his children That ye should walk worthy of God who hath called you unto his Kingdom and glory * For this cause also thank we God without ceasing because when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us ye received it not as the word of men but as it is in truth the word of God which effectually worketh also in you that believe How much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God And having an High Priest over the house of God Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water * Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering for he is faithful that promised * And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works * Not forsaking the assembling of our selves together as the manner of some is but exhorting one another and so much the more as ye see the day approaching For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins * but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries * He that despised Moses's law died without mercy under two or three witnesses * Of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God and if it first begin at us what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure And whatsoever we ask we receive of him because we keep his Commandments and do those things which are pleasing in his sight And he that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end to him will I give power over the Nations A Penitential Psalm collected out of the Psalms and Prophets HAVE mercy upon me O God according to thy loving kindness according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions For our transgressions are multiplied before thee and our sins testifie against us our transgressions are with us and as for our iniquities we know them In transgressing and lying against the Lord and departing away from our God speaking oppression and revolt conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falshood Our feet have run to evil our thoughts are thoughts of iniquity The way of peace we have not known we have made us crooked paths whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace Therefore do we wait for light but behold obscurity for brightness but we walk in darkness Look down from Heaven and behold from the habitation of thy Holiness and of thy Glory where is thy zeal and thy strength the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies towards me are they restrained We are indeed as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags and we all do fade as a leaf and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away But now O Lord thou art our Father we are the clay and thou our potter and we all are the work of thy hand Be not wroth very sore O Lord neither remember iniquity for ever behold see we beseech thee we are thy people Thou O Lord art our Redeemer thy Name is from everlasting O Lord Father and Governour of my whole life leave me not to the sinful counsels of my own heart and let me not any more fall by them Set scourges over my thoughts and the discipline of wisdom over my heart lest my ignorances encrease and my sins abound to my destruction O Lord Father and God of my life give me not a proud look but turn away from thy servant always a haughty mind Turn away from me vain hopes and concupiscence and thou shalt hold him up that is always desirous to serve thee Let not the greediness of the belly nor the lust of the flesh take hold of me and give not thy servant over to an impudent mind There is a word that is clothed about with death God grant it be not found in the portion of thy servant For all such things shall be far from the godly and they shall not wallow in their sins Though my sins be as scarlet yet make them white as snow though they be red like crimson let them be as wooll For I am ashamed of the sins I have desired and am confounded for the pleasures that I have chosen Lord make me to know mine end and the measure of my days what it is that I may know how frail I am and that I may apply my heart unto wisdom Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me O Lord let thy loving kindness and thy truth continually preserve me For innumerable evils have compassed me about mine iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I am not able to look up for they are more than the hairs of my head therefore my heart faileth me But thou O Lord though mine iniquities testifie against me save me for thy Name sake for our backslidings are many we have sinned grievously against thee But the Lord God will help me therefore shall I not be confounded therefore have I set my face like a flint and I know that I shall not be ashamed He is near that justifieth me who will contend with me The Lord God will help me who is he that shall condemn me I will trust in the Lord and stay upon my God O let me have this of thine hand that I may not lie down in sorrow S. Paul's Prayers for a holy life I. I BOW my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole family in Heaven and Earth is named that he would grant unto me according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in my heart by faith that being rooted and grounded in love I may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge and may be filled with all the fulness of God through the same our most blessed Saviour Jesus Amen The Doxologie Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us Vnto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages world without end Amen II. O MOST gracious God grant to thy servant to be filled with the knowledge of thy Will in all
