs of his Kingdome whether you call that number an invisible Church or not And then I say that it is the visible profession of true Christianity which makes the Consecration of the Eucharist effectual to make the body and bloud of Christ Sacramentally present in the Elements of it But that it is the invisible faithfulnesse of the heart in making good or in resolving to make good the said profession which makes the receiving of it effectual to the spiritual eating and drinking of Christs body and bloud For supposing that God hath instituted and founded the Corporation of his Church upon the precept or the privilege of assembling to communicate in the offices of his service according to Christianity Whensoever this office is rendred to God out of that profession which makes men Members of Gods Church there the effect followes as sure as Christianity is true Where otherwise there can be no such assurance But if eating and drinking the body and bloud of Christ in this Sacrament unworthily be the crucifying of Christ again rendring a man guilty of his body and bloud then is not his flesh and bloud spiritually eaten and drunk till living faith make them spiritually present to the Soul which the Consecration maketh Sacramentally present to the body And it is to be noted that no man â—â—n say that this Sacrament represents or tenders and exhibites unto him that receiveth the body and bloud of Christ as all must do that abhorre the irreverence to so great an Ordinance which the opinion that it is but a bare sign of Christ crucified necessarily ingendreth but hee must believe this Unlesse a man will say that that which is not present may be represented that is to say â—â—nâ—râ—d and exhibited presently down upon the place It is not therefore that living faith which hee that receiveth the Eucharist and is present at the consecrating of it may have and may not have that causeth the body and bloud of Christ to be Sacramentally present in the Elements of it But it is the profession of that common Christianity which makes men Members of Gods Church In the unity whereof wheresoever this Sacrament is celebrated without enquiring whether those that are assembled be of the number of those to whom the Kingdome of Heaven belongs thou hast a Legal presumption even towards God that thou receivest the flesh and bloud of Christ in and with the Elements of bread and wine and shalt receive the same spiritually for the food of thy Soul supposing that thou receivest the same with living faith For one part of our common Christianity being this That our Lord Christ instituted this Sacrament with a promise to make by his Spirit the Elements of bread and wine Sacramentally his body and bloud so that his Spirit that made them so dwelling in them as in his natural body should feed them with Christs body and bloud that receive the Sacrament of them with living faith This institution being executed that is the Eucharist being consecrated according to it so sure as Christianity is true so sure the effect follows So that the faith which brings it to effect is the faith of them who believing Gods promises proceed to execute his Ordinances that they may obtain the same Whereas those that would have justifying faith to consist in believing a mans own Salvation or the decree of God perempâ—orily passed upon it and the Sacrament of the Eucharist to be appointed for a sign to confirm this faith which is nothing else but the revelation of this decree are not able to say how the signifying of the eating of Christs body and bloud conduces to such a revelation as this or why any such thing is done which conduceth not to the purpose Besides that having showed wherein justifying faith indeed consists I have by that means made it appear that the Sacramental nourishment of the Soul is the means of the spiritual nourishment of the Soul as well as the resemblance of it Here indeed it will be requisite to take notice of that which may be objected for an inconvenience That God should grant the operation of his Spirit to make the Elements Sacramentally the body and bloud of Christ upon the dead faith of them who receive it to their condemnation in the Sacrament and therefore cannot be said to eat the body and bloud of Christ which is onely the act of living faith without that abatement which the premises have established To wit in the Sacrament But all this if the effect of my saying be throughly considered will appear to be no inconvenience For that the body and bloud of Christ should be Sacramentally present in and under the Elements to be spiritually received of all that meet it with a living faith to condemn those for crucifying Christ again that receive it with a dead faith can it seem any way inconsequent to the Consecration thereof by virtue of the common faith of Christians professing that which is requisite to make true Christians whether by a living oâ— a dead faith Rather must wee be to seek for a reason why hee that â—ateth this bread and drinketh
and bloud of Christ in the Eucharist is a very great miracle taking that to be miraculous which requires the infinite power of God to effect it not that which contains a visible effect thereof apt to bear witnesse to that truth which it is done to confirm I must remit you to that which hath been already said to judge whether the miracle consist in abolishing the substance of the Elements and substituting the body and bloud of Christ in their stead Or in placing the substance of Christs body and bloud under the same dimensions in which the substance of the Elements subsisteth Or rather then either of both that it be enough to ingage the infinite power of God that by his Spirit hee tendreth the flesh and bloud of Christ so Sacramentally present in the Elements that whoso receiveth them faithfully thereby communicates as truly in the Spirit of God according to his Spirit as according to his body hee communicates Sacramentally in his body and bloud Here is the place for mee to allege those Scriptures which inform us of the true nature and properties of the flesh and bloud of Christ remaining in his body even now that it is glorified For if in the proper dimensions thereof hee parted from his Disciples and went was carried or lifted and taken up into heaven Acts I. 2 9 10. 1 Pet. III. 22. Luke XXIV 50 51. Mark XVI 19. If in the same visible form and dimensions hee shall come again to judgement Acts I. 11. 1 Thes IV. 16. if the Heavens must receive him till that time for sure no man will be much tempted with that frivolous conceit that S. Peters words Acts III. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are to be construed whom it behoveth to contain the Heavens but whom it behoveth that the Heavens contain Unlesse it could appear how S. Peter should understand the body of Christ to contain the heavens not the heavens it sitting at Gods right han◠till his Enemies be made his foot-stool Psal CX 1. if to that purpose hee leave the world John XVI 28. no more to be in it XVII 11. so that wee shall have him no more with us Mat. XXVI 11. it behoveth us to understand how wee are informed that the promise of his body and bloud in the Eucharist imports an exception to so many declarations before wee believe it Indeed there is no place of Gods right hand by sitting down at which wee may say that our Lords body becomes confined to the said place But seeing the flesh of Christ is taken up into Heaven to sit down at Gods right hand Though by his sitting down at Gods right hand wee understand the man Christ to be put into the exercise of that divine power and command which his Mediators Office requires Yet his body wee must understand to be confined to that place where the Majesty of God appears to those that attend upon his Throne Neither shall the appearing of Christ to S. Paul Acts XXIII 11. be any exception to this appointment Hee that would insist indeed that the body of Christ stood over Paul in the Castle where then hee lodged must say that it left Heaven for that purpose For that is the miracle which the Text expresseth that hee was there whose ascent into Heaven it had reported afore But seeing the very body of Christ might in a vision of Prophesie appear to Paul in the Spirit without any contravention to that determination which the Scripture otherwise had expressed Were it not madnesse to go about to limit the sense and effect of it upon pretense of a promise altogether impertinent to the occasion in hand and every whit as properly to be understood without so limiting the sense of it This is all the argument that I pretend to maintain upon this consideration Knowing well enough that it is said indeed that the flesh of Christ remaining in Heaven in the proper dimensions thereof which the Exaltation allowes nothing hinders the same to be present under the dimensions of the Elements whether the substance of them be there which Consubstantiation allowes or whether they be abolished as Transubstantiation requires Which hee that would contradict must enter here into a Philosophical dispute whether or no the infinite power of God can bring to passe either or neither of these effects That is to say whether it imply a contradiction that the body and bloud of Christ which is as sure in Heaven as the faith of Christ is sure should at the same time be present in the Sacrament of the Eucharist under the dimensions of the Elements whether wee suppose the substance of them to be abolished or to remain present This dispute I am resolved not to touch at this time Partly for that reason which I have alleged upon other occasions Because I desire to discharge this Book being written in our mother tongue of all Philosophical disputes tending rather to puzzle than to edifie the main of those that speak English Partly for a reason peculiar to this point because it hath been argued that if wee deny Transubstantiation or Consubstantiation as contradictory to reason there can be no cause why wee should cleave to the Faith of the Trinity which every man sees to be no lesse contradictory to humane reason than either of both For though I do no ways admit this consequence because it is evident that the nature of bodily substance is far better comprehended by mans understanding than the incomprehensible nature of God which it is impossible to apprehend any thing of but under the resemblance of something belonging to sensible substance yet I am willing to go to issue without drawing this dispute into consequence referring to judgment whether the evidence for Consubstantiation or Transubstantiation be such as for the holy Trinity out of the Scriptures That is to say whether the presence of the flesh and bloud of Christ in the Eucharist is so to be understood as to void the confining of them to those dimensions which the Scripture allowes them in Heaven And this as necessarily by the Scripture as the Scripture necessarily obligeth to believe the Holy Trinity When as it may be more properly to the nature of the businesse understood mystically as in a Sacrament intended to convey the communion of his Spirit In the mean time allowing any man that submits his reason to all that Christianity imports the sober use of it in disputing whether the presence of the flesh and bloud of Christ in the Eucharist as Consubstantiation or as Transubstantiation requires be contradictory to the evidence of reason or not CHAP. IV. The opinion which maketh the Consecration to be done by rehearsing the operative words That our Lord consecrated by Thanksgiving The Form of it in all Liturgies together with the consent of the Fathers Evidence that there is no Tradition of the Church for the abolishing of the Elements COming now to consider wherein the Consecration of the Eucharist consists I find
