have surâ—eited and are sick of sin by repentance we disgorge cast it up again bibit vomit sin and repent repent and sin again Thus goes our life away Polybius tells us though man be generally accounted the wisest of all creatures yet some have thought him the foolishest of all other For the Fox will never return to the snare which he hath once escaped nor the Wolf to the pit nor the Dog to the staff that hath beaten him onely Man will never be taught to beware sed peccat fere semper in iisdem though he smart never so oft yet will he return to the same offence and fault again He that should well observe the follies of men might more pardonably take them to be utterly more devoid of memory then Aristotle holds it of Bees so easily do we forget the danger of sin and being now driven of return to it again Now a great part of this our folly we owe to the doctrine of Repentance as it is commonly taught and understood For as trusting to the help of the Physicians hath overthrown the health of many while they think they may use excess take their pleasures the more securely because they see the remedy So it is to be feared that relying upon the promises made to the repentant man hath been the ruine and the overthrow of many a soul For repentance is physick and therefore to be used sparingly and with good manners lest too familiar use of it make it cease to be a duty and a cause of presumption and wantonness There is not any Doctrine in the delivery whereof we ought to walk more warily and wisely then in the Doctrine of Repentance so quickly may we make that an invitation to offend which was ordained as a Farewel turn the remedy of sin into an occasion of sinning The discipline of the ancient Church was never to admit any to publick pennance more then once and if after such kind of pennance he offended scandalously again like the Leper in the Law he was shut out of the camp never to return unto the congregation Nay in the Scriptures we shall never find an example of Repentance upon relapse and falling but into sins once repented of Do not think this fell out by chance but rather probably conclude from thence either our Fore-fathers durst not make trial of any such conclusion and to make no practise of it or if they did yet it pleased not the holy Ghost that any such example should stand upon record lest peradventure it might prove a president to posterity most men being quick scholars at such kind of lessons Will you know whether all this tends This is my meaning It is better for you to study health Custodiam then physick Repentance Labour rather in prevention not to commit it again then in repenting the same remedies afterward Think of our Saviour's counsel to one that he had cured Behold thou art made whole sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee And indeed repentance ever goes with this condition Sin no more c. He that repents and forsakes his sin shall find mercy saith the Wise-man Now therefore since Repentance at best is but a Remedy the benefit of it except we manage it wisely uncertain the danger if we use it too often may be great Let us not suffer the hope of frequent Repentance to abuse us for this is but the cold comfort of a miserable man But with our serious repentance let us take up this resolution as David did for it is folly to wound our selves that we may need the Salve again It is a good thing to seek what we have lost and this repentance doth but it is a thing of higher excellency not to be of the lacking hand but to enjoy still what we have And this the benefit of Cautelousness Dixi custodiam But leave we therefore this comparative discourse and so come in the second place to treat of this Virtue in it self Custodiam is but care wariness and he that hath this one Art needs no other The good providence and mercies of God appear in this that propounding a course of eternal life to men of all sorts he hath laid it down in such terms that nothing but negligence and uncautelousness can hazard it Might he not have done this in a more high and reserved manner with respect to some sorts and orders of men If he had done so the greatest part I will not say of mankind but of the professors of Christianity had perished finally perished If he had required great knowledge sharpness of wit what had become of slower spirits and shallower capacities But he saith Not many wise not many learned And there is some reason for it de facto as we may guess by other cases For men of low abilities are more jealous of their actions and the jealousie makes them the more cautelous And if they use the like caution with their craftiest enemy the Divil it must needs be custodiam safety 2. If God had required great strength extraordinary abilities and stoutness of men then the greatest part had perished because of weaker temper but he rather chuseth the weak things of the world to confound the strong Miscellanies Mr. HALES Confession of the TRINITY THe Sum of whatsoever either the Scriptures teach or the Scholes conclude concerning the Doctrine of the TRINITY is comprised in these few lines GOD is ONE Numerically ONE more ONE then any single Man is One if Vnity could suscipere magis minus Yet GOD is so ONE that he admits of Distinction and so admits of Distinction that he still retains Vnity As He is ONE