sides we are obliged by conscience to our proper Fathers in Christ For to do otherwise is to provoke God to deliver such over as light and gadding Huswifes to the impure embraces of any seducer to Schism and Heresie But when such a conviction shall be wrought in us of the errors and unsafety of that communion in which we were educated That we must either forsake that or Christ then must the advice and sentence of our Saviour prevail with us in St. Luke If any Luâ— 14. 26. man comes to me and hate not his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brethren and Sisters yea and his own Life also he cannot be my Disciple And as we should go against common prudence and humanity it self out of an opinion That our Parents natural may err and set us upon unwarrantable Acts to turn them off and deny all obedience unto them least they should lead us into errors so should we do very unchristianly and against apparent precepts of Scripture contemptuously and proudly to deny submission both of Judgement and practise unto our spiritual Parents because forsooth they are men and may err the Spirit of disobedience tacitly insinuating unto us a much more pestilent opinion That while we do as best liketh our selves we shall be much more safe if not infallible as if we might not err But of this as we have already spoken in part so may there offer it self a more proper place more fully to speak afterward A second general means to attain the true sense of Scripture is indeed the Spirits assistance by which it was at first composed There is certainly none like to that For as St. Paul hath it What man knoweth the 1 Cor. 2. 11. things of a man save the Spirit of a man which is in him Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God The only hazard we here run is and that no small one That we presume not lightly upon such a peculiar guidance of the Spirit which we have not The general remedie therefore of this evil is that prescribed by our Lord Christ viz. Prayer For Thus he speaketh by St. Mathew All things whatsoever ye ask in prayer believing ye shall receive And more Mat. 21. 22. Luk. 11. 13. particularly by St. Luke If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your heavenly Father give the holy Spirit to them that ask them And a Third means is when being soundly and well instructed in the general Augustin de Doct. christ Lib. 3. cap. 2. drift and design of Faith or Gods holy word we by the Analogy which one part of Faith must bear with another do judge of the truth or error of any thing contained in Scripture And To this belongs a Fourth as it is commonly reckoned viz. due and Id. 16. cap. 3. prudent comparing of several places of Scripture knowing that no sense can be admitted of Scripture which disagreeth with any part of Scripture Skill or knowledg of the original tongues in which they were wrot may be accounted a Fifth meanes and herein a special observation of the several Idioms of both Old and New Testament Lastly Consideration of the Histories of Countries Persons and Customes to which Holy writ do relate To these several others of inferior Order might be named but I here pass them to come to a more exact and seasonable treatise of Tradition so much conducing to the abovesaid ends CHAP. XII Of Tradition as a Means of Vnderstanding the Scriptures Of the Certainty of unwritten Traditions that it is inferior to Scripture or Written Tradition No Tradition equal to Sense or Scripture in Evidence Of the proper use of Tradition TO this place is due the Treating of Tradition as well for the better compleating of what may yet seem wanting in directions for the attaining the proper sense of the Rule of Faith the Scripture as because of the pretensions in its behalf made by some to an equal share in the Rule it self by laying down this fundamental Division of the Word of God into Written commonly called Scripture and Unwritten called Tradition And That the Word of God may be left unwritten as well as written is Moreman said the Church was before the Scriptures Philpoâ— shewed that his argument was fallacious For he took the Scriptures only to be that which is written by men in letters whereas in very deed all Prophesy uttered by the Spirit of God was counted to be Scripture Fox Martyr Vol. 3. pag. 29. undeniable nay That actually it was delivered by word of mouth before it was committed to writing is evident from the infinite Sermons of the Apostles Evangelists and Evangelical Preachers who declared the same For To them who were contemporary to the immediate Disciples of Christ the word of God was delivered by speech to the end it might be written so far as it seemed expedient to Divine Providence for the perpetual benefit of succeeding generations but to us The word of God is preached vocally or orally because it is written And so we read our Saviour himself used it against the Devil and incredulous Jews not quoting the uncertain and unecessary Traditions remaining with the Jews but the written Word saying by St. Mathew * Mat. 4. V. 4. 7. 10. Joh. 8. 17. It is written man shall not live by bread alone And verse the seventh It is written again And the third time It is written thou shalt worship the Lord thy God c. And so by St. John and innumerable other places It is written in your Law Christ in all his disputes against his Jewish adversaries seldome or never arguing from their Traditions which were many but from the written word of God only And notwithstanding speaking Philosophically it is not repugnant to reason That things delivered from Father to Son through many ages should persevere in their pristine integrity and be preserved incorrupt in the main yet is it inconsistent with the Fallibility of humane nature to secure them in all Points from violation either without writing or with All the world concurring in this That the Invention of Letters was a special gift of God towards Mankind for the more safe and profitable continuance of things passed to following times Such an intollerable Paradox Cresies Exomologesis is that which modern Wits their scarce tollerable Tenets urging them thereunto have of late vented and to their best defended That Tradition taken in contradistinction to Writing is more safe than writing as if writing had not all the priviledges belonging to oral Tradition with great advantage or because written monuments may suffer by tract of time and passing so many hands unwritten traditions might pass so many ages and mouths inviolate When while we see too great variety in the reading or letter of books we could be so blind as not to behold infinite more of the same nature in
Traditions It is as seldome found That a tale should be reported in the very same phrase or words it was at first told as it is that things transcribed with any common honesty or diligence should fail considerably so much as in the Letter And if they say in Tradition forms of words are not so much to be stood upon doth it not altogether hold as good when this Tradition is written How then do not men blush to argue so boldly and at the same time so weakly There is therefore a twofold Infallibility to be distinguished as well in Relation to unwritten Doctrines as written the one consisting in the Matter delivered the other in the manner so delivering And truly as to this later it cannot be said without some strong Presumption to the contrary the written Traditions which are the Scriptures have been so preciseâ—y and absolutely defended from either the common injuries of time or special miscarriages incident to humane frailty or perhaps as some conjecture the studious mischiefs of sacrilegious hands laid on them as not one title one word one period should not have been damnified thereby The Providence of God granting some such minuter defections from the Original Copies hath been singular in preserving them in that degree of perfection and entireness we now enjoy them So that infinite is the disparity in this case between them and unwritten Traditions which none have been so audacious positively to affirm though indeed their large and loose reasons seem to tend that way that any one unwritten doctrine hath been conserved unto us in the same form of words it was at first delivered to the Church And the like though not so great advantage is to be acknowledged on the Scriptures part compared with the pretended unwritten word of God in reference to the matter and that in these three respects 1. The Evidence 2. The Importance and 3. The Influence that the doctrine of the Scriptures have and ought to have over all Traditions And for the first It is impossible taking traditions as they are distinguished from Scripture that the like grounds of Faith should be offered to us as we have above shown are to be found proving the Scriptures to be the word of God For are all or some only Gods word All cannot be because Traditions in several Places of the world have been diverse and even contrary Because some are acknowledged to have been the Constitutions of Men or the Church since the Apostolical Age. Because many are acknowledged to have been quite lost Because many have been confessed to be changed of them which remain Now if the Church hath failed in the due Custodie of such treasures committed to her How can any man be assured sufficiently of the integrity of the remainer How can the Church be esteemed an Infallible Witness of traditions And who can but admire the Confidence of such Patrons of the Churches fidelity or rather felicity for I would not nor need I call in question its good will and Honesty in her Office of Preserving the Monuments of our Religion untouch'd by errors who by reasons would demonstrate that that cannot be which we see done before our eyes For at other times the same Party if not the same persons stick not to profess that divers Antienter Traditions are perished and more modern have succeeded them They say that some Traditions are as 〈◊〉 as sense can make them The Tradition that there were such famous Cities as Nineve and Babylon and are such as Constantinople and Rome requires the same Faith as the