of a standing Tribute that there they did openly read the Scriptures and whosoever will bear saith Tertullian he shall finde God whosoever will study to know shall be also fain to believe But sith there is no likelihood that ever voluntarily they will seek Instruction at our hands it remaineth that unless we will suffer them to perish Salvation it self must seek them it behooveth God to send them Preachers as he did his elect Apostles throughout the World There is a Knowledge which God hath always revealed unto them in the works of Nature This they honour and esteem highly as profound Wisdome howbeit this Wisdome saveth them not That which must save Believers is the knowledge of the Cross of Christ the only Subject of all our Preaching And in their Eyes what seemeth this but Folly It pleaseth God by the foolishness of Preaching to save These Words declare how admirable force those Mysteries have which the World do deride as Follies they shew that the Foolishness of the Cross of Christ is the Wisdom of True Believers they concern the Object of our Faith the Matter preached of and believed in by Christian men This we know that the Grecians or Gentiles did account Foolishness but that they did ever think it a fond or unlikely way to seek mens Conversion by Sermons we have not heard Manifest therefore it is that the Apostle applying the name of Foolishness in such sort as they did must needs by the Foolishness of Preaching mean the Doctrine of Christ which we learn that we may be saved but that Sermons are the only manner of teaching whereby it pleaseth our Lord to save he could not mean In like sort where the same Apostle proveth that as well the sending of the Apostles as their preaching to the Gentiles was necessary dare we affirm it was ever his meaning that unto their Salvation who even from their tender Infancy never knew any other Faith or Religion that only Christian no kinde of Teaching can be available saving that which was so needful for the first universal Conversion of Gentiles hating Christianity neither the sending of any sort allowable in the one case except only of such as had been in the other also most fit and worthy Instruments Belief in all sorts doth come by hearkning and attending to the Word of Life Which Word sometime proposeth and preacheth it self to the Hearer sometime they deliver it whom privately Zeal and Piety moveth to be Instructors of others by conference sometime of them it is taught whom the Church hath called to the Publick either reading thereof or interpreting All these tend unto one effect neither doth that which St. Paul or other Apostles teach concerning the necessity of such Teaching as theirs was or of sending such as they were for that purpose unto the Gentiles prejudice the efficacy of any other way of Publick instruction or inforce the utter disability of any other mens Vocation thought requisite in this Church for the saving of Souls where means more effectual are wanting Their only proper and direct proof of the thing in question had been to shew in what sort and how farr man's Salvation doth necessarily depend upon the knowledge of the Word of God what Conditions Properties and Qualities there are whereby Sermons are distinguished from other kindes of administring the Word unto that purpose and what special Property or Quality that is which being no where found but in Sermons maketh them effectual to save Souls and leaveth all other Doctrinal means besides destitute of vital efficacy These pertinent Instructions whereby they might satisfie us and obtain the Cause it self for which they contend these things which only would serve they leave and which needeth not sometime they trouble themselves with fretting at the ignorance of such as withstand them in their Opinion sometime they fall upon their poor Brethren which can but read and against them they are bitterly eloquene If we alledge what the Scriptures themselves do usually speak for the saving force of the Word of God not with restraint to any one certain kinde of delivery but howsoever the same shall chance to be made known yet by one trick or other they always restrain it unto Sermons Our Lord and Saviour hath said Search the Scriptures for in them ye think to have eternal life But they tell us he spake to the Jews which Jews before had heard his Sermons and that peradventure it was his minde they should search not by reading nor by hearing them read but by attending whensoever the Scriptures should happen to be alledged in Sermons Furthermore having received Apostolical Doctrine the Apostle Saint Paul hath taught us to esteem the same as the Supream Rule whereby all other Doctrines must for ever be examined Yea but in as much as the Apostle doth there speak of that he had Preached he flatly maketh as they strangely affirm his Preachings or Sermons the Rule whereby to examine all And then I beseech you what Rule have we whereby to judge or examine any For if Sermons must be our Rule because the Apostles Sermons were so to their Hearers then sith we are not as they were Hearers of the Apostles Sermons it resteth that either the Sermons which we hear should be our Rule or that being absurd therewill which yet hath greater absurdity no Rule at all be remaining for Tryal what Doctrines now are corrupt what consonant with heavenly Truth Again let the same Apostle acknowledge all Scripture profitable to teach to improve to correct to instruct in Righteousness Still notwithstanding we erre if hereby we presume to gather that Scripture read will avail unto any one of all these uses they teach us the meaning of the words to be that so much the Scripture can do if the Minister that way apply it in his Sermons otherwise not Finally they never hear Sentence which mentioneth the Word or Scripture but forthwith their Glosses upon it are the Word preached the Scripture explained or delivered unto us in Sermons Sermons they evermore understand to be that Word of God which alone hath vital Operation the dangerous sequel of which Construction I wish they did more attentively weigh For sith Speech is the very Image whereby the minde and soul of the Speaker conveyeth it self into the bolom of him which heareth we cannot chuse but see great reason wherefore the Word that proceedeth from God who is Himself very Truth and Life should be as the Apostle to the Hebrews noteth lively and mighty in operation sharper than any two-edged Sword Now if in this and the like Places we did conceive that our own Sermons are that strong and forcible Word should we not hereby impart even the most peculiar glory of the Word of God unto that which is not his word For touching our Sermons that which giveth them their very being is the wit of man and therefore they oftentimes accordingly taste too much of
SVNT MELIORA MIHI RICHARDVS HOOKER Exoniensis scholaris sociusque Collegij Corp. Chrisli Oxon̄ deinde Londi Templi interioris in sacris magister Rectorque huius Ecelesiae scripsit octo libros Politiae Ecclesiasticae Angelicanae quorum tres desiderantur Obijt An̄ Dō M.DC. III. AEtat suae L. Posuit hoc pijssimo viro monumentum Ano. Dō M. DC XXX V Guli Comper Armiger in Christo Iesu quem genuit per Evangelium 1 Corinth 4. 15. OF THE LAWES of ECCLESIASTICAL Politie Eight Bookes By RICHARD HOOKER LONDON Printed for Andrew Crooke at the greene Dragon in S Pauls Church-yard 1666. THE WORKS OF Mr. Richard Hooker That Learned and Judicious Divine IN EIGHT BOOKS OF Ecclesiastical Polity Compleated out of his own Manuscrips Never before Published With an account of his LIFE and DEATH Dedicated to the Kings most Excellency Majesty CHARLES IId. By whose ROYAL FATHER near His Martyrdom the former Five Books then onely extant were commended to His Dear Children as an excellent means to satisfie Private Scruples and settle the Publick Peace of this Church and Kingdom JAM 3. 17. The Wisdom from above is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be intreated full of mercy and good works without partiality and hypocrisie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. Multitadio investiganda verilalis ad proximos divertunt errores Min. Fel. LONDON Printed by Thomas Newcomb for Andrew Crook at the Green-Dragon in St. Pauls Church-yard 1666. To the KINGS most Excellent MAJESTY CHARLES II d By the Grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c. Most Gracious Soveraign ALthough I know how little leisure Great Kings have to read large Books or indeed any save onely Gods the study belief and obedience of which is precisely commanded even to Kings Deut. 17.18,19 And from which whatever wholly diverts them will hazard to damn them there being no affairs of so great importance as their serving God and saving their own Souls nor any Precepts so wise just holy and safe as those of the Divine Oracles nor any Empire so glorious as that by which Kings being subject to Gods Law have dominion over themselves and so best deserve and exercise it over their Subjects Yet having lived to see the wonderful and happy Restauration of Your Majesty to Your Rightful Kingdoms and of this Reformed Church to its just Rights Primitive Order and Pristine Constitution by Your Majesties prudent care and imparallel'd bounty I know not what to present more worthy of Your Majesties acceptance and my duty then these Elaborate and Seasonable Works of the Famous and Prudent Mr. Richard Hooker now augmented and I hope compleated with the Three last Books so much desired and so long concealed The publishing of which Volume so intire and thus presenting it to Your Majesty seems to be a blessing and honor reserved by Gods Providence to add a further lusture to Your Majesties glorious Name and happy Reign whose transcendent favor justice merit and munificence to the long afflicted Church of England is a subject no less worthy of admirasion then gratitude to all Posterity And of all things next Gods grace not to be abused or turned into wantonness by any of Your Majesties Clergy who are highly obliged beyond all other Subjects to Piety Loyalty and Industry I shall need nothing more to ingratiate this incomparable Piece to Your Majesties acceptance and all the English Worlds then those high commendations it hath ever had as from all prudent peaceable and impartial Readers so especially from Your Majesties Royal Father who a few days before he was Crowned with Martyrdom commended to His dearest Children the diligent Reading of Mr. Hookers Ecclesiastical Polity even next the Bible as an excellent means to settle them in the Truth of Religion and in the Peace of this Church as much Christian and as well Reformed as any under Heaven As if God had reserved this signal Honor to be done by the best of Kings and greatest Sufferers for this Church to Him who was one of the best Writers and ablest Defenders of it To this Compleated Edition is added such particular accounts as could be got of the Authors Person Education Temper Manners Fortunes Life and Death which is now done with much exactness and proportion That hereby Your Majesty and all the World may see what sort of Men are fittest for Church-work which like the Building of Solomons Temple is best carried on with most evenness of Iudgement and least noise of Passion Also what manner of Man he was to whom we all ow this Noble Work and durable Defence Which is indeed at once as the Tongues of Eloquent Princes are to themselves and their Subjects both a Treasury and an Armory to inrich their friends and defend them against the Enemies of the Church of England Arare composition of unpassionate Reason and unpartial Religion the mature product of a Indicious Scholar a Loyal Subject an Humble Preacher and a most Eloquent Writer The very abstract and quintessence of Laws Humane and Divine a Summary of the Grounds Rules and Proportions of true Polity in Church and State Vpon which clear solid and safe Foundations the good Order Peace and Government of this Church was anciently setled and on which while it stands firm it will be flourishing All other popular and specious pretensions being found by late sad experiences to be as novel and unfit so factious and fallacious yea dangerous and destructive to the Peace and Prosperity of this Church and Kingdom whose inseparable happiness and interests are bound up in Monarchy and Episcopacy The Politick and Visible managing of both which God hath now graciously restored and committed to Your Majesties Soveraign Wisdom and Authority after the many and long Tragedies suffered from those Club Masters and Tub-Ministers who sought not fairly to obtain Reformation of what might seem amiss but violently and wholly to overthrow the ancient and goodly Fabrick of this Church and Kingdom For finding themselves not able in many years to Answer this one Book long ago written in defence of the Truth Order Government Authority and Liberty in things indifferent of this Reformed Church agreeable to Right Reason and True Religion which makes this well tempered Peice a File capable to break the Teeth of any that venture to bite it they conspired at last to betake themselves to Arms to kindle those horrid fires of Civil Wars which this wise Author foresaw and foretold in his admirable Preface would follow those sparks and that smoak which he saw rise in his days So that from impertinent Disputes seconded with scurrilous Pamphlets they fled to Tumults Sedition Rebellion Sacriledge Parricide yea Regicide Counsels Weapons and Practices certainly no way becoming the hearts and hands of Christian Subjects nor ever sanctified by Christ for his Service or his Churches good What now remains but Your Majesties perfecting and preserving that in this Church which you have with
a Minister to Preach Christ crucified In regard whereof not onely worldly things but things otherwise precious even the Discipline it self is vile and base Whereas now by the heat of Contention and violence of Affection the Zeal of Men towards the one hath greatly decayed their love to the other Hereunto therefore they are to be exhorted to Preach Christ crucified the Mortification of the Flesh the Renewing of the Spirit not those things which in time of Strife seem precious but Passions being allayed are vain and childish GEO. CRANMER This Epitaph was long since presented to the World in Memory of Mr. Hooker by Sir William Cooper who also built him a fair Monument in Borne-Church and acknowledges him to have been his Spiritual Father THough nothing can be spoke worthy his Fame Or the Remembrance of that precious Name Iudicious Hooker though this cost be spent On him that hath a Lasting Monument In his own Books yet ought we to express If not his Worth yet oue Respectfulness Church Ceremonies he maintaiu'd Then Why Without all Ceremony should he die Was it because his Life and Death should be Both equal Patterns of Humility Or that perhaps this onely glorious one Was above all to ask Why had he none Yet he that lay so long obscurely low Doth now preferr'd to greater Honors go Ambitious men Learn hence to be more wise Humility is the true way to rise And God in me this Lesson did Inspire To bid this humble Man Friend sit up higher TO THE Most Reverend Father in GOD my very good Lord the Lord Archbishop of CANTERBURY his Grace Primate and Metropolitan of all ENGLAND MOst Reverend in Christ the long continued and more then ordinary favor which hither to your Grace hath been pleased to shew towards me may justly claim at my hands some thankful acknowledgment thereof In which consideration as also for that I embrace willingly the ancient received course and conveniency of that Discipline which teacheth inferior Degrees and Orders in the Church of God to submit their Writings to the same Authority from which their allowable dealings whatsoever in such affairs must receive approbation I nothing fear but that your accustomed clemency will take in good worth the offer of these my simple and mean Labors bestowed for the necessary justification of Laws heretofore made questionable because as I take it they were not perfectly understood For surely I cannot finde any great cause of just complaint that good Laws have so much been wanting unto us as we to them To seek Reformation of evil Laws is a commendable endeavor but for us the more necessary is a speedy redress of our selves We have on all sides lost much of our first fervency towards God and therefore concerning our own degenerated ways we have reason to exhort with St. Gregory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us return again unto that which we sometime were but touching the exchange of Laws in Practice with Laws in Device which they say are better for the State of the Church if they might take place the farther we examine them the greater cause we finde to conclude 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 although we continue the same we are the harm is not great These fervent Reprehenders of things established by Publick Authority are always confident and bold spirited men But their confidence for the most part riseth from too much credit given to their own wits for which cause they are seldom free from Error The Errors which we seek to reform in this kinde of men are such as both received at your own hands their first wound and from that time to this present have been proceeded in with that Moderation which useth by Patience to suppress boldness and to make them conquer that suffer Wherein considering the nature and kinde of these Controversies the dangerous sequels whereunto they were likely to grow and how many ways we have been thereby taught Wisdom I may boldly aver concerning the first that as the weightiest conflicts the Church hath had were those which touched the Head the Person of our Savior Christ and the next of importance those questions which are at this day between us and the Church of Rome about the Actions of the Body of the Church of God so these which have lastly sprung up from Complements Rites and Ceremonies of Church Actions are in truth for the greatest part such silly things that very easiness doth make them hard to be disputed of in serious manner Which also may seem to be the cause why divers of the Reverend Prelacy and other most judicious men have especially bestowed their pains about the Matter of Jurisdiction Notwithstanding led by your Graces example my self have thought it convenient to wade through the whole Cause following that method which searcheth the Truth by the causes of Truth Now if any marvel how a thing in it self so weak could import any great danger they must consider not so much how small the spark is that flieth up as how apt things about it are to take fire Bodies Politick being subject as much as Natural to dissolution by divers means there are undoubtedly more estates overthrown through diseases bred within themselves then through violence from abroad because our manner is always to cast a doubtful and a more suspicious eye towards that over which we know we have least power And therefore the fear of External dangers causeth forces at home to be the more united It is to all sorts a kinde of Bridle it maketh vertuous Mindes watchful it holdeth contrary Dispositions in suspense and it setteth those Wits on work in better things which could be else imployed in worse whereas on the other side domestical Evils for that we think we can master them at all times are often permitted to run on forward till it be too late to recal them In the mean while the Commonwealth is not onely through unsoundness so far impaired as those evils chance to prevail but farther also through opposition arising between the unsound parts and the sound where each endeavoreth to draw evermore contrary ways till destruction in the end bring the whole to ruine To reckon up how many Causes there are by force whereof Divisions may grow in a Commonwealth is not here necessary Such as rise from variety in Matter of Religion are not onely the farthest spred because in Religion all men presume themselves interessed alike but they are also for the most part hotlier prosecuted and pursued then other strifes for as much as coldness which in other Contentions may be thought to proceed from Moderation is not in these so favorably construed The part which in this present quarrel striveth against the Current and Stream of Laws was a long while nothing feared the wisest contented not to call to minde how Errors have their effect many times not proportioned to that little appearance of Reason whereupon they would seem built but rather to the vehement affection or
which Admonitions all that I mean to say is but this There will come a time when three words uttered with Charity and Meekness shall receive a far more blessed Reward then three thousand Volumns written with disdainful sharpness of Wit But the manner of Mens Writings must not alienate our hearts from the Truth if it appear they have the Truth as the Followers of the same Defender do think he hath and in that perswasion they follow him no otherwise then himself doth Calvin Beza and others with the like perswasion that they in this cause had the Truth We being as fully perswaded otherwise it resteth that some kinde of tryal be used to finde out which part is in error 3. The first mean whereby Nature teacheth men to judge good from evil as well in Laws as in other things is the force of their own discretion Hereunto therefore St. Paul referreth oftentimes his own speech to be considered of by them that heard him I speak as to them which have understanding Judge ye what I say Again afterward Judge in your selves is it comly that a woman pray uncovered The exercise of this kinde of judgment our Saviour requireth in the Iews In them of Berea the Scripture commendeth it Finally Whatsoever we do if our own secret judgment consent not unto it as fit and good to be done the doing of it to us is sin although the thing it self be allowable St. Pauls rule therefore generally is Let every man in his own minde be fully perswaded of that thing which he either alloweth or doth Some things are so familiar and plain that Truth from Falshood and Good from Evil is most easily discerned in them even by men of no deep capacity And of that nature for the most part are things absolutely unto all Mens salvation necessary either to he held or denied either to be done or avoided For which cause St. Augustine acknowledgeth that they are not onely set down but also plainly set down in Scripture So that he which heareth or readeth may without any great difficulty understand Other things also there are belonging though in a lower degree of importance unto the offices of Christian men Which because they are more obscure more intricate and hard to be judged of therefore God hath appointed some to spend their whole time principally in the study of things Divine to the end that in these more doubtful cases their understanding might be a light to direct others If the understanding power or faculty of the Soul be saith the Grand Physitian like unto bodily sight not of equal sharpness in all What can be more convenient then that even as the dark-sighted man is directed by the clear about things visible so likewise in matters of deeper discourse the wise in heart do shew the simple where his way lieth In our doubtful Cases of Law what man is there who seeth not how requisite it is that Professors of skill in that Faculty be our Directors so it is in all other kindes of knowledge And even in this kinde likewise the Lord hath himself appointed That the Priests lips should preserve knowledge and that other men should seek the truth at his mouth because he is the Messenger of the Lord of Hosts Gregory Nazianzen offended at the peoples too great presumption in controlling the judgment of them to whom in such cases they should have rather submitted their own seeketh by earnest entreaty to stay them within their bounds Presume not ye that are Sheep to make your selves Guides of them that should guide you neither seek ye to overslip the fold which they about you have pitched It sufficeth for your part if ye can well frame your selves to be ordered Take not upon you to judge your selves nor to make them subject to your Laws who should be a Law to you for God is not a God of Sedition and Confusion but of Order and of Peace But ye will say that if the Guides of the people be blinde the common sort of men must not close up their own eyes and be led by the conduct of such If the Priest be partial in the Law the flock must not therefore depart from the ways of sincere Truth and in simplicity yield to be followers of him for his place sake and office over them Which thing though in it self most true is in your defence notwithstanding weak because the matter wherein ye think that ye see and imagine that your ways are sincere is of far deeper consideration then any one amongst Five hundred of you conceiveth Let the vulgar sort among you know that there is not the least branch of the Cause wherein they are so resolute but to the tryal of it a great deal more appertaineth then their conceit doth reach unto I write not this in disgrace of the simplest that way given but I would gladly they knew the nature of that cause wherein they think themselves throughly instructed and are not by means whereof they daily run themselves without feeling their own hazzard upon the dint of the Apostles sentence against evil speakers as touching things wherein they are ignorant If it be granted a thing unlawful for private men not called unto Publick Consultation to dispute which is the best State of Civil Policy with a desire of bringing in some other kinde them that under which they already live for of such Disputes I take it his meaning was If it be a thing confest that of such Questions they cannot determine without rashness in as much as a great part of them consisteth in special Circumstances and for one kinde as many Reasons may be brought as for another Is there any reason in the World why they should better judge what kinde of Regiment Ecclesiastical is the fittest For in the Civil State more insight and in those affairs more experience a great deal must needs be granted them then in this they can possibly have When they which write in defence of your Discipline and commend it unto the Highest not in the least cunning manner are forced notwithstanding to acknowledge That with whom the Truth is they know not they are not certain what certainly or knowledge can the multitude have thereof Weigh what doth move the common sort so much to favor this Innovation and it shall soon appear unto you that the force of particular Reasons which for your several Opinions are alleaged is a thing whereof the multitude never did nor could so consider as to be therewith wholly carried but certain general Inducements are used to make saleable your Cause in gross And when once men have cast a fancy towards it any slight Declaration of Specialties will serve to lead forward mens inclineable and prepared mindes The method of winning the peoples affection unto a general liking of the Cause for so ye term it hath been this First in the hearing of the multitude the faults especially of
hinder it from taking place and in such cases if any strange or new thing seem requisite to be done a strange and new opinion concerning the lawfulness thereof is withal received and broached under countenance of Divine Authority One example herein may serve for many to shew That false opinions touching the Will of God to have things done are wont to bring forth mighty and violent practices against the hinderances of them And those practices new opinions more pernicious then the first yea most extreamly sometimes opposite to that which the first did seem to intend Where the people took upon them the Reformation of the Church by casting out Popish Superstition they having received from their Pastors a General Instruction that whatsoever the Heavenly Father hath not planted must be rootod out proceeded in some foreign places so far that down went Oratories and the very Temples of God themselves For as they chanced to take the compass of their Commission stricter or larger so their dealings were accordingly more or less moderate Amongst others there sprang up presently one kinde of men with whose zeal and forwardness the rest being compared were thought to be marvellous cold and dull These grounding themselves on Rules more general that whatsoever the Law of Christ commandeth not thereof Antichrist is the Author and that whatsoever Antichrist or his adherents did in the World the true Professors of Christ are to undo found out many things more then others had done the Extirpation whereof was in their conceit as necessary as of any thing before removed Hereupon they secretly made their doleful complaints every where as they went that albeit the World did begin to profess some dislike of that which was evil in the Kingdom of Darkness yet Fruits worthy of a true-Repentance were not seen and that if men did repent as they ought they must endeavor to purge the truth of all manner evil to the end there might follow a new World afterward wherein righteousness onely should dwell Private Repentance they said â—â—st appear by every mans fashioning his own life contrary unto the custom and orders of this present World both in greater things and in less To this purpose they had always in their mouths those greater things Charity Faith the true fear of God the Cross the Mortification of the flesh All their Exhortations were to set light of the things in this World to account riches and honors vanity and in taken thereof not onely to seek neither but if men were possessors of both even to cast away the one and resign the other that all men might see their unfeigned conversion unto Christ. They were Sollicitors of Men to Fasts to often Meditations of Heavenly things and as it were Conferences in secret with God by Prayers not framed according to the frozen manner of the World but expressing such fervent desires as might even force God to heaâ—ken unto them Where they found men in Diet Attire Furniture of House or any other way observers of civility and decent order such they reproved as being carnally and earthly minded Every word otherwise then severely and sadly uttered seemed to pierce like a Sword theron them If any man were pleasant their manner was presently with sighs to repeat those words of our Saviour Christ Wo be to you which now laugh for ye shall lament So great was their delight to be always in trouble that such as did quietly lead their lives they judged of all other men to be in most dangerous case They so much affected to cross the ordinary custom in every thing that when other mens use was to put on better attire they would be sure to shew themselves openly abroad in worses The ordinary names of the days in the week they thought it a kinde of prophaneness to use and therefore accustomed themselves to make no other distinction then by Numbers The first second third day From this they proceeded unto Publick Reformation first Ecclesiastical and then Civil Touching the former they boldly avouched that themselves onely had the Truth which thing upon peril of their lives they would at all times defend and that since the Apostles lived the same was never before in all points sincerely taught Wherefore that things might again be brought to that ancient integrity which Iesus Christ by his Word requireth they began to controll the Ministers of the Gospel for attributing so much force and vertue unto the Scriptures of God read whereas the Truth was that when the Word is said to engender Faith in the Heart and to convert the Soul of Man or to work any such Spiritual Divine effect these speeches are not thereunto appliable as it is read or preached but as it is ingrafted in us by the power of the Holy Ghost opening the eyes of our understanding and so revealing the Mysteries of God according to that which Jeremy promised before should be saying I will put my Law in their inward parts and I will write it in their hearts The Book of God they notwithstanding for the most part so admired that other disputation against their opinions then onely by allegation of Scripture they would not hear besides it they thought no other Writings in the World should be studied in so much as one of their great Prophets exhorting them to cast away all respects unto Humane Writings so far to his motion they condescended that as many as had any Books save the Holy Bible in their custody they brought and set them publickly on fire When they and their Bibles were alone together what strange phantastical opinion soever at any time entred into their heads their use was to think the Spirit taught it them Their phrensies concerning our Saviours Incarnation the state of Souls departed and such like are things needless to be rehearsed And for as much as they were of the same Suit with those of whom the Apostle speaketh saying They are still learning but never attain to the knowledge of truth it was no marvel to see them every day broach some new thing not heard of before Which restless levity they did interpret to be their growing to Spiritual Perfection and a proceeding from Faith to Faith The differences amongst them grew by this mean in a manner infinite so that scarcely was there found any one of them the forge of whose Brain was not possest with some special mystery Whereupon although their mutual contentions were most fiercely prosecuted amongst themselves yet when they came to defend the cause common to them all against the Adversaries of their Faction they had ways to lick one another whole the sounder in his own perswasion excusing THE DEAR BRETHREN which were not so far enlightned and professing a charitable hope of the Mercy of God towards them notwithstanding their swerving from him in some things Their own Ministers they highly magnified as men whose vocation was from God The
