credendum etium esse Sed Filium Personam esse Trinitatis Spiritum vero Sunctum Personam esse simpliciter nec verbis nec sensu ibi exprimitur He that will obviate many Heretical abominations now abroad in the world by any words in the Creed not drawing consequences from them shall but loose his labor Laud In the first three hundred years there was no sign of persecuting any man for his opinion though at that time there were very horrid opinions commenced and such which were exemplary and parallel enough to determine this question for they were then assaulted by new Sects which destroyed the common principles of Nature of Christianity of Innocence and publick Society and they who used all the means Christian and Spiritual for their disimprovement and conviction thought not of using corporal force otherwise then by blaming such proceedings and therefore I do not only urge their not doing it as an argument of the unlawfulness of such proceeding but their defying it and speaking against such practises as unreasonable and destructive of Christianity for so Tertullian is express ad Scap. Humani juris naturalis potestatis unicuique quod putaverit colere sed nec Religionis est cogere Religionem quae suscipi debet sponte non vi Epis. Dedic. p 19. Pacif. 'T is strange that it should be destructive of Christianity to use corporal force against the broachers of Tenents which destroy the common principles of Nature of Christianity of Innocence and publick Society all understanding men will grant with Lactantius Instit. lib. 5. c. 14. That Religion cannot be compelled nor can justice mercy or love to our neighbours be complelled all such good dispositions or habits must be perswaded by the Word and wrought by the Spirit Christians ought not to compel Jews to be of their Religion but the Sword is a means to punish acts of false worship in those that are under the Christian Magistrate and profess Christian Religion in so far as these acts come out to the eyes of men and are destructive to the souls of those in a Christian Society But if you will not allow the Magistrate to punish the blaspheming seducing Heretick with death yet you will allow him to discourage any false Teacher Laud If men must be permitted in their opinions and that Christians must not persecute Christians I have also as much reason to reprove all those oblique Arts which are not direct persecutions of mens persons but they are indirect proceedings ungentle and unchristian servants of faction and interest provocations to zeal and animosity and destructive of learning and ingenuity and these are suppressing all the monuments of their adversaries forcing them to recant and burning their Books all such Arts shew that we either distrust God for the maintenance of his Truth or that we distrust the cause or distrust our selves and our abilities Epist. Ded. p. 34 36. Pacif. The Arts you so condemn have been used in England both by the Secular and Ecclesiastical Authority and therefore you who call your self an obedient son to both do forget your self to censure such proceedings so severely especially seeing such courses have been followed by none more then by the Brethren of your own perswasion and interest But what makes you so very favourable to men who differ from us in matters not fundamental as you call them is it because the Scripture doth not plainly speak against them Laud God who disposeth of all things sweetly and according to the nature and capacity of things and persons hath made those only necessary which he hath taken care should be sufficiently propounded to all persons of whom he required explicite belief and therefore all the Articles of Faith are clearly and plainly set down in Scripture no man can be ignorant of the foundation without his o vn apparent fault and God hath done more for many things which are only profitable are also set down so plainly that as Austin Nemo inde haurire non possit si modo ad hauriendum devote acpie accedat but of such things there 's no question commenced in Christendom Liber of Prop. p. 59. Pacif. Sir you astonish me Are there no questions commenced in Christendom about things necessary to be believed nor yet of things that are hugely profitable If not it would be the best counsel could be given to Christian Magistrates to burn all Controversie Books but sure That our natures are corrupted with sin that Christ made satisfaction to Divine Justice that our good works are not meritorious that the Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father that Sacraments and Ministry are to continue in the Church are matters necessary or at least very profitable to be believed But whence ariseth the difficulty and uncertainty of Arguments drawn from Scripture in questions that you call not simply necessary not literally determined Laud There are so many thousands of copies that were writ by persons of several interests and perswasions such different understandings and tempers such distinct abilities and weaknesses that