Ministery This abridgment of their Church-History will set this whole Discourse in more light and put us right in the true state of the question agitated between me and the Apologists which had its rise and result from their proceedings Nonnulla pars est inventionis nosse quod quaeras saith Augustine They say the Author is unacquainted with their way and it had been happy if none had ever been acquainted therewith It is probable they have their Cabala's for at their Assemblies they have sought to set Harpocrates at the door that some of the mysteries of their way might be as secret as the Holyes of Ceres but the thingnow in question Opinor Omnibus Lippis notum Tonsoribus esse But we erre in saying they examine all which they deny that they do such as are more knowing and are willing do onely make profession of their Faith and knowledge some publickly some more privately which is in effect to say that they do not examine them in one point but in all there is no more difference between examination upon interrogatories and a large continued profession than between a Pedlars laying open his whole Pack and his shewing forth some few parcels that some may enquire for or than when a person is suspected to have filched some commodity between his ripping up and shewing out all the laps and receptacles of his garments and the Officers making a particular re-search into them By compelling men to make profession they make in effect an examination of more particulars and put them under a more difficult tryal as to give a brief answer to a question is more easie than to make a long continued Oration And if this profession be not an examination let them examine themselves how can they reconcile these two assertions That they do not examine all and that in the reformation of a corrupt Church which they say is the work they are about it is necessary to examine all without convicting themselves to omit to do that which they say is necessary And if profession therefore be a kind of examination how can that also cohere with truth or with it self that they examine none but those which may well be suspected of incompetent knowledge and yet they bring under this profession such as are knowing And if none he examined but such as may be well suspected of incompetent knowledge which we not suspect but know in some particulars to be otherwise unless they are of the humour of Dionysius of Sicily who admitted all to have recourse to him save those he expected treacherous but yet suspected all for such that he might admit none then such as are not of competent knowledge being uncapable of admission to the Sacrament and they admitting not the rest of their Parishes because they should be and will not be examined how can it consist with what they tell us else-where That it is enviously surmised that they think all those uncapable whom they admit not And if they will examine all and yet do examine none but such as may well be suspected to be of incompetent knowledge it is as little to the honour of their Ministery as to the credit of their peoples proficiency since Diogenes thought the Master was to be stricken when the Scholar play'd the Truant The omitting of the use of Sacrament they say concerns them not but sure it doth because they omit it in their own Parishes and charges where it is their special and proper call to administer it and they omit to distribute it to all that come not under their examination That about convening from divers Parishes will but confound the discourse if mixed with it and indeed it is like to confound all the specious discourses they make in defence of their way as I shall endevour to manifest anon most of those admitted were taken in not without their proper Pastour I will not divide the house upon that tryal but whether these that were admitted with their Pastour were culpable of Schisme we shall hereafter examine in the mean time St. Cyprian imputes Schisme to those that were admitted without their Pastour Ecclesia est plebs sacerdoti adunita Cyprian Epist 68. p. 209. that is as Junius explains him Respectu unionis externae materialis non internae formalis cum Christo ex illa formali seu essentiali sunt Catholici ex externa secundaria adventitia noscuntur censentur in corpore Junius in Controvers 4. Bell. 1104 1105. Citat Vasquez in 3. Disp. 219. c. 2. p. 499. Tom. 3. grex Pastori suo adhaerens unde scire debes Episcopum in ecclesia esse ecclesiam in Episcopo si qui cum Episcopo non sint in ecclesia non esse and farther Frustrà sibi blandiuntur ii qui pacem cum sacerdotibus Dei non habentes obrepunt latenter apud quosdam communicare se credunt cùm ecclesia quae Catholica una est scissa non est neque divisa sed sit utique connexa cohaerentium sibi invicem sacerdotum glutino copulata and if it were not Schisme it is a fault forbidden by the first Councel of Carthage Ut nullus Clericus vel Laicus in aliena parochia sine literis sui Episcopi communicaret and a fault which the Councel of Milevi censured with deprivation of the Communion 2. Such as were admitted of other Congregations are persons justly which term is unjustly assumed or begged offended with the grossness of their administrations at home where no separation at all is made nor cherishing of desires that way It gave the pretended rise to Donatus his Schisme that Caecilian supposed a traditor was retained in Communion with the Church First this is to condemn themselves for chaffe by separating themselves from those whom they suppose to be chasse Vos nihil inter perfidum fidelem discernitis Cresconius Augustino Separarunt caus â quòd in Communione Sacramentorum mali maculant bonos ideóque se corporali disjunct one à malorum contagione recessisse ne omnes pariter perâ—râ—â— Aug. de unitat baptism c. 14. for saith St. Augustine De area vix excutieris si triticum es eo ipso quòd discedis volas paleam te esse indicas And secondly to confess that all Augustins learned and ardent propositions strong armature against the Donatists could not beat down and dash in peeces that Schisme but that it would in part rise and spring up again in these men For if to refuse to have Communion of Sacraments with evil men and to separate because discipline is not exercised in casting out of evil men be not a main part of the Schisme of the Donarists I am too dull to understand the sense of St. Augustine and if I mistake him and their Heresie I erre with Plato and many learned men share with me in the same misprision If they shall say That they separate not from all Churches but onely from those
but also praedicamenta unius veri sacrificii as Augustine figurae et protestationes Christi immolandi pro salute mundi as Liranus Ubi supra signa rei sacrae signa protestantia fidem in Christum signa confirmantia fidem as Chamier And though as Rivet amongst others observes that in Sacraments we receive from God and in sacrifices we give and offer somewhat to him yet quia viâ—â—ssim mediantibus illis sacrificiis Deus aliquid dabat hominibus hoc est sua conferebat dona et bona Loci com tom 4. p. 280. et in futurum sacrificium Messiae mentes fidelium convertens fidem eorum confirmabat ideo non abs re hoc quidem respectu sacramentorum vice defuncta esse sacrificia pronunciamus saith Gerhard and what is signified and exhibited to us in our sacraments was also to them in these sacrifices of the one sacrament Augustine saith Contra Faustum l. 20 21. Hujus sacrificii caro et sanguis ante adventum Christi per viotimas similitudinum promittebatur in passione Christi per ipsam veritatem reddebatur post ascensum Christi per sacramentum memoriae celebratur and of the other Gregory Quod apud nos baptismus hoc egit apud veteres pro majoribus virtus sacrificii And it is also observable that as the Sacrificer presented somewhat to God whereby to finde favour in his fight in tender whereof a sinner agnized himself to be Gods vassal and servant so in token of Gods acceptance he had some part thereof returned again to him in signe he was reconciled and restored to his Covenant by the atonement and forgiveness of his sinne the sacrifice being munus federale saith a great Divine forasmuch as according to the use and custome of Mankinde Mede Diatrib part 4. in Ezra 6.10 p. 258 263. to receive meat and drink from the hand of another was a sign of Amity and Friendship much more to make another partaker of his Table as the sinner was of Gods by eating of his oblation and therefore upon this reason the Antients called the Eucharist a Sacrifice for the analogy the one had to the other both being Epulae federales those of the Old Covenant this of the New both being Rites of Atonement or for impetration of remission of sinne And the same learned man elsewhere saith That among all the Sacrifices of the Law Diatri 3. part in 1 Cor. 10.3 4 5. p. 585. none either for name or nature comes so neer the Sacrament of the Supper as the Eucharistical a part whereof was burn'd upon the Altar as in other Sacrifices but the remainder and greater part was eaten by the faithful people who brought it that so their Sacrifices being turned into their bodies nourishment might be a sign of their incorporation into Christ to come who was the true Sacrifice for sinne so whereas other Sacrifices were onely Sacrifices this was also a Sacrament the rest were onely for expiation but this also for application being a Communion of that Sacrafice which was offered rightly therefore was it added to all Sacrifices for what profit was there of expiation of sinne unlesse it were applyed well might it then be called a Sacrifice of Peace as containing in it a Communion of Peace and Communion with Jesus Christ c. And to verifie this similitude and correspondence between the Eucharist and Sacrifices Eucharistical the Altar is called the Lords Table Mal. 1.7 12. and the Offerings named the Bread of God Lev. 21.21 Joh. 3.33 1 Cor. 9.2 2 Tim. 2.19 Ezek. 28.12 Joh. 6.27 Rom. 15.28 2 Cor. 1.22 Ephes 1.13 4.30 Rev. 7.3 In Psal 50.5 And though there may be said to be a signal difference between Sacraments and Sacrifices in that the latter are onely signa the other also called sigilla gratiae surely whatsoever confirmeth or secureth or perfecteth or remarketh another thing is in Scripture Idiom called a Seal and therefore methinks there should not be such an Emphasis or Antonomasie set upon that one single place of the Apostle where he calls Circumcision a Seal of the Righteousness of Faith yet farther also not onely Paraeus fully enough affirmeth that the sacrifices were signa promissionis gratiae quibus fides de remissione peccatorum propter Christum confirmabatur sicut de circumcisione dicitur quod erat sigillum justitiae fidei ità sacrificia vicem sacramentorum praestabant but also Deodate in express terms asserts that the sacrifices were seales of Gods Covenant and Moller that fuerant tanquam sigilla and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hujus pacti But then I assume was there any such Discipline of putting men under tryal whether they had presented their bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable to God before they were admitted to present their sacrifices to the Altar Was there ever such a separation made of men or thrusting out any from compassing the Altar who were admitted to enter the Temple Or were they denyed a Communion in sacrifices which were not discommoned from other both religious and civil conversation We finde general and indefinite commands to sacrifice Numb 28.2 Reproofs for not doing God the honour to sacrifice Isa 43.23 the number of sacrifices to be of equal latitude and extension with that of all the people 2 Chron. 7.4 and all the Congregation 1 Chron. 29.20 21. all Israel was in Covenant with God Hammond Answ to Quaer p. 180. tit bapt inf and they are described to be those that had made a Covenant with him by sacrifice Gather my Saints together to me those that have made a Covenant with me by sacrifice Psal 50.5 Sanctos vocat omnes Israelitas saith Jansenius They were all the Members of his Church and People sanctified by his Covenant and the seales thereof by his calling and profession though many have denyed the truth and virtue of it Singuli in locum as Deodate Or those whom he sanctified by his Sacraments addes Bellarmine though maxima multitudo eorum erat impia profana saith Moller tamen non dubium est hanc sententiam de toto corpore populi esse intelligendam non separatim vel ad impios vel pios trahendam and it must necessarily be so comprehensively understood seeing Interpreters understand this of gathering together by the Angels at the last Judgment where all must appear without any separation save what shall be made afterward and though some learned Interpreters think that the making a Covenant by sacrifice carries an allusion to that solemn Custome of Nations where to strike more Religion Alexand. Neapol dier genial l. 5. c. 3. Leagues were entred into with victims and sacrifices Caesâ jungebant federa porcâ or porco as Servius would mend it who rather marres it quia in omnibus sacris plus valent feminini generis victimae whence also some fetch the Etymology of fedus à porca foede lacerata yet others suppose the Psalmist specially alludes to
and they lie unto God with their tongues when they pray Psal 76.36 aswell as others in their judgment seem to lie or give false testimony when they give them the Sacrament And why those reasons then should be of weight to exclude from the Sacrament but not to debarre from prayer A Lapide in Levit. 19.36 I know not where to lay the cause but upon the divers weights and divers measures which the Hebrewes say pollute the Land and prophane the name of God and that more truly than they can prove the free admission can pollute or prophane the Sacrament onely when they are resolved to assume a power to keep whom they please from some Ordinances that they may better keep them in awe and hold them in subjection To exclude from prayer is neither so specious to attempt since as among the Heathens to what Deity soever the sacrifice were intended yet there was an invocation of Janus and Vesta also so among the Christians whatsoever be the Ordinance attended upon it is seconded with that of prayer and invocation of God and this is the Salt that must season all other sacrifices disposing to and attending on them for improving their fruit and effect and therefore this species carries away the name of the genus from the rest and the Hebrew and Greek aswell as the English call this by the name of Service not without warrant sealed by God himself who calls his house an house of proyer denominating it from the chiefest service but also to withold them from prayer is lesse possible to effect for men may pray without concurrence of a Minister but not receive the Sacrament without it be consecrated by him But they have laid an obligation on the Church of England Perpetuúsque animae debitor hujus erit in undertaking to prove that some of the particular Congregations are true Churches Non tali auxilio nec defensoribus istis Tempus eget we cannot allow them to be auditors of that sum nor to cast it up with their new Counters who it seems suffering none to come to the Sacrament without their Let-passe would rise higher to permit none to passe for true Churches which have not their Communicatory letters Seminibus jactis se sustulit arbos Exiit in coelum ramis soelicibus but which are those that are true Churches and what is that which is constitutiv◠or destructive to either of them As Adrian Turnebus used to hit more right when he set down predictions of the weather clean contrary to the Prognosticators so perchance he may aim nearer to truh that denominates some of those not true Churches which they so call and some of them true whom they name not such but seeing they allow the Word and Sacraments for notes of a visible Church Field of the Church l. 2. c. 2. p. 51. whereunto some of our great Divines have appended another which admitted might also perchance disfranchise some of those that usurp and appropriate the name of Churches viz. an union and connexion of men in this profession and use of the Sacraments under lawfull Pastors and guides appointed authorised and sanctified to direct and lead them Contro 4. de Eccles l. 3. c. 2. in consonancy wherewith Bellarmine himself defines the Church to be Caetus hominum ejusdem Christianae fidei professione corundem Sacramentorum communione ligatorum sub regimine legitimorum pastorum But indeed the other two being as they grant the Inseparable absolutely proper peculiar and essentiall notes for scire est per causas scire and therefore being both the formall cause of a Church giving Being thereunto in constituting and conserving it while it is taught by the Word and by the Word and Sacraments is gathered together to God and being the effect of the Church constituted while it teacheth others they cannot but demonstrate the Church à priori à posteriori and therefore being adequate unto the Church Gerhard loc com tom 5. de Eccles c. 10. p. 306. 