them hee is fain to argue very hard that their women ought their men ought not to be vailed at divine Service Concluding that if his reasons would not prevail the contentious must rest in this That wee have no such custome neither the Churches of God Why so if particular Churches be not tied to keep unity with the whole And by and by proposing another disorder in that they received not the Eucharist in commune poore and rich hee reproveth it as contrary to that which hee had delivered to them from the beginning Concluding that The rest will I set in order when I come So 2 Thess II. 25. Stand therefore brethren and hold fast the Traditions which yee have been taught either by word of mouth or by any letter of ours Neither can it be imagined that all Christians should be bound to heare the Apostles and not be bound to hold those things for Lawes to their conversation in maters of Religion which the Apostles should teach them to that purpose Of this nature is the decree at Jerusalem Acts XV. 20 28. that the then Churches of the Gentiles should abstain from things strangled and bloud as well as from fornication and the pollution of Idols For what is the ground or the purpose of it but to preserve them in unity with the Churches of Jews become Christians Of this nature is that blessing or Thanksgiving mentioned by S. Paul 1 Cor. XIV 16 17. 1 Tim. II. 1. being as I have showed in a Discourse of the Service of God at the Assemblies of the Church pag. 350-370 a form of Prayer or Thanksgiving delivered in substance by the Apostles for which the Sacrament of our Lords Supper hath been alwaies called the Eucharist because it is to be celebrated with it Of the same nature is tha order which S. James gives of praying for the sick anointing them with oile aswell for the forgivenesse of their sins as for the recovery of their bodily health James V. 14 15. Which I suppose no man will deny that it concernes all Churches alike If there be this evidence in the Scriptures for the beginnings of Church Law the practice of the Church from this beginning will afford much more Hee that would deny the Tradition of the Rule of Faith what will hee say to the Creed of the Apostles Not that I would have the words and syllables of it to containe whatsoever it is necessary for the salvation of a Christian to believe But because the Creed is not the words of the Creed but the sense and meaning of them together with that coherence and dependence of the parts thereof one upon and with another which the reasons and grounds of them inforce But first let it be understood that I make a difference between the Rule of Faith and the substance of Christianity Supposing Christianity to consist partly in mater of Faith partly in mater of maners Partly in things to be believed partly in things to be done though the Creed extend onely to mater of Faith There is nothing more evident in the practice of the whole Church before the world had admitted the profession of Christianity than this That there was a time allowed and required by the Church for those that professed themselves converted to believe the truth of Christianity to give trial of their conversation before they were admitted to Baptisme The Constitutions of the Apostles VIII 32. name three years but with this limitation that if any man demonstrate extraordinary zele to Christianity hee be received without so long trial Therefore if Clemens Alexandrinus require five it makes no difference For what marvail if several Churches at several times had several customes when as upon extraordinary occasions they were dispensable The Constitutions require extraordinary trial of those that had practised any sort of Magick judging by the experience of the times that it was hard to part with such superstitions It is enough for my purpose that during this time they might learn to behave themselves as Christians by conversing among Christians by coming to Church and bearing a part in the praises of God and hearing the Scriptures read and expounded And what is more notorious in the practice of the ancient Church than the difference between Missa Catechumenorum and Missa Fidelium Between that part of the Office of the Church which Pretenders to Christianity were admitted to or Hearers that is Scholars and Learners of it and that which was peculiar to Believers that is those that were Baptized and made Christians It is the designe of Clemens Alexandrinus his Paedagogus to show how the Word whether our Lord Christ or his Gospel is the Pedagogue of mankinde in bringing them to be Christians Not as wee mistake that word to signifie the Master of a School but as the fashion was then for men of quality to appoint a sonne a Governor to conduct him to School and home againe to attend on him at his exercises and upon all occasions to put him in minde how it might become him to behave himself and to report to his Father if hee proved untractable Thus hee maketh Pretenders to Christianity to be conducted by our Lord Christ and his Gospel in the conversation of Christians till they come to demand their Baptisme of the Church As it is manifest by the end of the Book where this Governor conducting his charge to the Church gives him up into his own hands so hee saith expresly as no more Governor of children but Master of men in the School of his Church Supposing then the point of maners and godly life to be part of the substance of Christianity it is evident that the Church alwaies acknowledged a certain Rule of Faith in that those who were thus prepared were alwaies taught their Creed that is required to repete it and heare it expounded by those whom the Church trusted for that purpose It is not my intent here to insist that the words of the Creed were delivered by the Apostles themselves or that the Rule of Baptisme delivered by our Lord in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is not a sufficient Symbole or cognizance for a Christian For what is there necessary to the salvation of all Christians that is not contained in the profession of him that desires to be baptized into this Faith But it is enough for my present purpose that it was alwaies requisite that whosoever is baptized should be instructed upon what termes hee is to expect to be saved by Christ and that which all were required to professe for that purpose to be the Rule of Faith For whether it may appeare that this or that is of that nature must come to trial though the question be only of the sense of the Creed supposing that the very words were delivered by the Apostles themselves For example It is not possible to render a reason of the coming of Christ not mentioning the fall of Adam nor of that not
will divide the Church unlesse an end be put But I say that the Authority of the Church can be no reason obliging or warranting to believe that for truth which cannot be reasonably deduced from the motives of our common faith onely it shall be a reason obliging and warranting to keep the peace of the Church by not scandalizing such determinations thereof as are not destructive to the common faith Much more where the faith is not concerned onely the question is of determining the circumstances of those actions wherein the Communion of the Church is exercised which neither our Lord nor his Apostles have determined shall the disobeying of such determinations be the violating of that unity which all Christians professe that God hath ordained in his Church And now we have an easie account to give how the Prophets Haggai and Malachi send the Israelites to the Priest for resolution in those things which the practice of that people determined to belong to their office to resolve Because it cannot be doubted that their resolutions depended upon upon the acts of that authority which concluded that people by the Law aforesaid of Deut. XVII 8 -12 Which if not infallible and yet authorized by God to warrant the proceedings of his people it will be no marvail if those that act in dependance on them be authorized to warrant the people though further from being infallible To come now to those things that are alleadged to be said of the Apostles and of the Church having already limited the power of the Church not to extend to the faith of Christianity which it presupposeth it will be easie to distinguish it from the power of the Apostles Which though it presuppose the truth of Christianity preached by our Lord as that which they are imployed to introduce and establishâ— yet in order of nature and reason is before the very being of the Church as serving to evidence any truth of the Gospel to them that believe being convicted that they came from God to move them to believe For how can they stand obliged to believe the truth of our common Christianity to be that which God sent our Lord Christ to preach but by standing convict that the Apostles were sent by him to move them to accept of it and thereupon inabled with means to evidence this Commission and trust whereupon the world may safely repose themselves upon the credit of them whose act God owns by the witnesse he yields them for his own The true reason and ground upon which no act of theirs whither by word or writing is refusable by the Church Upon which the truth of things determined by their writings is no more determinable by the Church because the meaning of their words which is the truth sought for is in the words from the time they are said And is it then an unreasonable demand that their Charter He that heareth you heareth me extending to all that falls under their office should not be thought to descend upon the Church indefinitely but according to such limitations as the constitution thereof determineth That is to say not to the effect of creating faith but of preserving peace and unity in the Communion of the Church Not prejudicing neverthelesse that force of evidencing the truth of Christianity and the meaning of the Apostles writings which I have showed to be in the testimony of the Church not by any authority it hath from God but from that conviction which the testimony of such a body of men inferreth I shall not therefore deny that he who heareth or refuseth their successors heareth and refuseth God if that which they would be heard in be within the bounds of that power which God hath assigned them but is not the same that he assigned the Apostles But I shall utterly deny that it is by virtue of these words which were spoken by our Lord at such time as he had not declared whither they should have successors or not For there is very great appearance that they themselves after this expected to see the worlds end and the coming of Christ When the Apostles Mat. XXVI 3. inquire of our Lord When shall these things come to passe And what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the worlds end Though our Lord by this answer distinguisheth the time of the destruction of Jerusalem from the end of the world yet by the question there is no appearance that the Apostles did so distinguish before his answer And when his answer contains That this generation shall not be over till all these things come to passe and that not only after he had declared the destruction of Jerusalem but his coming and the end of the world Mat. XXIV 14 -23-29-34 it appeareth that those things which he declares shall forerun the worlds end were to begin before that generation were out when to end being not thought sit then to be said If this interpretation of Grotius which makes good the leter best suffer contradiction yet is it evident by S. Pauls Epistles 1 Cor. XV. 51 52. 2 Cor. V. 11-44 2 Thes IV. 15. 17. that he was not certificed but that the coming of Christ to judgement should be during his time In which S. Iohn by the Apocalypse was more fully informed If these things be true the obedience due to the Apostles successors cannot stand by virtue of this command given when it was not declared whither they were to have successors or not But by those Scriptures whereby it may appear so farre as in due place it shall appear whither or no and upon what terms the Apostles left their Authority with successors which when it appears then by consequence of reason it will be inferred from these words that who hears or refuses them hears or refuses God by whom the Apostles were inabled to leave such part of their power with successors Neither will it be strange that I allow not any Councill in which never so much of the authority of the present Church is united to say in the same sense and to the same effect as the Synode of the Apostles at Jerusalem It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us Though I allow the overt act of their assembling to be a legall presumption that their acts are the acts of the Holy Ghost so farre as they appear not to transgresse those bounds upon which the assistance of the Holy Ghost is promised the Church For as for the Apostles I have showed before that they had the Holy Ghost given them not onely to preserve them in the truth of the common profession of Christians but to reveal unto them the true sense of the old Scriptures according to the Gospell which they preached though that grace was common to many more besides the Apostles not to all Christians upon which depended the resolution of the point then in debate Besides I do not intend to depart from that observation which I have made in another place that we find
is to determine controversies of Faith And what obligation that determination produceth Traditions of the Apostles oblige the present Church as the reasons of them continue or not Instances in our Lords Passeover and Eucharist Penance under the Apostles and afterwards S. Pauls vail eaâ—ing blood and things offered to Idols The power of the Church in limiting these Traditions 178 CHAP. XXV The power of the Church in limiting even the Traditions of the Apostles Not every abuse of this power a sâ—fficient warrant for particular Churches to reforme themselves Heresie consists in denying something necessary to salvation to be believed Schism in departing from the unity of the Church whether upon that or any other cause Implicite Faith no virtue but the effect of it may be the work of Christian charity p. 163 CHAP. XXVI What is to add to Gods Law What to adde to the Apocalypse S. Pauls Anathema The Beraeans S. Johns Gospel sufficient to make one believe and the Scriptures the man of God perfect How the Law giveth light and Christians are taught by God How Idolatry is said not to be commanded by God 168 CHAP. XXVII Why it was death to transgress the determinations of the Jewes Consistory and what power this argueth in the Church A difference between the authority of the Apostles and that of the Church The being of the Church to the worlds end with power of the Keyes makes it not infallible Obedience to Superiours and the Pillar of truth inferre it not 175 CHAP. XXXI The Fathers acknowledge the sufficiencie 〈◊〉 â—â—â—â—rnesse of the Scriptures as the Traditions of the Church They are to be reconciled by limiting the termes which they use The limitations of those sayings which make all Christian truth to be contained in the Scriptures Of those which make the authority of the Church the ground of Faith 181 CHAP. XXXII Answer to an Objection that choice of Religion becomes difficult upon these terms This resolution is for the Interest of the Reformation Those that make the Church Infallible cannot those that make the Scriptures â—â—ear â—nd sufficient may own Tradition for evidence to determine the meaning of the Scriptures and controversies of Faith The Interest of the Church of England The pretense of Rushworthes Dialogues that we have no unquestionable Scripture and that tâ—e Tradition of the Church never changes 192 CHAP. XXXI That the Scriptures which wee have are unquestionable That mistakes in Copying are not considerable to the sense and effect of them The meaning of the Hebrew and Greek even of the Prophets determinable to the deciding of Controversies How Religion delivered by Tradition becomes subject to be corrupted 198 CHAP. XXXIV The dispute concerning the Canon of Scripture and the translations thereof in two Questions There can be no Tradition for those books that were written since Prophesie ceased Wherein the excellence of them above other books lies The chiâ—fe objections against them are questionâ—ble In those parcels of the New Testament that have been questioned the case is not the same The sense of the Church 207 CHAP. XXXIII Onely the Originall Copy can be Authentick But the truth thereof may as well be found in the translations of the Old Testament as in the Jewes Copies The Jewes have not falsified them of malice The points come neither from Moses nor Esdras but from the Talmud Iewes 218 CHAP. XXXIV Of the ancientest Translations of the Bible into Greek first With the Authors and authority of the same Then into the Chaldee Syriack and Latine Exceptions against the Greek and the Samaritane Pentateuch They are helps never thelesse to assure the true reading of the Scriptures though with other Copies whether Jewish or Christian Though the Vulgar Latine were better than the present Greek yet must both depend upon the Original Greek of the New Testament No danger to Christianity by the differences remaining in the Bible 224 The CONTENTS of the second Book CHAP. I. TWo parts of that which remains How the dispute concerning the Holy Trinity with Socinus belongs to the first The Question of justification by Faith alone The Opinion of Socinus concerning the whole Covenant of Grace The opinion of those who make justifying Faith the knowledge of a mans Predestination opposite to it in the other extream The difference between it and that of the Antinomians That there are mean Opinions p. 1 CHAP. II. Evidence what is the condition of the Covenant of Grace The contract of Baptism The promise of the Holy Ghost annexed to Christs not to Johns Baptism Those are made Christs Disciples as Christians that take up his Cross in Baptism The effects of Baptism according to the Apostles 5 CHAP. III. The exhortations of the Apostles that are drawn from the patterns of the Old Testament suppose the same How the Sacraments of the Old and New Testament are the same how not the same How the new Testament and the New Covenant are both one The free-will of man acteth the same part in dealing about the New-Covenant as about the Old The Gospel a Law 12 CHAP. IV. The consent of the whole Church evidenced by the custome of catechising By the opinion thereof concerning the salvation of those that delayed their Baptism By the rites and Ceremonies of Baptism Why no Penance for sins before but after Baptism The doctrine of the Church of England evident in this case 17 CHAP. V. The Preaching of our Lord and his Apostles evidenceth that some act of Mans free choice is the condition which it requireth The correspondence between the Old and New Testament inferreth the same So do the errors of Socinians and Antinomians concerning the necessity of Baptism Objections deferred 23 CHAP. VI. Justifying faith sometimes consists in believing the truth Sometimes in trust in God grounded upon the truth Sometimes in Christianity that is in imbracing and professing it And that in the Fathers as well as in the Scriptures Of the informed and formed Faith of the Schools 30 CHAP. VII The last signification of Faith is properly justifying Faith The first by a Metonymy of the cause The second of the effect Those that are not justified do truly believe The trust of a Christian presupposeth him to be justified All the promises of the Gospel become due at once by the Covenant of Grace That to believe that we are Elect or justified is not justifying faith 37 CHAP. VIII The objection from S. Paul We are not justifyed by the Law nor by Works but by Grace and by Faith Not meant of the Gospel and the works that suppose it The question that S. Paul speakes to is of the Law of Moses and the workes of it He sets those workes in the same rank with the works of the Gentiles by the light of nature The civil and outward works of the Law may be done by Gentiles How the Law is a Pedagogue to Christ 43 CHAP. IX Of the Faith and Justification of Abraham and the Patriarkes according to the Apostles
The nature and intent of it renders it subordinate to the Clergy How farre the single life of the Clergy hath been a Law to the Church Inexecution of the Canons for it Nullity of the proceedings of the Church of Rome in it The interest of the People in the acts â—f the Church And in the use of the Scriptures 368 CHAP. XXXII How great the Power of the Church and the offect of it is The right of judging the causes of Christians ceaseth when it is protected by the State An Objection If Ecclesiastical Power were from God Secular Power could not limit the use of it Ground for the Interest of the State in Church matters The inconsequence of the argument The concurrence of both Interests to the Law of the Church The Inâ—erest of the state in the indowment of the Church Concurrence of both in matrimonial causes and Ordinations Temporall penalties upon Excommunication from the State No Soveraigne subject to the greater Excommunication but to the lesse The Rights of the Jewes State and of Christian Powers in Religion partly the same partly not The infinite Power of the Pope not founded upon Episcopacy but upon acts of the Secular Powers of Christendom 381 OF THE PRINCIPLES OF Christian Truth The First BOOK CHAP. I. All agree that Reason is to decide controversies of Faith The objection that Faith is taught by Gods Spirit answered What Reason decideth questions of Faith The resolution of Faith ends not in the light of Reason but in that which Reason evidenceth to come from Gods messengers THe first thing that we are to question in the beginning is Whether there be any means to resolve by the use of reason those controverâ—â—es which cause division in the Church Which is all one as if we undertook to enquire whether there be any such skill or knowledg as that for which men call themselvs Divines For if there be it must be the same in England as at Rome And if it have no principles as no principles it can have unlesse it can be resolved what those principles are then is it a bare name signifying nothing But if there be certain principles which all parties are obliged to admit that discourse which admits no other will certainly produce that resolution in which all shall be obliged to agree And truely this hope there is left that all parties do necessarily suppose that there is means to resolve by reason all differences of Faith Inasmuch as all undertake to perswade all by reason to be of the judgment of each one and would be thought to have reason on their side when so they do and that reason is not done them when they are not believed There are indeed many passages of Scripture which say that Faith is only taught by the Spirit of God Mat. XVI 17. Blessed art thou Peter son of Ionas for flesh and blood revealed not this to thee but my Father which is in the heavens II. 25. I thank thee O Father Lord of heaven and earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes 1 Cor. I. 26 27 28. For Brethren you see your calling that not many wise according to the flesh not many mighty not many noble But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen to shame the wise The weak things of the world hath God chosen to shame the strong The ignoble and despicable things of the world hath God chosen and the things that are not to confound the things that are John VI. 45. It is written in the Prophets And they shall be all taught of God Heb. VIII 10. Jer. XXXI 33. This is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel in those dayes saith the Lord I will put my Laws in their mindes and write them in their hearts These and the like Scriptures then asâ—ribing the reason why wee believe to the work of Gods Spirit seem to leave no room for any other reason why wee should believe But this difficulty is easie for him to resolve that diâ—â—inguishes between the reason that moveth in the nature of an object and that motion which the active cause produceth For the motion of an object supposes that consideration which discovers the reason why wee are to believe But the motion of the Holy Ghost in the nature of an active cause proceeds without any notice that wee take of it According to the saying of our Lord to Nicodemus John 111. 8. The winde bloweth where it listeth and a man hears the noise of it but cannot tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth So is every one that is born of the spirit For wee must know that there may be sufficient reason to evict the truth of Christianity and yet prove ineffectual to induce the most part either inwardly to believe or outwardly to professe it The reason consists in two things For neither is the mater of Faith evident to the light of reason which wee bring into the world with us And the Crosse of Christ which this profession drawes after it necessarily calls in question that estate which every man is setled upon in the world So that no marvel if the reasons of believing fail of that effect which for their part they are sufficient to produce Interest diverting the consideration or intercepting the consequence of such troublesom truth and the motives that inforce it The same is the reason why the Christian world is now to barren of the fruits of Christianity For the profession of it which is all the Laws of the world can injoyn is the common privilege by which men hold their estates Which it is no marvel those men should make use of that have neither resolved to imbrace Christ with his Crosse nor considered the reason they have to do it who if they should stick to that which they professe and when the protection of the Law failes or act according to it when it would be disadvantage to them in the world so to do should do a thing inconsequent to their own principles which carried them no further than that profession which the Law whereby they hold their estates protecteth The true reason of all Apostasy in all trials As for the truth of Christianity Can they that believe a God above refuse to believe his messengers because that which they report stands not in the light of any reason to evidence it Mater of Faith is evidently credible but cannot be evidently true Christianity supposes sufficient reason to believe but not standing upon evidence in the thing but upon credit of report the temptation of the Crosse may easily defeat the effect of it if the Grace of Christ and the operation of the Holy Ghost interpose not Upon this account the knowledg of Gods truth revealed by Christ may be the work of his Grace according to the Scriptures for that so it is I am not obliged neither have I any reason here to suppose being to come in
therefore that Christians do believe for the same reasons for the which Infidels ought to believe I shall yield that it is onely the credit of Gods ancient people and of Christs Church that maâ—â—â— evidence that those miracles were truly done which I affirm to be the onely motive to believe being done at such distance of time and place from us But let not those that would learn mistake what is meant by the name of the Church For if you suppose the Church to be a Society of men whereof some by Gods appointment have power to oblige the whole then will the credit of the Scripture be resolved into the authority of the Church if the truth of those miracles on which alone the credit thereof is said to depend be grounded upon such a witnesse of the Church But my meaning is to suppose no more by the name of the Church in this place but the whole number of believers from Christ to the worlds end And so to say that there is no other reason why wee believe that such men as Moses and the Prophets as our Lord and his Apostles did such works as the Scriptures report to evidence that they came from God but the consent of all Christians that have imbraced the Gospel upon that motive Neither shall the Gospel hereby depend more upon the witnesse of man which may fail than it depends upon the witnesse of him who upon seeing what was done by our Lord and his Apostles should be moved to imbrace the Faith For though they had not taken effect with him but for the report of his eyes yet did not the force of them depend upon it Hee that considers shall finde that the consent of all believers in the whole motive of Faith more than supplies the use of our eyes in showing us sufficient reason to believe There is a distance of place as well as of time And God forbid wee should say those that never saw our Lord and his Apostles do the works for which wee believe had not sufficient reason to believe Their ears supplyed to them the use of their eyes inasmuch as experience and common sense shows that those things wherein the world agrees are no lesse certain and evident though morally than those which wee see with our eies Hee that should not traffick into the East or West-Indies or travail to Rome or Constantinople before hee had seen them must resolve not to see them The reason is because the world can have no common interest to deceive or to be deceived Much lesse could the Law of Moses least of all the Gospel of Christ have found credit the one imposing such an endlesse morosity of precepts to observe the other the Crosse of Christ had it not been originally manifest that such things were done to evidence that and this By which it appears that this reason supposes no authority in the Church founded upon the Gospel as a Society communicating in it because it supposes the same in the people of the Jewes as in the Church The authority of the Church standing upon the Gospel that which was over the Jewes on the Law whereof the one was to be removed when the other took place The reason because it referreth nothing to the Church but that intelligency which the community of mankinde furnish one another with for assurance in those things whereof all cannot be eye-witnesses by the consent of all which common reason makes to be as good evidence as our own senses And now it will not be difficult to say how the Scriptures are to be believed for themselves For inasmuch as the motives of believing are things recorded in Scripture it will be necessary to grant that the Scriptures are to be believed for themselves which are to be believed for those things which the Scriptures report But if wee be further demanded for what reason those motives which if true are sufficient to oblige all men to believe are taken to be true Hee that saies because they are recorded in the Scriptures grants that there is no reason to believe the Scriptures granting that there is no reason to believe the motives of faith but the report of those Scriptures the belief whereof supposes the truth of those motives But if wee impute the belief of that truth to the common sense of all who upon the supposition of them have submitted to Christianity and hold it wee have the whole truth of the Scripture evidenced upon such a ground as shall serve to inforce a resolution of whatsoever is questionable in Christianity upon it Whereas they who make the authority of the Church or the dictate of the Holy Ghost the reason of believing must either stand still when they are demanded the reason or give it by supposing Christianity and the Scriptures the truth whereof they pretend to prove by it which is the Circle that I spoke of afore admitting neither principle nor conclusion of discourse To confirm that which hath been said let me demand how the Writings of Homer or Virgil of Aristotle or Plato of Tully or Demosthenes of Hippocrates or Galen come to be admitted without any question for their Writings after some two thousand years more or lesse Is it not because ever since they were penned there have been those that have studied them for paterns of good Language and Oratory for the lest authors in Philosophy and Physick Because by them and through their hands they have been transmitted from age to age Is not their credit by this means so unquestionable that a man would be laught at that should ask other reason for it And yet what is this in comparison of that which is to be said for the Scriptures That all nations having starred aside to worship many Gods one people of the Jewes took upon them the worship of the onely true God according to the Lawes recorded in the books of Moses and that of so ancient time That being planted in the land of Canaan God stirred them up Prophets from age to age to keep them close to the service of their God That howsoever they kept them they alwaies professed to be under those Lawes as Gods That our Lord Jesus and his Apostles by commission from him in due time preached both Jewes and Gentiles to be rebels against God And that neither the Law of nature nor of Moses was able to free them from sin Tendering in Gods name the terms upon which all may be reconciled to God and evidencing their Commission by the works which they did in Gods name That all parts of the civil world being by that means convicted of the truth hereof undertook to professe Christianity notwithstanding the persecutions to which it was lyable and do continue in it till this time Is not this infallible evidence that wee have the very Writings of Moses and of the Prophets and Apostles and that they who left them us were sent by God seeing them admitted for Lawes to mens lives and conversations which
remains under that sin which by refusing the Gospel hee refuses to escape The man whom God showes competent reasons to convict him of the truth of Christianity does hee not thereby oblige to believe If so then is Christianity by those reasons and by out Lord and his Apostles advancing them published for Gods Law to all them to whom those reasons become known Suppose that not onely the Apostles but God himself do no more than perswade men to believe can any Secular Power do more For what can it do more in making a Law than declare the will of the Soveraign under a punishment expressed And doth not God declare when hee sends those that are furnished with means to convict the world of the truth of Christianity that it is his will that they become Christians And is it not competent punishment to inact a Law that by disobeying men become incapable of escaping their own sin and the punishment of it If Christianity be no Law because a man hath his choice whether hee will believe or not hath not a thief his choice whether hee will be hanged or not steal or is not the mischief that comes by refusing the Faith as great as that As for the point of justice is not gtatitude justice doth not God oblige them in point of justice whom hee obligeth in point of gratitude doth hee not oblige them in point of gratitude whom by his Gospel hee showes the way to come from under sin to everlasting happinesse Again is it not justice that mankinde should be subjects and not rebels to God doth not the Gospel preach that mankinde are become rebels to God and that they ought to return and become his Subjects If wee can owe a debt of justice to God or to our selves the greatest is that which the Gospel bindeth upon us But suppose not onely that which this Dogmatist granteth that hee who is bound to renounce Christ with his mouth when his Soveraign commandeth is bound to believe him with his heart at the same time let mee demand by what Law hee is bound to it if the Scriptures be not Law Or how a man can be bound to believe in heart that our Lord Jesus is the Christ and not be bound to receive either the mater or the motives to believe that which Christ teacheth which is all that the Scriptures containe Wherefore wee are by no means to admit that which this Author presumes upon as evident truth That it is one thing to demand why a man believes the Scriptures another thing to demand how a man knowes them to be the Word of God and a third by what authority they become Law Because saith hee one man believes for this reason another for that But to know the Scripture to be the Word of God is a thing that no man can do but onely hee to whom this or that Scripture was revealed For it is true that one man believes for this reason another for that if they believe not for that reason for which they ought to believe But there is but one reason for which God requires us to believe namely his will declared by the motives of Faith which hee by his messengers or deputies hath presented us with And hee that is moved to believe for any reason besides that is but called a believer for hee is not such in Gods esteem And hee that by these reasons stands convict that those messengers came from God though hee cannot know by the report of his senses nor by any evidence of the mater which they contain that the Scriptures are the Word of God yet may hee reasonably be said to know that they are so because hee knowes those reasons by which hee stands convict that they are no otherwise And I have now further showed that the publishing of Christianity that is the tendering of the Scriptures with this evidence that they contain the word and will of God bindes them for a Law upon the consciences of all that receive them so obliging them not onely to believe all that they contain to be true but to undertake and do whatsoever they require Wherefore it is true that the Scriptures or Christianity becomes the civil Law of a State because the Soveraign Power thereof inacteth it But wee are further to demand whether Secular Power is able to do this because it is Soveraign or because it is Christian For if because it is Sovetaign it will follow of necessity that those who are not subject to Christian Powers are not obliged to believe the truth of the Scriptures nor to be Christians if there be no other Law to require it at their hands but the will of their Soveraign Because the onely reason which this opinion saith obliges them to believe that is the act of Soveraigne Power is wanting If because it is Christian the question will have recourse what it was that obliged the Soveraign Power to become Christian For the act of Soverâ—igne Power hath no effect upon it self but upon those that are under it And yet the same reason why the Soveraign Power is bound to believe will convince all that are under it that they also ought to believe because concerning them as men or at least as those men whom the motives of Faith are published to not as of this or that Common-wealth But in this businesse I am most ashamed for Euclid's sake that a man so studied in Geometry should build such a vast pretense in Christianity upon such an imaginary ground Forsooth Abraham and the Patriarchs after him and then Moses had the Soveraign Power of their Families and of Gods people the Patriarchs by their birth and estate Moses by the contract of the Israelites accepting of God for their Civil Soveraign and Moses for his Lieutenant The same Patriarchs and Moses were absolute in maters of Religion because Gods people inferiors were to be ruled in it by no other Laws then those which God published to them by the hands of those Superiors Hee that will go about to draw the conclusion from these principles whether granted or onely supposed shall easily see that it followes not For half an eye will serve to distinguish two qualities in the Patriarchs and in Moses the one of Soveraignes the other of Prophets or Depuries and Commissaries or Interpreters of the will of God to his people And this distinction being made I will not be beholden to any man to say which of the two it was that could oblige their inferiors to obey as Gods Lawes those things which persons so authorized should declare in his name For if those whom God by sufficient evidence had witnessed to be his Prophets and messengers should falsify his trust the blame of that which should be done upon such deceit must needs redound upon God And therefore this author pag. 231 287. agreeth with that which I argued even now that revelations and inspirations of Gods Spirit are not granted under the Gospel but to those
