words of S. Augustine contra Epistolam fundamenti cap. V. which alwaies have a place in this dispute though I can as yet admit S. Augustine no otherwise than as a particular Christian and his saying as a presumption that hee hath said no more than any Christian would have said in the common cause of all Christians against the Manichees Ego Evangelio non crederem saith hee nisi me Ecclesiae Catholicae moveret authoritas I would not believe or have believed the Gospel had not the authority of the Catholick Church moved mee For some men have imployed a great deal of learning to show that moveret stands for movisset as in many other places both of S. Augustine and of other Africane Writers And without doubt they have showed it past contradiction and I would make no doubt to show the like in S. Hierome Sidonius and other Writers of the decaying ages of the Latine tongue as well as in the Africane Writers if it were any thing to the purpose For is not the Question manifestly what it is that obligeth that man to believe who as yet believeth not Is it not the same reason that obliges him to become and to be a Christian Therefore whether moveret or movisset all is one The Question is whether the authority of the Church as a Corporation that is of those persons who are able to oblige the Church would have moved S. Austine to believe the Gospel because they held it to be true Or the credit of the Church as of so many men of common sense attesting the truth of those reasons which the Gospel tenders why wee ought to believe What is it then that obliged S. Austine to the Church The consent of people and nations that authority which miracles had begun which hope had nourished charity increased succession of time settled from S. Peter to the present the name and title of Catholick so visible that no Heretick durst show a man the way to his Church demanding the way to the Catholick So hee expresseth it cap. 111. And what is this in English but the conversion of the Gentiles foretold by the Prophets attested by God and visibly settled in the Unity of the Church Whereupon hee may boldly affirm as hee doth afterwards that if there were any word in the Gospel manifestly witnessing Manes to be the Apostle of Christ hee would not believe the Gospel any more For if the reason for which hee had once believed the Church that the Gospel is true because hee saw it verified in the being of the Church should be supposed false there could remain no reason to oblige us to take the Gospel for true All that remaines for the Church in the nature and quality of a Corporation by this account will be this That it is more discretion for him that is in doubt of the truth of Christianity to take the reason of it from the Church that is from those whom the Church trusteth to give it than from particular Christians who can by no means be presumed to understand it so well as they may do For otherwise supposing a particular Christian sets forth the same reasons which the Church does how can any man not be bound to follow him that is bound to follow the Church So that the reasons which both allege being contained in the Scriptures the Church is no more in comparison of the Scriptures than the Samaritane in comparison of our Lord himself when her fellow-citizens tell her John IV. 12. Wee believe no more for thy saying For wee our selves have heard and know that this is of a truth the Saviour of the World the Christ For the reasons for which our Lord himself tells us that wee are to believe are contained in the Scriptures But by the premises it will be most manifest that the same Circle in discourse is committed by them who resolve the reason why they believe into the dictate of the Spirit as into the decree of the Church For the question is not now of the effective cause whether or no in that nature a man is able to imbrace the true Faith without the assistance of Gods Spirit or not Which ought here to remain questionable because it is to be tried upon the grounds upon which here wee are seeking And therefore that Faith which is grounded upon revelation from God and competent evidence of the same is to be counted divine supernatural Faith without granting whatsoever wee may suppose any supernatural operation of Gods Spirit to work it in the nature of an effective cause which must remain questionable supposing the reason why wee believe the Scriptures But in the nature of an object presenting unto the understanding the reason why we are to believe it is manifest by the premises that no man can know that hee hath Gods Spirit that knoweth not the truth of the Scriptures If therefore hee allege that hee knowes the Scriptures to be true because Gods Spirit saith so to his Spirit hee allegeth for a reason that which hee could not know but supposing that for granted which hee pretendeth to prove To wit That the dictate of his own Spirit is from Gods Spirit Indeed when the motives of Faith proceed from Gods Spirit in Moses and the Prophets in our Lord and his Apostles witnessing by the works which they do their Commission as well as their message who can deny that this is the light of Gods Spirit Again when wee govern our doings by that which wee believe and not by that which wee see who will deny that this is the light of Faith and of Gods Spirit But both these considerations take place though wee suppose the mater of Faith to remain obscure in it self though to us evidently credible for the reasons God showes us to believe that hee saith it If any man seek in the mater of Faith any evidence to assure the conscience in the nature of an object or reason why wee are to believe that is not derived from the motives of Faith outwardly attesting Gods act of revealing it hee falls into the same inconvenience with those who believe their Christianity because the Church commends it and again the Church because Christianity commends it As for that monstrous imagination that the Scripture is not Law to oblige any man in justice to believe it before the Secular Powers give it force over their subjects Supposing for the present that which I said before that it is all one question whether Christianity or whether the Scriptures oblige us as Law or not Let mee demand whether our Lord Christ and his Apostles have showed us sufficient reasons to convince us that wee are bound to believe and become Christians If not why are wee Christians If so can wee be obliged and no Law to oblige us supposing for the present though not granting because it is not true that by refusing Christianity sufficiently proposed a man comes not under sin but onely comes not from under it but
mentioning the Devil and his Angels nor of that not mentioning the creation of Angels The knowledge then requisite to save a Christian containeth the Apostasy of the evil Angels whether it be in the Creed or not because neither the Creed as it is nor Baptisme in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost can be understood to have any sense without supposing it And therefore Irenaeus I. 2. could not deliver this Rule without mentioning the Devil and his Angels though I intend not thereupon to argue that it was contained in the words of the Creed at that time By S. Cyrils Catechises you shall understand that those who pretended to Baptisme at Easter were to be instructed in the sense and grounds of their Creed during the Lent And S. Augustine in his book de Catechizandis rudibus where hee acquaints his friend that had writ to him about something of that office with the form that hee was wont to use instructs him to begin with the beginning of Genesis and setting forth what course God had taken with mankinde before and under the Law to bring down his discourse to the coming of Christ and from thence to his second coming to Judgment Which is to the very same purpose onely taking opportunity to mixe the motives of Faith which the Old Testament containeth with the mater of Faith which the New Testament requireth Whatsoever then is said of the Rule of Faith in the writings of the Fathers is to be understood of the Creed Whereof though it be not maintained that the words which Pretenders were required to render by heart were the same yet the substance of it the reasons and grounds which make every point necessary to be believed were alwaies the same in all Churches and remaine unchangeable I would not have any hereupon to think that the mater of this Rule is not in my conceit contained in the Scriptures For I finde S. Cyril Catech. V. protesting that it containes nothing but that which concerned our salvation the most selected out of the Scriptures And therefore in other places he tenders his Scholars evidence out of the Scriptures and wishes them not to believe that whereof there is no such evidence And to the same effect Eucherius in Symb. Hom. I. Paschasius de Sp. S. in Praef. and after them Thomas Aquinas secunda II. Quest I. Art IX all agree that the form of the Creed was made up out of the Scriptures Giving such reasons as no reasonable Christian can refuse Not onely because all they whose salvation is concerned have not leisure to study the Scriptures but because they that have cannot easily or safely discern wherein the substance of Faith upon the profession whereof our salvation depends consisteth Supposing that they were able to discern between true and false in the meaning of the Scriptures To which I will adde onely that which Tâ—rtullian and others of the Fathers observe of the ancient Hereticks that their fashion was to take occasion upon one or two texts to overthrow and deny the main substance and scope of the whole Scriptures Which whether it be seen in the Sects of our time or not I will not say here because I will not take any thing for granted which I have not yet principles to prove but supposing it onely a thing possible I will think I give a sufficient reason why God should provide Tradition as well as Scripture to bound the sense of it As S. Cyril also cautioneth in the place aforenamed where hee so liberally acknowledgeth the Creed to be taken out of the Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For saith hee the Faith was not framed as it pleased men but the most substantial maters collected out of the Scripture do make up one doctrine of the Faith For I beseech you what had they whosoever they were that first framed the Creed but Tradition whereby to distinguish that which is substantial from that which is not Heare Origen in the Preface to his books 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cùm multi sum qui sentire se putent quae Christi sunt nonnulii eorum diversa à prioribus sentiant servetur verò Ecclesiastica praedicatio per successionis ordinem ab Apostolis tradita usque ad praesens in Ecclesiis permanens Illa sola credenda est veritas quae in nullo ab Ecclesiasticâ discordat traditione Illud tamen scire opor tet quoniam sancti Apostoli fidem Christi praedicantes de quibusdam quidem quaecunque necessaria crediderunt omnibus credentibus etiam his qui erga inquisitionem divinae scientiae pigriores videbantur manifestissimê tradiderunt Rationem scilicet assertionis relinquentes eis inquirendam qui Spiritûs dona excellentia praecipuè sermonis sapientiae scientiae per ipsum Spiritum Sanctum percipere merebantur De aliis verò dixerunt quidem quia sint quomodo autem aut unde sint siluerunt profectò ut studiosiores quoque l. quique ex posteris suis amatores sapientiae scientiae exercitium habere possent in quo ingenii sui fructum ostendere valerent Hi videlicet qui dignos se capaces sapientiae praepararent Species verò eorum quae per praedicationem Apostolicam manifestè traduntur hae sunt There being many that think their sense to be Christian and yet the sense of some differs from their predecessors But that which the Church preaches as delivered by order of succession from the Apostles being preserved and remaining the same in the Churches That onely is to be believed for truth which nothing differs from the Tradition of the Church This notwithstanding wee must know That the holy Apostles preaching the Faith of Christ delivered some things as many as they held necessary most manifestly to all believers even those whom they found the duller in the search of divine knowledge Leaving the reason why they affirmed them to the search of those that goe to receive the eminent gifts of the Holy Ghost especially of utterance wisedom and knowledge by the Holy Ghost Of other things they said that they are but how or whereupon they are they said not Forsooth that the more studious of their Successors loving wisedom and knowledge might have some exercise wherein to show the fruit of their wit To wit those that should prepare themselves to be worthy and capable of wisedom Now the particulars of that which is manifestly delivered by the preaching of the Apostles are these Which hee proceedeth to set down But Vincentius Lerinensis hath writ a Discourse on purpose to show that this Rule of Faith being delivered by succession to the principal as S. Paul requires Timothy to do and by them to those that were baptized was the ground upon which all Heresies attempting upon the Faith were condemned So that so many Heresies as historical truth will evidence to have been excluded the Church from the Apostles time for mater of belief so many convictions of this Rule Which
at Jerusalem hearing that Samaria had received the word of God sent to them Peter and John Can S. Peter go upon commission from the Apostles who gives the Apostles the commission they have Those that preached circumcision at Antiochia had no commission for it from the Church at Jerusalem Act. XV. 24. It must have been from S. Peter if that Church had acted then by virtue of his Commission But he was present and is signified as one of them that writ these words Let any man stand upon it that will that the false Apostles whom S Paul writes against 2 Cor. XI 13. pretended commission from S. Peter because of the opposition which they made between him on the one side and S Paul and Apollos on the other side 2 Cor. I. 12. Though I showed you beter reason afore that they pretended that commission from the Apostles which they disowned Acts XV. 24. It is easie for me to say that they pretended not S. Peters name as Soveraign over the Apostles but as founder of the Church of Corinth as well as S. Paul which Dionysius of Corinth in Eusebius witnesseth Whereas when S. Paul pleads his Commission of Apostle from God and not from man Gal. I. 1. II. 6 9. and that in express opposition to S. James and S. John as well as to S. Peter it is manifest that they as well as S. Peter might have pretended to give it had he not been an Apostle but being an Apostle none but our Lord Christ And therefore when he resists S. Peter and reproves him to the face Gal. II. 11-14 understand this resistance and reproof as you please whither true or colourable had S. Peter been Monarch it had not been for an Apostle to colour his proceeding with a pretense inferring rebellion against his Soveraign Wherefore there may be lesand greater Apostles foâ— personâ—ble qualiâ—ies And S. Paul that is the least of them for his calling may be inferiour to none for his labours 1 Cor. XV. 9. 10. 2 Cor. XI 5. XII 11. 12. Nay S. Peter may have a standing pre-eminence of Head of the Bench to avoid confusion and to create order in their proceedings and yet their commission be immediate from our Lord and the mater of it and the power it creates the same for substance Having thus destroyed this ground upon which some people claim a Monarchy over the Church for the Pope by the scriptures without seeking for other exceptions to the pretense that may be made to the same purpose from the Tradition of the Catholick Church I proceed to setle the ground of that eminence and superiority which I conceive some Churches have over others for the unity of the whole Church Because of necessity the reason and ground upon which it stands must be the measure of it how farre it extends And the positive truth thereof will be negatively an exception to that Soveraignty which the Bishop of Rome by the succession of S. Peter pretendeth I say then that the Apostles and Disciples of our Lord Christ intending to convert the World to the Faith and to establish one Church of all that should be converted to it did agree and appoint that the Churches of the chiefe Cities should be the chief Churches and that the Churches of inferiour Cities should depend upon them and have recourse to them in all things that might concern the common Christianity whither in the Rule of Faith or in the Unity of the Church in the offices of Gods service reserving unto themselves the ordering of those things which being of lesse moment might concern their own peace and good order rather then the interesse of other Churches I do not pretend to produce any act under the Apostles hands in which this conclusion is signed but to proceed upon the principles premised to argue and to inferre that those things which I shall evidently show have passed in the Church could not otherwise have come to pass unlesse we could suppose that a constant order which hath wholly taken place in the Church ever since the Apostles could have prevailed over those infinite wayes which confusion might have imagined had there been no ground from whence this certain order should rise And here I do profess that if any man will needs be contentious and say that this order came not in by the appointment of the Apostles themselves because during their time the probability of converting the Romane Empire and other Nations to Christianity could not appear and that it doth not appear by any circumstance of Scripture that the Spirit of Prophesy was given them to such purposes I will rather grant all this then contend about those terms which I need not insist upon though I do firmly believe that before all the Apostles left the World the conversion of the Gentiles was their design and the design of their successors But I will provide on the other side that whither the Apostles themselves or their companions and successors in whom the power of governing the whole Church was as fully to all purposes as in the Apostles themselves for though they might be assisted by the Gift of Prophesy in those occasions as it is probable they were at the Council of Jerusalem Acts XV. yet must their authority proceed whether so assisted or not the obligation upon the Church must needs remain the same to cherish and maintain that Order which once might have been established by them the Unity of the Church which is the end of it not being otherwise attainable And upon this ground I maintain that the Churches of Rome Alexandria and Antiochia had from the beginning a priviledge of eminence above other Churches For Rome being the seat of the Empire Alexandria and Antiochia which had formerly been the Seates of the Successors of Ptolomee in Aegypt and Seleucus in Asia having from their first coming under the Romane Empire had their peâ—uliar Governours it is no marvail if the Churches founded in them held their peculiar priviledges and eminences over the Churches of their resorts from the very founding of Christianity in these mother Cities and the propagating of it from thence into inferiour Cities and thence over the confines And this is the onely reason that can be rendred why the Church of Jerusalem which in respect of the first abode of the Apostles and the propagation of Christianity is justly counted the mother of all Churches and which gave law to that of Antiochia and the rest that were concerned in the same dispute with it and during the Apostles time received oblations of maintenance from the Churches of the Gentiles became afterwards inferiour to these and in particular to that of Antiochia But he that shall compare these Cities and the greatnesse of them and eminence over their respective Territories with that of Rome not onely over the rest of the Empire but over those Cities with find it consequent to the ground of this design not that the Church of Rome should be
is to determine controversies of Faith And what obligation that determination produceth Traditions of the Apostles oblige the present Church as the reasons of them continue or not Instances in our Lords Passeover and Eucharist Penance under the Apostles and afterwards S. Pauls vail eaâ—ing blood and things offered to Idols The power of the Church in limiting these Traditions 178 CHAP. XXV The power of the Church in limiting even the Traditions of the Apostles Not every abuse of this power a sâ—fficient warrant for particular Churches to reforme themselves Heresie consists in denying something necessary to salvation to be believed Schism in departing from the unity of the Church whether upon that or any other cause Implicite Faith no virtue but the effect of it may be the work of Christian charity p. 163 CHAP. XXVI What is to add to Gods Law What to adde to the Apocalypse S. Pauls Anathema The Beraeans S. Johns Gospel sufficient to make one believe and the Scriptures the man of God perfect How the Law giveth light and Christians are taught by God How Idolatry is said not to be commanded by God 168 CHAP. XXVII Why it was death to transgress the determinations of the Jewes Consistory and what power this argueth in the Church A difference between the authority of the Apostles and that of the Church The being of the Church to the worlds end with power of the Keyes makes it not infallible Obedience to Superiours and the Pillar of truth inferre it not 175 CHAP. XXXI The Fathers acknowledge the sufficiencie 〈◊〉 â—â—â—â—rnesse of the Scriptures as the Traditions of the Church They are to be reconciled by limiting the termes which they use The limitations of those sayings which make all Christian truth to be contained in the Scriptures Of those which make the authority of the Church the ground of Faith 181 CHAP. XXXII Answer to an Objection that choice of Religion becomes difficult upon these terms This resolution is for the Interest of the Reformation Those that make the Church Infallible cannot those that make the Scriptures â—â—ear â—nd sufficient may own Tradition for evidence to determine the meaning of the Scriptures and controversies of Faith The Interest of the Church of England The pretense of Rushworthes Dialogues that we have no unquestionable Scripture and that tâ—e Tradition of the Church never changes 192 CHAP. XXXI That the Scriptures which wee have are unquestionable That mistakes in Copying are not considerable to the sense and effect of them The meaning of the Hebrew and Greek even of the Prophets determinable to the deciding of Controversies How Religion delivered by Tradition becomes subject to be corrupted 198 CHAP. XXXIV The dispute concerning the Canon of Scripture and the translations thereof in two Questions There can be no Tradition for those books that were written since Prophesie ceased Wherein the excellence of them above other books lies The chiâ—fe objections against them are questionâ—ble In those parcels of the New Testament that have been questioned the case is not the same The sense of the Church 207 CHAP. XXXIII Onely the Originall Copy can be Authentick But the truth thereof may as well be found in the translations of the Old Testament as in the Jewes Copies The Jewes have not falsified them of malice The points come neither from Moses nor Esdras but from the Talmud Iewes 218 CHAP. XXXIV Of the ancientest Translations of the Bible into Greek first With the Authors and authority of the same Then into the Chaldee Syriack and Latine Exceptions against the Greek and the Samaritane Pentateuch They are helps never thelesse to assure the true reading of the Scriptures though with other Copies whether Jewish or Christian Though the Vulgar Latine were better than the present Greek yet must both depend upon the Original Greek of the New Testament No danger to Christianity by the differences remaining in the Bible 224 The CONTENTS of the second Book CHAP. I. TWo parts of that which remains How the dispute concerning the Holy Trinity with Socinus belongs to the first The Question of justification by Faith alone The Opinion of Socinus concerning the whole Covenant of Grace The opinion of those who make justifying Faith the knowledge of a mans Predestination opposite to it in the other extream The difference between it and that of the Antinomians That there are mean Opinions p. 1 CHAP. II. Evidence what is the condition of the Covenant of Grace The contract of Baptism The promise of the Holy Ghost annexed to Christs not to Johns Baptism Those are made Christs Disciples as Christians that take up his Cross in Baptism The effects of Baptism according to the Apostles 5 CHAP. III. The exhortations of the Apostles that are drawn from the patterns of the Old Testament suppose the same How the Sacraments of the Old and New Testament are the same how not the same How the new Testament and the New Covenant are both one The free-will of man acteth the same part in dealing about the New-Covenant as about the Old The Gospel a Law 12 CHAP. IV. The consent of the whole Church evidenced by the custome of catechising By the opinion thereof concerning the salvation of those that delayed their Baptism By the rites and Ceremonies of Baptism Why no Penance for sins before but after Baptism The doctrine of the Church of England evident in this case 17 CHAP. V. The Preaching of our Lord and his Apostles evidenceth that some act of Mans free choice is the condition which it requireth The correspondence between the Old and New Testament inferreth the same So do the errors of Socinians and Antinomians concerning the necessity of Baptism Objections deferred 23 CHAP. VI. Justifying faith sometimes consists in believing the truth Sometimes in trust in God grounded upon the truth Sometimes in Christianity that is in imbracing and professing it And that in the Fathers as well as in the Scriptures Of the informed and formed Faith of the Schools 30 CHAP. VII The last signification of Faith is properly justifying Faith The first by a Metonymy of the cause The second of the effect Those that are not justified do truly believe The trust of a Christian presupposeth him to be justified All the promises of the Gospel become due at once by the Covenant of Grace That to believe that we are Elect or justified is not justifying faith 37 CHAP. VIII The objection from S. Paul We are not justifyed by the Law nor by Works but by Grace and by Faith Not meant of the Gospel and the works that suppose it The question that S. Paul speakes to is of the Law of Moses and the workes of it He sets those workes in the same rank with the works of the Gentiles by the light of nature The civil and outward works of the Law may be done by Gentiles How the Law is a Pedagogue to Christ 43 CHAP. IX Of the Faith and Justification of Abraham and the Patriarkes according to the Apostles
who professe the true Christ Nor under the Law were granted but to those who professed the true God And for this cause they are called by S. Paul 1 Cor. XII 7. the manifestation of the Spirit because they manifest the presence of God in his Church As 1 Cor. XIV 22-25 hee saith that unbelievers seeing the secrets of their hearts revealed by those graces were moved to fall on their faces and worship God declaring that God is in his Church of a truth Those therefore who are thus witnessed by God upon his witnesse are to be received whatsoever they deliver in Gods name concerning either the Law of Moses or the Gospel of Christ For how can any man imagine that upon every new revelation declared by a Prophet upon every new letter written or act done by an Apostle a new evidence should be requisite to attest a new Commission from God Especially the presumption that God will not suffer his people to be abused by trusting him being necessary and not onely reasonable Since therefore our Lord and his Apostles carry this quality no lesse than did Moses and the Prophets it followes of necessity that their writings and what else they may have ordained are no lesse the Law of God no lesse obliging than the Law of Moses by virtue of their Commission which makes their acts in Gods name to be Gods acts Though civil Law they are not till civil Powers binde them upon their Subjects CHAP. IV. Neither the Dictate of Gods Spirit nor the authority of the Church is the reason of believing any thing in Christianity Whether the Church be before the Scripture or the Scripture before the Church The Scriptures contain not the Infallibility of the Church Nor the consent of all Christians IT is now time to proceed to the resolution of some part of those disputes and opinions which wee showed the world divided into upon occasion of the question how Controversies of Faith are to be tryed and ended That is to say so much of them as must be determined by him that will proceed in this dispute For supposing the premises to be true I shall not make any difficulty to conclude That neither the dictate of the Spirit of God to the Spirits of particular Christians that is the presumption of it nor the authority of the Church that is the presumption of the like dictate to any persons that may be thought to have power of obliging the Church is a competent reason to decide the meaning of the Scripture or any Controversie about mater of Faith obliging any man therefore to believe it And by consequence that the authority of the Church that is of persons authorized to give sentence in behalf of the Body of the Church here understood is not Infallible which if it were it must be without question admitted for a competent reason of believing all such sentences to be Infallibly true The truth of this Conclusion is demonstrated by the premises if any thing in a mater of this nature can be counted demonstrative If whatsoever the Spirit of God can be presumed to dictate to the Spirit of any Christian presupposeth the truth of Christianity as that which must try it whether onely a presumption or truth then can no mans word that professes Christianity be the reason why another man should believe For whosoever it is that gives the sentence by professing Christianity pretendeth to have a reason for what hee professeth which reason and not his judgment if it be good obligeth all Christians as well as him to believe For being once resolved that wee are obliged to believe whatsoever comes from those persons whom wee are convinced to believe that God imployed to declare his will to us Whatsoever is said to come from them must for the same reason be received and therefore by the same meanes said to come from them as it is said that they came from God On the other side whatsoever cannot by the same means be said to come from them can never by any means be said to come from God who hath given us no other means to know what hee would have us believe but those whom hee hath imployed on his message Wherefore seeing the authority of the Church supposeth the truth of Christianity of necessity it supposeth the reason for which whatsoever can be pretended to belong to Christianity is receivable Because supposing for the present though not granting that the Church is a Body which some persons by Gods appointment have authority to oblige it is manifest that no man can be vested with this authority but hee must bear the profession of a Christian and by consequence suppose the reasons upon which whatsoever belongs to the profession of a Christian is receivable For that which cannot be derived as for the evidence of it from those means by which wee stand convicted that Christianity stands upon true motives cannot be receivable as any part of it And therefore however the generality of this reason may obscure the evidence of it to them that take not the pains to consider it as it deserves yet the truth of it supposes no more than all use of reason supposes that all knowledg that is to be had proceeds upon something presupposed to be known In which case it would be very childish to consider that the Church is more ancient in time than the Scriptures at least than some part of them as the Writings of the Apostles for example in some sort then all Scriptures if wee understand the people of God and the Church to be the same thing For to passe by sor the present the Fathers before the Law as the people of Israel were Gods people by the Covenant of the Law before they received the Law written in the five Books of Moses So was the authority of Moses imployed by God to mediate that Covenant both good and sufficient before they by accepting the Law became Gods people And upon this authority alone and not upon any authority founded upon their being Gods people free and possessed of the Land of Promise to be ruled by themselves and their own Governors dependeth the credit of Moses and the Prophets Writings In like manner the being of the Church whether a Society and Corporation or not supposing the profession of Christianity and that the receiving of the Gospel which is the Covenant of Grace and that the authority of our Lord and his Apostles as sent by God to establish it Manifest it is that the credit of their Writings depends on nothing else but is supposed to the being of the Church whatsoever it is Which if it be so no lesse manifest it must be that nothing is receivable for truth in Christianity that cannot be evidenced to proceed from that authority that is more antient than the being of the Church as a truth declared by some act of that authority And therefore it would be childish to allege priority of time for the Church if perhaps
it may be said in some regard that the Church was before the Scriptures when as in order of reason it is evident that the truth of Christianity is supposed to the being of it inasmuch as no man can be or be known to be of the Church but as hee is or is known to be a Christian And truly those that dispute the authority of the Church to be the the reason to believe the sentence of it in mater of Faith to be true are to consider what they will say to that opinion which utterly denies any such authority any such thing as a Church Understanding the Church to be a Society founded by Gods appointment giving publick authority to some persons so or so qualified by that appointment in behalf of the whole For this all must deny that admit Erastus his opinion of Excommunication to be true if they will admit the consequence of their own doctrine Which opinion I have therefore premised in staring this Question that it may appear to require such an answer as may not suppose the being of the Church in that nature but may be a means to demonstrate it But as it is not my intent to begg so great a thing in question by proceeding upon supposition of any authority in the Church before I can prove it to be a Corporation founded with such authority as the foundation of it requireth So is it as farre from my meaning to deny that authority which I do not suppose For hee that denieth the authority of the Church to be the reason why any thing is to be taken for truth or for the meaning of the Scripture may take the due and true authority of the Church to be a part of that truth which is more ancient than the authority of the Church Inasmuch as it must be believed that God hath founded a Society of them which professe Christianity by the name of the Church giving such authority to some members of it in behalf of the whole as hee pleased before it can be believed that this or that is within the authority of the Church For that there is a Church and a publick authority in it and for it and what things they are that fall under that authority if it be true is part of that truth which our Lord and his Apostles whose authority is more ancient than the Church have declared Indeed if it were true that the first truth which all Christians are to believe and for the reason of it to believe every thing else is the saying of persons so and so qualified in the Church then were it evident that the belief of that which is questioned in religion could not be resolved into any other principle But if it be manifest by the motives of Christianity that the authority of the Apostles is antecedent to it that all Scripture and the meaning of Scripture which signifies nothing beside it own meaning and Tradition of the Apostles if any such Tradition over and above Scripture may appear is true not supposing it as appeares by the premises then is the authority of the Church no ground of Faith and so not Infallible There are indeed sundry Objections made both out of Scripture and the Fathers to weaken and to shake such an evident truth which are not here to be related till wee have resolved as well what is the reason of believing in Controversies of Faith as what is not In the mean time if wee demand by what means any person that can pretend to give sentence in Controversies of Faith knowes his own sentence to be infallible or upon what ground hee gives sentence Hee that answers by Scripture or authority of Writers that professe to have learned from the Scriptures or reasons depending on the authority of our Lord and his Apostles acknowledges the authority of the Church not to be the reason of believing For what need wee all this if it were If hee say by the same means for which these are receivable that is by revelation from God It will be presently demanded to make evidence of such revelation the same evidence as wee have for the truth of the Scriptures Which because it cannot be done therefore is this plea laid aside even by them who neverthelesse professe to imbrace the Communion of the Church of Rome because they believe the Church to be Infallible But if it be destructive to all use of reason to deny the conclusion admitting the premises then let him never hope to prevaile in any dispute that holds the conclusion denying the premises For to hold the sentence of the Church Infallible when the means that depend upon the authority of our Lord and his Apostles proves whatsoever is to be believed without supposing any such thing when revelation independent upon their authority there is acknowledged to be none averreth Infallibility in the sentence of the Church denying the onely principle that can inferre it And therefore those that speak things so inconsequent so inconsistent I shall not grant that they speake those things which themselves think and believe but rather that like men upon the rack they speak things which themselves may and in some sort do know not to be true For whosoever holds an opinion which hee sees an argument against that hee cannot resolve is really and truly upon the rack and of necessity seeks to escape by contradicting what himself confesseth otherwise Which every man of necessity doth who acknowledging the reason of believing Christianity to lye in the authority of our Lord and his Apostles challengeth neverthelesse that Infallability which is the reason of believing to all sentences of the Church the mater of which sentence if it be true the reason of it must depend immediately upon the same authority upon which the authority of the Church which sentenceth dependeth But the consequence of this assertion deserves further consideration because all that followes depends upon it Suppose that the Scriptures prove themselves to be the Word of God by the reasons of believing contained in them witnessed by the common sense of all Christians For this admits no dispute If the same consent can evidence any thing belonging to the mater of Faith that will appear to oblige the Faith of all Christians upon the same reason as the Scriptures do whether contained in the Scriptures or not For who will undertake that God could not have preserved Christianity without either Scriptures or new revelations And therefore hee chose the way of writing not as of absolute necessity but as of incomparable advantage If therefore God might have obliged man to believe any thing not delivered by writing whether hee hath or not will remain questionable supposing the Scriptures to be the Word of God upon the ground aforesaid Besides there are many things so manifest in the Scriptures that they can indure no dispute supposing the Scriptures to be the Word of God Many things are every day cleared more and more by applying the knowledg
supposeth that there is no means but the Gospel to save us But if wee be saved by believing the Gospel wee may be saved not believing that which the Church teacheth without it For that which the Gospel obligeth us to believe unto salvation it is agreed already that wee cannot be saved without believing it Suppose now the Church to continue till the last day not as one visible Body but broken into pieces as wee see it so that alwaies there remain a number of good Christians for whether or no they that communicate not with the Church of Rome may be good Christians is the thing in question not to be taken for truth without proving shall the gates of hell be said to prevail against the Church all that while Besides Grotius expounds those words to signifie no more but this That death and the grave which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Hell in the stile of the Old Testament signifies shall never prevail over Christians That is that they shall rise again And I suppose it is not so evident that this exposition is false as that the Gospel is true As for the Keyes of Christs Kingdom let him that saith they argue Infallibility say also that they cannot be abused But hee will have more shame if not more sense than to say it The Thessalonians received the Gospel as the Word of God because they supposed it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word which God sent them newes of Would they therefore have received the decrees of the Church with the same reverence not supposing them the Word of God till some body prove it But suppose the promises made S. Peter to import as much as the power of the Apostles is it as evident that the present Pope succeeds S. Peter as that Christianity is from God That hee succeeds him in the full right of that Power which is given the Apostles Certainly wheresoever two or three are assembled in the name of Christ there is not the Infallibility of the Church Therefore it cannot be founded upon the promises made to all Assemblies of Christians as Christians It is very probable that the Council of the Apostles at Jerusalem had a revelation upon the place signifying how they should order the mater in question because there are many instances in the Scriptures of inspirations at the very Assemblies of Gods people as I have showed in the Right of the Church Therefore it is not evident that all Councils may say the like Therefore they cannot presume that the Holy Ghost will lead them into all truth whatsoever they take a humor to determine because it was promised that hee should lead the Apostles into all truth concerning our common Christianity But if the Church be the pillar and foundation that upholdeth the truth then must that truth first be evidenced for truth before the effect of the Churches office in upholding it as pillars uphold an house can appear The exhortations of the Apostles 1 Thess V. 14 15. Hebr. XIII 7 17. to yield obedience to the Rulers of the Church are certainly pertinent to this purpose But it is evident that this obedience is limitable by the grounds and substance of Christianity delivered afore as it is evident that all Power of the present Church presupposeth our common Christianity As for the obedience required in the Old Testament to the Governors of the Synagogue and Priests confirmed by our Lord Mat. XXIII 2. I am very willing to grant the Church all Power in decreeing for truth that can appear to have belonged to the Rulers of the Synagogue because I am secure that those who could put malefactors to death as they could were not therefore able to tye men to believe that which they say to be true But the great subtilty is the Prophesie of Caiaphas John XI 48-52 who because High Priest could not but truly determine that our Lord must die least the people should perish even in resolving to crucifie him Indeed at the beginning God was wont to conduct his people by Oracles of Urim and Tummim in the High Priests brest-plate And though this was ceased under the second Temple as wee have reason to believe the Jewes yet was it no marvail that God should use the High Priests tongue to declare that secret which himself understood not being the Person by whom hee had used to direct his people in former ages But hee that from hence concludes the Church infallible must first maintain that Caiaphas erred not in crucifying our Lord Christ Now if it be said that the consent of all Christians though not as members of the Church because as yet it appeareth not that the Church is a Corporation and hath members determines the sense of these Scriptures to signifie Infallibility which they may but do not necessarily signifie Let him consider the disputes that succeeded in the Church upon the decree of the Great Council at Nicaea the breaches that have succeeded upon the decrees of Ephesus and Chalcedon the division between the Greek and the Latine Church between the Reformation and the Church of Rome For is it imaginable that all Christians holding as firmly as their Christianity that the acts of the Pope and a Council that is the greater part of the present Church is to be believed as much as the Scriptures not onely the decree of Nicaea should be disputed again but breaches should succeed rather than admit their decrees retaining the common profession of Christianity What disputes there have been betwixt the Court of Rome and the Paris Doctors whether it be the act of the Pope or of a General Council that obligeth the belief of the Church is as notorious to the world as that they are not yet decided And yet the whole question is disputed onely concerning the Western Church The East which acknowledgeth not the Pope appeareth not in the claim of this Infallibility were both East and West joyned in one and the same Council Now among them that maintain the Pope it is not agreed what acts of the Pope they must be that shall oblige the Church to believe as it believes the Scriptures For it is argued that Popes have decreed Heresie Liberius Honorius Vigilius and perhaps others And though I stand not to prove I may presume that the contrary is not so evident as our common Christianity or the Scriptures And that some of them have held Heresie seems granted without dispute Is it then as evident as our common Christianity what act of the Pope obliges us to believe That hee cannot decree that error to be held by others which it is granted himself holdeth Besides how many things are requisite to make a true Pope whose Power unlesse it be conveyed by the 〈◊〉 act of those that are able to give it the acts thereof will be void which it does not appear that the present Pope is qualified with as it appeareth that the Scriptures are true And may not the same question be
Church in time perhaps they may declare I have not hitherto understood Shall I say there is not sufficient argument for the sense of the Church in the Gospels It is no part of my meaning Shall I therefore say it is clear of it selfe in the Gospels that is to say by the sayings and doings of our Lord recorded in the Gospels Doth not our Lord plainly make himself equal to the Father John V. 17-23 Doth hee not answer again being questioned for this John X. 33 34 35. by the words of David spoken of meer men Psal LXXXIII 6. I have said yee are Gods Doth hee not say plainly again My Father is greater than I John XIV 28 Which things as it is plain by argument that they may stand with the sense of the Church so that those arguments are plain of themselves to all understandings is as much as to say That a seeming contradiction argues an intent in our Lord that all men should see the resolution of it Again that all that will be saved by our Lord Christ must take up his Crosse and professe him to the death is plaine by the Gospels But so long as the Disciples might and did believe that they should raigne with our Lord in his Kingdome over that people which should destroy their enemies was the intent of suffering death for Christ to raign with him in heaven plaine by the Gospels That the Law should stand for ever is it not plainly delivered by our Lord in the Gospel and is it not as plainly of the necessity of salvation to believe that wee are saved by the Gospel and not by the Law I appeal to S. Pauls Epistles Though I dispute not whether this be abrogating the Law as Divines commonly speak or derogating from it Certainly though I know not whether the Socinians would be content with the Leviathan that no thing be thought necessary to salvation to be believed but that our Lord is the Christ Yet I know they would be astonished to hear that hee who believes that and lives according to the Lawes of his Soveraign hath done the duty of a Christian and may challenge his share in the kingdome of heaven for it But this I must not dispute further in this place Onely here I must answer his reasons out of the Scripture and show you upon what a weak pinne hee hath hung all this waight Christ is the foundation 1 Cor. III. 11. Mat. XVI 18. which all the Gospels pretend to induce us to believe John XX. 31. as also the exhortations of the Apostles Acts XVII 2 3 6. by this the good thief was saved believing onely our Lord anointed by God to his Kingdome Luke XXIII 42. Everlasting life is to be had by believing this and the Scripture because it witnesseth this John V. 39. and XVII 3. XI 26 27. Which is all blown away with this breath That hee that admits our Lord to be the Christ cannot refuse any part of his doctrine And therefore salvation is justly imputed to that which whoso receiveth shall be bound to admit and undergo whatsoever his salvation requireth This is eternal life to know thee the onely God and whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ John XVII 3. These things are written that yee may believe that Jesus is the Christ and that believing yee may have life John XX. 31. How have life believing Because hee that believes will be baptized and hee that is baptized must undertake to live as Christ teacheth professing to believe in the Father Sonne and Holy Ghost which believing in Christ coming from the Father to send the Holy Ghost implieth And therefore the Eunuch Acts VIII 36 37. is baptized upon this Faith as others into it Acts II. 38. VIII 16. XIX 5. The belief of the Creation of the world of Providence the Resurrection and Judgment to come not being introduced by Christianity but found in force among the Jewes when our Lord came So that limitation by which the Leviathan inlargeth his sense of that which the believing of our Lord to be the Christ implieth is not worth a straw It is not onely necessary to salvation to believe all that the Messias was to be or to do to be verified and to have been done by our Lord Jesus Unlesse we believe that wee are to believe and to do whatsoever hee taught us to believe and to do And that as I have showed is not determinable by any means but that which Christ by himself or by his Apostles hath provided us neither whether so or not and much lesse whether necessary to salvation or not That which hath been alleged to show That the substance of Christianity necessary to the salvation of all under the Gospel is not clearly contained in the Old Testament nor in the sayings and doings of our Lord related by the Evangelists Holds not in the writings of the Apostles For being directed to Christians already reduced into Churches constituted upon supposition of the knowledge and profession of Christianity there is no reason why they should be sparing in declaring the truth of it to those to whom they write True it is and evident by their writings that they used great reservation in declaring to those that were of Jewes become Christians the discharge of their obligation to Moses Law But whatsoever their proceeding was in that case not onely the reason of the truth but also the reason of that proceeding is clearly declared by their writings But if all their writings suppose in them to whom they write knowledge sufficient for the salvation of all Christians and none of them pretend to lay down the summe and substance of that whereof the salvation of all Christians requireth the knowledge evident it is that the perfection of none of them nor the whole Scriptures consisting of them and those which wee have spoken of hitherto requireth that they clearly contain all that is necessary to the salvation of all Christians For the Perfection of every writing consisteth in the sufficience of it for the purpose to which it is intended If therefore the occasions of the Apostles writings and so the purpose of them evidently express not an intent to lay down clearly to all understandings the whole substance of that which is sufficient to render all Christians capable of salvation as evidently neither any nor all of them do then neither doth the perfection not sufficience nor clearnesse of the Apostles writings require that all things necessary to the salvation of all be clear in them to all understandings For let no man object That they were all of them necessary to the salvation of all or most of them to whom they were sent Unless it could be said That whatsoever was necessary to the salvation of those to whom the Apostles writ is necessary to the salvation of all Christians Which so long as there is a difference between necessity of means and necessity of precept That is between that which is necessary to the common