proceedeth not from God himself as from the supream cause of all things and every effect doth after a sort contain at leastwise resemble the cause from which it proceedeth All things in the World are said in some sort to seek the highest and to cover more or less the participation of God himself yet this doth no where so much appear as it doth in Man because there are so many kindes of Perfections which Man seeketh The first degree of Goodness is that General Perfection which all things do seek in desiring the continuance of their Being all things therefore coveting as much as may be to be like unto God in Being ever that which cannot hereunto attain personally doth seek to continue it self another way that is by Off-spring and Propagation The next degree of Goodness is that which each thing coveteth by affecting resemblance with God in the constancy and excellency of those operations which belong unto their kinde The Immutability of God they strive unto by working either always or for the most part after one and the same manner his absolute exactness they imitate by tending unto that which is most exquisite in every particular Hence have risen a number of Axioms in Philosophy shewing How the works of nature do always aim at that which cannot be bettered These two kindes of Goodness rehearsed are so nearly united to the things themselves which desire them that we scarcely perceive the appetite to stir in reaching forth her hand towards them But the desire of those Perfections which grow externally is more apparent especially of such as are not expresly desired unless they be first known or such as are not for any other cause then for Knowledge it self desired Concerning Perfections in this kinde that by proceeding in the Knowledge of Truth and by growing in the exercise of Vertue Man amongst the Creatures of this inferior World aspireth to the greatest Conformity with God This is not onely known unto us whom he himself hath so instructed but even they do acknowledge who amongst men are not judged the nearest unto him With Plato what one thing more usual then to excite men unto the love of Wisdom by shewing how much wise men are thereby exalted above men how knowledge doth raise them up into Heaven how it maketh them though not Gods yet â—as Gods high admirable and divine And Mercurius Trismegistus speaking of the vertues of a righteous Soul Such spirits saith he are never slayed with praising and speaking well of all men with doing good unto every one by word and deed because they study to frame themselves according to THE PATTERN of the Father of Spirits 6. In the Matter of Knowledge there is between the Angels of God and the Children of Men this difference Angels already have full and compleat knowledge in the highest degree that can be imparted unto them Men if we view them in their Spring are at the first without understanding or knowledge at all Nevertheless from this utter vacuity they grow by degrees till they come at length to be even as the Angels themselves are That which agreeth to the one now the other shall attain unto in the end they are not so far disjoyned and severed but that they comest length to meet The Soul of Man being therefore at the first as a Book wherein nothing is and yet all things may be imprinted we are to search by what steps and degrees it riseth unto Perfection of Knowledge Unto that which hath been already set down concerning Natural Agents this we must add That albeit therein we have comprised as well Creatures living as void of life if they be in degree of nature beneath Men nevertheless a difference we must observe between those Natural Agents that work altogether unwittingly and those which have though weak yet some understanding what they do as Fishes Fowls and Beasts have Beasts are in sensible capacity as ripe even as men themselves perhaps more ripe For as Stones though in dignity of Nature inferior unto Plants yet exceed them in firmness of strength or durability of Being and Plants though beneath the excellency of Creatures endued with sense yet exceed them in the Faculty of Vegetation and of Fertility So Beasts though otherwise behinde Men may notwithstanding in actions of Sense and Fancy go beyond them because the endeavors of Nature when it hath an higher perfection to seek are in lower the more remiss not esteeming thereof so much as those things do which have no better proposed unto them The Soul of Man therefore being capable of a more Divine Perfection hath besides the Faculties of growing unto sensible knowledge which is common unto us with Beasts a further hability whereof in them there is no shew at all the ability of reaching higher then unto sensible things Till we grow to some ripeness of years the Soul of Man doth onely store it self with conceits of things of inferior and more open quality which afterwards do serve as Instruments unto that which is greater in the mean while above the reach of meaner Creatures is ascendeth not When once it comprehendeth any thing above this as the differences of time affirmations negations and contradiction in Speech we then count it to have some use of Natural Reason Whereunto if afterwards there might be added the right helps of true Art and Learning which helps I must plainly confess this age of the World carrying the name of a Learned Age doth neither much know not greatly regard there would undoubtedly be almost as great difference in maturity of judgment between men therewith inured and that which now men are as between men that are now and Innocents Which speech if any condemn as being over Hyperbolical let them consider but this one thing No Art is at the first finding out so perfect as Industry may aftermake it yet the very first Man that to any purpose knew the way we speak of and followed it hath alone thereby performed more very near in all parts of Natural Knowledge then sithence in any one part thereof the whole World besides hath done In the poverty of that other new devised aid two things there are notwithstanding singular Of marvellous quick dispatch it is and doth shew them that have it as much almost in three days as if it had dwelt threescore years with them Again because the curiosity of Mans wit doth many times with perswade farther in the search of things then were convenient the same is thereby restrained unto such generalities as every where offering themselves are apparent unto men of the weakest conceit that need be So as following the Rules and Precepts thereof we may finde it to be an Art which teacheth the way of speedy Discourse and restraineth the minde of Man that it may not wax overwise Education and Instruction are the means the one by use the other by precept to make our Natural Faculty of Reason both the better and
the sooner able to judge rightly between Truth and Error Good and Evil. But at what time a man may be said to have attained so far forth the use of Reason as sufficeth to make him capable of those Laws whereby he is then bound to guide his actions This is a great deal more easie for common sense to discern then for any man by skill and learning to determine even as it is not in Philosophers who best know the nature both of Fire and Gold to teach what degree of the one will serve to purifie the other so well as the Artizan which doth this by fire discerneth by Sense when the fire hath that degree of heat which sufficeth for his purpose 7. By Reason Man attaineth unto the knowledge of things that are and are not sensible it resteth therefore that we search how Man attaineth unto the knowledge of such things unsensible as are to be known that they may be done Seeing them that nothing can move unless there be some end the desire whereof provoketh unto motion How should that Divine Power of the Soul that Spirit of our Minde as the Apostle termeth it ever stir it self unto action unless it have also the like spur The end for which we are moved to work is sometimes the goodness which we conceive of the very working it self without any further respect at all and the cause that procureth action is the meer desire of action no other good besides being thereby intended Of certain turbulent wits it is said Illis quieta movere magna merces videbatur They thought the very disturbance of things established an hire sufficient to set them on work Sometimes that which we do is referred to a further end without the desire whereof we would leave the same undone as in their actions that gave Alms to purchase thereby the praise of men Man in Perfection of Nature being made according to the likeness of his Maker resembleth him also in the manner of working so that whatsoever we work as men the same we do wittingly work and freely Neither are we according to the manner of Natural Agents any way so tied but that it is in our power to leave the things we do undone The good which either is gotten by doing or which consisteth in the very doing it self causeth not action unless apprehending it as good we so like and desire it That we do unto any such end the same we chuse and prefer before the leaving of it undone Choice there is not unless the thing which we take be so in our power that we might have refused and left it If fire consume the stubble it chuseth not so to do because the nature thereof is such that it can do no other To chuse is to will one thing before another and to will is to bend our Souls to the having or doing of that which they see to be good Goodness is seen with the Eye of the Understanding and the Light of that Eye is Reason So that two Principal Fountains there are of Humane Action Knowledge and Will which Will in things tending towards any end is termed Choice Concerning Knowledge Behold saith Moses I have set before you this day good end evil life and death Concerning Will he addeth immediately Chuse life that is to say the things that tend unto Life them chuse But of one thing we must have special care as being a matter of no small moment and that is How the Will properly and strictly taken as it is of things which are referred unto the end that man desireth differeth greatly from that inferior natural desire which we call Appetite The object of Appetite is whatsoever sensible good may be wished for the object of Will is that good which Reason doth lead us to seek Affections as Joy and Grief and Fear and Anger with such like being as it were the sundry fashions and forms of Appetite can neither rise at the conceit of a thing indifferent nor yet chuse but rise at the sight of some things Wherefore it is not altogether in our power whether we will be stirred with Affections or no. Whereas Actions which issue from the disposition of the Will are in the Power thereof to be performed or stayed Finally Appetite is the Wills Sollicitor and the Will is Appetites Controuler what we covet according to the one by the other we often reject Neither is any other desire termed properly Will but that where Reason and Understanding or the shew of Reason prescribeth the thing desired It may be therefore a question Whether those operations of men are to be counted voluntary wherein that good which is sensible provoketh Appetite and Appetite causeth Action Reason being never called to counsel as when we eat or drink or betake ourselves unto rest and such like The truth is that such actions in men having attained to the use of Reason are voluntary For as the Authority of higher Powers bath force even in those things which are done without their privity and are of so mean reckoning that to acquaint them therewith it needeth not In like sort voluntarily we are said to do that also which the Will if it listed might hinder from being done although about the doing thereof we do not expresly use our Reason or Understanding and so immediately apply our Wills thereunto In cases therefore of such facility the Will doth yield her assent as it were with a kinde of silence by not dissenting in which respect her force is not so apparent as in express Mandates or Prohibitions especially upon advice and consultation going before Where Understanding therefore needeth in those things Reason is the Director of Mans Will by discovering in Action what is good For the Laws of Weldoing are the Dictates of right Reason Children which are not as yet come unto those years whereat they may have again Innocents which are excluded by Natural Defect from ever having thirdly Mad-men which for the present cannot possibly have the use of right Reason to guide themselves have for their guide the Reason that guideth other men which are Tutors over them to seek and to procure their good for them In the rest there is that Light of Reason whereby good may be known from evil and which discovering the same rightly is termed right The Will notwithstanding doth not incline to have or do that which Reason teacheth to be good unless the same do also teach it to be possible For albeit the Appetite being more general may wish any thing which seemeth good be it never so impossible yet for such things the reasonable Will of Man doth never seek Let Reason teach impossibility in any thing and the Will of Man doth let it go a thing impossible it doth not affect the impossibility thereof being manifest There is in the Will of Man naturally that freedom whereby it is apt to take or refuse any particular object whatsoever being presented unto it Whereupon it
men to know and that many things are in such sort necessary the knowledge whereof is by the light of Nature impossible to be attained Whereupon it followeth that either all flesh is excluded from possibility of salvation which to think were most barbarous or else that God hath by supernatural means revealed the way of life so far forth as doth suffice For this cause God hath so many times and ways spoken to the sons of men Neither hath he by speech onely but by writing also instructed and taught his Church The cause of writing hath been to the end that things by him revealed unto the World might have the longer continuance and the greater certainty of assurance by how much that which standeth on Record hath in both those respects preheminence above that which passeth from hand to hand and hath no Pens but the Tongues no Book but the ears of Men to record it The several Books of Scripture having had each some several occasion and particular purpose which caused them to be written the Contents thereof are according to the exigence of that special end whereunto they are intended Hereupon it groweth that every Book of holy Scripture doth take out of all kindes of truth Natural Historical Foreign Supernatural so much as the matter handled requireth Now for as much as there have been Reasons alledged sufficient to conclude that all things necessary unto salvation must be made known and that God himself hath therefore revealed his Will because otherwise men could not have known so much as is necessary his surceasing to speak to the World since the publishing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the delivery of the same in writing is unto us a manifest token that the way of salvation is now sufficiently opened and that we need no other means for our full instruction then God hath already furnished us withal The main drift of the whole New Testament is that which St. Iohn setteth down as the purpose of his own History These things are written that ye might believe that Iesus is Christ the Son of God and that in believing ye might have life through his Name The drift of the Old that which the Apostle mentioneth to Timothy The holy Scriptures are able to make thee wise unto salvation So that the general end both of Old and New is one the difference between them consisting in this That the Old did make wise by teaching salvation through Christ that should come the New by teaching that Christ the Saviour is come and that Jesus whom the Jews did crucifie and whom God did raise again from the dead is he When the Apostle therefore affirmeth unto Timothy that the Old was able to make him wise to salvation it was not his meaning that the Old alone can do this unto us which live sithence the publication of the New For he speaketh with presupposal of the Doctrine of Christ known also unto Timothy and therefore first it is said Continue thou in those things which thou hast learned and art perswaded knowing of whom thou hast been taught them Again those Scriptures he granteth were able to make him wise to salvation but he addeth through the Faith which is in Christ. Wherefore without the Doctrine of the New Testament teaching that Christ hath wrought the Redemption of the World which Redemption the Old did foreshew he should work it is not the former alone which can on our behalf perform so much as the Apostle doth avouch who presupposeth this when he magnifieth that so highly And as his words concerning the Books of ancient Scripture do not take place but with presupposal of the Gospel of Christ embraced so our own words also when we extol the compleat sufficiency of the whole intire Body of the Scripture must in like sort be understood with this caution That the benefit of Natures Light be not thought excluded as unnecessary because the necessity of a Diviner Light is magnified There is in Scripture therefore no defect but that any man what place or cailing soever he hold in the Church of God may have thereby the light of his Natural Understanding so perfected that the one being relieved by the other there can want no part of needful instruction unto any good work which God himself requireth be it Natural or Supernatural belonging simply unto men as men or unto men as they are united in whatsoever kinde of Society It sufficeth therefore that Nature and Scripture do serve in such full sort that they both joyntly and not severally either of thou be so compleat that unto Everlasting felicity we need not the knowlegde of any thing more then these two may easily furnish our mindes with on all sides And therefore they which adde Traditions as a part of Supernatural necessary Truth have not the Truth but are in Error For they onely plead that whatsoever God revealeth as necessary for all Christian men to do or believe the same we ought to embrace whether we have received it by writing or otherwise which no man denieth when that which they should confirm who claim so great reverence unto Traditions is that the same Traditions are necessarily to be acknowledged divine and holy For we do not reject them onely because they are not in the Scripture but because they are neither in Scripture nor can otherwise sufficiently by any Reason be proved to be a God That which is of God and may be evidently proved to be so we deny not but it hath in his kinde although unwritten yet the self same force and authority with the written Laws of God It is by ours acknowledged That the Apostles did in every Church institute and ordain some Rites and Customs serving for the seemliness of Church Regiment which Rites and Customs they have not committed unto writing Those Rites and Customs being known to be Apostolical and having the nature of things changeable were no less to be accounted of in the Church then other things of the like degree that is to say capable in like sort of alteration although set down in the Apostles writings For both being known to be Apostolical it is not the manner of delivering them unto the Church but the Author from whom they proceed which doth give them their force and credit 15. Laws being imposed either by each man upon himself or by a Publick Society upon the particulars thereof or by all the Nations of Men upon every several Society or by the Lord himself upon any or every of these There is not amongst these four kindes any one but containeth sundry both Natural and Positive Laws Impossible it is but that they should fall into a number of gross Errors who onely take such Laws for Positive as have been made or invented of men and holding this Position hold also that all Positive and none but Positive Laws are mutable Laws Natural do always binde Laws Positive not so but onely
after they have been expresly and wittingly imposed Laws Positive there are in every of those kindes beforementioned As in the first kinde the Promises which we have past unto Men and the Vows we have made unto God for these arâ— Laws which we tie our selves unto and till we have so tied our selves they binde us not Laws Positive in the second kinde are such as the Civil Constitutions peculiar unto each particular Commonweal In the third kinde the Law of Heraldry in War is Positive And in the last all the Judicials which God gave unto the people of Israel to observe And although no Laws but Positive be mutable yet all are not mutable which be Positive Positive Laws are either permanent or else changeable according as the matter it self is concerning which they were first made Whether God or Man be the Maker of them alteration they so far forth admit as the Matter doth exact Laws that concern Supernatural duties are all Positive and either concern Men supernaturally as Men or else as parts of a Supernatural Society which Society we call the Church To concern Men as Men supernaturally is to concern them as duties which belong of necessity to all and yet could not have been known by any to belong unto them unless God had opened them himself in as much as they do not depend upon any Natural ground at all out of which they may be deduced but are appointed of God to supply the defect of those natural ways of salvation by which we are not now able to attain thereunto The Church being a Supernatural Society doth differ from Natural Societies in this that the persons unto whom we associate our selves in the one are Men simply considered as Men But they to whom we be joyned in the other are God Angels and holy Men. Again the Church being hoth a Society and a Society Supernatural Although as it is a Society it have the self same original grounds which other Politick Societies have namely the Natural inclination which all men have unto sociable life and consent to some certain Bond of Association which Bond is the Law that appointeth what kinde of order they shall be associated in Yet unto the Church as it is a Society Supernatural this is peculiar that part of the Bond of their Association which belongs to the Church of God must be a Law Supernatural which God himself hath revealed concerning that kinde of worship which his people shall do unto him The substance of the service of God therefore so far forth as it hath in it any thing more then the Law of Reason doth reach may not be invented of Men as it is amongst the Heathens but must be received from God himself as always it hath been in the Church saving onely when the Church hath been forgetful of her duty Wherefore to end with a general Rule concerning all the Laws which God hath tied men unto Those Laws Divine that belong whether naturally or supernaturally either to men as men or to men as they live in Politick Society or to men as they are of that Politick Society which is the Church without any further respect had unto any such variable accident as the Estate of men and of Societies of men and of the Church it self in this World is subject unto all Laws that so belong unto men they belong for ever yea although they be Positive Laws unless being Positive God himself which made them alter them The reason is because the subject or matter of Laws in general is thus far forth constant Which matter is that for the ordering whereof Laws were instituted and being instituted are not changeable without cause Neither can they have cause of change when that which gave them their first institution remaineth for ever one and the same On the other side Laws that were made for Men or Societies or Churches in regard of their being such as they do not always continue but may perhaps be clean otherwise awhile after and so may require to be otherwise ordered then before the Laws of God himself which are of this nature no man endued with common sense will ever deny to be of a different constitution from the former in respect of the ones constancy and the mutability of the other And this doth seem to have been the very cause why St. Iohn doth so peculiarly term the doctrine that teacheth salvation by Jesus Christ Evangelium AEternum An eternal Gospel because there can be no reason wherefore the publishing thereof should be taken away and any other instead of it proclaimed as long as the World doth continue Whereas the whole Law of Rites and Ceremonies although delivered with so great solemnity is notwithstanding clean abrogated in as much as it had but temporary cause of Gods ordaining it But that we may at the length conclude this first general introduction unto the Nature and Original Birth as of all other Laws so likewise of those which the Sacred Scripture containeth concerning the Author whereof even Infidels have confessed that he can neither err nor deceive Albeit about things easie and manifest unto all men by common sense there needeth no higher consultation because as a man whose wisdom is in weighty affairs admired would take it in some disdain to have his counsel solemnly asked about a toy so the meanness of some things is such that to search the Scripture of God for the ordering of them were to derogate from the reverend Authority and Dignity of the Scripture no less then they do by whom Scriptures are in ordinary talk very idly applied unto vain and childish trifles yet better it were to be superstitious then prophane To take from thence our direction even in all things great or small then to wade through matters of principal weight and moment without ever caring what the Law of God hath either for or against our designs Concerning the custom of the very Paynims thus much Strabo witnesseth Men that are civil do lead their lives after one Common Law appointing them what to do For that otherwise a multitude should with harmony amongst themselves concur in the doing of onething for this is civilly to live or that they should in any sort manage community of life it is not possible Now Laws or Statutes are of two sorts For they are either received from Gods or else from Men. And our ancient Predecessors did surely most honor and reverence that which was from the Gods For which cause Consultation with Oracles was a thing very usual and frequent in their times Did they make so much account of the voice of their gods which in truth were no gods and shall we neglect the precious benefit of conference with those Oracles of the true and living God whereof so great store is left to the Church and whereunto there is so free so plain and so easie access for all men By thy Commandments this was Davids confession unto God thou
things escape them and in many things they may be deceived yea those things which they do know they may either forget or upon sundry indirect considerations let pass and although themselves do not erre yet may they through malice or vanity even of purpose deceive others Howbeit infinite cases there are wherein all these impediments and lets are so manifestly excluded that there is no shew or colour whereby any such Exception may be taken but that the testimony of man will stand as a ground of infallible assurance That there is a City of Rome that Pins Quintus and Gregory the thirteenth and others have been Popes of Rome I suppose we are certainly enough perswaded The ground of our perswasion who never saw the place nor persons before named can be nothing but mans testimony Will any man here notwithstanding alledge those mentioned humane infirmities as Reasons why these things should be mistrusted or doubted of yea that which is more utterly to infringe the force and strength of mans testimony were to shake the very Fortress of Gods truth For whatsoever we believe concerning Salvation by Christ although the Scripture be therein the ground of our belief yet the authority of man is if we mark it the key which openeth the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scripture The Scripture doth not teach us the things that are of God unless we did credit men who have taught us that the words of Scripture do signifie those things Some way therefore notwithstanding mans infirmity yet his Authority may inforce assent Upon better advice and deliberation so much is perceived and at the length confest that Arguments taken from the Authority of men may not only so far forth as hath been declared but further also be of some force in Humane Sciences which force be it never so small doth shew that they are not utterly naught But in Matters Divine it is still maintained stifly that they have no manner force at all Howbeit the very self same reason which causeth to yield that they are of some force in the one will at the length constrain also to acknowledge that they are not in the other altogether unforcible For it the natural strength of mans wit may by experience and stucie attain unto such ripeness in the knowledge of things humane that men in this respect may presume to build somewhat upon their judgement what reason have we to think but that even in matters Divine the like wits furnisht with necessary helps exercised in Scripture with like diligence and assisted with the grace of Almighty God may grow unto so much perfection of knowledge that men shall have just cause when any thing pertinent unto Faith and Religion is doubted of the more willingly to encline their mindes towards that which the sentence of so grave wise and learned in that faculty shall judge most sound For the controversie is of the weight of such mens judgements Let it therefore be suspected let it be taken as gross corrupt repugnant unto the truth whatsoever concerning things divine above nature shall at any time be spoken as out of the mouths of meer natural men which have not the eyes wherewith heavenly things are discerned For this we contend not But whom God hath endued with principal gifts to aspire unto knowledge by whose exercises labours and divine studies he hath so blest that the World for their great and rate skill that way hath them in singular admiration may we reject even their judgement likewise as being utterly of no moment For mine own part I dare not so lightly esteem of the Church and of the principal Pillars therein The truth is that the minde of man desireth evermore to know the truth according to the most infallible certainty which the nature of things can yield The greatest assurance generally with all men is that which we have by plain aspect and intuitive beholding Where we cannot attain unto this thereâ— what appeareth to be true by strong and invincible demonstration such as wherein it is not by any way possible to be deceived thereunto the minde doth necessarily assent neither is it in the choice thereof to do otherwise And in case these both do fail then which way greatest probability leadeth thither the minde doth evermore incline Scripture with Christian men being received as the Word of God that for which we have probable yea that which we have necessary reason for yea that which we see with out eyes is not thought so sure as that which the Scripture of God teacheth because we hold that his speech revealeth there what himself seeth and therefore the strongest proof of all and the most necessarily assented unto by us which do thus receive the Scripture is the Scripture Now it is not required nor can be exacted at our hands that we should yield unto any thing other assent then such as doth answer the evidence which is to be had of that we assent unto For which cause even in matters Divine concerning some things we may lawfuly doubt and suspend our judgement enclining neither to one side or other as namely touching the time of the fall both of man and Angels of some things we may very well retain an opinion that they are probable and not unlikely to be true as when we hold that men have their souls rather by creation then propagation or that the Mother of our Lord lived always in the state of Virginity as well after his birth as before for of these two the one her virginity before is a thing which of necessity we must believe the other her continuance in the same state always hath more likelihood of truth then the contrary finally in all things then are our Consciences best resolved and in a most agreeable sore unto God and Nature setled when they are so far perswaded as those grounds of â—erswasion which are to be had will bear Which thing I do so much the rather set down for that I see how a number of souls are for want of right Information in this Point oftentimes grievously vexed When bare and unbuilded Conclusions are put into their mindes they finding not themselves to have thereof any great certainty imagine that this proceedeth only from lack of Faith and that the Spirit God doth not work in them as it doth in true Believers by this means their hearts are much troubled they fall into anquish and perplexity whereas the truth is that how bold and confident soever we may be in words when it cometh to the point of trial such as the evidence is which the Truth hath either in it self or through proof such is the hearts assent thereunto neither can it be stronger being grounded as it should be I grant that proof derived from the authority of mans judgement is not able to work that assurance which doth grow by a stronger proof and therefore although ten thousand General Councils would set down one and the same definitive sentence