made of a General Council whether constituted according to right or not whether proceeding without force and fraud or not Is it as evident to all Christians as their Christianity or the Scriptures that it is not If it be said that all Catholicks agree that the Pope with a General Council or a General Council confirmed by the Pope cannot erre First what shall oblige them to agree For if they agree not their Infallibility is not evident to all Christians nor if their agreement appear casual can it be taken for a ground of Faith that is undefeifible Then to set aside all the East which contesting the Power of the Pope cannot concurre to this Infallibility about the Councils of Constance and Basle when the dispute between the Pope and Council was at the hottest there lived divers Doctors of repute that have maintained this Infallibility to be the gift and privilege not of the present but of the Catholick Church By name Ockam Alliacensis Panormitane Antoninus Cusanus Clemangis and Mirandula Whose words you may see in Doctor Baron of Aberdene his dispute de Objecto Fidei Tract V. Cap. XIX XX. Further I demand if there be in the Church a gift of Infallibility indâ—pendent upon the Scripture that is obliging to believe the decrees thereof which our common Christianity evidenceth not can it appear without the like reasons for which wee believe the Scripture Where is the evidence that Gods Spirit inspires them with their decrees Nay when wee see Popes and Councils imploy the same means to finde the truth of things in question which other men do would they have us believe that they shall not fail by Gods providence when they use no means but that may fail nor have themselves any reason in them to evidence that they do not fail For if they had they might make it appear But of all things the strâ—ngest is that they should undertake to perâ—wade the world this when as the Church it self never determined it Of all things that ever the Church of any time took in hand to decree it will never appear that ever it was decreed that the decrees of the present Church are to be admitted for Gods truth And therefore there is not so much appearance of any opinion the Church of Rome has that it is true as there is of humane policy in breeding men up in such prejudicate conceits which education makes them as zealous of as of their Faith though meer contradiction to the grounds of it That being intangled in their own understandings to hold things so inconsistent they may be the fitter instruments to intangle others in that obedience to the Church which they hold necessary though upon false reasons For as Antony disputes in Tully de Oratore that no man is so fit to induce others into passion as hee that appears really possessed with the same so is no man so fit to imbroile the true reason and order of believing in another mans understanding as hee that is himself first confounded in it There is indeed a plauâ—â—ble inconvenience alleged if it be not admitted to wit that differences cannot be ended otherwise But to object an inconvenience is not to answer an argument say Logicians Nor is it say I to demonstrate a truth It is requisite the Church should be one Suppose wee this for the present for it is not proved as yet but it is not therefore necessary that the unity thereof should depend upon the deâ—ision of all Controversies that arise what true what false It is a great deal easier to command men not to decide their own opinions than to believe their adversaries For to decide is nothing else but to command all men to judge one part to be true when it appeareth that a great part have already judged it to be false But not to offend him that hath declared a contrary judgment is a thing to be attained of him that cannot see reason to judge the same Charity may have place in all things in question among Christians though Faith be confined to the proper mater of it though wee cannot yet determine what that proper mater is and upon what termes it standeth It remains therefore that all presumption concerning the truth of the Churches decrees presupposeth the corporation of the Church the foundation thereof nor can any way be evidenced by supposing onely the truth of the Scriptures and the consent of Christians as Christians which conveyes the evidence thereof unto us So that the belief of the Scriptures and of all things so clear in the Scriptures that they are not questioned in the Church depending upon the evidence of Gods revelations to his messengers But the belief of the Churches decrees inasmuch as not evidenced by the Scriptures upon the presumption of the right use of the Power vested in them that decree by the foundation of the Church if that foundation may appear they do not allow us the common reason of all men that require us to yield the same credit to both CHAP. V. All things necessary to salvation are not clear in the Scriptures to all understandings Not in the Old Testament Not in the Gospel Not in the Writings of the Apostles It is necessary to salvation to believe more than this that our Lord is the Christ Time causeth obscurity in the Scriptures aswell as in other Records That it is no where said in the Scriptures that all things necessary to salvation are clear in the Scriptures Neither is there any consent of all Christians to evidence the same IN the next place to proceed by steps I must negatively conclude on the other side that all things necessary to the salvation of all are not of themselves clear in the Scriptures to all understandings Whereby I say not that all such things are not contained in the Scriptures as if some thing necessary to the salvation of all were to be received by Tradition alone Nor that being in the Scriptures they are not clear and discernable to the understandings of those that are furnished with means requisite to discern the meaning of the Scriptures But that which I stand upon is that it is not nor ought to be a presumption that this or that is not necessary to salvation because it is not clear in the Scriptures Which if it were admitted whosoever were able to make such an argument against any Article of Faith as all understandings interessed in salvation could not dissolve such as it is plain may be made against the truth of Christianity should have gained this that though it may be true yet it cannot be an Article of Faith To my purpose indeed it were enough in this place to prove that this is not the first truth in Christianity to wit that all things necessary to salvation are clear by the Scriptures For having obtained that there is no Rule to conclude those doctrines which may be questioned not to be Articles of Faith so that it cannot thereupon be
Church For it is manifest that hitherto the authorities of Church Writers cannot be considered any otherwise than as the opinions of particular persons which no wayes import the consent of the whole Church For whereas hitherto there is nothing to oblige the Faith of any Christian but that which is plaine by the Scriptures and the consent of the Church It no wayes appears as yet how the authorities of Church Writers can evidence the consent of Church I will not therefore be curious here to heap up the sayings of the Fathers commending the sufficience and clearness of the Scriptures One or two I will take notice of because they are all I can remember in which the limitation thereof to things which our salvation requires us to believe is expressed S. Augustine de doctr Christianâ— II. 9. In eis quae aperte in Scripturis posita sunt inveâ—iuntâ—r illa omnia qnae continent fideâ— moresq vivendi In those things which are plainty set down in the Scriptures is found whatsoever that Faith or maners by which wee live doth containe S. Chrysostome in II. ad Thessal Hom. III. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All things are plain and plain and straight in the Scriptures all things that are necessary are mâ—nifest Whereunto wee may addâ— the words of Constantine to the Council of Nâ—â—â—a in Theodoreâ— Eâ—clef Hist l. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles and the Oracles of the ancient Prophets plainly teach us what wee are to think of God But I will also take notice that the same S. Augustine de doctr Christ III. 2. saith that the Rule of Faith which hee had set forth in the first book is had from the plainer places of the Scripture and the authority of the Church And the same S. Chrysostome in the same Homily sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those things which the Apostles writ and those which they delivered by word of mouth are equally credible Therefore let us think the Tradition of the Church deserves credit It is a Tradition seek no more And Vincentius in the beginning of his Commâ—nitorium or Remembrance confessing the Canon of the Scriptures to be every way perfect and sufficient requires neverthelesse the Tradition of the Church for the steddy understanding of it And therefore I have just ground to say that all that is necessary to salvation is not clear in the Scriptures to all that can reade in the opinion of S. Chrysostome and S. Augustine But to all that reade supposing the Rule of Faith received from the Church to bound and limit the sense and exposition of the Scriptures And therefore may more justly suppose the same limitation whâ—n they speak of the perfection and sufficience and clearnesse of the Scripture at large without confining their speech to that which the necessity of salvation requires us to believe And this is already a sufficient barr to any man that shall pretend the consent of the Church which concurreth to evidence the truth of the Scripture for the perspicuity thereof in things necessary to be believed to all whom they may concerne For so long as Tradition may be requisite besides Scripture that cannot appear When it shall appear whether requisite or not then will it appear how farr the sufficience and perspicuity of the Scripture reacheth And this I come now to inquire CHAP. VI. All interpretation of Scripture is to be confined within the Tradition of the Church This supposeth that the Church is a Communion instituted by God What means there is to make evidence of Gods Charter upon which the Corporation of the Church subsisteth The name of the Church in the Scriptures often signifieth the Whole or Cathelick Church THis presumption then which is able to prejudice the truth by disparaging the means God hath given to discover it And that by possessing men that things pretended to be necessary to salvation would have been clear of themselves to all men in the Scriptures if they were true But nothing conducing to clear the doubtfull meaning of any Scripture that is never so true This presumption I say being removed and the authority of the Church as the reason of believing taken away it remaines that wee affirm whatsoever the whole Church from the beginning hath received and practised for the Rule of Faith and maners all that to be evidently true by the same reason for which wee believe the very Scriptures And therefore that the meaning of them is necessarily to be confined within those bounds so that nothing must be admitted for the truth of them which contradicteth the same Wee saw before that the Scripture consisteth of motives to Faith and mater of Faith That in the motives of Faith supposing them sufficient when admitted for true a difficulty may be made upon what evidence they are admitted for true That the conviction of this truth consisteth in the profession and conversation of all those who from the beginning receiving Christianity have transmitted it to their successors for a Law and Rule to their beliefs and conversations Wherefore there can remain no further question concerning the truth of that which stands recommended to us by those same means that evidence the truth of those 〈◊〉 for which wee receive Christianity Had there been no 〈◊〉 Christianity to have been read in the profession and practice of all that call themselves Christians it would not have been possible to convince the enemies of Christianity that wee are obliged to believe the Scriptures If the professing and practising things so contrary to the interest of flesh and bloud be an â—vidence that they are delivered and received from them who first showed reasons to believe It must first remain evident that there are certain things that were so professed and practised from the beginning before it can be evident that the motives upon which they are said to be received were indeed tendred to the world for that purpose This is that common stock of Christianity which in the first place after receiving the Scriptures is to be admitted for the next principle toward the settling of truth controverted concerning the meaning of them as flowing immediately from the reason for which they are received and immediately flowing into the evidence that can be made of any thing questionable in the same It is that sound ingredient of nature which by due application must either cure all distempers in the Church or leave them incurable and everlasting And truly if it were as easie to make evidence what those things are which have been received professed and practised from the beginning by the whole Church as it is necessary to admit all such for truth I suppose there would remain no great difficulty in admitting this principle But in regard it is so easie to show what contradiction hath been made within the pale of the Church to that which elsewhere otherwhiles hath been received I cannot tell whether men despaire to finde any thing generally received
unity of the Church which professed it Thus then writeth Irenaeus This preaching and this faith the Church having received as I said afore though dispersed all over the world carefully keepeth as if it inhabited one house And believeth these things alike as if it had one soule and one heart And harmoniously preacheth and teacheth and delivereth them as if it had but one mouth For there be divers languages in the world but the Tradition signifies the same Nor do the Churches seated in the Germanies believe or deliver otherwise nor those in the Spaines nor among the Gaules nor in the East nor in Aegypt nor in Africk nor those that are seated in the middle parts of the world But as the Creature of God the Sun is one and the same in all the world so shineth the preaching of the truth every where inlightning all men that will come to the knowledge of the truth And neither will any of those that Rule in the Churches though powerfull in speaking say things diverse from these for the Disciple is not above his Master nor hee that is weak in speech abate of that which is delivered For to the same Faith neither hee that is able to say much of it addeth nor hee that is able to say little abateth of it Hee that acknowledges this to be Gods doing must of necessity acknowledge the means of it the concurrence of all Churches to the maintainance of unity in the same Faith by disowning those that pretended to break it not left to mans will but injoyned by Gods And Irenaeus his instance in the Church of Rome serves to good purpose to make out this evidence For all Churches that is as Irenaeus sayes Christians of all Churches having necessarily recourse to Rome for all occasions because it was the seat of the Empire might there inform themselves and their Churches of the perverse doctrines that might be on foot and of the consent of the Churches in refusing the same In the next place I will not forget the relation of Epiphanius concerning Marcion in the beginning of his Heresie because it is next in time and of great consequence Hee being put out of the Church by his Father Bishop of Sinope in Pontus and making sure to be admitted by the Church of Rome received this answer That they could not do it without his Fathers consent because the Faith is one and the Unity the same Compare herewith the proceeding of Synesius against Andronicus Ep. LVIII LXXIX though so much distant in time which in the first book de Synedriis Judaeorum pag. 304. is said to be of a high strain Hee saith that if any Church neglecting his Church of Ptolomais as a poor Church being the Church of a small City shall receive to communion those whom it had excommunicated hee shall be thereby guilty of dividing the Church which Christ will have to be one And tell mee how this proceeding differs from that which in Marcions case Epiphanius sayes was done at Rome so near the Apostles Certainly if one Church should receive into communion those whom another Church excommunicates there could remaine no unity in the whole Church because no distinction from those that are not of the Church When therefore it appears that the Church held it for a Rule from the beginning not to do so shall not this be evidence that the reason is that which was alleged to Marcion at Rome which Synesius alleges To wit the Unity of the Church For the same reason Montanus having as it seems by pretended revelations and inspirations such as at that time there can be no question but the Church was graced with brought the Churches of Phrygia to his intent but being rejected by the Churches of Asia went or sent to Rome to induce that Church to undertake and prescribe the same Rules to all that adheered unto it For why otherwise should hee labor for the consent of that Church before others but in hope that having induced it to receive his Rules the authority thereof might induce other Churches to do the like because they found it necessary for them to hold correspondence with the Church of Rome Now I beseech you were all Christians utterly out of their five senses to contend about the communion of the Church if there were no such thing in point of fact Were they all from the beginning possest with a frenzy that they were bound to maintain it by voiding all questions that might impeach it if there were no such obligation in point of right Is it not plain that the issue of such questions was this whether the Unity of the Church or the advantage of such Rules to the common cause of Christianity wayed most How is Tertullian otherwise counted a Montanist that is as I suppose a Schismatick Wee may believe Tertullian in a mater which all Christians at Rome then might know when hee tells us that Zephyrinus then Bishop of Rome was about to admit unto his communion the Churches of Asia and Phrygia that had acknowledged Montarus and his Prophets and Prophesies Contr. Prax. cap. I. Though Pope Soter afore Zephyrinus had writ against Montanus as well as Apollonius Bishop of Ephesus if wee believe Sirmondus his Praedestinatus Haer. XXVI When hee sayes that afterwards the contrary was resolved upon informations brought from Asia by Praxeas an Heretick That which appears that the Montanists were disclaimed wee must admit That which appears not upon what information it was done wee need not dispute Tertullian hereupon drawes after him a company which called themselves a Church at Carthage and subsisted there after Tertullian till they were reduced by S. Augustine as wee learn by Sirmondus his Praedestinatus Haer. XCVII and S. Augustine de Haeresibus This makes Tertullian a Schismatick That rather than rest content with those Rules which the rest of the Church satisfied themselves with hee departed from the Unity of it Otherwise those blasphemies for which the followers of Montanus are counted Hereticks preferring their own revelations above and against those of the Apostles hee is not chargable with Proceed wee now to the businesse of keeping Easter and the debate about it between Victor Bishop of Rome and the Churches of Asia These resolutely adheering to the custome which in all appearance they had received from their founder S. John to keep the Passion when the Jewes kept it that is upon the fifteenth day of the Moon that was the next equinoctial and the Resurrection the third after that The Church of Rome and almost all Churches beside keeping thc Passion on the Friday the Resurrection on the Ladies day following The one aiming at winning the Jewes when it was first set on foot the other to protest against them as incorrigible It is well enough known how Victor intending to withdraw his Communion from the Churches of Asia was reduced to tolerate them by the perswasions of Irenaeus then Bishop of Lions Certainly had not the Communion of the
Signifying that they expected salvation by the Law which indeed is not to be had but by his Gospel which the Law intimateth and involveth Yee think yee have it so as indeed yee have it not In the next place consider wee a while the Writings of the Prophets that is all that followes the Law in the Old Testament and wee shall finde there such intimations of the world to come such instruction to that conversation by which it is attained as may show that it was not covenanted for though attainable by Gods dispensation of that time That which wee reade in the Propher Esay XXVI 19. Thy dead shall live my carkasses shall arise awake and sing yee that dwell in the dust for thy dew is the dew of herbs and the earth shall cast forth the Gyants is the very picture of the Resurrection which Christians believe But what it signifies there let the consequence of the Scripture witnesse which showes it by the beginning of the Chapter to be part of a Song which should be sung in the Land of Judab at that day That is at such time as God having afflicted his people according to the Prophesies going afore should restore them again as hee prophesies there and afterwards The Vision of dry bones which the Prophet Ezekiel XXXIII saw upon the breathing of God clothed with flesh and skin to rise againe manifestly foretells the return of the Jewes from Captivity to be a Nation againe But â—o that it cannot be denied that S. Hilary had reason to call him several times the Prophet of the Resurrection for it Nor must wee make any other account of Daniel who having prophesied of the miseries that were to befall the Jewes especially under Antiochus Epiphanes and their deliverances in the end sets forth the glory and ignominy of those that had stuck to their Law till death or fallen from it after they had their freedom under the Maccabees by the figure of rising from the dead XII 1 2. For having first said at that time thy people shall escape whosoever is written in the book Which time is that persecution under Epiphanes when hee adds incontinently And many of those that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life some to everlasting reproach and shame And teachers shall sbine as the shine of the sky and those that make many righteous as the starres for ever and ever I say this following immediately it cannot stand with common sense that it should not concerne the same times and persons Though wee allow it a competent argument that the Prophet which sets forth the deliverance of that people in such termes understood the Resurrection of the dead well enough and intended by using the same to make way for Christianity that professes it But the words of S. Job XIX 25. are more questionable I know saith hee that my Redeemer liveth and shall stand upon the earth at last And after they have pierced this my skin I shall see God out of my flesh But if wee compare this with what hath been hitherto produced out of the Prophets it will not seem probable that the Resurrection which they so darkly intimated should be so plainly preached either before the Law when Job lived or under the Law when the book of Job is said to have been penned And truly hee that perswaded himself that God would deliver him out of his present affliction might well say I know that my Redeemer liveth And hee that saith XLII 5. By the hearing of the eare I had heard of thee but now doth mine eye see thee might say to the same purpose that hee should see God standing at length upon the earth after that his skin had been pierced with sores Consider now those passages of the Prophets whereby they declare how they are moved to question Gods providence by seeing the righteous afflicted and the wicked to flourish in this world Psal LXXIII 2-20 Jer. XII 1 2. Mal. III. 13-18 besides all the discourses of this point in Job Ecclesiastes and elsewhere It is plaine every Christian can answer this out of the principles of his profession by saying That God reserves his full account to the day of judgment in the mean time maintaining sufficient evidence of his providence by the account which hee takes of some sinnes in this world And had this been a part of the old Covenant it had been no lesse ready for every one to answer with What saith David When I went into the Sanctuary of God then understood I the end of those men Forsooth thou settest them in slippery places and castest them down to ruine How came they to desolation in a moment they came to an end by terrors As when a man awakes out of a dreame Lord when thou awakest thou shalt scorn the image of them Is there any thing in all this to determine whether in this world or in the world to come Though the consequence be good not in this world therefore in the world to come What saith Jeremy And thou O Lord knowest mee and triest my heart before thee Pluck them out as sheep to be slain and consecrate them to the day of slaughter What saith Malachi They shall be mine saith the Lord of Hosts when I store up my Jewels and I will spare them as a man spareth his son that serveth him And yee shall again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not All this is true to those that are in Covenant with God as the temporal promises are true even in this life and therefore expresses not the world to come whatsoever may be inferred by the foresaid consequence And truly Ecclesiastes is so farre from expressing the answer that Christianity maketh to this objection as to give some men occasion to imagine that it alloweth the world to come no more than the lives of worldly men do own it And all the obscurity of the book of Job will never be resolved without acknowledging that this truth was then a secret which the Prophets knew but preached it so sparingly and with such good husbandry which the Greek Fathers use to call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the hope of proficience by their Doctrine in their hearers did require The same account is to be had of the Prophet Habakkuk II. 3-14 where hee proposeth the difference between the Chaldeans and Israelites in these termes Behold the soul that is exalted is not right in him But the just shall live by faith And concludes See is not this of the Lord of Hosts And the people shall labor for fire and the Nations be weary for nothing For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the seas Which all the Prophets will witnesse to signifie the restoring of the people of God to the destruction of Idolatry and their enimies Idolaters No where is this truth more
by making that profession which the Church requireth owneth the person of the Church for Corporations are persons in Law for the evidence which hee trusteth in the mater of his Salvation I shall not need to have recourse to the Article of our Creed to prove that hee owneth the unity of it and obligeth himself upon his Salvation to abide in the same Nor indeed have I any need here to repeat the processe by which I have demonstrated the corporation of the Church Here I inferre as clearly gained by it that the effect of binding or loosing men from sin is limited by God to a condition of acknowedging or not acknowledging the Church for two reasons and in two cases For hee that is admitted to Baptisme upon professing the Faith of the Church and undertaking to live as a Christian if hee transgresse this profession forfeits the communion of the Church which hee attained by making it And hee that acknowledgeth the unity of the Church which all that are baptized must needs acknowledge forfeits his share in it by doing that which dissolveth it though hee transgresse not the profession of his Christianity doing it Now it appeareth by S. Paul and our Lord that Christians under Infidels are forbidden to carry any of their sutes out of the Church and commanded to end them among themselves And shall hee not forfeit the benefit of his Christianity and become bound by the sin hee committeth in so doing that doth this I may therefore grant Erastus and this Doctor that Let him be to thee as a Heathen or Publicane signifies be it lawful for thee to implead him before Unbelievers But it must be as I said afore upon supposition that hee is first excommunicate and become no Christian to thee and therefore to be used as a Heathen or a Publicane As also I grant him that to be delivered to Satan signifies not to be excommunicate but supposes it For if S. Paul calling the miraculous graces of the Apostles time the manifestation of the Spirit do teach us that the world was thereby convicted That God of a truth was in his Church as hee saith again 1 Cor. XIV 24 25 then was it to the same purpose and effect that those who were shut out of the Church should become liable to the incursions of evil Spirits To wit To make the difference between the Land of Goshen and the rest of Egypt visible It was therefore necessary that the power of binding or loosing in the Apostles and Disciples of our Lord should be accompanied with the gift of the Holy Ghost which our Lord breathed upon them For by them the world was to be assured upon what termes they might be loosed from sinne and continue in the Unity of the Church which if they forsook they became bound again But there is not the same reason why the same should be thought requisite to the same power in their successors For those terms being once declared and settled hee that professeth and teacheth them as the Apostles have taught is a competent Minister to loose or to bind another not onely though hee have not that gift of the Holy Ghost that may make him appear to be appointed by God to that purpose but also though hee be bound himself because hee undergoes not that which hee professeth Now if the premises be true it is a mistake as grosse as pernicious to imagine that particular Christians by the light common to all Christians are Judges in all things concerning Christianity or the Scriptures For if the attaining of Christianity and Salvation by it require no more but to know the Rule of of Faith and the common precepts of Christian conversation together with the Offices wherewith God is to be served by his Church If the gift of the Holy Ghost be promised to those that are baptized upon undertaking this then is the understanding of the rest of the Scriptures no further required at their hands neither have they any warrant for that which they shall do upon any such presumption as this The Church that hath received of God the trust of maintaining unity in this service of God so as may best stand with the maintenance of that profession which it presupposeth hath by consequence an obligation upon them to stand to the resolution thereof saving that common Christianity which the constitution thereof presupposeth It is therefore utterly a most poisonous doctrine to be infused into the ears of Christian people that they are by their Christianity free to cast themselves into Churches as they may meet with those whom they best like to communicate with It is therefore a thing to stand astonished at that they who have hitherto declamed against any thing in Christianity the reason whereof is not to be derived from the Scripture not seeing in the Scripture any such thing as a Church that was not founded by the Apostles or by commission from the Apostles not in all Christianity any thing ever counted a Church that was not planted by mean authority derived thence to some Church should now think themselves at liberty to build Churches upon no other foundation than an arbitrary agreement of seven persons Suppose I say nothing as yet in what right and interest several Members or rather several ranks and qualities concurre to the resolution of the Church Suppose I grant the power may be so abused that several parts of the Church may stand obliged to provide for themselves without the whole which is al that the common profession of Reformation importeth Shall we not be throughly reformed till we renounce one Catholick Church as visibly a corporation as the Baptisme which we received upon acknowledging of it is visible If every Church be planted by the authority of the Apostles to that effect extant and alive in some Church then is not the communion thereof with all other Churches by the means of that which planted it communicating with all arbitrary but a necessary consequence of that obligation to the Unity of the whole which it gets by being a Church Nor is there any reason why the acts of the whole whether done by representatives in Synods or resolved at distance of time and place by intelligence and correspondence of the absent should any way depend upon the satisfaction of particular Christians how just or how requisite For neither doth their conformity to them in any reasonable construction import any ingagement of their conscience to the justice or necessity of them Unlesse it could be said that a man could not live in society without binding himself to answer for the acts of that society wherein hee liveth Which hee that saith will not find an independent congregation to continue in for four and twenty hours or to enter into onely for one For what obligation can all Christians have to answer for that which our Christianity upon profession whereof we are become Christians containeth not Indeed when the abuse is so visible that the unity of