beholding them with our Eyes But first It should have been said in the argument They are as evident as those things we are informed of by our senses but this is far from truth All the testimonies of Past and present persons affirming that to be so which I have no sense of immediately being abundantly sufficient to beget a belief but not equalling in evidence the testimonie of any mans well-disposed senses For does not this so general testimonie it self depend upon a mans senses receiving the same Or can any man be so well assured upon the Credit of any persons whatever that the Apostles delivered such things to be believed and observed by the Church as if he himself immediately received the same from them If it be said that the case of Ecclesiastical Tradition is far different from humane in that the Church is divinely assisted to such ends supposing this at present still we are no less intregued then before For as is said The truth of a thing and the Evidence whereby it appears to be true are very much different And here it will be no less difficult to make such a supposed Assistance appear then the tradition it self which it commends to the World upon such pretences And therefore they who have sifted this matter more narrowly and stated it most rationally have thought it best to forsake such topicks at present as Extraordinarie Assistances and Hen. Holdeni Analysis Fid. tell us plainly that what the Church doth in this case she doth it not as divinely directed but as so many Men delivering their testimonie which is true but then what becomes of Infallibility all men singly and conjointly as men being fallible Well therefore they proved to tell us That to a jugde of Controversies Credible Testimonie or moral infallibilitie may suffice and to this I agree in the main though the term Moral Certainty and Moral Infallibilitie seems to me as vain and improper as it is modern it upon enquirie amounting to no more then the old Probabilitie well and reasonably grounded The next thing in Holy Writ is the much greater importance the things therein contained are of above unwritten doctrines For who of all the Ancients but such as are by tradition stigmatized for Heretiques for such their Basil Ma. de spiritu sancto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 opinions did constitute any rule of Faith distinct from the Scriptures or bring any to stand in competition therewith Some 't is true have distinguished between Dogmes of Traditions and doctrines of the Scripture and haveaffirmed That as well the one as the other ought to be received by a good Christian All this we agree to how we shall show by and by more fully and here by comparing this by the words of St. John saying This Joh. 4. 21. Commandment have we from him that he that loveth God love his brother also By which it is not required that any Christian should with the same kind or degree of Love love his neighbour with which he loveth God For we must love God only for his own sake and our brother for Gods sake Nay when God sayes we must love our neighbour as our selves he does not exclude difference in degrees of love In like manner when it is said That we ought to believe and receive the unwritten as well as written traditions it was never intended by that excellent Father that we should admit
them in equal veneration For most things there by him instanced in are apparently extrinsical to Faith Therefore the true meaning is That no good Son of the Catholick Church can or ought to refuse the customes or practices or forms of words concerning the doctrine of Christ because they are not so express'd or contain'd in Scripture as other matters are And if we mark we shall not find any one thing exacted of Christians in the purest and most flourishing state of the Church as points of Faith which only depended upon unwritten Tradition and were not thought to have the written word of God for their warrant and foundation And in this one thing were there no more doth the prerogative of the Scripture manifest it self sufficiently above Traditions distinct from it That whatever vertue or credit they have is first of all owing to the Scriptures For otherwise why should not the Traditions of the Jew or Mahometan be as credible to a Christian as they of the Church but that he suck'd in his principle with his Mothers milk That the written word of God hath given so fair testimonie of the Church and its traditions For the testimonie of the Church otherwise would certainly be no more to be valued than that of any other societie of like moral honestie So that the Scriptures must be the very First principle of all Christian belief But here steps in the old objection drawn from a most eminent Father of the Church which Extollers of tradition can as well forget their own names as leave out of their disputations on this subject though according to their Augustin custome they have a very bad memory to bear in mind what hath been sufficiently replied to it I should not saith that Father have believed the Scriptures but for the Church and yet we have said we should not have believed the Church but for the Scriptures How can these stand together Very well if we please to distinguish the several wayes of information for in the same there must be granted a repugnancie And the distinction is much the same with what we have before laid down viz. Of the Occasion and the direct Cause of Faith For though the Churches tradition be an Introduction to the belief of the Scriptures and such a necessary Cause without which no man ordinarily comes so much as to the knowledge of them yet it doth not at all follow that through the influence of that supposed Cause an effect of Faith is wrought in the Soul concerning them but from a superiour illumination and interiour power which has been generally Joh. 4. required to such praeternatural Acts. As the Woman of Samaria brought her fellow Citizens to Christ but was not the author of that faith which after they had in him as the true Messias or as the Horse I ride on carrying me from London to York is not the proper Cause that I see that City but mine own senses though I perhaps should never have seen it otherwise But another more Ancient and no less venerable Father of the Church is Irenaeus here brought in demanding What if nothing had been written must we not then have altogether depended on the Traditions To such as extend this quaerie too far I move the like question What if we had no Traditions at all must not then every man have shifted as well as he could and traded upon the finall stock of natural reason in him Or was it impossible that man should come to bliss without the superadded light outwardly exhibited That as the case stands man ordinarily cannot be saved without such received revelations as are dealt to us from the Church I believe But upon supposal that no such means were extant that there should be no other Ordinary way of Gods revealing himself to man in order to his salvation believe it who will for me I answer therefore directly No question but tradition would have sufficed if nothing had been committed to writing For either God would have remitted of that rigour as no man can doubt but he might have made the terms of the Covenant fewer and lighter with which we now stand obliged to him according to that most equal Law of the Gospel as well as Reason Unto whom much is given of him shall be much required and to Luk. 12. 48. Mat. 25. whom men have committed much of him they will ask the more Neither is it probable against the intent of Christs most excellent Parable in St. Mathew that of that Person or that People to whom he hath delivered but two or five Talents he should extort the Effect of ten Well therefore doth that Father argue against such as should dare to consine God only to Scripture and so superciliously or contemptuously look on the Traditions of their Christian Fathers as not worth the stooping to take up yea as necessarily warring against the Word written Whenas it is certain a thing is written because it is first declared and is the Word of him that speaketh no less before than after it is written and not so because it is written St. Paul therefore joyns them both together in his Epistle to the Thessalonians saying Therefore brethren stand stedfast and hold 2 Thes 2. 15. the Traditions which ye have been taught whether by word or our Epistle Here are plainly both written Traditions and unwritten and written Word of God and unwritten and they differ only in the several ways of promulgation and not in the Law of God And it is more then probable That those first principles of Christian Faith were not received of St. Paul in writing of which he speaks in his first Epistle to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 15. 1 2 3 4. concerning the Incarnation Passion and Resurrection of our Saviour nor delivered in writing at his first publication yet were no less the word of God then than afterward Yet as this sufficiently allayes the heat of hostility indiscreetly conceived against all Traditions even for the very names sake which is become odious to us so doth it not so much favour the contrary party as hath been phantasi'd For 't is observable That there is a very great difference between the Tradition now touched and that so commonly and passionately disputed of in the Church That was and may be called a Tradition as every thing expressed by Word or Writing whereby one man delivers his mind for so the English Phrase hath it not amiss to another transiently But the Tradition now under debate may be described A constant continuation of what is once delivered from Generation to Generation For No man can with any propriety of speech term what is not a year or two in standing Tradition Tradition is a long custom of believing The things which are so called in the Scriptures are not such and therefore can be no president for those of these dayes There being not the like reason that we should give the same respect or esteem so