S. Gregory saith Scholasticus composed whether hee mean a man of that name or as I conceive some Doctor that professed the Scriptures if S. Gregory should tell mee that some other form to the same effect was not in use I could not believe him believing the premises The substance and effect whereof under the name of Eucharistia or the Thanks-giving is that which the Church from the beginning consecrated the Eucharist with by the appointment of our Lord and according to the practice of his Apostles So Rabanus de Institutione Clericorum I. 32. affirms that the whole Church consecrates with Blessing and Thanksgiving the Apostles having taught them to do that which our Lord had done Walafridus Strabus de Rebus Ecclesiasticis cap. XXII relates two several opinions concerning this businesse as it appears by his discourse Et relatio majorum est ità primis temporibus Missas fieri solitas sicut modò in Parasceve Paschae in quo die apud Romanos Missae non aguntur communicationem facere solemus Id est praemissâ— Oratione Dominicà sicut ipse Dominus noster praecepti commemoratione passionis adhibitâ eos Corpori Dominico communicâsse Sanguini quos ratio permittebat And there is a relation of our Predecessors that in the first times Masse was done as now on Good Friday on which day Masse is not said at Rome the communion is wont to be made That is that the Lords Prayer premised and the commemoration of his death applyed those whom reason allowed did communicate in the Body and Bloud of our Lord. The practice of the Church of Rome here mentioned is that which still continues not to consecrate the Eucharist either on Good Friday or the Saturday following For then Masse is said so late that it belongs to Easter day And on Maundy Thursday the Eucharist is consecrated and reserved to be received on Good Friday That any commemoration of Christs death is made at the receiving of it as Rabanus saith I finde not This is certain that no man imagines that the Eucharist is consecrated by any thing that is said or done at the receiving of it but at the Masse on the day before And this in the Greek Church is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Liturgy of the elements that were consecrated afore Which they use on other days besides Therefore this opinion that the Apostles should celebrate so would import that they celebrated the Eucharist without consecrating of it That is that they never appointed how it should be consecrated Which neither Rabanus nor any of these whose opinion he relates can maintain Nor supposing the premises is it tenable And therefore I take the true meaning of S. Gregories words to be laid down in another opinion related afore by Rabanus Quod nunc agimus multiplici orationum cantilenarum consecrationum officio totum hoc Apostoli post eos proximi ut creditur orationibus commemoratione passionis dominica faciebant simpliciter That which wee act by an Office compounded of many and divers Prayers Psalms and Consecrations all that the Apostles and the next after them did plainly with prayers and the commemoration of our Lords passion as it is thought For the consecration may well be understood to be made plainly by prayer with commemoration of our Lords passion in opposition to that solemnity of Lessons Psalms and Prayers which at the more solemn occasions of the Church it was afterwards celebrated with Though wee suppose it to conclude alwaies with the Lords Prayer as S. Gregory requires And herewith the words of S. Gregory seeâ— to agree when hee â—aith Vt ad ipsam â—solummâ—do orationem To consecrate at or with it alone not by it alone But if this opinion cannot passe having indeed no constraining evidence but that S. Gregories words will needs require that they conâ—ecrated the Eucharist by the Lords Prayer alone I will will then â—ay that the Apostles understood the petition of our dayly bread as S. Cyprian upon the Lords Prayer doth To wit of the breâ—d and drink of the Eucharist daily celebrated and received For supposing this intent and meaning there is nothing pretended to be done by the consecration which that Petition signifieth not Praying that God will give us this day the dayly food of our â—ouls by the elements presently provided for that purpose And all this will no way prejudice that which hath been said of the mater and form of the consecration derived by Tradition from the Apostles to be frequented at more solemn occaâ—â—ons of Christian Assemblies For that Assembly which believing that Christians are justified by undertaking to professe the Faith and to live according to it and that our Lord hath left us his body and bloud of the Eucharist to convey the Holy Ghost to our â—ouls that they may be able to perform what they undertake should pray the Lords Prayer over the Elements proposed with that intent I cannot doubt of their receiving the Body and bloud of Christ Provided that where the occasion will bear more solemnity the Order of the Church received from the Apostles be not neglected Whereas supposing Christians to believe that they are justified by believing that they are justified or predestinate in consideration onely of Christs sufferings and that the Eucharist is instituted onely for a signe to confirm this Faith Though they should regularly use that form of consecration which I maintain to come by Tradition from the Apostles I would not therefore grant that they should either consecrate the Eucharist or could receive the Body and bloud of Christ by it Sacrilege they must commit in abusing Gods ordinances to that intent for which hee never appointed it but Sacrament there would be none further then their own imagination And upon these premises I am content to go to issue as concerning the sense of the Catholick Church in this point If it can any way be showed that the Church did ever pray that the flesh and bloud might be substituted instead of the elements under the accidents of them then I am content that this be counted henceforth the Sacramental presence of them in the Eucharist But if the Church onely pray that the Spirit of God coming down upon the Elements may make them the body and bloud of Christ so that they which received them may be filled with the grace of his Spirit Then is it not the sense of the Catholick Church that can oblige any man to believe the abolishing of the Elements in their bodily substance because supposing that they remain they may neverthelâ—sse become the Instrument of Gods Spirit to convey the operation thereof to them that are disposed to receive it no otherwise than his flesh and bloud conveyed the efficacy thereof upon earth And that I suppose is reason enough to call it the body and bloud of Christ Sacramentally that is to say as in the Sacrament of the Eucharist It is not here to be denied that
expresly that it was wine which our Lord calls his bloud And that the wine of the Chalice to wit already consecrated demonstrates his bloud In his Epistle against those who consecrated in water alone The Council of Nicaea calls it Bread which the eye of Faith discerns to be the Lamb of God S. Hilary will have us truly to receive the body and bloud of Christ as Justine saith that our bodies are nourished by it but hee adds in Sacramento to signifie the abatement which I speak of that is mystically and as in a Sacrament S. Cyril when hee saith wee are not to look upon the Elements as plain or bare or simple bread and wine saith that wee may look upon it as Bread and wine though that is not it which profits him that worthily receives it as Origen said There are a great many more that have named and described the Elements after consecration by the name of their nature and substance and say that the bread and the wine become and are the body and bloud of Christ Ignatius Epist ad Philadelph Irenâ—us V. 2. Clemens Strom. I. Paedag. II. 2. Tatian before Irenaeus in Diatessaron Constitutiones Apostol VIII 12. Tertullian de Oratione cap. VI. contra Marcionem IV. 40. III. 19. Gregory Nyssene de Baptismo Origen contra Celsum VIII Athanasius in Synopsi Eusebius in Parallelis Damasceni S. Cyril Catech. Mystag I. III. Macarius Hom. XXVII Gaudentius Brixiensis in Exodum Serm. II. S. Austine de Civitate Dei XVII 5. de diversis Serm. XLIV cap. XXVIII Sermone LXXXIIII Sermone LXXXVII Sermone ad Baptizatos S. Jer. in Esaiae LXVI lib. ult in Jeremiae XXXI lib. VI. Isidore de Offic. Eccles I. 18. In fine the Canon of the Masse it self prayes that the Holy Ghosts coming down may make this Bread and this Cup the Body and Bloud of Christ And certainly the Romane Masse expresses a manifest abatement of the common and usual sense of the body and bloud of Christ unto that sense which is proper to the intent and subject of them who speak of this Sacrament when the Church in the consecration prayes ut nobis corpus fiat Dilectissimi Filii tui Domini nostri Jesu Christi That they may become the Body and bloud of thy most dearly beloved Son our Lord Christ Jesus to us No man that understands Latine and sense will say it is the same thing for the Elements to become the body and bloud of Christ as to become the body and bloud of Christ to those that receive which imports no more than thaâ— which I have said And yet there is no more said in those Liturgies which pray that the Spirit of God may make them the flesh and bloud of Christ to this intent and effect that those which received them may be filled with the grace of his Spirit For the expression of this effect and intent limits the common signification of the words to that which is proper to this action of the Eucharist as I have delivered it In the words of S. Ambrose de iis