not to add any thing nor subtract from it under a severe penalty there declared Wherefore we must take this Text as it lies without any human addition and so 't is evident that it contains nothing but the determination of matters of trespass between Neighbours of which our Saviour would have the offender privately admonisht and if no amendment than appeal to the Congregation in publick Not one word here concerning matters of Faith And thus beloved you see what a vain empty sound this great clamor is which the Papists make of this Text Hear ye the Church and whoever will not hear the Church let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican Every part of it most grosly mistaken and wrested from the true meaning matters of fact such as trespasses and injuries wrested to matters of Faith the word Church wrested from the Congregation to the Clergy contrary to the whole current of Scripture Wherefore my beloved you see how necessary it is for you to follow this counsel of our Saviour and search the Scriptures and advise also with the more learned Pastors of our Church to arm you against these seducing teachers I hope this Text is sufficiently cleared and so I pass unto another 1 Tim. iii. 15. There 't is said The Church is the Pillar and ground of truth This Scripture say the Papists plainly relates to matters of Faith for truth is the object of our Faith we readily grant it What then Why then we are to hold fast to the Faith of the Church for that is the Pillar of truth ergo she cannot err This is another of their feigned consequences far from the meaning of the Text let us then peruse the Text it self with the circumstances there set down as we did the former and you will not find any such thing here as the Papists pretend That thou mayst know how thou oughtest to behave thy self in the house of God which is the Church of the living God the pillar and ground of truth First That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thy self in the house of God There is nothing more frequent in Scripture than to set the word House for the People the house of Israel for the people hundreds of times And so Moses was faithful in all his house Heb. iii. 2. that is among all his people And so 1 Pet. ii 5. tells the Christians That as living stones they are built up a spiritual house to God And again iv 17. If judgment begin at the house of God that is the people of God Wherefore here Behave thy self in the house of God signifies the houshold the people of God That place where a man dwells is commonly called his house and God being said to dwell among his people 2 Cor. vi 16. I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people therefore the people are called the house of God Next follows Which is the Church of the living God that is the Congregation of the living God for 't is the same word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I shewed you alwaies in Scripture signifies the Congregation Now I pray you put this together that thou mayest know how to behave thy self among the people of God which is the Congregation of the living God the pillar and ground of the truth This last part of the verse the pillar and ground of the truth is metaphorical and may be interpreted several ways according to several mens apprehensions But in the first place I conceive all must grant that no metaphorical saying can be a clear evident and general rule to explain and determin other sentences but rather in it self needs an exposition But however you take this place it is evident that the Papists from hence can never have any proof for the infallibility of their Church as they would have it for S. Paul calls the Congregation of the people the pillar and ground of the truth But to shew you how little this Text will serve their turn though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never in Scripture signifies the Clergy yet for their greater conviction let it pass The Clergy are here called the pillar and ground of truth What then Why then the assembly of the Clergy must be infallible Hold there I beseech you Why can truth be fallible no certainly but the pillar of truth may fail the pillar may decay and go to ruin but the truth of God endureth for ever 1 Pet. i. 23. What then is meant by these words The pillar and ground of the truth I will shew you I suppose you have seen pillars set up in high ways at the meeting of several ways together and inscriptions written on the several sides of the pillars This way leads to such a place That way leads to that place some pillars have arms in them and hands pointing to the ways The pillar is only that which bears the inscription 't is the inscription that gives you the true information which is the way Now St. Paul saith Rom. iii. 2. speaking of the people of the Iews and the great advantage they had over other Nations For unto them were committed the Oracles of God And so St. Stephen Acts vii 38. tells his brethren the Iews that their fathers received the Oracles of God to give unto us So we may say of the Christians to their great honour and advantage above all other people in the world To them were committed the Oracles of God the Holy Scriptures to give unto us As then of old the people