private reason perswade him That he hath found out the truth and yet at the same time assure him That he is no less fallible than another man and therefore may possibly embrace and hug a false conception with as much fondness as a true and withal That private Judgements are not in themselves so safe as publique nor single as many What violence were this to his reason nay how much more rational than the first simple Act to comply with the Reason of others whom reason also requires to listen to and obey and Scripture much more From hence we may rightly conclude against both extremes in these days who yet agree in this very ill-grounded opinion That there must be an Infallible Director or Judge or we cannot submit to them in matters of Faith and our Salvation This is absolutely untrue both in humane and divine matters Who sees not indeed that it were to be wished for and above all things desired Who sees not the great inconvenience for want of such a standard of opinions as this But can we rationally conclude therefore that so it is Or hath God or ought he of his necessary goodness and wisdom as some have ventured to affirm to grant all things that are infallibly good for man Is it not sufficient that a fair though not infallible way is opened to attain the truth here and bliss hereafter but every one must find it Is it little or no absurditie That infinite never come to means of truth and so great that many who enjoy them do not receive the benefit by them Again Are good manners and virtues no less essential to Salvation than Faith and is there no infallible Judge of manners Is there no infallible Casuist And must there be of points of Faith How many have the infallible Rule of holy Life and yet mistake either in the sense or application of it so far as to perish in unknown Sins And yet none have to prevent that great and common evil call'd for an infallible Censour whose determinations might settle doubtful consciences in greatest safety and silence all apologies which are wont to be made for our sins and errors and so bring us nec essarily to truth or leave us under self and affected condemnation But The Ground of this mistake being farther searched into will be found very weak and fallacious An infallible Faith say they must have an infallible Judge And of these some assume thus There is no man infallible Therefore no man can be Judge of Faith Others assume thus But there is and must be an infallible Faith Therefore there must be an infallible Judge So that we see both would have infallible Judges but differ only in their choice of them For The former would have the Scriptures Judge and Rule which is very honest but very simple The later would have some external Judge which hath much more of reason in it And fails only in the choice of this Judge or in the description of him For There is nothing more unreasonable than to ordain that which is under debate to be Judge of it self besides the great absurdity of confounding the Rule or Law and the Interpreter and Judge And There is nothing more fallacious than to confound Causes and occasions together as the later opinion doth For If the Church or whatever Judge may be supposed were the true direct cause of our Faith then indeed it would necessarily follow That our Faith could no wayes be infallible unless the Judge were also infallible the effect not exceeding the cause nor the Conclusion the Premises or propositions from whence it was deduced But Because the Church is only on Occasion or a Cause without which we should neither believe the Scriptures in general to be the Word of God nor any sentence to be duly drawn from the same there is no necessity at all of such a consequence For The Infallibility now spoken of is either the thing believed which is the Word of God of which the Church I hope is no Cause or the Grace of Faith excited and exercised by us through the Spirit of Grace in us the mynistery of the Church serving thereunto acording to St. Paul saying We therefore as workers together with 2 Cor. 6. 1. him beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain For as in things natural He that applies Actives to Passives that is the Cause proper to the matter about which the Action is is not the proper or natural cause of the Effect but the occasion only yet is said vulgarly so to be as when a man applies fire to combustible matter he may though improperly be said to burn it when it is the fire and not he that burns it So the Church or Judge of Scriptures sense applying the same to a capable subject the effect is true and infallible Faith but it is not the effect of the Church or instrument or mean rather but of the Holy Spirit of Grace which taketh occasion from thence to produce Faith and that infallible For Were this Infallibility we now speak of the Churches then when ever the Church should so propound and urge points of Faith they must needs have an effect in the Soul For if they say The Church teaches in an humane way they say she teaches in a fallible way which overthrows all And from this is cleared that difficulty which opposeth a Judge of Scripture and Faith because none could be found infallible For not making the Judge the cause of Faith but occasion he may be necessarily required to Faith God who is the only principal cause with his holy word seldom or never concurring without those outward means And therefore though I readily enough grant That the Scriptures are so plainly written that a single simple person wanting greater helps to attain to the abstruser sence of them and using his honest and simple endeavour may easily find so much of the Rule of Faith and holy Life as to be saved by them yet I cannot say the same of any men who presuming on Gods power against his promise which includeth the use of outward meanes or mistaking his promise for absolute when it is conditional shall look no farther than their own wits shall lead them Now The outward meanes to which God hath annexed his promise of Grace may be these First That which we have here handled a general and sober submission to the Guides of our youth and our spiritual Fathers and Pastors in Christ which to forsake is the part of a wanton and fornicating Soul according to Solomon This common Reason and nature it self seem to require of all Prov. 2. 17. under Autority by the disposition of Almighty God That they in the first place hearken unto the voice and explication of the Church wherein they are educated until such time as a greater manifestation of truth shall withdraw them unwillingly from the same For so long as Senses are equally probable on both
Apostolical that which now is so reputed and that which any mans memory might assure him was so in very deed the Apostles Doctrine This controversie then seems to come to this issue First in Reason Whether Oral and Memorial Tradition can be so secure as Scriptural The resolution of which doubt almost every man may make sufficiently of himself and hath been competently treated of above The other Question is about matter of Fact Whether the Church of God did ever so unanimously agree in the necessity validity or Sacredness of any Traditions not contained in the written Word of God as to equal them with this This we absolutely deny And upon the account of Tradition it self There being no such Tradition to be found in all the Records of the Church that Tradition is so highly to be valued Again there appearing consent sufficient in the Church for many ages That as to the Material parts of Christian doctrine the Scriptures do sufficiently instruct us as a Rule and Law of believing For If the Law of Moses as a Law was sufficient before the Prophets added to it for the People of God under that Dispensation And the Law and the Prophets were still sufficient till John and Christ is to believed That the Law of Christians delivered by Christs appointment should fall short of the same ends now It is truly affirmed That what St. Paul writeth in commendation of Scripture was intended chiefly if not only of the books of the Old Testament viz. That they were able to make a man wise unto Salvation through Faith that is in Christ Jesus and All Scripture is given by Inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for correction for instruction in Righteousness That the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works Now if the Scriptures of the Old Testamant were sufficient to bring a man to the Faith of Christ and to instruct him to Salvation can any man reasonably doubt Whether the much clearer and fuller manifestation of the Doctrine of Christ and Salvation by the books of the New Testament are sufficient to the same end joyned to the obscurer of the Old I know there are that say expresly No and endeavour to make it good by several instances very material to Faith and yet not expressed in Scripture and yet again of force to be believed by all that would be good Christians As the Articles of the Trinity and of Christs Person consisting of humane and divine nature Of his being born of the blessed Virgin Some other are added hereunto but they are either such as are neither favoured by Scripture nor good Tradition as Invocation of Saints Purgatory c. or have only a general warrant from Scripture and Tradition and such are they which are of a mutable nature Rites and Ceremonies of the Church which ought not when confirmed by long consent and use in the Church lightly to be refused and cast off so when any Church having power over its own body shall think fit to alter is that Church to be refused as a true Church by others But to the first of these we stick not openly to profess That it suffices to believe so much only as is really contained in and soberly deducible from the Scriptures taking these articles of Faith separately from certain accessory obligations of all good Christians For instance It is not required to believe the doctrine now established in the Catholick Church concerning the Trinity in the forms at present received from the nature of the Articles themselves which may with safety sufficient be assented to as they are simply found in Scripture yet considering That Hereticks have stirred up most dangerous and sacrilegious doubts to the obviating them and securing the main stake which would be endangered if farther explications were not found out and imposed it is needful to receive them also or at least not to oppose and declare against them For 't is very well known there passed some ages before the Articles of the Trinity of Persons were so much stood on or so well setled as now they are and that Tradition was as much to seek as the written Word of God to bring things to that pass they now are in And for Christ's manner of birth I know no such Tradition either written or unwritten which required antiently any more than to believe barely That the eternal Son of God became man and was incarnate and born of a woman who was a pure Virgin but probable circumstances and reverence to the high Mystery of Christs Person obliged to the honorary part of that Article And the like answer may be made to another instance about Paedobaptism which some as occasion offers will say is required in Scripture and again it serving at other times their turn better to deny Bellarmin it will hold the contrary For Baptism of Infants as Infants is not indeed required by Scripture but as persons saveable it is the rule general in Scripture running thus Except a man be born of water and the Holy John 3. 