our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered c. From whence the Conclusion that is inferred is in the words of S. Paul that we must pray with the Spirit therefore not with set forms therefore ex tempore Sect. 13. THE Collection is somewhat wild for there is great independency in the several parts and much more is in the Conclusion than was virtually in the premises But such as it is the Authors of it I suppose will own it And therefore we will examine the main design of it and then consider the particular means of its perswasion quoted in the Objection Sect. 14. IT is one of the Priviledges of the Gospel and the benefit of Christs ascension that the Holy Ghost is given unto the Church and is become to us the fountain of gifts and graces But these gifts and graces are improvements and helps of our natural faculties of our art and industry not extraordinary miraculous and immediate infusions of habits and gifts That without Gods spirit we cannot pray aright that our infirmities need his help that we know not what to ask of our selves is most true and if ever any Heretick was more confident of his own naturals or did evermore undervalue Gods grace than the Pelagian did yet he denies not this but what then therefore without study without art without premeditation without learning the Spirit gives the gift of prayer and is it his grace that without any natural or artificial help makes us pray ex tempore no such thing the Objection proves nothing of this Sect. 15. HERE therefore we will joyn issue whether the gifts and helps of the Spirit be immediate infusions of the faculties and powers and perfect abilities Or that he doth assist us only by his aids external and internal in the use of such means which God and nature hath given to man to ennoble his soul better his faculties and to improve his understanding ** That the aids of the Holy Ghost are only assistances to us in the use of natural and artificial means I will undertake to prove and from thence it will evidently follow that labour and hard study and premeditation will soonest purchase the gift of prayer and ascertain us of the assistance of the Spirit and therefore set Forms of Prayer studied and considered of are in a true and proper sence and without Enthusiasm the fruits of the Spirit Sect. 16. FIRST Gods Spirit did assist the Apostles by ways extraordinary and fit for the first institution of Christianity but doth assist us now by the expresses of those first assistances which he gave to them immediately Sect. 17. THUS the Holy Ghost brought to their Memory all things which Jesus spake and did and by that means we come to know all that the Spirit knew to be necessary for us the Holy Ghost being Author of our knowledge by being the fountain of the Revelation and we are therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taught by God because the Spirit of God revealed the Articles of our Religion that they might be known to all ages of the Church and this is testified by S. Paul He gave some Apostles and some Prophets c. for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man c. This was the effect of Christ's ascension when he gave gifts unto men that is when he sent the Spirit the verification of the promise of the Father The effect of this immission of the Holy Ghost was to fill all things and that for ever to build up the Church of God until the day of consummation so that the Holy Ghost abides with the Church for ever by transmitting those revelations which he taught the Apostles to all Christians in succession Now as the Holy Ghost taught the Apostles and by them still teaches us what to believe so it is certain he taught the Apostles how and what to pray and because it is certain that all the rules concerning our duty in prayer and all those graces which we are to pray for are transmitted to us by Derivation from the Apostles whom the Holy Ghost did teach even to that very purpose also that they should teach us it follows evidently that the gift of prayer is a gift of the Holy Ghost and yet to verifie this Proposition we need no other immediate inspiration or extraordinary assistance than that we derive from the Holy Ghost by the conveyance of the Apostolical Sermons and Writings Sect. 18. THE reason is the same in Faith and Prayer and if there were any difference in the acquisition or reception faith certainly needs a more immediate infusion as being of greatest necessity and yet a grace to which we least cooperate it being the first of graces and less of the will in it than any other But yet the Holy Ghost is the Author of our faith and we believe with the Spirit it is S. Pauls expression and yet our belief comes by hearing and reading the holy Scriptures and their interpretations Now reconcile these two together Faith comes by hearing and yet is the gift of the Spirit and it says that the gifts of the Spirit are not extasies and immediate infusions of habits but helps from God to enable us upon the use of the means of his own appointment to believe to speak to understand to prophesie and to pray Sect. 19. BUT whosoever shall look for any other gifts of the Spirit besides the parts of nature helped by industry and Gods blessing upon it and the revelations or the supplies of matter in holy Scripture will be very far to seek having neither reason promise nor experience of his side For why should the spirit of prayer be any other than as the gift and spirit of faith as S. Paul calls it acquired by humane means using divine aids that is by our endeavours in hearing reading catechizing desires to obey and all this blessed and promoted by God this produces faith Nay it is true of us what Christ told his Apostles sine me nihil potestis facere not nihil magnum aut difficile but omninò nihil as S. Austin observes Without me ye can do nothing and yet we were not capable of a Law or of reward or punishment if neither with him nor without him we were able to do any thing And therefore although in the midst of all our co-operation we may say to God in the words of the Prophet Domine omnia opera operatus es in nobis O Lord thou hast wrought all our works in us yet they are opera nostra still God works and we work First is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods grace is brought to us he helps and gives us abilities and then
help as doubting coldness weariness disrelish of heavenly things indifferency and these are enough to interpret the place quoted in the Objection without tying him to make words for us to no great religious purposes when God hath done that for us in other manner than what we dream of ** Sect. 27. SO that in effect praying in the Holy Ghost or with the spirit is nothing but prayer for such things and in such manner which God by his Spirit hath taught us in holy Scripture Holy Prayers spiritual songs so the Apostle calls one part of prayer viz. Eucharistical or thanksgiving that is Prayers or Songs which are spiritual in materiâ And if they be called spiritual for the Efficient cause too the Holy Ghost being the Author of them it comes all to one for therefore he is the cause and giver of them because he hath in his word revealed what things we are to pray for and there also hath taught us the manner Sect. 28. AND this I plainly prove from the words of S. Paul before quoted The Spirit helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought In this we are infirm that we know not our own needs nor our own advantages when the Holy Ghost hath taught us what to ask and to ask that as we ought then he hath healed our infirmities and our ignorances in the matter and the manner then we know what to pray for as we ought then we have the grace of Prayer and the Spirit of supplication And therefore in the instance before mentioned concerning spiritual songs when the Apostle had twice enjoyn'd the use of them in order to Prayer and Preaching to instruction and to Eucharist and those to be done by the aid of Christ and Christ's spirit What in one place he calls being filled with the Spirit In the other he calls the dwelling of the word of Christ in us richly plainly intimating to us that when we are mighty in the scriptures full of the word of Christ then we are filled with the Spirit because the Spirit is the great Dictator of them to us and the Remembrancer and when by such helps of Scripture we sing Hymns to Gods honour and our mutual comfort then we sing and give thanks in the spirit And this is evident if you consult the places and compare them Sect. 29. AND that this is for this reason called a gift and grace or issue of the Spirit is so evident and notorious that the speaking of an ordinary revealed truth is called in Scripture a speaking by the Spirit 1 Cor. 12.8 No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost For though the world could not acknowledge Jesus for the Lord without a revelation yet now that we are taught this truth by Scripture and by the preaching of the Apostles to which they were enabled by the Holy Ghost we need no revelation or Enthusiasm to confess this truth which we are taught in our Creeds and Catechisms and this light sprang first from the immission of a ray from God's Spirit we must for ever acknowledge him the fountain of our light Though we cool our thirst at the mouth of the river yet we owe for our draughts to the springs and fountains from whence the waters first came though derived to us by the succession of a long current If the Holy Ghost supplies us with materials and fundamentals for our building it is then enough to denominate the whole edifice to be of him although the labour and the workmanship be ours upon another stock And this is it which the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 2.13 Which things also we speak not in the words which mans wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing spiritual things with spiritual The Holy Ghost teaches yet it is upon our co-operation our study and endeavour while we compare spiritual things with spiritual the Holy Ghost is said to teach us because these spirituals were of his suggestion and revelation Sect. 30. FOR it is a rule of the School and there is much reason in it Habitus infusi infunduntur per modum acquisitorum whatsoever is infused into us is in the same manner infused as other things are acquired that is step by step by humane means and co-operation and grace does not give us new faculties and create another nature but meliorates and improves our own And therefore what the Greeks called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 habits the Christians used to call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gifts because we derive assistances from above to heighten the habits and facilitate the actions in order to a more noble and supernatural end And what S. Paul said in the Resurrection is also true in this Question That is not first which is spiritual but that which natural and then that which is spiritual The graces and gifts of the Spirit are postnate and are additions to art and nature God directs our counsels opens our understandings regulates our will orders our affections supplies us with objects and arguments and opportunities and revelations in scriptis and then most when we most imploy our own endeavours God loving to bless all the means and instruments of his service whether they be natural or acquisite Sect. 31. SO that now I demand Whether since the expiration of the age of miracles Gods spirit does not most assist us when we most endeavour and most use the means He that says No discourages all men from reading the Scriptures from industry from meditation from conference from humane arts and sciences and from whatsoever else God and good Laws provoke us to by proposition of rewards But if Yea as most certainly God will best crown the best endeavours then the spirit of prayer is greatest in him who supposing the like capacities and opportunities studies hardest reads most practises most religiously deliberates most prudently and then by how much want of means is worse than the use of means by so much ex tempore prayers are worse than deliberate and studied Excellent therefore is the Counsel of Saint Peter 1 Epist. Chap. 4. ver 11. If any man speak let him speak as the Oracles of God not lightly then and inconsiderately If any man minister let him do it as of the ability which God giveth great reason then to put to all his abilities and faculties to it and whether of the two does most likely do that he that takes pains and considers and discusses and so approves and practises a form or he that never considers what he says till he says it needs not much deliberation to pass a sentence Only methinks it is most unreasonable that we should be bound to prepare our selves with due requisites to hear what they shall speak in publick and that they should not prepare what to speak as if to speak were of easier or of less consideration than to hear what is spoken or if
probability for doing it is a very great crime and of dangerous consequence It was the greatest aggravation of the sin of Ananias and Sapphira 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they did falsly pretend and belye the Holy Spirit which crime besides that it dishonours the Holy Ghost to make him the President of imperfect and illiterate rites the Author of confusion and indeliberate Discourses and the Parent of such productions which a wise person would blush to own it also intitles him to all those Doctrines which either Chance or Design shall expose to the people in such prayers to which they entitle the holy Spirit as the Author and immediate Dictator So that if they please he must not only own their follies but their impieties too and how great disreputation this is to the Spirit of Wisdom of Counsel and of Holiness I wish they may rather understand by Discourse than by Experiment Sect. 37. BUT let us look a little further into the mystery and see what is meant in Scripture by praying with the spirit In what sence the holy Ghost is called the Spirit of Prayer I have already shewn viz. by the same reason as he is the Spirit of faith of prudence of knowledge of understanding and the like because he gives us assistances for the acquiring of these graces and furnishes us with revelations by way of object and instruction But praying with the Spirit hath besides this other sences also in Scripture I find in one place that we then pray with the Spirit when the Holy Ghost does actually excite us to desires and earnest tendencies to the obtaining our holy purpose when he prepares our hearts to pray when he enkindles our desires gives us zeal and devotion charity and fervour spiritual violence and holy importunity This sence is also in the latter part of the objected words of S. Paul Rom. 8. The Spirit it self maketh Intercession for us with groanings And indeed this is truly a praying with the Spirit but this will do our Reverend Brethren of the Assembly little advantage as to the present Question For this Spirit is not a Spirit of utterance not at all clamorous in the ears of the people but cries aloud in the ears of God with groans unutterable so it follows and only He that searcheth the heart he understandeth the meaning of the Spirit This is the Spirit of the Son which God hath sent into our hearts not into our tongues whereby we cry Abba Father Gal. 4.6 And this is the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for mental prayer which is properly and truly praying by the Spirit Sect. 38. ANOTHER praying with the Spirit I find in that place of St. Paul from whence this expression is taken and commonly used I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the understanding also It is generally supposed that Saint Paul relates here to a special and extraordinary gift of Prayer which was indulg'd to the Primitive Bishops and Priests the Apostles and Rulers of Churches and to some other Persons extraordinarily of being able to compose Prayers pious in the matter prudent in the composure devout in the forms expressive in the language and in short useful to the Church and very apt for devotion and serving to her Religion and necessities I believe that such a gift there was and this indulged as other issues of the Spirit to some persons upon special necessities by singular dispensation as the Spirit knew to be most expedient for the present need and the future instruction This I believe not because I find sufficient testimony that it was so or any evidence from the words now alledged but because it was reasonable it should be so and agreeable to the other proceedings of the Holy Ghost For although we account it an easie matter to make prayers and we have great reason to give thanks to the Holy Ghost for it who hath descended so plentifully upon the Church hath made plentiful revelation of all the publick and private necessities of the world hath taught us how to pray given rules for the manner of address taught us how to distinguish spiritual from carnal things hath represented the vanity of worldly desires the unsatisfyingness of earthly possessions the blessing of being denied our impertinent secular and indiscreet requests and hath done all this at the beginning of Christianity and hath actually stirred up the Apostles and Apostolical men to make so many excellent Forms of Prayer which their Successors did in part retain and in part imitate till the conjunct wisdom of the Church saw her Offices compleat regular and sufficient So that now every man is able to make something of Forms of Prayer for which ability they should do well to pay their Eucharist to the Holy Ghost and not abuse the gift to vanity or schism yet at the first beginning of Christianity till the holy Spirit did fill all things they found no such plenty of Forms of Prayer and it was accounted a matter of so great consideration to make a Form of Prayer that it was thought a fit work for a Prophet or the Founder of an Institution And therefore the Disciples of John asked of him to teach them how to pray and the Disciples of Christ did so too For the Law of Moses had no Rules to instruct the Synagogue how to pray and but that Moses and David and Asaph and some few of the Prophets more left forms of Prayer which the Spirit of God inspired them withall upon great necessities and great mercy to that people they had not known how to have composed an Office for the daily service of the Temple without danger of asking things needless vain or impious such as were the prayers in the Roman Closets that he was a good man that would not own them Et nihil arcano qui roget ore Deos. Pulchra Laverna Da mihi fallere da justum sanctúmque videri Noctem peccatis fraudibus objice nubem But when the Holy Ghost came down in a full breath and a mighty wind he filled the breasts and tongues of men and furnished the first Christians not only with abilities enough to frame excellent devotions for their present Offices but also to become precedents for Liturgie to all Ages of the Church the first being imitated by the second and the second by the third till the Church be setled in peace and the Records transmitted with greater care and preserved with less hazard the Church chose such Forms whose Copies we retain at this day Sect. 39. NOW since it was certain that all ages of the Church would look upon the first Fathers in Christ and Founders of Churches as precedents or Tutors and Guides in all the parts of their Religion and that prayer with its several parts and instances is a great portion of the Religion the Sacraments themselves being instruments of grace and effectual in genere orationis it is very reasonable to think that the Apostolical
men had not only the first fruits but the elder Brothers share a double portion of the Spirit because they were not only to serve their own needs to which a single and an ordinary portion would have been then as now abundantly sufficient but also to serve the necessity of the succession and to instruct the Church for ever after Sect. 40. BUT then that this assistance was an ability to pray ex tempore I find it no where affirmed by sufficient authentick Testimony and if they could have done it it is very likely they would have been wary and restrained in the publick use of it I doubt not but there might then be some sudden necessities of the Church for which the Church being in her infancy had not as yet provided any publick forms concerning which cases I may say as Quintilian of an Oratour in the great and sudden needs of the Commonwealth Quarum si qua non dico cuicunque innocentium civium sed amicorum ac propinquorum alicui evenerit stabÃtne mutus salutarem parentibus vocem statim si non succurratur perituris moras secessum silentium quaeret dum illa verba fabricentur memoriae insidant vox ac latus praeparetur I do not think that they were oratores imparati ad casus but that an ability of praying on a sudden was indulged to them by a special aid of the Spirit to contest against sudden dangers and the violence of new accidents to which also possibly a new inspiration was but for a very little while necessary even till they understood the mysteries of Christianity and the revelations of the Spirit by proportion and analogy to which they were sufficiently instructed to make their sudden prayers when sudden occasions did require Sect. 41. THIS I speak by way of concession and probability For no man can prove thus much as I am willing relying upon the reasonableness of the Conjecture to suppose but that praying with the Spirit in this place is praying without study art or deliberation is not so much as intimated Sect. 42. FOR first It is here implyed that they did prepare some of those devotions to which they were helped by the Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when you come together each of you peradventure hath a Psalm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not every one makes but when you meet every one hath viz. already which supposes they had it prepared against the meeting For the Spirit could help as well at home in their meditation as in the publick upon a sudden and though it is certain the Holy Spirit loves to bless the publick meetings the communion of Saints with special benedictions yet I suppose my Adversaries are not willing to acknowledge any thing that should do much reputation to the Church and the publick authoriz'd conventions at least not to confine the Spirit to such holy and blessed meetings They will I suppose rather grant the words do probably intimate they came prepared with a Hymn and therefore there is nothing in the nature of the thing but that so also might their other forms of Prayer the assistance of the Spirit which is the thing in Question hinders not but that they also might have made them by premeditation Sect. 43. SECONDLY In this place praying with the Spirit signifies no other extraordinary assistance but that the Spirit help'd them to speak their prayer in an unknown Tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If I pray in a tongue my spirit prayeth but my understanding is without fruit what then I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the understanding also Plainly here praying in the spirit which is opposed to praying in understanding is praying in an unknown tongue where by the way observe that praying with the spirit even in the sence of Scripture is not always most to edification of the people Not alwayes with understanding And when these two are separated St. Paul prefers five words with understanding before ten thousand in the spirit For this praying with the spirit was indeed then a gift extraordinary and miraculous like as prophesying with the spirit and expired with it But while it did last it was the lowest of gifts inter dona linguarum it was but a gift of the tongue and not to the benefit of the Church directly or immediately Sect. 44. THIS also observe in passing by If Saint Paul did so undervalue the praying with the Spirit that he preferred edifying the Church a thousand degrees beyond it I suppose he would have been of the same mind if the Question had been between praying with the Spirit and obeying our Superiours as he was when it was between praying with the Spirit and edification of the Church because if I be not mistaken it is matter of great concernment towards the edification of the Church to obey our Superiours not to innovate in publick forms of worship especially with the scandal and offence of very wise and learned men and to the disgrace of the dead Martyrs who sealed our Liturgie with their blood Sect. 45. BUT to return In this place praying with the Spirit beside the assistance given by the Holy Ghost to speak in a strange tongue is no more than my spirit praying that is it implies my co-operation with the assistance of the Spirit of God insomuch that the whole action may truly be denominated mine and is called of the Spirit only by reason of that collateral assistance For so Saint Paul joyns them as terms identical and expressive one of anothers meaning as you may please to read ver 14. and 15. 1 Cor. 14. I will pray with the spirit and my spirit truly prayeth It is the act of our inner man praying holy and spiritual prayers But then indeed at that time there was something extraordinary adjoyned for it was in an unknown Tongue the practice of which Saint Paul there dislikes This also will be to none of their purposes For whether it were ex tempore or by premeditation is not here expressed or if it had yet that assistance extraordinary in prayer if there was any beside the gift of Tongues which is not here or any where else expressed is no more transmitted to us than the speaking Tongues in the Spirit or prophesying ex tempore and by the Spirit Sect. 46. BUT I would add also one experiment which Saint Paul also there adds by way of instance If praying with the Spirit in this place be praying ex tempore then so is singing too For they are expressed in the same place in the same manner to the same end and I know no reason why there should be differing sences put upon them to serve purposes And now let us have some Church Musick too though the Organs be pull'd down and let any the best Psalmist of them all compose a Hymn in Metrical form as Antipater Sidonius in Quintilian and Licinius Archias in Cicero could
do in their Verses and sing it to a new tune with perfect and true musick and all this ex tempore For all this the Holy Ghost can do if he pleases But if it be said that the Corinthian Christians composed their Songs and Hymns according to art and rules of Musick by study and industry and that to this they were assisted by the Spirit and that this together with the devotion of their spirit was singing with the Spirit then say I so composing set forms of Liturgie by skill and prudence and humane industry may be as much praying with the Spirit as the other is singing with the Spirit plainly enough In all the sences of praying with the Spirit and in all its acceptations in Scripture to pray or sing with the Spirit neither of them of necessity implies ex tempore Sect. 47. THE sum or Collecta of the premises is this Praying with the Spirit is either First when the Spirit stirs up our desires to pray per motionem actualis auxilii or secondly when the Spirit teaches us what or how to pray telling us the matter and manner of our prayers Thirdly or lastly dictating the very words of our prayers There is no other way in the world to pray with the Spirit or in the Holy Ghost that is pertinent to this Question And of this last manner the Scripture determines nothing nor speaks any thing expresly of it and yet suppose it had we are certain the Holy Ghost hath supplied us with all these and yet in set forms of Prayer best of all I mean there where a difference can be For 1 as for the desires and actual motions or incitements to pray they are indifferent to one or the other to set forms or to ex tempore Sect. 48. SECONDLY But as to the matter or manner of prayer it is clearly contained in the expresses and set forms of Scriptures and there it is supplied to us by the Spirit for he is the great Dictatour of it Sect. 49. 3. NOW then for the very words No man can assure me that the words of his ex tempore prayer are the words of the holy Spirit it is neither reason nor modesty to expect such immediate assistances to so little purpose he having supplied us with abilities more than enough to express our desires aliundè otherwise than by immediate dictate But if we will take David's Psalter or the other Hymns of holy Scripture or any of the Prayers which are respersed over the Bible we are sure enough that they are the words of Gods Spirit mediately or immediately by way of infusion or extasie by vision or at least by ordinary assistance And now then what greater confidence can any man have for the excellency of his prayers and the probability of their being accepted than when he prayes his Psalter or the Lords Prayer or any other office which he finds consigned in Scripture When Gods Spirit stirs us up to an actual devotion and then we use the matter he hath described and taught and the very words which Christ and Christs Spirit and the Apostles and other persons full of the Holy Ghost did use If in the world there be any praying with the Spirit I mean in vocal prayer this is it Sect. 50. AND thus I have examined the intire and full scope of this first Question and rifled their Objection which was the only colour to hide the appearance of its natural deformity at the first sight The result is this Scribendum ergo quoties licebit Si id non dabitur cogitandum ab utroque exclusi debent tamen adniti ut neque deprehensus orator neque destitutus esse videatur In making our Orations and publick Advocations we must write what we mean to speak as often as we can when we cannot yet we must deliberate and study and when the suddenness of the accident prevents both these we must use all the powers of art and care that we have a present mind and call in all our first provisions that we be not destitute of matter and words apt for the imployment This was Quintilian's rule for the matter of prudence and in secular occasions but when the instance is in Religion and especially in our prayers it will concern us nearer to be curious and deliberate what we speak in the audience of the eternal God when our lives and our souls and the honour of God and the reputation of Religion are concern'd and whatsoever is greatest in it self or dearest to us Sect. 51. THE second Question hath in it something more of difficulty for the Men that own it will give leave that set forms may be used so you give question 2 leave to them to make them but if authority shall interpose and prescribe a Liturgie every word shall breed a quarrel and if the matter be innocent yet the very injunction is tyranny a restraining of the gifts of the Holy Ghost it leaves the spirit of a Man sterile and unprofitable it is not for edification of the Church and is as destitute of comfort as it is of profit For God hath not restrained his Spirit to those few that rule the Church in prelation above others but if he hath given to them the spirit of Government he hath given to others the spirit of Prayer and the spirit of Prophecy Now the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withall for to one is given by the Spirit the word of Wisdom to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit And these and many other gifts are given to several members that they may supply one another and all joyn to the edification of the body And therefore that must needs be an imprudent sanction that so determines the offices of the Church that she cannot be edified by that variety of gifts which the holy Spirit hath given to several men to that purpose just as if there should be a Canon that but one Sermon should be preached in all Churches for ever Besides it must needs be that the devotion of the Suppliants must be much retarded by the perpetuity and unalterable reiteration of the same form For since our affections will certainly vary and suffer great alteration of degrees and inclinations it is easier to frame words apt to comply with our affections than to conform our affections in all varieties to the same words When the forms are daily changed it is more probable that every man shall find something proportionable to his fancy which is the great instrument of Devotion than to suppose that any one form should be like Manna fitted to every taste and therefore in prayers as the affections must be natural sweet and proper so also should the words expressing the affections issue forth by way of natural emanation Sed extemporalis audaciae atque ipsius temeritatis vel praecipua jucunditas est Nam in ingenio sicut in agro quanquam alia diu serantur atque
only the internal so that there needs no more strength to this Argument But that there may be wanting no moments to this truth which the Holy Scripture affords I shall add more weight to it And 1. The Perpetuity of this Holy Rite appears because this great Gift of the Holy Ghost was promised to abide with the Church for ever And when the Jews heard the Apostles speak with Tongues at the first and miraculous descent of the Spirit in Pentecost to take off the strangeness of the wonder and the envy of the power S. Peter at that very time tells them plainly Repent and be Baptized every one of you and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the meanest person amongst you all but shall receive this great thing which ye observe us to have received and not only you but your Children too not your Children of this Generation only sed Natinatorum qui nascentur ab illis but your Children for ever For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are afar off even to as many as the Lord our God shall call Now then let it be considered 1. This gift is by Promise by a promise not made to the Apostles alone but to all to all for ever 2. Consider here at the very first as there is a verbum a word of promise so there is sacramentum too I use the word as I have already premonished in a large fence only and according to the style of the Primitive Church It is a Rite partly Moral partly Ceremonial the first is Prayer and the other is Laying on of the hands and to an effect that is but transient and extraordinary and of a little abode it is not easie to be supposed that such a Solemnity should be appointed I say such a Solemnity that is it is not imaginable that a solemn Rite annexed to a perpetual Promise should be transient and temporary for by the nature of Relatives they must be of equal abode The Promise is of a thing for ever the Ceremony or Rite was annexed to the Promise and therefore this also must be for ever 3. This is attested by S. Paul who reduces this Argument to this Mystery saying In whom after that ye believed signati estis Spiritu Sancto promissionis ye were sealed by that Holy Spirit of promise He spake it to the Ephesians who well understood his meaning by remembring what was done to themselves by the Apostles but a while before who after they had Baptized them did lay their hands upon them and so they were sealed and so they received the Holy Spirit of promise for here the very matter of Fact is the clearest Commentary on S. Paul's words The Spirit which was promised to all Christians they then received when they were consigned or had the Ritual seal of Confirmation by Imposition of hands One thing I shall remark here and that is that this and some other words of Scripture relating to the Sacraments or other Rituals of Religion do principally mean the Internal Grace and our consignation is by a secret power and the work is within but it does not therefore follow that the External Rite is not also intended for the Rite is so wholly for the Mystery and the Outward for the Inward and yet by the Outward God so usually and regularly gives the Inward that as no man is to rely upon the External Ministery as if the opus operatum would do the whole Duty so no man is to neglect the External because the Internal is the more principal The mistake in his particular hath caused great contempt of the Sacraments and Rituals of the Church and is the ground of the Socinian Errors in these Questions But 4. What hinders any man from a quick consent at the first representation of these plain reasonings and authorities Is it because there were extraordinary effects accompanying this Ministration and because now there are not that we will suppose the whole Oeconomy must cease If this be it and indeed this is all that can be supposed in opposition to it it is infinitely vain 1. Because these extraordinary effects did continue even after the death of all the Apostles S. Irenaeus says they did continue even to his time even the greatest instance of Miraculous power Et in fraternitate saepissime propter aliquid necessarium eâ quae est in quoquo loco Vniversâ Ecclesiâ postulante per jejunium supplicationem multam reversus est spiritus c. When God saw it necessary and the Church prayed and fasted much they did miraculous things even of reducing the spirit to a dead man 2. In the days of the Apostles the Holy Spirit did produce miraculous effects but neither always nor at all in all men Are all workers of Miracles do all speak with Tongues do all interpret can all heal No the Spirit bloweth where he listeth and as he listeth he gives Gifts to all but to some after this manner and to some after that 3. These Gifts were not necessary at all times any more than to all persons but the Promise did belong to all and was made to all and was performed to all In the days of the Apostles there was an Effusion of the Spirit of God it ran over it was for themselves and others it wet the very ground they trode upon and made it fruitful but it was not to all in like manner but there was also then and since then a Diffusion of the Spirit tanquam in pleno S. Stephen was full of the Holy Ghost he was full of faith and power The Holy Ghost was given to him to fulfil his Faith principally the working Miracles was but collateral and incident But there is also an Infusion of the Holy Ghost and that is to all and that is for ever The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withall saith the Apostle And therefore if the Grace be given to all there is no reason that the Ritual ministration of that Grace should cease upon pretence that the Spirit is not given extraordinarily 4. These extraordinary Gifts were indeed at first necessary In the beginnings always appear the sensible visions of spiritual things for their sakes who cannot receive the understanding of an incorporeal Nature that if afterward they be not so done they may be believed by those things which were already done said S. Chrysostom in the place before quoted that is these visible appearances were given at first by reason of the imperfection of the state of the Church but the greater Gifts were to abide for ever and therefore it is observable that S. Paul says that the gift of Tongues is one of the least and most useless things a mere Sign and not so much as a Sign to Believers but to Infidels and Unbelievers and before this he greatly prefers the gift of