them that so to do were so sin against their own souls and that they put forth their hands to iniquity whatsoever they go about and have not first the sacred Scripture of God for direction how can it chuse but bring the simple a thousand times to their wits end how can it chuse but vex and amaze them For in every action of common life to since out some seâ—tence clearly and infallibly setting before our eyes what we ought to do seem we in Scripture never so expert would trouble us more then we are aware In weak and tender minds we little know what misery this strict opinion would breed besides the stops it would make in the whole course of all mens lives and actions make all things sin which we do by direction of Natures light and by the rule of common discretion without thinking at all upon Scripture Admit this Position and Parents shall cause their children to sin as oft as they cause them to do any thing before they come to years of capacity and be ripe for Knowledge in the Scripture Admit this and it shall not be with Masters as it was with him him in the Gospel but servants being commanded to go shall stand still till they have errand warranted unto them by Scripture Which as it standeth with Christian duty in some cases so in common affairs to require it were most unfit Two opinions therefore there are concerning sufficiency of holy Scripture each extreamly opposit unto the other and both repugnant unto truth The Schools of Rome teach Scripture to be unsufficient as if except Traditions were added it did not contain all revealed and supernatural Truth which absolutely is necessary for the children of men in this life to know that they may in the next be saved Others justly condemning this opinion grow likewise unto a dangerous extremity as if Scripture did not only contain all things in that kinde necessary but all things simply and in such sort that to do any thing according to any other Law were not only unnecessary but even opposite unto salvation unlawful and sinful Whatsoever is spoken of God or things appertaining to God otherwise then as the truth is though it seem an honour it is an injury And as incredible praises given unto men do often abate and impair the credit of their deserved commendation so we must likewise take great heed lest in attributing unto Scripture more then it can have the incredibility of that do cause even those things which indeed it hath most abundantly to be less reverendly esteemed I therefore leave it to themselves to consider Whether they have in this First Point overshot themselves or not which God doth know is quickly done even when our meaning is most sincere as I am verily perswaded theirs in this case was OF THE LAWS OF Ecclesiastical Polity Book III. Concerning their Second Assertion That in Scripture there must be of necessity contained a Form of Church Polity the Laws whereof may in no wise be altered The Matter contained in this Third Book 1. WHat the Church is and in what respect Laws of Polity are thereunto necessarily required 2. Whether it be necessary that some particular Form of Church Polity be set down in Scripture sith the things that belong particularly to any such Form are not of necessity to salvation 3. That matters of Church Polity are different from matters of Faith and Salvation and that they themselves so teach which are out Reprovers for so teaching 4. That hereby we take not from Scripture any thing which thereunto with the soundness of truth may be given 5. Their meaning who first urged against the Polity of the Church of England that nothing ought to be established in the Church more then is commanded by the Word of God 6. How great injury men by so thinking should offer unto all the Churches of God 7. A shift notwithstanding to maintain it by interpreting Commanded as though it were meant that greater things onely ought to be found set down in Scripture particularly and lesser framed by the general Rules of Scripture 8. Another Device to defend the same by expounding Commanded as if it did signifie grounded as Scripture and were opposed to things sound out by the light of natural reason onely 9. How Laws for the Polity of the Church may be made by the advise of men and how those being nor repugnant to the Word of God are approved in his sight 10. The neither Gods being the Author of Laws nor yet his committing of them to Scripture is any Reason sufficient to prove that they admit no addition or change 11. Whether Christ must needs intend Laws unchangeable altogether or have forbidden any where to make any other Law then himself did deliver ALbeit the substance of those Controversies whereinto we have begun to wade be rather of outward things appertaining to the Church of Christ then of any thing wherein the nature and being of the Church consisteth yet because the Subject or Matter which this Position concerneth is A Forms of Church Government or Church-Polity It therefore behoveth us so far forth to consider the nature of the Church as is requisite for mens more clear and plain understanding in what respect Laws of Polity or Government are necessary thereunto That Church of Christ which we properly term his body Mystical can be but one neither can that one be sensibly discerned by any man inasmuch as the parts thereof are some in Heaven already with Christ and the rest that are on earth albeit their natural persons be visible we do not discern under this property whereby they are truly and infallibly of that body Only our minds by intellectual conceit are able to apprehend that such a real body there is a body collective because it containeth an huge multitude a body mystical because the mystery of their conjunction is removed altogether from sense Whatsoever we read in Scripture concerning the endless love and the saving mercy which God sheweth towards his Church the only proper subject thereof is this Church Concerning this Flock it is that our Lord and Saviour hath promised I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any pluck them out of my hands They who are of this Society have such Marks and Notes of distinction from all others as are not objects unto our sense only unto God who seeth their hearts and understandeth all their secret cogitations unto him they are clear and manifest All men knew Nathaniel to be an Israelite But our Saviour piercing deeper giveth further Testimony of him then men could have done with such certainty as he did Behold indeed an Israelite in whom there is no guile If we profess as Peter did that we love the Lord and profess it in the hearing of men charity is prone to believe all things and therefore charitablemen are likely to think we do so as long as they see
not opposit by holding that Grace hath use of Nature Secondly Philosophy we are warned to take heed of not that Philosophy which is true and sound Knowledge attained by Natural discourse of Reason but that Philosophy which to bolster Heresie or Error casteth a fraudulent shew of Reason upon things which are indeed unreasonable and by that mean as by a stratagem spoileth the simple which are not able to withstand such cunning Take heed lest any spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit He that exhorteth to beware of an enemies policy doth not give counsel to be impolitick but rather to use all prudent foresight and circumspection lest our simplicity be over-reached by cunning sleights The way not to be inveighled by them that are so guileful through skill is throughly to be instructed in that which maketh skilful against guile and to be armed with that true and sincere Philosophy which doth teach against that deceitful and vain which spoileth Thirdly But many great Philosophers have been very unsound in belief and many sound in belief have been also great Philosophers Could Secular Knowledge bring the one sort unto the love of Christian Faith Nor Christian Faith the other sort out of love with Secular Knowledge The harm that Hereticks did they did it unto such as were unable to discern between sound and deceitful reasoning and the remedy against it was ever the skill which the Ancient Fathers had to discry and discover such deceit Insomuch that Cresconius the Heretick complained greatly of St. Augustine as being too full of Logical subtilties Heresie prevaileth onely by a counterfeit shew of Reason whereby notwithstanding it becometh invincible unless it be convicted of Fraud by manifest Remonstrance clearly true and unable to be withstood When therefore the Apostle requireth hability to convict Hereticks can we think he judgeth it a thing unlawful and not rather needful to use the Principal Instrument of their Conviction the Light of Reason It may not be denied but that in the Fathers writings there are sundry sharp invectives against Hereticks even for their very Philosophical reasonings The cause whereof Tertullian confesseth not to have been any dislike conceived against the kinde of such reasonings but the end We may saith he even in matters of God be made wiser by Reasons drawn from the Publick Perswasions which are grafted in Mens mindes So they be used to further the Truth not to bolster Error so they make with not against that which God hath determined For there are some things even known by Nature as the Immortality of the Soul to many our God unto all I will therefore my self also use the sentence of some such as Plato pronouncing every Soul Immortal I my self too will use the secret acknowledgment of the communalty bearing Record of the God of gods But when I hear men alledge That which is dead is dead and While thou art alive be alive and After death an end of all even of death it self Then will I call to minde both that the heart of the people with God is accounted dust and that the very Wisdom of the World is pronounced Folly If then an Heretick flie also unto such vicious popular and secular conceits my answer unto him shall be Thou Heretick avoid the Heathen although in this ye be one that ye both belie God yet thou that dost his under the Name of Christ differest from the Heathen in that thou seemest to thy self a Christian. Leave him therefore his conceits seeing that neither will be learn thine Why dost thou having sight trust to a blind guide Thou which hast put on Christ take raiment of him that is naked If the Apostle have armed thee why dost thou borrow a strangers shield Let him rather learn of thee to acknowledge then thou of him to renounce the Resurrection of the Flesh. In a word the Catholick Fathers did good unto all by that Knowledge whereby Hereticks hindering the Truth in many might have furthered therewith themselves but that obstinately following their own ambitious or otherwise corrupted affections instead of framing their wills to maintain that which Reason taught they bent their wits to finde how Reason might seem to teach that which their Wills were set to maintain For which cause the Apostle saith of them justly that they are for the most part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men condemned even in and of themselves For though they be not all perswaded that it is truth which they withstand yet that to be error which they uphold they might undoubtedly the sooner a great deal attain to know but that their study is more to defend what once they have stood in then to finde out sincerely and simply what truth they ought to persist in for ever Fourthly there is in the World no kinde of knowledge whereby any part of Truth is seen but we justly account it precious yea that Principal Truth in comparison whereof all other knowledge is vile may receive from it some kinde of light whether it be that Egyptian and Caldean wisdom Mathematical wherewith Moses and Daniel were furnished or that Natural Moral and Civil wisdom wherewith Solomon excelled all Men or that Rational and Oratorial wisdom of the Grecians which the Apostle St. Paul brought from Tarsus or that Judaical which he learned in Ierusalem sitting at the feet of Gamaliel To detract from the dignity thereof were to injure even God himself who being that Light which none can approach unto hath sent out these lights whereof we are capable even as so many sparkles resembling the Bright Fountain from which they rise But there are that bear the title of Wisemen and Scribes and great Disputers of the World and are nothing indeed less then what in shew they most appear These being wholy addicted unto their own wills use their wit their learning and all the wisdom they have to maintain that which their obstinate hearts are delighted with esteeming in the frantick error of their mindes the greatest madness in the World to be Wisdom and the highest Wisdom foolishness Such were both Jews and Grecians which professed the one sort Legal and the other Secular skill neither enduring to be taught the Mystery of Christ Unto the glory of whose most blessed Name who so study to use both their Reason and all other Gifts as well which Nature as which Grace hath endued them with let them never doubt but that the same God who is to destroy and confound utterly that wisdom falsly so named in others doth make reckoning of them as of true Scribes Scribes by Wisdom instructed to the Kingdom of Heaven Scribes against that Kingdom hardned in a vain opinion of Wisdom which in the end being proved folly must needs perish true Understanding Knowledge Judgment and Reason continuing for evermore Fifthly Unto the Word of God being in respect of that end for which God ordained it perfect exact and absolute in it self we do not add Reason
as a Supplement of any maim or defect therein but as a necessary Instrument without which we could not reap by the Scriptures perfection that fruit and benefit which it yieldeth The Word of God is a two-edged sword put in the hands of reasonable men and Reason as the weapon that flew Goliah if they be as David was that use it Touching the Apostles he which gave them from above such Power for miraculous confirmation of that which they taught endued them also with Wisdom from above to teach that which they so did confirm Our Saviour made choice of Twelve simple and unlearned Men that the greater their lack of Natural wisdom was the more admirable that might appear which God supernaturally endued them with from Heaven Such therefore as knew the poor and silly estate wherein they had lived could not but wonder to hear the Wisdom of their speech and be so much the more attentive unto their teaching They studied for no Tongue they spake withal of themselves they were rude and knew not so much as how to premeditate the Spirit gave them speech and cloquent utterance But because with St. Paul it was otherwise then with the rest in as much as he never conversed with Christ upon Earth as they did and his education had been scholastical altogether which theirs was not Hereby occasion was taken by certain Malignants secretly to undermine his great Authority in the Church of Christ as though the Gospel had been taught him by others then by Christ himself and as if the cause of the Gentiles conversion and belief through his means had been the learning and skill which he had by being conversant in their Books which thing made them so willing to hear him and him so able to perswade them whereas the rest of the Apostles prevailed because God was with them and by a miracle from Heaven confirmed his Word in their mouths They were mighty in deeds As for him being absent his Writings had some force in presence his Power not like unto theirs In sum concerning his Preaching their very by-word was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 addle speech empty talk His Writings full of great words but in the Power of miraculous Operations His presence not like the rest of the Apostles Hereupon it ariseth that St. Paul was so often driven to make his Apologies Hereupon it ariseth that whatsoever time he had spent in the study of Humane Learning he maketh earnest protestation to them of Corinth that the Gospel which he had preached amongst them did not by other means prevail with them then with others the same Gospel taught by the rest of the Apostles of Christ. My Preaching saith he hath not been in the perswasive speeches of Humane Wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of Power that your faith may not be in the wisdom of men but in the Power of God What is it which the Apostle doth here deny Is it denied that his speech amongst them had been perswasive No for of him the sacred History plainly restifieth that for the space of a year and a half he spake in their Synagogue every Sabbath and perswaded both Jews and Grecians How then is the speech of men made perswasive Surely there can be but two ways to bring this to pass the one Humane the other Divine Either St. Paul did onely by art and natural industry cause his own speech to be credited or else God by miracle did authorise it and so bring credit thereunto as to the speech of the rest of the Apostles Of which two the former he utterly denieth For why If the Preaching of the rest had been effectual by miracle his onely by force of his own learning so great inequality between him and the other Apostles in this thing had been enough to subvert their Faith For might they not with reason have thought that if he were sent of God as well as they God would not have furnished them and not him with the power of the Holy Ghost Might not a great part of them being simple haply have feared lest their assent had been cunningly gotten unto his doctrine rather through the weakness of their own wits then the certainty of that Truth which he had taught them How unequal had it been that all Believers through the Preaching of other Apostles should have their Faith strongly built upon the evidence of Gods own miraculous approbation and they whom he had converted should have their perswasion built onely upon his skill and wisdom who perswaded them As therefore calling from men may authorise us to teach although it could not authorise him to teach as other Apostles did So although the wisdom of man had not been sufficient to enable him such a Teacher as the rest of the Apostles were unless Gods miracles had strengthned both the one and the others Doctrine yet unto our ability both of teaching and learning the Truth of Christ as we are but meer Christian men it is not a little which the wisdom of man may add Sixthly Yea whatsoever our hearts be to God and to his Truth believe we or be we as yet faithless for our Conversion or Confirmation the force of Natural Reason is great The force whereof unto those effects is nothing without grace What then To our purpose it is sufficient that whosoever doth serve honor and obey God whosoever believeth in him that man would no more do this then innocents and infants do but for the Light of Natural Reason that shineth in him and maketh him apt to apprehend those things of God which being by grace discovered are effectual to perswade reasonable mindes and none other that honor obedience and credit belong aright unto God No man cometh unto God to offer him Sacrifice to pour out Supplications and Prayers before him or to do him any service which doth not first believe him both to be and to be a rewarder of them who in such sort seek unto him Let men be taught this either by Revelation from Heaven or by Instruction upon Earth by Labor Study and Meditation or by the onely secret Inspiration of the Holy Ghost whatsoever the mean be they know it by if the knowledge thereof were possible without discourse of Natural Reason why should none be found capable thereof but onely men nor men till such time as they come unto ripe and full ability to work by reasonable understanding The whole drift of the Scripture of God what is it but onely to teach Theology Theology what is it but the Science of things Divine What Science an be attained unto without the help of Natural Discourse and Reason Iudge you of that which I speak saith the Apostle In vain it were to speak any thing of God but that by Reason Men are able somewhat to judge of that they hear and by discourse to discern how consonant it is to Truth Scripture indeed teacheth things above Nature things which our Reason by
Store-house abounding with inestimable Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge in many kindes over and above things in this one kinde barely necessary yea even that Matters of Ecclesiastical Polity are not therein omitted but taught also albeit not so taught as those other things before mentioned For so perfectly are those things taught that nothing ever can need to be added nothing ever cease to be necessary These on the contrary side as being of a far other nature and quality not so strictly nor everlastingly commanded in Scripture but that unto the compleat Form of Church Polity much may be requisite which the Scripture teacheth not and much which it hath taught become unrequisite sometime because we need not use it sometimes also because we cannot In which respect for mine own part although I see that certain Reformed Churches the Scotish especially and French have not that which best agreeth with the Sacred Scripture I mean the Government that is by Bishops in as much as both those Churches are faln under a different kinde of Regiment which to remedy it is for the one altogether too late and too soon for the other during their present affliction and trouble This their defect and imperfection I had rather lament in such a case then exagitate considering that men oftentimes without any fault of their own may be driven to want that kinde of Polity or Regiment which is best and to content themselves with that weich either the irremediable Error of former times or the necessity of the present hath cast upon them Fifthly Now because that Position first mentioned which holdeth it necessary that all things which the Church may lawfully do in her own Regiment be commanded in holy Scripture hath by the latter Defenders thereof been greatly qualified who though perceiving it to be over-extream are notwithstanding loth to acknowledge any oversight therein and therefore labor what they may to salve it up by construction we have for the more perspicuity delivered what was thereby meant at the first Sixthly How injurious a thing it were unto all the Churches of God for men to hold it in that meaning Seventhly And how unperfect their Interpretations are who so much labor to help it either by dividing Commandments of Scripture into two kindes and so defending that all things must be commanded if not in special yet in general Precepts Eightly Or by taking it as meant that in case the Church do devise any new Order she ought therein to follow the direction of Scripture onely and not any Star-light of Mans Reason Ninethly Both which evasions being cut off we have in the next place declared after what sort the Church may lawfully frame to her self Laws of Polity and in what reckoning such Positive Laws both are with God and should be with Men. Tenthly Furthermore because to abridge the Liberty of the Church in this behalf it hath been made a thing very odious that when God himself hath devised some certain Laws and committed them to Sacred Scripture Man by Abrogation Addition or any way should presume to alter and change them it was of necessity to be examined Whether the Authority of God in making or his care in committing those his Laws unto Scripture be sufficient Arguments to prove That God doth in no case allow they should suffer any such kinde of change Eleventhly The last refuge for proof That Divine Laws of Christian Church Polity may not be altered by extinguishment of any old or addition of new in that kinde is partly a marvellous strange Discourse That Christ unless he would shew himself not so faithful as Moses or not so wise as Lycurgus and Solon must needs have set down in holy Scripture some certain compleat and unchangeable Form of Polity and partly a coloured shew of some evidence where change of that sort of Laws may seem expresly forbidden although in truth nothing less be done I might have added hereunto their more familiar and popular disputes as The Church is a City yea the City of the Great King and the life of a City is Polity The Church is the House of the Living God and what house can there be without some order for the government of it In the Royal House of a Prince there must be Officers for Government such as not any Servant in the House but the Prince whose the House is shall judge convenient So the House of God must have Orders for the Government of it such as not any of the Houshold but God himself hath appointed It cannot stand with the Love and Wisdom of God to leave such Order untaken as is necessary for the due Government of his Church The numbers degrees orders and attire of Solomons servants did shew his Wisdom therefore he which is greater then Solomon hath not failed to leave in his House such Orders for Government thereof as may serve to be as a Looking-glass for his providence care and wisdom to be seen in That little spark of the Light of Nature which remaineth in us may serve us for the affairs of this life But as in all other Matters concerning the Kingdom of Heaven so principally in this which concerneth the very Government of that Kingdom needful it is we should be taught of God As long as Men are perswaded of any Order that it is onely of Men they presume of their own understanding and they think to devise another not onely as good but better then that which they have received By severity of punishment this presumption and curiosity may be restrained But that cannot work such chearful Obedience as is yielded where the Conscience hath respect to God as the Author of Laws and Orders This was it which countenanced the Laws of Moses made concerning outward Polity for the Administration of holy things The like some Law-givers of the Heathens did pretend but falsly yet wisely discerning the use of this perswasion For the better obedience sake therefore it was expedient that God should be Author of the Polity of his Church But to what issue doth all this come A man would think that they which hold out with such discourses were of nothing more fully perswaded then of this That the Scripture hath set down a compleat Form of Church Polity Universal Perpetual altogether Unchangeable For so it would follow if the premises were sound and strong to such effect as is pretended Notwithstanding they which have thus formally maintained Argument in defence of the first oversight are by the very evidence of Truth themselves constrained to make this in effect their conclusion That the Scripture of God hath many things concerning Church Polity that of those many some are of greater weight some of less that what hath been urged as touching Immutability of Laws it extendeth in Truth no further then onely to Laws wherein things of greater moment are prescribed Now these things of greater moment what are they Forsooth Doctors Pastors Lay-Elders Elderships compounded of these
receive due honour by whose Incitement the Holy Ordinances of the Church endure every where open contempt No it is not possible they should observe as they ought the One who from the Other withdraw unnecessarily their Own or their Brethrens Obedience Surely the Church of God in this Business is neither of Capacity I trust so weak noâ— so unstrengthened I know with Authority from Above but that her Laws may exact Obedience at the hands of her own Children and injoyn Gain-sayers silence giving them roundly to understand That where our Duty is Submission weak Oppositions betoken Pride We therefore crave Thirdly to have it granted That where neither the Evidence of any Law Divine nor the Strength of any Invincible Argument otherwise found out by the Light of Reason not any Notable Publick Inconvenience doth make against that which our own Laws Ecclesiastical have although but Newly instituted for the Ordering of these Affairs the very Authority of the Church it self at the least in such Cases may give so much Credit to her own Laws as to make their Sentence touching Fitness and Conveniency weightier than any bare or naked Conceit to the contrary especially in them who can owe no less than Childe-like obedience to her that hath more than Motherly Power 9. There are Antient Ordinances Laws which on all sides are allowed to be Just and Good yea Divine and Apostolick Constitutions which the Church it may be doth not always keep nor always justly deserve blame in that respect For in Evils that cannot be removedâ— without the manifest danger of Greater to succeed in their rooms Wisdom of necessity must give place to Necessity All it can do in those Cases is to devise how that which must be endured may be mitigated and the Inconveniences thereof countervailed as neer as may be that when the Best things are not possible the best may be made of Those that are Nature than which there is nothing more constant nothing more uniform in all her ways doth notwithstanding stay her Hand yea and change her Course when That which God by Creation did command he doth at any time by Necessity countermand It hath therefore pleased himself sometime to unloose the very Tongues even of Dumb Creatures and to teach them to plead This in their Own Defence lest the Cruelty of Man should persist to afflict them for not keeping their wonted Course when some invincible Impediment hath hindred If we leave Nature and look into Art the Work-man hath in his Heart a Purpose he carrieth in mind the whole Form which his Work should have there wanteth not him Skill and Desire to bring his Labour to the best effect only the Matter which he hath to work on is unframable This Necessity excuseth him so that nothing is derogated from his Credit although much of his Work 's perfection be found wanting Touching Actions of Common Life there is not any Defence more favourably heard than theirs who alledge sincerely for themselves That they did as Necessity constrained them For when the Mind is rightly ordered and affected as it should be in case some external Impediment crossing well-advised Desires shall potently draw Men to leave what they principally wish and to take a Course which they would not if their Choyce were free what Necessity forceth Men unto the same in This Case it maintaineth as long as nothing is committed simply in it self evil nothing absolutely sinful or wicked nothing repugnant to that Immetable Law whereby whatsoever is condemned as Evil can never any way be made Good The casting away of Things profitable for the sustenance of Man's Life is an unthankful Abuse of the Fruits of God's good Providence towards Mankind Which Consideration for all that did not hinder Saint Paul from throwing Corn into the Sea when care of saving Mens Lives made it necessary to loose that which else had been better saved Neither was this to do Evil to the end that Good might come of it For of Two such Evils being not both evitable the choyce of the Less is not Evil. And Evils must be in our constructions judged inevitable if there be no apparent ordinary way to avoid them Because where Counsel and Advice bear rule of God's extraordinary Power without extraordinary Warrant we cannot presume In Civil Affairs to declare what sway Necessity hath ever been accustomed to bear were labour infinite The Laws of all States and Kingdoms in the World have scarcely of any thing more common use Should then only the Church shew it self inhuman and stern absolutely urging a rigorous observation of Spiritual Ordinances without relaxation or exception what Necessity soever happen We know the contrary Practise to have been commended by him upon the warrant of whose Judgement the Church most of all delighted with merciful and moderate courses doth the ostner condescend unto like equity permitting in cases of Necessity that which otherwise it disalloweth and forbiddeth Cases of Necessity being sometime but urgent sometime extream the consideration of Publick Utility is with very good advice judged at the least equivalent with the easier kinde of Necessity Now that which causeth numbers to storm against some necessary tolerations which they should rather let pass with silence considering that in Polity as well Ecclesiastical as Civil there are and will be always Evils which no art of man can cure breaches and leaks moe than man's wit hath hands to stop that which maketh odious unto them many things wherein notwithstanding the truth is that very just regard hath been had of the Publick good that which in a great part of the weightiest Causes belonging to this present Controversie hath insnared the Judgments both of sundry good and of some well learned men is the manifest truth of certain general Principles whereupon the Ordinances that serve for usual practise in the Church of God are grounded Which Principles men knowing to be most sound and that the ordinary practise accordingly framed is good whatsoever is over and besides that ordinary the same they judge repugnant to those true Principles The cause of which Error is Ignorance what restraints and limitations all such Principles have in regard of so manifold varieties as the matter whereunto they are applyable doth commonly afford These varieties are not known but by much experience from whence to draw the true bounds of all Principles to discern how farr forth they take effect to see where and why they fail to apprehend by what degrees and means they lead to the practise of things in show though not indeed repugnant and contrary one to another requireth more sharpness of Wit more intricate circuitions of Discourse more industry and depth of Judgment than common Ability doth yield So that general Rules til their limits be fully known especially in matter of Publick and Ecclesiastical affairs are by reason of the manifold secret Exceptions which lye hidden in them no other to the eye of man's