of the Iews were peculiarly the people of God the house of God which was then the Church of the living God the pillar and ground of the truth and they bare the Oracles of God the Holy Scriptures So St. Paul now calleth the Christians the peculiar people of God the house of God which is the Church of the living God the pillar and ground of the truth for they now bear the Oracles of God the Holy Scriptures the word of truth teaching us the true and perfect way to the Heavenly Ierusalem This my Exposition is strongly backed and confirmed by another Text of Scripture which is accounted by all men the best way of expounding Scripture Rev. i. 20. The seven Churches or Congregations are set forth by seven golden Candlesticks and you know candlesticks give no light of themselves but only hold the candles which give the light so the Churches are to hold forth Christ he is the light of the world and his Doctrine contained in the Scriptures they give the light they teach us the way to Eternal Life As in the former place the pillars bear and hold forth the inscriptions the Oracles of God so here the Candlesticks hold forth the light of Gods Holy Word this teacheth us the way herein lies the infallible truth not in the Church the Congregation that consists of fallible men Gods Word is truth all men are liars And
as the Iews people and Priests also erred and so grosly erred as to become Idolaters yet the Oracles they bare never erred so we may too truly say to the proud boasting Papists their whole Church Pope Princes People have and do all err and so grosly err as to be guilty of great Idolatry worshipping and praying and thereby giving Gods glory to Saints and Angels to Pictures and Images This is most rationally and learnedly proved by Dr. Stillingfleet now the Reverend Dean of St. Pauls and most practically and palpably shewed in a small Book Intitled A Letter to a Friend concerning Popish Idolatry which in one hours reading fully declares it Of which Letter I will say only this That I am sure all there set down is truth for with my own eyes I have seen all having lived many years abroad amongst them But I grant they are not all practised here in England for two reasons First They would be ashamed to set up Pictures and Images here publickly to worship in the face of the Gospel-Sunshine where very Children would deride them And Secondly the Laws and Government would not suffer them Wherefore to conclude this point whoever reads the Gospel and by that examines the Doctrines of the Romish Church shall see that she is not the infallible Church she is pretended to be as plainly as you see the Moon is not the Sun you will discover such foul black spots in her face as may assure you she is not that beautiful beloved Spouse set forth in the Canticles for she hath so foully erred against the truth of the Gospel in several things which I have formerly laid before you as makes it most evident that she is neither truth nor so much as the pillar of truth but the pillar of error stifly mainteining several errors and doth not so much as hold forth the Gospel of truth to teach the people the way to Heaven but shuts it up from the people that she may lead them blindfold into error And so much be spoken concerning this Text The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth If any man can give a better exposition of this Text I shall be glad to learn it of him but I am sure the Papists have not yet by all that ever I saw or heard of They bring us another Text much like this Matth. the last Chapter where Christ sends forth his Disciples to teach all Nations promising to be with them in teaching unto the end of the world This Text I fully answered in my last Sermon Moreover these words being spoken by our Saviour to all the Apostles in general and their Successors of necessity gives equal Commission to them all and therefore makes more against the superiority of the Romish Church than for it for by this all Churches planted by other Apostles have the same promise The Papists therefore have one Scripture more which they urge particularly for their Church but it hath been so oft disputed and so fully confuted by whole Volumes of our Writers as a man would wonder to see them like Cats knockt down and quite dead in all appearance yet rise up again with this Text in their mouths It is this Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it Matt. xvi 18. As to this I shall give you the heads only of several answers as plainly and briefly as may be for your more easie remembrance But I pray you still remember what we are searching Scripture for and that is a plain easie rule to determine all doubts that may arise in matters of faith And certainly this Text is not such but as far or farther from that than the former for 't is a figurative speech all along it speaks of building on a rock and the gates of Hell of binding and loosing almost every word a figure and the greatest Doctors and Fathers of the Church have disputed very variously about it the Papists cannot deny it and therefore this cannot be a plain easie rule to clear doubtful matters it being so doubtful in it self Let us now hear what the Text it self saith Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it