man did what was right in his own eyes but few did what was pleasing in the eyes of the Lord and the event was this God put on his fierce anger against them and stirr'd up and arm'd the Enemies of their Country and Religion and they prevail'd very far against the expectation and confidence of them who thought the goodness of their cause would have born out the iniquity of their persons and that the impiety of their adversaries would have disabled them even from being made Gods scourges and instruments of punishing his own people The sadness of the event proved the vanity of their hopes for that which was the instrument of their worship the determination of their religious addresses the place where God did meet his people from which the Priests spake to God and God gave his Oracles that they dishonourably and miserably lost The Ark of the Lord was taken the impious Priests who made the Sacrifice of the Lord to become an abomination to the people were slain with the sword of the Philistines old Eli lost his life and the wife of Phinehas died with sorrow and the miscarriages of childbirth crying out That the Glory was departed from Israel because the Ark of God was taken 2. In these things we also have been but too like the sons of Israel for when we sinned as greatly we also have groaned under as great and sad a calamity For we have not only felt the evils of an intestine War but God hath smitten us in our spirit and laid the scene of his judgments especially in Religion he hath snuffed our lamp so near that it is almost extinguished and the sacred fire was put into a hole of the Earth even then when we were forced to light those Tapers that stood upon our Altars that by this sad truth better than by the old ceremony we might prove our succession to those holy men who were constrained to sing Hymns to Christ in dark places and retirements 3. But I delight not to observe the correspondencies of such sad accidents which as they may happen upon diverse causes or may be forc'd violently by the strength of fancy or driven on by jealousie and the too fond opâ—nings of troubled hearts and afflicted spirits so they do but help to vex the offending part and relieve the afflicted but with a phantastick and groundless comfort I will therefore deny leave to my own affections to ease themselves by complaining of others I shall only crave leave that I may remember Jerusalem and call to mind the pleasures of the Temple the order of her Services the beauty of her Buildings the sweetness of her Songs the decency of her Ministrations the assiduity and Oeconomy of her Priests and Levites the daily Sacrifice and that eternal fire of Devotion that went not out by day nor by night these were the pleasures of our peace and there is a remanent felicity in the very memory of those spiritual delights which we then enjoyed as antepasts of Heaven and consignations to an immortality of joys And it may be so again when it shall please God who hath the hearts of all Princes in his hand and turneth them as the rivers of waters and when men will consider the invaluable loss that is consequent and the danger of sin that is appendant to the destroying such forms of discipline and devotion in which God was purely worshipped and the Church was edified and the people instructed to great degrees of piety knowledge and devotion 4. And such is the Liturgy of the Church of England I shall not need to enumerate the advantages of Liturgy in general though it be certain that some Liturgie or other is most necessary in publick addresses that so we may imitate the perpetual practice of all setled Churches since Christianity or ever since Moses's Law or the Jewish Church came to have a setled foot and any rest in the land of Canaan 2. That we may follow the example and obey the precept of our blessed Saviour who appointed a set form of devotion and certainly they that profess enmity against all Liturgy can in no sence obey the precept given by him who gave command When ye pray say Our Father 3. That all that come may know the condition of publick Communion their Religion and manner of address to God Almighty 4. That the truth of the proposition the piety of the desires and the honesty of the petitions the simplicity of our purposes and the justice of our designs may be secured before-hand because Whatsoever is not of Faith is sin and it is impossible that we should pray to God in the extempore prayers of the Priest by any Faith but unreasonable unwarranted insecure and implicit 5. That there may be union of hearts and spirits and tongues 6. That there may be a publick symbol of Communion in our prayers which are the best instruments of endearing us to God and to one another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Private prayer not assisted with the concord and unity of a publick spirit is weaker and less effectual saith S. Basil. 7. That the Ministers less learned may have provisions of devotions made for them 8. That the more learned may have no occasion of ostentation ministred to them lest their best actions their prayers be turned into sin 9. That extravagant levities and secret impieties be prevented 10. That the offices Ecclesiastical may the better secure the Articles of Religion 11. That they may edifie the people by being repositories of holy and necessary truths ready form'd out of their needs and described in their Books of daily use for that was one of the advices of the Apostle t eaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs 12. That men by the intervening of authority may be engaged to certain devotions 13. That not only the duty but the very form of its ministration may be honoured by the countenance of authority and not be exposed to contempt by reason of the insufficiency of its external warrant 14. That the assignation of such offices and appropriating them to the ministery of certain persons may be a cancel to secure the inclosures of the Clerical orders from the usurpings and invasions of pretending and unhallowed spirits 15. That indetermination of the office may not introduce indifferency nor indifferency lead in a freer liberty or liberty degenerate into licentiousness or licentiousness into folly and vanity and these come sometime attended with secular designs lest these be cursed with the immission of a peevish spirit upon our Priests and that spirit be a teacher of lies and these lies become the basis of impious theoremes which are certainly attended with ungodly lives and then either Atheism or Antichristianism may come according as shall happen in the conjunction of time and other circumstances for this would be a sad climax a ladder upon which are no Angels ascending or descending because the degrees lead to darkness and
Confessor are the great demonstration to all the world that Truth is as Dear to your MAJESTY as the Jewels of your Diadem and that your Conscience is tender as a pricked eye I shall pretend this only to alleviate the inconvenience of an unseasonable address that I present your MAJESTY with a humble persecuted truth of the same constitution with that condition whereby you are become most Dear to God as having upon you the characterism of the Sons of God bearing in your Sacred Person the marks of the Lord Jesus who is your Elder Brother the King of Sufferings and the Prince of the Catholick Church But I consider that Kings and their Great Councils and Rulers Ecclesiastical have a special obligation for the defence of Liturgies because they having the greatest Offices have the greatest needs of auxiliaries from Heaven which are best procured by the publick Spirit the Spirit of Government and Supplication And since the first the best and most solemn Liturgies and Set forms of Prayer were made by the best and greatest Princes by Moses by David and the Son of David Your MAJESTY may be pleased to observe such a proportion of circumstances in my laying this Apology for Liturgy at Your feet that possibly I may the easier obtain a pardon for my great boldness which if I shall hope for in all other contingencies I shall represent my self a person indifferent whether I live or die so I may by either serve God and Gods Church and Gods Vicegerent in the capacity of Great Sir Your Majesties most humble and most obedient Subject and Servant JER TAYLOR Hierocl in Pythag. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An APOLOGY for Authorized and Set Forms of LITVRGY I Have read over this Book which the Assembly of Divines is pleased to call The Directory for Prayer I confess I came to it with much expectation and was in some measure confident I should have found it an exact and unblameable model of Devotion free from all those Objections which men of their own perswasion had obtruded against the Publick Liturgie of the Church of England or at least it should have been composed with so much artifice and fineness that it might have been to all the world an argument of their learning and excellency of spirit if not of the goodness and integrity of their Religion and purposes I shall give no other character of the whole but that the publick disrelish which I find amongst Persons of great piety of all qualities not only of great but even of ordinary understandings is to me some argument that it lies so open to the objections even of common spirits that the Compilers of it did intend more to prevail by the success of their Armies than the strength of reason and the proper grounds of perswasion which yet most wise and good Men believe to be the more Christian way of the two But because the judgment I made of it from an argument so extrinsecal to the nature of the thing could not reasonably enable me to satisfie those many Persons who in their behalf desired me to consider it I resolv'd to look upon it nearer and to take its account from something that was ingredient to its Constitution that I might be able both to exhort and convince the Gainsayers who refuse to hold fast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that faithful word which they had been taught by their Mother the Church of England Sect. 2. I SHALL decline to speak of the efficient cause of this Directory and not quarrel at it that it was composed against the Laws both of England and all Christendom If the thing were good and pious and did not directly or accidentally invade the rights of a just Superiour I would learn to submit to the imposition and never quarrel at the incompetency of his authority that ingaged me to do pious and holy things And it may be when I am a little more used to it I shall not wonder at a Synod in which not one Bishop sits in the capacity of a Bishop though I am most certain this is the first example in England since it was first Christened But for the present it seems something hard to digest it because I know so well that all Assemblies of the Church have admitted Priests to consultation and dispute but never to authority and decision till the Pope enlarging the phylacteries of the Archimandrites and Abbots did sometime by way of priviledge and dispensation give to some of them decisive voices in publick Councils but this was one of the things in which he did innovate and invade against the publick resolutions of Christendom though he durst not do it often and yet when he did it it was in very small and inconsiderable numbers Sect. 3. I SAID I would not meddle with the Efficient and I cannot meddle with the Final cause nor guess at any other ends and purposes of theirs than at what they publickly profess which is the abolition and destruction of the Book of Common Prayer which great change because they are pleased to call Reformation I am content in charity to believe they think it so and that they have Zelum Dei but whether secundum scientiam according to knowledge or no must be judg'd by them who consider the matter and the form Sect. 4. BUT because the matter is of so great variety and minute Consideration every part whereof would require as much scrutiny as I purpose to bestow upon the whole I have for the present chosen to consider only the form of it concerning which I shall give my judgment without any sharpness or bitterness of spirit for I am resolved not to be angry with any men of another perswasion as knowing that I differ just as much from them as they do from me Sect. 5. THE Directory takes away that Form of Prayer which by the aâ—â—hority and consent of all the obliging power of the Kingdom hath been used and enjoyned ever since the Reformation But this was done by men of differing spirits and of disagreeing interests Some of them consented to it that they might take away all set forms of prayer and give way to every mans spirit the other that they might take away this Form and give way and countenance to their own The first is an enemy to all deliberation The Second to all authority They will have no man to deliberate These would have none but themselves The former are unwise and rash the latter are pleased with themselves and are full of opinion They must be considered apart for they have rent the Question in pieces and with the fragment in his hand every man hath run his own way question 1 Sect. 6. FIRST of them that deny all set forms though in the subject matter they were confessed innocent and blameless Sect. 7. AND here I consider that the true state of the Question is only this Whether it is better to pray to God with Consideration or without Whether is the wiser
Man of the two he who thinks and deliberates what to say or he that utters his mind as fast as it comes whether is the better man he who out of reverence to God is most careful and curious that he offend not in his tongue and therefore he himself deliberates and takes the best guides he can or he who out of the confidence of his own abilities or other exterior assistances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speaks what ever comes uppermost Sect. 8. AND here I wave the advice and counsel of a very wise man no less than Solomon Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before God for God is in Heaven and thou upon Earth therefore let thy words be few The consideration of the vast distance between God and us Heaven and Earth should create such apprehensions in us that the very best and choicest of our offertories are not acceptable but by Gods gracious vouchsafing and condescension and therefore since we are so much indebted to God for accepting our best it is not safe ventured to present him with a dough-baked sacrifice and put him off with that which in nature and humane consideration is absolutely the worst for such is all the crude and imperfect utterance of our more imperfect conceptions Hoc non probo in philosopho cujus oratio sicut vita debet esse composita said Seneca A wise mans speech should be like his life and actions composed studied and considered And if ever inconsideration be the cause of sin and vanity it is in our words and therefore is with greatest care to be avoided in our prayers we being most of all concerned that God may have no quarrel against them for folly or impiety Sect. 9. BUT abstracting from the reason let us consider who keeps the precept best He that deliberates or he that considers not when he speaks What man in the world is hasty to offer any thing unto God if he be not who prays ex tempore And then add to it but the weight of Solomons reason and let any man answer me if he thinks it can well stand with that reverence we owe to the immense the infinite and to the eternal God the God of wisdom to offer him a sacrifice which we durst not present to a Prince or a prudent Governour in re â—eriâ such as our prayers ought to be Sect. 10. AND that this may not be dasht with a pretence it is carnal reasoning I desire it may be remembred that it is the argument God himself uses against lame maimed and imperfect sacrifices Go and offer this to thy Prince see if he will accept it implying that the best person is to have the best present and what the Prince will slight as truly unworthy of him much more is it unfit for God For God accepts not of any thing we give or do as if he were bettered by it for therefore its estimate is not taken by its relation or natural complacency to him for in it self it is to him as nothing but God accepts it by its proportion and commensuration to us That which we call our best and is truly so in humane estimate that pleases God for it declares that if we had better we would give it him But to reserve the best says too plainly that we think any thing is good enough for him As therefore God in the Law would not be served by that which was imperfect in genere naturae so neither now nor ever will that please him which is imperfect in genere morum or materiâ intellectuali when we can give a better Sect. 11. AND therefore the wisest Nations and the most sober Persons prepared their Verses and Prayers in set forms with as much religion as they dressed their sacrifices and observ'd the rites of Festivals and Burials Amongst the Romans it belong'd to the care of the Priests to worship in prescrib'd and determin'd words In omni precatione qui vota effundit Sacerdos Vestam Janum aliosque Deos praescriptis verbis composito carmine advocare solet The Greeks did so too receiving their prayers by dictate word for word Itaque sua carmina suaeque praecationes singulis diis institutae sunt quas plerunque nequid praeposterè dicatur aliquis ex praescripto praeire ad verbum referre solebat Their hymns and prayers were ordained peculiar to every God which lest any thing should be said preposterously were usually pronounced word for word after the Priest and out of written Copies and the Magi among the Persians were as considerate in their devotions Magos Persas primo semper diluculo canere Diis hymnos laudes meditato solenni precationis carmine The Persians sang hymns to their Gods by the morning twilight in a premeditate solemn and metrical form of prayer saith the same Author For since in all the actions and discourses of men that which is the least considered is likely to be the worst and is certainly of the greatest disreputation it were a strange cheapness of opinion towards God and Religion to be the most incurious of what we say to him and in our religious offices It is strange that every thing should be considered but our Prayers It is spoken by Eâ—â—apius to the honour of Proaeresâ—us's Scholars that when the Proconsul asked their judgments in a question of Philosophy they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they with much consideration and care gave in answer those words of Aristides that they were not of the number of those that used to vomit out answers but of those that considered every word they were to speak Nihil enim ordinatum est quod praecipitatur properat said Seneca Nothing can be regular and orderly that is hasty and precipitate and therefore unless Religion be the most imprudent trifling and inconsiderable thing and that the Work of the Lord is done well enough when it is done negligently or that the sanctuary hath the greatest beauty when it hath the least order it will concern us highly to think our prayers and religious offices are actions fit for wise men and therefore to be done as the actions of wise men use to be that is deliberately prudently and with greatest consideration Sect. 12. WELL then in the nature of the thing ex tempore forms have much the worse of it But it is pretended that there is such a thing as the gift of prayer a praying with the spirit Et nescit tardâ— molimina Spiritus sancti gratia Gods Spirit if he pleases can do his work as well in an instant as in long premeditation And to this purpose are pretended those places of Scripture which speak of assistance of Gods spirit in our prayers Zech. 12.10 And I will pour upon the house of David and the inhabitants of Hierusalem the spirit of grace and supplication But especially Rom. 8.26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth
expects our duty And if the spirit of prayer be of greater consequence than all the works God hath wrought in us besides and hath the promise of a special prerogative let the first be proved and the second be shown in any good Record and then I will confess the difference Sect. 20. THE Parallel of this Argument I the rather urge because I find praying in the Holy Ghost joyned with graces which are as much Gods gifts and productions of the spirit as any thing in the world and yet which the Apostle presses upon us as duties and things put into our power to be improved by our industry and those are faith in which I before instanced and charity But ye beloved building up your selves on your most holy faith praying in the Holy Ghost keep your selves in the love of God All of the same consideration Faith and Prayer and Charity all gifts of the Spirit and yet build up your selves in faith and keep your selves in love and therefore by a parity of reason improve your selves in the spirit of Prayer that is God by his Spirit having supplied us with matter let our industry and co-operations per modum naturae improve these gifts and build upon this foundation Sect. 21. THUS the Spirit of God is called the Spirit of adoption the Spirit of counsel the Spirit of grace the Spirit of meekness the Spirit of wisdom And without doubt he is the fountain of all these to us all and that for ever and yet it cannot reasonably be supposed but that we must stir up the graces of God in us co-operate with his assistances study in order to counsel labour and consider in order to wisdom give all diligence to make our calling and election sure in order to our adoption in which we are sealed by the Spirit Now these instances are of gifts as well as graces and since the days of wonder and need of miracles is expired there is no more reason to expect inspiration of gifts than of graces without our endeavours It concerns the Church rather to have these secured than those and yet the Spirit of God puts it upon the condition of our co-operation for according to the Proverb of the old Moralists Deus habet sinum facilem non perforâ—tum Gods bosom is apt and easie to the emission of graces and assistances but it is not loose and ungirt something must be done on our part we must improve the talents and swell the bank for if either we lay them up in a napkin or spend them suppress the Spirit or extinguish it we shall dearly account for it Sect. 22. IN the mean time if we may lose the gifts by our own fault we may purchase them by our diligence if we may lessen them by our incuriousness we may increase them by study if we may quench the spirit then also we may re-enkindle it all which are evident probation that the Holy Ghost gives us assistances to improve our natural powers and to promote our acquisite and his aids are not inspirations of the habit or infusions of a perfect gift but a subliming of what God gave us in the stock of nature and art to make it in a sufficient order to an end supernatural and divine Sect. 23. THE same doctrine we are taught by S. Pauls exhortation to Timothy Neglect not the gift that is in thee which was given thee by prophecie with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery And again stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the laying on of my hâ—nds If there be any gifts of the Holy Ghost and spiritual influences dispensed without our co-operation and by inspiration of the intire power it is in ordination and the persons so ordained are most likely to receive the gift of prayer if any such thing be for the edification of the Church they being the men appointed to intercede and to stand between God and the people and yet this gift of God even in those times when they were dispensed with miracle and assistances extraordinary were given as all things now are given by the means also of our endeavour and was capable of improvement by industry and of defailance by neglect and therefore much rather is it so now in the days of ordinary ministration and common assistances Sect. 24. AND indeed this argument beside the efficacy of its perswasion must needs conclude against the Men to whom these adversaria are addressed because themselves call upon their Disciples to exercise the gift of prayer and offer it to consideration that such exercising it is the way to better it and if natural endowments and artificial endeavours are the way to purchase new degrees of it it were not amiss they did consider a little before they begin and did improve their first and smallest capacities before they ventured any thing in publick by way of address to Almighty God For the first beginnings are certainly as improvable as the next degrees and it is certain they have more need of it as being more imperfect and rude Therefore when ever Gods Spirit hath given us any capacities or assistances any documents motions desires or any aids whatsoever they are therefore given us with a purpose we should by our industry skill and labour improve them because without such co-operation the intention is made void and the work imperfect Sect. 25. AND this is exactly the doctrine I plainly gather from the objected words of S. Paul The Spirit helpeth our infirmities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is in the Greek collaborantem adjuvat It is an ingeminate expression of our labours And that supposes us to have faculties capable of improvement and an obligation to labour and that the effect of having the gift of prayer depends upon the mutual course that is upon God blessing our powers and our endeavours And if this way the Spirit performs his promise sufficiently and does all that we need and all that he ties himself to he that will multiply his hopes farther than what is sufficient or what is promised may possibly deceive himself but never deceive God and make him multiply and continue miracles to justifie his fancy Sect. 26. BETTER it is to follow the Scriptures for our guide as in all things else so in this particular Ephes. 6.17 18. Take the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit The word of God is the sword of the spirit praying in the Spirit is one way of using it indeed the only way that he here specifies Praying in the Spirit then being the using of this Sword and this Sword being the word of God it follows evidently that praying in the spirit is praying in or according to the word of God that is in the directions rules and expresses of the Word of God that is of the holy Scriptures For we have many infirmities and we need the spirit to
they do prepare what to speak to the people it were also very fit they prepar'd their prayers and considered before-hand of the fitness of the offertory they present to God Sect. 32. LASTLY Did not the Pen-men of the Scripture write the Epistles and Gospels respectively all by the Spirit Most certainly holy Men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost saith Saint Peter And certainly they were moved by a more immediate motion and a motion nearer to an Enthusiasm than now adays in the gift and spirit of Prayer And yet in the midst of those great assistances and motions they did use study art industry and humane abilities This is more than probable in the different stiles of the several Books some being of admirable art others lower and plain The words were their own at least sometimes not the Holy Ghosts And if Origen Saint Hierome and especially the Greek Fathers Scholiasts and Grammarians were not deceived by false Copies but that they truly did observe sometimes to be impropriety of an expression in the language sometimes not true Greek who will think those errors or imperfections in Grammar were in respect of the words I say precisely immediate inspirations and dictates of the Holy Ghost and not rather their own productions of industry and humanity But clearly some of their words were the words of Aratus some of Epimenides some of Menander some of S. Paul This speak I not the Lord. Some were the words of Moses even all that part of the Levitical Law which concerned divorces and concerning which our blessed Saviour affirms that Moses permitted it because of the hardness of their hearts but from the beginning it was not so and divers others of the same nature collected and observed to this purpose by Origen S. Basil S. Ambrose and particularly that promise which S. Paul made of calling upon the Corinthians as he passed into Macedonia which certainly in all reason is to be presumed to have been spoken humanitùs and not by immediate inspiration and infusion because Saint Paul was so hindred that he could not be as good as his word and yet the Holy Ghost could have foreseen it and might better have excused it if Saint Paul had laid it upon his score but he did not and it is reasonable enough to believe there was no cause he should and yet because the Holy Ghost renewed their memory improved their understanding supplied to some their want of humane learning and so assisted them that they should not commit an error in fact or opinion neither in the narrative nor dogmatical parts therefore they writ by the Spirit Since that we cannot pretend upon any grounds of probability to an inspiration so immediate as theirs and yet their assistances which they had from the Spirit did not exclude humane arts and industry but that the ablest Scholar did write the best much rather is this true in the gifts and assistances we receive and particularly in the gift of prayer it is not an ex tempore and an inspired faculty but the faculties of nature and the abilities of art and industry are improv'd and ennobled by the supervening assistances of the Spirit And if these who pray ex tempore say that the assistance they receive from the Spirit is the inspiration of words and powers without the operations of art and natural abilities humane industry then besides that it is more than the Pen-men of Scripture sometime had because they needed no extraordinary assistances to what they could of themselves do upon the stock of other abilities besides this I say it must follow that such Prayers so inspired if they were committed to writing would prove as good Canonical Scripture as any is in Saint Paul's Epistles the impudence of which pretension is sufficient to prove the extreme vanity of the challenge Sect. 33. THE summe is this Whatsoever this gift is or this spirit of prayer it is to be acquired by humane industry by learning of the Scriptures by reading by conference and by whatsoever else faculties are improved and habits enlarged Gods Spirit hath done his work sufficiently this way and he loves not either in nature or grace which are his two great sanctions to multiply miracles when there is no need Sect. 34. AND now let us take a man that pretends he hath the gift of Prayer and loves to pray ex tempore I suppose his thoughts go a little before his tongue I demand then Whether cannot this man when it is once come into his head hold his tongue and write down what he hath conceived If his first conceptions were of God and God's Spirit then they are so still even when they are written Or is the Spirit departed from him upon the sight of a Pen and Inkhorn It did use to be otherwise among the old and new Prophets whether they were Prophets of prediction or of ordinary ministery But if his conception may be written and being written is still a production of the Spirit then it follows that set forms of prayer deliberate and described may as well be a praying with the Spirit as sudden forms and ex tempore out-lets Sect. 35. NOW the case being thus put I would fain know what the difference is between deliberate and ex tempore Prayers save only that in these there is less consideration and prudence for that the other are at least as much as these the productions of the Spirit is evident in the very case put in this Argument and whether to consider and to weigh them be any disadvantage to our devotions I leave it to all wise men to determine So that in effect since after the pretended assistance of the Spirit in our prayers we may write them down consider them try the spirits and ponder the matter the reason and the religion of the address let the world judge whether this sudden utterance and ex tempore forms be any thing else but a direct resolution not to consider beforehand what we speak Sic itaque habe ut istam vim dicendi rapidam aptiorem esse circulanti judices quà m agenti rem magnam seriam docentique They are the words of Seneca and express what naturally flows from the premises The pretence of the Spirit and the gift of prayer is not sufficient to justifie the dishonour they do to Religion in serving it in the lowest and most indeliberate manner nor quit such men from unreasonableness and folly who will dare to speak to God in the presence of the people and in their behalf without deliberation or learning or study Nothing is a greater disreputation to the prudence of a Discourse than to say it was a thing made up in haste that is without due considering Sect. 36. BUT here I consider and I wish they whom it concerns most would do so too that to pretend the Spirit in so unreasonable a manner to so ill purposes and without reason or promise or
elaborentur gratiora tamen quae suâ sponte nascuntur And a garment may as well be made to fit the Moon as that one form of Prayer should be made apt and proportionable to all men or to any man at all times Sect. 52. THIS Discourse relies wholly upon these two grounds A liberty to use variety of forms for prayer is more for the edification of the Church Secondly it is part of that liberty which the Church hath and part of the duty of the Church to preserve the liberty of the Spirit in various forms Sect. 53. BEFORE I descend to consideration of the particulars I must premise this that the gift or ability of prayer given to the Church is used either in publick or in private and that which is fit enough for one is inconvenient in the other and although a liberty in private may be for edification of good people when it is piously and discreetly used yet in the publick if it were indifferently permitted it would bring infinite inconvenience and become intolerable as a sad experience doth too much verifie Sect. 54. BUT now then this distinction evacuates all the former discourse and since it is permitted that every man in private use what forms he please the Spirit hath all that liberty that is necessary and so much as can be convenient the Church may be edified by every mans gift the affections of all men may be complied withall words may be fitted to their fancies their devotions quickned their weariness helped and supported and whatsoever benefit may be fancied by variety and liberty all that may be enjoyed and every reasonable desire or weaker fancy be fully satisfied Sect. 55. BUT since these advantages to devotion are accidental and do consult with weakness and infirmity and depend upon irregular variety for which no antecedent rule can make particular provision it is not to be expected the publick constitution and prescribed forms which are regular orderly and determin'd can make provision for particulars for chances and for infinite varieties And if this were any objection against publick forms it would also conclude against all humane Laws that they did not make provision for all particular accidents and circumstances that might possibly occurr All publick sanctions must be of a publick spirit and design and secure all those excellent things which have influence upon societies and communities of men and publick obligations Sect. 56. THUS if publick forms of Prayer be describ'd whose matter is pious and holy whose design is of universal extent and provisionary for all publick probable fear'd or foreseen events whose frame and composure is prudent and by authority competent and high and whose use and exercise is instrumental to peace and publick charity and all these hallowed by intention and care of doing glory to God and advantages to Religion express'd in observation of all such rules and precedents as are most likely to teach us best and guide us surest such as are Scriptures Apostolical Tradition Primitive practice and precedents of Saints and holy Persons the publick can do no more all the duty is performed and all the care is taken Sect. 57. NOW after all this there are personal necessities and private conveniencies or inconveniencies which if men are not so wise as themselves to provide for by casting off all prejudice and endeavouring to grow strong in Christianity men in Christ and not for ever to be Babes in Religion but frame themselves to a capacity of receiving the benefit of the publick without needing other provisions than what will fit the Church in her publick capacity the Spirit of God and the Church taught by him hath permitted us to comply with our own infirmities while they are innocent and to pray in private in any form of words which shall be most instrumental to our devotion in the present capacity Neque hoc ego ago ut ex tempore dicere malit sed ut possit Sect. 58. AND indeed sometimes an exuberant and an active affection and overflowing of Devotion may descend like anointing from above and our cup run over and is not to be contained within the margent of prescribed forms And though this be not of so great consideration as if it should happen to a man in publick that it is then fit for him or to be permitted to express it in forms unlimited and undetermin'd For there was a case in the dayes of the inundation of the Spirit when a man full of the Spirit was commanded to keep silence in the Church and to speak to himself and to God yet when this grace is given him in private he may compose his own Liturgy pectus enim est quod disertos facit vis mentis Ideoque imperitis quoque si modò sint aliquo affectu concitati verba non desunt Only when in private devotion we use forms of our own making or chusing we are concern'd to see that the matter be pious apt for edification and the present necessity and without contempt of publick prescriptions or irreverence to God and in all the rest we are at liberty only in the Lord that is according to the rule of faith and the analogy of Christian Religion For supposing that our devotion be fervent our intention pious and the petition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the will of God Whatsoever our expressions are God reads the petition in the Character of the spirit though the words be brevia concisa singultantium modo ejecta But then these accidental advantages and circumstances of profit which may be provided for in private as they cannot be taken care of in publick so neither is it necessary they should for those pleasures of sensible devotion are so far from being necessary to the acceptation of prayer that they are but compliances with our infirmities and suppose a great weakness in him that needs them say the Masters of spiritual life and in the strongest prayers and most effectual devotions are seldomest found such as was Moses prayer when he spake nothing and Hannah's and our blessed Saviour's when he called upon his Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with strong cries in that great desertion of spirit when he prayed in the Garden In these prayers the spirit was bound up with the strictness and violence of intention but could not ease it self with a flood of language and various expression A great devotion is like a great grief not so expressive as a moderate passion tears spend the grief and variety of language breaths out the devotion and therefore Christ went thrice and said the same words he could just speak his sence in a plain expression but the greatness of his agony was too big for the pleasure of a sweet and sensible expression of devotion Sect. 59. SO that let the devotion be never so great set forms of prayer will be expressive enough of any desire though importunate as extremity it self but when the spirit is