309. and inseparable from it it may firmly and immoveably be collected saith Gerhard that where the Word is preached and the Sacraments administred there is a Church and reciprocally where there is a Church there is the Word preached and the Sacraments administred upon this ground therefore as the Church of England was a true Church so were also all the particular congregations being similar parts of that nationall Church as that was of the Catholique and if in respect of that common nature found in them they were not Species of the Church in general yet they were members thereof as it is an integrall body for they had all of them the Word preached and professed purely without any error in the foundation which onely nulls a Church and the Sacraments legitimously administred for matter and form and had there been some corruption in the doctrine and administration yet as totas Ecclesias non esse aestimandas ex solis pastoribus Whitak Cont. 2. de Eccles q. 5. c. 17. p. 541. Iunius Eirenic part 1. tom 1. p. 715. 716. Animad in Contro 4. Bellarm. l. 4. c. 2. p. 1132. Ibid. p. 1131. nec ex qui busdam paucis as Whitaker and Gerhard so these corruptions had onely made a cease to be a pure Church not to be a Church so long as the foundation had stood it had been the house of God though hay and stubble were built thereupon saith Whitaker it had continued to be a Church untill Deus renunciaverat iis testificatione publicâ as Junius in the like case the Word and Sacraments simply and absolutely distinguished a Church from prophane Assemblies and the incorrupt preaching of the Word and legitimate administration of the Sacraments from hereticall congregations though properly as Iunius observes the preaching of the Word being actus hominum est Index illius notae non nota primaria jam enim ante habuit notam Ecclesia Dei veritatem verbum veritatis à Deo quà m praedicatio exstiterit so as sure our Congregations were lately all Churches Fuimus Troes fuit Ilium ingens Gloria Dardanidum But since their brethren in principles sought to undermine our Churches and having made the match and their zeal giving fire to the hidden mine by a new powder-plot have blown up these Churches and thereby not onely rent and dissipated them one from the other but scorched and mortally wounded them with fundamentall errors I think now it is not without due caution and circumspection that they say onely some of our Congregations are true Churches for as Diogenes sought a man with a Lanthorn at noon-day at Athens so amidst all the late new light we have more need then ever of that lamp unto our feet to find a Church and they do therefore ingenuously call themselves of the Congregational way for they are many of them out of the way of a true Church And though all that be of those principles are not vitiated with
Lyon Si cadendum est Aeneae magni dextra cadam sim jugulatus Achille But the course they took could onely have been rib'd and inlaid with some reason to support and strengthen it if I had scattered my papers among his Church and sought to toll away his Proselites and if they had been hereby shaken or made volatile and could not have been otherwise fixed but by perswading them how in that argument he had foyled me which general notion and that taken up by an implicit faith was I doubt all the impression which the generality of them could get by the reading of our dissertations for though those matriculated into his Church may perchance be all sufficiently principled in repentance toward God and faith in Christ Jesus which my charity prompts me to hope whatever others report yet I doubt however they may blandish them that their understandings are too narrow and disproportionable to make judgement of controversies especially agitated scholastically Sic mihi magnopere faber est invisus in altum Qui struit adnitens superare jugum Oromedontis But hereupon it was bruited abroad that I should forthwith receive an answer and though methinks so many hands should have made more light work in respect of time and not so light in regard of waight yet I can instance the person one of their Church and I know they will resent with indignation any suspicion that one of that extraction and refinement should retain any Dregs or impurity of an untruth which did say and the person to whom and the circumstances of time and place when and where he said it that foure Ministers had laid their heads together to frame a speedy answer to my Epistle in which relation therefore that which they call an Apology of some Ministers and godly persons may be so named as well in respect of the efficient as the subject But whether sat bene I shall not say but I am sure not sat cito and though they would have it to be as the Jews Messias born long since but shewing it self long after yet I know their Answer like Lapis Lazuli among Physicians had many several Washings before they could agree to give it and about a yeer after the Answer was said to be inchoated the Church met to peruse and set their Seal to it which after several concoctions and filtrations was then thought fit to be sent in progress to several Towns among their Symmists whither like a Snowbal to gather somewhat by rolling and to raise a posse comitatus against this rebel to their Discipline I will not assert upon conjectures or reports but shal be facil to believe that if this Temple of their Diana had been so many yeers in building by all Asia it must rather have been one of the wonders of the world For the censures which they insinuate to have attended or prevented the coming forth thereof as I am not justly obliged to be responsible for what I was not guilty of who as Memnon General to Darius said his Souldier was am prest to fight not to rail so I cannot discreetly undertake to excuse what I am ignorant of but if they mistook not the tinckling of their own ears for outward sounds perhaps some of their own Cougregation that think themselves losers of a just liberty of communion might seek their recompense by a freedom in communicating their grieved minds and in civitate non libera as they made it would yet have linguas liberas and then I shall onely remind them a story of Philip of Macedon when one told him that Nicanor who was in Court and neglected by him spake reproachfully of him he sent him a large Donative and supplyed his indigence and thereupon Nicanor began to talk very honourably of the King which made Philip to say Videtis in nobis esse situm ut bene vel male audiamus but whatsoever those censures were or by whomsoever aspersed as winds blustring about the earth are caused by vapors breaking out of the cranies thereof so were these rumors occasioned by themselves that were pleni rimarum and it fared then with them as it useth to do with such as buy winds of Witches who by opening the knots of the ropes given them raise so great gales as make them wish them stilled again which they have let loose and cannot hush Had they done as Augustin speaks of Zachary Tacuit generatus vocem men might have held their peace and the Apologists had peace or as it was said of Bonaventure Had they been first the dumb Oxe the world needed not to have wondred till they had lowed That ever I writ any thing to be answered or that they undertook the answer had never slown so far nor sounded so loud but in the winds which their owne birth first raised and that which was my desire might have been our common felicity to have discharged all our volleys with white powder not onely for the candor but because they say it makes no report and to have resembled heavenly rather then earthly bodies the one moving without sound the other with bustling and so never to have come forth upon the stage but to have acted our parts behind the curtain had not they drawn it aside to shew what prizes they could play and to make open sale of the Bears skin as soon as they began to hunt for what ever censorious omens others had of them themselves had endevoured to make the Countrey ring with their celeusma's and the Paeans of their triumph for this victory and though the dust followed their chariot wherewith they seek to blind mens eyes yet the creaking of their wheels and they are onely dry things wanting fatness which use to move with noyse were heard long before they were seen to come Yet all this while I was no more answered then one man may be by whispering in anothers ear nor did no more feel the stroke of their rod then Nico did the blows wherewith his image was beaten by those that made no haste to encounter himself I might justly have expected it not onely upon the score of Civility but Christian charity that I should first have been privately admonished of my faults before the Church had been told thereof for even a truth unseasonably published is a virtual slander and though I will not profess with Aristotle Let them not onely reproach but beat me too whiles I am absent yet I shall say with Plancus when he was told that Asinius Pollio had written invectives against him not to be published until after his death that there are none but Ghosts and Goblins that fight with the dead and in respect of obloquy there is the same reason of the dead and those that are not present but perhaps it was their conceit that the expectation of the blow which they boasted to be impendent would anticipate the suffering thereof knowing that pauculum differt patiaris adversa an expectes nisi quod tantum est
a parcel of Erasmus according to Luthers Diverbe Verba sine re As Augustin told Antony that challenged him to the combat if he were weary of living there were wayes enough to death besides his Sword so such infirme saples and enervous Treatises will soon dye of themselves and need not to have violent hands laid upon them Bene tacuit qui defensione non eget But since Divine Providence hath permitted them to hale and thrust me forth to appeare in publick so perfectly repugnant to what my iudgement dictated to be expedient and my affections sensed complacent and the Lord knows also contrary to those frequent Prayers which I put up to him to hinder and prevent it if he saw it good it shall be neither pride nor presumption to hope that it is possible that God who is Ita artifex magnus in magnis ut non sit minor in minimis hath some service to do for me and some discoveries to make by me as weak eyes fixt attentively on the Starres discern more then better sights observe with a transient aspect and if by his blessing I shall be capable to fasten but one pinne in the shaken frame of the Church or my bucket to bring up but one drop of truth from that well where it hath been lately cast down and covered and my spark which their stirring hath raked up shall cast forth one glimpse to make known the way of Peace or if as Xenophons expedition though with little effect excited great Alexander to a braver and more succesful invasion of Persia so this spark may kindle some greater and higher flame in others or my writings might be dusted with some filings of that precious Stone called Glossopetra which Pliny speakes of which is like the tongue of a man not bred in the Earth but fallen from Heaven in an Eclipse of the Moon which is said to still the winde and so I could Motos componere fluctus I should thinke for this if for nothing else I had lived to some purpose and should dye with more comfort Augustin tels us that double-forheaded Janus was the innocentest of all the Gods Tanto frontosior quant◠innocentior and verily the Conscience I have of the candor and cleareness of my own heart weighing it with those graines allowed to humane frailty in all the Conduct of this Matter who can say with Augustine Ego omnia quod bona fide dixerim sine ullo studio contentionis sine aliqua dubitatione veritatis sine aliquo praejudicio diligentioris tractatus exposui renders me somewhat the more confident that those weak Elucubrations shall finde the more favorable receprion with men and gratious success from God to whose blessing I humbly recommend them and if his presence go not with them let him not carry them hence THe Author though absent yet was not wanting in his care to have the Press better corrected yet neverthelesse through incuriousnesse many Errata's have escaped to his no little perturbation Besides that lines are broken where they should be continued as Ex. gr pag. 218. line 11. and continued when they should have been broken as ibid. p. 12. And that the mispointings sometime vitiate the sense as E.G. p. 88. in the two last lines and often perplex it especially by omitting or misplacing the Half-moons which should make the Parenthesis Also the Margin is taken into the Text which begets an incoherence p. 74. l. 28 29. And by leaving out not where it ought to be and putting it in where it should not be the sense is sometimes rendred contrary And p. 194. after And l. 6. to hands l. 7. is somewhat inserted without the Authors privity and which was not in his Copy For the grosser faults especially in those sheets which he could see here are directions to amend them which though it be not easie to doe because the pages are preposterously numbred also the Revder is desired to correct before he enter upon the work who else will be at greater losse of time to find out the sense smaller faults and misplacing quotations higher or lower are left to his own discretion to rectifie PAge 6. line 14. read breath ib. 32. dele no. p. 7. l. 11. r. dole as p. 12. l. 24. r. sixt p. 13. marg r. videri p. 17. l. 6. d. as p. 18. l. 6. r. a knife p. 20. l. 30. r. where whosoever p. 23. l. 32. r. vour p 24 l. 25 r longum p. 26. l. 10. r. assure 16.18 r. Augustus p. 50. l. 30. r. Mayo Ib. 47. their effect p. 53. l. 7. r. that p. 59. l. 35. r. nos sacit p. 61. l. 16. r. consequent ib. 22. d. and p. 62. l. 7. r. scrutiny ib. marg r. corrept p. 67. l. 38. d. not p. 71. l. 25 r. malleable p. 73. l. 42. r. suspected p. 74. l. 69. r. Church therefore p. 76. l. 22. r. whether I should p. 79. l. 11. r. but not p. 81. l. 5. r. vendicated p. 82. l. 13. r. assier ib. marg l. 28. Socrates History p. 83. ult r. or faith p. 84 l. 28. r. nor is ib. 38. r. I could p. 85. l. 45. r. in the p. 86. l. 20. r. rectè p. 87. l. 36. r bittle p. 88. l. 27. r. they bear p. 89. l. 6. r. etsi p. 91. m. r. pag. 467. p. 93. l. 22. r. Presbytery p. 95. l 10. r. Vibius ib. 24. d. et p. 99. l. 6. r. any ib. m. l. 7. r. in 3. ib. l. 10. r. 3 part p. 110. l. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 8 p. 112. m. r. tract 49. in Johan p. 113. l. 11. r. Titleman ib. m. r. Morton ib. 40. r. what p. 114. l. 22. r. wherein ib. m. r. concionatorium ib. m. l. 24. d. verbi p. 115. l. 30. r. inference ib. m. l. 3. vera esse p. 118. l 5. r. material p. 119. l. 27. r. ignominia p. 120. l. 38. r. little gemmyes ib. 40. r pleased p. 124. l. 3. r. Pius ib. 27. r. theirs p. 126. l. 33. r. his own age p. 128. against l. 11. add 4. d. 9. q. 4. p. 701. q. 5. p. 703. p. 129. m. r. 39. ib. 16. d. not ib. 43. d. to p. 131. l. 31. r. apertè p. 132. l. 14. r. principle p 135. l. 30. d. self p. 137. l. 11. r. no power p. 139. l. 25. r. syllogizari p. 147. l. 36. Meier p. 149. l. 30. r. wherein p. 169. l. 11. d. where p. 182. l. 9. r. delinquents ib. 11. r. left ib. 28. r. receive p. 183. l. 5. r. confession p. 184. l. 30. r. resultively p. 186. l. 2. r. Clytus p. 187. r. examination or that to be a part of repentance p. 188. l. 27. r. puts p. 169. as miscounted l. 11. d. where p. 170. l. 9. r. iutè p. 171. l. 19. d. of p. 173. m. r. Aquin. 3. q. 80. p. 177. l. 13. r. Liturgie p. 178. l. 5. r. either in the causes ib. 26. r. or in the p. 179. l.