to hold especially sit hence the publishing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ whereby the simplest having now a Key unto Knowledge which the Eunuch in the Acts did want our Children may of themselves by reading understand that which he without an Interpreter could not they are in Scripture plain and easie to be understood As for those things which at the first are obscure and dark when memory hath laid them up for a time Judgment afterwards growing explaineth them Scripture therefore is not so hard but that the only reading thereof may give life unto willing Hearers The easie performance of which holy labour is in like sort a very cold Objection to prejudice the vertue thereof For what though an Infidel yes though a Childe may be able to read there is no doubt but the meanest and worst amongst the People under the Law had been as able as the Priests themselves were to offer Sacrifice Did this make Sacrifice of no effect unto that purpose for which it was instituted In Religion some duties are not commended so much by the hardness of their execution as by the worthiness and dignity of that acceptation wherein they are held with God We admire the goodness of God in nature when we consider how he hath provided that things most needful to preserve this life should be most prompt and easie for all living Creatures to come by Is it not as evident a sign of his wonderful providence over us when that food of Eternal life upon the utter want whereof our endless death and destruction necessarily ensueth is prepared and always set in such a readiness that those very means than which nothing is more easie may suffice to procure the same Surely if we perish it is not the lack of Scribes and learned Expounders that can be out just excuse The Word which saveth our Souls is near us we need for knowledge but to read and live The man which readeth the Word of God the Word it self doth pronounce blessed if he also observe the same Now all these things being well considered it shall be no intricate matter for any man to judge with indifferency on which part the good of the Church is most conveniently sought whether on ours whose opinion is such as hath been shewed or else on theirs who leaving no ordinary way of Salvation for them unto whom the Word of God is but only read do seldom name them but with great disdain and contempt who execute that Service in the Church of Christ. By means whereof it hath come to pass that Churches which cannot enjoy the benefit of usual Preaching are judged as it were even forsaken of God forlorn and without either hope or comfort Contrariwise those places which every day for the most part are at Sermons as the flowing sea do both by their emptiness at times of reading and by other apparent tokens shew to the voice of the living God this way sounding in the ears of men a great deal less reverence then were meet But if no other evil were known to grow thereby who can chuse but think them cruel which doth hear them so boldly teach that if God as to him there nothing impossible do haply save any such as continue where they have all other means of instruction but are not taught by continual preaching yet this is miraculous and more than the fitness of so poor instruments can give any man cause to hope for that Sacraments are not effectual to Salvation except men be instructed by Preaching before they be made Partakers of them yea that both Sacraments and Prayers also where Sermons are not do not only not feed but are ordinarily to further condemnation What mans heart doth not rise at the mention of these thingsâ— It is true that the weakness of our Wits and the dulness of our Affections do make us for the most part even as our Lords own Disciples were for a certain time hard and slow to believe what is written For help whereof expositions and exhortations are needful and that in the most effectual manner The principal Churches throughout the Land and no small part of the rest being in this respect by the goodness of God so abundantly provided for they which want the like furtherance unto knowledge wherewith it were greatly to be desired that they also did abound are yet we hope not left in so extream desticution that justly any men should think the ordinary means of Eternal life taken from them because their teaching is in publick for the most part but by Reading For which cause amongst whom there are not those helps that others have to set them forward in the way of Life such to dis-hearten with fearful Sentences as though their Salvation could hardly be hoped for is not in our understanding so consonant with Christian Charity We hold it safer a great deal and better to give them incouragement to put them in minde that it is not the deepness of their Knowledge but the singleness of their Belief which God accepteth That they which hunger and thirst after Righteousness shall be satisfied That no imbecillity of Means can prejudice the truth of the promise of God herein That the weaker their helps are the more their need is to sharpen the edge of their own industry And that painfulness by feeble meanes shall be able to gain that which in the plenty of more forcible instruments is through sloth and negligence lost As for the men with whom we have thus fart taken pains to conferr about the force of the Word of God either read by it self or opened in Sermons their speeches concerning both the one and the other are in truth such as might give us very just cause to think that the reckoning is not great which they make of either For howsoever they have been driven to devise some odde kinde of blinde uses whereunto they may answer that reading doth serve yet the reading of the Word of God in publick more than their Preachers bare Text who will not judge that they deem needless when if we chance at any time to term it necessary as being a thing which God himself did institute amongst the Jews for purposes that touch as well us as them a thing which the Apostles commend under the Old and ordain under the New Testament a thing whereof the Church of God hath ever sithence the first beginning reaped singular Commodity a thing which without exceeding great detriment no Church can omit they only are the men that ever we heard of by whom this hath been cross'd and gain-said they only the men which have given their peremptory sentence to the contrary It is untrue that simple Reading is necessary in the Church And why untrue Because although it be very convenient which is used in some Churches where before Preaching-time the Church assembled hath the Scriptures read in such order that the whole Canon thereof is
the Sons of God in which number how far soever one may seem to excel another yet touching this that all are Sons they are all equals some happily better Sons then the rest are but none any more a Son then another Thus therefore we see how the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father how they both are in all things and all things in them what Communion Christ hath with his Church how his Church and every Member thereof is in him by original derivation and he personally in them by way of Mystical Association wrought through the Gift of the Holy Ghost which they that are his receive from him and together with the same what benefit soever the vital force of his Body and Blood may yield yea by steps and degrees they receive the compleat measure of all such Divine Grace as doth sanctifie and save throughout till the day of their Final Exaltation to a state of Fellowship in glory with him whose partakers they are now in those things that tend to glory As for any mixture of the Substance of his Flesh with ours the Participation which we have of Christ includeth no such kinde of gross surmise 57. It greatly offendeth that some when they labor to shew the use of the holy Sacraments assign unto them no end but onely to teach the minde by other seases that which the Word doth teach by Hearing Whereupon how easily neglect and careless regard of so Heavenly Mysteries may follow we see in part by some experience had of those Men with whom that opinion is most strong For where the Word of God may be heard which teacheth with much more Expedition and more full Explications any thing we have to learn if all the benefit we reap by Sacraments be instruction they which at all times have opportunity of using the better mean to that purpose will surely hold the worse in less estimation And unto Infants which are not capable of instruction who would not think it a meer superfluity that any Sacrament is administred if to administer the Sacraments be but to teach receivers what God doth for them There is of Sacraments therefore undoubtedly some other more excellent and Heavenly use Sacraments by reason of their mixt Nature are more diversly interpreted and disputed of then any other part of Religion besides for that in so great store of Properties belonging to the self-same thing as every Mans wit hath taken hold of some especial consideration above the rest so they have accordingly seemed one to cross another as touching their several opinions about the necessity of Sacraments whereas in truth their disagreement is not great For let respect be had to the duty which every Communicant doth undertake and we may well determine concerning the use of Sacraments that they serve as Bonds of Obedience to God strict Obligations to the mutual exercise of Christian Charity Provocations to Godliness Preservations from Sin Memorials of the Principal benefits of Christ respect the time of their institution and it thereby appeareth that God hath annexed them for ever unto the New Testament as other Rites were before with the Old regard the weakness which is in us and they are warrants for the more security of our belief Compare the receivers of then with such as receive them not and Sacraments are marks of distinction to separate Gods own from strangers so that in all these respects they are sound to be most necessary But their chiefest force and vertue consisteth not herein so much as in that they are Heavenly Ceremonies which God hath sanctified and ordained to be administred in his Church First As marks whereby to know when God doth impart the vital or saving Grace of Christ unto all that are capable thereof and secondly as Means conditional which God requireth in them unto whom he imparteth Grace For sith God in himself is invisible and cannot by us be discerned working therefore when it seemeth good in the eyes of his Heavenly Wisdom that men for some special intent and purpose should take notice of his glorious Presence he giveth them some plain and sensible token whereby to know what they cannot see For Moses to see God and live was impossible yet Moses by fire knew where the glory of God extraordinarily was present The Angel by whom God endued the Waters of the Pool called Bethesda with Supernatural Vertue to Heal was not seen of any yet the time of the Angels presence known by the troubled motions of the Waters themselves The Apostles by Fiery Tongues which they saw were admonished when the Spirit which they could not behold was upon them In like manner it is with us Christ and his Spirit with all their blessed Effects though entring into the Soul of Man we are not able to apprehend or express how do notwithstanding give notice of the times when they use to make their access because it pleaseth Almighty God to communicate by sensible means those Blessings which are incomprehensible Seeing therefore that Grace is a consequent of Sacraments a thing which accompanieth them as their end a benefit which they have received from God himself the Author of Sacraments and not from any other Natural or Supernatural Quality in them it may be hereby both understood That Sacraments are necessary and that the manner of their necessity to Life Supernatural is not in all respects as food unto Natural Life because they contain in themselves no vital force of efficacy they are not Physical but Moral Instruments of Salvation duties of Service and Worship which unless we perform as the Author of Grace requireth they are unprofitable For all receive not the Grace of God which receive the Sacraments of his Grace Neither is it ordinarily his Will to bestow the Grace of Sacraments on any but by the Sacraments which Grace also they that receive by Sacraments or with Sacraments receive it from him and not from them For of Sacraments the very same is true which Solomons Wisdom observeth in the Brazen Serpent He that turned towards it was not healed by the thing he saw but by thee O Saviour of all This is therefore the necessity of Sacraments That saving Grace which Christ originally is or hath for the general good of his whole Church by Sacraments he severally deriveth into every member thereof Sacraments serve as the Instruments of God to that end and purpose Moral Instruments the use whereof is in our own hands the effect in his for the use we have his express Commandment for the effect his Conditional Promise So that without our obedience to the one there is of the other no apparent assurance as contrariwise where the Signs and Sacraments of his Grace are not either through contempt unreceived or received with contempt we are not to doubt but that they really give what they promise and are what they signifie For we take not Baptism nor the Eucharist for bare resemblances or memorials
Idolatry all things which have been at any time worshipped are not necessarily to be taken out of the World nevertheless for remedy and prevention of so great offences Wisdom should judge it the safest course to remove altogether from the eyes of men that which may put them in minde of evil Some kindes of evil no doubt there are very quick in working on those affections that most easily take fire which evils should in that respect no oftner then need requireth be brought in presence of weak mindes But neither is the Cross any such evil nor yet the Brazen Serpent it self so strongly poysoned that our eyes ears and thoughts ought to shun them both for fear of some deadly harm to ensue the onely representation thereof by gesture shape sound or such like significant means And for mine own part I most assuredly perswade my self that had Ezechias till the days of whose most vertuous Reign they ceased not continually to burn Incense to the Brazen Serpent had he found the Serpent though sometime adored yet at that time recovered from the evil of so gross abuse and reduced to the same that was before in the time of David at which time they esteemed it onely as a Memorial Sign or Monument of Gods miraculous goodness towards them even as we in no other sort esteem the Ceremony of the Cross the due consideration of an use so harmless common to both might no less have wrought their equal preservation then different occasions have procured notwithstanding the ones extinguishment the others lawful continuance In all perswasions which ground themselves upon example we are not so much to respect what is done as the causes and secret inducements leading thereunto The question being therefore whether this Ceremony supposed to have been sometimes scandalous and offensive ought for that cause to be now removed there is no reason we should forthwith yield our selves to be carried away with example no not of them whose acts the highest judgment approveth for having reformed in that manner any publick evil But before we either attempt any thing or resolve the state and condition as well of our own affairs as theirs whose example presseth us is advisedly to be examined because some things are of their own nature scandalous and cannot chuse but breed offence as those Sinks of execrable filth which Iosias did overwhelm some things albeit not by Nature and of themselves are notwithstanding so generally turned to evil by reason of an evil corrupt habit grown and through long continuance incurably setled in the mindes of the greatest part that no redâ—ess can be well hoped for without removal of that wherein they have ruined themselves which plainly was the state of the Jewish people and the cause why Ezechias did with such sudden indignation destroy what he saw worshipped finally some things are as the Sign of the Cross though subject either almost or altogether to as great abuse yet curable with more facility and ease And to speak as the truth is our very nature doth hardly yield to destroy that which may be fruitfully kept and without any great difficulty clean scouted from the rust of evil which by some accident hath grown into it Wherefore to that which they build in this question upon the example of Ezechias let this suffice When Heathens despised Christian Religion because of the sufferings of Jesus Christ the Fathers to testifie how little such contumelies and contempts prevailed with them chose rather the Sign of the Cross then any other outward mark whereby the World might most easily discern always what they were On the contrary side now whereas they which do all profess the Christian Religion are divided amongst themselves and the fault of the one part is That the zeal to the sufferings of Christ they admire too much and over-superstitiously adore the Visible Sign of his Cross if you ask what w that mislike them should do we are here advised to cure one contrary by another Which Art or Method is not yet so current as they imagine For if as their practice for the most part sheweth it be their meaning that the scope and drift of Reformation when things are faulty should be to settle the Church in the contrary it standeth them upon to beware of this rule because seeing Vices have not onely Vertues but other Vices also in Nature opposite unto them it may be dangerous in these cases to seek but that which we finde contrary to present evils For in sores and sicknesses of the minde we are not simply to measure good by distance from evil because one Vice may in some respect be more opposite to another then either of them to that Vertue which holdeth the mean between them both Liberality and Covetousness the one a Vertue and the other a Vice are not so contrary as the Vices of Covetousness and Prodigality Religion and Superstition have more affiance though the one be Light and the other Darkness then Superstition and Prophaneness which both are vicious extremities By means whereof it cometh also to pass that the Mean which is Vertue seemeth in the eyes of each extream an extremity the liberal hearted man is by the opinion of the Prodigal miserable and by the judgment of the miserable lavish Impiety for the most part upbraideth Religion as Superstitious which Superstition often accuseth as impious both so conceiving thereof because it doth seem more to participate each extream then one extream doth another and is by consequent less contrary to either of them then they mutually between themselves Now if he that seeketh to reform Covetousness or Superstition should but labor to induce the contrary it were but to draw men out of Lime into Cole-dust So that their course which will remedy the Superstitious abuse of things profitable in the Church is not still to abolish utterly the use thereof because not using at all is most opposite to ill using but rather if it may be to bring them back to a right perfect and religious usage which albeit less contrary to the present sore is notwithstanding the better and by many degrees the sounder way of recovery And unto this effect that very Precedent it self which they propose may be best followed For as the Fathers when the Cross of Christ was in utter contempt did not superstitiously adore the same but rather declare that they so esteemed it as was meet In like manner where we finde the Cross to have that honor which is due to Christ is it not as lawful for us to retain it in that estimation which it ought to have and in that use which it had of old without offence as by taking it clean away so seem Followers of their example which cure wilfully by abscission that which they might both preserve and heal Touching therefore the Sign and Ceremony of the Cross we no way finde our selves bound to relinquish it neither because the first Inventors thereof were but mortal men nor
for such their particular Invocations and Benedictions as no Man I suppose professing truth of Religion will easily think to have been without Fruit. No there is no cause we should doubt of the benefit but surely great cause to make complaint of the deep neglect of this Christian duty almost with all them to whom by tight of their place and calling the same belongeth Let them not take it in evil part the thing is true their small regard hereunto hath done harm in the Church of God That which Error rashly uttereth in disgrace of good things may peradventure be sponged out when the print of those evils which are grown through neglect will remain behinde Thus much therefore generally spoken may serve for answer unto their demands that require us to tell them Why there should be any such confirmation in the Church seeing we are not ignorant how earnestly they have protested against it and how directly although untruly for so they are content to acknowledge it hath by some of them been said To be first brought in by the seigned Decretal Epistles of the Popes or why it should not be utterly abolished seeing that no one title thereof can be once found in the whole Scripture except the Epistle to the Hebrews be Scripture And again seeing that how free soever it be now from abuse if we look back to the times past which wise men do always more respect then the present it hath been abused and is found at the length no such profitable Ceremony as the whole silly Church of Christ for the space of these Sixteen hundred years hath through want of experience imagined Last of all Seeing also besides the cruelty which is shewed towards poor Country people who are fain sometimes to let their Ploughs stand still and with increble wearisome toyl of their feeble bodies to wander over Mountains and through Woods it may be now and then little less then a whole half score of miles for a Bishops blessing which if it were needful might as well be done at home in their own Parishes rather then they is purchase it with so great loss and so intolerable pain There are they say in Confirmation besides this Three terrible points The first is Laying on of hands with pretence that the same is done to the example of the Apostles which is not onely as they suppose a manifest untruth for all the World doth know that the Apostles did never after Baptism lay hands on any and therefore Saint Luke which saith they did was much deceived But farther also we thereby teach men to think Imposition of Hands a Sacrament belike because it is a principle ingrafted by common Light of Nature in the Mindes of Men that all things done by Apostolick example must needs be Sacrament The second high point of danger is That by tying Confirmation to the Bishop alone there is great cause of suspition given to think that Baptism is not so precious a thing as Confirmation For will any man think that a Velvet Coat is of more price then a Linnen Coyf knowing the one to be an ordinary Garment the other an Ornament which onely Sergeants at Law do wear Finally To draw to an end of perils the last and the weightiest hazard is where the Book it self doth say That Children by Imposition of Hands and Prayer may receive strength against all temptation Which speech as a two-edged sword doth both ways dangerously wound partly because it ascribeth Grace to Imposition of Hands whereby we are able no more to assure our selves in the warrant of any promise from God that his Heavenly Grace shall be given then the Apostle was that himself should obtain Grace by the bowing of his knees to God and partly because by using the very word strength in this matter a word so apt to spred infection we maintain with Popish Evangelists an old forlorn distinction of the Holy Ghost bestowed upon Christs Apostles before his Ascension into Heaven and augmented upon them afterwards a distinction of Grace infused into Christian men by degrees planted in them at the first by Baptism after cherished watred and be it spoken without offence strengthned as by other vertuous Offices which Piety and true Religion teacheth even so by this very special Benediction whereof we speak the Rite or Ceremony of Confirmation 67. The Grace which we have by the holy Eucharist doth not begin but continue life No man therefore receiveth this Sacrament before Baptism because no dead thing is capable of nourishment That which groweth must of necessity first live If our Bodies did not daily waste Food to restore them were a thing superfluous And it may be that the Grace of Baptism would serve to Eternal Life were it not that the state of our Spiritual Being is daily so much hindered and impaired after Baptism In that life therefore where neither Body nor Soul can decay our Souls shall as little require this Sacrament as our Bodies corporal nourishment But as long as the days of our warfare last during the time that we are both subject to diminution and capable of augmentation in Grace the Words of our Lord and Saviour Christ will remain forceable Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood ye have no life in you Life being therefore proposed unto all men as their end they which by Baptism have laid the Foundation and attained the first beginning of a new life have here their nourishment and food prescribed for continuance of life in them Such as will live the Life of God must eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of the Son of Man because this is a part of that diet which if we want we cannot live Whereas therefore in our Infancy we are incorporated into Christ and by Baptism receive the Grace of his Spirit without any sense or feeling of the gift which God bestoweth in the Eucharist we so receive the gift of God that we know by Grace what the Grace is which God giveth us the degrees of our own Increase in holiness and vertue we see and can judge of them we understand that the strength of our life begun in Christ is Christ that his Flesh is Meat and his Blood drink not by surmised imagination but truly even so truly that through Faith we perceive in the Body and Blood sacramentally presented the very taste of Eternal Life the Grace of the Sacrament is here as the food which we eat and drink This was it that some did exceedingly fear lest Zwinglius and Occolampadius would bring to pass that men should account of this Sacrament but onely as of a shadow destitute empty and void of Christ. But seeing that by opening the several opinions which have been held they are grown for ought I can see on all sides at the length to a general agreement concerning that which alone is material namely The Real Participation of Christ and of