part In the mean time I shall set down those grounds of Religion and reason upon which publick Liturgie relies and by the strength of which it is to be justified against all opposition and pretences Sect. 66. 1. THE Church hath a power given to her by the Spirit of God and a command to describe publick forms of Liturgie For I consider that the Church is a Family Jesus Christ is the Master of the Family the holy Spirit is the great Dispensator of all such graces the family needs and are in order to the performance of their Duty the Apostles and their Successors the Rulers of the Church are Stewards of the manifold graces of God whose office is to provide every mans portion and to dispence the graces and issues Evangelical by way of Ministry Who is that faithful and wise Steward whom his Lord shall make ruler of his Houshold It was our blessed Saviour's Question and Saint Paul answered it Let a man so account of us as of the Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the mysteries of God Now the greatest Ministery of the Gospel is by way of prayer most of the graces of the Spirit being obtained by prayer and such offices which operate by way of impetration and benediction and consecration which are but the several instances of prayer Prayer certainly is the most effectual and mysterious ministery and therefore since the Holy Ghost hath made the Rulers of the Church Stewards of the mysteries they are by vertue of their Stewardship Presidents of Prayer and publick Offices Sect. 67. 2. WHICH also is certain because the Priest is to stand between God and the People and to represent all their needs to the throne of grace He is a Prophet and shall pray for thee said God concerning Abraham to Abimelech And therefore the Apostles appointed inferiour Officers in the Church that they might not be hindred in their great work but we will give our selves to the word of God and to prayer And therefore in our greatest need in our sickness and last scene of our lives we are directed to send for the Elders of the Church that they may pray over us and God hath promised to hear them and if prayer be of any concernment towards the final condition of our souls certainly it is to be ordered guided and disposed by them who watch for our souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they that must give account to God for them Sect. 68. 3. NOW if the Rulers of the Church are Presidents of the rites of Religion and by consequence of Prayer either they are to order publick prayers or private For private I suppose most men will be so desirous of their liberty as to preserve that in private where they have no concernments but their own for matter of order or scandal But for publick if there be any such thing as Government and that prayers may be spoiled by disorder or made ineffectual by confusion or by any accident may become occasion of a scandal it is certain that they must be ordered as all other things are in which the publick is certainly concerned that is by the Rulers of the Church who are answerable if there be any miscarriage in the publick Thus far I suppose there will not be much question with those who allow set forms but would have themselves be the Composers They would have the Ministers pray for the people but the Ministers shall not be prescribed to the Rulers of the Church shall be the Presidents of religious rites but then they will be the Rulers therefore we must proceed farther and because I will not now enter into the Question who are left by Christ to govern his Church I will proceed upon such grounds which I hope may be sufficient to determine this Question and yet decline the other Therefore Sect. 69. SINCE the Spirit of God is the Spirit of supplication they to whom the greatest portion of the Spirit is promised are most competent persons to pray for the people and to prescribe forms of prayer But the promise of the Spirit is made to the Church in general to her in her united capacity to the whole Church first then to particular Churches then in the lowest seat of the Category to single persons And we have title to the Promises by being Members of the Church and in the Communion of Saints which beside the stylus curiae the form of all the great Promises being in general and comprehensive terms appears in this that when any single person is out of this communion he hath also no title to the promises which yet he might if he had any upon his own stock not derivative from the Church Now then I infer if any single persons will have us to believe without possibility of proof for so it must be that they pray with the Spirit for how shall they be able to prove the Spirit actually to abide in those single persons then much rather must we believe it of the Church which by how much the more general it is so much the more of the Spirit she is likely to have and then if there be no errors in the matter the Church hath the advantage and probability on her side and if there be an error in matter in either of them neither of them have the Spirit or they make not the true use of it But the publick spirit in all reason is to be trusted before the private when there is a contestation the Church being prior potior in promissis she hath a greater and prior title to the Spirit And why the Church hath not the spirit of prayer in her compositions as well as any of her children I desire once for all to be satisfied upon true grounds either of reason or revelation And if she have whether she have not as much as any single person If she have but as much then there is as much reason in respect of the divine assistance that the Church should make the forms as that any single Minister should and more reason in respect of order and publick influence and care and charge of souls but if she have a greater portion of the Spirit than a single person that is if the whole be greater than the part or the publick better than the private then it is evident that the Spirit of the Church in respect of the divine assistance is chiefly and in respect of order is only to be relied upon for publick provisions and forms of prayer Sect. 70. BUT now if the Church in her united capacity makes prayers for the people they cannot be supposed to be other than limited and determined forms for it is not practicable or indeed imaginable that a Synod of Church Governours be they who they will so they be of Christs appointment should meet in every Church and pray as every man list their Counsels are united and their results are conclusions and final determinations which like general propositions are
set form of Prayer Now it is considerable that no man ever had the fulness of the Spirit but only the Holy Jesus and therefore it is also certain that no man had the Spirit of prayer like to him and then if we pray this prayer devoutly and with pious and actual intention do we not pray in the Spirit of Christ as much as if we prayed any other form of words pretended to be taught us by the Spirit We are sure that Christ and Christs Spirit taught us this Prayer they only gather by conjectures and opinions that in their ex tempore or conceived forms the Spirit of Christ teacheth them So much then as Certainties are better than uncertainties and God's Word better than Man's so much is this set Form besides the infinite advantages in the matter better than their ex tempore and conceived Forms in the form it self And if ever any Prayer was or could be a part of that Doctrine of Faith by which we received the Spirit it must needs be this Prayer which was the only form our blessed Master taught the Christian Church immediately was a part of his great and glorious Sermon in the Mount in which all the needs of the world are sealed up as in a treasure house and intimated by several petitions as diseases are by their proper and proportioned remedies and which Christ published as the first emanation of his Spirit the first perfume of that heavenly anointing which descended on his sacred Head when he went down into the waters of Baptism Sect. 79. THIS we are certain of that there is nothing wanting nothing superfluous and impertinent nothing carnal or imperfect in this Prayer but as it supplies all needs so it serves all persons is fitted for all estates it meets with all accidents and no necessity can surprize any man but if God hears him praying that Prayer he is provided for in that necessity and yet if any single person paraphrases it it is not certain but the whole sence of a petition may be altered by the intervention of one improper word and there can be no security given against this but qualified and limited and just in such a proportion as we can be assured of the wisdom and honesty of the person and the actual assistance of the holy Spirit Sect. 80. NOW then I demand whether the Prayer of Manasses be so good a Prayer as the Lords Prayer or is the Prayer of Judith or of Tobias or of Judas Macchabeus or of the Son of Sirach is any of these so good Certainly no man will say they are and the reason is because we are not sure they are inspired by the Holy Spirit of God prudent and pious and conformable to Religion they may be but not penn'd by so excellent a spirit as this Prayer And what assurance can be given that any Ministers prayer is better than the prayers of the Son of Sirach who was a very wise and a very good man as all the world acknowledges I know not any one of them that has so large a testimony or is of so great reputation But suppose they can make as good prayers yet surely they are Apocryphal at least and for the same reason that the Apocryphal prayers are not so excellent as the Lords prayer by the same reason must the best they can be imagin'd to compose fall short of this excellent pattern by how much they partake of a smaller portion of the Spirit as a drop of water is less than all the waters under or above the Firmament Sect. 81. SECONDLY I would also willingly know whether if any man uses the form which Christ taught supposing he did not tie us to the very prescript words can there be any hurt in it Is it imaginable that any Commandment should be broken or any affront done to the honour of God or any act of imprudence or irreligion in it or any negligence of any insinuation of the Divine pleasure I cannot yet think of any thing to frame for answer so much as by way of an Antinomy or Objection But then supposing Christ did tie us to use this Prayer pro loco tempore according to the nature and obligation of all affirmative precepts as it is certain he did in the preceptive words recorded by St. Luke When ye pray say Our Father then it is to be considered that a Divine Commandment is broken by its rejection and therefore if there were any doubt remaining whether it be a Command or no yet since on one side there is danger of a negligence and a contempt and that on the other side the observation and conformity cannot be criminal or imprudent it will follow that the retaining of this Prayer in practice and suffering it to do all its intentions and particularly becoming the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or authority for set Forms of prayer is the safest most prudent most Christian understanding of those words of Christ propounding the Lords Prayer to the Christian Church And because it is impossible that all particulars should be expressed in any form of prayer because particulars are not only casual and accidental but also infinite Christ according to that wisdom he had without measure fram'd a Prayer which by a general comprehension should include all particulars eminently and virtually so that there should be no defect in it and yet so short that the most imperfect memories might retain and use it Sect. 82. AND it is not amiss to observe that our blessed Saviour first taught this Prayer to be as a remedy and a reproof of the vain repetition of the Pharisees and besides that it was so à priori we also in the event see the excellent spirit and wisdom in the Constitution for those persons who have laid aside the Lords Prayer have been noted by common observation to be very long in their forms and troublesome and vain enough in their repetitions they have laid aside the medicine and the old wound bleeds afresh the Pharisees did so of old Sect. 83. AND after all this it is strange imployment that any man should be put to justifie the wisdom and prudence of any of Christs institutions as if any of his servants who are wise upon his Stock instructed by his Wisdom made knowing by his Revelations and whose all that is good is but a weak ray of the glorious light of the Sun of Righteousness should dare to think that the Derivative should be before the Primitive the Current above the Fountain and that we should derive all our excellency from him and yet have some beyond him that is some which he never had or which he was not pleased to manifest or that we should have a spirit of Prayer able to make productions beyond his Prayer who received the Spirit without measure But this is not the first time man hath disputed against God Sect. 84. AND now let us consider with sobriety not only of this excellent Prayer but of
if all Christian Churches had one common Liturgy there were not a greater symbol to testifie nor a greater instrument to preserve the Catholick Communion and when ever a Schism was commenc'd and that they called one another Heretick they not only forsook to pray with one another but they also altered their Forms by interposition of new Clauses Hymns and Collects and new Rites and Ceremonies only those parts that combined kept the same Liturgy and indeed the same Forms of Prayer were so much the instrument of Union that it was the only ligament of their Society for their Creeds I reckon as part of their Liturgy for so they ever were so that this may teach us a little to guess I will not say into how many Churches but into how many innumerable atoms and minutes of Churches those Christians must needs be scattered who alter their Forms according to the number of persons and the number of their meetings every company having a new Form of Prayer at every convention And this consideration will not be vain if we remember how great a blessing Unity in Churches is and how hard to be kept with all the arts in the world and how every thing is powerful enough for its dissolution But that a publick Form of Liturgy was the great instrument of Communion in the Primitive Church appears in this that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or excommunication was an exclusion à communicatione orationis conventûs omnis sancti commercii from the participation of the publick meeting and Prayers and therefore the more united the Prayer is still it is the greater instrument of Union the Authority and Consent the publick Spirit and common Acceptation are so many degrees of a more firm and indissoluble Communion Sect. 103. THIRDLY To this I add that without prescribed Forms issues of the publick Spirit and Authority publick Communion cannot be regular and certain as may appear in one or two plain instances It is a practise prevailing among those of our Brethren that are zealous for ex tempore or not enjoyned Prayers to pray their Sermons over to reduce their Doctrine into Devotion and Liturgie I mislike it not for the thing it self if it were regularly for the manner and the matter always pious and true But who shall assure me when the preacher hath disputed or rather dogmatically decreed a point of Predestination or of prescience of contingency or of liberty or any of the most mysterious parts of Divinity and then prayes his Sermon over that he then prays with the Spirit Unless I be sure that he also Preached with the Spirit I cannot be sure that he Prays with the Spirit for all he prays ex tempore Nay if I hear a Protestant preach in the Morning and an Anabaptist in the Afternoon to day a Presbyterian to morrow an Independant am I not most sure that when they have preached contradictories and all of them pray their Sermons over that they do not all pray with the Spirit More than one in this case cannot pray with the Spirit possibly all may pray against him Sect. 104. FOURTHLY From whence I thus argue in behalf of set Forms of prayer That in the case above put how shall I or any man else say Amen to their prayers that preach and pray contradictories At least I am much hindred in my devotion For besides that it derives our opinions into our devotions makes every School-point become our Religion and makes God a party so far as we can intitling him to our impertinent wranglings Besides this I say while we should attend to our addresses towards God we are to consider whether the point be true or no and by that time we have tacitely discoursed it we are upon another point which also perhaps is as questionable as the former and by this time our spirit of devotion is a little discomposed and something out of countenance there is so much other imployment for the spirit the spirit of discerning and judging All which inconveniences are avoided in set forms of Liturgy For we know before hand the conditions of our communion and to what we are to say Amen to which if we like it we may repair if not there is no harm done your devotion shall not be surprized nor your communion invaded as it may be often in your ex tempore prayers and unlimited devotions Sect. 105. FIFTHLY and this thing hath another collateral inconvenience which is of great consideration for upon what confidence can we solicite any Recusants to come to our Church where we cannot promise them that the devotions there to be used shall be innocent nor can we put him into a condition to judge for himself if he will venture he may but we can use no argument to make him choose our Churches though he would quit his own Sect. 106. SIXTHLY So that either the people must have an implicite faith in the Priest and then may most easily be abused or if they have not they cannot joyn in the prayer it cannot become to them an instrument of communion but by chance and irregularly and ex post facto when the prayer is approv'd of and after the devotion is spent for till then they cannot judge and before they do they cannot say Amen and till Amen be said there is no benefit of the prayer nor no union of hearts and desires and therefore as yet no communion Sect. 107. SEVENTHLY Publick forms of prayer are great advantages to convey an Article of faith into the most secret retirement of the Spirit and to establish it with a most firm perswasion and endear it to us with the greatest affection For since our prayers are the greatest instruments and conveyances of blessing and mercy to us that which mingles with our hopes which we owe to God which is sent of an errand to fetch a mercy for us in all reason will become the dearer to us for all these advantages And just so is an Article of belief inserted into our devotions and made a part of prayer it is extreamly confirmed by that confidence and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fulness of perswasion that must exclude all doubting from our prayers and it insinuates it self into our affection by being mingled with our desires and we grow bold in it by having offered it to God and made so often acknowledgment of it to him who is not to be mocked Sect. 108. AND certainly it were a very strange Liturgy in which there were no publick Confession of Faith for as it were deficient in one act of Gods worship which is offering the understanding up to God bringing it in subjection to Christ and making publick profession of it it also loses a very great advantage which might accrue to Faith by making it a part of our Liturgick devotions and this was so apprehended by the Ancients in the Church our Fathers in Christ that commonly they used to oppose a Hymn or a Collect or a Doxology in
expolit dicendi necessitas secundos impetus auget placendi cupido Adeò praemium omnia spectant ut eloquentia quoque quanquam plurimum habeat in se voluptatis maximè tamen praesenti fructu laudis opinionisque ducatur It may so happen that the opinion of the people as it is apt to actuate the faculty so also may encourage the practice and spoil the devotion But these things are accidental to the nature of the thing and therefore though they are too certainly consequent to the person yet I will not be too severe but preserve my self on the surer side of a charitable construction which truly I desire to keep not only to their persons whom I much reverence but also to their actions But yet I durst not do the same thing even for these last reasons though I had no other Sect. 115. IN the next place we must consider the next great objection that is with much clamor pretended viz. that in set Forms of Prayer we restrain and confine the blessed Spirit and in conceived Forms when every man is left to his liberty then the Spirit is free unlimited and unconstrained Sect. 116. I ANSWER Either their conceived forms I use their own words though indeed the expression is very inartificial are premeditate and described or they are ex tempore If they be premeditate and described then the Spirit is as much limited in their conceived forms as in the Churches conceived Forms For as to this particular it is all one who describes and limits the Form whether the Church or a single man does it still the Spirit is in constraint and limit So that in this case they are not angry at set Forms of Prayer but that they do not make them And if it be replyed that if a single person composes a set Form he may alter it if he please and so his Spirit is at liberty I answer so may the Church if She see cause for it and unless there be cause the single person will not alter it unless he do things unreasonable and without cause So that it will be an unequal challenge and a peevish quarrel to allow of set Forms of Prayer made by private Persons and not of set Forms made by the publick spirit of the Church It is evident that the Spirit is limited in both alike Sect. 117. BUT if by conceived Forms in this Objection they mean ex tempore Prayers for so they would be thought most generally to practise it and that in the use of these the liberty of the spirit is best preserved To this I answer that the being ex tempore or premediate will be wholly impertinent to this Question of limiting the spirit For there may be great liberty in set forms even when there is much variety and there may be great restraint in ex tempore Prayers even then when it shall be called unlawful to use set forms That the spirit is restrained or that it is free in either is accidental to them both for it may be either free or not free in both as it may happen Sect. 118. BUT the restraint is this that every one is not left to his liberty to pray how he list with premeditation or without it makes not much matter but that he is prescribed unto by the spirit of another But if it be a fault thus to restrain the Spirit I would fain know is not the Spirit restrained when the whole Congregation shall be confined to the form of this one mans composing Or shall it be unlawful or at least a disgrace and disparagement to use any set Forms especially of the Churches composition More plainly thus Sect. 119. SECONDLY Doth not the Minister confine and restrain the spirit of the Lords People when they are tied to his Form It would sound of more liberty to their spirits that every one might make a prayer of his own and all pray together and not be forced or confined to the Ministers single dictate and private spirit It is true it would breed confusions and therefore they might pray silently till the Sermon began and not for the avoiding one inconvenience run into a greater and to avoid the disorder of a popular noise restrain the blessed Spirit for even in this case as well as in the other where the Spirit of God is there must be liberty Sect. 120. THIRDLY If the spirit must be at liberty who shall assure us this liberty must be in Forms of Prayer And if so whether also it must be in publick Prayer and will it not suffice that it be in private and if in publick Prayers is not the liberty of the spirit sufficiently preserved that the publick Spirit is free That is the Church hath power upon occasion to alter and increase her Litanies By what argument shall any man make it so much as probable that the Holy Ghost is injured if every private Ministers private spirit shall be guided and therefore by necessary consequence limited by the authority of the Churches publick Spirit Sect. 121. FOURTHLY Does not the Directory that thing which is here called restraining of the Spirit Does it not appoint every thing but the words And after this is it not a goodly Palladium that is contended for and a princely liberty they leave unto the Spirit to be free only in the supplying the place of a Vocabulary and a Copia verborum For as for the matter it is all there described and appointed and to those determined sences the Spirit must assist or not at all only for the words he shall take his choice Now I desire it may be considered sadly and seriously Is it not as much injury to the Spirit to restrain his matter as to appoint his words Which is the more considerable of the two Sence or Language Matter or Words I mean when they are taken singly and separately For so they may very well be for as if men prescribe the matter only the Spirit may cover it with several words and expressions so if the Spirit prescribe the words I may still abound in variety of sence and preserve the liberty of my meaning we see that true in the various interpretations of the same words of Scripture So that in the greater of the two the Spirit is restrained when his matter is appointed and to make him amends for not trusting him with the matter without our directions and limitations we trust him to say what he pleases so it be to our sence to our purposes A goodly compensation surely Sect. 122. FIFTHLY Did not Christ restrain the spirit of his Apostles when he taught them to pray the Lords Prayer whether his precept to his Disciples concerning it was Pray this or Pray thus Pray these words or Pray after this manner Or though it had been less than either and been only a Directory for the matter still it is a thing which our brethren in all other cases of the same nature are resolved perpetually to call a
we may venture to offer it to God Sect. 132. FOURTHLY There is a latitude of Theology much whereof is left to us so without precise and clear determination that without breach either of faith or charity men may differ in opinion and if they may not be permitted to abound in their own sence they will be apt to complain of tyranny over Consciences and that Men Lord it over their faith In prayer this thing is so different that it is imprudent and full of inconvenience to derive such things into our prayers which may with good profit be matter of Sermons Therefore here a liberty may well enough be granted when there it may better be denied Sect. 133. FIFTHLY But indeed If I may freely declare my opinion I think it were not amiss if the liberty of making Sermons were something more restrain'd than it is and that either such persons only were intrusted with the liberty for whom the Church her self may safely be responsive that is to men learned and pious and that the other part the Vulgus Cleri should instruct the People out of the fountains of the Church and the publick stock till by so long exercise and discipline in the Schools of the Prophets they may also be intrusted to minister of their own unto the people This I am sure was the Practice of the Primitive Church when preaching was as ably and religiously performed as now it is but in this I prescribe nothing But truly I think the reverend Divines of the Assembly are many of them of my mind in this particular and that they observe a liberty indulg'd to some Persons to preach which I think they had rather should hold their peace and yet think the Church better edified in their silence than their Sermons Sect. 134. SIXTHLY But yet methinks the Argument objected so far as the ex tempore Men make use of it if it were turned with the edge the other way would have more reason in it and instead of arguing Why should not the same liberty be allowed to their spirit in praying as in preaching it were better to substitute this If they can pray with the Spirit why do they not also preach with the Spirit And it may be there may be in reason or experience something more for preaching and making Orations by the excellency of a mans spirit and learning than for the other which in the greatest abilities it may be unfit to venture to God without publick approbation but for Sermons they may be fortunate and safe if made ex tempore Frequenter enim accidit ut successum extemporalem consequi cura non possit quem si calor ac spiritus tulit Deum tunc adfuisse cùm id evenisset veteres Oratores ut Cicero dicit aiebant Now let them make demonstration of their spirit by making excellent Sermons ex tempore that it may become an experiment of their other faculty that after they are tried and approved in this they may be considered for the other And if praying with the Spirit be praying ex tempore why shall not they preach ex tempore too or else confess they preach without the Spirit or that they have not the gift of preaching For to say that the gift of prayer is a gift ex tempore but the gift of Preaching is with study and deliberation is to become vain and impertinent Quis enim discrevit Who hath made them of a different Consideration I mean as to this particular as to their Efficient cause nor Reason nor Revelation nor God nor Man Sect. 135. TO summe up all If any man hath a mind to exercise his Gift of prayer let him set himself to work and compose Books of Devotion we have need of them in the Church of England so apparent need that some of the Church of Rome have made it an objection against us and this his Gift of Prayer will be to edification But otherwise I understand it is more fit for ostentation than any spiritual advantage For God hears us not the sooner for our ex tempore long or conceived Prayers possibly they may become a hinderance as in the cases before instanced And I am sure if the people be intelligent and can discern they are hindred in their Devotion for they dare not say Amen till they have considered and many such cases will occur in ex tempore or unlicenced Prayers that need much considering before we attest them But if the people be not intelligent they are apt to swallow all the inconveniences which may multiply in so great a licence and therefore it were well that the Governours of the Church who are to answer for their souls should judge for them before they say Amen which judgment cannot be without set Forms of Liturgy My sentence therefore is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let us be as we are already few changes are for the better Sect. 136. FOR if it be pretended that in the Liturgy of the Church of England which was composed with much art and judgment by a Church that hath as much reason to be confident She hath the Spirit and Gift of Prayer as any single person hath and each learned man that was at its first composition can as much prove that he had the Spirit as the Objectors now adays and he that boasts most certainly hath the least If I say it be pretended that there are many errors and inconveniences both in the Order and in the matter of the Common-Prayer-Book made by such men with so much industry how much more and with how much greater reason may we all dread the inconveniences and disorders of ex tempore and conceived Prayers Where respectively there is neither conjunction of Heads nor Premeditation nor Industry nor Method nor Art nor any of those Things or at least not in the same Degree which were likely to have exempted the Common-prayer-book from errors and disorders If these things be in the green tree what will be done in the dry Sect. 137. BUT if it be said the ex tempore and conceived Prayers will be secured from error by the Directory because that chalks them out the matter I answer it is not sufficient because if when men study both the matter and the words too they may be and it is pretended are actually deceived much more may they when the matter is left much more at liberty and the words under no restraint at all And no man can avoid the pressure and the weight of this unless the Compilers of the Directory were infallible and that all their followers are so too of the certainty of which I am not yet fully satisfied Sect. 138. AND after this I would fain know what benefit and advantages the Church of England in her united capacity receives by this new device For the publick it is clear that whether the Ministers Pray before they Study or Study before they Pray there must needs be infinite deformity in the publick Worship and
blessed Saviour Do this in memorial of me and this doing ye shew forth the Lords death till he come saith S. Paul 3. Secondly the second credibility that our blessed Saviours words are to be understood figuratively is because it is a Sacrament For mysterious and tropical expressions are very frequently almost regularly and universally used in Scripture in Sacraments and sacramentals And therefore it is but a vain discourse of Bellarmine to contend that this must be a proper speaking because it is a Sacrament For that were all one as to say he speaks mystically therefore he speaks properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Greek for a Sacrament and all the Greek that is for it in the New Testament and when S. Paul tells of a man praying in the spirit but so as not to be understood he expresses it by speaking mysteries The mysterious and sacramental speaking is secret and dark But so it is in the sacrament or covenant of circumcision 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is my Covenant and yet it was but the seal of the Covenant if you believe S. Paul it was a Sacrament and a consignation of it but it is spoken of it affirmatively and the same words are used there as in the Sacrament of the Eucharist it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in both places 4. And upon this account two other usual objections pretending that this being a Covenant and a Testament it ought to be expressed without a figure are dissolved For here is a Covenant and a Testament and a Sacrament all in one and yet the expression of them is figurative and the being a Testament is so far from supposing all expression in it to be proper and free from figure that it self the very word Testament in the institution of the holy Sacrament is tropical or figurative est Testamentum that is est signum Testamenti it is that is it signifies And why they should say that a Testament must have in it all plain words and no figures or hard sayings that contend that both the Testaments New and Old are very full of hard sayings and upon that account forbid the people to read them I confess I cannot understand Besides this though it be fit in temporal Testaments all should be plain yet we see all are not plain and from thence come so many suits of Law yet there is not the same reason in spiritual or divine and in humane Testaments for in humane there is nothing but legacies and express commands both which it is necessary that we understand plainly but in divine Testaments there are mysteries to exercise our industry and our faith our patience and inquiry some things for us to hope some things for us to admire some things to pry into some things to act some things for the present some things for the future some things pertaining to this life some things pertaining to the life to come some things we are to see in a glass darkly some things reserved till the vision of Gods face And after all this in humane Testaments men ought to speak plainly because they can speak no more when they are dead But Christ can for he being dead yet speaketh and he can by his Spirit make the Church understand as much as he please and he will as much as is necessary and it might be remembred that in Scripture there is extant a record of Jacobs Testament and of Moses which we may observe to be an allegory all the way I have heard also of an Athenian that had two sons and being asked on his deathbed to which of his two sons he would give his goods to Leon or Pantaleon which were the names of his two sons he only said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but whether he meant to give all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Leon or to Pantaleon is not yet known And in the Civil Law it is noted that Testaments have figurative expressions very often and therefore decreed Non n. in causâ Testamentorum ad definitionem strictam sive propriam verborum significationem saith the Gloss utique descendendum est cum plerumque abusivè loquantur nec propriis vocabulis ac nominibus semper utantur Testatores l. non aliter Sect. Titius F. de legat fidei com And there are in Law certain measures for presumption of the Testators meaning These therefore are trifling arrests even a commandment may be given with a figurative expression and yet be plain enough such was that of Jesus Pray ye the Lord of the Harvest that he would send Labourers into his Harvest and that Jesus commanded his Disciples to prepare the Passeover and some others so Rent your hearts and not your garments c. And an article of faith may be expressed figuratively so is that of Christs sitting at the right hand of his Father And therefore much more may there be figurative expressions in the institution of a mysterie and yet be plain enough Tropica loquutio cum fit ubi fieri solet sine labore sequitur intellectus said S. Austin l. 3. de Doct. Christ. c. 37. Certain it is the Church understood this well enough for a Thousand years together and yet admitted of figures in the institution and since these new men had the handling of it and excluded the figurative sence they have made it so hard that themselves cannot understand it nor tell one anothers meaning But it suffices as to this particular that in Scripture doctrines and promises and precepts and prophecies and histories are expressed sometimes figuratively Dabo tibi claves and Semen mulieris conteret caput serpentis and The dragon drew the third part of the Stars with his tail and Fight the good fight of faith Put on the armour of righteousness and very many more 5. Thirdly And indeed there is no possibility of distinguishing sacramental propositions from common and dogmatical or from a commandment but that these are affirmative of a nature those of a mystery these speak properly they are figurative such as this Vnless a man be born of water and the Spirit be cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven The proposition is sacramental mystical and figurative Go and baptize that 's a precept therefore the rather is it literal and proper So it is in the blessed Sacrament the institution is in Jesus took bread and blessed it and brake it and gave to his disciples saying Take eat In these also there is a precept and in the last words Hoc facite this do in remembrance of me But the Sacramental proposition or the mystical which explicates the Sacrament is Hoc est corpus meum and either this is or there is no sacramental proposition in this whole affair to explicate the mysterie or the being a sacrament But this is very usual in sacramental propositions For so baptism is called regeneration and it is called a burial by S. Paul for we are buried with him in baptism then baptism