Is here any one word that the Church shall be infallible and cannot err The gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church therefore say they she cannot err The veriest dunce in the University would be ashamed to make such ridiculous consequences Put the case God had promised the King of England that the French King should not prevail against him must it therefore follow that 't is impossible the French King should set foot upon English ground or kill any one of our Kings Subjects or take any of his Ships Rare nonsence Many Princes after several battels lost much of their Country invaded yet have prevailed and driven out the Enemy many a man after several wounds received hath prevailed and killed his Adversary Let then the Papists go and learn what that means The seed of the woman shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel Gen. iii. 15. The seed of the Woman crushed the Head of Satan and prevailed against the gates of Hell though the Prince thereof bruised and wounded him in the heel Many errors and Heresies have bruised and wounded the Church yet have not prevailed to destroy it the vitals the fundamentals have still been preserved That profession of Peter whereon Christ built his Church was Thou art Christ the Son of the living God This saith hath still been preserved in the Church the gates of Hell never could prevail against it This is all our Saviour here promised and this he hath ever to this day made good and will assuredly make good to the end of the world But put the case these words The gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church did imply some infallibility promised to the Church in general yet how come the Papists to challenge this insallibility to the Church of Rome and deprive all other Churches of it Why say they Christ here promises to build his Church on St. Peter 'T is false the Text doth not say Thou art Peter and upon thee will I build my Church but Upon this rock will I build my Church and that rock was Christ 1 Cor. x. 4. Christ the Son of the Living God whom Peter professed on this rock was the Church built But suppose yet farther that our Saviour had promised he would build his Church on Peter what then Yet not on him alone for St. Paul tells us Eph. ii 19 20. That the House of God which is the Church of God is built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Christ Iesus himself being the chief corner stone built upon other Apostles and Prophets also as well as on Peter but chiefly on Christ himself And then for those words Binding and
send them the light of his Holy Gospel to shine amongst them Amen So much for the first part of my Text Christ's Command to search the Scriptures Now we come to the second part the reason of the Command For in them ye have Eternal Life a most weighty reason there cannot be a greater than the gaining of Eternal Life We all find by experience in our selves the truth of that saying Iob ii 4. Skin for skin yea all that a man hath will he give for his Life For which there is great reason according to nature for all that a man hath affords him no content or comfort in death which takes away the sense of all things If therefore life be so dear unto us because it gives us a capacity to enjoy these poor earthly delights that have so great and drossy an alloy of intermingled cares and troubles which alwaies attend them or if it were possible to enjoy them with more ease and tranquillity yet are they but momentary surely then Eternal Life which alwaies brings with it the enjoyment of heavenly pleasures free from all solicitous care and fear and full of all imaginable delight yea far beyond all that our narrow brain can now imagin for eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither have entred into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him And this unconceivable delight being to continue beyond Methusalem's Age or the Age of the whole world to have an eternal duration for ever and ever I pray you then consider at how high a value we should esteem the means whereby we are to attain such an excessive weight of glory For the present then my business must be to shew you that the Holy Scriptures contain in them compleatly without any additional requisite the means to attain Eternal Life and then doubtless there will need small exhortation to move you to put a high value on them Let us then fall immediately on this business Search the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have Eternal Life Though I doubt not to make out this matter absolutely clear unto you yet I fear some weaker persons may stagger a little at one word in my Text and may erroneously fancy that it gives great cause of doubt and that is the word Think ye think ye have Eternal Life Our Saviour doth directly say that in the Scriptures we have Eternal Life but only tells the Iews that they thought they had in them Eternal Life and perchance they thought amiss Who can tell Who can tell certainly he could tell who gave them this counsel to search the Scriptures which you may be sure he would never have done did not the Scriptures contain in them Eternal Life if not it had been a vain thing to search the Scriptures for it and our