assume as large and free power to exclude some such even where no consistorial juridical formal proceeding can be had as they now take to put by and interpretatively to excommunicate all which they do while they at least many of them administer it to none but intermit the use thereof altogether or exhibit it to very few or none in comparison but to such onely as they have gathered into a new Church and therefore as one being asked where he found his interpretation concerning Constantines donation as another his gloss upon the Salike Law answered If any looked on the back-side of that Donation and so of that Law there it was to be found so might it be more aptly said that from whence they derived the power and liberty to excommunicate all by non-administration or so many by non-admission they might fetch a right to exclude persons scandalous yea and apparently ignorant But our Rhodus and Saltus our present question is whether it be not onely profitable but necessary antecedently to the Communion to make examination notional or real of the knowledge or the lives not onely of such who upon morally probable grounds may well be suspected to be incompetent for ignorance or crime but of all indifferently so as for want of will in any to submit to this probation they may justly be debarred the Sacrament and for want of power or means in the Minister to exercise this Discipline he may lawfully intermit the administration or administer it onely to such as will submit themselves thereunto gathered and convened and not by their proper Pastour out of distant places and several Congregations DEFENCE SECT I. What authority the Diatribe ascribed to the Fathers and ancient Church Why the Apologists derogate from them THe Paper so I shall call it after that name which the Apologists always give it at the Circumcision thereof in the first Section seemed to rise to the hoary head of Antiquity and cast a suspitious eye upon Novelty recognizing that habet ut in aetatibus authoritatem Senectus sic in exemplis antiquitas and accounting with the Oracle that to be the best complexion which was concolor mortuis yet this was delivered onely in thesi and general not in hypothesi or particular application to my subject and by way of preface not of argumentation as they suggest calling this the first-born argument which yet had no double portion of substance nor was the beginning of strength or excellency of dignity Fit enim naturae quodam instinctu judicio recto sanè si illo recte utamur ut in religionis negotio nova omnia sint suspecta ferè exosa Casaub exercit 16. S. 43. p. 390. There was notwithstanding not the least intimation made as if any thing that bears the stamp of Antiquity were therefore to be received but onely not hastily to be laid aside nor that any thing was to be rejected because new coined but not to be so easily entertained neither that whatsoever was ancient was infallibly true but the more credible nor that which was new was undoubtedly false but more suspicious The Apologists cannot say and whosoever shall make inspection into the Paper will not see that I attribute too much to Antiquity and if they would have ascribed any thing they needed to have said nothing But it seems they have the same quarrel to Antiquity which the Affricans have of the Sun Urit fulgore suo and as Herod being originally a stranger and Alien sought to suppresse the Genealogies of the Jewish Nation and especially of the Royal Linage so the Apologists seek to disparage and detract from the exemplary practice of the ancient Church and judgment of the Fathers whereunto in opinion and way they are strangers De Carthagine potius nulla quà m pauca I am not susceptible to assert the honour and reverend esteem of the illustrious Fathers as Iuther calls them neither shall I need to undertake it for though mutus fit oportet qui non laudabat Herculem yet it was no unapt check of Antalcidas Quis unquam sanus eum vituperavit But since the Apologists instead of answering the testimonies have thought to discredit the Witnesses and have somewhat enlarged themselves both in this and the 13. Section to lessen their authority It may seem proditorious to desert their Defence and to shew lesse zeal to support them than they have done to deprave their credit especially seeing as Isocrates was said to have made many Orations in sending forth many Orators and he that saves a Physician preserves many lives and many remedies So I shall in vindicating this Topick fortifie the Arguments drawn from it and if it seem out of my way yet it is but in fresh suit of the Apologists whom I am bound to follow SECT II. Of Antiquity Custome sad consequences of Independency the novelty thereof the Fathers not without errours yet not to be sleighted What may be called the Primitive Church Protestants always honoured the Fathers and never declined their Testimony THey embrace that saying That which is first is true because true antiquity is a friend to truth and every good way is old but they restrain and limit this to such age and antiquity as things may claim onely for being revealed in Scripture But this is not the onely antiquity which we are now debating of this is Antiquity proved Ex priori but it is Ecclesiastical antiquity as I may call it the consent and custome of the antient Church antiquity proved Ex posteriori which we are now considering of what authority it carries what reverence and esteem it merits and what force and influence it hath We concur to adore Divine Scripture antiquity as the best Veritas in omnibus imaginem anteceda postremò similitudo succedit I ertul. Aug. contra Crescon l. 2. c. 29. Idem de peccat merit remis 1.1 c. 22. In mâ—de natura 〈◊〉 â— 61. 〈…〉 Mihi pro his omnibus imo supra hos omnes Apostolus Paulus to assent to it as the truest as that which nec falli potest nec fallere and to captivate our understanding thereunto Sine ulla recusatione cum credendi necessitate But because this is the best and truest and most infallible antiquity therefore to infer that no other antiquity needs to be considered of or is worthy of reverence or can lend any strength of argument is as if I should conclude that because an Apodictick Syllogism whose principles are propositions verae primae immediatae priores notiores causae conclusionis is onely Scientifical that therefore all Dialectick Syllogisms concluding ex probabilibus are useless and despicable or that St. Paul argued both weakly and superfluously that the woman ought to have power on her head because of the Angels when it had been enough and more efficacious to have said because of God or because Christ is the onely Mediatour between God and Man by his merit and efficacy and
upon whose intercession alone we can rely with faith therefore 't is vain and fruitless to seek or regard the help and assistance of the prayers of the godly To the antient Church I think most authority to be ascribed and greatest reverence to be attributed since streams run purest neer the Fountain and if that which is first be truest what is next to the first is next to truth and â—herefore SaÌ„nctorum Patrum constitutiones qui proximiores fuerant Christo â—â—â—â—scames said Nazianzen and those Orders be most pure that come most neer to the example of the Primitive Church said the holy Martyr Sanders Fox Act. â—â—on p. â—494 yet the at restation of that Church I grant is but an humane testimony nor perfectly â—â—vine but in part as it faithfully testifieth what the Apostles did and said Divine in regard of the matter and thing testified Human in regard of the quality of the Witnesses and manner of testification and therefore formally as such being but an humane testimony can beget but an acquisite faith for no conclusion can be of higher nature than the premises as no water can be made to rise higher than the Spring Picus Mirandula Canus and I grant that Fidei acquisitae quae fulcitur homine proponente non Deo revelante subesse potest falsum and therefore Nunquam hominem quemvis per fidem acquisitam ità existimamus esse veracem quin formidemus cum vel falli posse vel fallere Yet notwithstanding fides acquisitaâ—se habet ad fidem gratuitam sicut praeambula dispositio ad formam disponit animam ad receptionem luminis Alexander Hales all as cited by Dr. F. White 's answer to Fish p. 14. 22. quo assentitur primae veritati propter se dicitur ipsam introducere sicut seta filum and though divine revelation in Scripture be therefore the sole principle immediate motive and formal reason and object of beleeving and last resolution of Faith yet the authority and external testimony of the Church may produce the same as an adjuvant instrumental administring moral cause and subordinate help Prae omnibus si aperta fuerit Scriptura eam ipsam amplector saith St. Augustine and therefore he that will not beleeve Moses and the Prophets it will be in vain to raise any of the dead to perswade him when the Scripture shines out in full brightness omnes Perstringit stellas exortus ut aethereus Sol But when that Sun shines not so clearly as to convince and satisfie contenders who have bad eyes the Fathers as Stars that receive their light from that Sun may reflect some illumination upon us as the Stars are to be seen by day in dark pits and obscure places and though I consent to Augustine Epist. 19. ad Hieron that let the Learning and Holiness of other Writers be never so eminent I will not think it true because they have thought so but because they are able to perswade me either by other Canonical Writers or probable Reason yet I add that I am more confirmed in my perswasion that I rightly hit the sense of Canonical Writers and apprehend the Dictates of true Reason when I conceive the same which I finde that they thought though they are not principles of infallible verity to command beleef yet they are grounds of credibility to sacilitate assent Non domini sed duces to use Seneca's words And I shall more easily embrace that which hath their witness and be more apt to doubt of that which wants their testimony Sola argumenta ex Scripturis esse necessaria Cathol Orthedox Tract 1. q. 10. p. 121. è Patribus autem probabilia saith learned Rivet Their consent I esteem not ut fidei mensuram sed ut testem temporis argumentum historicum which makes certain the matter of fact that such was the doctrine and practice of the first and purer times being registred to us by those that cannot be imagined not to know being so neer nor be suspected to combine falsly to impose upon us being so pious They are not moved to hear men count and call good ways new and the Adversaries of true Doctrine have always loaded it with this Title which confirms them to see the ways of their government have the same lot and therefore this principle of Antiquity yeelds but a popular and fallacious Argument But few I suppose will be moved with this argumentation as not fallacious enough to impose upon popular judgements For First implicitly and interpretatively those good ways are their ways wherein is involved Petitio Principii Secondly if so small a matter confirm their judgement it is suspitious that as small a weight of reason might first settle it Talia sunt alimenta qualia sunt Elementa Thirdly If that be a popular and fallacious argument which is derived from a principle made use of commonly by Hereticks or others thereby to give a specious lustre to their own Opinions and cast an odium on their opposites then Scripture it self may be sentenced to be a principle yeelding onely popular and fallacious arguments for who knows not that most Hereticks have sought to fortifie their Opinions with pretence of Scripture and have upbraided their adversaries with want thereof Fourthly when any pretend antiquity to give countenance to novel and unwarrantable Opinions or Institutions by turning the wrong end of the Prospective to make things at hand seem to be far off the fallacy is not in the principle but the men that abuse and falsly apply it nor lies it in the proposition but the assumption Fifthly seeing as Hierom tells us Mendacium semper imitatur veritatem the argument is the more specious and like to carry more force because subtil falsifiers have assumed it for they being wiser in their Generations would not lay on those colours that had no beauty or lustre nor would they set that stamp on their counterfeit Coyn did they not know it would make it pass more currant Hierom say they is condemned for desiring leave of Augustine to erre with seven Fathers but they dare not nor are willing to give this liberty but yet they take as much when in the question whether Judas communicated of the Lords Supper they mention twelve late Writers and not all of them aut magni aut bonì nominis asserting the negative and ask who would not erre with such as those are But we say though we would not erre with the Fathers yet we less distrust our selves to erre with them or when they are on our side and probably suppose our selves farthest from erring when neerest to them As the Scripture bids us to remember Lots wife so they say to the Pretenders of Antiquity Remember the Gibeonites Had this Memento been limited to false Pretenders of Antiquity it might have been plausible but if themselves had not forgotten to take some of the salt of that Pillar whereinto she was turned to have seasoned their discretions they
never would have made this instance indefinitly and without limitation For First it follows not because they counterfeited old things we may not alleage that which is truly ancient or because some stones are counterfeit therefore none must be precious Jewels Secondly it may be retorted on themselves the Gibeonites would not have simulated that which had it been true would not have been effectual to the ends for which they fained it and had their bread and bottles and shooes been as old as they dissembled Joshuah might and would have accepted and been at peace and in league with them And will it not then be consequent to suit the Apodosis to the Protasis in this Allegory or Similitude that Antiquity is a likely Plea and lends a good Topick and such things as wear her Livery and bear her Character are more receptible than those that want them But if the antiquity the Paper calls for do signifie but Custome as they guess by some passages viz. what is setled by Custome they will be bold to say of such antiquity It is vetustas erroris I shall say with Augustine Quis dubitat veritati manifestatae debere consuetudinem cedere But I add Veritatem non ostendis de consuetudine confiteris De Baptism cont Donat. l. 3. p. 82. Tom. 7. Ibidem l. 7. p. 99. Ibid. l. 4. p. 85. ad Januar. Ep. 119. de Civitate Dei l. 15. c. 16. but abstracting custom from the consideration of the matter either as it is good for goodness will warrant it self without custome yet honum consuetum duo sunt bona and as St. Augustine gravely Cùm consuetudini veritas suffragatur nihil oportet firmius retineri or as it is evil for then custom cannot authorize it for the Philosopher said Omnia mala habenda pro peregrinis and S. Augustine Aut propter fidem aut propter mores vel emendari oportel quod perperà m fiebat vel institui quod non fiebat But only as custom even as such Ad humanum sensum vel alliciendum vel offendendum mos valet plurimùm and upon that other reflections insinuated in the Paper I might without offence conclude with Ulpian In rebus novis constituendis evidens esse debet utilitas and with St. Augustine Non est à consuetudine recedendum nisi rationi adversetur But beside the customs which I chiefly reverence and engage to defend are the customs of the antient Church Ad Casulan Ep. 86. and if the Apologists will be bold to say of such antiquity it is vetustas erroris I shall modestly re-mind them that they are more bold then wise And if they shall sleight the judgement of St. Augustine in his rebus de quibus nihil certi statuit Scriptura Divina mos Populi Dei vel instituta majorum pro lego tuenda sunt nor shall prize the sense of the great Council of Chalcedon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let the ancient custom prevail yet I hope they will grant there was some weight in that Argument of the Apostle 1 Cor. 11.16 We have no such Custom nor the Churches of God The gray hairs of Opinions and Practices are then beauty and a Crown when found in the way of truth and righteousness They are then indeed a Crown more glorious and worthy of double honour but yet aetas per se venerabilis saith Calvin and therefore some suppose that in the Greek an old man is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth honour Willet in Lev. 19.32 Arist l. 19. Ethic. 2. Jansenius in locum C. à Lapide in locum and it is the dictate of the same spirit which Aristotle hath also delivered almost verbatim Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head and honour the face of the old man formally as an old man And some Expositors because the relative is not in the Hebrew thus interpret that of Prov. 16.31 The hoary head is a Crown of glory it is found in the way of righteousness as if old men were commonly righteous as the Chaldee in the late famous Bible renders that of Leviticus Rise before him that is learned in the Law implying old men to be so so as therefore we might turn the allusion against them The light of Doctrine hath long filled our Horizon the light of Discipline was not so forward or successful being a long while held by some men in unrighteousness Nimirum liberanda veritas illos expectabat as Tertullian once said of Marcion but utinam talis status esset in illo Ut non tristitiae causa dolenda foret Fair words cannot perswade us that we are not hurt while we feel the smart of our wounds neither have we been bred up in Anaxagoras his School to beleeve the snow to be of other colour than our eyes discern it What Quintilian and Seneca said of the Common-wealth we may apply to the Church the one Quaedam sunt crimina laesae Reipub. ad quorum pronuntiationem soli oculi sufficiunt The other An laesa sit Respub non solet argumentis probari manifesta statim sunt damna Reipub. The Tree is known by his fruit and we have tasted such bitterness in the fruits of this Discipline and the Principles thereof that as Joab stubbornly said to David Thou hast shamed the face of all thy Servants So even those that could not be satisfied with the topping but wished the cutting down of the former Tree as being grown too high to over-top and drop upon the Paradise of God are truly ashamed to see this Plant spring up in the place thereof which not onely like the Boranetz or Tartar Lamb though it seem to creep low toward the ground and bear wool like the Sheeps cloathing yet destroys all verdancy and suffers nothing to grow or prosper neer it but he also that shall contemplate in what a light flame the whole Wood is will be apt to conclude that the Bramble is become the King of Trees from whom onely this fire could come forth So that some may well cry out as the Constantinopolitans at Arsacius his succeeding of Chrysostom Deus bone quis cui and are afraid to have contracted a suitable guilt to what the Romane Senate incurred toward Drusus of whom Paterculus tells us Qui tanto meliore ingenio quà m fortunâ usus est ut malefacta collegarum quà m ejus optimè cogitata Senatus probaret magìs But I remember Herodotus tells us that Phrinicus was amerced 1000. Drachmes for representing in a Tragedy the loss of Miletus and thereby renewing the sorrow thereof and therefore I shall not farther have unguem in Ulcere having else-where rubbed the sore and also because not onely illè dolet verè but also tute qui sine teste dolet onely in answer to the Apologists expressions I shall say That their Light of Discipline hath proved an ignis fatuus to lead us into Precipices and abysses or a Comet to portend and effect mischief and the
