licence and authorize the same which the Law against ignorance non-residence and plurality doth infringe and so be a Law contrariant or repugnant to the Law of Nature and the Law of God because all the reasons whereupon the Positive Law of man against these three was first established are taken and drawn from the Law of Nature and the Law of God For answer whereunto we will but lead them to answer themselves First therefore if they will grant as they must that all direct oppositions of speech require one and the self-same subject to be meant on both parts where opposition is pretended it will follow that either the Maxims of Common right do inforce the very same things not to be good which we say are good grounding our selves on the reasons by vertue whereof our priviledges are established or if the one doe not reach unto that particular subject for which the other have provided then is there no contradiction between them In all contradictions if the one part be true the other eternally must be false And therefore if the Principles of Common right do at any time truly inforce that particular not to be good which Priviledges make good it argueth invincibly that such priviledges have been grounded upon errour But to say that every Priviledge is opposite unto the Principles of Common right because it dispenseth with that which Common right doth prohibite hath gross absurdity For the voyce of Equity and Justice is that a general Law doth never derogate from a special Priviledge whereas if the one were contrariant to the other a general Law being in force should alwayes dissolve a Priviledge The reason why many are deceived by imagining that so it should doe and why men of better insight conclude directly it should not doth rest in the subject or matter it self which matter indefinitely considered in Laws of Common right is in Priviledges considered as beset and limited with special circumstances by means whereof to them which respect it but by way of generality it seemeth one and the same in both although it be not the same if once we descend to particular consideration thereof Precepts do alwayes propose perfection not such as none can attain unto for then in vain should we ask or require it at the hands of men but such perfection as all men must aim at to the end that as largely as human providence and care can extend it it may take place Moral laws are the rules of Politick those Politick which are made to order the whole Church of God rules unto all particular Churches and the Laws of every particular Church Rules unto every particular man within the body of the same Church Now because the higher we ascend in these Rules the further still we remove from those specialities which being proper to the subject whereupon our actions must work are therefore chiefly considered by us by them least thought upon that wade altogether in the two first kindes of general directions their judgment cannot be exact and sound concerning either laws of Churches or actions of men in particular because they determine of effects by a part of the causes onely out of which they grow they judge conclusions by demipremises and half-principles they lay them in the balance stript from those necessary material circumstances which should give them weight and by shew of falling uneven with the scale of most universal and abstracted rules they pronounce that too light which is not if they had the skill to weigh it This is the reason why men altogether conversant in study do know how to teach but not how to govern men experienced contrariwise govern well yet know not which way to set down orderly the precepts and reasons of that they do He that will therefore judge rightly of things done must joyn with his forms and conceits of general speculation the matter wherein our actions are conversant For by this shall appear what equity there is in those Priviledges and peculiar grants or favours which otherwise will seem repugnant to justice and because in themselves considered they have a shew of repugnancy this deceiveth those great Clerks which hearing a Priviledge defined to be an especial right brought in by their power and authority that make it for some publick benefit against the general course of reason are not able to comprehend how the word against doth import exception without any opposition at all For inasmuch as the hand of Justice must distribute to every particular what is due and judge what is due with respect had no less of particular circumstances than of general rules and axioms it cannot fit all sorts with one measure the wills counsels qualities and states of men being divers For example the Law of Common right bindeth all men to keep their Promises perform their Compacts and answer the Faith they have given either for themselves or others Notwithstanding he which bargaineth with one under years can have no benefit by this allegation because he bringeth it against a Person which is exempt from the Common rule Shall we then conclude that thus to exempt certain men from the Law of Common right is against God against Nature against whatsoever may avail to strengthen and justifie that Law before alledged or else acknowledge as the truth is that special causes are to be ordered by special rules that is men grown unto ripe age disadvantage themselves by bargaining yet what they have wittingly done is strong and in force against them because they are able to dispose and manage their own affairs whereas youth for lack of experience and judgement being easily subject to circumvention is therefore justly exempt from the Law of Common-right whereunto the rest are justly subject This plain inequality between men of years and under years is a cause why Equity and Justice cannot apply equally the same general rule to both