punienter Not innovations secondly It is that which Job findes out as one of the hainousest sins of his time Some remove the Land-marks a thing which God hath given strict charge against Deut. 19.4 and we from Moses fetcht it into our Lenten Curses Cursed be he that removeth his neighbours Land-marks Deut. 27.17 even in this case 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a sure rule The old way saith the Prophet is the good way every novelty carries suspicion in the face of it It was a good question of the Church in the Canticles why should I be as one that turneth aside to the Flocks of the companions The wisdom of great States-men have still taken it for a just principle that of Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ye have heard of Land-marks but ye see how it is with Sea-marks if they should be changed it is the wrack of every vessell either Rocks would dash them or shelves swallow them And as innovations do not well in way of change so not in way of addition that which Tertullian said of faces I may say of main truths A diabolo sunt additamenta and if Terpander do but add but one string more to his harp the instrument is broke and he censured In regard of both if it be the great and glorious stile of God that in him is no shadow by changing surely those well setled Churches and States come nearest to his perfection that alter least And if with Lipsius we shall say Quid si in melius I must answer that in every change there is a kind of hazard it is a wise word therefore of our Hooker that a tolerable sore is better then a dangerous Remedy The second Remedy must be a discreet moderation in the pursuance of our apprehended right How many good matters have been marr'd with ill handling The debter did owe to the rigorous steward an hundred pence no doubt the dept was due he might justly claim it but to lay hands on the man and to offer to pluck it out of his debters throat this is justly taxed for a foul cruelty Many an honest Corinthian was injured by his wrangling neighbour and had justissimam causam litigandi yet for Christians to go to law before infidels this the Apostle taxes for a sinfull peece of Justice why rather suffer ye not wrong saith the Apostle This is durus serms saies some brangling parishioner that fetches up his poor Minister every Term for trifles yet in St. Paules judgment a sleight injury is better them a scandalous quarrell The third is a meek complying with each other relenting so far as we may with all possible safety on either part if the difference be between unequalls charitable and mercifull on the superiours part humble and submiss on the inferiours Abraham and Lot fall upon a difference Abraham is the better man he is the Uncle Lot but the Nephew yet Abraham seeks the peace and follows it with him whom one would think he might have commanded Good David had done his Master and Father in Law no wrong unless it were tu pugnas ego vapulo and yet after good demonstration of his loyalty how humbly doth he beg a reconcilement at the hands of Saul Wherefore doth my Lord the King pursue after his servant Now therefore let my Lord the King hear the words of his Servant If the Lord have stirred thee up against me Let him accept an offering Harsh contestations never did good The ball rebounds from the floor to the face of him that throwes it whereas a look of wooll falls without noise and lies still Those that would take birds imitate their language do not scare them with shouting Bitter oppositions may set off but cannot win either an hollow friend or a known Enemy The fourth and last must be a charitable construction of each others acts and intentions There is nothing in the World which may not be taken with either hand whether the right hand of favour or the left of malice We see the Son of God himself in whom the Prince of this World could find nothing yet was exposed to mis-construction Doth he dispossesse Divels it is by Magick by Beelzebub the Prince of Divels Doth he frame himself other then his fore-runner to a sweetly-sociable conversation with men for their conversion Behold a glutton a wine bibber a friend of Publicans and sinners Mat. 11.19 Doth his chosen vessel St. Paul desire to comply with the Jews in purifying himself with the Votaries in the Temple Act. 21.28 he is cryed out on for an enemy to the law for a profaner of the holy place away with him he is not worthy to live Good Lord what uncharitable censure are men apt to passe upon each other let a man be strict and austere in moral and divine duties though never so peaceable he is a Puritan and every Puritan is an Hyppocrite Let him be more free and give more scope to his conversation though never so conscionable he is a Libertine let him make scruple but of any innovated forme he is a Schismatick let him stand for the antiently received rites and government he is a time-serving Formalist This is a Diotrephes that an Aerius this a scorner that a flatterrer In the mean time who can escape free Surely I that taxe both shall be sure to be censured of both shall be yes am to purpose and therein I joy yea and will joy What a neuter saies one what on both sides sayes another This is that I look't for yes truly brethren ye have hit it right I am and professe to be as the termes