wine save onely at Gods Table or a man that findes himselfe apt to be miscarryed by his appetite confines himselfe by his vow to one dish or to one meale for the day or a man that findes himself given to the pleasure of gaming to the losse of his time and the weakning of his estate curbes himselfe by his vow never to play for money or a man that findes his prayers weak and his flesh rebellious vowes to tame his unruly desires and to stir up his duller devotions by fasting And as the matter of your vow must be carefully regarded so also your intentions in vowing for if you vow to doe good to an ill end your thanke is lost and danger of judgement incurred as if you vow to give almes for vaine-glory or ostentation or if God shall prosper your usurious or monopolizing project you will build an hospitall your vow is like to be so accepted as the story tells us the prayers were of that bold Curtizan who coming to the shrine of S. Thomas of Canterbury as that traitour was stiled devoutly beg'd that through the intercession of that Saint she might be graced with so winning a beauty that might allure her paramours to a gainfull courting of so pleasing a Mistresse when suddainly as my author tells me she was stricken blinde and certainely so it might well be for if a supposed Saint were invoked it was God that was highly provoked by the sinfull petition of a shamelesse harlot and it was most just for him to revenge it and so we may well expect it shall be with whosoever shall dare to make use of his sacred name to their owne wicked or unwarrantable purposes Since therefore our vowes must be for their matter as Casuists well determine De meliore bono and for intentions holy and directed onely to good it plainly appeares that many idle purposes promises resolutions are wont to passe with men for vows which have no just claime to that holy title One sayes he vowes never to be friends with such a one that hath highly abused him another that he will never come under the roofe of such an unkinde neighbour one that he will drinke so many healths to his honoured friend another that he will not give the wall or the way to any passenger one that he will never weare suit but of such a colour another that he will never cut his haire till such an event These and such like may be foolish unjust ridiculous selfe engagements but vowes they are not neither therefore do bind the conscience otherwise than as Sampsons cords and withes which he may break as a thred of tow Iudg. 16. 9. 12. But as for true vowes certainly they are so binding that you shall sin hainously in not performing them It is not better than dishonesty to fail in what we have promised to men but to disappoint God in our vowes is no lesse than sacriledge That of Solomons is weighty Eccles. 5. 4 5 6. When thou vowest a vow unto God deferre not to pay it for he hath no pleasure in fooles pay that which thou hast vowed Better it is that thou shouldst not vow than that thou shouldst vow and not pay it Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin neither say before the Angel that it was an errour wherefore should God be angry at thy vow and destroy the worke of thine hands If therefore a lawfull and just vow have passed your lips you may not be false to God and your selfe in not keeping it But if it shall so fall out that there proves to be some maine inconvenience or impossibility in the fulfilling of this your solemne promise unto God whether through the extreme prejudice of your health and life or the over-swaying difficulty of the times what is to be done surely as under the law Numb 30. 3 4 5. it was left in the power of the parent to over-rule the vow of the childe so I doubt not but under the Gospel it is left in the power of your spirituall fathers to order or dispense with the performance of those vowes which you would but cannot well fulfill neither was it spoken in vaine nor in matter of sins onely which our Saviour in way of authorization said to his Apostles and their successours Whatsoever ye shall binde on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven Mat. 18. 18 In this case therefore I should advise you to make your addresse to your spirituall pastor and freely to lay open your condition before him and humbly to submit your selfe to his fatherly directions in that course which shall be found best and sasest for your soule Think it not safe in a businesse of so high nature to relye upon your owne judgment and to carve out your own satisfaction but regard carefully what God hath said of old The priests lippes should keep knowledge and they should seeke the law at his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts Mal. 2. 