because Friendship is that by which the world is most blessed and receives most good it ought to be chosen amongst the worthiest persons that is amongst those that can do greatest benefit to each other and though in equal worthiness I may chuse by my eye or ear that is into the consideration of the essential I may take in also the accidental and extrinsick worthinesses yet I ought to give every one their just value when the internal beauties are equal these shall help to weigh down the scale and I will love a worthy friend that can delight me as well as profit me rather than him who cannot delight me at all and profit me no more but yet I will not weigh the gayest flowers or the wings of Butterflies against Wheat but when I am to chuse Wheat I may take that which looks the brightest I had rather see Thyme and Roses Marjoram and July-flowers that are fair and sweet and medicinal than the prettiest Tulips that are good for nothing And my Sheep and Kine are better servants than Race-horses and Greyhounds And I shall rather furnish my Study with Plutarch and Cicero with Livy and Polybius than with Cassandra and Ibrahim Bassa and if I do give an hour to these for divertisement or pleasure yet I will dwell with them that can instruct me and make me wise and eloquent severe and useful to my self and others I end this with the saying of Laelius in Cicero Amicitiaâ—non debet consequi utilitatem sed amicitiam utilitas When I chuse my friend I will not stay till I have received a kindness but I will chuse such an one that can do me many if I need them But I mean such kindnesses which make me wiser and which make me better that is I will when I chuse my friend chuse him that is the bravest the worthiest and the most excellent person and then your first Question is soon answered To love such a person and to contract such friendships is just so authorized by the principles of Christianity as it is warranted to love wisdom and vertue goodness and beneficence and all the impresses of God upon the spirits of brave men 2. The next inquiry is How far it may extend that is by what expressions it may be signified I find that David and Jonathan loved at a strange rate they were both good men though it happened that Jonathan was on the obliging side but here the expressions were Jonathan watched for David's good told him of his danger and helped him to escape took part with David's innocence against his Father's malice and injustice and beyond all this did it to his own prejudice and they two stood like two feet supporting one body though Jonathan knew that David would prove like the foot of a Wrestler and would supplant him not by any unworthy or unfriendly action but it was from God and he gave him his hand to set him upon his own throne We find his parallels in the Gentile stories young Athenodorus having divided the estate with his Brother Xenon divided it again when Xenon had spent his own share and Lucullus would not take the Consulship till his younger brother had first enjoyed it for a year but Pollux divided with Castor his immortality and you know who offer'd himself to death being pledge for his friend and his friend by performing his word rescued him as bravely And when we find in Scripture that for a good man some will even dare to die and that Aquila and Priscilla laid their necks down for S. Paul and the Galatians would have given him their very eyes that is every thing that was most dear to them and some others were near unto death for his sake and that it is a Precept of Christian charity to lay down our lives for our brethren that is those who were combined in a cause of Religion who were united with the same hopes and imparted to each other ready assistances and grew dear by common sufferings we need enquire no further for the expressions of friendships Greater love than this hath no man than that he lay down his life for his friends and this we are oblig'd to do in some Cases for all Christians and therefore we may do it for those who are to us in this present and imperfect state of things that which all the good men and women in the world shall be in Heaven that is in the state of perfect friendships This is the biggest but then it includes and can suppose all the rest and if this may be done for all and in some cases must for any one of the multitude we need not scruple whether we may do it for those who are better than a multitude But as for the thing it self it is not easily and lightly to be done and a man must not die for humour nor expend so great a Jewel for a trifle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Philo we will hardly die when it is for nothing when no good no worthy end is served and become a Sacrifice to redeem a foot-boy But we may not give our life to redeem another unless 1. The party for whom we die be a worthy and an useful person better for the publick or better for Religion and more useful to others than my self Thus Ribischius the German died bravely when he became a Sacrifice for his Master Maurice Duke of Saxony Covering his Masters body with his own that he might escape the fury of the Turkish Souldiers Succurram perituro sed ut ipse non peream nisi si futurus ero magni hominis aut magnae rei merces said Seneca I will help a dying person if I can but I will not die my self for him unless by my death I save a brave man or become the price of a great thing that is I will die for a Prince for the Republick or to save an Army as David expos'd himself to combat with the Philistin for the redemption of the host of Israel and in this sence that is true Praestat ut pereat unus quà m Vnitas better that one perish than a multitude 2. A man dies bravely when he gives his temporal life to save the soul of any single person in the Christian world It is a worthy exchange and the glorification of that love by which Christ gave his life for every Soul Thus he that reproves an erring Prince wisely and necessarily he that affirms a fundamental truth or stands up for the glory of the Divine Attributes though he die for it becomes a worthy sacrifice 3. These are duty but it may be Heroick and full of Christian bravery to give my life to rescue a noble and a brave friend though I my self be as worthy a man as he because the preference of him is an act of humility in me and of friendship towards him Humility and Charity making a pious difference where Art and Nature have made all equal Some have fancied other measures of
misery 5. But that which is of special concernment is this that the Liturgy of the Church of England hath advantages so many and so considerable as not only to raise it self above the devotions of other Churches but to endear the affections of good people to be in love with Liturgy in general 6. For to the Churches of the Roman Communion we can say that ours is reformed to the reformed Churches we can say that ours is orderly and decent for we were freed from the impositions and lasting errors of a tyrannical spirit and yet from the extravagancies of a popular spirit too our reformation was done without tumult and yet we saw it necessary to reform we were zealous to cast away the old errors but our zeal was balanced with consideration and the results of authority Not like women or children when they are affrighted with fire in their clothes we shak'd off the coal indeed but not our garments lest we should have exposed our Churches to that nakedness which the excellent men of our sister Churches complained to be among themselves 7. And indeed it is no small advantage to our Liturgy that it was the off-spring of all that authority which was to prescribe in matters of Religion The King and the Priest which are the Antistites Religionis and the preservers of both the Tables joyn'd in this work and the people as it was represented in Parliament were advised withal in authorizing the form after much deliberation for the Rule Quod spectat ad omnes ab omnibus tractari debet was here observed with strictness and then as it had the advantages of discourse so also of authorities its reason from one and its sanction from the other that it might be both reasonable and sacred and free not only from the indiscretions but which is very considerable from the scandal of popularity 8. And in this I cannot but observe the great wisdom and mercy of God in directing the contrivers of the Liturgy with the spirit of zeal and prudence to allay the furies and heats of the first affrightment For when men are in danger of burning so they leap from the flames they consider not whither but whence and the first reflexions of a crooked tree are not to straightness but to a contrary incurvation yet it pleased the Spirit of God so to temper and direct their spirits that in the first Liturgy of King Edward they did rather retain something that needed further consideration than reject any thing that was certainly pious and holy and in the second Liturgy that they might also throughly reform they did rather cast out something that might with good profit have remained than not satisfie the world of their zeal to reform of their charity in declining every thing that was offensive and the clearness of their light in discerning every semblance of error or suspicion in the Roman Church 9. The truth is although they fram'd the Liturgy with the greatest consideration that could be by all the united wisdom of this Church and State yet as if Prophetically to avoid their being charg'd in after ages with a crepusculum of Religion a dark twilight imperfect Reformation they joyn'd to their own Star all the shining tapers of the other reformed Churches calling for the advice of the most eminently learned and zealous Reformers in other Kingdoms that the light of all together might shew them a clear path to walk in And this their care produced some change for upon the consultation the first form of King Edwards Service-book was approved with the exception of a very few clauses which upon that occasion were review'd and expung'd till it came to that second form and modest beauty it was in the Edition of MDLII and which Gilbertus a German approved of as a transcript of the ancient and primitive forms 10. It was necessary for them to stay some-where Christendom was not only reformed but divided too and every division would to all ages have called for some alteration or else have disliked it publickly and since all that cast off the Roman yoke thought they had title enough to be called Reformed it was hard to have pleased all the private interests and peevishness of men that called themselves friends and therefore that only in which the Church of Rome had prevaricated against the word of God or innovated against Apostolical tradition all that was par'd away But at last she fix'd and strove no further to please the people who never could be satisfied 11. The Painter that exposed his work to the censure of the common passengers resolving to mend it as long as any man could find fault at last had brought the eyes to the ears and the ears to the neck and for his excuse subscrib'd Hanc populus fecit But his Hanc ego that which he made by the rules of art and the advice of men skill'd in the same mystery was the better piece The Church of England should have par'd away all the Canon of the Communion if she had mended her piece at the prescription of the Zuinglians and all her office of Baptism if she had mended by the rules of the Anabaptists and kept up Altars still by the example of the Lutherans and not have retain'd decency by the good will of the Calvinists and now another new light is sprung up she should have no Liturgy at all but the worship of God be left to the managing of chance and indeliberation and a petulant fancy 12. It began early to discover its inconvenience for when certain zealous persons fled to Frankford to avoid the funeral piles kindled by the Roman Bishops in Queen Maries time as if they had not enemies enough abroad they fell soul with one another and the quarrel was about the Common-Prayer-Book and some of them made their appeal to the judgment of Mr. Calvin whom they prepossessed with strange representments and troubled phantasms concerning it and yet the worst he said upon the provocation of those prejudices was that even its vanities were tolerable Tolerabiles ineptias was the unhandsome Epithete he gave to some things which he was forc'd to dislike by his over-earnest complying with the Brethren of Frankford 13. Well! upon this the wisdom of this Church and State saw it necessary to fix where with advice she had begun and with counsel she had once mended And to have altered in things inconsiderable upon a new design or sullen mislike had been extreme levity and apt to have made the men contemptible their authority slighted and the thing ridiculous especially before adversaries that watch'd all opportunity and appearances to have disgraced the Reformation Here therefore it became a Law was established by an Act of Parliament was made solemn by an appendant penalty against all that on either hand did prevaricate a sanction of so long and so prudent consideration 14. But the Common-Prayer-Book had the fate of S. Paul for when it had scap'd the storms of
Confessor are the great demonstration to all the world that Truth is as Dear to your MAJESTY as the Jewels of your Diadem and that your Conscience is tender as a pricked eye I shall pretend this only to alleviate the inconvenience of an unseasonable address that I present your MAJESTY with a humble persecuted truth of the same constitution with that condition whereby you are become most Dear to God as having upon you the characterism of the Sons of God bearing in your Sacred Person the marks of the Lord Jesus who is your Elder Brother the King of Sufferings and the Prince of the Catholick Church But I consider that Kings and their Great Councils and Rulers Ecclesiastical have a special obligation for the defence of Liturgies because they having the greatest Offices have the greatest needs of auxiliaries from Heaven which are best procured by the publick Spirit the Spirit of Government and Supplication And since the first the best and most solemn Liturgies and Set forms of Prayer were made by the best and greatest Princes by Moses by David and the Son of David Your MAJESTY may be pleased to observe such a proportion of circumstances in my laying this Apology for Liturgy at Your feet that possibly I may the easier obtain a pardon for my great boldness which if I shall hope for in all other contingencies I shall represent my self a person indifferent whether I live or die so I may by either serve God and Gods Church and Gods Vicegerent in the capacity of Great Sir Your Majesties most humble and most obedient Subject and Servant JER TAYLOR Hierocl in Pythag. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An APOLOGY for Authorized and Set Forms of LITVRGY I Have read over this Book which the Assembly of Divines is pleased to call The Directory for Prayer I confess I came to it with much expectation and was in some measure confident I should have found it an exact and unblameable model of Devotion free from all those Objections which men of their own perswasion had obtruded against the Publick Liturgie of the Church of England or at least it should have been composed with so much artifice and fineness that it might have been to all the world an argument of their learning and excellency of spirit if not of the goodness and integrity of their Religion and purposes I shall give no other character of the whole but that the publick disrelish which I find amongst Persons of great piety of all qualities not only of great but even of ordinary understandings is to me some argument that it lies so open to the objections even of common spirits that the Compilers of it did intend more to prevail by the success of their Armies than the strength of reason and the proper grounds of perswasion which yet most wise and good Men believe to be the more Christian way of the two But because the judgment I made of it from an argument so extrinsecal to the nature of the thing could not reasonably enable me to satisfie those many Persons who in their behalf desired me to consider it I resolv'd to look upon it nearer and to take its account from something that was ingredient to its Constitution that I might be able both to exhort and convince the Gainsayers who refuse to hold fast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that faithful word which they had been taught by their Mother the Church of England Sect. 2. I SHALL decline to speak of the efficient cause of this Directory and not quarrel at it that it was composed against the Laws both of England and all Christendom If the thing were good and pious and did not directly or accidentally invade the rights of a just Superiour I would learn to submit to the imposition and never quarrel at the incompetency of his authority that ingaged me to do pious and holy things And it may be when I am a little more used to it I shall not wonder at a Synod in which not one Bishop sits in the capacity of a Bishop though I am most certain this is the first example in England since it was first Christened But for the present it seems something hard to digest it because I know so well that all Assemblies of the Church have admitted Priests to consultation and dispute but never to authority and decision till the Pope enlarging the phylacteries of the Archimandrites and Abbots did sometime by way of priviledge and dispensation give to some of them decisive voices in publick Councils but this was one of the things in which he did innovate and invade against the publick resolutions of Christendom though he durst not do it often and yet when he did it it was in very small and inconsiderable numbers Sect. 3. I SAID I would not meddle with the Efficient and I cannot meddle with the Final cause nor guess at any other ends and purposes of theirs than at what they publickly profess which is the abolition and destruction of the Book of Common Prayer which great change because they are pleased to call Reformation I am content in charity to believe they think it so and that they have Zelum Dei but whether secundum scientiam according to knowledge or no must be judg'd by them who consider the matter and the form Sect. 4. BUT because the matter is of so great variety and minute Consideration every part whereof would require as much scrutiny as I purpose to bestow upon the whole I have for the present chosen to consider only the form of it concerning which I shall give my judgment without any sharpness or bitterness of spirit for I am resolved not to be angry with any men of another perswasion as knowing that I differ just as much from them as they do from me Sect. 5. THE Directory takes away that Form of Prayer which by the aâ—â—hority and consent of all the obliging power of the Kingdom hath been used and enjoyned ever since the Reformation But this was done by men of differing spirits and of disagreeing interests Some of them consented to it that they might take away all set forms of prayer and give way to every mans spirit the other that they might take away this Form and give way and countenance to their own The first is an enemy to all deliberation The Second to all authority They will have no man to deliberate These would have none but themselves The former are unwise and rash the latter are pleased with themselves and are full of opinion They must be considered apart for they have rent the Question in pieces and with the fragment in his hand every man hath run his own way question 1 Sect. 6. FIRST of them that deny all set forms though in the subject matter they were confessed innocent and blameless Sect. 7. AND here I consider that the true state of the Question is only this Whether it is better to pray to God with Consideration or without Whether is the wiser