large vvord to make good But if vve look upon the intent of those that spake it and the mater vvhich they had in hand it will appear very unreasonable to extend it to any thing else Now I suppose upon the premises that the Prophets Esay and Ieremy in the first and literal and obvious sense intend to soretell the return of the people of Israel from Captivity and the great change that should be seen in their faithfulnesse to God though figuring thereby that knowledge of God and that fidelity of Christians which the preaching of the Gospel should produce And truly I do challenge all them that are best acquainted with the state of that people from the beginning to show me any greater change in it then that which we see came to passe upon their return from the Captivity To wit that they who formerly before the Captivity had been every day falling away from their own the true God to the worship of imaginary Deities should from thenceforth continue constant to him when tempted with the greatest torments in the world to renounce him for the worship of Idols as we see by the relations of the Maccabees And is it strange then that I should say that this is the change which these Prophesies intend to declare Especially when I say not that this is all they intend because I know that the Apostles have declared them to be intended of the times of the Gospel But that this is that which they intend in the first instance which by the premises must be a figure and step to that which the Gospel intends to declare And yet in regard of the manifold Idolatries which prevailed before the Captivity it shall be most truly and significantly understood that the people of God who after the Captivity never departed from the true God shall not then teach one another to know the true God because that Law the summe of the old Law should be written in their hearts and entrails so that they should have no need to teach one another to know the true God If this be true referring this Prophene to the Gospel of which the Apostle expounds it in the mystical sense Heb. VIII 8 it will be much more evident how those that are baptized upon the profession of the Christian faith who are the new Israel according to the Spirit shall have no need to teach one another to know the true God who both know God and the way to God which is the Law of God which they bear in their hearts if their Christianity be not counterfeit So that when God promiseth to establish this new Covenant he promiseth neither more nor lesse then the conversion of the world to the Christian faith Accordingly S. John truly tells the Christians to whom he writes that they knew all things and had no need that any man should teach them because the unction that was in them taught them the truth because he doth not mean that they knew the secrets of Geometry or the mysteries of nature or whatsoever is or is done in the utmost parts of the world or any thing else impertinent to his present discourse But because they had in them a principle sufficient to condemn those errors which he writes against there to wit those that deny both the Father and the Son by denying Jesus to be the Christ which saith the Apostle is the spirit of Antichrist For surely he that hath unfainedly professed the Christian Faith upon being catechized in it hath in him a principle sufficient to preserve him from such gross infections which the Holy Ghost wherewith he is anointed upon being baptized into this profession out of a good conscience sealeth up in his heart so that such corruptions can have no access to infect it And therefore the Apostle might well call upon them to try such Spirits whither of God or not seeing that the comparing of their pretenses with that which they had once received must needs be sufficient to condemn that which is opposite to it by the judgement of any man that unfainedly adhereth to it So that S. Paul when he bids the Thessalonians try all things but hold that which is good demands no unreasonable thing at their hands if we understand those things which he would have tried to be such as are triâ—ble by the rule of faith common to all Christians Indeed the same Apostle when he writeth to the Corinthians that the spiritual man is judged by no man but himselfe judgeth all things seems to speak more generally not onely of the rule of Faith but of the secret counsel and good pleasure of God in dispensing the revelation thereof one way to the ancient Prophets another way to the Apostles both by the Spirit of God and Christ Which secret counsel those spiritual men that he speaketh of were able to interpret in the Scriptures of the Old Testament by comparing spiritual things with spiritual things That is the revelations granted under the Law with those which the Gospel had brought forth Which though the Apostles could do yet the grace of understanding the Scriptures of the Old Testament by the Holy Ghost was no more common to all Christians at that time then now that the understanding of the Scriptures is to be purchased by humane indeavours it can be common to all Christians to be Divines By all which it appeareth not that the Scriptures con in all things necessary to salvation clearly to all that want it but that Christianity affordeth sufficient means of instruction in all things necessary to the salvaâ—ion of all that learn it And those who to find this instruction turn simple plain meaning Christians to that translation of the Bible which they like to find resolution in the pretenses of the sects which can arise cannot be said either to teach them Christianity or sufficient means to learn it For he who hath not only acknowledged the substance of Christianity but grounded the hope of his salvation upon it will rather deny his own senses then admit any thing contrary to it to be the true meaning of the Scripture whatsoever be the sound of the words of it But he that onely knoweth the Scriptures to be Gods truth and believeth he hath the spirit of God to conduct him in seeking the sense of it not supposing the beliefe of Christianity to be a condition requisite to the having of Gods spirit may easily be seduced by his inbred pride to devise and set up new positions sounding like the Scriptures which the Church acknowledgeth no more then that meaning of the Old Testament which our Lord and his Apostles first declared was acknowledged by the Scribes and Pharisees And thinking he doth it by the same right as they had must needs take himselfe and his followers for our Lord and his Apostles but the Church for the Scribes and Pharisees As for that extravagant conceit of Cartwright I will once more stand amazed at it A man of so much
knowledge as to think himselfe fit to recall the Lawes of his Country and give new Laws to the Church of God in it is not ashamed to admit that the reason why the Idolatries of Israelites were so odious to God was because he had not commanded them by the Scriptures As if God had never forbade them to worship Idols by the Scriptures For otherwise he could not have inferred by the words of the Prophet that a Christian ought to do nothing without a Text of Scripture to warrant it much lesse to admit any Law of the Church without such evidence Which had it been granted him with power to give the Church such Laws he could not have proceeded without demanding this exception that those which Cartwright should make without any such warrant might be counted godly and religious but these which the Church superstitious CHAP. XXVII Why it was death to transgress the determinations of the Jews Consistory and what power this argueth in the Church A difference between the authority of the Apostles and that of the Church The being of the Church to the worlds end with power of the Keyes makes it not infallible Obedience to Superiors and the Pillar of truth inferre it not IT will not be more difficult to show how the true sense of all those Scriptures which are alleadged towards the infallibility of the Church concurs to make good the terms upon which I have resolved the dispute in hand For having showed that the Law of Moses was given the Jews for the condition of holding the land of promise they ruling as well their civil communion as the service they tendred to God according to it I will demand but one thing more from the general experience of all civill people which is this That no form of Laws can be propounded to any community of men whatsoever so as to serve it without further determining and limiting of such things as time and the occurrences of time shall discover to be undetermined by that Law and therefore questionable So that Moses Law though given by God who foresaw whatsoever could become questionable concerning the mater of his Law yet because given for the civil Law of the people must needs be given liable to want such limitations as the occurrences of time should make requisite Neither can the truth hereof be better evidenced then by showing the course which God by the Law hath taken for the ending of all such disputes arising upon the Law I do therefore not onely grant but insist upon this that the power established by the law of Deut. XVII 8 -12 extendeth to all maner of debates arising upon occasion of any recept of Moses Law and to the determining of them by limiting those things which the leter of the Law had not expressed I do likewise grant that death is allotted for a penalty to whosoever should not conform to any such determination and the practice of the Law according to it And I do find so much reason for it that I do not understand how possibly that people should subsist and by consequence the Law which made them that people in practice of it without such a provision as this An opinion of the intent and meaning of God in the practice of any precept being sufficient to divide that people into parties not to be reconciled but by the voice of God either upon the occasion or by the Law warranting the sentence of those whom he authorizeth to declare what he requireth of his people Setting aside for the present to dispute whether it be the Priests alone or the Priests with the chiefe of the People in whom this Power is vested by the Law as for the present I dispute not who the persons are in whom the power of Church maters rests in behalf of the Church it is plainly by this Law a capitall crime to teach and do contrary to what the publick Power of that People should determine concerning the intent and practice of any Precept of that Law And therefore accordingly I grant insist that in the new Israel of God according to the Spirit which is the Church of Christ there is and ought to be a Power of putting out of the fellowship of the same any man that shall not stand to the resolution which legally is able to conclude it For without such a Power it cannot be imagined how the unity thereof should subsist seeing that there can be no community in which debates shall not arise about those things wherein they communicate I grant further and insist that he who is justly put out of the Church though meerly for violating the unity thereof by disobeying that just order which unites it is thereby condemned to the death of the world to come As he that teaches and does contrary to the sentence of that power that concludes the Synagogue is put out of this Notwithstanding as many other crimes besides this are capitall by the law of Moses so there be many other causes both of faith and of life by which a man forfeits his interest both in the world to come and in the communion of the Church But if any man argue that because a man forfeits the Communion of the Church by disobeying the determination thereof therefore all the determinations thereof are infallibly true and obliging by virtue of Gods Law I shall deny the consequence by virtue of that very Law of Deut. XVII 8 -12 upon which this Argument is grounded For whereas it makes disobedience a capital crime there are other Laws that suppose a breach of the Law even in following the determinations of that power which it establisheth At least if we admit the practice of those Jews that follow the Talmud in those precepts of Levit. VI. 13 -21 Numb XV. 21 -26 which indeed cannot reasonably be otherwise understood How should the Congregation offer sacrifices to expiate that ignorance wherein all were involved but as those that had power to make wrong determinations should expiate that ignorance which the Congregation by following had incursed Neither saith our Lord any lesse in the Gospel though in a mater of greater consequence when having condemned them that transgressed Gods commandment for the Tradition of their Predecessors Mat. XV. 5-10 Mar. VII 8-12 neverthelesse he commands them to observe and do all such things as the Scribes and Pharisees sitting in Moses Chair should command Mat. XXIII 2. to wit because the authority of Moses his Chair presupposed the Law of God but extended not to nullifie any part of it In like maner the authority of the Church presupposing the truth of Christianity the profession whereof makes Christians the Body whereof is the Church It is not possible that it should reach so farre as to warrant any man to believe that which those grounds upon which the truth of Christianity stands cannot evidence to be true I say not that the Church cannot determine what shall be taught and received in such disputes as
destructive to their particular salvation within that compasse neither will their fall be imputable to the Church but to themselves if they do But neither shall this difficulty be so great an inconvenience in our common Christianity nor so insuperable as it seems to those that are loth to be too much troubled about the world to come For I never found that God pretendeth to give or that it is reason hee should give those means for attaining that truth by which wee must be saved which it should not lye within the malice of man to render difficult for them to compasse whom they concern I finde it abundantly enough for his unspeakable goodness and exactly agreeable with those means whereby hee convicteth the world of the truth of Christianity that hee give those whom it concerns such means to discern the truth of things in debate as being duly applyed are of themselves sufficient to create a resolution as certain as the weight of the mater in debate shall require And such I maintain the Scripture to be containing the sense of it within those bounds which the Rule of Faith and the Lawes given the Church by our Lord and his Apostles do limit For what is more obvious than to discern what the whole Body of the Church hath agreed in what not what is manifestly consequent to the same what not what is agreeable to the ground and end of those Lawes which the Church first received from our Lord and his Apostles what not Let prejudice cast what mists of difficulties it can before the light which God hath given his Church to discover the truth hee that stands out of their way shall discern much more art used to obscure than to discern it Neither is there any reason why it is so hard to make it discernable to all that are concerned but the unreasonable prejudices either of the force of humane authority in mater of Faith and the extent of Tradition beyond the Rule of Faith or that the consent of the whole Church may as well come from Antichrist as from the Apostles If the records of the Church were handled without these prejudices lesse learning than this age shows in other maters might serve to evidence the consent of â— Church in more controversies than wee have to those that would be content to rest in the Scripture expounded according to the same But if the Church that is those that uave right in behalf of the Church being perswaded of a sacrilegious privilege of Infallibility shall take upon them to determine truths in debate to limit Lawes to the Church without respect to this Rule which if they respect they manifestly renounce the privilege of their Infallibility I mervail not that God suffers his people to be tried with such difficulties whose sins I doubt deserve this tryal But then I say further that it is not the providence of God that is the means which hee hath provided to resolve men in debates of Christianity but it is the malice of man that makes that means uneffectual which God hath made sufficient I must now answer an envious objection that this resolution is not according to the positions of those that professe the Reformation with us To which I will speak as freely as to the rest having profess'd my self utterly assoiled of all faction and respect of mens persons to way against the means of finding the truth and for that reason devested even the Fathers of the Church of all authority which their merits from Christianity have purchased to hear what their testimonies argue in point of Historical truth I say then first that may saying no way prejudices the intent and interest of the Reformation whatsoever insufficience it may charge the expressions of Reformers with I know the worst that can be alleged in this point is that Luther in appealing from the Pope and Council called by him to a Council that should judg meerly by the Scriptures first framed this Controversie between the Scriptures and the Church which since hath been alwaies in debate so that hee which will not be tried by the Scriptures alone plainly seems to quit the party and give up the game Who has this imagination though never to apparent let mee desire him to go a little higher to the first commencing of the plea about Indulgences For there can be nothing more manifest than this That when those that undertook that cause against Luther found that the present practice of the Church could not be derived from any thing recorded in the Scripture they were forced to betake themselves to the authority of the Church not that which consisteth in testifying the faith once delivered but in creating that which never was of force untill the exercice of it Here let all the world judg for I am confident the case is so plain that all the world may judg in it whether Luther had any Interest to demand that the Scripture alone should be heard in opposition to the Tradition received from the beginning by the Church tending as I have said to nothing but to limit the meaning of the Scripture Or that his Interest required him to protest that the truth for which hee stood was not to be liable to the Sentence of the present Church And therefore when afterwards hee appealed to a Council which should pronounce by the Scriptures alone if this tend to exclude those means which are subordinate to the attaining of the meaning of the Scriptures I do utterly deny that it can be understood so to be meant by any man that would not defeat his own enterprize And therefore that it must be understood to exclude onely the authority of the present Church so farre as it proceeds not upon supposition of those grounds whereupon the Church is to pronounce For what hinders the sentence of the Church to be infallible not of it self alone but as it proceeds upon those means which duely applied produce a sentence that is infallible And truly were not his plea so to be understood all his Followers Melancthan Chemnitius and others who have written Volumes to show how their profession agrees with that of the Catholick Church should have taken pains to commit a very great inconsequence For as I have argued that those who maintain the Infallibility of the present Church do contradict themselves whensoever they have recourse either to the Scripture or to any Records of the Church to evidence the sense of the Scripture in that which otherwise they professe the authority of the Church alone infallibly to determine So those that will have the Scripture alone to determine all Controversies of Faith and yet take the pains to bring evidence of the meaning thereof from that which hath been received in the Church may very well be said to take pains to contradict themselves Some of our Scottish Presbyterians have observed that the Church of England was reformed by those that had more esteem of Melancthon than of Calvin and
Christianity as the corruption of it Surely he that considers not amiss will finde that it was a great ease to them that were convinced to acknowledg a God above them to imagine the name and honor of this God to rest in something of their own choice or devising which being set up by themselves reason would they should hope to please and have propitious by such obedience and service as they could allow Correspondently God having given the Jewes a Law of such precepts as might be outwardly performed without inward obedience whosoever believe the most difficult point of Gods service to be the submission of the heart will finde it a gain that hee can perswade himself of Gods peace without it whatsoever trouble whatsoever cost hee be at for that perswasion otherwise If then there be in mans nature a principle of Paganism and Judaism notwithstanding that men cannot be at quiet till by imbracing a religion they think they are at peace with God Is it a strange thing that they who have attained the truth of Christianity should entertain a perswasion of peace with God upoâ— terms really inconsequent to or inconsistent with the true intent of it Surely if wee reflect upon the motives of it and the motives of them it cannot seem strange I have said and it is manifest that the nature of Christianity though sufficient yet were purposely provided not to be constraining that the effect of them might be the trial of those dispositions that should be moved therewith And is it a mervail that means to perswade those that have received Christianity that things inconsistent with that which was first delivered are indeed consequent to the same should be left among those that professe that they ought to receive nothing but what was first delivered by our Lord and his Apostles I say nothing now of renouncing Christianity while men professe this for I confesse and insist that while men do believe that there is a society of men visible by the name of the Church it will not be possible for them to forget their whole Christianity or to imbrace the contrary of it But I say that notwithstanding the profession of receiving Christianity from our Lord and his Apostles the present Church may admit Lawes whether of belief or of Communion inconsistent with that which they received at first I allege further that so long as all parts of the Church held free intercourse and correspondence with one another it was a thing either difficult or altogether impossible to bring such things either into the perswasion or practice of all parts of it according to the difficulty of bringing so great a body to agree in any thing against which any part might protest with effect And this held not onely before the Church was ingraffed into the State of the Romano Empire but also so long after as this accessory help of Christianity did not obscure and in the end extinguish the original intercourse and correspondence of the Church For then it grew both possible and easie for them who had the Secular Power on their side to make that which the authority thereof was imployed to maintain to passe for Tradition in the Church Seeing it is manifest that in the ordinary language of Church Writers Tradition signifies no lesse that which the Church delivers to succeeding ages than that which it received from the Apostles Adde hereunto the opinion of the authority of the Church truly pretended originally within the true bounds but by neglecting the due bounds of the truth of Christianity which it supposeth infinitely extended to all States which Powermay have interest to introduce For if it be not impossible to perswade those who know they have received their Christianity upon motives provided by God to convince the judgments and consciences of all that see them to imbrace those things to which the witnesse of them may be applyed that they are to imbrace whatsoever either the expresse act or the silent practice of the Church inforces whether the motives of Faith be applicable to them or not Then is it not impossible to perswade them any thing which this Power shall think to be for their Interest to perswade For no mans Interest it can be to go about to perswade the world that expresse contradictories are both true at once And if it were not impossible that the imaginations of most of them that dispute Controversies for the Church of Rome should be so imbroyled with the equivocation of this word Church as not to distinguish the Infallible authority thereof as a multitude of men not to be deceived in testifying the truth from the authority of it as a Body constituted upon supposition of the same Shall it not be easie for those who can obtain a reputation of the World that their act is to oblige the whole Church to obtain of the same to make no difference between that which is presently decreed and that which was originally delivered by the Apostles The said difference remaining disputable not onely by any text of Scripture but by any record of historical truth testifying the contrary to have passed for truth in any other age or part of the Church Upon these premises I do appeal to the common sense of all men to judge whether the Church professing to hold nothing but by Tradition from the Apostles may not be induced to admit that as received from the Apostles which indeed never was delivered by the Apostles For when the Socinians pretend that the Faith of the Trinity of the Incarnation and Satisfaction of our Lord Christ not being delivered by the Apostles in their writings crept into the Church as soon as they were dead they still maintain that nothing is to be admitted but what comes from our Lord and his Apostles But upon their supposition that Antichrist came into the Church as soon as they were dead are obliged to renounce all that can be pretended to come by Tradition and in that very next age Which I yield and insist that whosoever shall consider the intercourse and correspondence visibly establisht by the Apostles between all parts of the Church shall easily perceive to be a contradiction to common sense But when so much difference is visible between the State of the Church in several ages and what change hath succeeded in things manifest to inferre what may have succeeded in things disputable Hee must have his minde well and thoroughly possessed with prejudice to the utter renouncing of common sense that can indure a demand so contrary to all appearance to be imposed upon his common sense The same I say to the other demands of certain and sensible distances of time which they that see the end of may be certainly assured what was received at the beginning of them and so by mean distances this age what was held by the Apostles Of the like time for blotting out the remembrance of the truth as for introducing falshood For it is evidently true that
it and the like blasphemies innumerable I know there are other Opinions of Justification by faith alone among those that professe it according to the senses which they may have of the nature of justifying faith and those perhaps of greater vogue than this which I have named Neither is it my intent to involve those that maintain Justification by faith alone in the blame which I charge the opinions hitherto described with The reason why I mention these opinions here is because they are in the extreams and therefore the mention of them seemed to propose the state of that question which I pretend to resolve For my way shall be in the first place to answer the question proposed concerning that disposition which the Covenant of Grace requireth the mind of him to be formally affected with that will be qualified for the promises which God therby tendreth Making this account that the treating of it will give us an overture into the consideration both of the effective cause that produceth it in those that have it and also of the meritorius cause that moveth God both originally to grant the said effective cause and consequently to accept the effect thereof for a competent qualification of them that have it for the promises which God by his Gospel tendreth those that receive it CHAP. II. Evidence what is the Condition of the Covenant of Grace The contract of Baptism The promise of the Holy Ghost annexed to Christs not to Johns Baptism Those are made Christs Disciples as Christians that take up his Crosse in Baptism The effects of Baptism according to the Apostles TO proceed to as brief and as clear a resolution of that point as I can propose I say That a sincere and resolute profession to undertake Christianity and to live according to it believing as our Lord Christ hath revealed and living as he hath taught consigned to God in the hands of his Church by the Sacrament of Baptism is that condition which the Covenant of Grace requireth to qualifie us for the promises which it tendreth This resolution is directly against the Antinomians and those that believe that a Christian is justified by the obedience of Christ imputed from everlasting to them whom he came to save Which indeed nullifieth the Covenant of Grace and converteth it to a meer promise on Gods part requiring no condition on mans part to be performed by him to qualifie hâ—m for it But this resolution opposing that conceit so roundly as positively to expresse the condition which I intend to maintain It will serve both against the conceit of Socinus that justifying faith is nothing but a firm beliefe that those who believed the Gospel purposing to live as God requireth are accepted by him as righteous Baptisme into the profession of Christianity not included But also of those that will have it to consist in the knowledge of our being predestinate to life from everlasting revealed by Gods word and sealed by his Spirit The proofs of it I will divide into three heads For consisting of so many branches as you see it cannot be expected that those Scriptures which shall serve to evidence it should every where expresse all the parts of it It is enough if the severall parts of it out of which the whole results be demonstrable by severall ranks of Scriptures The first of those Scriptures that concern the profession which God by our Lord Christ requireth and he by his Apostles and the Church after them to the worlds end of them that will be qualified for the Promises which the Gospel tondreth which I put in the first place expresly because they seem to contain the most visible and express arguments that the principles and practice of Christianity can yield to inforce this truth The second shall be taken from the nature of faith and the attributes ascribed to it by the Scriptures in justifying saving regenerating or adopting us for sons giving us the spirit of Gods sons remitting our sins and the rest that we expect at Gods hands by vertue of his Covenant of Grace The last shall be from those passages of the Apostles chiefly and consequently of other Scriptures that they expound wherein it is denied that we are saved or justified by Works or by the Law but affirmed that we are saved and justified by Grace and by faith The due sence and intent whereof is the thread to guide us through the intricacies of this whole dispure Though when this is done I shall not wish any man to resolve himself in this or in any other point of the whole book till he hath gone through the whole and considered what resolution this generall infers to all other branches or dependances of it And therefore shall think he does nothing that goes about to disprove any part of it without shewing the resolution which his opinion infers to those other points or dependances that the Reader may have the choice before him which he thinks most consequent in reason to the principles of Christianity received on all sides I will begin with the words of the Apostle 1 Pet. III. 20 21. where this seems to be couched in terminis He saith that the long suffering of God waited in the dayes of Noe while the Arke was making in which a few that is eight souls were saved the antitype whereof Baptism now saveth us not the laying down of the filth of the flesh but the having of a good conscience towards God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ The water of Baptism saveth us through the temtations of the World as they were saved through the deluge And what can be done more then to save us let no man think to defeat this by striving about words that to save and to justifie is not the same If Bapâ—ism import the condition of the Covenant of Grace which saveth us our justification will necessarily be wrapt up in the same packet though to justifie and to save be severall conceits And is it not strange that any man should be perswaded that there is nothing said or meant of the Baptism of water in all this passage but of the Baptism of the Spirit as that which moves a good conscience to professe Christianity For how can Baptism by the Holy Ghost and fire be the antitype of the waters of the deluge as the Baptism of water is and as that Baptism which the Apostle speaks of is The correspondence between the types of the Old and the antitypes of the New Testament by vertue of the premises consists in the correspondence between the temporall deliverance of that time and the spirituall deliverance of this both in order to the everlasting deliverance of the World to come Now it is certain that the visible Ceremony of Baptism signifies the temptations of this World out of which we escape by the means of that Sacrament as he that is baptized rises out of the water again According to that of the Psalm LXIX 1 15. Save me O God