7. CASE V. Whom may we justly hold an Heretick and what is to be done in the case of Heresie THere is no one point wherein the Church of God hath suffered more than in the mis-understanding of this question How many thousand innocents have in these latter ages of the Church perished in this unhappy quarrell yea how many famous Churches have beene most unjustly thunder-struck with direfull censures of Excommunication down to the pit of hell upon pretence of this crime which have bin lesse guilty than their Anathematizers And even amongst our selves how apt we are to brand one another with this hatefull mark where there is no true merit of such a reproach It much imports us therefore to know who may be deservedly thus stigmatized by us I have elsewhere somewhat largely insisted on this theme whither I might spare some lines to referre you But in short thus To let passe the originall sense and divers acceptions of the word An heresie is no other than an obstinate errour against the foundation All truths are precious but some withall necessary All errours are faulty but some damnable the naynousnesse of the error is according to the worth of the truth impugned There are Theologicall verities fit for us to know and believe there are Articles of Christian faith needfull to be known and believed There are truths of meet and decent superstructure without which the fabrick may stand there are truths of the foundation so essentiall as that without them it cannot stand It is a maime to the house if but a tile be pulled off from the roofe but if the foundation be razed the building is overthrown this is the endeavour and act of heresie But now the next question will be what doctrines they are which must be accounted to be of the Foundation Our countrey-man Fisher the Jesuite and his Associates wil tell you roundly that all those things which are defined
but that vice may be found out repressed punished There cannot fourthly be devised a fairer and more probable course for the effecting hereof than by the discovery upon oaths of the Officers and Jurors in Assizes and Sessions and of Churchwardens and Sidemen in Visitations The ground of all presentments to or by these men must be either their owne knowledge or publique fame or an avowed information Any of these gives a lawful hint to the Judge whether Ecclesiasticall or Civill to take sull triall of the cause and person Knowledge is alwayes certain but fame is often a lyar and therefore every idle rumour must not be straight taken upon trust the inconvenience and injury whereof I have often seene when some malicious person desiring to doe a despight to an innocent Neighbour raises a causelesse slander against him whispers it to some dis-affected Gossips this flies to the eare of an Apparitor hee straight runs to the Office and suggests a publique fame the honest man is called into the Court his reputation is blurred in being but summoned and after all his trouble and disgrace hath his amends in his own hands The rule of some Casuists that ten tongues make a fame is groundlesse and insufficient neither is the number so much to be regarded as the quality of the persons If a whole pack of debauched companions shall conspire to staine the good name of an innocent as we have too often knowne it were a shamefull injustice to allow them the Authors of a fame the more judicious Doctors have defined a publique fame by the voice of the greater part of that Community wherein it is spread whether Towne Parish City and therein of those that are discreet honest well-behaved We are wont to say Where there is much smoake there is likely some fire an universall report from such mouthes therefore may well give occasion to a further inquiry If any mans zeale against vice will make it a matter of instance the case is cleare and the proceeding unquestionable But if it be matter of meere office the carriage of the processe may bee liable to doubt Herein it is meet such course be taken as that neither a notorious evill may be smothered nor yet innocence injured To which purpose the most confident reporter may be called upon because fame hath too many tongues to speak at once to lay forth the grounds of that his whispered crimination and if the Circumstances appeare pregnant and the Suspicions strong I see not why the Ecclesiasticall Judge for with him onely in this case I professe to meddle may not convent the person accused lay before him the crime which is secretly charged upon him and either upon his ingenuous confession enjoyn him such satisfction to the scandalized Corgregation as may be most fit or upon his denyall urge him to cleare himselfe by lawfull witnesses of the crime objected Or why he may not if hee see further cause appoint a discreet and able prosecutor to follow the business in a legall way upon whom the accused if he be found guiltless may right himselfe But all this while I finde no just place for an oath to be administred to a man for his owne accusation which certainly is altogether both illegall and unreasonable If a man will voluntarily offer to cleare himselfe by an Oath out of the assurednesse of his owne innocence he may be allowed to be heard but this may neither be pressed to be done nor yet conclusive when it is done for both every man is apt to be partiall in his owne case and he that durst act a foule sin will dare to face it It was ever therefore lawfull even when Ecclesiasticall Inquisitions were at the highest for a man to refuse answer to such questions upon oath or otherwise which tended to his owne impeachment as unjustly and unwarrantably proposed and it was but a young determination of Aquinas when he was onely a Batchelour in the Generall Chapter at Paris contradicted by all the ancient Graduates there that when the crime is notorious and the authour unknowne the secret offender is bound upon his Ordinaries charge and command to reveale himselfe Even the Spanish Casuists the great favourers and abettors of the Inquisition teach that the Judge may not of himselfe begin an inquiry but must be led by something which may open