help as doubting coldness weariness disrelish of heavenly things indifferency and these are enough to interpret the place quoted in the Objection without tying him to make words for us to no great religious purposes when God hath done that for us in other manner than what we dream of ** Sect. 27. SO that in effect praying in the Holy Ghost or with the spirit is nothing but prayer for such things and in such manner which God by his Spirit hath taught us in holy Scripture Holy Prayers spiritual songs so the Apostle calls one part of prayer viz. Eucharistical or thanksgiving that is Prayers or Songs which are spiritual in materiâ And if they be called spiritual for the Efficient cause too the Holy Ghost being the Author of them it comes all to one for therefore he is the cause and giver of them because he hath in his word revealed what things we are to pray for and there also hath taught us the manner Sect. 28. AND this I plainly prove from the words of S. Paul before quoted The Spirit helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought In this we are infirm that we know not our own needs nor our own advantages when the Holy Ghost hath taught us what to ask and to ask that as we ought then he hath healed our infirmities and our ignorances in the matter and the manner then we know what to pray for as we ought then we have the grace of Prayer and the Spirit of supplication And therefore in the instance before mentioned concerning spiritual songs when the Apostle had twice enjoyn'd the use of them in order to Prayer and Preaching to instruction and to Eucharist and those to be done by the aid of Christ and Christ's spirit What in one place he calls being filled with the Spirit In the other he calls the dwelling of the word of Christ in us richly plainly intimating to us that when we are mighty in the scriptures full of the word of Christ then we are filled with the Spirit because the Spirit is the great Dictator of them to us and the Remembrancer and when by such helps of Scripture we sing Hymns to Gods honour and our mutual comfort then we sing and give thanks in the spirit And this is evident if you consult the places and compare them Sect. 29. AND that this is for this reason called a gift and grace or issue of the Spirit is so evident and notorious that the speaking of an ordinary revealed truth is called in Scripture a speaking by the Spirit 1 Cor. 12.8 No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost For though the world could not acknowledge Jesus for the Lord without a revelation yet now that we are taught this truth by Scripture and by the preaching of the Apostles to which they were enabled by the Holy Ghost we need no revelation or Enthusiasm to confess this truth which we are taught in our Creeds and Catechisms and this light sprang first from the immission of a ray from God's Spirit we must for ever acknowledge him the fountain of our light Though we cool our thirst at the mouth of the river yet we owe for our draughts to the springs and fountains from whence the waters first came though derived to us by the succession of a long current If the Holy Ghost supplies us with materials and fundamentals for our building it is then enough to denominate the whole edifice to be of him although the labour and the workmanship be ours upon another stock And this is it which the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 2.13 Which things also we speak not in the words which mans wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing spiritual things with spiritual The Holy Ghost teaches yet it is upon our co-operation our study and endeavour while we compare spiritual things with spiritual the Holy Ghost is said to teach us because these spirituals were of his suggestion and revelation Sect. 30. FOR it is a rule of the School and there is much reason in it Habitus infusi infunduntur per modum acquisitorum whatsoever is infused into us is in the same manner infused as other things are acquired that is step by step by humane means and co-operation and grace does not give us new faculties and create another nature but meliorates and improves our own And therefore what the Greeks called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 habits the Christians used to call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gifts because we derive assistances from above to heighten the habits and facilitate the actions in order to a more noble and supernatural end And what S. Paul said in the Resurrection is also true in this Question That is not first which is spiritual but that which natural and then that which is spiritual The graces and gifts of the Spirit are postnate and are additions to art and nature God directs our counsels opens our understandings regulates our will orders our affections supplies us with objects and arguments and opportunities and revelations in scriptis and then most when we most imploy our own endeavours God loving to bless all the means and instruments of his service whether they be natural or acquisite Sect. 31. SO that now I demand Whether since the expiration of the age of miracles Gods spirit does not most assist us when we most endeavour and most use the means He that says No discourages all men from reading the Scriptures from industry from meditation from conference from humane arts and sciences and from whatsoever else God and good Laws provoke us to by proposition of rewards But if Yea as most certainly God will best crown the best endeavours then the spirit of prayer is greatest in him who supposing the like capacities and opportunities studies hardest reads most practises most religiously deliberates most prudently and then by how much want of means is worse than the use of means by so much ex tempore prayers are worse than deliberate and studied Excellent therefore is the Counsel of Saint Peter 1 Epist. Chap. 4. ver 11. If any man speak let him speak as the Oracles of God not lightly then and inconsiderately If any man minister let him do it as of the ability which God giveth great reason then to put to all his abilities and faculties to it and whether of the two does most likely do that he that takes pains and considers and discusses and so approves and practises a form or he that never considers what he says till he says it needs not much deliberation to pass a sentence Only methinks it is most unreasonable that we should be bound to prepare our selves with due requisites to hear what they shall speak in publick and that they should not prepare what to speak as if to speak were of easier or of less consideration than to hear what is spoken or if
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
thing could be and not be at the same time then there would be something whose being were not to be Nay Dominicus à Soto affirms expresly that not only things only cannot be done by God which intrinsecally formally and expresly infer two contradictories but those also which the understanding at the first proposal does by his natural light dissent from and can by no means admit because that which is so repugnant to the understanding naturally does suâ naturâ repugnare is impossible in the nature of things and therefore when it is said in S. Luke nothing is impossible with God it is meant Nothing is impossible but that which naturally repugnes to the understanding Now to apply this to the present question Our adversaries do not deny but that in the doctrine of Transubstantiation there are a great many impossibilities which are such naturally and ordinarily but by Divine power they can be done but that they are done they have no warrant but the plain literal sence of the words of Hoc est corpus meum Now this is so far from proving that God does work perpetual miracles to verifie their sence of it that the working of miracles ought to prove that to be the sence of it Now the probation of a proposition by miracles is an open thing clear as thunder and being a matter of sense and consequently more known than the thing which they intend to prove ought not to be proved by that which is the thing in question And therefore to say that God will work a miracle rather than his words should be false is certain but impertinent For concerning the words themselves there is no question and therefore now no more need of miracles to confirm them concerning the meaning of them is the question They say this is the meaning Quest. How do you prove it since there are so many impossibilities in it naturally and ordinarily Answ. Because God said it therefore it is true Resp. Yea that God said the words we doubt not but that his words are to be understood in your sence that I doubt because if I believe your sence I must admit many things ordinarily impossible Answ. Yea but nothing is impossible to God Resp. True nothing that can be done exceeds his power but supposing this absolutely possible yet how does it appear that God will do a miracle to verifie your sence which otherwise cannot be true when without a miracle the words may be true in many other sences Jam dic posthume for it is hard that men by a continual effort and violence should maintain a proposition against reason and his unquestionable maximes thinking it sufficient to oppose against it Gods omnipotency as if the crying out a miracle were a sufficient guard against all absurdity in the world as if the wisdom of God did arm his power against his truth and that it were a fineness of Spirit to be able to believe the two parts of a contradiction and all upon confidence of a miracle which they cannot prove And indeed it were something strange that thousands and thousands of times every day for above 1500 years together the same thing should be done and yet this should be called a miracle that is a daily extraordinary for by this time it would pass into nature and a rule and so become a supernatural natural event an extraregular rule an extraordinary ordinary a perpetual wonder that is a wonder and no wonder and therefore I may infer the proper corollaries of this argument in the words of Scotus whose opinion it was pity it could be overborn by tyranny 1. That the truth of the Eucharist may be saved without Transubstantiation And this I have already proved 2. The substance of bread under the accidents is more a nourishment than the accidents themselves and therefore more represents Christs body in the formality of Spiritual nourishment And indeed that I may add some weight to these words of Scotus which are very true and very reasonable 1. It cannot be told why bread should be chosen for the symbol of the body but because of his nourishing faculty and that the accidents should nourish without substance is like feeding a man with musick and quenching his thirst with a Diagram 2. It is fantastical and mathematical bread not natural which by the doctrine of Transubstantiation is represented on the table and therefore unfit to nourish or to typifie that which can 3. Painted bread might as well be symbolical as the real if the real bread become no bread for then that which remains is nothing but the accidents as colour and dimensions c. But Scotus proceeds 3. That understanding of the words of institution that the substance of bread is not there seems harder to be maintained and to it more inconveniences are consequent than by putting the substance of bread to be there 4. Lastly It is a wonder why in one Article which is not a principal Article of faith such a sence should be affirmed for which faith is exposed to the contempt of all that follow reason and all this is because iâ— Transubstantiation there are many natural and ordinary impossibilities In hâ—c conversione sunt plura difficiliora quà m in creatione said Aquinas There are more difficulties in this conversion of the Sacrament than in the whole Creation 9. But then because we are speaking concerning what may be done by God it ought to be considered that it is rash and impudent to say that the body of Christ cannot by the power of God who can do all things be really in the Sacrament without the natural conversion of bread into him God can make that the body of Christ should be de novo in the Sacrament of the Altar without any change of it self and without the change of any thing into it self yet some change being made about the bread or something else They are the words of Durand Cannot God in any sence make this proposition true This bread is the body of Christ or this is bread and Christs body too If they say he cannot then it is a clear case who it is that denies Gods omnipotency If God can then how will they be able from the words of Scripture to prove Transubstantiation This also would be considered 10. But now concerning impossibilities if it absolutely can be evinc'd that this doctrine of Transubstantiation does affirm contradictions then it is not only an intolerable prejudice against the doctrine as is the ordinary and natural impossibility but it will be absolutely impossible to be true and it derogates from God to affirm such a proposition in religion and much more to adopt it into the body of faith And therefore when S. Paul had quoted that place of Scripture He hath put all things under him he adds It is evident that he is excepted who did put all things under him for if this had not been so understood then he should have been under himself and he