stand on neither and yet of both parts I am for the peace of both for the humour of neither how should the morter or cement joyn the stones together if it did not lie between both And I would to God not you only that hear me this day but all our brethren of this Land were alike-minded we should not have such libellous presses such unquiet pulpits such distracted bosomes for the truth is there is no reason we should be thus disjâ—ined or thus mutually branded This man is right ye say that man is not right this sound that rotten And how so dear Christians What for ceremonies and circumstances for rochets or rounds or squares let me tell you he is right that hath a right heart to his God what formes soever he is for The Kingdome of God doth not stand in Meats and Drinks in Stuffes or Colours or fashions in Noyses or Gestures it stands in Holinesse and Righteousnesse in Godlinesse and Charity in Peace and Obedience and if we have happily attained unto these God doth not stand upon nifles and niceties of indifferencies and why should we Away then with all false jelousies and uncharitable glosses of each others actions and estates Let us all in the fear of God be intreated in the bowels of our dear Redeemer as we our Selves our Land our Church the Gospell to combine our counsells
both 2 Cor. 1.22 Who hath sealed us Lo the promise was past before vers 20. and then yet more confirmed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vers 21. and now past under seale 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vers 22. Yea but the present possession is yet more and that is given us in part by our received earnest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Earnest is a binder wherefore is it given but by a little to assure all In our transactions with Men when we have an honest Mans word for a bargain we think it safe but when his hand and seale infallible but when we have part in hand already the contract is past and now we hold our selves stated in the commodity what ever it be And have we the promise hand seale earnest of Gods Spirit and not see it not feel it not know it Shortly whom will we believe if not God and our selves No Man knowes what is in Man but the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Man that is in him as St. Paul to his Corinthians Ye have heard Gods Spirit hear our own out of our own mouth Doth not every Christian say I believe in God c. I believe in Jesus Christ I believe in the holy Ghost I believe the Communion of Saints the forgiveness of sins and life Everlasting And doth he say he believes when he believes not or when he knows not whether he believe or no what a mockery were this of our Christian profession Or as the Jesuitical evasion commonly is is this only meant of an assent to these general truthes that there is a God a Saviour a sanctifyer Saints remission salvation not a special application of these several articles to the soul of him whose tongue professeth it Surely then the devil might say the creed no less confidently then the greatest Saint upon Earth There is no Devil in hel but believes not without regret that there is a God that made the World a Saviour that redeemed it a blessed Spirit that renewes it a remission of sins an eternal Salvation to those that are thus redeemed and regenerate and if in the profession of our faith we go no further then Devils how is this Symbolum Christianorum To what purpose do we say our creed But if we know that we believe for the present how know we what we shall do what may not alter in time we know our own frailty and ficklenesse what hold is there of us weak wretches what assurance for the future Surely on our part none at all If we be left never so little to our selves we are gone on Gods part enough there is a double hand mutually imployed in our hold-fast Gods and ours we lay hand on God God laies hand on us if our feeble hand fail him yet his gracious and omnipotent hand will not fail us even when we are lost in our selves yet in him we are safe he hath graciously said and will make it good I will not leave thee nor forsake thee The seed of God saith the beloved disciple Joh. 3. remaines in him that is born of God so as he cannot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 trade in sin as an unregenerate not lose himself in sinning so as contrary to Card. Bellarmines desperate Logick even an act of infidelity cannot marr his habit of faith and though he be in himself and in his sin guilty of death yet through the mercy of his God he is preserved from being swallowed up of death whiles he hath the seed of God he is the Son of God and the seed of God remaines in him alwayes That of the great Doctor of the Gentiles is sweet and cordiall and in stead of all to this purpose Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I am fully perswaded that neither Death nor Life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other Creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ â—esus our Lord. Rom. 8.39 O divine oratory of the great Apostle Oh the heavenly and irrefragable Logick of Gods Pen-man it is the very question that we have now in hand which he there discusses and falls upon this happy conclusion That nothing can separate Gods elect from his everlasting love he proves