God delivered to the Church by the Apostles commanding them so to live For that which was as difficult as impossible to have been introduced without conviction of the will of God as the rest of Christianity of necessity must go for a part of it But that in such variety of mens fannies reasons and inclinations the Church consisting from the beginning of all Nations and dispersed all over the world should of their own inclination not swayed by any information of Gods will received with Christianity agree in the same Lawes and Rulers submitting to the exercise of the same Power upon themselves is as impossible as that the world should consist of the casual concurse of atomes according to Democritus and Epicurus The name of the Church without peradventure was first used to signifie the whole body of Gods people in the Wildernesse when they might be and were called together and assembled upon their common occasions which the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies After which time the people continuing still one and the same by virtue of the same Lawes then received and the Powers placed in their Ruler Not onely the whole people but such parts of it as resorted to the same Government have still born and do bear the same name The Synagogue of Libertines Cyrenaeans Alexandrians Cilicians and Asians by example Acts VI. 9. which name first belongs to the respective Bodies of Jewes that subsisted at Rome Cyrene or Alexandria in Cilicia or Asia And consequently by Metonymy to the Places where such of those Bodies as chanced to be at Jerusalem might assemble themselves And to so many of those Bodies as being at Jerusalem did assemble at those Places Now no Christian can doubt that the Body of Christians succeeds in the stead of Gods ancient people And therefore the name of Gods Church when it stands without limitation signifies no lesse As when our Lord saith Mat. XVI 18. Vpon this rock will I found my Church Whatsoever the Disciples then conceived the Church should be our Lord that knew all by the name of it meant all that duly beares the name And therefore when hee saith once again Mat. XVIII 17. Tell it to the Church It is strange there should be Christians that should think hee means the Jewes and their Rulers And that the precept concernes Christians no longer now they have left the Jewes Though it is true a man cannot tell his cause to the whole Church but to that part of it to which hee can resort which is called by the name of the Whole as I said even now of the Synagogue S. Paul to the Colossians II. 24 25. calling the Church the Body of Christ saith That hee by the dispensation of God towards them which hee is trusted with is become the minister of the Church to wit as Angels are ministers of the Church because ministers of God towards it And therefore minister of the whole Church which is the Body of Christ not of any particular Church as if an Apostle could be bound to execute his office according to the discretion of any Church which for Gods cause hee attends As all Ministers are bound to execute their Office according to the will of them whose Ministers they are It is therefore the whole Church in which God hath set Apostles Evangelists Prophets and the use of the Graces rehearsed 1 Cor. XII 28. Eph. IV. 11. Because the Office of these Graces can by no means be confined either to any particular Church or to any part of the whole Church The name of the Church signifies the same thing again Eph. I. 22. III. 21. V. 23-32 While all Christendome was contained in the Church at Jerusalem the name of the Church is so used Acts II. 47. V. 11. VIII 1 3. that it is no mater whether wee understand by it the whole Church or the Church of Jerusalem The reason Because all right and power that can at any time be found vested in the whole Church was then as fully in the Church at Jerusalem as it can be at any time in the whole Church though in respect of a Body never so much greater than it As a childe is as much a man the day of his birth as the day of his death and a tree as much as a tree when it growes one as when it is come to the height But Christianity being propagated among Jewes and Gentiles as wee reade of the Churches of Judaea Samaria and Galilee Acts IX 31. and must needs understand the Epistles to the Ebrewes to have been written to Churches consisting onely of Ebrewes as those of S. Peter and that of S. James which mentions the Elders of the Church James V. 14. So the Churches of the Gentiles in S. Paul Rom. XVI 4. wee easily understand to be the Churches of Asia 1 Cor. XVI 9. Apoc. I. 11. the Churches of Galâ—â—ia 1 Cor. XVI 1. the Churches of Macedonia 2 Cor. VIII 1. and the rest that were visible in S. Paâ—ls time Now suppose for the present that these Churches mentioned by the Apostles were no more than so many Congregations as our Independents would have it Seeing they deny not so many Churches to be so many Bodies what reason can they give why the name of the Church when it stands for the whole Church should not signifie the like There is a prerogative attributed to the whole Church by S. Paul 1 Tim. III. 25. when hee calls it the base and pillar of Truth For that this should be said of any particular Church it were too ridiculous to imagine Can the Church bear this attribute if it be not capable of doing any act that may verifie it And if it be not a Body what act can it do In fine the correspondence between Gods ancient people and his new Israel according to his Spirit seems to require That as the Religion of the Jewes and not any Civil Power of the Nation makes them all one Body at this day in point of fact by sufferance of Soveraignes because they were once so in point of right So the Religion of Christians should make them one Body in point of right how many Bodies soever they are burst into in point of fact by their own wantonnesse For the Independents exception which I spoke of can be of no force unlesse they will make it appear that all those Churches that are mentioned in the writings of the Apostles did assemble in one place Not that if this could be made to appear they had done their businesse But because if it do not appear their plea is peremptorily barred Wee reade then of M M M soules added in one day to CXX of the Church at Jerusalem Acts I. 15. II. 41. To these were added or with these they became VM Acts IV. 4. To whom were added multitudes of men and women Acts II. 47. V. 14. These assembled daily in private to serve God as Christians as well as in
the visibility of the Church and the assurance that every particular Christian might have during this intelligence and correspondence that holding communion with his own Pastor hee held the true Faith together with the Unity of the Catholick Church Neither putting trust in man which God curseth nor in his own understanding for the sense of the Scriptures but trusting his own common sense as well for the means of conveying to him the mater as the motives of Christianity For why is it enough for Irenaeus and Tertullian for S. Augustine and Optatus to allege the Church of Rome and the succession from the Apostles for evidence that the Faith of those Hereticks was contrived by themselves that the Donatists were out of communion with the Church Because supposing that the Apostles and Disciples of our Lord all communicated in the same Faith which they taught the Churches of their own founding other Churches founded and the Pastors of them constituted by the authority of those Churches must needs be founded and settled upon condition of maintaining and professing the same Faith So that if any Christian or Pastor should attempt the unsettling of any part thereof the people to stand bound rather to follow the original consent of the whole from whence they received their Christianity than any man that should forfeit his ingagement to the whole in the judgment of the whole This being the true ground for the authority of Councils might and did take effect without assembling of Councils S. Cyprian directs his leters to Steven Bishop of Rome to write to the Churches of Gaule to ordain a new Bishop in stead of Marcianus in the Church of Arles because hee had joyned with the Novatians To the Spanish Bishops owning the Deposing of Basilides and Martialis and the Ordaining of those whom they had put in their places notwithstanding that upon false suggestions they had gained Steven Bishop of Rome to maintain them Epist LXV LXVI Could any man in his right senses have attempted this had it not been received among Christians which hee alleges that the people of particular Churches are bound not to acknowledge those for their Pastors whom the communion of the Church disowneth whether assembled in Council or not The acts of Councils themselves such are the creation of a Bishop of Arles in stead of Marcianus of Spanish Bishops in stead of Basilides and Martialis depending upon the authority of the Churches of Rome and Carthage that concurred not to them in presence If this be imputed to any mistake of Gods appointment in the ancient Church it will be easie for mee to allege Tertullians reason to as good purpose against our Independent Congregations as hee used it against the Hereticks of his time For if the chief Power of the Church be vested in those that assemble to serve God at once without any obligation to the resolution of other Congregations then is the trust that a Christian can repose in the Church resolved into that confidence which hee hath of those seven with whom hee joyneth to make a Congregation that the ruling part of them cannot faile Or rathâ—r into that which hee hath of himself and of the Spirit of God guiding his choice to those that shall not faile They presuming themselves to have the Spirit of God without declaring what Christianity they professe for the condition upon which they obtain it need no provision of a Catholick Church to preserve that Faith which the Gift of the Holy Ghost supposeth God who requireth the profession of a true Faith in them upon whom hee bestoweth his Spirit hath provided the communion of his Church for a means to assure us of that which it preserveth That it is presumption in them to oversee this no imposture in the Church to challenge it Tertullians reason determines The Hereticks pleaded that the Churches had departed from the Faith which the Apostles had left them To this after other allegations hee sets his rest up on this one that error is infinite truth one and the same That no common sense will allow that to be a mistake in which all Christians agree They all agreed in the same Faith against those Hereticks because they all agreed in acknowledging the Catholick Church provided by God to preserve and propagate it against our Independent Congregations Thus Tertullian de Praescript XXVIII There have been some Disputers of Controversies that have claimed the benefit of Tertullians exception against the Hereticks of his time in behalf of the Church of Rome Hee pleadeth not that the Catholicks ought not but that they are not bound to admit them to dispute upon the Scriptures being able to condemne them without the Scriptures And they plead that the Reformation not standing to those Pastors whom they acknowledge to possesse the place of those that derived their authority by succession from the Apostles may be condemned without Scripture as not holding the truth who hold not that which is taught by the said Pastors Which is to demand of those of the Reformation for an end of all debates first to acknowledge those Pastors and that which they teach then to take that for the true meaning of the Scripture which that which they reach alloweth or requireth But this supposes the sentence of the Church to be an infallible ground for the truth of that which it determineth And therefore to be accepted with the same Faith as our common Christianity or the Scriptures Which I showed you already to be false It shall therefore suffice mee to say that those men consider not the difference between the plea of the Reformation and that of those Hereticks For they acknowledging our Lord Christ and his Apostles no otherwise than the Alcoran and Mahomet doth where they served their turn made no scruple to say when it was for their purpose that they knew not the depth of Gods minde which themselves by some secret way having attained to know were therefore called Gnosticks That they imparted not the utmost of their knowledge to all alike when that served their turne That therefore the Scriptures were unperfect and revealed not that secret whereby they promised their salvation but by incklings These things you shall finde in Tertullian de Praescript XXII and Irenaeus III. 1. as well as that plea which I mentioned afore that the Churches were fallen from that which they had received of the Apostles Whereas those of the Reformation allege against the Church of Rome that those Hereticks pretended Tradition as they do Without cause indeed For what is Tradition pretended to be delivered in secret to them and by them who tender no evidence for it to that which the visibility of Christianity and the grounds upon which it is settled justifieth But so as to make it appear that they no way disown the Apostles or their writings nor can expect salvation by any other meanes And therefore are manifestly to be tryed by the Scriptures acknowledged on both sides provided the trial
But hee that complaineth of that will be bound to advance some other meaning of those texts which may be free from contradiction both to the Rule of Faith and to Historical truth which common sense justifieth And yet admit no mention of publick Penance in the Church no intent to speak of it in all the Scriptures there alleged Which perhaps will be too hard to do Further I labor not I will suppose no man so wilfull as to dispute the right of excluding from the Communion of the Church granting a power of limiting the conditions upon which it is to be restored to them who forfeited it And this is visible It was but a mater of LXX years after the decease of S. John according to Eusebius his Chronicle that Montamis appeared to demand that Adulterers might not be readmitted to the communion of the Church upon Penance That those that had married the second time might not communicate That the rule of Fasting might be stricter than was in use That it might not be lawfull to fly from persecution for the Faith It is manifest that these were his pretenses by Tertullian that maintaines them being seduced with the opinion of inspirations and revelations granted him and his partizans to that purpose These pretenses were afterwards in part revived at Rome by Novatianus to get himself the Bishoprick there by excluding from Penance and reconciliation those that had fallen away in the persecution of Decius It appeareth also that those men alleged for themselves the very passages of the Apostles which I allege to my intent Neither can it appear that ever any son of the Church did contradict them by saying that the Apostles meant nothing of Penance as they imagined And now let all men judge whether the Church have reason to hold this evidence of Penance and by consequence of its own being a Church Was Epiphanius and all that writ against the Novatians troubled to no purpose at the VI of the Ebrews when those Schismaticks alleging it for themselves might have been silenced by denying that it concerned Penance Why did not the Church allege that the sin unto death 1 John V. 17. is no such thing as Apostasy from Christianity when the Novatians alleged it to prove that Apostates were not to be reconciled to the Church How came it to passe that there was so much doubt made in the Church of Rome of admitting the Epistle to the Ebrews for Canonical Scripture witnesse S. Jerome Epist ad Dardanum as thinking that it did absolutely contradict the re-admitting of Apostates which had been practised in that Church before Montanus Tertullian of all men was troubled without cause that the incestuous person whom hee supposes to be excommunicated at Corinth by S. Pauls Order 1 Cor. V. should be re-admitted by his Indulgence 1 Cor. VII De Pudicitiâ cap. XIII XIV XV. because hee saw this was a peremptory exception against Montanus that a crime equal to Adultery should by S. Paul be admitted to Penance How easie a thing it had been for him to say that there is nothing of Penance nothing of Excommunication which Penance presupposes and therefore inferres in delivering to Satan the incestuous person in commanding them not so much as to eat with those that are called brethren that is Christians but are indeed such as the incestuous But hee being some fourteen hundred years nearer the beginning of Christianity than wee and being satisfied by his five senses of those things which new Heresies and Schismes oblige us to argue by consequences found that his Patriarch Montanus could not answer so And therefore thinking that the Church could not answer their arguments forces an answer to this by saying it was not the same man that is excommunicated by the Apostles Order 1 Cor. V. and restored by his Indulgence 2 Cor. VII Because hee saw the reconciling of a sinner to the Church by Penance as lively described and signified by S. Pauls Indulgence there as by any record of the Church at such time as it was most in use And can there remain any doubt of this Excommunication because the Church cannot now deliver to Satan for destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Surely all the writings of the Apostles do bear witnesse that the miraculous graces of the Holy Ghost which they had then but all Christians see the Church hath not now served not onely to witnesse the truth of Christianity but the authority of the Apostles in behalf of it This authority having taken effect by those Ordinances which the Church hath received at their hands It is no longer requisite that God should bear witnesse to his own Ordinances by such miraculous effects seeing hee doth no longer bear witnesse to the truth of Christianity by the like Hee that believes that whosoever is not in the Church is in the power of Satan needs no reason why hee is delivered to Satan that is put out of the Church Hee that believes it not is not to be perswaded that there is a power of Excommunication granted the Church But that the Christian saith which the Church preacheth is true for that without peradventure preached the Church At least till some body show us that this reason is insufficient hee must not demand that wee give an Article of our Creed and all the help to salvation which the communion of the Catholick Church pretendeth for such an objection as this Chuse now whether you will say as I say That under the Apostles difficulty was made of re-admitting some sorts of sins but never any peremptory order against it and so that Montanus and Novatianus were Schismaticks for seperating from the Church when the whole Church was agreed that there was a necessity of it or look about for a more reasonable sense to assoile the great difficulties of these passages Provided that you offer not violence to common sense and historical truth by imagining that so near the Apostles time there could be so much question about Penance they having neither meant nor ordained any thing about it To this argument all the most ancient records of the Church wheresoever mention is made of reconciling by Penance all the Penitential Canons of later ages will bear witnesse For who can undertake to answer or rather to obscure the evidence made in the place aforenamed that some sins were refused Penance and reconcilement in the first ages of the Church When wee have a whole book of Tertullian contending with Montannus to impose a Law upon it of re-admitting no Adulterers When wee know a whole sect of Novatians that left the Church that they might re-admit no Apostates As for the Penitential Canons of later ages it is manifest to any man that shall peruse and compare them with that which hath been said of the primitive times that they are nothing else but the abatement of that rigor of Discipline which during the primitive heat and zele of
the Synod of Antiochia mad when they writ the Leter which you may reade in Eusebius VII 30. in the name of the Churches represented by that Synod to the rest of the Churches in Christendome signifying the sentence of deposition pronounced against Samosatenus and requiring them to joyn with it If it be madnesse to think them so mad as to summon the rest of the Churches upon an obligation which they did not acknowledge what shall it be to think that this obligation was but imaginary or at least voluntarily contracted not inacted by the will of our Lord declared by his Apostles The Emperor Aurelian being appealed by the Council to cause Samosatenus to be put our of his Bishops house by force who maintained himself in it by force against the sentence of the Synod decreed that possession should be given to him whom the Christian Bishops of Italy and Rome should acknowledge for Bishop by writing to him under that title Certainly this Heathen Emperor in referring the execution of the Synods decree to the consent of those remarkable parts of the Church whereupon the consent of the rest might reasonably be presumed understood the constitution of the Church by his five senses better than those learned Christians of our time who argue seriously that this Paulus Samosatenus was not excommunicated by the Synod of Antiochia but by the Emperor Aurelian For this is the course by which all the acts of the whole Church ever came in force those parts of the Church which were not present at the doing of them concurring ex postfacto to inact them and the civil power to grant the execution of them by secular power Perhaps it will not be fit here to let passe that which Athanasius relates libro de sontentiâ Dionysii Alexandrini That this Dionysius writing against Sabellius gave occasion to the Bishops of Pentapolis who resorted to the Church of Alexandria as wee see by the VI Canon of Nicaea to suspect him of that which afterwards was the Heresie of Arius And that Dionysius of Rome being made acquainted by them with a mater of that consequence to the whole Church this Dionysius writ him an Apology on purpose to give satisfaction of his Faith wherein S. Athanasius hath great cause to triumph that the Heresie of Arius which arose afterwards is no lesse condemned than that of Sabellius presently on foot Grant wee that it was an office of Christian charity to tender this satisfaction where it was become so requisite The example of Samosatenus shows that their addresse tended to question if not to displace their Bishop by the authority of the rest of the Church ingaging the consent of his own had hee been discovered to harbor the contrary Heresie to that of Sabellius And indeed what was the rise of all those contentions about Arius that succeeded in the Church after the Council of Nicaea but this question whether Arius should be re-admitted one of the Presbyters of the Church at Alexandria or remaine excommunicate And those truly that do not believe there is any Church but a Congregation that assembles together for the service of God must needs think all Christendome stark mad for so many years together as they labored by so many Synods to attain an agreement through the Church in this and in the cause of Athanasius that depended upon it But those who believe the power of the Church to eschere to the State when it declares it selfe Christian must think the Emperors Constantius and Valens mad when they put themselves to that trouble and charâ—e of so many Synods to obtain that consent of the Church which in point of right their own power might have commanded without all that ado In the decrees of divers of those many Synods that were held about this businesse you shall finde that those Churches which the said decrees are sent to are charged not to write to the Bishops whom they depoâ—e That is to say Not to give them the stile of Bishops not to deal with them about any thing concerning the Church but to hold them as cut off from the Church Just as the Emperor Aurelian afore commanded possession to be delivered to him whom the Bishops of Italy and Rome should write to as Bishop This little circumstance expresses the means by which the communion of the Church was maintained To wit by continual intercourse of leters and messengers from Churches to Churches whereby the one understood the proceedings of the other and being satisfied of the reason of them gave force and execution to them within their own Bodies And this course being visibly derived from the practice of the Apostles sufficeth to evidence the Unity of the Church established by the exercise of that communication which maintained it When wee see the Apostles from the Churches upon which they were for the time resident dare Leters to other Churches signifying the Communion of those Churches one with another by the communion of all with the Apostles who taught and brought into force the termes and conditions upon which they were to communicate one with another have wee not the pattern of that intercourse and communion between several Churches by which common sense showeth all them that look into the records of the Church that the Unity and Communion of the whole was continued to after ages The words of Tertullian de praescript haeret cap. XX. must not be omitted here Itaque tot ac tantae Ecclesiae una est illa ab Apostolis prima ex qua omnes Sic omnes prima Apostolicae duâ— unà omnes probant veritatem Dum est illis communicatio pacis appellatio fraternitatis contesseratio hospitalitatis Quae jura non alia ratio regit quam ejusdem Sacramenti una traditio Therefore so many and so great Churches are all that one primitive Church from the Apostles out of which all come So all are the primitive and Apostolical while all agree in proving the truth While they have the communication of peace the title of brotherhood the common mark of hospitality Which rights nothing but the same tradition of the same mystery ruleth It is to be known that among the Greeks and Romans if a man had made acquaintance and friendship in a forrain City the fashion was to leave a mark for a pledge of it with one another which was called tessexa upon recognisance whereof hee that should come to the place where the other dwelt was not onely to be intertained by him whereupon these friends are called hospites signifying both hosts and guests but also assiisted in any businesse which hee might have in that place Such a kinde of right as this Tertullian saith there was between Christians and Christians between Churches and Churches Hee that produced the cognisance of the Church from whence hee came found not onely accesse to the communion of the Church to which hee came but assistance in his necessities and business in the name of a Christian
Be it therefore granted that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with such additions as the place where they stand requires signifie that Body which at the time when our Lord spoke was Gods ancient people This signification if I mistake not descending from the first bodying of them into a Commonwealth in the Wildernesse when they might and were all called and assembled together to take resolution in what concerned their posterity as Commonwealths are presumed to be everlasting Bodies as well as themselves When after the return from the Captivity of Babylon they became dispersed into Aegypt Syria Mesopotamia Asia and elswhere owning still or challenging the same Lawes by owning which they first became one Body such Bodies of them as lived in Alexandria Antiochia Ephesus Nearda Sora Pombeditha or other Cities and their respective territories are by the same reason to be called the Synagogues of Alexandria Ephesus and so forth Being by that name sufficiently distinguished from the Gentile Inhabitants of the same Cities and Territories Neither is it pretended that there is any thing in the original force of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why they should not both signifie the same But suppose our Lord Christ declare an intent of instituting a New people upon condition of imbracing his Gospel and use the old word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie this New people as well hee may use it for the near correspondence between them necessary it is that his hearers understanding him understand by that terme something else than the Law had deâ—clared afore And very convenient it was afterwards that when there fell out not onely distinction but opposition between the two Bodies they should be divided by names as they were by affections As the one is signified in all Church Writers by the name of the Synagogue the other by the name of the Church to signifie the distance which ought not to be between them but is For though nothing is more odious than to quarrel about words Yet as in divers things else the not appropriating the term of Synagogue to the Jewes as of Church to the Church which the Fathers throughly observe is an argument of not well distinguishing between the Law and the Gospel Which gives them a privilege in understanding the Scriptures above our times because as I said afore this is in my judgment the prime point of it notwithstanding all the advantages wee have above them for learning and a means to convey the same confusion to the minds of our hearers When therefore wee reade in the Apostles Writings of the Churches of Judaea and Samaria the Churches of Syria Asia Macedonia and Achaia when wee reade of the Church of Rome of Corinth Ephesus Philippi or Thessalonica And again in other places finde the name of the Church absolutely put without any addition to signifie the whole that containeth all the Churches named in other places so often do wee meet with so many demonstrations to common sense of several bodies signified by those that so speak as intended to constitute one whole Body of the Church After which nothing can be demanded but whether the intention of the Apostles prove them to be so onely in point of fact or in point of right which demand a Christian cannot make Our Lord in particular when hee answereth Mat. XVI 18. Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it cannot be understood to speak of building the Synagogue which Moses had built so long afore Here I would desire him that thinks it so strange that our Lord should understand by the Church something else than the Jewes signified by it to ask the Author of the Leviathan what reason hee had when hee acknowledged that the Church of Corinth Ephesus and Thessalonica is the Body of Christians living in those respective Cities And whether hee had reason to affirm that the Church so signified did do those acts of right which onely Bodies can do and which hee affirmeth the Church under the Apostles did do For if these reasons be not reconcileable it will be worth the considering what truth there is in that position which is maintained by two that cannot agree about the reasons upon which they maintaine it Neither let any difficulty be made from the difference that may arise who they be to whom our Lord conmands there to resort whom hee bids tell the Church one or more or all For when it is resolved that the Church is a Body or a Society it will be by the nature of the subject manifest that the right of acting in behalf of this Body must by the constitution thereof be reserved either to one or to a few or to the whole in some principal acts in others referring themselves to their Deputies as in popular Governments And whosoever they are that this right is reserved to hee that resorts to them is properly said to resort to the Church though our Lord declaring here the purpose of instituting a Church declare not whom hee will trust the power of acting for the Church with Before I go further I must inferre against the Leviathan that seeing the whole Church is signified by the name of the Church absolutely put without addition by the Apostles as the body which all particular Churches constitute therefore the Church is understood and intended by them as a Body capable of right and able to act though not by all that are of it yet by persons trusted for it A thing which hee that had remembred his Creed could not have doubted of For though the name of a Church may be said to rest in a number of men not united by any right into a visible Body yet one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church cannot consist of all persons maintaining the profession thereof in opposition to all Societies claiming that name but not holding the profession requisite but it must be distinguished by something which it acknowledgeth for Law to oblige it they do not Again if the Name of Church in the Apostles rest upon the bodies of Christians in the Cities of Rome Coriâ—th and Ephesus then can it not now as of divine right signifie the several States Kingdomes and Commonwealths wherein Christianity subsisteth Not onely because the bounds of Christendom are not either materially or formally the same with the bounds of those States under which it is now maintained But chiefly because the signification of that name in the Apostles once resting by divine right upon those Congregations can never be transferred upon those Commonwealths which subsiâ—t not by the same right but necessarily descendeth upon those Bodies which derive their succession from them by visible acts of humane right Against both I further inferre that the Church being signified as one by divine right in the Scriptures can never be understood now to consist in all those
during that time For when it appeared that the Apostles discerned the secrets of mens hearts and inflicted death on those that proceeded hypocritically in their Christianity it is no mervail that none of the rest durst joyne themselves to them as S. Lâ—ke informes us Acts V. 13. that is of those that were not perswaded sincerely to imbrace and untertake Christianity And Excommunication is onely for those who appear not to be sincerely Christians denying it either by expresse profession or by consequence of their actions inconsistent with it Simon Magus may well be reckoned the first Who being sentenced by S. Peter to have nor part nor lot in this Word that is in any thing which Christianity pretendeth to give because it appeared that hee had professed it out of hope to learn how to do such strange feats as might advance the credit and ends of his Magick is by him exhorted indeed to repentance but so that the Apostle engages not himself that is the Church to pray for him as not satisfied yet of the truth of his repentance and conversion to Christianity Acts VIII 18-24 Which is the very practice of the primitive Church as I have showed more at large in the Right of the Church pag. 17-27 towards Apostates Murtherers and Adulterers whom many times and in divers parts they restored not to the Communion of the Church As counting it very difficult for them that had failed so grosly to give competent assurance of sincere Christianity though exhorting them to repentance and giving them hope of forgivenesse from the goodnesse of God when they found not reason to ingage the Church by restoring them to become the warrant of it In consequence to this passage of S. Peter with Simon Magus and in consideration of those Texts of the New Testament which I have handled afore though I acknowledg a Power of excommunicating in the Church yet I do not imagine that any man could be absolutely excommunicated further than this severity of Discipline was in force which refused Penance to some of the most grievous sinnes For whosoever was or might be by the custome in force re-admitted upon Penance is rather excommunicate by his own act if hee refuse it than by any act of the Church that requires it But in as much as whosoever is refused communion till hee perform his Penance is absolutely refused not performing it there is never a Penitential Canon in the records of the Church never a passage mentioning Penance in any of those that writ before the Canons of the Church were in writing that deposes not for a Power of excommunicating in the Church As for those whose sinnes were allowed no hope to be re-admitted though they were absolutely shut out of the Church yet in as much as they were sent to God with hope of mercy they were saved if saved by that Key which by authority as well as knowledge let them into heaven by shutting them out of the Church But suppose this case may be understood otherwise for the possibility of the thing those that were subject to be excommunicated by the Synagogue are not therefore disabled to excommunicate one of themselvs any more than those who now depart from the Church of Rome are disabled to excommunicate one of their own though wee suppose them to passe for Jewes to the Romanes their Masters and to injoy thereby the exercise of their Christianity For so long as their Interest obliged not the Romanes to distinguish between carnal and spiritual Jewes it is no mervail if allowing the Jewes to governe themselves in the Land of Promise they allowed them also to persecute those whom they took for Apostates though their own subjects But when the persecution upon the death of Steven ceased whether by the conversion of Paul or by the death of Herod or whatsoever might move the Jewes to surcease not the Romanes to forbid it no mervail if the Romanes maintained that liberty which the Jewes tolerated that is persecuted not in those whom they held Apostates For if the Romanes themselves in after times did not alwaies persecute Christianity when they allowed it not is it any thing strange that the Jewes who held their own Religion from the meer grant of the Romanes should finde cause not to persecute their Apostates as they counted the Christians with that Power which they were allowed by the Romanes This being the case of the first Christians in Palestine it will be easie thereby to take measure how it must stand with them in the dispersions of the Jewes to whom they were to bring the Gospel in the first place For suppose it intertained with that repute among them which might preserve it from being persecuted the fore-said reason would oblige the Christians to communicate with the Jewes as well in the service of God in the Synagogue as in civil converse Though obliged moreover as they should be able to assemble themselves for the service of God as Christians So the Christians of Antiochia whom Paul and Barnabas assembled in the Church for a year together Acts XI 26. were not to forbear to serve God with the Jews in the Synagogue so long as they and Christianity could hold so much credit with them as to give hope of reducing them to it So when the same Paul and Barnabas created Presbyters for the Churches which they had founded Acts XIV 23. sure they intended them not for the Synagogue which was provided without them But to maintaine the communion of those Churches in the service of God as Christians As for the Romanes their Soveraignes by whose grant the Jewes injoyed all that use of their Lawes which they injoyed no man will mervail that they took no notice of the difference between Jewes and Christians so long as the Jewes complained not when wee see them refuse to make themselves executioners of their wrath upon the Christians when they did complain Wee must not forget Gallio Acts XVIII 12-17 when Paul was brought afore him taking the difference to be onely about names and terms of their own Law and refusing to be judge in it though leaving them to persecute the Christians as by their own Customs namely by scourging they might do Nor mervail that hee at that time should think no more of it when wee finde by Origen that Celsus the Epicurean writing against the Christians two hundred years after takes it for a suit about goats wooll which is nothing As for the Edict of Claudius that all Jewes should depart from Rome Acts XVIII 2. the case is plain that Aquila and Priscilla and all native Jewes though Christians were involved in it and bound to withdraw But whether or no it layed hold on those that had been converted to Christianity being Gentiles and had not the legal mark of Jewes which was Circumcision upon them by the text of S. Luke appears not No though wee suppose that which I have showed in the Primitive Government of Churches p. 53-57 to be
Christo Deo ad confederandam Disciplinam Homicidium Adulterium Fraudem Perfidiam caetera scelera prohibentes That hee had discovered nothing of their Sacraments or Mysteries besides obstinacy not to sacrifice but assemblies before day to sing praises to Christ and to God and to confederate their Discipline prohibiting Murther Adultery violation of Faith and other hainous deeds For the Eucharist is the Sacrament by which this discipline of Christianity is established But farr from being voluntary to those whom wee suppose Christians As for Origen in Celsum I. pag. 4. It is manifest that those private Contracts which Celsus calumniateth that the Christians made among themselves as against the State are acknowledged by him to have been those that were solemnized at their Feasts of Love That is at the Eucharist which from the beginning was a part of them whether then it were so or not And therefore the confederacy of Christians among themselves whom these Authors speak of was no otherwise voluntary than Christianity and therefore not voluntary supposing it The words of Origen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which I do not admit to be well corrected 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As being too obscure an expression for so clear a Writer as Origen to say that it was of force to do more mischief than the Bacchanalia which for that jealousie were put down as wee understand by Livy besides that hee must have said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not have used a general word for a particular And therefore I suppose hee alludes to the Verse of Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meaning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dissolving by private confederacy that publick League and Bond wherein the peace of every Commonwealth consisteth Thus then saith Origen And hee seeks to calumniate the Love so called of Christians towards one another as subsisting at the peril of the Publick and able to do the mischief of disloyalty If this will not serve the turn but it be demanded that the Communion of the Church was then frequented by voluntary agreement let mee demand whether the authority of the Apostles in the Church subsisted upon no other title For as to the credit of them in delivering the Gospel believing what God had given them to evidence it with it is not possible for any man that pretends to be a Christian to question it If then it be said that they who were tyed to believe them concerning the truth of the Gospel were not bound to receive them as chief Governors of the Church let mee demand how it came to passe that those were received all over the Church whom it was believed that they had granted their authority to or what part soever of it There being no obligation to tye them to receive such afore others and the variety of judgment which all men are subject to being such as never to agree in the same reason where nothing obliges So likewise whereas it is manifest that the Church then both had and must needs have many Rules the general importance whereof was received by all though with particular differences according to times and places I demand how any such could come in force when neither the Jewes deserved that love that all should imbrace them for their sake nor the judgments of all Christians so different in all things could concurr in any thing which their Christianity imported not Especially I demand this concerning the indowment of the Church because it is evident that as Constantine first made good by the Empire all the acts of them that had given whatsoever was ravished away by the persecution of Diocletian then gave much more of his own So all Kingdoms and Commonwealths after the example of that Empire have proceeded to indow it with the first-fruits of their goods in Houses and Glebes and Tithes and Oblations I demand then what imposture could have been then so powerfull as to seduce all the Christian world in a mater so nearly concerning their interest had they not stood convict by the constant practice of Christendom before Constantine that it was no imposture more than the Christianity brought in by the same Apostles Lastly whereas it is acknowledged what strange severity of discipline the Primitive Church was under by the Rules of Penance which then were in force though I have showed in another place that they were yet stricter under the Apostles and that the severity of them necessarily abated as the zele of Christianity under them did abate I demand what common sense can allow that all Christians should agree to make themselves fools by submitting themselves to such Rules which nothing but their own consent could oblige them to imbrace For neither can it be said that they had them from the Jews nor had they been extant among them that the Christians would have received them for their sake CHAP. XIX That Power which was in Churches under the Apostles can never be in any Christian Soveraign The difference between the Church and the Synagogue in that regard The interest of Secular Power in determining maters of Faith presupposeth the Society of the Church and the act of it No man can be bound to professe the contrary of that which hee believeth Every man is bound to professe that Christianity which hee believeth The Church is the chief Teacher of Christianity through Christendom as the Soveraign of Civil Peace thorough his Dominions Why the Church is to decide maters of Faith rather than the State neither being infallible I Shall not now need to say much to those terms which the Leviathan holds beside that which hath been already said to evidence the Society of the whole Church and the foundation thereof by the Scriptures Hee that acknowledges in the Church a Power to judge of true repentance and accordingly to binde and to loose and that upon the same score and therefore to the same effect as it baptizes together with the Power of appointing publick persons in the Church and the Church in which hee acknowledges the Power to be the Body of Christians in each City by what Title doth hee suppose the Church to hold this Power or this Right the evidence whereof hee fetches from the Scriptures whereby hee proveth it For those Scriptures do not import by what Act it is established but onely that it was in force or use at the doing of those things which they relate Can it be imagined to be any thing else than the act of the Apostles declaring the will of God in that behalf If then by divine right that is by Gods appointment and ordinance imported by those Scriptures the Church that is the Body of Christians in each City stands indowed with those rights how shall the Church that is the Soveraign Power of each State stand indowed with the same rights by the same Title that is by Gods appointment evidenced by the same Scriptures How shall Gods Law that inableth the Body of the Church to binde and to
is evident that hee allowes them that which the Apostles had forbidden because it is evident that this is one of those differences which Jews by the Law were bound to make If therefore there be this difference in the Scriptures it is manifest that the leter of them doth not determine what obliges So again the same Apostle 1 Cor. XI 1-16 disputeth at large that men ought not but women ought to cover their heads at praying or prophesying in the Church For the intent whereof though it hath been the subject of whole books in this age I conceive I need go no further than Tertullians book de Velandis Virginibus who living so much nearer the Apostles knew better the custoÌ„ms of their Churches than all the Criticks of this time Hee disputes the case in question then whether Virgins had a privilege not to vail their faces at Divine Service by arguing that they cannot be excepted from S. Pauls words and alleging the example of the Church of Corinth where at that very time the Virgins vailed their faces at Divine Service as other women did Which whether it tye the Church or not at this time it will scarce be granted by those who now practice it not And in another place 1 Tim. V. 3-6 hee showeth that there was then an Order of Widowes whose maintenance hee ordereth to come from the stock of the Church as likewise how they are to be qualified and how imployed Of which Order there is no where any step remaining in the Church at â—resent though nothing be more imperative than the Order concerning it So the precept of the Apostle serves not to oblige the Church at present though by Scripture And if I may use the argument ad hominem upon the supposition of those that I dispute with who intend not to take any thing for true which I prove not as debating the principles of Christian truth it is manifest that the Apostle James V. 14. appointeth that the sick be anointed with oil together with prayers as well for the recovery of their health as for the forgivenesse of their sins Which it is manifest that it cannot appear not to oblige the Church at this time by virtue of that Scripture which injoyneth it And therefore to say nothing at present whether it do indeed oblige the now Church or not those that believe it doth not oblige cannot be able to give a reason why it obligeth not by the Scripture alone And this is the argument whereby I prove that the interpretation of Scripture as concerning mater of Law to the Church or the means to be used in determining what obligeth what not cannot transgresse the tradition and practice of the Church Because that which is propounded in the Scriptures as meer mater of fact may oblige and that which is propounded as mater of precept creating right may not oblige the Scripture not determining whether it intend that obligation to be universal or not For having showed afore that the Church is a Society instituted by God to which these Rules are given as Laws to govern it in the exercise of those Offices wherein the Communion therâ—of consisteth all reasonable men must grant that as the intent and meaning of all Laws is to be gathered from the primitive and original practice of that Society for which they were made so is the reason of all Orders delivered to the Church by the Apostles and by consequence their intent how farr they were to oblige to be measured by the first and most ancient practice of the Church which first had them to use Whereunto let us adde these considerations That the Orders delivered the Church by the Apostles were of necessity in force before mention can be made of them in their writings That the writing of them is neither the reason why they oblige nor a thing thereunto requisite but meerly supervenient to the force of them And that there is sufficient evidence that those motives to believe which the Scripture recordeth but cannot evidence are neverthelesse true and that the truth of those motives cannot be evident but by the Society of the Church which the said Laws do maintain For upon these conâ—â—derations it will appear necessarily consequent that as there be Apostolical Traditions which the Scripture evidently witnesseth so evidence may be made of them without Scripture The Rule of S. Austine how to discern what Traditions do indeed come from the Apostles is well enough known to be this To wit that which is observed over all the Church though it cannot be discerned when where or by whom it came first in force that is in his times by the authority of what Synod it was settled that must be deemed and taken to come from the authority of the Apostles themselves I will not use the terms of Synod or Synods because I conceive the Church was from the beginning by virtue of the perpetual intelligence and correspondence settled and used between the parts of it a standing Synod even when there was no Assembly of persons authorized to consent in behalf of their respective Churches Such things as became requisite to be determined in any Church being thereby so communicated to the rest as the order taken in one either to be accepted by them or redressed Neither will I say that the Rule is so effectual as it is true For I cannot warrant how general the practice of every thing that may come in question can appear to have been over the whole Church nor whether it may appear to have begun from some act of the Church to be designed by some place or persons or not which in S. Austines time I doubt not might be made to appear and being made to appear would maintain the Rule to be true Nor have I need of any such Rule as may serve to discern whatsoever may become questionable whether it come from the Apostles themselves or not It shall suffice mee here to presume thus much that no man can prescribe against any Rule of the Church that it comes not from the Apostles because it is not recorded in the holy Scriptures And therefore that nothing hindereth competent evidence to be made of the authority of the Apostles in some Orders of the Church of which there is no mention in the Scriptures Correspondently to that which was settled afore concerning the Rule of Faith that no man can prescribe against any thing questionable that it is no part of it because it is not evident in Scripture or because such arguments may be made against it out of the Scriptures which every one whose salvation it concerns is not able evidently to assoile And all this being determined I intend neverthelesse that it still shall remain questionable how farr these Orders of the Apostles oblige the Church Because I intend not to prescribe from all this that those Orders which shall appear to have been brought in by the Apostles may not become uselesse to the Church CHAP.