They are not the next ages before us that we look upon as they odiously insinuate but the most antient and yet I wish that the present times may not ingratiate and endear the former age notwithstanding its corruptions and have the fate which some think Augustus aimed at in adopting Tiberius that the memory of his Government might be more sweetned by the succession of a worse In the 13. Section for we will still endeavour to collect and unite together what they have scattered of one concernment they seek to enervate the testimony of the antient Church by telling us out of the Lord Verulam That they which too much reverence old times are a scorn to new That the Fathers agreed in mistakes and were divided in truths That the Opinion of the Chiliasts taken for an errour is by Justin Martyr referred to the Apostles Irenaeus affirms that Jesus Christ lived fifty years on earth Lubbertus is cited to say it is the manner of the Fathers when they would commend a thing not knowing its original to refer it to the Apostles and primitive Times In the three first Centuries the Learned are perplexed with spurious works of the Fathers which makes uncertain the state of the Primitive Church which some extend not beyond the Apostles days or third Century and it is stretched too far to the age of Chrysostome We know and acknowledge that the Fathers like the Moon never borrowed so much light from the Sun of the Scriptures as to be clear of all spots Stapleton himself grants there is none of the Fathers in which something erroneous may not be observed they are like the Birds hatch'd at Cair by the warmth of an Oven which have every one some blemish and I wish their errours were of no other alloy than such as the Apologists have detected Piscator Alsted Mead Hackwel Gallus c. whereof that of the Chiliasts themselves dare not stigmatize for an errour and therfore unaptly alleage it but only say it hath been taken for one perchance they are more indulgent thereunto because it is a Darling fostered much fawned upon by many of their Brethren and indeed hath divers more learned assertors than them who consent in the thing though with some difference in the manner and for the conceit of Irenaeus it is a Chronological no Dogmatical errour and Chronologers are one of those three things that never agree Id calumniâ carere debebit saith Sulpitius Severus But because the Fathers might or did erre therefore to give no credit to their Witnesses would be in effect destructive to all kind of humane testimony From hence onely can be concluded that they are not infallible and therefore our understanding not to be captivated into any obedience to their Dictates in that sense we call no man Father save the Ancient of days and that iis in enucleandis fidei controversiis non necessarium est consentire tanquā ab omni exceptione veris Chamier tom l. 1. c. 6. p. 4. Aquin. 1. q. 1. art 8. ad 2. aut etiam in se possunt proferri ut quibus ex certa Suppositione certis etiam circumstantiis hic discernendi rectum ab obliquo usu convenire queat saith Chamier and authoritatibus Canonicae Scripturae utitur proprie ex necessitate argumentando authoritate autem aliorum Doctorum Ecclesiae quasi arguendo ex propriis sed probabiliter c. as Aquiaas But the errours of a single Father or their mutual differences cannot lay any obstructions in our way who lay no such great waight on their singular Opinions yet set much by their general consent in what the most and most famous in every age have delivered as received of them that went before them and as practised or beleeved by them What Lubbertus is alleaged to say will not make either scale theirs or ours to move much with the waight thereof the notion Apostles is not alway taken properly Dr. Ham. Resol 6. quae q. 5. p. 351. And see Parker of the Cross part 2. p. 126. de Baptis Contr. Don. l. 4. c. 24. alii Epist 118. c. 1. or strictly to be understood one great learned man hath manifested it that in the Primitive Times Bishops were usually called Apostles and another hath told us that the ancient Church extended the Apostolical Times beyond the age of the Apostles even to the Nicene Council The ignorance whereof perplexed Baronius to reconcile it How Scithianus and Terebinthus are said to live Temporibus Apostolorum who lived in Aurelians time 300. years after Christ and howsoever yet I know it was the rule of Saint Augustine often inculcated and approved by our principal Divines in matters of fact and practice That which the universal Church holdeth and which was not appointed by Councils but always observed is most rightly believed to have been delivered by Apostolical Authority If some Bastard Writings are put upon the Fathers which like Eaglets being brought forth to the sun are not very hard to be discerned by their inability to endure the light of critical examination there are others which the Learned are agreed upon to bear the characters of their true Off-spring which set the antient Church within our light and prospect and it is no argument that because some coyn is counterfeit therefore none must be current let them reject it if we offer to pay them with false money But I doubt their practice will need some counterfeit Writings to support it for the genuine Works of the Antients will lend it no authority They should much have favoured our ignorance to have pointed at those had their authority been worth our notice who confine the Primitive Church within the age of the Apostles or extend it not beyond the second centeury that we might have tryed what weight their reasons or authority carry in the counter-scales against the generality of the polemical Divines who though primitive be a relation and spoken always with respect to another so that what is primitive in reference to one is not so toward another yet they dilate the antient Church Doctoribus Ecclesiasticis 6. priorum saeculorum veterum patrum adscriberemus titulum Rivet tract de patr Author Tom. 2. p. 648. According to one of the Epocha's the time for the measured purity of the Inner Court and that is the visible Church remaining in its primitive purity is 454. years Mede's Remains on Rev. p. 20. whereunto more reverence and esteem is rendred unto the first five hundred years and within which Latitude of five hundred did Bishop Jewel impale the testimonies which he challenged his adversaries to produce in confirmation of several pieces of Popery and sure the age of Chrysostome which was the latter end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth Century was like the eighth Sphere which though not next to the first mover according to the old obsolete hypothesis yet had more bright stars than all the Orbs beside What they
insert out of the English Plato that to reverence old times is to be a scorn to the new is meant of the arts and civil customes thereof which are lickt into better shape by time and daily improved and refined into more perfections Pervarios casus artem experientia trudit Exemplo monstrante viam but Theology and the Doctrine of Faith being inspired not acquisite was substantially perfect at the first tradition thereof and those which were neerest to those Secretaries of the Holy Ghost had the advantage and opportunity to receive a cleer explication and right understanding thereof and though too much reverence to those antient Times may peccantly verge from mediocrity wherein the matter of virtue consists yet he that shall scorn any for reverencing those old Times which we dispute of may put for to be Doctor of the chair of Scorners and hath been new dip'd in their principles who have learnt to say in effect with that Pope Hoc verum erit si ipse volo non aliter And whatever the Apologists may insinuate or glance at the Protestant Divines did never absolutely disclaim or renounce the tryal by the Fathers neither do they suffer any such Thrasonical vaunts as that of Campian Field of the Church l. 4. c. 5. p. 349. appendix Part. 1. Sect. 2. p. 750. to go unchecked and unshamed Patres admiserit captus est excluserit nullus est in altero fugam adornant in altero suffocantur Luther and the rest at the beginning seem to decline such tryal saith a learned Divine because the corruptions of their writings were so many as could not easily be discovered conformable to the advice of Vincentius Lyrinensis who saith If Heresies be inveterate and so have times and means to corrupt the Monuments of Antiquity we must flee to the Scriptures onely but now having found out by the help of so many learned men both of our adversaries and amongst our selves that have travelled in that kind which are their undoubted Works and which doubtful or undoubtedly forged we willingly admit the tryal by the Fathers and we now onely decry and condemn the Papists for their servile enthralling themselves to the judgment of the Fathers as to a Law as Canus speaks and ad ultimum iota as the gloss on the Canon Law delivers and for fettering themselves with an oath never to expound Scripture contrary to their consent and for advancing them to the disparagement and obsoleting of the Scriptures as among other examples did the Sorbonist Reynolds de Idololat Rom. Eccles l. 1. c. 8. p. 515. p. 301. Whitaker tom 1. p. 13. Marta de Jurisdict citat Dr. J. White 's Defence way true Church c. 20. p. 105. whom Stephanus asking where he read such a thing in the New Testament he answered Se illud apud Hieronymum aut in Decretis legisse quid vero Novum Testamentum esset ignorare but never deserted a tryal by the Fathers as by the Jury though not as by the Law which is the Scripture nor as by a Judge which is the Holy Ghost Ad hanc canitiem tanquam in Areopagum provocamus saith Whitaker to Campian and I could cite many others to the same purpose they are the Papists themselves that with notable hypocrisie depress and avile their authority when it interferes with their Interests speaking out plainly what the Apologists more covertly insinuate That the common opinion of the Doctors is not to be regarded when another contrary opinion favours the Keys or the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction or a pious case Those that wash'd off the water of their former Baptisme by new immersions were the first that sought to bring under water also the authority and reverence of the antient Church and it is very observable that from the same Fountain have sprung the foul and bitter waters of Schisme and Heresie that have defiled and envenomed the modern age as if it were therein legible that had due honour been given unto the Fathers our days of peace and truth had been prolonged in the Land What the Psalmist says of Children I think of the Fathers Happy are they that have their Quiver full of them they shall not be ashamed but they shall speak with the Enemies in the Gate The Philosophers that writ of the contempt of glory yet bewrayed their â—â—nbitious itch after it by affixing their names to the books So even those that seem to decry and sleight the witness of the Fathers yet think themselves more gay Birds when deck'd with their Plumes and that they make higher flights if they can impe their Wings with any of their Feathers The Apologists themselves in their 35. and 37. Section and else-where seek to borrow some colours from them to paint the face of their Discipline more seemingly fair And it is still true what Erasmus was wont to say When Hierom is for our purpose his authority weigheth much when against us it is worth nothing Yet as Agesilaus sent Tissaphernes his thanks that by fraction of the sworn League he had set the gods on his side so I thankfully accept this implicite and interpretative yeelding me the Fathers on my part while to my sense no other corollary can be deducted from all their discourse hereof but this Let them say what they list we neither value them nor will beleeve them SECT III. How the Apologists have suited their Discipline to comply with severall Parties and Interests the odious blots of their Pen. PRimus felicitatis gradus est non delinquere Secundus delicta cognoscere saith Cyprian They now condemn not all that differ from them and must acknowledge that some godly men eminent in parts and places close not with them and this I shall gladly take and put among their retractations for heretofore it hath been their course resulting as much out of subtilty as censoriousnesse to brand such as are adverse from them as enemies to godlinesse and so to sentence them I think is to condemn them yea they condemn them while they renounce Communion of Sacraments with them there being no way to communicate with them but to tread that path which they have lined and beaten out and if they grant them to be godly persons how can they without Schisme desert communion with them But indeed if their model of discipline be the onely path to Reformation and be that point alone wherein peace and holinesse meet and close together I think they could not but condemn all that walk not with them therein though in truth rather this renders it evident that it is no such right way because so many godly and eminent men are found in another Road. But as some censure them for going too far so do others for not going far enough in their seperation And it is like enough that this befals them which is the common fate of men that compound and medly themselves to comply with several Interests and bear up with divers parties who modelling themselves like
the Tragoedian Buskin indifferently for every foot while they would ingratiate with all are endeared to none Aristenus long since resolved Media via nulla est and the Praetor of the Samnites in Livy wisely observed Media via neque amicos parit nec inimicos tollit and men of that model are like the flying Fish which being partly Bird partly Fish is still prosecuted in the water by the Fishes and in the air by the Birds The Apologists indeed like good Astrologers will be sure to have chief respect to the Stars that are culminant and when they draw the Scheme and set the Figure of their Discipline they observe who are Lords of the House and accordingly make their judgment so that as famous du Moulin said of the Papists He that would know their Opinions must consult with the Almanack Some of them that were the first to turn Tables in the time of the Prelates have been since so busie in tumbling them that now at length they have in effect turned them altogether out of the Church When the Jews were in the Sun-shine of prosperity then the Samaritans would claim to be their brethren but if once they were under a Cloud or Tempest the other would not own the Kindred And it is no new thing for men to be in truth like the Stone which Suidas fableth to have been in Aarons Brest-plate Cujus Color sive ad prospera sive adversa mutaretur for some while the Apologists held forth their Church in the notion of Presbyterian but I could give account of the occasion and cast it up with their own Counters which if all the Box be not of the right stamp and metal yet I am sure those I shall take are without suspicion when their Church was to be entred by them in the Catalogue of a gathered Congregation A learned Divine of ours said in answer to an Heterodox Prelate that there were some tantùm in uxoratu non Papistae and I may as truly say that some are tantùm in decim is non Independentes and friends to that way Usque ad aras tantùm those Altars whereof they live but manum de hac tabula which as the Italian Proverb speakes I have not drawn Con amore with my affection to the draught But to speak freely being indeed too free of such obloquy the most carnal and prosane in the Countrey are foremost in opposition to them the scum of whose choler they often see and hear who measuring them by a fleshly line finde their work defective I had snpposed rather excessive not being able to bear the strictnesse of the word I thought they would have said their discipline It is a misfortune as sad as singular that the godly and wicked being of such different principles should meet in one conclusion against their way If the choler of some profane persons asperse on them or their model as perchance there may be some that are like Ithacius in Sulpitius Severus who had no other virtue in him but his hatred towards the Priscilianists yet scum being such light froth cannot stick or defile being soon to be wip'd off Malè de me loquuntur saith Seneca sed mali Malis displicere laudariest but yet notwithstanning Moverer si de me Marcus Cato si Laelius sapiens si duo Scipiones ista loquerentur But whatever they be Non multùm supra eos eminent quibús se irascendo exaequant and since also qui alterum incusat probri se ipsum intueri oportet who would think that the Apologists who take so tender a resentment of some passages in the Paper which yet I hope to approve doe disrelish more by the distemper of the Organ than the quality of the object for quibus os putet omnia quae afferuntur putida sunt oris non alimenti vitio would drop from their Pens so odious a blot upon their Opposers among which none perchance having said more in opposition to them though nec me qui caeteros vicit impetus doubtlesse they set me with Uriah in the sore-front of the hottest battel that I may be smitten and my good name dye Compare them and determine if the Allegory and allusion taken from Nebuchadnezzars Image and the Romans pretended Magick and an application of a passage in Chrysostome which lye so indigested in the rising stomachs of the Apologists or what else in the Paper may be capable of distast be not charientisms and civil complements in respect of this calumny which sure is but the scum of a Brest boyling with an impotent choler hic nigrae succus loliginis haec est Aerugo mera Ep. 47. is it possible Tantae-ne animis caelestibus irae I am more sensible of the dishonour they have hereby done themselves for qui alteri maledicit sibi convitium facit and as Cyprian Neque qui audit sed qui facit convitium miser est and my known deportment especially measured by Seneca's Rule Qui se innocentem dicit appellat iestem non conscientiam might have prevented and will refute their calumny and who while I make not any externall judgment either my Theater or Tribunal cannot by such clamours feel the Musick interrupted which the Bird makes in my breast scutum conscientiae sufficit adversus gladium Linguae But I shall neither much complain for omne naturâ invalidum querulum est nor recriminate since as Cicero to Dolabella tua moderatio eorum infamet infamiam nor be passionate because as Gregory Qui mala non fert ipse sibi per impatientiam testis est quòd non est bonus but I shall quietly take up these arma justitiae à sinistra quorum convitiator faber est as Augustine and make use of this Dung spread upon me to meliorate and manure me into more fruitfulnesse and it shall be my solace that qui volens detrahit famae meae nolens addit mercedi meae as Suaviloquus Augustine SECT IV. Whether the Diatribe were guilty of Petitio Principii WHether their way be grounded on the practice of the Primitive Church is the great thing in question and subject-matter of this Congresse and therefore not to be begged in the entrance Quantum mutatus ab illo how can this consist with their judgment delivered in the 2d and 13th Sections nay repeated in the lines immediatly following in this Section where their expressions amount to this that they nothing weigh or make no account of the practice of the ancient Church much lesse doe they reckon it a great thing no would they willingly have it brought into question upon this subject so far are they from making it antomastically the subject-matter of this Congresse well knowing that to re-search into the judgments and practice of the Ancients is with Roderick of Spain To break open a Temple where they shall onely finde Images of men armed against them Magentinus an Interpreter of Aristotle tells us That a begging of the question is when that which is
