alledged more pregnantly proving the power of that fiducial Faith as I may so call it in order to the Justification of a man before God and yet it must here be granted That this trust is much different from the Faith contended for And that from hence or the like Texts not a different vertue in nature or kind though peradventure more effectual and prevalent is ascribed to it above other Graces in order to our Justification All which is no less true of our Sanctification than our Justification For we are altogether as much sanctified by Faith alone as we are justified by Faith alone or only as appeareth from the Scripture which saith That our hearts are John 15. 3. Acts 15. 9. purified by Faith So that in this much disputed Question I know no readier way of satisfying the fearful and dubious mind than by taking a due estimate of the power of a General or Particular Faith in reference to Fides nos à peccatis omnibus purgat mentes nostras illuminat Deo concliat Prosper ubi supr our Sanctification and judging alike of our Justification thereby For we are sanctified as freely by Grace as we are justified and as much by Faith too as Prosper before cited saith And therefore lastly in answer to divers places of the Ancients which are produced to confirm the modern sense of Justification by Faith alone I answer in a word That it is true their words seem to attest so much but their meaning was plainly no more than this That Faith many times doth justifie without Works that is any outward manifestation of their Faith by such fruits but never without inward acts of Repentance and Charity distinct from this special Faith nor without such a devotion to good Works which wants nothing but opportunity to exert them which is by an extraordinary Clemencie and Grace of God accepted for the thing it self This appears by the example by them given to manifest their meaning of the Thief on the Cross who was so justified and saved by Faith alone without good Works answerable thereunto because his sudden faith was prevented by sudden death Nevertheless That his Faith was so much alone as to exclude Repentance and such Graces as were competible to one in his condition from a proportionable concurrence to that effect is no where said nor intended by any of the Fathers whose judgment is of account in the Church of God CHAP. XXI A third Effect of Justifying Faith Assurance of our Salvation How far a man is bound to be sure of his Salvation and how far this assurance may be obtained The Reasons commonly drawn from Scripture proving the necessity of this assurance not sufficient c. ANother effect of Faith or at least consequence upon it hath the certainty or assurance of our Justification and Salvation been commonly reputed The better to understand which we must take as supposed and granted the difference between the Truth of a thing and Evidence of it or the Certainty that such a thing is and the knowledge that so it is So that the doubting of our Justification or Salvation doth not make the thing infallibly so but leaves us under fears and sometimes disconsolations But a competent remedy seems to me to be ready at hand if we consider that our opinion of our selves is no good conclusion against our selves but rather being founded in humility and disowning of our worth and righteousness an introduction to a comfortable hope in Gods mercy who hath begun at least the work of Grace in us by rendring us studious and anxious about his service and our salvation unless it could be proved which we shall see presently whether so or not out of the word of God that it is his will and direct command that we should have this assurance in us For as saint John saith Hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assurt 1 John 3. 19 20. our hearts before him For if our heart condem us God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things i. e. the hearts and consciences of the children of God do frequently condemn them but their comfort is that God is greater than their hearts and doth not judge according to what opinion good or evil we have of our selves but according to his own Wiâ—dom and Grace So that it is no just inference at all I do not believe I shall be saved therefore I shall not be saved Nor this I do believe I shall not be saved therefore I shall not be saved Only they have great cause thus to argue and conclude against themselves who are wont on the contraâ—y to reason I believe I shall be saved therefore I shall be saved abusing and corrupting the Doctrine of Faith two wayes most dangerously First In making it the simple and direct cause or means unto Justification and then a reason of a Reflex act whereby they stand assured that they are so acquitted and justified before God But St. John in the former words cited reasons much otherwise For having in the 18. verse exhorted to and urged the duty of mutual Christian Charity he inferreth from thence in the 19. verse Hereby we know that we are of the truth c. i. e. from the Indication of Love and Charity to the Brethren â—ere is then an assurance and that before God and yet as we have seen there resteth and consisteth withall a diffidence and doubting as we have shewed The reconciliation of this seeming opposition doth lead us to a necessary distinction tending to the resolving of the principal Querie and it is between the State of Justification and the Act of Justification And again as to Assurance here spoken of It is one thing to be assured of our Justification and another of our Salvation as shall hereafter appear First then I hold it sufficiently demonstrable out of Scripture That a man may and every good Christian ought to be assured that he is in a state of being justified and saved likewise This we teach well in our Church Catechise in answer to this Question Doest not thou think that thou art bound to believe as they have promised for thee thus Yes verily and by Gods help so I will and I heartily thank our heavenly Father that he hath called me to this State of Salvation through Jesus Christ our Saviour Every Christian that in Baptism hath put on Christ and is entred into a Covenant of Grace with God is bound to believe assuredly that thereby he is in a state of Salvation and Justification For thereby God hath especially elected him to salvation of which Election the Scriptures chiefly if not only speak which are drawn to signife the Eternal Decree of God choosing not only men estranged from God to the Covenant of Grace but such as are first within the Covenant to an infallible Justification and Salvation This I say is rarely if at all intended by any of those many Texts of Scripture alledged to
may be a falling away It could never appear which is the true Church if judgment were to be made not from the outward Forms and Faith professed but from the affection and inclination of Persons or from the invisible decrees of God of granting or denying persevering Grace to persons in the Church So that it is manifest from hence how lurious frivolous vain and sophistical disquisitions must needs be which are founded and managed upon the ground of an invisible Church properly so called The improper acceptation then of Invisible can only occasion a just controversie i. e. as it is taken comparatively and in relation to a much more conspicuous and glorious Society and that either of Infidels who may by numbers much exceed in outward glory much out-shine it in power over-rule it and by persecution and oppression so far straiten lessen and crush it that it may be termed obscure and invisible Or otherwise compared with the Societies of much more publick and outwardly glorious Hereticks and Schismaticks pretending the Catholick Church And truly if acute and exact Geographers computing the several professions of Religion and their possessions of the earth deceive us not the Church of Christ may comparatively with other superstitions Mahometan Jewish and Gentile be not unaptly said to be invisible Christian Religion being allowed but Five parts of Thirty Mahometan six and Idolaters nineteen parts of the earth But if we shall divide Christian again into Catholick according to the Judgment of several See Brerewoods Inquiries Chap. 14. Writers there will not remain at present above two parts of all the Thirty parts of the earth to be possessed by the Catholicks and if so what will become of the visibility of the Church thus understood And if a moderate sense of visibility be admitted signifying a real and apparent being only of the Church though inferiour in pomp and number unto others how doth the great end and benefit for which chiefly the Church is to be maintained Catholick and Visible shrink up into little or nothing when it cannot commend it self for any such glory to the beholder nor signalize it self to the doubter of the true Faith in the Church as may hereafter appear more fully when we shall come to speak of the Notes of the Church It may suffice to conclude this Point with these two First That Christs Church is essentially and so long as it is at all must necessarily be a Society or a communion of many For so we are taught to believe out of the Apostles Creed which speaking of the Catholick Church exegetically interpreteth what we are to understand by that term viz. The Communion of Saints And therefore we are to distinguish between being of the Catholick Church and being Christians A man may be a Christian and yet not be of the Church For no man can be of the Church who doth not hold communion with it For to deceive himself and say though he be not of the visible Communion or visible Church he may be or is of the invisible and mystical is to take for granted that which he ought to prove but never can be able but from somewhat external and the ordinary method and most effectual means of being mystically united unto Christ is by being Politically united which must be visibly unto the Body of Christ the Church It hath been therefore ever matter of greatest wonder to me to hear and read how freely all struglers and Factions of Christians how inconsiderable soever do assert to and confidently to assert that common Rule Without the Church there is no salvation and are so obscure nice or absurd in their sense of it having very little or nothing to secure themselves from self-condemnation besides an ill grounded presumption that they are inwardly united to Christ and are of the invisible Church which in truth is no Church but a certain state wherein there is no administration or order that we can learn now all Society must necessarily have order and administrations for their regulating but none such do we read of to be in Christs invisible Body Christ himself being all in all and therefore improperly called a Church And therefore all such being infallibly saved who are so of Christs Body they that so abruptly and peremptorily assure themselves they are of that invisible State do in effect contradict themselves and mean they shall be saved without being of the Church For surely the Authour of that saying meant nothing else but that before one could be according to Gods ordinary dispensation revealed in his word of Christs mystical Body called abusively the Invisible Church he must belong to the visible communion of Christs Political Body or Church So that it is not sufficient to comfort our selves with an opinion that we are good Christians and hold the same Faith entirely and purely that is required of us unless we hold outward communion And therefore secondly as Christs Church must necessarily be a Society communicating so must it be a visible communion and outward For how is it possible that such communion which constitutes a Society should be entred into unless it be visible There shall therefore as well out of the very nature of the Design God and Christ had to establish a Church as from the many promises fortifying that Resolution and perfecting that Design be evermore an outward visible company of Professours of Christian Religion in the world which shall retain the Faith of Christ and the necessary effects of it in Worship to that degree of perfection which shall or may lead a Believer certainly to Salvation as will more plainly appear from what is now to succeed viz. the outward Form of the Church CHAP. XXVIII Of the Outward and Visible Form of Christs Church Christ ordained One particularly What that was in the Apostles dayes and immediately after The vanity of such places of Scripture as are pretended against the Paternal Government of the Church FOR the Church to be and to be visible or appear to be I reckon the same thing and therefore thought good to speak of that and premise it to what in order follows on this subject viz. The Visible Form 2. The Adjuncts or Affections And 3. the Power of the Church of Christ By the Form of the Church we mean that frame and outward constitution whereby the Society of Christian believers are not only united mystically and inwardly to Christ as their proper Head and universal nor as agreeing in the substance of one Faith and Worship but as conventing and consenting in one outward Discipline or Administration of this Body so collected So that Discipline otherwise called Government is by principal Sectaries themselves rightly affirmed to be an essential ingredient into the nature of a Church which will manifestly appear if we distinguish between the nature of a Christian or many Christians separate in themselves from any Jurisdiction and the nature of a Church For a Christian or a true Believer differeth from
us but nothing could suffice to lay aside the proper cerimonies used at the Institution or form of it but such an opinion as that of Transubstantiation â—ellarmin It now sufficing according to moderner Judgments that the several Wafers now in use were all one when they came first from mill and are broken by the Teeth in actually receiving them whereas Christ represented the unity of his mystical Members and Fraction of his Natural Body by the Forms set before his Disciples the better to affect our hearts and quicken our devotion To the same end in Ancienter though not first dayes of Christianity there was an Elevation of the Mysteries made by the Priest to shew only how Christ was Lifted up on the Cross for our sins but upon the doctrine and perswasion of transubstantiation this was corrupted and perverted to the drawing people to a direct Adoration terminated in the Visible objects and not as was anciently used from that Action to take an occasion of worshipping Christ himself with a seqestration of their mind from their senses To this likewise pertains the Grosser devotion for many hundred years impractised and unknown to Christians that not only Adoration to God and Christ should be made by all who approched as Communicants to these Holy Mysteries but that the Host should be on purpose publickly exposed to the view of all enterers into the Church where it is with an injunction to exhibit all devout and divine worship to it which invention the Fathers and all Christian Churches were holy ignorant of for many hundred years and never was there so much as a Feast of Corpus Cristi till Urbane the Fourth instituted one about the year 1263. And the Adoration of the Host as Christ himself much later But if such an opinion had been of any tolerable Antiquity in the Church how could it be avoided but such direct and open Adoraâ—ion should have been given much more early it being a most ancient Principle of Christian Faith that Christ was God and of common humane reason that God is to be worshipped And yet no mention made of such Adorations as are of late introduced and required which is an argument they never believed as now the Romanists do for had they they must have necessarily done as they do But a stop must be put to this luxuriant Subject to keep our selves in the Limits presribed to our selves and here let it be Only having hitherto spoken of the Preparatories to Christian Faith the nature Kinds Acts effects and Lastly subject which is the Church and of this again in its Political and Mystical Capacity and Power which consists in the due Administration of the Sacraments as well Properly as Improperly and Equivocally so called It remains now to conclude and Crown the present doctrine of the Church with that which is most contrary of all things to the Nature of a Visible Church and that is Schism For by this unnatural state the true Nature of the Church is more illustrated and the Unitie of it by the explication of this Separation and Dis-union called Schism CHAP. XLVII The Conclusion of the Treatise of the subject of Christian Faith the Church by the treating of Schism contrary to the Visible Church Departure from the Faith real Schism not formal as to the outward form Of the state of Separation or Schism Of separation of Persons Coordinate and Subordinate Of Formal and Vertual Schism All Heresie vertually Schism not formally Separation from an Heretical Society no Schism From Societies not Heretical Schism Heretical Doctrine or Discipline justifie â—eparation How separation from a true Church is Schism and how not In what sense we call the Roman Church a true Church Some instances of Heretical Errours in the Roman Church Of the Guilt of Schism Of the notorious guilt of English Sectaries The folly of their Vindications That the Case of them and us is altogether different from that of us and the Church of Rome Not lawful to separate from the Vniversal Church VVHile we treat of the Church it must be alwaies remembred that we intend not to speak of the Invisible Church as it is taken for a select number supposed to belong intimately and inseparably to Christs invisible Body of which no knowledg or account can be had but by sensible outward things but we altogether enquire of the Visible Church which though it be not alwaies Actually seen or discerned from other Societies especially pretending to be Churches of Christ yet must alwaies be Visible though not conspicious And it would be a gross mistake in any so to judge of the Church Visible and Invisible as of distinct Churches or necessarily distinct parts of the same Church because the same persons may at the same time be of the Visible and Invisible Church This distinction then is to be allowed no farther than as it insinuates to us the Several States of the Members of the same Church the Church in nature being but One according to several testimonies of Holy-Writt and the very nature of all Communities and much more of the Church which is to be an Aggregate Body consisting of many parts by no natural Bond or influence united together but by divine Falsae Professionis Imagine utimur si cujus nomine gloriamur ejus instituta non sequimur Leo. Mag. Serm. 5. de Jejun 7. Mensis and Spiritual Which is manifested by certain outward Acts which renders and denominates such a society of Men Visible as a Church of Christ These Acts are principally two The profession and declaration in word or writing of the true Faith and the Exercise of those Graces and workes which that Faith requires in Religious worship and Obedience That and in what degree of necessitie this Church must be One as well as Visible is before declared and here only repeated to give light to the nature of Schisme now to be explained For to omit the Criticismes and various acceptations of the word Schism as not necessarie we shall proceed by degrees to shew these two things concerning it The Nature and Guilt of it For the Nature of Schism it doth appear from the Unitie and conjunction of Christs Body of the Church consisting in two things Communion with Christ the Head and mutual Communion of the members one with another the contrary to this must needs be Discommunion and Separation But there being two parts in Communion a Material or the things in which men communicate as faith it selfe and the substantial Part of Christian worship And a Formal the Actual outward exercise of this The First of these though it be really yet is not formally Schism as may appear more fully by and by because all Schism doth suppose some agreement with and Relation to that One Body the Church but where the foundation of such Relation is destroyed there the whole perishes And therefore a division from the Faith of Christs bodie the Church being either Total and that again either Negatively when
fishes some were taken in one haven and some in another and eaten of others And again these men that have eaten these fishes which devour'd the man happen to dye in other Countries and that perhaps devoured by wild beasts Such a confusion and dissipation being made how shall that man rise again Who is he that reduces the dust again But why O man dost thou thus speak and patches a long train of tales together and offerest it as insoluble For answer me What if that man doth not go to Sea and be not drownd If no fish eat him nor the fish be afterward eaten of infinite men but that he be laid decently in his Coffin and neither worms nor any thing else molest him How shall that dust and ashes be compacted together again Whence shall that body flourish again Is not this unanswerable If they be Greeks Heathens who doubt of these things We can answer a thousand things But what Because there are some amongst them who put souls into Plants and Fruit-trees and Doggs Tell me which is easier for a soul to recover its own body or another Again there are others who says that fire shall catch them that their garments shall arise and their shooes and no body laughs at them And some introduce Atomes But we have nothing to say to them But to Believers if we may call them believers who thus doubt we shall say with the Apostle All life is subject to corruption all plants all seeds Seest thou not c. Here that eloquent Father expatiates in the mysteries and subtilties of nature shewing how little we understand of them and concludes this point thus But these things humane reason is to seek in But when God works all things yield to him In another place he doubts whether he be an Infidel or Christian who calls in question the Resurrection and the reason hereof is because as the power of God is infinite so infinite wayes there are for his infinite wisdome to bring to pass his own pleasure and to make good his words in which he hath caused his servants to trust CHAP. XIX Of the most perfect effect of Christs Mediation in the Salvation of Man Several senses of Salvation noted That Salvation is immediately after death to them that truly dye in Christ And that there is no grounds in Antiquities or Scripture for that midde state called Purgatory the Proofs answered Of the Consequent of Roman Purgatory Indulgences the novelty groundlesness and gross abuse of them The Conclusion of the first Part of this Introduction SAint Paul where he disputes the manner of Gods free Election of his people to the grace of the Gospel doth also declare unto us the end of such Election to be another Election and that to glory as in these words That he might make known the riches of his glory Rom. 9. 23. of Grace on the vessels of mercy which he had before prepared unto glory This is yet more fully expressed by St. Peter in this order Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the Resurrection 1 Pet. 1. 3. of Jesus Christ from the dead To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time But before we engage far in this subject of Salvation it is requisite we observe a twofold Salvation frequently mentioned and promised in Scripture A Temporal and Eternal For herein common mistakes have surprised many who willing to amplifie and extend all the promises of Gods deliverance equally to us of this last Age of the Church and to them of the former and Apostolical do willingly interpret many places of Scripture peculiar to them as concerning us to which cannot be literally done though figuratively it may For the Church of Christ being in those first Ages in continual conflicts with her enemies Jewish and Gentile and most violent persecntions harrassing and wasting the tender body of the Infant-Church many weak Christians were of desponding minds and looked upon the same as Job upon natural man as having a short time to live and full of sorrows Which moved the Apostolical Writers to confirm the Hope and Faith of them by the assurances of deliverances and salvation And none can deny this to be the literal meaning of St. Paul in his eighth Chapter to the Romans from whence so many draw an Argument to prove the innumerable purpose of God towards particular persons in predestinating and electing and glorifying them when upon faithful examination nothing more was primarily intended then assurance of Gods temporal preservation of the Church and making it outwardly glorious in despight of all its adversaries so that none should separate the flook of Christ so far from the love of Christ by persecution tribulation distress or famine or nakedness or peril or sword but that at length it should be more than conquerer through him that loved it And that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come c. should cause God to forsake it And no other is the meaning of the same Apostle in his thirteenth Chapter to the Romans where he saith And that knowing the time that now it is high Rom. 13. 11. time for us to awake out of sleep for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed i. e. having continued thus long in the faith the time now draweth near we should be secured and saved from our enemies And the Salvation to be revealed in the last times spoken of by St. Peter was the Deliverance which at last should be manifested to the Church in constant expectation of which they were kept by Faith and confidence of Gods mercy And if we shall consult the Apocalypse we shall scarce find the word Salvation used in any other sense then that of temporal deliverance Rev. 7. 10. 12 10. 19 1. of Gods Church But withal most certain it is that by Salvation is very often indended by Gods word the deliverance from the miseries of sin and suffering in this world into a state of such perfect bliss as man is capable of in which sense St. Paul saith The Gospel is the power of God unto Rom. 1. 16. salvation And that with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation which salvation was in those dayes the destruction of them that confessed Christ For St. Paul to animate the weak Believers to a stout and resolute profession of Christ against the terrors of death threatning those that were known to be Christians tells them that if they so boldly confessed Christ with their mouth as to dye in that profession they should be saved And when St. Paul advises the Philippians to work out their salvation Phil. 2. 12. with fear and trembling he means without