Life in his Body and Blood by means of this Sacrament Wherefore should the World continue still distracted and rent with so manifold Contentions when there remaineth now no Controversie saving onely about the subject where Christ is Yea even in this point no side denieth but that the Soul of Man is the receptacle of Christs presence Whereby the question is yet driven to a narrower issue nor doth any thing rest doubtful but this Whether when the Sacrament is administred Christ be whole within Man onely or else his Body and Blood be also externally seated in the very Consecrated Elements themselves Which opinion they that defend are driven either to Consubstantiate and Incorporate Christ with Elements Sacramental or to Transubstantiate and change their substance into his and so the one to hold him really but invisibly moulded up with substance of those Elements the other to hide him under the onely visible shew of Bread and Wine the substance whereof as they imagine is abolished and his succeeded in the same room All things considered and compared with that success which Truth hath hitherto had by so bitter Conflicts with Errors in this point Shall I wish that men would more give themselves to meditate with silence what we have by the Sacrament and less to dispute of the manner how If any man suppose that this were too great stupidity and dulness let us see whether the Apostles of our Lord themselves have not done the like It appeareth by many examples that they of their own disposition were very scrupulous and inquisitive yea in other cases of less importance and less difficulty always apt to move questions How cometh it to pass that so few words of so high a Mystery being uttered they receive with gladness the gift of Christ and make no shew of doubt or scruple The reason hereof is not dark to them which have any thing at all observed how the powers of the minde are wont to stir when that which we infinitely long for presenteth it self above and besides expectation Curious and intricate speculations do hinder they abate they quench such inflamed motions of delight and joy as Divine Graces use to raise when extraordinarily they are present The minde therefore feeling present joy is always marvellous unwilling to admit any other cogitation and in that case casteth off those disputes whereunto the intellectual part at other times easily draweth A manifest effect whereof may be noted if we compare with our Lords Disciples in the Twentieth of Iohn the people that are said in the Sixth of Iohn to have gone after him to Capernaum These leaving him on the one side the Sea of Tiberias and finding him again as soon as themselves by ship were arrived on the contrary side whither they knew that by ship he came not and by Land the journey was longer then according to the time he could have to travel as they wondered so they asked also Rabbi when camest thou hither The Disciples when Christ appeared to them in far more strange and miraculous manner moved no question but rejoyced greatly in that they saw For why The one sort beheld onely that in Christ which they knew was more then natural but yet their affection was not rapt therewith through any great extraordinary gladness the other when they looked on Christ were not ignorant that they saw the Well-spring of their own Everlasting felicity the one because they enjoyed not disputed the other disputed not because they enjoyed If then the presence of Christ with them did so much move Judge what their thoughts and affections were at the time of this new presentation of Christ not before their Eyes but within their Souls They had learned before That his Flesh and Blood are the true cause of Eternal Life that this they are not by the bate force of their own substance but through the dignity and worth of His Person which offered them up by way of Sacrifice for the Life of the whole World and doth make them still effectual thereunto Finally that to us they are Life in particular by being particularly received Thus much they knew although as yet they understood not perfectly to what effect or issue the same would come till at the length being assembled for no other cause which they could imagine but to have eaten the Passover onely that Moses appointed when they saw their Lord and Master with hands and eyes lifted up to Heaven first bless and consecrate for the endless good of all Generations till the Worlds end the chosen Elements of Bread and Wine which Elements made for ever the Instruments of Life by vertue of his Divine Benediction they being the first that were commanded to receive from him the first which were warranted by his promise that not onely unto them at the present time but to whomsoever they and their Successors after them did duly administer the same those Mysteries should serve as Conducts of Life and Conveyances of his Body and Blood unto them Was it possible they should hear that voice Take eat This is my Body Drink ye all of this This is my Blood Possible that doing what was required and believing what was promised the same should have present effect in them and not fill them with a kinde of fearful admiration at the Heaven which they saw in themselves They had at that time a Sea of Comfort and Joy to wade in and we by that which they did are taught that this Heavenly Food is given for the satisfying of our empty Souls and not for the exercising of our curious and subtile wits If we doubt what those admirable words may import let him be our Teacher for the meaning of Christ to whom Christ was himself a School-master let our Lords Apostle be his Interpreter content we our selves with his Explication My Body The Communion of my Body My Blood The Communion of my Blood Is there any thing more expedite clear and easie then that as Christ is termed our Life because through him we obtain life so the parts of this Sacrament are his Body and Blood for that they are so to us who receiving them receive that by them which they are termed The Bread and Cup are his Body and Blood because they are causes instrumental upon the receit whereof the Participation of his Body and Blood ensueth For that which produceth any certain effect is not vainly nor improperly said to be that very effect whereunto it tendeth Every cause is in the effect which groweth from it Our Souls and Bodies quickned to Eternal Life are effects the cause whereof is the Person of Christ His Body and Blood are the true Well-spring out of which this Life floweth So that his Body and Blood are in that very subject whereunto they minister life Not onely by effect or operation even as the influence of the Heavens is in Plants Beasts Men and in every thing which they quicken but also by a far more Divine and
Which Labyrinth as the other sort doth justly shun so the way which they take to the same Inâ— is somewhat more short but no whit more certain For through Gods Omnipotent Power they imagine that Transubstantiation followeth upon the words of Consecration and upon Transubstantiation the Participation of Christs both Body and Blood in the onely shape of Sacramental Elements So that they all three do plead Gods Omnipotency Sacramentaries to that Alteration which the rest confess he accomplisheth the Patrons of Transubstantiation over and besides that to the change of one substance into another the Followers of Consubstantiation to the kneading of both Substances as it were into one lump Touching the sentence of Antiquity in this cause first For as much as they knew that the force of this Sacrament doth necessarily presuppose the Verity of Christs both Body and Blood they used oftentimes the same as an Argument to prove That Christ hath as truly the substance of Man as of God because here we receive Christ and those Graces which flow from him in that he is Man So that if he have no such Being neither can the Sacrament have any such meaning as we all confess it hath Thus Tertullian thus Irenaeus thus Theodoret disputeth Again as evident it is how they teach that Christ is personally there present yea present whole albeit a part of Christ be corporally absent from thence that Christ assisting this Heavenly Banquet with his Personal and true Presence doth by his own Divine Power add to the Natural Substance thereof Supernatural Efficacy which addition to the Nature of those consecrated Elements changeth them and maketh them that unto us which otherwise they could not be that to us they are thereby made such Instruments as mystically yet truly invisibly yet really work our Communion or Fellowship with the Person of Jesus Christ as well in that he is Man as God our Participation also in the Fruit Grace and Efficacy of his Body and Blood whereupon there ensueth a kinde of Transubstantiation in us a true change both of Soul and Body an alteration from death to life In a word it appeareth not that of all the ancient Fathers of the Chruch any one did ever conceive or imagine other then onely a Mystical Participation of Christs both Body and Blood in the Sacrament neither are their speeches concerning the change of the Elements themselves into the Body and Blood of Christ such that a man can thereby in Conscience assure himself it was their meaning to perswade the World either of a Corporal Consubstantiation of Christ with those Sanctified and Blessed Elements before we receive them or of the like Transubstantiation of them into the Body and Blood of Christ. Which both to our Mystical Communion with Christ are so unnecessary that the Fathers who plainly hold but this Mystical Communion cannot easily be thought to have meant any other change of Sacramental Elements then that which the same Spiritual Communion did require them to hold These things considered how should that Minde which loving Truth and seeking Comfort out of Holy Mysteries hath not perhaps the leisure perhaps nor the wit nor capacity to tread out so endless Mazes as the intricate Disputes of this cause have led men into how should a vertuously disposed minde better resolve with it self then thus Variety of Iudgments and Opinions argueth obscurity in those things whereabout they differ But that which all parts receive for Truth that which every one having sifted is by no one denied or doubted of must needs be matter of infallible certainly Whereas therefore there are but three Expositions made of This is my Body The first This is in it self before participation really and truly the Natural Substance of my Body by reason of the coexistence which my Omnipotent Body hath with the sanctified Element of Bread which is the Lutherans Interpretation The second This is in itself and before participation the very true and Natural Substance of my Body by force of that Deity which with the words of Consecration abolisheth the Substance of Bread and substituteth in the place thereof my Body which is the Popish construction The last This Hallowed Food through concurrence of Divine Power is in verity and truth unto faithful Receivers instrumentally a cause of that Mystical Participation whereby as I make my self wholly theirs so I give them in hand an actual possession of all such saving Grace as my Sacrificed Body can yield and as their Souls do presently need This is to them and in them my Body Of these three rehearsed Interpretations the last hath in it nothing but what the rest do all approve and acknowledge to be most true nothing but that which the words of Christ are on all sides confest to inforce nothing but that which the Church of God hath always thought necessary nothing but that which alone is sufficient for every Christian man to believe concerning the use and force of this Sacrament Finally Nothing but that wherewith the Writings of all Antiquity are consonant and all Christian Confessions agreeable And as Truth in what kinde soever is by no kinde of Truth gain-said so the minde which resteth it self on this it never troubled with those perplexities which the other do both finde by means of so great contradiction between their opinions and true principles of Reason grounded upon Experience Nature and Sense Which albeit with boysterous courage and breath they seem oftentimes to blow away yet whoso observeth how again they labor and sweat by subtilty of wit to make some shew of agreement between their peculiar conceits and the general Edicts of Nature must needs perceive they struggle with that which they cannot fully master Besides sith of that which is proper to themselves their Discourses are hungry and unpleasant full of tedious and irksome labor heartless and hitherto without Fruit on the other side read we them or hear we others be they of our own or of ancienter times to what part soever they be thought to incline touching that whereof there is controversie yet in this where they all speak but one thing their Discourses are Heavenly their Words sweet as the Honey-Comb their Tongues melodiously tuned Instruments their Sentences meer Consolation and Ioy Are we not hereby almost even with voice from Heaven admonished which we may safeliest cleave unto He which hath said of the one Sacrament Wash and be clean hath said concerning the other likewise Eat and live If therefore without any such particular and solemn warrant as this is that poor distressed Woman coming unto Christ for health could so constantly resolve her self May I but touch the skirt of his Garment I shall be whole what moveth us to argue of the manner how Life should come by Bread our duty being here but to take what is offered and most assuredly to rest perswaded of this that can we but eat we are safe When I behold with
define not the Church by that which the Church essentially is but by that wherein they imagine their own more perfect then the rest are Touching parts of eminency and perfection parts likewise of imperfection and defect in the Church of God they are infinite their degrees and differences no way possible to be drawn unto any certain account There is not the least contention and variance but it blemisheth somewhat the Unity that ought to be in the Church of Christ which notwithstanding may have not onely without offence or breach of concord her manifold varieties in Rites and Ceremonies of Religion but also her Strifes and Contentions many times and that about matters of no small importance yea her Schisms Factions and such other evils whereunto the Body of the Church is subject sound and sick remaining both of the same Body as long as both parts retain by outward profession that vital substance of truth which maketh Christian Religion to differ from theirs which acknowledge not our Lord Jesus Christ the Blessed Saviour of Mankinde give no crecit to his glorious Gospel and have his Sacraments the Seals of Eternal Life in derision Now the priviledge of the visible Church of God for of that we speak is to be herein like the Ark of Noah that for any thing we know to the contrary all without it are lost sheep yet in this was the Ark of Noah priviledged above the Church that whereas none of them which were in the one could perish numbers in the other are cast away because to Eternal Life our Profession is not enough Many things exclude from the Kingdom of God although from the Church they separate not In the Church there arise sundry grievous storms by means whereof whole Kingdoms and Nations professing Christ both have been heretofore and are at this present day divided about Christ. During which Divisions and Contentions amongst men albeit each part do justifie it self yet the one of necessity must needs err if there be any contradiction between them be it great or little and what side soever it be that hath the truth the same we must also acknowledge alone to hold with the true Church in that point and consequently reject the other as an enemy in that case faln away from the true Church Wherefore of Hypocrites and Dissemblers whose profession at the first was but onely from the teeth outward when they afterwards took occasion to oppugne certain principal Articles of Faith the Apostles which defended the truth against them pronounce them gone out from the Fellowship of sound and sincere Believers when as yet the Christian Religion they had not utterly cast off In like sense and meaning throughout all ages Hereticks have justly been hated as Branches cut off from the Body of the true Vine yet onely so far forth cut off as they Heresies have extended Both Heresie and many other crimes which wholly sever from God do sever from God the Church of God in part onely The Mystery of Piety saith the Apostle is without peradventure great God hath been manifested in the Flesh hath been justified in the Spirit hath been seen of Angels hath been preached to Nations hath been believed on in the World hath been taken up into Glory The Church a Pillar and Foundation of this Truth which no where is known or profest but onely within the Church and they all of the Church that profess it In the mean while it cannot be denied that many profess this who are not therefore cleared simply from all either faults or errors which make separation between us and the Well-spring of our happiness Idolatry severed of old the Israelites Iniquity those Scribes and Pharisees from God who notwithstanding were a part of the Seed of Abraham a part of that very Seed which God did himself acknowledge to be his Church The Church of God may therefore contain both them which indeed are not his yet must be reputed his by us that know not their inward thoughts and them whose apparent wickedness testifieth even in the sight of the whole World that God abhorreth them For to this and no other purpose are meant those Parables which our Saviour in the Gospel hath concerning mixture of Vice with Vertue Light with Darkness Truth with Error as well and openly known and seen as a cunningly cloaked mixture That which separateth therefore utterly that which cutteth off clean from the visible Church of Christ is plain Apostasie direct denial utter rejection of the whole Christian Faith as far as the same is professedly different from Infidelity Hereticks as touching those points of doctrine wherein they fail Schismaticks as touching the quarrels for which or the duties wherein they divide themselves from their Brethren Loose licentious and wicked persons as touching their several offences or crimes have all forsaken the true Church of God the Church which is sound and sincere in the Doctrine that they corrupt the Church that keepeth the Bond of Unity which they violate the Church that walketh in the Laws of Righteousness which they transgress This very true Church of Christ they have left howbeit not altogether left nor forsaken simply the Church upon the main Foundations whereof they continue built notwithstanding these breaches whereby they are rent at the top asunder Now because for redress of professed Errors and open Schisms it is and must be the Churches care that all may in outward Conformity be one as the laudable Polity of former Ages even so our own to that end and purpose hath established divers Laws the moderate severity whereof is a mean both to stay the rest and to reclaim such as heretofore have been led awry But seeing that the Offices which Laws require are always definite and when that they require is done they go no farther whereupon sundry ill-affected persons to save themselves from danger of Laws pretend obedience albeit inwardly they carry still the same hearts which they did before by means whereof it falleth out that receiving unworthily the Blessed Sacrament at our hands they eat and drink their own damnation It is for remedy of this mischief here determined that whom the Law of the Realm doth punish unless they communicate such if they offer to obey Law the Church notwithstanding should not admit without probation before had of their Gospel-like behavior Wherein they first set no time how long this supposed probation must continue again they nominate no certain judgment the verdict whereof shall approve mens behavior to be Gospel-like and that which is most material whereas they seek to make it more hard for dissemblers to be received into the Church then Law and Polity as yet hath done they make it in truth more easie for such kinde of persons to winde themselves out of the Law and to continue the same they were The Law requireth at their hands that duty which in conscience doth touch them nearest because the greatest difference between us and
whether wilfully to break and despise the wholesome laws of the Church herein be a thing which offendeth God whether truly it may not be said that penitent both weaping and fasting are means to blot out sin means whereby through Gods unspeakable and undeserved mercy we obtain or procure to our selves pardon which attainment unto any gracious benefit by him bestowed the phrase of Antiquity useth to express by the name of Merit but if either Saint Augustine or Saint Ambrose have taught any wrong opinion seeing they which reprove them are not altogether free from Error I hope they will think it no error in us so to censure mens smaller faults that their vertues be not thereby generally prejudiced And if in Churches abroad where we are not subject to Power or Jurisdiction discretion should teach us for Peace and Quietness sake to frame our selves to other mens example Is it meet that at home where our freedom is less our boldness should be more Is it our duty to oppugn in the Churches whereof we are Ministers the Rites and Customs which in Foreign Churches Piety and Modesty did teach us as strangers not to oppugn but to keep without shew of contradiction or dislike Why oppose they the name of a Minister in this case unto the state of a private man Doth their order exempt them from obedience to Laws That which their Office and place requireth is to shew themselves patterns of reverend subjection not Authors and Masters of contempt towards Ordinances the strength whereof when they seek to weaken they do but in truth discover to the World their own imbecillities which a great deal wiselier they might conceal But the practice of the Church of Christ we shall by so much the better both understand and love if to that which hitherto hath been spoken there be somewhat added for more particular declaration how Hereticks have partly abused Fasts and partly bent themselves against the lawful use thereof in the Church of God Whereas therefore Ignatius hath said If any keep Sundays or Saturdays Fasts one onely Saturday in the year excepted that man is no better then a murtherer of Christ the cause of such his earnestness at that time was the impiety of certain Hereticks which thought that this World being corruptible could not be made but a very evil Author And therefore as the Jews did by the Festival Solemnity of their Sabbath rejoyce in the God that created the World as in the Author of all Goodness so those Hereticks in hatred of the Maker of the World sorrowed wept and fasted on that day as being the birth-day of all evil And as Christian men of sound belief did solemnize the Sunday in joyful memory of Christs Resurrection so likewise at the self-same time such Hereticks as denied his Resurrection did the contrary to them which held it When the one sort rejoyced the other fasted Against those Hereticks which have urged perpetual abstinence from certain Meats as being in their very nature unclean the Church hath still bent herself as an enemy Saint Paul giving charge to take heed of them which under any such opinion should utterly forbid the use of Meats or Drinks The Apostles themselves forbad some as the order taken at Ierusalem declareth But the cause of their so doing we all know Again when Tertullian together with such as were his followers began to Montanize and pretending to perfect the severity of Christian Discipline brought in sundry unaccustomed days of Fasting continued their Fasts a great deal longer and made them more rigorous then the use of the Church had been the mindes of men being somewhat moved at so great and so sudden novelty the cause was presently inquired into After notice taken how the Montanists held these Additions to be Supplements of the Gospel whereunto the Spirit of Prophesie did now mean to put as it were the last hand and was therefore newly descended upon Montanus whose orders all Christian men were no less to obey then the Laws of the Apostles themselves this Abstinence the Church abhorred likewise and that justly Whereupon Tertullian proclaiming even open War of the Church maintained Montanism wrote a Book in defence of the new Fast and intituled the same A Treatise of Fasting against the opinion of the Carnal sort In which Treatise nevertheless because so much is sound and good as doth either generally concern the use or in particular declare the Custom of the Churches Fasting in those times men are not to reject whatsoever is alledged out of that Book for confirmation of the Truth His error discloseth it self in those places where he defendeth Fasts to be duties necessary for the whole Church of Christ to observe as commanded by the Holy Ghost and that with the same authority from whence all other Apostolical Ordinances came both being the Laws of God himself without any other distinction or difference saving onely that he which before had declared his will by Paul and Peter did now farther reveal the same by Montanus also Against us ye pretend saith Tertullian that the Publick Orders which Christianity is bound to keep were delivered at the first and that no new thing is to be added thereunto Stand if you can upon this point for behold I challenge you for Fasting more then at Easter your selves But in fine ye answer That these things are to be done as established by the voluntary appointment of men and not by vertue or force of any Divine Commandment Well then he addeth Ye have removed your first footing and gone beyond that which was delivered by doing more then was at the first imposed upon you You say you must do that which your own judgments have allowed We require your obedience to that which God himself doth institute Is it not strange that men to their own will should yield that which to Gods Commandment they will not grant Shall the pleasure of men prevail more with you then the power of God himself These places of Tertullian for Fasting have worthily been put to silence And as worthily Aerius condemned for opposition against Fasting The one endeavored to bring in such Fasts as the Church ought not to receive the other to overthrow such as already it had received and did observe The one was plausible unto many by seeming to hate carnal loosness and riotous excess much more then the rest of the World did the other drew hearers by pretending the maintenance of Christian Liberty The one thought his cause very strongly upheld by making invective declamations with a pale and a withered countenance against the Church by filling the ears of his starved hearers with speech suitable to such mens humors and by telling them no doubt to their marvellous contentment and liking Our new Prophesies are refused they are despised It is because Montanus doth Preach some other God or dissolve the Gospel of Iesus Christ or overthrow any Canon of Faith and Hope No our crime is We teach
testifie the care which the Church hath to comfort the living and the hope which we all have concerning the Resurrection of the dead For signification of love towards them that are departed Mourning is not denied to be a thing convenient as in truth the Scripture every where doth approve lamentation made unto this end The Jews by our Saviours tears therefore gathered in this case that his love towards Lazatus was great And that as Mourning at such times is fit so likewise that there may be a kinde of Attire suitable to a sorrowful affection and convenient for Mourners to wear how plainly doth Davids example shew who being in heaviness went up to the Mount with his head covered and all the people that were with him in like sort White Garments being fit to use at Marriage Feasts and such other times of joy whereunto Solomon alluding when he requireth continual chearfulness of minde speaketh in this sort Let thy Garments be always white What doth hinder the contrary from being now as convenient in grief as this heretofore in gladness hath been If there be no sorrow they say it is hypocritical to pretend it and if there be to provoke it by wearing such attire is dangerous Nay if there be to shew it is natural and if there be not yet the signs are meet to shew what should be especially sith it doth not come oftentimes to pass that men are fain to have their Mourning Gowns pulled off their backs for fear of killing themselves with sorrow that way nourished The honor generally due unto all men maketh a decent interring of them to be convenient even for very humanities sake And therefore so much as is mentioned in the Burial of the Widows Son the carrying of him forth upon a Bier and the accompanying of him to the Earth hath been used even amongst Infidels all men accounting it a very extream destitution not to have at the least this honor done them Some mans estate may require a great deal more according as the fashion of the Country where he dieth doth afford And unto this appertained the ancient use of the Jews to embalm the Corps with sweet Odors and to adorn the Sepulchres of certain In regard of the quality of men it hath been judged fit to commend them unto the World at their death amongst the Heathen in Funeral Orations amongst the Jews in Sacred Poems and why not in Funeral Sermons also amongst Christians â—s it sufficeth that the known benefit hereof doth countervail Millions of such inconveniences as are therein surmised although they were not surmised onely but found therein The life and the death of Saints is precious in Gods sight Let it not seem odious in our eyes if both the one and the other he spoken of then especially when the present occasion doth make mens mindes the more capable of such speech The care no doubt of the living both to live and to die well must needs be somewhat increased when they know that their departure shall not be folded up in silence but the ears of many be made acquainted with it Moreover when they hear how mercifully God hath dealt with their Brethren in their last need besides the praise which they give to God and the joy which they have of should have by reason of their Fellowship and Communion with Saints Is not their hope also much confirmed against the day of their own dissolution Again the sound of these things doth not so pass the ears of them that are most loose and dissolute in life but it causeth them one time or other to wish O that I might die the death of the righteous and that my end might be like this Thus much peculiar good there doth grow at those times by speech concerning the dead besides the benefit of publick instruction common unto Funeral with other Sermons For the comfort of them whose mindes are through natural affection pensive in such cases no man can justly mislike the custom which the Jews had to end their Burials with Funeral Banquets in reference whereunto the Prophet Ieremy spake concerning the people whom God had appointed unto a grievous manner of destruction saying That men should not give them the Cup of Consolation to drink for their Father or for their Mother because it should not be now with them as in peaceable times with others who bringing their Ancestors unto the Grave with weeping eyes have notwithstanding means wherewith to be re-comforted Give Wine saith Solomon unto them that have grief of heart Surely he that ministreth unto them comfortable speech doth much more then give them Wine But the greatest thing of all other about this duty of Christian Burial is an outward testification of the hope which we have touching the Resurrection of the Dead For which purpose let any man of reasonable judgment examine whether it be more convenient for a company of men as it were in a dumb show to bring a Corse to the place of Burial there to leave it covered with Earth and so end or else to have the Exequies devoutly performed with solemn recital of such Lectures Psalms and Prayers as are purposely framed for the stirring up of mens mindes unto a careful consideration of their estate both here and hereafter Whereas therefore it is objected that neither the people of God under the Law nor the Church in the Apostles times did use any form of Service in Burial of their dead and therefore that this order is taken up without any good example or precedent followed therein First while the World doth stand they shall never be able to prove that all things which either the one or the other did use at Burials are set down in holy Scripture which doth not any where of purpose deliver the whole manner and form thereof but toucheth onely sometime one thing and sometime another which was in use as special occasions require any of them to be either mentioned or insinuated Again if it might be proved that no such thing was usual amongst them hath Christ so deprived his Church of Judgment that what Rites and Orders soever the latter Ages thereof have devised the same must needs be inconvenient Furthermore that the Jews before our Saviours coming had any such form of service although in Scripture it be not affirmed yet neither is it there denied for the â—orbidding of Priests to be present at Burials letteth not but that others might discharge that duty seeing all were not Priests which had rooms of Publick Function in their Synagogues and if any man be of opinion that they had no such form of Service thus much there is to make the contrary more probable The Jews at this day have as appeareth is their form of Funeral Prayers and in certain of their Funeral Sermons published neither are they so affected towards Christians as to borrow that order from us besides that the form thereof is such as both in