Sozomen in the case of Elpidius Eustathius Basilius of Ancyra and Eleusius Thus also it was decreed in the second and sixth Chapters of the Council of Chalcedon and in the Imperial constitutions Since therefore we never find Presbyters joyned with Bishops in commission or practice or penalty all this while I may infer from the premisses the same thing which the Council of Hispalis expresses in direct and full sentence Episcopus Sacerdotibus ac Ministris solus honorem dare potest solus auferre non potest The Bishop alone may give the Priestly honour he alone is not suffered to take it away This Council was held in the year 657 and I set it down here for this purpose to show that the decree of the fourth Council of Carthage which was the first that licensed Priests to assist Bishops in ordinations yet was not obligatory in the West but for almost 300 years after ordinations were made by Bishops alone But till this Council no pretence of any such conjunction and after this Council sole ordination did not expire in the West for above 200 years together but for ought I know ever since then it hath obtained that although Presbyters joyn not in the consecration of a Bishop yet of a Presbyter they do but this is only by a positive subintroduced constitution first made in a Provincial of Africa and in other places received by insinuation and conformity of practice * I know not what can be said against it I only find a piece of an objection out of S. Cyprian who was a Man so complying with the Subjects of his Diocess that if any man he was like to furnish us with an Antinomy Hunc igitur Fratres Dilectissimi à me à Collegis qui praesentes aderant ordinatum sciatis Here either by his Colleagues he means Bishops or Presbyters If Bishops then many Bishops will be found in the ordination of one to an inferiour order which because it was as I observed before against the practice of Christendom will not easily be admitted to be the sence of S. Cyprian But if he means Presbyters by Collegae then sole ordination is invalidated by this example for Presbyters joyned with him in the ordination of Aurelius I answer that it matters not whether by his Colleagues he means one or the other for Aurelius the Confessor who was the man ordained was ordained but to be a Reader and that was no Order of Divine institution no gift of the Holy Ghost and therefore might be dispensed by one or more by Bishops or Presbyters and no way enters into the consideration of this question concerning the power of collating those orders which are gifts of the Holy Ghost and of Divine ordinance and therefore this although I have seen it once pretended yet hath no validity to impugne the constant practice of Primitive Antiquity But then are all ordinations invalid which are done by meer Presbyters without a Bishop What think we of the reformed Churches 1. For my part I know not what to think The question hath been so often asked with so much violence and prejudice and we are so bound by publick interest to approve all that they do that we have disabled our selves to justifie our own For we were glad at first of abettors against the Errors of the Roman Church we found these men zealous in it we thanked God for it as we had cause and we were willing to make them recompence by endeavouring to justifie their ordinations not thinking what would follow upon our selves But now it is come to that issue that our own Episcopacy is thought not necessary because we did not condemn the ordinations of their Presbytery 2. Why is not the question rather what we think of the Primitive Church than what we think of the reformed Churches Did the Primitive Councils and Fathers do well in condemning the ordinations made by meer Presbyters If they did well what was a vertue in them is no sin in us If they did ill from what principle shall we judge of the right of ordinations since there is no example in Scripture of any ordination made but by Apostles and Bishops and the Presbytery that imposed hands on Timothy is by all Antiquity expounded either of the office or of a Colledge of Presbyters and S. Paul expounds it to be an ordination made by his own hands as appears by comparing the two Epistles to S. Timothy together and may be so meant by the principles of all sides for if the names be confounded then Presbyter may signifie a Bishop and that they of this Presbytery were not Bishops they can never prove from Scripture where all men grant that the Names are confounded * So that whence will men take their estimate for the rites of ordinations From Scripture That gives it always to Apostles and Bishops as I have proved and that a Priest did ever impose hands for ordination can never be shown from thence From whence then From Antiquity That was so far from licensing ordinations made by Presbyters alone that Presbyters in the Primitive Church did never joyn with Bishops in Collating holy Orders of Presbyter and Deacon till the fouth Council of Carthage much less do it alone rightly and with effect So that as in Scripture there is nothing for Presbyters ordaining so in Antiquity there is much against it And either in this particular we must have strange thoughts of Scripture and Antiquity and not so fair interpretation of the ordinations of reformed Presbyteries But for my part I had rather speak a truth in sincerity than erre with a glorious correspondence But will not necessity excuse them who could not have orders from Orthodox Bishops shall we either sin against our consciences by subscribing to heretical and false resolutions in materiâ fidei or else lose the being of a Church for want of Episcopal ordinations * Indeed if the case were just thus it was very hard with good people of the transmarine Churches but I have here two things to consider 1. I am very willing to believe that they would not have done any thing either of error or suspicion but in cases of necessity But then I consider that M. Du Plessis a man of honour and great learning does attest that at the first reformation there were many Arch-Bishops and Cardinals in Germany England France and Italy that joyned in the reformation whom they might but did not imploy in their ordinations And what necessity then can be pretended in this case I would fain learn that I might make their defence But which is of more and deeper consideration for this might have been done by inconsideration and irresolution as often happens in the beginning of great changes but it is their constant and resolved practice at least in France that if any returns to them they will reordain him by their Presbytery though he had before Episcopal ordination as both their friends and their enemies bear