Denis means that death is the end of all the agonies of this life A goodly note and never revealed till then and now as if this were a good argument to encourage men to contend bravely and not to fear death because when they are once dead they shall no more be troubled with the troubles of this life indeed you may go to worse and death may let you into a state of being as bad as hell and of greater torments than all the pains of this world put together amount to But to let alone such ridiculous subterfuges see the words of S. Dionys They that live a holy life looking to the true promises of God as if they were to behold the truth it self in that resurrection which is according to it with firm and true hope and in a Divine joy come to the sleep of death as to an end of all holy contentions now certainly if the doctrine of Purgatory were true and that they who had contended here and for all their troubles in this world were yet in a tolerable condition should be told that now they shall go to worse he that should tell them so would be but one of Jobs comforters No the servant of God coming to the end of his own troubles viz. by death is filled with holy gladness and with much rejoycing ascends to the way of Divine regeneration viz. to immortality which word can hardly mean that they shall be tormented a great while in hell fire The words of Justin Martyr or whoever is the Author of those Questions and Answers imputed to him affirms that presently after the departure of the soul from the body a distinction is made between the just and the unjust for they are brought by Angels to places worthy of them the souls of the just to Paradise where they have the conversation and sight of Angels and Archangels but the souls of the unrighteous to the places in Hades the invisible region or Hell Against these words because they pinch severely E. W. thinks himself bound to say something and therefore 1. whereas Justin Martyr says after our departure presently there is a separation made he answers that Justin Matyr means here to speak of the two final states after the day of judgment for so it seems he understands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or presently after death to mean the day of judgment of the time of which neither men nor Angels know any thing And whereas Justin Martyr says that presently the souls of the righteous go to Paradise E. W. answers 2. That Justin does not say that all just souls are carried presently into Heaven no Justin says into Paradise true but let it be remembred that it is so a part of Heaven as limbus infantum is by themselves call'd a part of hell that is a place of bliss the region of the blessed But 3. Justin says that presently there is a separation made but he says not that the souls of the righteous are carried to Paradise That 's the next answer which the very words of Justin do contradict There is presently a separation made of the just and unjust for they are by the Angels carried to the places they have deserved This is the separation which is made one is carried to Paradise the other to a place in hell But these being such pitiful offers at answering the Gentleman tries another way and says 4. That this affirmative of Justin contradicts another saying of Justin which I cited out of Sixtus Senensis that Justin Martyr and many other of the Fathers affirm'd that the souls of men are kept in secret receptacles reserved unto the sentence of the great day and that before then no man receives according to his works done in this life To this I answer that one opinion does not contradict another for though the Fathers believ'd that they who die in the Lord rest from their labours and are in blessed places and have antepasts of joy and comforts yet in those places they are reserv'd unto the judgment of the great day The intermedial joy or sorrow respectively of the just and unjust does but antedate the final sentence and as the comforts of Gods spirit in this life are indeed graces of God and rewards of Piety as the torments of an evil conscience are the wages of impiety yet as these do not hinder but that the great reward is given at dooms-day and not before so neither do the joys which the righteous have in the interval They can both consist together and are generally affirm'd by very many of the Greek and Latin Fathers And methinks this Gentleman might have learn'd from Sixtus Senensis how to have reconcil'd these two opinions for he quotes him saying there is a double beatitude the one imperfect of soul only the other consummate and perfect of soul and body The first the Fathers call'd by several names of Sinus Abrahae Atrium Dei sub Altare c. The other perfect joy the glory of the resurrection c. But it matters not what is said or how it be contradicted so it seem but to serve a present turn But at last if nothing of this will do these words are not the words of Justin for he is not the Author of the Questions and Answers ad orthodoxos To which I answer it matters not whether they be Justins or no But they are put together in the collection of his works and they are generally called his and cited under his name and made use of by Bellarmine when he supposes them to be to his purpose However the Author is Ancient and Orthodox and so esteem'd in the Church and in this particular speaks according to the doctrine of the more Ancient Doctors well but how is this against Purgatory says E. W. for they may be in secret receptacles after they have been in Purgatory To this I answer that he dares not teach that for doctrine in the Church of Rome who believes that the souls deliver'd out of Purgatory go immediately to the heaven of the Blessed and therefore if his book had been worth the perusing by the Censors of books he might have been questioned and followed Mr. Whites fortune And he adds it might be afterwards according to Origens opinion that is Purgatory might be after the day of judgment for so Origen held that all the fires are Purgatory and the Devils themselves should be sav'd Thus this poor Gentleman thinking it necessary to answer one argument against Purgatory brought in the Dissuasive cares not to answer by a condemned heresie rather than reason shall be taught by any son of the Church of England But however the very words of the Fathers cross his slippery answers so that they thrust him into a corner for in these receptacles the godly have joy and they enter into them as soon as they die and abide there till the day of judgment S. Ambrose is so full pertinent and material to
that those who are under our Charges should know the force of the Resurrection of Christ and the conduct of the Spirit and live according to the purity of God and the light of the Gospel To this let us cooperate with all wisdom and earnestness and knowledge and spiritual understanding And there is no better way in the world to do this than by ministring to persons singly in the conduct of their Repentance which as it is the work of every man so there are but few persons who need not the conduct of a spiritual guide in the beginnings and progressions of it To the assistance of this work I have now put my Symbol having by the sad experience of my own miseries and the calamities of others to whose restitution I have been called to minister been taught something of the secret of Souls and I have reason to think that the words of our dearest Lord to S. Peter were also spoken to me Tu autem conversus confirma fratres I hope I have received many of the mercies of a repenting sinner and I have felt the turnings and varieties of spiritual entercourses and I have often observed the advantages in ministring to others and am most confident that the greatest benefits of our office may with best effect be communicated to souls in personal and particular Ministrations In the following book I have given advices and have asserted many truths in order to all this I have endeavoured to break in pieces almost all those propositions upon the confidence of which men have been negligent of severe and strict living I have cancell'd some false grounds upon which many answers in Moral Theologie us'd to be made to inquiries in Cases of Conscience I have according to my weak ability described all the necessities and great inducement of a holy life and have endeavoured to do it so plainly that it may be useful to every man and so inoffensively that it may hurt no man I know but one Objection which I am likely to meet withall excepting those of my infirmity and disability which I cannot answer but by protesting the piety of my purposes but this only that in the Chapter of Original sin I speak otherwise than is spoken commonly in the Church of England whos 's ninth Article affirms that the natural propensity to evil and the perpetual lusting of the flesh against the spirit deserves the anger of God and damnation against which I so earnestly seem to dispute in the sixth Chapter of my Book To this I answer that it is one thing to say a thing in its own nature deserves damnation and another to say it is damnable to all those persons in whom it is subjected The thing it self that is our corrupted nature or our nature of corruption does leave us in the state of separation from God by being unable to bear us to Heaven imperfection of nature can never carry us to the perfections of glory and this I conceive to be all that our Church intends for that in the state of nature we can only fall short of Heaven and be condemn'd to a poena damni is the severest thing that any sober person owns and this I say that Nature alone cannot bring us to God without the regeneration of the Spirit and the grace of God we can never go to Heaven but because this Nature was not spoil'd by Infants but by persons of reason and we are all admitted to a new Covenant of Mercy and Grace made with Adam presently after his fall that is even before we were born as much as we were to a participation of sin before we were born no man can perish actually for that because he is reconcil'd by this He that says every sin is damnable and deserves the anger of God says true but yet some persons that sin of mere infirmity are accounted by God in the rank of innocent persons So it is in this Article Concupiscence remains in the regenerate and yet concupiscence hath the nature of sin but it brings not condemnation These words explain the 〈◊〉 Original imperfection is such a thing as is even in the regenerate and it is of the nature of sin that is it is the effect of one sin and the cause of many but yet it is not daâ—â—ing because as it is subjected in unconsenting persons it loses its own natural venome and relation to guiltiness that is it may of it self in its abstracted nature be a sin and deserve Gods anger viz. in some persons in all them that consent to it but that which will always be in persons that shall never be damned that is in infants and regenerate shall 〈◊〉 damn them And this is the main of what I affirm And since the Church of England intended that Article against the Doctrine of the Pelagians I suppose I shall not be thought to recede from the spirit and sence of the Article though I use differing manners of expression because my way of explicating this question does most of all destroy the Pelagian Heresie since although I am desirous to acquit the dispensation of God and his Justice from my imputation or suspicion of wrong and am loth to put our sins upon the account of another yet I impute all our evils to the imperfections of our nature and the malice of our choice which does most of all demonstrate not only the necessity of Grace but also of Infant Baptism and then to accuse this Doctrine of Pelagianism or any newer name of Heresie will seem like impotency and weakness of spirit but there will be nothing of truth or learning in it And although this Article was penn'd according to the style of the Schools as they then did loâ—e to speak yet the hardest word in it is capable of such a sence as complies with the intendment of that whole sixth Chapter For though the Church of England professes her self fallible and consequently that all her truths may be peaceably improved yet I do think that she is not actually deceiv'd and also that divers eminently learned do consent in my sence of that Article However I am so truly zealous for her honour and peace that I wholly submit all that I say there or any where else to her most prudent judgment And though I may most easily be deceived yet I have given my reasons for what I say and desire to be tried by them not by prejudice and numbers and zeal and if any man resolves to understand the Article in any other sence than what I have now explicated all that I shall say is that it may be I cannot reconcile my Doctrine to his explication it is enough that it is consistent with the Article it self in its best understanding and compliance with the truth it self and the justification of God However he that explicates the Article and thinks it means as he says does all the honour he can to the Authority whose words if he does not understand yet the sanction
faith without charity dead and ineffective A working faith and a working prayer are the great instruments and the great exercise and the great demonstration of holiness and Christian perfection Children can sit down in a storm or in a danger and weep and die but men can labour against it and struggle with the danger and labour for that blessing which they beg Thou dost not desire it unless thou wilt labour for it He that sits still and wishes had rather have that thing than be without it but if he will not use the means he had rather lose his desire than lose his ease That is scarce worth having that is not worth labouring 76. XI In all contentions against sin and infirmity remember that what was done yesterday may be done to day and by the same instruments by which then you were conqueror you may also be so in every day of temptation The Italian General that quitted his vanity and his imployment upon the sight of one that died suddenly might upon the same consideration actually applied and fitted to the fancy at any time resist his lust And therefore Epictetus gives it in rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let death be always before thy eyes and then thou shalt never desire any base or low thing nor desire any thing too much That is the perpetual application of so great a consideration as is death is certainly the greatest endearment of holiness and severity And certain it is that at some time or other the greatest part of Christians have had some horrible apprehensions of Hell of Death and consequent Damnation and it hath put into them holy thoughts and resolutions of piety and if ever they were in a severe sickness and did really fear death they may remember with how great a regret they did then look upon their sins and then they thought Heaven a considerable interest and Hell a formidable state and would not then have committed a sin for the purchase of the world Now every man hath always the same arguments and endearments of piety and religion Heaven and Hell are always the same considerable things and the truth is the same still but then they are considered most and therefore they prevail most and this is a demonstration that the arguments themselves are sufficient and would always do the work of grace for us if we were not wanting to our selves It is impossible that any man can be mov'd by any argument in the world or any interest any hope or any fear who cannot be moved by the consideration of Heaven and Hell But that which I observe is this that the argument that wisely and reasonably prevail'd yesterday can prevail to day unless thou thy self beest foolish and unreasonable 77. XII If a wicked man sins it is never by a pitiable or pardonable infirmity but from a state of death that it proceeds or will be so imputed and it is all one as if it did But if a good man sins he hath the least reason to pretend infirmity for his excuse because he hath the strengths of the Spirit and did master sin in its strengths and in despight of all its vigorousness and habit and therefore certainly can do so much rather when sin is weak and grace is strong The result of which consideration is this That no man should please himself in his sin because it is a sin of infirmity He that is pleased with it because he thinks it is indulg'd to him sins with pleasure and therefore not of infirmity for that is ever against our will and besides our observation No sin is a sin of infirmity unless we hate it and strive against it He that hath gotten some strength may pretend some infirmity But he that hath none is dead 78. XIII Let no man think that the proper evil of his age or state or of his Nation is in the latitude and nature of it a sin of a pardonable infirmity The lusts of youth and the covetousness or pride of old age and the peevishness of the afflicted are states of evil not sins of infirmity For it is highly considerable that sins of infirmity are but single ones There is no such thing as a state of a pardonable infirmity If by distemper of the body or the vanity of years or the evil customs of a Nation a vice does creep upon and seise on the man it is that against which the man ought to watch and pray and labour it is a state of danger and temptation But that must not be called infirmity which corrupts Nations and states of life but that only which in single instances surprises even a watchful person when his guards are most remiss 79. XIV Whatsoever sin comes regularly or by observation is not to be excused upon the pretence of infirmity but is the indication of an evil habit Therefore never admit a sin upon hopes of excuse for it is certain no evil that a man chuses is excusable No man sins with a pardon about his neck But if the sin comes at a certain time it comes from a certain cause and then it cannot be infirmity for all sins of infirmity are sins of chance irregular and accidental 80. XV. Be curious to avoid all proverbs and propositions or odd sayings by which evil life is incouraged and the hands of the Spirit weakned It is strange to consider what a prejudice to a mans understanding of things is a contrary proverb Can any good thing come out of Galilee And when Christ cometh no man knoweth whence he is Two or three proverbs did in despight of all the miracles and holy doctrines and rare example of Christ hinder many of the Jews from believing in him The words of S. Paul misunderstood and worse applied have been so often abused to evil purposes that they have almost passed into a proverbial excuse The evil that I would not that I do Such sayings as these are to be tried by the severest measures and all such sences of them which are enemies to holiness of life are to be rejected because they are against the whole Oeconomy and design of the Gospel of the life and death of Christ. But a proverb being used by every man is supposed to contain the opinion and belief or experience of mankind and then that evil sence that we are pleased to put to them will be thought to be of the same authority I have heard of divers persons who have been strangely intic'd on to finish their revellings and drunken conventicles by a catch or a piece of a song by a humor and a word by a bold saying or a common proverb and whoever take any measures of good or evil but the severest discourses of reason and religion will be like a Ship turned every way by a little piece of wood by chance and by half a sentence because they dwell upon the water and a wave of the Sea is their foundation 81. XVI Let every man take heed of a