A Course of Divinity OR AN INTRODUCTION To the Knowledge of the True Catholick Religion Especially as Professed by the CHURCH OF ENGLAND In two Parts The one containing The Doctrine of Faith The other The Form of Worship By MATTHEW SCRIVENER LONDON Printed by Tho. Roycroft for Robert Clavil in Little Brittain MDCLXXIV THE ENTRANCE FOR the better conceiving and judging of this ensuing Treatise I have held it necessary Christian Reader to premise and propound to thy consideration these two things principally viz. The Occasions me thereunto moving and the manner of proceeding in it One Occasion given me was the multitude and variety of the like Books set forth by other Churches whereby not only the persons under them were trained up in the Knowledge and Faith professed there but the minds of many of our Church were prepossessed and their manners swayed by such Doctrines which seemed to me as forreign in nature as place to those of our Church and the Ancient I could have here given the Reader the names of above fourty Tractates of this nature many of which have been translated into the English Tongue to the corrupting of weaker judgments And not so much as the Christians of New-England have been wanting to the Interest of their Religion so far as to â—mit so advantagious a Work but by John Norton Teacher as he calls himself of the Church at Ipswich in New-England have collected certain Principal Heads of Divinity into a Body called The Orthodox Evangelist And as the great number of forreign Books have incited me so the Paucity of the like in and from our Church hath no less emboldened me to undertake this I am prevented by Industrious Mr. Baxter in giving any account of such who have made attempts this way and what hath been done by them without bringing their design to desired issue Only that excellently Learned Person Mr. Thorndyck passed over by him in his declining years hath given greater demonstrations of his zeal and learning in behalf of the English Church than any extant before him in one continued Body purposing a Review in the Latin Tongue wherein he intended to have more clearly expressed his meaning in some things of which it might be said as of St. Pauls writings they were hard to be understood and he himself saw to be wrested to evil ends and senses but his declining body and years would not suffer him to accomplish so good a Work What Mr. Baxer himself hath performed in his late large Volume I shall not give my censure but how well he is qualified for such a Work I may presume to give the Reader in the words of Esâ— Baxterus câ—â—is desiinatis sententiâ—s minimè omnium hominun addictus ut qui non plus faveat Presbyteriants quam Independentibus nec est infensus Hierarchicis sed medius dubiusque partibus nisi in causa Dei sanctitatis vitae Ludovicus Molinaeus Patroni p. 12. a great admirer of him Baxter saith he is of all men least addicted to any resolute opinions being one that favoureth not more the Presbyterians than the Independents neither is he sharp against the Episcopal Party but between them and doubtful what side to take except in the cause of God and holiness of Life The greatest part of which Character is but too true being as much with me as if he had said He were of no Religion at all For however Beza and Cartwrights opinions of a certain and definite Discipline Essentially requisite to a Church as a Church is to Christian Religion be by Puritans laid aside for the present and like embers buried up in the Ash-heap till they shall rise again next day and kindle a new fire and now nothing but Get Christ Purity of Ordinances is notorious amongst them to the Vulgar yet when people are deceived by that they call Pure and Powerful Preaching of Christ into new Societies of their own Manufacture then presently doth most apparent Reason and inevitable Necessity constrain them to invent and impose new Covenants and Bonds to conserve them in their new Fraternities contrary altogether to that General Liberty before propounded and promised them No more than doth the charm of Christian Liberty sound in their ears No more of the free use of Indifferent things so contrary to the Decrees and Practise of a Church but then come into credit again such sayings as these There must be Order There must be Government There must be unity in the Church dealing herein with poor simple Christians as men do with their horse they would take up carrying in one hand provender which they show him and make a great noise with and behind them in the other hand a bridle to hold him fast to them and ride him as they please And if Mr. Baxter be of no regulated determinate Society or Church adheres to no particular Communion submits to no Government nor Governours in special but to all or any as it should seem be must bear it as well as he can when he bears himself not out of passion or envie at his new and singular device of going to heaven but justice and reason censur'd for a man of no Religion at all or if any of his own making which teaches him to persevere in that fond and haughty design he once had when he took upon him to top his Brethren of the Ministery in the Western Parts and to frame Grounds and Aphorisms for both Civil and Ecclesiastical Politie of his own with as little judgment and humility as safety to the Church and State as if he had aim'd at nothing so much as to be according to forreign Phrase and Presidents an Extraordinary Pastor without any Original or Rule but from himself but failing of this he now thinks it best to become an Extraordinary Sheep of all and no fold writing Books as uncertain and contrary as himself on all sides and for all Palates as if he had found out the Universal Character for Religions like to that of Languages in which all men doing as he wou'd have them shou'd agree in going to Heaven And now all that lately and most officious and serviceable method of mounting our selves and crushing and trampling on the necks of others and them our Governours by most unjust and cruel acts most false and bitter language must be laid aside and thrown overboard as the Turks did their Cemiters when they lost the day at the battle of Lepanto not because they liked them not but because they could do them no more service and least they should come into the Christians hands and be used against them So indeed Sectaries now-a-dayes call for modesty and moderation on all hands casting away that unchristian language which stood them in so much stead against them they resolved to destroy not without horrible Success And yet we see while they call so charitably for moderation and would have no revilings of them that differ in opinions only their churlish nature and
virulent tongues cannot forget their wonted strains of dishonesty and extream spite and railings witness one for all the foresaid Ludovicus Molinaeus who as civilly and reverently as he carries himself towards Mr. Baxter for none of his vertues we may be sure as exorbitantly in the old Puritans language and on their Grounds flies in the face of the Greatest and Best of the Rulers of the Church and State too who have at any time resolutely opposed the designs and Schismatical devices of such unchristian Reformers as himself only I must confess he is favourable to his late Sacred Majesty whose invincible Piety and unparallel'd innocency of Life and Ignominious yet Glorious Death hath not only struck Sectaries dumb who once opened so loudly and perniciously against him but extorted cold commendations from them not much unlike that approbation given by that Parricide Antonius the Emperor who when he understood how the people of Rome magnified and even deâ—fied his virtuous Brother Geta whom he had wickedly murdered said Sit Divus modò non sit vivus i e. Let him be Divine so he be not living But whom doth he or his Fellows occasion serving spare Hath he not raked the stinking Canal of all â—ld lyes and feigned rumors invented to imbroyl the Church in Schism and Kingdome in Sedition and Bloud and indeavoured to put new life into them and Authentize them to other Countries as well as ours It was soberly and seasonably said by that excellent Arch-bishop Speech Delivered in the Star Chamber p. 2. whom he would traduce in basest manner were not his merits above the Calumnies of such wretched Fellows in his Speech in the Star-chamber at the Charge of Prin Burton and Bastwick viz. There were times when Persecutions were great in the Church even to exceed Barbarity it self Did any Martyr or Confessor in those times Libel their Governors Surely no not one of them to my best remembrance yet these complain of Persecution without all shew of cause and in the mean time libel and rail without all measure so little a kin are they to those who suffer for Christ or the least part of Christian Religion This witness is most true of these Cretians And it is my great glory not only to be named among such eminent persons as lately but at present are living in our Church whom this Molinaeus traduceth And why so because of my rude usage of Mr. Daillee whom I spit on if any will believe him Lud. Molin Antidure Epist p. 54. rather then dispute against That I spare not the memory of Diodate That I am no fairer to Mr. Bochartus And why doth be forget my railing too against his Brethren the Puritans This he might better say But neither he nor any man else can say that I imitate Puritans in railing against my Betters or Governors that 's their peculiar and inseparable virtue and hath been from the first founding of the Discipline by Penrie Whittingham Goodman and Cartwright with others to the confounding of the Church so far as lay in their power I ever was not only an approver but an admirer of the personal Gifts of Calvin and Beza of Monsieur Daillee and Monsieur Bochart c. but I owe them no more respect in the cause of Religion than they do me or any man else of our Church but I profess I owe more Reverence to the least of the Bishops and Fathers of the Church whom Puritans have so basely treated then to the greatest of them and so do Sectaries too as ill as they are galled to hear of it But what do I speak so irreverently after all against Mr. Daillee Not a word hath this Zelote found in my whole Book against him nor in that Action against our Schismaticks whom I confess to have severely treated in that I give them their own some mens dealings being so foul as theirs have been that the very bare recitation of them is lookt on as railing though never so faithfully done If any of them or their friends can tell me wherein I have done them wrong in misreporting their Facts I do here assure them I will make them all the satisfaction I am able in retracting and acknowledging my Error and that as publickly as I have injured them with the next opportunity Cyprian Optatus Hierom Austin Nazianzen and Chrysostom as holy and sober persons as they were in their Generations made no great scruple to paint Schismaticks out in their Colors with language which cuts where it goes and I am sure these upon no better grounds than they have or can possibly offer of departing from and dividing our Church are no better Nay in this hath the Puritan Sectary transcended all Hereticks and Schismaticks that ever went before them For though divers Factions were raised and fomented to a great height in the Church of God of old and Altar was erected against Altar and Chair against Chair i. e. Worship against Worship and Governor against Governor of the Church yet do we find none through all the Histories of the Church that ever became so presumptuous and desperate as to endeavour the total subversion of the Government of the Church in it self and to set up another in the room of it quite of another nature which we read not that Aerius himself ever attempted though he preacht up the equality of Bishops and Presbyters And so far am I from such a spirit of meekness I confess that I shall never smooth them or their cause over so civilly as to imply the contrary until they bethink themselves without their customary frauds and dissimulations of their duties and return to the Peace and Unitie of the Church which I shall not cease to pray for But one of the most material things charged on me is That I liked Dailee's Book the worse because it pleased the Puritans so much which says my Accuser is to be of the spirit of Maldonate the Jesuite But he is mistaken For Maldonate indeed rejected a sense of Scripture which otherwise he approved because it was Calvins If I disliked Dailees opinions only because they were Dailees or our Puritans he had been somewhat near the matter but no such thing hath fallen from me I disliked indeed his Book because it so far pleased the Puritans that they were thereby notably confirmed in their obstinate Opinions against the Authority of the Ancient and our Present Church Here were evil effects also to be disliked Next let us bear how I abuse Diodate of Geneva in that I rehearse this saying of him against King Charles the first viz. That Christ in the Gospel commands us to forgive our enemies but not our friends This he calls Crassum mendacium A gross lye in me whereas the lye if there be any must necessarily be in himself or his brother Puritan Cook the Sollicitor against King Charles the first at his Sentence in that monstrous Court. For I no where say of my self that Diodate said those words
Church hath not denyed that Liberty and where they have made no Vow to the contrary bereaving themselves of that Liberty 33. There is no Purgatory 'T is little less then Heretical to Artic. Chur Eng. 22. affirm there is in the Roman sense 34. There is no external Sacrifice Most true in a strict proper sense 35. Devils cannot be driven away by Holy Water and the Sign of the Cross By these alone we have few or none Instances in the Ancient Church that Devils were cast out of the Possessed But many we find and those most authentique and undeniable whereby it appears that the ancient Christians even to St. Chrysostoms dayes did exorcise or cast out Devils by Prayers and Humiliation with which were used the sign of the Cross but not so ancient was Holy Water to that purpose And though we look on this as the Gift of Miracles formerly more general and effectual then now-a-days it is any where honestly to be found yet neither do we deny such power absolutely nor hold such unnecessary Rites utterly unlawful to be used 36. It is unlawful and an horrible wickedness for a man to erect the Image of Christ in Christian Temples No such matter The wickedness consists in giving it the accustomed Worship in the Church of Rome And thus have I given certain Instances of the injurious dealings of both extreams against us as by themselves stated it being my design in the ensuing Treatise to state rather then largely dispute matters more equally and thereby to discover the frauds and falsities current against us I shall now requite their pains in collecting falsly and fraudulently the opinions of our Church by a sincere and faithful proposing of the Heretical and pestilent Dogmes of the Roman Church as I find them laid down and maintain'd by Bellarmine that so even common reason if not sense of indifferent Christians may judge which Church holds most contrary Doctrines to Gods and Mans Laws 1. The Books by us called Apocryphal and so proved by Bellarm. De Verho Dei l. 1. c. 7. the general Consent of the Church in all Ages are Canonical and properly Divine 2. It is neither convenient nor profitable that the Scriptures L. 2. c. 15. 16. or Prayers of the Church should be in the Vulgar Tongue 3. All things necessary to Faith and Holy Life are not contain'd L. 4. c. 3. in the Scriptures but Traditions also 4. Scriptures without Tradition are not simply necessary C. 4. nor sufficient 5. The Apostles applyed not their minds to write by God's C. 4. command but as they were constrained by a certain necessity 6. Scriptures are not Rules of Faith but as a certain C. 12. Monitorie to conserve and nourish the Doctrine received 7. Hereticks deny but Catholicks affirm Peter to be the De Rom. Pontif. l. 1. c. 2. Head of the Universal Church and made a Prince in Christs stead 8. When Christ said Simon son of John so the Vulgar L. 4. c. 1. Translation in Bellarmine corruptly for Jonas Feed my Sheep he spake only to Peter and gave him his Sheep to feed not exempting the Apostles 9. Whether the Pope may be an Heretick or not it is to be L. 4. c. 2. believed of the whole Church that he can no ways determine that which is Heretical 10. Neither the Pope nor the particular Roman Church C. 4. can erre in Faith 11. The Pope cannot only not erre in Faith but neither C. 5. in Precepts of Manners which are prescribed the whole Church and which are concerning things necessary to Salvation or things in themselves good or evil 12. The Pope alone hath his Jurisdiction immediately from C. 24. Christ but all other Bishops their ordinary Jurisdiction immediately from the Pope 13. The Pope hath Supream power indirectly in all Temporal L. 5. c. 1. 6. matters by reason of his Spiritual power This is the opinion of all Catholick Divines 14. The Pope as Pope may not ordinarily depose Temporal Ibid c. 6. Princes though there be just cause as he may Bishops yet he may change Kingdoms and take them away and give them to another as the highest Spiritual Prince if it be needful to the Salvation of Souls 15. As to Lawes the Pope as Pope cannot ordinarily make a Ibid. Civil Law or establish or make void Lawes of Princes because he is not the Political Prince of the Church yet he may do all these if any Civil Law be necessary to the Salvation of Souls and Kings will not make them and so if Laws be pernicious to Souls and Kings will not abolish them 16. Though the Pope translated the Empire and gave a De Translat Imp. l. 3 c 4. Right to choose a Prince yet he transferred not nor gave that power Supream and most ample which himself had of Christ over all the Church And therefore as when the Cause of the Church required he could translate the Empire from the Greeks to the Germans in like manner might he translate it from the Germans to another Nation upon the like reason c. 17. No obedience is due to a Prince from the Church Câ—â— Berâ—â—â— c. 31. Tom. 7. when he is excommunicated by publick Authority The Pope and his Predecessors never forbad Subjects to obey their Princes for being once deposed by them they were no longer lawful Princes This is it we teach 18. To call General Councils belongs properly to the Tom. 2. de Concil l. 1. c. 12. Pope yet so that the Emperor may do it with his consent 19. Particular Councils confirmed by the Pope cannot erre L. 2. c 5. in Faith and Manners 20. The Pope is simply and absolutely above the whole C. 17. Church and above a General Council so that he may not acknowledge any Judicature on earth above him 21. The Church is a Company of men professing the L. 3. c. 2. same Christian Faith joyned together in the Communion of the same Sacraments under the Government of lawful Pastors and especially One Vicar of Christ on earth the Bishop of Rome 22. Purgatory may be proved out of the Old and New De Purgaâ— 1. c. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Testament 23. Purgatory is a Doctrine of Faith so that he who believeth Cap. 15. not Purgatory shall never come there but shall be tormented in Hell in everlasting burning 24. Invocation of Saints may be proved from Scripture De Sanct. Beaâ—â—â—d l. 1. c. 19. 25. It 's lawful to make the Image of God the Father in De Reliq c. 8. the form of an Old Man and of the Holy Spirit in the form of a Dove 26. The Images of Christ and of Saints are to be worshipped L. 2. c. 21. De Imag. not only by accident and improperly but also by themselves properly so that they may terminate Worship as considered in themselves and not only as they
be convicted of moral evil and so unconcernedly to omit the weightier matters of the Law as Judgment Mercy or Charity in Vnity and Faith what can Charity call this but meer Pharisaism and where must such Pharisaism end at length but in Sadducism even denying of the Blessings and Curses of a Future Life For as Drusius hath Si Patres nostri selvissent mâ—râ—â—â—s resurrecturâ— praemia manere â—ustos â—â—st hanc vitam nâ—n tantoperè râ—bellassent Drusius in Mat. c 3. v. 7. Item in c. 22 23. observed it was one Reason alledged by the Sadduces against the Resurrection If our Fathers had known the dead should rise again and rewards were prepared for the Righteous they would not have rebelled so often not conforming themselves to Gods Rule as is pretended by all but conforming the Rule of Sin and of Faith it self to the good Opinion they had of their own Persons and Actions which Pestilential Contagion now so Epidemical God of his great Mercy remove from us and cause health and soundness of Judgment Affection and Actions to return to us and continue with us to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS Chap. I. OF the Nature and Grounds of Religion in General Which are not so much Power as the Goodness of God and Justice in the Creature And that Nature it self teaches to be Religious Chap. II. Of the constant and faithful assurance requisite to be had of a Deity The reasons of the necessity of a Divine Supream Power Socinus refuted holding the knowledge of a God not natural Chap. III. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature and the Infiniteness of God Chap. IV. Of the diversity of Religions in the World A brief censure of the Gentile and Mahumetan Religion Chap. V. Of the Jewish Religion The pretence of the Antiquity of it nulled The several erroneous grounds of the Jewish Religion discovered Chap. VI. The vanity of the Jewish Religion shewed from the proofs of the true Messias long since come which are many Chap. VII The Christian Religion described The general Ground thereof the revealed Will of God The necessity of Gods revealing himself Chap. VIII More special Proofs of the truth of Christian Religion and more particularly from the Scriptures being the Word of God which is proved by several reasons Chap. IX Of the several Senses and Meanings according to which the Scriptures may be understood Chap. X. Of the true Interpretation of Holy Scriptures The true meaning not the letter properly Scripture Of the difficulty of attaining the proper sense and the Reasons thereof Chap. XI Of the Means of interpreting the Scripture That they who understand Scripture are not for that authorized to interpret it decisively The Spirit not a proper Judge of the Scriptures sense Reason no Judge of Scripture There is no Infallible Judge of Scripture nor no necessity of it absolute The grounds of an Infallible Judge examined Chap. XII Of Tradition as a Means of understanding the Scriptures Of the certainty of unwritten Traditions that it is inferiour to Scripture or written Tradition No Tradition equal to Sense or Scripture in Evidence Of the proper use of Tradition Chap. XIII Of the nature of Faith What is Faith Of the two general grounds of Faith Faith divine in a twofold sense Revelation the formal reason of Faith Divine Of the several senses and acceptations of Faith That Historical Temporarie and Miraculous Faith are not in nature distinct from Divine and Justifying Faith Of Faith explicite and implicite Chap. XIV Of the effects of true Faith in General Good Works Good Works to be distinguish'd from Perfect Works Actions good four wayes Chap. XV. Of the effect of Good Works which is the effect of Faith How Works may be denominated Good How they dispose to Grace Of the Works of the Regenerate Of the proper conditions required to Good Works or Evangelical Chap. XVI Of Merit as an effect of Good Works The several acceptatations of the word Merit What is Merit properly In what sense Christians may be said to merit How far Good Works are efficacious unto the Reward promised by God Chap. XVII Of the two special effects of Faith and Good Works wrought in Faith Sanctification and Justification what they are Their agreements and differences In what manner Sanctification goes before Justification and how it follows Chap. XVIII Of Justification as an effect of Faith and Good Works Justification and Justice to be distinguished and how The several Causes of our Justification Being in Christ the principal cause What it is to be in Christ The means and manner of being in Christ Chap. XIX Of the efficient cause of Justification Chap. XX. Of the special Notion of Faith and the influence it hath on our Justification Of Faith solitary and only Of a particular and general Faith Particular Faith no more an Instrument of our justification by Christ than other co-ordinate Graces How some ancient Fathers affirm that Faith without Works justifie Chap. XXI A third effect of justifying Faith Assurance of our Salvation How far a man is bound to be sure of his Salvation and how far this assurance may be obtained The Reasons commonly drawn from Scripture proving the necessity of this assurance not sufficient c. Chap. XXII Of the contrary to true Faith Apostasie Heresie and Atheism Their Differences The difficulty of judging aright of Heresie Two things constituting Heresie the evil disposition of the mind and the falsness of the matter How far and when Heresie destroys Faith How far it destroys the Nature of a Church Chap. XXIII Of the proper subject of Faith the Church The distinction and description of the Church In what sense the Church is a Collection of Saints Communion visible as well as invisible necessary to the constituting a Church Chap. XXIV A preparation to the knowledge of Ecclesiastical Society or of the Church from the consideration of humane Societies What is Society What Order What Government Of the Original of Government Reasons against the peoples being the Original of Power and their Right to frame Governments Power not revocable by the people Chap. XXV Of the Form of Civil Government The several sorts of Government That Government in general is not so of Divine Right as that all Governments should be indifferently of Divine Institution but that One especially was instituted of God and that Monarchical The Reasons proving this Chap. XXVI Of the mutual Relations and Obligations of Soveraigns and Subjects No Right in Subjects to resist their Soveraigns tyrannizing over them What Tyranny is Of Tyrants with a Title and Tyrants without Title Of Magistrates Inferiour and Supream the vanity and mischief of that distinction The confusion of co-ordinate Governments in one State Possession or Invasion giveth no Right to Rulers The Reasons why Chap. XXVII An application of the former Discourse of Civil Government to Ecclesiastical How Christs Church is alwayes visible and how invisible Of the communion