it by induction of the most powerfull agents and triumphes in the impoâ—ence and imprevalency of them all and whiles he names the principalities and powers of darkness what doth he but imply those sins also by which they work And this he saies not for himself only least any with Pererius and some other Jesuites should harp upon a particular Revelation but who shall separate us he takes us in with him and if he seem to pitch upon his own person in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet the subject of this perswasion reacheth to all true believers That nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord Us not as it is over-stretched by Bellarmine and Vasquez indefinitely for those that predestinate in generall but with an implyed application of it to himself and the believing Christians to whom he wrote The place is so clear and full that all the miserable and strained Evasions of the Jesuiticall gainsayers cannot elude it but that it will carry any free and unprejudiced heart along with it and evince this comfortable truth That as for the present so for the future we may attain to be safe for our spirituall condition What speak I of a safety that may be when the true believer is saved already already past from death to Life already therefore over the threshold of Heaven Shortly then our faith may make our calling sure our calling may make sure our election and we may therefore confidently build upon this truth that our calling and election may be made sure Now many things may be done that yet need not yea that ought not to be done This both ought and must be indeavored for the necessity and benefit of it This charge here as it implies the possibility so it signifies the convenience use profit necessity of this assecuration for sure if it were not beneficiall to us it would never be thus forceably urged upon us And certainly there needs no great proof of this For nature and our self-love grounded thereupon easily invites us to the indeavour of feoffing our selves in any thing that is good this being then the highest good that the Soul of Man can be possibly capable of to be ascertained of Salvation it will soon follow that since it may be done we shall resolve it ought it must be indeavored to be done Indifferent things and such as without which we may well subsist are left arbitrary to us but those things wherein our spirituall well-being consisteth must be mainly laboured for neither can any contention be too much to attain them such is this we have
more peculiar manner now his very senses help to nourish his soul and by his eyes his hands his tast Christ is spiritually conveighed into his heart to his unspeakable and everlasting consolation But to put all scruples out of the mind of any reader concerning this point Let that serve for the upshot of all which is expressely set down in the 5th Rubrick in the end of the Communion set forth as the judgment of the Church of England both in King Edwards and Queen Elizabeths time though lately upon negligence omitted in the impression In these words Least yet the same kneeling might be thought or taken otherwise we do declare That it is not meant thereby that any adoration is done or ought to be done either unto the sacramental bread and wine there bodily received or unto any real and essential presence there being of Christs natural flesh and blood For as concerning the sacramental bread and wine they remain still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithfull Christians and as concerning the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ they are in Heaven and not here for it is against the truth of Christs natural body to be in more places then one at one time c. Thus the Church of England having plainly explicated her self hath left no place for any doubt concerning this truth neither is she any changeling in her judgment however some unsteddy minds may vary in their conceits away then with those nice scruplers who for some further ends have endeavoured to keep us in an undue suspense with a non licet inquirere de modo and conclude we resolutely that there is no truth in divinity more clear then this of Christs gracious exhibition and our faithful reception of him in this blessed Sacrament Babes keep your selves from Idols Amen A LETTER FOR THE OBSERVATION OF THE FEAST OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY Sir with my Loving Remembrance IT cannot but be a great grief to any wise and moderate Christian to see zealous well meaning souls carried away after the giddy humour of their new teachers to a contempt of all holy and reverend antiquity and to an eager affectation of novel fancies even whiles they cry out most bitterly against innovations When the practise and judgment of the whole Christian world ever from the dayes of the blessed Apostles to this present age is pleaded for any form of government or laudable observation they are straight taught That old things are passed and that all things are become new making their word good by so new and unheard-of an interpretation of Scripture Whereby they may as justly argue the introducing of a new Church a new Gospel a new Religion with the annulling of the old And that they may not want an all-sufficient patronage of their fond conceit