the gayeties of this sinful age For although Christs blood can expiate all sins and his Spirit can sanctifie all sinners and his Church can restore all that are capable yet if we consider that the particulars of every naughty mans case are infinitely uncertain that there are no minute-measures of repentance set down after Baptism that there are some states of sinners which God does reject that the arrival to this state is by parts and undetermin'd steps of progression that no man can tell when any sin begins to be unpardonable to such a person and that if we be careless of our selves and easie in our judgments and comply with the false measures of any age we may be in before we are aware and cannot come out so soon as we expect and lastly if we consider that the Primitive and Apostolical Churches who best knew how to estimate the mercies of the Gospel and the requisites of repentance and the malignity and dangers of sin did not promise pardon so easily so readily so quickly as we do we may think it fit to be more afraid and more contrite more watchful and more severe 31. I end this with the words of S. Hierome Cùm beatus Daniel praescius futurorum de sententiâ Dei dubitet rem temerariam faciunt qui audacter peccatoribus indulgentiam pollicentur Though Daniel could foretel future things yet he durst not pronounce concerning the King whether God would pardon him or no it is therefore a great rashness boldly to promise pardon to them that have sinned That is it is not to be done suddenly according to the caution which S. Paul gave to the Bishop of Ephesus Lay hands suddenly on no man that is absolve him not without great trial and just dispositions 32. For though this be not at all to be wrested to a suspicion that the sins in their kind are not pardonable yet thus far I shall make use of it That God who only hath the power he only can make the judgment whether the sinner be a worthy penitent or not For there being no express stipulation made concerning the degrees of repentance no taxa poenitentiaria penitential Tables and Canons consign'd by God it cannot be told by man when after great sins and a long iniquity the unhappy man shall be restor'd because it wholly depends upon the Divine acceptance 33. In smaller offences and the seldom returns of sin intervening in a good or a probable life the Curates of souls may make safe and prudent judgments But when the case is high and the sin is clamorous or scandalous or habitual they ought not to be too easie in speaking peace to such persons to whom God hath so fiercely threatned death eternal But to hold their hands may possibly increase the sorrow and contrition and fear of the penitent and returning man and by that means make him the surer of it But it is too great a confidence and presumption to dispense Gods pardon or the Kings upon easie terms and without their Commission 34. For since all the rule and measures of dispensing it is by analogies and proportions by some reason and much conjecture it were better by being restrain'd in the Ministeries of favour to produce fears and watchfulness carefulness and godly sorrow than by an open hand to make sinners bold and many confident and easie Those holy and wise men who were our Fathers in Christ did well weigh the dangers into which a sinning man had entred and did dreadfully fear the issues of the Divine anger and therefore although they openly taught that God hath set open the gates of mercy to all worthy penitents yet concerning repentance they had other thoughts than we have and that in the pardon of sinners there are many more things to be considered besides the possibility of having the sin pardoned SECT IV. Of the Sin against the Holy Ghost and in what sence it is or may be Vnpardonable 35. UPON what account the Primitive Church did refuse to admit certain Criminals to repentance I have already discoursed but because there are some places of Scripture which seem to have incouraged such severity by denying repentance also to some sinners it is necessary that they be considered also lest by being misunderstood some persons in the days of their sorrow be tempted to despair 36. The Novatians denying repentance to lapsed Christians pretended for their warrant those words of S. Paul It is impossible for those who were once inlightened and have tasted of the Heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come if they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance seeing they crucifie to themselves the son of God afresh and put him to an open shame and parallel to this are those other words For if we sin wilfully after 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 consume the adversaries The sence of which words will be clear upon the explicating what is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 37. If they shall fall away viz. from that state of excellent things in which they had received all the present endearments of the Gospel a full conviction pardon of sins the earnest of the Spirit the comfort of the promises an antepast of Heaven it self if these men shall fall away from all this it cannot be by infirmity by ignorance by surprise this is that which S. Paul calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to sin wilfully after they have received the knowledge of the truth Malicious sinners these are who sin against the Holy Spirit whose influences they throw away whose counsels they despise whose comforts they refuse whose doctrine they scorn and from thence fall not only into one single wasting sin but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they fall away into a contrary state into Heathenism or the heresie of the Gnosticks or to any state of despising and hating Christ expressed here by Crucifying the Son of God afresh and putting him to an open shame these are they here meant such who after they had worshipped Jesus and given up their names to him and had been blessed by him and felt it and acknowledged it and rejoyc'd in it these men afterwards without cause or excuse without error or infirmity chusingly willingly knowingly call'd Christ an Impostor and would have crucified him again if he had been alive that is they consented to his death by believing that he suffer'd justly This is the case here described and cannot be drawn to any thing else but its parallel that is a malicious renouncing charity or holy life as these men did the faith to both which they had made their solemn vows in Baptism but this can no way be
appetites of the body and its desires whether reasonable or excessive and though these things were not direct sins to us in their natural abode and first principle yet they are proper inherent miseries and principles of sin to us in their emanation But from this state Christ came to redeem us all by his grace and by his spirit by his life and by his death by his Doctrine and by his Sacraments by his Promises and by his Revelations by his Resurrection and by his Ascension by his Interceding for us and Judging of us and if this be not a conjugation of glorious things great enough to amaze us and to merit from us all our services and all our love and all the glorifications of God I am sure nothing can be added to it by any supposed need of which we have no revelation There is as much done for us as we could need and more than we could ask Nempe quod optanti Divûm promittere nemo Auderet volvenda dies en attulit ultro Vivite foelices animae quibus est fortuna peracta Jam sua The meaning of which words I render or at least recompence with the verse of a Psalm To thee O Lord I 'le pay my vow My knees in thanks to thee shall bow For thou my life keep'st from the grave And dost my feet from falling save That with the living in thy sight I may enjoy eternal light For thus what Ahasuerus said to Ester Veteres literas muta Change the old Letters is done by the birth of our Blessed Saviour Eva is changed into Ave and although it be true what Bensirach said From the woman is the beginning of sin and by her we all die yet it is now changed by the birth of our Redeemer From a woman is the beginning of our restitution and in him we all live Thus are all the four quarters of the World renewed by the second Adam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The East West North and South are represented in the second Adam as well as the first and rather and to better purposes because if sin did abound Grace shall super-abound I have now Madam given to you such accounts as I hope being added to my other Papers may satisfie not only your Ladiship but those to whom this account may be communicated I shall only now beg your patience since you have been troubled with Questions and enquiries and objections and little murmurs to hear my answers to such of them as have been brought to me 1. I am complained of that I would trouble the World with a new thing which let it be never so true yet unless it were very useful will hardly make recompence for the trouble I put the world to in this inquiry I answer that for the newness of it I have already given accounts that the Opinions which I impugne as they are no direct parts of the Article of Original sin so they are newer than the truth which I have asserted But let what I say seem as new as the Reformation did when Luther first preached against Indulgences the pretence of Novelty did not and we say ought not to have affrighted him and therefore I ought also to look to what I say that it be true and the truth will prove its age But to speak freely Madam though I have a great reverence for Antiquity yet it is the prime antiquity of the Church the Ages of Martyrs and Holiness that I mean and I am sure that in them my opinion hath much more warrant than the contrary But for the descending Ages I give that veneration to the great names of them that went before us which themselves gave to their Predecessors I honour their memory I read their Books I imitate their piety I examine their arguments for therefore they did write them and where the reasons of the Moderns and theirs seem equal I turn the balance on the elder side and follow them but where a scruple or a grain of reason is evidently in the other balance I must follow that Nempe qui ante nos ista moverunt non Domini nostri sed Duces sunt Seneca Ep. 33. They that taught of this Article before me are good guides but no Lords and Masters for I must acknowledge none upon earth for so am I commanded by my Master that is in Heaven and I remember what we were taught in Palingenius when we were boys Quicquid Aristoteles vel quivis dicat eorum Dicta nihil moror à vero cum fortè recedunt Saepe graves magnosque viros famâque verendos Errare labi contingit plurima secum Ingenia in tenebras consueti nominis alti Authores ubi connivent deducere easdem If Aristotle be deceiv'd and say that 's true What nor himself nor others ever knew I leave his text and let his Scholars talk Till they be hoarse or weary in their walk When wise men erre though their fame ring like Bells I scape a danger when I leave their spells For although they that are dead some Ages before we were born have a reverence due to them yet more is due to truth that shall never die and God is not wanting to our industry any more than to theirs but blesses every Age with the understanding of his truths Aetatibus omnibus omnibus hominibus communis sapientia est nec illam ceu peculium licet antiquitati gratulari All Ages and all men have their advantages in their enquiries after truth neither is wisdom appropriate to our Fathers And because even wise men may be deceived and therefore that when I find it or suppose it so for that 's all one as to me and my duty I must go after truth where-ever it is certainly it will be less expected from me to follow the popular noises and the voices of the people who are not to teach us but to be taught by us and I believe my self to have reason to complain when men are angry at a doctrine because it is not commonly taught that is when they are impatient to be taught a truth because most men do already believe a lie Recti apud nos locum tenet error ubi publicus factus est so Seneca Epist. 123. complained in his time it is a strange title to truth which error can pretend for its being publick and we refuse to follow an unusual truth Quasi honestius sit quiafrequentius and indeed it were well to do so in those propositions which have no truth in them but what they borrow from mens opinions and are for nothing tolerable but that they are usual Object 2. But what necessity is there in my publication of this doctrine supposing it were true for all truths are not to be spoken at all times and if a truth gives offence it is better to let men alone than to disturb the peace I answer with the labouring mans Proverb a Penny-worth of ease is worth a Penny at any time and a little truth
to most men and all of it to some men would be ineffectuall yet was pleased to consign our duty that it might be a direction to them that would and a conviction and a Testimony against them that would not obey I thought it might not misbecome my duty and endeavours to plead for peace and charity and forgiveness and permissions mutuall although I had reason to believe that such is the iniquity of men and they so indisposed to receive such impresses that I had as good plow the Sands or till the Air as perswade such Doctrines which destroy mens interests and serve no end but the great end of a happy eternity and what is in order to it But because the events of things are in God's disposition and I knew them not and because if I had known my good purposes would be totally ineffectuall as to others yet my own designation and purposes would be of advantage to myself who might from God's mercy expect the retribution which he is pleased to promise to all pious intendments I resolved to encounter with all Objections and to doe something to which I should be determined by the consideration of the present Distemperatures and necessities by my own thoughts by the Questions and Scruples the Sects and names the interests and animosities which at this day and for some years past have exercised and disquieted Christendom Thus far I discours'd myself into imployment and having come thus far I knew not how to get farther for I had heard of a great experience how difficult it was to make Brick without Straw and here I had even seen my design blasted in the bud and I despaired in the Calends of doing what I purposed in the Ides before For I had no Books of my own here nor any in the voicinage and but that I remembred the result of some of those excellent Discourses I had heard your Lordship make when I was so happy as in private to gather up what your temperance and modesty forbids to be publick I had come in praelia inermis and like enough might have far'd accordingly I had this onely advantage besides that I have chosen a subject in which if my own reason does not abuse me I needed no other books or aids then what a man carries with him on horseback I mean the common principles of Christianity and those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which men use in the transactions of the ordinary occurrences of civil society and upon the strength of them and some other collateral assistances I have run through it utcunque and the sum of the following Discourses is nothing but the sense of these words of Scripture That since we know in part and prophesie in part and that now we see through a glass darkly we should not despise or contemn persons not so knowing as ourselves but him that is weak in the faith we should receive but not to doubtfull disputations therefore certainly to charity and not to vexations not to those which are the idle effects of impertinent wranglings And provided they keep close to the foundation which is Faith and Obedience let them build upon this foundation matter more or less precious yet if the foundation be intire they shall be saved with or without loss And since we profess ourselves servants of so meek a Master and Disciples of so charitable an Institute Let us walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called with all lowliness and meekness with long-suffering forbearing one another in love for this is the best endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit when it is fast tied in the bond of peace And although it be a duty of Christianity that we all speak the same thing that there be no divisions among us but that we be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgement yet this unity is to be estimated according to the unity of Faith in things necessary in matters of Creed and