Church I say there was reason for these orders supposing that Scholars were to be admitted Christians upon this presumption Otherwise none And hence it commeth that the assembly of the Church being first by a Synecdoche called in Latine Missa from the dismissing of it which it ends with as in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Latine Collecta for the assembling of it the word Missa Latine as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek is now come to signifie the Sacrament of the Eucharist which came after the dismissing of Learners but went afore the dismissing of believers being the principall office for which the Assemblies of the Church were held But I will remit those that would understand the weight of this argument to that which they may read in Clemens his Poedagogus where they shall find the conversation which the Church required of those who professed to be Scholars of Christianity and to stand for baptism described in all the parts of it Perhaps somewhat in the way of Plato his Common-wealth or Xenophons education of Cyrus expressing many times what should be rather than what was But still what the Church on the behalfe of God required at their hands till being come to the end of the book he who had approved himselfe by his conversation likely to make a good Christian is in the end of it inducted by the Chatechist into the Church to demand that baptism which by this time he hath learned what it charges him with And if this be not argument enough what the Church in Gods behalfe demands of them that would be Christians it will be in vain to apply reason to argue any thing that is questionable For it is visible that the time of any mans continuing Catechumenus or a Probationer in Christianity was required upon no other ground nor to any other purpose but that the Church might be reasonably or legally that is according to custome assured that the party pretending to baptism was really resolved to stand to that which Christianity should require at his hands This the conversation of severall years for triall the frequenting of Gods service in the Church the hatred which he needs must undergo from the enemies of the Church Jewes and Gentiles must needs signifie supposing Christians to be reasonable people But that exception which I alledged out of the Constitutions most clearly That if any mans zeal to Christianity should be found so fervent that there was no reason to suspect his sincerity then the regular time of continuing in the state and rank of Catechumenus or a Scholar of Christianity might be abridged by the Church For this is the same confideration which takes place in many penitentiall Canons of the Church afterwards That if any man should demonstrate that zeal and eagerness in detesting the offences through which he had failed which might ground a confidence of his sincerity for the future the regular time of his Penance might be abridged The ground whereof is to be seen in the example of S. Paul abating the rigor of his censure upon the incestuous person at Corinth though not only in consideration of the persons own zeal but of the Churches submission to acknowledge themselves parties to his crime for bearing him out against the censure due to it before And this indulgence consisting in the releasing or abating of regular penance is without all quession according to the will and word of God Consider further another custome of the Church during this primitive estate Many men that were convicted in their judgements of the truth of Christianity finding dâ—fficulty in undergoing the Crosse of Christ and persecution for Christianity at least willing to avoid it though they went so far as to professe themselves Probationers in Christianity yet went not so far as to pretend to Baptism least by being admitted to it they should make themselves liable to persecution as Christians These men if any thing fell out to make themselves liable to persecution as Christians These men if any thing fell out to make them think their lives to be in danger would nevertheless desire to be baptized in their beds of sickness Neither did the Church make any question of granting it presuming that those who by the hand of God had been driven to demand it would prove true to that which by such an exigent they had been driven to seek Nevertheless these are those Clinicâ— whom we read of in the ancient Records of the Church of whose salvation though there were that presumption in regard whereof they were admitted to baptism yet not without some scruple Upon what account Not because they were not so well drenched with water being baptized in their beds as others But because their resolution to abide by the Christianity which they professed at their baptisme was counted more questionable than theirs who had frankly without reservation abandoned themselves to it Tertullian in his Book De Bapt. cap. XIX argues that none should make hast to Baptism that are not provided of that resolution which the performance of that which they undertake by it requires And upon this account he advises to delay the baptism of Infants to mans estate nay of single persons because of the temptations to which they are subject till they resolve to serve God either in the state of virginity and widowhood or of wedlock What the consequence hereof is in the matter of baptizing Infants his reason must determine And that sufficiently appears to be upon the profession which Baptism undertaketh For that which he apprehendeth is that not having well understood and digested what it is they undertake they should fail in making it good And truly let any man tell me why there should be so much doubt made of the salvation of those that died before baptism in the ancient Church notwithstanding that they had professed not only to believe the truth of Christianity but also that they intended to undertake the profession of it and were indeed of the rank of Catechumeni Scholars or Probationers in it For it is manifest that aster persecution was ceased there were many and many who professing Christianity forbore neverthelesse to be baptized sometimes many years sometimes till death as we see by the great Constantine who having professed so long before the beliefe of Christianity was not baptized neverthelesse till a while before his death sometimes therefore were prevented by death and died unbaptized of whose salvation there was some difficulty made in conceiving full assurance as it appears by the arguments wherewith S. Ambrose comforts himselfe in the case of the Emperour Valentiniane and his brother Satyrus Not that there could remain any doubt in the salvation of those who having resolved to undertake and profess Christianity by being baptized should be intercepted and cut off by inevitable casualties of mortality not procured by those delayes which the want of zeal in that resolution had brought to pass For it is clear that those who suffered
death in the profession of Christianity left no doubt in the mind of any Christian whether they should be saved or not suffering for Christ before they were baptized But because those who might have had means and opportunity to be baptized at such times and upon such occasions as the rules and customes of the Church furnished by neglecting the same ministred some ground to presume that they had not in them that resolution to undergo the Crosse of Christ in and for the performance of that which baptisin undertakes in consideration whereof he grants those promises which his Gospel proclaimeth And having said this I conceive I need say no more to show the necessity of Baptism according to the doctrine and practise of the whole Church which I proved afore by the Scriptures For if those who professed to believe Christianity and had resolved to enter into that estate and life which it required came under a doubtfull repute as to their salvation among Christians where they were intercepted by death before they were Christened by baptism well may the unavoydable casualties of mortality dispense in the necessity of an act the means whereof may depend upon something else beside his will that wants it But it appears therefore a necessary ingredient in the condition which qualifies for the promises of the Gospel when the desire of having it if it were possible appears absolutely undispensable And this shall save me the labour of producing the testimonies of Church Writers to evidence the sense thereof in all ages For the sense of the Church cannot be so effectually evidenced by the sayings of particular persons of what authority soever in their own Churches as it is evident by the customs really in force which it appeareth that particular persons held themselves obliged to follow And therefore to the opinions presently on foot Of the Socinians That baptisme was necessary under the Apostles to profess that purity of life which Christianity promiseth when men were converted from Jews or Gentiles to Christians but indifferent for those that wear that profession by being born and brought up under Christian parents And of some Enthusiasts among us who think it a meer mistake to baptize with water into Christianity the Baptism of John being the Baptism of water but the Baptism of the Holy Ghost the Baptism of Christ of which Opinions you shall hear more by and by I say to these opinions it shall serve my turn to say That the necessity of the Baptism of Water stands evidenced by the same means that convince the World of the truth of Christianity To wit by the Scriptures hitherto alledged and by the consent of all Christians For it will be impossible to alledge not only any Writer that hath been allowed and credited by the Church but any man that hath pass'd for a Christian in the Church that ever undertook to perswade himselfe or any man else to presume that he should be saved neglecting Baptism For what reason and upon what ground I leave to those that shall neglect S. Peters distinction hitherto pleaded to alledge As for the next point which is the manner of baptizing from the circumstances and ceremonies of it I shall but relate here what I alledged out of S. Peter in the beginning of the solemn questions propounded of course to those that demanded Baptism whether they did believe the truth of Christianity whether they would undertake to profess it and to fight against the flesh the World and the Divel for the observing of it whether he desired to be baptized upon these terms Neither shall I need to alledge the testimonies of Church-Writers for the use of the same ceremony which at this day is in force in the Church of England And though there be those that are liberall enough in censuring it as impertinent now that all are baptized Infants and though this be not the place to consider such exceptions yet I will here take notice how the contract thus executed concerns â—he salvation of Christians that so it may be judged how it concerns the Office of Baptism that what so concerns the salvation of Christians be expressed in it To the same purpose I will here alledge the putting on of white robes after Baptisin Whereupon the Sunday after Easter-day is still called Dominica in Albis The Lords day in Whites which first they had put on at Easter when they were baptized which custome seemeth to have been in use in the Church when S. Paul said Rom. XIII 14. Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill it in the lusts thereof And Gal. III. 27. As many as are baptized into Christ have put on Christ And Joh. IV. 22. 24. To put off the old man and put on the new man which after God is created in righteousnesse and true holinesse And Col. 3. 10. Having put off the old man with his actions and put on the new man that is renewed unto knowledge according to the image of him that made him For all these expressions seem to be allusions to that which they saw done and practised before their eyes But those that yield not so much cannot refuse to grant that the custome was taken up by the Church to signifie the profession of that which the Apostle injoyneth all Christians in those that were baptized The same thing signified by signing those that were baptized with the sign of the Crosse Which S. Augustine expounds very well by the custome of the Roman Empire to set a mark on the bodies of those that were listed Souldiers and upon slaves by which they might be known and brought back if they should run away or depart from their colours For though the sign of the Crosse made upon him that is baptized remain not visible upon him yet being done publickly and solemnly and as S. Paul saith of Timothy under many witnesses he is notwithstanding to be challenged by it of what he undertooke And he that observes this mark to be called by the ancient Church sigillum the signe or seal must think of S. Pauls words 2 Cor. I. 21 22. But he that establisheth us with you into Christ and anointeth us is God who hath also signed us and put the earnest of his Spirit into our hearts And Ephes I. 13. In whom also having believed ye were signed with the Holy Spirit of Promise And IV. 30. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God by whom ye are signed to the day of Redemption I say he must think of these words of S. Paul as I said of those concerning the white robes of them them that were baptized That they are either allusions to that which men saw done by the appointment of the Apostles or occasions of taking up these ceremonies by the primitive Church I might here argue from the custom of Vndertakers which now are called Godfathers and Godmothers to the same purpose For if it were requisite that the Church should be secured
the plurall number the Sacraments of faith within that faith which alone justifieth But the same S. Ambrose Offic. II. 2. Habet ergo vitâ—m aternam fides quia fundamentum bonum est habent bona facta quia vir justus dictis et rebus probatur Therefore faith hath eternall life because the foundation is good And so have good works because a man is tried to be righteous by both saying and doing That is by doing as he saies By doing these works which by his Baptisme he undertakes to do S. Basil De spiritu sancto cap. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For faith is perfected by Baptisme and Baptisme is founded upon faith and both are fulfilled by the same names For as we believe in the Father Son and Holy Ghost so are we baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost And profession goes afore introducing to Salvation but baptisme followes sealing up our assent Not onely to the demand doest thou believe in the Father Son and Holy Ghost but when it is further demanded wilt thou be baptized upon these termes And this profession so sealed is that which saveth him that departs upon it not him that survives to falsifie it S. Chrysostom in Rom. IV. 2. Hom. VIII makes a long comparison to shew that man glorisies God more by believing then by keeping his commandments Which certainly proceedeth not not can hold in those workes that presuppose faith having in them all that whereby faith glorifyeth God and more And therefore is to be limitted to works done before faith And therefore of those workes is S. Chrysostme to be understood when he sayes as oft times he doth that a man is justified without workes by Faith or by Grace in Gal III. 12. In Rom. III. 27. Homil. VII In Ephes II. 10. Homil. IV. The reason being alwayes that of Theodoret upon Galat. III. 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Seripture of God convinceth both those that were afore the Law and under it as transgressors as well these of Moses Law as those of the Law of Nature Offering the salvation that is promised by faith for an antidote both for these and for those If the Law of Moses were not of force to justify much lesse the Law of Nature Now the Gospel supposeth both Jewes and Gentiles under sinne and liable to Gods wrath till the Gospel come as S. Paul in the beginning of his Epistle to the Romanes declareth Not as if no man had been saved under the Law or before it But because they who then were saved belonged not to the Law of Moses or that of Nature but to the Gospel as saved by the meanes of it So said S. Jerome afore that they were saved by the preaching of Faith under the Law of Nature And thinne was the number of them who thus were saved that it was requisite the Gospel should come least the meanes which God had used to restore man afore might seem to have been imployed to no purpose So to be saved by faith and not by workes is the same with S. Paul according to the Fathers as to be justified by being a Christian and not by being a Jew by the Gospell and not by the Law So Tertullian cont Marc. V. 3. Ejus ergo Dei erit fides in qua vivit justus cujus Lex in qua non justificatur operarius Proâ—nde si in Lege maledictio est in Fide benedictio Therefore that faith whereby the just liveth shall be the same Gods whose the Law is whereby he that worketh is not justified Accordingly if the curse come by the Law then the blessing by faith For that Faith which properly stands in oppostion to the Law is Christianity S. Hilary In Mat. Can. VIII Movet Scribas remissum ab hommine peccatum Hominem enim tantum in Jesu Christo intuebantur remissum ab eo quod Lex laxare non poterat Fides enim sola justificat The Scribes are moved that sinne should be remitted by a man For they looked upon Jesus Christ as a meere man who remitted that which the Law could not loose For Faith alone justifieth Faith onely justifieth in opposition to the Law which remitteth no sin Therefore faith is Christianity Clemens Alexandr Strom. II. To learn is to obey the commandments which is to believe God Because forsooth to professe the Faith is to undertake to live by Gods commandments Strom. IV. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He therefore playes false with God that believes not God But he that keepeth not the commandments believes not Againe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All therefore whatsoever ye do do to the glory of God whatsoever it is permitted to do under the rule of Faith Here that part of Christianity which prescribes a Christian what he is to do what not is called the Rule of Faith Because he believes that God requires it at his hands though he undertake more then to believe it Strom. VII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is a believer or faithful that receives the commandments upon due consideration and keeps them Pelagius upon Rom. X. 4. Talis est ille qui in Christum credidit die qua credidit qualis ille qui universam legem implevit Such is he that believeth the day that he believeth as is he that hath fulfilled the whole Law In the day of his Baptisme that is if he lives not to transgresse it His title to heaven is as good as if he had done whatsoever the Law requireth I shewed you before that Pelag. in the matter of justification departs not from the Church Clemens of Rome S. Pauls Scholar whom I will end with in his Epistle to the Corinthians p. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Abraham who was called friend was found faithful in that he became obedient to the word of God p. 40. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore was our Father Abraham blessed was it not because he did righteousnesse and truth through Faith p. 41. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They were all therefore glorified and magnified not by themselves or their owne workes or just actions which they had done but by his will And therefore we who are called by his will through Christ Jesus are not justified by our selves or our owne wisdome or understanding or workes that we have done with holinesse of heart But by faith whereby Almighty God hath justified all from the begining of the world The Fathers were not justified by their own workes but because being called by the will of God as we to Christianity through Christ Jesus they were found faithfull in doing righteousnesse truth through faith as he said of Abraham before For the workes of Faith cannot be counted our own works which we had never done had not Gods call gone afore That Faith then which alone justifieth importeth as great and as reall a change in the jugdement and resoution of him that attaineth it from unrighteous to righteous as the
of Christianity on our part under the title of the Spirit of patefaction as you may see by Volkelius Instit III. 14. Signifying hereby as it seemeth that conviction which the Spirit of God tendereth by the motives of Christianity to manifest the truth of the Gospel preventing the will with help to inable it but not effecting either the outward act or the inward resolution to do it as you may see S. Augustine distinguish upon his own words related out of his Bookes of free will De Gratia Christi I. 41. This I here lay forth on purpose to shew that I cannot come cleare of that which I have undertaken to resolve concerning the Covenant of Grace nor any man be satisfied in the difficulties that concern it without taking in hand the whole dispute concerning the free will of man and the free Grace of God For having by the premises shewed that the condition which the Covenant of Grace requires on our part is an act of free will Though such an act as compriseth the ingagement of a mans whole life to Gods service Unlesse it appeare that the grace of the holy Ghost which God found requisite for the performance of Christianity can never be ascribed to the free will of man as due to the right useof it it will not sufficiently appear how the Gospel may be called the Covenant of Grace But before I go further I must not omit to observe a great difference between Socinus and Pelagius and how that difference seems to reflect upon the present dispute For Socinus first had conceived such disgust as I said of that predestination which appoints men to life meerly in consideration of the obedience of Christ as their own for whom it was appointed Then considered well that free will serves not so long as the helps whereby we are inabled to imbrace Christ and to persevere in Christianity may be attributed to the obedience of as assigned by God to the consideration and recognizance of it And therefore found it the onely clear course of establishing that force of freewil that he had imagined without consulting the proceediugs of the Church against Pelagius to say That the merits and sufferings of Christ were not valuable for such a purchase as being a meer man from his birth onely that he was conceived not by the way of humane generation but by the holy Ghost of the blessed Virgine And that afterwards being thirty yeares of age or thereabouts according to the time that John the Baptist began to preach he was taken up into heaven to God and there made acquainted with his message of the Gospel to mankinde which he undertaking upon the perill of all the hardship which he was to indure at the Jewes hands for it it pleased God to advance him for his obedience though due as to God from his creature to be God to the true power and worship of God though in dependance upon himself originally God For the obedience of Christ being thus over rewarded in his own person it remaineth that the gift of the holy Ghost howsoever requisite to the performance of Christianity be ascribed to the meer goodnesse of God which moved him to propose the promise thereof to those who should imbrace the Gospel as a recompense for so doing not as any grace of Christ that is any help of grace given in consideration of Christ resolving a man to imbrace it It cannot be said that Pelagius had any hand in this part of Socinus his Heresie who could not have been heard in the Church at that time had he once advanced any such ground as this though so pertinent to his position as you see by Socinus But as Pelagius thought of no such thing when he began first to dispute against the grace of Christ so can it not be said that his followers never thought of having recourse to this plea as the onely clear ground for their position to stand upon could it be made good But for the truth hereof there being no cause why I should swell this Book with those things that have been said already I will remit the reader to Jansenius his August where he shall find what remaines in the records of the Church how the Pelagians went about to joyne with the Nestorians and to make our Lord Christ to have purchased his Godhead by the actions and behavoiur of his humane nature and how in this regard they remaine involved in the condemnation of Nestorius at the council of Ephesus Though whereas the beginning of this error is there ascribed to Origen it is easie to observe a vast difference between this pretense and that conceit which is found at present in his books 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but whether resolutely deliverd by him may be questioned that the humane soul of Christ was chosen by God for the word to be incarnate in in consideration of that which it had done in the other world For this supposes the Godhead of Christ before his incarnation and the truth of it which Socinus his opinion to which these relations make the Pelagians to have inclined destroyeth And so it is manifest that according to Socinus there can be no such thing as the Grace of Christ according to Pelagius there is not But that which is common to both proceeds upon a supposition common to both That man is presently in the same state of free will in which he was created that the fall of our first parents did no harme to their posterity neither can their children that are baptized be baptized into the remission of sinne when they have none of their own Though for Socinus his part he laughs at the baptizing of infants who allowes the baptizing of men that have sinned themselves but as a ceremony of indifference which Pelagius though he be content to allow and require yet not to the purpose of remission of sinne in infants Now the Church of God in which the Baptisme of infants hath been practised ever since the times of the Apostles alwayes understood the Gentiles that had been left to themselves to fall away to the worship of Idols to be wholy under the power of Satan by virtue of that advantage which he had of our forefathers And the Jewes who had retired themselves to the worship of one true God so little able by that Law to withdraw themselves from under sin that few of them were vouchsafed Gods Spirit acknowledging therefore all this to proceed from the leaven of the first sinne they acknowledged the necessity of Christs coming for the cure of it the sufficience of the cure in his Godhead from everlasting and the obedience of our flesh wherein it was incarnate This being the state of the dispute it appeareth that the intent which I propose obligeth me not to dispatch without maintaining the eternall Godhead of our Lord Christ Though not so as to consider the whole controversie of the holy Trinity but onely that of the person and natures of
the Father but of the World But what is there between God and the world but the old serpent and the leaven which he hath poisoned man with And this is that venim which we read of Psal LVIII 4 5 6. The wicked are estranged from their mothers womb as soon as they are born they go astray and speak lies They have venime like the venime of a serpent like the deaf addar that stoppeth his eare That will not hear the voice of the inchanters that inchant with charmes cunningly For if it be said that all this speakes onely of the wicked which of their own choice have addicted themselves to sinne and that by being bred to it by their Fathers and predecessor and so debauched from their own natural innocence I shall presently appeale to David himself and his confession with which he pretends to grace Psal LI. 7. 8. Behold I was formed in wickednesse and in sin did my mother conceive me But behold thou requirest truth in the intrailes and shalt make me to understand wisdome secretly I know it is said that this is nothing but an hyperbolicall expression of the Prophet whereby he chargeth himselfe with sinne even before he could understand what sinne was and that from the time of his conceiving in the womb were that possible he hath been liable to sinne and so left without mercy And to this purpose is alledged that of the Pharisees to the blind man John IX 34. Thou wast wholly born in sinne and dost thou teach us To argue that among the Jews it was an ordinary expression to aggravate a mans sinne by saying That he was borne in sinne And truly what the Jews of that time might conceive of the coming in of sinne is not alltogether so cleare in regard of the Apostles words to our Lord upon the occasion of the same man when they askt our Lord whether he was born blinde for his owne sinne or for the sinne of his parents John IX 2. Which our Lord answering for neither but for a particular intent of shewing a particular work of God upon him Denies not the common taint of our nature when he affirmes That particualr workes of providence upon particualr persons have particular reasons and ends for which God will have them come to passe But shews that there were severall opinions in vogue at that time through the nation and that there might be a conceit of mens soules sinning in other bodies or before they came into these bodies according to the position of Pythagoras or the conjecture of Origen Though the opinion of Herod concerning John the Baptist that he should be alive againe in our Lord Mat. XIV 2. doth not appeare to proceed from any such presumption as this but from an imagination that dead mens soules might come and live againe in the world whether in the same or other bodies From this opinion then the reproach of the Pharisees to this man that he was born in sinne may well seem to proceed And their error will not prejudice the truth that all men are indeed born in sinne But I observe further that the people of God as they were totally divided from the worship of Idols so from the consequences thereof which Paul in the first of the Romanes sheweth to have been all sorts of uncleanness in the first place and then the rest of those evils which towards the end of the Chapter he qualifies the Gentiles with For it is manifest that uncleannesse which contained no civil in justice was counted but an indifferent thing with all the Gentiles Let him that would be satisfied of this peruse what the Wise man hath said of the seed of the Gentiles which he compareth with the Jews whom they persecuted all along his whole work Wisdom III. 12-IV 1-6 Where it is manifest that he setteth forth the posterity of the Gentiles as defiled with the uncleannesse wherein they were bred and born And this is most certainely the reason why S. Paul saith of Christians married to Gentiles 1 Cor. VII 14. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband Else were your children uncleane but now are they holy To wit that a heathen husband or wife consenting to dwell in wedlock with a Christan is sanctified by a Christian husband or wife by whose meanes he is brought to this ingagement For when S. Paul adviseth the Christian party to continue in wedlock contracted with an Idolater before Christianity he presupposeth that the Gentile shall be willing to forbear the vulgar uncleannesses of the Gentiles for the love of a Christian yokefellow Otherwise it could not be honest nor for the reputation of a Christian among the Gentiles having power of divorcing as both parties had in the Romane Empire to continue in wedlock with him that acknowledged not Christian but onely civil wedlock That is the wife to be tied in regard of the issue but the man free to all uucleannesse which the Romane Lawes no way restrained And therefore their children so farre from being unclean according to the manners of heathen parents that they are holy upon presumption that they shall be bred in the instruction of Christianity by the meanes of that party which was Christian I observe againe that the Prophet David speaking of his wicked enemies the figure of the Jewes whom thereby he designeth aforehand to be the enemies of our Lord and his Church applieth the same expression to them being of the carnall people of God but farre from Jewes according to the spirit which the people of God other whiles use concerning the Gentiles when he saith that they are estranged from the wombe and as soone as they are born go astray and speak lies For it is manifest that he calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal LIX 6 9. which by the title appeares to be written of the Jewes his enemies And so Psal XLII 2. Which word commonly stands in as ill a sense with the Jewes as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gentes Nationes to the Christians not for people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but for Ethnicks or Gentiles that is to say Idolaters And so to this day the Jewes call us Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Gentiles And upon these observations I am induced to believe that the Pharisees and those of the Consistory out of the confidence they had of their own holinesse which they presumed of upon the Curisity which they kept the Law with did judge of those that pretended not to the same as of people once removed from Gentiles and so sinners from their birth by the grossenesse of those manners in which they were bred But when David comes to confesse of himself that he was altogether born in sinne and conceived by his mother in wickednesse It is not possible that any such reason should take place but rather such a one as may make good whatsoever
power of all that is the Father he was content neverthelesse to be whatsoever they called him Hic igitur a multis quasi deus glorifi catus est saith Irenaeus docuit semetipsum esse qui inter Judaeos quidem quasi filius apparâ—erit in Samaria autem quasi pater descenderit in reliquis vero gentibus quasi Spiritus sanctus adventaverit Esse autem se sublimissimam virtutem hoc est eum qui sit super omnia Pater sustinere vocari sâ— quodcunque â—um vocant homines Where pretending first to be both Father and Sonne and holy Ghost Secondly to be worshipped for God it is manifest that setting up himself in stead of our Lord Jesus for the Messias whom the Samaritanes expected as well as the Jews he had no other reason to pretend to be also the Father and the holy Ghost but because he knew our Lord whom he counterfeited had taught that he is one and the same with the Father and the holy Ghost And so by what the counterfeit would be it appeareth what the truth is and taught himself to be To wit the Sonne of God to be worshipded as one God with the Father and the holy Ghost For we are not to think that Epiphanius contradicts his Master Jrenaeus when he saies that Simon who praetended to be the Father among the Samaritanes as the Son among the Jewes made his concubine Selena to be the holy Ghost whom he called also the Ennaea or Conceit of him the Father whereby he made the angels that made the world and mankind But rather to understand that intending to adulterate the Christiane Faith by bringing in a counterfeit imitation of it on purpose he pretended himself and his Conceit to be both one because he knew that according to the Christian faith both Father and Sonne both which he pretended to be as you have heard are one and the same God with the holy Ghost which he pretended his Conceite to be according to Fpiphanius but himself among the Gentiles according to Irenaeus The Heresie of his Scholar Menander is thus described by Irenaeus L. 21. Qui primam quidem virtutem inâ—ognitam ait omnibus se autem â—um esse qui missus sit ab invisibilibus salvatorem pro salâ—te hominum Mundum autem factum ab Angelis quos ipse similiter ut Simon ab Ennâ—a emissos dicit Who saith that the first Power is unknown to all and that himself was the Saviour that was sent by the invisible Powers for the salvation of men But that the world was made by the Angels whom he also like as Simon sayes were put forth by the Fathers Conceit Where you see above the Angels whom he maketh Creator of the world the unknown Father whom he pretendeth to make known his Conceit from whence the Angels came and the invisible Powers that sent him for the Saviour of the world Both these then pretending to be that which our Lord Christ indeed and in truth is did make themselves one ingredient or parcel of that unknown and invisible Godhead from whence they so made the angels to proceed that neverthelesse banding a faction against the same they make the coming of a Saviour necessary for this end to deliver mankind from the servitude of these Angels that made the world As for Saturninus pretending the father of all to be unknown otherwise then as he pretended to make him known it appears why he is among the Gnosticks But he pretends that two sorts of men were made by the Angels One by the good beeing an Image of the Power which is above which being infinitely taken with they said Let us make man after our image because it was instantly with drawn from their sight But so that it had not come to life had not the power above struck a sparke of light into it The other by the devils which the Saviour who is indeed unknown onely seemed a man came to subdue So Irenaeus l. 22. But Basilides Vt altius aliquid veriâ—imilius adinvenisse vidâ—atur in immensum extendit sententiam doctrinae suae ostendens Nun primo ab iâ—noto natum Patre ab hoc autem natum Logon deinde a Logo Phronesin a Phâ—onesi autem natas Sophian Dynamin a Dynami autem Sophia Virtutes Principes Angelos quos Primos vocat saith Irenaeus l. 23. He that he may seem to have added some higher thing and more likely to their invention extending the meaning of his position beyond all bounds shews that Nus or Meaning was first born of the Father who was not born Of him Logos Reason or the Word of him Prudence of it Wisdom and Power of them Virtues Princes and Angels whom he calls the prime onâ—s Where you see manifestly the fullnesse of the Godhead is made to consist of the Titles and Attributes of our Lord Christ Which Valentinus after these makes to consist in XXX Aeones or intelligible worlds which he derives from the unknown Father and silence or his conceit and Grace Bythos or the bottome and Charis Ennaea or Siâ—â— in whom he placed the first source of this Fulnesse And it hath been observed already that his number of XXX is the same that the heathen Gods are contrived into by Heâ—iodâ— Theogonia Much to my purpose For S. Cyril Catech. V. calls Valentine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Preacher of the XXX Gods This fullnesse of the Godhead which they taught being the deity which they worshipped As did also not onely Ptolemaeus and Secundus who followed Valentine and changed what they thought fit in his designe or the Gnosticks which followed Nicolas as you may see by Epiphanius But the rest from Simon Magus whose followers worshipped him and his Trull Selene under the images of Jupiter and Minerva saith Irenaeus expresly For Menanders first Power and the Ennaea or Conceit thereof and the invisible Powers by whom and from whom he pretended to be sent for the Saviour of mankind shew that this was that fullnesse of the Godhead in which he taught his followers to believe And when Epâ—pâ—â—nius confuting Saturninus saith that according to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theâ—e shall be found no fullnesse in the Power above It is manifest that he taught his followers to worship that fullnesse which Epiphanius refuseth Simon Magus himself meant the like when he said according to Epiphanius that the Angels though they proceeded from his Ennaea or Conceit yet were without the Fullnesse that is not comprehended within it As for Câ—â—inthus whom all agree to have made our Lord Jesus the Sonne of Joseph and Mary born as other men are Epiphanius saies further of his sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But that after Jesus was growne a man who was borne of the seede of Joseph and Mary the Christ came downe upon him from the God that is above that is the Holy Ghost in the shape of a dove at Jordane and revealed to him the Father that