it is no wonder there is so great variety of readings both in the Old Testament and in the New This variety of reading is not of small consideration for though it be demonstrably true that all things necessary to faith and good manners are preserved from alteration and corruption because they are of things necessary yet in other things which God hath not obliged himself punctually to preserve in these things since variety of readingsis crept in every reading takes away a degree of certainty from any proposition derivative from those places so read And if some copies especially if they be publick and notable omit a verse or title every argument from such a title or verse loseth much of its strength and reputation Liber of Proph. p. 61 63 64. Pacif. I am glad to find it acknowledged that all things nenecessary to faith and good manners are preserved from alteration and corruption but you are not ignorant and your own examples prove it that there is variety of readings in things necessary to faith and good manners as well as in matters that are not of such necessity but in such variety of readings we are not left without that which may direct us what reading to prefe Thus Austin hath answered Faust who was wont when he had nothing else left that he could reply to say Libros N. Test. salsatos fuisse Thus Simeon de Muis in his Assertio Hebraicae veriti p. 31. Nemo tibi negat in quaedam exemplaria potuisse ac posse quotidia mendas irrepere c. Dr. Edw. Kellet no Puritan in his Miscellanies of Divinity denieth not but that some Copies are corrupted but saith that if in any one Point or Article we should affirm a corruption to be got into all Copies it will be impossible to prove any part or word of the New Testament to be incorrupt Lib. 2. c. 8. Laud There are very many senses and designs of expounding
their nature and no more a punishment then to be a child is Unum Necess p. 371 372. Pacif. This is such Divinity as I should never have expected to hear from any but a Socinian for though in a sense Adam might be said before his fall to be mortal in regard he was compounded of matter the princeiple and root of corruption yet that power of corruption was so remote and God gave him such an excellent temper of body that the remote power could never be brought into a proxime and immediate disposition much less into actual death that death could enter any other way then by sin or that ever any one dyed without some respect to sin is so strange that none who reads the Scripture without prejudice can bear it or count it worth confuting Laud We cannot guess at what degree of knowledge Adam had before the fall certainly if he had had so great a knowledge it is not likely he would so cheaply have sold himself and all his hopes out of a greedy appetite to get some knowledge Unum Necess p. 372. Pacif. That man though now become like to the beasts that perish was at first made for knowledge little inferior to the Angels is easily proved his being tempted through a desire to get more knowledge doth not argue him to have been created with little knowledge but with much for who more desirous to gain knowledge than they who have a great deal already Laud If man had not before the fall had a rebellious appetite and an inclination to forbidden things by what could he have been tempted and how could it have come to pass that he should sin Unum Necessar 373. An evil there is upon us and that is concupiscence this also is natural but it was actual before the fall it was in Adam and tempted him p. 374. Pacif. To say there was a rebellious appetite in man before the fall or an inclination to forbidden things is too bold a reflection on the most holy and wise Creator of man nor can there a Protestant be instanced in that hath so spoken except we call the Remonstrants Protestants who make the rebellion of the sensitive appetite to the rational to arise from the very constitution of man insomuch that one of them is not afraid to say that it was in Christ himself because a man Nothing is more easie to conceive then that these inclinations though divers yet are not contrary unless it be where sin hath made an ataxy The Angels did fall though there was in them no sensitive appetite at all and therefore sure it is not impossible that the creature should fall though there be no rebellion in the inferior appetite to the superior But it may be you and I agree not about the nature and effects of Original sin Laud The evil of death descending upon Adams posterity for his sake went no further then till Moses Unum Necess p. 367 Pacif Would you have me think that what you say is agreeable to those words in the second Sermon of the Passion p. 184. Is not sin think you a grievous thing in Gods sight seeing for the trausgression of his precept in eating of one Apple he condemned all the world to perpetual death and would not be pacified but only with the blood of his own Son Land Original sin is not an inherent evil not a sin properly but metonymically i. e. it