Articles fundamental for as for other things it is more to be wished then to be hoped for There are some doubtfull Disputations and in such the Scribe the Wise the Disputer of this world are most commonly very far from certainty and many times from truth There are diversity of perswasions in matters adiaphorous as meats and drinks and holy days c. and both parties the affirmative and the negative affirm and deny with innocence enough for the observer and he that observes not intend both to God and God is our common Master we are all fellow-servants and not the judge of each other in matters of conscience or doubtfull Disputation and every man that hath faith must have it to himself before God but no man must either in such matters judge his brother or set him at nought but let us follow after the things which make for peace and things wherewith one may edifie another And the way to doe that is not by knowledge but by charity for knowledge puffeth up but charity edifieth And since there is not in every man the same knowledge but the consciences of some are weak as my liberty must not be judged of another man's weak conscience so must not I please myself so much in my right opinion but I must also take order that his weak conscience be not offended or despised for no man must seek his own but every man another's wealth And although we must contend earnestly for the Faith yet above all things we must put on charity which is the bond of perfectness And therefore this contention must be with arms fit for the Christian warfare the sword of the Spirit and the shield of Faith and preparation of the Gospel of peace in stead of shoes and a helmet of salvation but not with other arms for a Church-man must not be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a striker for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual and the persons that use them ought to be gentle and easie to be intreated and we must give an account of our faith to them that ask us with meekness and humility for so is the will of God that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men These and thousands more to the same purpose are the Doctrines of Christianity whose sense and intendment I have prosecuted in the following Discourse being very much displeased that so many Opinions and new Doctrines are commenc'd among us but more troubled that every man that hath an Opinion thinks his own and other mens Salvation is concern'd in its maintenance but most of all that men should be persecuted and afflicted for disagreeing in such Opinions which they cannot with sufficient grounds obtrude upon others necessarily because they cannot propound them infallibly and because they have no warrant from Scripture so to doe For if I shall tie other men to believe my Opinion because I think I have a place of Scripture which
Ages in which as they in all probability did differ from the apprehensions of the former Centuries so it is certain there were differing learnings other fancies divers representments and judgments of men depending upon circumstances which the first Ages knew and the following Ages did not and therefore the Catalogues were drawn with some truth but less certainty as appears in their differing about the Authors of some heresies several opinions imputed to the same and some put in the roll of Hereticks by one which the other left out which to me is an Argument that the Collectors were determined not by the sence and sentence of the three first Ages but by themselves and some circumstances about them which to reckon for Hereticks which not And that they themselves were the prime Judges or perhaps some in their own Age together with them but there was not any sufficient external judicatory competent to declare heresy that by any publick or sufficient sentence or acts of Court had furnished them with warrant for their Catalogues And therefore they are no Argument sufficient that the first Ages of the Church which certainly were the best did much recede from that which I shewed to be the sence of the Scripture and the practice of the Apostles they all contented themselves with the Apostles Creed as the rule of the Faith and therefore were not forward to judge of heresy but by analogie to their rule of Faith And those Catalogues made after these Ages are not sufficient Arguments that they did otherwise but rather of the weakness of some persons or of the spirit and genius of the Age in which the Compilers lived in which the device of calling all differing opinions by the name of heresies might grow to be a design to serve ends and to promote interests as often as an act of zeal and just indignation against evil persons destroyers of the Faith and corrupters of manners 22. For what ever private mens opinions were yet till the Nicene Council the rule of Faith was intire in the Apostles Creed and provided they retained that easily they broke not the unity of Faith however differing opinions might possibly commence in such things in which a liberty were better suffered than prohibited with a breach of charity And this appears exactly in the Question between S. Cyprian of Carthage and Stephen Bishop of Rome in which one instance it is easie to see what was lawful and safe for a wise and good man and yet how others began even then to be abused by that temptation which since hath invaded all Christendome S. Cyprian rebaptized Hereticks and thought he was bound so to doe calls a Synod in Africk as being Metropolitan and confirms his opinion by the consent of his Suffragans and Brethren but still with so much modesty that if any man was of another opinion he judged him not but gave him that liberty that he desired himself Stephen Bishop of Rome grows angry Excommunicates the Bishops of Asia and Africa that in divers Synods had consented to rebaptization and without peace and without charity condemns them for Hereticks Indeed here was the rarest mixture and conjunction of unlikelihoods that I have observed Here was error of opinion with much modesty and sweetness of temper on one side and on the other an over-active and impetuous zeal to attest a truth It uses not to be so for errour usually is supported with confidence and truth suppressed and discountenanced by indifferency But that it might appear that the errour was not the sin but the uncharitableness Stephen was accounted a zelous and furious person and S. Cyprian though deceived yet a very good man and of great sanctity For although every errour is to be opposed yet according to the variety of errours so is there variety of proceedings If it be against Faith that is a destruction of any part of the foundation it is with zeal to be resisted and we have for it an Apostolical warrant contend earnestly for the Faith but then as these things recede farther from the foundation our certainty is the less and their necessity not so much and therefore it were very fit that our confidence should be according to our evidence and our zeal according to our confidence and our confidence should then be the Rule of our Communion and the lightness of an Article should be considered with the weight of a precept of charity And therefore there are some errours to be reproved rather by a private friend than a publick censure and the persons of the men not avoided but admonished and their Doctrine rejected not their Communion few opinions are of that malignity which are to be rejected with the same exterminating spirit and confidence of aversation with which the first Teachers of Christianity condemned Ebion Manes and Corinthus and in the condemnation of Hereticks the personal iniquity is more considerable than the obliquity of the doctrine not for the rejection of the Article but for censuring the persons and therefore it is the piety of the man that excused S. Cyprian which is a certain Argument that it is not the opinion but the impiety that condemns and makes the Heretick And this was it which Vincentius Lirinensis said in this very case of S. Cyprian Vnius ejusdem opinionis mirum videri potest judicamus authores Catholicos sequaces haereticos Excusamus Magistros condemnamus Scholasticos Qui scripserunt libros sunt haeredes Coeli quorum librorum defensores detruduntur ad infernum Which saying if we confront against the saying of Salvian condemning the first Authors of the Arrian Sect and acquitting the Followers we are taught by these two wise men that an errour is not it that sends a man to Hell but he that begins the heresy and is the author of the Sect he is the man marked out to ruine and his Followers scaped when the Heresiarch commenced the errour upon pride and ambition and his Followers went after him in simplicity of their heart and so it was most commonly but on the contrary when the first man in the opinion was honestly and invincibly deceived as S. Cyprian was and that his Scholars to maintain their credit or their ends maintain'd the opinion not for the excellency of the reason perswading but for the benefit and accrewments or peevishness as did the Donatists qui de Cypriani authoritate sibi carnaliter blandiuntur as S. Austin said of them then the Scholars are the Hereticks and the master is a Catholick For his errour is not the heresy formally and an erring person may be a Catholick A wicked person in his errour becomes heretick when the good man in the same errour shall have all the rewards of Faith For what ever an ill man believes if he therefore believe it because it serves his own ends be his belief true or false the man hath an heretical mind for to serve his own ends his mind is prepared to believe
a lie But a good man that believes what according to his light and upon the use of his moral industry he thinks true whether he hits upon the right or no because he hath a mind desirous of truth and prepared to believe every truth is therefore acceptable to God because nothing hindred him from it but what he could not help his misery and his weakness which being imperfections meerly natural which God never punishes he stands fair for a blessing of his morality which God always accepts So that now if Stephen had followed the example of God Almighty or retained but the same peaceable spirit which his Brother of Carthage did he might with more advantage to truth and reputation both of wisdom and piety have done his duty in attesting what he believed to be true for we are as much bound to be zealous pursuers of peace as earnest contenders for the Faith I am sure more earnest we ought to be for the peace of the Church than for an Article which is not of the Faith as this Question of rebaptization was not for S. Cyprian died in belief against it and yet was a Catholick and a Martyr for the Christian Faith 23. The summe is this S. Cyprian did right in a wrong cause as it hath been since judged and Stephen did ill in a good cause as far then as piety and charity is to be perferred before a true opinion so far is S. Cyprian's practice a better precedent for us and an example of primitive sanctity than the zeal and indiscretion of Stephen S. Cyprian had not learned to forbid to any one a liberty of prophesying or interpretation if he transgressed not the foundation of Faith and the Creed of the Apostles 24. Well thus it was and thus it ought to be in the first Ages the Faith of Christendom rested still upon the same foundation and the judgements of heresies were accordingly or were amiss but the first great violation of this truth was when General Councils came in and the Symbols were enlarged and new Articles were made as much of necessity to be believed as the Creed of the Apostles and damnation threatned to them that did dissent and at last the Creeds multiplied in number and in Articles and the liberty of prophesying began to be something restrained 25. And this was of so much the more force and efficacy because it began upon great reason and in the first instance with success good enough For I am much pleased with the enlarging of the Creed which the Council of Nice made because they enlarged it to my sence but I am non sure that others are satisfied with it While we look upon the Articles they did determine we see all things well enough but there are some wise personages consider it in all circumstances and think the Church had been more happy if she had not been in some sence constrained to alter the simplicity of her faith and make it more curious and articulate so much that he had need be a subtle man to understand the very words of the new determinations 26. For the first Alexander Bishop of Alexandria in the presence of his Clergy entreats somewhat more curiously of the secret of the mysterious Trinity and Unity so curiously that Arius who was a Sophister too subtle as it afterward appeared misunderstood him and thought he intended to bring in the heresy of Sabellius For while he taught the Unity of the Tritity either he did it so inartificially or so intricately that Arius thought he did not distinguish the persons when the Bishop intended only the unity of nature Against this Arius furiously drives and to confute Sabellius and in him as he thought the Bishop distinguishes the natures too and so to secure the Article of the Trinity destroyes the Unity It was the first time the Question was disputed in the world and in such mysterious niceties possibly every wise man may understand something but few can understand all and therefore suspect what they understand not and are furiously zealous for that part of it which they do perceive Well it happened in these as always in such cases in things men understand not they are most impetuous and because suspicion is a thing infinite in degrees for it hath nothing to determine it a suspicious person is ever most violent for his fears are worse than the thing feared because the thing is limited but his fears are not so that upon this grew contentious on both sides and tumultuous rayling and reviling each other and then the Laity were drawn into parts and the Meletians abetted the wrong part and the right part fearing to be overborn did any thing that was next at hand to secure it self Now then they that lived in that Age that understood the men that saw how quiet the Church was before this stirre how miserably rent now what little benefit from the Question what schism about it gave other censures of the business than we since have done who only look upon the Article determined with truth and approbation of the Church generally since that time But the Epistle of Constantine to Alexander and Arius tells the truth and chides them both for commencing the Question Alexander for broaching it Arius for taking it up and although this be true that it had been better for the Church it never had begun yet being begun what is to be done in it of this also in that admirable Epistle we have the Emperours judgment I suppose not without the advice and privity of Hosius Bishop of Corduba whom the Emperour loved and trusted much and imployed in the delivery of the Letters For first he calls it a certain vain piece of a Question ill begun and more unadvisedly published a Question which no Law or Ecclesiastical Canon defineth a fruitless contention the product of idle brains a matter so nice so obscure so intricate that it was neither to be explicated by the Clergy nor understood by the people a dispute of words a doctrine inexplicable but most dangerous when taught lest it introduce discord or blasphemy and therefore the Objector was rash and the Answerer unadvised for it concerned not the substance of Faith or the worship of God nor any chief commandment of Scripture and therefore why should it be the matter of discord For though the matter be grave yet because neither necessary nor explicable the contention is trifling and toyish And therefore as the Philosophers of the same Sect though differing in explication of an opinion yet more love for the unity of their Profession than disagree for the difference of opinion So should Christians believing in the same God retaining the same Faith having the same hopes opposed by the same enemies not fall at variance upon such disputes considering our understandings are not all alike and therefore neither can our opinions in such mysterious Articles So that the matter being of no great importance but vain and a