5. Ghost he cannot be saved It is not said unless a man be born by water while he is an infant or Child but absolutely For had it been so expressed just doubt might have been made whether a man baptized at his full age were effectually baptized Neither is Baptism appointed signally and precisely for men in years though none but such at the first preaching of the Gospel who could profess their Faith could be capable of it but indefinitely is it spoken without any limitation and therefore sufficiently implied Other instances against the plenitude of Scripture as a Rule of Faith have either already been touched as that which tells us It is nowhere contained in Scripture that the Scriptures are the word of God neither can it be proved by it for no more can it be demonstrated by Tradition or may be easily brought to the same end To conclude this point having shewed what we mean by Tradition and what it serveth not to it were unreasonable to leave it slurr'd so and not to give it its due in shewing the great use thereof in the Church of Christ For however we make it not supream nor coequal with the written word of God it may without any offence or invasion of Divine Right or Autoritie claim the next place to it and as Joseph to Pharaoh be greater then all the the people besides but inferiour to Pharaoh in the Throne Of God it is said Thou satest in the Throne judging right God now judges by his Word Psalm 9. 4. written as by a Law and Rule of faith as is shewed Yet I see no reason for the injudicious zeal and reverence of such who think they cannot give enough unto the Scriptures unless in word and pretence for t is no more themselves constantly acting contrarie to their profession they ascribe all the Form of Judging unto the Scriptures and all things determinable to their
decision I wish with all my heart so far am I from an evil eye or niggardly affection towards Scripture they could make their words good when they tell us all things are contained in Scripture It is a perfect Rule of all emergent doubts and acts in the Church It is Judge and Law both of Controversies but alas they cannot For they take away from it more then by this rank kindness they give to it Gods word is Perfect as a Law and so far as he intended it but it must cease to be a Law and take another nature upon it if it were a Judge too in any proper sense And the Canon of Scripture must be it self variable and mutable if it could particularly accommodate it self to all occasions and exigencies of Christians But this is not only absurd but needless For God when he made men Christians did not take away from them what they before had as Men but required and ordained that humane judgement and reason should be occupied and sanctified by his divine Revelations He in brief gave them another and far better Method Aid and Rule to judge by and did not destroy or render altogether useless their Judgement even in matters sacred To the Law and Esay 8. 20. to the Testimonie saies the holy Prophet if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them This indeed plainly declares the Rule by which we are to walk and Judge but it doth not tell us that the Law it self doth speak but men according to it And this is to Judge Now because no one man no one age no one Church should judge for all no nor for it self contrary to all doth the necessity and expediencie of Tradition not to affront or violate but secure the written word of God and that in two special respects appear First as giving great light and directions unto the Rulers of the Church and limiting the uncertain and loose wit of man which probably would otherwise according to its natural pronitie flie out into new and strange senses dayly of holy Scripture The Records of the Church like so many Presidents and Reports in our Common Law giving us to understand Low Consuetudo etiam in Civilibus rebus pro Lege suscipitur cùm deficit Lex nec differt Scripturd an ratione consistat quando Legem ratio commendet Tertul. de coron mil. cap. 4. such places of Scripture were formerly understood and on which side the case controverted passed And why this course in divine matters should not be approved I see not unless unquiet and guilty persons shall seek under colour of a more absolute appeal to Scripture which is here supposed to be sincerely appealed unto before to wind themselves into the seat of Judicature and at length not only as fallibly but also usurpingly decree for themselves and others too This event hath so manifestly appeared that there is no denying of it or defending it They therefore who professedly introduce Tradition to the defeating and nulling of Scripture deal indeed more broadly and in some sense more honestly as being what they seem than they who give all and more then all due to it in language but in practise overthrow it But we making Tradition absolutely subordinate and subservient to Scripture and in a word of the nature of a Comment and not of the Text it self we are yet to seek not what deceitfully and passionately for we know enough of that already but soberly can be objected against it For if it be said Tradition is it self uncertain it is obscure it is perished it contradicts it self and so can be of little use we readily joyn with them so far as to acknowledge that such traditions and to them to whom they so appear can with no good reason be appealed to But we deny that there are none but such and that such as prove themselves to be true and honest men upon due trial and examination ought to be hang'd out of the way because they were found in company with thieves and Cheats Supposing then That such honest Traditions are to be found in the Church another great benefit redoundeth to the Church from thence in that it doth in some cases supply the defects of the Law it self the Scripture But here I must first get clear of this reputed Scandal given in that I suppose the Scriptures defective or imperfect I have already and do again profess its plenitude and sufficiency as far as a Rule or Law is well capable of Now what God by his infinite wisdom and power might have done I cannot question in contriving such an ample Law as should comprehend all future and possible contingencies in humane affairs but this I say That he disposing things by another Rule viz. to act according to humane capacity and condition never did or so much as intended to deliver such an infinite Law Is not Moses and Gods dealing to him and his ministry to God and the people frequently alledged as a notable argument to convince us of the amplitude of the New Testament Moses say they was faithful in all his house And therefore much Heb. 3. 2. more was Christ Very good and what of all this As much as comes to nothing For wherein did the faithfulness of Moses consist In powring out unmeasurably all that might be said touching divine matters Or rather in delivering faithfully and exactly all that God commanded him This truly did Moses and therefore was very true and faithful to him that sent him and gave him his charge This did Christ and this did the Apostles of Christ and his inspired servants and therefore were all no less faithful to God than Moses But did not Moses leave more cases untouched in the Administration of the Jewish Policie then were litterally expressed Yes surely judging it sufficient that he had laid down general Rules and Precepts according to which Emergencies which might be infinite should by humane prudence be reduced and accordingly determined And so choose they or refuse they must they grant did Christ and his Instruments leave the Law of the Gospel which yet not wanting all that can be expected from a Law cannot modestly be pronounced imperfect notwithstanding as is said manifold particulars are not there treated of Now those are they we say Tradition doth in some measure supply unto us and the defect of Tradition it self which hath not considered all things is made good by the constant power of the Church given by the Scriptures themselves in such cases which require determination of circumstances of time place order and manner of Gods service according to the Edification of the Church of Christ CHAP. XIII Of the nature of Faith What is Faith Of the two general grounds of Faith Faith divine in a twofold sense Revelation the Formal reason of Faith Divine Of the several senses and acceptations of Faith That Historical Temperance and Miraculous Faith are not in nature