will and that they came no farther shall be their own fault and it is not his readiness to admit such nor the opening of the door of the visible Church that makes men hypocrites but their own wickedness Christ will not keep men out for fear of making them hypocrites but when the Net is drawn unto the shore the Fishes shall be seperated c. And in the precedent page he saith Their being baptized persons if at age or members of the Universal Church into which it is that they are baptized is a sufficient evidence of their interest to the Supper till they do by heresie or scandal blot this evidence and this after much doubting dispute and study of Scripture he saith he speaks as confidently as almost any truth of equal moment The way of pell-mell blinds men in their wretchedness very like blindes them with light and poysons them with the antidote just as the means is destructive to the end Light may indeed some-while a little blind some weak eys yet it is the proper means of seeing and to keep them in the dark will perpetuate their blindness not make them see better Doth it not argue blindness of understanding to think by any argument to evince that it shall either blind men in their wretchedness or impede their conversion by sealing to them an assurance that if they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ they shall be saved by his death which is the sum of the Covenant of Grace whereof the Sacraments are Seals To raise our Structure the higher and make it stand more firmly we should perchance dig the Foundation deeper and because this erroneous principle is the Fountain of those bitter Waters of strife our Marah and Meribath it might seem expedient to cast a little Salt into the Spring of those Waters to heal them A Covenant is a mutual compact or bargain between God and Man consisting of mercies on Gods part granted over to man and of conditions on mans part required by God it results from Gods antecedent and voluntary love that he entred into paction with man and performeth his absolute promise of giving Faith and perseverance to his Elect to which promise no condition is imaginable to be annexed which is not comprehended in the promise it self but to Gods Covenant of conferring other mercies which flows from his consequent love which is a natural property in God whose proper nature inclines to reward good and evil is a restipulation and condition of duty annexed Of this conditional Covenant onely the former being indeed rather a promise then a Covenant being onely Gods act without any mutual act of man the Sacraments are divine external seals and I suppose it is no such just cause as may legitimate a war whether it be more proper to say they are conditional seals of the Covenant to testifie and confirm unto us that we shall surely acquire what God hath promised if we seal back as it were our counterpart unto God and performing the condition render unto him what he requires as a conditional promise is made absolute by performance of the condition which otherwise obligeth not That the Sacraments are not Seals of the absolute Covenant nor set to without respect to the condition carries the stamp or seal of the Corporation of Protestants and those which have set their hands to any Writing against Bellarmine in that controversie of the efficacy of the Sacraments have attested this truth And some others of the Luminaries of our own Sphaere have reflected much light upon the point I therefore whose harvest cannot attain to their Gleanings shall not light my Candle in the Sun nor in the worse sense bring an Owl to Athens Tu sequere à longe et vestigia semper adora It may seem as much delirous to discourse of Military Glory after Hannibal as it was for Phormio to do it before him and a Smith may seem already to have run mad in undertaking as he of old did to have effected the amendment of an instrument of Archimedes Onely I shall say that whatever some rather odiously then ignorantly insinuate this is yet neither the language of Ashdod nor carries any stamp or holds any affinity with Semi-Pelagianisme or if you will call it so Arminianisme which is Synonymous for Arminius and Socinus have had the fortunes to have these bastard and illegitimate Doctrines put upon them which had other elder Fathers as Sextus 5. his Obelisk and Farnezi his Bull and other Monuments though formed and erected by the old Romane Emperours are now denominated from those that of late times have redeemed them from rubbish and restored their beauty but the Doctrine we hold forth hath no Analogy therewith For beside that we assert Faith to be absolutely and infallibly infused by God per modum creationis and nothing to concurre to conversion ex parte voluntatis causativè sed tantum subjectivè and ut credamus to be wrought passively in nobis sine nobis although actively ipsum credere be produced nobiscum simul tempore consentientibus et co-operantibus whereas the Arminians symbolizing with the Jesuits affirm Faith to be purely an elicit act of Free-will through a moral perswasion onely upon an object congruously proposed alliciens consensum non efficiens and Grace whose name they have antiquated as well as destroyed the Nature substituting the word help or motion in stead thereof to be a general and indifferent influxe terminable by mans good or evil free-will Besides this we are now disputing of Gods Covenant and Promise in time not of his Decree before all time If thou believe thou shalt be saved is not of the nature of a practical decree but of a promise and is onely doctrinal and enunciative neither do we as they do make Gods Decree conditional but onely the execution thereof and not the will of God to save but the salvation of man Gods eternal purpose in saving being absolute in respect of any cause or condition impulsive in the object not in regard of the means in the execution and order to the end Gods promises for their form correspond not with his purposes his promises being according to the manner of his executions but his purposes have a different method What he purposes he performs for the matter but not as he purposed for the manner he saves in the same manner that he decreed to save but in executing or saving doth not follow the same order which he did in decreeing this which is last in execution is first in intention Dr. Kend. Vndicat part 2. c. 7. and that which is performed on a condition was absolutely intended the intention was to perform it upon condition but upon no condition was it so intended We do not therefore say God intended upon condition of Faith to give Salvation but that he intended to give Salvation upon condition of Faith intending to give Faith absolutely and Salvation conditionally But the Sacraments therefore being onely Seals of
Congregations that are so corrupt and therefore they are neither Donatists nor Schismaticks I answer 1. Might not the Donatists have put in the same Plea Altingius probl Tom. 2. part 2. problem 17. p. 329. Junius in contro 4. Bellar p. 1165. Ames de cas Consc l. 5. c. 12. p. 288. who when they divided themselves from the Catholiques had a Communion with the many Churches of their fraternity Adhuc ista verba communiter dici possunt potest enim alius dicere as Augustine this is the common defence of all Schismaticks that when they leave one Church they go into another but as Altingius will give them one venny Quibuscum coenam sumere detrectamus eorum fraternitati tacitè renunciamus So secondly let them take a blow from the famous Junius to beat down this interposition Schismatici comperiuntur multi qui non à spiritu aut capite aut à corpore discindi volunt sed ab hac illave ecclesia i.e. membro particulari corporis ex infirmitate particulari especially if as Ames addeth the separation be propter causam omnium ecclesiarum communem as we suppose it is being causâ morum corruptorum scandali aut singularium offensionum Tryal grounds Separat c. 10. p. 197. Sacramentorum Communione sociamur Contra Donatist post Collat c. 28. Tom. 7. p. 127. Sacramentorum participandorum communione cohaerere Ibid. c. 21. p. 126. In una congregatione paria Sacramenta tractantes Contra Parmen l. 3. c. 2. p. 13. Malus frater propter communia Sacramenta Collat. cum Donatist prima die Si in communione Sacramentorum mali maculant bonos si propter ipsam tantam Communionem Sacramentorum mali perdunt bonos Contra Crescon l. 2. c. 35 36. p. 5. Tom. 7. Commixtos bonis malos intrà retia suorum Sacramentorum Brevicul collat cum Donatist 3. die p. 118. Bonos malis in communione Sacramentorum misceri Fulgentius l. de fide ad Petrum wherein all Churches may be alike concerned If they shall think to evade by telling us that they hold communion in other Ordinances not onely Mr. Ball gives sentence against them That to use one Ordinance and not another is to make a Schisme in the Church but St. Augustine hath fore-stalled their Plea who as he makes external unity and communion to consist mainly in the participation of Sacraments so he constitutes much of the Schisme of the Donatists in their refusing to have communion in Sacraments with the Catholikes And though I deny not that they renounced and protested against all other communion with the Orthodox as well as in the Sacraments to which heighth and wideness of separation the Independents have not risen or removed yet do they symbolize with them in the kinde though not degrees of their Schisme for there may be several stories of building one higher than another yet all upon the same foundation And these Duties notwithstanding wherein they communicate with others they account no acts of Church-fellowship or Ecclesiastical Communion but such as they can dispense unto Pagans also And themselves also seem to constitute the root of Church-fellowship in the Communion of Sacraments owning none to be of their Churches but such as communicate with them of the Supper of the Lord. As therefore they applaud the fighting Cock which having lost one eye for the battel turns away his blind side lest he be stricken where he can least ward the blow so I cannot blame the Apologists to seek to sequester from the question their gathering into their Church such as separate from and renounce communion of Sacraments with their own Congregations which is the grand heteroclyte and chief anomalon of their way which as Calvin saith of the point of Justification controverted between us and the Papists would they retract it would almost quit the cost to grant them all the rest But the lawfulness of this they undertake to assert hereafter But Aut deme verbis aut adde viribus for the words require more than a City In the interim they abstract the state of the question and deliver it in this form Whether in the reforming of a long corrupted Church it be necessary that all the members thereof do submit to some examination or tryal of their knowledge before they be admitted unto the Lords Table This question they fear not to maintain in the affirmative Et cùm magna malae superest audacia causae Creditur à multis fiducia They suppose corruption in their Churches and he hath no fire of divine love in his heart that hath not Water limbeck'd out of his eyes to see it Men well satisfied with the present frame and temper not looking on them under any such disorder they can expect little of reason or truth from Vox tua facta mea est If we could as easily accord in other things as this Et duo concordes animo moriemur in uno Onely I cannot tell neither should I concur with them in a desire nor much to dispute with such for the more they are sick they the more need the Physician and though Cain be not his brothers keeper yet Jacob holds him by the heel detinet gressus suos as Bernard allegorically interprets it and though they seem never so incurable yet he that lay 38. years diseased might perchance have bin sooner cured had he not wanted one to put him into the healing pool however si non liberabo animam suam liberavi meam for Qui non corrigit resecanda committit facientis culpam in se habet qui quod potest corrigere negligit emendare saith Gregory But yet notwithstanding all this it would be the great question whether they found or made more of this corruption and whether the Cure may not be as mischievous as the Malady as it fared with Cn. Pompeius of whom the Historian tells us Gravior remediis quà m delicta erant and whether since they undertook the Cure the Diseases have not grown more desperate and incurable ut antea flagitiis ità nunc legibus laboratur or perchance among wise and moderate men this would be beyond question Hae manus Trojam erigent Parvas habet spes Troja si tales habet When men of their way and principles declaim against the corruptions of the Church Clodius accusat moechos And when they cry up Reformation Clodius de pudicitia And it will be farther no less questionable why this way of examining and proscribing from the Sacrament should be unto reformation as quick-silver to other metals that without which they could have no constitution and that this Cure could be wrought by no medicine whereof this is not the Basis so as all the Psalms of reformation end in this Gloria whereas I rather think si non falsis â—ludor imaginibus that scarce any thing hath more obstructed the work of reformation than this inclosing of the Sacrament and censorious driving of so many from it as nothing more
shine that walk in it like the bright light of the Sunne which gilds all his spots and makes them invisible which some by their Prospectives discern in the body thereof What farther rise it may have or progression make we cannot certainly fore-tell but may solicitously fear since men of these principles are like the Crocodile which never ceaseth growing while he lives so doe they still increase in new singularities and humours and pretended discoveries yet I hope they will also be as sagacious as the Crocodiles of Nilus who never hatch any thing but they lay it without danger of being hurt by the rising flood yet in the interim an ordinary judgment may easily discover that a Fortress founded in the Conscience and raised on the advantage ground to command our reputation may keep all the parts adjacent in subjection and bring them under contribution And seeing Priam at this age was not unhappy and confession it self in so short time had neither so enlarged her phylacteries or out-grown her girdles which was punish'd with death among the Gaules as this probation hath done therefore we fear the Year when the Spring is so nipping and it is more like to be a sharp Thorn that pricks so soon And since we see that not onely by an extraordinary power as in the time of Elias but as Fromundus tells us by natural course a small Cloud may soon over-cast our Heaven and of a small Seed as Mustard a Tree may spring up wherein the losty and high soaring Birds may build their Nests We may be excused if we cannot make light of this cloud with a nubecula est citò transibit as Athanasius of Julian and if with the Ant we bite the seeds that they grow not However they may seriously and plausibly talk to us here of reformation and satisfaction and honour of the Church and elsewhere of the smallness of the thing required yet Timeo Danaos dona ferentes Or perhaps rather petentes We remember what the shepherd in Aesop said who beholding the smoothness and tranquility of the Seas after a former Tempest which enforced him to cast all his Dates over-board which he had sold his Flock to buy and adventure in the way of Merchandize Palmarum fructus concupiscit opinor ac tranquilitatem propterea praese fert and we cannot be so simple as they say the African Dabath is who is so charmed with Musick sweetly sounding in his Ears that he the whiles suffers his feet to be fettered DIATRIBE SECT IV. No pre-examination in the ancient Church save of Catechumeni Sending the Eucharist to Persons absent and Strangers The institution and abolishment of Confession Liberty to approach the Lords Table upon self-examination Whom the ancient Church excluded from the Eucharist The judgment of the Fathers Casuists and Schoolmen concerning those that are to be admitted and to be debarred To partake was anciently commanded as a common Duty The omission reprehended the common right asserted HAving now heard the Nightingale her self to sing perchance all will not be of Agesilaus his humour and refuse to hear any that imitate her voyce having therefore examined the Authorities of Scripture let us survay the judgment of the Fathers and practice of the Primitive Church which cannot but elucidate and confirm our sense and interpretation of Scripture for as Plato said Majores nostri propiores fuere progeniei deorum so the ancient Church stood neerer