not believe him when he tells them heavenly things Because none of them have been in heaven as the Sonne of man who being come from heaven notwithstanding remaines in heaven Whether he mean onely That having been there in heaven and learnt the effect of his commission and being still there in heart as all Christians are he can tell them things from heaven which they will not believe Or that having been in heaven and not having forsaken it for his coming into the World he knowes the truth of all that he witnesses here by seeing the counsailes of God there even while he is here And that these are those things which he hath seen in his Fathers house to wit those counsailes which the Father out of his love to him had made him acquainted with and taught him to execute even as they had learnt in the devils shop their Father to execute his designes For can any man imagine that his being onely born of the Virgine by the power of God which is they say the holy Ghost is a sufficient reason why God should not onely shew him what he meant to do for our salvation but joyne him with himself in the work and that honour for it whereof no Angel that is the highest creature is capeable Or that all this is such an expression as manhood can bear of that participation of Gods counsailes which the Word having been acquainted with from everlasting was no stranger to while being in the World he was executing the same Surely when our Lord sayes that he is to leave the world to go back to the Father he declares an intent to abide in heaven for everlasting Therefore when he saies he came forth from the Father to come into the world To understand onely that he left the private life he had lived afore he began to preach to appear publickly to the World in his Office might justly be accounted a piece of frenzy if there were not haeresy in it The opposition between heaven where the Father is and the world being so manifest in the words that nothing but the vaine glory of maintaining a party could cause it to be overseen If these things be true we shall not need to go farre for the sense of our Lords words John XVII 5. And now glorify thou me O Father with that glory which I had with thee before the foundation of the World Because we see how many times in this Gospel by being with the Father our Saviour expresseth not his being in heaven when the Baptist began to preach but his being in heaven from the beginning of the World till he was born upon earth For can any doubt be made that the glory which he had with the Father from the beginning is that which he was to be exalted to at his rising againe As for that answer of his to the Jews that demanded of him having said Abraham your Father desired to see my day and saw it and rejoyced Thou art not yet fifty years old and hast thou seen Abraham To which Jesus answered and said Verily verily I say unto you before Abraham was I am John VIII 56 57 58. I perceive the World is ashamed to hear what Socinus is not ashamed to answer That the sense of the words is and so they ought to be translated Before Abraham become Abraham Or before he become Abraham I am Meaning that here you see me before the calling of the Gentiles whereby the Prophesie of Abrahams name Father of a great people is fulfilled For the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make both the name of Abraham to go before the Verbe in sense and the verb to signifie the time past So that there must have been another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as this that goes afore and if there had been so it must have been translated before Abraham was Abraham or before he was Abraham not before he become Abraham But for our Lord to say before Abraham was I am to wit in the purpose of God is no lesse impertinent to their question then to say I am here before the calling of the Gentiles And to imagine that our Lord would give an answer utterly impertinent to their question I know not how it can stand with his profession though not to declare all that truth which for the present they were not able to beare may well stand with it CHAP. XIV The Name of God not ascribed to Christ for the like reason as to creatures The reasons why the Socinians worship Christ as God do confute their limitations Christ not God by virtue of his rising againe He is the Great God with S. Paul the true God with S. John the onely Lord with S. Jude Other Scriptures Of the forme of God and of a servant in S. Paul BUT the Apostle adds still more and goes forwards saying And the Word was God Though here the Socinians thinke they have enough to plead when they can say that the name of God which is here used is not proper to signify God himself which the name of four letters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so signifyeth in the Old Testament that it is never attributed to any creature but by abuse That is to say as imployed to expresse the sense of such men as believe not in the true God alone but attribute his honour to some of his creatures For it is very well known and granted on all hands that the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here translateth is attributed first to Gods Angels then to Gods ministers in governing his People The reason whereof I take to be this that having entred into covenant with God to have him for their soveraigne and to live by his Lawes they must needs be bound to acknowledge and to honour those who had commission from him whether immediately or mediately to govern his people by the said Lawes in stead of God himself as deputies Commissioners or Ambassadors represent the persons of those Soveraigns from whom they come This I suppose is a generall reason why this name of God in the Old Testament is communicated to the Governours of Gods people which the Socinians cannot with any reason refuse Neither can I imagine how it should be more evidently justified then by that of God to Moses Exod. VII 1. Behold I have made thee Pharaohs God and Aaron thy brother shall be thy Prophet For Aaron is made Moses his Prophet to publish his Orders to Pharaâ—h because he was a man of a ready tongue which Moses was not Exod. IV. 14 15 16. Prophet being no more then Interpreter or Truchman as Onkelâ—s translates it And therefore Moses is called also here Aarons God because he was to give the Orders which Aaron was to publish But Pharaohs God as Ruler and Prince over Pharaoh who was Ruler and Prinâ—â— of all Egypt as to those things which God should by him command Pharaoh to
Irenaeus II. 7. Irrationale est autem impium adinvenire locum in quo cessat finem habet qui est secundum eas Propater Proarche omnium Pater hujus Pleromatis Nâ—c rursus in sinu Patris alterum quendam dicere tantam fabricasse creationem fas est vel consentiente vel non consentiente Now it is unreasonable and impious to imagine any place in which their Forefather and Forebeginning the Father of all and of this Fulness ceaseth and endeth Nor is it lawfull again to say that any other in the bosome of the Father made this great creation either with his consent or without it For here you see that the Gnosticks faigning some Principle besides the Father but resident in his bosome to have made the World are reproved by Irenaeus for adulterating the Christian Faith which maintaining the Son to be in the bosome of the Father signified him to be no stranger to the Father but of his own nature Whereby we see further what S. John means when he sayes that the Word was in the beginning with God and came into the World from thence In fine when S. John attributes to our Lord the title of onely begotten of the light and the truth which he that reads Irâ—neus will see that the Gnosticks made severall persons constituting that Fulness which severall Sects of them did imagine it must be concluded that â—â—ey finding these titles attributed by the Christians to our Lord did by attributing them to severall persons of whom the severall Sects of them framed their severall Fulnesses adulterate Christianity And that he finding them so doing vindicates it to the be true sense by fixing the said titles and the Godhead which they import upon our Lord Christ where they are due Here I alledge the words of the Apostle Heb. I 3. concerning Christ Who being the brightness of his glory and the Character of his substance and sustaining or moving all things as it follows in those words which have been already examined Which words the Socinians think they avoid fairely by saying that As the words of men are all Images of their minds so the man Jesus being to signifie that is to resemble the counsell of God to mankind is called the image of God as I sayd afore that he is called the Word of God in their sense And to this they think the words of S. Paul inclinable 2 Cor. IV. 4 5 6. where he saith that The God of this World hath blinded the conceptions of unbelievers that the inlightning of the glorious Gospell of Christ who is the Image of God might not shine on them For we preach not our selves but Christ Jesus the Lord and our selves your Servants for Jesus sake Because it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness that hath shined in our hearts to enlighten us with the knowledge of the glory of God in the face or person of Christ Jesus Because in these words which intitle Christ the Image of God the preaching of the Gospel is so much insisted upon as the reason of it But as for the reason why our Lord is called the Word I refer my self to the premises so that he should be intituled the Image of his glory the character that is printed off from his substance that in consideration of the same he should have purged mans sins and be set on Gods Throne to be honoured with Gods own honours which all follows in the Apostles words is too gross for any reasonable man to digest And therefore in the title of Gods Image as I sayd before in the title of Gods Word there must be couched and understood a reason upon which all this may flow Which is nothing else but the fulness of the Spirit or the Godhead lodged for ever in the flesh of our Lord and rendring him capable as well to redeem all sinnes and to be advanced to the Throne of God that is to the Worship of God as to preach and make good that Gospel wherin the glory of Gods Wisdome and goodness so much appeareth And thus and not otherwise the account will be sufficient not only why our Lord â—s intituled the Image of God but how he is preached to be the Lord and the Apostles his Slaves how the glory of God shines off from his person or face upon the hearts of Believers For I do firmly believe as the Apostles writings have alwaies reference to the Scriptures of the old Testament to shew how they are fulfilled by the new So that our Lord is here called the image of God as the second Adam in reference to the first who is said to have been made in the Image and likenesse of God But with that difference which S. Paul hath expressed 1 Cor. XV. 45. As it is written the fiâ—st Adam was made a living soul so is the second Adam made a quickning Spirit For having shewed that the Spirit of Life which raised Christ from the dead is the fullnesse of the Godhead hypostatically united to the flesh of Christ well may I inferre that it is in consideration therof that he is called the image of Gods glory and the express character of his substance from which will also follow the expiation of our sins and his sitting upon Gods throne to be worshiped as God Thus shall the first Adam made a living soul in the image of God be the figure of the second Adam made a quickning Spirit in the image of God Thus shall the Old Testament be the figure of the new and the animal life given by the Word and Spirit of God the figure of spirituall and everlasting life given by the same Spirit of God dwelling in the Word of God incarnate I will here shew you the strange tale that Saturninus framed out of the relation of Moses concerning the making of man related by Epiphanius that you may judge thereby of the truth of that which he indeavored to disguise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So I read Epiphanius in stead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which makes no sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because saith he that same light which was the image of the Power above peeping down wrought a certaine provocation in the said Angels by whom he saith the World was made they attempted to frame man out of the â—ust they had to the image above For being in love with the light above and taken with the lust of it appearing and disappearing to them and unable to satisfie themselves of the comelynesse of that which they were in love with because his light flew up as soone as it came at them hereupon this Iugler frames the scene and saies that the angels said Let us make man to wit According to the image not according to our image because he denies that man was made after the image of God that made the world but after the image of the unknown Father which peeped down upon them in the Fullnesse of the Godhead and
not did so order the meanes by which this obedience was effected or not that he might know that it would or would not come to passe And this preaching of the Gospel and the meanes and consequence of it being granted in consideration of Christ that the reason why such meanes was requisite is to be drawn from the fall of Adam and the corruption of mans nature by it And to this sense seeme the words of our Lord to belong John X. 28 29. I give my sheep eternal life nor shall they ever perish nor any man snatch them out of my hand My Father who gave me them is greatest of all nor can any man snatch them out of my Fathers hand Although it seems that he inlargeth the same sense to another effect John XVII 6 -12 I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world Thine they were and me thou gavest them and they have kept thy Word Now know they that whatsoever thou gavest me is from thee For the words that thou gavest me have I given them and they have received them and know of a truth that I am come forth from thee and thou hast sent me I ask for them I ask not for the world but for those that thou hast given me for they are thine And all mine are thine and thine mine and I am glorified in them And I am no more in the world but they are in the world and I come to thee Holy Father keep them in thy Name whom thou hast given me that they may be one as we When I was with them in the World I kept them in thy name These whom â—hou gavest me I kept nor is any of them lost but the Son of perdition that the Scripture may be fulfilled For afterwards it is said that our Lord spake to those that apprehended him to let his disciples go That the word which he had said might be fulfilled I have lost none of those whom thou gavest me John XVIII 9. But all this will not serve to make us believe that his then disciples alone were the men that the Father gave to Christ he having said expresly afterwards John XVII 20. I ask not for these alone but for those that shall believe in me through their word For this showes that he prayes for his then disciples in the common quality of disciples that is of Christians having other prayers to make for the world that is for those that were not As we see by and by John XVII 21. and Luke XXIII 34. But in that he saith so often that the Father had given them him from whose appointment the sufferings of Christ the power which he is advanced to the successe of the Gospel which he publisheth dependeth In that regard I conceive the helps of Gods grace by the second Adam whereby the breach made by the first is repaired necessarily to be implied in Gods giving unto our Lord Christ his disciples And of this sense much there is expressed by S. Paul Ephes I. 3. 11. Blessed God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that hath blessed us with every spirituall blessing in the heavens through Christ As he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blamelesse before him in love Having foreappointed us to adoption to himself through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of his will To the praise of his glorious grace whereby he made us acceptable in the beloved Through whom we have redemption by his blood even the remission of â—â—nnes according to the riches of his grace which hath abounded to us in all wisdome and prudence Having made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself at the dispensation of the fullnesse of times to restore all things both in heaven and in earth through Christ in whom also we have received our lots appoinâ—ed according to the purpose of him that effects all things according to the counsel of his will For not to insist upon the force of those terms and phrases which Saint Paul uses whatsoever blessings it may be said S. Paul hereby signifies to have been appointed to the Ephesians from everlasting as Christians I suppose it cannot be denied that he presupposes that they were also appointed from everlasting to be Christians to whom by so being those blessings should become due And all this so many times and so manifestly said to have been appointed in Christ or by Christ or through Christ that it cannot be questioned that not onely the Gospell by which they were brought to that estate but also the meanes that inforce it and the consequences whereby it takes effect all depend upon Christ and the consideration of his coming to destroy the works of the devil in our first parents CHAP. XIX Evidences of the same in the Old Testament Of Gods help in getting the Land of Promise and renewing the Covenant And that for Christs sake That Christianity cannot stand without acknowledging the grace of Christ The Tradition of the Church In the Baptisme of Infants In the Prayers of the Church In the decrees against Pelagius and other records of the Church IT remaineth now that I shew how the same truth is signified to us in the Old Testament whereof I will point out three sorts of passages tending to prove it and when they are put together making full evidence of it The first is of those wherein it is acknowledged that the inheritance of the Land of Promise is not to be ascribed to any merit or force of their own but to the goodnesse and assistance of God Then which nothing can be produced out of the New Testament more effectuall to shew that whatsoever tends to bring Christians to the kingdom of heaven is to be ascribed to the grace of God There being the same correspondence between the helps of spirituall Grace whereby Christians overcome their spirituall enemies and the help of God whereby the Israelites overcame the seven nations as between the kingdom of heaven and the land of Promise And therefore all those promises whereby God assures them of deliverance from their enemies and maintenance in the possession thereof all acknowledgements of Gods free gift whereby they held that inheritance argue no lesse concerning those helps whereby the children of the Church answering to the land of Canaan here are inabled to continue true spirituall members thereof and to attain the land of promise that is above I shall not need to produce many particulars of this nature whereof all the Old Testament affordeth good store That of Moses Deut. IX 3-8 I must not forget where assuring them of God to go along with them he warns them not to ascribe that favour to their one righteousnesse though he acknowledgeth that God imployes them to punish the seven nations but to his covenant with their Fathers And that God enabled them to cast
so ballanced But chiefly because I see the subject of the dispute to be all upon the literall and mysticall sense of these Scriptures Without the knowledge whereof I am confident the Faith of a Christian is intire though the skill of a divine is nothing And for the consent of the Fathers how generall soever it be after Irenaeus I have the authority of the same Irenaeus backed by his reason in that excellent Chapter where he distinguishes between the Tradition of Faith and the skill of the Scriptures to resolve me that neither this point nor any other point which depends upon the agreement between the Old Testament and the New as this does can belong to the Faith of a Christian but onely to the skill of a divine But now this being premised and setled it will be easie for me to inferre that a state of meer nature is a thing very possible had it pleased God to appoint it by proposing no higher end then naturall happinesse no harder meanes then Originall innocence to man whom he had made The reasons premised sufficiently serving to shew that there is no contradiction in the being of that which there is so much appearance that it was indeed But I must advise you withall that I mean it upon a farre other supposition then that of the Schoole Doctors They supposing that man was created to that estate of supernaturall happinesse to which the Gospel pretendeth to regenerate Christians hold that it was Gods meer free grace that he was not created with that contradiction between the reason and appetite which the principles of his nature are of themselves apt to produce Whereupon it foloweth that concupiscence is Gods creature that is the indowment of it signifying by concupiscence that contrariety to reason which the disorder of sensuall appetite produceth A saying that hath fallen from the pen of S. Augustine and that after his businesse with Pelagius Retract I. 9. allowing what he had writ to that purpose against the Manichees in his third book de libero arbitrio which he mentioneth againe and no way disalloweth in his book de Dono perseverantiae cap. XI and XII but seemeth utterly inconsistent with the grounds which he stands upon against Pelagius For supposing contrariety and disorder in the motions of mans soul what is there in this confusion which it hath created in the doings of mankind that might not have come to passe without the fall Unlesse we suppose that a man can be reasonably madde or that concupiscence which reason boundeth not could be contained within any rule or measure not supposing any gift of God inabling reason to give bounds to it or preventing the effect of it which the supposition of pure nature alloweth us not to suppose For the very state of mortality supposing the immortality of the soul either requireth in man the conscience of integrity before God or inferreth upon him a bad expectation for the world to come And therefore though the sorrows that bring death might serve for advantage to happinesse were reasonable to govern passion in using them yet not being able they can be nothing but essayes of that displeasure of God which he is to expect in the world to come And therefore this escape of S. Augustine may seem to abate the zeale of those who would make his opinion the rule of our common Faith That which my resolution inferreth is no more then this That supposing God did not create man in an estate capable to attaine the said supernaturall happinesse he might neverthelesse had he pleased have created him in an estate of immortality without impeachment of trouble or of sorrow but not capable of further happinesse then his then life in Paradise upon earth importeth Not that I intend to say that God had been without any purpose of calling man whom he had created in this state unto the state of supernaturall grace whereby he might become capable of everlasting glory in the world to come as Christians believe themselves to be For the meaning of those that suppose this is that God purposed to exercise man first in this lower estate and having proved him and found him faithfull in it supposing Adam had not fallen to have called him afterwards to a higher condition of that immortality which we expect in the world to come upon trial of fidelity in that obedience here which is correspondent to it Whereupon it is reasonably though not necessarily consequent that this calling being to be performed by the Word of God which being afterwards incarnate is our Lord Christ and the Spirit which dwelt in him without measure our Lord Christ should have come in our flesh though Adam had not fallen to do this And this is alledged for a reason why afterwards the Law that was given to Moses covenanted expresly for no more then the happinnesse of this present life though covertly being joyned with that discipline of godlinesse which the people of God had received by tradition from their Fathers it afforded sufficient argument of the happinesse of the world to come for those who should imbrace the worship of God in spirit and truth though under the paedagogie and figures of the Law For they say it is suitable to the proceeding of God in restoring mankind that we understand him first to intend the recovering of that naturall integrity in which man was created by calling his people to that uprightnesse of civile conversation in the service of the onely true God which might be a protection to as many as under the shelter of such civile Lawes should take upon them the profession of true righteousnesse to God Intending afterwards by our Lord Christ to set on foot a treaty of the said righteousnesse upon terms of happinesse in the world to come But thesâ— things though containing nothing prejudiciall to Christianity yet not being grounded upon expresse scripture but collected by reasoning the ground and rule of Gods purpose which concerns not the truth of the Gospel whether so or not I am neither obliged to admit nor refuse So much of Gods counsel remaining alwaies visibly true That he pleased to proceed by degrees in setting his Gospel on foot by preparing his people for it by the discipline of the Law and the insufficience thereof visible by that time which he intended for the coming of our Lord Christ though we say that man was at first created in a state of supernaturall grace and capable of everlasting happinesse For still the reason of Gods proceeding by degrees will be that first there might be a time to try how great the disease was by the failing of the cure thereof by the Law before so great a Physitian as the Sonne of God came in person to visite it This onely I must adde because all this discourse proceeds upon supposition that man might have been created in an estate of meer nature if indowed with uprightnesse capable to attaine that happinesse which that estate required That
children as a henne gathers her chickens under her wings and ye would not Behold your house is left unto you desolate And S. Steven Acts VII 51. Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in hearts and ears you do alwaies crosse the holy Ghost as did your Fathers And the Scribes and Pharisees in the Gospel made void the counsel and purpose of God towards them Luke VII 30. But above all you have the purpose of God manifested by the Gospel of sending our Lord Christ for the salvation of the World as John the Baptist sayes John I. 29. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sinne of the World And our Lord to Nicodemus John III. 16 17. God so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him may not perish but have life everlasting For God senâ— not his Son into the World to condemn the World but that the world by him might be saved And S. Paul commandeth Timothy that prayers be made by the Church for all men even for the Powers of the World then their enemies as a thing pleasing to God Who saith he would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth For there is one God and one Mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus who gave himself an expiation for all to be witnessed in his own time 1 Tim. II. 4 5 6. And if there be any other passages of the New Testament as others there are to witnesse that Christ is given by God for the reconciliation and salvation of all mankind One I will not omit because the mistake which is alledged to divert the sense of it is remarkable 2 Pet. III. 9. God slacketh not his promise as some men count slacknesse but is slow to wrath in our regard not willing that any should perish but all come to repentance Which they will have to signify that he would have none of us that is of the elect to perish because it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is patient towards us the elect They might have seen that this is not the meaning of the words by Luke XVIII 7. Shall not God avenge his elect that cry to him day and night though slow to wrath in regard of them I tell you he shall avenge them speedily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though slow to take vengeance in regard of them upon their oppressors Is here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 slow to take vengeance upon our oppressors for us which he hath promised to take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Syriack 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek of the New Testament signifying the delaying of vengeance due to them that oppresse Christians as you see by S. Luke the Apostle attributes to the desire of saving those whom he spares Nor will I stop here to shew you the insufficience of those expositions which in despite of the words are fastned upon these texts to avoid the difficulties which they create to prejudicate opinions For it is manifest that the consequence of them is no more but the very same that arises from any Scripture that testifies the meanes which God uses for the good of any man to become frustrate through his fault In consideration whereof that God shall call them to account at the last day who either being convict of the truth of his Gospel or having meanes offered to be informed of the same imbrace it not or having imbraced it notwithstanding persevere not in it by living as Christ requireth Or on the contraty that he shall reward them who imbrace it and persevere in it Which being so many that they are not to be avoided without setting a great part of the Scripture upon the rack I count it not worth the while to insist here that S. Pauls meaning is not that God would have some of all estates to be saved or that he would have many to be saved or those that are saved to be saved or upon any other of those lame expedients which have been applied to plaister the wound which these plain texts do make But I insist upon this that the meaning of them cannot be That God would have those onely to be saved that shall be saved Having such a swarm of Scriptures to evidence how many things there are which God would have done and are not done having all the importunities and complaints which God useth by his Prophets to assure us that he would have found that obedience at the handes of his ancient people which he found not all the preachâ—ng of his Gospel all the motives of believing all the exhortations to accept and perform the Covenant of Grace in the New Testament ready to witnesse what men are to give account for at the day of judgement All which must be satisfied before there can be cause to balk the plain meaning of S. Pauls words which cannot seem inconvenient in any other regard but because they make God to will that which comes to passe all the Scripture witnessing that all that shall be condemned shall be condemned for not doing that which God would have them do For wheresoever Gods justice punishes there is it of necessity that man had sufficient meanes to do otherwise Where it rewardes there was possibility of transgressing there was a capacity of indifference and a will actually undetermined to do or not to do this or that notwithstanding originall sinne But first to declare what I understand this antecedent will of God to be I must distinguish with some divines that God must not be said to will this because of that or for that but may be said to will that this be because of that or for that Deus non vult hoc propter hoc sed vult hoc esse propter hoc When I say because of that or for that I extend the observation to two kindes of causes To the finall cause for which a thing is said to be done and to the motive or impulsive cause because of which a thing is said to be done when we speak of the doings of understanding and free causes For these having something in consideration to move them to do what they do this motive which they consider holds on the side of the effective cause in as much as there had been no proceeding without the consideration of it Though it is also true that the motion which consideration produces being so called but out of that resemblance which it holdeth with the motions which naturall things are visibly transported with importeth no more then the appetite of some good thing the want whereof they apprehend which is nothing else but the effect of the finall cause So that the motive cause is no other then the finall cause in respect of that effect which it hath indeed moved the effective cause to produce So then when I say that God willeth not this for that or because of that I say that God can have no ends upon his creatures being
but in the works of mercy and virtue which every Christian may receive at the hands of the Jews and Mahumetans so often as they are not overswayed by their passion or interest But now for the reason which their actions do or ought to follow whereas it is certaine that the reason of all mens actions is derived from the end which they propose themselves and that the end which they ought to propose themselves is the service of God It is as certaine on the other side that through the originall corrupâ—ion of nature a man is not able to resolve to make God the utmost end of his actions and that not resolving this he cannot become free of the bondage of sin This remaines already proved by the necessity of the Grace of Christ demonstrated afore and stands perfectly verified by the experience of all ages and Nations alleged even now For though there is in all men conscience to preferre that which is honest and more honourable before either profit or pleasure notwithstanding experience shews that the world is never without occasions wherein it cannot be obtayned together with profit or pleasure And the same experience will shew that the motives of profit and pleasure which Christians therefore call temptations because they know from whence they proceed easily prevaile over the conscience of that which were according to the due worth of our manhood more honorable for us This if wee take every man by himselfe considering him as not ingaged in society and communion with others But if wee suppose him prevented with such relations it is admirable to consider but evident to be observed that men are more Wolves to men then Woâ—ves are to Wolves and that by those oppressions and cruelties whereof there is no example in the wildest of beasts men mâ—ke themselves way to the greatest glory that the world can raise This is that which Macchiavell observes that the world esteems great things whether they be good or not and magnifying those that follow them shewes that it is not for want of will but for want of meanes and opportunities that the most doe not doe the like Nay they that have the best resolutions when they are alone when they ingâ—ge themselves but in company doe proceed as if they thought it civility to offend God for love of them whom they converse with These are the temptations of the flesh and the world that hold men obnoxius to the bondage of sin notwithstanding that conscience which prefers honesty before profit or pleasure And in regard of this bondage our Lord said in the Gospell Iohn VIII 31 37. If yee abide in my words ye are truly my disciples and shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free And when they answer that â—eing Abrahams Sons they were never slaves Every one that committeth sin is a slave of sin Now the slave abideth not alwaies in the house but the son abideth alwaies If therefore the son set you free then shall you be free indeed And S. Paul hereupon Rom. VI. 17 18. thanks be to God that being slaves to sin ye obayed from the heart that forme of Doctrin that was delivered you And being freed from sin ye became slaves to righteousnesse For out of the sense of this bondage he cries out againe Rom. â—II 24. Wrâ—t hâ—d man that I am who shall diliver me from the body of this death Which if it be said of the unregenerate man expresseth the estate of all such If of S. Paul concludeth the unregenerate to be in that estate much more And indeed Originall concupisence having brought into the world the ignorance of that truth which the Fathers had received from God concerning God as I said afore it cannot be imaginâ—d that men should be induced by that slâ—nder light which remaines of one God and his providence that suspicion which was left that he wil one â—â—y take account of mans actions to balke the temptation of profit and pleasure out of a resolution to do all things which the light of nature might conâ—â—ce them to be according to Gods Wil for no other reason but to obay him to do him service though otherwise convict that all is due to him whatsoever they are able to doe for his service Hence came the worship of Idols even among them whom S. Paul affirmes to have known the majestie of one true God Rom I. 20. And hence came those sins which he hath showed us in that first Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans to have been the native consequences of the worship of Idols Hence came all counterfeiâ— Religion into the world in as much as they that know themselves to be lyable to some Religon are neverthelesse unwilling to imbrace that which obliges them to resigne themselves to the service oâ— God so long as any can be shewed them which may tender them plausible pâ—rswasions of peâ—ce with God reserving their own passions and interests And that very Religion which God had tyed his owne people to for a meanes to bring them to understand the difference between the civill obedience and the outward service to which he had promised the happinesse of the land of promise that spirituall service of God to which he intimated the promise of the world to come became so darkned by the same common corruption of nature that in a manner the whole body of that people when they had retired themselves from the worship of Idols to the observation of the Law was carried away with an opinion of righteousnesse before God in consideration of the outward observations thereof consisting in those works which by the force of common nature I have shewd they were able to doe without troubling themselves with the true reason from which they are to be deriveed and the right intention to which they are to be levelled which here I showe that only the grace of Christ inableth us to set before us By that which hath been said a difficult objection may be answered which ariseth from the consideration of those Philosophers and Hereticks who have not been â—or are afraid to lay downe their lives for the maintenance of their Sect or Religion by testifying the truth of it as we reade in S. Chrysostom that many of the same Marcionists would do For if they can indure this which is the utmost that they can indure without the help of God who requires it not at their hands what should hinder other men to lay down their lives for God and by consequence to overcome lesse difficulties which hinder them to follow the true goodnesse which God requireth This is answered by the termes of my position that there is no kind of act which a man oâ— himselfe cannot doe but the reason of Gods will and the intent of Gods service of himselfe he cannot doe it for though he may think that he doth it for no thing else For evidence whereof I must have recourse to that which I said