the children and not the children before the Parents so is it as plain according to the course of Christs Church and the history of the Scriptures that the people at the first did no more make or appoint their Government or Governours in Christ than they did teach or instruct them For by the word of God were Christians at first begotten to 1 Cor. 4. 15. Philem. 10. a new and spiritual life The method which Christ used in procreating and prosecuting his Church is therefore thus made plain First he himself as the Father and Head of us all under God immediately according to that of St. Paul The 1 Cor 11. 3. Ephes 5. 23. Head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man and the Head of Christ is God did by his divine Doctrine and Miracles beget unto himself his twelve Apostles his children these being first consummated by Christ unto a capacity of Fathers also and enabled to multiply into spiritual children of Grace when Christ ceased visibly and politically for he never ceases spiritually to assist and direct his Church were by him as so many Princes of his Ecclesiastical Monarchy commissioned and authorized to dilate the same and amplifie it according to the Power Prescriptions and Grace given them to that end And Christ foreseeing his Kingdom to be of that vast extent that it would surpass the strength and ability of any one man to administer the whole did not leave any Delegate so plenarily endued with Power Ecclesiastical as that all should derive from him as they did from himself For then it had appeared by some Act of Christ and some instance in them in their receiving subordinate power from that eminent Person during his abode on earth which could have been no more derogative from Christ than it is thought to be now by any But the Twelve were alike called by Christ immediately and not the least intimation of any prae-eminence unless in order which cannot be avoided where there is found never so great and just equality Now because they were rather inhabitude and Right than Act Rulers and Fathers of the Church and the whole Earth was to be their Diocess therefore it behoved and was most just that they should set in Common-councel together touching the general design of reducing the whole World to the knowledge and obedience of Christ as we read they did in the Second to the Acts and in the Fifteenth and elsewhere But being enjoyned to depart from Jerusalem and every one to betake himself to such peculiar Quarters of the World as fell to them by Gods Providence and Assignation it was no longer so absolutely necessary to hold assemblies for the special management of each ones proper Cure but full power resided in every Apostle of Christ and accordingly was by them exerted to ordain matters necessary to the Flock collected by them So that notwithstanding what was of publick concernment to the whole fell under the cognizance of all the Apostles as Peers of Christs Kingdom yet were limited Districts or Diocesses disposed of by the councel and authority of one presiding there And if there were called more to consult of that portion of the Church it was rather of humane reason than divine Institution For it was ever far from Gods intention in appointing extraordinary Methods and Rules for his Church utterly to extinguish or evacuate humane Reason which his own hand had planted in mans soul before but it was to be subject to the Superiour Law given by him and where that which was never intended to be of that unnecessary and immense latitude as to take in all contingencies prescribed not otherwise Gods will we may be sure it was that that other help of reason should not be denyed its office and right of ministring to our uses And what is more agreeable to reason then That In the multitude of counsels there is Prov. 11. 14. safety many being able to discern more than one alone and more willing and ready to execute when their head in determining goeth before their hand in executing And on the other side That For the transgression of a Prov. 28. 2. Land many are the Princes thereof Nature it self teacheth us that many Counsellers and few Commanders is the most rational and secure course to prevent discords and confusions But I am far from disputing or arguing this Question any farther than the ground I have laid already will allow and that is only to enquire after matter of Fact in the Government of Christs Church thinking it most reasonable and pious to conclude that to be the only Divine which Christ instituted and that Christ only instituted that which only appeared in the World at his being upon earth and his Apostles after him who though they brought not Ecclesiastical Government to that visible Form and Order as it afterwards shewed it self in to the world increasing with the number and magnificence of professours of Christ yet gave the Idea and Patern in all the main substantial parts of it For as the Father hath sent me even so send I you saith Christ Christ faith John 20. 21. not to any one of his Disciples So send I thee for then it might have been understood so as if he had endowed some single person with such a plenitude of power whereby he might succeed him in presiding over all his other Disciples and consequently over the universal Church but so send I you signifying the imparting of his absolute and entire power unto all his Apostles so far as might consist with the co-ordination founded amongst them and conduce to the benefit of the future Church Between Christ then and his Apostles there was a likeness but no parity or equality of power Between the Apostles themselves there was an equality But upon the raising of a Church and multiplying of Christians immediately sprang up discrimination of Persons and Officers in the Body of the Church Neither can any argue from the Parity of Christs Apostles that there ought to be a Parity also among all that succeed in the Ministerial Office any more than that this Parity should extend it self to the whole Body of the Church For so it was with the Church first of all not only all the Ministers but Members were equal And whether it were simple necessity or humane prudence or divine Inspiration that first moved the Apostles to limit that General Right which Christ had given them indefinitely to Go and teach all Nations and each of them to be universal Pastours in assuming to themselves the special care and tuition of some one place Province or Country it matters not much to enquire For the supposition which some make of an Obligation upon every Apostle to keep himself so strictly unto the commission of Christ empowring him to minister to all Nations that it was not lawful for him of himself nor by general and mutual counsel and consent amongst themselves to be
to be for certain reasons they draw at their pleasure out of Scripture and the necessity of our knowledge of it which is as solid a way of proceeding as if I finding my self by natural sense cold another should attempt to demonstrate the contrary because it is Midsommer But this use we may yet make of Universality to jude of Catholickness of Faith taking it for the most constant for time place and persons according as all humane account requires to ascribe that to the more numerous and eminent which is strictly proper only to the whole entire Body as a Councel or Senate is said to decree a thing when the chiefest do so some dissenting surely this is a very probable argument of the Catholickness of that Faith and consequently that Church so believing But what we before observed must not be forgotten here viz. That in all such enquiries as these the Estimate must be taken from the whole Church passed as well as Present and that there is as well an Eminency of Ages as Persons to preponderate in this Case Lastly the advantage Negative from Universality is very considerable to discern the true Faith and Church from false because it is most certain if any Doctrine or Discipline shall be obtruded on the Church which cannot be made evident to have been actually received in the Church and not by colourable and probable conjectures and new senses of Scripture invented to that purpose in some former Age that is Heretical and Schismatical and in no good sense Catholick The last Note which we shall mention is Sanctity which we hold very proper to this end taken abstractedly from all Persons as considered in Doctrine and Principles For if any Church doth teach contrary to the Law of nature of moral vertues of Justice or the like we may well conclude that to be a false Church though it keeps it self never so strictly to the Rule of Scriptures in many or most other things For it is in the power of mans wit and may be in the power of his hands to devise certain Religious Acts and impose them on others which shall carry a greater shew of severity and sanctity than there is any grounds for in Scripture or Presidents in the best approved Churches and yet this is not true Holiness of Believers For to this is principally required that it be regulated and warranted by Gods holy Word Yet neither so directly and expresly as if it were unlawful to act any thing in order to Holiness without special precept from thence For I see no cause at all to reject the ancient distinction found frequently with the Fathers of the Church of duties of Precept and duties of Councel For there ever was and ought to be in Christs Church several ranks of Professours of Christs Religion whereof for instance some live more contemplative some more active lives But if all commendable and profitable States were under Precept then should all sin that do not observe the same but God hath taken a mean course in not commanding some things of singular use to the promoting of Piety in true Believers but commending the same unto us Such are Virginal chastity Monastick life Travelling painfully not only towards the salvatian of a mans own soul but of others likewise and certain degrees uncommanded of Duties commanded as of charity towards our Christian neighbours Watchings unto Prayer and spiritual Devotion which being prescribed no man can determine to what degree they are by God required of us precisely some therefore are left to the Freewill-offerings of devouter persons who thereby endeavour either to assure themselves more fully of their salvation or increase of the glory afterward to be received For as Christ tells us in the Gospel Much was forgiven to Mary because she loved much so shall much be given upon the same reason They