Countries of Christendom till by Crusado's massacres and battels burnings and the constant Carnificia and butchery of the Inquisition which is the main prop of the Papacy and does more than Tu es Petrus they prevail'd far and near and men durst not oppose the evidence whereby they fought And now the wonder is out it is not strange that the Article hath been so readily entertained But in the Greek Church it could not prevail as appears not only in Cyril's book of late dogmatically affirming the Article in our sence but in the Answer of Cardinal Humbert to Nicetas who maintained the receiving the holy Sacrament does break the fast which it could not do if it were not what it seems bread and wine as well as what we believe it to be the body and blood of Christ. And now in prosecution of their strange improbable success they proceed to perswade all people that they are fools and do not know the measures of sence nor understand the words of Scripture nor can tell when any of the Fathers speak affirmatively or negatively and after many attempts made by diverse unprosperously enough as the thing did constrain and urge them a great Wit Cardinal Perron hath undertaken the Question and hath spun his thread so fine and twisted it so intricately and adorned it so sprucely with language and sophisms that although he cannot resist the evidence of truth yet he is too subtle for most mens discerning and though he hath been contested by potent adversaries and wise men in a better cause than his own yet he will alwayes make his Reader believe that he prevails which puts me in mind of what Thucydides told Archidamus the King of Sparta asking him whether he or Pericles were the better wrastler he told him that when he threw Pericles on his back he would with fine words perswade the people that he was not down at all and so he got the better So does he and is to all considering men a great argument of the danger that Articles of Religion are in and consequently mens perswasions and final interest when they fall into the hands of a witty man and a Sophister and one who is resolved to prevail by all means But truth is stronger than wit and can endure when the other cannot and I hope it will appear so in this Question which although it is managed by weak hands that is by mine yet to all impartial persons it must be certain and prevailing upon the stock of its own sincerity and derivation from God And now R. R. though this Question hath so often been disputed and some things so often said yet I was willing to bring it once more upon the stage hoping to add some clearness to it by fitting it with a good instrument and clear conveyance and representment by saying something new and very many which are not generally known and less generally noted and I thought there was a present necessity of it because the Emissaries of the Church of Rome are busie now to disturb the peace of consciences by troubling the persecuted and ejecting scruples into the infortunate who suspect every thing and being weary of all are most ready to change from the present They have got a trick to ask where is our Church now What is become of your Articles of your Religion We cannot answer them as they can be answered for nothing satisfies them but being prosperous and that we cannot pretend to but upon the accounts of the Cross and so we may indeed rejoyce and be exceeding glad because we hope that great is our reward in Heaven But although they are pleased to use an Argument that like Jonas Gourd or Sparagus is in season only at some times yet we according to the nature of Truth inquire after the truth of their Religion upon the account of proper and Theological Objections Our Church may be a beloved Church and dear to God though she be persecuted when theirs is in an evil condition by obtruding upon the Christian world Articles of Religion against all that which ought to be the instruments of credibility and perswasion by distorting and abusing the Sacraments by making error to be an art and that a man must be witty to make himself capable of being abused by out-facing all sence and reason by damning their brethren for not making their understanding servile and sottish by burning them they can get and cursing them that they cannot get by doing so much violence to their own reasons and forcing themselves to believe that no man ever spake against their new device by making a prodigious error to be necessary to salvation as if they were Lords of the Faith of Christendom But these men are grown to that strange triumphal gaety upon their joy that the Church of England as they think is destroyed that they tread upon her grave which themselves have digged for her who lives and pities them and they wonder that any man should speak in her behalf and suppose men do it out of spight and indignation and call the duty of her sons who are by persecution made more confident pious and zealous in defending those truths for which she suffers on all hands by the name of anger and suspect it of malicious vile purposes I wonder'd when I saw something of this folly in one that was her son once but is run away from her sorrow and disinherited himself because she was not able to give him a temporal portion and thinks he hath found out reasons enough to depart from the miserable I will not trouble him or so much as name him because if his words are as noted as they are publick every good man will scorn them if they be private I am not willing to publish his shame but leave him to consideration and repentance But for our dear afflicted Mother she is under the portion of a child in the state of discipline her government indeed hindered but her Worshippings the same the Articles as true and those of the Church of Rome as false as ever of which I hope the following book will be one great instance But I wish that all tempted persons would consider the illogical deductions by which these men would impose upon their consciences If the Church of England be destroyed then Transubstantiation is true which indeed had concluded well if that Article had only pretended false because the Church of England was prosperous But put the case the Turk should invade Italy and set up the Alcoran in S. Peters Church would it be endured that we should conclude that Rome was Antichristian because her temporal glory is defaced The Apostle in this case argued otherwise The Church of the Jews was cut off for their sins be not high-minded ô ye Gentiles but fear lest he also cut thee off it was counsel given to the Romans But though blessed be God our afflictions are great yet we can and do onjoy the same religion as the good Christians