not become a precedent to others lest the inconveniences of multiplying more Articles upon a great pretence of reason as then make the act of the Nicene Fathers in straightning Prophesying and enlarging the Creed become accidentally an inconvenience The first restraint although if it had been complained of might possibly have been better considered of yet the inconvenience is not visible till it comes by way of precedent to usher in more It is like an arbitrary power which although by the same reason it take six pence from the subject it may take a hundred pound and then a thousand and then all yet so long as it is within the first bounds the inconvenience is not so great but when it comes to be a precedent or argument for more then the first may justly be complained of as having in it that reason in the principle which brought the inconvenience in the sequel and we have seen very ill consequences from innocent beginnings 34. And the inconveniences which might possibly arise from this precedent those wise Personages also did foresee and therefore although they took liberty in Nice to add some Articles or at least more explicitely to declare the first Creed yet they then would have all the world to rest upon that and go no farther as believing that to be sufficient Saint Athanasius declares their opinion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Faith which the Fathers there confessed was sufficient for the refutation of all impiety and the establishment of all Faith in Christ and true Religion And therefore there was a famous Epistle written by Zeno the Emperour called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Epistle of reconciliation in which all disagreeing interests are entreated to agree in the Nicene Symbol and a promise made upon that condition to communicate with all other Sects adding withal that the Church should never receive any other Symbol than that which was composed by the Nicene Fathers And however Honorius was condemned for a Monothelite yet in one of the Epistles which the sixth Synod alledged against him viz. the second he gave them counsel that would have done the Church as much service as the determination of the Article did for he advised them not to be curious in their disputings nor dogmatical in their determinations about that Question and because the Church was not used to dispute in that Question it were better to preserve the simplicity of Faith than to ensnare mens consciences by a new Article And when the Emperour Constantius was by his Faction engaged in a contrary practice the inconvenience and unreasonableness was so great that a prudent Heathen observed and noted it in this character of Constantius Christianam religionem absolutam simplicem N. B. anili superstitione confudit In quâ scrutandâ perplexiùs quà m in componendâ gratiùs excitavit dissidia quae progressa fusiùs aluit concertatione verborum dum ritum omnem ad suum trahere conatur arbitrium 35. And yet men are more led by Example than either by Reason or by Precept for in the Council of Constantinople one Article de novo integro was added viz. I believe one Baptism for the remission of sins and then again they were so confident that that Confession of Faith was so absolutely intire and that no man ever after should need to add any thing to the integrity of Faith that the Fathers of the Council of Ephesus pronounced Anathema to all those that should add any thing to the Creed of Constantinople And yet for all this the Church of Rome in a Synod at Gentilly added the clause of Filioque to the Article of the Procession of the holy Ghost and what they have done since all the World knows Exempla non consistunt sed quamvis in tenuem recepta tramitem latissimè evagandi sibi faciunt potestatem All men were perswaded that it was most reasonable the limits of Faith should be no more enlarged but yet they enlarged it themselves and bound others from doing it like an intemperate Father who because he knows he does ill himself enjoyns temperance to his Son but continues to be intemperate himself 36. But now if I should be questioned concerning the Symbol of Athanasius for we see the Nicene Symbol was the Father of many more some twelve or thirteen Symbols in the space of an hundred years I confess I cannot see that moderate sentence and gentleness of charity in his Preface and Conclusion as there was in the Nicene Creed Nothing there but damnation and perishing everlastingly unless the Article of the Trinity be believed as it is there with curiosity and minute particularities explained Indeed Athanasius had been soundly vexed on one side and much cryed up on the other and therefore it is not so much wonder for him to be so decretory and severe in his censure for nothing could more ascertain his friends to him and dis-repute his enemies than the belief of that damnatory Appendix but that does not justifie the thing For the Articles themselves I am most heartily perswaded of the truth of them and yet I dare not say all that are not so are irrevocably damn'd because citra hoc Symbolum the Faith of the Apostles Creed is intire and he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved that is he that believeth such a belief as is sufficient disposition to be baptized that Faith with the Sacrament is sufficient for heaven Now the Apostles Creed does one why therefore do not both intitle us to the promise Besides if it were considered concerning Athanasius Creed how many people understand it not how contrary to natural reason it seems how little the Scripture says of those curiosities of Explication and how Tradition was not clear on his side for the Article it self much less for those forms and minutes how himself is put to make an answer and excuse for the Fathers speaking in excuse of the Arrians at least so seemingly that the Arrians appealed to them for trial and the offer was declin'd and after all this that the Nicene Creed it self went not so far neither in Article nor Anathema nor Explication it had not been amiss if the final judgment had been left to Jesus Christ for he is appointed Judge of all the World and he shall judge the people righteously for he knows every truth the degree of every necessity and all excuses that do lessen or take away the nature or malice of a crime all which I think Athanasius though a very good man did not know so well as to warrant such a sentence And put case the heresie there condemned be damnable as it is damnable enough yet a man may maintain an opinion that is in it self damnable and yet he not knowing it so and being invincibly led into it may go to heaven his opinion shall burn and himself be saved But however I find no opinion in Scripture called damnable but what are impious in materiâ
Tradition descends upon us with unequal certainty it would be very unequal to require of us an absolute belief of every thing not written for fear we be accounted to slight Tradition Apostolical And since no thing can require our supreme assent but that which is truly Catholick and Apostolick and to such a Tradition is required as Irenaeus says the consent of all those Churches which the Apostles planted and where they did preside this topick will be of so little use in judging heresies that beside what is deposited in Scripture it cannot be proved in any thing but in the Canon of Scripture it self and as it is now received even in that there is some variety 8. And therefore there is wholly a mistake in this business for when the Fathers appeal to Tradition and with much earnestness and some clamour they call upon Hereticks to conform to or to be tryed by Tradition it is such a Tradition as delivers the fundamental points of Christianity which were also recorded in Scripture But because the Canon was not yet perfectly consign'd they called to that testimony they had which was the testimony of the Churches Apostolical whose Bishops and Priests being the Antistites religionis did believe and preach Christian Religion and conserve all its great mysteries according as they have been taught Irenaeus calls this a Tradition Apostolical Christum accepisse calicem dixisse sanguinem suum esse docuisse nodum oblationem novi Testamenti quam Ecclesia per Apostolos accipiens offert per totum mundum And the Fathers in these Ages confute Hereticks by Ecclesiastical Tradition that is they confront against their impious and blasphemous doctrines that Religion which the Apostles having taught to the Churches where they did preside their Successors did still preach and for a long while together suffered not the enemy to sow tares amongst their wheat And yet these doctrines which they called Traditions were nothing but such fundamental truths which were in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Irenaeus in Eusebius observes in the instance of Polycarpus and it is manifest by considering what heresies they fought against the heresies of Ebion Cerinthus Nicolaitans Valentinians Carpocratians persons that denied the Son of God the Unity of the Godhead that preached impurity that practised Sorcery and Witch-craft And now that they did rather urge Tradition against them than Scripture was because the publick Doctrine of all the Apostolical Churches was at first more known and famous than many parts of the Scripture and because some Hereticks denied S. Lukes Gospel some received none but S. Matthews some rejected all S. Pauls Epistles and it was a long time before the whole Canon was consigned by universal testimony some Churches having one part some another Rome her self had not all so that in this case the Argument from Tradition was the most famous the most certain and the most prudent And now according to this rule they had more Traditions than we have and Traditions did by degrees lessen as they came to be written and their necessity was less as the knowledge of them was ascertained to us by a better Keeper of Divine Truths All that great mysteriousness of Christs Priest-hood the unity of his Sacrifice Christs Advocation and Intercession for us in Heaven and many other excellent Doctrines might very well be accounted Traditions before S. Pauls Epistle to the Hebrews was published to all the World but now they are written truths and if they had not possibly we might either have lost them quite or doubted of them as we doe of many other Traditions by reason of the insufficiency of the propounder And therefore it was that S. Peter took order that the Gospel should be Writ for he had promised that he would doe something which after his decease should have these things in remembrance He knew it was not safe trusting the report of men where the fountain might quickly run dry or be corrupted so insensibly that no cure could be found for it nor any just notice taken of it till it were incurable And indeed there is scarce any thing but what is written in Scripture that can with any confidence of Argument pretend to derive from the Apostles except rituals and manners of ministration but no doctrines or speculative mysteries are so transmitted to us by so clear a current that we may see a visible channel and trace it to the Primitive fountains It is said to be a Tradition Apostolical that no Priest should baptize without chrism and the command of the Bishop Suppose it were yet we cannot be obliged to believe it with much confidence because we have but little proof for it scarce any thing but the single testimony of S. Hierom. And yet if it were this is but a ritual of which in passing by I shall give that account That suppose this and many more rituals did derive clearly from Tradition Apostolical which yet but very few doe yet it is hard that any Church should be charged with crime for not observing such rituals because we see some of them which certainly did derive from the Apostles are expired and gone out in a desuetude such as are abstinence from bloud and from things strangled the coenobitick life of secular persons the colledge of widows to worship standing upon the Lords day to give milk and honey to the newly baptized and many more of the like nature now there having been no mark to distinguish the necessity of one from the indifferency of the other they are all alike necessary or alike indifferent If the former why does no Church observe them If the latter why does the Church of Rome charge upon others the shame of novelty for leaving of some Rites and Ceremonies which by her own practice we are taught to have no obligation in them but the adiaphorous S. Paul gave order that a Bishop should be the husband of one wife The Church of Rome will not allow so much other Churches allow more The Apostles commanded Christians to Fast on Wednesday and Friday as appears in their Canons the Church of Rome Fasts Friday and Saturday and not on Wednesday The Apostes had their Agapae or love Feasts we should believe them scandalous They used a kiss of charity in ordinary addresses the Church of Rome keeps it only in their Masse other Churches quite omit it The Apostles permitted Priests and Deacons to live in conjugal Society as appears in the 5. Can. of the Apostles which to them is an Argument who believe them such and yet the Church of Rome by no means will endure it nay more Michael Medina gives Testimony that of 84. Canons Apostolical which Clemens collected scarce six or eight are observed by the Latine Church and Peresius gives this account of it In illis contineri multa quae temporum corruptione non plenè observantu◠aliis pro temporis materiae qualitate aut obliteratis aut totius
determined we are never the nearer but may hug ourselves in an imaginary truth the certainty of finding truth out depending upon so many fallible and contingent circumstances And therefore the thing if it were true being so to no purpose it is to be presumed that God never gave a power so impertinently and from whence no benefit can accrue to the Christian Church for whose use and benefit if at all it must needs have been appointed 18. But I am too long in this impertinency If I were bound to call any man Master upon earth and to believe him upon his own affirmative and authority I would of all men least follow him that pretends he is infallible and cannot prove it For he that cannot prove it makes me as uncertain as ever and that he pretends to Infallibility makes him careless of using such means which will morally secure those wise persons who knowing their own aptness to be deceived use what endeavours they can to secure themselves from errour and so become the better and more probable guides 19. Well thus far we are come Although we are secured in Fundamental points from involuntary errour by the plain express and dogmaticall places of Scripture yet in other things we are not but may be invincibly mistaken because of the obscurity and difficulty in the controverted parts of Scripture by reason of the incertainty of the means of its Interpretation since Tradition is of an uncertain reputation and sometimes evidently false Councils are contradictory to each other and therefore certainly are equally deceived many of them and therefore all may and then the Popes of Rome are very likely to mislead us but cannot ascertain us of truth in matter of Question and in this world we believe in part and prophesy in part and this imperfection shall never be done away till we be translated to a more glorious state either then we must throw our chances and get truth by accident or predestination or else we must lie safe in a mutuall Toleration and private liberty of perswasion unless some other Anchor can be thought upon where we may fasten our floating Vessels and ride safely SECT VIII Of the disability of Fathers or Writers Ecclesiastical to determine our Questions with certainty and truth 1. THere are some that think they can determine all Questions in the world by two or three sayings of the Fathers or by the consent of so many as they will please to call a concurrent Testimony But this consideration will soon be at an end For if the Fathers when they are witnesses of Tradition do not always speak truth as it happened in the case of Papias and his numerous Followers for almost three Ages together then is their Testimony more improbable when they dispute or write Commentaries 2. The Fathers of the first Ages spake unitedly concerning divers Questions of secret Theology and yet were afterwards contradicted by one personage of great reputation whose credit had so much influence upon the world as to make the contrary opinion become popular why then may not we have the same liberty when so plain an uncertainty is in their perswasions and so great contrariety in their Doctrines But this is evident in the case of absolute Predestination which till Saint Austin's time no man preached but all taught the contrary and yet the reputation of this one excellent man altered the scene But if he might dissent from so general a Doctrine why may not we doe so too it being pretended that he is so excellent a precedent to be followed if we have the same reason He had no more Authority nor dispensation to dissent then any Bishop hath now And therefore Saint Austin hath dealt ingenuously and as he took this liberty to himself so he denies it not to others but indeed forces them to preserve their own liberty And therefore when Saint Hierom had a great minde to follow the Fathers in a point that he fansied and the best security he had was Patiaris me cum talibus errare Saint Austin would not endure it but answered his reason and neglected the Authority And therefore it had been most unreasonable that we should doe that now though in his behalf which he towards greater personages for so they were then at that time judged to be unreasonable It is a plain recession from Antiquity which was determined by the Council of Florence piorum animas purgatas c. mox in Coelum recipi intueri clarè ipsum Deum trinum unum sicuti est as who please to â—ry may see it dogmatically resolved to the contrary by Justin Martyr by Irenaeus by Origen by Saint Chrysostome Theodoret Arethas Caesariensis Euthymius who may answer for the Greek Church And it is plain that it was the opinion of the Greek Church by that great difficulty the Romans had of bringing the Greeks to subscribe to the Florentine Council where the Latines acted their master-piece of wit and strategem the greatest that hath been till the famous and superpolitick design of Trent And for the Latine Church Tertullian Saint Ambrose Saint Austin Saint Hilary Prudentius Lactantius Victorinus Martyr and Saint Bernard are known to be of opinion that the souls of the Saints are in abditis receptaculis exterioribus atriis where they expect the resurrection of their bodies and the glorification of their souls and though they all believe them to be happy yet they injoy not the beatifick Vision before the resurrection Now there being so full a consent of Fathers for many more may be added and the Decree of Pope John XXII besides who was so confident for his Decree that he commanded the University of Paris to swear that they would preach it and no other and that none should be promoted to degrees in Theology that did not swear the like as Occham Gerson Marsilius and Adrianus report since it is esteemed lawfull to dissent from all these I hope no man will be so unjust to press other men to consent to an Authority which he himself judges to be incompetent These two great instances are enough but if more were necessary I could instance in the opinion of the Chiliasts maintained by the second and third Centuries and disavowed ever since in the Doctrine of communicating Infants taught and practised as necessary by the fourth and fifth Centuries and detested by the Latine Church in all the following Ages in the variety of opinions concerning the very form of Baptism some keeping close to the institution and the words of its first sanction others affirming it to be sufficient if it be administred in nomine Christi particularly Saint Ambrose Pope Nicolas the First Ven. Bede and Saint Bernard besides some Writers of after-Ages as Hugo de Sancto Victore and the Doctors generally his contemporaries And it would not be inconsiderable to observe that if