therefore that teach contrary to such wholesome and useful means of Holiness as these or the like under perhaps vain suspicion of too great opinion may be had of their worthiness incur at least with me the censure of being enemies to the holiness of Christs Church and render their Churches more suspected for the opposing of them than others for approving or practising them The Holiness then of the Church commending it to the eye and admiration of the World doth consist in the divineness and spiritualness of its Doctrine and Ecclesiastical discipline in use in it exceeding moral civility For it may be that such a severe hand of civil Justice may be held over a people that they may live more orderly and inoffensively to the world than some true Christian Churches but if this be done as often it is out of civil Prudence natural Gravity or a disposition inclined rather to get an estate than riotously and vainly to spend on which brings such scandal to Religion then is not this a sign of a true Church or Christian because it proceedeth not from principles proper to Christian Religion but secular interest how specious soever it may appear to the World CHAP. XXXI Of the Power and Acts of the Church Where they are properly posited Of the Fountain of the Power denyed to the Church Neither Prince nor People Authour of the Churches Power But Christ the true Head of the Church The manner how Christs Church was founded Four Conclusions upon the Premisses 1. That there was alwayes distinction of Persons in the Church of Christ 2. The Church was alwayes administred principally by the Clergy 3. The Rites generally received in the Church necessary to the conferring Clerical Power and Office 4. All are Vsurpers of Ecclesiastical Power who have not thus received it In what sense Kings may be said to be Heads of the Church AFter the Church found and founded as abovesaid the special Acts thereof claim due consideration and the Power or Right of so acting And this Power we make two-fold in General Political and Mystical or Sacramental Of both which we must first enquire after the proper Subject before we treat of the proper Acts thereof That all Power which is given by Christ doth reside in the Church as its subject no man can or doth question But because the Church it self being as is said a Society united in one Faith and administred outwardly by Christian Discipline according to Christs mind admitteth of several senses and acceptations therefore it must be first understood which and in what sense is according to Christs intention the proper seat of this power And before we come to Scriptural grounds we take no small help in this Enquiry from the common state of all Government which we have already shown to be such as is not ascending but descending It cometh not originally nor can from the multitude or people who are the object of this power i. e. the Persons properly to be governed and not governing all the Examples of former Ages confirming not only the unnaturalness and unreasonableness but impossibility of the People governing
it was not here cannot be exercised but according to that Light and that Rule given them which is the will of God which perceiving so fully and in which being so absolutely satisfied they cannot be said to pray that it might be done so much as admire and continually adore the doing of it without interposing by way of particular intercession as we out of ignorance do here on earth for the inclining or averting of God from any thing they see in him future or rather present They have therefore indeed greater Charity as to the purity and intenseness of it which is Charity Triumphant but not Militant according to which last only they are said to assist us by their prayers And yet this I may add That as the intercession of Saints in Heaven for us is no wayes to be allowed to be vocal or proper as on earth nor by any special act direct to God on the behalf of their Friends and Fellow-members on earth for the reason now given so may they not be denyed all influence upon God in his dispensation of grace and benefits to us on earth as God doth please to consider their Labor of Love not only for themselves but fellow-members here below And whereas one of the best testimonies alledged to prove special offices of Angels done before God in behalf of the Militant Members of Christ here is taken out of the Revelation where S. John prayeth or saluteth Rev. 4. rather with a Pastoral and Apostolical benediction the seven Churches of Asia saying Grace be unto you and peace from him which is and which was and which is to come and from the seven spirits which are before Tobit 12. 15. his Throne It may sufficiently be answered with that of Tobit c. 12 15. where mention is made of Seven Angels before the Throne were this autority greater with us than it is That we doubt not but God doth make use of the Ministry of Angels to impart his blessings to men on Gen. 48. 16. earth For this implys the benediction of Jacob given to Joseph The Angel which redeemed me from all evil bless the Lads but this infers not either that Jacob did then or we should now address our selves to Angels but as he certainly there so ought we to seek of God only that he would by his servants the holy Angels preserve and bless us Nevertheless I according to my former Rule interpret the seven spirits in the Revelation to be none other than the seven Governors or Bishops of the seven Churches of which St. John speaks immediately before whom in a Vision St. John saw to stand before the golden Altar or proper place of worship and from thence blessing the people But no more of this Agreeable to this is the doctrine of making Images and Reliques of Azorius ubi sâ—p Saints objects of divine worship too and that though not for their own sakes yet for Gods sake to which I need say no more than is already spoken of so worshiping Saints But for their sakes who can be content with less honor done unto Cassan Consult them it may suffice to say in few words what Cassander hath observed before me It is certain that at the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel for a good time especially in Churches there was no use of Images at all as Clemens and Arnobius witness And this was above two hundred years after Christ Afterward Pictures were admitted into Churches with great simplicity and innocency yea benefit to the vulgar Christian whose book Gregory not unfitly called them as expressing the historical part of Christian Faith and no more worshipped then than Papists worship their Bibles now And that Images should be erected at all or being constituted that they should be worshipped at all or brought into Temples there was never any admirer or adorer of them could pretend to show out of Scripture But the second commandment against all Images in order to worship or reverence hath prov'd such a bone that it hath broke the teeth of all that would break it Erasmus in his Catechism stateth the cause thus Before the coming of Christ when the Israelites were very rude and dull all Imagery was prohibited them for fear of Idolatry But now since all Paganism is extinguished by the Light of the Gospel the danger is not the same and if any superstition should lurk still in the minds of Christians it may easily be driven thence by holy Doctrine Until the age of St. Hierom were certain men of sound Religion which would endure no Images at all in Churches either painted or graven or wrought no not of Christ I suppose by reason of the Anthropomorphites yet by little and little Where are they then that with so much importunity and little reason call for the very time precisely wherein corruptions entered into the Church or else will not be satisfied the use of Images entred into Churches And perhaps there would be no undecency if in such places as God is served in solemnly no images should be placed saving the Image of Christ crucified But Pictures if they were duly used besides the honest pleasure they bring conduce very much to memory and understanding of history Yea the learned many times see more in Pictures than Letters and are more vehemently affected And as the Ancient Church prohibited all books not canonical to be used in Churches so perhaps were it not amiss if all kinds of Pictures of things not contained in Holy Scripture were excluded To this effect and almost in these very words he To which we must so far assent as to yield a possible good effect of Information and Devotion arising from such outward occasions as Pictures yet considering God hath no where laid any obligation upon us to profit by such helps as he hath to advance our selves in knowledg and Christian vertues by consulting Holy Scriptures and how great and manifest peril of falling into Idolatry by them there is it were more pious and safe to interdict the falling down before as well as to them man being naturally as prone to Idolatry as to unlawful carnal copulation But whereas Erasmus proceedeth to defend Images because God in the Old Law commanded to make Cherubins and Seraphins about the Ark Tertullian answereth That so may we too when we have the like command For though God ties us up strictly to his Laws he doth not so tye himself but when he pleases he may give us a dispensation But besides Vid. Phil. Judaeum Legat. ad Caium p. 801. Gen. this such Images were altogether hid from the peoples eyes and much more use being in the Holiest of Holies and we speak now of such as are exposed to view and reverence And as common as this instance is amongst the great Doctors of Rome it makes little to their purpose Again Erasmus That which is before God meaning that Thou shalt have no other God before me is made equal to God