utramque substantiam praesentium munerum alimento tribue quaesumus ut eorum corporibus nostris subsidium non desit mentibus The present gifts were appointed for the nourishment both of soul and body Who please may see more in Macarius 27. Homily and Ammonius in his Evangelical harmony in the Bibliotheca PP and this though it be decryed now adays in the Roman Schools yet was the doctrine of Scotus of Durandus Ocham Cameracensis and Biel and those men were for Consubstantiation that Christs natural body was together with natural bread which although I do not approve yet the use that I now make of them cannot be denied me it was their doctrine that after consecration bread still remains after this let what can follow But that I may leave the ground of this argument secure I add this that in the Primitive Church eating the Eucharistical bread was esteemed a breaking the fast which is not imaginable any man can admit but he that believes bread to remain after consecration and to be nutritive as before but so it was that in the second age of the Church it was advised that either they should end their station or fast at the communion or defer the communion to the end of the station as appears in Tertullian de Oratione cap. 14. which unanswerably proves that then it was thought to be bread and nutritive even then when it was Eucharistical and Picus Mirandula affirms that if a Jew or a Christian should eat the Sacrament for refection it breaks his fast The same also is the doctrine of all those Churches who use the Liturgies of S. James S. Mark and S. Chrysostome who hold that receiving the holy communion breaks the fast as appears in the disputation of Cardinal Humbert with Nicetas about 600 years ago The summ of all is this If of bread Christ said This is my body because it cannot be true in a proper natural sence it implying a contradiction that it should be properly bread and properly Christs body it must follow That it is Christs body in a figurative improper sence But if the bread does not remain bread but be changed by blessing into our Lords body this also is impossible to be in any sence true but by affirming the change to be only in use virtue and condition with which change the natural being of bread may remain For he that supposes that by the blessing the bread ceases so to be that nothing of it remains must also necessarily suppose that the bread being no more it neither can be the body of Christ nor any thing else For it is impossible that what is taken absolutely from all being should yet abide under a certain difference of being and that that thing which is not at all should yet be after a certain manner Since therefore as I have proved the bread remains and of bread it was affirmed This is my body it follows inevitably that it is figuratively not properly and naturally spoken of bread That it is the flesh or body of our Lord. SECT VI. Est corpus meum 1. THE Next words to be considered are Est corpus This is my body and here begins the first Topical expression Est that is significat or repraesentat exhibet corpus meum say some This is my body it is to all real effects the same to your particulars which my body is to all the Church it signifies the breaking of my body the effusion of my blood for you and applies my passion to you and conveys to you all the benefits as this nourishes your bodies so my body nourishes your souls to life eternal and consigns your bodies to immortality Others make the trope in Corpus so that Est shall signify properly but Corpus is taken in a spiritual sence sacramental and Mysterious not a natural and presential whether the figure be in Est or in Corpus is but a question of Rhetorick and of no effect That the proposition is tropical and figurative is the thing and that Christs natural body is now in heaven definitively and no where else and that he is in the Sacrament as he can be in a Sacrament in the hearts of faithful receivers as he hath promised to be there that is in the Sacrament mystically operatively as in a moral and divine instrument in the hearts of receivers by faith and blessing this is the truth and the faith of which we are to give a reason and account to them that disagree But this which is to all the purpose which any one pretends can be in the sumption of Christs body naturally yet will not please the Romanists unless Est Is signifie properly without trope or metonymie and corpus be corpus naturale Here then I joyn issue It is not Christs body properly or naturally for though it signifies a real effect yet it signifies the body figuratively or the effects and real benefits 2. Now concerning this there are very many inducements to infer the figurative or tropical interpretation 1. In the language which our blessed Lord spake there is no word that can express significat but they use the word Is the Hebrews and the Syrians always joyn the names of the signs with the things signified and since the very essence of a sign is to signifie it is not an improper elegancy in those languages to use Est for significat 2. It is usual in the Old Testament as may appear to understand est when the meaning is for the present and not to express it but when it signifies the future then to express it the seven fat cows seven years the seven withered ears shall be seven years of famine 3. The Greek interpreters of the Bible supply the word est in the present tense which is omitted in the Hebrew as in the places above quoted but although their Language can very well express signifies yet they follow the Hebrew Idiom 4. In the New Testament the same manner of speaking is retained to declare that the nature and being of signs is to signifie they have no other esse but significare and therefore they use est for significat The Seed is the word the Field is the World the Reapers are the Angels the Harvest is the End of the World the Rock is Christ I am the Door I am the Vine my Father is the husbandman I am the way the truth and the life Sarah and Agar are the two Testaments the Stars are the Angels of the Churches the Candlesticks are the Churches and many more of this kind we have therefore great and fair and frequent precedents for expounding this est by significat for it is the style of both the Testaments to speak in signs and representments where one disparate speaks of another as it does here the body of Christ of the bread which is the Sacrament especially since the very institution of it is representative significative and commemorative For so said our