so we call Him GOD the Deity the Divine Nature and other Names of the same signification As He is Distinguished so we call Him TRINITY Persons FATHER SON and HOLY GHOST In this TRINITY there is One Essence Two Emanations Three Persons or Relations Four Properties Five Notions A Notion is that by which any Person is Known or Signified The One Essence is GOD which with this Relation that it doth Generate or Beget makes the Person of the FATHER the same Essence with this Relation that it is Begotten maketh the Person of the SON the same Essence with this Relation that it Proceedeth maketh the Person of the HOLY GHOST The Two Emanations are to be Begotten and to Proceed or to be Breathed out The Three Persons are FATHER SON and HOLY SPIRIT The Three Relations are to Beget to be Begotten and to Proceed or to be Breathed out The Four Properties are the First Innascibility and Inemanability the Second is to Generate these belong to the FATHER the Third is to be Begotten and this belongs unto the SON the Fourth is to Proceed or to be Breathed out and this belongs unto the HOLY SPIRIT The Five Notions are First Innascibility the Second is to Beget the Third to be Begotten the Fourth Spiratio Passiva to be Breathed out the Fifth Spiratio Activa
is it with Greece where sometimes was the flow and luxury of wit now is there nothing but extream barbarism and stupidity It is in this respect so degenerated that it scarcely for some hundred of years hath brought forth a child that carries any shew of his fathers countenance God as it were purposely plaguing their miserable posterity with extreme want of that the abundance of which their fathers did so wantonly abuse The reason of all that hitherto I have in this point delivered is this Sharpness of wit hath commonly with it two ill companions Pride and Levity By the first it comes to pass that men know not how to yeild to another mans reasonable positions by the second they know not how to keep themselves constant to their own It was an excellent observation of the wise Grecian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Sad and dull spirited men usually manage matters of State better then quick and nimble wits For such for the most part have not learnt that Lesson the meaning of that voice that came to the Pythagorean that was desirous to remove the ashes of his dead friend out of his grave 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Things lawfully setled and composed must not be moved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Iulian Men over busie are by nature unfit to govern for they move all things and leave nothing without question and innovation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzen speaks Out of desire to amend what is already well And therefore we see that for the most part such if they be in place of Authority by unseasonable and unnecessary tampering put all things into tumult and combustion Not the Common-wealth alone but the Church likewise hath received the like blow from these kind of men Nazianzen in his six and twentieth Oration discoursing concerning the disorders committed in the handling of Controversies speaks it plainly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Great wits hot and fiery dispositions have raised these tumults From these it is saith he that Christians are so divided We are no longer a Tribe and a Tribe Israel and Iudah two parts of a small Nation but we are divided kindred against kindred family against family yea a man against himself But I must hasten to my second general part The persons here accounted guilty of abuse of Scripture The persons are noted unto us in two Ephitets Vnlearned Vnstable First Vnlearned It was St. Ierom's complaint that practitioners of other Arts could contain themselves within the bounds of their own Profession Sola Scripturarum ars est quam sibi omnes passim vendicant Hanc garrula anus hanc delirus senex hanc sophista verbosus hanc universi praesumunt lacerant docent antequam discant every one presumes much upon his skill and therefore to be a teacher of Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Nazianzen speaks as if this great mystery of Christianity were but some one of the common base inferiour and contemptible trades I speak not this as if I envied that all even the meanest of the Lords people should prophesie but onely that all kind of men may know their bounds that no unlearned beast touch the hill lest he be thrust through with a dart It is true which we have heard Surgunt indocti rapiunt Regnum coelorum they arise indeed but it is as St. Paul speaks of the resurrection every man in his own order Scripture is given to all to learn but to teach and to interpret onely to a few This bold intrusion therefore of the unlearned into the chair of the Teacher is that which here with our blessed Apostle I am to reprehend Learning in general is nothing else but the competent skill of any man in whatsoever he professes Usually we call by this name onely our polite and Academical Studies but indeed it is common to every one that is well skill'd well practised in his own mystery The unlearned therefore whom here our Apostle rebukes is not he that hath not read a multiplicity of Authors or that is not as Moses was skilful in all the learning of