referring the name of a Title especially to the maintenance of the Minister infringe all Ordinations made except they which receive Orders be first intituled to a competent Ecclesiastical Benefice and which is most ridiculously strange except besides their present Title to some such Benefice they have likewise some other Title of Annual Rent or Pension whereby they may he relieved in case through infirmity sickness or other lawful impediment they grow unable to execute their Ecclesiastical Function So that every man lawfully ordained must bring a Bow which hath two strings a Title of present Right and another to provide for future possibility or chance Into these absurdities and follies they slide by mis-conceiving the true purpose of certain Canons which indeed have forbidden to ordain a Minister without a Title not that simply it is unlawful so to ordain but because it might grow to an inconvenience if the Church did not somewhat restrain that liberty For seeing they which have once received Ordination cannot again return into the World it behoveth them which Ordain to fore-see how such shall be afterwards able to live lest their poverty and destitution should redound to the disgrace and discredit of their Calling Which evil prevented those very Lawes which in that respect forbid doe expresly admit Ordinations to be made at large and without Title namely if the Party so ordained have of his own for the sustenance of this life or if the Bishop which giveth him Orders will finde him competent allowance till some place of Ministration from whence his maintenance may arise be provided for him or if any other fit and sufficient means be had against the danger before mentioned Absolutely therefore it is not true that any antient Canon of the Church which is or ought to be with us in force doth make Ordinations at large unlawful and as the state of the Church doth stand they are most necessary If there be any conscience in men â—ouching that which they write or speak let them consider as well what the present condition of all things doth now suffer as what the Ordinances of former Ages did appoint as well the weight of those Causes for which our Affairs have altered as the reasons in regard whereof our Fathers and Predecessours did sometime strictly and severely keep that which for us to observe now is neither meet nor alwayes possible In this our present Cause and Controversie whether any not having Title of Right to a Benefice may be lawfully ordained a Minister is it not manifest in the eyes of all men that whereas the name of a Benefice doth signifie some standing Ecclesiastical Revenue taken out of the Treasure of God and allotted to a Spiritual Person to the end he may use the same and enjoy it as his own for term of life unless his default cause Deprivation The Clergy for many years after Christ had no other Benefices but onely their Canonical Portions or monethly Dividends allowed them according to their several degrees and qualities out of the Common Stock of such Gifts Oblations and Tythes as the servour of Christian Piety did then yield Yea that even when Ministers had their Churches and Flocks assigned unto them in several yet for maintenance of life their former kinde of allowance continued till such time as Bishops and Churches Cathedral being sufficiently endowed with Lands other Presbyters enjoyed in stead of their first Benefices the Tythes and Profits of their own Congregations whole to themselves Is it not manifest that in this Realm and so in other the like Dominions where the tenure of Lands is altogether grounded on Military Laws and held as in Fee under Princes which are not made Heads of the People by force of voluntary Election but born the Soveraign Lords of those whole and intire Territories which Territories their famous Progenitours obtaining by way of Conquest retained what they would in their own hands and divided the rest to others with reservation of Soveraignty and Capital Interest the building of Churches and consequently the assigning of either Parishes or Benefices was a thing impossible without consent of such as were principal Owners of Land in which consideration for their more encouragement hereunto they which did so farr benefit the Church had by common consent granted as great equity and reason was a right for them and their Heirs till the Worlds end to nominate in those Benefices men whose quality the Bishop allowing might admit them thereunto Is it not manifest that from hence inevitably such inequality of Parishes hath grown as causeth some through the multitude of people which have refort unto one Church to be more than any one man can welld and some to be of that nature by reason of Chappels annex'd that they which are Incumbents should wrong the Church if so be they had not certain Stipendaries under them because where the Crops of the Profit or Benefice is but one the Title can be but one man 's and yet the charge may require more Not to mention therefore any other reason whereby it may clearly appear how expedient it is and profitable for this Church to admit Ordinations without Title this little may suffice to declare how impertinent their allegations against it are out of antient Canons how untrue their confident asseverations that onely through negligence of Popish Prelates the custom of making such kinde of Ministers hath prevailed in the Church of Rome against their Canons and that with us it is expresly against the Laws of our own Government when a Minister doth serve as a Stipendary Curate which kinde of Service neverthelesse the greatest Rabbins of that part doe altogether follow For howsoever they are loath peradventure to be named Curates Stipendaries they are and the labour they bestow is in other mens Cures a thing not unlawfull for them to doe yet unseemly for them to condemn which practise it I might here discover the like over-sight throughout all their Discourses made in behalf of the Peoples pretended right to elect their Ministers before the Bishop may lawfully ordain But because we have otherwhere at large disputed of popular Elections and of the right of Patronage wherein is drowned whatsoever the people under any pretence of colour may seem to challenge about Admission and Choyce of the Pastours that shall feed their Souls I cannot see what one Duty there is which alwayes ought to goe before Ordination but onely care of the Partie's worthinesse as well for integrity and vertue as knowledge yea for vertue more in as much as defect of knowledge may sundry wayes be supplyed but the scandal of vicious and wicked life is a deadly evil 81. The truth is that of all things hitherto mentioned the greatest is that threefold blott or blemish of notable ignorance unconscionable absence from the Cures whereof men have taken charge and unsatiable hunting after Spiritual preferments without either care or conscience of the publick good Whereof to the end
for so many years approved and betake our selves unto a Regiment neither appointed of God himself as they who favour it pretend nor till yesterday ever heard of among men By the Jews Festus was much complained of as being a Governor marvellous corrupt and almost intolerable Such notwithstanding were they who came after him that men which thought the publique condition most afflicted under Festur began to wish they had him again and to esteem him a Ruler commendable Great things are hoped for at the hands of these new Presidents whom Reformation would bring in Notwithstanding the time may come when Bishops whose Regiment doth now seem a yoke so heavy to bear will be longed for again even by them that are the readiest to have it taken from off their necks But in the hands of Divine Providence we leave the ordering of all such events and come now to the Question it self which is raised concerning Bishops For the better understanding whereof we must before hand set down what is meant when in this Question we name a Bishop II. For whatsoever we bring from Antiquity by way of defence in this cause of Bishops it is cast off as impertinent matter all is wiped away with an odd kind of shifting Answer That the Bishops which now are be not like unto them which were We therefore beseech all indifferent Judges to weigh sincerely with themselves how the case doth stand If it should be at this day a controversie whether Kingly Regiment were lawful or no peradventure in defence thereof the long continuance which it hath had sithence the first beginning might be alleadged mention perhaps might be made what Kings there were of old even in Abrahams time what Soveraign Princes both before and after Suppose that herein some man purposely bending his wit against Sovereignty should think to elude all such allegations by making ample discovery through a number of particularities wherein the Kings that are do differ from those that have been and should therefore in the end conclude That such ancient examples are no convenient proofs of that Royalty which is now in use Surely for decision of truth in this case there were no remedy but only to shew the nature of Sovereignty to sever it from accidental properties to make it clear that ancient and present Regality are one and the same in substance how great odds soever otherwise may seem to be between them In like manner whereas a Question of late hath grown whether Ecclesiastical Regiment by Bishops be lawful in the Church of Christ or no In which Question they that hold the Negative being pressed with that generally received order according whereunto the most renowned Lights of the Christian World have governed the same in every age as Bishops seeing their manner is to reply that such Bishops as those ancient were ours are not There is no remedy but to shew that to be a Bishop is now the self same thing which it hath been that one definition agreeth fully and truly as well to those elder as to these latter Bishops Sundry dissimilitudes we grant there are which notwithstanding are not such that they cause any equivocation in the name whereby we should think a Bishop in those times to have had a clean other definition then doth rightly agree unto Bishops as they are now Many things there are in the state of Bishops which the times have changed Many a Parsonage at this day is larger then some ancient Bishopricks were many an antient Bishop poorer then at this day sundry under them in degree The simple hereupon lacking judgement and knowledge to discern between the nature of things which changeth not and these outward variable accidents are made beleeve that a Bishop heretofore and now are things in their very nature so distinct that they cannot be judged the same Yet to men that have any part of skill what more evident and plain in Bishops then that augmentation or diminution in their precincts allowances priviledges and such like do make a difference indeed but no essential difference between one Bishop and another As for those things in regard whereof we use properly to term them Bishops those things whereby they essentially differ from other Pastors those things which the natural definition of a Bishop must contain what one of them is there more or less appliable unto Bishops now than of old The name Bishop hath been borrowed from the Grecians with whom it signifieth One which hath principal charge to guide and Oversee others The same word in Ecclesiastical writings being applied unto Church-governors at the first unto all and not unto the chiefest only grew in short time peculiar and proper to signifie such Episcopal Authority alone as the chiefest Governors exercised over the rest for with all Names this is usual that in as much as they are not given till the things whereunto they are given have bin sometime first observed therefore generally Things are antienter then the Names whereby they are called Again sith the first things that grow into general observation and do thereby give men occasion to find Names for them are those which being in many Subjects are thereby the easier the oftner and the more universally noted it followeth that names imposed to signifie common qualities or operations are ancienter then is the restraint of those names to note an excellency of such qualities or operations in some one or few amongst others For example the name Disciple being invented to signifie generally a learner it cannot choose but in that signification be more ancient then when it signifieth as it were by a kind of appropriation those Learners who being taught of Christ were in that respect termed Disciples by an excellency The like is to be seen in the name Apostle the use whereof to signifie a messenger must needs be more ancient then that use which restraineth it unto Messengers sent concerning Evangelical affairs yea this use more ancient then that whereby the same word is yet restrained farther to signifie only those whom our Saviour himself immediately did send After the same manner the Title or Name of a Bishop having been used of old to signifie both an Ecclesiastical Overseer in general and more particularly also a Principal Ecclesiastical Overseer it followeth that this latter restrained signification is not so ancient as the former being more common Yet because the things themselves are always ancienter then their names therefore that thing which the restrained use of the word doth import is likewise ancienter then the restraint of the word is and consequently that power of chief Ecclesiastical Overseers which the term of a Bishop importeth was before the restrained use of the name which doth import it Wherefore a lame and an impotent kind of reasoning it is when men go about to prove that in the Apostles times there was no such thing as the restrained name of a Bishop doth now signifie because in their writings
much concerning that Local Compass which was antiently set out to Bishops within the bounds and limits whereof we finde that they did accordingly exercise that Episcopal Authority and power which they had over the Church of Christ. IX The first whom we read to have bent themselves against the Superiority of Bishops were Aerius and his Followers Aerius seeking to be made a Bishop could not brook that Eustathius was thereunto preferred before him Whereas therefore he saw himself unable to rise to that greatness which his ambitious pride did affect his way of revenge was to try what Wit being sharpned with envy and malice could do in raising a new seditious opinion that the Superiority which Bishops had was a thing which they should not have that a Bishop might not ordain and that a Bishop ought not any way to be distinguished from a Presbyter For so doth St. Augustin deliver the opinion of Aerius Epiphanius not so plainly nor so directly but after a more Rhetorical sort His Speech was rather furious than convenient for man to use What is saith he a Bishop more than a Presbyter The one doth differ from the other nothing For their Order as one their Honour one one their Dignity A Bishop imposeth his hands so doth a Presbyter A Bishop baptizeth the like doth a Presbyter The Bishop is a Minister of Divine Service a Presbyter is the same The Bishop sitteth as a Iudge in a Throne even the Presbyter fitteth also A Presbyter therefore doing thus far the self-same thing which a Bishop did it was by Aerius inforced that they ought not in any thing to differ Are we to think Aerius had wrong in being judged an Heretick for holding this opinion Surely if Heresie be an error falsely fathered upon Scriptures but indeed repugnant to the truth of the Word of God and by the consent of the universal Church in the Councils or in her contrary uniform practice throughout the whole world declared to be such and the opinion of Aerius in this point be a plain error of that nature there is no remedy but Aerius so schismatically and stifly maintaining it must even stand where Epiphanius and Augustin have placed him An error repugnant unto the truth of the Word of God is held by them whosoever they be that stand in defence of any Conclusion drawn erroneously out of Scripture and untruely thereon fathered The opinion of Aerius therefore being falsely collected out of Scripture must needs be acknowledged an error repugnant unto the truth of the Word of God His opinion was that there ought not to be any difference between a Bishop and a Presbyter His grounds and reasons for this Opinion were Sentences of Scripture Under pretence of which Sentences whereby it seemed that Bishops and Presbyters at the first did not differ it was concluded by Aerius that the Church did ill in permitting any difference to be made The Answer which Epiphanius maketh unto some part of the proofs by Aerius alleged was not greatly studied or labored for through a contempt of so base an error for this himself did perceive and profess yieldeth he thereof expresly this reason Men that have wit do evidently see that all this is meer foolishness But how vain and ridiculous soever his opinion seemed unto wise men with it Aerius deceived many for which cause somewhat was convenient to be said against it And in that very extemporal slightness which Epiphanius there useth albeit the answer made to Aerius be in part but raw yet ought not hereby the Truth to finde any less favour than in other Causes it doth where we do not therefore judge Heresie to have the better because now and then it alledgeth that for it self which Defenders of Truth do not always so fully answer Let it therefore suffice that Aerius did bring nothing unanswerable The weak Solutions which the one doth give are to us no prejudice against the Cause as long as the others oppositions are of no greater strength and validity Did not Aerius trow you deserve to be esteemed as a new Apollos mighty and powerful in the Word which could for maintenance of his Cause bring forth so plain Divine Authorities to prove by the Apostles own Writings that Bishops ought not in any thing to differ from other Presbyters For example where it is said that Presbyters made Timothy Bishop is it not clear that a Bishop should not differ from a Presbyter by having power of Ordination Again if a Bishop might by Order be distinguished from a Presbyter would the Apostle have given as he doth unto Presbyters the Title of Bishops These were the invincible demonstrations wherewith Aerius did so fiercely assault Bishops But the Sentence of Aerius perhaps was only that the difference between a Bishop and a Presbyter hath grown by the order and custom of the Church the Word of God not appointing that any such difference should be Well let Aerius then finde the favour to have his Sentence so construed yet his fault in condemning the order of the Church his not submitting himself unto that Order the Schism which he caused in the Church about it who can excuse No the truth is that these things did even necessarily ensue by force of the very opinion which he and his followers did hold His conclusion was That there ought to be no difference between a Presbyter and a Bishop His proofs those Scripture-sentences which make mention of Bishops and Presbyters without any such distinction or difference So that if between his Conclusion and the Proofs whereby he laboured to strengthen the same there be any shew of coherence at all we must of necessity confess that when Aerius did plead There is by the Word of God no difference between a Presbyter and a Bishop his meaning was not only that the Word of God it self appointeth nor but that it enforceth on us the duty of not appointing nor allowing that any such difference should be made X. And of the self-same minde are the Enemies of Government by Bishops even at this present day They hold as Aerius did that if Christ and his Apostles were obeyed a Bishop should not be permitted to ordain that between a Presbyter and a Bishop the Word of God alloweth not any inequality or difference to be made that their Order their Authority their Power ought to be one that it is but by usurpation and corruption that the one sort are suffered to have rule of the other or to be any way superiour unto them Which opinion having now so many Defenders shall never be able while the World doth stand to finde in some believing Antiquity as much as one which hath given it countenance or born any friendly affection towards it Touching these men therefore whose desire is to have all equal three ways there are whereby they usually oppugn the received Order of the Church of Christ. First by disgracing the inequality of Pastors as a new
they answer it By the sixth and the fourteenth of the Acts say they it doth appear that the people had the chiefest power of chusing Howbeit that as unto me it seemeth was dine upon special cause which doth not so much concern us neither ought it to be drawn unto the ordinary and perpetual form of governing the Church For as in establishing Common-weals not only if they be popular but even being such as are ordered by the power of a few the chiefest or as by the sole Authority of one till the same he established the whole sway is in the Peoples hands who voluntarily appoint those Magistrates by whose Authority they may be governed so that afterward not the multitude it self but those Magistrates which were chosen by the multitude have the ordering of Publick Affairs After the self-same manner is fared in establishing also the Church When there was not as yet any placed over the People all Authority was in them all but when they all had chosen certain to whom the Regiment of the Church was committed this power is not now any longer in the hands of the whole multitude but wholly in theirs who are appointed Guides of the Church Besides in the choyce of Deacons there was also another special cause wherefore the whole Church as that time should chuse them For inasmuch as the Grecians murmured against the Hebrews and complained that in the duly distribution which was made for relief of the poor they were not indifferently respected nor such regard had of their Widows as was meet this made it necessary that they all should have to deal in the choyce of those unto whom that care was afterwards to be committed to the end that all occasion of jealousies and complaints might be removed Wherefore that which was done by the People for certain Causes before the Church was sully settled may not be drawn out and applyed unto a constant and perpetual form of ordering the Church Let them cast the Discipline of the Church of England into the same scales where they weigh their own let them give us the same measure which here they take and our strifes shall soon be brought to a quiet end When they urge the Apostles as Precedents when they condemn us of Tyranny because we do not in making Ministers the same which the Apostles did when they plead That with us one alone doth ordain and that our Ordinations are without the Peoples knowledge contrary to that example which the blessed Apostles gave We do not request at their hands allowance as much as of one word we speak in our own defence if that which we speak be of our own but that which themselves speak they must be content to listen unto To exempt themselves from being over-farr prest with the Apostles example they can answer That which was done by the People once upon special Causes when the Church was not yet established is not to be made a rule for the constant and continual ordering of the Church In defence of their own Election although they do not therein depend on the People so much as the Apostles in the choyce of Deacons they think it a very sufficient Apology that there were special considerations why Deacons at that time should be chosen by the whole Church but not so now In excuse of dissimilitudes between their own and the Apostles Discipline they are contented to use this Answer That many things were done in the Apostles times before the settling of the Church which afterward the Church was not tyed to observe For countenance of their own proceedings wherein their Governors do more than the Apostles and their People less than under the Apostles the first Churches are found to have done at the making of Ecclesiastical Officers they deem it a marvellous reasonable kinde of Pleading to say That even as in Common-wealt when the multitude have once chosen many or one to rule over them the right which was at the first in the whole body of the People is now derived into those many or that one which it so chosen and that this being done it is not the whole multitude to whom the administration of such Publick affairs any longer appertaineth but that which they did their Rulers may now do lawfully without them After the self-same manner it slandeth with the Church also How easie and plain might we make our defence how clear and allowable even unto them it we could but obtain of them to admit the same things consonant unto equity in our mouths which they require to be so taken from their own If that which is truth being uttered in maintenance of Scotland and Geneva do not cease to be truth when the Church of England once alledgeth it this great crime of Tyranny wherewith we are charged hath a plain and an easie defence Yea But we do not at all aske the Peoples approbation which they do whereby they shew themselves more indifferent and more free from taking away the Peoples right Indeed when their Lay-Elders have chosen whom they think good the Peoples consent thereunto is asked and if they give their approbation the thing standeth warranted for sound and good But if not is the former choyce overthrown No but the People is to yield to reason and if they which have made the choyce do so like the Poeples reason as to reverse their own deed at the hearing of it then a new election to be made otherwise the former to stand notwithstanding the Peoples negative and dislike What is this else but to deal with the People as those Nurses do with Infants whose mouths they besmear with the backside of the spoon as though they had fed them when they themselves devour the food They cry in the ears of the People that all mens consent should be had unto that which concerns all they make the People believe we wrong them and deprive them of their right in making Ministers whereas with us the People have commonly farr more sway and force then with them For inasmuch as there are but two main things observed in every Ecclesiastical function Power to exercise the duty it self and some charge of People whereon to exercise the same the former of these is received at the hands of the whole visible Catholick Church For it is not any one particular multitude that can give power the force whereof may reach farr and wide indefinitely as the power of Order doth which whoso hath once received there is no action which belongeth thereunto but he may exercise effectually the same in any part of the World without iterated Ordination They whom the whole Church hath from the beginning used as her Agents in conferring this power are not either one or moâ— of the Laity and therefore it hath not been heard of that ever any such were allowed to ordain Ministers Onely Persons Ecclesiastical and they in place of Calling Superiours both unto Deacons and unto Presbyters only such Persons
up a Pillar shall be the House of God and of all that thou shall give me will I give the Tenth unto thee May a Christian man desire as great things as Iacob did at the hands of God may he desire them in as earliest manner may he promise as great thankfulness in acknowledging the goodness of God may he vow any certain kinde of publick acknowledgment before hand or though he vow it not perform it after in such sort that men may see he is perswaded how the Lord hath been his God Are these particular kindes of testifying thankfulness to God the erecting of Oratories the dedicating of Lands and Goods to maintain them forbidden any where Let any mortal man living shew but one reason wherefore in this point to follow Iacob's example should not be a thing both acceptable unto God and in the eyes of the World for ever most highly commendable Concerning Goods of this nature Goods whereof when we speak we term them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Goods that are consecrated unto God and as Tertullian speaketh Deposit a pietatis things which Piety and Devotion hath laid up as it were in the bosom of God Touching such Goods the Law Civil following mere light of Nature defineth them to be no mans because no mortal man or community of men hath right of propriety in them XXIII Persons Ecclesiastical are God's Stewards not onely for that he hath set them over his Family as the Ministers of ghostly food but even for this very cause also that they are to receive and dispose his Temporal Revenues the gifts and oblations which men bring him Of the Jews it is plain that their Tyths they offered unto the Lord and those offerings the Lord bestowed upon the Levites When the Levites gave the Tenth of their Tythes this their Gift the Law doth term the Lord's Heave-offering and appoint that the High-Priest should receive the same Of spoils taken in War that part which they were accustomed to separate unto God they brought it before the Priest of the Lord by whom it was laid up in the Tabernacle of the Congregation for a memorial of their thankfulness towards God and his goodness towards them in fighting for them against their enemies As therefore the Apostle magnifieth the honor of Melchisedec in that he being an High-Priest did receive at the hands of Abraham the Tyths which Abraham did honor God with so it argueth in the Apostles themselves great honor that at their feet the price of those Possessions was laid which men thought good to bestow on Christ. St. Paul commending the Churches which were in Macedonia for their exceeding liberality this way saith of them That he himself would bear record they had declared their forward mindes according to their power yea beyond their power and had so much exceeded his expectation of them that they seemed as it were even to give away themselves first to the Lord saith the Apostle and then by the will of God unto us To him as the owner of such gifts to us as his appointed receivers and dispensers The gift of the Church of Antioch bestowed unto the use of distressed Brethren which were in Iudea Paul and Baruabar did deliver unto the Presbyters of Ierusalem and the head of those Presbyters was Iames he therefore the Chiefest disposer thereof Amongst those Canons which are entituled Apostolical one is this We appoint that the Bishop have care of these things which belong to the Church the meaning is of Church-Goods as the Reason following sheweth For if the precious Souls of men must be committed unto him of trust much more it beloveth the charge of money to be given him that by his Authority the Presbyters and Deacons may administer all things to them that stand in need So that he which hath done them the honor to be as it were his Treasurers hath left them also authority and power to use these his Treasures both otherwise and for the maintenance even of their own Estate the lower sort of the Clergy according unto a meaner the higher after a larger proportion The use of Spiritual goods and possessions hath been a matte◠much disputed of grievous complaints there are usually made against the evil and unlawful usage of them but with no certain determination hitherto on what things and Persons with what proportion and measure they being bestowed do retain their lawful use Some men condemn it as idle superfluous and altogether vain that any part of the Treasure of God should be spent upon costly Ornaments appertaining unto his Service who being best worshipped when he is served in Spirit and truth hath not for want of pomp and magnificence rejected at any time those who with faithful hearts have adored him Whereupon the Hereticks termed Henriciani and Petrobusiani threw down Temples and Houses of Prayer erected with marvellous great charge as being in that respect not fit for Christ by us to be honored in We deny not but that they who sometime wandred as Pilgrims on earth and had no Temples but made Caves and Dens to pray in did God such honor as was most acceptable in his sight God did not reject them for their poverty and nakedness sake Their Sacraments were not abhorred for want of Vessels of Gold Howbeit let them who thus delight to plead answer me When Moses first and afterwards David exhorted the people of Israel unto matter of charge about the service of God suppose we it had been allowable in them to have thus pleaded Our Fathers in Egypt served God devoutly God war with them in all their afflictions he heard their Prayers pitied their Case and delivered them from the tyranny of their oppressors what House Tabernacle or Temple had they Such Argumentations are childish and fond God doth not refuse to be honored at all where there lacketh wealth but where abundance and store is he there requireth the Flower thereof being bestowed on him to be employed even unto the Ornament of his Service In Egypt the state of his People was servitude and therefore his Service was accordingly In the Defart they had no sooner ought of their own but a Tabernacle is required and in the Land of Canaan a Temple In the eyes of David it seemed a thing not fit a thing not decent that himself should be more richly seated than God But concerning the use of Ecclesiastical Goods bestowed this way there is not so much contention amongst us as what measure of allowance is fit for Ecclesiastical Persons to be maintained with A better rule in this case to judge things by we cannot possibly have than the◠Wisdom of God himself by considering what he thought meet for each degree of the Clergy to enjoy in time of the Law what for Levites what for Priests and what for High-Priests somewhat we shall be the more able to discern rightly what may be fit convenient and right for