be said he was deceived when he said I saw Satan like lightning fall from Heaven or when he heard the voice of his Father testifying concerning him or lest he should be deceived when he touched Peters wives mother by the hand or that he smelt another breath of ointment and not what was offered to his burial Alium postea vini saporem quod in sanguinis sui memoriam consecravit or tasted another taste of wine which he consecrated to the memory of his blood And if the Catholick Christians had believed the substantial natural presence of Christs body in the Sacrament and consequently disbelieved the testimony of four senses as the Church of Rome at this day does seeing smelling tasting feeling it had been impudence in them to have reproved Marcion by the testimony of two senses concerning the verity of Christs body And supposing that our eyes could be deceived and our taste and our smelling yet our touch cannot for supposing the organs equally disposed yet touch is the guardian of truth and his nearest natural instrument all sensation is by touch but the other senses are more capable of being deceived because though they finally operate by touch variously affected yet their objects are further removed from the Organ and therefore many intermedial things may intervene and possibly hinder the operation of the sense that is bring more diseases and disturbances to the action but in touch the object and the instrument joyn close together and therefore there can be no impediment if the instrument be sound and the object proper And yet no sense can be deceived in that which it always perceives alike The touch can never be deceived and therefore a testimony from it and three senses more cannot possibly be refused and therefore it were strange if all the Christians for above 1600 years together should be deceived as if the Eucharist were a perpetual illusion and a riddle to the senses for so many ages together and indeed the fault in this case could not be in the senses and therefore Tertullian and S. Austin dispute wittily and substantially that the senses could never be deceived but the understanding ought to assent to what they relate to it or represent For if any man thinks the staff is crooked that is set half way in the water it is the fault of his judgment not of his sense for the air and the water being several mediums the eye ought to see otherwise in air otherwise in water but the understanding must not conclude falsly from these true premises which the eye ministers For the thicker medium makes a fraction of the species by incrassation and a shadow and when a man in the yellow Jaundies thinks every thing yellow it is not the fault of his eye but of his understanding for the eye does his office right for it perceives just as is represented to it the species are brought yellow but the fault is in the understanding not perceiving that the species are stained near the eye not further off When a man in a fever thinks every thing bitter his taste is not deceived but judges rightly for as a man that chews bread and aloes together tastes not false if he tastes bitterness so it is in the sick mans case the juice of his meat is mingled with choler and the taste is acute and exact by perceiving it such as it is so mingled The purpose of which discourse is this that no notices are more evident and more certain than the notices of sense but if we conclude contrary to the true dictate of senses the fault is in the understanding collecting false conclusions from right premises It follows therefore that in the matter of the Eucharist we ought to judge that which our senses tell us For whatsoever they say is true for no deceit can come by them but the deceit is when we believe something besides or against what they tell us especially when the organ is perfect and the object proper and the medium regular and all things perfect and the same always and to all men For it is observable that in this case the senses are competent judges of the natural being of what they see and taste and smell and feel and according to that all the men in the world can swear that what they see is bread and wine but it is not their office to tell us what they become by the institution of our Saviour for that we are to learn by faith that what is bread and wine in nature is by Gods ordinance the Sacrament of the body and blood of the Saviour of the world but one cannot contradict another and therefore they must be reconciled both say true that which Faith teaches is certain and that which the senses of all men teach always that also is certain and evident for as the rule of the School says excellently Grace never destroys nature but perfects it and so it is in the consecration of bread and wine in which although we are more to regard their signification than their matter their holy imployment than their natural usage what they are by grace rather than what they are by nature that they are Sacramental rather than that they are nutritive that they are consecrated and exalted by religion rather than that they are mean and low in their natural beings what they are to the spirit and understanding rather than what they are to the sense yet this also is as true and as evident as the other and therefore though not so apt for our meditation yet as certain as that which is 7. Thirdly Though it be a hard thing to be put to prove that bread is bread and that wine is wine yet if the arguments and notices of sense may not pass for sufficient an impudent person may without possibility of being confuted out-face any man that an Oyster is a Rat and that a Candle is a pig of Lead and so might the Egyptian Soothsayers have been too hard for Moses for when they changed rods into Serpents they had some colour to tell Pharaoh they were Serpents as well as the rod of Moses But if they had failed to turn the water into blood they needed not to have been troubled if they could have born down Pharaoh that though it looked like water and tasted like water yet by their inchantment they had made it verily to be blood And upon this ground of having different substances unproper and disproportioned accidents what hinders them but they might have said so and if they had how should they have been confuted But this manner of proceeding would be sufficient to evacuate all reason and all science and all notices of things and we may as well conclude snow to be black and fire cold and two and two to make five and twenty 8. But it is said although the body of Christ be invested with unproper accidents yet sometimes Christ hath appeared in his own shape and blood
peculiar grace and vertue was signified by the symbol of wine and it was evident that the chalice was an excellent representment and memorial of the effusion of Christs blood for us and the joyning both the symbols signifies the intire refection and nourishment of our souls bread and drink being the natural provisions and they design and signifie our redemption more perfectly the body being given for our bodies and the blood for the cleansing our souls the life of every animal being in the blood and finally this in the integrity signifies and represents Christ to have taken body and soul for our redemption For these reasons the Church of God always in all her publick communions gave the chalice to the people for above a thousand years This was all I would have remarked in this so evident a matter but that I observed in a short spiteful passage of E. W. Pag. 44. a notorious untruth spoken with ill intent concerning the Holy Communion as understood by Protestants The words are these seeing the fruit of Protestant Communion is only to stir up faith in the receiver I can find no reason why their bit of bread only may not as well work that effect as to taste of their wine with it To these words 1. I say that although stirring up faith is one of the Divine benefits and blessings of the Holy Communion yet it is falsely said that the fruit of the Protestant Communion is only to stir up faith For in the Catechism of the Church of England it is affirmed that the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received of the faithful in the Lords Supper and that our souls are strengthened and refreshed by the body and blood of Christ as our bodies are by the bread and wine and that of stirring up our faith is not at all mention'd So ignorant so deceitful or deceiv'd is E. W in the doctrine of the Church of England But then as for his foolish sarcasm calling the hallowed Element a bit of bread which he does in scorn he might have considered that if we had a mind to find fault whenever his Church gives us cause that the Papists wafer is scarce so much as a bit of bread it is more like Marchpane than common bread and besides that as Salmeron acknowledges anciently Olim ex pane uno sua cuique particula frangi consueverat that which we in our Church do was the custom of the Church out of a great loaf to give particles to every communicant by which the Communication of Christs body to all the members is better represented and that Durandus affirming the same thing says that the Grecians continue it to this day besides this I say the Author of the Roman order says Cassander took it very ill that the loaves of bread offered in certain Churches for the use of the sacrifice should be brought from the form of true bread to so slight and slender a form which he calls Minutias nummulariarum oblatarum scraps of little penies or pieces of money and not worthy to be called bread being such which no Nation ever used at their meals for bread But this is one of the innovations which they have introduc'd into the religious Rites of Christianity and it is little noted they having so many greater changes to answer for But it seems this Section was too hot for them they loved not much to meddle with it and therefore I shall add no more fuel to their displeasure but desire the Reader who would fully understand what is fit to be said in this Question to read it in a book of mine which I called Ductor dubitantium or the Cases of Conscience only I must needs observe that it is an unspeakable comfort to all Protestants when so manifestly they have Christ on their side in this Question against the Church of Rome To which I only add that for above 700. years after Christ it was esteemed sacriledge in the Church of Rome to abstain from the Cup and that in the ordo Romanus the Communion is always describ'd with the Cup how it is since and how it comes to be so is too plain But it seems the Church hath power to dispence in this affair because S. Paul said that the Ministers of Christ are dispensers of the mysteries of God as was learnedly urg'd in the Council of Trent in the doctrine about this question SECT V. Of the Scriptures and Service in an unknown Tongue THE Question being still upon the novelty of the Roman doctrines and Practices I am to make it good that the present article and practice of Rome is contrary to the doctrine and practice of the Primitive Church To this purpose I alledged S. Basil in his Sermon or book de variis scripturae locis But say my adversaries there is no such book Well! was there such a man as S. Basil If so we are well enough and let these Gentlemen be pleas'd to look into his works printed at Paris 1547. by Carola Guillard and in the 130. page he shall see this Book Sermon or Homily in aliquot scripturae locis at the beginning of which he hath an exhortation in the words placed in the Margent there we shall find the lost Sheep The beginning of it is an exhortation to the people congregated to get profit and edification by the Scriptures read at morning prayer the Monitions in the Psalms the precepts of the Proverbs Search ye the beauty of the history and the examples and add to these the precepts of the Apostles But in all things joyn the words of the Gospel as the Crown and perfection that receiving profit from them all ye may at length turn to that to which every one is sweetly affected and for the doing of which he hath received the grace of the Holy Spirit Now this difficulty being over all that remains for my own justification is that I make it appear that S. Chrysostom S. Ambrose S. Austin Aquinas and Lyra do respectively exhort to the study of the Scriptures exhorting even the Laity to do so and testifie the custom of the Ancient Church in praying in a known tongue and commending this as most useful and condemning the contrary as being useless and without edification I shall in order set down the doctrine they deliver in their own words and then the impertinent cavils of the adversaries will of themselves come to nothing S. Chrysostom commenting upon S. Pauls words concerning preaching and praying for edification and so as to be understood coming to those words of S. Paul If I pray with my tongue my spirit prayeth but my mind is without fruit you see saith he how a little extolling prayer he shews that he who is such a one viz. as the Apostle there describes is not only unprofitable to others but also to himself since his mind is without fruit Now if a man praying what he understands not does
God or if I do I shall soon find a pardon For I consider that the Commandments are impossible and what is not possible to be done we are not to take care of and he that fails in one instance cannot be sav'd without a pardon not by his obedience and he that fails in all may be sav'd by pardon and grace For the case is so that we are sinners naturally made so before we were born and nature can never be changed until she be destroyed and since all our irregularities spring from that root it is certain they ought not to be imputed to us and a man can no more fear Gods anger for being inclined to all sin than for being hungry or miserable and therefore I expect from the wisdom and goodness of God some provisions which will so extinguish this solemn and artificial guilt that it shall be as if it were not But in the mean time the certainty of sinning will proceed For besides that I am told that a man hath no liberty but a liberty to sin and this definite liberty is in plain English a very necessity we see it by a daily experience that those who call themselves good men are such who do what they would not and cannot do what they would and if it be so it is better to do what I have a mind to quietly than to vex my self and yet do it nevertheless and that it is so I am taught in almost all the discourses I have read or heard upon the seventh Chapter to the Romans and therefore if I may have leave to do consonantly to what I am taught to believe I must confess my self to be under the dominion of sin and therefore must obey and that I am bidden to obey unwillingly and am told that the striving against sin is indeed ordinarily ineffective and yet is a sign of regeneration I can soon do that I can strive against it and pray against it but I cannot hope to prevail in either because I am told before-hand that even the regenerate are under the power of sin they will and do not they do and will not and so it is with me I would fain be perfect if I could but I must not hope it and therefore I would only doe my actions so reasonably that I would not be tied to vex my self for what I cannot help or to lose the pleasure of my sin by fretting at it when it is certain it will be done and yet I shall remain in the state of regeneration And who can help all this but God whose mercy is indeed infinite and although in the secret dispensation of affairs he hath concluded all under sin yet he had no purpose we should therefore perish but it was done that he might have mercy upon all that is that we may glorifie him for supplying our needs pardoning our sins relieving our infirmities And therefore when I consider that Gods mercy hath no limit in it self and is made definite only by the capacity of the object it is not to be doubted but he loves his creatures so well that we shall all rejoyce in our being freed from eternal fears For to justifie my hopes why may not I be confident of Heaven for all my sins since the imputation of Christs righteousness is that by which I shall be justified my own is but like a menstruous rag and the just falls seven times a-day but Christs Cross pays for all And therefore I am confident I shall do well For I am one of those for whom Christ died and I believe this this faith is not to be reprov'd for this is that which justifies who shall condemn me It is not a good life that justifies a man before God but it is faith in the special promises for indeed it being impossible to live innocently it is necessary that away of Gods own finding out should be relied upon Only this indeed I do I do avoid the capital sins blasphemies and horrid murders I am 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I sin like a Gentleman not like a Thief I suffer infirmities but do not do like a Devil and though I sin yet I repent speedily and when I sin again I repent again and my spiritual state is like my natural day and night succeed each other by a never failing revolution I sin indeed in some instances but I do my duty in many and every man hath his infirmities no man can say My soul is pure from sin but I hope that because I repent still as I sin my sins are but as single actions and since I resist them what I can I hope they will be reckoned to me but as sins of infirmity without which no man is or can be in this state of imperfection For if I pray against a sin and my spirit does resist it though the flesh prevails yet I am in the state of grace For that I may own publickly what I am publickly taught a man cannot be soon out of the state of grace but he may be soon in Gods love is lasting and perpetual when it hath once begun and when the curtain is drawn over the state of grace by the intervening of a sin yet as soon as ever we begin to cry for pardon nay when we do but say we will confess our sins nay when we do but resolve we will God meets us with his pardon and prevents us with some portions of it And let things be at the worst they can yet he that confesseth his sins to God shall find mercy at the hands of God and he hath established a holy Ministery in his Church to absolve all penitents and if I go to one of them and tell the sad story of my infirmity the good man will presently warrant my pardon and absolve me But then I remember this also that as my infirmity that is unavoidable shall not prejudice me so neither shall any time prejudice my repentance For if on my death-bed I cry unto God for pardon and turn heartily unto God in the very instant of my dissolution I am safe because when-ever a man converts to God in the same instant God turns to him or else it were possible for God to hate him that loves God and our repentance should in some periods be rejected expresly against all the promises For it is an act of contrition an act of the love of God that reconciles us and I shall be very unfortunate if in the midst of all my pains when my needs increase and my fears are pregnant and my self am ready to accept pardon upon any terms I shall not then do so much as one act of a hearty sorrow and contrition But however I have the consent of almost all men and all the Schools of learning in the world that after a wicked life my repentance at last shall be accepted Saint Ambrose who was a good probable Doctor and one as fit to be relied on as any man else in his Funeral Oration
that those who are under our Charges should know the force of the Resurrection of Christ and the conduct of the Spirit and live according to the purity of God and the light of the Gospel To this let us cooperate with all wisdom and earnestness and knowledge and spiritual understanding And there is no better way in the world to do this than by ministring to persons singly in the conduct of their Repentance which as it is the work of every man so there are but few persons who need not the conduct of a spiritual guide in the beginnings and progressions of it To the assistance of this work I have now put my Symbol having by the sad experience of my own miseries and the calamities of others to whose restitution I have been called to minister been taught something of the secret of Souls and I have reason to think that the words of our dearest Lord to S. Peter were also spoken to me Tu autem conversus confirma fratres I hope I have received many of the mercies of a repenting sinner and I have felt the turnings and varieties of spiritual entercourses and I have often observed the advantages in ministring to others and am most confident that the greatest benefits of our office may with best effect be communicated to souls in personal and particular Ministrations In the following book I have given advices and have asserted many truths in order to all this I have endeavoured to break in pieces almost all those propositions upon the confidence of which men have been negligent of severe and strict living I have cancell'd some false grounds upon which many answers in Moral Theologie us'd to be made to inquiries in Cases of Conscience I have according to my weak ability described all the necessities and great inducement of a holy life and have endeavoured to do it so plainly that it may be useful to every man and so inoffensively that it may hurt no man I know but one Objection which I am likely to meet withall excepting those of my infirmity and disability which I cannot answer but by protesting the piety of my purposes but this only that in the Chapter of Original sin I speak otherwise than is spoken commonly in the Church of England whos 's ninth Article affirms that the natural propensity to evil and the perpetual lusting of the flesh against the spirit deserves the anger of God and damnation against which I so earnestly seem to dispute in the sixth Chapter of my Book To this I answer that it is one thing to say a thing in its own nature deserves damnation and another to say it is damnable to all those persons in whom it is subjected The thing it self that is our corrupted nature or our nature of corruption does leave us in the state of separation from God by being unable to bear us to Heaven imperfection of nature can never carry us to the perfections of glory and this I conceive to be all that our Church intends for that in the state of nature we can only fall short of Heaven and be condemn'd to a poena damni is the severest thing that any sober person owns and this I say that Nature alone cannot bring us to God without the regeneration of the Spirit and the grace of God we can never go to Heaven but because this Nature was not spoil'd by Infants but by persons of reason and we are all admitted to a new Covenant of Mercy and Grace made with Adam presently after his fall that is even before we were born as much as we were to a participation of sin before we were born no man can perish actually for that because he is reconcil'd by this He that says every sin is damnable and deserves the anger of God says true but yet some persons that sin of mere infirmity are accounted by God in the rank of innocent persons So it is in this Article Concupiscence remains in the regenerate and yet concupiscence hath the nature of sin but it brings not condemnation These words explain the 〈◊〉 Original imperfection is such a thing as is even in the regenerate and it is of the nature of sin that is it is the effect of one sin and the cause of many but yet it is not daâ—â—ing because as it is subjected in unconsenting persons it loses its own natural venome and relation to guiltiness that is it may of it self in its abstracted nature be a sin and deserve Gods anger viz. in some persons in all them that consent to it but that which will always be in persons that shall never be damned that is in infants and regenerate shall 〈◊〉 damn them And this is the main of what I affirm And since the Church of England intended that Article against the Doctrine of the Pelagians I suppose I shall not be thought to recede from the spirit and sence of the Article though I use differing manners of expression because my way of explicating this question does most of all destroy the Pelagian Heresie since although I am desirous to acquit the dispensation of God and his Justice from my imputation or suspicion of wrong and am loth to put our sins upon the account of another yet I impute all our evils to the imperfections of our nature and the malice of our choice which does most of all demonstrate not only the necessity of Grace but also of Infant Baptism and then to accuse this Doctrine of Pelagianism or any newer name of Heresie will seem like impotency and weakness of spirit but there will be nothing of truth or learning in it And although this Article was penn'd according to the style of the Schools as they then did loâ—e to speak yet the hardest word in it is capable of such a sence as complies with the intendment of that whole sixth Chapter For though the Church of England professes her self fallible and consequently that all her truths may be peaceably improved yet I do think that she is not actually deceiv'd and also that divers eminently learned do consent in my sence of that Article However I am so truly zealous for her honour and peace that I wholly submit all that I say there or any where else to her most prudent judgment And though I may most easily be deceived yet I have given my reasons for what I say and desire to be tried by them not by prejudice and numbers and zeal and if any man resolves to understand the Article in any other sence than what I have now explicated all that I shall say is that it may be I cannot reconcile my Doctrine to his explication it is enough that it is consistent with the Article it self in its best understanding and compliance with the truth it self and the justification of God However he that explicates the Article and thinks it means as he says does all the honour he can to the Authority whose words if he does not understand yet the sanction
he did otherwise he did it after the man had been highly warned of the particular and could have obeyed easily which was the case of the man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath and was like the case of Adam who was upon the same account judged by the Covenant of works 10. This then was an emanation both of Gods justice and his mercy Until man had sinned he was not the subject of mercy and if he had not then receiv'd mercy the infliction had been too severe and unjust since the Covenant was beyond the measures of man after it began to multiply into particular laws and man by accident was lessen'd in his strengths 11. From hence the corollaries are plain 1. God was not unjust for beginning his entercourse with mankind by the Covenant of works for these reasons I. Because Man had strengths enough to do it until he lessen'd his own abilities II. The Covenant of works was at first instanc'd but in a small Commandment in abstaining from the fruit of one tree when he had by him very many others for his use and pleasure III. It was necessary that the Covenant of works should begin for the Covenant of faith and repentance could not be at first there was no need of it no opportunity for it it must suppose a defailance or an infirmity as physick supposes sickness and mortality IV. God never exacted the obedience of Man by strict measures by the severity of the first Covenant after Adams fall but men were sav'd then as now they were admitted to repentance and justified by faith and the works of faith And therefore the Jews say that three things were before the world The Law the name of the Messias and Repentance that is as S. Paul better expresses it This Repentance through faith in the Messias is the hidden wisdom of God ordained before the world unto our glory So that at first it was not impossible and when it was it was not exacted in the impossible measure but it was kept in pretence and overture for ends of piety wisdom and mercy of which I have given account it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a wise dispensation but it was hidden 12. For since it is essential to a law that it be in a matter that is possible it cannot be suppos'd that God would judge man by an impossible Commandment A good man would not do it much less the righteous and merciful Judge of Men and Angels But God by holding over the world the Covenant of works non fecit praevaricatores sed humiles did not make us sinners by not observing the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the minutes and tittles of the law but made us humble needing mercy begging grace longing for a Saviour relying upon a better Covenant waiting for better promises praying for the Spirit of grace repenting of our sins deploring our infirmities and justified by faith in the promises of God 13. II. This then is the great introduction and necessity of repentance We neither could have liv'd without it nor have understood the way of the Divine Justice nor have felt any thing of his most glorious attribute But the admission of us to repentance is the great verification of his justice and the most excellent expression of his mercy This is the mercy of God in Jesus Christ springing from the fountains of grace purchas'd by the blood of the Holy Lamb the Eternal sacrifice promised from the beginning always ministred to mans need in the secret Oeconomy of God but proclaim'd to all the world at the revelation of God incarnate the first day of our Lord Jesus 14. But what are we eased now under the Gospel which is a Law of greater holiness and more Commandments and a sublimer purity in which we are tied to more severity than ever man was bound to under any institution and Covenant If the Law was an impossible Commandment who can say he hath strictly and punctually perform'd the injunctions of the Gospel Is not the little finger of the Son heavier than the Fathers loyns Here therefore it is to be inquired Whether the Commandments of Jesus Christ be as impossible to be kept as the Law of Moses If we by Christ be tied to more holiness than the sons of Israel were by Moses Law then because that could not be kept then neither can this But if we be not tied to more than they how is the law of Christ a more perfect institution and how can we now be justified by a law no better than that by which we could not be justified But then if this should be as impossible as ever why is it a-new imposed why is it held over us when the ends for which it was held over us now are served And at last how can it be agreeable to Gods wisdom and justice to exact of us a law which we cannot perform or to impose a law which cannot justly be exacted The answering and explicating this difficulty will serve many propositions in the doctrine of Repentance SECT II. Of the possibility or impossibility of keeping the Precepts of the Gospel 15. IT were strange that it should be possible for all men to keep the Commandments and requir'd and exacted of all men with the intermination or threatning of horrid pains and yet that no man should ever do it S. Hierome brings its Atticus thus arguing Da exemplum aut confitere imbecillitatem tuam and the same also was the argument of Orosius and the reasonableness of it is a great prejudice against the contrary affirmation of S. Austin Alipius Evodius Aurelius Possidius who because it is no good consequence to argue à non esse ad non posse and though it is not done yet possibly it might conclude that it is possible to keep the Commandments though as yet no man ever did but he that did it for us all But as Marcellinus said well It is hard to say that by a Man a thing can be done of which although there was a great necessity and a severe Commandment yet there never was any example Because in men there is such infinite variety of tempers dispositions apprehensions designs fears and hopes purposes and interests that it were next to a miracle that not one of all mankind should do what he can and what so highly concerns him But because this although it be a high probability yet is no certain demonstration that which S. Paul taught is certainly to be relied upon That the Law could not do it for â—s that is could not bring us justification in that it was weak through the flesh meaning that because we were so weak we could not fulfil the righteousness of the Law therefore we could not be justified by that Covenant Mosâ— manns graves facies cornata impedita lingua lapideae tabulae Moses's hands were heavy his face bright his tongue stammering and the tables were of stone by which is meant that the imposition and
Christ and hath given to us the ministery of reconciliation * Now then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God * For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost for the promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are afar off and to as many as the Lord our God shall call And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law that the man which doth those things shall live by them But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise The word is nigh thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart that is the word of faith which we preach that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved Death is swallowed up in victory O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. My yoke is easie and my burthen is light For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh hath for sin condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit His Commandments are not grievous If while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life And not only so but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the attonement I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me My grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness Ask and you shall have seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you To him that hath shall be given and he shall have more abundantly Having therefore these promises let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord. The PRAYER I. O Eternal God Lord of Heaven and Earth Father of Men and Angels we do adore thy infinite Goodness we revere thy Justice and delight in thy Mercies by which thou hast dealt with us not with the utmost right and dominion of a Lord but with the gentleness of a Father treating us like friends who were indeed thy enemies Thou O God didst see our follies and observe our weaknesses thou knowest the aversness of our nature to good and our proneness to commit vanity and because our imperfect obedience could not bring us to perfect felicity whither thou didst design us the great God of all the world was pleased to make a new Covenant with Man and to become a debtor to his servants Blessed be God and blessed be that Mercy which hath done so great things for us O be pleased to work that in us which thou expectest from us Let us not lose our title in the Covenant of Faith and Repentance by deferring the one or dishonouring the other but let us walk worthy of our vocation according to the Law of Faith and the Mercies of God and the Covenant of our Lord Jesus II. O Blessed Jesus never suffer us to abuse thy mercies or to turn thy Grace into wantonness Let the remembrance and sense of thy glorious favours endear our services and let thy goodness lead us to Repentance and our Repentance bring forth the fruits of godliness in our whole life Imprint deeply upon our hearts the fear and terror of thy Majesty and perpetually entertain our spirits with highest apprehensions of thy loving kindness that we may fear more and love more every day more and more hating sin crucifying all its affections and desires passionately loving holy things zealously following after them prudently conducting them and indefatigably persevering in them to the end of our lives III. O Blessed and Eternal God with thy spirit inlighten our understandings in the rare mysterious Secrets of thy Law Make me to understand all the most advantageous ways of duty and kindle a flame in my Soul that no difficulty or contradiction no temptation within or persecution without may ever extinguish Give me a mighty grace that I may design to please thee with my best and all my services to follow the best examples to do the noblest Charities to pursue all Perfection ever pressing forward to the mark of the high calling in Christ Jesus Let us rather choose to die than to sin against our Consciences Let us also watch that we may omit nothing of our duty nor pretermit any opportunity by which thou canst be glorified or any Christian instructed comforted or assisted not resting in the strictest measures of Command but passing forward to great and prudent significations of love doing heroick actions some things by which thou mayest be greatly pleased that thou mayest take delight to pardon to sanctifie and to preserve thy servants for ever Amen CHAP. II. Of the Nature and Definition of Repentance And what parts of duty are signified by it in Holy Scriptures SECT I. THE Greeks use two words to express this duty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 post factum angi cruciari to be afflicted in mind to be troubled for our former folly it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Phavorinus a being displeased for what we have done and it is generally used for all sorts of Repentance but more properly to signifie either the beginnings of a good or the whole state of an effective Repentance In the first sence we find it in S. Mathew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and ye seeing did not repent that ye might believe him Of the second sence we have example in Judas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he repented too but the end of it was he died with anguish and despair and of Esau it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he found no place for an effective repentance but yet he repented too for he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he fain would have had it otherwise and he sought it with tears which two do fully express all the meaning of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when it is distinguished from the better and effective Repentance There is in this Repentance a sorrow for what is done a