our blessed Saviour himself is brought in who in his sermon on the mount controlled the antiquity of the pharisaical glosses of the law Ye have heard that it was said by them of old thus and thus but I say unto you c as if the Son of God in checking the upstart antiquity of a mis-grounded and unreasonable tradition meant to condemn the truely-antient and commendable customes of the whole Christian Church which all sober and judicious christians are wont to look upon with meet respect and reverence And certainly whosoever shall have set down this resolution with himself to sleight those either institutions or practises which are derived to us from the Primitive times and have ever since been intertained by the whole church of Christ upon earth that man hath laid a sufficient foundation of Schisme and dangerous singularity and doth that which the most eminent of the Fathers St. Augustine chargeth with no less then most insolent madnesse For me and my friend God give us grace to take the advice which our Saviour gives to his spouse to Go forth by the footsteps of the Flock and to feed our Kids beside the Shepheards tents Cant. 1.8 and to walk in the sure paths of uncorrupt antiquity For the celebration of the solemn Feasts of our Saviours Nativity Resurrection Ascention and the comming down of the Holy Ghost which you say is cryed down by your zealous lecturer one would think there should be reason enough in those wonderful and unspeakable benefits which those dayes serve to commemorate unto us For to instance in the late feast of the Nativity when the Angel brought the newes of that blessed birth to the Jewish shepheards Behold saith he I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people for unto you is borne this day a Saviour If then the report of this blessing were the best tidings of the greatest joy that ever was or ever could be possibly incident into mankind why should not the commemoration thereof be answerable Where we conceive the greatest joy what should hinder us to expresse it in a joyfull festivity But you are taught to say the day conferred nothing to the blessing that every day we should with equal thankfulnesse remember this inestimable benefit of the incarnation of the Son of God so as a set anniversary day is altogether needless know then and consider that the all wise God who knew it fit that his People should everyday think of the great work of the creation and of the miraculous deliverance out of the Egyptian servitude and should daily give honour to the Almighty creator and deliverer yet ordained one day of seven for the more special recognition of these marvellous works as well knowing how apt we are to forget those duties wherewith we are only encharged in common without the designment of a particular rememoration Besides the same reason will hold proportionably against any monethly or annuall celebration whatsoever the Jewes should have been much to blame if they had not every day thankfully remembred the great deliverance which God wrought for them from the bloody design of cruel Haman yet it was thought requisite if not necessary that there should be two special dayes of Purim set apart for the anniversary memorial of that wonderful preservation The like may be said for the English Purim of our November it is well if besides the general tye of our thankfulness a precise day ordaind by authority can enough quicken our unthankful dulness to give God his own for so great a mercy shall we say now it is the work of the year what needs a day As therefore no day should passe over our head without a grateful acknowledgment of the great mystery of God incarnate So withall the wisdome of the primitive Church no doubt by the direction of the holy Ghost hath pitched upon one special day wherein we should intirely devote our thoughts to the meditation of this work which the Angels of heaven can not enough admire But you are told that perhaps we miss of the day since the season
works these he decrees to worke in his why should we be scrupulous in what place they come into the holy purposes of God which we graunt cannot be missing in our way to Heaven Why do we not rather labour to be such as he requires that we may injoy what he hath promised and pre-ordained for us What say the Belgick Defendents Neither did we ever say that those singular persons whom God chose from all eternity were to be considered without respect to Christ and faith in him but have ever roundly professed that the merits of Christ and faith in him are considered of God in this election of individual persons as means whereby he hath decreed to bring them to salvation see then how narrow this difference is God hath decreed by these means to bring men to salvation yet these fall not into his decree of ordinary choice to salvation they are in the execution of his decree and in the decree of his execution they are not in the decree of his election Let these be undoubted truths as they are yet what need the souls of quiet Christians be racked with so subtile questions It well befits the Schooles to examine these problemes but for common Christians it doth not so much concern them to enquire how the order of Gods decree stands in our apprehension of that one simple act of the divine understanding or