but ordereth the one by Common right and granteth to the other a special priviledge Priviledges are either transitory or permanent Transitory such as serve onely some one turn or at the most extend no farther than to this or that man with the end of whose natural life they expâ—e Permanent such as the use whereof doth continue still for that they belong unto certain kindes of men and causes which never dye Of this nature are all immunities and preheminencies which for just considerations one sort of men enjoyeth above another both in the Church and Common-wealth no man suspecting them of contrariety to any branch of those Laws or Reasons whereupon the general right is grounded Now there being general Laws and Rules whereby it cannot be denied but the Church of God standeth bound to provide that the Ministry may be learned that they which have charge may reside upon it and that it may not be free for them in scandalous manner to multiply Ecclesiastical Livings it remaineth in the next place to be examined what the Laws of the Church of England
behold saith the Apostle I Paul say unto you that if ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing Christ in the work of mans salvation is alone the Galathians were cast away by joyning Circumcision and the other Rites of the Law with Christ the Church of Rome doth teach her children to joyn other things likewise with him therefore their saith their belief doth not profit them any thing at all It is true that they do indeed joyn other things with Christ but how Not in the work of Redemption it self which they grant that Christ alone hath performed sufficiently for the salvation of the whole world but in the application of this inestimable treasure that it may be effectual to their salvation how demurely soever they confess that they seek remission of sins no otherwise then by the blood of Christ using humbly the means appointed by him to apply the benefit of his holy Blood they teach indeed so many things pernicious in Christian Faith in setting down the means whereof they speak that the very foundation of Faith which they hold is thereby plainly overthrown and the force of the blood of Jesus Christ extinguished We may therefore disputing with them urge them even with as dangerous sequels as the Apostle doth the Galatians But I demand If some of those Galatians heartily embracing the Gospel of Christ sincere and sound in Faith this one only error excepted had ended their lives before they were ever taught how perillous an opinion they held shall we think that the danger of this error did so over-weigh the benefit of their faith that the mercy of God might not save them I grant they overthrew the foundation of Faith by consequent doth not that so likewise which the Lutheran Churches do at this day so stifly and so firmly maintain For mine own part I dare not here deny the possibility of their salvation which have been the chiefest instruments of ours albeit they carried to their grave a perswasion so greatly repugnant to the truth Forasmuch therefore as it may be said of the Church of Rome she hath yet a little strength she doth not directly deny the foundation of Christianity I may I trust without offence perswade my self that thousands of our Fathers in former times living and dying within her walls have found mercy at the hands of God 18. What although they repented not of their errors God forbid that I should open my mouth to gain-say that which Christ himself hath spoken Except ye repent ye shall all perish And if they did not repent they perished But withall note that we have the benefit of a double Repentance the least sin which we commit in Deed Thought or Word is death without Repentance Yet how many things do escape us in every of these which we do not know How many which we do not observe to be sins And without the knowledge without the observation of sin there is no actual Repentance It cannot then be chosen but that for as many as hold the foundation and have holden all Sins and Errors in hatred the blessing of Repentance for unknown Sins and Errors is obtained at the hands of God through the gracious mediation of Jesus Christ for such suiters as cry with the Prophet David Purge me O Lord from my secret sins 19. But we wash a wall of lome we labour in vain all this is nothing it doth not prove it cannot justifie that which we go about to maintain Infidels and Heathen men are not so godless but that they may no doubt cry God mercy and desire in general to have their sins forgiven them To such as deny the foundation of Faith there can be no Salvation according to the ordinary course which God doth use in saving men without a particular repentance of that Error The Galathians thinking that unless they were circumcised they could not be saved overthrew the foundation of Faith directly therefore if any of them did die so perswaded whether before or after they were told of their Errors their end is dreadful there is no way with them but one death and condemnation For the Apostle speaketh nothing of men departed but saith generally of all If ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing Ye are abolished from Christ whosoever are justified by the Law ye are fallen from grace Gal. 5. Of them in the Church of Rome the reason is the same For whom Antichrist hath seduced concerning them did not S. Paul speak long before they received not the word of truth that they might not be saved therefore God would send them strong delusions to beleeve lies that all they might be damned which believe not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness And S. Iohn All that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life Apoc. 13. Indeed many in former times as their Books and Writings do yet shew held the foundation to wit