XXII The Authority of the Fathers is not grounded upon any presumption of their Learning or Holinesse How farr they challenge the credit of Historical truth The pre-eminenee of the Primitive The presumption that is grounded upon their ranks and qualities in the Church Of Arnobius Lactantius Tertullian Origen Clemens and the approbation of posterity THese things being said wee have got ground for a resolution in the dispute concerning the authority of the Fathers in maters questionable concerning Christianity and the interpretation of the Scriptures For truly did the credit of those things which they affirm consist in the reputation of their holinesse or learning whether or no the premises be true the consequence would be lame Hee that could make a question of the godlinesse and of the Christianity of those persons to whom wee owe the maintenance and propagation of Christianity under God by preserving Christs flock from the contagion of Heresies by intertaining the unity of the Church and by laying down their lives for the truth must by consequence question though not that Christianity which hee hath sansied yet that which was delivered by the Apostles Which notwithstanding if the Holy Ghost that was in them to save them by saving the common Christianity hath not given the Church evidence that hee was given them to preserve them from error in understanding the Scriptures wee wrong them and the Holy Ghost in them if wee take the truth of their doctrine upon their credit For though the having of the Holy Ghost presupposeth the profession of Christianity as I have showed yet that importeth no evidence to warrant the truth of all that they might say in defense or interpretation of it And though their learning in that which is proper to Christians that is their skill in the Scriptures be such as these ages that boast so much of learning can never equal because they made it in a maner their whole businesse of study And though some of them as Clemens Tertullian Origen and S. Hiâ—rome that looked about them for further helps to the defense and interpretation of Christianity may well challenge the curiosity of these times for great knowledg Yet because mans wit is alwaies fruitfull in that which it is imployed about and may still be well imployed in clearing the true intent of Christianity and the Scriptures so long as there are contrary opinions and sects which cannot all be true I will not create any prejudice to the learning of this time upon that score which it is evident may and doth imploy more helps of learning than they ever did imploy towards the understanding of the Scriptures Two privileges there are belonging to the Fathers of the Church which no man that writes in these dayes can pretend to how godly how learned soever hee may be The first is that of their age and time creating an infallible trust in point of historical truth concerning the state of Christianity during those ages in which they lived or which they might know This is that which neither Pagans nor Jews nor Mahumetanes can refuse them any more than Christians can refuse to believe them in maters of fact which they relate not as things done in private which themselves with a few more may pretend to have had means to know but which were visible to the world at such time as they writ and wherein had they been otherwise they might have been reproved as imposing upon the world not the belief of that which doth not appear to be true but of that which doth appear to be untrue Neither do I demand that upon this score their credit be admitted any further than that which I have premised will inforce For if I have well concluded that the Church is a Society instituted by our Lord Christ and his Apostles in trust for the maintenance and propagation of Christianity contained in the holy Scriptures which hee deposited with it then is the sense of that time which is nearest the age of the Apostles a legal presumption of the truth of that which it was trusted with And as all Writers that relate things subject to the sense of all men as well as their own have the credit of historical truth and Church writers in maters of fact concerning the Church of their respective ages the state thereof being alwaies visible So those that write under the first ages of the Church though competent authors for the truth of nothing in Christianity for then why should not Christianity be believed upon their credit yet must be admitted as unquestionable witnesses of that Christianity which came hot and tender from the forge of our Lord and his Apostles Nor do I complain that any man refuses them upon this score But when I see how many pretending to search the Scriptures and the truth of things questioned in Christianity never make use of any information they might have from them to argue thereupon the true sense of the Scriptures who if they were to expound any Author of humane learning would count him a mad man that should neglect the records of those Authors that lived nearest the same time and perhaps do themselves imploy the writings of Jewes and Pagans in expounding the very Scriptures I cannot chuse but take it as a mark of prejudice against some truth that men care not to be informed of the primitive Christianity least consequences might be framed against some prejudices of their own which supposing onely the credit of historical truth might prove undeniable And here I must needs mervail at the Cardinal of Perrons demand that the trial of what is to be thought Catholick or universally received in the whole Church of God should proceed chiefly or at least necessarily upon the testimonies of those Writers which lived about the fourth century of years from Christ as that which flourished most for number and learning of Writers For seeing the authority of Church Writers is not grounded upon presumption of their learning And that the credit of historical truth cannot be denied even the single witnesse of those that writ when they were more scarce and lesse knowing at least in Secular studies But what is primitive what accessory is not to be discovered but by the state of those times which were before additions could be made hee that demands to be tryed by the times of three hundred years distance from the original wherein what change may have fallen out not presumption but historical truth must determine I say hee that demands this tryal demands not to be tryed Not that I would deny the Writers of that age and such as follow the credit which their time in the consideration now on foot allowes But that the resolution of what is original and primitive must not come from the testimony thereof but from the comparison of it with the testimony of those ages that went afore The second consideration in which the writings of the Fathers are valuable cometh from that which is now
world And truly no more than this can be thought requisite to the purpose of the whole Prophesie of incouraging them to continue constant in the profession of Christianity notwithstanding all persecutions as foreknowing the issue Now hee that continues constant in Christianity and never knew this Prophesie shall want nothing necessary to his salvation though hee want so nething very effectual to the having of that which is necessary To wit of perseverance in Christianity The intent of this Prophesie being to perswade them to it Which is enough to show any man a difference between the right understanding of this Prophesie and any part of the Rule of Faith As for the custome of giving the Eucharist to Infants so soon as they were baptized I answer that the evidence which I will give you that it was never used out of an opinion of necessity to Salvation as the Baptisme of Infants was seemeth to be an exception sufficient against the universal use of it as supposed to come from the Apostles Hee that will shew mee any Writer of the Church by whose testimony it may be presumed that the Church did not baptize Infants out of an opinion that they could not be saved without it I speak not now of the truth of this opinion but onely of the point of fact whatsoever may be argued from thence by virtue of the premises I will yield him that the same Writer did believe that the giving of the Eucharist to Infants upon their Baptisme was commanded by the Apostles I acknowledge it is the opinion of Tertullian for which there is no mark upon him as ever a whit the lesse Catholick that it was not expedient to baptize Infants because of the danger of years under discretion to seduce them from the fulfilling of their profession before they could throughly understand what it imported But I deny that this was because he or any body then believed that they could go out of the world unbaptised and yet be saved For when the vigilance of Parents and the diligence of all might assure them not to fail of Baptism in case of necessity it is no marvail if the reason alledged might move men to defer it to the years of manhood beleeving no lesse the necessity of it Now in the writings of Fulgentius a worthy African Prelate there is extant a little piece in answer to a Letter of Ferrandus a Deacon of his it seems about a certain Moore who being converted and having divers times made profession of Christianity as the custome of the Church then required after that being taken sick was baptized without being able by speaking to make the like profession as the rule required all at their baptism to make Upon other considerations the Letter desires resolution of the salvation of this Moore But upon this also because he survived not to receive the Eucharist which is clearly answered in the affirmative upon as good reasons of Scripture as a good Christian can desire Which is without exception to show that they had not that opinion of the necessity of the Eucharist as of Baptism sufficient to argue a severall beginning of observing them both And truly seeing it is granted on all hands that it is no inconvenience in Christianity that the Church or any part of it mistake the true meaning of some Scriptures the alledging of our Lords words Vnless yee eat the flesh of the Sonne of man and drink his blood yee have not life in you Joh. VI. 53. seems to argue that this came to be an order from some new act of the Church or part of it rather then that it was practised as coming from the Apostles Whereunto if we add that which here follows though it appear chiefly by S. Cyprian de lapsis to have been frequented in Africk though it were practised in the Western and Eastern Church yet perhaps it will appear to comeshort of S. Austins rule of discerning what comes from the Apostles as affording appearance that it was neither Original nor Catholick as for how prejudiciall this is not the place to determine it The words of Innocent I Pope out of which it is commonly taken for granted that this custome was in use at Rome are these Epist XCIII Apud Augustinum Illud verò quod eos vestra fraternitas asserit praedicare parvulos aeternae vitae praemiis etiam sine baptismatis gratiâ posse donari perfatuum est Nisi enim manducaverint carnem filii homins biberint sanguinem ejus non habebunt vitam in â—semetipsis But that which your brotherhood affirms that they publish that Infants may have the reward of eternal life given them even without the grace of baptism is very foolish For unlesse they eat the flesh of the Sonne of man and drink his blood they have not life in themselves Where it is plain that eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ which he makes necessary to salvation is that which consists in being baptized but of giving them the Eucharist not a word more then this The same fense concerning the eating of the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ in and by baptisme and that onely necessary to salvation S. Austine also most manifestly delivers in a passage alledged by Gratain de Consecrat dist 2 Cap. Quia passus est dominus out of a certain Homily de infantibus which Bede also hath in 1 ad Cor. X. Nulli est aliquatenus dubitandum unumquemque sidelium Corporis sanguinis Dominici tunc esse participem quando in baptismate membrum efficitur Christi nec alienari ab illius panis calicisque consortio etiamsi antequam panem illum comedat calicemque bibat de hoc seculo migraverit in unitate Corporis Christi constitutus No man is any way to doubt that every believer then becomes partaker of the body and blood of Christ when he is made a member of Christ by baptism Nor does he become a stranger to the communion of that bread and cup though before eat that bread and drink that cup he goes out of the world estated in the unity of Christs body And thus he expounds also the eating of Christs flesh and drinking his blood de peccatorum meritis remis III. 4. And so he is likewise there to be understood Cap. XX. And to this purpose all those passages of his are in force whereby he requireth nothing but Baptisme to the salvation of Infants And in this sense Hypognost ad Art V. Quomodo vitam regni coelorum promittitis parvulis non renatis ex aqnâ spiritu non cibatis carne atque non potatis sanguine Christi qui fusus est in remissionem peccatorum Ecce non baptizatus vitali etiam cibo poculoque privatus dividitur à regno coelornm ubi fons viventium permanet Christus How do ye Pelagians promise little ones not born again of water and the spirit noâ— fed with the flesh nor drenched with the blood of
knowledge as to think himselfe fit to recall the Lawes of his Country and give new Laws to the Church of God in it is not ashamed to admit that the reason why the Idolatries of Israelites were so odious to God was because he had not commanded them by the Scriptures As if God had never forbade them to worship Idols by the Scriptures For otherwise he could not have inferred by the words of the Prophet that a Christian ought to do nothing without a Text of Scripture to warrant it much lesse to admit any Law of the Church without such evidence Which had it been granted him with power to give the Church such Laws he could not have proceeded without demanding this exception that those which Cartwright should make without any such warrant might be counted godly and religious but these which the Church superstitious CHAP. XXVII Why it was death to transgress the determinations of the Jews Consistory and what power this argueth in the Church A difference between the authority of the Apostles and that of the Church The being of the Church to the worlds end with power of the Keyes makes it not infallible Obedience to Superiors and the Pillar of truth inferre it not IT will not be more difficult to show how the true sense of all those Scriptures which are alleadged towards the infallibility of the Church concurs to make good the terms upon which I have resolved the dispute in hand For having showed that the Law of Moses was given the Jews for the condition of holding the land of promise they ruling as well their civil communion as the service they tendred to God according to it I will demand but one thing more from the general experience of all civill people which is this That no form of Laws can be propounded to any community of men whatsoever so as to serve it without further determining and limiting of such things as time and the occurrences of time shall discover to be undetermined by that Law and therefore questionable So that Moses Law though given by God who foresaw whatsoever could become questionable concerning the mater of his Law yet because given for the civil Law of the people must needs be given liable to want such limitations as the occurrences of time should make requisite Neither can the truth hereof be better evidenced then by showing the course which God by the Law hath taken for the ending of all such disputes arising upon the Law I do therefore not onely grant but insist upon this that the power established by the law of Deut. XVII 8 -12 extendeth to all maner of debates arising upon occasion of any recept of Moses Law and to the determining of them by limiting those things which the leter of the Law had not expressed I do likewise grant that death is allotted for a penalty to whosoever should not conform to any such determination and the practice of the Law according to it And I do find so much reason for it that I do not understand how possibly that people should subsist and by consequence the Law which made them that people in practice of it without such a provision as this An opinion of the intent and meaning of God in the practice of any precept being sufficient to divide that people into parties not to be reconciled but by the voice of God either upon the occasion or by the Law warranting the sentence of those whom he authorizeth to declare what he requireth of his people Setting aside for the present to dispute whether it be the Priests alone or the Priests with the chiefe of the People in whom this Power is vested by the Law as for the present I dispute not who the persons are in whom the power of Church maters rests in behalf of the Church it is plainly by this Law a capitall crime to teach and do contrary to what the publick Power of that People should determine concerning the intent and practice of any Precept of that Law And therefore accordingly I grant insist that in the new Israel of God according to the Spirit which is the Church of Christ there is and ought to be a Power of putting out of the fellowship of the same any man that shall not stand to the resolution which legally is able to conclude it For without such a Power it cannot be imagined how the unity thereof should subsist seeing that there can be no community in which debates shall not arise about those things wherein they communicate I grant further and insist that he who is justly put out of the Church though meerly for violating the unity thereof by disobeying that just order which unites it is thereby condemned to the death of the world to come As he that teaches and does contrary to the sentence of that power that concludes the Synagogue is put out of this Notwithstanding as many other crimes besides this are capitall by the law of Moses so there be many other causes both of faith and of life by which a man forfeits his interest both in the world to come and in the communion of the Church But if any man argue that because a man forfeits the Communion of the Church by disobeying the determination thereof therefore all the determinations thereof are infallibly true and obliging by virtue of Gods Law I shall deny the consequence by virtue of that very Law of Deut. XVII 8 -12 upon which this Argument is grounded For whereas it makes disobedience a capital crime there are other Laws that suppose a breach of the Law even in following the determinations of that power which it establisheth At least if we admit the practice of those Jews that follow the Talmud in those precepts of Levit. VI. 13 -21 Numb XV. 21 -26 which indeed cannot reasonably be otherwise understood How should the Congregation offer sacrifices to expiate that ignorance wherein all were involved but as those that had power to make wrong determinations should expiate that ignorance which the Congregation by following had incursed Neither saith our Lord any lesse in the Gospel though in a mater of greater consequence when having condemned them that transgressed Gods commandment for the Tradition of their Predecessors Mat. XV. 5-10 Mar. VII 8-12 neverthelesse he commands them to observe and do all such things as the Scribes and Pharisees sitting in Moses Chair should command Mat. XXIII 2. to wit because the authority of Moses his Chair presupposed the Law of God but extended not to nullifie any part of it In like maner the authority of the Church presupposing the truth of Christianity the profession whereof makes Christians the Body whereof is the Church It is not possible that it should reach so farre as to warrant any man to believe that which those grounds upon which the truth of Christianity stands cannot evidence to be true I say not that the Church cannot determine what shall be taught and received in such disputes as
will divide the Church unlesse an end be put But I say that the Authority of the Church can be no reason obliging or warranting to believe that for truth which cannot be reasonably deduced from the motives of our common faith onely it shall be a reason obliging and warranting to keep the peace of the Church by not scandalizing such determinations thereof as are not destructive to the common faith Much more where the faith is not concerned onely the question is of determining the circumstances of those actions wherein the Communion of the Church is exercised which neither our Lord nor his Apostles have determined shall the disobeying of such determinations be the violating of that unity which all Christians professe that God hath ordained in his Church And now we have an easie account to give how the Prophets Haggai and Malachi send the Israelites to the Priest for resolution in those things which the practice of that people determined to belong to their office to resolve Because it cannot be doubted that their resolutions depended upon upon the acts of that authority which concluded that people by the Law aforesaid of Deut. XVII 8 -12 Which if not infallible and yet authorized by God to warrant the proceedings of his people it will be no marvail if those that act in dependance on them be authorized to warrant the people though further from being infallible To come now to those things that are alleadged to be said of the Apostles and of the Church having already limited the power of the Church not to extend to the faith of Christianity which it presupposeth it will be easie to distinguish it from the power of the Apostles Which though it presuppose the truth of Christianity preached by our Lord as that which they are imployed to introduce and establishâ— yet in order of nature and reason is before the very being of the Church as serving to evidence any truth of the Gospel to them that believe being convicted that they came from God to move them to believe For how can they stand obliged to believe the truth of our common Christianity to be that which God sent our Lord Christ to preach but by standing convict that the Apostles were sent by him to move them to accept of it and thereupon inabled with means to evidence this Commission and trust whereupon the world may safely repose themselves upon the credit of them whose act God owns by the witnesse he yields them for his own The true reason and ground upon which no act of theirs whither by word or writing is refusable by the Church Upon which the truth of things determined by their writings is no more determinable by the Church because the meaning of their words which is the truth sought for is in the words from the time they are said And is it then an unreasonable demand that their Charter He that heareth you heareth me extending to all that falls under their office should not be thought to descend upon the Church indefinitely but according to such limitations as the constitution thereof determineth That is to say not to the effect of creating faith but of preserving peace and unity in the Communion of the Church Not prejudicing neverthelesse that force of evidencing the truth of Christianity and the meaning of the Apostles writings which I have showed to be in the testimony of the Church not by any authority it hath from God but from that conviction which the testimony of such a body of men inferreth I shall not therefore deny that he who heareth or refuseth their successors heareth and refuseth God if that which they would be heard in be within the bounds of that power which God hath assigned them but is not the same that he assigned the Apostles But I shall utterly deny that it is by virtue of these words which were spoken by our Lord at such time as he had not declared whither they should have successors or not For there is very great appearance that they themselves after this expected to see the worlds end and the coming of Christ When the Apostles Mat. XXVI 3. inquire of our Lord When shall these things come to passe And what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the worlds end Though our Lord by this answer distinguisheth the time of the destruction of Jerusalem from the end of the world yet by the question there is no appearance that the Apostles did so distinguish before his answer And when his answer contains That this generation shall not be over till all these things come to passe and that not only after he had declared the destruction of Jerusalem but his coming and the end of the world Mat. XXIV 14 -23-29-34 it appeareth that those things which he declares shall forerun the worlds end were to begin before that generation were out when to end being not thought sit then to be said If this interpretation of Grotius which makes good the leter best suffer contradiction yet is it evident by S. Pauls Epistles 1 Cor. XV. 51 52. 2 Cor. V. 11-44 2 Thes IV. 15. 17. that he was not certificed but that the coming of Christ to judgement should be during his time In which S. Iohn by the Apocalypse was more fully informed If these things be true the obedience due to the Apostles successors cannot stand by virtue of this command given when it was not declared whither they were to have successors or not But by those Scriptures whereby it may appear so farre as in due place it shall appear whither or no and upon what terms the Apostles left their Authority with successors which when it appears then by consequence of reason it will be inferred from these words that who hears or refuses them hears or refuses God by whom the Apostles were inabled to leave such part of their power with successors Neither will it be strange that I allow not any Councill in which never so much of the authority of the present Church is united to say in the same sense and to the same effect as the Synode of the Apostles at Jerusalem It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us Though I allow the overt act of their assembling to be a legall presumption that their acts are the acts of the Holy Ghost so farre as they appear not to transgresse those bounds upon which the assistance of the Holy Ghost is promised the Church For as for the Apostles I have showed before that they had the Holy Ghost given them not onely to preserve them in the truth of the common profession of Christians but to reveal unto them the true sense of the old Scriptures according to the Gospell which they preached though that grace was common to many more besides the Apostles not to all Christians upon which depended the resolution of the point then in debate Besides I do not intend to depart from that observation which I have made in another place that we find
every Instrument of a contract contain every thing that is in force by the said contract Surely it is a thing so difficult to contain in writing every thing that a contract intends that many times if witnesses were not alive other whiles if general Lawes did not determine the intent of words in fine if there were nothing to help the tenor of such Instruments things contracted would hardly sort to effect Consider now what is alleged on the other side how resolutely how generally the Tradition both of the Rule of Faith and of Lawes to the Church is acknowledged even by those witnesses whose sayings are alleged to argue the sufficience perfection and evidence of the Scriptures Is it civil is it reasonable to say that the Writers of the Christian Church make it their businesse to contradict themselves which no Scholar will admit either Infidels Pagans Jewes Mahumetans or Hereticks to do Is it not easie to save them from contradicting themselves by saying that Tradition of Faith containeth nothing that is not in the Scriptures but limits the meaning of that which they contain Tradition of Lawes may contain that which is not in the Scriptures for the species of fact but is derived from the Scripture for the authority from whence it proceeds Or is it possible by any other means reasonably to save them from contradicting themselves These generals premised freely may wee make our approaches to the particulars and by considering the circumstance of the places where they lye make our selves consident to finde some limitation restraining the generality of their words to make them agree as well with my position as with themselves For example Epiphanius Haer. LXXVI Irenaeus II. 46. III. 15. Athanasius Dispcum Ario say all is clear in the Scriptures Meaning that the sense of the Church is clearly the sense of the Scriptures in the points questioned But not to them who exclude that Tradition which themselves include and presuppose Observe again that the perspicuity of the Scriptures is not limited to things necessary to salvation in all that hath been alleged but once in S. Austine Epist III. and observe withall that the knowledg of things necessary proceeds upon supposition of the Rule of Faith acknowledged and received from the Church in the Catechizing of those that were baptized Not determined by every ones sense of the Scriptures It is therefore easily granted that the Scriptures were made for all sorts of people that they might profit by them Alwaies provided that they bring with them the Faith of the Catholick Church for the Rule within the bounds whereof they may profit by reading them otherwise they may and they may not And therefore those sayings which were alleged to prove them obscure convincing that they are not clear to all understandings because they require study and search and digging do necessarily leave him that comes without his Rule not onely in doubt of finding the truth but in danger of taking error for it Upon the like supposition S. Austine affirms de Vtilitate credendi VI. that any man may finde enough in the Old Testament that seeks as he ought For to seek humbly and devoutely is the same thing for him that is no Christian For the Manichees to whom S. Austine recommends the Old Testament in this place were Christians no further than the name as it is for him that is a Christian to seek like a Christian that is having before his eyes the Faith of the Church And this is that which S. Austine means that hee who is no Christian so seeking may finde enough to make him a Christian That is as much as hee is to expect from the Old Testament And this supposition is exprest by Origen contra Celsum VII when hee sayes that the unlearned may study the Scriptures with profit after their entrance made For this entrance is the Rule of Faith which they were taught when they were baptized And the Catechism of that time containing as well the motives as the mater of Faith appears to the unlearned the way into the deep that is the mystical sense of the Scripture Upon the same terms may wee proceed to grant all that is alleged to show that which is not contained in the Scriptures not to be receivable in point of Christian truth For having showed that the Rule of Faith is wholly contained in the Scriptures And nothing contained in the records of Church Writers to be unquestionable but the Rule and Tradition of Faith Whatsoever further intelligence and information can be pretended either tending to establish the same or by consequence of reason to flow from it if it cannot be pretended to come from Tradition because there is no Tradition of the Church concerning that wherein the Church agrees not either it must come from the Scripture or by the like revelation as the Scriptures which no Church Writer pretends to have For as for that which by consequence of reason is derived from those things which the Scripture expresseth Seeing the words of the Scripture is not the word of God but the sense and meaning of them it were a thing very impertinent to question whether or no that be contained in the Scripture which the true sense of the Scripture by due consequence of argument imports But if the question be of Lawes delivered the Church by the Apostles having showed that there may sufficient evidence be made of such though not recorded in the Scriptures there can no presumption be made being not found in the Scriptures that therefore a Law was not first brought into the Church by the Apostles And yet it remains grounded upon the Scriptures in point of righâ— because the authority by which it was brought into the Church is either established or attested by the Scriptures Mater of fact being competently evidenced by other historical truth besides And upon these terms wee may proceed to acknowledg the goodness of an argument drawn negatively from the Scriptures that is to say inferring this is not in the Scriptures therefore not true Doth my position then oblige mee to deny Irenaeus affirming III. that the Apostles writ the same that they preached Or S. Austine in Psalmum XXI de Vnitate Ecclesiae cap. V. and Optatus V. tying the Donatists to be tried by the Scriptures Both parties pretending to be children of God are to be tryed by their Fathers Will that is by the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament But if there shall fall out any difference about the intent of their Fathers Will the meaning of the Old and New Testament shall I think that is said in vain which is alleged on the other side out of the same S. Austine contra Cresconium I. 33. that if a man would not erre in that point hee is to advise with the Church which the Scripture evidenceth For the question being about the rebaptizing of Hereticks that is about a Law of the Church if you will have S. Austine agree with S. Austine
destructive to their particular salvation within that compasse neither will their fall be imputable to the Church but to themselves if they do But neither shall this difficulty be so great an inconvenience in our common Christianity nor so insuperable as it seems to those that are loth to be too much troubled about the world to come For I never found that God pretendeth to give or that it is reason hee should give those means for attaining that truth by which wee must be saved which it should not lye within the malice of man to render difficult for them to compasse whom they concern I finde it abundantly enough for his unspeakable goodness and exactly agreeable with those means whereby hee convicteth the world of the truth of Christianity that hee give those whom it concerns such means to discern the truth of things in debate as being duly applyed are of themselves sufficient to create a resolution as certain as the weight of the mater in debate shall require And such I maintain the Scripture to be containing the sense of it within those bounds which the Rule of Faith and the Lawes given the Church by our Lord and his Apostles do limit For what is more obvious than to discern what the whole Body of the Church hath agreed in what not what is manifestly consequent to the same what not what is agreeable to the ground and end of those Lawes which the Church first received from our Lord and his Apostles what not Let prejudice cast what mists of difficulties it can before the light which God hath given his Church to discover the truth hee that stands out of their way shall discern much more art used to obscure than to discern it Neither is there any reason why it is so hard to make it discernable to all that are concerned but the unreasonable prejudices either of the force of humane authority in mater of Faith and the extent of Tradition beyond the Rule of Faith or that the consent of the whole Church may as well come from Antichrist as from the Apostles If the records of the Church were handled without these prejudices lesse learning than this age shows in other maters might serve to evidence the consent of â— Church in more controversies than wee have to those that would be content to rest in the Scripture expounded according to the same But if the Church that is those that uave right in behalf of the Church being perswaded of a sacrilegious privilege of Infallibility shall take upon them to determine truths in debate to limit Lawes to the Church without respect to this Rule which if they respect they manifestly renounce the privilege of their Infallibility I mervail not that God suffers his people to be tried with such difficulties whose sins I doubt deserve this tryal But then I say further that it is not the providence of God that is the means which hee hath provided to resolve men in debates of Christianity but it is the malice of man that makes that means uneffectual which God hath made sufficient I must now answer an envious objection that this resolution is not according to the positions of those that professe the Reformation with us To which I will speak as freely as to the rest having profess'd my self utterly assoiled of all faction and respect of mens persons to way against the means of finding the truth and for that reason devested even the Fathers of the Church of all authority which their merits from Christianity have purchased to hear what their testimonies argue in point of Historical truth I say then first that may saying no way prejudices the intent and interest of the Reformation whatsoever insufficience it may charge the expressions of Reformers with I know the worst that can be alleged in this point is that Luther in appealing from the Pope and Council called by him to a Council that should judg meerly by the Scriptures first framed this Controversie between the Scriptures and the Church which since hath been alwaies in debate so that hee which will not be tried by the Scriptures alone plainly seems to quit the party and give up the game Who has this imagination though never to apparent let mee desire him to go a little higher to the first commencing of the plea about Indulgences For there can be nothing more manifest than this That when those that undertook that cause against Luther found that the present practice of the Church could not be derived from any thing recorded in the Scripture they were forced to betake themselves to the authority of the Church not that which consisteth in testifying the faith once delivered but in creating that which never was of force untill the exercice of it Here let all the world judg for I am confident the case is so plain that all the world may judg in it whether Luther had any Interest to demand that the Scripture alone should be heard in opposition to the Tradition received from the beginning by the Church tending as I have said to nothing but to limit the meaning of the Scripture Or that his Interest required him to protest that the truth for which hee stood was not to be liable to the Sentence of the present Church And therefore when afterwards hee appealed to a Council which should pronounce by the Scriptures alone if this tend to exclude those means which are subordinate to the attaining of the meaning of the Scriptures I do utterly deny that it can be understood so to be meant by any man that would not defeat his own enterprize And therefore that it must be understood to exclude onely the authority of the present Church so farre as it proceeds not upon supposition of those grounds whereupon the Church is to pronounce For what hinders the sentence of the Church to be infallible not of it self alone but as it proceeds upon those means which duely applied produce a sentence that is infallible And truly were not his plea so to be understood all his Followers Melancthan Chemnitius and others who have written Volumes to show how their profession agrees with that of the Catholick Church should have taken pains to commit a very great inconsequence For as I have argued that those who maintain the Infallibility of the present Church do contradict themselves whensoever they have recourse either to the Scripture or to any Records of the Church to evidence the sense of the Scripture in that which otherwise they professe the authority of the Church alone infallibly to determine So those that will have the Scripture alone to determine all Controversies of Faith and yet take the pains to bring evidence of the meaning thereof from that which hath been received in the Church may very well be said to take pains to contradict themselves Some of our Scottish Presbyterians have observed that the Church of England was reformed by those that had more esteem of Melancthon than of Calvin and
that we have to come from God than we please For if it be fifteen or sixteen to one that the words which we have are not from God what respect can oblige us to do more And would Pagans and Idolaters think themselves lesse bound to us if we could perswade them that whatsoever is pretended in Scripture of a Covenant made by God with Abraham and his posterity to acknowledge and worship him alone for the true God may be denied so farre as by saying that no man can say we have any Record of it As for the Jews what a favour were it to them to quit them all that can be alleged against them out of Moses and the Prophets by saying That we cannot be assured that it is their writing For if it be said that whatsoever the Church hath interest to use against Atheists Pagans and Jews will be admitted upon Tradition having renounced Scripture can it be imagined that having granted that the whole narration upon which Christianity steppeth in may have been counterfeited in writing any man can undertake to show the truth of the same unquestionable by word of mouth Surely it may well astonish a man void of prejudice to see it so carefully alleged how many ambiguities and equivocations necessarily fall out in expressing mens mindes by writing never considering that the same may fall out in whatsoever is delivered by word of mouth so much more uncureably as a man writes upon more deliberation than hee speaks and posterity can affirm with more confidence that which is delivered by writing to have been said than that which is onely so reported For let common sense judg by what is usually done by men for the preserving of evidence concerning their estates whether it be more effectual to have it in writing or onely by word of mouth For whatsoever can be pretended to come by Tradition from the Apostles must first have been delivered in the Ebrew language at least that language which they spake and was so near the Ebrew of the Old Testament that in the New Testament it is called by that name Thence being turned into Greek or Latine it must have come afterwards into the now vulgar languages of Christendom Neither can any man imagine how the profession of Christians should be conveyed by Tradition and not by word of mouth Where though they that heard the Apostles certainly understood their meaning which there can be no question of when the intent is familiarly to teach it yet the terms wherein it was delivered not remaining upon record as much difference may creep in as there may be difference in several mens apprehensions saving that which the communion of the Church determineth And will any common sense allow that the meaning thereof shall be more certain than the words are more certain than the meaning of written words which are certain though obscure and yet not without competent means to bring the intent of them to light But I must not preferr any thing of this nature before any thing wee have in the Scriptures so long as both sides acknowledg it I demand then whether the precept of the Law which injoyned the Israelites to teach it their children concerned the written Law or not The Prophet David Psalm LXXVIII 1-8 shewes the practice of it and so do other passages of the Old Testament and surely there can be no doubt made that Moses himself did deliver and inculcate the sense of the precepts to his hearers But will any common sense allow that hee forgot his text when hee expounded the meaning of it Our Lord commands the Jews to search the Scriptures hee remits Dives in the Parable to Moses and the Prophets S. Paul presses that all things that are written are written for our learning that wee through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope That all Scripture inspired from God is profitable and a great deal more to the same effect and shall wee open the mouth of Atheism with an answer that this concerns not us who no way stand convict that wee have the words of Moses and the Prophets of our Lord and his Apostles Let this therefore passe for a desperate attempt of making a breach for Atheism Heathenism Judaism to enter in provided that the Reformation should have nothing to say against the Church of Rome But let it be demanded whether any of those that writ for the Church against Heresies were masters of the common sense of men or not And let it be demanded when they alleged the Scriptures against them whether they thought the meaning of them determinable or not It is true Tertullian prescribed against Hereticks that the Church was not tied to dispute with them out of the Scriptures and certainly had just reason so to do Because though they admitted the Apostles to have Gods Spirit yet they admitted not that Spirit to have declared to them the bottom of the truth as to themselves and therefore made use of the Scriptures as the Alcoran doth so farre onely as they agreed with the Traditions of their own Masters whom they supposed to have the falnesse of the truth Whereas it is manifest that Christianity admits no dispute from the Scriptures but from them that acknowledg no gifts of Gods Spirit that suppose not Christianity and the Scriptures Therefore those that disputed against the Heresies that grew up afterwards and acknowledged no revelation but that which had brought on Christianity what did they dispute upon For evidently they neither had nor used that prescription which Tertullian insisted upon against his Hereticks But as Tertullian might though not bound to so much use the Scriptures against such Hereticks as well as against Jews and Infidels did they who succeeded onely use it against succeeding Heresies that own no further revelation than that which Scripture came with not as necessity but to show the advantage they had for this they must do if nothing but probability is to be had from the Scriptures but the peremptory truth is without Scripture evident in the determination of the present Church which was first visible in ejecting Hereticks Certainly such a breach upon common sense cannot be admitted as for them that have evidence for the truth to compromise it to a dispute of probabilities Here therefore I do appeal to the common sense of all men that see how all the disputes that have been made from the beginning for the Faith against Heresies do consist of Scriptures drawn into consequence against them though in behalf of that which they professed to hold from the Apostles whether all this pains was taken to show what was probable or what was true upon the evidence of the true sense of Scripture falling within the compasse of that which they held from the Apostles The ground then of that account which pretends that wee have no Scripture is very frivolous For if common sense be valued by the experience of those that handle written Copies not by