expounding the Sacrament Nothing needs to be plainer By the way let me observe this that the words cited by Tertullian out of Jeremy are expounded and recited too but by allusion For there are no such words in the Hebrew Text which is thus to be rendred Corrumpanus veneno cibum ejus and so cannot be referred to the Sacrament unless you will suppose that he fore-signified the poysoning the Emperour by a consecrated wafer But as to the figure this is often said by him for in the first book against Marcion he hath these words again nec reprobavit panem quo ipsum corpus suum repraesentat etiam in Sacramentis propriis egens mendicitatibus creatoris He refused not bread by which he represents his own body wanting or using in the Sacraments the meanest things of the Creator For it is not to be imagined that Tertullian should attempt to perswade Marcion that the bread was really and properly Christs body but that he really delivered his body on the Cross that both in the old Testament and here himself gave a figure of it in bread and wine for that was it which the Marcionites denied saying on the cross no real humanity did suffer and he confutes them by saying these are figures and therefore denote a truth 8. However these men are resolved that this new answer shall please them and serve their turn yet some of their fellows great Clerks as themselves did shrink under the pressure of it as not being able to be pleased with so laboured and improbable an answer For Harding against Juel hath these words speaking of this place which interpretation is not according to the true sence of Christs words although his meaning swerve not from the truth And B. Rhenanus the author of the admonition to the Reader De quibusdam Tertulliani dogmat◠seems to confess this to be Tertullians error Error putantium corpus Christi in Eucharistiâ tantùm esse sub figurâ jam olim condemnatus The error of them that think the body of Christ is in the Eucharist only in a figure is now long since condemned But Garetius Bellarmine Justinian Coton Fevardentius Valentia and Vasquez in the recitation of this passage of Tertullian very fairly leave out the words that pinch them and which clears the article and bring the former words for themselves without the interpretation of id est figura corporis mei I may therefore without scruple reckon Tertullian on our side against whose plain words no real exception can lye himself expounding his own meaning in the pursuance of the figurative sence of this mystery 20. Concerning Origen I have already given an account in the ninth Paragraph and other places casually and made it appear that he is a direct opposite to the doctrine of Transubstantiation And the same also of Justin Martyr Paragraph the fifth number 9. Where also I have enumerated divers others who speak upon parts of this question on which the whole depends whither I refer the Reader Only concerning Justin Martyr I shall recite these words of his against Tryphon Figura fuit panis Eucharistiae quem in recordationem passionis facere praecepit The bread of the Eucharist was a figure which Christ the Lord commanded to do in remembrance of his passion 21. Clemens Alexandrinus saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The blood of Christ is twofold the one is carnal by which we are redeemed from death the other spiritual viz. by which we are anointed And this is to drink the blood of Jesus to be partakers of the incorruption of our Lord. But the power of the word is the Spirit as blood is of the flesh Therefore in a moderated proposition and convenience wine is mingled with water as the Spirit with a man And he receives in the Feast viz. Eucharistical tempered wine unto faith But the Spirit leadeth to incorruption but the mixture of both viz. of drink and the word is called the Eucharist which is praised and is a good gift or grace of which they who are partakers by faith are sanctified in body and soul. Here plainly he calls that which is in the Eucharist Spiritual blood and without repeating the whole discourse is easie and clear And that you may be certain of S. Clement his meaning he disputes in the same chapter against the Encratites who thought it not lawful to drink wine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For be ye sure he also did drink wine for he also was a man and he blessed wine when he said Take drink 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is my blood the blood of the vine for that word that was shed for many for the remission of sins it signifies allegorically a holy stream of gladness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that the thing which had been blessed was wine he shewed again saying to his disciples I will not drink of the fruit of this vine till I drink it new with you in my fathers kingdom Now S. Clement proving by Christs sumption of the Eucharist that he did drink wine must mean the Sacramental Symbol to be truly wine and Christs blood allegorically that holy stream of gladness or else he had not concluded by that argument against the Encratites Upon which account these words are much to be valued because by our doctrine in this article he only could confute the Encratites as by the same doctrine explicated as we explicate it Tertullian confuted the Marcionites and Theodoret and Gelasius confuted the Nestorians and Eutychians if the doctrine of Transubstantiation had been true these four heresies had by them as to their particular arguments relating to this matter been unconfuted 22. S. Cyprian in his Tractate de unctione which Canisius Harding Bellarmine and Lindan cite hath these words Dedit itaque Dominus noster c. Therefore our Lord in his table in which he did partake his last banquet with his disciples with his own hands gave bread and wine but on the cross he gave to the souldiers his body to be wounded that in the Apostles the sincere truth and the true sincerity being more secretly imprinted he might expound to the Gentiles how wine and bread should be his flesh and blood and by what reasons causes might agree with effects and diverse names and kinds viz. bread and wine might be reduced to one essence and the signifying and the signified might be reckoned by the same words and in his third Epistle he hath these words Vinum quo Christi sanguis ostenditur wine by which Christs blood is showen or declared Here I might cry out as Bellarmine upon a much slighter ground Quid clariùs dici potuit But I forbear being content to enjoy the real benefits of these words without a triumph But I will use it thus far that it shall outweigh the words cited out of the tract de coenâ Domini by Bellarmine by the Rhemists by the Roman Catechism by Perron