virulent tongues cannot forget their wonted strains of dishonesty and extream spite and railings witness one for all the foresaid Ludovicus Molinaeus who as civilly and reverently as he carries himself towards Mr. Baxter for none of his vertues we may be sure as exorbitantly in the old Puritans language and on their Grounds flies in the face of the Greatest and Best of the Rulers of the Church and State too who have at any time resolutely opposed the designs and Schismatical devices of such unchristian Reformers as himself only I must confess he is favourable to his late Sacred Majesty whose invincible Piety and unparallel'd innocency of Life and Ignominious yet Glorious Death hath not only struck Sectaries dumb who once opened so loudly and perniciously against him but extorted cold commendations from them not much unlike that approbation given by that Parricide Antonius the Emperor who when he understood how the people of Rome magnified and even deâ—fied his virtuous Brother Geta whom he had wickedly murdered said Sit Divus modò non sit vivus i e. Let him be Divine so he be not living But whom doth he or his Fellows occasion serving spare Hath he not raked the stinking Canal of all â—ld lyes and feigned rumors invented to imbroyl the Church in Schism and Kingdome in Sedition and Bloud and indeavoured to put new life into them and Authentize them to other Countries as well as ours It was soberly and seasonably said by that excellent Arch-bishop Speech Delivered in the Star Chamber p. 2. whom he would traduce in basest manner were not his merits above the Calumnies of such wretched Fellows in his Speech in the Star-chamber at the Charge of Prin Burton and Bastwick viz. There were times when Persecutions were great in the Church even to exceed Barbarity it self Did any Martyr or Confessor in those times Libel their Governors Surely no not one of them to my best remembrance yet these complain of Persecution without all shew of cause and in the mean time libel and rail without all measure so little a kin are they to those who suffer for Christ or the least part of Christian Religion This witness is most true of these Cretians And it is my great glory not only to be named among such eminent persons as lately but at present are living in our Church whom this Molinaeus traduceth And why so because of my rude usage of Mr. Daillee whom I spit on if any will believe him Lud. Molin Antidure Epist p. 54. rather then dispute against That I spare not the memory of Diodate That I am no fairer to Mr. Bochartus And why doth be forget my railing too against his Brethren the Puritans This he might better say But neither he nor any man else can say that I imitate Puritans in railing against my Betters or Governors that 's their peculiar and inseparable virtue and hath been from the first founding of the Discipline by Penrie Whittingham Goodman and Cartwright with others to the confounding of the Church so far as lay in their power I ever was not only an approver but an admirer of the personal Gifts of Calvin and Beza of Monsieur Daillee and Monsieur Bochart c. but I owe them no more respect in the cause of Religion than they do me or any man else of our Church but I profess I owe more Reverence to the least of the Bishops and Fathers of the Church whom Puritans have so basely treated then to the greatest of them and so do Sectaries too as ill as they are galled to hear of it But what do I speak so irreverently after all against Mr. Daillee Not a word hath this Zelote found in my whole Book against him nor in that Action against our Schismaticks whom I confess to have severely treated in that I give them their own some mens dealings being so foul as theirs have been that the very bare recitation of them is lookt on as railing though never so faithfully done If any of them or their friends can tell me wherein I have done them wrong in misreporting their Facts I do here assure them I will make them all the satisfaction I am able in retracting and acknowledging my Error and that as publickly as I have injured them with the next opportunity Cyprian Optatus Hierom Austin Nazianzen and Chrysostom as holy and sober persons as they were in their Generations made no great scruple to paint Schismaticks out in their Colors with language which cuts where it goes and I am sure these upon no better grounds than they have or can possibly offer of departing from and dividing our Church are no better Nay in this hath the Puritan Sectary transcended all Hereticks and Schismaticks that ever went before them For though divers Factions were raised and fomented to a great height in the Church of God of old and Altar was erected against Altar and Chair against Chair i. e. Worship against Worship and Governor against Governor of the Church yet do we find none through all the Histories of the Church that ever became so presumptuous and desperate as to endeavour the total subversion of the Government of the Church in it self and to set up another in the room of it quite of another nature which we read not that Aerius himself ever attempted though he preacht up the equality of Bishops and Presbyters And so far am I from such a spirit of meekness I confess that I shall never smooth them or their cause over so civilly as to imply the contrary until they bethink themselves without their customary frauds and dissimulations of their duties and return to the Peace and Unitie of the Church which I shall not cease to pray for But one of the most material things charged on me is That I liked Dailee's Book the worse because it pleased the Puritans so much which says my Accuser is to be of the spirit of Maldonate the Jesuite But he is mistaken For Maldonate indeed rejected a sense of Scripture which otherwise he approved because it was Calvins If I disliked Dailees opinions only because they were Dailees or our Puritans he had been somewhat near the matter but no such thing hath fallen from me I disliked indeed his Book because it so far pleased the Puritans that they were thereby notably confirmed in their obstinate Opinions against the Authority of the Ancient and our Present Church Here were evil effects also to be disliked Next let us bear how I abuse Diodate of Geneva in that I rehearse this saying of him against King Charles the first viz. That Christ in the Gospel commands us to forgive our enemies but not our friends This he calls Crassum mendacium A gross lye in me whereas the lye if there be any must necessarily be in himself or his brother Puritan Cook the Sollicitor against King Charles the first at his Sentence in that monstrous Court. For I no where say of my self that Diodate said those words
only to signifie how Christ was lifted up on the Cross but as practised in the Roman Church to the intent direct and divine Worship be given it 7. Wicked men eat not the Body of Christ Sure enough in a proper sense not denominatively only as the consecrated Elements are called the Body of Christ very often and currently 8. That they who communicate not are to be put out of the Church This is such an Error as the Ancient Church was guilty of as well as we as your own Vicecomes sheweth at large Vicecomes Vol. 3. l. 1. c. 18. 9. The Keys of the Church consist only in opening the Word of God No such thing is held by us 10. Private Confession is to be taken away Not so much as Sectaries say this absolutely 11. The Ceremonies of the Church are to be abrogated Simply and falsly said and directly contrary to the Articles of our Artic. 20. Church 12. Prayers in the Latin Tongue are barbarous and against St. Pauls Precept Very true where they are at first so instituted and understood by very few or none and so are they in the English Tongue or any other 13. No man can fulfill the Law This is true or false as it may be taken 14. More Masses then one cannot be said in one day in one Church Here our Accuser saith he knows not what For neither doth our Church inhibit more then once to officiate Liturgically neither did the Ancient Church practise if permit it for above four hundred years after Christ as appears from Dioscorus Bishop of Alexandria consulting with Leo the first Bishop of Rome what he should Leo 1 Epist 79 or as some So. See also Grecian consecr Dist c. 51. do when Christians were so numerous that they could not all be received into the Church at once who answered In such cases he might safely reiterate the office And the Council of Antisiodorum or Auxere held about the Year 578 decreed that but one Mass should be said upon one Altar in one day which is as much observed by the Church of Rome now-a-days as other Canons of Councils which lye in their way thrown out And where in the Ancient Church do you read of above one Altar in one Church 15. Unity is no Note of the Church Discords and Divisions are certain signs of Errors but Unity is no certain sign of Truth nor so much as of a Church how then can it be of a true Church 16. Universal Councils may be repeal'd by Particular This See Petrus Gregorius Syntagm l. 15. c 3. is nothing he might have said by particular persons as the Popes who may according to that Church null Acts of Councils Oecumenical But we only hold that in things mutable according to the condition Article 34. of Time Place and other Circumstances rendring some Decrees prejudicial to some Churches contrary to the intention of the first Ordainers of them a Provincial Church may make alterations 17. The Church may erre in Faith And what of that meaning any one Individual single Church as the Roman hath according to our Articles 18. The Precepts of the Church concerning set Fasts are A Doctrine of Devils It is rather a Doctrine of Devils to teach so 19. Peter was not the Prince of the Apostles Peter was A or if you will The Principal Apostle but he was not the Prince of any one of them much less of all 20. The Bishop of Rome is Antichrist We are not so much agreed about this point as to give in a full verdict but we agree he is Antichristian 21. The difference concerning Leaven and Easter is inconsiderable Where no danger of Schisms or confusions may alter the case it is true 22. It is Heathenish to invoke Saints that reign with Christ Whether heathenish or no may be doubted they never worshipping any relating to Christ But for all that it may be and is superstitious and idolatrous in the sense very current in the Roman Church 23. The Reliques of Saints are not to be worshipped We hold so indeed though we hold they are to be respected