the light being neerer the Sunne of truth and his twelve signes which signified and shewed forth his Gospel and through which he moved round about the world In these Primitive Times I finde that mutual reconciliations and in the African Churches Vigils or watchings in Prayers and in Chrysostome's time Fastings and sometimes and in some places the publick renouncing of some particular Heresies were antecedent to the Synaxis but I meet with no Records of any command or example of previous probations as necessary save for Catechumen's The Eucharist was then often sent to persons absent Justin M. Euseb ex Iraeneo centur Magdeb. cent 2. p. 85. it was given to strangers coming to Rome as a pledge or Symbol of their Communion and consent in the same Faith where was no probability or surely no evidence of precedent probation When the Church that saw the benefit of publike Confessions for publick Offences redounded as well to the subduing of the stubborness of their hard hearts and the improving of their deeper humiliation as to their raising up again by those sensible comforts which they received by the publick prayers of the Church and use of the keyes some men reflecting hereupon and finding their own Consciences smarting for like offences which being secretly carried were not obnoxious to the censures of the Church to the end they might obtain the like consolation and quiet of minde did voluntarily submit themselves to the Churches discipline herein and underwent the burden of publick confession and penance And to the end this publication of secret offences might be performed in the best way and discreetest manner some prudent Minister was first acquainted therewith by whose direction the Delinquent might understand what sins were fit to be brought to the publike notice of the Church and in what manner the pennance was to be performed by them At first it was left free to the penitent to chuse his Ghostly Father but at length by general consent of the Bishops it was ordained that in every Church one discreet Minister should be appointed to receive Confessions untill at length in the time of Nectarius Bishop of Constantinople who dyed A.D. 401. upon occasion of the infamy drawn upon the Clergy by the confession of a Gentlewoman Socrates hist l. 5. c. 19. p. 349. defiled by a Deacon in that City it was thought fit it should be abolished and liberty should be given to every man upon the private examination of his own conscience to resort to the Holy Communion which doubtless occasioned Chrysostome the Successor of Nectarius to make those deliveries of himself which have been formerly mentioned The result of those premises is this That the ancient Church sometime thought it requisite that confession of sinnes should precede the Communion which at length also was laid aside but without any other examination verbal or real of all Communicants But seeing Faith and Repentance are as necessary as knowledge to worthy receiving and as principal a part of that whereof every one ought to make examination of himself or others are to make of him I wish it might be advisedly perpended whether there be not as great reason to have auricular confession in some rectified and qualified manner and to impose it as necessary in order to the communion as to introduce their particular examination as a duty so necessary especially since the Lutherans assert and practise it upon Homogeneal or like principles as preparatory and antecedent to the Sacrament contra 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nonnullorum Calvinianorum Baldwin
Controversies Chamier and reade him direct and express for this point citing both the confession of the French Church Tom. 4. l. 2. c. 1. 2. and Calvin as witnessing to the truth hereof and whereas Calvin affirms that God works by the Sacraments as by Instruments but by a force internal and intrinsick to himself and not passing forth from himself into the Sacraments Chamier tells us That this is the very state of the controversie with what ingenuity then could a great Champion of the opposite opinion among other Divines muster up both Calvin and Chamier to be on his part and in what sense all the other testimonies cited by him were meant judge by this one that where he argueth that the Sacraments being by their definition signes cannot be causes of what they signifie neither are the things signified the effects of the Sacrament he cites Chamier as adstipulating to that assertion quia ut efficientia toto genere suo differt à significatione c. Whereas Chamier urgeth that Argument not to disprove all efficiency of the Sacrament but inhaerentem sibi efficaciam which are his express words in his entry into that Ninth Chapter a very few lines before the words cited so as the Reciter imposeth upon us with a fallacy à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter as if Chamier denying one kinde of efficiency denyed all and the same answer may be given to his other alleaged testimonies which are in the same sense to be understood This puts me in minde of Nugnus the Dominican who disputing against the Jesuits in the Controversies concerning Predestination Grace and Free-will he tels them They will rack men to witness for them though evidently known to be of another judgment which made him say he feared they would deal so with him too when he was dead notwithstanding his express opposition to them of all our Divines that I know C. 8. p. 139. learned Whitaker hath gone farthest concerning the efficacy of the Sacraments who in his Answer to Dury the Jesuit to close with Peace yet not check with Truth doth thus express himself Si Alani sententiam amplecteris eam ego minimè reprehendam sic enim ille de hac causa scribit Gratiam in anima hominis Deus operatur per Sacramenta tanquam per instrumentalem causam non alia ratione nec minùs verè quà m homo dicitur scribere per calamum scriptio verò adds Whitaker non includitur in calamo sed calamo ad eam rem apto instituto scribitur ità Deus per Sacramenta sua tanquam media organa gratiam in nobis efficit tamen Sacramenta gratiam in se nullam includunt So he which is more than the Franciscans would concede to the Dominicans at the Council of Trent Lastly let it be thought upon what advantage is given to the Socinians and Anabaptists by this Thesis that the Sacraments have onely a signifying power and virtue and onely to confirm Faith and not to conferre Grace for frustrate and supervacaneous shall the Administration thereof prove where is neither actual Faith to receive confirmation nor understanding to apprehend what they signifie Thus long have I staid like the Samaritan to put Wine and Oyl into the wounds of this Truth which I found wounded in my way but shall leave it with the two pence which some expound the two Testaments to be better cured by others and go on my journey Last of all let us take one prospect farther and upon view make triall whether the motives used to perswade the Administration of the Lords Supper and the Retentives applied to keep men from deserting the participation thereof when by a male-administration of Discipline either through negligence or corruption wicked men are admitted cannot also be as apt and proper and suitable to the same ends and purposes generally in mix'd Congregations and where Discipline is not at all established or for weighty Reasons cannot be executed They tell us in that former case that we joyn not with wicked men but they with us that for us to joyn with sinfull men in sinful matters would bring guilt upon us but if some bad men will joyn with us in good matters it proves no prejudice to us To celebrate the Lords Supper is in it self exceeding good if others that ought not will come and goe as farre with us as the outward act it is evil to them but none to us having to our power opposed their presence which power we are elsewhere taught to be admonishing reproving and mourning c. We are farther bid to take heed that we neglect not an undoubted duty to escape an uncertain danger a peril merely supposed will not warrant the omitting of a practice cleerly imposed O bracteata verba whereupon I shall make no long reflection but briefly say that great is the truth and will prevail and onely ask whether this breath blow not away all their former similitudes and arguments Whether this be not herbam dare to give up the cause and flight or quit their strongest holds and like Penelope to untwist her own Web and to become like an Eagle struck down with an Arrow feathered from her own Wing as was Julian's Motto Propriis configimur alis for now Nescio quo pacto vox tua facta mea est Onely if they shall interpose that in male-administration of discipline somewhat is yet done and onely some few evil men are admitted but in non-establishment or non-execution thereof nothing is effected and many more doe intrude to the Holy Table I answer that as magìs minùs non variant speciem so the multitude or paucity cannot give form though it may degrees to the quality of the action in the one case or another if it be evil to admit or communicate with many hypocrites or wicked men it is also evill to doe it though but with a few such and the evil is greater because done by them who are always so much the worse by how much more they pretend to be better and by the help of Discipline established have the means to conduct things better but let such Discipline be established so that where and when they please it may be exercised and then it seemes it is nothing so perilous or placular though some be admitted or communicated with as unworthy as those that now are repelled Truly the reflection upon those and the like passages is that which tempts some circumspect men to suspect that the Silver-Smith is still at his Work-house for his Diana quisquis amat ranam ranam putat esse Dianam whose Arguments though hammered at the Forge have more energy and influence than those which are borrowed from the Schools and such Topicks beyond all Apodicticks DEFENCE SECT XVI The removing the scandalous by the power of the Keyes no Ingredient of our question nor any part of the Discipline which they practise What scandals may deprive of the Sacrament
the Work of faith and to make an external Profession without any real Conversion of the inward Man they were pricked at the heart but compuncti fuerunt Cain Judas saith Calvin As the denunciation of judgement struck Ahab into a low posture of Humiliation so it is possible many of those Ultorem metuunt regnantem quem occiderunt benedicentem as Erasmus Their continuing stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and breaking of Bread and Prayers Calvin saith is the form of the Church but all that are of the visible Church are not of the invisible a man may continue in the Doctrine of the Apostles yet not in the practice of that Doctrine he may be no speculative Heretick nor Apostate yet may be a practical Heretick there may be a pure light without heat or influence as in Glow-worms or Cucuija he may give all his Goods to feed the Poor and not have Charity parting with the Substance to catch a shadow for honor est umbra virtutis he may perform external duties without the hidden Man of the Heart like Architas Dove and Regiomontanus Eagle make a brave flight without a Principle of life carried by other wheels and engines most of this if that fellowship be Communicatio ad mutuam conjunctionem eleemosynas aliáque fraternae communionis officia as Calvin may be verified of many of those whom they suspend save that the Breach they have made keeps them from breaking of Bread and though desirous of the ways of Salvation they find this way obstructed But thirdly do they soberly opine that all those were real and perfect converts I suppose then they are solitary in that opinion not onely these three thousand but the rest about that time coming into the faith found present Baptism a door into the Church among these first converts were Ananias Saphira and Nicholas and yet these first Blades of the seed of the word were blasted and withered without sound fruit But fourthly whatsoever they were it was not the truth and reality of their faith that admited them to Baptism but the external profession of the faith their continuance stedfast in the faith what ever it importeth was a thing subsequent they had not continued when they onely began to believe and then were they Baptized and brake bread and the Apostles suspended not their Baptism till probation had whether they would so continue and their continuance was in breaking bread also When the Eunuch had made a draught of his faith by profession thereof Philip did not suspend the seals when he came to water there was no haeret aqua though there was not time enough to verifie the unfainedness of his profession yet nothing hindred him to be Baptized and when the prisoner of Jesus Christ had brought into captivity the thoughts of his jaylor to the profession of an obedience to Christ although he immediately before resolved to have given himself a wicked kinde of Baptismus sanguinis by killing himself with his own sword yet without suspending him for such a desperate resolution he received the Baptismus flaminis and that straightways which is a word of no more Latitude than their immediately 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here being equivalent to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 John 13.30 Which leaves no proportionable time to take any evidence of the soundness of the work of grace in his conversion and what ever probable signs thereof himself might give yet nothing is recorded of those of his house but that the word of the Lord was spoken to them which doubtless they professed to receive with faith and without more adoe all his were Baptized too being upon that profession taken to be of the houshold of faith Primus haeresiarcharum as the Fathers call him and primogenitus Sathanae as Ignatius stiles him Simon Magus whose fresh sorceries and witchcrafts were such as might have justly put his profession under a suspicion of counterfeit and if ever to have brought any to the tryal now to have done it and to have expected some signs that he that was to be washed were also sanctified and as they say of Lapis Armenius that it must be often washed ere it be approved so on the contrary he should have been often proved ere once washed yet we find notwithstanding that without suspension or probation upon his profession to believe though he were still in the gall of bitterness which poison he suck'd from the old Serpent and therefore there was no hope that the Spirit which appeared at Christs Baptism in the likeness of a Dove which is without gall should descend upon him who onely in Ecclesiam ut Corvus ingressus est quaerens quae sua sunt saith Augustine probatus est ad aquam contradictionis as St. Hierom accommodately quia in hypocrisi accepit baptismum Yet he was admitted to Baptism which there was an active right in the Apostles to give without examining whether he had a passive the receive Quem prodidit orbi Poena sequens nescisse fidem sings Arator It might appear by prolix induction but that longum iter per exempla that the first profession of faith gave a right to Baptism whereof Livery and Scisin was thereupon taken and when any deserteth the tents of Paganism and comes into the quarters of the Christian Church before he be entred into the Muster-Roll take his Sacramentum Militiae and march under their ensigns or be otherwise received than as an enemy he ought to shew wherefore he is come and profess himself to be for that party and therefore that a profession of faith is requisite antecedently to Baptism In Act. c. 9. v. 37. is not contradicted Est regula universalis saith Calvin Non ante recipiendos esse in Ecclesiam qui ab e◠fuerant prius alieni quam ubi testati se fuerint Christo credere for it were saith he an impious and too gross profanation of Baptism to administer it to an infidel to one that assents not to the faith objective and hath not faith subjectivè viz. a Dogmatical and Historical faith wherein is founded a title to the Sacraments and how else shall we know that they are become Christian believers unless they profess to be so and make it known but as that great Divine addeth inscitè perperam fanatici homines Paedobaptismum hoc praetextu impugnant so I may say that irrationally and ilfavoredly shall they seek to conclude an equal necessity of the like profession previously to the Eucharist for the same reasons which Mr. Calvin produceth evince to there is no such necessity that the Baptism of infants should be suspended until they are capable to make profession of their faith are as apt and applicable to prove that it is not necessary that such as are baptized should profess or be examined of their faith before their admission to the Lords Supper those who once were aliens when they were made Denisons of the Church made this profession at their