qui initiantur myst cap. XI ante consecrationem alia species nominatur post consecrationem caro sanguis Christi appellatur Before the consecration it is named another kinde After the consecration it is called the flesh and bloud of Christ No man that understands Latine can conceive the word species to signifie the outward appearance but the substance and nature of those kindes For so wee call outlandish kindes spices not the appearance of their outward accidents And in the Romane Laws species an non are the kindes that are stored up for men cannot live upon the outward accidents of them Therefore when S. Austine saith That the Eucharist consists of two things visibili elementorum specie invisibili D. N. J. C. carne sanguine hee means that it consists of the nature and substance of the elements which is visible as of the body and bloud of our Lord Christ which are invisible Again when S. Ambrose sayes that they are called the Body and Bloud of Christ hee signifies that abatement in the property of his words that requires not the absence of the elements As when S. Austine sayes in Gratian de Consecratione distinct II. Can. Hoc est Coelestis panis qui est caro Christi suo modo vocatur corpus Christi cùm reverà sit Sacramentum corporis Christi That heavenly bread which is the flesh of Christ is after the maner of it called the body of Christ whereas it is indeed the Sacrament of the body of Christ The same abatement it is that S. Cyril afore Catech. Myst IV. the Council of Nicâ—a Victor Antioch in Marci XIV 22. and Theodoret Dial. III. signifie when they will us not to consider the elements but the things which they signifie For does hee that wills us not to consider the bread and wine intend to say that there is no such thing there Or that our interest lies not in them but in the body and bloud of Christ which they â—ender us well and good So said Origen afore The same abatement is signified evidently by abundance of their sayings importing them to be called the body and bloud of Christ as types or antitypes for type and antitype differ not but as relative and correlative that is figures symboles images similitudes representations paterns pledges and riddles in fine as figures or sacraments of the same Not as if they contained not the thing signified which I have already settled but because the heavenly grace hinders not nor destroyes the earthly nature This language then is used by S. Gregory Nazianzene Orat. XLII calling the Passeover a more obscure Type of a Type By Ephrem de inscrutabili naturâ Dei By Theodoret Dial. I. II. III. By the Constitutions of the Apostles V. 13. VI. 29. VII 26. By S. Basils Liturgy By Gregory Nazianzene again in Gorgoniam By Eusebius de demonstrat Evang. I. 10. V. 3. VIII 1. By S. Chrysostome in Mat. Homil. LXXXII By Palladius in the life of S. Chrysostome Chap. VII VIII IX By Victor in Marci XIV By Dionysius Eccles Hierarch cap. III. By Origen in Mat. Hom. XXXV By Pope Gelasius de duabus naturis Christi By S. Ambrose de iis qui initiantur mysteriis cap. IX de Sacramentis IV. 4. VI. 1. By Tertulliane contra Marc. III. 19. IV. 14 40. By S. Austine contra Adimantum cap. XII in Psalmum III. Epist CLXIII de Trinitate III. 4. By Facundus Bishop of Hermiana in Africk pro tribus capitulis IX ult And truly the ancient Christians when they made a scrâ—ple of receiving the Eucharist when they were to fast least they should break their fast by receiving it as wee understand by Tertullian de Oratione cap. XIV must needs understand the nature of bread and wine to remain unlesse they thought they could break their fast upon the accidents of them Nor would it have been a custome in some
is admitted to Baptism is likewise invested with a right and due title to the promises of the Gospel remission of sâ—nnes and everlasting life As it may appear to all that hâ—ve contracted with the Church of England in Gods name that continuing in that which they professed and undertook on ttheir part at their Baptism they are â—ssured of no lesse by the Church And therefore this is and ought to be accounted that power of the Keyes by which men are admitted to the House of God which is his Church as S. Paul saith At least that part of it that is seen and exercised in this first office that the Church can minister to a Christian And seeing no man can challenge the priviledge of that communion to which he is admitted upon condition of that profession which Baptism supposed unlesse he proceed to live according to it it cannot seem strange that the same should be thought to be exercised in the celebration of the Eucharist as it is done with a purpose to communicate the Sacrament thereof to those that receive I shall desire any man that counts this sâ—râ—nge to consider that which I quoted even now out of Epiphanius That the Patriarch of the Jews at Tiberias being baptized by the Bishop put a considerable sum of Gold into his hand saying Offer for me For it is written Whatsoever ye bind on â—atrh shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever ye lose on earth shall be losed in heaven For so it follows in Epiphanius And when S. Cyprian blames or forbids offering up the names or offering up the Eucharist in the names of those that had fallen away from the Church in time of persecution till they were reconciled to the Church by Penance doth he not exercise the power of the Keyes in his hands by denying the benefit of those Prayers which the Eucharist is celebrated with to them who had forfeited their right to it by failing of that which by their baptism they undertook As on the other side whosoever the Eucharist is offered for that is whosoever hath a part in those Prayers which it is celebrated with is thereby declared loose by the Church upon supposition that he is indeed what he professes And whatsoever Canons of the Church there are of which there are not a few which take order that the offerings of such or such shall or shall not be received they all proceed upon this suppoâ—â—tion that by the power of the Keys they are to be allowed or refused their part of benefit in the Communion of the Eucharist and the effects of iâ— For not to speak of what is by the corruption of men but what ought to be by the appointment of God it is manifest that the admission of a man to the communion of the Eucharist is an allowance of his Christianity as conâ—ormable to that which Baptism professeth though in no sâ—ate of the Church it is a sufficient and reasonable presumption that a man is indeed and before God intitled to the promises of the Gospel that he is admitted to the communion of the Eucharist by the Church because whatsoever profession the Church can receive may be counâ—erfeit But so that it is to be indeavoured by all means possible for the Church to use that the right of communicating with the Church in the Sacrament of the Eucharist be not allowed any man by the Church but upon such terms and according to such laws that a man being qualified according to them may be really and indeed qualified for those promises which the Gospell tendreth Which being supposed every Christian must of necessity acknowledge how great and eminent a power the Lord hath trusted his Church with in celebrating and giving of the Eucharist when he is convinced to believe that the body and blood of Christ is thereby tendred him though mystically and as in a Sacrament yet so truly that the spirit of Christ is no lesse really present with it to inable the souls of all them that receive it with sincere Christianity then the Sacrament is to their bodies or then the same spirit is present in the flesh and bloud of Christ naturally being in the heavens For suppose that by faith alone without receiving this Sacrament a man is assured of the spirit of Christ as by faith alone understanding faith alone as S. Paul meant it I shall show that he may be assured of it yet if he have determined a visible act to be done to the due performance whereof he hath annexed a promise of the participation of the Spirit of Christ by our Spirit no lesse then of the body â—nd blood of Christ Sacramentally present by our bodies And if he hath made the doing of this a part of the Christianity which under the title of Faith alone inâ—iâ—leth to promises of the Gospell for who can be said to professe Christianity that owneth not such an Ordinâ—nce upon such a promise Then hath he determined and limited the truth of that faith which onely justifieth us at the beginning of every mans Christianity to the Sacrament of Baptism but in the proceeding of the same to that of the Eucharist These being the first Powers of the Church and having resolved from the beginning that the power of the Church extends to the deterâ—ining or limiting of any thing requisite to the communion of the Church the determination or limitation wherof by such an act as ought to have the force of Law to them that are of the Church becomes requisite to the communion of Christians in the offices of Gods service in unity I cannot see any of the controversies whereby we stand now divided that can deserve a place in our consideration before that of the Baptism of Infants For as it is a dispute belonging to the first and originall power of the Church to consider whether it extend so farre as when it is acknowledged that there is no written Law of God to that purpose that it may and justly hath provided that all the Children of Christian Parents be baptized Infants so it will apear to concern their salvation more immediately then other Laws limiting the exercise of the Churches power or the circumstances of exercising those offices of God service which it tendeth to determine can be thought to do But Before I come to dispute this point I will here take notice once more of the Book called the Doctrine of Baptisms one of the fruits of this blessed Reformation commonly attributed to the Master of a Colledge in Cambridge proving by a studied dispute that it was never intended by our Lord Christ and his Apostles that Christians should be Baptized at all That John indeed was sent to baptize with water but that the Baptism of Christ is baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire And so long as the Ceremonies of the Law were not abolished in point of fact though become void in point of right so long also baptism by water was practised by the Apostles as