Christianity as the corruption of it Surely he that considers not amiss will finde that it was a great ease to them that were convinced to acknowledg a God above them to imagine the name and honor of this God to rest in something of their own choice or devising which being set up by themselves reason would they should hope to please and have propitious by such obedience and service as they could allow Correspondently God having given the Jewes a Law of such precepts as might be outwardly performed without inward obedience whosoever believe the most difficult point of Gods service to be the submission of the heart will finde it a gain that hee can perswade himself of Gods peace without it whatsoever trouble whatsoever cost hee be at for that perswasion otherwise If then there be in mans nature a principle of Paganism and Judaism notwithstanding that men cannot be at quiet till by imbracing a religion they think they are at peace with God Is it a strange thing that they who have attained the truth of Christianity should entertain a perswasion of peace with God upoâ— terms really inconsequent to or inconsistent with the true intent of it Surely if wee reflect upon the motives of it and the motives of them it cannot seem strange I have said and it is manifest that the nature of Christianity though sufficient yet were purposely provided not to be constraining that the effect of them might be the trial of those dispositions that should be moved therewith And is it a mervail that means to perswade those that have received Christianity that things inconsistent with that which was first delivered are indeed consequent to the same should be left among those that professe that they ought to receive nothing but what was first delivered by our Lord and his Apostles I say nothing now of renouncing Christianity while men professe this for I confesse and insist that while men do believe that there is a society of men visible by the name of the Church it will not be possible for them to forget their whole Christianity or to imbrace the contrary of it But I say that notwithstanding the profession of receiving Christianity from our Lord and his Apostles the present Church may admit Lawes whether of belief or of Communion inconsistent with that which they received at first I allege further that so long as all parts of the Church held free intercourse and correspondence with one another it was a thing either difficult or altogether impossible to bring such things either into the perswasion or practice of all parts of it according to the difficulty of bringing so great a body to agree in any thing against which any part might protest with effect And this held not onely before the Church was ingraffed into the State of the Romano Empire but also so long after as this accessory help of Christianity did not obscure and in the end extinguish the original intercourse and correspondence of the Church For then it grew both possible and easie for them who had the Secular Power on their side to make that which the authority thereof was imployed to maintain to passe for Tradition in the Church Seeing it is manifest that in the ordinary language of Church Writers Tradition signifies no lesse that which the Church delivers to succeeding ages than that which it received from the Apostles Adde hereunto the opinion of the authority of the Church truly pretended originally within the true bounds but by neglecting the due bounds of the truth of Christianity which it supposeth infinitely extended to all States which Powermay have interest to introduce For if it be not impossible to perswade those who know they have received their Christianity upon motives provided by God to convince the judgments and consciences of all that see them to imbrace those things to which the witnesse of them may be applyed that they are to imbrace whatsoever either the expresse act or the silent practice of the Church inforces whether the motives of Faith be applicable to them or not Then is it not impossible to perswade them any thing which this Power shall think to be for their Interest to perswade For no mans Interest it can be to go about to perswade the world that expresse contradictories are both true at once And if it were not impossible that the imaginations of most of them that dispute Controversies for the Church of Rome should be so imbroyled with the equivocation of this word Church as not to distinguish the Infallible authority thereof as a multitude of men not to be deceived in testifying the truth from the authority of it as a Body constituted upon supposition of the same Shall it not be easie for those who can obtain a reputation of the World that their act is to oblige the whole Church to obtain of the same to make no difference between that which is presently decreed and that which was originally delivered by the Apostles The said difference remaining disputable not onely by any text of Scripture but by any record of historical truth testifying the contrary to have passed for truth in any other age or part of the Church Upon these premises I do appeal to the common sense of all men to judge whether the Church professing to hold nothing but by Tradition from the Apostles may not be induced to admit that as received from the Apostles which indeed never was delivered by the Apostles For when the Socinians pretend that the Faith of the Trinity of the Incarnation and Satisfaction of our Lord Christ not being delivered by the Apostles in their writings crept into the Church as soon as they were dead they still maintain that nothing is to be admitted but what comes from our Lord and his Apostles But upon their supposition that Antichrist came into the Church as soon as they were dead are obliged to renounce all that can be pretended to come by Tradition and in that very next age Which I yield and insist that whosoever shall consider the intercourse and correspondence visibly establisht by the Apostles between all parts of the Church shall easily perceive to be a contradiction to common sense But when so much difference is visible between the State of the Church in several ages and what change hath succeeded in things manifest to inferre what may have succeeded in things disputable Hee must have his minde well and thoroughly possessed with prejudice to the utter renouncing of common sense that can indure a demand so contrary to all appearance to be imposed upon his common sense The same I say to the other demands of certain and sensible distances of time which they that see the end of may be certainly assured what was received at the beginning of them and so by mean distances this age what was held by the Apostles Of the like time for blotting out the remembrance of the truth as for introducing falshood For it is evidently true that
the motives of Christianity could never have prevailed to introduce it into the belief and profession of all Christendom had they not been true But it followeth not therefore that Christianity beeing settled and a Power to conclude the Church lawfully vested in some members of it in behalf of the whole within due bounds The act of this Power transgressing the due bounds shall not be able to produce in so great a Body an opinion of the like obligation upon the expresse act of this Power as upon Tradition truly derived from the Apostles For the truth of Christianity professed called in question mens lives and fortunes which they were not therefore so ready to ingage upon an imposture But if when Soveraigns own the act of that Power which concludeth the Church hee that acknowledges it not calls in question his estate and reputation or whatsoever good of this world the protection of the Church ingageth Upon this account then it is possible that innovation should come into the Church without calling in question the common principle that nothing is to be admitted which comes not from the Apostles Nay without calling in question other points of Christianity so received Because nothing hinders things inconsistent with or at least impertinent to that which the Apostles have delivered to be received as consequent to that which indeed they have delivered though not as expresly contained in the same And because I would not speak without instance in a businesse so general I demand of those that hold this opinion whether they believe that the Greek and Latine Church at such time as the Schism fell out between them did both believe Tradition as well as Scripture And when it appears that there was no visible difference between them in that regard at that time I shall desire them to tell mee what they think of their demand that all Sectaries have alwayes left Tradition to betake themselves to Scripture alone For though I pretend not to suppose either the one party or the other guilty of Schism or Heresie in this place yet I pretend it visible to common sense that they who pretend to receive nothing but from the Apostles may think that which is not to be received from the Apostles unlesse contradictories may be both true at once Another instance I will give that learned Gentleman Tho. White who professeth to put Rushworths Dialogues into the world as his ward and an Orfane out of the book which hee hath published of the mean state of souls between death and the general Judgment to show that there is a Tradition of the Church that the greatest part of the souls of Christians that are not damned continue in a state of joy or grief proportionable to the affection they had to this world while they were of it to be purged thereof at the general Judgment but are not translated by any prayers of the Church to the kingdom of heaven from Purgatory pains For I demand of him that believes this whether it be received now or not how hee will defend his Ward that maintains the present Tradition to be alwaies the same For if it be said that it is not decreed by the Church though generally believed and practiced accordingly I will say that my businesse is done when the most votes by so many degrees are consenting to that which hee maintains is contrary to the Tradition of the Apostles his vote and perhaps two or three more in the communion of the Church of Rome not hindring that which is received in practice to be a more effectual Law in force than abundance of things inacted in writing that will never come to effect A third instance I will give in the difference between the Reformation and the Church of Rome concerning the Canon of Scripture Supposing that the late Scholastical History thereof hath made evidence that those books belonging to the Old Testament which the Council of Trent maketh Canonical Scripture were never received for such from the Apostles In as much as it is evident that there were in all ages of the Church that did not take them for Canonical Scripture For this being supposed what question can remain that this decree cannot be taken to proceed from Tradition of the Apostles But from a mistake in the Power of the Church as grounded upon a gift of infallibility tyed by God upon the visible act of persons inabled to decree in Council Otherwise men of reason would not have taken upon them to make that Canonical Scripture which there is evidence that they never received for Canonical Scripture And indeed I who have no more to demand here but that something may be thought by the Church to come from the Apostles which in truth it never received from the Apostles do seek no more by the premises but this That no general presumption from the present Church be receivable against evidence of historical truth in the records of by-past ages That men will not take that for the Tradition of the Catholick Church which some part of the Church they see hath not owned for such That they will abate of the generality of their position as the particulars out of which the induction must rise may require I take not upon mee to say here that any foundation of Faith necessary to the salvation of all hath been or can have been extinguished by Tradition of the present Church But I say here that something may be taken by the present Church to come from the Apostles which in truth comes not from the Apostles And so long as that is true I say that the choice of Religion cannot be prejudged by common sense without taking into consideration the weight of those truths which may appear to be held otherwise by the present Church then originally they have been received from the Apostles Now to that which is said that unlesse Christianity continue as it was delivered the possibilities provided by God to that end will be in vaine Though it be a dispute as unseasonable here as to little purpose yet because it requires no more than common sense to judge I say that the ends of Gods creatures and works are none of Gods ends My meaning is that it is one thing to say God would have this to be the end of his creature happinesse for example to be the end of man another thing to say that hee made man to bring him to happinesse The difference being the same in the works of his providence whether it be said that hee provided such means as of their nature tended to propagate the truth of Christianity preached by the Apostles to all posterity or that hee intended thereby to propagate the same In a word whether it be said to be Gods end or the end of his works And truly hee that sayes it was Gods end consequently sayes that God falls short of his end if it come not to passe But hee that will speak of God with reverence must not imagine
But he that thinketh that within the Church the power of the Keys goes no further then Preaching and clearing the scandall of notorious offences can give no reason why those that arâ— converted to believe Christianity by Preaching the Gospel should be bound by their own profession to oblige themselves to it and by that means to enâ—â—r the â—ociety of the Church For they are as well certified before baptism as after that without repentance and conversion from sinne there is no remission of sinne or hope of everlasting life which if a mâ—n be left to his own choice whether he will imbrace or not after that he is come into the Church why not afore Why came he into the Church Or why was there provision made that the Church should be a corporation the communion whereof all Christians should be be bound to hold â—nd imbrace Therefore our Lord when he declares the depositing of the same Keyes or power of loosing and binding with his Church which he he gave elsewhere to S. Peter and the rest of his Disciples Maâ— XVIII 15-20 commanding that he who will not hear the Church be to the Church as Publicâ—ns und Sinners were then to the Jews inferreth that Whatsoever they should bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever they should loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven And again that where two of you that is of the Church shall agree upon any thing to ask it it shall be done for you by my Eather in heaven Where reducing him that heareth not the Church into the State of a Publican or a sinner to the Jews being the binding of sinne as to the Church upon supposition that he is bound by it already as to God in order to the loosing of the same as to the Church upon supposition that it is first loosed as to God is something else besides preaching or clearing the scandal of notorious sinne And if our Lord by inferring immediately a generall promise of hearing the prayer of Christians intend to intimate that he would accept of the prayerâ— of the Church for the reconciling of those whose sinnes were bound as I observed afore then of necessity something more then showing the guilt of sinne by Preaching is referred to the Church in procuring the loosing of him that is bound from the debt of sinne not from the scandall of it And what is this but that which we see done by S. Paul and by the Church of Corinth in obedience to S. Pauls commands concerning him that had maried his Fatherâ— widow 1 Cor. V. 2 -2 Cor. II. 5-11 VII 8-11 For when S. Paul blames them that they did not all mourn that he who had done the act might be removed fâ—om among them Certainly he means that he who had done the act was to mourn so much more that he might be restored unto them again For so it came to passe and upon such terms he is restored If any man hath grieved it is not me that he hath grieved but in part that I may not charge you all Enough to such a one is this rebuke of many So that contrariwise ye ought rather to pardon and comfort such a one least he be swallowed up with abundance of sorrow The reason followes For I see that that leter of mine grievâ—d you though but for a time Now I am glad not that I grieved you but that you were grieved to repentance For ye were grieved according to God that ye might in nothing be punished as from us For the sorrow that is according to God worketh repentance to salvation not to be repentâ—th of But the sorrow of the world worketh death I demand whether the repentance which S. Pauls censure brought forth were the repentance of that Church or the repentance of both the person guilty and of the Church For without question if this were the crime and that he was born out in it by a faction in the Church the act whereof prevailing redounds to the account of the whole then S. Paul justly blames the Church because they had not cleared their hands of it by putting froâ— them the guilty person with demonstration of â—hat sorrow which might evidence their adherence to the Christianity which they had once professed And accordingly if the Church were grieved to repentance such as procureth salvation being according to God and that having so done they are injoyned to restore the guilty person Therefore that the guilty person had been reduced to so much more sorrow as the crime concerned him more and that this sorrow also was repentance to salvation according to God wrought by the censure inflicted upon him by S. Pauls Bpistle Whether then S. Paul require them to re-admit him least Satan should get advantage upon the Church by this breach whose conceits we are not ignorant of saith S. Paul and least the party should be swallowed up with excessive sorrow Or least the party by dispair of reconcilement with the Church should be reduced to renounce Christianity or a division be made in the Church from under the authority of S. Paul This he plainly declares that he pardons the man whom they pardon in the person of Christ that no such thing come to passe That is acting by Apostolical commission according to which that which any mans Apostle or Commissary did was as if himself did it So that either we suppose the repentance wrought by the censure to be sufficiently evidenced or that S. Pauls commission is not trustily discharged This is more then then preaching the Gospel or removing offence from before the Church It is removing the sinne by procuring repentance and thereupon assuring of pardon which seems not well assured when there is not competent means used much lesse the effect of the means visible in procuring repentance But if a Physitian onely prescribing and applying the means of curing a disease is said to cure it much more the Church not onely prescribing and applying the means of curing sinne by the exercise of repentance in prayer with fastinâ— and alms-deeds but also constraining the sick person effectually to use the cure prescribed by excluding him the communion of the Church so long as he refuses to use it Now when S. Paul commandeth to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the Spirâ—t may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. V. 5. proving the powing of Excommunication necessary to the constitution and being of the Church and that who so is excommunicate falls under the power of Satan as excluded Gods Church I alledged that those miraculous operations which God gave the Church undâ—r the Apoâ—tles to witnesse the truth of Christianity by the evidene of his presence in the same were seen upon those which were cast out of it And that in that regard this man is commanded to be delivered to Satan The destruction of the flesh then for which he is so delivered may signifie the
guilty of those excesses which they are charged with by Epiphanius S. Jerome and others Of these particulars you may see in S. Augustine de Haeresibus and Sirmondus his Praedestinatus both of them Haeresi XXVI and LXXXVI But all the while the subject of this separation is the discipline of Penance received by the whole Church as from the Apostles the limitation of the practice thereof being the ground upon which the difference is stated And for the ground of this ground Whether it could then be pretended that the Keyes of the Church could do no more then cure the scandall of notorious sinne on the one side Or whether it could then be pretended on the other side that the Keyes of the Church import any Power to pardon sinne immediately not supposing that disposition which qualifieth for pardon visible to the Church and procured by those actions which the authority of the Church injoyneth All this I am content to referre to that common sense which is capable to understand these particulars I shall not need to say much of the Novatians at Rome and elsewhere the Donatists in Africk of the Meletians in Aegypt having said this of the Montanists all of them if we regard the subject of the separations which they made in severall parts of the Church being nothing else but branches of the same sect and forsaking the unity of the Church for their part of that cause which ingaged Montanus The Novatians because they would not indure that those who fell away from the Faith in the persecution of Decius should be readmitted to the communion of the Church upon demonstration of repentance The Meletians for the same cause in Aegypt under the persecution of Diocletiane The Donatists upon some appertenâ—nce of the same cause Onely they serve to evidence the discipline of Penance to have been as universall as the Church of Christ when no part of it is found free from debates about the terms liâ—iting the exercise of it They serve also to evidence the ground and the pretenâ—e of the Power of the Keyes in the discipline of Penance by the same reason which I alledged afore After these times when the customes of the Church which from the beginning was governed by un-written Law delivered by word of mouth of the Apostles but limited more and more by the Governours of several Churches began to be both reduced into writing and also more expresly determined by the Canons of severall Councils greater and lesse it were too vain to prove that by dicourse which of it selfe is as evident as it is evident that there are such Rules extant which in their time had the force of Law to those parts of the Church for which they were respectively made Onely I do observe the agreement that is found between the originall practice of the Church in this point and that order which I have showed you out of the Apostles writings evidencing that interpretation which I have given of them by that rule which common sense inforces that the meaning and intent of every Law is to be measured by the primitive practice of it For we see so much doubt made whether those three great crimes of Idolatry Murther and Adultery were to be reconciled by Penance that is by the visible and outward demonstration of inward repentance to the Church not onely by Montanus but partly by Novatianns that that great Church of Antiochia remained doubtfull a great while whether Cornelius or Novatians should be acknowledged the true Bishop of Rome We see the Eliberitane Canons which were unquestionably made divers years before the Council at Nicaea and therefore may be counted as ancient as any that the Church hath exclude some branches of those sinnes from reconciliation with the Church We see this vigor abated by the succeeding discipline of the Church It is indeed said in the Church of Rome at this time that the ground of the Heresie as without ground they call it of the Montanists and Novatians was this that acknowledging the Church to have power to forgive lesse sinnes they the Novatians denied it the Power to forgive Apostasy or Idolatry To which the Montanists added Murther and Adultery But I have showed in my Book of the Right of the Church p. 17-27 that within the Church also as well as among the Montanists and Novatians some of these sinnes were not admitted to communion no not at the point of death And that there never was any opinion in the ancient Church that the Church hath any Power to forgive sinne immediately but onely by the medicine of Penance which it injoyneth I referre my selfe to that which here followeth Now it is plain that neither those parts of the Church nor the Novatians did hold those sinnes desperate but exhorted them to Penance as their cure in Gods sight agreeing in not readmitting them whither for the maintenance of Discipline or for fear the Church warranting their pardon who might prove not qualified for it should become guilty of their sinnes according to S. Paul 1 Tim. V. 22. Lay hands suddenly on no man nor partake in other mens sinnes For S. John and the Apostle to the Hebrews had authorized the Church to make difficulty of it though S. Paul had readmitted a branch of one of them the incestuous person at Corinth whether for the unity of that Church then in danger to be divided upon that occasion or as reasonably satisfied of the truth of his repentance But when the zeal of Christianity decreased as the number of Christians increased within and persecution without withdrew so many that there was no means left to preserve the Body without abating this severity the number of Apostates in some persecutions being considerable to the number of Christians we need seek no other reason why the Montanists and Novatians should be Schismaticks not properly Hereticks then their separating from the Church rather then condescend to that which the Body of the Church found requisite to be granted Let us see what crimes they are which the Eliberitane Canons that is the Canons of the Council of Elvira in Spain exclude from the communion even in case of death As if a man at age after Baptism commit adultery in the Temple of an Idol cap. I. If an Idol Priest having been baptized shall sacrifice again II. If such a one after Penance shall have committed adultery III. If a Christian kill a man by Witchcraft wherein there is Idolatry VI. If a Christian commit adultery after Penance VII If a Woman leaving her Husband without cause mary another VIII If a Father or Mother sell a child into the Stews or a child it selfe XII If a professed Virgine shall live in uncleannesse XIII If a man marry his daughter to an Idol Priest XVII If a Clergy-man commit adultery XVIII If he who is admitted to communion upon adultery in danger of death shall commit adultery again XLVII If a Woman kill the childe which she hath conceived of adultery
S. Peter and Iohn were wonne to Christianity according to the division which S. Paul hath recorded unto us Gal. II. 9. 10. whereupon we see him exercise the the office of an Apostle to the Churches of the Jews dispersions by his Epistle Iames I. 1. But let us proceed S. Paul and Barnabas ordained their Presbyters Church by Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. XIV 23. And appointed Titus to constitute Presbyters in Creete City by City Tit. I. 5. Be it granted because Epiphanius hath said it and it is a thing in it self reasonable that in some places the number of believers was so small that there needed but a Bishop to govern and a Deacon or Deacons to attend upon the execution of his orders That there should be Churches constituted by the name of such Churches in such Provinces and no more people any where signified would make them Churches that might be not that were Tertullians saying Ubi tres Ecclesia licet laici Where there be three though of the Laity there is a Church is not meant of such Churches But that three Christians or two in our Saviours terms Mat. XVIII 19. that meet to serve God are a Church because so assembled being of the Church At least in mother Churches of mother Cities where the Apostles made their chiefe residence because the harvest was there greatest and likewise their Ministers that there should be no more Christians then one Bishop could govern and teach during the Apostles time seems to me to cary no appearance of truth And to imagine that those who were designed for Pastors of Churches in being were alwaies resident in the mother Church though occasions whereof there is no rule might and must cause their presence there many times the reason of their office admits not But if we admit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie more then one in a City and a Church it seems not to be refutable that they were appropriate to those Churches The name of Presbyters of such and such Churches bâ—ing relative to the people of their respective Churches Further S. Paul sâ—nding to Ephesus called to him the Elders of the Church whom by and by he saith The Holy Ghost had placed Bishops over his flock to feed the Church of God Act. XX. 17. 28. Here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by virtue of the article may referre us either to the whole Church or to that part of the Church which the speech most concerned or in fine to the very Church of Ephesus There is a conjecture that S. Paul makes them Bishops by saying that God had made them Bishops of his Church who were Presbyters when he sent for them But I allow not those of the Church of Rome that our Lord made the Bread and Wiâ—e of his last Supper his Body and Blood by saying This is my Body this is my Blood But by that which he did before he said it For the same reason therefore I cannot allow that S. Paul here makes them Bishops of Presbyters by saying God hath made you Bishops in his Church not declaring by any thing that he sayes or does any intent so to do thereby to be understood But I cannot but consider that Irâ—naeus III. 14. tells us that S. Paul at this time called together the Bishops and Presbyters Qui erant ab Epheso reliquis proximis civitatibus Which were of Ephesus and other the next Citâ—â—s and S. Jerome ad Evagr. that he called together omnes illos apud quâ—s praedicaverat All those wiâ—h whom he had preached Which if we grant the article of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will referrs us to that part of the Church that was concerned whereas the words as they lie as he sent to Ephesus and called the Elders of the Church referre us to the Church there mentioned of Ephesus When S. Paul addresses his Episâ—le to the Philippians together with the Bishops and Deacons Phil. I. 2. when in his instructions to Timothy he passes immediately from Bishops to Deacons 1 Tim. III. 1-8 It is said that the Bishops of the next Cities together with their Deacons were present or ordinarily resident on the Capital City according to that which I said even now of Ephesus And it may be said that they were Bishops and Deacons at large in respect to the Church at large not applyed to the functions either of Bishop or Priests in this or that Church And truly I do remember the words of Clemens ad Corinth speaking of the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Preaching therefore the Word by Cities and by Countries and Baptizing they made the first-fruits of them whom they had baptized Bishops and Deacons of those that should believe And that S. Paul addresses his Epistles to the Church that is at Corinth and to all that called on the name of the Lord in all Achaia 2 Cor. I. 1. So that they provided for the ordering of them that should become or were become Christians before they were yet cast into Churches And it is reasonable to think that those were ordained in the mother Cities and there stood upon their guard expecting opportunity of framing their flocks And that this was a cause why the titles of Bishops and Presbyters are promiscuously used and attributed But I cannot therefore yield that one Bishop with one or more Deacons could serve the Churches of Philippi Corinth or Ephesus Or that as yet no Governours were affected and applied to several Churches For when S. Paul directs Timothy to dispose of the stock of the Church for the Honour that is the maintenance of widows and Presbyters to receive accusations against Presbyters under two or three witnesses and to rebuke them that should offend before all 1 Tim. V. 2. 16-28 it seems not reasonable to imagine Timothy the Judge of the Biships of inferiour Churches as regularly every Bishop is of his own Presbyters that he should rebuke the Bishop of Forâ—iâ—e though inferiour Churches before the people of his Church of Ephesus that he should dispose of the stock of his Church at Ephesus upon Widows or Presbyters of other Churches then that at Ephesus But rather that the proceeding of Timothy is prescribed as a â—orm for the proceeding of others in their respective Churches Another opinion saith That the Deacons whom S. Paul puts next to Bishops are Presbyters called also Ministers of God and Christ as Timothy 1 Thes III. 2. S. Paul himself 2 Cor. II. 23. Ministers of the New Testament as S. Paul 2 Cor. III. 6. Ministers of the Gospel as S. Paul Ephe. III. 7. Ministers of Righteousness into whom the Ministers of Satan are transformed 2 Cor. XI 15. Ministers of the Church as S. Paul Col. I. 25. Observing that the vulgar Latine of S. Jerome translates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. I. 1. 1 Tim. III. 8. Diaconos elsewhere in thirty places Ministros and concluding that these Deacons are the same with Presbyters under the Apostles and the Bishops their
CHAP. IX The Keyes of the Church given to the Apostles and exercised by excommunication under the Apostles The ground thereof is that profession which all that are baptized are to make That Penance and abatâ—ment of Penance hath been in force ever since and under the Apostles In particular of excluding Hereticks CHAP. X. Evidence of the Apostles act from the effect of it in preserving the Vnity of the Church Of the businesse of Marcion and Montanus That about keeping Easter That of the Novatians of rebaptizing Hereticks of Paulus Samosatenus of Dionysius Alexandrinus and Arius Of communicatory leters and the intercourse of the Church under and after the Apostles CHAP. XI Upon what grounds the first book de Synedriis holds that the Church cannot excommunicate Before the law there was no such Power nor by it Christians went for Jewes under the Apostles His sense of some Scriptures What the Leviathan saith in generall concerning the Power of the Church Both suppose that Ecclesiasticall Power includeth Temporall which is not true Of the Oxford Doctors Paraenesis CHAP. XII That the Law expresly covenanted for the Land of Promise A great Objection against this from the Great precept of the Law The hope of the world to come under the Law and the obedience which it required was grounded upon reason from the true God the tradition of the Fathers and the Doctrine of the Prophets The Love of God above all by the Law extendeth no further than he precepts of the Law the lâ—ve of our Neighbor onely to Jews Of the Ceremonial Judicial and Moral Law CHAP. XIII That the Law tendereth no other promise but that of the Land of Canaan How the Resurrection is signified by the Prophets Expresse texts of the Apostles Their Arguments and the Arguments of our Lord do suppose the mystical sense of the Scriptures That this sense is to be made good throughout the Scripture wheresoever the ground of it takes place Christianity well grounded supposing this What parts of Scripture may be questionable whether they have a mysticall sense or not The sayings and doings of our Lord have it As also those passages of the Old Testament which are fulfilled by the same The sense of the Fathers CHAP. XIV The Leviathans opinion that Christ came to restore that Kingdome of God which the Jewes cast off when they rejected Sâ—muel It overthroweth the foundation of Christianity The true Government of Gods ancient people The name of the Church in the New Testament cannot signifie the Synagogue Nor any Christian State CHAP. XV. How the Power of the Church is founded upon the Law The Power of the Kingdome Priesthood Prophets and Rulers of that people all of divine right How farre these qualities and the powers of them are to continue in the Church The sense of the Fathers in this point That the acts of S. Paul and the rest of the Apostles were nâ—t of force by virtue of the Law What Ecclesiastical Power should have been among the Jewes in case they had received the Gospel and so the state had stood CHAP. XVI The Church founded upon the Power given the Apostles What is the subject mater of Church Lawes The Right of the Church to Tythes and Oblations is not grounded upon the Law though evidenced by it and by practice of the Patriarchs Evidence of the Apostles Order in the Scriptures The Church of Jerusalem held not community of Goods The original practice of the Church CHAP. XVII The Power of Excommunication in the Church is not founded in the Law What argument there is of it in the Old Testament The allegorical sense thereof is argumentative It was not necessary that the Christians should incurre persecution for using the Power of the Keyes and not by virtue of the Law CHAP. XVIII The difference between S. Pauls anathema and that of the Jews It is not necessary that the Christians anathema should signifie cursing That the incestuous person at Corinth was Excommunicated by S. Paul Jurisdiction of the Church Telling the Church binding and loosing holding him that is bound for a Heathen or a Publicanâ— signifie the same The coherence of our Lords discourse Of Excommunication and Indulgence by private persons in the Ancient Church That Excommunication and the Power of the Church could not come in force by the voluntary consent of the first Christians How it may be said to be voluntary Of the confederacy of the primitive Christians CHAP XIX That Power which was in Churches under the Apostles can never be in any Christian Soveraign The dâ—fference between the Church and the Synagogue in that regard The interest of Seculâ—r Power in determining maters of faith presuppâ—seâ—h the Socieâ—y of the Church and the act of it No man can be bound to profâ—sse tâ—e contrary of that which he believeth Every man is bound to professe thâ—t Christianity which hee believeth The Church is the chiefe Teacher of Christianity through Christendom as the Soveraign of Civil Peace thorough his Dominions Why the Church is to decide maters of Faith rather then the State neither being infallible 146 CHAP. XX. The rest of the Oxford Doctors pretense The Power of binding and loosing supposeth not onely the Preaching of the Gospel but the outward act of Faith Christians are not at liberty to cast themselves in what formes of Churches the Law of Nature alloweth They are Judges in chief for themselvss in mater of Religion supposing the Catholick Church not otherwise Secular Power cannâ—t punish for Relâ—gion but supposing the act of the Church nor do any act to inforce Religion unlâ—sse the Church determine the mater of it 151 CHAP. XXI How the Tradition of the Church limits the interpretation of Scriptures How the declaration of the Church becomes a reasonable marke of Heresie That which is not found in the Scriptures may have been delivered by the Apostles Some things delivered by the Apostles and recorded in the Scriptures may not oblige S. Austines Rule of Apostolical Traditions 159 CHAP. XXII The Authority of the Fathers is not grounded upon any presumption of their Learning or Holinesse How farr they challenge the credit of Historical truth The pre-eminence of the Primitive The presumption that is grounded upon their ranks and qualities in the Church Of Arnobius Lactantius Tertulliâ—n Origen Clemens and the approbation of Posterity 165 CHAP. XXIII Two iâ—stances against the premises besides the obâ—ection concerning the beginning of Antichrist under the Apostles The General answer to it The seven Trumpeâ—s in the Apocalypse fore-tell the destruction of the Jewes The seven Vials the plagues inflicted upon the Empire for the ten persecutions The correspondence of Daniels Prophesie inferreth the same Neither S. Pauls Prophesie nor S. Johns concerneth any Christian Neither the opinion of the Chiliasts nor the the giving of the Eucharist to Infants new Baptized Catholick 169 CHAP. XXIV Two sorts of means to resolve whatsoever is resolvable conceâ—rning the Scripture Vpon what terms the Church may or
disputed by degrees that they are not true There would be nothing in my way to hinder the resolution of a positive Rule to distinguish between true and false in all things concerning the Christian Faith Notwithstanding because by that which already wee have said and that which appears to all men in the Scriptures there is sufficient means to conclude so much as I have proposed and that the proof of it will be an advantage to that which shall follow I shall undertake it supposing no more than I have said I do remember the Argument made against Tradition by Marinaro the Carmelite at the Council of Trent Which as it was thought so considerable there that order was taken that hee should appeare no more in the Council so seemed to mee when I reade it not easie to answer Now upon further consideration I make it my ground to prove the conclusion which I have advanced Hee argued That it was not possible to give a reason why God should provide that some of those truths which are necessary to salvation should be recorded in Scripture others equally obliging not For if you interpose the terme clearly and argue That there is no reason why God should deliver some things clearly by writing others not the argument will be the same To mee it seems manifest that hee who once holds that all things necessary to the salvation of all are clearly contained in the Scriptures adding onely clearly to his terms to all understandings ties himself by giving the reason why they ought to be clear because necessary to maintain that all truths are delivered by Scripture in the same degree of clearnesse to all understandings as they are in degree of necessity to the salvation of all souls For that every cause every reason should inferre the consequence produce the effect answerable in degree to that degree which the reason or cause is supposed to hold is a thing that all reason inforces every understanding justifies But that all things are not clear by the Scriptures in the same degree as they are necessary to salvation is clear to all in point of fâ—ct Inasmuch as there are infinite truths which Christians diffâ—r not about in the Scriptures because they think not their salvation concerned in the mater of them those which are thought to concern it remaining in dispute because not so clear Neither is it for a Christian to prescribe a reason why it ought to be otherwise because that were to prescribe unto Almighty God a rule not depending upon his will declared otherwise This is the issue upon which I demonstrate my intent Neither Gods act in general of declâ—ring his will in writing not his particular acts of declaring his will in such several maters as the several writings of the Prophets and Apostles which make the Body of the Scriptures contain do any way import the declaring of an intent in God thereby to manifest all things necessary to the salvation of all clearly to all understandings therefore that any thing is necessary to salvation is no presumption that it is clearly declared in Scripture to all understandings Inasmuch as it is manifest that no man can give Law to God what hee ought to declare but all men may presume that and that onely to be declared which by dealing with mâ—n under such or such a profession hee hath of his free goodnesse tied himself to declare For it being in the free choice of God whether to declare any will concerning mans salvation or none and that choice being made it remaining yet in his choice whether hee would declare his will by writing or not as it was in his power for so many years before Moses to save men without Scripture it cannot be said that either before declaring an intent to save men hee was bound to declare all that was necessary unto it by writing or by declaring it And this I hold enough to demonstrate to all understandings that the declaring of an intent to deliver us by writing things concerning our salvation imports not in God an intent to declare thereby all things necessary to the salvation of all clearly to all understandings Which will yet be cleâ—rer by proving the other part of my proposition that by the intent of writing the several Books whereof the Scripture consists clearly declared God hath not clearly declared the intent so often said The proof of this by the particulars I hold the sufficientest satisfaction that can be tendred here where the pretense is to proceed onely upon that which all Christians receive The particulars consist in the writings of the Prophets the sayings and doings of our Lord recorded in the four Gospels and the writings of the Apostles For the Gospels pretending to contain the doings and sayings of our Lord but to be written by his disciples It followes by the nature of the busâ—nesse that they must contain some thing as from the person of the Writer and of his sense over and above what they pretend to record Which properly will belong to the writings of the Apostles though contained in the Gospels And thus farre to avoid cavil I have thought fit here to distinguish Now that all mater of salvation is not clearly contained in the writings of the Prophets that is in the Old Testament written by Moses and his Scholars the Prophets I prescribe upon that which all Christians suppose as the ground upon which Christianity is justified against Judaisme That the Old Testament delivereth but the figure and shadow of the New For unlesse a man will have the figure and shadow to be all one with the body and substance hee must confesse that the substance of Christianity which is shadowed in the Old Testament is not clearly declared by the same unless he will have to be shadowed and unshadowed that is clear to be all one Let mee demand if Christianity be clearly declared by the Law to be that profession which God would have all to be saved by that should be saved from the time of prescribing it what need the miracles of our Lord and his Apostles what need the Resurrection and so his Sufferings as to the account of evidencing the truth of his Doctrine For the Law being once received upon necessary reasons it is impossible to say why any new reasons should be requiâ—ite to inforce the truth or the obligation of the Gospel if it were clearly declared by it Again it is manifest that our Lord being risen again and giving the Holy Ghost unto his Disciples by breathing on them John XX. 22. gave them also a spiritual grace of understanding the Scriptures as you finde Luke XXIV 32 45. Where first the Disciples that went to Emmaus confesse with admiration Did not our hearts burn within us when hee talked with us on the way and opened us the Scriptures declaring unto them how hee was foretold in the Old Testament as you have it afore Then having perswaded them all that it was even hee