of Christ and his Members The Church of Christ taken specially for the Elect who shall infallibly be saved never visible But taken for true Professours of the Faith must alwayes be visible though not conspicuous in comparison of other Religions or Heresies Chap. XXVIII Of the outward and visible Form of Christs Church Christ ordained One particularly What that was in the Apostles dayes and immediately after The vanity of such places of Scripture as are pretended against the Paternal Government of the Church Chap. XXIX Of the necessity of holding visible communion with Christs Church Knowledge of that visible Church necessary to that communion Of the Notes to discern the true Church how far necessary Of the nature or condition of such Notes in general Chap. XXX Of the Notes of the true Church in particular Of Antiquity Succession Unity Universality Sanctity How far they are Notes of the true Church Chap. XXXI Of the Power and Acts of the Church Where they are properly posited Of the fountain of the Power derived to the Church Neither Prince nor People Author of the Churches Power But Christ the true Head of the Church The manner how Christs Church was founded Four Conclusions upon the Premisses 1. That there was alwayes distinction of persons in the Church of Christ 2. The Church was alwayes administer'd principally by the Clergy 3. The Rites generally received in the Church necessary to the conferring Clerical power and office 4. All are Usurpers of Ecclesiastical power who have not thus received it In what sense Kings may be said to be Heads of the Church Chap. XXXII Of the exercise of political power of the Church in Excommunication The Grounds and Reasons of Excommunication More things than what is of Faith matter sufficient of Excommunication Two Objections answered Obedience due to commands not concerning Faith immediately Lay-men though Princes cannot Excommunicate Mr. Selden refuted Chap. XXXIII Of the second branch of Ecclesiastical Power which is Mystical or Sacramental Hence of the Nature of Sacraments in general Of the vertue of the Sacraments Of the sign and thing signified That they are alwayes necessarily distinct Intention how necessary to a Sacrament Sacraments effectual to Grace Chap. XXXIV Of the distinction of Sacraments into Legal and Evangelical Of the Covenants necessary to Sacraments The true difference between the Old and New Covenant The Agreement between Christ and Moses The Agreements and Differences between the Law and the Gospel Chap. XXXV Considerations on the Sacraments of the Law of Moses Of Circumcision Of the Reason Nature and Ends of it Of the Passover the Reason why it was instituted It s use Chap. XXXVI Of the Evangelical Sacraments Of the various application of the name Sacrament Two Sacraments univocally so called under the Gospel only The others equivocally Five conditions of a Sacrament Of the reputed Sacraments of Orders Matrimony and Extream Unction in particular Chap. XXXVII Of Confirmation What it is The Reasons of it The proper Minister of it Of Unction threefold in Confirmation Of Sacramental Repentance and Penance The effects thereof Chap. XXXVIII Of the proper Affections of Repentance Compunction Attrition and Contrition Attrition is an Evangelical Grace as well as Contrition Of Confession its Nature Grounds and Uses How it is abused The Reasons against it answered Chap. XXXIX Of Satisfaction an act of Repentance Several kinds of Satisfaction How Satisfaction upon Repentance agrees with Christs Satisfaction for us How Satisfaction of injuries necessary Against Indulgences and Purgatory Chap. XL. Of Baptism The Authour Form Matter and Manner of Administration of it The general necessity of it The efficacie in five things Of Rebaptization that it is a prophanation but no evacuation of the former Of the Character in Baptism Chap. XLI Of the second principal Sacrament of the Gospel the Eucharist Its names Its parts Internal and External It s Matter Eread and Wine and the necessity of them Of Leavened and Unleavened Bread Of breaking the Bread in the Sacrament Chap. XLII Of the things signified in the Sacrament of the Eucharist the Body and Bloud of Christ How they are present in the Eucharist How they are received by Communicants Sacramentally present a vain invention All Presence either Corporal or Spiritual Of the real Presence of the signs and things signified The real Presence of the signs necessarily infer the Presence of the Substance of Bread and Wine Signs and things signified alwayes distinct Chap. XLIII The principal Reasons for Transubstantiation answered Chap. XLIV Of the Sacrifice of the Altar What is a Sacrifice Conditions necessary to a Sacrament How and in what sense there is a Sacrifice in the Eucharist Chap. XLV Of the form of consecrating the Elements Wherein it consisteth Whether only Recitative or Supplicatory Chap. XLVI Of the participation of this Sacrament in both kinds The vanity of Papists allegations to the contrary No Sacramental receiving of Christ in one kind only How Antiquity is to be understood mentioning the receiving of one Element only The pretended inconveniences of partaking in both kinds insufficient Of adoration of the Eucharist Chap. XLVII The Conclusion of the Treatise of the subject of Christian Faith the Church by the treating of Schism contrary to the visible Church Departure from the Faith real Schism not formally as to the outward Form Of the state of Separation or Schism Of Separation of Persons Co-ordinate and Subordinate Of Formal and Virtual Schism All Heresie virtually Schism not formally Separation from an Heretical Society no Schism From Societies not heretical Schism Heretical Doctrine or Discipline justifie Separation How Separation from a true Church is Schism and how not In what sense we call the Roman Church a true Church Some Instances of heretical Errors in the Roman Church Of the guilt of Schism Of the notorious guilt of English Sectaries The folly of their vindications That th Case of them and us is altogether different from that of us and the Church of Rome Not lawful to separate from the Universal Church The Contents of the Second Book of the First Part. Chap. 1. OF the formal Object of Christian Faith Christ An Entrance to the treating of the Objects of Faith in particular Chap. II. Of the special consideration of God as the object of Christian Faith in the Unity of the Divine Nature and Trinity of Persons in that Chap. III. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature as to the simplicity of it And how the Attributes of God are consistent with that simplicity Chap. IV. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature as to number and how the Trinity of Persons may consist with the Unity and Simplicity of the Deity Of the proper notions pertaining to the Mystery of the Trinity viz. Essence Substance Nature Person The distinction of the Persons in the Trinity Four enquiries moved How far the Gentiles and Jews understood the Trinity The Proof of the Doctrine of the Trinity from the New Testament and the explication of
it Chap. V. Of the proper Acts of God Creation and Preservation or Providence What is Creation That God created all things And how Of the Ministers of Gods Providence towards Inferiour Creatures the Angels of God Their nature and office towards man especially Chap. VI. Of the Works of God in this visible World Of the Six dayes work of God All things are good which were made by God Chap. VII Of the Creation of man in particular according to the Image of God Of the Constitution of him and of the Original of his Soul contrary to Philosophers and the Errors of Origen concerning it The Image wherein it consists principally Chap. VIII Of the Second General Act of God towards the Creature especially Man his Providence Aristotles Opinion and Epicurus his rejected What is Providence Three things propounded of Providence And first the Ground of it the knowledge of God How God knoweth all things future as present Of Necessity and Contingencies how they may consist with Gods Omniscience Chap. IX The method of enquiring into the Nature and Attributes of God Vorstius his grounds of distinguishing the Attributes of God from his Nature examined Of the Decrees of God depending on his Understanding and Will Of knowledge of Intelligence Vision and the supposed Middle knowledge The Impertinency of this middle knowledge invented in God How free Agents can be known by God in their uncertain choice Indifferent actions in respect of Man not so in respect of God All vision in God supposes certainty in the thing known Chap. X. Four Doubts cleared concerning the Knowledge and Decrees of God and free Agents and contingent Effects How man that infallibly acts is responsable for his Actions The frivolous Evasion of the said difficulties by them of Dort Chap. XI Of the Execution of Gods Providence in the Predestination and Reprobation of Man How the Decrees and Providence of God are distinguished The Reason and Method of Gods Decrees Righteousness is the effect and not cause of Predestination to Life Predestination diversly taken in Scripture as also Election and Vocation God predestinates no man simply to Death without consideration of Evil foregoing as Calvin and some others would have it Chap. XII Of Gods Providence in the Reprobation and Damnation of Man Preterition is without any cause personal but the corruption of the Mass of Humane Nature Damnation alwayes supposes sin Chap. XIII The occasion of treating of sin here What sin is What Evil Monstrousness in things natural and Evil in moral things illustrate each other Sin no positive or real thing God the direct cause of no evil St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans makes nothing for the contra-Remonstrants literally and primarily taken Chap. XIV Of Sin more particularly And first of the fall of Adam Of Original Sin wherein it consisteth and how it is traduced from Father to Children The Proofs of it The nature and evils of it And that it is cured in Baptism That Natural Concupiscence hath not the nature of Sin after Baptism Chap. XV. Of the Restitution of Man after sin The Means and Motives thereunto In what manner Christs Mediation was necessary to the reconciling of Man to God Socinus his Opinion of Christs mediation refuted That Christ truely and properly satisfied by his Death and Passion for us Chap. XVI Of the Nature and Person of the Mediatour between God and Man In the beginning was the Word proved to be spoken of Christ and that he had a being before he was incarnate The Union of two Natures in Christ explained Christ a Mediatour by his Person and by his Office and this by his Sacrificing himself The Scriptures proving this Chap. XVII How Christ was Mediatour according to both Natures Calvins Opinion and others stated Of the effect of Christs Mediation and the extent thereof Of the Designation and Application of Christs death Of the sufficiencie and efficacie of Christs death How Christs death becomes effectual to all The necessity of Gods Grace to incline the will of man to embrace Christ Of the efficacie as well as sufficiencie of Gods Grace on the Will of Man Several Gradations observed in the Grace of God Chap. XVIII Of the effect and benefit of Christs Mediation in suffering and rising again seen in the Resurrection of Man The necessity of believing a Resurrection The Reasons and Scriptural Testimonies proving a Resurrection Objections against the same answered Chap. XIX Of the most perfect effect of Christs Mediation in the salvation of man Several senses of Salvation noted That Salvation is immediately after death to them that truly dye in Christ And that there is no grounds in Antiquity or Scripture for that middle State called Purgatory The Proofs answered Of the Consequent of Roman Purgatory Indulgences The novelty groundlesness and gross abuse of them The Conclusion of the first part of this Introduction The Contents of the Second Part c. Chap. I. OF the worship of God wherein the Second Part of Christian Religion consists Of the necessity of worshipping God It is natural to worship God Socinus holding the contrary confuted Of the name of Religion the Nature of Religious worship wherein it consisteth Chap. II. Of the two parts of Divine worship Inward and Outward The Proof of Outward worship as due to God and that it is both due and acceptable to God Several Reasons proving bodily worship of God agreeable to him Wherein this bodily worship chiefly consists Certain Directions for bodily worship Exceptions against it answered Chap. III. Of the second thing considerable in Divine worship viz. The state wherein we serve God What is a state The formal cause of a state Divine Vowes What is a Vow The proper matter of Vows Evangelical Councils That it is lawful and useful to make Vows under the Gospel contrary to Peter Martyr The nature of Vowes explained Chap. IV. Of the matter of Vows in particular And first of the Virginal state that it is both possible and landable And that it is lawful to vow Celibacie or Widowhood No Presidents in the Old Testament favouring Virginity The Virgin Mary vowed not Virginity no Votary before the Annunciation Chap. V. Of the second State of special serving God the Clerical State or Ministerial Of the necessity and liberty of singleness of Life in a Clergy-man The Opinion and custom of Antiquity concerning it That it is in the power of the Church at this day to restrain or permit the marriage of Priests The Conveniences and Inconveniences of wedded Life in Priests Chrysostom's Judgment of Marriage and Virginity recited Chap. VI. Of the third State of serving God a Life Monastical That it is not only lawful but may be profitable also The Exceptions of Mr. Perkins against it examined The abuses of Monastical Life touched That it is lawful to vow such a kind of Life duly regulated Chap. VII Of Religious worship the third thing considerable in it viz. The Exercise of it in the several kinds
prove the same they meaning no more then Gods Election to the state of Grace that is the Faith and Profession of the Gospel Whence it is that the persons so called and converted to Christ are by St. Paul called the Election as Rom. 9. 11. For the children being not yet born neither having done good Rom. 9. 11. or evil that the purpose of God according to Election might stand not of works but of him that calleth Here the purpose of God is distinguished from the election of God meaning That what God had before-time purposed and resolved on he in time executed in electing the younger and relinquishing the elder and that rather from his own Free-will then my difference in the Persons so elected inducing him thereunto And so Chapt. 11. v. 5. The remnant according to his election is the remnant elected Chap. 11. v. 5. 7. 28. And again verse 7. he saith The election hath obtained And verse 28. Touching the election they are beloved In which three places it is to me plain That by election St. Paul doth mean the Persons elected from Jewish Superstition to Christian Profession As St. Peter also useth the same word saying of the Jewish Converts Elected together with you And 1 Pet. 5. 13. 1 Pet. 1. 2. Matth. 24. 22 24 32. and several other places in which nothing more is intended by the Holy Ghost than they who were in outward communion of Faith So that being sure of a mans Election as every ordinary Christian is he becomes in proportionable manner surâ— of his Justification and Salvation that is sure that the Faith he professes is altogether sufficient to lead him infallibly to salvation which neither the Religion of the Jew or Gentile can assure him of Yet to the reapinâ— of the fruit hereof it must alwayes be supposed That such conditionâ— as God requires on the Party stipulating be not wanting Now of this sort of Assurance I make no doubt but the word of God is more genuinely interpreted and applyed than of that personal assurance peculiar to some who frame another notion of being elected which is of being signally chosen out of the former Elect to an infallible assurance of their Justification and Salvation which though I willingly grant o be true viz. That God hath his peculiar ones amongst Christians too as Christians amongst Heathen yet I find little or nothing spoken of under the said Appellations of Elect Elected Election in Scripture but of the first sense generally My appeal shall be to the indifferent judge by laying the testimonies before him which are principally these many coming nothing near the point St. Paul saith to the Romans of Abraham That he did not doubt of the promise of God through unbelief but was strong Rom. 4. 20 21. in saith giving glory to God And being fully perswaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform How far this is beside the matter every sober man will easily see that shall consider seriously That these Promises were made directly and expresly to Abrahams person and not in common with other persons And can any man be so unadvised as to conclude That because Abraham having such a particular and personal Promise made to him by God and indeed absolute and inconditionate that he should have a Son by Sarah his wife which he believed and without staggering was assured of therefore they who have no such personal assurances given of God but only general and alwayes conditional of their Justification and Life Everlasting can be in like manner assured of the same or ought to believe that they shall be saved as much as Abraham did that God would send him a Son as he promised The sum of Gods infallible Promise to Christians is this in St. Matthew He that believeth Matth. 16. 1â— and is baptized shall be saved where it must of necessity be granted that Believing is a very comprehensive word according to our distinction of Faith above given and consequently that it cannot be so evident to a man that he believeth according to the Tenour and intent of the Covenant of Grace as it was to Abraham that God himself made such a Promise to him and therefore hath not the like footing for his Faith assuring him that he believeth aright as that he should have a Son when his common sense told him that God had promised he should It is said that Faith is opposite to doubting For Christ said to Peter Matth. 14. 31. O thou of little Faith wherefore didst thou doubt This is very true and therefore we say It is no article or object of our Faith to believe that we shall be infallibly saved but it is rather an object of our Fear and more properly of our Hope For though it be said in the Apostles Creed I believe the remission or forgiveness of sgins it is not meant that any man should thereby stand obliged to believe as an Article of Faith the actual forgiveness of his own sins but that his own sins and all other Christian peoples are remissible and that in the Catholick Church there is forgiveness to all that repent and believe And this is no more then that General Assurance that by being baptized we are in a state of Salvation as is above-said To multiply many Texts to infer this from Gods faithfulness who promiseth and from his gifts being without repentance and such like are not worth their time that use them nor would it be worth mine to examine them any farther then to say That they are a great deal too large to have any particular relation to a mans personal state As if God must needs change if a man falls from his stedfast purpose Or God when he in his own counsel determines to save any man infallibly must inseparably annex thereunto this Evidence of his will to the Party any more then it is necessary that all men who leave others their Estates should tell them so much and require at their hands that they make no question of the same under the penalty of forfeiting all The surest grounds therefore for this seem to be taken from revelation which no Christian can absolutely oppose For not only may God but God hath revealed this to others by the testimony of his Spirit or other sufficient Evidence for to beget an assurance But two exceptions are made against this way the one That the dispute is only about the Ordinary dispensations common to all true believers The other That these places alledged prove no more than the common Justification of believers and their Adoption As for instance John 1. 12. As many as received him John 1. 12. to them gave he power to become the Sons of God even as many as believe in his name Here say they believing is put for receiving so that true faith receiveth Christ and this it doth by a particular application of general promises unto a mans self Therefore a man ought to be