the Egyptians but he that taking upon him to divide the word of God is yet but raw and unexperienced or if he have had experience wants judgment to make use of it Scripture is never so unhappy as when it falls into these mens fingers That which old Cato said of the Grecian Physicians Quandocunque ista gens literas suos dabit omnia corrumpet is most true of these men whensoever they shall begin to tamper with Scripture and vent in writing their raw conceits they will corrupt and defile all they touch Quid enim molestiae tristitiaeque temerarii isti praesumptores c. as S. Austin complaineth for what trouble and anguish these rash presumers saith he bring unto the discreeter sort of the brethren cannot sufficiently be exprest when being convinced of their rotten and ungrounded opinions for the maintaining of that which with great levity and open falshood they have averred they pretend the authority of these sacred Books and repeat much of them even by heart as bearing witness to what they hold whereas indeed they do but pronounce the words but understand not either what they speak or of what things they do affirm Belike as he that bought Orpheus Harp thought it would of it self make admirable melody how unskilfully soever he touch'd it so these men suppose that Scripture will sound wonderful musically if they do but strike it with how great infelicity or incongruity soever it be The reason of these mens offence against Scripture is the same with the cause of their miscarriage in civil actions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Thucydides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rude men men of little experience are commonly most peremptory but men experienced and such as have waded in Business are slow of determination Quintilian making a question why unlearned men seem many times to be more copious then the learned for commonly such men never want matter of discourse answers That it is because whatsoever conceit comes into their heads without care or choice they broach it cum doctis sit electio modus whereas learned men are choice in their invention and lay by much of that which offers it self Wise hearted men in whom the Lord hath put wisdom and understanding to know how to work all manner of work for the service of the sanctuary like Bezaleel and Aholiab refuse much of the stuff which is presented them But this kind of men whom here our Apostle notes are naturally men of bold and daring spirits Quicquid dixerint hoc legem Dei putant as St. Ierome speaks whatsoever conceit is begotten in their heads the Spirit of God is presently the father of it Nec scire dignantur quid Prophet◠quid Apostoli senserint sed ad suum sensum incongrua aptant testimonia But to leave these men and to speak a little more home unto mine own
because it seems fitly to open my meaning I will not refrain to speak it Lucian when Priam's young son was taken up into heaven brings him in calling for milk and cheese and such countrey eates as he was wont to eat on earth Beloved when we first come to the Table of God to heavenly Manna and Angels food it is much with us as it was with Priam's young son when he came first into Heaven we cannot forget the milk and cheese and the gross diet of the world Our Saviour and his blessed Apostles had great and often experience of this errour in men When our Saviour preach'd to Nicodemus the doctrine of Regeneration and new birth how doth he still harp upon a gross conceit of a re-entry to be made into his mother's womb When he preach'd unto the Samaritan woman concerning the water of life how hardly is she driven from thinking of a material Elementary water such as was in Iacob's well When Simon Magus in the Acts saw that by laying on of hands the Apostles gave the Holy Ghost he offers them money to purchase himself the like power He had been trafficking and merhandizing in the world and saw what authority what a Kingdom money had amongst men he therefore presently conceited coelum venale Deumque that God and Heaven and All would be had for money To teach therefore the young Courtier in the Court of Heaven that he commit no such Solecisms that hereafter he speak the true language and dialect of God our Saviour sets down this as a principal rule in our Spiritual Grammar That his Court is not of this world Nay Beloved not onely the young Courtier but many of the old servants in the Court of Christ are stain'd with this errour It is storied of Leonides which was Schole-master to Alexander the great that he infected his non-age with some vices quae robustum quoque jam maximum Regem ab illa institutione puerili sunt prosecuta which followed him then when he was at man's estate Beloved the world hath been a long time a Schole-master unto us and hath stain'd our non-age with some of these spots which appear in us even then when we are strong men in Christ. When our Saviour in the Acts after his Resurrection was discoursing to his Disciples concerning the Kingdom of God they presently brake forth into this question Wilt thou now restore the Kingdom unto Israel Certainly this question betrays their ignorance their thoughts still ran upon a Kingdom like unto the Kingdoms of the world notwithstanding they had so long and so often heard our Saviour to the contrary Our Saviour