not to any part but to the whole Body of the Scriptures it would first have been said what Scripture speaking of the whole Body of the Scripture hath established this property or â—rivilege of it For my part upon the best consideration that I can take I am at a stand to finde any text of Scripture any letter or syllable of the whole Bible that sayes any thing at all good or bad of the whole Bible So farre is it from delivering this property or privilege of it So farre further from delivering it as the first truth in termes so clear and unquestionable as to make it a presumption to the deciding of all that is or may become questionable concerning the Scripture The words of S. Paul 2 Tim. III. 16 17. All Scripture inspired by God is also profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness That the man of God may be perfect Being fitted for every good work Cannot be said of the whole Body of Canonical Scripture being written before it was That is when evidently many parts of the New Testament were not written probably all and evidently concernes every part of Gods Word not the whole Body of the Scriptures Therefore with Origen I conceive they are meant of the Scriptures of the Old Testament To this effect That that instruction which is necessary to salvation being had by the Gospel which the Church teacheth those whom it maketh Christians the right understanding of the Old Testament according to the mystery of the Gospel is that which rendereth him whom God imployeth in the propagation of his Gospel and the edification of his Church able to convince those that withstand to edifie those that admit it Which if it be farre short of that which I deny the rest of those pitifull lame consequences which are usually made from the Scriptures to prove the same purpose will easily appeare to come short of it though I take not in hand to determine at present the full meaning of them but onely to show that they import not that all things necessary for the salvation of all Christians are clear to all Christians in the Scriptures The fashion is to allege Deut. IV. 2. XII 32. Yee shall take heed to do all the Word that I command you Yee shall adde nothing to it nor take any thing from it And You shall adde nothing to the Word that I command you nor take any thing from it That you may keep the commandement of the Lord your God which I command you And that it is threatned for a conclusion to the whole Scripture Apoc. XXI 18 19 If any man adde to the words of the Prophesie contained in this Book God shall lay upon him the plagues written in this Book God shall take away his share out of the book of Life and the holy City and the things that are written in this Book For is not all that is requisite sufficiently clear if nothing may be added or taken from the Scriptures Therefore is S. Paul also alleged pronouncing anathema if himself or an Angel from heaven or any man should take upon him to preach any other Gospel than that which they had already received Gal. I. 8 9. And that therefore are the Beraeans commended Acts XVII 11. that they did not admit even those things which S. Paul so great an Apostle preached to them without examining them by the Scriptures whether so as hee said or not To the same purpose John XX. 30 31. Many other miracles did Jesus which are not written in this book But these are written that yee may believe that Jesus is the Christ and that believing yee may have life through his Name Adde hereunto the Psalmists commendations of the Law XIX 7-31 as giving wisedom to the simple as inlightning the eyes and instructing the servants of God which how should it do if it be not first to be understood For the precept is a candle and the Law light saith Solomon Prov. VII 22. And Psalm CXIX 113. Thy word is a candle to my feet and a light to my paths Further the Scriptures tell us how they come to be obscure what makes them clear They shall be all taught by God saith the Prophet Isa LIV. 13. speaking of the times of the Gospel and the children of the Church And Jeremy XXXI 33 34. promiseth that God will put his New Covenant in the hearts of his children and write it in their entrailes so that they shall have no need to teach one another the knowledge of God because they should be all taught by God to know God And is not this that for which our Lord gives thanks to the Father Mat. XI 25. because having concealed the mystery of the Gospel from the wise and understanding hee had revealed it to babes and sucklings Which the Apostle expoundeth 1 John II. 20 21 27. You have an Vnctien from God and know all things I have not written to you because yee know not the truth but because yee know it and that no lye is of the truth And But as for you the Vnction which yee have received of him remaineth in you and yee need not that any man teach you But as that Vnction teacheth you of all things and is true and not false and as it hath taught you so shall you abide in it Whereupon afterwards IV. 1. Believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether of God or not To wit as those who were possessed of that by which they were to be tryed Therefore S. Paul 1 Thess V. 23. Try all things Hold that which is good To wit by that means which hee intimateth 1 Cor. II. 15. The spiritual man is judged by none but himself judgeth all things In fine I must not forget Cartwrights argument from the words of the Prophet Jeremy VII 31. XXXI 35. where hee reproveth the Jewes Idolatries by this argument that it never came into Gods minde to command them any such thing For if the grievousnesse even of their Idolatries consist in this that they were done without warrant of Gods word how can it be questionable that hee hath provided us instruction sufficient to clear us in all that wee are to do by the Scriptures But these Scriptures are as easily wiped away as they are alleged if wee go no further than to show that they inforce no such principle as is pretended for the ending of all Controversies that all things necessary to the salvation of all Christians are clear to all Christians in the Scriptures For what a pitifull inconsequence is it to argue that all things necessary to salvation are clear in the Scriptures because Moses forbideth to adde to or take from his Law For if the Gospel be not clearly contained in the Old Testament containing the Law and the Prophets and therefore much lesse in the Law alone then is it not lawfull to adde to or take from that Scripture in which all things necessary to salvation
thing which was deposited in trust with thee through the Holy Ghost that dwelleth in us II. 2. And those things which thou hast heard of mee under many witnesses deposite with trusty persons who may alsobe able to teach others Would you have any thing plainer than this to show that the Summe of Christianity was delivered for a Rule by the Apostles by which their Successors were to examine all Doctrines Therefore 1 Tim. II. 20. O Timothy keep that which is committed to thy trust avoiding profane novelties of termes and oppositions of knowledge falsly so called which some professing have failed of the Faith By the Rule of Faith which he had deposited in his trust he will have him exclude the pretenses of the Gnosticks which every man might see were inconsistent with it Whereupon S. John calls it the Unction 1 John II. 20-24 27. by which they knew all things To wit that belong to the common Faith of Christians And therefore the inconsistence of it with the pretenses of the Antichristian They continuing in that which they had heard from the beginning when they turned Christians And you saith the Apostle have an unction from the Holy One and know all things I write not to you because you know not the truth but because you know it and that no lye is of the Truth Therefore let that which you have heard from the beginning abide in you If that which you have heard from the beginning abide in you then shall you also abide in the Sonne and in the Father It is plaine enough why this truth which they have heard from the beginning of their Christianity is called the Unction because the anointing of the Holy Ghost the gift whereof as I have showed you presupposeth Christianity is granted upon consideration of being baptized into the profession of Christianity Wherefore it followeth in S. John As for you the Vnction which you have received of him abideth in you And yee need not that any man teach you But as the same Vnction teacheth you of all things and is true and no lye and as it hath taught you abide in it The Unction teacheth all things that a Christian is to avoid because it teacheth to avoid all that agreeth not with the truth which the same Unction had taught him afore When according to that which hath been said being moved by the Holy Ghost to become a Christian hee was taught that truth upon profession whereof hee received the gift of the Holy Ghost for an habitual indowment And the same is the Apostles meaning when hee saith again 1 John III. 9. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sinne for his seed abideth in him The seed of which a Christian is born is the Word of the Gospel which begetteth children to God when it prevaileth with sinners to become Christians This Word obliging Christians upon their salvation not to sinne abideth not in him that sinneth neither sinneth hee in whom it abideth So whether you call it Vnction or Seed In regard it is the Rule of our conversation as well as of our belief as hee that abideth in the truth must needs reject Heresies contrary to it so in whom the seed which hee is born of abideth hee cannot sinne And in his second Epistle 6 7 9. with S. Paul hee calls it the commandement which they had received from the same beginning to preserve them from the impostures of that time inticing to transgresse it In fine that this Tradition is the Law whereupon our Christianity standeth you may see by the Apostle 1 Pet. III. 20. when hee saith that Baptisme saveth us not the putting away the filth of the flesh but the examination of a good conscience to God That is to say the answer that is made out of a good conscience to the interrogatories that were even then propounded to them that were baptized by which answer they tied themselves to professe the Faith and to live according to it Which S. Paul therefore calls that good profession which Timothy had made before many witnesses 1 Tim. VI. 12 13 14. to wit when hee was baptized and therefore conjures him by the good profession which our Lord made before Pilate of his Kingdome for which hee suffered death to preserve it unspotted Which if it be so then must no Christian imagine that the receiving of this Tradition or Rule of Faith upon which men were admitted to Baptisme and made Christians consisted onely in professing to believe that which is necessary for the salvation of all Christians to be believed but also in undertaking to live as Christianity requireth Therefore S. Paul sometimes in his writings referres himself to the precepts not onely which hee had delivered them but also which they had received of him charging his flock not onely with their duty but also with their engagement 1 Thess IV. 1 2 11. 2 Thess III. 6. But besides the Rule of Faith there is another sort of Traditions concerning the outward order in the Church by which Unity is preserved in the communion of those Offices which God is to be served with by Christians which Christians come to be subject to by receiving their Baptisme from the Church and consequently undertaking to serve God with the Church For it is manifest that this communion cannot be maintained without certain Rules limiting the maner and circumstances of Gods service for time and place and the persons both which are admitted to communion with the Church and which are inabled to minister the Offices of the same Baptisme is the door to all Gods Ordinances that Christians are obliged to serve God with The praising of God the reading and hearing of the Scriptures and the expounding of them the common prayers of Christian Assemblies are all Offices which no Christian doubts that God is to be served with under the Gospel though there be no expresse precept of the New Testament what Offices the publick service of God is to consist of because before the Gospel they were alwaies in use among Gods people The Sacrament of the Eucharist being instituted by Christ to be frequented by the Church at their Assemblies for the service of God must be reckoned among the positive Laws of God to his Church obliging only because commanded Hee that supposeth the Church a Corporation founded by God to maintaine the communion of those that believe in these Offices must consequently maintain a Power of settling good order in the exercise of them as for all other circumstances so especially for the qualities of persons concurring to the celebrating of them Hee that shows by the Scripture that this order was provided for by the Apostles in the Churches of their founding shows that they intended the Church for a Body indowed with Power of limiting the like Rules for the future And this is to be showed by many passages of S. Pauls Epistles 1 Cor. XI 2 3-16 20-34 having commended them for observing his Traditions as hee had delivered
And yee shall be my Disciples And Luke XIV 26 27. Whoso cometh to 〈◊〉 and hatâ—th not father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters yea and himself cannot be my Disciple And whose taketh not up his Crosse and followeth â—ee cannot be my Disciple To the same purpose Mâ—â— X 38. XVI 24. Mark VIII 34. X. 21. Luke IX 23. And S. Paul plainly declareth the Galaâ—ians fallen from all benefit of the Gospel if to avoid the Crosse of Christ they should â—alk the profession of their Christianity to be circumcised Gâ—l V. 11. VI. 12 14. S. John charges the Churches of Pergamus and Thyatira Apoc. II. 14 15 20. to have some that hold the doctrine of Balaâ—m who taught Balak to lay a stumbling block before the children of Israel of things offered to Idols and Whâ—râ—dome which is the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes And to suffer the woman Jâ—zabel calling her self a Prophetesse to teach and lead the servants of God into the error of whoredome and eating things sacrificed to Idols S. Peter 1 Pet. II. 15. and S. Jude 11. charge the Gnosticks whom they write against in those places that they go the way of Balaams that brought the Israelites to joyn with Bâ—â—l Peâ—r taking the invitation of their mistresses to the sacrifices of their Idols Whom Ireneus Justin the Martyr Origen Clâ—mons Alexandriâ—us and Tertulliâ—â— witnesse to have made the outward act of Idolatry in eating things sacrificed to Idols an indifferent thing that they might avoid persecution by complying with the Gentiles in that as with the Jewes in being circumcised And now after sixteen hundred yeares Wee are told that all that ever suffered for Christianity since the Apostles who were to witnesse what they saw our Lord doe and heard him say were mutinous sooles in laying down their lives to testifie that which they were not obliged to witnesse or rather which they were obliged not to witnesse the secular power requiting them not to witnesse it Wee have found one that calls himself a Christian wiser than our Lord and his Apostles as they called themselves Gnosticks because they pretended to know more than the Apostles that can tell Christians a way to escape the Crosse of Christ by renouncing Christianity and not fail of the promises thereof by believing the truth of it But they were the Disciples of Simon Magus and not of Christ that did so nor did they expect salvation by the Christianity which they counterseited but by that secret knowledg which they pretended to have discovered beyond that which all Christians had learned from the Apostles Though they went for Christians among the Gentiles who knew not what Christians were so that the Name of God was blasphemed because of them as the Apostle saith 1 Pet. II. 2. because their monstrous abominations were thought to be the practices of Christians Whether any man besides before this new Dogmatist pretending to be a Christian professed a freedom to renounce Christ in any case I am yet to learn Sure I am the Jewes under Antiochus Epiphanes died freely rather than eat Swines flesh or give any occasion to think that they fell from their Law and from God that gave it as the Prophet Daniel and his Fellowes had left them example to do And therefore by the same means and upon the same grounds for which wee receive our Christianity it stands evidenced to us that wee are bound to profess it that is to say by the Scriptures and the consent of all Christians that receive the Scriptures As for Traditions regulating the order to be observed in the communion of the Church there is so little question to be made of the consent of all Church writers that it shall serve my turn to produce the noted words of Tâ—rtullian de Cor. cap. III. Plaâ—â— nâ—gabimus traditionem recipiendam si nulla example prejudicent aliarum observationum quas sine ullius Scripturae instrumento solius traditionis titulo exinde consuetudinis patrocinio vindicamus Denique ut à baptismate ingrediar Aquam aditnri ibidem sed prius in Ecclesiâ sub Antistitis manu contest amur nos renunciare Diabolo pompae angelis ejus dehinc ter niergitamur amplius aliquid respondentes quà m Domintes in Evangelio determinavit Indè suscepti lactis mellis concordiam praegustamus Exque eâ die lavacro quotidiano per totam hebdomadam abstinemus Eucharistiae sacramentum in tempore victlus omnibus mandatum à Domino etiam antelucanis coetibus nec de aliorum manu quà m praesidentium sumimus Oblationes pro defunctis pro natalitiis annuâ die facimus Die dominico jejunium nefas ducimus vel de geniculis adorare Eâdem immunitate à die Paschae ad Pentecosten usque gaudemus Calicis aut panis etiam nostri aliquid in terram decuti anxiè patimur Ad omnem progressum atque promotum ad omnem aditum exitum ad vestitum ad calceatum ad lavacra ad mensas ad lumina ad cubilia ad sedilia quaecunque nos conversatio exercet frontem crucis signaculo terimus Plainly wee must deny to receive this Tradition if there be no examples of other observations for a prejudice which without any instrument in writing the onely title of Tradition and plea of Custome from it maintaineth In fine to begin with baptisme Going into the water not onely there but somewhat afore in the Church under the hand of our President wee take witnesse that wee renounce the Devil his pomp and Angels Then wee are drenched thrice answering somewhat more than our Lord in the Gospel hath limited Being taken up from thence wee fore-taste a mixture of milk and honey And from that day wee forbear our daily bathing all the week The Sacrament of the Eucharist which our Lord commanded at the time of meat and all wee take also at our assemblies before day but at no mans hand but our Presidents Wee offer for those that dye and again upon the anniversary of their birth Wee count it unlawfull to fast or worship kneeling upon the Lords day The same privilege wee injoy from Easter to Whitsuntide Wee are troubled to have any thing even of our ordinary cup or bread scattered upon the earth At all going forth or advancing at all coming in and going out at putting on clothes or shooes at watching at lying or sitting down or to table at bringing in light whatsoever conversation wee exercise wee rub our foreheads with the sign of the Crosse I must here take notice of an exception to this authority of Tertullian that hee was a Montanist or inclining to the Montanists when hee writ it And marvail that prejudice in Religion should transport learned Christians so farre as to deny the records of the Church that credit which common sense allowes all records of historical truth and which all Learning allowes the writings of Mahumetans Jewes and Pagans And this consideration I interpose the
is Soveraign inact it By consequence must needs deny that any Act of the Apostles could be Law to the Church whose office was onely to publish the newes of the coming and rising again of Christ and to induce men to submit themselves to his kingdome of the world to come Much lesse can there be any Power to give Lawes to the Church but that which is in the Soveraigne of each State which therefore when it is Christian is called the Church of such a Kingdome Though hee acknowledge also that before the Empire was Christian the Body of Christians in every City is called in the Scriptures the Church of such or such a City pag. 275 But denying that there can be upon earth any such universal Church as all Christians are tied to obey because they are lyable to other Powers of this world according to the States of which they are pag. 248. and before pag. 206. As for the Power of bunding and loosing very properly hee understands it to be a consequence of the Apostles commission to baptize unto forgivenesse of sins But so that supposing they have nothing to do either to loose them that repent not or to binde them that do and that no mans repentance is visible but by our outward signes there must be some Power to judge of the truth of those fignes because they may be counterfeit And this Power as it is expresly given by our Lord to the Church Mat. XVIII 16. when hee saith Tell the Church So doth S. Paul 1 Cor. V. 11 12 and 3 4 5. acknowledge the power of casting out the incestuous persons and other finners to be in the Congregation reserving to himself onely the pronouncing of the sentence Supposing this Church to be now the Soveraign Power that representeth the people but when S. Paul writ the Body of Christians in such or such a City pag. 275. In like maner the appointing of Persons either to officiate the Service of God or to wait upon the necessities of the Church hee also gives unto the Church that is then to the respective Bodies of Christians but now to the Soveraign Power into which all Rights of the People resolve by the establishment of it But the consecrating of them by Imposition of hands as to the Apostles for their time so to the worlds end to their Successors For thus were Maâ—thias Paul and Barnabas made Apostles Act. I. 15 23. XIV 1 2 3. XIV 14. Thus the seven Deacons thus the Elders of Churches were constituted Acts VI. 3. XIV 23. the Congregation chusing the Apostles declaring the choice as in binding and loosing As for the maintenance of Persons thus appointed it is no marvail if hee make it meer almes and benevolence without any Law of God to make the purses of Christians lyable to it who acknowledgeth not Christianity to be any Law For how shall hee be bound to contribute towards the maintenance of such persons that is not bound to be a Christian But that Tithes under the Law were due onely by the Civil Power which God had upon the people having made God their Soveraign by their Covenant with him in which right Moses and Aaeron and the High Priests that succeeded him were but his Lieutenants so that when this Power was translated and settled upon their Kings it held meerly by their sufferance this is an imagination that no mans brain ever teemed with till now And truly in the point of giving Law to the Church by determining Controversies of Faith and by interpreting difficulties of Scripture call it what you please as also by deciding that which becomes questionable in any thing that concerns the community of Christians It had been a necessary consequence of this opinion that as hee owneth the Soveraign Powers right to decree so hee should assign the Persons thereby appointed for the Church a Right to declare publish or pronounce the same as in Excommunicating and Ordaining hee doth For which hee hath found no ground no pretense in the Scriptures Besides whereas by the Act of the Apostles laying a burden upon believers Acts XV. 28. and by the practice of their successors practising the holding of Councils which common sense would make ridiculous if they had no effect upon the Church hee is convinced to acknowledge that they were able to binde themselves though not the Church It will be impossible for him to render a reason either why this power should cease or how it should continue when the Soveraign Power becomes Christian and all right in the Church is resolved into it I must not leave this point before I have taken notice of one presumption wherein both these Authors seem to agree For the Leviathan in several places pag. 285 286 282 205 206 322. taketh for granted that there is no Law in the world but the Law of Nature and the Civil Lawes of Commonwealths And therefore that hee which makes Ecclesiastical Power not to depend upon the Civil must indow it both with right and means to constrain men to obey it and thereupon inferrs all the inconvenience which hee so much aggravates That then all Civil Power must of necessity be swallowed up and resolved into the Power of the Church in as much as all Christians even Soveraignes are members of it Which to avoid it is necessary to grant that the Church is nothing else but a Christian Commonwealth and the Clergy ministers of the Soveraign Power deriving all their authority from it pag. 209 249 296. In like maner the first book de Synedriis Ebraeorum in defining Excommunication pag. 105. takes it for granted that those who challenge the power of it in behalf of the Church would have the Civil estate and condition of him that is excommunicate in regard of his reputation of freedom changed and abated by it Which must needs inferre the Church to be indowed with such a power as is able by outward force to constrain obedience For otherwise the estate of no man that is protected in all right by the Civil Power could be changed or abated by it Accordingly in several places hee presumes that those who maintain the Power of the Church and the right of Excommunicating which is a prime part of it to stand by Gods Law are obliged by consequence to maintain the Power of the Church in maters of the world in Ordine ad spiritualia And hereupon follow the reasons whereby these Authors have disputed the one à priori that this constitution of the Church is destructive to the peace and safety of all States Kingdomes and Commonwealthes in as much as a Power not depending upon them may lawfully be used against them by giving the people a title of executing the commands of it by force The other à posteriori from the practice of all Christian States Kingdomes and Commonwealthes Who by limiting the exercise and effect of all kindes of acts which the Church hath done or pretended to inforce by Excommunication have
allegorizing the Old Testament is used by our Lord and his Apostles not onely in the Ceremonial Law but in all that properly belongeth to the Old Testament I do conclude not that the Scriptures have two senses but that the Scriptures of the Old Testament have an obvious sense that was understood or might be understood by Jewes and a retired sense which could not be understood but by those under the Old Testament that belonged to the New as S. Austine many times distinguishes And by thus limiting my position I avoid a great inconvenience which Origen and those that go the same way with him though to several purposes have incurred Hee in his Exposition upon S. John notes it for the fashion of the Valentinians and other Gnosticks to draw their strange fantasies from some mystical sense which they fasten upon the Scriptures though they be not able to prosecute and make good the same sense throughout the text and thred of that Scripture which they allege for it as wee understand by Irenaeus in the later end of the first Chapter of his first book To avoid this inconvenience both Origen and many after him have sought for a mystical sense of the Scripture many times where it is not to be found that is to say where the reason and ground of the difference between the Leter and the Spirit reackes not For the ground thereof is the purpose of sending our Lord Christ in due time and in the meane time the Prophets to prepare the way for the Covenant of the Gospel which hee came to proclaime But first the Chief of them Moses was to treat and strike a Covenant between God and his people whereby they should hold their freedome in the Land of Promise upon condition of serving him and governing their own civil conversation by such Lawes as hee should give It will therefore be necessary to grant that those Scriptures which proceed not upon supposition of such a purpose but of the accomplishment of it have but one sense To wit that which was figured by the Old Testament But this being excepted the rest of the Scriptures which suppose this purpose not yet declared must by the same necessity have this twofold sense according as the subject of several parts of it shall be capable of or require both Here those that know what an allegory is must distinguish the vulgar use of it even in the Scriptures themselves from that which standeth upon this ground which is particular to the Scriptures Wherein even men of learning sometimes lay stumbling blocks before themselves For as an allegory is nothing but an ornament of Language it is plain that even the literal sense of the prophesies of the Old Testament and other parts both of the Old and New is set forth by allegories The sense whereof hee that should take to be the allegorical sense of the Scriptures would deceive himself too much For the allegorical sense which wee speak of here is seen as well in things done as said in the Old Testament as not contained in the sayings there recorded immediately but by the meanes of things done under the Old Testament wherein that which is written is true indeed But so that the things which come to passe in the outward and temporal estate of Gods people are intended to figure that which comes to passe in their spiritual estate under the Gospel or in their everlasting estate of the world to come The ground whereof being the purpose of making way for the coming of Christ and the Gospel which hee was to preach as all Christians against the Jews are bound to maintain The New Testament being figured by the Old must needs be the intent and meaning of all that which figured it This wee shall finde by the writings of the Apostles and the arguments which upon supposition of this truth they draw against those who having received Christianiâ—y and upon that account admitting it for a principle did neverthelesse by acknowledging the obligation of the Law seek thâ—ir salvation by it Thus S. Paul 1 Cor. XV. 45. And so is it written the first Adam was made a living soul The last Adam a quickning spirit Meaning that his being made a quickning spirit is in correspondence to the Scripture that saith Adam became a living soul Gen. II. 7. whereby hee establisheth this way of allegory which wee treat upon correspondence between corporal and spiritual from the beginning of the Bible For upon this ground that which wee reade in Genesis of the dominion of Adam upon living creatures is by the Apostle transferred to the subjection of all things to Christ being exalted to the right hand of God Heb. II. 6. 1 Cor. XV. 27. Eph. I. 22. Neither doth the Apostles arguing the duties of Wives and Husbands upon that which Christ performed to his Church Eph. II. 31 32. stand upon any other ground but this So when S. Peter argues that Christians are saved by Baptism as Noe by the floud 1 Pet. III 20 21. hee appropriates eternal salvation to the New Testament by finding it figured in the temporal deliverances of the Fathers Whose Faith manifestly tending to the Land of Promise the Apostle by allegory shewes the secret of Christianity tending to eternal life in it Heb. XI 13-16 For Abraham and his Successors died saith hee without receiving the promises but seeing and saluting them afarre off and confessing themselves strangers and pilgrims in the land whereof they had received the promise Which they that professe declare they have a Countrey which they seek For if they had thought of that which they had forsook they had time enough to return But now they desire a better that is an heavenly Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God For prepared them a City Can this be understood without the correspondence between their inheritance of this world and that which was figured by it of the world to come So when S. Paul expounds those things which befell the children of Abraham and Isaac by the allegory of the Jewes and Christians Gal. IV. 22 Rom. IX 7-10 plainly hee maketh the promise of the life to come proper to the New Testament upon such termes as I have said And if this be the reason why and how those things that went before the Law shadowed and were to shadow the Gospel it could not but hold in the Covenant of the Law and the precepts of it This appears by the Apostles exhorting the converted Jewes to stick close to the Gospel from the Psal XCV 7 Heb. III. 12 where if the Israelites who having seen Gods works forty yeares in the Wildernesse tempting and provoking him entred not into his rest but left their carkasses in the Wildernesse Hee inferres thereupon Heb. IV. 1-11 that they are to beware least having received a promise of entring into Gods rest they also should come short by the example of the same disobedience Which all supposes this correspondence for the ground of such
easily finde that people were not governed from the beginning by written Lawes but reasonable and lawfull consent in some person or quality of persons whether of Gods designing or mans chusing to govern in chief was a first a Law sufficient to constitute any Commonwealth as being sufficient to produce all other Lawes which dissatisfaction should make requisite for determining cōmon differences either in writing or by silent custome Thus was the Commonwealth of Israel constituted under Moses so soon as that People had received God for their King and referred themselves to Moses for the man by whom they should understand his will and pleasure Neverthelesse because the wisedom of God easily foresaw how lightly those who presently received him for their King would be moved to fall away from him to other Gods that which was as easie for his wisedom to do hee gave them presently such Lawes in writing both for the Ceremonies wherewith hee would be worshipped as held the most particular difference from those which the Nations worshipped their Gods with and for their civil conversation as might best distinguish them from all other Nations that were fallen away to the worship of Idols And all this besides the secret intent of scretelling and figuring the Gospel in and by the same This was the intent of the Decalogue first then of those Lawes which Moses received in the Mount to be delivered to the people Exod. XXII XXIII XXIV and lastly of the ref which Moses received in the Tabernacle from Gods mouth speaking with him as God faith face to face When God the Father had sent our Lord Christ to publicsh his Gospel and to declare the intent of founding his Church upon it when our Lord Christ had declared his intent of leaving the world and the prosecution of his Gospel and gathering of his Church to his Apostles and Disciples then was the Society of the Church founded in as full force of authority as ever can have been in it since Though not yet actually a Church because the materials of it are not men but Christians that is such as by receiving Christianity should come into the communion of it Besides God intending one communion of all that should become Christians out of all Nations And therefore pretending to maintains the State of this World and all the Commonwealths in which the Church standeth on the same termes which it findeth dischargeth the Church of all that power to force men to obedience by harm of this world by which all States maintaine themselves Therefore the Church can pretend no more than to communicate in some certain particulars for which the Society thereof is erected and in the communion whereof it consisteth Suppose wee then the Law of Moses to be ceased as to the outward force of governing the People to whom once it was Law though not as to the inward intent of introducing the Gospel to which it was the Preface Suppose wee the Society of the Church to be ordained in the communion of those things which Christianity introduceth I say those Rules without which the Unity of the Church cannot be maintained whatfoever they be called have no lesse the force of Lawes than any that Secular States either inact or inforce Because as hee that once hath undertaken to take God for his God under a promise of being a free Israelite cannot so long as that prosession stands make question of undergoing the rest of Moses Laws howsoever troublesome they seem So hee that once hath imbraced the communion of the Church in hope of life everlasting is by the fame reason obliged to observe such Rules according to which the communion of the Church is in force and use But the communion of the Church not consisting in anything of this world onely in the Offices of Gods service for invisible communion in the faith and love of Christ and all for Christs take as Christianity requires is presupposed to the visible communion of the Church no reason can require that they should be many at least at the beginning Our Lord Christ having preached and declared unto his Disciples that Prosession of Christianity into which hee appointeth all Chrissians to be Baptized may well be said to have ordained the Sacrament of Baptisme for a Law to all Christians distinguishing the Ceremony by which the Prosession of Christianity is solemnized from the Prosession it self of Christianity which hee that comes to be baptized must have taken upon him for a Law afore As little question there can be that our Lord Christ at his last Supper instituted not his last Supper for what sense can there be in saying that our Lord at his last Supper instituted his last Supper but the Sacrament of his last Supper which is the Sacrament of the Eucharist for a perpetual Law to the Church Here then wee have for Lawes to the Church First the Rule of Faith containing the prosession upon supposition whereof the Corporation of the Church is founded Secondly the Sacraments of Baptisme and of the Eucharist Thirdly other offices of common Prayers and Praises of God together with the Hearing of his Word common to the Church with the Synagogue which God is to be served with And therefore thus farre I have proved that there is a Society of one Catholick Church founded by God upon the precept or the privilege of communicating in the service of God by there offices of Christianity equally charged upon all Christians And consisting in the obligation of maintaining unity in serving God by the said Offices Supposing then a visible authority settled in the persons of our Lords Apostles and Disciples in behalf of the community of Christians Supposing this community efected into a Society visible Body or Corporation of the Church whatsoever can become questionable not concerning mine and thine which Civil Government pretendeth to decide but concerning communion in those Offices which God is to be served with by Christians is virtually and potentially already decided by the right of doing such acts as being done oblige the Church for whom they are done Which therefore are the Laws of the Church Wee see that the intent and meaning of Christianity is many times quessionable in maters of that weight or taken to be of that weight that Christians are not to communicate with those who pretending to be Chistians do believe otherwise Here wee have none but the Apostles themselves to have recourse to None but they have convinced Christendom to believe that their word is Gods word For though Moses and the Prophets and our Lord Christ all spake by the same Spirit in as much as they all intended a secret which was not to be published till the Apostles preached the recourse wee have to them is with intent to argue and discover by their writings the truth of that which may become questionable in the preaching of the Apostles What then may appear to be deter-mined by the act of the Apostles as the writings of the
them obliged If there were no more in question but the uniting of seven persons into one of our Independent Congregations or as many more as may all hear any man preach at once I should grant that such Bodies might subsist for such a time as the cōmon batred of the Church restrains the peevishnesse of particular persons from breaking that Communion which no tye of conscience obliges them to maintain But if the experience of divers years hath not brought forth any union betwixt any two such Congregations in England so farr as I can learn what was it that united all Christians from East to West into that one Communion visibly distinguished from all Heresies and Schisms which till about the Council of Chalcedon remained inviolable supposing no obligation of our common Christianity delivered by the Apostles to maintain it Is it possible for any man to imagine that with one consent they would have cast themselves into such a form of observation and practice as all to acknowledge the direction of the same persons in several parts to acknowledge those Rules which Generally were the same though in maters of lesse moment differing in several parts to intertain or refuse communion with them that were intertained or refused by the Church where they dwelt for a common cause had there been nothing but their own fansy to tell them not onely what was requisite to intertain such communion but whether it were requisite to intertain such communion or not If such a thing should be said the processe of my discourse were never a whit the more satisfied unlesse some body could show mee how the truth of Christianity can be well grounded upon those motives the evidence whereof resolves into the consent of all Christians And yet that which all Christians have visibly made a Law to their conversation from the beginning to wit the communion of one Catholick Church not belong at all to the mater of our common Christianity And therefore this plea is no lesse ruinous to our common Christianity the ground whereof it undermineth than to common sense For that in such difference of judgments as mankinde is liable to the whole Church should be swayed to unanimity herein by the Prerogative as it were of the Synagogue uniting themselves by imbracing the Ordinances thereof the evident state of the times whereof wee speak will not admit to any pretense of probability The division between Jews and Christians being then advanced to such a hatred on the Jews part that it would have been a very implausible cause to say that Christians ought to follow the Jewes whose curses they heard every day whose persecutions they felt in the tortures which at their instance were inflicted by the Gentiles A thing so evident both by the Writings of the Apostles and the ancientest records of the Church that I will not wrong the Readers patience to prove it True it is that at times and in places great compliance was used by Christians to gain them who elsewhere were so ready to persecute their fellow Christians As at Jerusalem under and after S. James at Ephesus and in Asia under S. John there is great appearance to believe In the mean time hee that can make a question whether the separation between Jewes and Christians and the hatred ensuing upon it were formed under the Apostles must make a question of the truth of S. Pauls Epistles to the Galatians to the Colossians to the Philippians to Titus and especially that to the Hebrews Besides that during the time whereof Irenaeus speaks Christianity was extended so farr beyond Judaisme that a great part of the Church could not be acquainted with the conversation of the Jewes much lesse learn and imbrace their orders And therefore as I do admit and imbrace the diligence of those learned men who bestow their paines to show how the Rules and Customes of the Church are derived from those of the Synagogue So I prescribe one general prejudice concerning all orders that may appear to be so derived that they are all to the Church Traditions of the Apostles and by their act came in force in it And that upon the premises that neither they had any force from the Law of Moses not could be admitted by common consent of Christians after the separation was formed that is after the Apostles time And therefore by their authority were introduced into the Church Having excepted thus much it will notwithstanding be time to distinguish that the orders and customes and observations of the Church may be said to be voluntary as nothing is more voluntary than Christianity it self though there be nothing to which a man is so much obliged For though the will of God and our salvation and whatsoever God hath done to show that salvation depends upon Christianity oblige us to it yet they oblige us also to imbrace it voluntarily so that whatsoever should be done in respect of it without an inward inward inclination of the will would be abominable In which regard whatsoever our Christianity obliges us to is no lesse voluntary than it is And in this sense I grant that the confederation of common Discipline which prevailed in the primitive Church was by the free and voluntary consent of Christians who be freely and voluntary consenting to the profession of Christianity consented freely to maintain the Communion of the Church which they knew to belong to that profession as a part of it But then this consent which is voluntary in regard that the choice of Christianity is free becomes necessary upon the obligation of making good the Christianity which once wee have professed the Communion of the Church professed by all obliging every one for his part to maintain it So when Pliny reports to Trajan of the Christians Ep. X. Solitos Sacramento se obstringere ne Furta ne Latrocinia ne Adulteria committerent nè fidem fallerent ne depositum negarent That they were wont to tye themselves by a Sacrament to commit no Thefts Robberies or Adulteries not to fail of their faith or deny that which was deposited in their trust being demanded It is manifest that all this is the profession of all Christians and that the Sacrament of Baptisme is properly the Vow of observing it And though I dispute not here that the Eucharist is called a Sacrament and Sacramentum in Latine signifies an Oath yet in as much as it is the meaning of the Sacrament of Baptisme I conceive I understood not Pliny amisse when I conceived that hee speaks in this place of the Eucharist when hee reports that they were wont before day to sing Psalms in praise of Christ as God and to tye themselves to the particulars hee names by a Sacrament And the same Tertullian understood by Pliny when hee saith hee reports to Trajan Apolog. II. Praeter obstinationem non sacrificandi nihil aliud se de Sacramentis as Heraldus truly reads it eorum comperisse quà m coetus antelucanos ad canendum