salvation by Christ alone and therefore might be saved God hath always had a Church amongst them which firmly kept his saving truth As for such as hold with the Church of Rome that we cannot be saved by Christ alone without works they do not only by a circle of consequence but directly deny the foundation of Faith they hold it not no not so much as by a thred 20. This to my remembrance being all that hath been opposed with any countenance or shew of reason I hope if this be answered the cause in question is at an end Concerning general Repentance therefore what a Murtherer a Blasphemer an unclean person a Turk a Iew any sinner to escape the wrath of God by a general Repentance God forgive me Truly it never came within my heart that a general Repentance doth serve for all sins it serveth only for the common over-sights of our sinful life and for the faults which either we do not mark or do not know that they are faults Our Fathers were actually penitent for sins wherein they knew they displeased God or else they fall not within the compass of my first speech Again that otherwise they could not be saved than holding the foundation of Christian Faith we have not only affirmed but proved Why is it not then confessed that thousands of our Fathers which lived in Popish Superstitions might yet by the mercy of God be saved First if they had directly denied the very foundations of Christianity without repenting them particularly of that sin he which saith There could be no salvation for them according to the ordinary course which God doth use in saving men granteth plainly or at the least closely insinuateth that an extraordinary priviledge of mercy might deliver their souls from Hell which is more then I required Secondly if the foundation be denied it is denied for fear of some Heresie which the Church of Rome maintaineth But how many were there amongst our Fathers who being seduced by the common Error of
much prudence and tenderness so happily begun and prosecuted with more zeal then the establishment of Your own Throne The still crazy Church of England together with this Book its great and impregnable Shield do further need and humbly implore Your Majesties Royal Protection under God Nor can Your Majesty by any generous instance and perseverance most worthy of a Christian King more express that pious and grateful sense which God and all good Men expect from Your Majesty as some retribution for his many miraculous mercies to Your Self then in a wise speedy and happy setling of our Religious peace with the least grievance and most satisfaction to all Your good Subjects Sacred Order and Uniformity being the centre and circumference of our Civil Tranquillity Sedition naturally rising out of Schism and Rebellion out of Faction The onely cure and antidote against both are good Laws and Canons first wisely made with all Christian Moderation and Seasonable Charity next duly executed with Iustice and Impartiality which sober Severity is indeed the greatest Charity to the Publique Whose Verity Vnity Sanctity and Solemnity in Religious Concernments being once duly established must not be shaken or sacrificed to any private varieties and extravagancies Where the internals of Doctrines Morality Mysteries and Evangelical Duties being as they are in the Church of England sound and sacred the externals of decent Forms Circumstances Rites and Ceremonies being subordinate and servient to the main cannot be either evil or unsafe neither offensive to God nor good Christians For the attaining of which blessed ends of Piety and Peace that the sacred Sun and Shield of the Divine Grace and Power directing and protecting may ever shine upon Your Majesties Person and Family Counsels and Power is the humble Prayer of Your Sacred Majesties most Loyal Subject and devoted Servant IOH. EXON TO THE READER I Think it necessary to inform my Reader that Doctor Gauden the late Bishop of Worcester hath also lately wrote and publisht the Life of Master Hooker and though this be not writ by design to oppose what he hath truly written yet I am put upon a neccessity to say That in it there be many Material Mistakes and more Omissions I conceive some of his Mistakes did proceed from a Belief in Master Thomas Fuller who had too hastily published what be hath since most ingenuously retracted And for the Bishops Omissions I suppose his more weighty Business and Want of Time made him pass over many things without that due Examination which my better Leisure my Diligence and my accidental Advantages have made known unto me And now for my self I can say I hope or rather know there are no Material Mistakes in what I here present to you that shall become my Reader Little things that I have received by Tradition to which there may be too much and too little Faith given I will not at this distance of Time undertake to justifie for though I have used great Diligence and compared Relations and Circumstances and probable Results and Expressions yet I shall not impose my Belief upon my Reader I shall rather leave him at liberty But if there shall appear any Material Ommission I desire every Lover of truth and the Memory of Master Hooker that it may be made known unto me And to incline him to it I here promise to acknowledge and rectifie any such Mistake in a second Impression which the Printer says he hopes for and by this means my weak but faithful Endeavours may become a better Monument and in some degree more worthy the Memory of this Venerable Man I confess that when I consider the great Learning and Vertue of Master Hooker and what satisfaction and Advantages many Eminent Scholars and Admirers of him have had by his Labours I do not a little wonder that in Sixty years no man did undertake to tell Posterity of the Excellencies of his Life and