those Tares to be Emblems of wicked and scandalous men Ad zizania reseruntur omnia scandala saith Hierom scandala tum doctrinae tum vitae as Piscator agreeing in sense with Beza the children of the wicked one that is Hereticks Schismaticks Hypocrites wicked and profane men living in the Church as the late Annotations out of Theophylact Euthymius Augustine when beyond all those we have better testimony from the Word and Truth Christ himselfe interpreting this parable who expoundeth the Tares to be the children of the wicked one and them which doe iniquity which is too comprehensive to be restrained onely to hypocrites and seeing that which the Angell-reapers shall gather at the last great harvest is the same that the servants discerned to be tares and would precipitously have pluckt up that being expressly said to be scandals in the originall and the same word is retained by the vulgar and Tremelius and Offendicula whereby others render it is the same in sense though not in sound those Tares must be concluded to be scandals and though they come near Christians bearing the name and owning the profession and therein indeed like believers yet they may be distinguished from sincere Christians otherwise they could not be scandals and though they may be denominated hypocrites in a large and generall notion because their actions give the lye unto their profession In Ecclesia Christi ficte intrantes promittentes non facientes voventes non reddentes renunciantes malo iterum idem facientes as Augustine yet the falsity of that profession and the difference thereof from their actions was as discernable as the Tares from the Wheat But it seemes the Apologists will allow none to be in the Church save such onely who appeare to be godly and will cast out all whom they dscern not to be sincere he that had imbibed the Philosophy of Pythagoras would suspect the souls of the Donatists had made a transmigration into their bodies for had they with Aethalides been dispenc'd with for drinking of Lethe they might have said with Pythageras remembring when he was first Aethalides and after Euphorbus Cognovi clypeum lâ—vae gestamina nostrae and have owned the Shield of this answer for the same with that of the Donatists Contra Donat. post Collat. c. 8 p. 123. tom 7. or very like it who being prest by the Catholicks with arguments drawn from those similitudes chose to answer to that of the net gathering of every kind malos in Ecclesia usque in finem seculi permixtos esse confessi sunt sed occultos cos esse dixerunt quoniam sic à sacerdotibus ignorantur quemadmodum pisces intra retia cum adhuc in mari sunt à piscatoribus non videntur to whom Augustine the then speaker of the Lords house his Church replies C. 10. Propterea ergo arcae comparata ost ut etiam manifesti malicum bonis in ea pronunciarentur futuri neque enim palea quae in area est permixta frumentis etiam ipsa sub fluctibus latet quae sic omnium oculis est conspicua ut potiùs occulta sint in ea frumenta cum sit ipsa manifesta As also in that Conference where were 306 orthodox Bishops Brevical Col. lat 3. die tom 7 p. 118. Quamvis debeat vigilare Ecclesiastica disciplina ad eos non solum verbis sed etiam excommunicationibus degradationibus corripiendos Contr. Donat. post Collat. c. 10. and no fewer than 296 of the Donatists it was asserted that iâ— was not destructive to discipline nor incompatible with the watchfulnesse therof for correption of evill men not onely by words but also by excommunications although mali non solum in ea latentes nesciantur sed plerunque propter pacem unitatis etia neogniti toleremur and therefore this glosse being in the judgment of the ancient Church so corruptive of the text Augustine tells them Quanto melius seipsos corrigant quam Euangelia sancta pervertunt ad vanum suae mentis errorem eloquia dominica detorquere conantur Though the beauty of holiness which like the Sun gilds those that look toward him though with squint eyes may give some specious advantages to those Declamations which are made against mixt communions as spots to that beauty yet this is rather paint or colour laid on than any true beauty and as they say the use of the artificiall fucus despoils the native candor so reall spots are contracted by those assayes to cleanse the imaginary and by those separations to make the Church more pure it becomes nimio candore deformis propter venustatem invenusta and the face of the Church more blemished by being made not onely lean and hollow and withered but also defective in many integrall parts and were they all onely parts superfluous yet is there more peril in their removall than their remaining as Chirurgions tell us that sometimes the cutting off of a Mole as an alloy to beauty hath occasioned the cutting off of life It is a grave censure given by Calvin that Augustinus redivious cum sub studio perfectionis imperfectionem nullâ—m tolerare possumus in corpore aut in membris Ecclesiae tunc diabolum nos tumefacere superbia hypocrisi seducere moneamur What was the judgement of the ancient Church in this case of mixt communion may be seen by the verdict of Augustine who in the Controversies with the Donatists as well as in the contests with the Pelagians was the Foreman to say for them and that judgment as it was never reverst in after Ages by any Writ of Error so it is as direct to our issue as can be conceived for we have heard expressly that evill men are to be permixt with good in the Church till the great day of judgement and in one congregation in una Congregatione and not onely in hearing the same word of God idem verbum Dei simul audiunt but also communione sacramentorum they receive the same sacraments paria sacramenta tractantes simul Dei sacramenta percipiunt not onely participating of the one Sacrament of Baptisme but also of the other of the Supper of the Lord De verb. apost serm 23. tom 7. p. 76. Cont. Donat. post coll c. 20 p. 125. tom 7 quid si communicares cum illo malo mensam Domini and omnes ad unum altare accedebant and they did eat panem Domini and drink calicem Domini and those evil men are not latent or undetected hypocrites but known to be evill etiam cogniti and manifest evil manifesti mali and this is as full and as express as can be wished or imagined so that as the Fathers in a Councill against the Pelagians formed their Canons out of the very words of Augustine so we in this controversie need say no more than he hath said before us for us and as he that to avoyd the shot of an enemy took up his son in his
rates and raise a fence that they may not he trodden done by wild beasts rather to let no Sheep to enter but such as they fancy and bear their mark that they gather out the stones of Gods Vineyard and leave a great one in their hearts to so many of their brethren that all that is down is by voluntary agreement of those that freely submit true of them that are in favour to be receaved not by agreement of those that are wrongfully excluded and who deny submission and are no parties to the contract this may make it somewhat equitable to the one but their agreement cannot make it cease to be an injury to the other no more than when the Anabaptists harrowed and plundered all the Country about Mâ—nster it could excuse them for stealing from others to say they do nothing but by mutual agreement between themselves for the injured people agreed not to be robbed of their properties they excommunicate none it were wholesomer and better reguled discipline to excommunicate those that merited it and to entertain communion with the rest but that they have mistaken the boxes where the Antidote lay and made use of those wherein was the poyson and have pulled up Gods threshold and set down their own over which to go in out of the Temple house of God that they redress abuses just as he that should tear the whole Ship in pieces with the broken planks thereof to build and trim a cabbin and promote the national engagement which was never so much vilified as by their brotherhood who have made it as the bridge of Caligula at Puâ—zol Quo fine structum nisi ut destrueretur as Lipsius or like Scaurus his Theater Temporarium vix uno mense futurum in usu or as Cardinal Cusanus prophanely speaks of the Scripture that it was fitted to the time and â—ariably understood so that at one time it is expounded according to the current fashion of the Church and when that fashion is changed the sense also is changed that theirs are Essayes of rule and order or rather a rule beyond their order t is a fallacy à benè conjunctis ad malè divisa dividing ruling from well which the Monk said spoiled the text it is a ruling not ut profint sed ut praesint as Augustine But notwithstanding all these dawbings and pargetings as in that famous Tower in the Isle of Pharus the ambitious Architect engraved thereon in Marble this Inscription Sostratus of Gnidos built this which he covered over with plaister inscribing the same with the name of the Founder Ptolomy Philadelphus that that soon wasting his own name might be legible to posterity so though on this high Tower of Discipline they have set the Name of God as if it were built by him and for him yet when Time and Truth her off-spring hath washt away this plaister it will be visible and apparent that for themselves onely and their greatness it was medelled and raised and all this contention and stirre which they have started about it is not so much pro aris quà m pro focis they have sought their own things not the things of Christ and as Vignier said of Baronius his Annals he should rather have intituled the book De Primatu Romani Pontificis so they might rather have named their writings An Apology for their Lordliness than an Apology asserting their administration of the Lord's Supper in a select company And yet as of pride Prima est baec ultio that it frustrates its own ends and hath a naturall influence to defeat it selfe of what it intentionally drives at which is honor and esteem pride being a most despicable and disobliging quality so the Apologists in seeking too much find too little of Soveraignty and that which is like to be lesse permanent and by grasping too much at the Corn-heap hold less Vis te Sexte coli volebam amare Parendum est tibi quod jubes coleris Sed si te Sexte colo non amabo If the Angell of the Church stand at the entrance with such a flaming sword as turns every way not onely against the scandalous but others also it is onely to keep out and fright men from approaching that Paradise not to invite or offer admission and he that is an old man in wisdom and experience knowes that he shall not have the people servants for ever that doth not serve them this day of new establishments and answer them and speak good words to them Soft drops pierce and enter into hard stones when impetuous billows are broken without effect upon rocks You may gently bow and inflect that plant which per vim manibus reflexa resilit saith Nazâ—anzen Flectitur obsequio curvatus ab arbere ramus Franges si vires experiare tuas When one told the Emperour that he had made his Soveraignty by some condescentions lesse absolute he replyed But more safe And when a Roman Senator asked the Carthaginian Ambassador how long the peace should last That saith he will depend on the conditions you give us if just and honorable they will hold for ever if otherwise no longer than till we have power to break them Moderata durant but Nec diu potest quae multorum malo excercetur stare potentia To excuse the calling of all to examination a promiscuous examination by them that deny all promiscous Communions even an examination of such as are more knowing than their examiners they answer That duties of Religion are to be used without respect of persons which is as if when a felony is committed a Justice of Peace should send to the Goale all the inhabitants of the town as well those of unsuspected integrity as those that are suspected to have committed the fact and justifie the proceeding by saying That acts of justice are to be used without respect of persons Aquinas 22. q. 63. art 1. Valentia disp 5. q. 7. Punct 1. Sylvius in 2.2 q. 61. art 1. Lessius de iustit jure l. 2. c. 32. dub 1. Ames cas l. 5. c. 5. Acception of persons is when in any distribution the merit of the cause is not respected but some condition of the person impertinent to that distribution as the School and Casuists But when mâ—n are reduced under examination to make tryall whether they are ignorant and those are exempted who are sufficiently known to be knowing it is the cause that is respected not the person Consistit enim aequalitas distributivae justitiae in hoc quòd diversis personis diversa tribuuntur secundùm proportionem ad dignitates personarum Si ergo aliquis consideret illam proprietatem personae propter quod aliquid quod ei confertur est ei debitum non est acceptio personâ— sed causae as Aquinas And Valentia therefore resolves that if in distribution of commen good things the condition of the person be not attended which makes him worthy of the good that is conferred in that distribution
a bad servant mihi accusatio etiam vera contra fratrem displicet as Hierom and though Noah were drunken yet Cham was accursed for discovering his nakedness and however perchance illi quod meruere sed quid tu ut adesses and Lactantius tells us that we murder him in whose death we take complacency though executed by a righteous sentence But though in the natural body the blood and spirits run to cherish any wounded part yet in politick bodies we find it is rather as in an Arch where if a stone be loose the whole frame sets upon it with all its weight and most men are too ready to seeth a kid in his mothers milk that is as Philo interprets to add affliction to the afflicted turpes instant morientibus ursi Et quaecunque minor nobilitate fera est We wisht it were the worst thereof that some men like the unspunne silk of Chies would draw and suck up all moisture we more fear lest this he some of the teeth of that worm that lies at the root of Ministery and that this pretended sweeping and garnishing of the house is onely to make way for seven more wicked spirits and that some men are so blind like Sampson unawares to grind for the Philistines and are deceived by the wooife in sheeps cloathing to seek to hang up the doggs upon pretence they are dumb or mangy and are so fascinated like him at Constantinople whom Nicetas mentions that supposed he had been pushing upon a Serpent when he broke in pieces his own earthen vessels so some may think they are strising at the old Serpent when they are breaking vessels of the Sanctuary Certainly the Jesuites will not be decieved or discouraged from attempting upon this Church by a supposall that because we cast out so many we had Ministers enough to defend the truth against their machinations as the Gaules were disanimated to pursue the seige of the Capitol as not reducible by famine because the Romans cast out over the walles all their provision of bread Lastly They bear false witness against us by mis-interpreting our words and then spiâ—in our face and buffet us they accuse us to say that they shape Presbytery to Popery and this they say is the dreggs of this bitter Cup. And this had been dreggs indeed yea crassi gutta veneni had it dropt from our pen and had made it a cup of abomination if this had lain in the bottome thereof but sure it is the dreggs of the cup of their fancy and like to Alexander the sixth the cup they have mixed for us will envenome themselves Nihil est Antipho quin male narrando possit depravarier tu id quod boni est excerpis dicis quod mali est The Apologists carry some analogy with the Samaritaus when the Jewes prespered then they were brethren but if they were under water the Samaritan would drench himself in water if he had but toucht a Jew so if the Presbyterians be about the Zenith they are calculated also for the same Meridian so as in their own words to be neerer to them than to Independents but if in the Nadir they are Antipodes to them having fitted their Church way in such a latitude as to suit with every elevation formed it like the Giraffa made up of a Libbard Hart Buff Camel that none can well know what to call it of late though intruth they are onely dow-baked Independents and like the froggs generated of dust after it is fermented with certain showers are but half made up part earth and part conformed yet most often they take the livery of Presbytery and the paper upon that supposition inferred that their way being obtruded under that notion gave occasion to some that took that for the face which was but a vizor to suspect that Presbytery was modelled and cast into the like mould as Popery Sands Europae speculum p. 3. where the Prelates made their greatness wealth and honor the very rules whereby to souare out the Canons of faith and then set Clerks on work to devise arguments to uphold them and this odious suspition in others was a spring of grief to the friends of Presbytery who could not without indignation hear some say of Presbytery as that Cardinal did at the bustling and factions Elections in the Conclave Ad hunc modum fiunt Romani pontifices Of this pinch of the inference they will not be sensible nor do seek to clear their way of this stumbling block viz. that it is a way which leads onely to their own ends of power and greatness but turning out of the way extravagantly tells us that men that like not the restraint of their lusts and we must needs be those men or whosoever else they be perchance they cannot think fit that their lusts be restrained by giving liberty to others lusts and letting them do what they list as Vives saith Philostratus corrected Homers lies by greater lies by any Church government for if they like not theirs of necessity they will not abide any cry out of Popery Covetousness Ambition Praelacy c. which are but fig leaves to cover their nakedness But their paper leaves are not worth a figg to vail that cause which they have left naked of defence for si hac Pergama dextra if this plea may defend a government then all una hac defensa fuissent this might be pleaded in defence of any the most tyrannous governours they might also inferre that because some like not the restraint of their lusts by any government therefore themselves do not govern according to their lusts and Bellarmine might with as much reason conclude that whereas Cyprian saith Heresies and Schismes have no other spring but onely because the Priest of God is not obeyed nor one Priest and Iudge for the time in the Church is reminded to be In the stead of Christ therefore the Bishop of Rome usurps no unjust authority nor is a tyrant in the title or exercise of his power A man that is not fond of Presbytery that is such a man as themselves so coldly and disaffectionately they speak it may say this for Presbytery what ever it be else a suspitious Aposiâ—pesis as if it were somewhat else which I lle quidem caelare cupit turpÃque pudore Tempora purpureis cogit velare tiaris is the strongest barre that ever was set against Popery We shall plead nothing in bar to that supposition being farre from going about to lessen their good opinion of Presbytery which we would rather cherish and do wish they did like and love it better and were more Presbyters but we cannot illis dare nominis hâ—jus honorem and may rather expostulate quid pulchra vocabula pigris Obtendis vitiis or complaine with Cato in Salust I am pridem equidem nos vera rerum vocabula amifimus so as Aristippus said of precious ointments malè sit Cynaedis qui diffamarum beshrew them that by incrusting