will as how it is in respect of the execution Here comes in our main interest in these eternall Councills of the Almighty which drawes from us a due care and indeavour to be capable of this promised salvation and to avoid the wayes of death Could we be perswaded to take more from that speculation and to add more to this practise it would be much happier for us Neither is this election according to the Plea of the opponents made ever the more uncertain by this prerequisition of our faith since they profess to teach it supposed in our election not as a condition whose performance God expects as uncertain but as a guift which God according to his eternall prescience foresees in Man present and certain as the decree of sending Christ into the World did not depend upon a conditioned and uncertain expectation of what Man would do or would not do but upon the infallible notice of God who foresaw Man as presently sinning or falne so as the election of God is not suspended upon the mutability of Mans will but upon the infallible certainty of the foreknowledg of God to whose eyes our faith and perseverance is not more doubtfull then future and whose prescience hath no less infallibility then his decree If therefore God may have the sole glory of this work in the guift of that faith which he foresees and our election hazards no certainty as they profess to hold what is there that should need to draw blood in this first quarrell But what need I labour to reconcile these opinions which have no reason to concern us The Church of England according to the explication of R. B. Overall goes a mid-way betwixt both these For whiles the one side holds a generall conditionall decree of God to save all Men if they believe and a particular decree of saving those whom he foresaw would believe and the other side not admitting of that generall conditionate decree only teaches a particular absolute decree to save some speciall persons for whom only Christ was given and to whom grace is given irresistiblely all others being by a no less absolute decree rejected our Church saith he with St. Austin maintaineth an absolute and particular decree of God to save those whom he hath chosen in Christ not out of the prescience of our faith and will but out of the meer purpose of his own will and grace and that thereupon God hath decreed to give to whom he pleaseth a more effectuall and abundant grace by which they only not may believe and obey if they will but whereby they do actually will believe obey and persevere without prejudice to the rest to whom he hath also given gracious offers and helps to the same purpose though by their just fault neglected What can the Synod of Dort in this case wish to be said more Indeed with all he addeth a general conditionate will of God or a generall evangelical promise of saving all if they do believe since God doth will and command that all men should hear Christ and believe in him and in so doing hath offred grace and salvation unto all declaring how well these two may agree together That first God hath propounded salvation in Christ to all if they believe and hath offred them within the Church especially a common and sufficient grace in the means that he hath mercifully ordeined if men would not be wanting to the word of God and his holy Spirit and that to ascertain the salvation of man he hath decreed to add that especiall effectuall and saving grace unto some Neither of which truths can well and safely be denyed of any Christian Only the sound of a generall and conditionate will perhaps seems harsh to some ears whereto yet they should do well to inure themselves since it is the approved distinction of worthy Orthodox and unquestionable Divines Deum velle quaedam absolute manifestum esse literae sacrae confirmant etenim voluit mundum creari c. Eundem Deum velle quaedam conditionaliter docent itidem sacrae literae vult enim omnes salvari si velint implere legem aut in Christum credere proinde illam priorem voco absolutam voluntatem hanc vero posteriorem conditionalem Opusc p. 291. Caeterum illud tamen verum est Deum velle omnes homines salvos fieri voluntate scil revelata conditionali nimirum si velint in Christum credere ejus legi servandae studere hac enim voluntate nemo a salute cognitione veritatis excluditur c. ibid. pag. 285. Zanchius in his book de praedest Sanct. hath it interminis with a large exposition That God willeth some things absolutely saith he it is manifest and plainly confirmed by Scriptures so he absolutely willed the world should be created and governed so he absolutely willed that Christ should come into the World and dye for the salvation of his elect he wills also absolutely that the elect shall be saved and therefore perfomes to them all things that are necessary to their salvation that the same God willeth some things conditionally the Scriptures also teach us For God would have all men to be saved if they would keep the Law or believe in Christ and therefore I call that first an absolute will this latter a conditional And in the next leaf to the same purpose he saith it is also true that God would have all men to be saved in his revealed and conditionate will scil if they would believe in Christ and carefully keep his law for by this will no man is excluded from