they are transgressions of the Divine Law So S. Basil argues Nullum peccatum contemnendum ut parvum quando D. Paulus de omni peccato generatim pronunciaverat stimulum mortis esse peccatum The sting of death is sin that is death is the evil consequent of sin and comes in the tail of it of every sin and therefore no sin must be despised as if it were little Now if every little sin hath this sting also as it is on all hands agreed that it hath it follows that every little transgression is perfectly and intirely against a Commandment And indeed it is not sence to say any thing can in any sence be a sin and that it should not in the same sence be against a Commandment For although the particular instance be not named in the Law yet every instance of that matter must be meant It was an extreme folly in Bellarmine to affirm Peccatum veniale ex parvitate materiae est quidem perfectè voluntarium sed non perfectè contra legem Lex enim non prohibet furtum uniu◠oboli in specie sed prohibet furtum in genere That a sin that is venial by the smalness of the matter is not perfectly against the Law because the Law forbids theft indeed in the general but does not in particular forbid the stealing of a half-peny for upon the same reason it is not perfectly against the Law to steal three pound nineteen shillings three pence because the Law in general only forbids theft but does not in particular forbid the stealing of that summ * But what is besides the Law and not against it cannot be a sin and therefore to fancy any sin to be only besides the Law is a contradiction so to walk to ride to eat flesh or herbs to wear a long or a short garment are said to be besides the Law but therefore they are permitted and indifferent Indifferent I say in respect of that Law which relates to that particular matter and indifferent in all sences unless there be some collateral Law which may prohibit it indirectly So for a Judge to be a Coachman for a Priest to be a Fidler or Inne-keeper are not directly unlawful but indirectly they are as being against decency and publick honesty or reputation or being inconvenient in order to that end whither their calling is design'd To this sence are those words of S. Paul All things are lawful for me but all things are not expedient That is some things which directly are lawful by an indirect obligation may become unfit to be done but otherwise Licitum est quod nullâ lege prohibetur saith the Law If no Law forbids it then it is lawful and to abstain from what is lawful though it may have a worthiness in it more than ordinary yet to use our liberty is at no hand a sin The issue then is this either we are forbidden to do a venial sin or we are not If we are not forbidden then it is as lawful to do a venial sin as to marry or eat flesh If we are forbidden then every such action is directly against Gods Law and consequently finable at the will of the supreme Judge and if he please punishable with a supreme anger And to this purpose there is an excellent observation in S. Austin Peccatum delictum si nihil differrent inter se si unius rei duo nomina essent non curaret Scriptura tam diligentèr unum esse utriusque sacrificium There are several names in Scripture to signifie our wandrings and to represent the several degrees of sin but carefully it is provided for that they should be expiated with the same sacrifice which proves that certainly they are prevarications of the same Law offences of the same God provocations of the same anger and heirs of the same death and even for small offences a Sacrifice was appointed lest men should neglect what they think God regarded not 24. III. Every sin even the smallest is against Charity which is the end of the Commandment For every sin or evil of transgression is far worse than all the evils of punishment with which mankind is afflicted in this world and it is a less evil that all mankind should be destroyed than that God should be displeased in the least instance that is imaginable Now if we esteem the loss of our life or our estate the wounding our head or the extinction of an eye to be great evils to us and him that does any thing of this to us to be our enemy or to be injurious we are to remember that God hates every sin worse than we can hate pain or beggery And if a nice and a tender conscience the spirit of every excellent person does extremely hate all that can provoke God to anger or to jealousie it must be certain that God hates every such thing with an hatred infinitely greater so great that no understanding can perceive the vastness of it and immensity For by how much every one is better by so much the more he hates every sin and the soul of a righteous man is vexed and afflicted with the inrodes of his unavoidable calamities the armies of Egypt the Lice and Flies his insinuating creeping infirmities Now if it be holiness in him to hate these little sins it is an imitation of God for what is in us by derivation is in God essentially therefore that which angers a good man and ought so to do displeases God and consequently is against charity or the love of God For it is but a vain dream to imagine that because just men such who are in the state of grace and of the love of God do commit smaller offences therefore they are not against the love of God for every degree of cold does abate something of the heat in any hot body but yet because it cannot destroy it all cold and heat may be consistent in the same subject but no man can therefore say they are not contraries and would not destroy each other if they were not hindred by something else and so would the smallest offences also destroy the life of grace if they were not destroyed themselves But of this afterwards For the present let it be considered how it can possibly consist with our love to God with that duty that commands us to love him with all our heart with all our strength with all our might and with all our soul how I say it can be consistent with a love so extended so intended to entertain any thing that he hates so essentially To these particulars I add this one consideration That since there is in the world a fierce opinion that some sins are so slight and little that they do not destroy our relation to God and cannot break the sacred tie of friendship he who upon the inference and presumption of that opinion shall chuse to commit such small sins which he thinks to be the All that is
venial sins they should esteem them little and inconsiderable and warn men of them with so little caution But to take this wonder off though they affright men with Purgatory at the end yet they make the bugbear nothing by their easy remedies and preventions in the way Venial sins may be taken off according to their doctrine at as cheap a rate as they may be committed but of this I shall give a fuller account in the 6. Sect. of this Chapter In the mean time to believe Purgatory serves the ends of the Roman Clergy and to have so much easiness and leave in venial sins serves the ends of their Laity but as truth is disserv'd in the former so is piety and the severities of a holy life very much slackned by the latter 40. But as care is taken that their doctrine do not destroy charity or good life by loosnes and indulgence so care must be taken that ours do not destroy hope and discountenance the endeavours of pious people for if the smallest sins be so highly punishable who can hope ever to escape the intolerable state of damnation And if God can be eternally angry for those things which we account small sins then no man is a servant or a friend of God no man is in the state of the Divine favour for no man is without these sins for they are such Quae non possit homo quisquam evitare cavendo a man by all his industry cannot wholly avoid Now because the Scripture pronounces some persons just and righteous as David and Josiah Zechary and Elizabeth who yet could not be innocent and pure from small offences either these little things are in their own nature venial or the godly have leave to do that which is punished in the ungodly or some other way must be found out how that which is in its own nature damnable can stand with the state of grace and upon what causes sins which of themselves are not so may come to be venial that is more apt and ready to be pardoned and in the next dispositions to receive a mercy SECT V. 41. I. NO just person does or can indulge to himself the keeping of any sin whatsoever for all sins are accounted of by God according to our affections and if a man loves any it becomes his poison Every sin is damnable when it is chosen deliberately either by express act or by interpretation that is when it is chosen regularly or frequently He that loves to cast over in his mind the pleasures of his past sin he that entertains all those instances of sin which he thinks not to be damnable this man hath given himself up to be a servant to a trifle a lover of little and phantastick pleasures Nothing of this can stand with the state of grace No man can love sin and love God at the same time and to think it to be an excuse to say the sin is little is as if an adulteress should hope for pardon of her offended Lord because the man whom she dotes upon is an inconsiderable person 42. II. In sins we must distinguish the formality from the material part The formality of sin is disobedience to God and turning from him to the Creature by love and adhesion The material part is the action it self The first can never happen without our will but the latter may by surprise and indeliberation and imperfection of condition For in this life our understanding is weak our attention trifling our advertency interrupted our diversions many our divisions of spirit irresistible our knowledge little our dulness frequent our mistakes many our fears potent and betrayers of our reason and at any one of these doors sin may enter in its material part while the will is unactive or the understanding dull or the affections busie or the spirit otherwise imployed or the faculties wearied or reason abused Therefore if you inquire for venial sins they must be in this throng of imperfections but they never go higher Let no man therefore say I have a desire to please my self in some little things for if he desires it he may not do it that very desire makes that it cannot be venial but as damnable as any in its proportion 43. III. If any man about to do an action of sin inquires whether it be a venial sin or no to that man at that time that sin cannot be venial for whatsoever a man considers and acts he also chooses and loves in some proportion and therefore turns from God to the sin and that is against the love of God and in its degree destructive or diminutive of the state of grace Besides this such a person in this enquiry asks leave to sin against God and gives a testimony that he would sin more if he durst But in the same degree in which the choice is lessened in the same degree the material part of the sin receives also diminution 44. IV. It is remarkable that amongst the Ancients this distinction of sins into Mortal and Venial or to use their own words Graviora Leviora or Peccata Crimina does not mean a distinction of kind but of degrees They call them mortal sins which shall never or very hardly be pardon'd not at all but upon very hard terms So Pacianus De modo criminum edisserens nequis existimet omnibus omnino peccatis summum discrimen impositum sedulòque requirens quae sint peccata quae crimina nequis existimet propter innumera delicta quorum fraudibus nullus immunis est me omne hominum genus indiscretâ poenitendi lege constringere The highest danger is not in every sin offences and crimes must be distinguished carefully for the same severe impositions are not indifferently to be laid upon Criminals and those whose guilt is in such instances from which no man is free Wherefore covetousness may be redeem'd with liberality slander with satisfaction morosity with cheerfulness sharpness with gentle usages lightness with gravity perverseness or peevishness with honesty and fair carriage But what shall the despiser of God do what shall the Murtherer do what remedy shall the Adulterer have Ista sunt capitalia Fratres ista mortalia These are the deadly sins these are capital crimes meaning that these were to be taken off by the severities of Ecclesiastical or publick Repentance of which I am afterwards to give account and would cost more to be cleansed To a good man and meliorum operum compensatione as Pacianus affirms by the compensation of good work that is of the actions of the contrary graces they are venial they are cured For by venial they mean such which with less difficulty and hazard may be pardon'd such as was S. Pauls blasphemy and persecuting the Church for that was venial that is apt for pardon because he did it ignorantly in unbelief and such are those sins saith Caesarius which are usual in the world though of their own nature very horrible as forswearing
advices with the saying of Josephus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is as damnable to indulge leave to our selves to sin little sins as great ones A man may be choaked with a raisin as well as with great morsels of flesh and a small leak in a ship if it be neglected will as certainly sink her as if she sprung a plank Death is the wages of all and damnation is the portion of the impenitent whatever was the instance of their sin Though there are degrees of punishment yet there is no difference of state as to this particular and therefore we are tied to repent of all and to dash the little Babylonians against the stones against the Rock that was smitten for us For by the blood of Jesus and the tears of Repentance and the watchfulness of a diligent careful person many of them shall be prevented and all shall be pardoned A Psalm to be frequently used in our Repentance for our daily Sins BOW down thine ear O Lord hear me for I am poor and needy Rejoyce the soul of thy servant for unto thee O Lord do I lift up my soul. For thou Lord art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee Teach me thy way O Lord I will walk in thy truth unite my heart to fear thy Name Shall mortal man be more just than God shall a man be more pure than his Maker Behold he put no trust in his Servants and his Angels he charged with folly How much less on them that dwell in houses of clay whose foundation is in the dust which are crushed before the moth Doth not their excellency which is in them go away They die even without wisdom The law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul the testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple Moreover by them is thy servant warned and in keeping of them there is great reward Who can understand his errors Cleanse thou me from my secret faults keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins let them not have dominion over me then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression O ye sons of men how long will ye turn my glory into shame how long will ye love vanity and seek after leasing But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself The Lord will hear when I call unto him Out of the deep have I called unto thee O Lord Lord hear my voice O let thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint If thou Lord wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss O Lord who may abide it But there is mercy with thee therefore shalt thou be feared Set a watch O Lord before my mouth and keep the door of my lips Take from me the way of lying and cause thou me to make much of thy law The Lord is full of compassion and mercy long-suffering and of great goodness He will not alway be chiding neither keepeth he his anger for ever Yea like as a Father pitieth his own children even so is the Lord merciful unto them that fear him For he knoweth whereof we are made he remembreth that we are but dust Praise the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits which forgiveth all thy sin and healeth all thine infirmities Glory be to the Father c. The PRAYER O Eternal God whose perfections are infinite whose mercies are glorious whose justice is severe whose eyes are pure whose judgments are wise be pleased to look upon the infirmities of thy servant and consider my weakness My spirit is willing but my flesh is weak I desire to please thee but in my endeavours I fail so often so foolishly so unreasonably that I extreamly displease my self and I have too great reason to fear that thou also art displeased with thy servant O my God I know my duty I resolve to do it I know my dangers I stand upon my guard against them but when they come near I begin to be pleased and delighted in the little images of death and am seised upon by folly even when with greatest severity I decree against it Blessed Jesus pity me and have mercy upon my infirmities II. O Dear God I humbly beg to be relieved by a mighty grace for I bear a body of sin and death about me sin creeps upon me in every thing that I do or suffer When I do well I am apt to be proud when I do amiss I am sometimes too confident sometimes affrighted If I see others do amiss I either neglect them or grow too angry and in the very mortification of my anger I grow angry and peevish My duties are imperfect my repentances little my passions great my fancy trifling The sins of my tongue are infinite and my omissions are infinite and my evil thoughts cannot be numbred and I cannot give an account concerning innumerable portions of my time which were once in my power but were let slip and were partly spent in sin partly thrown away upon trifles and vanity and even of the hasest sins of which in accounts of men I am most innocent I am guilty before thee entertaining those sins in little instances thoughts desires and imaginations which I durst not produce into action and open significations Blessed Jesus pity me and have mercy upon my infirmities III. TEACH me O Lord to walk before thee in righteousness perfecting holiness in the fear of God Give me an obedient will a loving spirit a humble understanding watchfulness over my thoughts deliberation in all my words and actions well tempered passions and a great prudence and a great zeal and a great charity that I may do my duty wisely diligently holily O let me be humbled in my infirmities but let me be also safe from my enemies let me never fall by their violence nor by my own weakness let me never be overcome by them nor yet give my self up to folly and weak principles to idleness and secure careless walking but give me the strengths of thy Spirit that I may grow strong upon the ruines of the flesh growing from grace to grace till I become a perfect man in Christ Jesus O let thy strength be seen in my weakness and let thy mercy triumph over my infirmities pitying the condition of my nature the infancy of grace the imperfection of my knowledge the transportations of my passion Let me never consent to sin but for ever strive against it and every day prevail till it be quite dead in me that thy servant living the life of grace may at last be admitted to that state of glory where all my infirmities shall be done away and all tears be dried up and sin and death shall be no more Grant this O most gracious God and Father for Jesus Christ his sake Amen Our Father c. CHAP. IV. Of Actual single Sins and what Repentance is proper to them SECT I. 1. THE
supernatural contentions and designs of grace it calls back nature from its remedy and purifications of Baptism and makes such new aptnesses that the punishment remains even after the beginning of the sins pardon and that which is a natural punishment of the sinful actions is or may be morally a sin as the lust which is producâ—d by gluttony And when a man hath entertain'd a holy sorrow for his sins and made holy vows of obedience and a new life he must be forc'd to contend for every act of duty and he is daily tempted and the temptation is strong and his progression is slow he marches upon sharp-pointed stones where he was not us'd to go and where he hath no pleasure He is forc'd to do his duty as he takes Physick where reason and the grace of God make him consent against his inclination and to be willing against his will He is brought to that state of sorrow that either he shall perish for ever or he must do more for heaven than is needful to be done by a good man whose body is chast and his spirit serene whose will is obedient and his understanding well inform'd whose temptations are ineffective and his strengths great who loves God and is reconciled to duty who delights in Religion and is at rest when he is doing God service But an habitual sinner even when he begins to return and in some measure loves God hath yet too great fondnesses for his enemy his repentances are imperfect his hatred and his love mixt nothing is pure nothing is whole nothing is easie So that the bands of holiness are like a yoke shaken upon the neck they fret the labouring Ox and make his work turn to a disease and as Isaac he marches up the hill with the wood upon his shoulders and yet for ought he knows himself may become the Sacrifice S. Austin complains that it was his own case He was so accustomed to the apertures and free emissions of his lust so pleas'd with the entertainments so frequent in the imployment so satisfied in his mind so hardned in his spirit so ready in his choice so peremptory in his soul determinations that when he began to consider that death stood at the end of that life he was amaz'd to see himself as he thought without remedy and was not to be recover'd but by a long time and a mighty grace the perpetual the daily the nightly prayers and violent importunities of his Mother the admirable precepts and wise deportments of S. Ambrose the efficacy of truth the horrible fears of damnation hourly beating upon his spirit with the wings of horrour and affrightment and after all with a mighty uneasiness and a discomposed spirit he was by the good hand of God dragg'd from his fatal ruine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus one folly added to another hath great labour and vexation unquietness and difficulty for its reward But as when our Blessed Saviour dispossess'd the little Demoniack in the Gospel when the Devil went forth he roar'd and foam'd he rent him with horrid Spasmes and Convulsions and left him half dead So is every man that recovers from a vicious habit he suffers violence like a bird shut up in a cage or a sick person not to be restored but by Causticks and Scarifications and all the torments of Art from the dangers of his Nature 15. IV. A vicious habit makes a great sin to be swallowed up as easily as a little one An dubitat solitus totum conâ—â—are Tonantem Radet inaurati femur Herculis faciem ipsam Neptuni qui bracteolam de Castore ducet He that is us'd to it makes nothing of Sacriledge who before started at the defrauding his Neighbour of an uncertain right but when he hath digested the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by step and step he ventures so far till he dares to steal the Thunderbolts from Jupiter when sin is grown up to its height and station by all its firmest measures a great sin is not felt and let the sin be what it will many of the instances pass so easily that they are not observed as the hands and feet sometimes obey the fancy without the notice of the superiour faculties and as we say some parts of our prayers which we are us'd to though we attend not and as Musicians strike many single strokes upon which they do not at all consider which indeed is the perfection of a habit So we see many men swear when they know not that they do so they lie and know they lie and yet believe themselves They are drunk often and at last believe it innocent and themselves the wiser and the action necessary and the excess not intemperance Peccata quamvis magna horrenda cùm in consuetudinem venerint aut parva aut nulla esse creduntur usque adeò ut non solùm non occultanda verùm etiam jam praedicanda ac diffamanda videantur said S. Austin At first we are asham'd of sin but custome makes us bold and confident apt to proclaim not to conceal our shame For though at first it seemed great yet every day of use makes it less and at last all is well it is a very nothing 16. This is a sad state of sin but directly the case of a vicious habit and of use in the illustration of this Question For if we look upon the actions and little or great instances of folly and consider that they consider not every such Oath will pass for an indeliberate folly and an issue of infirmity But then if we remember that it is voluntary in its principle that this easiness of sinning comes from an intolerable cause from a custome of prophaneness and impiety that it was nourish'd by a base and a careless spirit it grew up with a cursed inadvertency and a caitiff disposition that it could not be at all but that the man is infinitely distant from God it is to be reckoned like the pangs of death which although they are not always felt yet they are violent and extreme they are fatal in themselves and full of horror to the standers by 17. But from hence besides that it serves perfectly to reprove the folly of habitual swearing it also proves the main Question viz. that in a vicious habit there is a venome and a malice beyond the guilt and besides the sinfulness of the single actions that produce and nourish it the quality it self is criminal For unless it can be supposed that to swear frequently can at last bring its excuse with it and that such a custome is only to be estimated according to the present notice and deliberation by which it is attended to and that to swear often can be but a little thing but to swear seldom shall be horrid and inexcusable it must be certain that the very habit it self is a state of sin and enmity against God besides the
not known to the man and there are degrees of hope concerning the final event of our souls For suppose it cannot be told to the habitual sinner that his habits of sin are overcome and that the Spirit rules in all the regions of his soul yet is he sure that his vicious habits do prevail is he sure that sin does reign in his mortal body If he be then let him not be angry with this doctrine for it is as bad with him as any doctrine can affirm But if he be not sure that sin reigns then can he not hope that the Spirit does rule and if so then also he may hope that his sins are pardon'd and that he shall be sav'd And if he look for greater certainty than that of a holy and a humble hope he must stay till he have a revelation it cannot be had from the certainty of any proposition in Scripture applicable to his case and person 73. IV. If a habit be long before it be master'd if a part of it may consist with its contrary if a habit may lurk secretly and undiscernibly all these things are aggravations of the danger of an habitual sinner and are very true and great engagements of his watchfulness and fear his caution and observance But then not these nor any thing else can evacuate the former truths nor yet ought to make the returning sinner to despair Only this If he fears that there may be a secret habit unmortified let him go about his remedy 2. If he still fears let him put himself to the trial 3. If either that does not satisfie him or he wants opportunity let him endeavour to encrease his supreme habit the habit of Charity or that universal grace of the love of God which will secure his spirit against all secret undiscernible vicious affections 74. V. This only is certain No man needs to despair that is alive and hath begun to leave his sins and to whom God hath given time and power and holy desires If all these be spent and nothing remain besides the desires that is another consideration and must receive its sentence by the measures of the former doctrine But for the present a man ought not to conclude against his hopes because he finds propensities and inclinations to the former courses remaining in him even after his conversion For so it will be always more or less and this is not only the remains of a vicious habit but even of natural inclination in some instances 75. VI. Then the habit hath lost its killing quality and the man is freed from his state of ungraciousness when the habit of vertue prevails when he obeys frequently willingly chearfully But if he sins frequently and obeys his temptations readily if he delights in sin and chuses that that is if his sins be more than sins of infirmity as they are described under their proper title then the habit remains and the man is in the state of death But when sentence is given for God when vertue is the greater ingredient when all sin is hated and labour'd and pray'd against the remaining evils and struglings of the Serpent are signs of the Spirits victory but also engagements of a persevering care and watchfulness lest they return and prevail anew He that is converted and is in his contentions for Heaven is in a good state of being let him go forward He that is justified let him be justified still but whether just now if he dies he shall be sav'd or not we cannot answer or give accounts of every period of his new life In what minute or degree of Repentance his sins are perfectly pardon'd no man can tell and it is unreasonable to reprove a doctrine that infers a man to be uncertain where God hath given no certain notices or measures If a man will be certain he must die as soon as he is worthily baptiz'd or live according to his promises then made If he breaks them he is certain of nothing but that he may be sav'd if he returns speedily and effectively does his duty But concerning the particulars there can no rules be given sufficient to answer every mans case before-hand If he be uncertain how Gods judgment will be of him let him be the more afraid and the more humble and the more cautious and the more penitent For in this case all our security is not to be deriv'd from signs but from duty Duty is the best signification and Gods infinite boundless mercy is the best ground of our Confidence SECT VI. The former Doctrine reduc'd to Practice IT now remains that we account concerning the effect of this Doctrine and first concerning them that are well and vigorous 2. Them that are old 3. Them that are dying All which are to have several usages and receptions proper entertainments and exercises of Repentance The manner of Repentance and usage of Habitual sinners who convert in their timely and vigorous years 1. I. Let every man that thinks of his return be infinitely careful to avoid every new sin for it is like a blow to a broken leg or a burthen to a crushed arm Every little thing disorders the new health and unfinish'd recovery So that every new sin to such a person is a double damage it pulls him back from all his hopes and makes his labours vain and he is as far to seek and as much to begin again as ever and more For so may you see one climbing of a Rock with a great contention and labour and danger if when he hath got from the foot to the shoulder he then lets his hold go he falls lower than where he first set his foot and sinks deeper by the weight of his own fall So is the new converted man who is labouring to overcome the rocks and mountains of his habitual sins every sin throws him down further and bruises his very bones in the fall To this purpose therefore is the wise advice of the son of Sirach Hast thou sinn'd do so no more but ask pardon for thy former fault Add not sin to sin for in one a man shall not be unpunished Ergo ne pietas sit victa cupidine ventris Parcite vaticinor cognatas caede nefandâ Exturbare animas ne sanguine sanguis alatur Let not blood touch blood nor sin touch sin for we destroy our souls with impious hands when a crime follows a habit like funeral processions in the pomps and solennities of death 2. II. At the beginning of his recovery let the penitent be arm'd by special cautions against the labours and difficulties of the restitution and consider that if sin be so pleasant it is the habit that hath made it so it is become easie and natural by the custom And therefore so may vertue And complain not that Nature helps and corroborates the habits of sin For besides that Nature doth this mischief but in some instances not in all the Grace of God will as much assist the customs
unless they were his at his death If therefore they be confiscated before his death ours indeed is the inconvenience too but his alone is the punishment and to neither of us is the wrong But concerning the second I mean that which is superinduc'd it is not his fault alone nor ours alone and neither of us is innocent we all put in our accursed Symbol for the debauching of our spirits for the besotting our souls for the spoiling our bodies Ille initium induxit debiti nos foenus auximus posterioribus peccatis c. He began the principal and we have increas'd the interest This we also find well expressed by Justin Martyr for the Fathers of the first ages spake prudently and temperately in this Article as in other things Christ was not born or crucified because himself had need of these things but for the sake of mankind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which from Adam fell into death and the deception of the Serpent besides the evil which every one adds upon his own account And it appears in the greatest instance of all even in that of natural death which though it was natural yet from Adam it began to be a curse just as the motion of a Serpent upon his belly which was concreated with him yet upon this story was changed into a malediction and an evil adjunct But though Adam was the gate and brought in the head of death yet our sins brought him in further we brought in the body of death Our life was left by Adam a thousand years long almost but the iniquity of man brought it quickly to 500 years from thence to 250 from thence to 120 and at last to seventy and then God would no more strike all mankind in the same manner but individuals and single sinners smart for it and are cut off in their youth and do not live out half their days And so it is in the matters of the soul and the spirit Every sin leaves an evil upon the soul and every age grows worse and adds some iniquity of its own to the former examples And therefore Tertullian calls Adam mali traducem he transmitted the original and exemplar and we write after his copy Infirmitatis ingenitae vitium so Arnobius calls our natural baseness we are naturally weak and this weakness is a vice or defect of Nature and our evil usages make our natures worse like Butchers being used to kill beasts their natures grow more savage and unmerciful so it is with us all If our parents be good yet we often prove bad as the wild olive comes from the branch of a natural olive or as corn with the chaff come from clean grain and the uncircumcised from the circumcised But if our parents be bad it is the less wonder if their children are so a Blackamore begets a Blackamore as an Epileptick son does often come from an Epileptick father and hereditary diseases are transmitted by generation so it is in that viciousness that is radicated in the body for a lustful father oftentimes begets a lustful son and so it is in all those instances where the soul follows the temperature of the body And thus not only Adam but every father may transmit an Original sin or rather an Original viciousness of his own For a vicious nature or a natural improbity when it is not consented to is not a sin but an ill disposition Philosophy and the Grace of God must cure it but it often causes us to sin before our reason and our higher principles are well attended to But when we consent to and actuate our evil inclinations we spoil our natures and make them worse making evil still more natural For it is as much in our nature to be pleased with our artificial delights as with our natural And this is the doctrine of S. Austin speaking of Concupiscence Modo quodam loquendi vocatur peccatum quòd peccata facta est peccati si vicerit facit reum Concupiscence or the viciousness of our Nature is after a certain manner of speaking called sin because it is made worse by sin and makes us guilty of sin when it is consented to It hath the nature of sin so the article of the Church of England expresses it that is it is in eâdem materiâ it comes from a weak principle à naturae vitio from the imperfect and defective nature of man and inclines to sin But that I may again use S. Austins words Quantum ad nos attiâ—et sine peccato semper essemus donec sanaretur hoc malum si ei nunquam consentiremus ad malum Although we all have concupiscence yet none of us all should have any sin if we did not consent to this concupiscence unto evil Concupiscence is Naturae vitium but not peccatum a defect or fault of nature but not formally a sin which distinction we learn from S. Austin Non enim talia sunt vitia quae jam peccata dicenda sunt Concupiscence is an evil as a weak eye is but not a sin if we speak properly till it be consented to and then indeed it is the parent of sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so S. James it brings forth sin 85. This is the vile state of our natural viciousness and improbity and misery in which Adam had some but truly not the biggest share and let this consideration sink as deep as it will in us to make us humble and careful but let us not use it as an excuse to lessen our diligence by greatning our evil necessity For death and sin were both born from Adam but we have nurs'd them up to an ugly bulk and deformity But I must now proceed to other practical rules 86. II. It is necessary that we understand that our natural state is not a state in which we can hope for heaven Natural agents can effect but natural ends by natural instruments and now supposing the former doctrine that we lost not the Divine favour by our guilt of what we never did consent to yet we were born in pure naturals and they some of them worsted by our forefathers yet we were at the best born but in pure naturals and we must be born again that as by our first birth we are heirs of death so by our new birth we may be adopted into the inheritance of life and salvation 87. III. It is our duty to be humbled in the consideration of our selves and of our natural condition That by distrusting our own strengths we may take sanctuary in God through Jesus Christ praying for his grace entertaining and caressing of his holy Spirit with purities and devotions with charity and humility infinitely fearing to grieve him lest he leaving us we be left as Adam left us in pure naturals but in some degrees worsted by the nature of sin in some instances and the anger of God in all that is in the state of flesh and blood which shall never inherit the