Saviours Advice had been vain which God forbid we should say or think wherefore we may assuredly conclude that our Saviour who advised the Iews to search the Scriptures he both could tell and would have told them had they thought amiss for he came down from Heaven for this very end namely to teach them and us the way to Eternal Life and therefore says of himself I am the Way and the Truth and the Life I came to teach this unto you and all the world And as St. Paul declares Acts xiii he came to teach first the Iews verse 26. To you is the word of Salvation sent And again verse 46. It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you And our Saviour himself preached only to the Iews and in their sight he wrought all his Miracles All which makes it most evident that he used all means possible to inform them aright in the way to Eternal Life who then can doubt but that if the Iews had been mistaken in their opinion of the Scriptures our Saviour would most readily have corrected their error So that this manner of speaking in our Saviour In them ye think ye have Eternal Life is far from intimating any doubt in this matter 't is rather a fuller conviction of the Iews 't is a way of arguing which the School-men call Argumentum ad hominem which is the shortest and plainest way to confute another You think you your selves confess that the Scriptures contain Eternal Life in them this is a truth you cannot deny And our Saviour Luk. x. 25 26 27 28. fully declares this to be his sence likewise where being asked by a Lawyer of the Iews Master what shall I do to inherit Eternal Life He said unto him What is written in the Law how readest thou And he answering said Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind and thy neighbour as thy self And he said unto him Thou hast answered right this do and thou shalt live Here you see our Saviour directs him for the gaining of Eternal Life to look into the Law and when the Lawyer had declared what was written in the Law our Saviour presently concludes This do and thou shalt live thou hast no need to be instructed farther the Law fully declares what thou art to do for the gaining of Eternal Life And this Evangelist St. Iohn who wrote my Text tells us toward the end of his Gospel that he omitted to write many things of our Saviour But these were written that we might believe and believing that we might have Life Now if we can have life by believing these things it follows most evidently that there is no necessity of believing other things If you answer That the belief of other things may prove great helps to Eternal Life and who would not be glad to have all the helps he can to obtain Eternal Life To this I reply That the belief of other things may prove hinderances for ought we know and not helps Were it not then most desperate folly for me to venture upon other things which may prove hinderances to my Salvation when God tells me that he hath revealed unto me by his holy Prophets Apostles and by his own Son all things necessary to Salvation Was not this the business for which our Saviour came into the world as I said before to teach us the way to Eternal Life And when our Saviour went out of the world he left his Apostles to finish the work he had begun promising them that he would send them the Holy Ghost who should lead them into all truth And as the Apostles received the knowledg of all truth so they faithfully delivered it to others for so St. Paul Acts xx assures the Elders of Ephesus whom he sent for to Miletus That he had declared unto them the whole counsel of God and that he had not kept back any thing that was profitable to them vers 20. Mark I beseech you he declares not only necessary things but all things profitable all kept nothing
same which it was before Consecration so Saviour's Body after the Resurrection remains the very same both in form and substance as it was before Which words are as plain in themselves and as flatly contrary to the present Romish belief as any Man can express What I have here produced out of these two Fathers is found in those Books of theirs which the Papists themselves allow to be their own authentick Writings not out of any controverted Books as the Papists often do cite many things out of spurious Books which bear only the Name of Fathers but are not their own genuine Writings and acknowledged by Bellarmine and other learned Papists to be supposititious And now I desire the Papists first to produce any one cotemporary or later Father or Doctor of the Church that condemns St. Austin's or Theodoret's Opinion or Arguments in this Matter and what they wrote was published to all the Church Certainly then if they had published this flatly contrary to the received Opinion of the Church some or rather many would have reproved them but none ever did ancient or later Assuredly then the Church did not believe Transubstantiation for that expresly declares the substance of Bread to be changed and also necessarily infers that Christ's Body is in many places at once and that his whole Body is contained within the compass of a little Wafer all which St. Austin flatly denies It is most evident that St. Austin and the Church then believed directly contrary to what the