a Church in two things principally First in the matter The material part of a believer as he is a Christian not as he is a man is his Faith consisting of its several Articles and Branches But the matter of the Church is the Christians themselves whereof it consisteth Secondly they differ in their Form too For no man is properly a Christian though he believes all the Articles of a Christian and lives accordingly unless he be formed and fashioned Formale autem Ecclesiae Catholicae est professio fi dei Christi intâ—gra sub suis Legitimis Rectoribus à Christo institut â—â— ministris cum Sacramentorum obsignatione participatione Sec. Marcus Anton. Spalat Lib. 7. cap 10. §. 26. by the Sacrament of Regeneration which is Baptism But the Form of Christs Church doth consist in that outward disposition and order of Superiour and Inferiour communicating mutually in all Christian Acts and Offices necessary to the conservation of the whole Body and the edification and encrease of every Member thereof This Description of Christs Church is warranted us from St. Paul to the Ephesians who expresly maketh * Eph. 4. 15 16. Colos 2. 19. Christ the Head of his Church From whom the whole Body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every Part maketh increase of the Body unto the edifying its self in Love The like words to which we find to the Colossians chap. 2. 19. It must therefore from hence be granted That there is to be Government in Christs Church and that the Government ought to be proportionable to the Body thereby ordered and ruled To the Internal Body of Christ or Mystical Church not visible to us an Internal Mystical and Invisible administration is very agreeable and sufficient from Christ the Head and by the influence of the Holy Spirit but the external Church standeth in need necessarily of external Rule and Direction as much as it doth of external Doctrine Instructions and Sacraments though it be inwardly informed by the Spirit of Christ Now if it be enquired what that Government is whereby Christ would have his Church directed which is the most famous Question of late dayes though scarce ever call'd in question for some hundred years after Christ the resolution will be facilitated from what we delivered concerning Government civil For first if Government Ecclesiastical be so essential to the subsistence of a Church that without it it cannot be of any continuance without a Miracle it cannot be imagined with any probability of Reason that God or Christ should make one part of his Church and leave it to the liberty and pleasure of Man to make the other but least of all can they be of this opinion who think so sacredly of all Ecclesiastical Orders that to admit any of humane invention or prudence is to prophane the whole Systeme Again upon the grounds laid down in civil Government If Christ be the Author of Government Ecclesiastical in General he must also be the Cause of some one Government in Particular otherwise he could not be the Authour of any at all seeing Institution Political as well as Creation Natural must of necessity have some Object to terminate it as its effect Generals in all cases following Particulars in the things themselves though the way of knowledge or learning these things is to begin with the General and so to descend to Particulars Thirdly to understand what kind of Government Christ instituted in his Church what more certain and compendious way what more equal than to judge rather from matter of Fact than long and uncertain Disputations built on Arguments which are subject to diverse casualties from mans Passion and Interests prosecuted thereby whereas there is evidence sufficient from the thing it self to settle belief in that Point Fourthly we are here to note That when we speak of Government we intend not to comprehend therein all Accruments Ornaments or Additions which happened after the thing it self For these may be and doubtless oftentimes have been the effects of humane Prudence regulated by general Precepts but we speak of the Form it self or the Kind of Government For though we said God was the Author of All well grounded Government and do not mean that every particle thereof or inferiour additional Grace must proceed from the same hand For God having permitted if not ordered that every nation should conform it self in outward matters to the condition of the time and place God must have made for several Ages and several Places several Regiments which no man hath presumed to affirm the Divine Right or Institution extending only to those things wherein all at first agreed So that as children receive from the Nature of man at first created by God in Adam their fouls and bodily shape with the several parts necessarily thereunto belonging but their behaviours gestures gates favour and complexions are commonly derived from their immediate Pareâ—â—s So doth every true Body of Christ every Church receive common forms and shapes from the first Institution of Christ extant in the Primitive times but their particular modifications and customes are owing to to their Spiritual Fathers whether mediate or immediate Which frowardly and peevishly to reject or disobediently to oppose without higher warrant what is it else but to imitate such graceless and unnatural children who are ashamed of their own Parents Fifthly A distinction ought to be put between the nature and degrees of any thing and especially of the Church which had its conception in the womb of the Jewish Church its infancy during our blessed Saviours Tum maxime Deus ex memoria hominum labitur cum beneficiis ejus fruentes honorem dare divinae indulgentiae deberent Lactantius lib. 2. cap. 1. de Origine Erroris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazienz Orat 1. contra Julianum abode upon the earth its minority during the Apostolical Age of One hundred years its perfect state soon after the first Christian Emperours advanced it and augmented it with secular strength and glory And it is certain that as the Roman Empire became more corrupt and declined so Christs Empire degenerated in many things contracting deformities in Doctrine and Discipline even from secular advantages granted unto it by the Devotion and Bounty of the best Wishers to it We are not then to be so narrow in our judgment of the Churches state to allow no more to it then when it but just crept out of the womb or when having gathered a little strength it could stand alone but not act according to the prime Institutours intention but as it was habited and affected in its riper years when we may behold that in more conspicuous manner which at first was obscurer yet essentially the same For as nothing is more evident to all but such as resolve they will understand nothing that they dislike than that in nature the Father is made before
differences which of all Pretenders to these are assuredly so affected and blessed most with them Therefore these are not sufficient lights and demonstration of themselves to us For we grant readily That whatever Church hath all them is without controversie a true Church of Christ but whether this or that Church pretending to them hath them really remains to be enquired into Hence it hath been judged expedient to repair to some more sensible and apparent Notes or Indications to certifie us of matter of Fact viz. that so it is with this Church and not with another And it is well said That Notes of a thing must necessarily be distinct from the thing they notifie unto us and that especially in these two things First in reference to the thing described than which they must be more evident and apparent as the argument must alwayes be more clear than the thing in Question to be proved therewith Secondly in reference to other things they must not be common to more than that thing they are used to express and signifie As no man that never saw an horse before can know it from an Ox by being told that an Horse hath two ears four legs and a long tail And a third note of a true Note may be added and that is that it be inseparable For though no more but one thing has such a mark by which it may be known yet if that thing be moveable and not constant to it it cannot at all times be known by it as the Moon cannot alwayes be distinguished and known from other stars from horns or Angles which many times it wants This speculation is very rational but yet not exempt altogether from the inconveniencies of the former opinion it failing little less in the Invention and Application of such unfailing Notes as are presumed and promised For those being the very choicest of many more Notes mentioned by some for the guiding us to the true Catholick Church they are either obscure or inconstant and separable or lastly common to those Churches not received for pure and Catholick as will appear by and by Therefore I suppose a mean opinion may in this case be most true and safe as that First there can be no such infallible outward means of comming to or discerning the true Church from the false as may secure any one from errour For the Prophesies and Promises of Christ concerning the glory and conspicuousness of his Church viz. that it should be as a City set on a hill That it should be the Light of the world That it should be a Mountain unto which all Nations should flow and such like infer no more than this That whereas under the Law the Doors of Christs Church were in a manner shut against the greatest part of the world under the Gospel Christ would keep open house to all commers and that it should be more possible and easie to enter into the communion of his true Flock than formerly it had been not that it should not be possible to mistake but upon affected and wilful ignorance next to malice Neither doth there appear any greater reason why any man should be infallible in the choice of the true Church than when he is in the true Church that he should be infallible in all points of Faith therein truly professed In a word No greater inconvenience doth appear from the want of infallible means to lead men to the true Church who are in sight but not knowledge of it than to bring Heathens into an ordinary capacity of entring into it A man may be damned in that corrupt and degenerate state he now is in for want of that grace he could not of himself acquire and yet God be under no imputation of injustice or tyranny who gives him no more than he deserves and denyes him no more than he may justly detain from him For the mercy of God exceeds all not only merit but admiration that so many find the way to the truth while some as St. Paul hath it are Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth 2 Tim. 3. 7. But were it so that those means to salvation whether general or particular did work naturally not Evangelically or morally by the co-adjutancie of grace accompanying them and inwardly disposing the mind to assent to and embrace them then indeed ought there to be certain and infallible causes outward to that end but it is not so for as liberal as God hath shewn himself in the Gospel and means outward of attaining to the truth he keeps the reins still in his own hands and the key of knowledge by him the efficacy of the most probable means even that of distinguishing and knowing the true Church depending upon his free and inscrutable Grace which would in this particular be superfluous and useless if certain access might be made unto it by demonstrative notes to that purpose A second thing commending herein a mean opinion may be the due acknowledgment of the use of such outward marks and means guiding us to this prime truth of the Church For notwithstanding we have said the Grace of God hath a main stroke in every mans right choice of such dubious undemonstrable truths yet doth it not ordinarily concurr and we have nothing to know of extraordinary acts of God but by such ordinary means as he hath instituted and tyed us to observe to be capable thereof and therefore are we to embrace and improve all outward helps which may best conduce to that end otherwise we either forfeit or repel such grace from us And of such means I know none more reasonable and probable to bring us to the knowledge of this point then are they above mentioned Thirdly the use of those means or notes upon tryal will be found to consist not so much in the Affirmative as Negative sense that is not characterizing Catholick Churches in opposition to Heretical by being found only in any Church because they are also found in such as are reputed Heretical but being not found in Churches pretending Catholicisme stigmatizing them for false and defective And truly it is well worth the labour to be informed of errors as that which prepareth to the knowledge of the truth Lastly it is to be observed of the nature of Notes or Properties that they are either of the whole Species or kind as that given by Plato of a Man That he is a two-footed creature having no feathers on his body or they are Particular relating to some Individuum or single one of that kind as that given of God himself to distinguish Saul whom God had 1 Sam. 9. 2. 10. 24 designed King from the rest of the people from his stature That he was higher by head and shoulders than the rest of the people And thus was Elijah the Tishbite known to Amaziah That he was an hairy man girt with 2 Kings 1. 8. a girdle of Leather Now in this question it is
to be for certain reasons they draw at their pleasure out of Scripture and the necessity of our knowledge of it which is as solid a way of proceeding as if I finding my self by natural sense cold another should attempt to demonstrate the contrary because it is Midsommer But this use we may yet make of Universality to jude of Catholickness of Faith taking it for the most constant for time place and persons according as all humane account requires to ascribe that to the more numerous and eminent which is strictly proper only to the whole entire Body as a Councel or Senate is said to decree a thing when the chiefest do so some dissenting surely this is a very probable argument of the Catholickness of that Faith and consequently that Church so believing But what we before observed must not be forgotten here viz. That in all such enquiries as these the Estimate must be taken from the whole Church passed as well as Present and that there is as well an Eminency of Ages as Persons to preponderate in this Case Lastly the advantage Negative from Universality is very considerable to discern the true Faith and Church from false because it is most certain if any Doctrine or Discipline shall be obtruded on the Church which cannot be made evident to have been actually received in the Church and not by colourable and probable conjectures and new senses of Scripture invented to that purpose in some former Age that is Heretical and Schismatical and in no good sense Catholick The last Note which we shall mention is Sanctity which we hold very proper to this end taken abstractedly from all Persons as considered in Doctrine and Principles For if any Church doth teach contrary to the Law of nature of moral vertues of Justice or the like we may well conclude that to be a false Church though it keeps it self never so strictly to the Rule of Scriptures in many or most other things For it is in the power of mans wit and may be in the power of his hands to devise certain Religious Acts and impose them on others which shall carry a greater shew of severity and sanctity than there is any grounds for in Scripture or Presidents in the best approved Churches and yet this is not true Holiness of Believers For to this is principally required that it be regulated and warranted by Gods holy Word Yet neither so directly and expresly as if it were unlawful to act any thing in order to Holiness without special precept from thence For I see no cause at all to reject the ancient distinction found frequently with the Fathers of the Church of duties of Precept and duties of Councel For there ever was and ought to be in Christs Church several ranks of Professours of Christs Religion whereof for instance some live more contemplative some more active lives But if all commendable and profitable States were under Precept then should all sin that do not observe the same but God hath taken a mean course in not commanding some things of singular use to the promoting of Piety in true Believers but commending the same unto us Such are Virginal chastity Monastick life Travelling painfully not only towards the salvatian of a mans own soul but of others likewise and certain degrees uncommanded of Duties commanded as of charity towards our Christian neighbours Watchings unto Prayer and spiritual Devotion which being prescribed no man can determine to what degree they are by God required of us precisely some therefore are left to the Freewill-offerings of devouter persons who thereby endeavour either to assure themselves more fully of their salvation or increase of the glory afterward to be received For as Christ tells us in the Gospel Much was forgiven to Mary because she loved much so shall much be given upon the same reason They therefore that teach contrary to such wholesome and useful means of Holiness as these or the like under perhaps vain suspicion of too great opinion may be had of their worthiness incur at least with me the censure of being enemies to the holiness of Christs Church and render their Churches more suspected for the opposing of them than others for approving or practising them The Holiness then of the Church commending it to the eye and admiration of the World doth consist in the divineness and spiritualness of its Doctrine and Ecclesiastical discipline in use in it exceeding moral civility For it may be that such a severe hand of civil Justice may be held over a people that they may live more orderly and inoffensively to the world than some true Christian Churches but if this be done as often it is out of civil Prudence natural Gravity or a disposition inclined rather to get an estate than riotously and vainly to spend on which brings such scandal to Religion then is not this a sign of a true Church or Christian because it proceedeth not from principles proper to Christian Religion but secular interest how specious soever it may appear to the World CHAP. XXXI Of the Power and Acts of the Church Where they are properly posited Of the Fountain of the Power denyed to the Church Neither Prince nor People Authour of the Churches Power But Christ the true Head of the Church The manner how Christs Church was founded Four Conclusions upon the Premisses 1. That there was alwayes distinction of Persons in the Church of Christ 2. The Church was alwayes administred principally by the Clergy 3. The Rites generally received in the Church necessary to the conferring Clerical Power and Office 4. All are Vsurpers of Ecclesiastical Power who have not thus received it In what sense Kings may be said to be Heads of the Church AFter the Church found and founded as abovesaid the special Acts thereof claim due consideration and the Power or Right of so acting And this Power we make two-fold in General Political and Mystical or Sacramental Of both which we must first enquire after the proper Subject before we treat of the proper Acts thereof That all Power which is given by Christ doth reside in the Church as its subject no man can or doth question But because the Church it self being as is said a Society united in one Faith and administred outwardly by Christian Discipline according to Christs mind admitteth of several senses and acceptations therefore it must be first understood which and in what sense is according to Christs intention the proper seat of this power And before we come to Scriptural grounds we take no small help in this Enquiry from the common state of all Government which we have already shown to be such as is not ascending but descending It cometh not originally nor can from the multitude or people who are the object of this power i. e. the Persons properly to be governed and not governing all the Examples of former Ages confirming not only the unnaturalness and unreasonableness but impossibility of the People governing
Eucharist and especially going upon the grounds of Luther Calvin Perkins and some others of Great note that all Sacerdotal they may call them if they please Ministerial Acts done by him who is no true Minister are really null and void Fourthly we conclude that seeing all Ecclesiastical power as Ecclesiastical doth proceed from Christ and his Successors and that by Ordinary and visible means they who have not received the same by such Ordinary Methods are usurpers of the same whether Political or Mystical And that to deny this to the Church is to deny that which Christ hath given them and such a Principle of the Churches well Being without which it cannot subsist and it not subsisting neither can the Faith it self And to the reason above given we may add Prescription beyond all memory For from Christs time to this day a perpetual and peculiar power hath ever been in the Clergy which hath constantly likewise born the name of the Church to assemble define and dispose matters of Religion And why should not Prescription under Unchristian as well as Christian Governours for so many Ages together be as valid sacred and binding to acknowledgment in the Case of Religion as Civil Matters will ever remain a question in Conscience and common Equity even after irresistible Power hath forced a Resolution otherwise It is true such is the more natural and Ancient Right Civil Power hath over the outward Persons of men than that which Religion hath over the Inward man that it may claim a dominion and disposal of the Persons of even Christian subjects contrary to the soft and infirm Laws of the Church because as hath been said Men are Men before they are Christians and Nature goeth before Grace And Civil society is the Basis and support to Ecclesiastical Yet the grounds of Christianity being once received for good and divine and that Religion cannot subsist nor the Church consist without being a Society and no Society without a Right of counsel and consultation and no consultation without a Right to assemble together the Right of assembling must needs be in trinsique to the Church it self Now if no man that is a Christian can take away the essential ingredient to the Church how can any deny this of Assembling For the practise of it constantly and confidently by the Apostles and brethren contrary to the express will of the Lawful Powers of the Jews and Romans and the reason given in the Acts of the Apostles of obeying God rather then man do imply certainly a Law and Charter from God so to do and if this be granted as it must who can deny by the same Rule necessity of Cause and constant Prescription that they may as well provide for the safety of the Faith by securing the state of the Church as for the truth and stability of the Church by securing the true Faith by doctrine and determination The Great question hath ever been Whether the Church should suffer loss of power and priviledges upon the Supream Powers becomming Christian Or the Supream power it self loose that dominion which it had before it became of the Church For if Christianity subjected Kings necessarily to the Laws of others not deriving from them then were not Kings in so good a Condition after they were Christians as before when they had no such pretences or restraints upon them and so should Christs Law destroy or maim at least the Law of God by which Kings reign But there may be somewhatsaid weakning this absurdity For Granting this That there is a God and that he is to be worshipped and that as he appointeth all which we must by nature believe it seems no less natural to have these observed than the Laws of natural Dominion Now granting that at present which if we be true to our Religion we must not deny viz. That Christian Religion is the true Religion and that God will be worshipped in such sort as is therein contained For any Prince absolute to submit to the essentials of that Religion is not to loose any thing of his Pristine Rights which he had before being an Heathen for he never had any Right to go against the Law of God more then to go against the Law of Nature but it doth restrain his Acts and the exercise of his Power And if the Supream after he hath embraced Christianity shall proceed to exert the same Authority over the Church as before yet the Church hath no power to resist or restrain him Civilly any more than when he was an Alien to it Now it being apparent that Christian Faith and Churches had their Forms of believing and Communion before Soveraign powers were converted and that he who is truly converted to a Religion doth embrace it upon the terms which he there finds not such as he brings with him or devises therefore there lies an Obligation upon such powers to preserve the same as they found it inviolate And truly for any secular Power to become Christian with a condition of inverting the orders of the Church and deluting the Faith is to take away much more than ordinary accrues unto it by such a change It is true the distinction is considerable between the Power of a Christian and unchristian King exerted in this manner because taking the Church in the Largest sense in which all Christians in Communion are of it what Christian Kings act with the Church may in some sense bear the name of the Church as it doth in the State acting according to their secular capacity but much more improperly there than here because there are no inferiour Officers or Magistrates in such a Commonwealth which are not of his founding and institution whatsoever they do referr to him and whatsoever almost he doth is executed by them But Christ as we have shewed having ordained special Officers of his own which derive not their Spiritual Power at all from the Civil and to this end that his Church might be duly taught and governed what is done without the concurrence of these can in no proper sense bear the name of the Church But many say the King is a Mixt person consisting partly of Ecclesiastical and partly Civil Authority but this taken in the ordinary latitude is to begg the Question and more a great deal than at first was demanded For who knows how far this Mixture extends and that it comprehends not the Mystical Power of the Church as well as the Political And how have they proved one more than the other by such a title It were reasonable therefore first to declare his Rights in Ecclesiastical matters as well as Civil and thence conclude he is a Mixt Person and not to affirm barely he is a Mixt Person and from thence inferr they know not what Ecclesiastical power themselves And if he hath such power whether it is immediately of God annexed to his Natural Right or by consent of the Church is attributed unto him For by taking this course we