an inseparable propriety of the regenerate The Spirit of God is an internal agent that is the effects and graces of the Spirit by which we are assisted are within us before they operate For although all assistances from without are graces of God the effects of Christs passion purchased for us by his blood and by his intercession and all good company wise counsels apt notices prevailing arguments moving objects and opportunities and endearments of vertue are from above from the Father of lights yet the Spirit of God does also work more inwardly and creates in us aptnesses and inclinations consentings and the acts of conviction and adherence working in us to will and to do according to our desire or according to Gods good pleasure yet this holy Spirit is oftentimes grieved sometimes provoked and at last extinguish'd which because it is done only by them who are enemies of the Spirit and not the servants of God it follows that the Spirit of God by his aids and assistances is in them that are not so with a design to make them so and if the holy Spirit were not in any degree or sence in the unregenerate how could a man be born again by the Spirit for since no man can be regenerate by his own strengths his new birth must be wrought by the Spirit of God and especially in the beginnings of our conversion is his assistance necessary which assistance because it works within as well and rather than without must needs be in a man before he operates within And therefore to have received the holy Spirit is not the propriety of the regenerate but to be led by him to be conducted by the Spirit in all our ways and counsels to obey his motions to entertain his doctrine to do his pleasure This is that which gives the distinction and the denomination And this is called by S. Paul The inhabitation of the Spirit of God in us in opposition to the inhabitants peccatum the sin that dwelleth in the unregenerate The Spirit may be in us calling and urging us to holiness but unless the Spirit of God dwell in us and abide in us and love to do so and rule and give us laws and be not griev'd and cast out but entertain'd and cherish'd and obey'd unless I say the Spirit of God be thus in us Christ is not in us and if Christ be not in us we are none of his SECT VI. The Character of the Regenerate Estate or Person 42. FROM hence it is not hard to describe what are the proper indications of the Regenerate 1. A regenerate person is convinc'd of the goodness of the law and meditates in it day and night His delight is in Gods law not only with his mind approving but with his will chusing the duties and significations of the law II. The Regenerate not only wishes that the good were done which God commands but heartily sets about the doing of it III. He sometimes feels the rebellions of the flesh but he fights against them always and if he receive a fall he rises instantly and fights the more fiercely and watches the more cautelously and prays the more passionately and arms himself more strongly and prevails more prosperously In a regenerate person there is flesh and Spirit but the Spirit only rules There is an outward and an inward man but both of them are subject to the Spirit There was a law of the members but it is abrogated and cancell'd the law is repeal'd and does not any more inslave him to the law of sin Nunc quamdiu concupiscit caro adversus spiritum spiritus adversus carnem sat est nobis non consentire malis quae sentimus in nobis Every good man shall always feel the flesh lusting against the Spirit that contention he shall never be quit of but it is enough for us if we never consent to the suggested evils IV. A regenerate person does not only approve that which is best and desire to do it but he does it actually and delights to do it he continues and abides in it which the Scripture calls a walking in the Spirit and a living after it for he does his duty by the strengths of the Spirit that is upon considerations Evangelical in the love of God in obedience to Christ and by the aids he hath receiv'd from above beyond the powers of nature and education and therefore he does his duty upon such considerations as are apt to make it integral and persevering For V. A regenerate man does not only leave some sins but all and willingly entertains none He does not only quit a lust that is against his disposition but that which he is most inclin'd to he is most severe against and most watchful to destroy it he plucks out his right eye and cuts off his right hand and parts with his biggest interest rather than keep a lust and therefore consequently chuses vertue by the same method by which he abstains from vice Nam ipsa continentia cum fraenat cohibétque libidines simul appetit bonum ad cujus immortalitem tendimus respuit malum cum quo in hâc mortalitate contendimus that is He pursues all vertue as he refuses all vice for he tends to the immortality of good as he strives against evil in all the days of his mortality And therefore he does not chuse to exercise that vertue only that will do him reputation or consist with his interest or please his humour but entertains all vertue whether it be with him or against him pleasing or displeasing he chuses all that God hath commanded him because he does it for that reason VI. A regenerate person doth not only contradict his appetite in single instances but endeavours to destroy the whole body of sin he does not only displease his fond appetite but he mortifies it and never entertains conditions of peace with it for it is a dangerous mistake if we shall presume all is well because we do some acts of spite to our dearest lust and sometimes cross the most pleasing temptation and oppose our selves in single instances against every sin This is not it the regenerate man endeavours to destroy the whole body of sin and having had an opportunity to contest his sin and to contradict it this day is glad he hath done something of his duty and does so again to morrow and ever till he hath quite killed it and never entertains conditions of peace with it nor ever is at rest till the flesh be quiet and obedient * For sometimes it comes to pass that the old man being used to obey at last obeys willingly and takes the conditions of the Gibeonites it is content to do drudgery and the inferior ministeries if it may be suffered to abide in the land 43. So that here is a new account upon which the former proposition is verifiable viz. It is not the propriety of the regenerate to feel a contention within him
faith without charity dead and ineffective A working faith and a working prayer are the great instruments and the great exercise and the great demonstration of holiness and Christian perfection Children can sit down in a storm or in a danger and weep and die but men can labour against it and struggle with the danger and labour for that blessing which they beg Thou dost not desire it unless thou wilt labour for it He that sits still and wishes had rather have that thing than be without it but if he will not use the means he had rather lose his desire than lose his ease That is scarce worth having that is not worth labouring 76. XI In all contentions against sin and infirmity remember that what was done yesterday may be done to day and by the same instruments by which then you were conqueror you may also be so in every day of temptation The Italian General that quitted his vanity and his imployment upon the sight of one that died suddenly might upon the same consideration actually applied and fitted to the fancy at any time resist his lust And therefore Epictetus gives it in rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let death be always before thy eyes and then thou shalt never desire any base or low thing nor desire any thing too much That is the perpetual application of so great a consideration as is death is certainly the greatest endearment of holiness and severity And certain it is that at some time or other the greatest part of Christians have had some horrible apprehensions of Hell of Death and consequent Damnation and it hath put into them holy thoughts and resolutions of piety and if ever they were in a severe sickness and did really fear death they may remember with how great a regret they did then look upon their sins and then they thought Heaven a considerable interest and Hell a formidable state and would not then have committed a sin for the purchase of the world Now every man hath always the same arguments and endearments of piety and religion Heaven and Hell are always the same considerable things and the truth is the same still but then they are considered most and therefore they prevail most and this is a demonstration that the arguments themselves are sufficient and would always do the work of grace for us if we were not wanting to our selves It is impossible that any man can be mov'd by any argument in the world or any interest any hope or any fear who cannot be moved by the consideration of Heaven and Hell But that which I observe is this that the argument that wisely and reasonably prevail'd yesterday can prevail to day unless thou thy self beest foolish and unreasonable 77. XII If a wicked man sins it is never by a pitiable or pardonable infirmity but from a state of death that it proceeds or will be so imputed and it is all one as if it did But if a good man sins he hath the least reason to pretend infirmity for his excuse because he hath the strengths of the Spirit and did master sin in its strengths and in despight of all its vigorousness and habit and therefore certainly can do so much rather when sin is weak and grace is strong The result of which consideration is this That no man should please himself in his sin because it is a sin of infirmity He that is pleased with it because he thinks it is indulg'd to him sins with pleasure and therefore not of infirmity for that is ever against our will and besides our observation No sin is a sin of infirmity unless we hate it and strive against it He that hath gotten some strength may pretend some infirmity But he that hath none is dead 78. XIII Let no man think that the proper evil of his age or state or of his Nation is in the latitude and nature of it a sin of a pardonable infirmity The lusts of youth and the covetousness or pride of old age and the peevishness of the afflicted are states of evil not sins of infirmity For it is highly considerable that sins of infirmity are but single ones There is no such thing as a state of a pardonable infirmity If by distemper of the body or the vanity of years or the evil customs of a Nation a vice does creep upon and seise on the man it is that against which the man ought to watch and pray and labour it is a state of danger and temptation But that must not be called infirmity which corrupts Nations and states of life but that only which in single instances surprises even a watchful person when his guards are most remiss 79. XIV Whatsoever sin comes regularly or by observation is not to be excused upon the pretence of infirmity but is the indication of an evil habit Therefore never admit a sin upon hopes of excuse for it is certain no evil that a man chuses is excusable No man sins with a pardon about his neck But if the sin comes at a certain time it comes from a certain cause and then it cannot be infirmity for all sins of infirmity are sins of chance irregular and accidental 80. XV. Be curious to avoid all proverbs and propositions or odd sayings by which evil life is incouraged and the hands of the Spirit weakned It is strange to consider what a prejudice to a mans understanding of things is a contrary proverb Can any good thing come out of Galilee And when Christ cometh no man knoweth whence he is Two or three proverbs did in despight of all the miracles and holy doctrines and rare example of Christ hinder many of the Jews from believing in him The words of S. Paul misunderstood and worse applied have been so often abused to evil purposes that they have almost passed into a proverbial excuse The evil that I would not that I do Such sayings as these are to be tried by the severest measures and all such sences of them which are enemies to holiness of life are to be rejected because they are against the whole Oeconomy and design of the Gospel of the life and death of Christ. But a proverb being used by every man is supposed to contain the opinion and belief or experience of mankind and then that evil sence that we are pleased to put to them will be thought to be of the same authority I have heard of divers persons who have been strangely intic'd on to finish their revellings and drunken conventicles by a catch or a piece of a song by a humor and a word by a bold saying or a common proverb and whoever take any measures of good or evil but the severest discourses of reason and religion will be like a Ship turned every way by a little piece of wood by chance and by half a sentence because they dwell upon the water and a wave of the Sea is their foundation 81. XVI Let every man take heed of a
servile will and a commanding lust for he that is so miserable is in a state of infirmity and death and will have a perpetual need of something to hide his folly or to excuse it but shall find nothing He shall be forc'd to break his resolution to sin against his conscience to do after the manner of fools who promise and pay not who resolve and do not who speak and remember not who are fierce in their pretences and designs but act them as dead men do their own Wills They make their Will but die and do nothing themselves 82. XVII Endeavour to do what can never be done that is to cure all thy infirmities For this is thy victory for ever to contend and although God will leave a remnant of Canaanites in the land to be thy daily exercise and endearment of care and of devotion yet you must not let them alone or entertain a treaty of peace with them But when you have done something go on to finish it It is infinite pity that any good thing should be spent or thrown away upon a lust But if we sincerely endeavour to be masters of every action we shall be of most of them and for the rest they shall trouble thee but do thee no other mischief We must keep the banks that the Sea break not in upon us but no man can be secure against the drops of rain that fall upon the heads of all mankind but yet every man must get as good shelter as he can The PRAYER I. O Almighty God the Father of Mercy and Holiness thou art the fountain of grace and strength and thou blessest the sons of men by turning them from their iniquities shew the mightiness of thy power and the glories of thy grace by giving me strength against all my enemies and victory in all temptations and watchfulness against all dangers and caution in all difficulties and hope in all my fears and recollection of mind in all distractions of spirit and fancy that I may not be a servant of chance or violence of interest or passion of fear or desire but that my will may rule the lower man and my understanding may guide my will and thy holy Spirit may conduct my understanding that in all contentions thy Spirit may prevail and in all doubts I may chuse the better part and in the midst of all contradictions and temptations and infelicities I may be thy servant infallibly and unalterably Amen II. BLessed Jesu thou art our High-priest and encompassed with infirmities but always without sin relieve and pity me O my gracious Lord who am encompassed with infirmities but seldom or never without sin O my God my ignorances are many my passions violent my temptations ensnaring and deceitful my observation little my inadvertencies innumerable my resolutions weak my dangers round about me my duty and obligations full of variety and the instances very numerous O be thou unto me wisdom and righteousness sanctification and redemption Thou hast promised thy holy Spirit to them that ask him let thy Spirit help my infirmities give to me his strengths instruct me with his notices encourage me with his promises affright me with his terrors confirm me with his courage that I being readily prepared and furnished for every good work may grow with the increase of God to the full measure of the stature and fulness of thee my Saviour that though my outward man decay and decrease yet my inner man may be renewed day by day that my infirmities may be weaker and thy grace stronger and at last may triumph over the decays of the old man O be thou pleased to pity my infirmities and pardon all those actions which proceed from weak principles that when I do what I can I may be accepted and when I fail of that I may be pitied and pardoned and in all my fights and necessities may be defended and secured prospered and conducted to the regions of victory and triumph of strength and glory through the mercies of God and the grace of our Lord Jesus and the blessed communication of the Spirit of God and our Lord Jesus Amen CHAP. IX Of the Effect of Repentance viz. Remission of Sins SECT I. 1. THE Law written in the Heart of man is a Law of Obedience which because we prevaricated we are taught another which S. Austin says is written in the Heart of Angels Vt nulla sit iniquitas impunita nisi quam sanguis Mediatoris expiaverit For God the Father spares no sinner but while he looks upon the face of his Son but that in him our sins should be pardon'd and our persons spared is as necessary a consideration as any Nemo enim potest benè agere poenitentiam nisi qui speraverit indulgentiam To what purpose does God call us to Repentance if at the same time he does not invite us to pardon It is the state and misery of the damned to repent without hope and if this also could be the state of the penitent in this life the Sermons of Repentance were useless and comfortless Gods mercies were none at all to sinners the institution and office of preaching and reconciling penitents were impertinent and man should die by the laws of Angels who never was enabled to live by their strength and measures and consequently all mankind were infinitely and eternally miserable lost irrecoverably perishing without a Saviour tied to a Law too hard for him and condemned by unequal and intolerable sentences 2. Tertullian considering that God threatens all impenitent sinners argues demonstratively Neque enim comminaretur non poenitenti si non ignosceret delinquenti If men repent not God will be severely angry it will be infinitely the worse for us if we do not and shall it be so too if we do repent God forbid Frustra mortuus est Christus si aliquos vivificare non potest Mentitur Johannes Baptista digito Christum voce demonstrans Ecce agnus Dei ecce qui tollit peccata mundi si sunt adhuc in saeculo quorum Christus peccata non tulerit In vain did Christ die if he cannot give life to all And the Baptist deceiv'd us when he pointed out Christ unto us saying Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world if there were any in the world whose sins Christ hath not born 3. But God by the old Prophets called upon them who were under the Covenant of works in open appearance that they also should repent and by antedating the mercies of the Gospel promised pardon to the penitent He promised mercy by Moses and the Prophets He proclaimed his Name to be Mercy and Forgiveness He did solemnly swear he did not desire the death of a sinner but that he should repent and live and the holy Spirit of God hath respersed every book of holy Scripture with great and legible lines of mercy and Sermons of Repentance In short It was the summ of
all the Sermons which were made by those whom God sent with his word in their mouths that they should live innocently or when they had sinned they should repent and be sav'd from their calamity 4. But when Christ came into the world he open'd the fountains of mercy and broke down all the banks of restraint he preach'd Repentance offer'd health gave life call'd all wearied and burthen'd persons to come to him for ease and remedy he glorified his Fathers mercies and himself became the great instrument and channel of its emanation He preach'd and commanded mercy by the example of God he made his Religion that he taught to be wholly made up of doing and receiving good this by Faith that by Charity He commanded an indefinite and unlimited forgiveness of our brother repenting after injuries done to us seventy times seven times and though there could be little question of that yet he was pleased to signifie to us that as we needed more so we should have and find more mercy at the hands of God And therefore he hath appointed a whole order of men whom he maintains at his own charges and furnishes with especial commissions and endues with a lasting power and imploys on his own errand and instructs with his own Spirit whose business is to remit and retain to exhort and to restore sinners by the means of Repentance and the word of their proper Ministery Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted that 's their Authority and their Office is to pray all men in Christs stead to be reconciled to God And after all this Christ himself labours to bring it to effect not only assisting his Ministers with the gifts of an excellent Spirit and exacting of them the account of Souls but that it may be prosperous and effectual himself intercedes in Heaven before the Throne of Grace doing for sinners the office of an Advocate and a Reconciler If any man sins we have an Advocate with the Father and he is the propitiation for all our sins and for the sins of the whole world and therefore it is not only the matter of our hopes but an Article of our Creed that we may have forgiveness of our sins by the blood of Jesus Qui nullum excepit in Christo donavit omnia God hath excepted none and therefore in Christ pardons all 5. For there is not in Scripture any Catalogue of sins set down for which Christ died and others excluded from that state of mercy All that believe and repent shall be pardon'd if they go and sin no more Deus distinctionem non facit qui misericordiam suam promisit omnibus relaxandi licentiam sacerdotibus suis sine ullâ exceptione concessit said S. Ambrose God excepts none but hath given power to his Ministers to release all absolutely all And S. Bernard argues this Article upon the account of those excellent examples which the Spirit of God hath consign'd to us in holy Scripture If Peter after so great a fall did arrive to such an eminence of sanctity hereafter who shall despair provided that he will depart from his sins For that God is ready to forgive the greatest Criminals if they repent appears in the instances of Ahab and Manasses of Mary Magdalen and S. Paul of the Thief on the Cross and the deprehended Adulteress and of the Jews themselves who after they had crucified the Lord of life were by messengers of his own invited passionately invited to repent and be purified with that blood which they had sacrilegiously and impiously spilt But concerning this who please may read S. Austin discoursing upon those words Mittet Crystallum suum sicut buccellas which saith he mystically represent the readiness of God to break and make contrite even the hearts of them that have been hardened in impiety Quo loco consistent poenitentiam agentes ibi justi non poterunt stare said the Doctors of the Jews The just and innocent persons shall not be able to stand in the same place where the penitent shall be Pacem pacem remoto propinquo ait Dominus ut sanem eum Peace to him that is afar off and to him that is near saith the Lord that I may heal him Praeponit remotum That 's their observations He that is afar off is set before the other that is he that is at great distance from God as if God did use the greater earnestness to reduce him Upon which place their gloss adds Magna est virtus eorum qui poenitentiam agunt ita ut nulla Creatura in septo illorum consistere queat So great is the vertue of them that are true penitents that no creature can stand within their inclosure And all this is far better expressed by those excellen◠words of our blessed Saviour There is joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety nine just persons that need no repentance 6. I have been the longer in establishing and declaring the proper foundation of this Article upon which every one can declaim but every one cannot believe it in the day of temptation because I guess what an intolerable evil it is to despair of pardon by having felt the trouble of some very great fears And this were the less necessary but that it is too commonly true that they who repent least are most confident of their pardon or rather least consider any reasons against their security but when a man truly apprehends the vileness of his sin he ought also to consider the state of his danger which is wholly upon the stock of what is past that is his danger is this that he knows not when or whether or upon what terms God will pardon him in particular But of this I shall have a more apt occasion to speak in the following periods For the present the Article in general is established upon the testimonies of the greatest certainty SECT II. Of Pardon of Sins committed after Baptism 7. BUT it may be our easiness of life and want of discipline and our desires to reconcile our pleasures and temporal satisfactions with the hopes of Heaven hath made us apt to swallow all that seems to favour our hopes But it is certain that some Christian Doctors have taught the Doctrine of Repentance with greater severity than is intimated in the premises For all the examples of pardon consign'd to us in the Old Testament are nothing to us who live under the New and are to be judged by other measures And as for those instances which are recorded in the New Testament and all the promises and affirmations of pardon they are sufficiently verified in that pardon of sins which is first given to us in Baptism and at our first Conversion to Christianity Thus when S. Stephen prayed for his persecutors and our blessed Lord himself on his uneasie death-bed of the Cross prayed for them that Crucified him it can only prove that these great sins are pardonable
in our first access to Christ because they for whom Christ and his Martyr S. Stephen prayed were not yet converted and so were to be saved by Baptismal Repentance Then the Power of the Keys is exercised and the gates of the Kingdom are opened then we enter into the Covenant of mercy and pardon and promise faith and perpetual obedience to the laws of Jesus and upon that condition forgiveness is promised and exhibited offer'd and consign'd but never after for it is in Christianity for all great sins as in the Civil Law for theft Qui eâ mente alienum quid contrectavit ut lucrifaceret tametsi mutato consilio id Domino postea reddidit fur est nemo enim tali peccato poenitentiâ suâ nocens esse desinit said Vlpian and Gaius Repentance does not here take off the punishment nor the stain And so it seems to be in Christianity in which every baptized person having stipulated for obedience is upon those terms admitted to pardon and consequently if he fails of his duty he shall fail of the grace 8. But that this objection may proceed no further it is certain that it is an infinite lessening of the mercy of God in Jesus Christ to confine pardon of sins only to the Font. For that even lapsed Christians may be restored by repentance and be pardoned appears in the story of the incestuous Corinthian and the precept of S. Paul to the spiritual man or the Curate of souls If any man be overtaken in a fault ye which are spiritual restore such a man in the spirit of meekness considering thy self lest thou also be tempted The Christian might fall and the Corinthian did so and the Minister himself he who had the ministery of restitution and reconciliation was also in danger and yet they all might be restored To the same sence is that of S. James Is any man sick among you let him send for the Presbyters of the Church and let them pray over him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 although he was a doer of sins they shall be forgiven him For there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sin that is not unto death And therefore when S. Austin in his first Book de Sermone Dei had said that there is some sin so great that it cannot be remitted he retracts his words with this clause addendum fuit c. I should have added If in so great perverseness of mind he ends his life For we must not despair of the worst sinner we may not despair of any since we ought to pray for all 9. For it is beyond exception or doubt that it was the great work of the Apostles and of the whole new Testament to engage men in a perpetual repentance For since all men do sin all men must repent or all men must perish And very many periods of Scripture are directed to lapsed Christians baptized persons fallen into grievous crimes calling them to repentance So Simon Peter to Simon Magus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Repent of thy wickedness and to the Corinthian Christians S. Paul urges the purpose of his legation We pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God The Spirit of God reprov'd some of the Asian Churches for foul misdemeanours and even some of the Angels the Asian Bishops calling upon them to return to their first love and to repent and to do their first works and to the very Gnosticks and filthiest Hereticks he gave space to repent and threatned extermination to them if they did not do it speedily For 10. Baptism is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the admission of us to the Covenant of Faith and Repentance or as Mark the Anchoret call'd it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the introduction to repentance or that state of life that is full of labour and care and amendment of our faults for that is the best life that any man can live and therefore repentance hath its progress after baptism as it hath its beginning before for first repentance is unto baptism and then baptism unto repentance And if it were otherwise the Church had but ill provided for the state of her sons and daughters by commanding the baptism of Infants For if repentance were not allowed after then their early baptism would take from them all hopes of repentance and destroy the mercies of the Gospel and make it now to all Christendom a law of works in the greater instances because since in our infancy we neither need nor can perform repentance if to them that sin after baptism repentance be denied it is in the whole denied to them for ever to repent But God hath provided better things for us and such which accompany salvation 11. For besides those many things which have been already consider'd our admission to the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper is a perpetual entertainment of our hopes because then and there is really exhibited to us the body that was broken and the blood that was shed for remission of sins still it is applied and that application could not be necessary to be done anew if there were not new necessities and still we are invited to do actions of repentance to examine our selves and so to eat all which as things are order'd would be infinitely useless to mankind if it did not mean pardon to Christians falling into foul sins even after baptism 12. I shall add no more but the words of S. Paul to the Corinthians Lest when I come again my God will humble me among you and that I shall bewail many who have sinn'd already and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed Here is a fierce accusation of some of them for the foulest and the basest crimes and a reproof of their not repenting and a threatning them with censures Ecclesiastical I suppose this article to be sufficiently concluded from the premises The necessity of which proof they only will best believe who are severely penitent and full of apprehension and fear of the Divine anger because they have highly deserved it However I have serv'd my own needs in it and the need of those whose consciences have been or shall be so timorous as mine hath deserved to be But against the universality of this doctrine there are two grand objections The one is the severer practice and doctrine of the Primitive Church denying repentance to some kind of sinners after baptism The other the usual discourses and opinions concerning the sin against the Holy Ghost Of these I shall give account in the two following Sections SECT III. Of the Difficulty of obtaining Pardon The Doctrine and Practice of the Primitive Church in this Article 13. NOvatianus and Novatus said that the Church had not power to minister pardon of sins except only in Baptism which proposition when they had well digested and considered they did thus explicate That there are some capital sins crying and clamorous into
to signifie in an apt and a disposed nature what kind of apprehensions and trouble there is within For weeping upon the presence of secular troubles is more ready and easie because it is an effect symbolical and of the same nature with its proper cause But when there is a spiritual cause although its proper effect may be greater and more effective of better purposes yet unless by the intermixture of some material and natural cause it be more apportion'd to a material and natural product it is not to be charged with it or expected from it Sin is a spiritual evil and tears is the sign of a natural or physical sorrow Smart and sickness and labour are natural or physical evils and hatred and nolition is a spiritual or intellectual effect Now as every labour and every smart is not to be hated or rejected but sometimes chosen by the understanding when it is mingled with a good that pleases the understanding and is eligible upon the accounts of reason So neither can every sin which is the intellectual evil be productive of tears or sensitive sorrow unless it be mingled with something which the sense and affections that is which the lower man hates and which will properly afflict him such as are fear or pain or danger or disgrace or loss The sensitive sorrow therefore which is usually seen in new penitents is upon the account of those horrible apprehensions which are declared in holy Scriptures to be the consequent of sins but if we shall so preach Repentance as to warrant a freedom and a perfect escape instantly from all significations of the wrath of God and all dangers for the future upon the past and present account I know not upon what reckoning he that truly leaves his sin can be commanded to be sorrowful and if he were commanded how he can possibly obey 18. But when repentance hath had its growth and progression and is increased into a habit of piety sorrow and sensitive trouble may come in upon another account for great and permanent changes of the mind make great impressions upon the lower man When we love an object intensely our very body receives comfort in the presence of it and there are friendly Spirits which have a natural kindness and cognation to each other and refresh one another passing from eye to eye from friend to friend and the Prophet David felt it in the matter of Religion My flesh and my heart rejoyce in the living Lord. For if a grief of mind is a consumption of the flesh and a chearful spirit is a conservatory of health it is certain that every great impression that is made upon the mind and dwells there hath its effect upon the body and the lower affections And therefore all those excellent penitents who consider the baseness of sin * their own danger though now past in some degrees * the offence of God * the secret counsels of his Mercy * his various manners of dispensing them * the fearful judgments which God unexpectedly sends upon some men * the dangers of our own confidence * the weakness of our Repentance * the remains of our sin * the aptnesses and combustible nature of our Concupiscence * the presence of temptation and the perils of relapsing * the evil state of things which our former sins leave us in * our difficulty in obeying and our longings to return to Egypt * and the fearful anger of God which will with greater fierceness descend if we chance to fall back Those penitents I say who consider these things frequently and prudently will find their whole man so wrought upon that every faculty shall have an enmity against sin and therefore even the affections of the lower man must in their way contribute to its mortification and that is by a real and effective sorrow 19. But in this whole affair the whole matter of question will be in the manner of operation or signification of the dislike For the duty is done if the sin be accounted an enemy that is whether the dislike be only in the intellectual and rational appetite or also in the sensitive For although men use so to speak and distinguish superior from inferior appetites yet it will be hard in nature to find any real distinct faculties in which those passions are subjected and from which they have emanation The intellectual desire and the sensual desire are both founded in the same faculty they are not distinguished by their subjects but by their objects only they are but several motions of the will to or from several objects When a man desires that which is most reasonable and perfective or consonant to the understanding that we call an intellectual or rational appetite but if he desires a thing that will do him hurt in his soul or to his best interest and yet he desires it because it pleases him this is fit to be called a sensitive appetite because the object is sensitive and it is chosen for a sensual reason But it is rather appetitio than appetitus that is an act rather than a principle of action The case is plainer if we take two objects of several interests both of which are proportion'd to the understanding S. Anthony in the desart and S. Bernard in the Pulpit were tempted by the spirit of pride they resisted and overcame it because pride was unreasonable and foolish as to themselves and displeasing to God If they had listned to the whispers of that spirit it had been upon the accounts of pleasure because pride is that deliciousness of spirit which entertains a vain man making him to delight in his own images and reflexions and therefore is a work of the flesh but yet plainly founded in the understanding And therefore here it is plain that when the flesh and the spirit fight it is not a fight between two faculties of the soul but a contest in the soul concerning the election of two objects It is no otherwise in this than in every deliberation when arguments from several interests contest each other Every passion of the man is nothing else but a proper manner of being affected with an object and consequently a tendency to or an aversion from it that is a willing or a nilling of it which willing and nilling when they produce several permanent impressions upon the mind and body receive the names of divers passions The object it self first striking the fancy or lower apprehensions by its proper energy makes the first passion or tendency to the will that is the inclination or first concupiscence but when the will upon that impression is set on work and chuses the sensual object that makes the abiding passion the quality As if the object be displeasing and yet not present it effects fear or hatred if good and not present it is called desire but all these diversifications are meerly natural effects as to be warm is before the fire and cannot be in our choice directly and immediately That