therefore shortly takes them up Non est vestrum your question is nothing to the purpose the Kingdom that I have spoken of is another manner of Kingdom then you conceive Sixteen hundred years Et quod excurrit hath the Gospel been preached unto the world and is this stain spunged out yet I doubt it Whence arise those novel and late disputes de notis Ecclesia of the notes and visibility of the Church Is it not from hence they of Rome take the world and the Church to be like Mercury and Sofia in Plautus his Comedies so like one another that one of them must wear a toy in his cap that so the spectators may distinguish them whence comes it that they stand so much upon State and Ceremony in the Church Is it not from hence that they think the Church must come in like Agrippa and Bernice in the Acts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Luke speaks with a great deal of pomp and train and shew and vanity and that the service of God doth necessarily require this noise and tumult of outward State and Ceremony Whence comes it that we are at our wits ends when we see persecution and sword and fire to rage against the true professours of the Gospel Is it not because as these bring ruine and desolation upon the Kingdoms of the world so we suppose they work no other effect in the Kingdom of Christ All these conceits and many more of the like nature spring out of no other fountain then that old inveterate errour which is so hardly wiped out of our hearts That the State of the Church and Kingdom of Christ doth hold some proportion some likeness with the state and managing of temporal Kingdoms Wherefore to pluck out of our hearts Opinionem tam insitam tam vetustam a conceit so ancient so deeply rooted in us our Saviour spake most excellently most pertinently and most fully when he tells us that his Church that his Kingdom is not of this world In which words of his there is contained the true art of discovering and knowing the true nature and essence of the Church For as they which make Statues cut and pare away all superfluities of the matter upon which they work so our Saviour to shew us the true proportion and feature of the Church prunes away the world and all superfluous excrescencies and sends her to be seen as he did our first Parents in Paradise stark naked As those Elders in the Apocryphal story of Susanna when they would see her beauty commanded to take off her mask so he that longs to see the beauty of the Church must pull off that mask of the world and outward shew For as Iuda in the Book of Genesis when Thamar sate veil'd by the way-side knew not his daughter from an whore so whilst the Church the Daughter and Spouse of Christ sits veil'd with the world and pomp and shew it will be an hard matter to discern her from an harlot But yet further to make the difference betwixt these Kingdoms the more plainly to appear and the better to fix it in your memories I will breifly touch some of these heads in which they are most notoriously differenced The first head wherein the difference is seen are the persons and subjects of this Kingdom For as the Kingdom of Christ is not of this world so the subjects of this Kingdom are men of another world and not of this Every one of us bears a double person and accordingly is the subject of a double Kingdom The holy Ghost by the Psalmist divides heaven and earth betwixt God and man and tells us as for God He is in heaven but the earth hath he given to the children of men So hath the same Spirit by the Apostle St. Paul divided every one of our persons into heaven and earth into an outward and earthly man and into an inward and heavenly man This earth that is this body of clay hath he given to the sons of men to the Princes under whose government we live but heaven that is the inward and spiritual man hath he reserved unto himself They can restrain the outward man and moderate our outward actions by Edicts and Laws they can tie our hands and our tongues Illa se jactet in aula AEolus Thus far they can go and when they are
or to Breathe and this Notion belongs to the FATHER and the SON alike for Pater Filius spirant Spiritum Sanctum Hence it evidently follows that he who acknowledgeth thus much can never possibly scruple the Eternal Deity of the Son of God If any man think this Confession to be Defecti for I can conceive no more in this point necessary to be known let him supply what he conceives be deficient and I shall thank him for his favour How we come to know the Scriptures to be the Word of God HOw come I to know that the Works which we call Livie's are indeed his whose name they bear Hath God left means to know the prophane Writings of men hath he left no certain means to know his own Records The first and outward means that brings us to the knowledge of these Books is the voice of the Church notified to us by our Teachers and Instructors who first unclasp'd and open'd them unto us and that common duty which is exacted at the hand of every learner Oportet discentem credere And this remaining in us peradventure is all the outward means that the ordinary and plainer sort of Christians know To those who are conversant among the Records of Antiquity farther light appears To find the ancient Copies of Books bearing these Titles to find in all Ages since their being