do not therefore condemn this custome for a prophanation of the Sacrament when it was in use Infants cannot examine themselves neither can they presume in eating that bread and drinking of that cup. But neither can they be taught to do all things which Christ commandeth so soon as they are made his Disciples by being baptized If the Church duely presume that with remission of sinnes they attain the gift of Gods spirit by being baptized did it unduly presume that remission of sinnes remaining uninterrupted the gift of the Holy Ghost may be strengthned by receiving the Eucharist Let us rather watch over our own customes then condemn the customes of the Church The grace of the Holy Ghost may be fortified by the Sacrament of the Eucharist against those occasions of re-entry which the evil Spirit espieth in those that begin to perceive the difference between good and bad though unable to reflect upon themselves and to judge whither in the state of Grace or not If the Eucharist be prophâ—ned where they take it too young what pretense of Christianity or of a Church remains where neither young nor old take it CHAP. IX What controversie the Reformation hath with the Church of Rome about Penance Inward repentance that is sincere obtaineth pardon alone Remission of sinnes by the Gospel onely The condition of it by the Ministrey of the Church What the power of binding and loosing contains more then Preaching or taking away offenses Sinne may be pardoned without the use of it Wherein the necessity of using it lyeth I Have showed from the beginning that the Power of the Keyes which is the foundation of the Church is seen much more towards them that are already of the Church then them that are not of it For in those there is but one thing for the Church to judge whether their perswasion and resolution be such as qualifies them to be baptized Disciples of Christ that is Christians But in these so many particulars as the profession of a Christian is imployed about so many are there for this power to judge whether the profession of a Christian be discharged in them or not And this ground must needs be much strengthned by that which hath been resolved concerning the Covenant of Grace and the terms of it For if the profession of Christianity be that which qualifies a Christian for remission of sinnes and life everlasting then he that fails of this profession by any such sinne as cannot stand with it as he attained the communion of the Church upon presumption that he stood qualified for the promises of the Gospel so he failes of it upon evidence that he is not so qualified Therefore though the Powâ—r of the Keyes is seen in free admitting to the Communion of the Church yet is it more visible in excluding from the same as well as in readmitting to it And this is the next act or the next object which the the power of the Church is imployed about that comes here to be considered The difficulty whereof seems to stand in that which the Church of Romes by the Law of confessing once a year all sinnes that come to remembrance seems to teach That no sinne or at least none of those which a man is bound to confesse which in what sense they may and are to be allowed mortal sinnes I have showed in due place can be remitted him that falls into them after Baptism unlesse the Keyes of the Church passe upon them The opposite whereof in the other extream seems to be the opinion of those that pâ—etend for a point of Reformation and of that freedom to which the Gospel calls Christians That though it be necessary to give satisfaction to the the Church which shal have been scandalized by the evil example of a notorious offence yet that no office of the Church and of the Keys which it is â—rusted with by our Lord concurs to the loosing of that sinne which the Church hath first tied a man with by excluding him from the communion of the Church But that it is wholly to be imputed to the preaching of the Gospel ministred by the Church when it is received by faith Though for the present I inquire not what they would have this faith to be having distinguished the consequences of the several conceâ—ts which may be had about it afore For this difficulty being here proposed in the beginning I do not foresee any thing of moment in question concerning this power of the Church the effect â—nd intent of it that will not come to be determined by virâ—ue of the reâ—olution therâ—of and in consequence to it Which resolution shall briâ—fly be this That inwâ—rd repentance with confession to God alone that is â—â—ncere and effectual to the reforming of that which a man repents of for the future is a diâ—position qualifying a man for pardon of sâ—â—ne by virtue of the Covenant of Grace without any act of the Church passing upon it But that God hath charged his Church and therefore given it power and right to call all those that notoriously transgresse that Christianity which once they have professed to those demonstrations of inward repentance and amendment of mind by visible actions that may satisfie the Church that Gods wrath in regard of that sinne is appeased through Christ and upon these demonstrations to readmit them to communion with the Church And further that God having provided this means of procuring and assuring the pardon of sinne by the Church hath also obliged all Christians to make use of the same by bringing their secret sinnes to the knowledge of the Church so farre and in as much as they ought to stand convict that the ministry of the Church is requisite to procure in them that disposition which by the Gospel intiles them to forgivenessâ— This resolution hath several parts which I have thought fit to be thus wound up in one not onely for brevities sake which I seek so farre as it will let me be understood but for the dependance they have one upon another in point of reason and truth And first to clear the foundation in the first place I suppose what our Saviour preached himselfe in publishing his Gospel according as it stands declared and setled by the premises to wit that mankind being lost in sinne and neither the law of Nature nor that of Moses being able to reduce it to righteousnesse and so to happinesse God by our Lord Christ requires all them that find themselves surprized in this estate to believe him to be sent for remission of sinnes and life everlasting to all that turning from that conversation in which they are overtaken do make the glory of God the end and his will the rule of their actions for the future by undertaking to live like Christians in hope of being inabled by Gods spirit to perform the same for Christ his merits and of being accepted for his suffering This being the summe of Christ his Gospel according to
in the judgement of many that think themselves the most refined Christians that they allow it not that common sense in managing the businesse of Christianity which they must needs allow Jews Pagans Mahometans in faithfully serving their own faithlesse suppositions and which all experience shows us that it serves all mankind to what purpose soever it is imployed and that notwithstanding so great a triall of it as the governing of so great a Body as the Church is in unity so farre and so long as this Unity hath prevailed it is therefore necessary to give a reason why the Church so used them Which supposing the premises it will be as easie as it is necessary for me to give and that more sufficient if I mistake not then can possibly be given not supposing the same For if the secret of the resurrection the general judgement and the World to come if the mystery of the Holy Triniâ—y consisting in the Word or Wisdome and Spirit of God if the inward and spiritual service of God in truth of heart be more clearly opened in them by the work of Providence dispensing the effect of Canonicall Scripture by the occurrences of time then in the Law and the Prophets themselves which I have showed both that so it is and why so it is from the ground of the difference between the Old and the New Testament then I suppose there is sufficient reason why those who admit the Old Testament to be made for common edification in the Church should not put any question concerning those Scriptures Those new lights among us who do not allow the Psalter to be pertinently and reasonably imployed for the publick service of God upon all occasions as the Church hath alwaies imployed it may assure us that they understand not why the Scriptures of the Old Testament are read in the Church because they understand not the correspondence between the Old and the New Testament in the understanding whereof the edification of the Church by the Scriptures of the Old Testament consisteth There may be offence taken at divers things in these Scriptures I deny not But there may be offence taken in like maner at divers things in the Canonicall Scriptures of the Old Testament The humility of Christians requires them edifying themselves in that which they understand in the Scriptures according to our common Christianity in the rest which they understand not to refer themselves to their Superiours The Church understood well enough this difference and this correspondence to be discovered by these writings as the time required when it appointed Learners to read them And though I stand not upon terms yet I conceive they are more properly called Ecclesiastical because the Church hath imployed them to be read in the Church then Apocryphal according to the use of that word in the Church to signifie such writings as the Church suspecteth and therefore alloweth not to be read whither in publick or in private Whereupon I conceive also that the term of Canonical Scripture hath and ought to have two senses one when we speak of the Jews Canon in the Old Testament another when we speak of the Canon of the Church For seeing the Tradition of the Synagogue is perfect evidence what Scriptures of the old Testament are to be received as inspired by God the word Canon in that case may well signifie the Rule of our Faith or maners But because the Church cannot pretend to create that evidence originally but onely to transmit what she receiveth from the Synagogue Pretending neverthelesse to give a Rule what shall be read for the edification of the Church the word Canon therefore in that case will signifie onely the list or Catalogue of Scriptures which the Church appoints to be read in the Church which seems to reconcile the diverse accounts extant in severall Records of the Church CHAP. XXIII The consideration of the Eucharist prescribed by Tradition for the mater of it Lords Prayer prescribed in all services The mater of Prayers for all estates prescribed The form of Baptism necessary to be prescribed The same reason holdeth in the forms of other Offices IN the next place I do maintain that the Order of celebrating the Eucharist and the Prayer which it was was from the beginning solemnized with were from the beginning prescribed the Church by unwritten custome that is by Tradition from the Apoâ—â—les containing though not so many words that it was not lawful to use more or lesse for these were always occasions for celebrating the Eucharist emergent which must be intimated in fewer or more words in the celebrating of it yet the mater and substance of the Consecration of it together with the mater and substance of the necessities of the Church for which it was offered that is to say for which the Church was and is to pray at the celebration of it as hoping to obtain them by the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross which it representeth as received from the beginning was every were known to be the same This I inferr from that which I have said in the Book afore quoted of those Texts of S. Paul where those Prayers of the Church which the Eucharist is consecrated with are called Eucharistia or Thanksgiving if not rather the thanksgiving because it was a certain form of Thanksgiving well known to all Christians by that name from whence the Sacrament â—o consecrated was also so called from the time that our Lord hâ—ing blessed or given thanks to the Father over the Elements had said This is my body this is my blood and order is given that at the celebration thereof Prayers be made for the necessities of the Church and of all people 1 Cor. XIV 25. 