a way to his search and as it were force him to his proceeding ex officio as publique notice infamie common suspicion complaint otherwise the whole processe is void in law although herein some of them goe too far in favour of their great Diana that where the crime is known and the author unknowne the Judge may in a generality inquire of him that did it and if he have any private information though without any publique fame foregoing he may in some cases raise a particular inquisition upon the party and call him to defend himselfe which course cercertainly gives too much advantage to private malice and opens too much way to the wronging of Innocence The faire way of proceedings in all Christian Judicatures should be by Accuser Witnesse and Judge in distinct persons openly knowne the Accuser complaines the Witnesse evinceth the Judge sentences The one may not be the other much lesse all three Were that to be allowed who could be innocent When a witnesse then is called before a competent Judge to give evidence upon oath concerning a third person in a matter cognoscible by that Jurisdiction he is bound to swear in truth in judgement and in righteousnesse Jer. 4. 2. as for his owne concernments he must referre himself to the testimonies and oathes of others CASE VI. Whether a Judge may upon allegations proofes and evidences of others condemn a man to death whom he himself certainly knows to be innocent THe question hath undergone much agitation The streame of all ancient Divines and Casuists runs upon the affirmative their ground is that the Judge as he is a publique person so in the seat of Judicature he must exercise a publique authority and therefore waving his private knowledge and interest must sentence according to the allegations and proofes brought before him since he is a Judge of the cause not of the law whereof he is to be the servant not the master There he sits not to speake his owne judgement but to be the mouth of the law and the law commands him to judge according to the evidence the evidence therefore being cleare and convictive the doome can be no other than condemnatory For my part I can more marvell at their judgement herein than approve it professing for the negative with some fewer and latter Authors upon these sure grounds It is an evident and undeniable law of God which must be the rule of all Judges The innocent and the righteous slay thou not Exod. 23. 7. This is a Law neither to be avoided nor dispensed with Accusations and false witnesses cannot make a man other than innocent they may
by the Church to be believed are fundamentall A large ground-work of faith Doubtlesse the Church hath defined all things contained in the scripture to be believed and theirs which they call Catholick hath defined all those Traditionall points which they have added to the Creed upon the same necessity of salvation to be believed now if all these be the foundation which is the building what an imperfect fabrick doe they make of Christian Religion all foundation no walls no roofe Surely it cannot without too much absurdity be denied that there is great difference of Truthes some more important than others which could not be if all were alike fundamentall If there were not some speciall Truthes the beliefe whereof makes and distinguisheth a Christian the Authors of the Creede Apostolick besides the other Symboles received anciently by the Church were much deceived in their aime He therefore that believes the holy Scriptures which must be a principle presupposed to be inspired by God and as an abstract of the chiefe particulars thereof professeth to believe and embrace the Articles of the Christian faith to regulate his life by the law of Gods commandements and his devotion by the rule of Christ prescribed and lastly to acknowledge and receive the Sacraments expresly instituted by Christ doubtlesse this man is by profession a Christian and cannot be denyed to hold the foundation and whosoever shall wilfully impugne any of these comes within the verge of Heresie wilfully I say for meere error makes not an heretick if out of simplicity or grosse ignorance a man shall take upon him to maintaine a contradiction to a point of faith being ready to relent upon better light he may not be thus branded eviction and contumacy must improve his error to be hereticall The Church of Rome therefore hath beene too cruelly-liberall of her censures this way having bestow'd this livery upon many thousand Christians whom God hath owned for his Saints and upon some Churches more Orthodoxe than her selfe presuming upon a power which was never granted her from heaven to state new articles of faith and to excommunicate and barre all that shall dare to gainsay her oracles Whereas the great Doctor of the Gentiles hath told us from the spirit of God that there is but one Lord one faith one baptisme Ephes. 4. 