may reconcile many otherwise contrary opinions found amongst the Ancient Fathers sometimes ascribing much of the Ecclesiastical Power to Christian Emperours and sometimes calling the same in question The Church of England so far as she hath declared herself herein seemeth to take the mean way and follow herein the Prescriptions of the Old Testament and the Precedents of Christian Emperors found in the Antient Church under the Gospel and doth profess to be the due of our Kings as much as ever any Kings upon earth to sway in Ecclesiastical matters In execution of which power as there was alwayes approbation moderated according to the customes of the Church so was there always Opposition when the bounds were exceeded And undoubtedly true is That we are taught by our Church to acknowledge That whatever in Church Constitutions and Canons Church of England Can. 2. matters was the Right of Jewish Kings or Christian Emperours of Old is so now the Right of our Kings But some not content herewith have out of the Title of Head given at the first attempts of Reformation to our King and made by acts of State Hereditary to his successors drawn an argument to prove all that power which rested in the Church to be devolved on the Kings of this Nation But this hath ever been disowned and disclaimed in such a large sense by themselves as appears by Queen Elizabeths Injunctions and an Act of Parliament in confirmation whereof I shall here only recite the opinion or testimony of Bishop Jewel in his view of Pius Quintus his seditious Bull Bishop Jewel against the Bull of Pius 5th against her in these his own word Where is the called Supream Head Peruse the Acts of Parliament the Records the Rolls and the Writs of Chancery or Exchequer which pass in her Graces name Where is she ever called Supream Head of the Church No No brethren she refuseth it she would not have it nor be so called Why then doth Christs Vicar blaze and spread abroad so gross an untruth c. This was her Judgement and modesty then when there was greatest cause to apprehend some such thing and what she thought of it I never could learn was ever otherwise interpreted by her Successors For notwithstanding that according to the most ancient and undoubted Rights of this Emperial Crown our Kings are supream Governors of the Church as well as State yet never was it expounded of the Church as they were Ecclesiastical but as they were of Civil capacity For herein differeth the Right of Kings according to our Reformation from that of Roman Perswasion That Clergy men becoming Sons of the Church in more especial manner than they of the Laity are not thereby exempted from the Civil Power either in matter of propertie or Criminalness But the Roman Church so far exalted and extended their Ecclesiastical Power as to withdraw such Persons and their Cases civil from Civil cognizance and judgement and assume it to themselves And this the Pope claiming very injuriously as Head of the Church To root up this usurpation Henry the eight null'd that his pretence and took the title to himself intending nothing more then to vindicate his Prerogative in that particular For though it cannot be denied that many and great Priviledges to this effect have been of Old granted by Christian Emperours to eminent Bishops to judge of their own Sons as they were called within themselves yet did they never claim this as a Native Right of the Church or Christianity but as an act of Grace from the Civil Power And though the Church following therein the Councel of St. Paul to go to Law rather before 1 Cor. 6. 1. the Just than unjust and that Christians should rather determine Causes of differences amongst themselves by arbitration than scandalously apply themselves to the Judgement Seat of Heathen did ever endeavour to determine business within it self and yet more especially the Clergy Yet they never denied a Right in Civil Autority to call them in question upon misdemeanours or to decide their Cases of Civil nature And for the other of Divine nature or purely Ecclesiastical Princes never expected or desired to intermeddle therewith This the Roman Deputy of Achaia Gallio understood not to concern his Juridical power when Act. 18. he refused to be a Judge of such matters as were esteemed Religious though in that violence was offered to the body of St. Paul before his face he might and ought to have shewn his Autority But when the Soveraign Power became Christian it was not thought unlawful at all nor scandalous to address themselves to it for decision of Controversies And this is it which is intended to be demanded now by our Kings in their Supremacy in Cases Ecclesiastical and Civil and acknowledged by the Clergy of this Church to be his due without that servile way of seeking leave from the Bishop of Rome or any under him Onely where it may be showed that Peculiar Grants of Exemptions from the common course of Justice have been made by Princes to the Clergy of the Church may it not seem equal that they should enjoy the benefit of them as well as others in other Cases But nothing is more unreasonable or intollerable then the impudence of those spitefully and malitiously bent against the Religion professed in our Church who argue from the Kings Supremacy over the Church such an absolute dominion there as they will by no means acknowledge due to him in the State If by Acts of Parliament a thing be confirmed to the Commonwealth it is lookt on as inviolable by the King and unalterable without the like solemn Revocation as was the Constitution But by vertue of the Ancient Right of the Crown they would have it believed the King may at his pleasure alter such solemn Acts made in behalf of the Church Without the concurrence of the Three Estates nothing is lookt upon as a standing Law to the Civil State but by vertue of this Supremacy Ecclesiastical they would have it believed that without any more ado without consent or counsel of the Church he may make what alteration of Religion he pleases which was never heard or dreamt of Yea and whereas not only his Civil but Ecclesiastical Power always acknowledged the Bounds of common benefit and extended not to destruction they would have it thought that he may when he pleaseth by vertue of such Headship destroy the Body of the Church and Religion and leave none at all so far at least as the withdrawing of all secular aid and advantage do hasten its ruine But they will not be of this opinion any longer than they have brought about their mischievous purposes Surely St. Paul who had 1 Cor. 5. 12. nothing to do at all with State matters and could not touch one that was without the Church by Ecclesiastical censure was as much the Head of the Church as ever any Prince in Christendom doth expressly declare that whatsoever
a man never was inserted into that Stock is more properly called Atheism or Heathenism or Privative and then is called Apostasie which is a professed renunciation of the Faith once received Or this Division is Partial and so it takes the name of Heresie upon it Schism then must needs be an outward Separation from the Communion of the Church But when we say Schism is a Separation we do not mean so strictly as if it consisted in the Act of Separating so much as the State For we do not call any man a Schismatique who sometimes refuses to communicate with the Church in its outward worship though that done wilfully is a direct way to it as all frequented Actions do at length terminate in habits of the same Nature but it is rather a State of separation and of Dissolution of the continuitie of Church in a moral or divine sense not natural which we seek into at present This Separate State then being a Relation of Opposition as the other was of Conjunction the Term denominating and signallizing both is to be enquired unto And that is insinuated alreadie and must needs be the Church and that as that is united unto Christ or the true Church For there is no separation from that which really is not though it may seem to be It must therefore be a true Church from whence Schismatical separation is made So far do they confute and confound themselves who excuse their Schismaticalness from that which principally constitutes Schism and Schismaticks viz. an acknowledgement of that to be a true Church from which they divide themselves and separate Again We are to note that Separation is either of Persons and Churches in Co-ordination or subordination according to that excellent and ancient distinction of Optatus saying It is one thing for a Bishop to communicate Optatus Mileviâ—â—â— Cont. Parmen Lib. 3. Aldâ— with a Bishop and another for a Lay man or the Inferiour Clergy to communicate with the Bishop And this because what may perhaps justifie a Non-communion with Co-ordinate Persons or Churches which have no autority one over another wil not excuse Subordinate Persons or Churches owing obedience to their Superiours from Schism From whence it is manifest that though all Schism be a Separation yet all Separation is not a Schism And though there may be many and just causes for a Separation there can be no cause to justifie a Schism For Schism is in its nature A studious Separation or State Separate against Christian Charity upon no sufficient Cause or grounds It must be affected or Studious because if upon necessity or involuntary the Diâ—junction of Churches is rather a punishment than a sin and an Infelicity rather than Iniquity as in the dayes of Anastatius the Emperour as Evagrius relates it Who so violently persecuted the Catholick Church in behalfe of the Eutychian Evagrius Hist Eccl. L. C. 30. Heresie that it was crumbled as it were into several parcels And the Governours could not communicate one with another but the Eastern and Western and African Churches were broke asunder Which farther shews that all Criminal Separation which we make Synonimous with Schism must likewise be an Act proceeding from the persons to separated and not the Act of another For no man can make another a Schismatick any more than he can make him a Lyar or a drunkard without his consent For if the Governours of one Church expeâ— out of Communion another upon no just grounds the Church thus separated is not the Schismatick but the other as appears from the words of Firmilianus Bishop of Cappadocia in St Cyprian concerning Pope Stephen advising him he should noâ— be too busie or presumptious in separating others lest he thereby separated himself so that if the Schism had broke out upon no good grounds he who was the Architect of it Separated himself as all others do and it is impossible any man should make though he may declare another a Schismatique any more than he can make him erre without his consent or be uncharitable Yet do they err also that from hence conclude that the Formal reason of Schism consists in Separating a mans self for it is rather the material Cause than formal The formal Cause being as in all other things the very Constitution it self with unreasonableness and uncharitableness No man can make another involuntarily an Heretick And therefore no man can make another a Schismatick All the Guilt redounding to the Agent noâ— Patient in such cases So that it is scarce worth the Enquiring Who began the breach of unity as it outwardly appears but who is actually and Really First divided from Christs Church For they surely are the proper Schismaticks though the name may stick closer to others To understand this we may consider that there is a Vertual Schism and a Formal Schism A Vertual Schism I call real division from Christs Church though it comes not to an open opposition to it or Defiance of it so that where ever is any heresie or considerable Errour nourished or maintained in a Church there is to be found a Schismatick also in reality though not in formality the reason hereof is well expressed by and may best come from the hand of an Adversary to u thus judiciously enquiring It is demanded first saith he Whether Schismaticks be Hereticks Answer The Common opinion Azâ—rius Inst Moral Tom. 1. Lib. 3. C. 20. of the Interpreters of the Canon Law and of the Summists is that the Heretick differs from the Schismatick in that Every Heretick is a Schismatick but not on the contrary Which they prove because the term Shismatick signifies Division But every Heretick turns away separates divides himself from the Church This is very plain and reasonable and so is the consequence from hence That where the Body is so corrupt as to be really infected with notorious errors there it is really so far as it is erroneous separated from the true Church and where it is so far separated from the true Church so far it is Schismatical And when a Church is thus far really Schismatical little or no Scruple is to be made of an outward Separation neither can a guilt be affixed unto it And on the other side if no such real separation and antecedent Guilt can be found in a Church in vain do diverse betake themselves to that specious Shift and evasion that they were cast out and went not out willingly from a Church and that they are willing to return but are not suffered For undoubtedly the very supposition is insincere and faulty that they forsook not the Church before they were ejected And the expulsion followed separation and dissention from it and was not rather the Effect than Cause of them as are all excommunications rightly used For to those that pretend they were turned out do not the doors stand open to receive them and that with thanks if they please to re-enter and re-unite themselves What do they here
it implies as much as to say Give us but our demands and then we will be quiet by which Rule no man should defend his own right in lesser matters which to part with perhaps would not utterly undo him but he must be lookt on as accessary to and guilty of his own destruction if the Invader shall have power enough to bring it upon him because he will not peaceably satisfie his unjust desires A man may be and our Saviour in the Gospel saith expresly Luk. 16. 10. is unjust in the least as well as in much And so undoubtedly are they who having no Autority but what they frame to themselves shall by violence and aggressions attempt to extort the least thing belonging of right to another though haply better spar'd than kept For it is a Case of Justice rather than Christianity In justice and common equity the inferiour members of a Church and state owe obedience to their Superiours in all things not contrary to the Law of God the Church or the Nation but at most they can claim such things that are as they say indifferent to be granted them out of Courtesie or Charity only And whoever was so wilfully stupid as not to perceive that Injustice is much more a sin than Uncharitableness and so whatever mischief or guilt shall fall out in such contentions must necessarily light upon the heads of the unjust Aggressour and not indiscreet Resister were it indiscretion to withstand to deny such bold and insolent demanders or uncharitableness both which are denied in the present Case For there can be nothing more unjust on the one side and unwise on the other than so rudely and unrighteously to require of another all that may be granted or to grant all such things as are so demanded And if they urge still The peace of the Church to require such concessions I shall answer Let them first as all good Christians ought to do observe the Peace of Nature and the Peace of Nations which is not to offer violence nor to be unjust nor to go out of their Rank and Order but with good Autority and then take care for the Peace of the Church But what can be more absurd than that men should break the Peace of Nations and Nature it self yea the Law of God and Scriptures which require to obey all that are in autority over us as well Ecclesiastically as Civilly and then so much as to mention the Peace of the Church especially calling that only the Peace of the Church which puts them into quiet possession of their desires But to this we add that it is also very false which is here supposed to be true For there is nothing more manifest than that with diverse things of indifferent nature they mix many things of indispensable use to a Church and such is that so much reproached and derided Hierarchie which all the earth sees they have made it their business to Destroy utterly And when we plainly see as we do that those things in nature indifferent are demanded chiefly as an introduction to a farther abolition of things we hold necessary we hold them no longer indifferent nor can we in common prudence or Christianity part with them to such person any more than we can in a neighbourly manner lend away an Ax or Hammer when we are assured they will be made use of to break open our houses and spoil us though we know they may possibly be made use of to other purposes The Second Obstacle rather than Objection cast in our way is the parity of their Case with the Church of England with that of the Church of England with the Roman wherein whether they show more Spite or Policy may be a question Their Policy imitates them who finding the war to lie heavy upon them at their own doors contrive by all means possible to translate it into another Country as was particularly seen in Hindersons Letter to his late Sacred Majesty who finding the ability of his pen and weight of his discourses advised him rather to turn himself against the common enemy the Papist And thus these men would needs oblige us to make our quarrel good against the Romanists that they may be the les molested in the pursuance of their most Schismatical designs against the Church in which they were educated And this being discovered we might well excuse ourselves from such a task as they would set us But this we have before resolved in good part and had we not might and shall in a very few words dispatch as somewhat out of its proper place We grant then there is a Schism between us and the Romanists And we grant that there can be no cause to be Schismaticks though for a Separation there may and that they are truly Schismaticks who have ministred just Cause of Separation Some we know out of an ancient Father have urged against us That there can be no cause to divide the Church which is true in two senses only First when that Church is not before really divided from other Churches of unquestion'd integrity Realy I say by deserting some considerable point of Faith or introducing some unchristian manner of worship though not Openly and Formally as hath been said Again it is true only in such junctures as the Father spake those words in which was an apt and orthodox agreement within itself both in Faith and manners in such Cases there can be no cause to divide the Church as did the Novatians and Donatists But it was never his purpose to say that no case could happen in which it was not lawful for one Church to leave the Communion of another when it was so often done So still the point is wholly whether cause was given or not and not whether such outward and wilful Separation was made For undoubtedly however some would mince the matter Separate we did and that wilfully from the Church of Rome and chose rather than were forced to go out And upon those very grounds we still stand out and refuse to return The gross corruptions there maintained and not lurking and the fear of the loss of our souls in there continuing and much more thither returning What those are hath been even now touched and we here add that notwithstanding 't is confessed such senses are found of their doctrine and superstitious worship in some private authors amongst them which they offer at first to them they would seduce which may put persons into a possibility of their continuing without incurring damnation yet the Publick autority of that Church which I suppose they will call their Church having evermore of late years censur'd purged and expunged such more tollerable constructions and appeared for the most harsh and uncatholick there can be no great regard had to the fairer opinions Again it is not sufficient that a Church hath a true sense of Christian Faith if it alloweth and commendeth a false and a wicked sense 'T is little to the
his face which is one of those outward Acts we here mean I will worship God and report that God is in you of a truth 1 Cor. 14. 25. 2 Cor. 9. 12. And in his Second Epistle he saith Your zeal hath provoked very many Which zeal was manifested in external works And who may not observe not only an Influence of the inward affections moving the outward parts but a Refluence as one may say of such outward acts upon the inward faculties to the exciting them And that speaking cholericly doth not only proceed from a principle of Angriness but augments the passion inward and so in love and zeal in matters as well divine as prophane acting humility and devotion outwardly doth wonderfully excite those graces in the inward man I shall add but one more argument to beget a better opinion of external and bodily services in Gods worship than vulgarly prevails And that is The general practice of the ancientest and best Christians I say best Christians and purest and perfectest worship of God in open defiance of them of late times who insolently magnifie themselves and modern inventions to the contempt of their much superiours in piety and years They had many outward rites and ceremonies adorning the worship of God which I prefer infinitely before the sowre and severe nakedness of Gods service amongst them 'T is not to be denied that in process of time Ceremonies multiplied to the prejudice of Religion but I think scarce at any so much as the affected prophaneness hath on the other side damnified it And they that argue from the great opinion some have of Ceremonies to the total abolition of them put an argument into the mouths of others to renounce communion with them that hate them and detest them to that superstitious excess as to have none at all and by the same rule to love them because they detest them who have been so scandalous in their opposition to them Now this external Worship we here plead for is an Adoration of God An humiliation of the Body by external Acts and gestures upon the consideration and reverent esteem of the Divine Presence and the small and low esteem we have of our selves which is so necessary and natural that it is to be admired how the contrary carriage could ever be received as pleasing to God or man were it not that the Tempter to irreligion knoweth no shame nor they who are abused by him and his Instruments no mean in flying Extreams What is more frequent in Scripture than examples of such as thus humbled themselves before God Falling down in Scripture which necessarily is bodily Adoration hath been alwayes such an inseparable concomitant of Divine inward worship such an excellent part of it that by a current Synecdoche it is put for the worship of God entirely and absolutely For what else may we understand by that Prophetical speech of Christ All Kings shall fall down before him all nations shall worship And so in the Prophet Esay Shall I fall down to the stock of a tree That is Psal 77. 11. Esay 44. 19. And so in the Prophet Esay Shall I fall down to the stock of a tree That is worship it in this bodily manner And so in the next Chapter and the 46. Chapter They fall down yea they worship by which words the Prophet Es 45. 14. Es 46. 6. condemns the Idolatrous practise then in use And as hath been said if there were nothing good in such outward adoration which might be pleasing to God it could not displease him to have it given unto Idols or false Gods as every where in Scripture it doth What a piece of matter had it been for the three Children of God to have fallen down before Nebuchadnezar's Dan. 3. â— Image in Daniel if there were no account to be made of such outward Acts not so much surely as of disobedience to the Kings command Nay what hurt would there be to fall down to the Devil as Christ was tempted to do by that Evil and ambitious Spirit if it did not at all belong to Mat. 4. 9. God Or what good do they what glory do we understand given by the 24 Elders to God in the Revelation when they fall down before the throne Rev. 4. 10. of God if so be there is nothing in it Surely therefore it is a part of our duty and service thus to adore the Divine Majesty thus to humble our bodies in his presence And it is seen commonly in Bowing or inclining any part of the body and sometimes of the whole by casting it upon the earth as unworthy to stand before God and to beget the deeper sense of our own vileness and to move God to pitty our prostrated body and dejected mind Sometimes it may suffice to Luk. 18. 33. incline the head as it were blushing to lift it up with any confidence towards God and heaven Sometimes incurvation of the Body sometimes bending of the knee and sometimes constant and devout kneeling according as occasion and opportunity shall be offered and the spring of inward devotion move the outward parts of the body For all this while we urge not so necessarily any much less all these outward acts so as to require them simply to divine worship as if a Man could not be accepted without them Yet so far again we do that where just autority competent opportunity and means expect any of these from us wilfully and contemptuously to neglect them doth make me really believe that God will not hear or accept the pretended real devotion of the inward man as being corrupted with disobedience and irreverence and exclusive of part of his Right And an other rule for directing this manner of worship is this that we are not singly and of our own head in publick to put in use or act any such ceremonious devotion to the offence of the more general custom and warranted practise of the Churches of which we are Members For all Acts of Reverence are to be estimated not by private opinions but by publick and general approbation For seeing scarce any ceremony is natural but all by institution and reputation of men judged proper or indecent this Decency the Custom of places and Sentence of Superiours must determine lest the Church falls into that unhappy state of which Austin complains and be subjected to more burdensome and contrary Rites than the Jewish Church suffered while it is thought lawful under the Gospel which was not tolerated under the Law for every single man either to devise a form of worshipping God out of his own head or to bring those Rites into that Church in which he lives by his own will which he had observed to be in use in others whereof perhaps he hath read or which in his Travels he hath seen which the farther they have been and more strange always pass for the most commendable a thing which St. Austin in that Epistle condemns and