Learning and the Accidents of both and sometimes wonder more at my self that I have been perswaded to it and indeed I do not easily pronounce my own Pardon nor expect that my Reader shall unless my Introduction shall prove my Apology to which I refer him The Copy of a Letter writ to Mr. Walton by Dr. King Lord Bishop of Chichester Honest ISAAC THough a Familiarity of Forty years continuance and the constant experience of your Love even in the worst times be sufficient to indear our Friendship yet I must confess my affection much improved not onely by evidences of private respect to those very many that know and love you but by your new demonstration of a Publick Spirit testified in a diligent true and useful Collection of so many Material Passages as you have now afforded me in the Life of Venerable Mr. Hooker Of which since desired by such a Friend as yourself I shall not deny to give the Testimony of what I know concerning him and his learned Books but shall first here take a fair occasion to tell you that you have been happy in chusing to write the Lives of three such Persons as Posterity hath just cause to honour which they will do the more for the true Relation of them by your happy Pen of all which I shall give you my unfeigned Censure I shall begin with my most dear and incomparable Friend Dr. Donne late Dean of St. Pauls Church who not only trusted me as his Executor but three days before his death delivered into my hands those excellent Sermons of his which are now made publick professing before Dr. Winniff Dr. Montford and I think your self then present at his bed-side that it was by my restless importunity that he had prepared them for the Press together with which as his best Legacy he gave me all his Sermon-Notes and his other Papers containing an Extract of near Fifteen hundred Authors How these were got out of my hands you who were the Messenger for them and how lost both to me and your self is not now seasonable to complain but since they did miscarry I am glad that the general Demonstration of his Worth was so fairly preserved and represented to the World by your Pen in the History of his Life indeed so well that beside others the best Critick of our later time Mr. Iohn Hales of Eaton Colledge affirm'd to me He had not seen a Life written with more advantage to the Subject or more reputation to the Writer than that of Dr. Donnes After the performance of this task for Dr. Donne you undertook the like office for our Friend Sir Henry Wolton betwixt which two there was a Friendship begun in Oxford continued in their various Travels and more confirm'd in the religious Friendship of Age and doubtless this excellent Person had writ the Life of Dr. Donne if Death had not prevented him by which means his and your Pre-collections for that Work fell to the happy manage of your Pen A Work which you would have declin'd if imperious perswasions had not
define not the Church by that which the Church essentially is but by that wherein they imagine their own more perfect then the rest are Touching parts of eminency and perfection parts likewise of imperfection and defect in the Church of God they are infinite their degrees and differences no way possible to be drawn unto any certain account There is not the least contention and variance but it blemisheth somewhat the Unity that ought to be in the Church of Christ which notwithstanding may have not onely without offence or breach of concord her manifold varieties in Rites and Ceremonies of Religion but also her Strifes and Contentions many times and that about matters of no small importance yea her Schisms Factions and such other evils whereunto the Body of the Church is subject sound and sick remaining both of the same Body as long as both parts retain by outward profession that vital substance of truth which maketh Christian Religion to differ from theirs which acknowledge not our Lord Jesus Christ the Blessed Saviour of Mankinde give no crecit to his glorious Gospel and have his Sacraments the Seals of Eternal Life in derision Now the priviledge of the visible Church of God for of that we speak is to be herein like the Ark of Noah that for any thing we know to the contrary all without it are lost sheep yet in this was the Ark of Noah priviledged above the Church that whereas none of them which were in the one could perish numbers in the other are cast away because to Eternal Life our Profession is not enough Many things exclude from the Kingdom of God although from the Church they separate not In the Church there arise sundry grievous storms by means whereof whole Kingdoms and Nations professing Christ both have been heretofore and are at this present day divided about Christ. During which Divisions and Contentions amongst men albeit each part do justifie it self yet the one of necessity must needs err if there be any contradiction between them be it great or little and what side soever it be that hath the truth the same we must also acknowledge alone to hold with the true Church in that point and consequently reject the other as an enemy in that case faln away from the true Church Wherefore of Hypocrites and Dissemblers whose profession at the first was but onely from the teeth outward when they afterwards took occasion to oppugne certain principal Articles of Faith the Apostles which defended the truth against them pronounce them gone out from the Fellowship of sound and sincere Believers when as yet the Christian Religion they had not utterly cast off In like sense and meaning throughout all ages Hereticks have justly been hated as Branches cut off from the Body of the true Vine yet onely so far forth cut off as they Heresies have extended Both Heresie and many other crimes which wholly sever from God do sever from God the Church of