loose to nominate and elect publick persons in the Church but requireth the Apostles and those that hold under them to pronounce the sentence and to impose hands inable the Soveraign Power to do the same and yet require those that claim from the Apostles to execute If Philosophers have the privilege to justifie such contradictions as these then may this opinion passe for a truth In the mean time to men of common reason how reasonable it will sound that the Apostles being imployed by God to order these things in the Church and that for the maintenance of Christianity received should tye themselves to execute those acts which the Body of Christians in each City should determine to be for the maintenance of that Christianity which they knew nothing what belonged to but what they had learned from them the Apostles I am well content to referr my self to judgment But alwayes there remains or may remain a difference between the Bodies of Christians in several Cities and the Soveraign Powers over them So that the rights of both cannot be derived from one and the same Title Sad experience shows that Churches may continue where the Soveraign Powers are not Christians as they subsisted before they were Shall these Soveraign Powers give sentence of binding and loosing and appoint persons to be ordained and those that claim under the Apostles be bound to execute Shall the Great Turk have Power to officiate and minister the Sacraments of divine service in the Church because whatsoever a man may do by his minister hee may do in his own person much more as this opinion pag. 297. 298 299. expresly disputes that the Soveraign may do and that imployment or more publick consequence is the onely reason why hee doth not It is said indeed pag. 299. that hee that had Power to Teach before hee was a Christian being Baptized retains the same Power to teach Christianity And so every Soveraign being the Chief Master to teach all his Subjects whatsoever the peace of his State requires by being Baptized hee gets no new right but is directed how to use that which wee had afore But if the premises be true the assumption is ridiculous A Doctor of the Synagogue duely qualified is not a Doctor of the Church because the Church stands not upon the same terms with the Synagogue Doctors and Disciples being relatives terms of a relation grounded upon the Society of the Church or Synagogue The Soveraign Power teaches by Lawes to keep the Publick peace though that it should do no more than teach were ridiculous The Church teaches the way to heaven and for that reason the bond of Publick peace not the mater of it And therefore as no man by being Baptized getteth the right of teaching by Civil Laws So hee that hath the right of teaching by Civil Laws by being baptized getteth no right to teach Christianity The Law of Moses was given to one people which had covenanted with God to be ruled by it and upon that condition to be maintained in the Land of Promise So the Covenant of the Law and the obligation of that people to it was presupposed before God had declared whom hee would make Soveraign of that people after Moses But in as much as the determination of all things that became questionable concerning the Law was to come from those Powers which were under the Soveraign it is manifest that the act of such Power secured the consciences of Inferiors For the promise of the Law being the temporal happinesse of the Land of Promise and the body of the people being by the Law to depend upon the determination of their Superiors they practising the Law according to such determination the promise thereof must needs remain indefeisible As for the inward obedience to Gods spiritual Law whereupon as I said they might and did ground a firm hope of everlasting life under the Law it concerned not the consciences of the people how the outward Laws were determined seeing howsoever they were determined this inward obedience to Gods spiritual Law received no hinderance Though the consciences of Superiors from whom those determinations proceeded were so much concerned in them that those who should violate that obedience due to the carnal commandement by determining it to an unjust intent could no wayes pretend any inward and spiritual obedience But Christianity covenanting for this inward and spiritual obedience and expressing everlasting life as the consideration of it and particular Churches being constituted upon these terms and constituting the whole Church which is nothing but the Communion of all Churches whatsoever rights are acknowledged to be in particular Churches which the precept of preaching to and the promise of calling the Gentiles shows might be under several Soveraignties being settled in them already by divine right can never accrue to a Soveraignty though constituted by right but such as God onely alloweth by commanding Government in general but appointeth not by revealing it self in particular And therefore necessarily tend to the constituting of the whole Church by the concurrence of all Churches though of several Soveraignties to the maintenance of that Christianity in which all had equal interest before any Soveraign was Christian And now I cannot mervail if hee that believes not the Scriptures to be Law to Christians otherwise than as they are injoyned by Christian Powers acknowledge no Power in the Apostles of obliging the Church or in any body else beside the Soveraign My mervail is that hee who had pretended all this should neverthelesse acknowledge a right in several Churches that is in the Bodies of Christians dwelling within several Cities the Power of Excommunications and Ordinations and that by the Scriptures that is by divine right For whatsoever act it was or whose act soever it was whereby those rights were settled upon those Churches will hee or will hee not was a Law to those that stood bound to acknowledg such right which was really nothing if no man were bound to acknowledg and to yield effect to it Neither is it mervail if hee acknowledg no Law for the indowment of the Church that acknowledgeth not the judgment of the Levitical Priesthood to have been a Law to the Jewes but by the will of the Soveraign under the Kings But those that acknowledg that indowment to be Gods act not to be voided so long as the Covenant was in force will have seen as good an argument for the like provision to be made for the Church as the correspondence between the Law and the Gospel will allow any point of Christianity from the old Scriptures And then as it hath appeared that several Churches are by Gods appointment several Bodies capable of indowment constituting one whole Church which is the Body of all Churches So by the same means it appears that what the Church is once indowed with is as much the Churches as any mans cloak is his own And as the giving of alms in general is not arbitrary
by making that profession which the Church requireth owneth the person of the Church for Corporations are persons in Law for the evidence which hee trusteth in the mater of his Salvation I shall not need to have recourse to the Article of our Creed to prove that hee owneth the unity of it and obligeth himself upon his Salvation to abide in the same Nor indeed have I any need here to repeat the processe by which I have demonstrated the corporation of the Church Here I inferre as clearly gained by it that the effect of binding or loosing men from sin is limited by God to a condition of acknowedging or not acknowledging the Church for two reasons and in two cases For hee that is admitted to Baptisme upon professing the Faith of the Church and undertaking to live as a Christian if hee transgresse this profession forfeits the communion of the Church which hee attained by making it And hee that acknowledgeth the unity of the Church which all that are baptized must needs acknowledge forfeits his share in it by doing that which dissolveth it though hee transgresse not the profession of his Christianity doing it Now it appeareth by S. Paul and our Lord that Christians under Infidels are forbidden to carry any of their sutes out of the Church and commanded to end them among themselves And shall hee not forfeit the benefit of his Christianity and become bound by the sin hee committeth in so doing that doth this I may therefore grant Erastus and this Doctor that Let him be to thee as a Heathen or Publicane signifies be it lawful for thee to implead him before Unbelievers But it must be as I said afore upon supposition that hee is first excommunicate and become no Christian to thee and therefore to be used as a Heathen or a Publicane As also I grant him that to be delivered to Satan signifies not to be excommunicate but supposes it For if S. Paul calling the miraculous graces of the Apostles time the manifestation of the Spirit do teach us that the world was thereby convicted That God of a truth was in his Church as hee saith again 1 Cor. XIV 24 25 then was it to the same purpose and effect that those who were shut out of the Church should become liable to the incursions of evil Spirits To wit To make the difference between the Land of Goshen and the rest of Egypt visible It was therefore necessary that the power of binding or loosing in the Apostles and Disciples of our Lord should be accompanied with the gift of the Holy Ghost which our Lord breathed upon them For by them the world was to be assured upon what termes they might be loosed from sinne and continue in the Unity of the Church which if they forsook they became bound again But there is not the same reason why the same should be thought requisite to the same power in their successors For those terms being once declared and settled hee that professeth and teacheth them as the Apostles have taught is a competent Minister to loose or to bind another not onely though hee have not that gift of the Holy Ghost that may make him appear to be appointed by God to that purpose but also though hee be bound himself because hee undergoes not that which hee professeth Now if the premises be true it is a mistake as grosse as pernicious to imagine that particular Christians by the light common to all Christians are Judges in all things concerning Christianity or the Scriptures For if the attaining of Christianity and Salvation by it require no more but to know the Rule of of Faith and the common precepts of Christian conversation together with the Offices wherewith God is to be served by his Church If the gift of the Holy Ghost be promised to those that are baptized upon undertaking this then is the understanding of the rest of the Scriptures no further required at their hands neither have they any warrant for that which they shall do upon any such presumption as this The Church that hath received of God the trust of maintaining unity in this service of God so as may best stand with the maintenance of that profession which it presupposeth hath by consequence an obligation upon them to stand to the resolution thereof saving that common Christianity which the constitution thereof presupposeth It is therefore utterly a most poisonous doctrine to be infused into the ears of Christian people that they are by their Christianity free to cast themselves into Churches as they may meet with those whom they best like to communicate with It is therefore a thing to stand astonished at that they who have hitherto declamed against any thing in Christianity the reason whereof is not to be derived from the Scripture not seeing in the Scripture any such thing as a Church that was not founded by the Apostles or by commission from the Apostles not in all Christianity any thing ever counted a Church that was not planted by mean authority derived thence to some Church should now think themselves at liberty to build Churches upon no other foundation than an arbitrary agreement of seven persons Suppose I say nothing as yet in what right and interest several Members or rather several ranks and qualities concurre to the resolution of the Church Suppose I grant the power may be so abused that several parts of the Church may stand obliged to provide for themselves without the whole which is al that the common profession of Reformation importeth Shall we not be throughly reformed till we renounce one Catholick Church as visibly a corporation as the Baptisme which we received upon acknowledging of it is visible If every Church be planted by the authority of the Apostles to that effect extant and alive in some Church then is not the communion thereof with all other Churches by the means of that which planted it communicating with all arbitrary but a necessary consequence of that obligation to the Unity of the whole which it gets by being a Church Nor is there any reason why the acts of the whole whether done by representatives in Synods or resolved at distance of time and place by intelligence and correspondence of the absent should any way depend upon the satisfaction of particular Christians how just or how requisite For neither doth their conformity to them in any reasonable construction import any ingagement of their conscience to the justice or necessity of them Unlesse it could be said that a man could not live in society without binding himself to answer for the acts of that society wherein hee liveth Which hee that saith will not find an independent congregation to continue in for four and twenty hours or to enter into onely for one For what obligation can all Christians have to answer for that which our Christianity upon profession whereof we are become Christians containeth not Indeed when the abuse is so visible that the unity of
meaning that the CXLIVM are seen standing with the Lamb upon mount Sion XIV 1. if they belong not to that people What is the meaning that afterwards XIV 19 20. when the Angel with the sickle had made the Vintage and cast it into the Wine-presse of Gods wrath this Wine-presse is trode without the City and the bloud over-flows to the space of XVI C furlongs But that the City of Jerusalem is meant and the Judgment executed in the destruction thereof expressed by the Wine-presse of Gods wrath which over-flowed all that compasse without the City If these things cannot be unlesse the sounding of the seven Trumpets Chap. VIII and IX be understood to proclaim the same vengeance Let mee ask what is the reason that having related what the founding of them produced hee addeth IX 20 21. The rest of men that were not slain with these Plagues neither repented of the works of their hands so as not to worship Devils and Idols of gold silver brasse stone and wood which can neither see nor hear nor go Nor of their murthers and witcheries and whoredoms and thefts For the Jews not being chargeable with Idolatry at that time nor the consequences thereof how should the rest be chargeable for not repenting of the same For to say that covetousnesse of silver gold and goods of brasse stone or wood is the Idolatry and these the Idols here meant is to strain the Scripture to an improper sense whereof there is no argument in the words But if wee say that the rest of men that were not slain with the Jews are the Gentiles to whom God by destroying Jerusalem sent a warning to turn them from their Idols to Christianity for persecuting whereof they saw the Jews destroyed wee say that the main scope of the whole Prophesie is touched in these words And from hence wee shall be able to give a reason why having propounded in the twelfth and thirrteenth Chapters the subject of that vengeance which hee seeth God to take by the Vision of the seven Viols in the fifteenth and sixteenth Chapters hee returneth to remembrance of those CXLIV M that were marked to be saved and of the destruction of the rest of the Jews XIV 1-5 14-20 of which I shall not easily believe that a reasonable account can be given otherwise For having fore-told the persecution of Christians in those two Chapters the twelfth and thirteenth what could be more pertinent than that hee should return to the remembrance of the saving of those that were marked and the destruction of Jerusalem as a patern of comfort to Christians to incourage them to indure and of terror to the Gentiles to refrain that fury And therefore as before IX 20. this intent had been signified so it is most expresly repeated by the proclamation of three Angels one after another XIV 6 8 9-11 warning all to worship God alone not the Beast of Chapter XIII and fore-warning of the fall of Babylon for her Idolatries Now I am to remember you that after the sealing of the CXLIVM Jewish Christians there appears before the Throne of God so great a multitude as no man could number of all Nations Tribes people and Languages cloathed in white Robes and singing praises to God Which afterwards are expounded by the Angel to be those that come out of the great tribulation and had washed their Robes white in the bloud of the Lamb VII 9. 14. that is to say Martyrs And further that these are they who are seen at opening the fifth Seal standing beneath the Altar and calling for vengeance upon their bloud VI. 9 10. Which vengeance begins to be executed by the seven Trumpets And the Angel that throws down those coals of vengeance upon the earth from the Altar above is said to put incense to the prayers of the Saints VIII 3 4 5. So that the same Censer sends up perfume that is those prayers to the throne and vengeance down upon earth Seeing then that it is manifest to all that at opening the first Seal our Lord goes forth upon a white horse to make warr VI. 2. Who after victory and revenge upon his enemies appears in the same likenesse again as triumphing over his enemies XIX 11-16 it will be requisite to understand the Vision of opening the six Seals to be a general proposition of the whole Prophesie signifying the publishing of the Gospel and the prevailing thereof through the vengeance which God would execute upon the persecutors of it Jews first and afterwards Gentiles of the Romane Empire who would not take warning by the destruction of Jerusalem to turn from persecuting the Gospel to imbrace Christianity And therefore the signification of the rest of the Seals is common to both For when hee feeth a Red Horse to signifie warr a Black Horse to signifie famine and a Pale Horse to signifie pestilence VI. 3-8 it is manifest that all this agrees wonderfully with that which our Lord had fore-told should come to passe in Jewry as a preface to the destruction of Jerusalem of warrs famines earthquakes and pessilences so as notwithstanding the end not to be yet Mark XIII 5-10 Mat. XXIV 6-15 Luke XXI 8-20 And yet it expresseth as punctually those calamities of the world which those of the Empire did impute to the sufferance of Christianity when as God indeed intended thereby to punish them that imbraced it not Antiquity is copious in this subject that when these calamities fell out the Romanes cried out upon the Christians as the onely cause of them The beginning of Arnobius his dispute against the Gentiles will satisfie you of it When as therefore the persecution of Christianity was both begun in Jewry as the Acts of the Apostles inform us and prosecuted in the Empire it will be against the truth of the case to restrain the cry of the Souls under the Altar upon the opening of the fifth Seal either to those that suffered by the Jewes or by the Empire Now hee that peruseth that which is said to have come to passe upon the opening of the sixth Seal Apoc. VII 12-17 might have cause to think that hee reads the destruction of the world but that it is evident both that the destruction of Jerusalem is prophesied by our Lord by the like expressions which the Prophets also of the Old Testament do use in describing the vengeance which God taketh upon the Nations and also that this Prophesie expresses a large time for Christianity to continue in the world after this vengeance taken by God upon the enemies of it And therefore wee must believe that those have reason who referr the effect of it no lesse to the great change that fell out in the world upon the ceasing of the persecution of Diocletian and the coming of the Empire into the hands of the Christians than to the destruction of Jerusalem For when could it be said more justly that the world was in an earthquake that the Sun became like hair
to range themselves among their own respective Sectaries So that to impute the corruption of their damnable inventions to the Church because they mixed themselves with the Church till they were discovered is the same justice that the Gentiles did the Christians in charging them with those horrible incests and vilainies which the Gnosticks only were guilty of because they so farr as it was for their turn affected to shelter themselves under the profession of Christians I shall have occasion in another place to inquire further concerning the riâ—ng of the Gnosticks during the time of the Apostles In the mean time because I see those who know not how to yield to the truth when it is showed them stand in the justification of the wrong that is done the Church by expounding of the corruptions of the Papacy that which Hegesippus saith of the Gnosticks it shall be enough to give you his own words in Eusebius Eccles Hist III. 32. R. Steph. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hegesippus saith That till that time the Church remained a pure Virgin and undefloured Those that indeavored to adulterate the true Rule of that preaching which saveth the Rule of Faith which I said so much of afore lurking in obscure holes of darknesse till then if any such there were But the sacred quire of the Apostles having found the several ends of their lives And that generation of men being past that were vouchsafed to hear the wisedom of God with their own ears then did the confirmation of atheistical error receive beginning through the deceit of false Teachers Who now none of the Apostles remaining undertook bare-headed for the future to preach that Knowledge which is falsly so called in opposition to the preaching of the truth For here you have in expresse terms that Knowledge falsly so called from whence the Church after S. Paul calls all those Hereticks Gnosticks as pretending to have got it by such means as our Lord had not discovered to his Apostles You have also the difference between their lurking under the Apostles and their open preaching after their death in terms so expresse that hee must have a good will to it whoever oversees I shall be obliged to referr my self to these same words in another place Now to that which is objected concerning the opinion of the Millennaries I answer first that it cannot be thought ever to have been Catholick For Iustine the Martyr who first mentions it in his dispute with Trypho the Jew not many years after the Apostles expresly testifies that it was the opinion of the most orthodox Christians to wit in his judgment but withall that it was contradicted by others who were neverthelesse Christians even in his account that is of the Communion of the Church Which as it is a peremptory exception against the Universality so is it a reasonable presumption against the Originality of it Seeing that in so few years between him and the Apostles those that believed not all which they had delivered for the common Christianity can in no probability be thought to have injoyed the Communion of the Church And truely had it not been contradicted elsewhere that excellent Prelate Denys of Alexandriae that suppressed it in Egypt about CXXX after as you may see in Eusebius Eccles Hist VII 23 24 25. would have found a hard text of it For the intelligence and correspondence then in use between all parts of the Church would easily have confirmed those of his charge even against him The reason of atchieving the work was because the rest of Christendom insisted not on it Neither is the number or repute of Writers extant the reason to conclude any thing Catholick if the premises be true But the evidence which may be made sometimes from the disputes of able Writers but much more from the acts which past in the Church according or against that which they dispute that their doctrine was received or not received by the Church in whole or in part as necessary or not And therefore secondly I say that the mater of this position concerneth not the Rule of Faith commonly obliging all Christians but the interpretation of a true Prophesie indeed but the true understanding whereof whoso would make necessary to the salvation of all Christians should tye all Christians upon their salvation to understand the Apocalypse which who does To justifie this opinion it hath been showed that the Jewes have this opinion that their Christ shall raign M years when hee comes which seeing they cannot be supposed to have received from the Christians it makes a just presumption that they had it even in S. Iohns time The Jewes have a Tradition which they attribute to the School of one R. Elias mentioned in many of their writings by name in Baal haturim upon Gen. II. and which is also the conceit not onely of Lactantius VII 14. Tychonius the Donatist in his V Rule for expounding the Scripture and the Epistle anciently intitled to S. Barnabas and lately published but also as you may see in the late Lord Primates Latine Discourse of Cainan That as there passed II M years before the Law under the Law counting from Abraham II M years so the dayes of Christ should be II M years and after that the everlasting Sabbath But whether or no the Jews of S. Iohns time could expect this thousand years for the complement of the Sabbath or work of VIIM years which this Tradition promised Whether or no Christians may expect the end of the World at the end of VII M years the Sabbath that shall succeed being eternity according to that of S. Peter and of the Psalm that M years are as a day in Gods sight let them that have nothing else to do inquire Certainly it will not concern the meaning of the Apocalypse unlesse it could be said that the M years there fore-told are to begin after II M years of our Lord are finished Indeed this wee see that the Jewes whom King Alphonsus imployed to make the accounts of the Celestial motions in appointing the motion of the fixed Starrs from West to East to come rome round in XLIXM years the irregularity of that motion to come round in VII M years and that not being obliged to it by any observations made the like account of Sabbaths of thousands of years and VII thousands as the Law doth of dayes or years or Sabbaths of years But if these Jewes be pitifully put to it when to excuse their not believing in Christ who came when the World was about IVM years old according to their own Tradition they are fain to say that it hath failed a small mater of almost XVII C years for their sins Among the Christians what can be said more but that it pleased God to promise them M years of prosperity and raign which the Jews forsaking Christ promised themselves to no purpose Seing the beginning of them cannot be tyed to the end of VIM years from the beginning of the
spirit to show that he is no Schismatick not acknowledging much lesse holding the unity of the Church out of which no man can be accounted otherwise But I marvail most wherein he would have the crime of Schisme acknowledged by S. Paul in that one Text which he would be tried by to consist It is the Law of Nature that inables Christians to â—oyn in a independent Congregation as our other Doctor of Oxford hath told us If a Covenant or League passe between so many Soveraigns in this point consider how difficult it is to charge a Soveraign with breach of League such contracts consisting of many Articles one whereof violated voids the contract At least to the contrary there is no Rule Now the Covenant of a Congregation must suppose all Christianity the violation whereof in any point by any member supported by the rest frees a man of his contract How then shall S. Pauls words take place 1 Cor. XI 19. There must be Heresies that the approved may become manifest among you For if one leave six the Congregation consisting of seven how shall it appear that the six are in the right But in my supposition these petty animosities at Corinth may have been fomented by secret Hereticks as in time I shall show that they were And their indeavour might be to make a party for their Heresie out of other Churches as well as out of that of Corinth and being formed to unite them by the like bond as they saw the Church tied with by the Apostles In this case division is ruinous to Christianity not when the question is whether seven shall meet together or three and four For by this means it may become difficult for particular Christians upon true principles to give sentence for themselves in the matter of differances but easie to miss the truth and to joyn with the enemies of it thinking they serve God in communicating with them by charging themselves with judging of the sense of the Scriptures either in those Laws of the Church which concern not the salvation of particular Christians or in the common faith without those bounds which God hath provided by the Church And upon these terms those that are approved may and do become manifest by the rising of Heresies in the Church That which I shall inferre is this That though there be no such virtue as implicite faith because it is no part of faith no office of that virtue to believe that any thing is true because the Church believes it with that firm adherance to it as we are resolved to stand to that by believing which we hope to be saved yet it is part of the virtue and part of the office of a faithfull man that is a Christian to conform himselfe to the beliefe of all that which the Church lawfully determineth to be believed that is to say not to professe the contrary of it and upon that profession to do any thing towards dissolving the unity of the Church so long as the determination thereof causeth not that corruption of those things which the society of the Church presupposeth as may seem to make the unity thereof uselesse whereof this is not the place to debate when it comes to pass It is sufficient for the present that whatsoever the Church hath power to determine according to the premises that the Church that is all particular Christians are obliged not to believe by the office of faith which is onely exercised in them who can make deductions of conclusions from the principles of faith who necessarily holding the conclusions in consideration meerly of the premises do necessarily believe the conclusions by that virtue of faith which holds the principles but to hold and to conform to and not to scandalize by the office of that charity which is most eminently exercised about that which concerns the common good of all Christians in generall which uothing in the world can so much concern next the common faith as the unity and communion of the Church Thus have I bounded the power of the Church and so showed the reason upon which the right use of it is to proceed I showed afore the ground of that exception which the interest of secular Power in Church matters createth to the due use of it When I shall have showed in the third book what the Law of God hath determined in matters concerding the communion of the Church and by consequence what it leaveth to the Church to determine it will be time to take in hand the same consideration again For the ground of this exception will show how farre it extendeth whereby it will appear that Christian Powers do acknowledge the Church and the power of it to stand by Gods Law even when they limit the exercise of it by virtue of that interest which the law of God alloweth them in Church matters CHAP. XXVI What it is to adde to Gods Law What to adde the Apocalypse S. Pauls Anathema The Beraeans S. Johns Gospel sufficient to make one believe and the Scriptures The man of God perfit How the Law giveth light and Christians are taught by God How Idolatry is said not to be commanded by God IN the beginning of this Book I proposed the chief Texts of Scripture which are usually drawn into consequence to prove either the infallibility of the Church or the sufficience and clearness of the Scriptures Of which I may truly say that they are and have been for these hundred and forty yeares the Theme of a dispute between the Scriptures and the Church for the right of giving Law to the consciences of Christians what communion to chuse that of the Reformation or that of the Church of Rome But with so little success that a discreet man may truly say that the parties do now stand at a bay as it is visible that they do meerly because they are not able to force one another by the arms which they are furnished with the Arguments of either side serving to maintain them against the adversary meerly because the arguments of the other side are insufficient not because either hath either the whole truth or nothing of the truth for it I showed you there that they come short of making good that which they are imployed to prove on this side as well as on that As for my present business which is here to show how the sense of them concurs to the truth which I have established I shall but desire any man of common sense to make an argument from the Text of Moses alledged in the first place and say The people of Israel are forbidden by the Law of Moses to adde any thing to the said Law and to take any thing from it Therefore the Scriptures contain clearly set down to all understandings concerned all things necessary to the salvation of all Christians then to tell me whither he will undertake to make good this consequence of not For if the Law of Moses cannot pretend to contain
the second of the LXX whose privildges are not to be communicated to any authority to be preserved in the Church afterwards But the importance of these exhortations is not such as can inferre any imagination of infallibility in those whom they are exhorted to follow For they that know the bounds of that Power which the Apostles had trusted with the Governours of particular Churches presupposing the Christianity and Laws of Ecclesiastical communion which themselves had delivered may safely be exhorted to acknowledge them to esteem them above measure in love to obey them and to give way to them remembring those from whom they had first received Christianity from whom they had received these instructions as well as their then Rulers because they had long before received and yielded obedience to those things which we except from the obedience of present Rulers as presupposed to any power they can challenge As for the words of S. Paul 1 Tim. III. 15. I confess they containe a very just and full attribute of the Church and a Title serving to justifie all the right I challenge for it For if the Church be the House of the living God then is it by Gods founding and appointment a Body consisting of all members of the true Church wherein God dwells as of old in the Temple at Jerusalem as he dwells in every Christian as he dwelt in the Tabernacle and Campe of the Israelites And if it be the Pillar that sustains the truth then must it have wherewith to maintain it beside the truth it selfe which is the Scriptures And what what can that be but the testimony of it selfe as a body and fellowship of men onely which securing it selfe that is succession by the evidence made to the Predecessors of the same body maintains the truth once committed to the trust of it not onely by writing but also by practice But what is this to the gift of Infallibility for suppose the Church by the foundation of it inabled to maintain both the truth and the sufficience of the motives of faith against Infidels and also the rule of faith against Hereticks by the evidence which it maketh that they are received What is this to the creating of faith by decreeing that which before it was decreed was not the object of faith but upon such decree obligeth all faithful to believe Surely the Church cannot be the Pillar that sustains any faith but that which is laid upon it as received from the beginning not that which it layeth upon the foundation of faith Here I will desire the Reader to peruse these words of S. Basil Epist LXII speaking of the Bishop of Neo caesarea deceased 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is a man gone that of all men of his time most evidently excelled in all and every of those good things that belong to men The stay of his Country the ornament of the Church the Pillar that sustained the truth For if a particular Prelate may duly be qualified as well the Pillar that supporteth the truth as the prop of his Country Well may the Church be thought capable of the same stile though it create no matter of faith by decreeing but onely preserve that which it hath received by defending and maintaining it CHAP. XXXI The Fathers acknowledge the Sufficience and clearness of the Scriptures as the Traditions of the Church They are to be reconciled by limiting the terms which they use The limitation of those sayings which make all Christian truth to be contained in the Scriptures Of those which make the authority of the Church the ground of Faith IT is now time having showed the meaning of those Scriptures which are alleged for both extremes which I avoid to do the like for some of those sayings of the Fathers which are pleaded to the same purpose This abridgment cannot consider all Therefore I will not multiply those which speak to one and the same purpose Nor marshal them according to the mater which they speak to Finding them speak to any branch of those extremes which I decline I will put them down as they come S. Augustine again de Doctr. Christianâ II. 6. for one place you had afore Magnifice salubriter Spiritus Sanctus ità Scripturas modificavit ut locis apertioribus fami occurreret obscurioribus fastidia detergeret Nihil enim ferè de illis obscuritatibus eruitur quod non planissimè dictum alibi reperiatur Gallantly as well as wholesomly hath the Holy Ghost so tempered the Scriptures as to satisfie hunger by those places that are plain by those that are obscure to wipe of queasiness For there is scarce any thing digged out of those dark places that is not found most manifestly said elsewhere Epist III. Tanta est Christianarum profunditas literarum ut in eis quotidie proficerem si eas solas ab ineunte pueritiâ usque ad decrepitam senectutem maximo otio summo studio meliore ingenio conarer addiscere Non quòd ad ea quae necessaria sunt saluti tant â in eis perveniatur difficultate Sed cùm ibi quisque fidem tenuerit sine quâ rectè pieque non vivitur tam multa tamque multis mysteriorum umbraculis opaca intelligenda proficientibus restant So great is the depth of the Writings of Christianity that I should profit in them continually if I should indeavor to learn them onely at very great leasure with most earnest study having a better wit from the beginning of my nonage till decrepit old age Not as if it were so hard to attain to that which is necessary in them But when a man hath attained the Faith without which there is no good and godly living there remain so many things to be understood and so darkly shadowed with manifold mysteries Clemens Protreptico 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hear yee then that are farre off hear yee that are near hand The word is not hid from any It is a common light it shineth upon all men There are no Cimmerians in the Word As some said then that there were in the world that had no Sun Irenaeus II. 46. Vniversae Scripturae Propheticae Apostolicae in aperto sine ambiguitate similiter ab omnibus audiri possunt All the Scriptures both of the Prophets and Apostles are open and without ambiguity and may be heard or understood alike of all III. 15. Doctrina Apostolorum manifesta firma nihil subtrahens neque alia quidem in abscondito alia verò in manifesto docent um The doctrine of the Apostles is clear and firm and conceals nothing As not teaching one thing in secret and another openly Origen contra Celsum VII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The vnlgar after their entrance made may easily study to apprehend even the deeper notions that are hid in the Scriptures For it is manifest to any man that reads them that they may have much deeper sense than that which straight appears in them Which becomes
of penance failing of that which they had undertaken by it What is reformation in the Church and what is not is the subject of this present dispute therefore I cannot here grant that which some of the reformation may have done to be well done Otherwise I am secure no man will choke me with naming a Church that had no discipline of penance But that so it was I refer my self to that which I have said in the first book I demand here what is the ground and reason that so it must be For supposing the Keys of Gods Kingdom exercised in the first place in limiting the terms upon which baptisme is granted not in ministring of it Of necessity it followeth that in the second place it be seen and exercised in limiting the terms upon which those that have failed of that which they undertook at their Baptism may be restored to the visible communion of the Church upon presumption that they are restored to the invisible communion of those promises which the Gospel tendreth Not supposing this there is no reason why it should signifie any more than a scene acted upon a stage as it is taken to signifie by those who understand not this Lastly I will mention here the expresse Doctrine of the Church of England in the beginning of the Catechism declaring three things to have been undertaken in behalfe of him that is baptized That he shall forsake the Devil and all his works the pomp and vanities of this world and the evil desires of the flesh and not to be seduced by him either from believing the faith of Christ or from keeping Gods Commandements And again in the admonition to the Sureties after Baptism you must remember that it is your parts and duties to see that these Infants be taught so soon as they shall be able to learn what a solemn vow promise and profession they have made by you For all that come to Christianity believing what promises they get right to by it and being admitted to it uppon those terms there can remain no question upon what terms they attain the said promises Nor can or ought any Doctrine of that Church to what purpose soever cautioned be interpreted to the prejudice of that wherein the salvation of all consisteth But further in the Introduction to the Office of Baptism For asmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin and that our Saviour Christ saith None can enter into the Kingdome of God except he be regenerate and born anew of water and of the Holy Ghost I beseech you to call upon God that these children may be baptized with water and the Holy Ghost and received into Christs holy Church and be made lively members of the same Proceeding to pray That they comming to thy holy baptisme may receive remission of their sins by their spirituall regeneration In the exhortation after the Gospel Doubt ye not therefore but earnestly believe that he will likewise favourably receive these present Infants that he will imbrace them with the arms of his mercie that he will give unto them the blessing of eternall life and make them partakers of his everlasting Kingdome Again Ye have heard also that our L. Jesus Christ hath promised in his Gospel to grant all these things that ye have praied for And after the Sacrament Seeing now that these children be regenerate and graffed in the bodie of Christs congregation And again We yield thee heartie thanks that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this Infant with thy holy Spirit to receive him for thine own child by adoption and to incorporate him into thy holy Congregation All this can leave no doubt of the communion of the Church of England with the whole Church in this point so nearly concerning the salvation of all Christians CHAP. V. The Preaching of our Lord and his Apostles evidenceth that some act of Mans free choice is the condition which it requireth The correspondence betwen the Old and New Testament inferreth the same So do the errors of Socinians and Antinomians concerning the necessity of Baptism Objections deferred THe whole tenor of the Scripture would afford matter of Argument to inforce this consequence But it shall be enough to have thus far pointed out the ground upon which the meaning of the rest is to proceed The reasons of this position from the principles of Christianity can be no other than those which have been touched upon occasion of treating the passages of Scripture hitherto alledged Yet to make the consequence still more evident I will here repeat first the consideration of Gods sending our Lord Christ to show the world sufficient motives why they should imbrace his Gospel as well as to teach them what it is and wherein it consisteth I will not here insist upon any supposition of the clear sufficience of the Scriptures or the necessity of Tradition besides the Scriptures But I will appeal to the common sense of all men to judge whether it be within the compass of reason that our Lord Christ should come to preach and to exhort men to acknowledge him to be come from God and to take up his Cross should show them reasons to believe that all which he preached is true that so they might be perswaded willingly to follow him Should give certain proofs of his rising again from death to inforce the same If men have no will no choice no freedom to do what he requires them or not to do it whether in other things they have it or not The same to be said of his Apostles and Disciples who were strange Creatures to expose their lives for a Warrant of the truth of what they said if they had not willingly and freely imbraced that profession themselves which they pretended to induce the world with the like freedome of choice to imbrace Thus far then we are assured by common sense that the condition required by the Covenant of Grace on our part must be some act of mans free choice the doing whereof at Gods demand must qualifie us for those promises which it tenders But this is not all that may appeare to common reason by the proceeding of our Lord and his Apostles The preaching of the Gospel-premises for a supposition upon which it proceedeth That mankind are become enemies unto God through sin and subjects of his wrath Proposing therepon the termes upon which they may be reconciled to God and intitled presently to and in due time possessed of everlasting happiness Suppose these terms purchased by the satisfaction of Christ though not granting it because all that call themselves Christians in the West do not is it possible to imagine that they who declare all mankind to be Gods enemies for sinne should have commission to declare them heires of his Kingdome not supposing them turned from sin to that righteousnesse which shall be as universally according to Gods will as their sin is against it As on the contrary supposing this do you not suppose
hand that the nature of that faith to which the Scriptures of the Apostles and the most ancient Fathers of the Church ascribe remission of sins and that righteousnesse which the Gospel holdeth forth together with other promises of the same is no way declared by this resolution but darkned For it is manifestly requisite for a due account of the sense as well of the most ancient Fathers as of the Scriptures that the nature of faith be understood to consist in that to which the said promises may duely be ascribed which in both are so oft so plainly and so properly ascribed to faith not to any thing which may stand with it or necessarily follow it Now though no man can resolve to professe Christianity without true love to God above all things yet the Scriptures of the New Testament plentifully shew that the holy Ghost the Spirit of love is not given to reside habitually with any but those that are baptized and so become Christians however necessary the actuall assistance of the same holy Ghost is to go before and to induce them to become Christians by undertaking what that profession requires Therefore it will be necessary to distinguish not onely the faith but the love but the hope the fear the trust in God and all other graces begun in him that beginneth to believe the Gospel to be true but is yet not resolved to undergo the profession of it and the condition which it supposes From the same as they are in him who upon such resolution is become a Christian And if any man upon this distinction will say that the faith which he believed with afore is faith without forme but formed afterwards he shall easily have me to concurre with him in it Alwayes provided that whatsoever it is the Scripture attributes the procuring of the promises of the Gospel to that be understood to belong to the nature of that faith which alone justifies according to the Scriptures CHAP. VII The last signification of Faith is properly justifying Faith The first by a Metonymy of the cause The second of the effect Those that are not justified doe truly believe The trust of a Christian presupposeth him to be justified All the promises of the Gospel become due at once by the Covenant of Grace That to believe that we are Elect or Justified is not Justifying Faith FOR now it is time to draw the argument which I purposed at first from these premises and to say That the name of faith by the effects which by virtue of the Gospel promises it produceth being attributed first to the bare belief of the Gospel secondly to that trust which a Christian enters into by being Baptized and lastly to that trust in God through Christ which Christianity warranteth And the second of these naturally presupposing the first as the third both of them the reason can be no other then this Because the middle is that which entitleth Christians to the promise of the Gospel in respect whereof both the name of Faith and the effects of these promises are duly and reasonably ascribed both to that which it supposeth and to that which it produceth both to the cause and to the effect of it For in all manner of language it is as necessary to use that change of words and the sense of them which is called Metonymy by Humanists and by some Philosophers and Divines of the Schooles denominatio ab extrinseco as it is impossible for any man to expresse his minde without that change of speech which they call a Trope in any manner of Language It is not to be imagined that those fashions of speech are onely used for ornament and elegance of language The Humanists themselves having taught us that they are as our clothes as well to cover nakednesse as for comelynesse For as long as the conceits of the minde may be infinitely more then the words that have ben used it will be absolutely necessary to straine the use of customary speech as the conceit is not customary which we desire to expresse It will not therefore be strange that the name of faith should be used to signifie three conceptions distinct but depending one on the other so long as there are more conceptions then words It will not be strange that the effects of that trust which a man entreth into by undertaking the profession of a Christian should be attributed both to that Faith which believeth the Gospel to be true being a thing necessarily presupposed to induce a man to undertake that ingagement and to that confidence which a Christian hath in God through Christ being a thing necessarily insuing upon the undertaking of it with a sincere and effectuall purpose But this would be strange and no just reason to be given for it were it not granted that the second to wit that sincere undertaking the trust of a Christian is that which really intitleth him to the promises of the Gospel For is it not manifest to all Christians that there are too many in the world whom we cannot imagine to have any due title to those promises and yet do really and verily believe the faith of Christ to be true and Him and His Apostles sent from God to preach it If therefore we will have these Scriptures which ascribe the promises of the Gospel to believing the truth of it to be true we must understand them by way of Metonymy to be attributed to it as of right belonging to the consequence which it is naturally apt to produce Nor is there any reason that convinceth me in this point more then that which Socinus giveth why justification should be attributed to that act of faith alone whereby a man believes the Gospel to be true His reason is because he that throughly believes the true God and his providence which will bring all mens doings to judgement and render them their due reward of life or death that believes our Lord Christ truly tendereth everlasting happinesse to all that take his yoke upon them and draw in it as long as they live must needs stand convict that he is to proceed accordingly I say no lesse And I say that the preaching of the Gospel tenders motives sufficient to convict all the world of so much But I say further that so long as notwithstanding sufficient conviction tendered notwithstanding a mans faith engaged and his own sentence past against himself if he faile we see men either not embrace Christianity or not performe it having imbraced it So long right to Gods Promises cannot be ascribed to this belief though in reason whosoever is convict of the truth cannot deny but he ought to engage in Christianity and hold it The reason is because we see men not alwayes do that which resonably they ought to do And therefore it is not enough to have submitted to conviction what we ought to do And the promises of the Gospel are not properly ascribed to the belief of those truths which convince men