26. 1 Tiâ—â— II. 1-8 Together with those passages of primitive antiquity from whence it appeareth there that the form of consecrating the Eucharist used and known generally in the Church is called Eucharistia and that the custome of interceding for all the necessities of the Church and for the reducing of unbelievers to the same is and hath been taken up and ever frequented by the Church in obedience to and prosecution of the said precept of the Apostles This observation might perhaps be thought too obscure evidence â—o bring to light a point of this consequence were it not justified by all that I produced afore to show that the Eucharist is consecrated by the Prayers of the Church which celebrateth it upon the faith of our Lords institution and promise For the mater of these Prayers tending to a certain purpose that the Elements may become the Body and Blood of Christ and convay his Spirit to those who receive them with living faith the Consecration which is the effect of them requires that the form of them be prescript and certain though not in number of words yet in sense in tent and substance And this by the evidence there produced may appear to have been maintained from the beginning by Tradition in
the Church according to the affirmation of S. Basil that this Prayer is a Tradition of the whole Church Many are the Lâ—â—urgies that is the formes of celebrating the Eucharist in the Eastern Churches under Constantinople Alexandria and Antiochia yet extant which show the substance of it after the Deacon had said Lift up your hearts the People answering Wee life them up to the Lord which evidently pointeth ouâ— that which S. Paul calls the Thanksgiving or Blessing wherein the Consecration of the Sacrament consisteth beginning there and ending with the Lords Prayer in all of them to be this Repeating the creation of all things and the fall of man to praise God that hee left him not helpless but called first the Fathers then gave the Law and when it appeared that all this would not serve to reclaim him to God sent his onely Son to redeem him by his Cross who instituted this remembrance of it Praising God therefore for all this but especially for the death and resurrection of Christ and praying that the Spirit promised may come upon the elements presently set forth and make them the Body and Bloud of Christ that they who receive them with living Faith may be filled with the Grace of it I acknowledg that the repetition of the creation and fall of man the calling of the Patriarchs and giving the Law is all silenced or left out in the Latine Canon that is that Canonical Prayer which this Sacrament is consecrated and communicated with neither can I say that it is extant in the Ambrosian or any form besides that may appear to have been anciently in use in any part of the Western Church Though I have reason enough to conceive that it was used from the beginning and afterwards cut off for the shortning of the service because of the great consent that is found among forms used in the Eastern parts and because wee see how the Psalms and Lessons retained in them are abridged of that length which by the Constitutions of the Apostles and other ancienter records of the Church may appear to have been used in former ages But there can be no reason to say that the leaving out of all this being so remote a ground of the present action makes any difference in the substance and effect of that prayer which it is done and performed with And the rest being the same in all forms that remain extant inables mee to conclude that the Prayers of the Church which the Eucharist is to be consecrated with were from the beginning prescribed not for so many words but for the substance of them not in writing but by silent custom and Tradition received by the Church from the Apostles and ought to continue the same to the end of the world in all Churches There is a little objection to be made against this from that which Walafridus Strabo and other Latine Writers concerning the Offices of the Church have reported from some passages of S. Jerome and S. Gregory the Great That S. Peter at the first did consecrate the Eucharist with the Lords Prayer onely Which if it all this falls to the ground and the form of consecrating the Eucharist hath proved so uniform meerly by the consent of after ages and will remain subject to be changed again seeing that the Lords Prayer may for the substance of it be rendred into other terms and conceptions as many wayes as a man pleases But there is I have showed you a mistake in the meaning of these passages intended onely in opposition to that variety of Psalms and Lessons and Hymns and Prayers which afterwards were brought in to make the celebration of the Sacrament more solemn in regard whereof they say that S. Peter consecrated onely with the Lords Prayer not with any of those additions for solemnities sake when hee consecrated by that Thanksgiving or Blessing which our Lord consecrated the Sacrament at his last Supper with adding onely in stead of all other solemnities the Lords Prayer which the Consecration is still concluded with in all ancient forms For when the Order and occasions of Assemblies were not setled but the Offices of Christianity were to be ministred upon such opportunities as they could finde out for themselves it is no mervail if S. Peter himself might be obliged to abare all but meerly what was requisite And truly I may here seasonably say that I conceive the Lords Prayer is justly called by Tertullian Oratio legitima or the Prayer which the Law that is the precept of our Lord in the Gospel When yee pray say thus prescribeth not as if hee would have them serve him with no other prayer but this But that they should alwayes use this as a set prayer whatever other occasions they might have of addressing themselves to God with other prayers For accordingly I do observe that in all prescribed forms upon what occasion soever not onely of celebrating the Eucharist which assemblies have therefore been called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Missae in Latine from the dismission of them as in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the gathering of them whereas the Latine word Collectae which answers it is extended to other assemblies but other more dayly and hourly occasions according to the premises concerning Five hours of Prayer in the day in S. Cyprians time which since have come to seven that there is alwayes a room for the Lords Prayer as if the service of God were not lawfull according to the precept When yee pray say thus unless it be used Which is that which I shall advise them of who either exclude it as unlawfull or forbear it as offensive that they may consider how they count themselves members of Christs Church waiving that which the whole Church hath practiced in obedience to his precept for conformity with the enemies of his Church There is yet another sort of Prayers which are offered to God at the celebration of the Eucharist according to S. Pauls command for all estates and orders of men whether in the world or in the Church and for all their necessities in regard whereof I showed you afore that the Eucharist is counted a Sacrifice for the Church or rather for all mankinde As the High Priest when hee went into the Holy of Holies according to Philo prayed for the whole world representing the intercession of Christ for the same now at the right hand of God which the Church in his name by celebrating this Sacrament executeth and commemorateth upon earth And the form hereof I can easily say by the same reason is for mater and substance though not for so many words and for the conceptions it is expressed with prescribed according to S. Pauls command by the custom of the Church received by Tradition from the Apostles For when I have once named the necessities of all Orders and Estates without or within the Church in general supposing what Christianity requires Christians to pray for as well in behalf of