certain supposals made of having for instance greater measure of Grace from God But such as this last cannot prejudice the two former because we are not now speaking of Particulars which are infinite according to emergent occasions and so can be no rule to direct men by but of those things which may be reduced to general Rules nothing personal is considered in them And thus the former Opinion holds good which distinguisheth two Classes of Christians from the two several methods and ways before them And that though Martha may certainly attain heaven Yet Mary may set above her there and that by reason that she had on earth chosen the better part For the better concluding this point I shall transcribe Gersons modest and moderate sense of it as that which I hold very fair and reasonable in a Treatise on purpose of these things Though it be acknowledged that Counsels conduce to the perfection of Christian life Si Concilia ad vitae Christianae perfectionem facere dinoscantur non tamen essentialiter hominem perficiunt c. Gerson de Consiliis Egelic yet they are not essentially requisite to Christian perfection The first of these is clear from the discourse of the Gospel For the second it is thus argued Because many have been perfect in a spiritual life without the observation of Evangelical Counsels as appears from Abraham and from Job From whence it is manifest that Evangelical Counsels so far pertain to perfection of Spiritual Life and conduce to it because they are as so many Instruments exceedingly expediting and furthering perfection of Spiritual Life to be obtain'd and preserves it being once had Thus he and no more nor less do I mean or intend to say at present concerning the use of them which being rightly understood and fairly considered is sufficient to plead for it self But could this be only said for it that no man hath dar'd directly to condemn it it might suffice an equal mind For though there were more than a good many that deny the Institution of them in Scriptures they cannot deny the things so commended to be lawful and consonant to Christian Religion and the Scriptures nor that those methods duly observed make not towards the high ends of Christianity only sundry Cases they are able to put and I make no doubt but might give many Instances of the not only vain but evil success of such means But so may they of many more things which they hold requisite to edification and increase of Grace Was not Judas much worse after the Eucharist received for that he did receive it contrary to some mens opinion I here suppose than he was before And we can instance in many who by zealous preaching and prayer have exposed themselves and others to greater damnation than if they had never taken on them that holy function or these had not so devoutly throng'd them Dr. Humphrey therefore against Campian speaketh as much Humphredus contra 2 Ration Campiani as I think the Church of Rome it self demands in this though he showes an aversness to agreement therein as suspecting what is no wayes to be feared as being a contradiction to the state of the Question it self which supposeth that those perfections are rather voluntary than necessary free and not constrained and the very tearms of the question declare they are Counsels and not Commands and yet he pleases to write thus They call them Evangelical Counsels which are not commanded in the Gospel And what Christ speaks of Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heavens sake in the Gospel and what Saint Paul speaks of Virginity we oppose not greatly Let it be a Counsel to whom it is given but we have already shewed that Counsels no less than Precepts are given to all though all do not and none are bound to take them simply so they consent that it is not commanded Let it be free so it be not constrain'd Let it be voluntary so it be not necessary not by a vowing Law not obtruded upon men It were a manifest contradiction to hold that such Counsels should be so necessary or forced None does none can hold them so There are not wanting indeed too many Instances of these states imposed upon persons without any consent of theirs and this is a notorious and unsufferable abuse of them not in a sober mode defended by the practisers of it In such Cases until at least there shall be a free consent postnate to that state it can neither be called Counsel nor Perfection but on the one hand extream and barbarous tyranny and villany and on the other unprofitable misery and compulsion But that which troubles many is the Vow annext to and confirming such like righteous resolutions For a Vow say they makes it necessary and destroys liberty Indeed if this liberty were taken away by any man besides ones self no small invasion of both natural and Christian liberty to the reproach of such bonds But when a man freely binds himself he is more afraid than hurt in his precious jewel Liberty And is there not a Vow in marriage as well as in single life Should therefore a man refuse to marry because he thereby doth apparently take away his liberty as St. Paul expresly teaches where he tells us A man that is married hath not power over his own body 1 Cor. 7. 4. nor a woman power of her body Indeed this he may do out of prudence humane if he pleases But if he pleases to marry and not pleases to vow Chastity and Constancie in marriage he would be a profaner of that sacred Order If they say that this is necessary but the other is not necessary and therefore this may be lawful and useful but not the other I answer first this begs the thing in question which is that we are not to vow but in things in themselves good or evil which contradicts all examples of commendable vows in Scripture Secondly That it is equally necessary a man should live in Chastity whether in single or wedded life and it is certain there is no invincible necessity of seeking remedy against the temptations of a single life by marriage And it is certain likewise that marriage doth not infallibly prevent the mischiefs of incontinence of an higher nature And seldom is it found but the same person if he used the like care and conscience over himself before his marriage that he doth and hath bound himself to do after his marriage but he might live continently out of marriage as well as in marriage For very many accidents do occur and some constantly in wedlock which renders that remedy useless to men Now if it be argued that a man ought not to vow Virginal or Vidual Chastity because many times which is true the Devil takes an occasion from thence to tempt him worse the same will be said against the Vow of Fidelity to God and Man in the state of Matrimony For the fall is much worse and the
both possible and laudable And that it is lawful to vow Celibacie or Widowhood No Presidents in the Old Testament favouring Virginity The Virgin Mary vowed not Virginity no Votary before the Annunciation VVE now come to speak more particularly of Vows as to their matter And because the matter of Vows may be infinite as good and evil to which they extend themselves to Good affirmatively and Evil negatively I shall confine my Discourse at present to the three most noted things in Vows in which we have said the states of serving God principally consisteth A Clerical state a state Virginal or Vidual and a state Monastical all which ordinarily do or may relate to the worship of God in a more eminent manner yet not with such inseparable vertues to that end that it may not and doth not often happen that they expose to greater mischiefs But it must alwayes be remembered that we nor any man else do not compare the vices of a single life with the vertues of a married life nor compare the vices of a separate and claustral life with the sobriety of a political life For who is so fond and blind a Patron of them as to commend them before these And yet we find most of the Adversaries of the said states to argue from this most unequal supposition that the one lives contrary to his Rule and Order and the other agreably to his and then having thus disadvantageously stated the Case triumph in a vain and silly victory they presume to have obtained But put the Case as in all justice and reason it ought to be between a person that keeps to the rules and ends of separate and single life and him that keeps to the rules and ends of a conjugal life or political and then let the matter be fairly debated and determined which is to be preferred before other Now that such a supposition may be made and that a separate state from women and on the other side of women from men may be laudably made good which too many are so hard of belief as to judge next to impossible will appear from these three heads From the Scripture From Examples And from the favourable sense to be made of such estates First our Saviour supposes it done and implicitly recommends the doing of it to others which he would never have done had there been no moral possibility of observing the same For saying in St. Matthew There be Matth. 19. 12. Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heavens sake He that is able to receive it let him receive it Is there any Expositour of account in the Church who can deny that Christ spake here of marriage Can they deny that Christ gives his approbation of that Eunuchism voluntary or denyal to a mans self the ordinary use of women Can they deny that he advises to it upon supposition that a man is able How then can they deny the moral possibility of Virginal Chastity And doth not St. Paul wishing that All men were as he 1 Cor. 7. 7. was wish that they lived in single estate at least if not Virginity And doth he not in the forecited place to Timothy condemn those persons who have 1 Tim. 5. violated their troth given to Christ to live sequester'd from men I know late Interpreters have drawn the Apostles words to another sense but contrary to the received and therefore easily not received by any man These and many other places of Scripture especially in the Seventh Chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians which do prefer and exhort to single life do much more advise us of the possibility of duly persevering in that state and at the same time of the Eligibleness of that state above the contrary Secondly The examples of the pure and holy life of unwedded persons are innumerable and so glorious as it puts me to the blush for them who cannot blush to oppose such a cloud of witnesses of Fathers and Councils and Canons Special concerning the tuition and value of such Livers rather than Injunctions to that state and eminent lights of Examples as all Ecclesiastical Histories abound with They are confessedly many great and certain and therefore I shall spare the labour of instancing in any of them as likewise of the many and rich ornaments of Rhetorick wherewith the ancient Fathers have decked and commended that state even to that degree that they may be thought sometimes to have overdone in the point And do often put in seasonable and serious Cautions that the eminence of Aug de Sanct. Virginitar c. 1. cap. 8. cap. 11. 1 Cor. 7. 35. Ecclesia Christi gratid ejus qui pro se crucifixus est roberata c. Origen Hom. 3. in Genes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c Chrys Hom. 61. Tom. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys Hom. 77. in Matthaeum that condition should not give them the temptation of high-mindedness and pride As Augustine saying Virginitas is not only to be magnified that it might be loved but admonished that it be not puffed up And afterward For even that it self is not honorable so much because it is Virginity but because it is dedicated to God So that in another place he saith I speak not rashly a Woman that is married is better then a Virgin to be married for she hath what the other desireth It is not therefore simply good but only as it renders a person more apt to serve God with better attention less distraction as St. Paul intimateth and more devotion and is a great victory over the natural will and a self denyal of the lawful use of the world as Origen upon Genesis noteth For saith he the Church of Christ being fortified by the Grace of him that was crucified for her not only abstaineth from unlawful and abominable beds but also from lawful c. St. Chrysostome commends the state of Religion under the Gospel from this that under the Law Virginity is not so much as mentioned any farther then by way of Prophesie as to be in the New Law of Christ and that particularly in Psalm 45. v. 14 15. And in another Homily he gives us the reason why Virginity was not commanded in the New Testament viz. because of its Excellencie which all good Christians could not attain to And perhaps which is a third thing to be noted in devoting single life to God the severities and fears are too much aggravated by some and the difficulties of preserving the soul and mind chast and pure wherein true Virginity consisteth rather than in corporal Integrity as the Fathers and particularly St. Austin grants and proves at large For when Chastity is vowed certainly all evil motions and inward lustings Aug. de Civ Dei lib. 1. cap. 17 18. are declared against as well as outward impurities but alwayes with a supposal of humane frailties and allowances for suddain unadvised and unapproved evil cogitations Nay perhaps though a person fails so far as to
entertain with assent and consent morose thoughts as they call lasting and delighting cogitations of sin he may not be said to break the form of his Vow though he in some measure violates the end of his Vow And as to sin which is contained in the Vow of Virginity mens hands and minds were tyed from that before they vowed as really though not so strongly as afterward The precise object therefore of such Vows is properly an unwedded life together with Chastity Which that it is not so unsuperable a difficulty as to exceed the ordinary power of man by the Grace of God enabling him appears from the ordinary course of life of the opposers of that state For do not they themselves pass through the difficult and fiery tryals of such temptations frequently in the prime of their dayes the strength of corrupt nature and weakness of reason faith and prudence to bridle irregular inclinations and yet would take it very ill men should condemn them for violaters of Gods Laws and impure offenders in that kind Can civil prudence or policie secure them in the most dangerous time of all till they are freed from that place which makes them uncapable of being married or they are put into a fair and hopeful condition to live handsomly in the world according to their judgment and design and may not the higher and nobler ends of Religion propounded to a mans self and studiously improved have the same effect and give them the same or greater safety Do they many of them live chastly for thirty years it may be more or less unmarried and yet would be loath to be censured for unchast persons and that upon the grounds of humane and carnal prudence and dare they to decree them to naughtiness out of necessity who shall choose that life perpetually out of the grounds of Religion This hangs very ill together They will say out of St. Paul It is better to marry than to burn Very good But when and how and on whom doth this Rule take place so soon as he begins to burn Or though he burns not till he be rich enough and is outwardly accommodated to his likeing Can a man preserve himself for the worlds sake when he may less expect the assistance of Gods Grace and can he not for Gods sake when he may more hope for it But Theodoret doth in great part relieve 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod. Haeretic Fabularum l. 5. c. 26. both one and other where he interprets St. Paul not so rigorously that all infestation of lustful motions should oblige any person to marriage but only such an evil which should wholly master a man Yet is not any person from the remission of the severest Law of Chastity by the favour of God to indulge to himself a latitude in the custody he ought to have over his person for then it becomes not a venial or light Infirmity but a presumptuous breach of his Vow and Gods Law But yet there remains the old known exception against what issaid which not absolutely denying the possibility of such a life denys that any such state of life is to be chosen under the bonds of a Vow To which we may yield Vide eriam Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To. 6. pag. 251. Bellarm. de Monachis l. 2. c. 22. thus much that at the first publishing of the Gospel and practise of single life such Vows of Virginity or chast Widowhood were in less use than afterward That there was not any such life in ordinary use nay so much as mentioned in the Church of the Jews we have heard Chrysostome positively oppose and thereby refel the bold argument of Bellarmine proving the Virgin Mary had made a vow of perpetual Virginity before the Salutation of the Angel towards her which as he and Baronius with many of the same mettal was the cause she wondered so at the manner of speech to her But there were other causes sufficient to cause wonder in the Blessed Virgin besides a Vow of Virginity though some Fathers prone to imagine the highest it may be of the Holy Virgin have in the height of their Rhetorick let fall somewhat to that purpose Yet it is manifest from the See Selden de Jure Gen ium apud Heâ—raeâ—â— lib. 5. cap. 3. Records of the Jewish Church there was nothing of that nature in use amongst them and if not It is not to be believed that the Virgin Mary took up such a strange and illaudable resolution as that was amongst them who esteemed want of off-spring no small disparagement to them I wonder here most at Perkins how his fervour and judgment should so far fail him herein as to give such an unnecessary advantage to his Enemies to affirm that Jeptha's daughter was the first that vowed Virginity When it is most certain that if that sense be granted that she was not sacrificed properly but only devoted to God this was no free act chosen by her self but a sad sentence of her Father condemning her to that unhappy state of life But that it is lawful not only to do this but also Vow the performance thereof needs no other arguments than may be easily drawn from the general grounds of the lawfulness and usefulness of Vows in the former Chapter And the constant practise of the most Saints of God in the Church of God whom upon such account as this for men to pelt with vain censures is the very next way to ruin their own esteem and reputation which they may aim to raise by such unfortunate attempts unless perhaps with such who can judge of nothing but from their mouths For what a man may do lawfully without a Vow he may do much more with a Vow but such things as these may be done without a Vow therefore also with one CHAP. V. Of the second state of special serving God the Clerical state or Ministerial Of the necessity and liberty of singleness of life in a Clergy-man The Opinion and custom of Antiquity concerning it That it is in the power of the Church at this day to restrain or permit the marriage of Priests The Conveniencies and Inconveniencies of wedded life in Priests Chrysostom's Judgment of Marriage and Virginity recited IN the next place we are to look into the state of serving God in Ecclesiastical Ministration and here first apply what is above spoken concerning Celebacie to the Clergy There are not wanting amongst the Romanists who annex Celebacie to a Clerical Life by a Divine Precept but with so little probability of truth and modesty of writing that the learnedest of their own Party are ashamed of them and confute them and so we leave them The most current opinion is That by perpetual Tradition and Precept of the Church marriage of the Clergy hath been restrained But this will by no means hold First against the very first institution of Ecclesiastical Persons by Christ himself who as it were to sanctifie marriage
in general concerned himself in the marriage of others And to declare how that state was not at all inconsistent with a state Clerical of twelve Disciples John 2. 1 2. which Christ chose to minister for him Eleven are supposed to be married persons or at least to have been married formerly To answer which by saying that after they were chosen they forsook their wives is to evade and not really to answer First because it had been as easie for Christ surely to have picked out a dozen persons free from the knowledge of women as to make choice of such as were wedded had he judged any incapacity in these to the Evangelical Ministery But secondly do we find any thing in special prescribed by Christ for such separation from wives more than for other Christians who were not Ministers of the Gospel For of all faithful Christians it is spoken in certain junctures that whoever forsaketh not Father and Mother and Brethren and Sisters and Wise and Children for Christs sake cannot be his Disciple And there is no rule but common necessity and prudence not Divine prescription which requires any man for the Gospels sake to forsake his Wife rather than his Father and Mother Yet that the Apostles did actually absent rather than separate themselves from their Wives and that others who enter'd into the ministration to the Church under the Apostles foreseeing what St. Paul expresseth the present distress of the Church as well in regard of the 1 Cor. 7. 26. persecutions of the Church as the paucity of Preachers the greatness of the Harvest and the small number of Labourers did decline the state of marriage is very probable because they were required by Christs Injunction to Go and teach all Nations which travelling life ill could consist with cohabitation with Wives And therefore it must be given them Gratis and not by the merits of any reason oâ— grounds they can show that that such relinquishing of their Wives was either total or upon conscience made of the thing it self Doth not St. Paul say expresly in the words before those now touched Concerning Virgins I have no commandment of the Lord If such as served at the Altar were to be excepted surely he 1 Cor. 7. 25. would not have left the Rule so general as we find speaking only according to humane prudence And though they search with their best eyes they shall not be able to find in any other writings of the Apostles one Text o Scripture obliging Bishops or Priests to singleness of life more than those of the Laity unless they argue from reason That Virginal Chastity is more severe more pure more spiritual than conjugal which is yielded and therefore more obliging the Clergy who should be more spiritual persons then others all which I deny not but say that this binds them no more from marriage than it doth from wine and strong drink which if none of the Clergy ever used they were the more to be commended unless in such cases as St. Paul advises Timothy For their stomachs sake and often infirmities And thus is Bellarmin's first proof laid Bellarm. de Clericis l. 1. c. 19. The sole grounds then of unmarried state of Priests must be fetch'd from Tradition and Reason of both which we shall presume to speak a word or two Apostolical Tradition is pretended but not trusting much to that recourse is had to the Old Testament from certain allegorical interpretations made of some Rites in Moses's Law which may do well in the Church where they used them to perswade but ill in the Schools to prove the same as a necessary duty The argument taken from the custom of the Priest abstaining from their Wives during the time of their ministration I do really 1 Chron. 24. believe to have had an influence upon Primitive Christians Judaizing in many other things of like nature to restrain them from the use of their Wives upon solemn ministrations But this was without Law or Canon freely undertaken and embraced as was Celebacie it self at first until about the year 385. Siricius Bishop of Rome made a constitution that it should and ought to be and that on that ground And that the inferiour Orders such as Ostiaries Readers Exorcists and Acolythites should only be permitted to marry But Alexander the third about the year 1160 proceeded according to the method of that Church to shut them also out the doors of Orders that should presume to marry But all that was done against those in greater or sacred Orders in the Church for more than three hundred years after Christ was to deny such as were married access to the Altar by way of ministration who from that time abstained not from their Wives as did the Council of Arles and some in Spain Only a custom prevailed very generally and anciently to suffer none who were in those called Sacred Orders such as were Bishops and Priests and Deacons to marry after they were so ordained for if they did they were dismissed of their Office or their Wives The Eastern Church ever accepted of married persons into the Clergy and at length understanding the Apostle Let the Bishops be the husbands of one wife as a Precept rather than a Caution that they should be husbands of no more then one which in all likelyhood the truest sense in the Sixth Council In Trullo decreed they only should be received into Priestly Orders who were married And therefore all antiquity for twelve hundred years together fails them in this that it was otherwise then voluntary that married Priests lived from their Wives who had before orders or that married Men might not be made Priests though 't is confessed they preferred unmarried Persons before them until that Sixth Council which for that reason amongst others Bellarmine calls a Profane Synod and Baronius impious such a great veneration have they for the Autority of the Church when it speaks not their sense Yet as we are far from giving an exact and full account of this long controversie here so are we so far as I can Divine at the judgment of our Church willing to accommodate the matter with others that can digest any thing but their own stout devises to acknowledge a Power in the Church to bind or loose her sons of the Clergy to an unmarried state or to leave them free For to aggravate matters to that height as to make it absolute tyranny or Antichristian and to be against the word of God which saith Marriage is honourable in all things and the like implyes more of the weakness of the Arguer than strength in the Argument more of spite and passion than ingenuity or soberness For 't is answered very sufficiently marriage is not condemned but virginity commended before it Marriage is not at all declared to be evil when Celebacie is said to be much better Marriage is not condemned when certain persons are condemned for marrying Doth a Father that should cast off