5. and what faith is that S. Jude tells us Iude 3. The faith that was once delivered the Saints so that as well may they make more reiterations of Baptisme and multiplicities of Lords as more faiths than one some explications there may be of that one faith made by the Church upon occasion of new-sprung errours but such as must have their grounds from fore-written truths and such as may not extend to the condemnation of them whom God hath left free new articles of faith they may not be nor binde farther than God hath reached them Hereticks then they are and onely they that pertinaciously raze the foundation of the Christian faith what now must be done with them surely first if they cannot be reclaimed they must be avoided It is the charge of the beloved Disciple to the elect Lady 2 John v. 10. If any man come unto you and bring not that is by an ordinary Hebraisme opposes this doctrine receive him not into your houses neither bidde him God speede But the Apostle of the Gentiles goes yet higher sor writing to Titus the great Super-intendent of Crete his charge is Tit. 3. 10. A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition reject Now when wee compare the charge with the person we cannot but finde that this rejection is not a meer negative act of refraining company but a positive act of censure so as he who had power to admonish had also power to reject in an authoritative or judicatory way He sayes then Devita reject or avoid not as Erasmus too truly but bitterly scoffes the Romish practise De vita tolle This of killing the heretick as it was out of the power of a spirituall supervisor so was it no lesse farre from the thoughts of him that desired to come in the spirit of meekness Fagots were never ordained by the Apostle for arguments to confute Hereticks this bloudy Logick and Divinity was of a much later brood and is for a Dominick not a Paul to owne for certainely faith is of the same nature with love it cannot be compelled perswasions may move it not force These intellectuall sinnes must look for remedies of their owne kinde But if either they be as it is often accompanied with damnable blasphemies against God whether in his essence or attributes or the three incomprehensible persons in the all-glorious Deity or the blessed mediator betwixt God and man Jesus Christ in either of his natures or else shall be attended with the publique disturbances and dangerous distempers of the Kingdome or State wherein they are broached the Apostle's wish is but seasonable in both a spiritual and a bodily sense Gal. 5. 12. Would to God those were cut off that trouble you In the mean time for what concernes your selfe if you know any such as you love God and your soules keepe aloofe from them as from the pestilence Epiphanius well compares heresie to the biting of a mad dog which as it is deadly if not speedily remedied so it is withall dangerously infectious not the tooth onely but the very foame of that envenomed beast carries death in it you cannot be safe if you avoid it not CASE VI. Whether the lawes of men doe binde the Conscience and how far we are tyed to their obedience BOth these extreames of opinion concerning this point must needs bring much mischiefe upon Church and Kingdome Those that absolutely hold such a power in humane lawes make themselves slaves to men Those that deny any binding power in them run loose into all licentiousnesse Know then that there is a vast difference betwixt these two To bind the conscience in any act and to bind a man in conscience to do or omit an act Humane laws cannot do the first of them the latter they may and must doe To binde the conscience is to make it guilty of a sin in doing an act forbidden or omitting an act injoyned as in it selfe such or making that act in it selfe an acceptable service to God which is commanded by men Thus humane lawes cannot bind the conscience It is God onely 1 John 3. 21. who as he is greater than the Conscience so hath power to binde or loose it Esay 31. 22. It is he that is the onely Law giver to the Conscience Jam. 4. 12. Princes and Churches may make lawes for the outward man but they can no more binde the heart than they can make it In vain is that power which is not inabled with coertion now what coertion can any humane power claim of the heart which it can never attain to know the spirit of man therefore is subject onely to the father
MAny distinct considerations had neede to make way to the answere First it is one thing for a man to interpret Scripture another thing to take upon him the function of preaching the Gospell which was perhaps in your intention this is far more large then the other every maÌ„ that preacheth interpreteth the Scripture but every one that interprets Scripture doth not preach To interpret Scripture is only to give the sense of a Text but to Preach is to divide the Word aright to apply it to the Conscience of the hearer and in an authoritative way to reprove sin and denounce judgement against sinners to lay forth the sweete promises of the Gospell to the faithfull and penitent for the performing whereof there must be a commission to Gods minister from him that sends him upon which the Apostle hath pronounced a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who is suffiicient for these things Secondly it must bee considered in what nature within what compass the interpretation is for doubtlesse the just degrees of callings must be herein duly observed whether in a publique way as Pastors of congregations or in a private way as masters of families whether in the schooles in a meere Grammaticall way or in the Church in a predicatory Thirdly it must be considered as what the calling so what the gifts are of the interpreter for surely meere interpretation doth not depend upon the profession but upon the faculty of the undertaker whether he be learned or ignorant whether skilfull in languages and arts which certainly must be required in whosoever would put forth his hand to so holy and great a work or whether inexpert in both where these gifts of interpretation and eminent endowments of learning are found there can be no reason of restraining them from an exercise so beneficially edificatory to the Church of God without which the truth of Christian religion had wanted much both of her vigour and lustre in all generations How famously is it known that Origen before his entring into holy Orders even at eighteene yeeres of his age entred into that great worke of his Catechisings Act. 18. 