afore in resolving whether there is any such faith to be â—ound as is not the vertue of a Christian For accordingly I will distinguish that faith is either the beliefe of the gospell and Christianity or the profession of it whether sincere or counterfeit I say then that the sincere resolution of professing of Christianity being the condition to which all the promises of the Gosple are due as I have showed is the worke of that grace which the obedience of Châ—â—ath purchased for us In order whereunto though the preaching of the Gospell contayneth sufficient motives to convince the world of the truth of it yet seeing the publishing of those motives by the Apostles of Chrâ—stâ—â—â— the purchase of his blood and seeing those motives being though sufficient yet not demonstrative are resisted by the greater part it is the worke of Gods grace wheresoever they become effectuall to move any man to believe that Christianity is true in order to the resolution of imbracing it Notwithstanding in as much as the profession of Christianity when it is proâ—ected by the powers of this world is no disadvantage but a priviledg especialy where there is difference about Christianity and a man professes what the Secular Power professes it is easy to see that there is reason enough in this world to move a man to professe Christianity for his own sake and not for Gods Much more to believe the truth of it for which he haâ—â— sufficient reason besides But this Faith not being that which is called Faith absolutely but with an addition of abatement we are absolutely to conclude with the council of Orange that to believe as a man ought is not the worke of freewill but of Gods grace The limitation of as a man ought serving to exclude such counterfeit faith as I have described Now though this reason of professing Christianity for advantage of this world be the most ordinary and visible when Christianity is protected by the Lawes and Powers of the world yet may it as well come to passe and effect otherwise or at least that which countervailes it For Aristotle observes unto us in his Morals that all men are not caried away either with the profit of this world or the pleasure or honours there are those that prefer vertue whether speculative or active Though this active vertue he describes to consist in that meane which the discretion of the world determines For he often repeats this for his principle in that work that the difference of good and bad must be taken for granted from that which the civility of the world accknowledges But how easy it is for them who have addicted themselves to the profession of that civility of that knowledg which the world pretends not to to imbrace and professe opinions which the world allowes not and having made it their businesse in the world rather part with their lives then be constrained either to beleive or not beleiving to professe otherwise How much more in the knowledge of God and the hope of happinesse which we suppose Christianity truly to promise may a man that pursuâ—s not the truth of it with that humility which it requires by the judgement of God fastning upon false principles by virtue of them be induced to imbrace those conclusions which he shall rather part with his life then refuse and yet for his owne sake not for Gods who teaches them not And upon these premises we may determine whether all the actions of the Gentiles and unregenerate are sins or not at least so far as it is requisite to determine any thing in it For on the one side it is evident that seeing it is imposible that they should by nature attaine to a resolution of doing all that they do in obedience to the will of God with an intent of his service It is not possible that their actions should have that utmost end which they ought to have On the other side seeing it appeareth that nothing hinders them to do things for the meere regard of honesty or of doing good to others without making themselves positively and expressely the end of what they doe It is manifest that the next end which they intend by them may be good and that the things which they doe are such as of their owne nature may be ordered and directed to the service of God though by them not so intended And therefore when it is said that unregenerat men doe all for themselves as their utmost end we must distinguish in themselves the seeds of virtue which the common notions of difference between good bad containe from the corâ—tion of orignall concupiscence For well may we say when they are moved with regard of honesty to doe any thing that they do it for themselves because it is the native worth of their man-hood which moves them to doe it But when it is said That adicting themselves to the riches or honours or pleaof this world fro which they addict them selves to love of themselves they make themselves their utmost end This must be understood as in Morall matters for the maine part of their doings The love of riches honour or pleasure much lesse of civil vertue not disabling them or so swallowing up all consideration of that which of it self suits with the worth of mans nature but that without any other regard they may many times chuse to do it And therefore having made good the grounds aforesaid I shall leave it to the readers owne judgement whether he will hold all their actions to be siâ—s because they are not positively directed to the utmost end of Gods honour and service or those which are don for honesties sake to be vertues because they are positively directed to that next end that is according to Gods will and might have been directed to his service Assuring my selfe that no interest of Christianiny obliges either me or him to determine this or that And now before I leave this point I inferr againe here from the reasons which I have used to prove the capacity of inâ—â—fference in the will of man excluding the actuall determination of it before he determine himselfe That all this is not to say that indifference is requisite to all freedome but to the freedome of man alone in this state of travaile and proficience For my ground is Gods â—enâ—â—r of a treaty and conditions of peace and reconcilement together with those precepts and prohibitions those promises and threats thâ—se exhortations and dehortations which it is inforced with So that it is â—â—â—â—â—ly impertinent to alleage here the freedome of God and Angels the freedome of the â—aâ—â—s in the world to come the freedome of our Lord Christs humane soule to prove that this indifference is not requisite to the freedome of man because it is not found in that freedome which they are arived to to whom no covenant is tendred no precept requisite no exhortation usefull as being either the cause of all rule of goodnesse
or so united to it hâ—â— they cannot fail of it And though the perfection of their estate admitteth no possibility of failing yet it is no waies prejudicial to the honour of God to provide men here of such an estate as is necessarily capable of failing His perfection being such as is necessarily capable of improvement And therefore it is no disparagement to God that he should create a possibility of sinning in that creaâ—ure in which if there were now not a posibility of sinâ—ing there could not be a posibility of attaining happinesse by not sining These things thus setled it remaines that we inquire whether that sufficienâ— grace wâ—ich the difference between the anâ—ecedent and consequent will of God settles be granted indifferently to all mankind or not And my answer is briefely this That God hath provided for all mankind that grace which at a distâ—nce is sufficient to save all mankind But that grace which iâ—â—â—mediately sufficient to save he hath not immediatly provided for all mankind but hath trusted hiâ— Church to provide it for the rest of mankind having left them meanes sufficâ—ent to doe it My reason is this because where God sendeth immediately meanes sufficient to save by converting to Christianity there he will dâ—mand an acount of the neglect of that meanes which hetendreth For I suppose from that which I said in the first book against the Leviathan that as many as come to the knowledg of Christianity are obliged to receive it Certainely he that believes the Christian faith must needs believe that God hath don enough to oblige all that come to knowe the truth of it to submit themselves to it otherwise to remain liable not onely to those sins which they are under when they come to know it but to the guilt of neglecting so great salvation provided tendred by God Now that those who never heard of the gospel of Christ remaine destitute of all meanes to be informed of the truth of Christianity shall not be juâ—ged either for neglecting or transgressing that will of God which it publisheth will appeare by manifest consequence from the expresse wâ—râ—s of S Paul concerning the judgement which the Jewes Gentiles before the â—osâ—ell remaine subject to Rom. XI 12. 16. For as many as have sinned without â—â—â—â—â—w al perish without the law as many as have sinned under the Law shall be 〈◊〉 by the Law For the hearers of the law are not just before God but the doers of the Law shall be justified For when the gentiles not having the Law doe by nature the things of the law these not having the law are a law to themselves who shew the workâ— of the law written in their hearts their conscience also witnessing with them and their thoughts interchangably accusing or excusing in the day that God shall judge the secrets of man according to my gospell Some constâ—ue these words thus As many as have sinned without the law shall perish without the law in the day that God shall judge the secrets of men according to my gospel If those that sin without the Law shall perish without the Law it is manifest that they shall not be condemned for transgressing the law which they never knew And if the ground why they perish be the law that is written in their hearts to which their conscience beares witnesse when their thoughts accuse or excuse them Whether this be at the day of iudgement or not it is plaine the conscience can never accuse a man nor by consequence God condem him for transgressing the will of God which he never knew And if God proceed not with the Gentiles upon the Law which the Isralites onely knew but upon the light and law of nature by which not knowing the Law they found themselves obliged to doe that which it commanded Then shall he not proced upon the Gospell with them who never had meanes to know it but upon the light of nature and the conscience of what they have don or not don according to it or against it And indeed the words of our Lord are plaine enough Iohn III. 17-21 God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved He that believeth on him shall not be condemned but he that beleiveth not on him is condemned already because he believed not in the name of the onely begotten Son of God And the condemnation is this that light is come into the world and men love darknesse better then light because their works are evill For every one that doth evill hateth the light and cometh not to the light that his works be not reproved But he that doth the truth cometh to the light that his works may be manifest that they are done in God For he thaâ— is condemned for not believing because he hates the light must first see the light before he hate it and so positively refuse to believe because his works will not endure the light And no man could doe the truth and that in God but he that was under the law of God Who if he did not the truth which the Law requireth would consequently hate the truth which the gospel preacheth So he that is condemned for not beleiving is he that heareth the gospel and receiveth it not And to this reason we must refer the words of S Paul Act XIV 16. Who in by past ages suffered all Nations to walk in their own waies And againe Acts Xâ—II 3â— God therefore who did oversee the times of ignorance now injoâ—â—râ—h all men every where to repent And Rom. III. 25. 26. Whom God hath proposed for a propitiatory through faith in his blood to declare his righteousnesse because of the passing by of sins that went afore To declare I say his righteousnesse at this present time For we cannot imagin that he will not demand account of the sins that have beene done from the beginning of the world of whom Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied saying Behold the Lord is come with the ten thousands of his holy Angels to doe judgement upon all and to rebuke all the ungodly of them of all the ungodlinesse which they have committed and of all the bad words thay have spoken against him wicked sinners Jude 14. 15. And it is not for nothing that God when he let the Gentiles alone to walke in their owne waies no withstanding left not himself without witnesse doing good giving us raine from heaven and fruitfull seasons filling our hearts with food and gladnesse as S. Pa. proceeds Acts XIV 17. Nor that he made of one blood all Nations of men to dwell upon the face of the whole Earth determining times appointed before to the bounds of their dwelling that they might seeke the Lord if by any meanes they might find him by groping though not far distant from each one of us For in him we live and move and have our being as some also of your Posts have
is plaine that the objection is the same against S. Paul as against the resolution proposed For as this answer supposes the reason why the Gentiles were converted to be Christians the Jewes not to be resolved into the will of God so the resolution here proposed resolves the reason of the true Christianity and finall perseverance in it of those that shall be saved into that disposition of motives resolving free will which Gods free grace onely appointeth And the question is evidently the same if as one ingredient into the disposition of each mans salvation or damnation it be demanded why God suffered man to fall from the state of innocence but procureth that the preaching of the Gospell arrive at the knowledg of some people and not of others For if supposing sufficient helps of grace the reason where by they become effectuall is neverthelesse resolved into the immediate disposition of God Then though we consider man as not faâ—â—e from the state of innocence and resolve the reason why God should bring him into that estate in which he foresaw that he would fall intending to propagate his kind under the condition of this lapsed estate we have recourse to no other reason then that which S. Paul imployed before us Where we may see the fault which hath been committed by them who to attaine the end of his glory by the absolute salvation of some and damnation of others no otherwaies qualified then as such persons have made the object of Gods predestination to be mankind not made but to be made the purpose of making mankind being the next meanes subordinate to the attaining of that end which the first decree proposed to God For besides that this ingages God to procure the fall of man and the sins in which the reprobate finally persevere no otherwise then the grace in which the Elect depart it makes God to predestinate onely a number and to reprobate the same there being no other consideration possible to be had upon those that are supposed not to be as yet but onely that they may be so many as God shall appoint of either kind So that the glory of God according to this monstrous imagination shall consist onely in saving such a number and in damning such an other rather then one more or one lesse of either sort Neither is this inconvenience cured by the position of those that have been called Sublapsariaus by as monstrous name as the other of Supralapsaians That God seeing mankind Lapsed from the state of innocence resolving to save so many of them to damne so many provided to send our Lord Christ with effectual means to save these leaving those unprovided of sufficient means to find their owne ruine For solong as those that are appointed to be saved and to be damned are qualified no otherwise then as men found in the common case of mans fall the glory of God is made to consist in damning somany of them and saving so many rather then one more or one lesse For the originall corruption in which we are borne though it renders the first Adam unrecoverable without the second yet it leaves every man in every instance undetermined to evill till by his owne choice of evill before good and the habit whâ—ch accrews by custome his naturall inclination to it become so determined that his choice determines without deliberating any more But suppose so many absolutely appointed to life and so many to death in this estate you suppose them respectively determined though not in particular what good or what evill they shall doe yet in generall to sin and to dye in sin or oâ— the other side to attaine the state of grace and to dye in it Vnlesse we thinke that God being God the absolute appointment of his Providence can â—e defeated Whereas in making God determine to save and to damne those who are qualified for each according to the Gospell But to give effectuall meanes of being so qualified to the one which out of his freedome he refutes the others granting them what he deemes to be sufficient we make the glory of God visible here in the one point not disparaging it if in the other it be for the present acknowledged with Saint Paul to be invisible For if there were any other Religion in the World which could pretend maintaynig the differences between good and bad the providence of God in all things and the reward of good and bad in another world to give further reason of the coming in and continuance of evill in the world there might be some pretense of prejudice to the priviledg which Christianity claimeth in maintayning those principles from the inability of declareing the reasons by which God dispenseth the meanes of his effectuall grace But there never was any other religion in the world that could pretend any such thing The Greekish Philosophers who were the Divines of the Gentiles some of them openly professed necessity and fate as the Stoicke thereby destroying freedome and contingence by the consequence Religion and all difference between good and bad much more the truth of Christianity consisting in a treaty for imbracing good and rejecting bad Others supposing this either renounced Providence and by consequence the being of God As Epicurus and his predecessors and followers or at least doubted of it in which mire it is more then probable that our master Aristotle sticks If with Plato and Pythagoras we suppose them clearely to acknowledge all this yet is there a way left either by making the materiall cause coexistent which God from everlasting with Plato or by presupposing those contrarieties of good and evill which Pithagoras imagined to have beene from everlasting made by consequence the principles of all that comes to passe in the World to advance some other cause of good and evill in this world then mans will under Gods providence And it is very remarkable that Epiphanius observes all the Sects of the Gnostickes whereof he of all others hath given us the most particulars proceeded upon a pretence of giving a reason for the coming in of evill into the world To wit by setting up two principles or Gods one the fountaine of evill the other of good Which together with the expresse testimonies of divers others of the Fathers witnessing that they had theire principles from the Greekish Philosophers seems to argue that they took their rise from a pretense of rendring an account of the beginning of evill as well as of good intimating thereby that Christianity did not sufficiently performe it as not pretending all to be declared till the generall judgement And this is the case of Marcionists Manichees For as for Jewes and Mahumetans I suppose there is no man so little read in the difference between them and Christians as to conceive that they can give account of Gods providence in the evill which he maintaineth to be in the world together with the meanes by which some come to life others to
till after a distance that As by the offense of one it came to all men to condemnation so by the righteousnesie of one it came to all men to justification of life For as by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners so by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous And hereupon as the exaltation of Christ is imputed to his obedience in the state of his humiliation by S. Paul Phil. II. 8. he humbled himselfe becoming obedient unto death So are the effects and consequences thereof Rom. IV. 25. who was delivered for our transgressions and rose againe for our justification to be ascribed to the same And that which the Father proclaimes of the sonne Mat. III. 17. XVII 5. This is my beloved sonne in whom I am well pleased cannot be understood in any other regard but of his obedience performed in publishing the message which the Father sent him upon into the world and suffering for it in which he testifies so often in S. Johns Gospell that he came not to doe his owne will but his Fathers that he sought not his owne glory but his Fathers he did not he said not any thing of himselfe but what he had seen his Father doe what he had heard his Father say that it were tedious to repeate the severall places And this according to the figure of David Psal XI 9. 10. then said I Lo I come In the volume of the book it is written of me that I should fullfill thy will I am content to doe it O Lord yea thy Law is within my heart Whereupon the Apostle saith that we are sanctified by this will through the once offering of the body of Jesus Christ Ebr. IX 9. to wit the will of God which by doing his will Christ had moved to favor us Even as in the figure punishment is remitted remitted to Davids posterity for the promise indeed 2 Kings VIII 19. XX. 6. 1 Kings XI 3. but made in consideration of Davids obedience 2 Sam. VII 18. Here I suppose further that this obedience of Christ is not tenderd as of Debt which they that beleeve him to have been borne a meere creature must hold But having proved that he assumed mans nature being the Word of God God of God from everlasting afore doe necessarily presume that this obedience being undue is meritorious to whatsoever purpose God that sent him accepts it And hereupon inferr that God granted those termes of reconcilement which the Gospell importeth in derogation to his owne originall Law in consideration of it For I doe suppose that man being fallen from God yet knowing God and himselfe to have been made by God and to be governed by his providence necessarily understood himselfe to be under the obligation of making God the end of all his actions and therefore of injoying no creature otherwise then the service of God should either require or allow Though that ignorance of God which originall concupiscence hath since brought into the world through the worship of Idols and the corruptions that attend upon the same had since so extinguished or darkned the light of nature in man that the greatest part of mankind though they could not deny this truth neverthelesse held it prisoner in unrighteousnesse as S. Paul sayes Rom. I. 18. This is that which I call the originall Law of God the transgression whereof bindeth over to that punishment which God by his word declareth And of this Law the necessary immediate consequence is that we submit to all such Lawes as God shall publish to man in as much as he requires and upon such penalties as he declares So that by publishing the Gospell the originall Law of God is not abrogated continuing still the rule of mens actions but rather strengthened and inlarged to all those precepts which are positive under the Gospell and come not from the light of nature as necessary conditions to salvation in all estates But the publication of the Gospell is a dispensation in the exercise and execution of the originall Law by the penalty which it in acteth in consideration of Christs obedience though being generall to all mankind after the publishing of it it may be called a New Law as proposing new termes of salvation which if any man challenge to be a derogation to Gods originall Law I will not contend about words As for the Law of Moses if we consider it as containing the termes upon which that people held the land of promise the publishing of the Gospell neither abrogates it nor derogates from it Being onely given to hold till the time of reformation as the Apostle calls it Ebr. IX 10. therefore expiring when the Gospell was published which limited the intent of it But if we consider it as containing an intimation of that spirituall obedience which God required of those that would be saved under that light by the outward and civil obedience of those positive precepts whereby they were restrained from the worship of Idols and commerce with Idolatrous nations in proportion to the reward of the world to come signified by the happinesse of the land of promise then must we acknowledge another dispensation in the same originall Law by the Law of Moses and for the time of it which was also in force under the Fathers from the beginning though not burthened which that multitude of positive precepts which the Law of Moses brought in for the condition upon which they were to hold the land of promise And in opposition to those it is called by the Fathers of the Church the Law of Nature not in opposition to Grace The very giving it by Gods voluntary appearing to the Fathers and instructing them by familiar conversation as it were being a work of meere grace as also the effect of it in the workes of their conversation which we find so truly Christian that the Fathers of the Church doe truly argue from thence that Judaisme is younger then Christianity And therefore I do here acknowledge this his dispensation by which the Fathers obtained salvation before the Gospell to have been granted also in consideration of that obedience which our Lord Christ had taken upon him to performe in the fullnesse of time Nothing hindering us to understand in Gods proceeding with them something like that which in the civil law is called novatio or delegatio renwing of bonds or assignation of payment Gods accepting the interposition of our Lord Christ to the reconcilement of them being as if he accepted a new bond for an old debt or of payment by proxy to be made at a certaine terme This is a point as manifest in the Scriptures of the New Testament as it was requisite that a point not concerning the salvation of those that live under the New Testament but the understanding of the reason thereof in the salvation of those that died under the Old for the maintenance of it against unbelevers should be manifest For S. Paul thus writeth 1 Cor. X. 1-4
to be a Christian that teaches that wickednesse which a Jew dare not maintaine Though it be just with God to suffer them that presume of the assistance of Gods Spirit in understanding the Scriptures before they be principled in Christianity which the gift of Gods Spirit to Christians presupposeth to be led unto such wicked imaginations by reading the Scriptures as he suffered those that setting up their Idols in their hearts and putting the stumbling block of their iniquities before their faces came to seek direction from God to be seduced by the Prophets by whom they should come to inquire as the Propheâ— threatneth Ezek. XIV 8 10. As for the fact of David and Husâ—ai in ruining of Absalom 2 Sam. XV. 32-37 XVI 16-19 XVII 5-14 there is the lesse difficulty in it because we are not obliged to maintaine the actions of the Fathers to be without sinne and the Spirit of God doth no where commend it Which also holds in those officious lies wherewith Rebecca and the Midwives of the Israâ—lites and Rahab the harlot seduced Isaak and the King of Egypt and the Rulers of Jericho to the good of Gods people Gen. XXVII Exod. I. 15-21 Jos II. 4 5. because whatsoever were the successe which God blessed them with yet as S. Augustine observes it s no where said that God blessed them for lying but for that love to his people which though joyned with their own weaknesse he then rewarded Though he that well considers the nature of these acts comparing them with these sayings and doings of David and Jeremy of Elias Elizaus and Samson which I have showed the spirit of God alloweth will without doubt find cause to believe that the reason why their acts which were joyned with such infirmities were blessed by God at that time is to be drawn from that measure of knowledge which the meanes allowed by God at that time afforded and the obligation which God required at their hands proportionable to the same From the premises we may proceed to resolve that endlesse dispute concerning the intent of our Lords Sermon in the Mount whether it was to take away those â—alse glosses which the Scribes and Pharisees had put upon the Law of Moses importing that nothing but the overt act of murder adulteries and the like stood prohibited by it or to inlarge it unto a further extent of forbidding the first motions of concupiscence in regard of that further light which the Gospel bringeth For I have showed that the most difficult passage of all which saith Thou shalt love thy neighbour and â—ate thine enemy Mat. V. 43. is according to the practise of the law in David Jeremy Elias and Elizeus which is without question the best interpreter of the law and the extent of it How much more if you translate it as questionlesse the Hebrew will allow us to translate it thou shalt love thine neighbour but mayest hate thine enâ—my For it is manifest that when the fourth Commandment saith Six dayes shalt thou labour and do all that thou hast to do the meaning is no more but this Six â—ayes thou mayest labour to wit as for this commandment So that this clause is nothing else but the consequence of that limitation which the law puts to the precept of loving a mans neighbour as himself understanding his neighbour to be onely an Israelite and teaching to pursue Idolaters with all manner of hatred Now when our Saviour saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his meaning is plain enough Ye have heard that it was said to them of old that is to the Fathers at the giving of the law not ye have heard it said by your Predecessors to wit the Scribes and Pharisees who about some hundred years beforâ— had begun to glosse the law with their Traditions Mat. V. 21 27 33 38 43. The subject matter in all the rest besides that which I have spoken of being alwaies the expresse letter of Moses law no Tradition of the Elders Yet it is not my intent to say that our Lords intent is not to clear the true meaning of the law from the false glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees For I acknwledge a false glosse of theirs upon Moses law which it is the intent not onely of the Sermon in the mount but of all the New Testament to clear I say the Scribes and Pharisees taking advantage of the truth of the world to come which they thought to be covenanted for and not onely intimated as the truth is by Moses law did inferre the reward thereof to be due to the outward and carnall observation of it And this is that false glosse of theirs which as every where else so here especially our Lord cleareth when he saith Vnlesse your righteousnesse exceed the righteousnesse of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven Mat. V. 20. But this he doth by clearly inacting that conversation which the Gospel requireth whereof the Fathers of the Old law had onely expressed the rudiments and principles out of that light which the law joyned with the tradition of the Fathers and the doctrine of the Prophets had supplied Though so well accepted by God at that time that he failed not to grant his holy Spirit to them who had attained that measure of righteousnesse And therefore we are to conclude that during the Lâ—w there was a sincerity of righteousnesse consisting in the observation of the precepts thereof not out of any temporall respect or hope of this world but out of the sense of Gods will who searcheth the heart and judgeth the thoughts thereof according to which the Prophets of old and their disciples as Zachary and Elizabeth in the New Testament Luke I. 6. are to be counted perfect and intire in righteousnesse Comparing them forsooth with the Scribes and Pharisees and all their sect who in all ages of that people as I have showed standing so much upon the precise observation of the positive precepts thereof for their own power and advantage grossely failed in all performance where the sincerity of the heart became requâ—site But that when our Saviour saith Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect Mat. V. 48. It is manifest from the premises that he requireth of Christians that charity towards God and all men for Gods sake or to speak in those terms which I take to be more generall that respect to the will of God and his glory and service in all our doings which he did not covenant for with his ancient people Which point before I conclude that we may the better understand wherein I make this perfection of Christians to consist it will be requisite to resolve whether or no Christians can do more then the law of God requires and whether there are these offices which the law of God commands not but the Gospel onely commends as matters of counsel to those that aime at perfection among Christians not matters of necessity for all