written the universal consent of all the Church still resolving it self upon these writings as sacred and uncontrolable these cannot chuse but be strong Motioners unto us to pass our consent unto them and to conclude that either these Writings are that which they are taken for or nothing left us from Antiquity is true For whatsoever is that gives any strength or credit to any thing of Antiquity left to posterity whether it be Writings and Records or Tradition from hand to hand or what things else soever they all concur to the authorising of holy Scriptures as amply as they do to any other thing left unto the world Yea but will some man reply this proves indeed strongly that Moses and the Prophets that St. Matthew and St. Paul c. writ those Books and about those times which they bear shew of but this comes not home for how proves this that they are of God If I heard St. Paul himself preaching what makes me beleive him that his Doctrine is from God and his words the words of the holy Ghost For answer There was no outward means to perswade the world at the first rising of Christianity that it is infallibly from God but onely Miracles such as impossibly were naturally to be done Had I not done those things saith our Saviour which no man else could do you had had no sin Had not the world seen those Miracles which did unavoidably prove the assistance and presence of a Divine power with those who first taught the will of Christ it had not had sin if it had rejected them For though the world by the light of natural discretion might easily have discover'd that that was not the right way wherein it usually walk'd yet that that was the true path which the Apostles themselves began to tread there was no means undoubtedly to prove but Miracles and if the building were at this day to be raised it could not be founded without Miracles To our fore-fathers therefore whose ears first entertain'd the word of life Miracles were necessary and so they are to us but after another order For as the sight of these Miracles did confirm the doctrine unto them so unto us the infallible records of them For whatsoever evidence there is that the Word once began to be preach'd the very same confirms unto us that it was accompanied with Miracles and Wonders so that as those Miracles by being seen did prove unanswerably unto our fore-fathers the truth of the doctrine for the confirmation of which they were intended so do they unto us never a whit less effectually approve it by being left unto us upon these Records which if they fail us then by Antiquity there can be nothing left unto posterity which can have certain and undoubted oredit The certain and uncontrolable Records of Miracles are the same to us the Miracles are The Church of Rome when she commends unto us the Authority of the Church in dijudicating of Scriptures seems onely to speak of her self and that of that part of her self which is at some time existent whereas we when we appeal to the Church's testimony content not our selves with any part of the Church actually existent but add unto it the perpetually successive testimony of the Church in all Ages since the Apostles time viz. since its first beginning and out of both these draw an argument in this question of that force as that from it not the subtilest disputer can find an escape for who is it that can think to gain acceptance and credit with reasonable men by opposing not onely the present Church conversing in earth but to the uniform consent of the Church in all Ages So that in effect to us of after-ages the greatest if not the sole outward mean of our consent to holy Scripture is the voice of the Church excepting always the Copies of the Books themselves bearing from their birth such or such names of the Church I say and that not onely of that part of it which is actually existent at any time but successively of the Church ever since the time of our blessed Saviour for all these testimonies which from time to time are left in the Writings of our fore-fathers as almost every Age ever since the first birth of the Gospel hath by God's providence left us store are the continued voice of the Church witnessing unto us the truth of these Books and their Authority well but this is onely fides humano judicio testimonio acâ—quaesita what shall we think of fides infusa of the inward working of the holy Ghost in the consciences of every beleiver How far it is a perswader unto us of the Authority of these Books I have not much to say Onely thus much in general that doubtless the holy Ghost doth so work in the heart of every true Beleiver that it leaves a farther assurance strong and sufficient to ground and stay it self upon But this because it is private to every one and no way subject to sense is unfit to yeild argument by way of dispute to stop the captious curiosities of wits disposed to wrangle and by so much the more unfit it is by how much by experience we have learn'd that men are very apt to call their own private conceit the Spirit To oppose unto these men to reform them our own private conceits under the name likewise of the Spirit were madness so that to judge upon presumption of the Spirit in private can be no way to bring either this or any other controversie to an end If it should please God at this day to adde any