is the effect of one sin and the cause of many a stain but no sin 2. It doth not destroy our liberty which we had naturally 3. It doth not introduce a natural necessity of sinning 4. It does not damn any Infant to the eternal pains of Hell Fur. p. 475. In Scripture there is no signification of any corruption or depravation of our souls by Adams sin Vn. Necess p. 392. Pacif. Either I understand not Grammar or this is expresly contradictory to the 9th Article Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam as the Pelagians do vainly talk but it is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is engendered of the off-spring of Adam whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness and is inclined to evil so that the flesh lusteth against the spirit and therefore in every person born into the world it deserveth Gods wrath and damnation and this infection of nature doth remain yea in them that are regenerated whereby the lust of the flesh called {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} which some do expound the wisdom some the sensuality some the affections some the desire of the flesh is not subject to the Law of God And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized yet the Apostle doth confess that concupiscence and lust hath of it self the nature of sin And I pray you Sir do you not think seeing you say that Original sin is not properly a sin that a man is under no obligation to repent of it Laud Our share of Adams sin either being in us no sin at all or else not to be avoided or amended it cannot be the matter of repentance As Adam was not bound to repent of the sins of all his posterity so neither are we tyed to repent of his sins Neither did I ever see in any ancient Office or Form of Prayer publick or private any Prayer of Humiliation prescribed for Original sin they might deprecate the evil consequent but never confess themselves guilty of the formal sin Unum Necess p. 425 426. No man ever imposed pennance for it So God himself in Nature never did for it afflict or affright the Conscience and yet the Conscience never spares any man that is guilty of a known sin and why the Conscience should be for ever at so much peace for this sin that a man shall never give one groan for his share of guilt in Adams sin unless some or other scare him with an impertinent proposition Why I say the Conscience should not naturally be afflicted for it nor so much as naturally know it I confess I cannot yet make any probable conjecture save this only That it is not Properly a sin but Metonymically and Improperly Deus Justis p. 128 129. Pacif. That no Form of Lyturgy takes notice of Original sin so as to confess it or be humbled for it you will never perswade him who hath the Administration of Baptism in our own Common-Prayer-Book and is it not great pride or uncharitableness or both to say that no mans Conscience did ever afflict him for Original sin never any groaned for it or under it Have all those eminent Protestant Divines that have so often in their Prayers before their Sermons bewailed the corruption that we brought into the world with us been scared with impertinent propositions or did they play the Hypocrites so as to groan where they felt no burden But if you really think that all the Disputations and Questions about Natural Sin and Corruption
accommodato adorationi erectam aut constitutam modus autem aecomodatus adorationi est cum imago depicta aut sculpta est per se non veluti appendix additamentum alterius rei in ornatum illius rei Beware lest thou make to thy self i. e. to any religious use any grauen image Homily Perill of Idol p. 42. Laud The examples of the Seraphims and Brazen Serpent tell us that to make pictures or statues of creatures is not against a natural reason and that they may have uses which are profitable as well as be abused to danger and superstition Now although the nature of that people was apt to the abuse yet Christianity hath so far removed that danger that our blessed Law-giver thought it not necessary to remove us from superstition by a prohibition of the use of images and pictures and for the matter of images we have no other rule left us in the New Testament the rules of reason and nature and the other parts of the Institution are abundantly sufficient for our security And possibly St. Paul might relate to this when he affirmed concerning the fifth that it was the first Commandment with a promise for the second Commandment had a promise of shewing mercy to thousand generations but because the body of this Commandment was not transcribed into the Christian Law the first of the Decalogue which we retain and in which a promise is inserted is the fift Commandment G. E. part 2. p. 111 112. Pacif. Do you then think that the second Commandment is not retained by us Christians I never thought but that it was if not natural yet moral of universal and perpetual obligation of this judgement were the Ancients Irene lib. 4. cap. 31. August lib. 