otherwise was most requisite Wherefore the necessity of ordaining such is no excuse for the rash and careless ordaining of every one that hath but a friend to bestow some two or three words of ordinary commendation in his behalf By reason whereof the Church groweth burdened with silly creatures more then need whose noted baseness and insufficiency bringeth their very Order it self into contempt It may be that the fear of a Quare impedit doth cause Institutions to pass more easily then otherwise they would And to speak plainly the very truth it may be that Writs of Quare non impedit were for these times most necessary in the others place Yet where Law will not suffer men to follow their own judgment to shew their judgment they are not hindred And I doubt not but that even conscienceless and wicked Patrons of which sort the swarms are too great in the Church of England are the more imboldened to present unto Bishops any reffuse by finding so easie acceptation thereof Somewhat they might redress this sore notwithstanding so strong impediments if it did plainly appear that they took it indeed to heart were not in a manner contented with it Shall we look for care in admitting whom others present if that which some of your selves confer be at any time corruptly bestowed A foul and an ugly kind of deformity it hath if a man do but think what it is for a Bishop to draw commodity and gain from those things whereof he is left a free bestower and that in trust without any other obligation then his sacred Order only and that religious Integrity which hath been presumed on in him Simoniacal corruption I may not for honors sake suspect to be amongst men of so great place So often they do not I trust offend by sale as by unadvised gift of such preferments wherein that ancient Canon should specially be remembred which forbiddeth a Bishop to be led by humane affection in bestowing the things of God A fault no where so hurtful as in bestowing places of jurisdiction and in furnishing Cathedral Churches the Prebendaries and other Dignities whereof are the very true successors of those ancient Presbyters which were at the first as Counsellers unto Bishops A foul abuse it is that any one man should be loaded as some are with Livings in this kind yea some even of them who condemn utterly the granting of any two Benefices unto the same man whereas the other is in truth a matter of far greater sequel as experience would soon shew if Churches Cathedral being furnished with the residence of a competent number of vertuous grave wise and learned Divines the rest of the Prebends of every such Church were given within the Diocess unto men of worthiest desert for their better encouragement unto industry and travel unless it seem also convenient to extend the benefit of them unto the learned in Universities and men of special imployment otherwise in the affairs of the Church of God But howsoever surely with the publick good of the Church it will hardly stand that in any one person such favours be more multiplied then law permitteth in those Livings which are with Cure Touching Bishops Visitations the first institution of them was profitable to the end that the state and condition of Churches being known there might be for evils growing convenient remedies provided in due time The observation of Church Laws the correction of faults in the service of God and manners of men these are things that visitors should seek When these things are inquired of formally and but for custom sake fees and pensions being the only thing which is sought and little else done by Visitations we are not to marvel if the baseness of the end doth make the action it self loathsom The good which Bishops may do not only by these Visitations belonging ordinarily to their Office but also in respect of that power which the Founders of Colledges have given them of special trust charging even fearfully their consciences therewith the good I say which they might do by this their authority both within their own Diocess and in the well-springs themselves the Universities is plainly such as cannot chuse but add weight to their heavy accounts in that dreadful Day if they do it not In their Courts where nothing but singular integrity and Justice should prevail if palpable and gross corruptions be found by reason of Offices so often granted unto men who seek nothing but their own gain and make no account what disgrace doth grow by their unjust dealings unto them under whom they deal the evil hereof shall work more then they which procure it do perhaps imagine At the hands of a Bishop the first thing looked for is a care of the Clergy under him a care that in doing good they may have whatsoever comforts and encouragements his countenance authority and place may yield Otherwise what heard shall they have to proceed in their painful course all sorts of men besides being so ready to malign despise and every way oppress them Let them find nothing but disdain in Bishops in the enemies of present Government if that way lift to betake themselves all kind of favourable and friendly help unto which part think we it likely that men having wit courage and stomack will incline As great a fault is the want of severity when need requireth as of kindness and courtesie in Bishops But touching this what with ill usage of their powe amongst the meaner and what with disuage amongst the higher sort they are in the eyes of both sorts as Bees have lost their sting It is a long time sithence any great one hath felt or almost any one much feared the edge of that Ecclesiastical severity which sometime held Lords and Dukes in a more religious aw then now the meanest are able to be kept A Bishop in whom there did plainly appear the marks and tokens of a fatherly affection towards them are under his charge what good might he do ten thousand ways more then any man knows how to set down But the souls of men are not loved that which Christ shed his blood for is not esteemed precious This is the very root the fountain of all negligence in Church-Government Most wretched are the terms of mens estate when once they are at a point of wrechlesness so extream that thy bend not their wits any further than only to shift out the present time never regarding what shall become of their Successors after them Had our Predecessors so loosely cast off from them all care and respect to posterity a Church Christian there had noâ— been about the regiment whereof we should need at this day to strive It was the barbarous affection of Nero that the ruine of his own Imperial Seat he could have been well enough contented to see in case he might also have seen it accompanied with the fall of the whole World An affection not more intolerable then theirs
labouring and suing for Places and Charges in the Church is not lawful Further whereas at the suit of the Church some of your Honours entertained the Cause and brought it to a near issue that there seemed nothing to remain but the commendation of my Lord the Archbishop of Canterbury when as he could not be satisfied but by my subscribing to his late Articles and that my Answer agreeing to subscribe according to any Law and to the Statute provided in that Case but praying to be respited for subscribing to any other which I could not in Conscience do either for the Temple which otherwise he said he would not commend me to nor for any other Place in the Church did so little please my Lord Archbishop as he resolved that otherwise I should not be commended to it I had utterly here no cause of offence against Mr. Hooker whom I did in no sort esteem to have prevented or undermined me but that God disposed of me as it pleased him by such means and occasions as I have declared Moreover as I have taken no cause of offence at Mr. Hooker for being preferred so there were many Witnesses that I was glad that the place was given him hoping to live in all godly peace and comfort with him both for acquaintance and good-will which hath been between us and for some kinde of affinity in the marriage of his nearest kindred and mine Since his comming I have so carefully endeavoured to entertain all good correspondence and agreement with him as I think he himself will bear me witness of many earnest Disputations and Conferences with him about the matter the rather because that contrary to my expectation he inclined from the beginning but smally thereunto but joyned rather with such as had always opposed themselves to any good order in this Charge and made themselves to be brought indisposed to his present state and proceedings For both knowing that God's Commandement charged me with such Duty and discerning how much on peace might further the good service of God and his Church and the mutual comfort of us both I had resolved constantly to seek for Peace and though it should flye from me as I saw it did by means of some who little desired to see the good of our Church yet according to the rule of God's Word to follow after it Which being so as hereof I take God to witnesse who searcheth the heart and reins and who by his Son will judge the World both quick and dead I hope no charitable Judgement can suppose me to have stood evil-affected towards him for his Place or desirous to fall into any Controversie with him Which my resolution I pursued that whereas I discovered sundry unsound matters in his Doctrine as many of his Sermons tasted of some sour leaven or other yet thus I carried my self towards him Matters of smaller weight and so covertly discovered that no great offence to the Church was to be feared in them I wholly passed by as one that discerned nothing of them or had been unfurnished of replies for others of great moment and so openly delivered as there was just cause of fear left the Truth and Church of God should be prejudiced and perilled by it and such as the Conscience of my Duty and Calling would not suffer me altogether to pass over this was my course to deliver when I should have just cause by my Text the truth of such Doctrine as he lead otherwise taught in general speeches without touch of his Person in any sort and further at convenient opportunity to conferr with him in such points According to which determination whereas he had taught certain things concerning Predestination otherwise than the Word of God doth as it is understood by all Churches professing the Gospel and not unlike that wherewith Coranus sometimes troubled his Church I both delivered the truth of such points in a general Doctrine without any touch of him in particular and conferred with him also privately upon such Articles In which Conference I remember when I urged the consent of all Churches and good Writers against him that I knew and desired if it were otherwise What Authors he had seen of such Doctrine He answered me That his best Author was his own Reason which I wished him to take heed of as a matter standing with Christian modesty and wisdom in a Doctrine not received by the Church not to trust to his own Judgment so farr as to publish it before he had conferred with others of his Profession labouring by daily Prayer and Study to know the will of God as he did to see how they understood such Doctrine Notwithstanding he with wavering replyed That he would some other time deal more largely in the matter I wished him and prayed him not so to do for the peace of the Church which by such means might be hazarded seeing he could not but think that men who make any Couscience of their Ministerie will judge it a necessarie dutie in them to teach the truth and to convince the contrarie Another time upon like occasion of this Doctrine of his That the assurance of that we believe by the Word is not so certain as of that we perceive by sense I both taught the Doctrine otherwise namely the assurance of Faith to be greater which assured both of things above and contrarie to all sense and human understanding and dealt with him also privately upon that point According to which course of late when as he had taught That the Church of Rome is a true Church of Christ and a sanctified Church by profession of that Truth which God both revealed unto us by his Son though not a part and perfect Church and further That be doubted not but that thousands of the Fathers which lived and dyed in the Superstitions of that Church were saved because of their ignorance which excuseth them mis-alledging to that end a Text of Scripture to prove it The matter being ofset purpose openly and at large handled by him and of that moment that might prejudice the Faith of Christ encourage the ill-affected to continue still in their damnable ways and others weak in Faith to suffer themselves easily to be seduced to the destruction of their Souls I thought it my most bounden duty of God and to his Church whilst I might have opportunitie to speak with him to teach the Truth in a general speech in such points of Doctrine At which time I taught That such as dye or have died at any time in the Church of Rome holding in their ignorance that Faith which is taught in it and namely Iustification in part by Works could not be said by the Scriptures to be saved In which matter foreseeing that if I waded not warily in it I should be in danger to be reported as hath fallen out since notwithstanding to condemn all the Fathers I said directly and plainly to all mens understanding That it was not indeed to be
neither affected the truth of God nor the peace of the Church Mihi pro minimo â—est it doth not much move me when Mr. Travers doth say that which I trust a greater than Mr. Travers will gainsay 17. Now let all this which hitherto he hath said be granted him let it be as he would have it let my Doctrine and manner of teaching be as much disallowed by all men's Judgements as by his what is all this to his purpose He alledgeth this to be the cause why he bringeth it in The High-Commissioners charge him with an indiscretion and want of duty in that he inveighed against certain Points of Doctrine taught by me as erroneous not conâ—erring first with me nor complaining of it to them Which faults a sea of such matter as he hath hitherto waded in will never be able to scoure from him For the avoiding Schism and disturbance in the Church which must needs grow if all men might think what they list and speak openly what they think therefore by a Decree agreed upon by the Bishops and confirmed by her Majesties Authority it was ordered That erroneous Doctrine if it were taught publickly should not be publickly refuted but that notice thereof should be given into such as are by her Highness appointed to hear and to determine such Causes For breach of which Order when he is charged with lack of Duty all the faults that can be heaped upon me will make but a weak defence for him As surely his defence is not much stronger when he alledges for himself That he was in some hope his speech in proving the truth and clearing those scraples which I had in my self might cause me either to embrace sound Doctrine or suffer it to be embraced of others which if I did he should not need to complain that It was meet he should discover first what I had sown and make it manifest to be tares and then desire their Sithe to cutt it down that Conscience did binds him to doe otherwise than the foresaid Order requireth that He was unwilling to deal in that publick manner and wished a more convenient way were taken for it that He had resolved to have protested the next Sabbath day that he would some other way satisfie such as should require it and not deal more in that place Be it imagined let me not be taken as if I did compare the offenders when I do not but their Answers onely that a Libeller did make this Apology for himself I am not ignorant that if I have just matter against any man the Law is open there are Judges to hear it and Courts where it ought to be complained of I have taken another course against such or such a man yet without breach of Duty forasmuch as I am able to yield a reason of my doing I conceive some hope that a little discredit amongst men would make him ashamed of himself and that his shame would work his amendment which if it did other accusation there should not need could his answer he thought sufficient could it in the judgement of discreet men free him from all blame No more can the hope Mr. Travers conceived to reclaim me by publick speech justifie his fault against the established Order of the Church 18. His thinking it meet he should first openly discover to the People the Tares that had been sown amongst them and then require the hand of Authority to mow them down doth onely make it a Question Whether his opinion that this was meet may be a priviledge or protection against the lawful Constitution which had before determined of it as of a thing unmeet Which Question I leave for them to discusse whom it most concerneth If the Order be such that it cannot be kept without hazarding a thing so precious as a good Conscience the peril whereof could be no greater to him than it needs must be to all others whom it toucheth in like Causes then this is evident it will be an effectual motive not onely for England but also for other Reformed Churches even Geniva it self for they have the like to change or take that away which cannot but with great inconvenience be observed In the mean while the breach of it may in such consideration be pardoned which truly I wish howsoever it be yet hardly defended as long as it standeth in force uncancelled 19. Now whereas he confesseth another way had been more convenient and that he found in himself secret unwillingnesse to doe that which he did doth he not say plainly in effect that the light of his own Understanding proved the way that he took perverse and crooked Reason was so plain and pregnant against it that his Minde was alienated his Will averted to another course yet somewhat there was that so farr over-ruled that it must needs be done even against the very stream what doth it bewray Finally his purposed Protestation whereby he meant openly to make it known that he did not allow this kinde of proceeding and therefore would satisfie men otherwise and deal no more in this Place sheweth his good minde in this that he meant to stay himself from further offending but it serveth not his turn He is blamed because the thing he hath done was amisse and his Answer is That which I would have done afterwards had been well if so be I had done it 20. But as in this he standeth perswaded that he hath done nothing besides duty so he taketh it hardly that the High Commissioners should charge him with indiscretion Wherefore as if he could so wash his hands he maketh a long and a large declaration concerning the carriage of himself how he waded in matters of smaller weight and how in things of greater moment how wary he dealt how naturally he took his things rising from the Text how closely he kept himself to the Scriptures he took in hand how much pains he took to confirm the necessity of believing Iustification by Christ onely and to shew how the Church of Rome denieth that a man is saved by Faith alone without works of the Law what the Sons of Thunder would have done if they had been in his case that his Answer was very temperate without immodest or reproachful speech that when he might before all have reproved me he did not but contented himself with exhorting me before all to follow Nathan's example and revisit my Doctrine when he might have followed Saint Paul's example in reproving Peter he did not but exhorted me with Peter to endure to be withstood This Testimony of his discreet carrying himself in the handling of his matter being more agreeably framed and given him by another than by himself might make somewhat for the praise of his Person but for defence of his action unto them by whom he is thought undiscreet for not concerning privately before he spake will it serve to answer that when he spake he did it considerately He perceiveth it will not and
men And fearing left that such questions as these if voluntarily they should be too farr waded in might seem worthy of that rebuke which our Saviour thought needfull in a case not unlike What is this unto thee When I was forced much beside my expectation to render a reason of my speech I could not but yield at the Call of others and proceed so farr as Duty bound me for the fuller satisfying of mindes Wherein I have walked as with Reverence so with Fear with Reverence inregard of our Fathers which lived in former times not without Fear considering them that are alive 38. I am not ignorant how ready men are to feed and sooth up themselves in evil Shall I will the man say that loveth the present World more than he loveth Christ shall I incurr the high displeasure of the mightiest upon Earth Shall I hazard my Goods endanger my Estate put my self into jeopardy rather than to yield to that which so many of my Fathers imbraced and yet found favour in the sight of God Curse ye Meroz saith the Lord curse bar Inhabitants because they helped not the Lord they helped him not against the Mighty If I should not onely not help the Lord against the Mighty but help to strengthen them that are mighty against the Lord worthily might I fall under the burthen of that Curse worthy I were to bear to bear my own Judgement But if the Doctrine which I reach be a flower gathered in the Garden of the Lord a part of the saying Truth of the Gospel from whence notwithstanding poysonous Creatures do suck-venom I can but wish it were otherwise and content my self with the lord that hath befallen me the rather because it hath not befallen me alone Saint Paul taught a Truth and a comfortable truth when he taught that the greater our misery is in respect of our Iniquities the readier is the mercy of God for our release If we seek unto him the more we have sinned the more praise and glory and honour unto him that pardoneth our sinne But mark what sewd Collections were made hereupon by some Why then am I condemned for a Sinner And the Apostle as we are blamed and as some affirm that we say Why doe we not evil that good may come of it he was accused to teach that which ill-disposed People did gather by his teaching though it were clean not onely besides but against his meaning The Apostle addeth Their Condemnation which thus doe is just I am not hasty to apply Sentences of Condemnation I wish from mine Heart their Conversion whosoever are thus perversly affected For I must needs say Their Case is fearful their Estate dangerous which harden themselves presuming on the mercy of God towards others It is true that God is merciful but let us beware of presumptuous sinnes God delivered Ionah from the bottome of the Sea will you therefore cast your selves head-long from the tops of Rocks and say in your Hearts God shall deliver us He pitieth the Blinde that would gladly see but will he pity him that may see and hardeneth himself in blindenesse No Christ hath spoken too much unto you to claim the priviledge of your Fathers 39. As for us that have handled this Cause concerning the condition of our Fathers whether it be this thing or any other which we bring unto you the Counsel is good which the Wise man giveth Stand thou fast in thy sure understanding in the way and knowledge of the Lord and have but one manner of word and follow the Word of peace and righteousnesse As a loose tooth is a grief to him that eateth so doth a wavering and unstable word in speech that tendeth to instruction offend Shall a wise man speak words of the winde saith Eliphaz leight unconstant unstable words Surely the wisest may speak words of the winde such is the untoward Constitution of our nature that we doe neither so perfectly understand the way and knowledge of the Lord nor so stedfastly imbrace it when it is understood nor so graciously utter it when it is imbraced not so peaceably maintain it when it is uttered but that the best of us are over-taken sometime through blindenesse sometime through hastinesse sometime through impatience sometimes through other passions us the minde whereunto God doth know we are too subject We must therefore be contented both to pardon others and to crave that others may pardon us for such things Let no man that speaketh as a man think himself while he liveth alwayes freed from scapes and over-sights in his speech The things themselves which I have spoken unto you are sound howsoever they have seemed otherwise unto some at whose hands I have in that respect received Injury I willingly forget it although indeed considering the benefit which I have reaped by this necessary speech of Truth I rather incline to that of the Apostle They have not injured me at all I have cause to wish them as many Blessings in the Kingdom of Heaven as they have forced me to utter words and syllables in this Cause wherein I could not be more sparing of speech than I have been It becommeth no man saith Saint Ierom to be patient in the crime of Heresie Patient as I take it we should be alwayes though the crime of Heresie were intended but silent in a thing of so great Consequence I could not beloved I durst not be especially the love which I bear to the truth of Christ Jesus being hereby somewhat called in question Whereof I beseech them in the meeknesse of Christ that have been the first original cause to consider that a Watch-man may cry an Enemy when indeed a Friend commeth In which Cause as I deem such a Watch-man more worthy to be loved for his Care than mis-liked for his Errour So I have judged it my own part in this as much as in me lyeth to take away all suspition of any unfriendly intent or meaning against the Truth from which God doth know my heart is free 40. Now to you Beloved which have heard these things I will use no other words of admonition than those that are offered me by St. Iames My Brethren have not the Faith of our glorious Lord Iesus in respect of Persons Ye are not now to learn that as of it self it is not hurtful so neither should it be to any scandalous and offensive in doubtful cases to hear the different judgments of men Be it that Cephas hath hath one interpretation and Apollos hath another that Paul is of this minde and Barnabas of that if this offend you the fault is yours Carry peaceable mindes and you may have comfort by this variety Now the God of Peace give you peaceable mindes and turn it to your everlasting comfort A LEARNED SERMON OF THE NATURE OF PRIDE HABAK. 2. 4. His mind swelleth and is not right in him But the Iust by his Faith shall live THE nature of Man being much more delighted to
his absence should bereave them of and secondly of the sundry evils which themselves should be subject unto being once bereaved of so gracious a Master and Patron The one consideration over-whelmed their Souls with heaviness the other with fear Their Lord and Saviour whose words had cast down their hearts raiseth them presently again with chosen sentences of sweet encouragement My dear it is for your own sakes I leave the World I know the affections of your hearts are tender but if your love were directed with that advised and staid judgment which should be in you my speech of leaving the World and going unto my Father would not a little augment your joy Desolate and comfortless I will not leave you in Spirit I am with you to the Worlds end whether I be present or absent nothing shall ever take you out of these hands my going is to take possession of that in your names which is not only for me but also for you prepared where I am you shall be In the mean while my peace I give not as the World giveth give I unto you Let not your hearts be troubled nor fear The former part of which Sentence having otherwhere already been spoken of this unacceptable occasion to open the latter part thereof here I did not look for But so God disposeth the wayes of men Him I heartily beseech that the thing which he hath thus ordered by his Providence may through his gracious goodnesse turn unto your comfort Our Nature for coveteth preservation from things hurtful Hurtful things being present do breed heaviness being future do cause fear Our Saviour to abate the one speaketh thus unto his Disciples Let not your Hearts be troubled and to moderate the other addeth Fear not Grief and heaviness in the presence of sensible Evils cannot but trouble the mindes of men It may therefore seem that Christ required a thing impossible Be not troubled Why how could they choose But we must note this being natural and therefore simply not reproveable is in us good or bad according to the causes for which we are grieved or the measure of our grief It is not my meaning to speak so largely of this affection as to go over all particulars whereby men do one way or other offend in it but to teach it so farr onely as it may cause the very Apostles equals to swerve Our grief and heaviness therefore is reproveable sometime in respect of the cause from whence sometime in regard of the measure whereunto it groweth When Christ the life of the World was led unto cruel death there followed a number of People and Women which Women bewayled much his heavy case It was a natural compassion which caused them where they saw undeserved miseries there to pour forth unrestrained tears Nor was this reproved But in such readiness to lament where they less needed their blindness in not discerning that for which they ought much rather to have mourned this our Saviour a little toucheth putting them in minde that the tears which were wasted for him might better have been spent upon themselves Daughters of Ierusalem weep not for me weep for your selves and for your children It is not as the Stoicks have imagined a thing unseemly for a Wise man to be touched with grief of minde but to be sorrowful when we least should and where we should lament there to laugh this argueth our small wisdom Again when the Prophet David confesseth thus of himself I grieved to see the great prosperity of godless men how they flourish and go untoucht Psal. 73. Himself hereby openeth both our common and his peculiar imperfection whom this cause should not have made so pensive To grieve at this is to grieve where we should not because this grief doth rise from Errour We erre when we grieve at wicked mens impunity and prosperity because their Estate being rightly discerned they neither prosper nor go unpunished It may seem a Paradox it is truth That no wicked man's estate is prosperous fortunate or happy For what though they bless themselves and think their happinesse great Have not frantick Persons many times a great opinion of their own wisdome It may be that such as they think themselves others also do account them But what others Surely such as themselves are Truth and Reason discerneth farâ— otherwise of them Unto whom the Jews wish all prosperity unto them the phrase of their speech is to wish Peace Seeing then the name of Peace containeth in it all parts of true happiness when the Prophet saith plainly That the Wicked have no peace how can we think them to have any part of other than vainly imagined Felicity What wise man did ever account Fools happy If Wicked men were wise they would cease to be wicked Their Iniquity therefore proving their Folly how can we stand in doubt of their misery They abound in those things which all men desire A poor happinesse to have good things in possession A man to whom God hath given Riches and Treasures and Honour so that he wanteth nothing for his Soul of all that it desireth but yet God giveth him not the power to eat thereof such a felicity Solomon esteemeth but as a vanity a thing of nothing If such things adde nothing to mens happiness where they are not used surely Wicked men that use them ill the more they have the more wretched Of their Prosperity therefore we see what we are to think Touching their Impunity the same is likewise but supposed They are oftner plagued than we are aware of The pangs they feel are not always written in their forehead Though Wickedness be Sugar in their mouths and Wantonness as Oyl to make them look with chearful Countenance nevertheless if their Hearts were disclosed perhaps their glittering state would not greatly be envied The voyces that have broken out from some of them O that God had given me a heart sensless like the flints in the rocks of stone which as it can taste no pleasure so it feeleth no wo these and the like speeches are surely tokens of the curse which Zophar in the Book of Iob poureth upon the head of the impious man He shall suck the gall of Asps and the Viper's tongue shall slay him If this seem light because it is secret shall we think they go unpunished because no apparent Plague is presently seen upon them The Judgments of God do not always follow crimes as Thunder doth Lightning but sometimes the space of many Ages coming between When the Sun hath shined fair the space of six dayes upon their Tabernacle we know not what Clouds the seventh may bring And when their punishment doth come let them make their account in the greatness of their sufferings to pay the interest of that respite which hath been given them Or if they chance to escape clearly in this World which they seldome do in the Day when the Heavens shall shrivel as a scrowl and the Mountains