moved God to smite would also move him to forbear which were a strange Oeconomy The words therefore are not a reason of his forbearing but an aggravation of his kindness as if he had said Though man be continually evil yet I will not for all that any more drown the world for mans being so evil and so the Hebrews note that the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes signifies although 49. But the great out-cry in this Question is upon confidence of the words of David Behold I was shapen in wickedness and in sin hath my mother conceived me To which I answer that the words are an Hebraism and signifie nothing but an aggrandation of his sinfulness and are intended for an high expression meaning that I am wholly and intirely wicked For the verification of which exposition there are divers parallel places in the holy Scriptures Thou wert my hope when I hanged yet upon my mothers breasts and The ungodly are froward even from their mothers womb as soon as they be born they go astray and speak lies which because it cannot be true in the letter must be an idiotism or propriety of phrase apt to explicate the other and signifying only a ready a prompt a great and universal wickedness The like to this is that saying of the Pharisees Thou wert altogether born in sin and dost thou teach us which phrase and manner of speaking being plainly a reproach of the poor blind man and a disparagement of him did mean only to call him a very wicked person but not that he had derived his sin originally and from his birth for that had been their own case as much as his and therefore S. Chrysostome explaining this phrase says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is as if they should say Thou hast been a sinner all thy life time To the same sence are those words of Job I have guided her the widow from my mothers womb And in this expression and severity of hyperbole it is that God aggravated the sins of his people Thou wast called a transgressor from the womb And this way of expressing a great state of misery we find us'd among the Heathen Writers for so Seneca brings in Oedipus complaining Infanti quoque decreta mors est Fata quis tam tristia sortitus unquam Videram nondum diem jam tenebar Mors me antecessit aliquis intra viscera Materna lethum praecocis fati tulit Sed numquid peccavit Something like S. Bernards Damnatus antequam natus I was condemn'd before I was born dead before I was alive and death seised upon me in my mothers womb Somebody brought in a hasty and a too forward death but did he sin also An expression not unlike to this we have in Lucian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pardon me that I was not born wicked or born to be wicked 2. If David had meant it literally it had not signified that himself was born in original sin but that his father and mother sinn'd when they begat him which the eldest son that he begat of Bathsheba for ought I know might have said truer than he in this sence And this is the exposition of Clemens Alexandrinus save only that by my mother he understands Eva 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though he was conceived in sin yet he was not in the sin peccatrix concepit sed non peccatorem she sinn'd in the conception not David And in the following words he speaks home to the main article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let them tell us where an infant did fornicate or how he who had done nothing could fall under the curse of Adam meaning so as to deserve the same evil that he did 3. If it did relate to his own person he might mean that he was begotten with that sanguine disposition and libidinous temper that was the original of his vile adultery and then though David said this truly of himself yet it is not true of all not of those whose temper is phlegmatick and unactive 4. If David had meant this of himself and that in regard of original sin this had been so far from being a penitential expression or a confessing of his sin that it had been a plain accusation of God and an excusing of himself As if he had said O Lord I confess I have sinn'd in this horrible murder and adultery but thou O God knowest how it comes to pass even by that fatal punishment which thou didst for the sin of Adam inflict on me and all mankind above 3000. years before I was born thereby making me to fall into so horrible corruption of nature that unless thou didst irresistibly force me from it I cannot abstain from any sin being most naturally inclin'd to all In this sinfulness hath my mother conceived me and that hath produc'd in me this sad effect Who would suppose David to make such a confession or in his sorrow to hope for pardon for upbraiding not his own folly but the decrees of God 5. But that David thought nothing of this or any thing like it we may understand by the preceding words which are as a preface to these in the objection Against thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight that thou mightest be justified in thy saying and clear when thou art judged He that thus acquits God cannot easily be supposed in the very next breath so fiercely to accuse him 6. To which also adde the following words which are a sufficient reproof of all strange sences in the other In sin hath my mother conceived me But loe thou requirest truth in the inward parts as if he had said Though I am so wicked yet thy laws are good and I therefore so much the worse because I am contrary to thy laws They require truth and sincerity in the soul but I am false and perfidious But if this had been natural for him so to be and unavoidable God who knew it perfectly well would have expected nothing else of him For he will not require of a stone to speak nor of fire to be cold unless himself be pleased to work a miracle to have them so 50. But S. Paul affirms that by nature we were the children of wrath True we were so when we were dead in sins and before we were quickned by the Spirit of life and grace We were so now we are not We were so by our own unworthiness and filthy conversation now we being regenerated by the Spirit of holiness we are alive unto God and no longer heirs of wrath This therefore as appears by the discourse of S. Paul relates not to our Original sin but to the Actual and of this sence of the word Nature in the matter of sinning we have Justin Martyr or whoever is the Author of the Questions and Answers ad Orthodoxos to be witness For answering those words of Scripture There is not any one clean who is born of a woman