24. 25. Apollos the Alexandrian was an eloquent man and mighty in scriptures and taught diligently the things of the Lord yet knew nothing but the Baptisme of John till Aquila and Priscilla took him to task and more perfectly expounded to him the way of God and what happy use it pleased God to make of laick hands for both the defence and propagation of the Gospell we need no other witnesse then S. Jerome who hath memoriz'd amongst the primitive Christians Aristides Agrippa Hegesippus Justine Musanus Modestinus both the Apollonii Heraclius Maximus and many others whom God raised up amongst the learned laity of those times to Apologize for Christianity And in the last foregoing age how scarce removed out of our sight are Laurentius Valla both the Earles of Mirandula Capnio Fagius sof an instan Erasmus Faber and the rest of those famous way-makers to the succeeding restitution of the evangelicall truth And what a treasure in this kind had the Church of God lost if it should have missed the learned annotations upon the Scripture derived to us from the hands of Mercerus Joseph Scaliger Drusius both Causaubons Tilenus Grotius Heinsius Selden and such other expert philogists never initiated into sacred Orders Fourthly due and serious consideration must be had of the interpretation it selfe that it bee genuine and orthodox for there can be nothing in the world more dangerous then to mis-construe God speaking to us in his Word and to affixe upon his Divine Oracles a sense of our owne quite dissonant from the intention of that spirit of Truth Care therfore must be taken that the intepretation given be every way conform to the Analogy of faith and fully accordant to other Scripture the neglect wherof through either ignorance or misprision hath bred many foul and perilous soloecismes in Divinity To give you a taste of too full a dish In the 18. of Ecclesiasticus where the vulgar reades Hee that lives for ever created all things at once some and those no mean ones of the Ancient followed also by latter interpreters have been misled into an ungrounded conceit of an instanâ—any entire creation of the world and all the parts thereof in the first moment of time whereas the Scripture hath expresly and punctually set down the several six dayes wherein each part of it was distinctly formed which those misconstruers are fain to understand of the distinct notifications given to the Angels concerning this almighty work and what curious subtleties have beene hereupon raised by our school-Divines is more fit to be past over with an unpleasing smile then to be seriously recounted whereas the intention of the place is only to signify that God made all things in the universall world that have any being intimating not the time of creation but as our Version hath it the generality of things created What advantage the blasphemous Arrians have formerly taken from the mis-interpretation of Proverbs 6. 22. where Wisdom is brought in by the mistaking of som ancients to say The Lord created me in stead of possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old is more worthy of indignation then any farther prosecution But most pregnant and notable is the grosse mis-prision of a late famous school-man Franciscus d' Arriba Confessor to the late Queen Mother of France who to maintain that new way of reconciling that scholasticall difference among the Roman doctors concerning the effectual aid of Divine Grace depending or not depending upon free will about which he had 60 daies disputation with Cardinall Ascoly Cardinall Bellarmine shewing how it might well be maintained without the devises of physicall predeterminations or that scientia media of our late Jesuites relies chiefly for his opinion upon that Text of Esay 45. 11. Haec dicit Dominus sanctus Israelis qui fecit ventura Thus saith the Lord the holy one of Israel who hath made things to come following a mis-edition of the Vulgar which perverts the sense by making a wrong stop in the sentence whereas their owne Montanus any other that hath but seen the hebrew Text would read it Haec dicit Dominus sanctus Israelis qui fecit eum Ventura interrogate me Thus saith the Lord the holy one of Israel and his maker Ask me of things to come concerning my sonnes c. referring the ventura things to come to the following interrogate So Poza the late extravagant Doctor of Spain in the maintenance of his novel opinions against Fathers and Councels pressed against him stands upon his defence out of the Synod of ConstaÌ„tinople Act. 5. grounded upon the words of miscalled Solomon Beat usqui praedicat verbum inauditum corrupting both the Text the Councell whereas it should be read verbum inauditum obedientis and the Councell hath it aright 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