I come to conclude against the Anabaptists Our Lord saith to Nicodeâ—â—us Joh. III. 3. Verily verily I say unto thee unlesse a man be born again hee cannot seâ— the Kingdom of God And what this new birth is he setteth forth in answering that impertinent question which Nicodemus not understanding him makes how a man should come out of his Mothers belly the second time Verily verily I say unto thee unlesse a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit Here I will grant the Anabaptists that the Sacrament of Baptism is not instituted by these words but by the act of our Lord after his Resurrection when he gives his Apostles their Commission Go make Disciples all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you Mar. XXVIII 18. But for reasons which perhaps they will not thank me for though they be not able to refute As yet when this discourse was held it was not declared to all that took our Lord for a Prophet that he was the Sonne of God Nicodemus himselfe that comes to him as a Prophet saying Master we know thou art a Prophet come from God For no man could do the works that thou dost unlesse God were with him If he go away instructed that the same which obliges him to take our Lord Christ for a Prophet concludes him to be the Christ the Son of God he is beholden to the freedom of our Lord in declaring to him the pretense of his coming by this discourse But for the purpose of sending the Holy Ghost it cannot be imagined that it was declared from the beginning of our Lords preaching who reveals not the intent of his death to his Apostles till he grew towards the time of it The priviledge of sending the Holy Ghost being part of that state to which he was to be exalted rising from death How then can it be imagined that our Lord should from the beginning of his preaching appoint all to be baptized in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost which is the Sacrament of Baptism that makes us Christians Certainly it is not the same thing for John to baptize in the name of him that should come as for the Apostles in the Name of Father Son and Holy Ghost Unlesse we think that all the people of God who expected a Messias expected him to be the Son of God which Christians worship our Lord Christ for and they crucified him for pretending to be There is therefore no cause why we should offer that violence to the Scripture Acts XXX 4. 5. John indeed baptized the baptism of repentance saying to the people that they were to believe in him that came after him that is in Christ Jesus And hearing this they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus which I showed you is offered by those that would have it to signifie That those who were baptized by Iohn Baptist were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus For other answers that are devised to avoid to clear a Scripture I count them not worth the refuting so evidenâ—ly they force the express sense of the words And among them none more unreasonable thâ—n that which saith that these men were not indeed baptized with the baptism of Iohn though they thought they were And that S. Paul when he sayes John indeed baptized with water saying to the people that they should believe in him that was to come even in Christ Iesus argues and perswades them that they were not indeed baptized with the Baptism of Iohn though they thought they were For of all things in the world could men be deceived to think that they professed that which the Baptism of Iohn must oblige them to professe and did not Nor can it be said with any appearance of truth that Iohn baptizing unto repentance those whom he sends for the means of salvation for the future to him that was to come did baptize in the Name of the Lord Jesus in as much as it is necessary to be said that the Apostles when they baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Acts II. 38. VIII 16. X. 48. did sufficiently intimate the name of the Father whose Son they preached our Lord to be and also of the Holy Ghost whom our Lord had promised to those that are baptized as Irenaeus so long since hath exquisitely cleared the difficulty how they observed their Commission of baptizing in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Baptizing as S. Luke reports in the Name of the Lord Jesus But of Iohn the Baptist it is said Ioh. I. 29-34 That the morrow after he baptized our Lord he declared him to be the man that was to come after him in whose name he had baptized that he knew him not but came to declare him and that by the coming down of the Dove upon him it was revealed to him that he should know our Lord to be the man that came to Baptize with the Holy Ghost Whereby it appeareth that he cannot be thought to have baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus as that importeth as much as baptizing in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost For though it is evident that Iohn knew our Lord when he came to be baptized that he knew him to be in the world from the time that he began to preach and that he should baptize with the Holy Ghost Yet not knowing the man from the time that he began to baptize how could he baptize in his name and as the Son of God that was to give the Holy Ghost before our Lord himselfe had preached and declared upon what terms it was to come I suppose it is easie enough to distinguish between baptizing in the name of Christ and baptizing with an intent of sending them whom he baptized to Christ to be baptized with the Holy Ghost Neither is this to say that Iohns Baptism availed not to remission of sinnes for the time that it was on foot by Gods appointment when as we acknowledge that dispensation of Grace which was intimated and conveyed by the Law to have been the means to bring some to the righteousnesse of faith How much more the twilight of the Gospel under John the Baptist But that before the Covenant of Grace was published by the preaching of our Lord and inacted on Gods part by his death upon the Crosse or rather by raising him from death it was not time to determine that act by which God intended that profession which he requires for the condition of it should be solemnized and celebrated Therefore there came water and blood out of our Lords side upon the Cross to intimate the ground upon which this Sacrament should be in force for the future And if this be the condition
and ruled the whole Church and might as easily make his corruptions generall as Christ Christianity But if it were meerly their saying to make it a Tradition of the Apostles what shall we say of Pelagius For they must pardon me who think that the hatred of his Heresie brought the baptism of Infants into force More generall it might deservedly make it For by the condemning of his Heresie the danger of Infants going out of the world was conâ—eâ—â—ed But it was the Baptism of Infants being in force afore that made his opinion an Heresie as making the necessity of Baptism visible as supposed by all Christians and therefore the truth of Original sin Pelagius was not so very a fool as they imagine If all the knowledge that a man of his time could get by seeing all parts of the Church would have served for an exception to the authority of the baptism of Infants he might have wrangled with his adverse party about the exposition of those Scriptures which are alleadged in the point till this day and his opinion have found footing in the Church But because he could not sâ—op mens eyes so as not to see what they saw we may for wantonnesse betray the cause of God by letting the interpretation of the Scriptures loose to every mans fancy which God had appointed to be confined within the Tradition of his Apostles but they could not chuse but condemn that position which the visible practice of the Church proclaimed to be Heresie Thus farre then I proceed upon the Tradition of the Apostles to make the Baptism of Infants necessary in case of necessity that is of danger of death But I that condemn not the ancients for disputing that it ought not to be generall nor the Greek Church for reserving it till years of discretion supposing the means of it reasonably secured in that case am not like to attribute the necessity of baptizing all Infants which the present Laws of the Church do introduce to the tradition of the Apostles but to the original power of the Church founded upon the constitution thereof in determining the circumstances of those offices which being incumbent upon the Church are not determined by any law of either of his Apostles For though I take not upon me to say that there can no reason be given why this particular should not now be so determined as we see it is who do acknowledge great reasons to have been alleadged by the ancients to the contrary for their time yet I see so many ways for the misunderstanding and the neglect of Christianity to creep upon the Church that I cannot see sufficient reason why the Church should trust the conscience of particular Christians whom it concerned to see to the baptism of all Infants that might come into that case now that the world was come into the Church and that therefore the Church could not have the like presumption of the conscience of all that professed Christianity in the discharge of an office of that concernment to that which it might reasonably have while it was under persecution and men could not be thought to imbrace Christianity but for conscience sake And therefore as I do maintain it alwaies to have been within the lawfull power of the Church to make a generall Law as now it is so I must averre that there was just reason and ground for the exercise of that power in determining this point whither as in the East with some toleration of those whom they had confidence in for seeing to the baptizing of their Infants in danger of death or generally as in the West to see the occasion of mischiefe and scandall prevented by doing it presently after birth And therefore those that forsake the unity of the Church â—ather then be subject to a Law which it may lawfully make as I have showed if that which hath been resolved of the difference between Heresie and Schism be true cannot avoid being schismaticks As for the ground of that opinion which moves them to break up the seal of God marked upon those that are baptized unto the hope of salvation upon the obligation of Christianity by baptizing them anew to the hope of salvation without the obligation of Christianity whether they are to be counted Hereticks therefore or not let who will dispute This I may justly inferre they take as sure a course to murther the souls of those whom they baptize again as of those whom they let go out of the world unbaptized There remains two questions which seem to make this resolution hard to believe If there be no salvation without Baptism no not for the Infants of Christians it is demanded what becomes of their souls and whither they go I must needs allow that those ancient and later Divines alledged by Cassander and our Hooker after him had reason to entertain a charitable hope of the happinesse of those who being prevented by the inevitable casualties of mans life of attaining the Sacrament of Baptism are accompanied out of the world by the prayers of Christian Parents commending them to God with the same affections wherewith they alwaies vowed them to God by bringing them to Christianity so soon as they should become capable to be instructed in it But if I will stand to the bounds of Gods revealed will I must also say that this hope is presumed without book that is without any Law of God to warrant the effect of it For if God promise the Kingdom of heaven to Infants that depart after Baptism as the reasons premised and the practice of the Church make evidence nothing hindreth the mercy of God to extend to those that depart without it where nothing hindreth the power of his grace to regenerate without the Sacrament those whom he hath not expressed that he will not regenerate But this shall not proceed from any obligation of his Covenant of Grace nor tend to make good the evidence thereof which the practice of the Church createth And therefore shall make onely a presumption of what may be and not of what is I find that Arminius had further a doubtful conceit that all Infants departing without Baptism are to be saved by the virtue of Gods second Covenant and the death of Christ upon which it is grounded God having extended both as farre as sinne by the first Adam extendeth But the publication of the second Covenant and the intent of Christs death upon which it is grounded being conditional as hath been showed I suppose it is not enough to intitle Infants to the benefit thereof that they never did any thing to refuse it Otherwise what cause is there why all the Gentiles that go out of the world without hearing of Christianity should not be saved by virtue of it notwithstanding all that they sinne against the Law of nature Because the New Covenant is to take effect where it is not refuted and sinnes against the Law of nature cannot be constrained as a refusall of the
be one of them or not yet since I can say that supposing it were this would not follow for the reason which I have said nothing hinders ouâ— discourse to proceed as supposing it were not granting that it is In particular seeing that by the Law of Christianity none can mary with one that is bound to another already the innocent party so married by cousenage is so farre from being obliged by it as to be obliged not to use it upon notice Again in particular seeing that Christianity declareth mariage to intend procreation and the remedy of concupiscence the uglinesse whereof was never discovered by Idolators and Pagans wheresoever is discovered a naturall impotence to per-form the act of mariage there appeareth an error which had it not been the mariage had not been made And therefore adding the generall to the particular the contract must appear voide The same is much more to be said if by any deceit there hath been an error in the sex of one of the parties Difference in Religion between Christians and Pagans between Christians and Jews renders mariage void by virtue of the premises though it oblige not Christians to make use of their right by renouncing it as Jews were obliged to desert Idolaters But that there may some new Religion spring up in the world upon the divisions of the Church which we see are possible which question may be made whether it be lawful or whether expedient for Christians either to mary or to continue maried with suppose for the present that of the Gnosticks that of the Priscillianists that of our Ranters or Quakers who can deny And supposing such a question made and supposing the Church to be a Society trusted with the guard of Gods Law concerning mariage what determination can secure the conscience of a Christian but the determination of the Church in a cause grounded on mater of Christianity for the guard whereof the Church standeth Doth not all the world acknowledge a publick reputation of that honesty which Christianity pretendeth and challengeth to be performed in the mariage of Christians as they are Christians Do not all Christians acknowledge that there is a neernesse both of blood and of alliance within which Christians are forbidden to mary You will say to me that these degrees are limited by the Law of God in the XVIII of Leviticus and that the Church hath no more to do in prohibiting that which is not there prohibited then in licensing that which is But that will not serve my turn having proved that the Law of Moses in the first instance was given for the civill Law of one people of the Jews and for their civill happinesse in the Land of promise given them on condition of living according to it with a promise of freedom over themselves so doing The Church on the contrary a society of all Christendom founded upon undertaking the Law of Christ with promise of everlasting happinesse For what appearance is there that the same Law should contain the condition of temporall and eternal happinesse in any part of humane life and conversation Indeed he that should argue that seeing God prohibited to many degrees of affinity and consanguinity in the mariages of his ancient people whom he treated expresly with upon onely temporall promises all the same degrees therefore are prohibited Christians whom God deals with upon the promise of the world to come I cannot see how his argument could find an answer But having showed that Christians are bound to straiter terms of Godlinesse by the law of Christ then the ancient people of God whom God obliged himselfe to for the world to come but by intimations which needed stronger inclinations to virtue to imbrace will it not follow that the provision of the Levitical Law is no exception to this generall in mater of mariage Indeed it is not the power of the Church that brings in this ground of restraining more then is restrained by the Levitical Law but the nature of Christianity which I showed from the beginning to be in order of nature before the constitution of the Church and ancient to it But having showed that there is no presumption in Christianity to hinder that to belong to the Law of the Church which is not recorded in the Scripture by consequence I have showed that the practice of the Church may be sufficient evidence for it and that the power of the Church is not onely sufficient but necessary to the determining of that which is not determined by it I confesse I have a difficult objection to answer when I read Levit. XVIII 24. 25. Be not polluted with any of these For with these were the Nations polluted which I drive out before your face And the earth is polluted and I visit the iniquity thereof upon it and she spueth out her inhabitants For by this it should seem that all the prohibitions of that chapter contained in the genenerall term of these thinge stood by the perpetuall Law of God and Nature so that they were never dispensed with before the Law and that therefore there can be no reason to understand any degree to be prohibited Christians which was not prohibited Jews The objection were difficult enough had we not peremtory instances to choke them with that argue thus For is it possible for any reasonable man to imagine that God should call those things which the Fathers practised till now those abominations for which he drives out the seven Nations from before his people Is it not manifest that Jacob was maried to two Sisters at once that Moses and Aaron came of the mariage of the Mothers Sister Exod. VI. 20 that Abraham was maried to his brothers daughter at least And is it strange that should be prohibited by Moses Law which before was dispensed with But supposing that difference between the Law and the Gospel that I have proved were it not strange that that no more should be prohibited under the Gospel then by the Law Of the Polygamy of the Fathers before the Law I said enough afore to show that it was dispensed with how it was dispensed with I said not which seems to make men difficult of beliefe in the point And truly that which the Fathers say sometimes that they were taught by Gods spirit that they might do it for the maintenance of the righteous seed seems somewhat strange if we understood it as if the world did acknowledge it to be prohibited till the chiefe friends of God had particular revelation from him that it was allowed them being forbidden all the world besides Now we have good information from the Jews which all men of learning do now accept for Historical truth that after the flood there were certain precepts delivered to Noe and his Sons which therefore they call the seven precepts of the Sonnes of Noe with an intent to oblige all Nations among which there was one that prohibited the uncovering of nakednesse signifying thereby the forbearance of
of ransome Ephe I. 13. IV. 30. Unless a reason could be showed why S. Peter and S. John should travail from Jerusalem to Samaria to do that which they need not do at Jerusalem where they were Or originally why the Imposition of the Apostles hands should be requisite to procure some the Holy Ghost and not others This being that which the Scriptures record of the Apostles all men know how ancient how general the custome hath been in the Church for Bishops to confirm the baptized by praying for the effect of it which is the Holy Ghost with Imposition of hands Professing thereby that they own their Faith and Baptism and acknowledge them for part of their flock as acknowledged by them for their Pastors Which is that eminence of honour due to the Bishop in which the welfare of the Church consisteth saith S. Hierome advâ—rsus Luciferianâ—s For Tertullian also de Bapt. cap. XVII reserveth unto the Bishop the right of granting Baptism though he allow not onâ—ly Priests and Deacons but partly also Laymen to Baptize Now if from the beginning this priviledge was reserved the Apostles in signe of the truth of that Baptism which so they allowed If those who received Baptism at years of discretion hâ—â—ing theâ—â—elves made profession of their faith were neverthelesse to acknowledge thâ—ir Paâ—â—ors and the Unity of the Church wrapped up in them as that uâ—on which the effect of Baptism dependeth How much more those that are bâ—ptized Infanâ—s Who cannot otherwise according to the original constitution of the Church be secured that they profess the faith of the whole Church but by their Bishops allowance through whom they have communion with the wâ—ole Church For as I have showed that there was originally no other mean to maintain the unity of the Church but the faith of the Bishop to secure the whole Church of the faith of his flock So was the â—same the onely mean to secure the flock that they held the faith of the whole Church which owned their Bishop and his faith And howsoever the profession of faith may be limited and the Bishop in exacting the same yet is it necessarily an act of chief Power in the Church to allow the communion of the Eucharist So that when once Presbyterians share this part of the Bishops Power among their Triers allowing them to admit to the Communion those that can say the Catechism which they made themselves First they put upon us a new faith which we must own for the faith of the Church Then to debauch Partizans to themselves they authorize the malice of gross carnall Christians to domineer over their neighbours whom they may easily pick a quarel with for not answering their Catechism but are not able either to warrant or to teach them the truth of the least tittle of it which so neerly concerning their salvation how necessary is it that it be reserved to the Head of each Church Besides that by acknowledging him they visibly submit to the Laws of the Church by which he governs and to his authority in such maters as the Laws do not determine which is the very means of maintainidg Unity in the Church And truly the consideration of this point discovers unto us the onely sure ground upon which any man may resolve what offices of christianity may be ministred by the several Orders of the Church For when the power of Confirming proper to the Bishop evidenceth that he alone granteth Baptism either by particular appointment or by general Law in which his authority is involved but a Layman sometimes may minister it we see what S. Paul means when he sayes 1 Cor. I. 17. God sent me not to baptize but to preach the Gospel Our Lord having said Mat. XXVIII 19. Go Preach and make Disciles of all Nations baptizing them in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost To wit that the Power of appointing it not the ministery of doing it is proper to the Apostles and their successors Which reason will hold in sundry particulars concerning Ordination concerning Absolution and Penance concerning confirmation and others In all which this being once secured that no man act beyond the Power which he receiveth it will be no prejudice to the unity of the Church that some Orders do that by particular commission from their Superiours which their Order inables not all that are of it to do Because in such cases it is not Authority but Ministery which they contribute As for the order of Priesthood that the power of consecrating the Eucharist is equall to the Power of the Keys in which that Order hath an Interest in the inward Court of Conscience the outward Court of the Church being reserved to the Bishop with advice and assistance of his Presbyters whereas the power of Preaching and Baptizing is of ordinary Right communicable to Deacons For the proof of all this I referre my selfe to that which I have said in the Right of the Church Chap. III. and to that which must be said here in due place Let not then those of the Presbyteries or Congregations think their businesse done till they can give us some reasonable account how all the Christian world should agree to set up Bishops into a rank above their Clergy and People both if this had been forbidden nay if it had not been so ordered by the Apostles Not that I grâ—nt them to have any more appearance of evidence from the Scriptures to destroy the superiority of the Bishops and the concurrence of the Clergy to the maintenance of unity in the Church then the Socinians have to destroy the faith of the Holy Trinity and the satisfaction of Christ But because I do grant these as I granted the other that there is that appearance of evidence which every one that is concerned to be subject to Bishops cannot evidenly resolve as every one that is bound to believe the Holy Trinity and the satisfaction is not bound to be able evidently to resolve all objections which the Socinians can make against it out of the Scriptures For it is granted that S. Hierome hath alleged many texts of Scriptures to show that Bishops and Priests were both the same thing under the Apostles and that therefore the difference between them is but of positive humane right by custome of the Church and hath many followers in this opinion among Church Writers Though with this difference that it can never be pretended that S. Jerome or any Ecclesiastical Writer after or before S. Jerome ever alleged the words of S. Paul 1. Tim. V. 17. The Elders that rule well are worthy of double honour specially those that labour in the word and doctrine or any other syllâ—ble of the whole Scripture to show that any of those that S. Paul pronounces worthy of double honour were Laymen that is of the rank of the people Which is now an essential ingredient of the design both of our Presbyteries and also so farre as I know of the
if the fourth Commandment be in force they cannot be obliged to keep the Lords day Is it not an even wager that not doubting the fourth Commandment to be in force as they are told they shall keep the Saturday which if it be in force they ought to keep rather then the Lords day which finding no reason for it because they are told none they will presently imagine to be a Popish custome I know there is one argument which is very plausible to induce well meaning Christians into that zeal which we see they have for the strict keeping of the Lords day which they call the Sabbath Because this opinion will oblige the world to exercise more works of godlinesse and to abstain from more of those debauches which Festivals occasion in vulgar people then otherwse To which for the present I will say onely this That having showed the truth to be as it is I can oblige all Christians to believe that Gods glory and the advancement of his service cannot be grounded well but upon the truth And therefore I may well demand their patience till I come by and by to show the ground of the mistake which they are carried away with to think that Gods glory and service is not more plentifully provided for by the Laws and customes of the Catholick Church then by strict keeping the Sabbath upon a false ground which hindring the effect of those Laws by consequence hinders Gods service But now all this being setled what is there remaining to alledge why Christians should be bound to keep the Lords day but the act of the Apostles by virtue whereof it came into force among all Christians in all Churches For it would be too ridiculous to allege that it is grounded upon those Scriptures whereby it appeareth that it was kept under the Apostles either as a reason sufficient or as distinct from the authority of the Apostles For these Scriptures being the Scriptures of the Apostles we can derive no authority from them but that which we first suppose in the Apostles I suppose here that no man will say that our Lords appearing to his Disciples after his resurrection upon that day was enough to make it a Law or evidence that it was so made unlesse his Apostles could testifie that he appeared to that purpose As for the rest if it may by circumstance appear that under the Apostles they did assemble to the service of God upon the Lords day will it therefore follow that all Chistians are bound to do the same Or can any more then this appear by that which I alledged out of the Apostles writings If there could the writings of the Apostles being their act as much as any act whereby they could declare an intent to oblige the Church there will be nothing to bind it to keep the Lords day but the authority of the Apostles But he that will give his own common reason leave to speak shall hear it say that it is not their words that oblige us to it but the originall and universall custome of the Church evidencing that they used to celebrate that day with an intent to introduce the obligation of it into the Church For of this original and universal custome having as yet found no question made on any side I hold it superfluous to take pains to make evidence of that which no man questions When Justine the Martyr presenting to the Empire an Apology for all Christans declareth that their custome was to assemble on the Lords day to serve God with the offices of Christianity which there he describeth had it not been to abuse himself and the Empire to declare that for the custome of all Christians which was indeed the custom of some but of others not Whither Easter was to be kept upon the fifteenth day of the first Moon upon which our Lord suffered or upon the next Lords day upon which he rose again was a dispute in the Church as ancient as the Apostles The former custome having been delivered to the Churches of Asia by S. John the later to the West by S. Peter and S. Paul But what ground could there be for this dispute had not the first day of the week been honoured and observed above the rest in regard of our Lords rising again Certainly the Eâ—ionites were one of the ancientest sects thar rose up against the Church and they as Eusebius Eccles Hist III. 27. keeping the Sabbath as the Jews and because the Jews kept it observing also the Lords day because the Christians kept it It is true that among the Eastern Christians the Saturday was observed for the service of God many ages after condescension to the Jews in regard whereof the observation of Moses law was in use after Christ in some parts of the Church more in some lesse was quite out of date But that is no argument that the Lords day was not kept when the Sabbath was kept to them who see S. Paul keep the Lords day Act. XX. 7. within the time of compliance with the Jewes For the offices which God is served with by the Church are pleasing to him at all times as well as in all places whereas the keeping of the Sabbath upon any day but a Saturday would have been a breach of his Law For when the other Festivals of the Jews are called Sabbaths in the Law that is not to say that the Sabbath was kept upon them for I have showed you two severall measures of rest due upon them by the Law but that they participated much of the nature of the Sabbath and therefore may be called with an addition such or such Sabbaths but not absolutely the Sabbath Therefore when Christians afterwards continued the custome of serving God upon the Sabbath that is the Saturday it is to be understood that they served God with the offices of Christianity not with the rest of the Jews Sabbath If it be further demanded whither the obligation of the Lords day do not depend upon the precepâ— of the Sabbath so that it may be called with an addition the Sabbath of Christians though not absolutely the Sabbath because that nâ—me is possessed already by the Saturday in the language of all Christians as well as Jews till men affected an abuse in the name to bring their mistake into mens minds To this I answer that if the Lords day had no dependance upon the precept of the Sabbath we could not give a reason why one day of seven is observed For the choice of the number could not come by chance And I cautioned afore that the Resurrection of Christ was as sufficient a reason why the Church should serve God on the Sunday as the creation of the world was why the Synagogue should serve God on the Saturday But this dependance was not immediate because I showed also that this was not enough to introduce the obligation upon us The act of the Apostles intervening was the means to make the obligation necessary
in the judgement of many that think themselves the most refined Christians that they allow it not that common sense in managing the businesse of Christianity which they must needs allow Jews Pagans Mahometans in faithfully serving their own faithlesse suppositions and which all experience shows us that it serves all mankind to what purpose soever it is imployed and that notwithstanding so great a triall of it as the governing of so great a Body as the Church is in unity so farre and so long as this Unity hath prevailed it is therefore necessary to give a reason why the Church so used them Which supposing the premises it will be as easie as it is necessary for me to give and that more sufficient if I mistake not then can possibly be given not supposing the same For if the secret of the resurrection the general judgement and the World to come if the mystery of the Holy Triniâ—y consisting in the Word or Wisdome and Spirit of God if the inward and spiritual service of God in truth of heart be more clearly opened in them by the work of Providence dispensing the effect of Canonicall Scripture by the occurrences of time then in the Law and the Prophets themselves which I have showed both that so it is and why so it is from the ground of the difference between the Old and the New Testament then I suppose there is sufficient reason why those who admit the Old Testament to be made for common edification in the Church should not put any question concerning those Scriptures Those new lights among us who do not allow the Psalter to be pertinently and reasonably imployed for the publick service of God upon all occasions as the Church hath alwaies imployed it may assure us that they understand not why the Scriptures of the Old Testament are read in the Church because they understand not the correspondence between the Old and the New Testament in the understanding whereof the edification of the Church by the Scriptures of the Old Testament consisteth There may be offence taken at divers things in these Scriptures I deny not But there may be offence taken in like maner at divers things in the Canonicall Scriptures of the Old Testament The humility of Christians requires them edifying themselves in that which they understand in the Scriptures according to our common Christianity in the rest which they understand not to refer themselves to their Superiours The Church understood well enough this difference and this correspondence to be discovered by these writings as the time required when it appointed Learners to read them And though I stand not upon terms yet I conceive they are more properly called Ecclesiastical because the Church hath imployed them to be read in the Church then Apocryphal according to the use of that word in the Church to signifie such writings as the Church suspecteth and therefore alloweth not to be read whither in publick or in private Whereupon I conceive also that the term of Canonical Scripture hath and ought to have two senses one when we speak of the Jews Canon in the Old Testament another when we speak of the Canon of the Church For seeing the Tradition of the Synagogue is perfect evidence what Scriptures of the old Testament are to be received as inspired by God the word Canon in that case may well signifie the Rule of our Faith or maners But because the Church cannot pretend to create that evidence originally but onely to transmit what she receiveth from the Synagogue Pretending neverthelesse to give a Rule what shall be read for the edification of the Church the word Canon therefore in that case will signifie onely the list or Catalogue of Scriptures which the Church appoints to be read in the Church which seems to reconcile the diverse accounts extant in severall Records of the Church CHAP. XXIII The consideration of the Eucharist prescribed by Tradition for the mater of it Lords Prayer prescribed in all services The mater of Prayers for all estates prescribed The form of Baptism necessary to be prescribed The same reason holdeth in the forms of other Offices IN the next place I do maintain that the Order of celebrating the Eucharist and the Prayer which it was was from the beginning solemnized with were from the beginning prescribed the Church by unwritten custome that is by Tradition from the Apoâ—â—les containing though not so many words that it was not lawful to use more or lesse for these were always occasions for celebrating the Eucharist emergent which must be intimated in fewer or more words in the celebrating of it yet the mater and substance of the Consecration of it together with the mater and substance of the necessities of the Church for which it was offered that is to say for which the Church was and is to pray at the celebration of it as hoping to obtain them by the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross which it representeth as received from the beginning was every were known to be the same This I inferr from that which I have said in the Book afore quoted of those Texts of S. Paul where those Prayers of the Church which the Eucharist is consecrated with are called Eucharistia or Thanksgiving if not rather the thanksgiving because it was a certain form of Thanksgiving well known to all Christians by that name from whence the Sacrament â—o consecrated was also so called from the time that our Lord hâ—ing blessed or given thanks to the Father over the Elements had said This is my body this is my blood and order is given that at the celebration thereof Prayers be made for the necessities of the Church and of all people 1 Cor. XIV 25. 26. 1 Tiâ—â— II. 1-8 Together with those passages of primitive antiquity from whence it appeareth there that the form of consecrating the Eucharist used and known generally in the Church is called Eucharistia and that the custome of interceding for all the necessities of the Church and for the reducing of unbelievers to the same is and hath been taken up and ever frequented by the Church in obedience to and prosecution of the said precept of the Apostles This observation might perhaps be thought too obscure evidence â—o bring to light a point of this consequence were it not justified by all that I produced afore to show that the Eucharist is consecrated by the Prayers of the Church which celebrateth it upon the faith of our Lords institution and promise For the mater of these Prayers tending to a certain purpose that the Elements may become the Body and Blood of Christ and convay his Spirit to those who receive them with living faith the Consecration which is the effect of them requires that the form of them be prescript and certain though not in number of words yet in sense in tent and substance And this by the evidence there produced may appear to have been maintained from the beginning by Tradition in