Papist-Church now believes And I farther desire the Papists to consider That what I have set down out of St. Austin is not a Sentence fallen from him as it were by chance but a serious Affirmation in Answer to a Question concerning this very Matter and the thing not only barely affirmed but proved by many convincing Arguments Secondly I desire the Papists to produce any one Father or Doctor of the Catholick Church within four I may say five or six or more hundred years after Christ that by way of Doctrine and in a continued Discourse plainly affirms That the substance of Bread is changed into Christ's Body or any accidents of Bread hanging in the Air without real Bread to support them as their subtil fanciful Schoolmen now talk or that Christ's real Body can be in many distinct places at once or that his whole Body can be contained within the compass of an inch as it is now believed by the Papists And had the ancient Church believed such strange mystical things of this blessed Sacrament as the Romanists now do who can doubt but some one or other of the many famous Writers in those days would have some where explicated and declared the same I know full well that some of the ancient Fathers have in their Rhetorical Discourses expressions that carry some colour for them and as many for us which truly I value not much on either side for a very good Reason which Valentia the Jesuit gives being urged with some Arguments out of the Fathers against himself concerning Transubstantiation That before this Question of the Sacrament was agitated 't is no wonder if some of the Fathers minùs consideratè rectè hac de re senserint scripscrint did not so considerately think and write of this Matter but took great liberty of speech not fore-seeing the ill use would be made of it And therefore to stir up the People's Devotion to the Sacrament which was fallen much from the primitive zeal to great coldness they used high Rhetorical expressions such as the Papists themselves will not allow of in a literal sence As when Chrysostome telleth the People That their Teeth are fixed in the Flesh of Christ their Tongues bloudied with his Bloud and that the Assembly of the People was made red by the same Which strange expressions in the Papist's behalf and some other as much against them Bellarmine is forced to excuse by a Rhetorical Hyperbole but are really inexcusable And if the Papists will not go home with us to the uttermost of their expressions why should we be bound to foot it just according to their measures here to move there to stop just as they please to lead the Dance And I shall make this further Use of Valentia's and Bellarmine's Sayings That if the ancient Fathers did write so inconsiderately of our Matters in Controversie how is it possible for any Man to settle his Conscience and build his Faith upon the Writings of the Fathers they having so many Sayings so contrary one to the other And still I pray you remember that not one of them writes directly of this Subject All which will force us to adhere close to that only true and safe Foundation of our Faith the Word of God who is one and the same to day and for ever I have written all this to give some satisfaction to those Papists who are so inclined to hearken to the Fathers whom by Saint Austin's Rule we are to believe no farther than they can prove what they affirm from Scripture Having as I humbly conceive fully answered the Papist's Pretence from Scripture for their Transubstantiation I shall now very briefly answer two or three Scriptures more which they likewise pretend for some other Errours For Purgatory that of 1 Cor. iii. where there is mention of trying Men's Works by fire and saving by fire c. which relates no more to their Purgatory-fire than to a fire swilling a Hog as appears most evidently by the subject Matter in hand Saint Paul discourses there of his own and Apollo's preaching the Gospel and building up the Corinthians in the Faith whereof Christ is the only Foundation You must remember that Apollo was a Jew mighty in the Scripture as 't is said Acts 18. but converted to the Christian Faith mightily convinced the Iews proving that Iesus was Christ yet it seems did some-what adhere to the Iewish Ceremonies and as I humbly conceive did thereby cause some Divisions among the Corinthians which Saint Paul doth there gently hint not willing to disgust a new Beginner yet a great Labourer in the Gospel For there Saint Paul accuses the Corinthians of Divisions some crying I am of Paul others I am of Apollo That is I am with Paul against Iewish superstitious Ceremonies I am with Apollo for them Now Saint Paul desirous to unite all in Christ tells them that neither Paul nor Apollo was any thing but Christ must be all in all for he is the only Foundation and all Doctrines to be preached must be built on him and all tend to Edification in the Spirit as Christ told the Samaritan Woman that we are no more to worship God either at Samaria or at Ierusalem that is we are not to worship God either after the Samaritan or after the Iewish Customs and Ceremonies which Saint Paul here calls Wood Hay Stubble but only in Spirit and in Truth which he calls Gold Silver precious Stones All those external carnal