Hereticks Of those whose Baptism S. Cyprian excepts against Epist ad Jubaianum it is manifest that the Church voiding the baptism of the Samosatenians by the Canon of Nicaea the baptism of other Hereticks by the Canons of Arles and Laodicea must needs make void the baptisms of the greatest part being evidently further removed from the truth which Christianity professeth than those whose baptism the said Canons disallow And though it is admitted according to the dictates of the School that these words I baptize thee in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost contain a sufficient form of this Sacrament Yet that holdeth upon supposition that they who use it do admit the true sense of this word I baptize intending thereby to make him a Christian that is to oblige him to the profession of Christianity whom they baptize Which what reason can any man have to presume of in behalf of those who renounce their baptism once received in the Church of England to be baptized again For all reason of charitable presumptions ceaseth in respect of those who root up the ground thereof by Schism and by departing from the Unity of the Church And besides that wee do not see them declare any profession at all according to which they oblige themselves either to believe or live which is reason enough to oblige others not to take them for Christians not demanding to be taken for Christians by professing themselves Christians wee see the world over-spread with the vermine of the Enthusiasts who accepting of the Scriptures for Gods word upon a perswasion of the dictate of Gods Spirit not supposing the reason for which they are Christians do consequently believe as much in the dictates of the same that are not grounded upon the Word of God as upon those that are So that the imbracing of the Scriptures makes them no more Christians than Mahomets acknowledging Moses and Christ in the Alcoran makes him a Christian For whosoever is perswaded that hee hath the Spirit of God not supposing that it is given him in consideration that hee professeth Christianity supposing therefore the truth thereof in order of reason before hee receive the Spirit may as well as Mahomet in the Alcoran frame both the Old and New Testament to whatsoever sense his imagination which hee takes for Gods Spirit shall dictate This reason why it is necessary to follow the forms which the Church prescribes is more constraining in celebrating the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist as more nearly concerning the Christianity and salvation of Christians But yet it takes place also in the rest of those Offices whereby the Church pretends to conduct particular Christians in the way to life everlasting Hee that supposes that which I have proved how necessary it is that every sheep of the flock should acknowledg the common Pastor of his Church that the Pastor should acknowledg his flock upon notice of that Christianity which every one of them in particular professeth though hee may acknowledg that originally there is no cause why every Bishop should not prescribe himself the form of it in his own Church yet supposing that experience hath made it appear requisite for the preservation of Unity by Uniformity that the same form should be used must needs finde it requisite that it be prescribed by a Synod greater or less At such time as publick Penance was practiced in the Church when the Penitents were dismissed before the Eucharist with the Blessing and Prayers of the Church can it seem reasonable to any man that any Prayers should be used in celebrating an action of that consequence but those which the like authority prescribeth So much the more if it be found requisite that the practice of private Penance and of the inner Court of the Conscience be maintained in the Church For how should it be fit that every Priest that is trusted with the Power of the Keyes in this Court should exercice it in that form which his private fansy shall dictate Of Ordinations I say the same as of Confirmations Of the Visitation of the Sick and of Mariage as of Penance Onely considering that it is not likely that the reason whereupon the celebration of Mariage is an Office of the Church deriving from those limitations which the precept of our Lord hath fastned upon the Mariage of Christians should be so well understood by all that are to solemnize Matrimony as to do their Office both so as the validity of the contract and so as the performance of that Office which the parties undertake doth require In fine having showed that the Service of God upon the Regular Hours of the day is a Custom both grounded upon the Scripture and tending to the maintenance and advancement of Christian Piety It remains that I say that the form and measure of that devotion which all estates are to offer to God at those hours cannot otherwise be limited to the edification of all than by the determination of the Church They that please themselves with that monstrous imagination that no Christian is to be taught what or how to pray till hee finde himself inabled by the Spirit of God moving him to pray will easily finde that they can never induce the greater part of Christians to think themselves capable of discharging themselves to God in so high an Office as the sense of their Christianity requires They that observe the performance of those who take it upon them shall finde them sacrifice to God that which his Law forbiddeth the mater of their Prayers not consisting with our common Christianity For of a truth it is utterly unreasonable to imagine that God should grant inspirations of the Holy Ghost for such purposes as our common Christianity furnisheth And therefore the consequences of so false a presumption must be either ridiculous or pernicious Now if any man say that hee admits not the premises upon which I inferr these consequences it remaines that the dispute rest upon those premises and come not to these consequences Onely let him take notice that I have showed him the true consequences of my own premises which hee must reprove as inconsistent with Christianity if hee take upon him to blame the premises for any fault that hee findeth with their true consequences And to say truth as the substance and mater of Christianity is concerned in all these Offices though in some more in some less and by consequence in the form of celebrating them So the Unity of the Church is generally concerned in the form of celebrating them all in as much as any difference insisted upon as necessary and not so admitted by others is in point of fact a just occasion of division in the Church And therefore all little disputes of these particulars necessarily resort to the general Whether God hath commanded the Unity of the Church in the external communion of the members thereof or not Which having concluded by the premises I conceive I have founded
which our first parents lost by rebelling against God They could not use so fit a terme to expresse the rest and happinesse of blessed spirits in the world to come as by calling the place of it Paradise But that the place of this rest was the third heavens before the sitting down of our Lord Christ at the right hand of his Father I am yet to learn that there is any syllable or tittle in the holy Scripture to signify that the people of God understood at such time as our Lord delivered this Parable So that there can possibly be no reasonable presumption that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here used not in reference to the body which goes to corruption in the grave but to the soul or spirit should signify the same with Gehenna in opposition to Abrahams bosome Neither the originall signification of the word nor the circumstance of the parable nor any opinion received then among Gods people so limiting the signification of it But that the bosome of Abraham should signify the place of rest which God had appointed for the righteous the reason is plaine The hospitality of Abraham being renowned in the Scripture and the happinesse of the world to come being usually represented to the people of God at that time under the resemblance of a Feast whereof Abraham is made the Master when his bosome is made the place to receive and refresh Lazarus There is therefore no reason why the bosome of Abraham and Paradise should not signify the same state or the same place to the apprehension of Gods people at that time But there is also no reason why 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Parable should not extend to comprehend both Gehenna and Paradise in the sense of those to whom our Lord addresses this Parable For neither is it any way necessary when the good thief prayes Lord remember me when thou comest into thy kingdome And our Lord answers To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Luke XXIII 42 43. that Paradise should here be understood to signify the third heavens the way into which was not yet laid open standing the first Tabernacle saith the Apostle Ebr. IX 8. And againe Which new and living way our Lord Jesus hath dedicated or hanseled for us through the vaile that is his flesh unlesse we abuse our selues with an imagination that words can signifie things which could not be aprehended on t of them by those to whom they were said For as for S. Paul who was ravished into the third heavens that is into paradise 1 Cor. XIV 3 4. I conceive I need not insist upon an exception which there is no issue to try To wit that S. Paul speakes of severall raptures one into the third heavens the other into Paradise For to speake freely it seems no more then reason to grant that S. Paul was ravished to the presence of our Lord Christ But I must needs insist that the word Paradise could not signifie the same thing to S. Paul after the Ascension of our Lord as to the hearers of our Lord afore it As for the words of the same S. Paul having a desire to depart and to be with Christ Phi. I. 23. whether they do confine the spirit of S. Paul departed to the place of our Lord Christs bodily presence in the third heavens I will not conclude till I have considered more of those scriptures which may concerne the same purpose And indeed the Apocalypse as it is the last of the new Testament so seemeth to declare more in this mater then all the rest of it before had done For when upon the opening of the fift seale Apoc. VI. 9 10 11. the soules of Martyrs having demanded vengeance upon their persecutors were cloathed with long white robes and bidden to expect the fulfilling of their numbers And after that the CXLIVM of the XII tribes that were to be preserved from the said vengeance were sealed It followeth Apoc. VII 9. 14. After that I looked and behold a great multitude whom no man could number of every nation and tribe and people and language standing before the Throne and before the Lambe and cloathed in long white robes with Pâ—lmes in their hands And to show who they were These be they who come out of the great tribulation and have washed their robes and have blanched their robes in the bloud of the lambe Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his Temple and he that sitteth upon the Throne overshadoweth them They shall not hunger nor thirst nor shall the sun fall on them nor any heate For the Lambe that is in the midst of the Thorne feedeth them and guidâ—th them to living wells of water and God wipes away all teares from their eyes Here you have the soules of the Martyrs before the throne of God over shadowed by him that sitteth on the Throne who wipeth away all teares from their eyes And again Apoc. XIV 1-5 where the CXLIVM that were sealed appear again upon mount Sion and the voice of harpers is heard singing to their harps a new song before the throne and before the foure living creatures and Elders which no man but the sealed could learne It followeth These are they that have not been defiled with women for they are Virgins These are they that followe the Lambe whithersoever he goeth These are redeemed from among men as first fruits to God and to the Lambe Nor was any deceite found in their mouthes For they are unspotted before the Throne of God Here CXLIVM appeare upon mount Sion hearing onely the song which the harpers sing to their harps And therefore those that were not defiled with women that followe the Lamb whithersoever he goeth that are unspotted before the thâ—one of God are the harpers not those that were sealed The same Martyrs soules that appeared before in long white robes with Palmes in their hands now appeare singing the song of triumph to their harps For so it followeth v. 13. after denouncing the the fall of Babilon and vengeance of God upon those that worship the Beast I heard a voice from heaven say to me Write Blessed are the dead that from henceforth dye in the Lord. Even so saith the spirit for they rest from their labour and their works goe along with them Well might Tertullian restraine this to Martyrs for the consequence of the text mightiâ—y inforceth it The Lambe indeed is seen on mount Sion with those that are sealed But it is never said that they are before the Throne but onely they who appeare in Heaven that is the Martyrs whose song of tryumph they heare and learne which needed not have been said if they were represented as of one company And perhaps it is said that they follow the Lamb whither soever he goes Because they followed him to his Crosse suffering that death for him which he had suffered for us And that they are Virgines Because not stayned