is worth a little Peace every day of the week and caeteris paribus Truth is to be preferred before Peace not every trifling truth to a considerable peace But if the truth be material it makes recompence though it brings a great noise along with it and if the breach of Peace be nothing but that men talk in Private or declaim a little in publick truly Madam it is a very pitiful little proposition the discovery of which in truth will not make recompence for the pratling of disagreeing Persons Truth and Peace make an excellent yoke but the truth of God is always to be preferred before the Peace of men and therefore our Blessed Saviour came not to send Peace but a Sword That is he knew his Doctrine would cause great divisions of heart but yet he came to perswade us to Peace and Unity Indeed if the truth be clear and yet of no great effect in the lives of men in government o◠in the honour of God then it ought not to break the Peace That is it may not run out of its retirement to disquiet them to whom their rest is better than that knowledge But if it be brought out already it must not be deserted positively though peace goes away in its stead So that Peace is rather to be deserted than any truth should be renounced or denied but Peace is rather to be procured or continued than some Truth offered This is my sence Madam when the case is otherwise than I suppose it to be at present For as for the present case there must be two when there is a falling out or a peace broken and therefore I will secure it now for let any man dissent from me in this Article I will not be troubled at him he may do it with liberty and with my charity If any man is of my opinion I confess I love him the better but if he refuses it I will not love him less after than I did before but he that dissents and reviles me must expect from me no other kindness but that I forgive him and pray for him and offer to reclaim him and that I resolve nothing shall ever make me either hate him or reproach him And that still in the greatest of his difference I refuse not to give him the Communion of a Brother I believe I shall be chidden by some or other for my easiness and want of fierceness which they call Zeal but it is a fault of my nature a part of my Original sin Vnicuique dedit vitium Natura Creato Mî Natura aliquid semper amare dedit Propert. Some weakness to each man by birth descends To me too great a kindness Nature lends But if the peace can be broken no more than thus I suppose the truth which I publish will do more than make recompence for the noise that in Clubs and Conventicles is made over and above So long as I am thus resolved there may be injury done to me but there can be no duel or loss of Peace abroad For a single anger or a displeasure on one side is not a breach of Peace on both and a War cannot be made by fewer than a bargain can in which always there must be two at least Object 3. But as to the thing If it be inquired 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what profit what use what edification is there what good to souls what honour to God by this new explication of the Article I answer That the usual Doctrines of Original sin are made the great foundation of the horrible proposition concerning absolute Reprobation the consequences of it reproach God with injustice they charge God foolishly and deny his goodness and his Wisdom in many instances And whatsoever can upon the account of the Divine Attributes be objected against the fierce way of Absolute Decrees all that can be brought for the reproof of their usual Propositions concerning Original sin For the consequences are plain and by them the necessity of my Doctrine and its usefulness may be understood For 1. If God decrees us to be born sinners Then he makes us to be sinners and then where is his goodness 2. If God does damn any for that he damns us for what we could not help and for what himself did and then where is his Justice 3. If God sentence us to that Damnation which he cannot in justice inflict where is his Wisdom 4. If God for the sin of Adam brings upon us a necessity of sinning where is our liberty where is our Nature what is become of all Laws and of all Vertue and vice How can Men be distinguished from Beasts or the Vertuous from the vicious 5. If by the fall of Adam we are so wholly ruined in our faculties that we cannot do any good but must do evil how shall any man take care of his ways or how can it be supposed he should strive against all vice when he can excuse so much upon his Nature or indeed how shall he strive at all For if all actual sins are derived from the Original and which is unavoidable and yet an Unresistible cause then no man can take care to avoid any actual sin whose cause is natural and not to be declined And then where is his Providence and Government 6. If God does cast Infants into Hell for the sin of others and yet did not condemn Devils but for their own sin where is his love to mankind 7. If God chuseth the death of so many Millions of Persons who are no sinners upon their own stock and yet swears that he does not love the death of a sinner viz. sinning with his own choice how can that he credible he should love to kill Innocents and yet should love to spare the Criminal Where then is his Mercy and where is his Truth 8. If God hath given us a Nature by derivation which is wholly corrupted then how can it be that all which God made is good For though Adam corrupted himself yet in propriety of speaking we did not but this was the Decree of God and then where is the excellency of his providence and Power where is the glory of the Creation Because therefore that God is all goodness and justice and wisdom and love and that he governs all things and all men wisely and holily and according to the capacities of their Natures and Persons that he gives us a wise Law and binds that Law on us by promises and threatnings I had reason to assert these glories of the Divine Majesty and remove the hinderances of a good life since every thing can hinder us from living well but scarcely can all the Arguments of God and man and all the Powers of Heaven and Hell perswade us to strictness and severity Qui serere ingenuum volet agrum Liberet arva priùs fruticibus Falce rubos silicemque resecet Vt novâ fruge gravis Ceres eat Boeth lib. 3. Metr 1. He that will sow his field with hopeful