his Son for marrying without his liking and approbation fall into the guilt of those Hereticks against which the Scripture and Antiquity both make who simply condemn Marriage in it self as unclean and evil No more surely doth that Church which prohibits it conditionally to her children We hear of many husbands dying who leave their wives such an additional Estate as they could not by any Law challenge so long as they continue unmarried or upon condition of continuing in the state of widowhood And so may a Father gratifie and oblige his children if he pleases without incurring the suspicion of holding marriages unlawful whatever other censure may pass upon them And when the Church saith she will not admit any to minister in her Family more immediately before God what doth she say more than that Master of a Family who will not have a married servant in his house about him but likes it very well to use his service in other matters And does this deserve such noise and out-cryes as are made against it Undoubtedly it is as free for the Church to judge of persons fit and unfit for her use as for any Lord or Master whatever And to make a Law not absolute that such a thing should not be done but that none that do such things should beimplyed in such offices And what reason is there that Civil Policie shall directly deny this but Ecclesiastical prudence may not Are there not many other Societies as well as Ecclesiastical which without reproach do the very same thing Men have a Freedom to do the thing or not to do it and more the Scripture hath not left us but to do it without observing any condition from Superiour neither the Law of God or Man hath left free Can there be therefore any more moderate or equal course than so to leave the matter that the one singleness of life shall be commended above the other and peradventure countenanced and encouraged but the other accepted too Yet neither extream will be content with this But one will have a Law to abstract and the other as it should seem by their reasons out of Scripture have it enjoyn'd though they put a stop to the conclusion and will not have it contain what if their Premisses be good it must For if every Bishop must be the husband of one wife and every Priest be a Bishop surely every Priest must marry And if innocencie and purity can be no otherwise maintained surely the Scripture requiring these requires that too But now we come to the conveniencies and incommodities of the state Virginal and Vidual in reference to the Clergy For now waving the supposition of any Divine injunction several Divine and Political reasons have been invented sufficient to determine against Priests some of which being ridiculous some profane and some heretical we shall mention only such as have somewhat of sobriety The first whereof may be That it becometh such as attend on so sacred a thing as Gods Altar to be pure of body and mind too And therefâ—re to abstain from all fleshly acts We know how that Flesh in Gods word goes under suspicion generally of somewhat impure and contrary to spiritualness and true purity and so indeed all fleshliness must be avoided But in it self it implies no more than a state of imperfection not inconsistent with though much inferiour to spiritual acts In the first sense Covetousness Ambition Pride and such like are Fleshly lusts no less than Venery In the second Conjugal acts and state are in the sense of the Gospel no more Fleshly than eating and drinking But whereas we find many to have been willing to be mistaken in so colourable a piece of Religion as to declare even against the natural pollutions as they may be called as prejudicial in themselves to spiritual perfection whether the will concurs thereunto or not and though proper circumstances be duly observed I cannot excuse them from Munichaean errour wholly or at least Judaical And Zonaras hath in a learned and sober Tractate on purpose declared Zonaras apud Leunclavium Jur. Graeco Lat. Tom. 1. p. 351. Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tom. 6. Serm. 19. the contrary showing it no more a pollution of the Flesh than a foul nose may to which I refer the learned as also to a peculiar Treatise Chrysostome hath of Virginity where he satisfies both the superstitious and brutish Christian him who though he declares against ancient Heresies concerning lawful marriage yet advances such arguments to commend and prefer Virginity which Hereticks were condemned for using this man in that he at large disputeth against Marcion Valentinus and Manes by name for their excessive magnifying Virginity to the absolute condemnation of marriage and yet withal abounds in the praise and prelation of Virginity and sheweth that it is necessary to hold marriage lawful and of God before any man can please God in virginity He sheweth first that no such Heretick as condemns Marriage absolutely shall be rewarded for their pretended purity He proveth next They shall be damn'd rather for it while the Catholicks shall be promoted to the Societies of Angels become bright Lamps in Heaven and which is above all abide with the Bride He showeth they are worse than the Heathen Greeks who so judge of Virginity and Marriage The Gentiles saith he shall surely go to Hell but yet with this advantage that they enjoy the pleasures of Marriage Riches and other worldly comforts for a time But Hereticks shall be punished both here and hereafter Here they they are punished by voluntary abstinences there by involuntary Plagues The Gentiles shall neither be the better nor worse for their Fastings and Chastities but Hereticks shall suffer extream punishment for the things they expected ten thousand thanks For Fasting and Virginity are neither good nor evil in themselves but only according to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys ib. the choice of them that use them they may be either Nay says he afterwards the sobriety of Hereticks is much worse then the riotousness of any Heathens For this only opposes Man but that fights against God And afterward Hereticks professing Chastity not only pollute their souls but bodies also And again He that condemneth marriage injureth Virginity also And much more to this purpose Now if after all this he abounds in the extolling of Virginity above Marriage making it an Angelical life at which Puritans are wont to mock and scoff which have stood them in more stead then Scripture it self to make way for their opinions with what pretense of antiquity can the Levellers of all orders and states of Christianity object against Virginal or Vidual Chastity either as not possible or not lawful or not more commendable than a wedded state And with what hazard of incurring the censure upon ancient Hereticks do modern Patrons of Chastity raise their building upon their rotten foundations as too many who are ashamed of it do notwithstanding Surely this may
years since saith Austin in another Epistle there arose at Rome one Jovinian who is said to have perswaded certain holy Nuns even grown into years to marry not enticing them so far as to take any of them to wife but by arguing that Virgins devoted to holiness found no greater reward from God than faithful married persons For such his opinion Jovinian fared never the better amongst the primest Fathers of the Church and still we hold to this Rule not easily to lend an ear to modern Reformers how eminent soever against the torrent of more eminent Fathers of the Church There are three things specially to be observed in Monastick Life according to which we may judge of the reasonableness and piety of the same 1. The Original 2. The Form or Manner of Living 3. The End and Effects of it Surely the Original was very ancient though not to be fetched so far backward as Elias or John the Baptist though Sozomen Sozomenus Hist Eccles lib. 1. cap. 12. would from thence derive it And no wonder if others of laters years have been of that mind It is generally agreed amongst Writers that the Hermites or Anachorets of Aegypt first professed such separations from men partly out of pure Devotion and partly not wholly as some suppose upon the violent persecutions raised in those parts in those early dayes But afterward those dispersed persons began to gather together in companies and societies St. Chrysostome in a certain Homily assures us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys Serin 25 in Hebraeos Polyd. Virg de Invent. lib. 7. c. 2. Schafnaburg de Rebus Germ. Ann◠1025. that in St. Paul's dayes not the least foot-step of a Monk was to be found Before St. Basil's time saith Polydore Virgil Monks were left to their own liberty and so were Nuns too to continue in or relinquish that state as they pleased as appears from many instances might be given But such as had once professed or pretended such a state and after deserted it were judged by all most infamous and fear of shame had the force of a Vow upon them nevertheless St. Basil brought them into a Society propounded Rules unto them and brought them under that threefold Vow of Chastity Obedience and Poverty which hath continued unto this day Yet there are not wanting some as Lambertus Schafnaburgensis who complaining of the new Orders of Monks brought in by Dominick and Francis have thought it safer to be free from such bonds as have been cast upon men beyond their ability to endure But what should I add to what upon this subject hath been so largely and learnedly treated of by others Only the Popery of this state of Life is it which has brought an ill name upon the thing it self But the exception is too general trivial and trite to move knowing and sober Christians though it may go far with such as have nothing from their Lecturer with whom the Scripture it self is of no other use than such shall please to apply it unto Who can deny but Popish corruptions have tainted the purity and simplicity of former Ages in the regiment of Monks But those most of them which Perkins instances in are too light to bring the thing into disgrace and utter dislike And such are Copes and Cowles and other Monkish Habits as also Quire-singing Vowed Fasts and choice Meats Against which Mr. Perkins his pains had been better spar'd than spent For Perkins Denonstration of the Probiem p. 594 595. as it is necessary that all orders in the Common-wealth should be distinguished accordingly and their Habits are proper cognizances for that purpose and none but Artisans and such persons that are neither Gentlemen nor in any place of Honour or Power malign such a distinction So should the several orders and professions be preserved and appear distinct by their outward garb to advertise them of their duty and profession and a we them before the eyes of all men to a walking conformable to their profession others to be subject to just censures and reprehension of men and none but low and ignoble Christians do malign and oppose them And that it should be indecent or as they would fain but in vain quarrel with such outward Habits unlawful is ridiculous to affirm and a greater argument of more superstition lurking in the souls of these scandalized persons than can be found in the thing accused But to except against Quire-singing is not only frivolous but impious without limitation And choice of meats and especially Fastings vowed are as far out of their power to disprove soberly as it is out of their will to pretend to or imitate But there are some things here called fundamental differencing ancient Perkins ibid. Monks from the present First They lived solitarily of necessity to be safer from persecution This is not true in all Secondly They were not constrained to give all that they had to the poor But where lyes the accusation here In constraining or being constrained We now speak of the Monastick person and I hope it is no sin in him to suffer such or greater violence as to the Injurer let him look to it And in truth I do not determine any thing in this case To the Fourth that Monks were not then bound to any certain Rules it is answered in part already that while they lived separate and were not form'd into a Society it was not so requisite But St. Basil doth show how much better it is to live in caenobio in company with Basilius M. Regul Fus Disput 7. others than Hermite-like to skulk in holes or wander up and down in deserts And that first because there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he calls it a self-pleasingness in such free solitariness and Secondly such keep shut up without exercise that ability they have being ignorant as well of their own defects as of others proficiencie There are causes enough besides such pitiful exceptions above mentioned to condemn the most irregular constitutions of such Regulars as are thick sown in the Roman Church I might begin with the excessive number of them to the prejudice of such states where they are planted I might proceed to the nature of them and horrible loosness tolerated in them of which so many Authors have too justly complained and continue to declare the intolerable strictness of some either requiring a gross Dispensation to the voiding of the express will of their Founder or to the shortning the dayes of many persevering in the rigorous observation of them The very rules likewise themselves are many times most superstitious And above all the foul usurpation the Pope of Rome hath over them to the disobliging them from their proper Bishops and thereby making them Schismaticks and himself a Tyrant it being certain that of old both by course consequence custome and Canons of the Church all Monasteries and Religious Societies were and still ought to be subject to the Bishop of that
Place where their Site was And to this purpose is there express provision made by a Council of Ments in the middle age of the Church under Charles the Great in the ninth Chapter that the Monks of Religious Houses should be subject to their proper Bishop and do nothing without his approbation But it is one thing to plead in general for the lawfulness and expediencie of Monastick Life and that of both sexes and another to deliver laws and due prescriptions for the well disciplining of them which is the work of the wisest heads and sincerest hearts to Religion to be here passed over There may yet seem somewhat due to an objection against the said state taken from the vow exacted from such as enter themselves into it which no wonder that they who oppose so blindly the thing it self should much more oppose But they who approve of it can find little reason to quarrel at that bond And that first because such Monastick Life is not alwaies in Society which they call Convents but may be undertaken at a mans own pleasure both for time and place and other circumstances every Christian having power to dispose of himself not prejudicing the general right and inteâ—â—â—t of his Governours over him to what life he pleases and with what â—â—â—cumstances But if a man resolves to become a member of some special Society already formed by certain Rules and Laws to desire to be matriculated into that Body and not to be willing to conform to the constitutions of it is unjust and unreasonable And so Pikewise not to give that outword and common assurance of faithful submission unto the same by an Oath of Vow For do men think it reasonable that Prentises should be bound to be true faithful and keep their Masters secrets even before they know them and when they know them to be none of the justest or honestest or shall men that enter but into civil Companies be it but of Merchant-Taylers or Barber-Surgeons be constrained by Oath to be true and faithful to them but they who are admitted into Religious Societies be left to do and live as the please What were this but to seek an occasion under colour of friendliness and good affection to divide and destroy it as is apparent in the seemingly modest pretenses of dissenters and disaffected persons to our Church who upon condition that they may give and reverse certain orders and laws offer themselves to become one with it Thus the Vulgar take it but in truth it is for the Church to be one with them And is not this a notable piece of modesty condescension and complyance But here let that rest as also what we have to say of the second thing generally to be consider'd in the Worship of God viz. The state of serving God CHAP. VII Of Religious Worship the third thing considerable in it viz. The Exercise of it in the several kinds of it And first of Prayer the chiefest Act of Gods Worship contrary to Sectaries who are Enemies to it in three respects And first by their vain conceit of Preaching wherein consisteth not the proper Worship of God as in Prayer THE third thing wherein the worship of God may be said yet more properly to consist is the Kinds of Worship And these we shall reduce to three Prayer Preaching and Obedience in the due exercise of all Christian Graces and Vertues wherein the Life of Faith properly consisteth And first we shall begin with prayer as that wherein was ever thought the worship of God principally to consist be that Religion Christian or Unchristian unless we be forced to except some modern and immodest pretenders to Reformation For though they keep within such bounds as a grave and judicious defender of our Church says none ever exceeded not to deny prayer absolutely yet have they brought it to that pass so humbled and diluted it that there is little place found for it and less value And surely were they but true to their own principles and arguments no use at all would they acknowledge of prayer more then certain Heathens and Hereticks whose arguments must needs be accepted by them if they will believe conformable to themselves St. Hierome upon Matthew tells us There is sprung up here a certain Hieronymus in Matth. cap. 6. 8. Heresie and Dogme of Philosophers who say If God knows what we pray for and that we have need of such things as we desire before we ask in vain we speak to him who knows all before To whom saith he we answer That we do not so much tell God what we would have as begg of him Clemens Alexandrinus likewise tells us that one Prodius was Clemens Alexa Strom. 7 Authour of that Opinion Thus far profane Sectaries amongst us have not generally proceeded though we have been credibly informed that some have However they unanimously conspire to debase prayer and corrupt Christian worship it self in these three Respects First in advancing preaching much inferiour to it in a Church become Christian infinitely before it Secondly by opposing Set or Prescribed Forms of Prayer And thirdly in expunging the Lords Prayer out of their uncertain and wild Liturgies Which the Presbyterian Sect the Sire of all others was not a little guilty of and so seldome used it that being demanded why they left it out in their prayers thought good to give such a modest reason as this They feared they should be out in the recitation of it so had they accustomed their tongues to liberty and variety of words But they had other reasons which they were ashamed to utter but to their trusty friends But let us first see how preaching transcends prayer and hath insulted and trampled over it For such have been the extreams of late that whereas formerly the Proverb was No Penny no Pater Noster now No Preaching no Pater Noster No Sermon no Prayer in Gods House And whereas it was said by our Saviour Christ of old and by the Prophet before him My House shall be called which almost every ordinary man knows accord-to Matth. 21. 3. the Hebrew Idiom is the very same with shall be the House of Prayer unto all Nations and never was it called or accounted a preaching house but by them that called it a Steeple-house and little otherwise judged of it now have things been so reformed with a witness ot rather a vengeance that Sermoning carries all afore it bears all down to little or nothing But what if all this while preaching be not the worshipping of God at all Will they continue so obstinate as to make it almost the only thing in Gods house That they who with strange boldness profess and in constant practise declare they will have nothing to do with Gods house as Gods house but only as a Vestry-house when they are to take the Parish Accompts unless there be a Sermon do hold that Sermoning active and passive preach'd and heard is the main matter of Religion