God in part onely The Mystery of Piety saith the Apostle is without peradventure great God hath been manifested in the Flesh hath been justified in the Spirit hath been seen of Angels hath been preached to Nations hath been believed on in the World hath been taken up into Glory The Church a Pillar and Foundation of this Truth which no where is known or profest but onely within the Church and they all of the Church that profess it In the mean while it cannot be denied that many profess this who are not therefore cleared simply from all either faults or errors which make separation between us and the Well-spring of our happiness Idolatry severed of old the Israelites Iniquity those Scribes and Pharisees from God who notwithstanding were a part of the Seed of Abraham a part of that very Seed which God did himself acknowledge to be his Church The Church of God may therefore contain both them which indeed are not his yet must be reputed his by us that know not their inward thoughts and them whose apparent wickedness testifieth even in the sight of the whole World that God abhorreth them For to this and no other purpose are meant those Parables which our Saviour in the Gospel hath concerning mixture of Vice with Vertue Light with Darkness Truth with Error as well and openly known and seen as a cunningly cloaked mixture That which separateth therefore utterly that which cutteth off clean from the visible Church of Christ is plain Apostasie direct denial utter rejection of the whole Christian Faith as far as the same is professedly different from Infidelity Hereticks as touching those points of doctrine wherein they fail Schismaticks as touching the quarrels for which or the duties wherein they divide themselves from their Brethren Loose licentious and wicked persons as touching their several offences or crimes have all forsaken the true Church of God the Church which is sound and sincere in the Doctrine that they corrupt the Church that keepeth the Bond of Unity which they violate the Church that walketh in the Laws of Righteousness which they transgress This very true Church of Christ they have left howbeit not altogether left nor forsaken simply the Church upon the main Foundations whereof they continue built notwithstanding these breaches whereby they are rent at the top asunder Now because for redress of professed Errors and open Schisms it is and must be the Churches care that all may in outward Conformity be one as the laudable Polity of former Ages even so our own to that end and purpose hath established divers Laws the moderate severity whereof is a mean both to stay the rest and to reclaim such as heretofore have been led awry But seeing that the Offices which Laws require are always definite and when that they require is done they go no farther whereupon sundry ill-affected persons to save themselves from danger of Laws pretend obedience albeit inwardly they carry still the same hearts which they did before by means whereof it falleth out that receiving unworthily the Blessed Sacrament at our hands they eat and drink their own damnation It is for remedy of this mischief here determined that whom the Law of the Realm doth punish unless they communicate such if they offer to obey Law the Church notwithstanding should not admit without probation before had of their Gospel-like behavior Wherein they first set no time how long this supposed probation must continue again they nominate no certain judgment the verdict whereof shall approve mens behavior to be Gospel-like and that which is most material whereas they seek to make it more hard for dissemblers to be received into the Church then Law and Polity as yet hath done they make it in truth more easie for such kinde of persons to winde themselves out of the Law and to continue the same they were The Law requireth at their hands that duty which in conscience doth touch them nearest because the greatest difference between us and
the days of whose departure out of the World are to the Church of Christ as the Birth and Coronation days of Kings or Emperors therefore especial choice being made of the very flower of all occasions in this kinde there are annual selected times to meditate of Christ glorified in them which had the honor to suffer for his sake before they had age and ability to know him glorified in them which knowing him as Stephen had the sight of that before death whereinto so acceptable death did lead glorified in those Sages of the East that came from far to adore him and were conducted by strange light glorified in the second Elias of the World sent before him to prepare his way glorified in every of those Apostles whom it pleased him to use as Founders of his Kingdom here glorified in the Angels as in Michael glorified in all those happy Souls that are already possessed of Heaven Over and besides which number not great the rest be but four other days heretofore annexed to the Feast of Easter and Pentecost by reason of general Baptism usual at those two Feasts which also is the cause why they had not as other days any proper name given them Their first Institution was therefore through necessity and their present continuance is now for the greater honor of the Principals whereupon they still attend If it be then demanded Whether we observe these times as being thereunto bound by force of Divine Law or else by the onely Positive Ordinances of the Church I answer to this That the very Law of Nature it self which all men confess to be Gods Law requireth in general no less the Sanctification of Times then of Places Persons and Things unto Gods honor For which cause it hath pleased him heretofore as of the rest so of times likewise to exact some parts by way of perpetual homage never to be dispensed withal nor remitted Again To