observable that no Heresies are noted signanter in Scripture but such as are great errours practical in materiâ pietatis such whose doctrines taught impiety or such who denyed the coming of Christ directly or by consequence not remote or withdrawn but prime and immediate And therefore in the Code de S. Trinitate fide Catholica Heresy is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a wicked Opinion and an ungodly doctrine 3. The first false doctrine we find condemned by the Apostles was the opinion of Simon Magus who thought the Holy Ghost was to be bought with money he thought very dishonourably to the blessed Spirit but yet his followers are rather noted of a vice neither resting in the understanding nor derived from it but wholly practical 'T is simony not heresy though in Simon it was a false opinion proceeding from a low account of God and promoted by his own ends of pride and covetousness The great heresy that troubled them was the doctrine of the necessity of keeping the Law of Moses the necessity of Circumcision against which doctrine they were therefore zealous because it was a direct overthrow to the very end and excellency of Christs coming And this was an opinion most pertinaciously and obstinately maintained by the Jews and had made a Sect among the Galathians and this was indeed wholly in opinion and against it the Apostles opposed two Articles of the Creed which served at several times according as the Jews changed their opinion and left some degrees of their errour I believe in Jesus Christ and I believe the holy Catholick Church For they therefore pressed the necessity of Moses Law because they were unwilling to forgo the glorious appellative of being Gods own peculiar people and that salvation was of the Jews and that the rest of the World were capable of that grace no otherwise but by adoption into their Religion and becoming proselytes But this was so ill a Doctrine as that it overthrew the great benefits of Christ's coming for if they were circumcised Christ profited them nothing meaning this that Christ will not be a Saviour to them who do not acknowledge him for their Law-giver and they neither confess him their Law-giver nor their Saviour that look to be justified by the Law of Moses and observation of legal rites so that this doctrine was a direct enemy to the foundation and therefore the Apostles were so zealous against it Now then that other opinion which the Apostles met at Jerusalem to resolve was but a piece of that opinion for the Jews and Proselytes were drawn off from their lees and sediment by degrees step by step At first they would not endure any should be saved but themselves and their Proselytes Being wrought off from this height by Miracles and preaching of the Apostles they admitted the Gentiles to a possibility of salvation but yet so as to hope for it by Moses Law From which foolery when they were with much ado perswaded and told that salvation was by Faith in Christ not by works of the Law yet they resolved to plow with an Oxe and an Ass still and joyn Moses with Christ not as shadow and substance but in an equal confederation Christ should save the Gentiles if he was helpt by Moses but alone Christianity could not do it Against this the Apostles assembled at Jerusalem and made a decision of the Question tying some of the Gentiles such only who were blended by the Jews in communi patria to observation of such Rites which the Jews had derived by tradition from Noah intending by this to satisfie the Jews as far as might be with a reasonable compliance and condescension the other Gentiles who were unmixt in the mean while remaining free as appears in the liberty S. Paul gave the Church of Corinth of eating Idol Sacrifices expresly against the Decree at Jerusalem so it were without scandal And yet for all this care and curious discretion a little of the leaven still remained All this they thought did so concern the Gentiles that it was totally impertinent to the Jews still they had a distinction to satisfie the letter of the Apostles Decree and yet to persist in their old opinion and this so continued that fifteen Christian Bishops in succession were circumcised even until the destruction of Jerusalem under Adrian as Eusebius reports 4. First By the way let me observe that never any matter of Question in the Christian Church was determined with greater solemnity or more full authority of the Church than this Question concerning Circumcision No less than the whole Colledge of the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem and that with a Decree of the highest sanction Visum est spiritui sancto nobis Secondly Either the case of the Hebrews in particular was omitted and no determination concerning them whether it were necessary or lawful for them to be circumcised or else it was involv'd in the Decree and intended to oblige the Jews If it was omitted since the Question was de re necessaria for dico vobis I Paul say unto you If ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing it is very remarkable how the Apostles to gain the Jews and to comply with their violent prejudice in behalf of Moses Law did for a time Tolerate their dissent etiam in re alioquin necessariâ which I doubt not but was intended as a precedent for the Church to imitate for ever after But if it was not omitted either all the multitude of the Jews which S. James then their Bishop expressed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou seest how many myriads of Jews that believe and yet are zelots for the Law and Eusebius speaking of Justus saies he was one ex infinitâ multitudine eorum qui ex circumcisione in Jesum credebant I say all these did perish and their believing in Christ served them to no other ends but in the infinity of their torments to upbraid them with hypocrisie and heresie or if they were saved it is apparent how merciful God was and pitiful to humane infirmities that in a point of so great concernment did pity their weakness and pardon their errors and love their good mind since their prejudice was little less than insuperable and had fair probabilities at least it was such as might abuse a wise and good man and so it did many they did bono animo errare And if I mistake not this consideration S. Paul urged as a reason why God forgave him who was a Persecutor of the Saints because he did it ignorantly in unbelief that is he was not convinced in his understanding of the truth of the way which he persecuted he in the mean while remaining in that incredulity not out of malice or ill ends but the mistakes of humanity and a pious zeal therefore God had mercy on him And so it was in this great Question of circumcision here only was the difference the invincibility of S. Paul's error and
particular authority of these men whose Commentaries they are and therefore must be considered with them 12. The summe is this Since the Fathers who are the best witnesses of Traditions yet were infinitely deceived in their account since sometimes they guest at them and conjectured by way of Rule and Discourse and not of their knowledge not by evidence of the thing since many are called Traditions which were not so many are uncertain whether they were or no yet confidently pretended and this uncertainty which at first was great enough is increased by infinite causes and accidents in the succession of 1600 years since the Church hath been either so careless or so abused that she could not or would not preserve Traditions with carefulness and truth since it was ordinary for the old Writers to set out their own fancies and the Rites of their Church which had been Ancient under the specious Title of Apostolical Traditions since some Traditions rely but upon single Testimony at first and yet descending upon others come to be attested by many whose Testimony though conjunct yet in value is but single because it relies upon the first single Relator and so can have no greater authority or certainty than they derive from the single person since the first Ages who were most competent to consign Tradition yet did consign such Traditions as be of a nature wholly discrepant from the present Questions and speak nothing at all or very imperfectly to our purposes and the following ages are no fit witnesses of that which was not transmitted to them because they could not know it at all but by such transmission and prior consignation since what at first was a Tradition came afterwards to be written and so ceased its being a Tradition yet the credit of Traditions commenced upon the certainty and reputation of those truths first delivered by word afterward consigned by writing since what was certainly Tradition Apostolical as many Rituals were are rejected by the Church in several ages and are gone out into a desuetude and lastly since beside the no necessity of Traditions there being abundantly enough in Scripture there are many things called Traditions by the Fathers which they themselves either proved by no Authors or by Apocryphal and spurious and Heretical the matter of Tradition will in very much be so uncertain so false so suspicious so contradictory so improbable so unproved that if a Question be contested and be offered to be proved only by Tradition it will be very hard to impose such a proposition to the belief of all men with an imperiousness or resolved determination but it will be necessary men should preserve the liberty of believing and prophecying and not part with it upon a worse merchandise and exchange than Esau made for his birthright SECT VI. Of the uncertainty and insufficiency of Councils Ecclesiastical to the same purpose 1. BUT since we are all this while in uncertainty it is necessary that we should address our selves somewhere where we may rest the soal of our foot And Nature Scripture and Experience teach the World in matters of Question to submit to some final sentence For it is not reason that controversies should continue till the erring person shall be willing to condemn himself and the Spirit of God hath directed us by that great precedent at Jerusalem to address our selves to the Church that in a plenary Council and Assembly she may Synodically determine Controversies So that if a General Council have determined a Question or expounded Scripture we may no more disbelieve the Decree than the Spirit of God himself who speaks in them And indeed if all Assemblies of Bishops were like that first and all Bishops were of the same spirit of which the Apostles were I should obey their Decree with the same Religion as I do them whose Preface was Visum est Spiritui Sancto nobis and I doubt not but our blessed Saviour intended that the Assemblies of the Church should be Judges of the Controversies and guides of our perswasions in matters of difficulty But he also intended they should proceed according to his will which he had revealed and those precedents which he had made authentick by the immediate assistance of his holy Spirit He hath done his part but we do not do ours And if any private person in the simplicity and purity of his soul desires to find out a truth of which he is in search and inquisition if he prays for wisdom we have a promise he shall be heard and answered liberally and therefore much more when the representatives of the Catholick Church do meet because every person there hath in individuo a title to the promise and another title as he is a governour and a guide of souls and all of them together have another title in their united capacity especially if in that union they pray and proceed with simplicity and purity so that there is no disputing against the pretence and promises and authority of General Councils For if any one man can hope to be guided by Gods Spirit in the search the pious and impartial and unprejudicate search of truth then much more may a General Council If no private man can hope for it then truth is not necessary to be found nor we are not obliged to search for it or else we are saved by chance But if private men can by vertue of a promise upon certain conditions be assured of finding out sufficient truth much more shall a General Council So that I consider thus There are many promises pretended to belong to General Assemblies in the Church but I know not any ground nor any pretence that they shall be absolutely assisted without any condition on their own parts and whether they will or no Faith is a vertue as well as Charity and therefore consists in liberty and choice and hath nothing in it of necessity There is no Question but that they are obliged to proceed according to some rule for they expect no assistance by way of Enthusiasme if they should I know no warrant for that neither did any General Council ever offer a Decree which they did not think sufficiently proved by Scripture Reason or Tradition as appears in the Acts of the Councils now then if they be tied to conditions it is their duty to observe them but whether it be certain that they will observe them that they will do all their duty that they will not sin even in this particular in the neglect of their duty that 's the consideration So that if any man questions the Title and Authority of General Councils and whether or no great promises appertain to them I suppose him to be much mistaken but he also that thinks all of them have proceeded according to rule and reason and that none of them were deceived because possibly they might have been truly directed is a stranger to the History of the Church and to the perpetual instances and experiments of
the faults and failings of humanity It is a famous saying of St. Gregory That he had the four first Councils in esteem and veneration next to the four Evangelists I suppose it was because he did believe them to have proceeded according to rule and to have judged righteous judgment but why had not he the same opinion of other Councils too which were celebrated before his death for he lived after the fifth General not because they had not the same Authority for that which is warrant for one is warrant for all but because he was not so confident that they did their duty nor proceeded so without interest as the first four had done and the following Councils did never get that reputation which all the Catholick Church acknowledged due to the first four And in the next Order were the three following Generals for the Greeks and Latines did never jointly acknowledge but seven Generals to have been authentick in any sence because they were in no sence agreed that any more than seven had proceeded regularly and done their duty So that now the Question is not whether General Councils have a promise that the holy Ghost will assist them For every private man hath that promise that if he does his duty he shall be assisted sufficiently in order to that end to which he needs assistance and therefore much more shall General Councils in order to that end for which they convene and to which they need assistance that is in order to the conservation of the Faith for the doctrinal rules of good life and all that concerns the essential duty of a Christian but not in deciding Questions to satisfie contentions or curious or presumptuous spirits But now can the Bishops so convened be factious can they be abused with prejudice or transported with interests can they resist the holy Ghost can they extinguish the Spirit can they stop their ears and serve themselves upon the holy Spirit and the pretence of his assistances and cease to serve him upon themselves by captivating their understandings to his dictates and their wills to his precepts Is it necessary they should perform any condition is there any one duty for them to perform in these Assemblies a duty which they have power to do or not to do If so then they may fail of it and not do their duty And if the assistance of the holy Spirit be conditional then we have no more assurance that they are assisted than that they do their duty and do not sin 2. Now let us suppose what this duty is Certainly if the Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost and all that come to the knowledge of the truth must come to it by such means which are spiritual and holy dispositions in order to a holy and spiritual end They must be shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace that is they must have peaceable and docible dispositions nothing with them that is violent and resolute to encounter those gentle and sweet assistances and the Rule they are to follow is the Rule which the holy Spirit hath consigned to the Catholick Church that is the holy Scripture either intirely or at least for the greater part of the Rule So that now if the Bishops be factious and prepossessed with perswasions depending upon interest it is certain they may judge amiss and if they recede from the Rule it is certain they do judge amiss And this I say upon their grounds who most advance the Authority of General Councils For if a General Council may err if a Pope confirm it not then most certainly if in any thing it recede from Scripture it does also err because that they are to expect the Popes confirmation they offer to prove from Scripture now if the Popes confirmation be required by authority of Scripture and that therefore the defailance of it does evacuate the Authority of the Council then also are the Councils Decrees invalid if they recede from any other part of Scripture So that Scripture is the Rule they are to follow and a man would have thought it had been needless to have proved it but that we are fallen into Ages in which no truth is certain no reason concluding nor is there any thing that can convince some men For Stapleton with extream boldness against the piety of Christendom against the publick sence of the ancient Church and the practice of all pious Assemblies of Bishops affirms the Decrees of a Council to be binding etiamsi non confirmetur ne probabilì testimonio Scripturarum nay though it be quite extra Scripturam but all wise and good men have ever said that sence which Saint Hilary expressed in these words Quae extra Evangelium sunt non defendam This was it which the good Emperour Constantine propounded to the Fathers met at Nice Libri Evangelici oracula Apostolorum veterum Prophetarum clarè nos instruunt quid sentiendum in Divinis And this is confessed by a sober man of the Roman Church it self the Cardinal of Cusa Oportet quòd omnia talia quae legere debent contineantur in Authoritatibus sacrarum Scripturarum Now then all the advantage I shall take from hence is this That if the Apostles commended them who examined their Sermons by their conformity to the Law and the Prophets and the men of Berea were accounted noble for searching the Scriptures whether those things which they taught were so or no I suppose it will not be denied but the Councils Decrees may also be tryed whether they be conform to Scripture yea or no and although no man can take cognisance and judge the Decrees of a Council pro Authoritate publicâ yet pro informatione privatâ they may the Authority of a Council is not greater than the Authority of the Apostles nor their dictates more sacred or authentick Now then put case a Council should recede from Scripture whether or no were we bound to believe its Decrees I only ask the Question For it were hard to be bound to believe what to our understanding seems contrary to that which we know to be the Word of God But if we may lawfully recede from the Councils Decrees in case they be contrariant to Scripture it is all that I require in this Question For if they be tyed to a Rule then they are to be examined and understood according to the Rule and then we are to give our selves that liberty of judgment which is requisite to distinguish us from beasts and to put us into a capacity of reasonable people following reasonable guides But however if it be certain that the Councils are to follow Scripture then if it be notorious that they do recede from Scripture we are sure we must obey God rather than men and then we are well enough For unless we are bound to shut our eyes and not to look upon the Sun if we may give our selves liberty to believe what seems most
any Synod General National or Provincial be receded from by the Church of the later Age as there have been very many then so many Fathers as were then assembled and united in opinion are esteemed no Authority to determine our perswasions Now suppose 200 Fathers assembled in such a Council if all they had writ Books and 200 Authorities had been alledged in confirmation of an opinion it would have made a mighty noise and loaded any man with an insupportable prejudice that should dissent And yet every opinion maintained against the Authority of any one Council though but Provincial is in its proportion such a violent recession and neglect of the Authority and Doctrine of so many Fathers as were then assembled who did as much declare their opinion in those Assemblies by their Suffrages as if they had writ it in so many books and their opinion is more considerable in the Assembly then in their writings because it was more deliberate assisted united and more dogmaticall In pursuance of this observation it is to be noted by way of instance that Saint Austin and two hundred and seventeen Bishops and all their Successors for a whole Age together did consent in denying Appeals to Rome and yet the Authority of so many Fathers all true Catholicks is of no force now at Rome in this Question but if it be in a matter they like one of these Fathers alone is sufficient The Doctrine of Saint Austin alone brought in the Festival and veneration of the Assumption of the blessed Virgin and the hard sentence passed at Rome upon unbaptized Infants and the Dominican opinion concerning Predetermination derived from him alone as from their Original So that if a Father speaks for them it is wonderfull to see what Tragedies are stirred up against them that dissent as is to be seen in that excellent nothing of Campian's Ten reasons But if the Fathers be against them then Patres in quibusdam non leviter lapsi sunt says Bellarmine and Constat quosdam ex praecipuis it is certain the chiefest of them have foully erred Nay Posa Salmeron and Wadding in the Question of the immaculate Conception make no scruple to dissent from Antiquity to prefer new Doctors before the old and to justifie themselves bring instances in which the Church of Rome had determined against the Fathers And it is not excuse enough to say that singly the Fathers may erre but if they concur they are certain Testimony For there is no question this day disputed by persons that are willing to be tried by the Fathers so generally attested on either side as some points are which both sides dislike severally or conjunctly And therefore 't is not honest for either side to press the Authority of the Fathers as a concluding Argument in matter of dispute unless themselves will be content to submit in all things to the Testimony of an equal number of them which I am certain neither side will do 3. If I should reckon all the particular reasons against the certainty of this Topick it would be more then needs as to this Question and therefore I will abstain from all disparagement of those worthy personages who were excellent lights to their several Dioceses and Cures And therefore I will not instance that Clemens Alexandrinus taught that Christ felt no hunger or thirst but eat onely to make demonstration of the verity of his Humane nature nor that Saint Hilary taught that Christ in his sufferings had no sorrow nor that Origen taught the pains of Hell not to have an eternall duration nor that S. Cyprian taught Rebaptization nor that Athenagoras condemned second Marriages nor that Saint John Damascen said Christ onely prayed in appearance not really and in truth I will let them all rest in peace and their memories in honour for if I should inquire into the particular probations of this Article I must doe to them as I should be forced to doe now if any man should say that the Writings of the School-men were excellent argument and Authority to determine mens perswasions I must consider their writings and observe their defaillances their contradictions the weakness of their Arguments the mis-allegations of Scripture their inconsequent deductions their false opinions and all the weaknesses of humanity and the failings of their persons which no good man is willing to doe unless he be compelled to it by a pretence that they are infallible or that they are followed by men even into errours or impiety And therefore since there is enough in the former instances to cure any such misperswasion and prejudice I will not instance in the innumerable particularities that might perswade us to keep our Liberty intire or to use it discreetly For it is not to be denied but that great advantages are to be made by theiâ— writings probabile est quod omnibus quod pluribus quod sapientibus videtur If one wise man says a thing it is an argument to me to believe it in its degree of probation that is proportionable to such an assent as the Authority of a wise man can produce and when there is nothing against it that is greater and so in proportion higher and higher as more wise men such as the old Doctors were do affirm it But that which I complain of is that we look upon wise men that lived long agoe with so much veneration and mistake that we reverence them not for having been wise men but that they lived long since But when the Question is concerning Authority there must be something to build it on a Divine Commandment humane Sanction excellency of spirit and greatness of understanding on which things all humane Authority is regularly built But now if we had lived in their times for so we must look upon them now as they did who without prejudice beheld them I suppose we should then have beheld them as we in England look on those Prelates who are of great reputation for learning and sanctity here onely is the difference when persons are living their Authority is depressed by their personal defaillances and the contrary interests of their contemporaries which disband when they are dead and leave their credit intire upon the reputation of those excellent books and monuments of learning and piety which are left behind But beyond this why the Bishop of Hippo shall have greater Authority then the Bishop of the Canaries caeteris paribus I understand not For did they that lived to instance in Saint Austin's time beâ—ieve all that he wrote If they did they were much to blame or else himself was to blame for retracting much of it a little before his death And if while he lived his affirmative was no more Authority then derives from the credit of one very wise man against whom also very wise men were opposed I know not why his Authority should prevail farther now for there is nothing added to the strength of his reason since that time but onely
particulars as being of less difficulty And he that considers how many notes there are given to know the true Church by no less then 15 by Bellarmine and concerning every one of them almost whether it be a certain note or no there are very many questions and uncertainties and when it is resolved which are the notes there is more dispute about the application of these notes then of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will quickly be satisfied that he had better sit still then to go round about a difficult and troublesome passage and at last get no farther but return to the place from whence he first set out And there is one note amongst the rest Holiness of Doctrine that is so as to have nothing false either in Doctrina fidei or morum for so Bellarmine explicates it which supposes all your Controversies judged before they can be tried by the Authority of the Church and when we have found out all true Doctrine for that is necessary to judge of the Church by that as Saint Austin's counsel is Ecclesiam in verbis Christi investigemus then we are bound to follow because we judge it true not because the Church hath said it and this is to judge of the Church by her Doctrine not of the Doctrine by the Church And indeed it is the best and onely way But then how to judge of that Doctrine will be afterwards enquired into In the mean time the Church that is the Governours of the Churches are to judge for themselves and for all those who cannot judge for themselves For others they must know that their Governours judge for them too so as to keep them in peace and obedience though not for the determination of their private perswasions For the Oeconomy of the Church requires that her Authority be received by all her children Now this Authority is Divine in its original for it derives immediately from Christ but it is humane in its ministration We are to be led like men not like beasts A Rule is prescribed for the Guides themselves to follow as we are to follow the Guides and although in matters indeterminable or ambiguous the presumption lies on behalf of the Governours for we doe nothing for Authority if we suffer it not to weigh that part down of an indifferency and a question which she chuses yet if there be error manifestus as it often happens or if the Church-Governours themselves be rent into innumerable Sects as it is this day in Christendom then we are to be as wise as we can in chusing our Guides and then to follow so long as that reason remains for which we first chose them And even in that Government which was an immediate Sanction of God I mean the Ecclesiasticall Government of the Synagogue where God had consign'd the High-Priest's Authority with a menace of death to them that should disobey that all the world might know the meaning and extent of such precepts and that there is a limit beyond which they cannot command and we ought not to obey it came once to that pass that if the Priest had been obeyed in his Conciliary Decrees the whole Nation had been bound to believe the condemnation of our Blessed Saviour to have been just and at another time the Apostles must no more have preached in the name of JESUS But here was manifest errour And the case is the same to every man that invincibly and therefore innocently believes it so Deo potiùs quà m hominibus is our rule in such cases For although every man is bound to follow his Guide unless he believes his Guide to mislead him yet when he sees reason against his Guide it is best to follow his reason for though in this he may fall into errour yet he will escape the sin he may doe violence to Truth but never to his own Conscience and an honest errour is better then an hypocriticall profession of truth or a violent luxation of the understanding since if he retains his honesty and simplicity he cannot erre in a matter of Faith or absolute necessity God's goodness hath secured all honest and carefull persons from that for other things he must follow the best guides he can and he cannot be obliged to follow better then God hath given him 3. And there is yet another way pretended of infallible Expositions of Scripture and that is by the Spirit But of this I shall say no more but that it is impertinent as to this Question For put case the Spirit is given to some men enabling them to expound infallibly yet because this is but a private assistance and cannot be proved to others this infallible assistance may determine my own assent but shall not inable me to prescribe to others because it were unreasonable I should unless I could prove to him that I have the Spirit and so can secure him from being deceived if he relies upon me In this case I may say as S. Paul in the case of praying with the Spirit He verily giveth thanks well but the other is not edified So that let this pretence be as true as it will it is sufficient that it cannot be of consideration in this Question 4. The result of all is this Since it is not reasonable to limit and prescribe to all mens understandings by any external Rule in the interpretation of difficult places of Scripture which is our Rule since no man nor company of men is secure from errour or can secure us that they are free from malice interest and design and since all the ways by which we usually are taught as Tradition Councils Decretalls c. are very uncertain in the matter in their authority in their being legitimate and natural and many of them certainly false and nothing certain but the Divine Authority of Scripture in which all that is necessary is plain and much of that that is not necessary is very obscure intricate and involv'd either we must set up our rest onely upon Articles of Faith and plain places and be incurious of other obscurer revelations which is a duty for persons of private understandings and of no publick function or if we will search farther to which in some measure the Guides of others are obliged it remains we enquire how men may determine themselves so as to doe their duty to God and not to disserve the Church that every such man may doe what he is bound to in his personal capacity and as he relates to the publick as a publick minister SECT X. Of the authority of Reason and that it proceeding upon best grounds is the best Judge 1. HEre then I consider that although no man may be trusted to judge for all others unless this person were infallible and authorized so to doe which no man nor no company of men is yet every man may be trusted to judge for himself I say every man that can judge at all as for others they are to be saved as it pleaseth
First-fruits and in these things was the Fountain of the Sacraments and Spiritual Grace and the great Exemplar of the Oeconomy of the Church For Christ was nullius poenitentiae debitor Baptism of Repentance was not necessary to him who never sinn'd but so it became him to fulfil all righteousness and to be a pattern to us all But we have need of these things though he had not and in the same way in which Salvation was wrought by him for himself and for us all in the same way he intended we should walk He was Baptized because his Father appointed it so we must be baptized because Christ hath appointed it and we have need of it too He was Consecrated to be the great Prophet and the great Priest because no man takes on him this honour but he that was called of God as was Aaron and all they who are to minister in his Prophetical office under him must be consecrated and solemnly set apart for that ministration and after his glorious example He was Anointed with a Spiritual Unction from above after his Baptism for after Jesus was baptized he ascended up from the waters and then the Holy Ghost descended upon him It is true he receiv'd the Fulness of the Spirit but we receive him by measure but of his fulness we all receive grace for grace that is all that he receiv'd in order to his great work all that in kind one for another Grace for Grace we are to receive according to our measures and our necessities And as all these he receiv'd by external ministrations so must we God the Father appointed his way and he by his Example first hath appointed the same to us that we also may follow him in the regeneration and work out our Salvation by the same Graces in the like solemnities For if he needed them for himself then we need them much more If he did not need them for himself he needed them for us and for our Example that we might follow his steps who by receiving these exterior solemnities and inward Graces became the Author and finisher of our Salvation and the great Example of his Church I shall not need to make use of the fancy of the Murcosians and Colabarsians who turning all Mysteries into Numbers reckoned the numeral letters of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and made them coincident to the α and ω· but they intended to say that Christ receiving the Holy Dove after his Baptism became all in all to us the beginning and the perfection of our Salvation here he was confirm'd and receiv'd the ω to his α the Consummation to his Initiation the completion of his Baptism and of his Headship in the Gospel But that which I shall rather add is what S. Cyril from hence argues When he truly was baptized in the River of Jordan he ascended out of the waters and the Holy Ghost substantially descended upon him like resting upon like And to you also in like manner after ye have ascended from the waters of Baptism the Vnction is given which bears the image or similitude of him by whom Christ was anointed that as Christ after Baptism and the coming of the Holy Spirit upon him went forth to battel in the Wilderness and overcame the adversary so ye also after Holy Baptism and the mystical Vnction or Confirmation being vested with the Armour of the Holy Spirit are enabled to stand against the opposite Powers Here then is the first great ground of our solemn receiving the Holy Spirit or the Unction from above after Baptism which we understand and represent by the word Confirmation denoting the principal effect of this Unction Spiritual Strength Christ who is the Head of the Church entred this way upon his duty and work and he who was the first of all the Church the Head and great Example is the measure of all the rest for we can go to Heaven no way but in that way in which he went before us There are some who from this Story would infer the descent of the Holy Ghost after Christ's Baptism not to signifie that Confirmation was to be a distinct Rite from Baptism but a part of it yet such a part as gives fulness and Consummation to it S. Hierom Chrysostom Euthymius and Theophylact go not so far but would have us by this to understand that the Holy Ghost is given to them that are baptized But Reason and the Context are both against it 1. Because the Holy Ghost was not given by John's Baptism that was reserv'd to be one of Christ's glories who also when by his Disciples he baptiz'd many did not give them the Holy Ghost and when he commanded his Apostles to baptize all Nations did not at that time so much as promise the Holy Ghost he was promis'd distinctly and given by another Ministration 2. The descent of the Holy Spirit was a distinct ministery from the Baptism it was not only after Jesus ascended from the waters of Baptism but there was something intervening and by a new office or ministration For there was Prayer joyn'd in the ministery So S. Luke observes while Jesus was praying the Heavens were open'd and the Holy Spirit descended for so Jesus was pleas'd to consign the whole Office and Ritual of Confirmation Prayer for invocating the Holy Spirit and giving him by personal application which as the Father did immediately so the Bishops do by Imposition of hands 3. S. Austin observes that the apparition of the Holy Spirit like a Dove was the visible or ritual part and the voice of God was the word to make it to be Sacramental accedit verbum ad elementum â—it Sacramentum for so the ministration was not only perform'd on Christ but consignâ—d to the Church by similitude and exemplar institution I shall only add that the force of this Argument is established to us by more of the Fathers S. Hilary upon this place hath these words The Fathers voice was heard that from those things which were consummated in Christ we might know that after the Baptism of water the Holy Spirit from the gates of Heaven flies unto us and that we are to be anointed with the Vnction of a celestial glory and be made the Sons of God by the adoption of the voice of God the Truth by the very effects of things prefigur'd unto us the similitude of a Sacrament So S. Chrysostom In the beginnings always appears the sensible visions of Spiritual things for their sakes who cannot receive the understanding of an incorporeal nature that if afterwards they be not so done that is after the same visible manner they may be believ'd by those things which were already done But more plain is that of Theophylact The Lord had not need of the descent of the Holy Spirit but he did all things for our sakes and himself is become the First-fruits of all things which we afterwards were to receive that he might become the