Wisdome XIV 14-17 When a Prince hving lost a deare Son causeth the image of him to be made for his comfort and remembrance of him which is propagated by the honour done to his image Not that he meanes that all idolatry came from this beginning for certainely it would have been utterly senselesse to have expected this from men possessed of the beliefe of one true God till that time But because this might become the beginnig of that Idolatry that was performed to the deceased among those who having once admitted the beliefe of more Gods then one and in particular worshiping dead men could give no reason why they should doe lesse for them then for others And if it were posible for the Devil to induce men to worship the creature for God it is not strange that by pretended apparitions revelations and miracles don about these statues or Images he should maintain in them a belief of the presence of that imaginary deitie which they intended thereby to represent record in the statue or image which must needs be a powerfull meanes to multiply those ceremonies and solemnities wherewith they pretended to honour the Deity there inclosed Certainely for this reason it was that among the Greeks and Romans the consecrating of a Temple was the setting up and dedicating in it the statue of that Deity in honor whereof it was built So you see it every foot in Pausanias and in the life of Alexander Severus it is related for a singularity of Adrians curiosity in following all Religions that he built in every City a Temple without any statue in it which he had intended for our Lord Christ had he not been advised that all the world would turne Christians if he should take that course And though it is rather thought that Adrian indeed did intend them for Temples to himselfe yet still that holds which the history addeth Quae hodie idcirco quia non habent numina dicuntur Hadriani That they are called Adrians because they have no Godhead Which the Heathen believed them to have so soone as the statue of that God was set up whose the Temple was to be And this is not questioned that Alexander Severus intended that our Lord Christ should be worshiped as one of their Gods which would have made him as much an Idole as their Gods as the same Emperour did indeed worshiping as wel Christ and Abraham as the deified Emperours Orpheus or Achilles among his closet Gods as his life relateth Thus much is to be noted that Maimoni where he relateth the beginning of Idolatry as I alleaged afore acknowledgeth that it was mightily promoted by revelations apparitions miracles pretended to be done by the stars or elements of the world at such monuments of their presence as had been provided Which since Gods truth imputeth to the Devill the worship of these creatures was no lesse the worship of the Devill then sacrifices offered to the dead And all this is further confirmed by the Idolatry of Magicians which for Balaams sake I hold unquestionable For having showed before that Balaam though he knew there was a God which was able to defeat all his witchcraft did neverthelesse addresse himselfe to his familiars by offering sacrifices to obtain of them the cursing of Israel which he knew could not be obtained without the leave of their God whom he acknowledgeth under the same name which his people never conmunicated to any besides shall it seeme strange that people weary of their Christianity because it easeth them not of the little discontentments of their estate in this world which they meet with should either formally or by due construction renounce the benefit of it by contracting for some curiosities which they desire but their Christianity hath appointed them no meanes to procure Or that renouncing God and Christ in the same maner and degree as they contract for those things they should translate the honor which the little Religion that can allow such a contract leaves in him that cannot deny a God and yet serves him thus unto the Devile from whom they expect their desires Especially the experience of all nations Christians Jewes and Pagaus acknowledging those acts which themselves though worshippers of Deviles counted unlawfull because upon contracts tending to the mischiefe of mankind And the evidence of the Sabbaths and solemnities of witches in these times of Christianity being no way to be baffled by such reasons as â—end to take away all reason for the punishing of witches which the Law of Moses establisheth Though nothing hinder the alleging of such as may make men wary what evidence they accept in cases more private and secret In the life of Pythagoras by Jamblichus Cap XXIIX there are divers and sundry feates of his doing reported which to Christians that know the difference between cleane and uncleane spirits cannot see in to have been don otherwise then by familiarity with uncleane spirits Which he might easily learne by his travels among the Egyptians and Caldeans Nations among whom as well Magick as Idolatry had been both bred and advanced if we believe either the scriptures or the writings of Pagans as well as of Christians And truly it is manifest that the being and office of Angels about God was knowne to him and to his followers but without any distinction between the good and the bad which the scripture onely teacheth Which is also to be seen in the writings of Plato where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is never taken in any ill sense as necessarily it is by all them who acknowledge Apostate Angels Neither is it possible for any Christian to make any other interpretation of that familiar which Socrates in Plato affirmeth that he was alwaies attended with called Socrates his Daemon or Genius then of a deceiving sâ—irit unlesse it could stand with Christianity to believe that God granted the assistance of his spirit or Angels to Pagans and that so constant as is not to be found of any of his prophets It is true indeed that there are many things in Plato which learned men doe compare and reduce to the rule of the Christian Faith concerning the Holy Trinity blessed for ever more But he that compares The mind of God the Word of God the Idea of God the Spirit of God the Wisdome of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Plato delivereth with that Fulnesse of the Godhead that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Saturninus and Basilides propounded to be worshipped by their followers in Ireneus and Epiphanius considering withall that the Angels which are not distinguished from God by Plato according to that infinite distance which is to be acknowledged between God and his creatures were by most sects of the Gnosticks admitted into that Fulnesse of the Godhead which the severall sects of them worshiped will have reason to believe the Fathers of the Church when they make the Philosophers the Patriarches of the Hereticks And that the
is what course the Law of the Church should take And therefore the profession of that continence which single life requireth grounding a reasonable presumption of eminence in Christianity above those that are marryed there was all the reason in the world why the Church should indeavour to put the governement thereof into such hands by preferring them before others On the other side as all truth in morall and humane maters is liable to many exceptions it cannot be denyed that more abstinence from riot and from riches both more attendance upon the service of God is found some times in those that live marryed then in those that live single In which consideration it may well seem harde to conclude all them that are marryed unserviceable for the Church The moderation therefore of the Easterne Church seemeth to proceed upon a very considerable Ground not excluding marryed persons from a capacity of Holy orders but excluding persons ordayned from any capacity of mariage For those who were promoted to the Clergy being single knowing that they were not allowed mariage what can they pretend why they should hold their estate not performing the condition of it As for the promoting of those who are already maried it is the triall of their conversation in wedlock that may ground a presumption as well for that conscience which their fidelity in dispensing the goods of the Church as for that diligence in setting aside the importunities of marriage which their attendance upon the service of the Church requireth It was therefore to be wished that the Westerne Church had used the limitation which the Nicene councill by resting contented with confirmed to admit of persons maryed before orders preferring before them those that are single But it must be granted that as well in the West as in the East though the aime was to perfer single life yet here and there now and then those that were maryed were not excluded It is not to be thought that one Spanish councill which had no effect at all without the bounds of it could as easily be reduced to effect in practice as couched in writing Especially the Generall councill of Nicaea having waived the motion of inacting the same But this demonstrates the credite of the Church of Rome in the Westerne Church at that time that the Rescripts of Syricius Innocent Popes are found the first acts to inforce the same which that Spanish council had inacted For the African and other Westerne Canons that injâ—ine the same are for time after Syricius Whereby it appeareth though they doe not use that exception which the councill of Nicca had supposed yet that the rule of single life for the Clergy was so troden under foot that it was found requisite to seeke meanes by the Synods of severall parts and by the concuâ—rence of the See of Rome to bring it into force For let no mâ—n think that those Canons took effect so soon as they were made which were made on purpose to restraine the mariages of the Clergy Who for the most part had from the beginning lived single but neither before nor after could be totally restrained from maryage It would be too large a worke in this place to repeate either the particular Canons which were made and the discourses of the Fathers to inforce them on the one side or on the other side the saying of the Fathers and other records in point of fact whereby the in execution of them doth appeare Those that would be satisfied in it may see what the Arch-Bishop of Spalato hath collected and find Epiph. his saying still take place during the flourishing time of the Church But all this while you heare nothing of any vowe annexed to the undertakeing of Holy Orders by vertue whereof maryage contracted under them should become voide For the vowe of single life being an act that disposeth of a man and his estate in this world to a totall change of his courses if he mean to observe it what reason can admit any ground for presuming of it when it is not expressed And the custom of the Eastern Church reduceth the penalty thereof unto the ceasing ofâ— that ministry by consequence of that maintenance which the order intitleth to which is not the penalty of breaking a vowe But the effects of these rules and indeavours of the Western Church was never such as to exclude the Clergy from marryage how much soever they might exclude maryed persons from the H. orders When Greg. the seventh undertook to bring them under a total restraint from maryage it is manifest that other maner of meanes were imployed to make that restraint forcible then the constitution of the Church indowes it with For that was the time when the Church undertooke to dispose of Crownes and scepters and to extend the spirituall power thereof to the utmost of temporall effects And therefore it is to be granted that by such meanes indeed it might and did come to effect But in point of fact onely not in point of right as being a rigor which the practice of all parts was sufficient protestation that the Church in that estate was not able to undergoe For the horrible and abominable effects thereof have beene so visiblâ— that it is not possible the cause of them should seeme the production of that reason which the being of any law requireth and supposeth Nor can the See of Rome justly be admitted to charge that no bounds have been observed in releasing of it which it cannot be denyed that the ancient Church in all places did observe For I truely for my part have granted that even Lawes given by the Apostles for the better governement of the Church though written in the scriptures may be dispensed in by the Church when the present constitution of things shall make it appear to the Governours thereof that the observation of that rule which served for that state in which it was prescribed â—ends to the considerable visible harme of the Church in the present state of it And therefore I will not take upon me to say that the state of bigamy which S. Paul I have showed maketh an impediment to some Orders can by no means be dispensed with But the See of Rome which dispenseth with it as of course paying the ordinary fees I conceive cannot in justice charge the releasing of the rule of single life to all the Clergy though in some measure a Law of the whole Church And how many Canons of the whole Church besides are there which must be trampled under foot by bringing that unlimited power into effect which now it exerciseth I could therefore earnestly wish for mine owne parte that some reservation had beene used in the releasing of it that the respect due to single life by our common Christianity might have remained visible to Christian people by the priviledge of it in the Church Nor doe I thinke my selfe bound by being of the reformation to maintaine the acts by
the sword without the authority of the Soveraigne And therefore wee see that afterwards the good King Jehosaphat manifestly gives commission to these Judges at Jerusalem as well as to their inferiours when he restores them to the exercise of theire office according to law upon what occasion soever it may seeme to have been interrupted 2. Chron. XVII 7 8. 9. XIX 4 5 6 7 8 9 And hereupon the Psalme saith CXXII 5. There is the seat of judgement even the seat of the house of David But the Leviathan hereupon argues That as Solomon consecrated the Temple by his own prayers so Christian Princes may in their owne person consecrate Churches and not onely that but ordaine and celebrate the Eucharist and Preach and do all thiâ—gs themselves which their subjects may doe who are but their ministers The answer to which is first That herein he contradicts his own position that by the scriptures that is by Gods Law the right of designing persons to be Ordained and of doing other things of like nature belonges to the people of every Church But the office of solemnizing the ordination by imposition of hands and in like maner of executing other acts of like nature to the ministers of those Churches succeeding the Apostles Seconâ—ly that he is not able to show a reason why the great Turk should not by consequence be able to consecrate Eucharist Preach and do any office wherein Christianity obligeth his Christian subjects to communicate and they accordingly stand bound to receive them at his hands For he challenges not this right for the Soveraigne as Christian but as Soveraigne And therefore a Christian Soveraign can no more do that which every Christian his subject cannot do of this nature then a Soveraign that is not a Christian Lastly that the consequence is not true nor can be proved for the reason aforesaid which if it were not all that he inferreth though never so grosse would follow Indeed there were as I observed three estates established by the Law in that people The Priests the Judges and the Prophets And because established by the Law therefore successive The Priests by birth yet a Corporation by Law as by Law indowed with the rights of their Tribe Therefore when it comes to settle their courses and ministeries in the Temple I have observed in my booke of the rights of the Church p. 230. that this is not done by David alone but with the assistance of the principall of that Tribe For the Judges there is no reason why we should not believe the Tradition of the Jewes that they were all qualified to fit in any of their Courts by imposition of the hands of some that had received the same from Moses and his Judges Though this quality made them onely capable of being Judges to which they were still actually to be chosen by the King or by the Court. So that when the Talmudists relate that King David ordained XXXM on one day they understand that he did not this as King but as qualified to ordaine though as King he might actually make Judges But being zealous of the Law as they describe him spending his time about the niceties of it and having his guard of Cerethites and Pelethites whom they understand to be Doctors all or Scholars of the Law they consequently make us believe that he meant to store the nation wiâ—h persons qualified to be Judges As for the succession of the prophets tha depended meerely upon Gods free Grace though a course of learning and discipline was without question founded by Moses and maintained by his successors to make them fit by such education for the Grace And these being the Schools of the prophets in the Scriptures when the spirit of prophesy failed became the schools of Scribes Doctors and learners of the Law out of whom Judges came As Prophets then had their authority immediately from God so were they the forerunners of our Saviour Christ and his Apostles as our Saviour showeth when he saith Mat. XXIII 34. Behold I send unto you Prophets and Scribes and wisemen and of them ye shall kill and crucifie and of them you shall scourge in your Synagogues and persecute from city to city For God having appointed them by the Law of Deut. XVIII 18-22 to have recourse also to the prophets which he should raise untill the Messias should come in whom S. Steven challengeth that Law to be fulfiled Acts VII 37. if Prophets preaching by Gods commission displeased evill rulers they easily found pretences to quarel the evidence of their commission and to put them to death as false prophets which was that which they did to our Saviour Christ and his Apostles and those who preached Christ afterwards These then having commission from God alone had in them as I showed afore the qualities both of Priests in offering to God that service in spirit truth which Christianity pretendeth and of judges in determining that which should become questionable in the Church And as the Kings of Israel were bound by Gods Lawes to maintaine all those qualities in the execution of their office So the Church being founded and having subsisted three hundred years by this power of the Apostles Constantinâ— and all Christian Princes aster him finding â—â— in that estate become obliged by Gods Law to maintaine the Church whereof they became members by professing Christianity in that estate and quality wherein they become member of it And upon these termes have the Kings of England and all other Christian Princes the same rights in Church matters which the godly Kings of Israel and Christian Emperors are found to have exercised Whereof it shall be enough here to give the most eminent instance that can be alledged in the Heresy of Arius and all the factions that were canvased in the Church to restore it being once suppressed by the Synode of Nicaea Which one act of the Church though the whole power of the Empire in two Emperors Constantius and Valius though perhaps with far different intents laboured to make voide yet they never tooke upon them to do it immediately of themselves but by meanes of Synods which they might work to their intent or by the meanes of persons apposted by them to have the power of the chief Churches And therefore whereas that Synode as it was an act of the Empire was easily recalled by the breath of either of those Emperors as it was an act of the Church it prevailed over all their intentions and by the prevailing of it we continue untainted with the heresy of Arius The reason because the right of the Church was so notorious to all Christians that those Emperors that did not professe Christianity when they did not persecute it made good the acts of it As it is to be seen in that eminent example of Aureliane which I will repeate againe because it is still alledged to argue that Paulus Samosatenus was excommunicated by the secular power of Aureliane But when
revealed from heaven upon all ungodlinesse and unrighteousnesse of men that hold the truth in unrighteousnesse For the preaching of the Gospel is that revelation which here he meanes And by S. Augustine de Catechizandi Rudibus we understand that by the order of the Church there was no instruction in Christianity without conviction of the judgement to come as that which obligeth to have recourse to Baptisme for the avoiding of it But when God condescends to tender to those whom he holds liable to his justice terms of reconcilement plainly he comes down from his Throne of judgement to deale with his obnoxious creatures upon equall terms or rather terms of disadvantage supposing what no Christian can deny that the Gospel tenders terms of our advantage Nay he is content to go before and to declare himself tied before hand if we accept expecting our choice whether we will be bound by accepting or not which is a difference between the Law and the Gospel not unworthy to be observed For the Covenant of the Law was struck once for all with all those whome it concerned to wit the whole people of Israel at once their posterity being by birth subject to it But when the Gospel is preached the Covenant of Grace is tendered indeed but not inacted till some man consent to become a Christian and therefore God first binds himself to stand to the termes which he tenders expecting whether man will accept them or not And though it be called the Covenant of Grace while it is but tendered yet it is not a Covenant till it be inacted between God and every one that is baptized Seeing then that no justification of sinners takes effect but by virtue of the Covenant of Grace and that the act of Gods meer Grace inacts and gives force to that Covenant manifest it must needs be that justification imports the act of God admitting him for righteous who setting aside that Covenant could not challenge so to be held and dealt with But if justification import this act of God shall it not therefore imply shall it not suppose some condition qualifying him for it For what challenge can he whom the Gospel overtaketh in sinne pretend for reward by it being engaged by Gods law to the utmost of his power otherwise shall a mans conversion from sinne past to righteousnesse to come challenge both the cancelling of his debts and a reward beyond all proportion of that which he is able to do being obliged to do it But shall that Gospel which pretends to retrive righteousnesse into the world allow the reward of righteousnesse without any consideration of it How then shall it oblige man to righteousnesse being a law that derogates from any law of God that went afore it allowing all the promises it tenders without any consideration of righteousnesse For I will not here stand to dispute whether the Covenant of Grace be a law or not because every contract is a law to the parties and this being between God and man and supposing the transgression of Gods Originall law necessarily abates the extent and force of it But I will demand what is or what can be the righteousnesse of a sinner but repentance Which as it is part of righteousnesse so farre as it is understood to be conversion from all sinne so as it is understood to be the conversion of sinners to Christianity is all righteousness because all sinners are called to Christianity Only with this difference that repentance is the way to that end which is righteousnesse Repentance in fieri righteousnesse in facto esse according to the terms of the Schoole And is it not righteousnesse for a sinner to desire to purpose to resolve to be righteous for the time to come Or can he that is truly qualified a sinner be any other way truly qualified righteous Therefore that resolution of righteousnesse which he that sincerely undetakes Christianity must needs put on the first part whereof is the profession of God by Christ the author and rewarder of it This I say is that which qualifies a Christian for the promises of the Gospel but alwayes by virtue of Gods free act in tendring the Covenant of Grace not by any obligation which his creature can prevent him with And this is manifestly S. Pauls sense in Rom. IV. 3 11 22 23 24. where he alleges Moses that Abrahams faith was imputed to him for righteousnesse and David pronouncing him blessed unto whom God imputeth no sinne To shew that the Gospel declareth Christians to be justified by faith no otherwise then the Fathers understood men to become Righteous by Gods grace accepting that which nothing could oblige him to accept for righteousnesse For no man is so wilfully blinde as to imagine that the Apostle speakes here of our Lord Christ the object not of the act of faith whose words are That Faith was imputed to Abraham for righteousnesse and blessed is he to whom the Lord imputeth not sinne And sinne as I take it stands not in opposition to the object of faith And when the Scripture saith Psal CVI. 30 31. Then stood up Phineas and exercised judgement and so the Plague ceased And this was imputed to him for righteousnesse among all posterities for evermore It is manifest that doing vengeance upon malefactors is accounted a righteous thing for Phineas to do though by Gods command yet without processe of law And 1 Mac. 11. 52. Was not Abraham found faithfull in temptation and it was counted to him for righteousnesse And shall not faith be said to be imputed to him for righteousnesse in the same sense as we see evidently induring temptation is imputed to him and doing vengeance to Phineas for righteousnesse That is to say that the act of faith not the object of it which act what it is and wherein it consists I suppose is decided by the premises is imputed to Abraham and his Spirituall seed for righteousnesse I have said nothing all this while concerning that opinion which makes that faith which alone justifieth to consist in believing that a man is justified or predestinate to life in consideration only of Christs obedience imputed to him And truely having said so much why it cannot consist in having trust and confidence in God through Christ I do not think I need say much more to it First whether or no a Christian can have the assurance of faith that he is for the present justified or that he is from everlasting predestinate to life is a thing that I intend not here either to grant or to deny Nothing hindring me supposing for the present but not granting that such assurance may be had upon that supposition to dispute that he is not justified by having that assurance but that by being justified he obtaines it For were it not the strangest thing in the world that any knowledge should produce the object of it which it supposeth Can any reason allow the effect to produce the cause or any thing
to depend upon the consequence of it No more can Christianity allow the assnrance of this truth I am justified supposing it to be true to be the ground why it is true And if any man say that justifying faith is not the assurance of this truth I am justified but of this truth I am â—redestinate to life the reason being Because the obedience of Christ appointed for the salvation of the elect alone is imputed to him once for all to life not onely for the present to righteousnesse can any reason be given why this reason should not take effect from everlasting but depend upon the knowledge of it wherein justifying faith is said to consist For if the onely consideration that intitles him to the promises of the Gospel be the obedience of Christ why shall not that right take place from the same date from which the consideration tendered for it takes place Why should not the opinion of the Antinomians at least that which I make to be ground of that Heresie take place rather then this of Presbyterians For both of them being equally destructive to the Gospel of Christ that which agrees best with it self the several assumptions whereof are most consistent with and consequent to one another is doubtlesse the more receivable Now whether we make justification granted from everlasting to the elect for whom alone Christ was sent to go before faith as the object goes before the knowledge and assurance of it Or whether we make it to depend upon faith though passed meerely in consideration of the obedience of Christ deputed for the salvation of the elect alone there will remaine no obligation upon the elect to performe any obedience to God being intitled to and assured of salvation afore it and without it For the Gospel is the last Law of God derogatory to any declaration of his will antecedent to it and not suffering any other to take place further then is provided by it So that supposing that God hath published salvation to the elect meerly in consideration of Christ without requiring any terms at their hands Well may it be said that notwithstanding he may determine them to do those things which he would have them do that shall be saved But it cannot be said that he can oblige them to any condition to be performed of their free choice Or consequently that there can remaine any difference between good and bad in the doings of them who are free from all obligation to the meanes because intitled to the end without them And truly it is more modesty to say that the actions of the elect to which God determines them upon these terms are not good then to say as by consequence it must be said that the actions of the reprobates are bad which upon these terms are not their actions but Gods nor imputable to any will of theirs but to his But this inconvenience being unavoidable whether we make justification to depend upon that faith which consists in assureing us of the same and that is to make an object to depend upon the act which it produceth or that faith to depend upon it as included in predestination to liâ—e both of them being destructive to Christianity it is but a poor plaister by contradicting a mans self to seem to salve so great an inconvenience And truly t is much to be wondered at how those that professe nothing but Scripture could ever perswade themselves of an imagination for which there is nothing to be alledged out of the whole tenor of the Scriptures Whatsoever can be produced out of the Old Testament for that trust which the people of God might or ought to have in God for the obtaining of his promises whatsoever out of the New for that peace and security with which Christians may and ought to expect the world to come supposing but not granting all that can be pretended thereby do but demand where it is said that a man hath this trust this peace this security by having it and all will be mute And therefore having shewed that the trust and peace of a Christian supposeth that ground upon which he is justified I will spend no more words to shew that the knowledge and assurance of justification or predestination supposes the being of it and that the ground whereupon it takes place CHAP. VIII The objection from S. Paul We are not justified by the Law nor by Workes but by Grace and by Faith Not meant of the Gospel and the workes that suppose it The question that S. Paul speakes to is of the Law of Moses and the Workes of it He sets those workes in the same rank with the workes of the Gentils by the light of nature The civil and outward workes of the Law may be done by Gentiles How the Law is a Pedagogue to Christ THE last reason whereby I prove my intent consists in the assoiling of that Objection which is alledged from the disputes of S. Pauls Epistles arguing that a Christian is not justified by the Law or by the works of the Law and therefore by Grace and by Faith For he that is justified by ingaging himself to professe Christianity and to live according to the same must needs be justified by performing his ingagement Unlesse a man would say that he is justified by making a promise which he never observeth and which it concerns him not to keep being once justified by making of it And truly having said that God admits a man into the state of his Grace in consideration of the act of undertaking this profession I do not onely grant but challenge for my privilege to maintaine that he hold him in the same state in consideration of the act or acts whereby he performes the same And therefore to the Objection I returne this in generall That I do not grant any man to be justified by any thing that supposes not of the Gospel of Christ since the publishing of it That is not by such works as can be done by him that hath not yet admitted and imbraced the Gospel of Christ and that by virtue of that Grace of God which sets on foot the Covenant of Grace For the Law going before the Gospel and being unable to produce that obedience which God would accept in lieu of the World to come further then as containing in it self the Gospel and the effects of it It is manifest that righteousnesse cannot be attributed to the Law nor the works of the Law And yet if we consider that the Gospel it self is a law of God whereby he ties at least himself to certain rerms upon which he declares that he will be reconciled with his enemies There is no reason to understand when S. Paul sayes that a man is not justified by the Law or the works of the Law that he meanes to deny a Christian to be justified by doing according to the Gospel which is the law that God pretends to introduce in stead of that law by which the