require some other parts of time with as strict exaction but for less continuance and of the rest which were left arbibitrary to accept what the Church shall in due consideration consecrate voluntarily unto like Religious uses Of the first kinde amongst the Jews was the Sabbath-day of the second Those Feasts which are appointed by the Law of Moses the Feast of Dedication invented by the Church standeth in the number of the last kinde The Moral Law requiring therefore a seventh part throughout the age of the whole World to be that way employed although with us the day be changed in regard of a new Revolution begun by our Saviour Christ yet the same proportion of time continueth which was before because in reference to the benefit of Creation and now much more of Renovation thereunto added by him which was Prince of the World to come we are bound to accompt the Sanctification of one day in seven a duty which Gods Immutable Law doth exact for ever The rest they say we ought to abolish because the continuance of them doth nourish wicked Superstition in the mindes of men besides they are all abused by Papists the enemies of God yea certain of them as Easter and Pentecost even by the Jews 71. Touching Jews their Easter and Pentecost have with ours as much affinity as Philip the Apostle with Philip the Macedonian King As for imitation of Papists and the breeding of Superstition they are now become such common guests that no man can think it discourteous to let them go as they came The next is a rare Observation and Strange you shall finde if you mark it as it doth deserve to be noted well that many thousands there are who if they have vertuously during those times behaved themselves if their devotion and zeal in Prayer have been fervent their attention to the Word of God such as all Christian men should yield imagine that herein they have performed a good duty which notwithstanding to think is a very dangerous Error in as much as the Apostle Saint Paul hath taught That we ought not to keep our Easter as the Jews did for certain days but in the Unleavened Bread of Sincerity and of Truth to feast continually Whereas the restraint of Easter to a certain number of days causeth us to rest for a short space in that near consideration of our duties which should be extended throughout the course of our whole lives and so pulleth out of our mindes the Doctrine of Christs Gospel â—re we be aware The Doctrine of the Gospel which here they mean or should mean is That Christ having finished the Law there is no Jewish Paschal Solemnity nor abstinence from sour Bread now required at our hands there is no Leaven which we are bound to cast out but malice sin and wickedness no Bread but the food of sincere Truth wherewith we are tied to celebrate our Passover And seeing no time of sin is granted us neither any intermission of sound belief it followeth That this kinde of feasting ought to endure always But how are standing Festival Solemnities against this That which the Gospel of Christ requireth is the perpetuity of vertuous duties not perpetuity of exercise or action but disposition perpetual and practice as oft as times and opportunities require Just valiant liberal temperate and holy men are they which can whensoever they will and will whensoever they ought execute what their several perfections import If Vertues did always cease to be when they cease to work there should be nothing more pernicious to Vertue then Sleep Neither were it possible that men as Zachary and Elizabeth should in all the Commandments of God walk unreprovable or that the Chain of our Conversation should contain so many Links of Divine Vertues as the Apostles in divers places have reckoned up if in the exercise of each vertue perpetual continuance were exacted at our hands Seeing therefore all things are done in time and many offices are not possible at one and the same time to be discharged duties of all forms must have necessarily their several successions and seasons In which respect the School-men have well and soundly determined That Gods Affirmative Laws and Precepts the Laws that enjoyn any actual duty as Prayer Alms and the like do binde us ad semper velle but not ad semper agere we are tyed to iterate and resume them when need is howbeit not to continue them without any intermission Feasts whether God himself hath ordained them or the Church by that Authority which God hath given they are of Religion such publick services as neither can nor ought to be continued otherwise then onely by iteration Which iteration is a most effectual mean to bring unto full maturity and growth those Seeds of Godliness that these very men themselves do grant to be sown in the hearts of many Thousands during the while that such Feasts are present The constant habit of well-doing is not gotten without the custom of doing well neither can Vertue be made perfect but by
we teach plainly that To hold the foundation is in express terms to acknowledg it 25. Now because the foundation is an affirmative Proposition they all overthrow it who deny it they directly overthrow it who deny it directly and they overthrow it by consequent or indirectly which hold any one assertion whatsoever whereupon the direct denial thereof may be necessarily concluded What is the Question between the Gentiles and Us but this Whether salvation be by Christ What between the Iews and Us but this Whether by this Iesus whom we call Christ yea or no This is to be the main point whereupon Christianity standeth it is clear by that one sentence of Festus concerning Pauls accusers They brought no crime of such things as I supposed but had certain questions against him of their superstition and of one Iesus which was dead whom Paul affirmed to be alive Where we see that Jesus dead and raised