that he hath been in great esteem with posterity And if that be all why the opinion of the following Ages shall be of more force then the opinion of the first Ages against whom Saint Austin in many things clearly did oppose himself I see no reason Or whether the first Ages were against him or no yet that he is approved by the following Ages is no better Argument for it makes his Authority not be innate but derived from the opinion of others and so to be precaria and to depend upon others who if they should change their opinions and such examples there have been many then there were nothing left to urge our consent to him which when it was at the best was onely this because he had the good fortune to be believed by them that came after he must be so still and because it was no Argument for the old Doctors before him this will not be very good in his behalf The same I say of any company of them I say not so of all of them it is to no purpose to say it for there is no Question this day in contestation in the explication of which all the old Writers did consent In the assignation of the Canon of Scripture they never did consent for six hundred years together and then by that time the Bishops had agreed indifferently well and but indifferently upon that they fell out in twenty more and except it be in the Apostles Creed and Articles of such nature there is nothing which may with any colour be called a consent much less Tradition Universal 4. But I will rather chuse to shew the uncertainty of this Topick by such an Argument which was not in the Fathers power to help such as makes no invasion upon their great reputation which I desire should be preserved as sacred as it ought For other things let who please reade M. Daillé du vray usage des Peres But I shall onely consider that the Writings of the Fathers have been so corrupted by the intermixture of Hereticks so many false books put forth in their names so many of their Writings lost which would more clearly have explicated their sense and at last an open profession made and a trade of making the Fathers speak not what themselves thought but what other men pleased that it is a great instance of God's providence and care of his Church that we have so much good preserved in the Writings which we receive from the Fathers and that all truth is not as clear gone as is the certainty of their great Authority and reputation 5. The publishing books with the inscription of great names began in Saint Paul's time for some had troubled the Church of Thessalonica with a false Epistle in Saint Paul's name against the inconvenience of which he arms them in 2 Thess. 2.1 And this encreased daily in the Church The Arians wrote an Epistle to Constantine under the name of Athanasius and the Eutychians wrote against Cyril of Alexandria under the name of Theodoret and of the Age in which the seventh Synod was kept Erasmus reports Libris falso celebrium virorum titulo commendatis scatere omnia It was then a publick business and a trick not more base then publick But it was more ancient then so and it is memorable in the books atributed to Saint Basil containing thirty Chapters De Spiritu Sancto whereof fifteen were plainly by another hand under the covert of Saint Basil as appears in the difference of the style in the impertinent digressions against the custome of that excellent man by some passages contradictory to others of Saint Basil by citing Meletius as dead before him who yet lived three years after him and by the very frame and manner of the discourse and yet it was so handsomly carried and so well served the purposes of men that it was indifferently quoted under the title of Saint Basil by many but without naming the number of Chapters and by Saint John Damascen in these words Basilius in opere triginta capitum de Spiritu Sancto ad Amphilochium and to the same purpose and in the number of 27 and 29 Chapters he is cited by Photius by Euthymius by Burchard by Zonaras Balsamon and Nicephorus But for this see more in Erasmus his Preface upon this book of Saint Basil. There is an Epistle goes still under the name of Saint Hierom ad Demetriadem virginem and is of great use in the Question of Predestination with its appendices and yet a very learned man 800 years agone did believe it to be written by a Pelagian and undertakes to confute divers parts of it as being high and confident Pelagianism and written by Julianus Episc. Eclanensis but Gregorius Ariminensis from Saint Austin affirms it to have been written by Pelagius himself I might instance in too many There is not any one of the Fathers who is esteemed Authour of any considerable number of books that hath escaped untouched But the abuse in this kind hath been so evident that now if any interessed person of any side be pressed with an Authority very pregnant against him he thinks to escape by accusing the Edition or the Authour or the hands it passed through or at last he therefore suspects it because it makes against him both sides being resolved that they are in the right the Authorities that they admit they will believe not to be against them and they which are too plainly against them shall be no Authorities And indeed the whole world hath been so much abused that every man thinks he hath reason to suspect whatsoever is against him that is what he pleaseth which proceeding onely produces this truth that there neither is nor can be any certainty nor very much probability in such Allegations 6. But there is a worse mischief then this besides those very many which are not yet discovered which like the pestilence destroys in the dark and grows into inconvenience more insensibly and more irremediably and that is corruption of particular places by inserting words and altering them to contrary senses a thing which the Fathers of the sixth General Synod complain'd of concerning the Constitutions of Saint Clement quibus jam olim ab iis qui à fide aliena sentiunt adulterina quaedam etiam à pietate aliena introducta sunt quae divinorum nobis Decretorum elegantem venustam speciem obscurârunt And so also have his Recognitions so have his Epistles been used if at least they were his at all particularly the fifth Decretall Epistle that goes under the name of Saint Clement in which community of Wives is taught upon the Authority of Saint Luke saying the first Christians had all things common if all things then Wives also says the Epistle a forgery like to have been done by some Nicolaitan or other impure person There is an Epistle of Cyril extant to Successus Bishop of Diocaesarea in which he relates
God but others that can judge at all must either chuse their Guides who shall judge for them and then they oftentimes doe the wisest and always save themselves a labour but then they chuse too or if they be persons of greater understanding then they are to chuse for themselves in particular what the others doe in general and by chusing their Guide and for this any man may be better trusted for himself then any man can be for another For in this case his own interest is most concerned and ability is not so necessary as honesty which certainly every man will best preserve in his own case and to himself and if he does not it is he that must smart for 't and it is not required of us not to be in errour but that we endeavour to avoid it 2. He that follows his Guide so far as his Reason goes along with him or which is all one he that follows his own Reason not guided onely by natural arguments but by Divine revelation and all other good means hath great advantages over him that gives himself wholly to follow any humane Guide whatsoever because he follows all their reasons and his own too he follows them till Reason leaves them or till it seems so to him which is all one to his particular for by the confession of all sides an erroneous Conscience binds him when a right Guide does not bind him But he that gives himself up wholly to a Guide is oftentimes I mean if he be a discerning person forced to doe violence to his own understanding and to lose all the benefit of his own discretion that he may reconcile his Reason to his Guide And of this we see infinite inconveniences in the Church of Rome for we find persons of great understanding oftentimes so amused with the Authority of their Church that it is pity to see them sweat in answering some objections which they know not how to doe but yet believe they must because the Church hath said it So that if they reade study pray search records and use all the means of art and industry in the pursuit of truth it is not with a resolution to follow that which shall seem truth to them but to confirm what before they did believe and if any Argument shall seem unanswerable against any Article of their Church they are to take it for a temptation not for an illumination and they are to use it accordingly which makes them make the Devil to be the Author of that which God's Spirit hath assisted them to find in the use of lawful means and the search of truth And when the Devil of falshood is like to be cast out by God's Spirit they say that it is through Beelzebub which was one of the worst things that ever the Pharisees said or did And was it not a plain stifling of the just and reasonable demands made by the Emperour by the Kings of France and Spain and by the ablest Divines among them which was used in the Council of Trent when they demanded the restitution of Priests to their liberty of Marriage the use of the Chalice the service in the Vulgar tongue and these things not onely in pursuance of Truth but for other great and good ends even to take away an infinite scandal and a great Schism And yet when they themselves did profess it and all the world knew these reasonable demands were denied merely upon a politick consideration yet that these things should be framed into Articles and Decrees of Faith and they for ever after bound not onely not to desire the same things but to think the contrary to be Divine truths never was Reason made more a slave or more useless Must not all the world say either they must be great hypocrites or doe great violence to their understanding when they not onely cease from their claim but must also believe it to be unjust If the use of their Reason had not been restrained by the tyranny and imperiousness of their Guide what the Emperour and the Kings and their Theologues would have done they can best judge who consider the reasonableness of the demand and the unreasonableness of the deniall But we see many wise men who with their Optandum esset ut Ecclesia licentiam daret c. proclaim to all the world that in some things they consent and do not consent and do not heartily believe what they are bound publickly to profess and they themselves would clearly see a difference if a contrary Decree should be framed by the Church they would with an infinite greater confidence rest themselves in other propositions then what they must believe as the case now stands and they would find that the Authority of a Church is a prejudice as often as a free and modest use of Reason is a temptation 3. God will have no man pressed with another's inconveniences in matters spiritual and intellectual no man's Salvation to depend upon another and every tooth that eats sour grapes shall be set on edge for itself and for none else and this is remarkable in that saying of God by the Prophet If the Prophet ceases to tell my people of their sins and leads them into errour the people shall die in their sins and the bloud of them I will require at the hands of that Prophet meaning that God hath so set the Prophets to guide us that we also are to follow them by a voluntary assent by an act of choice and election For although accidentally and occasionally the sheep may perish by the shepherd's fault yet that which hath the chiefest influence upon their final condition is their own act and election and therefore God hath so appointed Guides to us that if we perish it may be accounted upon both our scores upon our own and the Guides too which says plainly that although we are intrusted to our Guides yet we are intrusted to ourselves too Our Guides must direct us and yet if they fail God hath not so left us to them but he hath given us enough to ourselves to discover their failings and our own duties in all things necessary And for other things we must doe as well as we can But it is best to follow our Guides if we know nothing better but if we do it is better to follow the pillar of fire then a pillar of cloud though both possibly may lead to Canaan But then also it is possible that it may be otherwise But I am sure if I doe my own best then if it be best to follow a Guide and if it be also necessary I shall be sure by God's grace and my own endeavour to get to it But if I without the particular ingagement of my own understanding follow a Guide possibly I may be guilty of extreme negligence or I may extinguish God's Spirit or doe violence to my own Reason And whether intrusting myself wholly with another be not a laying up my talent in