the cup the blood may be some way administred but they must not drink it SECT XXIV Whether they are Butchers or Surgeons Whether guilty of Schism Of negative and positive Schisme What are just causes of separation Whether our Saviour separated from the Jewish Church for instance in eating the Passover They condemne what they practise by confounding Churches and by separation They grant Professors to be visible Saints which destroyes their Platforme Their reasons why all sorts are to be admitted to the word and prayer Whether there are not better reasons to warrant a like admission to the Sacrament whether the same conclude it not Whether the Churches of England are all true Churches Sacraments notes of the Church and therefore communicable to all Church members They grant discipline enters not the definition of a Church yet they separate for want thereof Whether they may not aswell deny Baptisme to the Children as the Eucharist to the Parents VVHy they separate not in all Ordinances is an head that looks not directly toward us but respects their brethren of the separation who have outrun and gone beyond them and stand at a distance as much further from them as they from us For as when Apolles had drawn a fine small line Protogenes cut that in 〈…〉 another and the former halfed that again so when one sort have cut 〈…〉 from communion with the rest of the Church they divide themselves again and some of them think themselves not refined enough and as the Chymists say of sublimation sapius repetenda est operatio neque enim prima sublimotione res mox satis depuratur so one separation grows out of another like the tunal which Nieremberge speaks of mira frondium facunditas solium supernasâ—itur solio si decidâ—t aliquod radices rursus agit surgitque altera arbos And so though as sand conteined in a vessel hath one general figure in the whole Masse conformable to the continent yet every grain is inechaerent with other so though they all come under one common notion of Separatists yet they are as much separate from 〈◊〉 other as from us and as little agree among themselves as with us though when they come against us like Themistocles and Aristides going on Embassie they lay down their enmities to be afterward reassumed And as Aristides said It will never be well with Athens till both the one and the other be shut up in the dungeon so they intimate in the close of this Section that in such a condition they were most likely to close in a mutual agreement but their present quarrels with the other occasion here the diverting of their armes which offers us a little truce who might now stand a loofe and behold the fight among themselves whom that happily may befall which Tacitus relates of Apronjus souldiers dum singuli pugnant universi vincuntur and when they fall out good men may come by the truth Discordia in malis tam bona quà m concordia in bonis onely we shall gather up some of those arrowes which they let fly at others to shoot back upon themselves and if any of those shot at randome seem to fall neer us we shall endeavour to repell or avoid such as we have not already broken They separate not in other Ordinances because they are for Surgery not Butchery It seems then they now somewhat odiously set their brethren in the rank of cut-throats who will shrewdly resent to be degraded into the company of Butchers Secondly How little conformity or resemblance their practise hath with the rules of Chirurgery hath been frequently instanced Thirdly Chirurgeons neither use nor are able to cut off any one member from an union with the rest in the influence and benefit of one vitall faculty onely but exscind altogether from the whole body whereas they make exscision of men onely from a Communion in one Ordinance alone not all Fourthly Let this reason have the most favourable passe yet it onely can argue absolutely why they should separate not in all Ordinances but in some alone not comparatively why in this Sacrament rather than in other Fiftly It is a strange method of Physick or Chirurgery to seek to preserve life by witholding the means of life and the medicine of life and immortality as the Fathers call the Sacrament and if all meanes must be sought to cure before they cut down a Church we think they have deserted their own Aphorismes for they have not sought to cure it by this medicine yet they have cut down their Church not onely by gathering another but by a practical judging of them to have no present interest in the body and blood of Christ nor worthy to have the truth of Gods promises in him to be sealed unto them The learned and they quote Camero distinguish of a twofold separation positive and negative the first they condemne unlesse upon just and weighty grounds the second they are acting in making a separation in their Congregations not separating from their Churches but some corruptions in them in order to reformation De Eccles p. 325. Camero in that place disputes of Schisme whereof secession or separation may be the genus and Schisme he distinguisheth into negative and positive the first Schisma quod non exit in coetum societatem aliquam religiosam quae simpliciter secessio subductio cùm non instituitur ecclesia facto Schismate Schisma positivum tum fit cum instituitur ecclesia hoc est cum fit consociatio quaedam quae legibus ecclesiasticis Dei verbo atque sacramentorum administratione utitur separatim quod quadam formula desumpta ex Scriptura dicitur strâ—ere altare contra altare But as the men of Bengala are so afraid of a Tiger that they dare not name him through fear if they should do so they should be torn in pieces by him so it seems the Apologists are so conscious of Schisme or fearfull to be blasted with it that they decline the mention of this and passing over the description he makes of Schisme they only barely and without any distinct explication tell us of a negative and positive separation Abstine epistolis quae sunt instar Edicti saith Symmachus facessat omne studium ex quo nascitur cura compendii Me thinks they should have been able to have understood Camero had they looked into him themselves but whencesoever it results there is an ignorant and wilfull mistake in alleaging him for they seem to quote him as if he determined that a negative separation were absolutely and universally lawfull whereas he affirming that a positive Schisme is that which Antonomasticè and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is called Schisme he renders this reason because often he saith not alwayes a negative secession is lawfull that justly and piously it may be free to depart from some Churches but it will not be so if it grow into a positive As for example some may be cast out by the fault of
from an unnecessary pleasing and intimate familiarity There are many persons saith Mr. Baxter Saints everlasting rest part 4. p. 106. De Eccles p. 316. whom we may not avoid or excommunicate out of the Church no nor out of our private society judicially or by way of penalty to them whom yet we must exclude from our too much familiarity in way of prudence for preservation of our selves And Camero reminds us of another case also Saepenumero accidit ut illius consortio privatim abstinendum sit cujus consortio in communione sacra non erit abstinendum nempe nos eorum fratris pecatorum aliquando conscii sumus quorum Ec lesia nâ—n est conscia But they finally deny the hypothesis that hereby is understood familiar and intimate fellowship and they will not swallow that opinion or have company with those of this judgement and they reason for sacramental eating 1. From the Context the whole Chapter concerns Church Censures and begins and ends therewith Suppose it did so yet it is not consequent that the eating forbidden can be only eating at the Lords Table it may rather be a prohibition of convict and commerce which is a part or appendage of excommunication And though that also be a Church censure yet seeing so great a part of the Chapter concerns the delivering over the incestuous person to Satan if but one thing can be the subject of the Chapter then sacramental eating is not treated of formally and immediately as sacramental eating there being a great disparity between that and tradition to Satan 2. How usual is it with the Apostle especially in the Epistles to the Romars and the Hebrews to enter upon a special subject and then by a real kind of hyperbaton to transfer his discourse to some other that occasionally emergeth and afterward to revert to his first matter so oftentimes chequering his writings and especially when there is some affinity between the things though not the same And to abridge and confirm the research we may find an instance hereof in the 7. verse of this Chapter where we have shewed that from a particular occasion he passeth to a general exhortation c. This saith Paraeus is illatio generalis ex superiori hortatio in thefi ad puritatem vitae And Estius affirms auforte malum ex vobis ipsis diversum esse ab ea quae paulò ante dixerat Si quis c. cum ejusmodi nec cibum sumere and the abandoning the conversation of some offending brethren was prescribed by the Apostle and may be by the Church though they judge it not expedient to cast them out of communion which makes it cohaerent and apposite enough to follow what have I to do to judge them that are without 2. They pretend to prove it by the text 1. If meant of common bread they may not then dine or sup at an Ordinary if an ungodly man be present and this would be a snare to mens consciences No more sure than that prohibition 2 Joh. 10. not to salute an heretick neither did the ancient Councels intend to twist snares out of their Canons when they decreed not only That none should take meat or partake of banquets with Jewes as did the Councel of Eliberis Elib can 50. Constant 6. can 11. Matiscon can 15. Ilerdens can 14. 4. Estius in 1 Cor. 11.27 Grotius annot in Joh. 13.18 Alii in loc Alexand Dier Gen. l. 3. c 5. L. Gyrald Pythago symb tom 2. p. 479. Mr. Balls tryal of grounds tending to separate c. 20. p. 200. De pastor c. 15. and the sixth Councel of Constantinople when reassembled by Justinian and also that of Matiscon but also not to eat with any persons rebaptized or new dipt as now the phrase is as did the Ilerden Councel and the same Synod forbidding to take meat with the incestuous according to the Apostles command declares they took not eatiag here for not eating common bread and not sacramental But we understand the words rather Tropically than literally and eating synechdochically or symbolically to signifie a familiar friendly society and indearment the Table being a symbol of friendship as Bullinger and Eplius among the ancients and a note of intimacy as Paraeus Etiam apud genies sacrum amicitiae signum saith Grotius and Alexander ab Alexandro instances in very many Nations whose leagues and covenants were concluded and ratified by the ceremony of eating together and Lilius Gyraldus inteprets that symbol of Pythagoras break no bread to intend break no friendship for saith he our of Jamblicus and Diogenes ad panem veteres amici coibant and the learned in the Hebrew tell us that in that language a Covenant is derived from a word that signifieth to cat which is also a token of love and friendship in phrase of Scripture adds Mr. Ball as Psa 41.9 not to partake of or to be shut from the Table being a sign of familiarity broken off and therefore those esserae hospitales which were the pledges of friendship gave those that had them a right to comestion and entertainment and fellows or associates had their name among the Latins from eating together Latina lingua sic dicti sodales quasi simul edales quia simul edunt saith Augustine but it they were retrenched from sitting at an Ordinary with wicked men yet they need not borrow Novatus they might have said Acesius the Novatian his Ladder to go to heaven alone for the way to heaven doth not lye by an Ordinary but the Lords Table is in the way and there indeed they would take a ladder to go to heaven alone or else turn that table into a ladder whereby to mount up to some other height above others 3. He writes to the Church and therefore intends Church eating Quà m arguto faciunt verba diserta sono Not with-drawing off civil socieâ—y by particular persons in a private way Videte quà m multa dicunt non habendo quod dicant It seems then the Apostle writing this Epistle to the Church nothing thereof concerned any particular persons distributively but the whole Church collectively or else virtually viz. the Elders and in the 7. and 8. verses of this very Chapter when he dehorteth them from malice and wickedness and perswades them to sincerity and truth this duty hath no reference to or concernment with particular persons by them to be done privately but only belongeth to the Church in publick 4 The nature of the recited sins shewes he intends scandals calling for Discipline and comming under like censure with incest Whether covetousness not pregnant with or waited on by other sins for explering the desires thereof may merit either excommunication the greater or the lesser I shal not now discuss with any Arguments ad rem but I shall propound one ad hominem that their Prolocutor hath publickly determined that worldliness which is consignificant with covetousness is one of the spots of Gods children and therefore cannot of it self
referred this to the administration of the Sacrament in an accommodate sense but none that I know have denied that properly and principally it is meant of the dispensing of the Word Chrysostome who in other places takes in the Sacrament yet in his Homily upon the Text fixeth onely on the holy Dâ—ctrine But because it may be objected that the Genus includes all the Species and quod particulariter dictum est universaliter applicandum and therefore if holy things are to be kept so sacred therefore also the holy Sacraments I shall say howsoever that since as the Eccho is more faint and remisse alwayes than the first voyce so while that which is properly and primarily intended in this text may be dispensed to the people without violating the command why must that which is not directly but secondarily and by consequence onely reducible thereunto be with-held from them by force of this very precept May they do that which is immediatly forbidden not that which mediatly onely is prohibited If holy things and pearls formally as pearls and holy things are not to be given to Dogges or cast before Swine then since quod convenit per se convenit omni See before Sect. 15. no holy things no pearls are so to be prostituted therefore either the word is no holy thing no pearle or some pearls some holy things may be so prophaned Are their people Dogges and Swine Why are they admitted to the word Are they not Why are they excluded from the Sacrament If they are not such Dogges and Swine but that the word here properly and primarily forbidden to be dealt to Dogges and Swine may be dispensed to them they are not then such Dogges and Swine but that the Sacrament which comes in secondarily onely and by participation of the like holy and pretious nature with the word may be distributed to them Nay why are any admitted to the other Sacrament of Baptisme untill tryall whether they will prove Dogges and Swine De fide operib c 6. tom 4. p. 13. since saith Augustine utrum ad percipiendum baptismum sic admittendi sunt homines ut nulla ibi vigilet diligentiane sanctum canibus detur The Word is as holy and pretious as the Sacraments and one Sacrament as the other and what Grotius notes upon the words sicut horum solorum scil canum porcorum causâ non vult proponi sacram doctrinam ita nec illorum causâ eam vult reticeri may be in some sort applicable to the Sacrament though it were not to be administred to such alone so neither to be intermitted or with-held because there may be such mixt in the Congregation But though quid ad hoc dicis nisi non est sanctum non est mundum nisi quod voluero August as Augustine tells Cresconius yet they have somewhat to say though multa dicendo nil dicunt aut nil dicendo potiùs multa dicunt viz. That the reason is not the same because the word is necessary to conversion to make Swine become Sheep and Dogges Lambes But sepositing without farther reflection that we have not onely elswhere retrencht their retreat thereto but also demolisht this fortresse by demonstrating the Sacrament to be a contrary ordinance since they pretend not to give Oracles and we profess not to receive their dictates they should have shewed forth some warrant that such holy things and pearls as may convert may be exhibited to Doggs and Swine but such as conduce not to conversion may not be so The text prohibits all holy things and pearls to be made so obnoxious and doth not limit this cautell to any one or more kindes nor affords any countenance to this distinction If this be the formall reason of the giving thereof viz. the capacity and power to convert then all such holy things and pearls as are effectuall to conversion may be dispensed to all though Dogges and Swine and onely such and no other may be so dispensed But they grant here That some are so dogged and swinish as this text will warrant their silence towards them therefore all holy things and pearls though subservient to conversion are not to be distributed to all and they admit to a communion in prayer those who are Dogges and Swine in order to the Sacrament and those to Baptisme who may prove Dogges and Swine and are the litter of such but neither prayer nor baptisme in their judgments are instruments of conversion therefore also some holy and pretious things which conduce not to conversion are yet communicated to all 2. Thirdly if for this reason because they are operative toward conversion some holy things and pearls may be imparted to Dogges and Swine perchance some other reasons may occurre there may besome other rational motives why some other holy things may be also so dispensed as if they do not perfectly turn men to God yet they may somwhat reclaime and make them lesse evill and if they exhaust or exsiccate not the fountain of sin yet they may stop or lessen the current and if they serve not to introduce the form may yet nevertheless conduce to beget some subordinate and previous dispositions as adjumentall things do unto regeneration God doth something also for for greater conviction also as well as conversion and Chrysostome tells us August Cited by Aquinas in Caten aur in locum Frequenter etiam benedictionem damus peccatorum more viventibus Christianis non quòd merentur accipere sed nèfortè plenius scandalizati dispereant and as sometimes the word is preached even to those who are indeed Dogges and Swine non propter eos sed propter alios in quibus fructus aliquis meritò speratur as Estius or as Augustine Chrysostome and Jansenius propter electorum bonorum utilitatem aut propter Dei gloriam and then also they say non canibus povcis sancta dantur sed potius Deo electis ejus so by proportion of clearer reason Estius in 4 d. 9. sect 4. p. 123 may the Sacrament be promiscuously administred to those intelligent persons who by a common faith are become members of the visible Church though there be no evidence of their special sound faith which hath incorporated them into the visible Church and if that of Augustine will hold out weight at the standard of truth Nos vero ad piam doctrinam pertinere arbitramur ex utrÃsque testimoniis tutam sententiam moderari De fide operib tom 4. p. 13. ut canes in Ecclesia propter pacem Ecclesiae toleremus canibus sanctum ubi pax Ecclesiae tuta est non detur much more for peace and unity which cannot but be infringed or disturbed by the excluding from the communion near a hundred of their congregation to one whom they admit should all those have their way free and clear to the Lords Table who yet are not onely free and clear from blaspheming and persecuting the