with the pollution of false Gods For truly when it is said that guile was not found in their month We cannot understand any thing more proper then the profession of the Christian Faith forwhich they dyed For of whom can it be more properly said that guile was not found in his mouth then of him that dies rather then transgresse that vvhich he undertook at his Baptisme to professe the name of Christ unto death He that likes not this vvill be obliged to grant that virgins also have the state of Martyrs by this Prophesy For besides all that hath been said to shovv that in all this prophesy save the XXIV none but Martyrs appear in heaven before Gods Throne unlesse vve say that here Virgins also are seene among the Martyrs vvhenas in the beginning of the VII Chapter order is taken for the sealing of those that should escape the vengeance of God in Judaea being Christians and servants of God who in the beginning of the fourteenth appeare againe with the lamb upon mount Sion But the Martyrs soules appeare in heaven before the Throne both in the fift and in the seventh besides what I argue here by consequence drawne from the meaning of the foureteenth it would be a thing incons quent to the text and grain of the Prophesy to say that the servants of God who are preserved by the name of God sealed on their foreheads Apoc. XIV 1. VII 3. from that destruction which involves the persecutors of Christianity should appeare in the same company ranck with the Martyrs Among whom are those that are slaine in the City of Jerusalem Ap. XI 7 8 9. of a several condition from those that are preserved alive Compare wee here with the doctrin of S. Paul 2. Cor. V. 1-4 For we know that if this earthly house of our Tabernacle be dissolved we have a building from God a house not made with hands eternall in the heavens And for this we groan desiring that our dwelling from heaven be vested upon us If so be we shall not be found naked having put it upon us For wee that are in the tabernacle groane as grieved not because we desire to be stripped but to be invested that the mortall may be swallowed up of life The whole text of this discourse manifestly imports that S. Paul expects the resurrection as the accomplishment of his hopeâ— not groaning for the day of his death to have his soule stripped from his body but to have it invested with a heavenly tabernacle made by God his glorified body which bringeth life that swalloweth up the mortality of this As also he saith Rom. VIII 23. That we who have the first fruits of the spirit groane within our selves expecting the adoption even the redemption of our body Where the resurrection is the adoption of those who rise againe to be Sons of God according to the word of our Lord Luke XX. 36. For neither can they dye any more for they are equall to Angels And being children of the resurrection are children of God It is true it appeares by S. Paul that he was no further certified as then of the counsaill of God then to make it a question whether he and the Christians of his time should be found alive by the Lord Christ at his coming to judgement For therefore he saies with an if If we shall not be found naked of our bodies when we put on glorious bodies Though he had said afore that if this body be dissolved we shall have a heavenly body for it And so 1 Cor. XV. 57. The dead shall rise incorruptible and we shall be changed And 1 Tim. IV. 15. 17. We that are left alive unto the comming of the Lord shall not prevent those that are falne asleep Againe We that are left alive shall be ravished with them in the clouds into the ayre to meet the Lord And so shall be alwaies with the Lord. So that the thousand yeares which it is revealed to S. Iohn that the Church shall indure after the fall of Babylon and the judgement exercised upon the whore Apoc. XX. is a further revelation of Gods will and pleasure for the subsistance of Christianity with the world how much soever he hath determined it shall indure more then he hath there declared But notwithstanding seeing that S. Paul though uncertaine thereof suspends the accomplishment of his and our happinesse upon the resurrection Most manifest it is that the stripping of our bodies by death is not the terme of Gods promise according to S. Paul Wherefore when it folowes Having therefore alwaies confidence and knowing that dwilling in the body wee are â—ilgrims from God for we walke by faith not by sight we desire with confiderce rather to travell out of the body and to dwell with God Supposing that S. Paul expected this change by Christs second coming before he died he contradicts not himselfe when he refers it to the resurrection which if we think that he assignes it unto the meane time wee make him to do Therefore S. Iohn 1 Epistle III. 2. Beloved we are now the Children of God But it is not yet manifest what wee shall be Yet wee know that when he or it is made manifest we shall be like him for wee shall see him as he is Sons of God because Sons of the resurrection we saw before in our Lords words Sons of God because adopted to his spirit wee have here in S. Iohn But as S. Paul made our adoption to be the redemption of the body so Eph VI. 30. Grieve not the holy spirit of God saith he by whom yee are sealed to the day of redemption And â— 14 speaking of the same spirit Who is the earnest of our inheritance untill the redemption of the purchase As our Lord saith also Luke XX. 28. Lift up your heades for your redemption draweth nigh speaking of his second coming If therefore neither our adoption and redemption nor Gods purchase be compleat before we rise againe whether wee read in S. Iohn When he shall be made manifest or when it shall be made manifest what we shall be the resurrection is the time For if wee be not like Angels till the resurrection as our Lord saies much lesse like God or like our Lord Christ as S. Iohn sayes As for the terme of seeing God upon which the School Doctors have stated the controversy of the Saints happinesse in the meane time It is a thing evident enough that the speech is borrowed from the comparison between Moses and other Prophets Num. XII 6 7 8. Where God saith he will deale with other prophets by a vision or a dreame but with Moses face to face And yet S. Paule 1. Cor. XIII 12. comparing the knowledge of God by faith with the knowledge of God by sight Wee see now by a glasse in a riddle but then face to face Now wee know in part then shall I know as I am knowne Which S. â—ohn calls as he is for sure
be counted Sacraments for the same reason and in the same nature and kind for which any thing else is or can be counted a Sacrament No not though they may all in their proper sense be truly called Sacraments of the Church because the dispensing of them all is trusted with the Church For Baptisme by the premises enters a man into the Covenant of Grace as the visible solemnity whereby it is contracted with the Church in behalfe of God which unlesse in case of peremptory necessity cannot be invisibly contracted So it intitleth to all the promises which the Gospel pretendeth And so also doth the Eucharist being the visible ceremony which God hath appointed for the renewing of it and of our profession to stand in it and to expect the promises which the Gospel pretendeth upon supposition of the condition which it requireth not otherwise And truly the flesh and bloud of Christ mystically received by our bodies necessarily importeth his spirit received by our soules supposing them qualified as the Gospel requireth and in and by the Spirit whatsoever is requisite to inable a Christian to performe his race here or to assure him of his reward in the world to come And yet the necessity thereof not so undispensable but that supposing a man cannot obtaine the communion thereof from the Church but by violating that Christianity which it sealeth neither can a man obtaine it by the Sacrament nor without the Sacrament need he faile of it that is standing to his Christianity as well in all other things as in not transgressing his Christianity for communion in the Eucharist with the Church And this is the case of those which are unjustly excommunicate Seeing in matters indifferent he that yeilds not to the Church that is to them who have the just power to conclude the Church when they judge it for the common good for him to do that which otherwise he is not obliged to do must needs seem justly excommunicable So these two Sacraments have the promise of grace absolutely so called that is of all the grace which the Gospel promiseth which it is to be acknowledged and maintained that no other of those actions that are or may be called Sacraments of the Church doth or can doe upon the like terms as they doe For of a truth it is granted that both these Sacraments are actions and consist in the action whereby they are either prepared or used though with so much difference between the two For Baptisme is of necessity an action that passes with the doing of it Whereas in the Eucharist there is one thing done in the preparing another in the using of it insomuch that the effect of consecrating it which I suppose here to be signified in the Scriptures as well as the most ancient of the Fathers by the name of Eucharistia or Thanksgiving remaines upon the thing consecrated so that the bread and the wine over which