this of Confirmation was never permitted to mere Presbyters Innocentius III a great Canonist and of great authority gives a full evidence in this particular Per frontis Chrismationem manûs Impositio designatur quia per eam Spirituâ— Sanctus per augmentum datur robur Vnde cùm caeteras unctiones simplex Sacerdos vel Presbyter valeat exhibere hanc non nisi summus Sacerdos vel Presbyter valeat exhibere idest Episcopus conferre By anointing of the forehead the Imposition of hands is design'd because by that the Holy Ghost is given for increase and strength therefore when a single Priest may give the other Unctions yet this cannot be done but by the chief Priest that is the Bishop And therefore to the Question What shall be done if a Bishop may not be had the same Innocentius answers It is safer and without danger wholly to omit it than to have it rashly and without authority ministred by any other Cùm umbra quaedam ostendatur in operâ— veritas autem non subeat in essectu for it iâ— a mere shadow without truth or real effect when any one else does it but the person whom God hath appointed to this ministration And no approved man of the Church did ever say the contrary till Richard Primate of Armagh commenced a new Opinion from whence Thomas of Walden says that Wiclef borrowed his Doctrine to trouble the Church in this particular What the Doctrine of the ancient Church was in the purest times I have already I hope sufficiently declared what it was afterwards when the Ceremony of Chrism was as much remarked as the Rite to which it ministred we find fully declared by Rabanus Maurus Signatur Baptizatus cum Chrismate per Sacerdotem in Capitis summitate per Pontificem verò in Fronte ut priori Vnctione significetur Spiritùs Sancti super ipsum descensio ad habitationem Deo consecrandum in secunda quoque ut ejus Spiritûs Sancti septiformis gratia cum omni plenitudine sanctitatis scientiae virtutis venire in hominem declaretur Tunc enim ipse Spiritus Sanctus post mundata benedicta corpora atque animas liberè à Patre descendit ut unà cum sua visitatione sanctificaret illustraret nunc in hominem ad hoc venit ut Signaculum fidei quod in fronte suscepit faciat cum donis coelestibus repletum suâ gratiâ confortatum intrepidè audacter coram Regibus Potestatibus hujus seculi portare ac nomen Christi liberâ voce praedicare In Baptism the Baptized was anointed on the top of the Head in Confirmation on the Forehead by that was signified that the Holy Ghost was preparing a habitation for himself by this was declared the descent of the Holy Spirit with his seven-fold Gifts with all fulness of knowledge and spiritual understanding These things were signified by the appendant Ceremony but the Rites were ever distinguished and did not only signifie and declare but effect these Graces by the ministry of Prayer and Imposition of Hands The Ceremony the Church instituted and us'd as she pleas'd and gave in what circumstances they would chuse and new propositions entred and customs chang'd and deputations were made and the Bishops in whom by Christ was plac'd the fulness of Ecclesiastical power concredited to the Priests and Deacons so much as their occasions and necessities permitted and because in those ages and places where the external Ceremony was regarded it may be more than the inward Mystery or the Rite of Divine appointment they were apt to believe that the Chrism or exterior Unction delegated to the Priests Ministery after the Episcopal consecration of it might supply the want of Episcopal Confirmation it came to pass that new opinions were enterâ—ain'd and the Regulars the Friers and the Jesuits who were always too little friends to the Episcopal power from which they would fain have been wholly exempted publickly taught in England especially that Chrism ministred by them with leave from the Pope did do all that which ordinarily was to be done in Episcopal Confirmation For as Tertullian complain'd in his time Quibus fuit propositum aliter docendi eoâ— necessitas coegit aliter disponendi instrumenta Doctrinae They who had purposes of teaching new Doctrines were constrain'd otherwise to dispose of the Instruments and Rituals appertaining to their Doctrines These men to serve ends destroyed the Article and overthrew the ancient Discipline and Unity of the Primitive Church But they were justly censur'd by the Theological Faculty at Paris and the Censure well defended by Hallier one of the Doctors of the Sorbon whither I refer the Reader that is curious in little things But for the main It was ever call'd Confirmatio Episcopalis impositio manuum Episcoporum which our English word well expresses and perfectly retains the use we know it by the common name of Bishopping of Children I shall no farther insist upon it only I shall observe that there is a vain distinction brought into the Schools and Glosses of the Canon Law of a Minister ordinary and extraordinary all allowing that the Bishop is appointed the ordinary Minister of Confirmation but they would fain innovate and pretend that in some cases others may be Ministers extraordinary This device is of infinite danger to the destruction of the whole Sacred Order of the Ministery and disparks the inclosures and lays all in common and makes men supreme controllers of the Orders of God and relies upon a false Principle for in true Divinity and by the Oeconomy of the Spirit of God there can be no Minister of any Divine Ordinance but he that is of Divine appointment there can be none but the ordinary Minister I do not say that God is tied to this way he cannot be tied but by himself and therefore Christ gave a special Commission to Ananias to baptize and to confirm S. Paul and he gave the Spirit to Cornelius even before he was baptized and he ordained S. Paul to be an Apostle without the ministery of man But this I say That though God can make Ministers extraordinary yet Man cannot and they that go about to do so usurp the Power of Christ and snatch from his hand what he never intended to part with The Apostles admitted others into a part of their care and of their power but when they intended to imploy them in any ministery they gave them so much of their Order as would enable them but a person of a lower Order could never be deputed Minister of actions appropriate to the higher which is the case of Confirmation by the Practice and Tradition of the Apostles and by the Universal Practice and Doctrine of the Primitive Catholick Church by which Bishops only the Successors of the Apostles were alone the Ministers of Confirmation and therefore if any man else usurp it let them answer it they do hurt indeed to themselves but no benefit to others to whom
invalidity of their first pretended Baptism or their not using at all Confirmation in their Heretical Conventicles But the repetition of Confirmation is expresly forbidden by the Council of Tarracon cap. 6. and by P. Gregory the Second and sanctum Chrisma collatum altaris honor propter consecrationem quae per Episcopos tantùm exercenda conferenda sunt evelli non queunt said the Fathers in a Council at Toledo Confirmation and Holy Orders which are to be given by Bishops alone can never be annulled and therefore they can never be repeated And this relies upon those severe words of S. Paul having spoken of the foundation of the Doctrine of Baptisms and Laying on of hands he says if they fall away they can never be renewed that is the ministery of Baptism and Confirmation can never be repeated To Christians that sin after these ministrations there is only left a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Expergiscimini that they arise from slumber and stir up the Graces of the Holy Ghost Every man ought to be careful that he do not grieve the Holy Spirit but if he does yet let him not quench him for that is a desperate case 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Holy Spirit is the great conservative of the new Life only keep the Keeper take caâ—e that the Spirit of God do not depart from you for the great Ministery of the Spirit is but once for as Baptism is so is Confirmation I end this Discourse with a plain exhortation out of S. Ambrose upon those words of S. Paul He that confirmeth us with you in Christ is God Repete quia accepisti signaculum spirituale spiritum sapientiae intellectûs spiritum consilii atque virtutis spiritum cognitionis atque pietatis spiritum sancti timoris serva quod accepisti Signavit te Deus Pater confirmavit te Christus Dominus Remember that thou who hast been Confirmed hast receiv'd the Spiritual Signature the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of counsel and strength the spirit of knowledge and godliness the spirit of holy fear keep what thou hast receiv'd The Father hath sealâ—d thee and Christ thy Lord hath confirmed thee by his Divine Spirit and he will never depart from thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless by evil works we estrange him from us The same advice is given by Prudentius Cultor Dei memento Te fontis lavacri Rorem subiisse Sanctum Et Chrismate innotatum Remember how great things ye have received and what God hath done for you ye are of his Flock and his Militia ye are now to sight his battels and therefore to put on his armor and to implore his auxiliaries and to make use of his strengths and always to be on his side against all his and all our Enemies But he that desires Grace must not despise to make use of all the instruments of Grace For though God communicates his invisible Spirit to you yet that he is pleas'd to do it by visible instruments is more than he needs but not more than we do need And therefore since God descends to our infirmities let us carefully and lovingly address our selves to his Ordinances that as we receive Remission of sins by the washing of Water and the Body and Blood of Christ by the ministery of consecrated Symbols so we may receive the Holy Ghost sub Ducibus Christianae militiae by the Prayer and Imposition of the Bishops hands whom our Lord Jesus hath separated to this Ministery For if you corroborate your self by Baptism they are the words of S. Gregory Nazianzen and then take heed for the future by the most excellent and firmest aids consigning your mind and body with the Vnction from above viz. in the Holy Rite of Confirmation with the Holy Ghost as the Children of Israel did with the aspersion on the door-posts in the night of the death of the first-born of Egypt what evil shall happen to you meaning that no evil can invade you and what aid shall you get If you sit down you shall be without fear and if you rest your sleep shall be sweet unto you But if when ye have received the Holy Spirit you live not according to his Divine principles you will lose him again that is you will lose all the blessing though the impression does still remain till ye turn quite Apostates in pessimis hominibus manebit licèt ad judicium saith S. Austin the Holy Ghost will remain either as a testimony of your Vnthankfulness unto condemnation or else as a seal of Grace and an earnest or your inheritance of eternal Glory THE END A DISCOURSE OF The NATVRE OFFICES and MEASVRES OF FRIENDSHIP WITH Rules of conducting it In a Letter to the most Ingenious and Excellent M rs KATHARINE PHILIPS Madam THE wise Ben-Sirach advised that we should not consult with a Woman concerning her of whom she is jealous neither with a coward in matters of War nor with a Merchant concerning Exchange and some other instances he gives of interested persons to whom he would not have us hearken in any matter of Counsel For where-ever the interest is secular or vicious there the â—iass is not on the side of Truth or Reason because these are seldom serv'd by profit and low regards But to consult with a Friend in the matters of Friendship is like consulting with a Spiritual person in Religion they who understand the secrets of Religion or the Interior beauties of Friendship are the fittest to give answers in all inquiries concerning the respective subjects because Reason and Experience are on the side of interest and that which in Friendship is most pleasing and most useful is also most reasonable and most true and a Friends fairest interest is the best Measure of the Conducting Friendships and therefore you who are so eminent in Friendships could also have given the best answer to your own inquiries and you could have trusted your own Reason because it is not only greatly instructed by the direct notices of things but also by great experience in the matter of which you now inquire But because I will not use any thing that shall look like an excuse I will rather give you such an account which you can easily reprove than by declining your commands seem more safe in my prudence than open and communicative in my Friendship to you You first inquire How far a Dear and a perfect Friendship is authoriz'd by the principles of Christianity To this I answer That the word Friendship in the sence we commonly mean by it is not so much as named in the New Testament and our Religion takes no notice of it You think it strange but read on before you spend so much as the beginning of a passion or a wonder upon it There is mention of Friendship with the world and it is said to be enmity with God but the word is no where else named or to any other purpose in
calling himself Universal Bishop 310. Saint Peter did not act as having any superiority over the Apostles 310 c. 1. § 10. There is nothing in Scripture to prove that the Bishop of Rome succeeds Saint Peter in that power he had more then any other 310. Pope Victor and Pope Stephen were opposed by other Bishops 310. The Council of Chalcedon did by decree give to the Bishop of Constantinople equal priviledges with Rome 310. A Pope accused in the Lateran Council for not being in Orders 325 c. 2. § 7. It is held ominous for a Pope to canonize a Saint 333 c. 2. § 9. The Romanists teach the Pope hath power to dispense with all the Laws of God 342. He hath power as the Romanists teach to dispose of the temporal things of all Christians 344. He is to be obeyed according to their doctrine though he command Sin or forbid Vertue 345. He takes upon him to depose Princes that are not heretical 345. The greatness of the Pope's power 345. Sixtus Quintus did in an Oration in the Conclave solemnly commend the Monk that kill'd Henry III. of France 346 c. 3. § 3. Of the Pope's confirming a General Council 395. A General Council in many cases cannot have the Pope's Confirmation 396. Whether the Pope be above a Council 396. When Pope Stephen decreed against Saint Cyprian in the point of rebaptizing Hereticks Saint Cyprian regarded it not nor changed his opinion 399. Sixtus V. and some other Popes were Simoniacal 401. A Simoniacal Pope is no Pope ibid. An Heretical Pope is no Pope ibid. What Popes have been heretical 401 402. What Popes have been guilty of those crimes that disannul their authority 400 401 402. The Pope hath not power to make Articles of Faith 446 447. Of his Infallibility 995 § 7. per tot He the Romanists teach can make new Articles of Faith and new Scripture 450. The Roman Writers reckon the Decretal Epistles of Popes among the Holy Scriptures 451. Bellarmine confesseth that for 1500 years the Pope's judgment was not esteemed infallible 453. A strange unintelligible Indulgence given by two Popes about the beginning of the Council of Trent 498. An instance of a Pope's skill in the Bible 505. Lindwood in the Council of Basil made an appeal in behalf of the King of England against the Pope 511. The same Pope that decreed Transubstantiation made Rebellion lawful 520. When the Pope excommunicated Saint Cyprian all Catholicks absolved him 957 n. 22. Some Papists hold that the Popedome is separable from the Bishoprick of Rome how then can he get any thing by the title of Succession 999. Divers ancient Bishops lived separate from the Communion of the Roman Pope 1002. The Bishops of Liguria and Istria renounced subjection to the Patriarchate of Rome and set up one of their own at Aquileia ibid. Divers Popes were Hereticks 1003. Possible Two senses of it 580 n. 34. Prayer The practice of the Heathens in their prayers and hymns to their gods 3 n. 11. Against them that deny all Set forms of Prayer 2 n. 6. seq Against those that allow any Set forms of prayer but those that are enjoyned by Authority 13 n. 51. Prescribed forms in publick are more for the edification of the Church then the other kind 14 n. 56. ad 65. The Lord's Prayer was given to be a Directory not onely for the matter of prayer but the manner or form too 19 n. 75. The Church hath the gift of Prayer and can exercise it in none but prescribed Forms 18 n. 69 70. Our Lord gave his Prayer to be not onely a Copy but a prescribed Form 19 n. 78. The practice of the Primitive Church in this matter 21 n. 86. Whether the Primitive Church did well in using publick prescribed Forms of Prayer and upon what grounds 25 n. 97. An answer to that Objection That Set forms limit the Spirit 30 n. 116. That Objection that Ministers may be allowed a liberty in their Prayers as well as their Sermons answered 32 n. 129. What in the sense of Scripture is praying with the Spirit 9 n. 37. and 47. The Romanists teach that neither attention nor devotion are required in our prayers 327 c. 2. § 8. Of the Scripture and Liturgy in an unknown tongue 471. A Pope gave leave to the Moravians to have Mass in the Sclavonian tongue 534. Of Prayer as a fruit or act of Repentance 848 n. 80. It is one of the best penances 860 n. 114. Those testimonies of the Fathers that prove Prayer for the dead do not prove Purgatory 295. The opinion and practice of the ancient Church in the language of publick Prayers 303 304. The Papists corrupted the Imperial law of Justinian in the matter of Prayers in an unknown tongue 304 c. 1. § 7. The authority of a Pope and General Council against publick Prayers in an unknown tongue 304. The difference between the Church of England and Rome in the use of publick Prayer 328 c. 2. § 8. Prayer for the dead The Primitive Fathers that practised it did not think of Purgatory 501. Saint Augustine prayed for his dead Mother when he believed her to be a Saint in Heaven 501 502. The Fathers made prayers for those who by the confession of all sides were not then in Purgatory 502 503. Communicantes offerentes pro sanctis proved to mean prayer and not thanksgiving onely 502. Instances out of the Latin Missal where prayers are made for those that were dead and yet not in Purgatory 505. The Roman doctrine of Purgatory is directly contrary to the doctrine of the ancient Fathers 512. Preach Presbyters in Africk by Law were not allowed to preach upon occasion of Arius preaching his errours 128 § 37. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Presbyter Tit. 1.15 it signifies Bishop and not mere Presbyter 71 § 15. Presbyters in Jerusalem were something more then Presbyters in other Churches 97 § 21. Those Presbyters mentioned Act. 20.28 in these words in quo Spir. Sanctus vos posuit Episcopos were Bishops and not mere Presbyters 80 § 21. Neither the Church nor the Presbyters in it had power to excommunicate before they had a Bishop set over them 82 § 21. Mere Presbyters had not in the Church any jurisdiction in causes criminal otherwise then by delegation 82 § 21. In what sense it is true that Bishops are not greater then Presbyters 83 § 21. Bishops in Scripture are styled Presbyters 85 § 23. Apostles in Scripture styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 85 § 23. Mere Presbyters in Scripture are never called Bishops 86 § 23. A Presbyter did once assist at the ordaining a Bishop 98 § 31. Presbyters could not ordain 102 § 32. The Council of Sardis would not own them as Presbyters who were ordained by none but Presbyters 103 § 32. A Bishop may ordain without the concurrence of a Presbyter 105 § 32. Photius was â—he first that gave the power of Confirmation to Presbyters 109 § 33. The Bishop alone could
other Mysteries is not to be searched into too curiously as to the manner of it 182 § 1. Reason The power of it in matters of Religion 230 231 § 11. It is the best Judge of Controversies 1014. Reason and authority are not things inconsistent 1015. The variety of mens understandings in apprehending the consequent of things as in the instances of Surge Petre macta comede and the trial between the two Missals of Saint Ambrose and Saint Gregory 1016. Reformed Concerning Ordination in the Reformed Churches performed without Bishops 105 § 32. Of the harmony of Confessions set out by the Reformed Churches 899. Regenerate The falseness of that proposition That natural corruption in the Regenerate still remains and is in them a sin 876. The state of unregenerate men 773. Between the regenerate and the wicked person there is a middle state 774 n. 29. An unregenerate man may be convinced of and clearly instructed in his duty and approve the Law 780. An unregenerate man may with his will delight in goodness and delight in it earnestly 781. The contention between the Flesh and the Conscience no sign of Regeneration but onely the contention between the Flesh and the Spirit 781. The difference between the Regenerate Profane and Moral man in their sinning 782 n. 33. Whence come so frequent sins in regenerate persons 783. How sin can be consistent with the regenerate estate 783 n. 35. Unwillingness to sin no sign of Regeneration 784 n. 36. An unregenerate person may not onely desire to doe things morally good but even spirituall also 784 n. 37. The difference between a regenerate and unregenerate man 786 787. An unregenerate man may leave many sins not onely for temporal interest but out of reverence of the Divine Law 785 n. 39. An unregenerate man may doe many good things for Heaven and yet never come there 786 n. 40. An unregenerate man may have received the Spirit of God and yet be in a state of distance from God 786 n. 41. It is not the propriety of the regenerate man to feel a contention within him concerning the doing good or evil 788 n. 43. The regenerate man hath not onely received the Spirit of God but is wholly led by him 788. n. 44. Arguments to prove that St. Paul Rom. 7. speaks not of the Regenerate man 773 n. 10. Religion If it be seated onely in the understanding not accepted to Salvation 780. The character and properties of perfect Religion 583 584 n. 44. ad 48. Remission of Sin What is the power of remitting and retaining sin 836 n. 47. Repentance The Roman doctrine about Repentance 312 c. 2. § 1. They teach that Repentance is not necessary till the article of death 312. Their Church enjoyns not the internal but the external ritual Repentance 313. What Contrition is 314. The Church of Rome makes Contrition unnecessary 314. According to the Roman doctrine Confession does not restrain sin and satisfies not the Conscience 315 c. 2. § 2. The Roman Doctors prevaricate in the whole Doctrine of Repentance 321. What the Penitentiary Priest was and by whom taken away 473 474 492 493. The Controversie between Monsieur Arnauld Petavius about Repentance 568. The Covenant of Repentance when it began 574 575. How Repentance and Perfection Evangelical are consistent Chap. 1. ss 3. per tot n. 47. That Proposition rejected That every sinner must in his Repentance pass under the terrours of the Law 587. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how they differ 596 597. All that was insupportable in Moses's Law was onely the want of this 580 n. 33. Of the notion of Repentance when joyned with Faith 599 n. 1. It is a whole change of state and life 597. The parts of it 599 n. 9. and 820 n. 2. The difference between the Repentance preached to the Jews and the Gentiles 601 n. 5 6 7. It may be called Conversion 602 n. 10. Repentance onely makes sins venial 622 n. 34. What Repentance single acts of sin require 646 n. 43. A general Repentance when sufficient 647 n. 47. Some acts of sin require more then a moral revocation or opposing a contrary act of vertue in Repentance 648 n. 50. That Proposition proved That no man is bound to repent of his sin instantly after the committing it 654. The danger of deferring Repentance 654 655. Deferring Repentance differs but by accident from final impenitence ibid. How the severities of Repentance were retrenched in several Ages 804 n. 14 15 16. The severity of the Primitive Church in denying Absolution to greater Criminals upon their Repentance was not their Doctrine but their Discipline 805 n. 21. Repentance of sinful Habits to be performed in a distinct manner 669 n. 31. Seven Objections against that Proposition answered 675. Objections against the Repentance of Clinicks 678 n. 57. and 677 n. 56. and 679 n. 64. Heathens newly baptized if they die immediately need no other repentance ibid. The Objection concerning the Thief on the Cross answered 681 n. 65. Testimonies of the Ancients against death-bed repentance 682 n. 66. The manner of repentance in habitual sinners who begin Repentance betimes 687 n. 1. The manner of repentance by which habitual sins must be cured in them who return not till old age 691 n. 12. The way of treating sinners who repent not till their death-bed 695 n. 25. Considerations shewing how dangerous it is to delay Repentance 853 n. 98. and 695 n. 25. Considerations to be opposed against the despair of penitent Clinicks 696 n. 29. What hopes penitent Clinicks have taken out of the Writings of the Fathers of the Church 696 697 n. 30. The manner how the Ancient Church treated penitent Clinicks 699 n. 5. The particular acts and parts of Repentance that are fittest for a dying man 700 n. 32. The penitent in the opinion of the Jewish Doctors preferred above the just and innocent 801. The practice of the Primitive Fathers about penitent Clinicks 804. The practice of the ancient Fathers excluding from repentance murtherers adulterers and idolaters 804 805. Penitential sorrow is rather in the understanding then the affections 823 n. 12. Penitential sorrow is not to be estimated by the measures of sense 823 n. 15. and 824 n. 17. A double solemn imposition of hands in Repentance 840 n. 57. As our Repentance is so is our pardon 846. A man must not judge of his Repentance by his tears nor by any one manner of expression 850 n. 99. He that suspects his Repentance should use the suspicion as a means to improve his Repentance 850. Meditations that will dispose the heart to Repentance 851 n. 88. No man can be said truly to have grieved for sin which at any time after remembers it with pleasure 851 n. 92. The Repentance of Clinicks 853 n. 96. Sorrow for sin is but a sign or instrument of Repentance 853 n. 99. That Repentance preached to the Jews was in different methods from that preached to the
be the best way of proving the immortality of the Soul 357. Aristotle believed the Soul of man to be divine and not of the body 718 n. 41. There is no difference between the inferiour and superiour faculties of the Soul 728 n. 68. and 825 n. 19. The frailty of man's Soul 734 n. 83. Spirit Whether the ordinary gifts of the Spirit be immediate infusions of faculties and abilities or an improvement of our natural powers and means 4 n. 15. ad 34. How the Holy Spirit did inspire the Apostles and Writers of the New Testament as to the very words 8 n. 32. What in the sense of Scripture is praying with the Spirit 9 n. 37. and 47. What a Spirit is as to nature 236 § 11. How a Spirit is in place 236 § 11. The Holy Spirit perfects our Redemption 1. b. The Spirit of God 1. b. The frailty of the spirit of man 735 n. 83. The rule of the Spirit in us 782. To have received the Spirit is not an inseparable propriety of the regenerate 786. What the Spirit of God doth in us 787. The regenerate man hath not onely received the Spirit of God but is wholly led by him 788. Sublapsarians Their Doctrine in five Propositions 872. It is not much better then the Supralapsarian 873. Against this way 886 n. 8. Substance What a Substance is 236 § 11. Aquinas says that the Body of Christ is in the Elements not after the manner of a Body but a Substance this Notion considered 238 § 11. Succession Of the succession of Bishops 402 403. Supererogation How it and Christian perfection differ 590 591 n. 16 17. What it is 786. Superlative This is usually exprest by a synonymal word by an Hebraism 909. Supralapsarians Their Doctrine 871. T. Tears A Man by them must not judge of his Repentance nor by any other one way of expression 850 n. 86. Temptation Every temptation to sin if overcome increases not the reward 661 n. 7. No man is tempted of God 737 n. 86. The violence of a temptation doth not in the whole excuse sin 743. Testament In a humane or Divine Testament figurative words may be admitted 210 § 6. A certain Athenian's aenigmatical Testament 210 § 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What they were 835 n. 44. Theodoret. His words about Transubstantiation considered 264 265 § 12. Theology The power of Reason in matters of Theology 230 231 § 11. It findeth a medium between Vertue and Vice 673. Thief on the Cross. Why his Repentance was accepted 681 n. 65. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What that word means 637 n 10. 1. Epistle to Timothy Chap. 4. v. 8. explained 860 n. 114. Chap. 5. v. 22. explained 808 n. 31. Chap. 5.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 explained 152 § 48. and 166 § 51. Chap. 3.15 16. the pillar and ground of truth explained 386 387. Chap. 1.5 6. explained 949 n. 8. 2. Epistle to Timothy Chap. 2. v. 4. explained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 162 § 49. Epistle to Titus Chap. 5.15 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 explained 780 n. 30. Tradition Christ and his Apostles made use of Scripture for arguments not Tradition 353. An answer to that Objection Tradition is the best argument to prove the Scripture to be the word of God therefore it is a better Principle then that 354. Oral Tradition was useful to convey matter of fact onely not Doctrines 354 355 358. Oral Tradition a very uncertain means to convey down a Doctrine 356. The Romanists have no Tradition to assure them the Epistle to the Hebrews is Canonical 361. The doctrine of the Scriptures sufficiency proved by Tradition 410. Some of the Fathers by Tradition mean Scripture 410 411 412. What Tradition is and what the word meaneth 420 § 3. When and in what case Tradition is an useful Topick 421. It is necessary in the Church because the Scripture could not be conveyed to us without it 424. The Questions that arose in the Council of Nice were not determined by Tradition but Scripture 425. The Tradition urged by the Ancients was not oral 425. The Romanists by their doctrine of Tradition gave great advantage to the Socinians 425. The doctrine of the Trinity relieth not upon Tradition but Scripture 425. That the doctrine of Infant-baptism relieth not upon Tradition onely but Scripture too 425 426. The validity of Baptism by Hereticks is not to be proved by Tradition without Scripture 426 427. The Procession of the Holy Ghost may be proved by Scripture without Tradition 427 428. The observation of the Lord's Day relieth not upon Tradition 428. Instances wherein oral Tradition has failed in conveyance 431. Saint Augustine's Rule to try Apostolical Traditions 432. Some Traditions said to be Apostolical have proceeded from the testimony of one man alone and he none of them 432. Of the means of proving a Tradition to be Apostolical 433. Of Vincentius Lirinensis his Rule to discern Apostolical Tradition 434. In the Question about the immaculate Conception Tradition is equally pretended on both sides 435. Traditions now held that are contrary to the Primitive Traditions 453 454. There is no Ecclesiastical Tradition for Auricular Confession 490. Of what use Tradition is in expounding Scripture 976. It is no sufficient medium to end Controversies 976 sect 5. per tot It was pretended by the Arians and divers other hereticks as well as the Orthodox 977 n. 3. The report of Tradition was uncertain even in the Ages Apostolical 978 n. 4. Tradition could not be made use of to determine the Controversie about Easter between the Churches of the East and West because both sides pretended it 979 n. 7. What Tradition it was the Fathers used to appeal to 979 n. 8. Transubstantiation The arts by which the Romanists have managed this Article Ep. Ded. to Real Pres. 174. It is acknowledged by the Romanists that this doctrine cannot be proved out of Scripture 187 § 2. and 298. How many figurative terms there are in the words of Institution 211 212 § 6. If this doctrine be true then the truth of Christian Religion which relieth upon the evidence of Sense is questionable 223 224 § 10. The Papists Answer to that Argument with our Reply 224 § 10. Bellarmine's Answer and a Reply upon it 226 § 10. If the testimony of our Senses in fit circumstances be not to be relied on the Catholicks could not have confuted the Valentinians and Marcionites 227 § 10. Irenaeus mentions an Impostour that essayed to counterfeit Transubstantiation long before the Roman Church decreed it 228 § 10. The miraculous Apparitions that are brought to prove Transubstantiation are proved to be false by their own doctrine 229 § 10. Picus Mirandula offered to maintain in Rome this Thesis Paneitas potest suppositare corpus Domini 230 § 11. How many ways the words of Christ Hoc est corpus meum may be verified without Transubstantiation 230 231 § 11. The folly of that assertion Credo quia impossibile est when applied to
applicable to particular instances so that first since the Spirit being the great Dictator of holy prayers and secondly the Spirit is promised to the Church in her united capacity and thirdly in proportion to the Assembled caeteris paribus so are measures of the Spirit powred out and fourthly when the Church is assembled the Prayers which they teach the People are limited and prescribed forms it follows that limited and prescribed forms are in all reason emanations from the greatest portion of the Spirit warranted by special promises which are made to every man there present that does his duty as a private Member of the Christian Church and are due to him as a Ruler of the Church and yet more especially and in a further degree to all them met together where if ever the holy Spirit gives such helps and graces which relate to the publick government and have influence upon the communities of Christians that is will bless their meeting and give them such assistances as will enable them to do the work for which they convene Sect. 71. But yet if any man shall say what need the Church meet in publick Synods to make forms of Prayer when private Ministers are able to do it in their several Parishes I answer It is true Many can but they cannot do it better than a Councel and I think no man is so impudent as to say he can do it so well however quod spectat ad omnes ab omnibus tractari debet the matter is of publick concernment and therefore should be of publick consultation and the advantages of publickly describ'd forms I shall afterwards specifie In the mean time Sect. 72. FIFTHLY And the Church I mean the Rulers of the Church are appointed Presidents of Religious rites and as the Rulers in conjunction are enabled to do it best by the advantages of special promises and double portions of the Spirit so she always did practise this either in conjunction or by single dictate by publick persons or united authority but in all times as necessity required they prescribed set Forms of Prayer Sect. 73. IF I should descend to minutes and particulars I could instance in the behalf of set Forms that First God prescribed to Moses a set Form of Prayer and benediction to be used when he did bless the people Secondly That Moses composed a Song or Hymn for the children of Israel to use to all their generations Thirdly that David composed many for the service of the Tabernacle and every company of singers was tyed to certain Psalms as the very titles intimate and the Psalms were such limited and determinate prescriptions that in some Gods Spirit did dind them to the very number of the Letters and order of the Alphabet Fourthly That Solomon and the holy Kings of Judah brought them in and continued them in the ministration of the Temple Fifthly That in the reformation by Hezekiah the Priests and Levites were commanded to praise the Lord in the words of David and Asaph Sixthly That all Scripture is written for our learning and since all these and many more set Forms of Prayer are left there upon record it is more than probable that they were left there for our use and devotion and certainly it is as lawful and as prudent to pray Scriptures as to read Scriptures and it were well if we would use our selves to the expression of Scripture and that the language of God were familiar to us that we spake the words of Canaan not the speech of Ashdod and time was when it was thought the greatest Ornament of a spiritual Person and Instrument of a Religious conversation but then the consequents would be that these Prayers were the best Forms which were in the words of Scripture and those Psalms and Prayers there recorded were the best devotions but these are set Forms * 7. To this purpose I could instance in the example of Saint John Baptist who taught his Disciples a form of prayer and that Christ's Disciples begged the same favour and it was granted as they desired it Sect. 74. AND here I mean to fix a little for this ground cannot fail us I say Christ prescribed a set Form of Prayer to be used by all his Disciples as a Breviary of Prayer as a rule of their devotions as a repository of their needs and as a direct address to God For in this Prayer God did not only command us to make our Prayers as Moses was bid to make the Tabernacle after the pattern which God shewed him in the Mount and Christ shewed his Apostles but he hath given us the very Tables written with his own hand that we should use them as they are so delivered this Prayer was not only a precedent and pattern but an instance of address a perfect form for our practice as well as imitation For Sect. 75. FIRST When Christ was upon the Mount he gave it for a pattern 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So pray ye or after this manner which if we expound only to the sence of becoming a pattern or a Directory it is observable that it is not only directory for the matter but for the manner too and if we must pray with that matter and in that manner what does that differ from praying with that form however it is well enough that it becomes a precedent to us in any sence and the Church may vary her forms according as she judges best for edification Sect. 76. SECONDLY When the Apostles upon occasion of the Form which the Baptist taught his Disciples begged of their Master to teach them one he again taught them this and added a precept to use these very words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when ye pray say Our Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when they spake to God it was fit they should speak in his words in whose Name also their prayers only could be acceptable Sect. 77. THIRDLY For if we must speak this sence why also are not the very words to be retained Is there any error or imperfection in the words Was not Christ Master of his language And were not his words sufficiently expressive of his sence Will not the Prayer do well also in our tongues which as a duty we are obliged to deposite in our hearts and preserve in our memories without which it is in all sences useless whether it be only a pattern or a repository of matter Sect. 78. FOURTHLY And it is observable that our blessed Saviour doth not say Pray that the Name of your heavenly Father may be sanctified or that your sins may be forgiven but say Hallowed be thy name c. so that he prescribes this Prayer not in massa materiae by in forma verborum not in a confused heap of matter but in an exact composure of words it makes it evident he intended it not only pro regula petendorum for a direction of what things we are to ask but also pro forma orationis for a