for the Salvation of the World is by Iesus denied despised by a Gentile by a Christian Apostle maintained The Fathers therefore in the Primitive Church when they wrote Tertullian the book which he called Apologeticus Minutius Faelix the Book which he intitleth Octavius Arnobius the seventh books against the Gentiles Chrysostom his Orations against the Jews Eusebius his ten books of Evangelical demonstration they stand in defence of Christianity against them by whom the foundation thereof was directly denied But the writings of the Fathers against Novatians Pelagians and other Hereticks of the like note refel Positions whereby the foundation of Christian Faith was overthrown by consequent onely In the former sort of Writings the foundation is proved in the latter it is alledged as a proof which to men that had been known directly to deny must needs have seemed a very beggerly kind of disputing All Infidels therefore deny the foundation of Faith directly by consequent many a Christian man yea whole Christian Churches have denied it and do deny it at this present day Christian Churches the foundation of Christianity not directly for then they cease to be Christian Churches but by consequent in respect whereof we condemn them as erroneous although for holding the foundation we do and must hold them Christians 26. We see what it is to hold the foundation what directly and what by consequent to deny it The next thing which followeth is whether they whom God hath chosen to obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ may once effectually called and through faith justified truly afterwards fall so far as directly to deny the foundation which their hearts have before imbraced with joy and comfort in the Holy Ghost for such is the faith which indeed doth justifie Devils know the same things which we believe and the minds of the most ungodly may be fully perswaded of the Truth which knowledge in the one and in the other is sometimes termed faith but equivocally being indeed no such faith as that whereby a Christian man is justified It is the Spirit of Adoption which worketh faith in us in them not the things which we believe are by us apprehended not onely as true but also as good and that to us as good they are not by them apprehended as true they are Whereupon followeth the third difference the Christian man the more he encreaseth in faith the more his joy and comfort aboundeth but they the more sure they are of the truth the more they quake and tremble at it This begetteth another effect where the hearts of the one sort have a different disposition from the other Non ignoro plerosque conscientia meritorum nihil se esse per mortem magis optare quam credere Malunt cuim extingui penitus quam ad supplicia reparari I am not ignorant saith Minutius that there be many who being conscious what they are to look for do rather wish that they might then think that they shall cease when they cease to live because they hold it better that death should consume them unto nothing then God revive them unto punishment So it is in other Articles of Faith whereof wicked men think no doubt many times they are too true On the contrary side to the other there is no grief or torment greater then to feel their perswasion weak in thingsâ— whereof when they are perswaded they reap such comfort and joy of spirit such is the faith whereby we are justified such I mean in respect of the quality For touching the principal object of Faith longer then it holdeth the foundation whereof we have spoken it neither justifieth nor is but ceaseth to be faith when it ceaseth to believe that Jesus Christ is the onely Saviour of the World The cause of life spiritual in us is Christ not carnally or corporally inhabiting but dwelling in the soul of man as a thing which when the minde apprehendeth it is said to inhabite or possess the minde The minde conceiveth Christ by hearing the Doctrine of Christianity as the light of Nature doth the minde to apprehend those truths which are meerly rational so that saving truth which is far above the reach of Humane Reason cannot otherwise then by the Spirit of the Almighty be conceived All these are implied wheresoever any of them is mentioned as the cause of the spiritual life Wherefore if we have read that the spirit is our life or the Word our life or Christ our life We are in very of these to understand that our life is Christ by the hearing of the Gospel apprehended as a Saviour and assented unto through the power of the Holy Ghost The first intellectual conceit and comprehension of Christ so imbraced St. Peter calleth the seed whereof we be new born our first imbracing of Christ is our first reviving from the state of death and condemation He that hath the Son hath life saith St. Iohn and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life If therefore he which once hath the Son may cease to have the Son though it be for a moment he ceaseth for that moment to have life But the life of them which have the Son of God is everlasting in the world to come But because as Christ being raised from the dead dyed no more death hath no more power over him so justified man being allied to God in Jesus Christ our Lord doth as necessarily from that time forward always live as Christ by whom he hath life liyeth always I might if I had not otherwhere largely done it already shew by many and sundry manifest and clear proofs how the motions and operations of life are sometime so indiscernable and so secret that they seem stone-dead who notwithstanding are still alive unto God in Christ. For as long as that abideth in us which animateth quickneth and giveth life so long we live and we know that the cause of our Faith abideth in us for ever I. Christ the Fountain of Life may flit and leave the Habitation