God was praised and thanked are metonymically called the Eucharist And yet in regard the consecration in reason tends to the use of receiving it and that the Church is not trusted or inabled to do it with effect but to that intent the totall of both is necessarily understood by the name of that Sacrament For supposing the ancient Church might have cause to allow the use of receiving this Sacrament to them who were not present in body though in spirit at the celebrating of it which I for my part in point of charity find my self bound to suppose even when I am not able to alledge any reason why my self would have done the same in the same case So long as by reasonable construction which the practice of the Church alloweth or groundeth the consecration tendeth to the use of receiving it is reasonably called the Sacrament or the Eucharist in order to that use If it be consecrated to any other intent either expressed or inforced by construction of reason upon the practise of the Church such practice bordering upon sacriledge in the abuse of the Sacrament the Church hath nothing to do to answer for it Nor is it my meaning that the Sacrament of Baptisme or the Eucharist doth or can consist in the outward action of washing of the body or of praying over the elements and reciting the Institution of our Lord. It is true the very bodily action were able in a great part to interpret the intent of doing it to those who are already Christians and know what Christianity requireth But seeing that can never be enough much lesse allwayes It is necessary that the intent be declared by certain words signifiying it But these words with the bodily action which they interpret will by this discourse concurre to make but one part of the Sacrament which containing the solemnizing of the Covenant of Grace will necessarily containe that which all this signifieth of invisible and spirituall grace conveighed to those who are qualified for it by that which is said and done in virtue of Gods promise He that will speak properly of these two Sacraments must make the matter of them to consist in one of these two parts The form of them being not the signification which is the same in all ceremonies but the promise which tieth to them the whole effect of the Covenant of Grace to which purpose it were well if the world would understand them to be seals of it This createth a vast difference between these two and any of the rest which are called Sacraments Which whether the Councile of Trent sufficiently expresse by providing an Anathema for those who shall say that the seven Sacraments are so equall one to the other that none is more worthy then another Sess VII Can. III. or not let them look to it I dispute not Thus much we see a difference is hereby acknowledged But the difference is vast in this regard that whereas both these Sacraments take effect in consideration of every particular mans Christianity and the promises annexed to that end the rest all of them take effect in consideration of the Communion of the Church and that which it is able to contribute towards the effect of Grace Which necessarily consists in that which the Church is able to contribute toward the effecting of that disposition which qualifieth for it So whereas these two immediately bring forth Gods grace as instruments of his promise by his appointment the rest must obtaine it by the meanes of Gods Church and the blessing annexed to communion with it He that believeth not Gods Church in the nature of a Society grounded upon profession of the true faith and consisting in that communion which separateth it not from the whole may promise himself the benefit of his Baptisme and of the Eucharist whomsoever he communicateth with professing himself a Christiane He who believeth every Church to be a part of the whole Church as he must acknowledge it requisite to the effect of Baptisme and the Eucharist that they be ministred neither
already how farre they containe an exception to this In the case of Timothy ordained to that work which Saint Paul by his Epistles instructeth him how to discharge what shall we conceive to be the effect of imposition of the hands of the Presbytery supposing him thereupon indowed with a grace of doing miracles or speaking strange languages but without any gift of saving grace to direct the use of the same to the salvation of his people What else but that which a sword is in a mad mans hand or knowledge eloquence or understanding in him that should set himself to raise himself a sect of followers into heresie or schisme Which should God allow Timothy upon Imposition of the hands of the Presbytery allowing it that Christian people might have confidence in so great a Pastor in whom they saw such manifestation of Gods Spirit might he not reasonably be said to allow him means to seduce Christian people I will not therefore contend but the Grace that was given Timothy by Prophesy signifieth some visible manifestation of Gods Spirit in him concerning whom there had Prophesies gone afore in the Church of how great eminence he should be in it But so as to suppose that saving grace wherein it manifested God to be in Timothy which saving grace though not wanting in him when he came to receive imposition of hands because he who receiveâ— it being no true Christan shall never receive that effect by it yet might by the effect thereof be extended applied or determined to the right use of whatsoever miraculous grace he might thereby receive in the service of Gods Church For to him that hath by nature or by Gods blessing upon his honest indeavours an ability to preach to dispute to resolve in Christianity and hath not by Gods saving grace the intent to use it well what doth such a gift bring but ability to do mischief Therefore the gift given Timothy by imposition of hands being that which was prayed for in behalf of him by those who laid hands on him is the grace to behave himself well in the function which thereby he receiveth Which being obtained by the prayers of the Church what reason leaveth it why the prayers of the Church should not still obtaine the like setting aside the difference between them that pray or him for whom they pray And certainly the effect of all prayers depends upon the same conditions be it never so much the ordinance of God which they desire him to blesse Here is then I meane in Ordination an ordinance of God solemnized with the visible câ—remony of imposition of hands signifying the overshadowing of Gods protection or of his Spirit which it pretendeth to procure upon the promise of Gods presence with his Church when it prays to him Which if it be therefore reckoned among the Sacraments of the Church as the property of the term will certainly bear it so can it be no disparagement to the Sacraments of Baptisme and the Eucharist as if it came in ranck with them For the grace which it procureth as it is limited to a particular effect of ministring to the Church the ordinances of God according to that trust which he reposeth in the office So is the grace which God appointeth to be convayed to his people by the ministry of every office no lesse to be obtained by that outward profession under which the order of the Church obliges them to minister the same whatsoever a mans inward intention that is not visible may be then if he really did intend to do his best for the service of God and the salvation of his people I speak now so farre as the order of the Church goes For otherwise it cannot be doubted that a mans personall abilities may give a great deal of life to the publick order of the Church and adde much in prosecution of the true intent and in order to the due effect of it All which the Grace to indeavour the faithfull discharge of each office and the blessing of God upon such indeavours which the blessing of the Church with imposition of hands prayes for containeth and effecteth But of all powers of the Church and the offices which they produce there is none that cometh so nigh the promises of the Gospel as that which consists in binding the sinnes of those that visibly transgresse their Christianity upon them and in loosing them upon visible Penance For this restoreth to a capacity for the gifts of the Holy Ghost forfeited by transgressing the Covenant of our Baptisme and by admitting to communion in the Eucharist immediately reneweth the same And truly the whole worke of it is nothing else but the satisfying of the Church that the man hath appeased the wrath and regained the favour of God that is satisfied God in the language of the ancient Church in consideration of the satisfaction of our Lord Christ accepting his Penance for satisfaction which of it selfe it is not And in regard of this great vertue and effect of penance I marvail not that in the reformation Melancthon is found to have reckoned it a third Sacrament after Baptisme the Eucharist For the name of Sacrament seemeth most duely to belong to the acts of those Offices which conduce most to the attaining or to the maintaining of the state of Gods Grace And truly it cannot be denyed that the solemnity of Penance in the ancient Church was such as might wel serve to signifie the recovering of that Grace the ground which Christians have for the helpe whereof it so effectually intimateth So though a mans own repentance in private hath the same promise of Grace yet the solemnity of Performing penance in the Church seemeth requisite to the nature and quality of the Sacrament in whatsoever sense it shall be attributed to it And this solemnity all reason will allow must needs have been of great effect to procure and settle in the penitent that disposition for pardon which it seemeth to professe This solemnity being so much abated in private penance that nothing of it remaines saving the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 notwithstanding so long as it remaines an office of the Church which limiteth the forme and the rules according to which it is done with due hope of effect there is no reason why the nature of a Sacrament should be therefore questionable When it is given out and simple Christians are so governed as if they were obliged to believe that attrintion is changed into contrition by vertue of the Keyes of the Church passing upon it that is that he who is not qualified for pardon when he confesses is by receiving the sentence of absolution qualified for pardon so that neither staine nor guilt of sin remaines but the debt of temporall punishment whereas the time of Canonical penance grounded a presumption that the change was wrought then may there seeme to be cause of questioning whether penance be a Sacrament that is an holy office of the Church in