Secondly Religion of all sorts ever acknowledged Festival worship Thirdly Apostolical practice and Prescription commend them and Fourthly our Church Homilies one reason possibly they have suffered Homily of the time and place of Prayer pag. 125. so many reproaches of ungodly men tell us that Holy days were appointed by the same Authority that the Lords day was which as sorely as it may vex these dissenters to hear is most true For though it sayes with the same Authority it doth not from thence follow that they by that Authority were instituted with the same sacredness And Mr. Perkins is Perkins Preparat to Problem pag. 681. deceived who tells us Not a Feast except Easter can be proved for 300 years after Christ Indeed Socrates whom he quotes saith the Apostles did not much concern themselves in Feasts but his meaning plainly is not about such punctilio's or Circumstances of Feasts as gave him occasion to write about them such as were the Contentions between the Eastern and Western Church about the day of keeping Easter But that Easter was Apostolical can be no more doubted then that Sunday was so And that fifty days after Easter to Whitsuntide were kept Festivally Tertullian witnesseth And therefore Cartwright whom nothing Tertul. Advers Psychicos cap. 14. could hold but his own fansie and the Genevan Plat-form thought it safer to say being urged with Antiquity I appeal from the examples of the Ancient Church to the Scriptures There were other grosser Errors countenanced by Antiquity There were so or there were none at all But what greater errour did Antiquity generally assert to then this of Innovatours denying all Holy days lawful but the Lords day Do you appeal to Scripture to prove this So do we Show one place against them if ye can Or show that the Church where there is no precept of Scripture in particular may not ordain such times of Worship When will these Scriptures appear For the places commonly alledged against set days viz. Rom. 14. 5. I leave Mr. Perkins to answer sufficiently though not absolutely in his Cases of Conscience Lib. 2. cap. 16. And that of Galat. 4. 10. to his Comment on the words And that of Colos 2. 16. to the now quoted place of his Cases of Conscience intending here no formal disputation though this Author falls into many pitiful suspicions and imaginations of his own in these places As for instance on Galatians 4. 10. he saith Indeed the Church of England observes Holy days but the Popish superstition is cut off This is true but the reason he gives very false which is this For we are not bound in conscience to the Observation of those days For Conscience binds every good Christian from singularizing Conscience binds to embrace all convenient opportunities to praise and honor God Conscience likewise binds to faithful obedience to our Ecclesiastical Superiours in such pious exercises as these and against which no more then the rude Effects of their private opinions and passion hath been alledged notwithstanding I know how much Gelaspie and after him Voctius have travailed in this subject and notwithstanding his answers Davenant on Coloss 2. v. 16. I hold the Reasons of Bishop Davenant to be strong and Pious given us for the observation of Holy days in his Comment upon the Colossians to which I refer the Reader for brevity sake And for the same reason I reduce what may be said about Fasts to what is already said of the Feasts of the Church For there is the very same reason of Antiquity Apostolical for the observation of both power and Liberty of the Church just occasions offered Conformity to the Primitive state of the Church Advantages of such exercises Characteristicks of Christian from unchristian societies and professions which all equally infer the duty of Fasting on set days as of Feasting and the madness and wickedness of such Christians as dare open their mouths against them because no doubt but both one and other have been much abused by Roman superstition Yet not Fasting so much as Festival days The abuses may here be noted to be these 1. Multitude whereby works of Nature and Civil necessities should be so far impeded Origen Hom. 10. in Genes and retarded that no small prejudice should befall the Common-wealth thereby Indeed Origen saith Every day is to be a Festival to a Christian calling them Jews who observe some now and then but his meaning is not that every day a man should cease from his labour wholly and only wear his best cloaths walk about and do nothing but worship God but as there he expresses himself should go to Church daily and not content himself with his domestique devotion but appear before God in publique place though not in that publique manner as with the assembly of Christians This still binds as a Councill at least if not Command and that which as hath been shewed already is much better then that which is performed within the walls of our Bucerus de Regno Christ lib. 2. cap. 10. own house or Closets if we will take Bucers judgment who speaketh thus When as all that we have and are and our very lives we have received and do receive daily from the free bounty of God is it not very meet also that we should assemble daily also to render him thanks and to renew our devotion to him and our worship of him by his Word and Sacraments which he hath for this purpose appointed for us and by daily Prayers which he requireth of us Your Majesties therefore he speaketh to Edward the sixth Part it is to inforce the authority of the Divine Law against this so great abuse of God and unbridled profanation of Holy days And therefore if Sectaries Religion be examined duly which hath procured them so much credit and esteem amongst unknowing people it will be found to fall short by much of that which is approved and established by our Church They are said to be frequent and constant in duties as they call them of their Families meaning prayers perhaps morning and evening this is very good and laudable But consider we a little whence this practice hath arisen whither it tendeth and it is rather a defrauding God of that due which we plead for then out-doing others The Church the publique house of God is the proper place of Gods worship and that he is more glorified in than by home-made worship Therefore for them to translate the Service of God out of the Church at all times but when a Sermon calls them forth into their own houses and to offer the morning and evening sacrifice at home when it ought and may be offered in his own house is so far from deserving the name of extraordinary Pieties that it deserves rather the name of Sacriledge And this I speak meaning when this proceeds either from that brutish opinion that all places are alike to God which is only true in sensu diviso and
the opinion of Tertullian They who tranâ—gress the Rule of Discipline cease to be reckoned among Christians And as Clemens Alexandrinus saith As it behoveth a person of Equity to falsifie in nothing and to go back from Qui excedunt dâ— Reculâ— disciplinâ— dâ—sinunt hâ—berâ— Christiani Tertul. Clem. Alex. Strom. 7. p. 753 764. nothing that he hath promised although others should break Covenants so it becometh us to transgress the Ecclesiastical Canon in no manner And to convince any man of conscience or fear of God of this Balsamon's reasons may suffice demonstrating a greater reverence and respect to be due to the Constitutions of the Church than to the Laws of the State For saith he the Canons being explained and confirmed by Kings and Holy Fathers are received as the Scriptures But the Laws of the State were received and established by Kings alone and therefore do not prevail against See Photius's Nomocanon Tit. 1. c. 2. cum Palsamone p. 817 818. the Scriptures nor the Canons And this I rather instance in from the Greek than Latin Church because the ignorant and loud clamors of Sectaries have had nothing more to alledg against the Sacredness of Ecclesiastical Constitutions than that which serves their turns in all things Popishness of Canonical Obedience But may they judg what they please according as design and interest sway them this we constantly and confidently affirm that whoever despises the Rules of of Obedience and Laws of the Church cannot rise higher in that Part of Christian Religion which we call Worship of God than may meer Moral men Because that which chiefly distinguishes good Christians from good honest Heathens next to the doctrine of Faith is proportionable Obedience as well to those God hath substituted under him to ordain things omitted in the Scriptures for the security of the Faith regulating devotion and worship and peace of the Church none of which can long subsist without such a Power acknowledged and obeyed in the Governors of the Church And this â—pparently is at the bottom of the deceitful pretences of Christian Liberty and Conscience for disobedience of them who are designed thereby to ruine and overthrow as matter of fact hath demonstrated But it is not only the Puritans intollerable dogms against obedience but the contrary practise of no small persons of place and esteem in the Church who can heartily and with zeal even to indignation prosecute Sectaries inconformity to the Discipline and Rites of the Church glorying and boasting that they are Sons of the Church and yet do more mischief to the Church by their ill govern'd persons as to common honesty sobriety and gravity and more advance and bring into credit and reputation the enemies of the Church than all their fair and fallacious pretences could otherwise possibly do If such persons who have not attained to common Moral prudence or Philosophy bear such kindness as they flourish with to the Church let them shew it as that lewd Fellow in the Athenian Senate was advised who notwithstanding his vitious life had somewhat very beneficial to the Common-wealth to propound in the Senate and commend it by the mouth of another For what can be more absurd and ridiculous than for any such person to profess esteem to that Church which condemns him more than any other Society And whereas it supposes as a foundation natural justice continence and temperance and the like moral vertues to the divine Precepts and Institutions of Perfection what may turn the stomach and raise laughter more at a man then for such an one to discover his offense at an unceremonious Puritane the matter of whose Crime is nothing comparable to his If thou beest a Christian saith a holy Father either speak as thou livest or live as thou speakest What evil spirit hath set thee on first to abuse thy self with scandalous practises and then the Church by taking Sanctuary in it Can stupidity so far accompany vice as first to break the known and common Laws and Rules of good conversation which is affront enough to the Church and then to add to that affront by professing a special duty to that which thereby is destroyed There is no Sect or Schism whose Orders and Laws of Christian walking with God can be compared with those of the Church of England there being nothing amongst them besides Faith which an Heathen may not do that never heard of Christian Perfection accounting nothing needful to be done nothing unlawful to them which is not punishable by the Law of man or against the light of nature Christ they say hath purchased for them a liberty to do what they please in eating drinking sleepping and other matters so that they wrong not their own bodies nor injure their Neighbors And shall there be that protect themselves under this Churches shelter in such light loose foolish and vitious courses to the degrading of it beneath her inferiors Is this to be sons of the Church and not only so but to brag that such they are in open hostility to it I confess notwithstanding all this in comparing the enemies to the true Faith together we are to distinguish between the doers of evil simply and the teachers of men so to do And that though drunkenness and uncleaness be greater sins by far in their nature than is dissent from a ceremony or Rite not necessary in its nature Yet for any man with a spirit of opposition and contention to take upon him to declare against such an unnecessary order and teach men against the unity and peace of the Church otherwise than becomes him is no less criminal in the consequence before God yea probably much more than those other more scandalous before men and will more endanger his Soul But concerning such persons as are in profession really Sons and perhaps Fathers of the Church and yet wilfully and studiously violate the Laws Constitutions Rubricks or Canons of it no necessity compelling them no reason being to be alledged defending them but what is taken from their ease which otherwise would be much interrupted or their benefit and profit which would be much hindred I leave their own hearts and Consciences to condemn them until God himself doth which certainly without repentance he will and that out of their own consciences and mouths their consciences which witness that these are the true causes of their negligence and contempt of their Duty in their proper stations and their mouths and professions in that they pretend obedience and are much offended at the disobedience of Puritans as if God and the Church would be sufficiently satisfied with their Anger against them while they themselves regard it no farther than is for their turn Two vulgar apologies I shall here take notice of only For as for that which is also commonly said that evil times hinder them from their duty I shall say no more but humbly advise them to deal sincerely with God and their own consciences in such cases
Thanksgiving to God do For first it seems to be so far natural to man as Religion it self is All people that worship a God having generally their vicissitudes of Feasting and Fasting according to occasions justly offered or the prudence of the first Founders and Administratours of that Religion Again By the Precepts and Precedents contained in the Scriptures is Fasting required so that no instances are needful to confirm the same And the true reason why the Precepts positive in the Old Testament are but few is because it was agreeable to the Law of Nature that it was not so needful to add multitude of positive Injunctions to confirm the same The most express if not only Law given concerning this in the Scriptures is that of Leviticus the 16th vers 29. where God ordains that on the Seventh Moneth they should afflict their souls for ever by a perpetual statute but in what manner is not expressed whether by abstaining from all meat or their ordinary dyet is not mentioned but the Tradition and Custom of the Jewish Church interpret it to be total Abstinence until the Evening that is the Sun going down And the reason why no express Precept is given in the Gospel to Fast where many Directions and Rules are given to Fast is because To Fast was a setled practise of old in the Church of God and needed nothing more then the accommodation thereof to the future state of the Gospel which was done partly by the said Advices and Instructions how to Fast and partly by the power and prudence of the Governours of the Church extending to such ends But they say against this That Fasting must be voluntary and not of constraint and necessity and therefore must not Authority impose such duties upon Christians but they must take them up freely or omit them according to their Christian Liberty But this miserable and contentious exception they are forced to recal again though they would not be seen in it to save themselves who being in Power however acquired propose and impose both Fasts and Feasts at their pleasures so that they plainly mean That such Fasts are only to be enjoyned by themselves who cannot as all others commanding contrary to them possibly injure Christians in their Liberty For so saith Thomas Cartwright mocking St. Paul We cannot do any thing against the truth but for the truth But farther we say Not only all Fastings but Prayer and Hearing of the Word of God yea all Moral Vertues as Justice and Temperance ought to be freely taken up of every good Christian but doth it therefore follow they may not be enjoyned Or lastly doth it follow that what is commanded and conditionally necessary may not be freely chosen if not according to the utmost extent of liberty of will according to Philosophy yet according to the Divine and Scriptural sense in which whatsoever is done readily chearfully and willingly in the Service of God is accepted of God who loveth a chearful giver as the 2 Cor. 9. 7. Scripture affirms not taking notice whether there be any incumbent necessity or not upon the person And may not what St. Peter advises and exhorts the Elders and Governours of the Church to viz. To feed the Flock of Christ among them taking the oversight thereof not by constraint but willingly concern the governed equally May not there be a 1 Pet. 5. 2. constraint upon these as well as on them in their Ranks consisting with a laudable willingness Nay more than so and quite contrary to the Divinity of factious Pastours and Flocks should the laudableness of the thing it self fortified and enforced with the Commands of Superiours make men that have any just pretences to Christianity more willing and chearful in the performance of those duties This was ever wont to be so until pestilent tongues had corrupted the minds and hearts of simpler Christians to make them suspect hate and oppose whatever their Governours ordained and then to argue They can by no mean do so because they do not like it and this dislikes their Consciences St. Paul saith Do all things without murmuring or disputings these modern Doctours say Phil. 2. 14. Do nothing without murmurings and disputings Let therefore this be one motive and qualification to Fasting that it be done willingly and the rather because it is required A second reason is to excite to humiliation and to quicken our Devotions in Prayers and Repentance while we judge our selves unworthy of Gods common benefits otherwise appointed But not to excurr here on this subject as I might Let it suffice to relate here both the Description and Grounds of Fasting as we find them in our Churches Homilies Homilies Church of England 2. Part. p. 85. 78. Fasting is a witholding of meat and drink and all natural food from the body for the determinate time of Fasting Again There are three ends of Fasting 1. Chastizing the Flesh 2. Fervencie of Spirit 3. Sign of Humiliation But idle and ignorant persons give the same definition to Fasting as they do to Repentance For to abstain from sin is both Fasting and Repentance not considering as we have before shewed how that things when the end and effect of them is highly commended and magnified are vulgarly described by them yet remain in nature altogether distinct as in that remarkable place of Syracides He that keepeth the Law bringeth Eccles 35 1 2 offerings enough he that taketh heed to the commandment offereth a Peace-offering He that requiteth a good turn offereth fine flour and he that giveth alms sacrificeth praise Were not he think we an excellent Interpreter that should take these expressions in the strictest sense they are delivered And is not he the very same that shall define either Repentance or Fasting by abstinence from sin in a proper sense as all definition Hom. 84. To. 5. Tom. 1. Hom. 8. ought to be framed in St. Chrysostome who in a certain Sermon speaks as much as any in behalf of abstinence from sin as a Fast truly acceptable to God was never so mad or silly as to exclude thereupon outward and bodily Fasting but in very many Sermons of his upon Genesis which were delivered in the time of Lent as were St. Basils also upon the Six days work of God nothing occurs more frequently then that literal and outward Fasting commended to his hearers Infinite might be the citations to prove the Judgment of the holy Fathers and Martyrs and Monks in this particular but it is confessed by dissenters who know any thing above the Divinity of Ursin and Calvin and such like unhappy masters of Errours in this point And what are the other principal reasons against such Fastings as our Church by vertue of Canonical obedience injoyns Why A superstitious discrimination of Meats as if some were cleaner than other under the Gospel This they would needs bring it to because they can do nothing without this which is just nothing For they
Christians to such sort of Meats as are now allowed For it was rather her act of Grace and Lenity to remit the one half of that ancient Severity commonly submitted unto in the earlier days of Christian Religion And who but ignorant and ill natur'd and nurtur'd children could turn her Lenity into Tyranny and make her curtesie a matter of calumny Nay which hath more disingenuity and absurdity while they fret and complain grievously that the Yoke as it is lyes too heavy upon them and presses them too hard to invert their spite and malice against it by arguing from the lightness and contemptibleness of such Fastings as consists only in abstinence from flesh saying It is no Fast which abstains not absolutely from all Meat This were indeed somewhat to the purpose if so be that the Church did at the same time command any man to eat fish or so much as hearbs or bread when she forbids flesh to be eaten Or that they who were able and did wholly abstain from Meats at such seasons did not more fulfill the intention of the Church then they who took the liberty left them of eating in some manner What temper and spirit do these men discover to themselves to be of who are alwayes in readiness to charge their Superiours either with folly or tyranny or impiety upon the same occasion and never been able to prove any one them Scotus and Biel Scotus lib. 4. Distinct 8. Biel Lect. 8. in Canon Missae after him distinguish of a Fast of Nature which is a total abstinence from all eating and drinking and of a Fast of the Church when a man eats but once a day and that according to the precept and mind of the Church Now if the Church hath invented a favourable distinction and sense to gratifie murmurers at the rigour of her Laws do they not requite her ingenuously who turn that also to her reproach Nay if another distinction be found which makes a Fast a Toto a Tanto and a Tali from the Whole from the Quantity and from the Quality of the Meats eaten hereby willing to condescend and bring down her Rules so low that all men may have somewhat to exercise themselves in according to their ability in the graces of Abstinence and Obedience who but such whose Religion impels them to be the worse for good usage and resolve to hear of nothing but their own inventions would clamour against their Governours for such moderation But when they are disappointed in their arguments and expectations to reduce all men and things to their own model their last Effort is to humble this kind of Fasting into a civil Constitution only and for a civil End according as an Act of Parliament misconstrued as hath more plainly and fully been declared by others hath misled them conceiving that the Fastings of our Church tend only to the encrease of Navigation or are intended for the good of beasts not of men But what hinders that the Church may have one end in her decrees and the Common-wealth another and that which the Church designed for the exercise of Christian vertues may be embraced by Secular Politicians to promote Secular benefits to the Publick Nothing is so manifest to him that knows any thing in Church History as that such a reason was never dreamt of by the Propounders of such Fastings in our Church nor in any part of the Christian world before that Act. And if the words of that Act were intended for an ease to the tender Consciences as those of dissenters are mis-called and to draw them by little and little upon consideration of Civil ends which they less hated than the Ecclesiastical to some good order and submission this is not to be drawn to a perpetual Rule nor made the only universal end of such a Constitution For the Church still keeps to the most ancient and general sense received amongst Christians A third Precept of the Church is The Observation of the Ecclesiastical Canon 6. Preface of Ceremonies c. Customs and Ceremonies of the Church and that without frowardness and contradiction as appears from her Canons and the Preface before the Common-Prayer Of which obligation that which we have before spoken of the Power of the Church and even now of Fasting may here be applyed and suffice A fourth Precept is Constantly to repair to the Publick Service of the Preface to the Book of Common-Prayer Church for Mattens and Evening Song with other holy Offices at times appointed unless there be a just and unfeigned cause to the contrary And this we have before also treated of extending it to the worship of God in his House especially when there is an assembly of Christian people together to that purpose though there be no Sermon and also to the humbling a mans self and putting up his private Devotions there alone when occasion and opportunity shall be offered so to do according to the most ancient and godly custom of good Christians ever since there were Temples built for Gods Service For the disuse of which excellent acts not the least reason hath been or can be alledged by those that would be thought to be the only Rule of Reformation which we have not sufficiently refuted before Lastly To receive the blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ Second Exhortation to be read before the Communion with frequent Devotion but at least Thrice a year whereof Easter is to be one And in order hereunto as occasion shall be to open our souls by due Confession and disburden and quiet our troubled Consciences by some learned and discreet Minister of God from whom Ghostly counsel and comfort may be received with the benefit of Absolution Of the use of which we have also before spoken where we shewed that such Confession was not of such absolute Divine Right either of Precept or Means that Salvation could not be otherwise obtain'd but as an Ecclesiastical Expedient very effectual as well for the bringing Impenitent sinners to repentance as for the due restoring of them that are Penitent to a comfortable assurance of Gods favour towards them and direction and encouragement in holy living which the foul abuses in those Churches where it is excessively magnified should by no means abolish For besides them above noted doubtless it is no mean abuse to make that which undoubtedly should be an act of Judgment in Gods Minister discerning between the hopeful state of some and desperate of others and accordingly suspending or applying the Free Grace of the Gospel and the Power left by Christ to his Church an act of custom formality and course or perhaps common civility which kind of rashness and profuseness the ancient Churches were altogether ignorant of When grievous offenders against God and the Church had fallen justly under the censures of the Church it was permitted to absolve them at the point of death so far as concerned their restitution to the Communion of