astray Jude 11. 2 Pet. II. 15. Is interpreted Apoc. II. 15. That then were in the Church of Pergamus those that held the doctrine of Balaam that taught Balak to lay a stumbling block before the children of Israel to eat of things offered to Idols and to commit whordome So hast thou saith he those that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes Which by and by is attributed to Jezabel the Prophetesse The second argument is that both S. Peter and S. Jude in the places alledged do manifestly shew that the doctrines which they writ against tended to reconcile the licentiousnesse of the flesh with the hope of the world to come which I have shewed was the pretense of the Gnosticks And makes it very probable that the same Hereticks found accesse to those Christianes to whom S. James writes and intimated to them hope of salvation through the bare profession of Christianity without those workes whereby it is fulfilled which is the occasion that he takes James II. 14. to lay down those termes of the justification of Sinners which I have declared in due place For consider the terms in which S. Peter writes Many shall follow their corruptions for whom the way of truth shall be blasphemed For what can this signifie but that which is witnessed by so many of the Fathers that the ill opinion which the Gentiles had of Christianity was unjustly occasioned by the vilainies of the Gnosticks who though holding in secret a faith utterly destructive to Christianity neverthelesse counterfeited themselves Christians to withdraw Christians to themselves Againe Those that go after the flesh through the pollution of concupiscence And Thinking it pleasure to revel it by day spots and staines making good chere in their deceitâ— when they feast with you having eyes full of adultery not to be quieted from sinning And they beguil with the lusts of the flesh those who had truly escaped those that live in error promising them liberty but being slaves to corruption themselves For by whom a man is subdued his slave he becoms 2 Pet. II. 2 10 13 14 18 19. And S. Jude These dreaming defile the flesh And the things which they know by nature as bruit beasts in them they corrupt themselves Comparing them to Sodom and Gomorrah who went a whoring in like manner as these following after strange flâ—sh Jude 7 8 10. Which he who compares with the vilainies of the Gnosticks related by Irenaeus Epiphanius and others either he hath lost his right senses or knowing by Iraeneus that all the Gnosticks sprang from Simon Magus and that Simon Magus pretended to shew how to attain the world to come by loosing the raines to all vilainy must needs allow that they are of this traine whom these Apostles writ against Nor is the testimony of Hegesippus related by Eusebius Eccles Hist III 32. to the contrary He saith indeed that the Church had continued a pure Virgine under the Apostles and their hearers he saith that it began to be defloured in the next age Not by the coming in of Anti-Christ as some imagine unlesse they will have Simon Magus to have beene Anti-Christ which though true is not for their turne but by the coming in of the Gnosticks For though it appeare by the writinges of the Apostles that they were very busy during their time in seducing Christians by counterfeiting themselves the like yet may it well stand good that the Church continued a Virgine by casting them out according to the precept of S. Jude which I spoke of afore But that aster the death of them and their hearers they prevailed so farre that they might be said to have defloured the maidenhead of Christianity for the number of Christians whom they had seduced Besides it is easy to take notice that the relation of Hegesippus concernes particularly the Church of Jerusalem as following upon the martyrdome of Simeon and the confession of our Lord Christ to Domitian made by his kindred according to the flesh For so Eusebius expresly affirmeth And truly having related afore the Heresies of Simon Magus and Menander of Ebion of the Nazarites and of Cerinthus he must have given himself thely had he intended to say out of Hegesippus that the Gnosticks began under Adriane though being the time when Saturninus Basitides Valent ne and probably others set up for themselves But I will wish the enemies of this light which the knowledge of good learning that will surely be revenged of them who neglect it tenders to the obscure passages of the Apostles no worse punishment then to be bound to expound them without it For make use of it and all is plain and smooth before you unlesse it be a small circumstance that they tremble not to blaspheme glories 1 Pet. II. 10. Or as S. Jude 8. that they despise dominion and blaspheme glories Whereas if you put it out you will necessarily reason of the Apostles discourse as blind men do of colours And in truth there are two severall passages of Hegesippus related by Euseb the former whereof I have quoted assigning this deflouring of the Church to the time of Simeons martyrdome But the other though related by Eusebius IV. 22. at the time of Hegesippus assignes it unto his beginning immediately insuing upon the martyrdome of S. James and the choice of Simeon for Bishop of Jerusalem and that by a very expresse mark of the author thereof one Thebulis so R. Stevens copy reads it not Tâ—ebuthis that missed the Bishoprick there and upon that attempted to deflour the Church which they called then a Virgine saith Hegesippus expresly there Now it is manifest that the martyrdome of James was before the warre which the Romanes the same year that Festus left the Province as you have it in Eusebius II. 23. at which time it may be a question whither either the second Epistle of S. Peter or that of S. Jude were written at all or not Wherefore it is manifest that Hegesippus assigneth the deflouring of the Church to the time of Simeons martyrdome when none of the Apostles remained alive But so that Thebulis began to deflour it from the death of S. James and the beginning of Simeon That is the Church of Jerusalem because he was refused the Bishoprick of it But I must not forget Epiphanius his relation of Cerinthus that he was one of those that first contended with S. Peter about admitting Cornelius and his company to baptisme that afterward raised the contention about Circumcision in the Church of Antiochia which we see decided by the Apostles Acts XV. and that afterwards it was he or his disciples that troubled the Church of Corinth and the doctrine which S. Paul had taught it For the argument is undeniable that the things done under the Apostles have in them expresse markes of that which the succeeding Hereticks did and taught afterwards 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For those men stepping aside and becoming false Apostles
is fallen from Grace by sinne after Baptisme for remission of sinne Because he supposeth aforehand that the satisfaction of Christs bloud consisteth in obtaining such termes at Gods hands that the condition being obtained a man should become qualified for remission of sinnes On the other side the Gospell importing a promise of remission of sinne in consideration of the sufferings of Christ to them that turn by true repentance to that new life which it prescribeth It cannot be denied that those workes wherein the reality of true repentance consisteth are properly satisfaction for sinne as for that respective sinne for which they satisfie by virtue of that promise which God by the Gospel declareth in consideration of Christs Crosse For if the Civilian say true that to satisfie is no more then to fulfill a mans desire God by his Gospel requiring nothing else to be performed by us that is by any Christian that is overtaken in the state of sinne but to turne from sinne of necessity it followes that God is satisfied with our repentance which otherwise he would not accept of for payment at our hands though the satisfaction of Christ is the consideration that makes it acceptable The mistake seemes to lye in this that men take any kind of displeasure for sinne to be that repentance which qualifieth a man for remission of sinne presuming that faith alone justifieth and that the grace which the Gospel tendereth would come to too short an account if at every instance a man might not have recourse to the bloud of Christ for assurance of remission of sinnes Whereas I have showed that in all estates at any instant a Christian hath assurance of remission of sinne to be had upon condition that he see himself qualified for it But that absolute assurance of remission of sinne actually had and obtained is not to be had by the Gospel but upon performing the condition which it requireth unlesse we would make Christ the minister of sinne as Saint Paul speakes by saying that he came to discover a way by which standing in the love of sinne and injoying the pleasure of it we may assure our selves of pardon for it For it can in no reason be imagined that he who hath wilfully committed sinne can instantly come to such a resolution of mind as may reasonably be thought effectuall to move him never to do the like any more Will any body that is capable to consider what a change it is for a man to undertake Christianity being by the preaching of it become convict of that sinne which it pretendeth to cure will any man say that it is possible for such a one at the instant that he is first informed of a thing concerning him so much to resolve to take the course overcoming all difficulties which all the custome of sinne can create As for him who having made profession of Christianity is notwithstanding overtaken with one of those grosse sinnes that expresse a formal contrdiction to his profession so made can he be assured of a firme resolution to stand to all that his Christianity requireth for the future who sees himself so shamefully cast from a resolution solemnly professed and perhaps grounded in him by so many yeares practice as he hath been a Christian This is the reason why repentance is not to be measured by a wish that a man had not sinned which those that are not past remorse necessarily have because they must needs wish themselves at peace with God nor by a desire of forgivenesse because they must needs wish themselves what the Gospel promiseth nor by being sory for the punishment which they have incurred for that is not out of love to God but to themselves nor by being onely sory for having offended God for who would not wish that he could injoy both the love of God and the pleasure of his sinne In fine no disposition can qualify a man a convert or penitent but that which produceth a change in his actions And that disposition not being produced but by frequenting such actions of humiliation as may settle the impression of it upon a mans Spirit those actions by which this disposition is wrought are justly counted satisfaction to God because they fulfill that which he desireth of a sinner to qualify him for remission of sinnes One material difficulty there is that may be objected against all this from the Scriptures especially of the Gospells and those manifold invitations whereby our Lord wooeth those which are weary of sin to come to him for their cure For in very deed the Parable of the prodigall representeth God so desirous to be reconciled that there is no roome left for conditions limiting the pardon which is granted before it can be demanded upon a bare desire expressed by returning home And the Psalme of David seems to signifie the same when he saith I said I will confesse my transgression to the Lord and thou forgavest the wickednesse of my sin Psalm XXXIV 5. Which may be so understood as if David onely having purposed to make confession of his sin God prevented him with pardon before he did it But to say truth this is more then the words can beare because it is said just afore I made knowne my sins to thee and my iniquities I concealed not So as Davids sin was not pardoned before he confessed it but having confessed it upon a grounded resolution so to doe and that after so much trouble of mind for his sin as the premises of the Psalme expresse As for the expressions of our Lord in the Gospell having showed that it tendreth high promises but upon conditions proportoinable considering the present weakenesse of our nature there is no reason in the world to inferr that those who have forfeited the promises by failing of that which they undertake may as easily promise themselves reconcilement with God by repentance as they are freely invited to be reconciled by Baptisme For that which is done in the state of ignorance is easily passed by upon condition of amendment But where breach of amity may be reproached especially tendred by God of meere Grace and upon his own charge as it were of Christs Crosse to persume of reconcilement upon meere acknowledgement of a transgression were to tread under foot so great Grace And therefore that which hath been produced out of the Apostles writings soundeth to an other tune S. John saith in deed If we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us If we confesse our sins he is faithfull and just to remit our sins and to clense us from all unrighteousnesse If we say wee have not sinned we make him a lyer and his word is not in us Iohn I. 8 9 10. For it appeareth by the premises that his word concludeth even Christians to be sinners For S. Iohn goeth forward and saith My little children these things I write to you that you sin not And if any man sin we have an
to one wife indissolubly as mariage hath alwaies been indissoluble among Christians could have taken effect among all Christians had it not been received from the beginning for a part of that Christianity which our Lord Christ and his Disciples delivered to the Church nor preserved so inviolable as it hath been but by the society of the Church He that will give a reason how this Law could have taken place otherwise must either alledge the Law of Moses or the Law of the Romane Empire There being no other Law extant when Christianity took place For the law of Moses it is evident that at such time as Christianity came into the world it was counted lawfull according to it to have more wives then one and to put away away a mans wife by a Bill of divorce I demand then how this should come to be prohibited by virtue of that Law which was hitherto thought to allow it It will be said by the true interpretaion of the Law which having been obscured by the false glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees our Lord by his Gospel Mat. V. 31. 32. XIX 3-9 Mark X. 11. 12. Luk. XVII 18. clears and injoyns upon Christians for the future But I showed before in the second Book that when our Lord saith so oft in his Sermon on the Mount You have heard it was said to those of old his meaning is that Moses said so to their Fathers when he gave them the Law not that the Scribes and Pharisees said so to their Predecessors when they corrupt it Besides there are two things evident in the Scripture beyond contradiction The first that divers Lawes of Moses either make it lawfull or suppose it lawful to have more wives then one Deut. XXI 15-17 the Law supposes a man to have two wives the one beloved the other not and provides accordingly Ex. XXI 6-11 the Law gives him leave that hath bought the daughter of a Jew to mary her to his Sonne who if he have another is â—bound to pay her the mariage debt of a wife so that if he do not she is to go free Deut. XXI 1-14 the Law inables him that hath taken a captive in the War whom he likes to marry her not conditioning if he have no other wife Call these two later wives or call them Concubines so long as the Law of God allows them evident it is that it allows that which Christians by their Christianity think themselves bound to forbear Adde hereunto that the King is bound not to take too many wives Deut. XVII 16. 17. that David is not reproved as transgressing this Law though Solomon is But on the contrary that God imputes it as a favour to him that he gave him many wives 2 Saâ— XII 8. which he could not do had he not allowed it I say adde the practice as the life of the Law to the leter as the carcase of it and I may justly conclude that Polygamy is not prohibited by the Law of Moses Besides the Law provides that an Ebrue slave who may go free at the seventh year if his Master have given him a slave of his own to wife and he have children by her must part wedlock with his wife and leave her and children to his Master for his goods Exodus XXI 3. 4. nullifying the contract of Mariage by the choice of him who proffers his freedom before his wife and children in bondage a thing utterly inconsistent with the insolubility of Mariage by Moses Law Secondly our Lord in the Gospel saith not onely It was said to them of â—ld He that puts away his wife let him give her a Bill of Divorce But I say unto you as Mat. V. 31. 32. But further when they ask him Mat. XIX 7. Why did Moses then command to give a Bill of divorce and seâ—d her away He answereth Moses for your hard-heartednesse suffered you to put away your wives But from the beginning it was not so Now I say unto you that he that puts away his wife for fornicatioâ— and maries another commits adultery and he that maries her that is put away commits adultery And all this having laid his ground afore He that made them from the beginning made them male and female and said therefore shall a mâ—n leave father and mother and cleave to his wife and they two shall be one flesh So they are no longer two but one flesh Therefore what God hath joyned let no man part Whereby it is evident that he derives not the prohibition of putting away a wife to take another from any interpretation of Moses Law to the provision whereof he opposeth the provision which hereby he introduceth But from the commission which he pretendeth by virtue whereof he restoreth the primitive institution of Paradise which the Law of Moses had either dispensed with or did suppose it to have been formerly dispensed with For he saith not onely You have heard that it was said to them of old which may be thought to be understood of the Scribes and Pharisees But also Moses said and I say opposing his own saying to that of Moses so farre as prohibiting that which he had allowed imports without licensing that which was prohibited by the Law And upon this ground that by mariage man and wife become one flesh he proceeds to prohibite the divorces which Moses Law alloweth so that the reason why mariage is indissoluble is because man and wife are one flesh by the Gospel of Christ according to the first institutions in Paradise This indeed is the difficulty which I here suppose already declared how this first institution lost or may appear to have lost the force of a Law till revived by our Lord Christ though I conceive the evidence of this truth cannot be obstructed by not declaring the reason of it here S. Paul having so fully laid down the effect and intent of his masters Law 1 Cor. VII 1-6 Now of that you writ to me about it is good for a man not to touch a woman Neverthelesse because of fornications sake let every man have his wife and every woman her husband let the man render his wife the benevolence that is due likewise the wife to the Husband The woman hath no power of her Body but the man Likewise the man is not master of his own Body but the wife Defraud not one another unlesse upon agreement for a time that ye may attend to fasting and prayer and come together againâ— least Satan tempt you for your incontinence For here it is manifest that because man and wife are one flesh they have an interess in one anothers bodies not to be disposed of upon any other to the prejudice of it And upon this supposition the mariage of the first Adam in this earthly Paradise being the figure of the mariage between the second Adam and his Church becomes the rule and measure of the Mariages of Christians in the Church as the same Apostle declares at large Ephes V.
chargeable with adultery when the wife maries again being not put away for adultery why is he chargeable with it that put her away for adultery If because he maries again not putting his wife away for adultery putting her away for adultery why is he chargeable with it The difficulty will be Then is the knot of wedlock tied to the one party and loose to the other which seems a knot more indissoluble then that of wedlock but is indeed none at all if we distinguish between the metaphor of a knot tied and the obligation signified by it For though the act of consent to the contract of wedlock is the act of two parties whereof a third that is God is depositary to discharge the innocent and to charge the guilty yet the bond or obligation which is contracted by it is answerable severally by each party in the judgement of God And is there the same reason that God should call him to account for adultery who thinks himselfe free of that contract which he stood to till his party transgressed it as her that gave him cause to think himselfe free by transgressing it The difficulty then rests in the meaning of S. Paul when he châ—rgeth the wife not to depart from her Husband If she do to abidâ— unmaried or to be reconciled to her Husband And the Husband not to put away his wife 1 Cor. VII 12. And that having before charged maried people not to part even for devotion but for a time for fear of temptation by concupiscense For can it then be imagined that he allows them to part upon any occasion but that of adultery Therefore those that are parted for adultery he forbids to marry again And these are the Texts that have moved S. Jerome Epist XLVII to be of this mind But S. Austine further expounding the Sermon in the mount upon this supposition as he himselfe professes in the beginning of his books de adultrinis conjugiis written expresse to maintain it and desiring to show how our Lords Law injoyns the same with his Apostles imagines that our Lord might mean spirituall fornication or adultery according to which the Psalme saies Thou hast destroyed all that commit fornication against thee when he gave it Which sense compriseth all sinne that carieth with it a construction of departing from our Covenant with God both in truth and according to S. Austine de Sermone domini in monte I. 16. Whereupon the Mileritane Canon XVII speaks thus Placuit ut secundum Evangelicam Apostolicam disciplinam ueque dimissus ab uxore neque dimissa à marito alteri conjungantur sed ita maneant auâ— sibi reconcilientur Quod si contempserint ad poenitentiam redigantur In qua causà legem Iâ—perialem petendam promulgari It seemed good that according to the discipline of the Gospel and the Apostles neither he that is dimissed by his wife nor she that is dimissed by her husband be wedded to another but remain so or be reconciled to one another which if they neglect that they be put to Penance and that request be made for an Imperial Law to be published in the case Where alleging the Gospel and S. Paul both it is plain the Canon proceeds upon the opinion of S. Austine For he was at this Council and in all probability had the penning of the Canons That which moved them to be of this opinion I confesse moves me to be against it I cannot be perswaded that S. Paul in this place and our Lord in the Gospel speak both to one and the same purpose All subjects of the Romane Empire when S. Paul writ had power to leave their wives or their husbands at pleasure without giving the Law account But supposing them Christians were they not to give God account were they not to give the Church account Certainly if they maried again they must give the Church account because our Lord hath said He that leaveth his wife but for adultery and marieth again committeth adultery For of adultery account is to be given the Church And truly who parts with a wife it is great odds does it out of a desire to mary another which all the Church agrees he cannot do unlesse she be an adulteresse part of it sayes further though she be he cannot do it But if he mary not another but part with his wife he must give God account whether he be bound to give the Church account or not And this account S. Paul instructs how to give He will not have Christians to part bed and bord much less to repudiate to part families to send one another a way with that which they brought but if they will needs try how good it is living unmarried he would have them know that they could not mary elsewhere because of our Lords Law which in case of fornication he silently excepteth For to me it seemeth manifest that our Lord in case of fornication provideth for the reparation of the party wronged whose bed and issue is concerned restraining the divorce which the law allowed onely to the transgression of mariage inâ—cted by the institution of Paradise when two continue not one flesh But S. Paul for the conscience of particular Christians upon what terms they may or ought to forbear â—ohabitation to wit so as they mary not again Which is exhortation enough to set aside animosities and return to bed and bord again S. Austine and Venerable Bede upon the Gospel following him confesse that according to their interpretation our Lord permits to part not for the fornication which the other party hath done but for that which himselfe may do To wit which by the company of an ill disposed yoke-fellow he may be moved to do So divorce according to this opinion is grounded upon the precept of the Gospel If thine eye offend thee pluck it out and is that which the Church of Rome at this day maintaineth by the XXVI Session of the Council of Trent Can. VIII and that as I think according to S. Paul onely that he leaves it to the Conscience of particular Christians without interessing the Church the interest whereof I conceive cannot be excluded though S. Paul here provide not for it as Cardinall Bellarmine de Matrimoniâ— I. 14. disputeth But in case of adultery it never was nor ever could seem questionable so as S. Paul to decide it whither a man might so put away his wife or no all Civill Law that then was counting him accessory to the stain of his bed and issue that did not And thereupon the ancient Canons of the Church imposing penalties upon any of the Clergy who being allowed to dwell with their wives should indure an adulteresse And therefore I conclude that S. Paul though he allow not either husband or wife to part with wife or husband as to cohabitation without renouncing the bond of wedlock no not for the state of continence as S. Austine very well argues if not for continence then for no
of ransome Ephe I. 13. IV. 30. Unless a reason could be showed why S. Peter and S. John should travail from Jerusalem to Samaria to do that which they need not do at Jerusalem where they were Or originally why the Imposition of the Apostles hands should be requisite to procure some the Holy Ghost and not others This being that which the Scriptures record of the Apostles all men know how ancient how general the custome hath been in the Church for Bishops to confirm the baptized by praying for the effect of it which is the Holy Ghost with Imposition of hands Professing thereby that they own their Faith and Baptism and acknowledge them for part of their flock as acknowledged by them for their Pastors Which is that eminence of honour due to the Bishop in which the welfare of the Church consisteth saith S. Hierome advâ—rsus Luciferianâ—s For Tertullian also de Bapt. cap. XVII reserveth unto the Bishop the right of granting Baptism though he allow not onâ—ly Priests and Deacons but partly also Laymen to Baptize Now if from the beginning this priviledge was reserved the Apostles in signe of the truth of that Baptism which so they allowed If those who received Baptism at years of discretion hâ—â—ing theâ—â—elves made profession of their faith were neverthelesse to acknowledge thâ—ir Paâ—â—ors and the Unity of the Church wrapped up in them as that uâ—on which the effect of Baptism dependeth How much more those that are bâ—ptized Infanâ—s Who cannot otherwise according to the original constitution of the Church be secured that they profess the faith of the whole Church but by their Bishops allowance through whom they have communion with the wâ—ole Church For as I have showed that there was originally no other mean to maintain the unity of the Church but the faith of the Bishop to secure the whole Church of the faith of his flock So was the â—same the onely mean to secure the flock that they held the faith of the whole Church which owned their Bishop and his faith And howsoever the profession of faith may be limited and the Bishop in exacting the same yet is it necessarily an act of chief Power in the Church to allow the communion of the Eucharist So that when once Presbyterians share this part of the Bishops Power among their Triers allowing them to admit to the Communion those that can say the Catechism which they made themselves First they put upon us a new faith which we must own for the faith of the Church Then to debauch Partizans to themselves they authorize the malice of gross carnall Christians to domineer over their neighbours whom they may easily pick a quarel with for not answering their Catechism but are not able either to warrant or to teach them the truth of the least tittle of it which so neerly concerning their salvation how necessary is it that it be reserved to the Head of each Church Besides that by acknowledging him they visibly submit to the Laws of the Church by which he governs and to his authority in such maters as the Laws do not determine which is the very means of maintainidg Unity in the Church And truly the consideration of this point discovers unto us the onely sure ground upon which any man may resolve what offices of christianity may be ministred by the several Orders of the Church For when the power of Confirming proper to the Bishop evidenceth that he alone granteth Baptism either by particular appointment or by general Law in which his authority is involved but a Layman sometimes may minister it we see what S. Paul means when he sayes 1 Cor. I. 17. God sent me not to baptize but to preach the Gospel Our Lord having said Mat. XXVIII 19. Go Preach and make Disciles of all Nations baptizing them in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost To wit that the Power of appointing it not the ministery of doing it is proper to the Apostles and their successors Which reason will hold in sundry particulars concerning Ordination concerning Absolution and Penance concerning confirmation and others In all which this being once secured that no man act beyond the Power which he receiveth it will be no prejudice to the unity of the Church that some Orders do that by particular commission from their Superiours which their Order inables not all that are of it to do Because in such cases it is not Authority but Ministery which they contribute As for the order of Priesthood that the power of consecrating the Eucharist is equall to the Power of the Keys in which that Order hath an Interest in the inward Court of Conscience the outward Court of the Church being reserved to the Bishop with advice and assistance of his Presbyters whereas the power of Preaching and Baptizing is of ordinary Right communicable to Deacons For the proof of all this I referre my selfe to that which I have said in the Right of the Church Chap. III. and to that which must be said here in due place Let not then those of the Presbyteries or Congregations think their businesse done till they can give us some reasonable account how all the Christian world should agree to set up Bishops into a rank above their Clergy and People both if this had been forbidden nay if it had not been so ordered by the Apostles Not that I grâ—nt them to have any more appearance of evidence from the Scriptures to destroy the superiority of the Bishops and the concurrence of the Clergy to the maintenance of unity in the Church then the Socinians have to destroy the faith of the Holy Trinity and the satisfaction of Christ But because I do grant these as I granted the other that there is that appearance of evidence which every one that is concerned to be subject to Bishops cannot evidenly resolve as every one that is bound to believe the Holy Trinity and the satisfaction is not bound to be able evidently to resolve all objections which the Socinians can make against it out of the Scriptures For it is granted that S. Hierome hath alleged many texts of Scriptures to show that Bishops and Priests were both the same thing under the Apostles and that therefore the difference between them is but of positive humane right by custome of the Church and hath many followers in this opinion among Church Writers Though with this difference that it can never be pretended that S. Jerome or any Ecclesiastical Writer after or before S. Jerome ever alleged the words of S. Paul 1. Tim. V. 17. The Elders that rule well are worthy of double honour specially those that labour in the word and doctrine or any other syllâ—ble of the whole Scripture to show that any of those that S. Paul pronounces worthy of double honour were Laymen that is of the rank of the people Which is now an essential ingredient of the design both of our Presbyteries and also so farre as I know of the
vulgarly understood and that for the communion as well as for the sacrifice it must further be provided that this Communion be complete in both kinds in which the Sacrament is celebrated not barring the people of the Cup as it is the custome in the Church of Rome to do And truly there is not so much marvell at any thing in difference as there is why it hath been thought fit to make this the cause of so great a breach For the precept running in those terms which take hold of them who are obliged by it that is of the whole Church consisting of Clergy and people both alike because I have showed that do this in remembrance of me concerns the whole Church by the prayers whereof it is consecrated How will it be possible to make any humane understanding capable to comprehend that when our Lord saith take eat drinke do this the people shall stand charged onely with part of it Indeed had there been any limitation of the Law-givers intent expressed either by way of precept as this lies or by the practice of the Church originally under the Apostles and generally throughout Christendom there might have been pretense for dispute And it must not be denied that there have been those that have attempted to show that the Apostles so used it even in the Scriptures But by such means as if they meant not indeed to prove it for a truth but to show how willingly they would gratifie those who would be glad to see it proved whether true or false And do therefore sort to no other effect then to make it appear that their desire to prove it out of the Scripture was farr greater then the Scripture gave them cause to cherish For were breaking of bread put a thousand times in the Scripture for celebrating the Eucharist as sometimes it is put Act. II. 42. 45. XX. 7. at least for those Suppers at which the Eucharist was celebrated what would this avail unlesse we could be perswaded that as oft as breaking of bread is put for eating there we are to understand that there was no drink Or unlesse we could understand by one and the same term of breaking bread that all Priests had drink as well as bread but the Lay people none Therefore whatsoever advantage it may be in regard it is certain that the greatest part of the world will never be wise to make a noise with any plea though never so unprobable rather then be thought to have nothing to say men of judgement and conscience must needs take it for a confession that there is no ground for it in the Scriptures to see things alleged so farr from all appearance of truth As for the practice of the Catholick Church I may very well remit all that desire to inform and not to scandalize themselves to those things which Cassander hath which much learning collected as sufficient to make it appear if any thing that men are unwilling to see can be made to appear that as to this day there is no such custom in the Eastern Church so in the Western Church it is not many ages since it can be called a custom And that by so visible degrees introduced as may be an undeniable instance to make evidence that corruption may creep into the Laws and customs of the Church though by those degrees which are not alwayes visible Indeed it is alleged that there are some natures found in the world that can by no means indure the taste of wine which therefore some men call abstemious without casting it back again â—nd induring as great pangs as men are seen to indure that are forced or couâ—ened to eat things which they hate So that to force such natures to receive the Sacrament in both kinds were to destroy the reverence due to it both in them who receive it and in them that shall see it used with no more reverence It is alleged again That Christianity goes further than wine That is That some Christian Nations dwell in Countries so untemperately cold that wine will not keep in their Countries but changes as soon as it comes Now as no reason appeareth why the Sacrament should not be celebrated for the use of those people who cannot receive it in both kinds Neither can any reason appear why other people receiving it in one kinde should not receive the same benefit by it which they do Last of all it is alleged that in the primitive Church it was many times received by the people in one kinde upon several occasions For in regard that Christians could not alwayes be prâ—sent at the celebrating therâ—oâ— when there was not such means as have since been provided especially those who were maried to unbelievers it was a custom to send them the Communion who were known to joyn with the devotion of the Church though hindred to joyn therewith in bodily presence as wee learn by Justiâ—e Martyrs second Apology And because in the quality of wine a litle quantity is not to be preserved as preserve it they did besides other reasons to take it Fasting therefore it was sent onely in the other kinde as wee finde by Tertullian writing to his wife Again if a man that was under Penance fell in danger of departing this life before hee was reconciled to the Church by receiving the Communion again which by this one instance wee may see how much the primitive Christians abominated to do As the Law of the Church was that they should not be refused the Communion in that case So the custom was for the same reason to send it them onely in one kinde as appeareth by an eminent example related from Dionysius of Alexandria by Eusebius Hist Eccles VI. 44. But these instances if they be looked into will appear to be of the same consequence as if it should be alleged to a Jew that if two Jews should turn back to back and go one of them East the other West till they came to meet again howsoever this may be possible to be done seeing when they meet again if the one count Saturday the other must needs count Sunday as appears evidently by the reason of the Sphere and the dayly motion of the Sun round the earth therefore they cannot both keep the Sabbath upon the day which the Law appoints therefore it is in the power of the Synagogue to appoint that no Sabbath be kept Or because during the forty years travail of the Israelites through the Wilderness to the Land of Promise their children were not circumcised by reason that they knew not when they should be summoned to remove by the moving of the cloud that was over the Tabernacle which they were alwayes to be ready to do Therefore it was in the power of the Synagogue to dispense with the circumcision of male children under the Law of Moses Positive precepts they are all that of circumcision and that of the Sabbath as well as this of the Eucharist Neither can it
What shall become of those that are baptized for the dead why are they then baptized for the dead The Commentaries upon Saint Pauls Epistles that go under Saint Ambrose his name tell us plainly that there were some then who if a man were prevented of Baptisme by death baptized another for him for fear he should either not rise at all or not well And this he saith Saint Paul hereby alloweth not onely argueth that this supposeth the resurrection And truely I showed you before that according to Epiphanius the Cerinthians did indeed at that time baptize another for any that was dead in that case having imbraced Christianity but dying before he was come to be baptized Of the Marcionites S. Chrysostome upon the place and Tertulliane de resurrectione mortuorum XLVIII and contra Marc. V. 10. do witnesse the same Whereupon it need not be said that the Marcionites were not in Saint Pauls timeâ— because they derived their customes from the Gnosticks that were Nor can I allow Saint Chrysostome that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can signify here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon condition of rising agine from the dead as being baptized upon condition of that which the Gospel promiseth I grant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signify 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should signify 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no example justifyeth Nor does Saint Chrysostome cure it by expounding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signify 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For if Christians may be said to be baptized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as for the recovering of their bodies from death they cannot therefore be said to be baptized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because their bodies are alive And divers Copies in the second place in stead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As you may see in the readings of the Great Bible And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will not serve to signify 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But requires the sense which the Syriack renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in stead of the dead Now the objection is easily satisfied For it may be demanded why Saint Paul writing to Gods people informes them not that this was not well done For he writes to Gods people indeed but upon that which was done by those who seduced Gods people And therefore need not stand to condemn that from whence he argues condemning all along those who pretended to seduce Gods people This is the supposition upon which I must argue False Christians baptized others for those who intending to be Christians were prevented with death before they could be baptizâ—d That this was done in regard to the resurrection you need not believe the supposed S. Ambrose it would not serve Saint Paul to prove the resurrection from that which they did otherwise That the benefit which they might find at the resurrection by being baptized must be expected to come by the prayers of the Church which alwayes prayed for Christians never for those that were not baptized is that which is demanded of them who will never give any other pertinent reason why others should be baptized for those who were dead without Baptisme When it was found that Judas Maccabaeus his souldiers that were slain in the battell had committed sacriledge in turning to their own use things consecrated to the Idols we read that they betook themselves to prayer and besought God that the sinne committed might wholy be put out of remembrance And that Judas made a gathering throughout the Company to the summe of M M. Drachmes of silver and sent it to Jerusalem to offer a sin-offering doing therein very well and honestly in that he was mindfull of the resurrection For if he had not hoped that they who were slaine should rise againe it had been superfluous and vaine to pray for the dead And also in that he perceived that there was great favour laid up for those that died godly it was an holy and good thought whereupupon he made reconciliation for the dead that they might be delivered from sinne This we read 2 Maccab. XII 42 43 44 45. The consequence whereof may stand upon two presumptions He that taketh it not for Historicall truth preferreth his own empâ—y fansy before all times and persons that have admitted it He that would have it passe for Gods word must shew the writer to have been inspired by God of which there remaines no Tradition in the Church What should hinder the fact to be true Doth not the Law which provideth no sacrifice for sinnes unreconcilable by the Law provide sacrifices for sacrilege Referre but the particular of the case to the determination of Gods people and the Elders which obliged it in every age what is there in the relation that agrees not with the Law Did our Lord Christ or his Apostles by word or writing ever blame any such practice Thus farre there is nothing to render it either suspect for truth or if true contrary to the Law What have we in the New Testament for it or against it S. Paul 2 Tim. I. 16 17 18. God grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus For he refreshed me many times and was not ashamed of my chaine But being in Rome carefully sought and found me The Lord grant him to find mercy of the Lord in that day For how many things he furnished me with at Ephesus thou better knowest Shall I say that Onesiphorus was alive at Rome when S Paul writ this and that therefore he prayeth for his houshold apart and himself apart Let impartiall reason judge whether Saint Paul would have prayed for him that was with him at Rome alive as one who coming to Rome and not ashamed of his bonds found him out and refreshed him Or whether he prayes for him being dead that he may finde mercy in that day For his family onely that they may finde mercy But fall that how it may he prays for that which could not befall him till the day of judgement and therefore may be prayed for on behalfe of those who are not come to the day of judgement though dead And therefore all those Scriptures which make the reward of the world to come to depend upon the triall of the day of judgement do prove that we are to pray for the issue of it in behalfe of all so long as it is coming Besides Ephes IV. 30. John III. 2. Luke XXI 18. and 2 Thes I. 6-9 quoted afore Saint Paul 1 Cor. I. 8. Who shall also confirme you unto the end that you may be blamelesse in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ Acts III. 19. Repent ye and be converted that your sinnes may be blotted out when the time of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. Phil. II. 16. That I may rejoyce in the day of Christ that I have not runne in vaine nor laboured in vaine 1 Thes II. 19. For what is our hope or joy or crown