which interpretation I follow S. Paul not the Pelagians they who are on the other side of the question follow neither And unless men take in their opinion before they read and resolve not to understand S. Paul in this Epistle I wonder why they should fancy that all that he says sounds that way which they commonly dream of But as men fancy so the Bells will ring But I know your Lordships grave and wiser judgment sees not only this that I have now opened but much beyond it and that you will be a zealous advocate for the truth of God and for the honour of his justice wisdom and mercy That which follows makes me believe your Lordship resolv'd to try me by speaking your own sence in the line and your temptation in the interline For when your Lordship had said that My arguments for the vindication of Gods goodness and justice are sound and holy your hand run it over again and added as abstracted from the case of Original Sin But why should this be abstracted from all the whole Oeconomy of God from all his other dispensations Is it in all cases of the world unjust for God to impute our fathers sins to us unto eternal condemnation and is it otherwise in this only Certainly a man would think this were the more favourable case as being a single act done but once repented of after it was done not consented to by the parties interested not stipulated by God that it should be so and being against all laws and all the reason of the world therefore it were but reason that if any where here much rather Gods justice and goodness should be relied upon as the measure of the event * And if in other cases laws be never given to Ideots and Infants and persons uncapable why should they be given here But if they were not capable of a Law then neither could they be of Sin for where there is no law there is no transgression And is it unjust to condemn one man to Hell for all the sin of a thousand of his Ancestors actually done by them And shall it be accounted just to damn all the world for one sin of one man But if it be said that it is unjust to damn the innocent for the sin of another but the world is not innocent but really guilty in Adam Besides that this is a begging of the question it is also against common sence to say that a man is not innocent of that which was done before he had a being for if that be not sufficient then it is impossible for a man to be innocent And if this way of answer be admitted any man may be damned for the sin of any Father because it may be said here as well as there that although the innocent must not perish for anothers fault yet the Son is not innocent as being in his Fathers loyns when the fault was committed and the law calls him and makes him guilty And if it were so indeed this were so far from being an excuse to say that the Law makes him guilty that this were absolute tyranny and the thing that were to be complain'd of I hope by this time your Lordship perceives that I have no reason to fear that I prevaricate S. Paul's rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I only endeavour to understand S. Paul's words and I read them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in proportion to and so as they may not intrench upon the reputation of Gods goodness and justice that 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be wise unto sobriety But they that do so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as to resolve it to be so whether God be honour'd in it or dishonour'd and to answer all arguments whether they can or cannot be answered and to efform all their Theology to the air of that one great proposition and to find out ways for God to proceed in which he hath never told of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ways that are crooked and not to be insisted in ways that are not right if these men do not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then I hope I shall have less need to fear that I do who do none of these things And in proportion to my security here I am confident that I am unconcern'd in the consequent threatning If any man shall Evangelize 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any other doctrine than what ye have received something for Gospel which is not Gospel something that ye have not received let him be accursed My Lord if what I teach were not that which we have received that God is just and righteous and true that the soul that sins the same shall die that we shall have no cause to say The Fathers have eaten sowre Grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge that God is a gracious Father pardoning iniquity and therefore not exacting it where it is not that Infants are from their Mothers wombs beloved of God their Father that of such is the Kingdom of God that he pities those souls who cannot discern the right hand from the left as he declar'd in the case of the Ninevites that to Infants there are special Angels appointed who always behold the face of God that Christ took them in his arms and blessed them and therefore they are not hated by God and accursed heirs of Hell and coheirs with Satan that the Messias was promisâ—d before any children were born as certainly as that Adam sinn'd before they were born that if sin abounds grace does superabound and therefore children are with greater effect involv'd in the grace than they could be in the sin and the sin must be gone before it could do them mischief if this were not the doctrine of both Testaments and if the contrary were then the threatning of S. Paul might well be held up against me but else my Lord to shew such a Scorpion to him that speaks the truth of God in sincerity and humility though it cannot make me to betray the truth and the honour of God yet the very fear and affrightment which must needs seize upon every good man that does but behold it or hear the words of that angry voice shall and hath made me to pray not only that my self be preserved in truth but that it would please God to bring into the way of truth all such as have erred and are deceived My Lord I humbly thank your Lordship for your grave and pious Counsel and kiss the hand that reaches forth so paternal a rod. I see you are tender both of truth and me and though I have not made this tedious reply to cause trouble to your Lordship or to steal from you any part of your precious time yet because I see your Lordship was perswaded induere personam to give some little countenance to a popular error out of jealousie against a less usual truth I thought it my duty to represent to your Lordship such things by which as I can so I ought to