left to our liberty to judge that way that makes best demonstration of our piety and of our love to God and truth not that way that is always the best argument of an excellent understanding for this may be a blessing but the other onely is a duty 6. And now that we are pitch'd upon that way which is most natural and reasonable in determination of ourselves rather then of questions which are often indeterminable since right Reason proceeding upon the best grounds it can viz. of Divine revelation and humane Authority and probability is our Guide stando in humanis and supposing the assistance of God's Spirit which he never denies them that fail not of their duty in all such things in which he requires truth and certainty it remains that we consider how it comes to pass that men are so much deceived in the use of their Reason and choice of their Religion and that in this account we distinguish those accidents which make errour innocent from those which make it become a Heresie SECT XI Of some causes of Errour in the exercise of Reason which are inculpate in themselves 1. THen I consider that there are a great many inculpable causes of Errour which are arguments of humane imperfections not convictions of a sin And First The variety of humane understandings is so great that what is plain and apparent to one is difficult and obscure to another one will observe a consequent from a common Principle and another from thence will conclude the quite contrary When S. Peter saw the Vision of the sheet let down with all sorts of beasts in it and a voice saying Surge Petre macta manduca if he had not by a particular assistance been directed to the meaning of the Holy Ghost possibly he might have had other apprehensions of the meaning of that Vision for to myself it seems naturally to speak nothing but the abolition of the Mosaicall Rites and the restitution of us to that part of Christian liberty which consists in the promiscuous eating of meats and yet besides this there want not some understandings in the world to whom these words seem to give S. Peter a power to kill Hereticall Princes Methinks it is a strange understanding that makes such extractions but Bozius and Baronius did so But men may understand what they please especially when they are to expound Oracles It was an argument of some wit but of singularity of understanding that happened in the great contestation between the Missals of S. Ambrose and S. Gregory The lot was thrown and God made to be Judge so as he was tempted to a Miracle to answer a question which themselves might have ended without much trouble The two Missals were laid upon the Altar and the Church-door shut and sealed By the morrow-Mattins they found Saint Gregorie's Missal torn in pieces saith the story and thrown about the Church but S. Ambrose's opened and laid upon the Altar in a posture of being read If I had been to judge of the meaning of this Miracle I should have made no scruple to have said it had been the will of God that the Missal of Saint Ambrose which had been anciently used and publickly tried and approved of should still be read in the Church and that of Gregory let alone it being torn by an Angelicall hand as an Argument of its imperfection or of the inconvenience of innovation But yet they judg'd it otherwise for by the tearing and scattering about they thought it was meant it should be used over all the world and that of S. Ambrose read onely in the Church of Milain I am more satisfied that the former was the true meaning then I am of the truth of the story But we must suppose that And now there might have been eternall disputings about the meaning of the Miracle and nothing left to determine when two fancies are the litigants and the contestations about probabilities hinc indé And I doubt not this was one cause of so great variety of Opinions in the Primitive Church when they proved their several Opinions which were mysterious Questions of Christian Theologie by testimonies out of the obscurer Prophets out of the Psalms and Canticles as who please to observe their arguments of discourse and actions of Council shall perceive they very much used to doe Now although mens understandings be not equal and that it is fit the best understandings should prevail yet that will not satisfie the weaker understandings because all men will not think that another understanding is better then his own at least not in such a particular in which with fancy he hath pleased himself But commonly they that are least able are most bold and the more ignorant is the more confident therefore it is but reason if he would have another bear with him he also should bear with another and if he will not be prescribed to neither let him prescribe to others And there is the more reason in this because such modesty is commonly to be desired of the more imperfect for wise men know the ground of their perswasion and have their confidence proportionable to their evidence others have not but over-act their trifles And therefore I said it is but a reasonable demand that they that have the least reason should not be most imperious and for others it being reasonable enough for all their great advantages upon other men they will be soon perswaded to it For although wise men might be bolder in respect of the persons of others less discerning yet they know there are but few things so certain as to create much boldness and confidence of assertion If they do not they are not the men I take them for 2. Secondly When an action or Opinion is commenc'd with zeal and piety against a known vice o◠a vicious person commonly all the mistakes of its proceeding are made sacred by the holiness of the principle and so abuses the perswasions of good people that they make it as a Characteristick note to distinguish good persons from bad and then whatever errour is consecrated by this means is therefore made the more lasting because it is accounted holy and the persons are not easily accounted Hereticks because they erred upon a pious principle There is a memorable instance in one of the greatest Questions of Christendome viz. concerning Images For when Philippicus had espied the Images of the six first Synods upon the front of a Church he caused them to be pulled down now he did it in hatred of the sixth Synod for he being a Monothelite stood condemned by that Synod The Catholicks that were zealous for the sixth Synod caused the Images and representments to be put up again and then sprung the Question concerning the lawfulness of Images in Churches Philippicus and his party strived by suppressing Images to doe disparagement to the sixth Synod the Catholicks to preserve the honour of the sixth Synod would uphold Images And then the
act of which by nature they have the faculty so if it did yet Baptism is not the means of conveying the Holy Ghost For that which Peter says Be baptized and ye shall receive the holy Ghost signifies no more then this First be baptized and then by imposition of the Apostles hands which was another mysterie and rite ye shall receive the Promise of the Father And this is nothing but an insinuation of the rite of Confirmation as is to this sense expounded by divers ancient Authours and in ordinary ministery the effect of it is not bestowed upon any unbaptized persons for it is in order next after Baptism and upon this ground Peter's Argument in the case of Cornelius was concluding enough à majori ad minus thus the Holy Ghost was bestowed upon him and his family which gift by ordinary ministery was consequent to Baptism not as the effect is to the cause or to the proper instrument but as a consequent is to an antecedent in a chain of causes accidentally and by positive institution depending upon each other God by that miracle did give testimony that the persons of the men were in great dispositions towards Heaven and therefore were to be admitted to those Rites which are the ordinary inlets into the Kingdome of Heaven But then from hence to argue that wherever there is a capacity of receiving the same grace there also the same sign is to be ministred and from hence to infer Paedo baptism is an Argument very fallacious upon several grounds First because Baptism is not the sign of the Holy Ghost but by another mystery it was conveyed ordinarily and extraordinarily it was conveyed independently from any mystery and so the Argument goes upon a wrong supposition Secondly if the supposition were true the proposition built upon it is false for they that are capable of the same grace are not always capable of the same sign for women under the Law of Moses although they were capable of the righteousness of Faith yet they were not capable of the sign of Circumcision For God does not always convey his graces in the same manner but to some mediately to others immediately and there is no better instance in the world of it then the gift of the Holy Ghost which is the thing now instanced in this contestation for it is certain in Scripture that it was ordinarily given by imposition of hands and that after Baptism and when this came into an ordinary ministry it was called by the ancient Church Chrism or Confirmation but yet it was given sometimes without imposition of hands as at Pentecost and to the family of Cornelius sometimes before Baptism sometimes after sometimes in conjunction with it 22. And after all this lest these Arguments should not ascertain their Cause they fall on complaining against God and will not be content with God unless they may baptize their children but take exceptions that God did more for the children of the Jews But why so Because God made a Covenant with their children actually as Infants and consigned it by Circumcision Well so he did with our children too in their proportion He made a Covenant of spiritual Promises on his part and spiritual and real services on ours and this pertains to children when they are capable but made with them as soon as they are alive and yet not so with the Jews babes for as their Rite consigned them actually so it was a national and temporal blessing and Covenant as a separation of them from the portion of the Nations a marking them for a peculiar people and therefore while they were in the wilderness and separate from the commixture of all people they were not at all circumcised but as that Rite did seal the righteousness of Faith so by virtue of its adherencie and remanency in their flesh it did that work when the children came to age But in Christian Infants the case is otherwise for the new Covenant being established upon better Promises is not onely to better purposes but also in distinct manner to be understood when their spirits are as receptive of a spiritual act or impress as the bodies of Jewish children were of the sign of Circumcision then it is to be consigned But this business is quickly at an end by saying that God hath done no less for ours then for their children for he will doe the mercies of a Father and Creatour to them and he did no more to the other But he hath done more to ours for he hath made a Covenant with them and built it upon Promises of the greatest concernment he did not so to them But then for the other part which is the main of the Argument that unless this mercy be consigned by Baptism as good not at all in respect of us because we want the comfort of it this is the greatest vanity in the world For when God hath made a Promise pertaining also to our children for so our Adversaries contend and we also acknowledge in its true sense shall not this promise this word of God be of sufficient truth certainty and efficacy to cause comfort unless we tempt God and require a sign of him May not Christ say to these men as sometime to the Jews A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign but no sign shall be given unto it But the truth on 't is this Argument is nothing but a direct quarrelling with God Almighty 23. Now since there is no strength in the Doctrinal part the practice and precedents Apostolical and Ecclesiastical will be of less concernment if they were true as is pretended because actions Apostolical are not always Rules for ever it might be fit for them to doe it pro loco tempore as divers others of their Institutions but yet no engagement past thence upon following Ages for it might be convenient at that time in the new spring of Christianity and till they had engaged a considerable party by that means to make them parties against the Gentiles Superstition and by way of pre-occupation to ascertain them to their own Sect when they came to be men or for some other reason not transmitted to us because the Question of fact itself is not sufficiently determined For the insinuation of that precept of baptizing all Nations of which Children certainly are a part does as little advantage as any of the rest because other parallel expressions of Scripture do determine and expound themselves to a sense that includes not all persons absolutely but of a capable condition as Adorate eum omnes gentes psallite Deo omnes nationes terrae and divers more 24. As for the conjecture concerning the family of Stephanus at the best it is but a conjecture and besides that it is not proved that there were children in the family yet if that were granted it follows not that they were baptized because by whole families in Scripture is meant all persons of reason and age within the
Testament they dishonour and make a pageantry of the Sacrament they ineffectually represent a sepulture into the death of Christ and please themselves in a sign without effect making Baptism like the fig-tree in the Gospel full of leaves but no fruit and they invocate the Holy Ghost in vain doing as if one should call upon him to illuminate a stone or a tree 24. Thus far the Anabaptists may argue and men have disputed against them with so much weakness and confidence that we may say of them as S. Gregory Nazianzen observes of the case of the Church in his time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. They have been encouraged in their errour more by the accidental advantages we have given them by our weak arguings then by any excellency of their wit and much less any advantage of their cause It concerned not the present design of this Book to enquire whether these men speak true or no for if they speak probably or so as may deceive them that are no fools it is argument sufficient to perswade us to pity the erring man that is deceived without design and that is all that I intended But because all men will not understand my purpose or think my meaning innocent unless I answer the Arguments which I have made or gathered for mine and their adversaries although I say it be nothing to the purpose of my Book which was onely to represent that even in a wrong cause there may be invincible causes of deception to innocent and unfortunate persons and of this truth the Anabaptists in their question of Paedo baptism is a very great instance yet I will rather chuse to offend the rules of Art then not to fulfill all the requisites of charity I have chosen therefore to adde some animadversions upon the Anabaptists plea upon all that is material and which can have any considerable effect in the Question For though I have used this art and stratagem of peace justly by representing the Enemie's strength to bring the other party to thoughts of charity and kind comportments yet I could not intend to discourage the right side or to make either a mutiny or defection in the Armies of Israel I do not as the Spies from Canaan say that these men are Anakims and the city-walls reach up to Heaven and there are giants in the Land I know they are not insuperable but they are like the blind and the lame set before a wall that a weak man can leap over and a single troup armed with wisedome and truth can beat all their guards But yet I think that he said well and wisely to Charles the fighting Duke of Burgundy that told him that the Switzers strength was not so to be despised but that an honourable peace and a Christian usage of them were better then a cruel and a bloudy war The event of that battel told all the world that no Enemy is to be despised and rendred desperate at the same time and that there are but few causes in the world but they do sometimes meet with witty Advocates in themselves put on such semblances of truth as will if not make the victory uncertain yet make peace more safe prudent mutual charity to be the best defence And First I do not pretend to say that every Argument brought by good men and wise in a righâ— cause must needs be demonstrative The Divinity of the eternal Son of God is a Truth of as great concernment and as great certainty as any thing that ever was disputed in the Christian Church and yet he that reads the writings of the Fathers and the Acts of Councils convened about that great Question will find that all the armour is not proof which is used in a holy War For that seems to one which is not so to another and when a man hath one sufficient reason to secure him and make him confident every thing seems to him to speak the same sense though to an adversary it does not for the one observes the similitude and pleaseth himself the other watches onely the dissonancies and gets advantage because one line of likeness will please a believing willing man but one will not do the work and where many dissimilitudes can be observed but one similitude it were better to let the shadow alone then hazard the substance And it is to be observed that Hereticks and misbelievers do apply themselves rather to disable truth then directly to establish their errour and every Argument they wrest from the hand of their adversaries is to them a double purchase it takes from the other and makes him less and makes himself greater the way to spoil a strong man is to take from him the armour in which he trusted and when this adversary hath espied a weak part in any discourse he presently concludes that the cause is no stronger and reckons his victories by the colours that he takes though they signified nothing to the strength of the cause And this is the main way of proceeding in this Question for they rather endeavour to shew that we cannot demonstrate our part of the Question then that they can prove theirs And as it is indeed easier to destroy then to build so it is more agreeable to the nature and to the design of Heresie and therefore it were well that in this and in other Qâ—stions where there are watchfull adversaries we should fight as Gideon did with three hundred hardy brave fellows that would stand against all violence rather then to make a noise with rams Horns and broken pitchers like the men at the siege of Jericho And though it is not to be expected that all Arguments should be demonstrative in a true cause yet it were well if the Generals of the Church which the Scripture affirms is terrible as an army with banners should not by sending out weak parties which are easily beaten weaken their own army and give confidence to the Enemy Secondly Although it is hard to prove a negative and it is not in many cases to be imposed upon a Litigant yet when the affirmative is received and practised whoever will disturb the actual perswasion must give his reason and offer proof for his own Doctrine or let me alone with mine For the reason why negatives are hard to prove is because they have no positive cause but as they have no being so they have no reason but then also they are first and before affirmatives that is such which are therefore to prevail because nothing can be said against them Darkness is before light and things are not before they are and though to prove that things are something must be said yet to prove they are not nothing is to be alledged but that they are not and no man can prove they are But when an affirmative hath entred and prevailed because no effect can be without some positive cause therefore this which came in upon some cause or other must not be