of Judgement also we are remembred He never denounceth Judgments against the Wicked but he maketh some Proviso for his Children as it were for some certain priviledged Persons Touch not mine Anointed do my Prophets no harm Hurt not the Earth nor the Sea nor the Trees till we have sealed the Servants of God in their Foreheads He never speaketh of godless men but he adjoyneth words of comfort or admonition or exhortation whereby we are moved to rest and settle our hearts on him In the second to Timothy the third Chapter Evil men saith the Apostle and deceivers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and bring deceived But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned And in the first â—â— Timothy the sixt Chapter Some â—â—â—â— lusting after man â—â— have erred drown he Faith and pearced themselves thorgâ— with many â—â—rrows â—â—â—â— thou O man of God â—â—y these â—â—â— things and follow after righteousnesse godlinesse faith love patience meeknesse In the second to the Thessalonians the second Chapter They have not deceived the love of the Truth that they might be saved God shall send them strong delusions that they may believe lies But we ought to give thanks alway to God for you Brethren beloved of the Lord because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctifications of the Spirit and faith in the Truth And in this Epistle of St. Iude There shall come Mockers in the last time walking after their own ungodly lusts But believed edifie ye your selves in your most holy Faith 3. These sweet Exhortations which God putteth every where in the mouths of the Prophets and Apostles of Jesus Christ are evident tokens that God sitteth nor in Heaven carelesse and unmindful of our estate Can a Mother forget her Childe Surely a Mother will hardly forget her Childe But if a Mother be haply found unnatural and do forget the fruit of her own Womb yet God's judgements shew plainly that he cannot forget the man whose heart he hath framed and fashioned a new in simplicity and truth to serve and fear him For when the wickednesse of man was so great and the Earth so filled with cruelties that it could not stand with the righteousness of God any longer to forbear wrathful sentences brake out from him like Wine from a Vessel that hath no vent My Spirit saith he can struggle and strive no longer an end of all flesh is come before me Yet then did Noah finde grace in â— of the Lord I will establish my Covenant with thee saith God thou shots go into the Ark thou and thy sons and thy wife and thy sons wives with thee 4. Do we not see what shift God doth make for Lot and for his Family in the â—â— of Genesis lest the fiery destruction of the wicked should overtake him Over-night the Angels make enquiry what Sons and Daughters or Sons in law what wealâ—â— and substance he had They charge him to carry out all Whatsoever thou hast in the City bring it out God seemeth to stand in a kinde of fear lest some thing or other would be left behinde And his will was that nothing of that which he had nor an hoof of any Beast not a thred of any Garment should be findged with that fire Iâ— the morning the Angels fail not to call him up and to hasten him forward Arise take thy Wife and thy Daughters which are here that they be noâ— destroyed in the punishment of the City The Angels having spoken again and again Lot for all this lingereth out the time still till at the length they were forced to take both him and his wife and his daughters by the arms the Lord being merciful unto him and to carry them forth and set them without the City 5. Was there ever any Father thus careful to save his Childe from the â—lame A man would think that now being spoken unto to escape for his life and not to look behind him nor to â—arry in the Plain but to hasten to the Mountain and there to save himself he should do it gladly Yet behold now he is so far off from a chearful and willing heart to do whatsoever is commanded him for his own weal that he beginneth to reason the matter as if God had mistaken one place for another sending him to the â—â— when salvation was in the City Not so my Lord I beseech thee Behold thy Servant hath found grace in thy sight and thou hast magnified thy mercy which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life I cannot escape in the Mountain lest some evil take me and I dye Here is a City hard by a small thing O let me escape thither is it not a small thing and my Soul shall live Well God is contended to yield to any conditions Behold I have recived thy request concerning this thing also I will spare this City for which thou hast spoken haste thee save thee there For I can do nothing till thou come thither 6. He could do nothing Not because of the weaknesse of his strength for who is like unto the Lord in power but because of the greatness of his Mercy which would not suffer him to lift up his arm against that City nor to pour out his wrath upon that place where his righteous Servant had a fancy to remain and a desire to dwell O the depth of the riches of the mercy and love of God! God is afraid to offend us which are not afraid to displease him God can do nothing till he have saved us which can finde in our hearts rather to do any thing than to serve him It contenteth him not to exempt us when the Pit is digged for the Wicked to comfort us at every mention which is made of Reprobates and godlesse men to save us as the apple of his own eye when fire cometh down from Heaven to consume the Inhabitants of the Earth except every Prophet and every Apostle and every Servant whom he sendeth forth do come loaden with these or the like exhortations O beloved edifie your selves in your most holy Faith Give your selves to Prayer in the Spirit keep your selves in the love of God Look for the mercy of our Lord Iesus Christ unto eternal life 7. Edifie your selves The speech is borrowed from material Builders and must be spiritually understood It appeareth in the sixth of Saint Iohn's Gospel by the Jews that their mouths did water too much for bodily food Our Fathers say they did eat Manna in the Desart as it is written He gave them Bread from Heaven to eat Lord evermore give us of this Bread Our Saviour to turn their appetite another way maketh them this answer I am the Bread of Life he that cometh to me shall not hunger and he that believeth in me shall never thirst 8. An usual practice it is of Satan to cast heaps of worldly baggage in our way that whilst we desire to heap up gold
hath placed you Bishops to Feed the Church of God which he hath purchased by his own blood Finally that Commandment which unto the same Timothy is by the same Apostle even in the same form and manner afterwards again urged I charge thee in the sight of God and the Lord Iesus Christ which will judge the quick and dead at his appearance and in his Kingdom Preach the Word of God When Timothy was instituted in that Office then was the credit and trust of this duty committed unto his faithful care The Doctrine of the Gospel was then given him As the precious Talent or Treasure of Iesus Christ then received he for performance of this duty The special Gift of the Holy Ghost To keep this Commandment immaculate and blameless Was to teach the Gospel of Christ without mixture of corrupt and unsound Doctrine such as a number even in those times intermingled with the Mysteries of Christian Belief Till the appearance of Christ to keep it so doth not import the time wherein it should be kept but rather the time whereunto the final reward for keeping it was reserved according to that of St. Paul concerning himself I have kept the Faith for the residue there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the righteous Iudge shall in that day render unto me If they that labor in this Harvest should respect but the present fruit of their painful Travel a poor encouragement it were unto them to continue therein all the days of their life But their reward is great in Heaven the Crown of Righteousness which shall be given them in that day is honorable The fruit of their industry then shall they reap with full contentment and satisfaction but not till then Wherein the greatness of their reward is abundantly sufficient to countervail the tediousness of their expectation Wherefore till then they that are in labor must rest in hope O Timothy keep that which is committed unto thy charge that great Commandment which thou hast received keep till the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ. In which sense although we judge the Apostles words to have been uttered yet hereunto we do not require them to yield that think any other construction more sound If therefore it be rejected and theirs esteemed more probable which hold That the last words do import perpetual observation of the Apostles Commandment imposed necessarily for ever upon the Militant Church of Christ Let them withal consider That then his Commandment cannot so largely be taken to comprehend whatsoever the Apostle did command Timothy For themselves do not all binde the Church unto some things whereof Timothy received charge as namely unto that Precept concerning the choice of Widows So as they cannot hereby maintain that all things positively commanded concerning the affairs of the Church were commanded for perpetuity And we do not deny that certain things were commanded to be though positive yet perpetual in the Church They should not therefore urge against us places that seem to forbid change but rather such as set down some measure of alteration which measure if we have exceeded then might they therewith charge us justly Whereas now they themselves both granting and also using liberty to change cannot in reason dispute absolutely against all change Christ delivered no inconvenient or unmeet Laws Sundry of ours they hold inconvenient Therefore such Laws they cannot possibly hold to be Christs Being not his they must of necessity grant them added unto his Yet certain of those very Laws so added they themselves do not judge unlawful as they plainly confess both in matter of Prescript Attire and of Rites appertaining to Burial Their own Protestations are that they plead against the inconvenience not the unlawfulness of Popish Apparel and against the inconvenience not the unlawfulness of Ceremonies in Burial Therefore they hold it a thing not unlawful to add to the Laws of Jesus Christ and so consequently they yield That no Law of Christ forbiddeth Addition unto Church Laws The Judgment of Calvin being alledged against them to whom of all men they attribute most whereas his words be plain That for Ceremonies and External Discipline the Church hath power to make Laws The answer which hereunto they make is That indefinitely the speech is true and that so it was meant by him namely That some things belonging unto External Discipline and Ceremonies are in the Power and Arbitrement of the Church but neither was it meant neither is it true generally That all External Discipline and all Ceremonies are left to the Order of the Church in as much as the Sacraments of Baptism and the Supper of the Lord are Ceremonies which yet the Church may not therefore abrogate Again Excommunication is a part of External Discipline which might also be cast away if all External Discipline were Arbitrary and in the choice of the Church By which their answer it doth appear that touching the names of Ceremony and External Discipline they gladly would have us so understood as if we did herein contain a great deal more then we do The fault which we finde with them is That they over-much abridge the Church of her power in these things Whereupon they recharge us as if in these things we gave the Church a liberty which hath no limits or bounds as if all things which the name of Discipline containeth were at the Churches free choice So that we might either have Church Governors and Government or want them either retain or reject Church Censures as we lift They wonder at us as at men which think it so indifferent what the Church doth in Matter of Ceremonies that it may be feared lest we judge the very Sacraments themselves to be held at the Churches pleasure No the name of Ceremonies we do not use in so large a meaning as to bring Sacraments within the compass and reach thereof although things belonging unto the outward form and seemly Administration of them are contained in that name even as we use it For the name of Ceremonies we use as they themselves do when they speak after this sort The Doctrine and Discipline of the Church as the weightiest things ought especially to be looked unto but the Ceremonies also as Mint and Cummin ought not to be neglected Besides in the Matter of External Discipline or Regiment it self we do not deny but there are some things whereto the Church is bound till the Worlds end So as the question is onely how far the bounds of the Churches Liberty do reach We hold that the power which the Church hath lawfully to make Laws and Orders for it self doth extend unto sundry things of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and such other Matters whereto their opinion is That the Churches Authority and Power doth not reach Whereas therefore in Disputing against us about this point they take their compass a great deal wider then the truth of things can afford producing
Reasons and Arguments by way of generality to prove that Christ hath set down all things belonging any way unto the Form of ordering his Church and hath obsolutely forbidden change by Addition or Diminution great or small for so their manner of disputing is We are constrained to make our Defence by shewing That Christ hath not deprived his Church so far of all Liberty in making Orders and Laws for it self and that they themselves do not think he hath so done For are they able to shew that all particular Customs Rites and Orders of Reformed Churches have been appointed by Christ himself No They grant that in Matter of Circumstance they alter that which they have received but in things of Substance they keep the Laws of Christ without change If we say the same in our own behalf which surely we may do with a great deal more truth then must they cancel all that hath been before alledged and begin to enquire afresh Whether we retain the Laws that Christ hath delivered concerning Matters of Substance yea or no. For our constant perswasion in this point is as theirs That we have no where altered the Laws of Christ further then in such Particularities onely as have the nature of things changeable according to the difference of times places persons and other the like circumstances Christ hath commanded Prayers to be made Sacraments to be ministred his Church to be carefully taught and guided Concerning every of these somewhat Christ hath commanded which must be kept till the Worlds end On the contrary side in every of them somewhat there may be added as the Church shall judge it expedient So that if they will speak to purpose all which hitherto hath been disputed of they must give over and stand upon such particulars onely as they can shew we have either added or abrogated otherwise then we ought in the Matter of Church Poliâ—y Whatsoever Christ hath commanded for ever to be kept in his Church the same we take not upon us to abrogate and whatsoever our Laws have thereunto added besides of such quality we hope it is as no Law of Christ doth any where condemn Wherefore that all may be laid together and gathered into a narrow room First So far forth as the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ and his Invisible Spouse it needeth no External Polity That very part of the Law Divine which teacheth Faith and Works of Righteousness is it self alone sufficient for the Church of God in that respect But as the Church is a Visible Society and Body Politick Laws of Polity it cannot want Secondly Whereas therefore is cometh in the second place to be enquired what Laws are fitest and best for the Church they who first embraced that rigorous and strict opinion which depriveth the Church of Liberty to make any kinde of Law for her self inclined as it should seem thereunto for that they imagined all things which the Church doth without commandment of holy Scripture subject to that reproof which the Scripture it self useth in certain cases when Divine Authority ought alone to be followed Hereupon they thought it enough for the cancelling of any kinde of Order whatsoever to say The Word of God teacheth it not it is a device of the Brain of Man away with it therefore out of the Church St. Augustine was of another minde who speaking of Fasts on the Sunday saith That he which would chuse out that day to fast on should give thereby no small offence to the Church of God which had received a contrary Custom For in these things whereof the Scripture appointeth no certainty the use of the People of God or the Ordinances of our Fathers must serve for a Law In which case if we will dispute and condemn one sort by anothers custom it will be but matter of endless contention where for as much as the labor of reasoning shall hardly be at into mens heads any certain or necessary truth surely it standeth us upon to take heed lest with the Tempest of Strife the Brightness of Charity and Love be darkned If all things must be commanded of God which may be practised of his Church I would know what commandment the Gileadites had to erect that Altar which is spoken of in the Book of Ioshua Did not congruity of Reason enduce them thereunto and suffice for defence of their Fact I would know what commandment the Women of Israel had yearly to mourn and lament in the memory of Iephâ—hahs daughter what commandment the Iews had to celebrate their Feast of Dedication never spoken of in the Law yet solemnized even by our Saviour himself what commandment finally they had for the Ceremony of Odors used about the Bodies of the Dead after which custom notwithstanding sith it was their custom our Lord was contented that his own most precious Body should be intombed Wherefore to reject all Orders of the Church which Men have established is to think worse of the Laws of Men in this respect then either the judgment of wise men alloweth or the Law of God it self will bear Howbeit they which had once taken upon them to condemn all things done in the Church and not commanded of God to be done saw it was necessary for them continuing in defence of this their opinion to hold that needs there must be in Scripture set down a compleat particular Form of Church Polity a Form prescribing how all the affairs of the Church must be ordered a Form in no respect lawful to be altered by Mortal Men. For Reformation of which over-sight and error in them there were that thought it a part of Christian love and charity to instruct them better and to open unto them the difference between Matters of perpetual necessity to all Mens salvation and Matters of Ecclesiastical Polity The one both fully and plainly taught in holy Scripture the other not necessary to be in such sort there prescribed The one not capable of any Diminution or Augmentation at all by Men the other apt to admit both Hereupon the Authors of the former opinion were presently seconded by other wittier and better learned who being loth that the Form of Church Polity which they sought to bring in should be otherwise then in the highest degree accounted of took first an exception against the difference between Church Polity and Matters of necessity to Salvation Secondly Against the Restraint of Scripture which they say receiveth injury at our hands when we teach that it teacheth not as well Matters of Polity as of Faith and Salvation Thirdly Constrained thereby we have been therefore both to maintain that distinction as a thing not onely true in it self but by them likewise so acknowledged though unawares Fourthly And to make manifest that from Scripture we offer not to derogate the least thing that Truth thereunto doth claim in as much as by us it is willingly confest That the Scripture of God is a
ended their days did not yet live himself to see the Presbyters of Alexandria othewise then subject unto a Bishop So that we cannot with any truth so interpret his words as to mean that in the Church of Alexandria there had been Bishops indued with Superiority over Presbyters from St. Marks time only till the time of Heraclas and of Dionysius Wherefore that St. Ierom may receive a more probable interpretation then this We answer that generally oâ— Regiment by Bishops and what term of continuance it had in the Church of Alexandria it was no part of his mind to speak but to note one onely circumstance belonging to the manner of their election which circumstance is that in Alexandria they used to chuse their Bishops altogether out of the colledge of their own Presbyters and neither from abroad nor out of any other inferior order of the Clergy whereas oftentimes elsewhere the use was to chuse as well from abroad as at home as well inferior unto Presbyters as Presbyters when they saw occasion This custome saith he the Church of Alexandria did always keep till in Heraclas and Dionysius they began to do otherwise These two were the very first not chose out of their Colledge of Presbyters The drift and purpose of S. Ieroms speech doth plainly show what his meaning was for whereas some did over-extol the Office of the Deacon in the Church of Rome where Deacons being grown great through wealth challenged place above Presbyters S. Ierome to abate this insolency writing to Evagrius diminisheth by all means the Deacons estimation and lifteth up Presbyters as far as possible the truth might bear An attendant saith he upon Tables and Widows proudly to exalt himself above them at whose prayers is made the body and blood of Christ above them between whom and Bishops there was at the first for a time no difference neither in authority nor in title And whereas after schisms and contentions made it necessary that some one should be placed over them by which occasion the title of Bishop became proper unto that one yet was that one chosen out of the Presbyters as being the chiefest the highest the worthiest degree of the Clergie and not out of Deacons in which consideration also it seemeth that in Alexandria even from St. Mark to Heraclas and Dionysius Bishops there the Presbyters evermore have chosen one of themselves and not a Deacon at any time to be their Bishop Nor let any man think that Christ hath one Church in Rome and another in the rest of the world that in Rome he alloweth Deacons to be honoured above Presbyters and otherwhere will have them to be in the next degree to the Bishop If it be deemed that abroad where Bishops are poorer the Presbyters under them may be the next unto them in honour but at Rome where the Bishop hath amplerevenâ—es the Deacons whose estate is nearest for wealth may be also for estimation the next unto him We must know that a Bishop in the meanest City is no less a Bishop then he who is seated in the greatest the countenance of a rich and the meanness of a poor estate doth make no odds between Bishops and therefore if a Presbyter at Engubium be the next in degree to a Bishop surely even at Rome it ought in reason to be so likewise and not a Deacon for wealths sake only to be above who by order should be and elsewhere is underneath a Presbyter But ye will say that according to the custom of Rome a Deacon presenteth unto the Bishop him which standeth to be ordained Presbyter and upon the Deacons testimony given concerning his fitness he receiveth at the Bishops hands Oraïnation So that in Rome the Deacon having this special preheminence the Presbyter ought there to give place unto him Wherefore is the custom of one City brought against the practice of the whole World The pancity of Deacons in the Church of Rome hath gotten the credit as unto Presbyters their multitude hath been cause of contempt Howbeit even in the Church of Rome Presbyters sit and Deacons stand an Argument as strong against the superiority of Deacons as the fore-alleadged reason doth seem for it Besides whosoever is promoted must needs be raised from a lower degree to an higher wherefore either let him which is Presbyter be made a Deacon that so the Deacon may appear to be the greater or if of Deacons Presbyters be made let them know themselves to be in regard of Deacons though below in gain yet above in Office And to the end we may understand that those Apostolical Orders are taken out of the Old Testament what Aaron and his Sons and the Levites were in the Temple the same in the Church may â— Bishops and Presbyters and Deacons challenge unto themselves This is the very drift and substance this the true construction and sense of St. Ieroms whole discourse in that Epistle Which I have therefore endeavoured the more at large to explain because no one thing is less effectual or more usual to be alledged against the antient Authority of Bishops concerning whose Government St. Ieroms own words otherwhere are sufficient to show his opinion that this Order was not only in Alexandria so ancient but even an ancient in other Churches We have before alledged his testimony touching Iames the Bishop of Ierusalem As for Bishops in other Churches on the first of the Epistle to Titus thus he speaketh Till through instinct of the devil there grew in the Church factions and among the people it began to be profest I am of Paul I of Apollos and I of Cephas Churches were governed by the common advice of Presbyters but when every one began to reckon those whom himself had baptized his own and not Christs it was decreed IN THE WHOLE WORLD that one chosen out of the Presbyters should be placed above the rest to whom all care of the Church should belong and so the seeds of schism be removed If it be so that by St. Ieroms own Confession this order was not then begun when people in the Apostles absence began to be divided into factions by their Teachers and to rehearse I am of Paul but that even at the very first appointment thereof was agreed upon and received throughout the world how shall a man be perswaded that the same Ierom thought it so ancient no-where saving in Alexandria one only Church of the whole world A sentence there is indeed of St. Ieroms which bring not throughly considered and weighed may cause his meaning so to be taken as if he judged Episcopal regiment to have been the Churches invention long after and not the Apostles own institution as namely when he admonisheth Bishops in this manner As therefore Presbyters do know that the custom of the Church makes them subject to the Bishop which is set over them so let Bishops know that custom rather then the truth of any Ordinance of the Lord maketh them
greater then the rest and that with common advice they ought to govern the Church To clear the sense of these words therefore as we have done already the former Laws which the Church from the beginning universally hath observed were some delivered by Christ himself with a charge to keep them till the worlds end as the Law of Baptizing and administring the holy Eucharist some brought in afterwards by the Apostles yet not without the special direction of the Holy Ghost as occasions did arise Of this sort are those Apostolical orders and laws whereby Deacons Widows Virgins were first appointed in the Church This answer to Saint Ierom seemeth dangerous I have qualified it as I may by addition of some words of restraint yet I satisfie not may self in my judgment it would be altered Now whereas Jerom doth term the Government of Bishops by restraint an Apostolical tradition acknowledging thereby the same to have been of the Apostles own institution it may be demanded how these two will stand together namely that the Apostles by divine instinct should be as Jerom confesseth the Authors of that regiment and yet the custome of the Church he accompted for so by Jerom it may seem to be in this place accompted the chiefest prop that upholdeth the same To this we answer That for as much as the whole body of the Church hath power to alter with general consent and upon necessary occasions even the positive law of the Apostles if there be no commandment to the contrary and it manifestly appears to her that change of times have clearly taken away the very reason of Gods first institution as by sundry examples may be most clearly proved what laws the universal Church might change and doth not if they have long continued without any alteration it seemeth that St. Jerom ascribeth the continuance of such positive laws though instituted by God himself to the judgemement of the Church For they which might abrogate a Law and do not are properly said to uphold to establish it and to give it being The Regiment therefore whereof Jerom speaketh being positive and consequently not absolutely necessary but of a changeable nature because there is no Divine voice which in express words forbiddeth it to be changed he might imagine both that it came by the Apostles by very divine appointment at the first and notwithstanding be after a sort said to stand in force rather by the custome of the Church choosing to continue in it than by the necessary constraint of any Commandment from the Word requiring perpetual continuance thereof So that St. Ieroms admonition is reasonable sensible and plain being contrived to this effect The ruling superiority of one Bishop over many Presbyters in each Church is an Order descended from Christ to the Apostles who were themselves Bishops at large and from the Apostles to those whom they in their steads appointed Bishops over particular Countries and Cities and even from those antient times universally established thus many years it hath continued throughout the World for which cause Presbyters must not grudg to continue subject unto their Bishops unless they will proudly oppose themselves against that which God himself ordained by his Apostles and the whole Church of Christ approveth and judgeth most convenient On the other side Bishops albeit they may avouch with conformity of truth that their Authority had thus descended even from the very Apostles themselves yet the absolute and everlasting continuance of it they cannot say that any Commandment of the Lord doth injoyn And therefore must acknowledge that the Church hath power by universal consent upon urgent cause to take it away if thereunto she be constrained through the proud tyrannical and unreformable dealings of her Bishops whose Regiment she hath thus long delighted in because she hath found it good and requisite to be so governed Wherefore lest Bishops forget themselves as if none on earth had Authority to touch their states let them continually bear in mind that it is rather the force of custom whereby the Church having so long found it good to continue under the Regiment of her vertuous Bishops doth still uphold maintain and honour them in that respect than that any such true and heavenly Law can be showed by the evidence whereof it may of a truth appear that the Lord himself hath appointed Presbyters for ever to be under the Regiment of Bishops in what sort soever they behave themselves let this consideration be a bridle unto them let it teach them not to disdain the advice of their Presbyters but to use their authority with so much the greater humility and moderation as a Sword which the Church hath power to take from them In all this there is no leâ—â— why S. Ierom might not think the Authors of Episcopal Regiment to have been the very blessed Apostles themselves directed therein by the special mution of the Holy Ghost which the Ancients all before and besides him and himself also elsewhere being known to hold we are not without better evidence then this to think him in judgement divided both from himself and from them Another Argument that the Regiment of Churches by one Bishop over many Presbyters hath been always held Apostolical may be this We find that throughout all those Cities where the Apostles did plant Christianity the History of times hath noted succession of pastors in the seat of one not of many there being in every such Church evermore many Pastors and the first one in every rank of succession we find to have been if not some Apostle yet some Apostles Disciple By Epiphanius the Bishops of Ierusalem are reckoned down from Iames to Hilarion then Bishop Of them which boasted that they held the same things which they received of such as lived with the Apostles themselves Tertullian speaketh after this sort Let them therefore shew the beginnings of their Churches let them recite their Bishops one by one each in such sort succeeding other that the first Bishop of them have had for his Author and Predecessour some Apostle or at least some Apostolical Person who persevered with the Apostles For so Apostolical Churches are wont to bring forth the evidence of their estates So doth the Church of Smyrna having Polycarp whom Iohn did consecrate Catalogues of Bishops in a number of other Churches Bishops and succeeding one another from the very Apostles times are by Eusebius and Socrates collected whereby it appeareth so clear as nothing in the World more that under them and by their appointment this Order began which maketh many Presbyters subject unto the Regiment of some one Bishop For as in Rome while the civil ordering of the Common-wealth was joyntly and equally in the hands of two Consuls Historical Records concerning them did evermore mention them both and note which two as Collegues succeeded from time to time So there is no doubt but Ecclesiastical antiquity had done the very like had not one Pastors place and