19. contra Faus cap. 18 Epis 119. cap. 12 Not to speak of Clem Alex. who in his Adhortatory Oration to the Gentiles plainly saith that the Commandment obligeth us as well as the Jews though he seem to be mistaken in giving the sense of it this way also go all Protestants though indeed the Papists do make this law but temporary In a word God allowed the Jews a civil use of Images and other he alloweth not to us under the Gospel who are not so much out of danger of Idolatry and superstition as you seem to imply Laud Images have three uses assigned by the Popish Schools instruction of the rude commonefaction of History and stirring up of devotion they and we also give unto them Gagg p. 300. The pictures of Christ the blessed Virgins and Saints may be made had in houses set up in Churches respect and honour may be given to them the Protestants do it and use them for helps of Piety in rememoration and more effectual representing of the Prototipe Ans. to Gagg p. 818. Pacif. The Church of England teacheth her children quite another lesson Hom. against the peril of Idol Part 3. p. 42. It is unlawful that the Image of Christ should be made or that the Image of any Saint should be made especially to be set up in Temples to the great and unavoidable danger of Idolatry we grant Images used for no Religion or Superstition rather we mean Images of none worshipped or in danger to be worshipped may be suffered but Images placed publickly in Temples cannot possibly be without danger of Idolatry many such passages may be picked out of that Homily which are the more considerable because of all our Homilies it seemeth to be penned with most exactness Laud It is the Consecration that makes Churches holy and makes God esteem them so which though they be not capable of grace yet by their consecration they receive a spiritual power whereby they are made fit for Divine Service and being consecrated there is no danger in ascribing holiness unto them Tedder his Visit Sermon licensed by Dr. Baker an. 1637. Pacif. That Churches do by Consecration receive any spiritual power whereby they are made more fit for Divine Service than other places or that the same company meeting in a private house and praying by the same Spirit should not be as acceptable to God as in the Church is Superstition to affirm nor did the Church of England ever teach any such Doctrine yet I easily grant that in peaceable times and under Christian Princes the people of God ought to have their {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and that it is a broach of civil decency to employ these places set a part for Gods Worship to any common uses ordinarily Laud We use signing with the sign of the Cross both in the fore-head and elsewhere witness that solemn Form in our Baptism for which we are so quarrelled by our factions the flesh is signed that the soul may be fortified saith Tertullian and so do we Ans. to Gagg p. 320. Pacif. If any one besides the Minister useth signing with the Cross or if he use it at any time but in Baptism or on any place but on the forehead 't is done without any warrant at all from the Church of England and our Church retained the sign of the Cross in Baptism only as an outward Ceremony and honorable Badge but it doth not ascribe any efficacy unto it of fortifying the soul and declares the child to be perfectly baptized before it be signed with the sign of the Cross as plainly appears from the Book of Canons agreed upon 1603. Chapter Of the lawful use of the Cross Laud Baptism of Infants is most certainly a holy and charitable Ordinance and of ordinary necessity to all that ever dyed and yet the Church hath founded this Rite on the Tradition of the Apostles and wise men do easily observe that the Anabaptists can by the same probability of Scripture enforce a necessity of communicating Infants upon us as we do of Baptizing Infants upon them if we speak of an immediate Divine Institution or of practice Apostolical recorded in Scripture and therefore a great Master of Geneva in a Book he writ against Anabaptists was faign to fly to Apostolical Traditive Ordination and therefore the Institution of Bishops must be served first as having fairer plea and clearer evidence in Scripture then the baptizing of Infants and yet they that deny this are by the just Anathema of the Church Catholick condemned for Hereticks Dr. Tayl. Episc. Asser. p. 100 101. Pacif. 'T is gratis dictum that the Institution of Bishops hath fairer plea and clearer evidence in Scripture then the baptizing of Infants nor can you prove that they who deny the Baptism of Infants are under the just Anathema of the Church Catholick much less that they who deny the Institution of Bishops superior in order to Presbyters are under the just Anathema of the Church Catholick Hath a whole Book been written to prove that none are to be anathematized who consent to the Articles of the Apostles Creed and must it now be worthy an Anathema to deny Infant Baptism who but a Papist ever said