the sword without the authority of the Soveraigne And therefore wee see that afterwards the good King Jehosaphat manifestly gives commission to these Judges at Jerusalem as well as to their inferiours when he restores them to the exercise of theire office according to law upon what occasion soever it may seeme to have been interrupted 2. Chron. XVII 7 8. 9. XIX 4 5 6 7 8 9 And hereupon the Psalme saith CXXII 5. There is the seat of judgement even the seat of the house of David But the Leviathan hereupon argues That as Solomon consecrated the Temple by his own prayers so Christian Princes may in their owne person consecrate Churches and not onely that but ordaine and celebrate the Eucharist and Preach and do all thiâ—gs themselves which their subjects may doe who are but their ministers The answer to which is first That herein he contradicts his own position that by the scriptures that is by Gods Law the right of designing persons to be Ordained and of doing other things of like nature belonges to the people of every Church But the office of solemnizing the ordination by imposition of hands and in like maner of executing other acts of like nature to the ministers of those Churches succeeding the Apostles Seconâ—ly that he is not able to show a reason why the great Turk should not by consequence be able to consecrate Eucharist Preach and do any office wherein Christianity obligeth his Christian subjects to communicate and they accordingly stand bound to receive them at his hands For he challenges not this right for the Soveraigne as Christian but as Soveraigne And therefore a Christian Soveraign can no more do that which every Christian his subject cannot do of this nature then a Soveraign that is not a Christian Lastly that the consequence is not true nor can be proved for the reason aforesaid which if it were not all that he inferreth though never so grosse would follow Indeed there were as I observed three estates established by the Law in that people The Priests the Judges and the Prophets And because established by the Law therefore successive The Priests by birth yet a Corporation by Law as by Law indowed with the rights of their Tribe Therefore when it comes to settle their courses and ministeries in the Temple I have observed in my booke of the rights of the Church p. 230. that this is not done by David alone but with the assistance of the principall of that Tribe For the Judges there is no reason why we should not believe the Tradition of the Jewes that they were all qualified to fit in any of their Courts by imposition of the hands of some that had received the same from Moses and his Judges Though this quality made them onely capable of being Judges to which they were still actually to be chosen by the King or by the Court. So that when the Talmudists relate that King David ordained XXXM on one day they understand that he did not this as King but as qualified to ordaine though as King he might actually make Judges But being zealous of the Law as they describe him spending his time about the niceties of it and having his guard of Cerethites and Pelethites whom they understand to be Doctors all or Scholars of the Law they consequently make us believe that he meant to store the nation wiâ—h persons qualified to be Judges As for the succession of the prophets tha depended meerely upon Gods free Grace though a course of learning and discipline was without question founded by Moses and maintained by his successors to make them fit by such education for the Grace And these being the Schools of the prophets in the Scriptures when the spirit of prophesy failed became the schools of Scribes Doctors and learners of the Law out of whom Judges came As Prophets then had their authority immediately from God so were they the forerunners of our Saviour Christ and his Apostles as our Saviour showeth when he saith Mat. XXIII 34. Behold I send unto you Prophets and Scribes and wisemen and of them ye shall kill and crucifie and of them you shall scourge in your Synagogues and persecute from city to city For God having appointed them by the Law of Deut. XVIII 18-22 to have recourse also to the prophets which he should raise untill the Messias should come in whom S. Steven challengeth that Law to be fulfiled Acts VII 37. if Prophets preaching by Gods commission displeased evill rulers they easily found pretences to quarel the evidence of their commission and to put them to death as false prophets which was that which they did to our Saviour Christ and his Apostles and those who preached Christ afterwards These then having commission from God alone had in them as I showed afore the qualities both of Priests in offering to God that service in spirit truth which Christianity pretendeth and of judges in determining that which should become questionable in the Church And as the Kings of Israel were bound by Gods Lawes to maintaine all those qualities in the execution of their office So the Church being founded and having subsisted three hundred years by this power of the Apostles Constantinâ— and all Christian Princes aster him finding â—â— in that estate become obliged by Gods Law to maintaine the Church whereof they became members by professing Christianity in that estate and quality wherein they become member of it And upon these termes have the Kings of England and all other Christian Princes the same rights in Church matters which the godly Kings of Israel and Christian Emperors are found to have exercised Whereof it shall be enough here to give the most eminent instance that can be alledged in the Heresy of Arius and all the factions that were canvased in the Church to restore it being once suppressed by the Synode of Nicaea Which one act of the Church though the whole power of the Empire in two Emperors Constantius and Valius though perhaps with far different intents laboured to make voide yet they never tooke upon them to do it immediately of themselves but by meanes of Synods which they might work to their intent or by the meanes of persons apposted by them to have the power of the chief Churches And therefore whereas that Synode as it was an act of the Empire was easily recalled by the breath of either of those Emperors as it was an act of the Church it prevailed over all their intentions and by the prevailing of it we continue untainted with the heresy of Arius The reason because the right of the Church was so notorious to all Christians that those Emperors that did not professe Christianity when they did not persecute it made good the acts of it As it is to be seen in that eminent example of Aureliane which I will repeate againe because it is still alledged to argue that Paulus Samosatenus was excommunicated by the secular power of Aureliane But when
who create the parties by heading the division have to look about them least they become guilty of the greatest part of soules which in reason must needs perish by the extremities in which it consisteth And the representing of the grounds thereof unto the parties though it may seem an office unnecessary for a private Christian to undertake yet seemeth to me so free from all imputation of offense in discharging of our common Christianity and the obligation of it that I am no lesse willing to undergoe any offense which it may bring upon me then I am to want the advantages which allowing the present Reformation might give me In the mean time I remaine obliged not to repent me of the resolution of my nonage to remaine in the communion of the Church of England There I find an authority visibly derived from the act of the Apostles by meanes of their successors Nor ought it to be of force to question the validity thereof that the Church of Rome and the communion thereof acknowledgeth not the Ordinations and other Acts which are done by virtue of it as done without the consent of the whole Church which it is true did visibly concurre to the authorizing of all acts done by the Clergy as constituted by virtue of those Lawes which all did acknowledge and under the profession of executing the offices of their severall orders according to the same For the issue of that dispute will be triable by the cause of limiting the exercise of them to those termes which the Reformation thereof containeth which if they prove such as the common Christianity expressed in the Scriptures expounded by the original practice of the whole Church renders necessary to be maintained notwithstanding the rest of the Church agree not in them the blame of separation that hath insued thereupon will not be chargeable upon them that retire themselves to them for the salvation of Christian soules but on them who refuse all reasonable compliance in concurring to that which may seem any way tollerable But towards that triall that which hath been said must suffice The substance of that Christianity which all must be saved by when all disputes and decrees and contradictions are at an end is more properly maintained in that simplicity which all that are concerned are capable of by the terms of that Baptisme which it ministreth requiring the profession of them from all that are confirmed at years of discretion then all the disputes on both sides then all decrees on the one side all confessions of faith on the other side have been able to deliver it And I conceive I have some ground to say so great a word having been able by limiting the term of justifying faith in the writings of the Apostles according to the same to resolve upon what termes both sides are to agree if they will not set up the rest of their division upon something which the truth of Christianity justifieth not on either side For by admitting Christianity that is the sincere profession thereof to be the Faith which onely justifyeth in the writings of the Apostles whatsoever is in difference as concerning the Covenant of Grace is resolved without prejudicing either the necessity of Grace to the undertaking the performing the accepting of it for the reward or the necessity of good works in consideration for the same The substance of Chrianity about which there is any difference being thus secured there remaines no question concerning Baptisme and the Eucharist to the effect for which they are instituted being ministred upon this ground and the profession of it with the form which the Catholick Church requireth to the consecration of the Eucharist Nor doth the Church of England either make Sacraments of the rest of the seven or abolish the Offices because the Church of Rome makes them Sacraments Nor wanteth it an order for the daily morning and evening service of God for the celebration of Festivalls and times of Fasting for the observation of ceremonies fit to create that devotion and reverence which they signify to vulgar understandings in the service of God But praying to Saints and worshipping of Images or of the Eucharist Prayers for the delivery of the dead out of Purgatory the Communion in one kind Masses without Communions being additions to or detractions from that simplicity of Gods service which the originall order of the Church delivereth visible to common reason comparing the present order of the Church of Rome with the Scriptures and primitive records of the Church there is no cause to think that the Catholick Church is disowned by laying them aside It is true it was an extraordinary act of Secular Power in Church maters to inforce the change without any consent from the greater part of the Church But if the matter of the change be the restoring of Lawes which our common Christianity as well as the Primitive orders of the Church of both which Christian Powers are borne Protectors make requisite the secular power acteth within the sphere of it and the division is not imputable to them that make the change but to them that refuse their concurrence to it Well had it been had that most pious and necessary desire thereof to restore publick Penance been seconded by the zeal and compliance of all estates and not stifled by the tares of Puritanisme growing up with the Reformation of it For as there can be no just pretense of Reformation when the effect of it is not the frequentation of Gods publick service in that forme which it restoreth but the suppressing of it in that form which it rejecteth So the communion of the Eucharist being the chiefe office in which it consisteth the abolishing of private Masses is an unsusticient pretense for Reformation where that provision for the frequenting of the communion is not made which the restoring of the order in force before private Masses came in requireth Nor can any meane be imagined to maintaine continuall communion with that purity of conscience which the holinesse of Christianity requireth but the restoring of Penance In fine if any thing may have been defective or amisse in that order which the Church of England establisheth it is but justice to compare it in grosse with both extreames which it avoideth and considering that it is not in any private man to make the body of the Church such as thâ—y could wish to serve God with to rest content in that he is not obliged to become a party to those things which he approves not conforming himself to the order in force in hope of that grace which communion with the Church in the offices of Gods service promiseth For consider againe what meanes of salvation all Christians have by communion with the Church of Rome All are bound to be at Masse on every Festivall day but to say onely so many Paters and so many Aves as belong to the hour Not to assist with their devotions that which they understand not much lesse
Christianity was in force And therefore as visibly derive themselves fromt the Apostles as the corrupt Christianity of this time can derive it self from that which they planted pure from the fountain But there can be no such evidence of this point or of the whole mater in hand concerning the Corporation of the Church as the excluding of Hereticks and Schismaticks out of it S. Paul 2 Thess III. 6-14 orders them to withdraw from every brother that walkes disorderly and not according to the Tradition which saith hee yee have received from us To mark them and not to converse with them that they may be ashamed But with the excommunicate not so much as to eat 1 Cor. V. 11. So likewise having exhorted the Romanes XVI 12. to mark those that cause divisions and scandals beside the doctrine which saith hee yee have received of us to avoid them hee hath thereby given us to understand that hee would have Christians abhorr all conversation with those that declare themselves Hereticks I have in another place allowed S. Jeromes exposition of that Text of S. Paul Titus III. 9. A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition avoid Understanding it of Schismaticks who as it followes do condemne themselves when they voluntarily forsake the communion of the Church which other sinners are excluded from whether they will or not But considering there is no admonition against Schisme which is declared as soon as it is done as there may be against Heresie which may lurk before it is professed I count is as properly said that Hereticks condemn themselves whenâ—oever they professe to believe the contrary of that which they professed when they were made Christians as Schismaticks when they excommunicate themselves The Apostle indeed seems to use a moderate term when hee saith A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition avoid So the original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be translated according to Cyrils Glosses where wee reade 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excuso recuso evito which last sounds in English to avoid But in Vulcanius his Glosses evito signifies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To have in horror as well as to take heed and to avoid And it is to be understood that S. Paul prescribes that to Tiâ—us which hee intends all his flock should practise Supposing that being Christians they would be carefull to avoid the infection of those whom their Pastors should avoid because they counted them dangerous not to themselves but to their flock To this purpose S. Jude 22 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Copy at S. James reades 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reproue some that preferre themselves before others But nothing so pertinently to the opposition between pity and terror that followes And some truly take pity on putting a difference or behaving your selves with a difference towards them others save through feare of the judgment of God or of the Church hating even the garment that is spotted with sin It appeares that the Gnosticks whom hee writes against could counterfeit themselves Christians to seduce the simple from the Faith to their Heresies Therefore Jude 11 12. They perished in the contradiction of Core They are spots in your Feasts of love banqueting with you and feeding themselves without feare And 1 Pet. II. 14 18. they are said to bait unstable soules And They bait with fleshly concupiscences through wantonnesse those that had truly escaped from them that live in error They were not afraid to communicate with Christians at their Feasts of love where the Sacrament of the Eucharist was also celebrated that they might get means and opportunity of seducing the simple to separate with them from the Church And therefore S. Jude 19. These are they who separate themselves as S. Peter saith that they perish in the contradiction of Core So then those that are curable either by pity or by terror hee exhorts them to save But when hee charges them to hate even the garmâ—nâ— thâ—t is spotted with sin hee charges them much more to abhorre the communion of those that were discovered to be uncurable For with what zele they taught to avoid the Hereticks of that time let S. John be Judge John II. 10 11. If any man come to you that brings not this doctrine but transgresses it and abides not in it as hee said just afore take him not into your house as you do them who bring testimony that they hold the Christian faith neither salute him for hee that salutes him is accessory to his evil works Certainly hee requires great demonstration of a minde detesting Heresie that affirmes those who afford them the ordinary civility of salutation to be accessory to their evil works But it is to be considered that the Apostle speaks of the Heresies which Simon Magus and Cerinthus had then set on foot when hee sayes there II John 7. Many impostors are gone out into the world who professe not Jesus Christ come in the flesh For though they wore the name of Christians yet they professed not that Jesus of Nazareth then come in the flesh was the Christ But Simon Magus and his disciple Menander both pretended themselves to be the Christ Saturninus and Basilides some of their invisible principles Valentinus one of his Aeones and likewise Marcus Cerinthus the power that came upon Jesus of Nazareth at his Baptisme and left him at his Crosse So the rest untill Cerdon and Marcion who pretending that Jesus of Nazareth was not Son of the God of Israel denied by consequence that Christ was come in the flesh S. Cyprian Epist LXXIII having disputed that these Heresies do not hold the same Father the same Son the same Holy Ghost with the Church comes down to the Marcionites strongly arguing that they who made one God of Israel anotherÌ„ the Father of our Lord Christ and his Manhood onely in appearance cannot be said to believe in Christ as Christians do Adding very plainly that they are those of whom the Apostle speaketh 1 John IV. 2. that they are of the Spirit of Antichrist and that the Spirit of Antichrist hath possessed their breasts But there is no such commentary upon S. â—ohns words as that which is related of hiâ— by Irenaeus III. 3. from the mouth of Polycarpus that hee would not indure to be in the bath with Cerinthus the enemy of Gods truth And of Polycarpus that being desired by Marcion to own him hee answered that hee did own him for â—he first-born of Satan Which actions Irenaeus thus construeth Tantum Apostoli horum discipuli habuerunt timorem ut neque verbo tenus communicarent alicui eorum qui adulteraverunt veritatem Quemadmodum Paulus ait Haereticum hominem post unam alteram correptionem devita Sciens quoniam perversus est qui est talis à seipso damnatus So great fear had the Apostles and Disciples not to communicate so farr as in words with any of those who
corrupted the truth As Paul also saith A man that is an Heretick after one reproof and a second avoid Knowing that such a one is perverted condemned by himself Where you see it is not I but Irenaeus that expoundeth those words of S. Paul to this purpose The same Irenaeus III. 4. Cerdon autem qui ante Marcionem hic sub Hygino qui fuit octavus Episcopus saepe in Ecclesiam veniens exomologesim faciens sic consummavit Modò quidem latenter docens modò verò exomologesim faciens modò verò ab aliquibus traductus in his quae docebat malè abstentus est religiosorum hominum conventu But this same Cerdon also that was before Marcion under Hyginus who was the eight Bishop many times addressing to the Church and confessing ended accordingly Sometimes covertly teaching his Heresie sometimes confessing And sometimes being detected by some in those bad things which hee taught was excluded the assembly of the Religious Tertullian de praescript cap. XXX informes us that Marcion though hee was at the first refused Penance by the Church of Rome as I shall show you out of Epiphanius yet afterwards was cast out of the Church there which supposeth him admitted afore with Valentinus the Father of another Heresie and having been received once again at the last for good and all For having obtained to be re-admitted upon this condition that hee should reduce with himself all that hee had seduced at length hee died before hee was able to accomplish the same These things coming to passe so soon after the Apostles as they did and the same course being held in separating those Heresies from the Church which sprung up in their several ages afterwards there is no room left for any pretense that the Church never had power to do that which there never was any time that shee did not do For it is to be noted that these Heads of Heresies being condemned and cast out of the Church in which they first appeared and which they attempted to divide were thenceforth disowned by all Churches being certified of the proceeding that had passed against them upon the place And therefore Vincentius Lerinensis Commentario I. expounding S. Pauls words Gal. I. 8 9. Let him be Anathema Anathema sit inquit id est separatui exclusus nè unius ovis dirum contagium innoxium gregem Christi venenatâ permistione contaminet That is saith hee let him be separated set aside shut out least the direfull contagion of one sheep with any mixture of poison stain the innocent flock of Christ And again afterwards handling the words of S. Paul 1 Tim. VI. 20. Keep that which is committed to thy trust avoiding profane novelties of words What is it to avoid With such one not so much as to eat What is avoid If any come to you saith hee and bringeth not this doctrine receive him not home nor bid him God speed Where you see these are none of my collections gathered out of the Apostles words but that exposition of them which the practice of the Catholick Church inferreth CHAP. X. Evidence of the Apostles act from the effect of it in preserving the Vnity of the Church Of the businesse of Marcion and Montanus That about keeping Easter That of the Novations of rebaptizing Hereticks of Paulus Samosatenus of Dionysius Alexandrinus and Arius Of communicatory leters and the intercourse of the Church under and after the Apostles THis is indeed the true demonstration and evidence from the effect that the will of God and not the consent of men is the ground upon which the Corporation of the Church subsisteth The whole number of Christians dispersed over all the Empire and beyond the bounds of it continued for divers hundred years in one communion and in the unity of one Church Those that indeavoured to alter the Rule of Faith or to impose such Lawes as were found by the greatest part not to stand with the end for which the Church was founded being by the consent of the whole excluded the communion of it for Hereticks and Schismaticks Hee that sayes this was not the work of God or the means of effecting it none of his declared will why should not hee say the like of Christianity Indeed since the Council of Ephesus the Churches of Mesopotamia and Assyria are fallen from the Unity of the whole since the Council of Chalcedon those of Aegypt and Aethiopia Since that the Eastern Churches under the Patriarch of Constantinople have been divided from the Western under the Pope of Rome And these from one another into so many parties since the Reformation that wee are now come to dispute whether they ought to be united or not That ever they will be is so hopelesse that no man would undertake to dispute that they should be were it possible to preserve that little of Christianity that remaines without re-uniting the Church I allege here the most eminent passages that fell out in the Church from the Apostles to Constantine to show that it is a question whether the evidence be more That by Gods appointment there was from the beginning and ought to be alwaies one Catholick Church Or the hope lesse that ever it will be so again I cannot begin with a better evidence than that of Irenaeus because it containes the effect of the aforesaid ordinances of the Apostles for the separating of the Heresies set on foot by Simon Magus and Cerinthus from the Communion of the Church that the Unity thereof might be preserved by remaining distinct from them Wee understand by reading his first book that Basilides at Alexandria Saturninus at Antiochia Valentinus first in Aegypt then in Cyprus afterwards at Rome Cerintbus in Asia and elsewhere others in several parts of the World indeavored to adulterate that Christianity which the Apostles had delivered That they were so unanimously rejected and excluded out of the society of the Church from East to West that hee is able to affirm I. 3. that though dispersed all over the world yet it preserves the doctrine once preached as if it dwelt all in one house believing the same faith as if it had the same soul and heart and preaching and teaching the same as if it had but one mouth And can common sense imagine that the remotest parts of the world could remaine united to one another separated from Heresies sprung in the remotest parts of it which they could not have intelligence of but by communication of it with those parts of it where they sprung without that continual correspondence wherein the actual communion of the Church consisteth But the words of Irenaeus are so vigorous that I cannot leave them out here as they stand in his original Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Unity therefore of the Church was visible Otherwise it had been senslesse for Irenaeus to assume it as an evidence of the truth of that Faith the unity whereof became visible by the
though first penned in Ebrew yet was translated into Greek in Aegypt as the Prefice witnesses Supposing then the interest of Christianity against Judaism to consist in that which the Fathers of the Church do plead That the same Word and Wisedom of God which first dealt with the Patriarchs which gave the Law to Moses and afterwards spoke by the Prophets in after time dwelt in our Lord Christ Jesus and delivered the Gospel I demand what could have been said more to the purpose of Christianity against Judaism by those that lived under Moses Law There is a question whether the Apostles S. Paul and whosoever it was that writ the Epistle to the Ebrews do allege these Books and allow them for their Authors when they call our Lord Christ the Image of God 2 Cor. II. 4. the Image of the invisible God Col. I. 15. the resplendence of the glory of God and the express image of his substance Ebr. I. 3. the Power of God and the Wisedom of God 1 Cor. I. 24. When they say that all things in heaven and earth were created by him and to him and subsist through him as the first-born of the whole creature Col. I. 16 17. that the world was made by him and that hee sustaineth and moveth all things by his powerfull word Ebr. I. 2 3. For how like are these things to those which wee reade in Ecclesiasticus I. 1 4. All wisedom cometh from the Lord and is with him for everlasting Wisedom was made before all things and the understanding of prudence from everlasting And XXIV 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Before the world from the beginning hee made mee and for ever I fail not Having said in the beginning of the Chapter according to the Latine Copy Ego ex ore Altissimi prodivi primogenita ante omnem creaturam I came forth of the mouth of the most High the first born before every creature And again Ecclesiasticus I. 9 10. The Lord himself made her and saw and numbred her and poured her upon all his works With all flesh shee is according to his gift and hee furnisheth her to them that love him And XXIV 5-9 I came out of the most High and covered the earth like a mist I dwell in the highest and my throne is in the pilar of cloud I alone compass the circumference of heaven and walk in the bottom of the deep In the waves of the sea and in all the earth in every people and nation is my inheritance Adding that seeking rest among men shee found it no where but in Israel And in the book of Wisedom VII 22 -27 For there is in Wisedom an understanding spirit holy onely begotten manifold subtile thinn nimble perspicuous undefiled plain to be understood inviolable loving goodness quick not to be hindred beneficent loving to men firm sure not solicitous that can do any thing that survayeth all things and passeth through the purest and finest understanding spirits For Wisedom is nimbler than all motions and attaineth and passith through all things because of her pureness For it is a vapor of the power of God and a sincere effluence of the glory of the Almighty therefore no pollution can happen to it For it is the resplendence of the everlasting light the unspotted mirror of Gods working and the image of his goodness Which being one can do all things and remaining in her self reneweth all things and passing into pious souls in all ages makes them friends of God and Prophets And IX 9 10 11. And with thee is Wisedom that knoweth thy works and was present when thou madest the world and knoweth what is pleasing in thine eyes and right in thy commands Send her from thy holy heavens and from the throne of thy glory that shee may assist and labor with mee and I may know what is pleasing before thee For shee knoweth and understandeth all things and will guide mee wisely in my doings and keep mee in her glory Can any man reade these things and not remember the beginning of S. Johns Gospel In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God The same was in the beginning with God All things were made by it and without it was nothing made that was made Can any man conceive that the Apostles should call our Lord Christ the Word the Power and the Wisedom of God that made all things in heaven and in earth it self being brought forth before all creatures supporting and moving all things which was with God from everlasting that hee is the image of God the shine of his glory the character of his substance That the successors of the Prophets should describe the Wisedom of God to be the Word of God that dwelt in the Prophets and the Power of God that made all things being it self brought forth before all things that sustaineth and governeth all things to dwell by the throne of God as the shine of his light the miror of his works the breath and vapor of his power and glory and from thence to come and take possession of the souls of Prophets and not acknowledg all this to come from the same fountain Especially being perswaded afore as all that are not Jews must be perswaded that the same Spirit and Word of God qualified as Wisedom describeth it which possessing the souls of righteous men in that measure whereof each of them was capable made them Gods Prophets dwelt in Christ without measure according to the fulnesse of the Godhead as the Apostles have told and said John I. 14 16. III. 34. Col. II. 9 10. Truly if any man say as I know it is said that the same sense may be derived by the Apostles from the glory of God in Ezek. I. 28. from the attributes of the Messias Psal II. 7. 2 Sam. VII 14. Esa IX 6. from the making of the world by Gods wisedom recorded Psal XXXIII 5. CXXXVI 5. Jeremy LI. 15. X. 12. especially from that which Solomon hath written of Wisedom being present with God from everlasting and doing all his works Prov. VIII 11-31 I will not contend with him about it Though in my own judgment seeing it cannot reasonably be denied that these writings being extant long afore went then with the rest of the Greek Bible And seeing the texts that are alleged do not direct us to understand how the Word and Spirit and Wisedom of God by which the Law and the Prophets spoke dwelleth for ever in our Lord Christ as these passages of their Successors do I do firmly believe that they signifie their allowance of them whose doctrine they use But it is enough that it may hereby appear as it must needs appear that they give us good and sound commentaries upon so high a point of the Prophets doctrine their predecessors when the Apostles that follow them hold such correspondence with them in it Onely hereupon I will from hence draw the reason why the inward obedience to
God in Spirit and truth which the Gospel requireth is so plentifully preached in all those writings which wee call Apocrypha Whereas in our Saviors and his Apostles time and much more afterwards they promised themselves the kingdome of heaven upon the righteousnesse of the Scribes and Pharisees That is upon the outward and carnal observation of Moses Law and preciseness in all those little niceties which their Masters had fensed it with For it is no mervail that they who under persecution promised themselves a part in the resurrection of the righteous cleaving to God and his Law should finde themselves tyed to that obedience in spirit and truth which God who is a Spirit sees and allows But lesse mervail it is that having attained the carnal promises of the Law in the possession of the Land of Promise they should fall away from the like zeal and yet promise themselves the world to come upon that form of godliness which they observed being destitute of the force and power of it As an argument that this consideration is well grounded and true I will here adde the authority and practice of the primitive Church prescribing these books to be read by the Catechumeni or those that professed to believe the truth of Christianity and offered themselves to be instructed in the mater of it in order to Baptism and being made Christians For seeing these might be as well Jews as Gentiles this signifies that the doctrine of them was held by the Church a fit instruction towards Christianity even for those that were already acquainted with the doctrine of the Prophets S. Athanasius then in Synopsi testifieth that these books were read to the Catechumeni To the same purpose it is read in the Constitutions of the Apostles though the place is not at hand at present And that which the last Canon of the Apostles prescribes that besides the Canonical Scriptures the book of Ecclesiasticus be read by the youth seems to tend to the same purpose To the same purpose Dionysius de div Nom. cap. IV. calls the Book of Wisedom an Introduction to the divine Oracles But let no man think to inferr that the Apostles took these Books for Scripture inspired by God because I grant that they borrowed from them in their writings Origen hath met with this objection Prol. in Cant. where hee observeth That the Apostles have borrowed some things out of Apocryphal Scriptures as S. Jude out of the books of Enoch and the departure of Moses and yet addes that wee are not to give way to the reading of them because wee must not transgresse the bounds which our Fathers have fixed Where you see hee distinguisheth those books which the Church did not allow to be read under the name of Apocrypha from those which it did allow to be read and are therefore more properly called Ecclesiastical Scriptures which name hath particularly stuck by way of excellence upon the Wisedom of the son of Sirach though I contend not about names when wee call them Apocrypha because I see that S. Jerome hath sometimes done it And if S. Paul have alleged Aratus Menander and Epimenides heathen Poets hee did not thereby intend to allow the authors but the mater which hee allegeth If these things be so I shall not desire to abridg any mans liberty from arguing against the mater of these Books to prove them not inspired by God because not agreeing with those which wee know and agree to have been inspired by God But I shall warn them that take upon them thus to argue first to look about them that they bring not the unquestionable parts of Scripture into an undue suspicion for agreeing in something for which they have conceived a prejudice that these Books are not to be received The design of Judith and her proceeding in the execution of it is charged not to agree with Christianity neither is it my purpose here to maintain that it doth But I am more than afraid that those who object this do not know how to distinguish it from the fact of Jaell the wife of Heber the Kenite in the book of Judges which the Spirit of God in Deborah the Prophetesse so highly extolleth The like is to be said of the like passages questioned in the book of Tobit and the Maccabees and namely the fact of Razias killing himself least hee should fall into the hands of persecutors which seemeth to be related with much approbation 2 Mac. XIV 41-46 For to distinguish this fact from Samsons it will not serve the turn to say that Samson did it by inspiration of Gods Spirit supposing afore that it was contrary to Gods declared Law to do it The difficulty being greater in saying that the declared Law of God is violated by the motion of Gods Spirit when as the Spirit of God is not granted to any man but upon supposition of acknowledging Gods declared Law For howsoever Saul or Caiaphas or Balaam may be moved by the Spirit of God to speak such things as by the Scriptures inspired by God wee learn that they did speak Yet that God should imploy upon his own Commission as the Judges of whom it is said that the Spirit of God came upon them were manifestly imployed by God whom hee favored not is a thing which cannot agree with the presumption which all Christians have of the salvation of the Fathers As for the passage of Eccles XLVI 23. which seems to say that it was the soul of Samuel the Prophet and not an evil Spirit assuming his habit that foretold the death of Saul I do not understand why all this may not be said according to appearance not according to truth For it will still make for the honor of Samuel that the King whatsoever opinion hee had of this means of fore-knowledg should desire to see Samuel as him whom in his life time hee found so unquestionable But if it be said that this cannot satisfie the leter of the Scripture yet can it not be said that as Saul a wicked man did believe that hee might see Samuel so a good man at that time might not have the same Being then no part of the truth which true piety obliged all men to acknowledg In the book of Tobit there are several things besides questionable But they that imagine conjuring in the liver of a fish to drive away an unclean Spirit do not consider those exorcisms whereby it is evident both by the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles besides divers of the most ancient Fathers of the Church that the Jews both in our Lords times and after did cast out unclean Spirits For what force could they have but from the appointment of God from whom at first they were delivered for a testimony of his residence among his people Which makes me stick to condemn that relation of the Jews in the Talmud extant also in Suidas that there were admirable remedies delivered by Solomon which hee caused to be writ upon
22-33 And this will serve also to make evidence that the Law of Christians mariage cannot be imagined to come from the Lawes of the Empire granting as the truth is that they allowed no man to have more wives then one at once For. there is nothing more evident then this that this mutuall interesse in one anothers body was never acknowledgeded by Pagans noâ— cannot be thought to have stand by their Laws It were to be wondred at otherwise that whereas not only the Romans but in Greece the Athenians and the Germans among the Barbarians as Tacitus saith contented themselves with one man one wife Gods people should be licensed to have more then one But he that reflects upon the consideration in which these Pagans restrained themselves will not find it strange that Gods people should be permitted that which they denied themselves For this mutuall Interest in one anothers bodies which God provided for the means to prevent the sad effects of mans inbred concupiscence in dishonouring their bodies with uncleanness we shall not find to have been had in consideration among them or that uncleanness seemed at all dishonourable to man but prohibited as injurious to mens beds and the successions of families The Lawes of the Empire made it no adultery for the man to lye with another woman which in the woman it was as the Christians complain Lact antius Hist VI. 23. Non enim sicut juris publici ratio est solâ— mulier adultera est quâ— habet alium maricus autem etiam si plures habeat à crimine adulterii solutus est Sed divinâ— lex ita duos in matrimonium quod est in corpus unum pari jure conjungit ut adulter habeatur si â—uis compagem corparis in diversa distraxerit For the Woman onely is not the adulteress having another man but the husband free from the crime of adultery having more women as is the course of publick Law But the Law of God joyns two in wedlock that is into one body upon so equall right that the party is to be counted an adultererer which shall part the body so compacted into more S. Hierome Ep. ad Oceanum Aliâ— sunt leges Caesarum aliae Christi aliud Papinianus aliud Paulus noster praecipit Apud illos viris impudicitiâ— frâ—na laxantur solo stupro atque adulterio condemnatis passim perlupanaâ—ia aâ—cillulas libido permiâ—titur quasi culpam dignitas faciat non volunt as Apud nos quod non licet uxoribus aeque non licet viris eadeâ—â— servitus pars conditione censetur Other are the Laws of the Caesars then that of Christ other is that which S. Paul then that which Papinian prescribeth Among them the rains are let loose to mens uncleannesse and rape and adultery onely prohibited â—ust walks free all over stewes and maid-slaves as if the estate not the will made the fault Among us that which Wives may not do neither may Husbands the same obligation is taxed upon equall condition S. Augustine de adult Conjug II. 8. Sedâ—isti quâ— bus displicet ut inter virum â—xorem par pudicitiae forma servetur potius eligunt maximeque in hac cavsâ mundi legibus subesse quam Christi quoniam jura forensia non eisdem fâ—minas quibus viros pudicitiae nexibus videntur astringere legant quid Imp. Antoniâ—us But those who like not that the same form of chastity should be observed between man and wife and had rather especially in this cause be under the Laws of the world then of Christ because the Court Laws doe not seem to tie women by the same bond of chastity as men Let them read what the Emperour Antoninus Who knows not the lawfulnesse of unnaturall lusts among the Pagans that reads the first Chapter to the Romanes And can we think it strange that Husbands should not be forbidden unmaried persons Wherefore where the Lawes allowed not one man more wives then one there they punished not wandring lusts but provided for mens reputation and their successions Whereas the law of Moses which gives a man leave to mary a Jewess sold him for a slave to himself or to his Sonne provides her an interess in his body for the preventing of uncleanness as you saw before And all those Idolatrous Nations which Gods people were invironed with using more wives then one it is the lesse marvail that God allowed his people something in it that the race of those that feared him might not be quite extinguished and over-run by the multitude of them that served Idols And this is the true reason why S. Paul declares those that are converted to Christianity not to stand obliged to the Wives or Husbands which they had taken before 1 Cor. VII 12-15 Supposing first that by Moses Law the mariages of Jews with Idolaters were void and unlawfull to be used as we see by Ezra IX X. Nehem. X. 30. On the other side that in the Romam Empire the wife as well as the Husband had power to divorce her selfe and to dissolve wedlock which is argument enough how farre they were from being the mariages of Christians Whereupon I say that the mariages of Pagans not being made upon the same ground as the mariages of Christians which is the mutuall interess in one anothers boâ—ies as it is no marvail on one side that S. Paul obliges them not to part as Moses did because those that were not tied by Law might for the particular love they had to their wives turned Christians tie themselves to them alone and upon those who did so the wives had great advantage to grant them to Christianity as he alledges So it is evident on the other â—â—de why he allows them to part to wit having no confidence of that faith in wedlock from them which Christians of necessity professe The reason why the mariages of Jews with Gentiles were void by the Law is thus given by S. Augustine de adult Conjug I. 18. Namque hoc dominus aliquando per Ezdrâ—m Prophetam fieri jussit factâ—m est dimiserunt Israelitâ— uxores alienigenas quiâ—unque tunc haberâ—â—â—tuerunt per quas fiebat ut ipsi ad alienâ—s seducerentur deos non ut illâ— per â—â—â—ritâ—s vero acquirerentur deo Noâ—dum enim tanta gracia salvatoris illuxerâ—â— promissis temporaleâ—us vâ—teris T. adâ—â—â— inhiabat illius populi multitudâ— Et propterea cum bâ—na terrena quâ— pro magnâ— expectaâ—aâ—â— a domino viderent etiam his abundarâ— qui multâ—s falsâ—s colebant dâ—os blanditiis uxorum prius â—â—s verebantur offendere dâ—iâ—dâ— indicebantur colere For this the Lord once commanded to be done by Ezdras the Prophet and done it was The Israelites dismissed their stranger wives as many as then had of theâ— by whose means it came to passe that even they were seduced to strange Gods For as yet so great grace of our Saviour bad not shined oâ— them and the multitude of