relatively 24. The Saints in Heaven have no merits It is true taken strictly and properly 25. Indulgences of the Church are vain They are not only vain but wicked and generally blasphemous and ridiculous as mangâ—ed by the Church of Rome contrary or at least without all Precedents of the Christian Church for many hundred years viz. in remitting Sins or Punishments after this life and that divers times before they are committed Is not this fine and wonderful ancient and Catholick 26. Nothing is to be read in the Church besides Canonical Scripture This is rank Puritanism contradicted by themselves in their practise who read their Sermons as well as others and pray which is aequivalent to reading in this case out of their own heads rather than Scripture 27. In Oecumenical Councils and Private for the explaining of the Doctrine of Faith the consent of Lay-Princes is necessary It is necessary for the orderly assembling of such Councils It is necessary for the giving any Secular enforcement unto them 28. That it is lawful for Lay-men alone the Clergy opposing to introduce the Ancient Religion This is true no farther then that of Gerson which is alledged to this purpose A Lay-man with Scripture on his side is to be preferred before a Council without it Supposing a monstrous Proposition no wonder if a monstrous conclusion follows 29. He is no Bishop that teacheth not This is also a Puritan strain It being only true that he is no faithful conscientious Pastor but either proud or treacherous or sloathful or basely prudent who doth not in person discharge his Office so far as he is able without turning the care of his flock over to others using that for an argument of keeping close in his Cabin which is rather an argument of appearing in his charge viz. storms on the Church Opposition the Faith and Orders of the Church meet withal and difficulties obstructing the truth It being both shameful and ridiculous both in Bishop and Priest to censure others for enemies to the Church and for them so to wast it in all mens esteem in deserting it and delivering it up to the care of others themselves seeking little else then their temporal Harvest and case These men are over the Church indeed but 't is as the Extinguisher is over the Candle to put it out They pretend for themselves they have been sufferers for the Church and so it should seem indeed by their carriage to it in that through their scandalous negligence as to their charge they take a course to revenge themselves of it by making it suffer as much or more for them 30. Faith alone justifies How this is held we have even now as also we shall hereafter more fully explain 31. There are no Merits in Good works There are none properly so called 32. Priests and Monks may marry 'T is true where the
they do not believe contrary to the Faith of the Church It may be said that Baptism alone is sufficient to distinguish such implicit believers from Heathens which I grant as to the Essence or nature of Christianity but not to the Life and exercise of a Christian for that as St. Paul hath by his word and example certified us is by the Faith Col. 2. 20. of the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us Therefore as I am so charitable to all well-disposed Christians to be perswaded there is no necessity for all to have either the like measure or manifestation of Faith in any one point of Faith our Saviour Christ requiring Faith but as a grain Math. 17. 20. of Mustard-seed sometimes so am I to all Churches as to be perswaded That they all require and that in all a some measure of Faith explicite as necessary to Salvation and that besides this Believing as the Church believes For in truth this is nopoint of Faith in the Actus Signatus or general notion though to believe the Church Catholick may be For who sees not a vast difference between believing the Church it self and believing what the Church believes And that may be compleated in believing the Being and Extent of it which is much short of the body of Faith which it receives and professes CHAP. XIV Of the Effects of True Faith in General Good Works Good Works to be distinguished from Perfect Works Actions good four wayes THere is a great difference between Good works and Perfect works For the first hath respect unto the thing done and the other unto the manner of doing it agreeable to all due forms and Circumstances And every work that is good is not Perfect though every work that is perfect must of necessity be Good And to the doing of a Good work there seems to be no more absolutely Act. 17. 11. Rom. 10. 17. Si Fidelis fecerit opus bonum hic ei prodest liberans eum a malis in illo saeculo ad percipiendum regnum coelesto magis autem ibi quam hîc Si autem Infidelis fecerit bonum opus hîc ei prodest opus ipsius hîc ei reddit Deus pro opere su◠In illo autem saeculo nihil ei prodest opus ipsius Opus imperfectum in Math. Hom. 26. required than that a man should act according to well informed and regulated reason and true affection So that the works of natural men may be good though heathens such as are Visiting the sick and relieving the poor defending the Fatherless and widow oppressed and especially such outward moral Acts as may be done by natural men tending to their Conversion and Salvation as willing hearing and equal judging of the doctrine of Faith even before actual Faith conceived for which St. Paul esteemed the Bereans praise worthy* So that they are not absolutely Splendid Sins for were it so they were by no means to be done and no man did well who before his Conversion went to hear Christ preach or gave any attentive ear to what St. Paul wrote or taught for want of Faith whereas we are taught by common reason as well as by St. Paul that Faith it self cometh by hearing of the word of God For how can any man possibly believe what he never heard of So then some duties and Acts are laudable and acceptable to God without Faith though not arising to the perfection of Evangelical Goodness by which a man pleaseth God and is acceptable unto him even to his Justification and Salvation There may therefore be distinguished a fourfould goodness in Actions 1. Natural when a man acteth agreeable to the perfection of the Rule of natural Beings as a man acteth agreeable to the perfection of the Rule of natural Beings as a man is said to walk well when he goes according to the nature of man and limps not nor halts and to write a good hand when his letters and words do answer exactly a Perfect Rule or Copie This Religion taketh no notice of at all 2. A man is said to do a Good Act when it is so morally and in its kind as tending to the honour of his Creator whose Instruments meer Moral men are in exercising his Paternal providence and to the benefit of others For it being the proper Character of God which is spoken of him by the Psalmist viz. Thou art Good and thou doest Good They whom God Psal 119. 68. chooseth and stirreth up to minister under him in good and useful things to the Communitie or any particular do that which is good however not absolute 3. There is a Religious or divine goodness in Actions which are done agreeable to the Revealed Will of God passing natures sagacitie or search And this is twofold Legal and Evangelical both exceeding the former but the one exceeded of the other viz. Legal of Evangelical Vere enim quando declinamus d malo facimus bonum quantum ad comparationem caeterorum hominum nolentium declinare à malo facere bonum dicuntur bona quae agimus quantum autem ad Veritatem secundum quod dic itur in hoc loco Quia unus est bonus bonum nostrum non est bonum Orig. Hom. 8. in Matthaeum For as Natural Acts are good done according to natures intention and institution by themselves but are not good compared with moral duty performed and moral Acts are Good in themselves but not so in respect of a Superiour Order and end of working instituted of God in his holy Law So are Legal Acts wrought according to Gods word given to the Israelites under that dispensation or Covenant as required of God and serving to those ends God propounded to himself and his people Wherefore it is that the Children of Israel revolting from God and forsaking that instituted worship of his Law are thus censured by the Prophet * Hos 8. 3. Hosea Israel hath cast off the thing that is good the enemie shall pursue him And St. Paul than whom no divine writer more opposes the Law occasion being offered yet giveth his suffrage †1 Tim. 1. 8. The Law is good if a man useth it Lawfully And the Gospel it self is not good unless used Lawfully Therefore were the works of the Law also good works within their bounds but not so compared with the Perfection of the Gospel but displeasing to God and pernicious to men who being delivered in the fulness of time by the coming of Christ from the Pedagogie and beggerly Elements of the Mosaical Law should presume to retain that vail which was done away in Christ and embrace those shadows the body Christ being present Hence it is that St. Paul as in many other places writing to the Corinthians speaketh thus at large The Letter killeth i. e. the Literal sense and observation of the 2 Cor. 3. 6. Old Law after the New became of force destroyeth rather than
particularly assured of his being in Christ The whole Antecedent I grant viz. That every man believeth Christ when he receiveth him and that Christ is received by Faith And that every man is bound to apply Christ particularly and his Promises to himself But the consequence here made follows not from hence For by the former a man believes assuredly that the Promises of Grace made through Christ to the Church do particularly belong to him he hath a right to them being called to the Covenant Neither do we promise any other security of Salvation by only Faith but to those that labour in their calling and be fruitful of good Works Dr. Fulk on Rhem. Test Phil. 3. v. 11. And thus far a man is and ought to be sure of his Salvation But there being implyed in all Promises of Everlasting Salvation certain conditions of obeying and repenting as well as believing simply whether a man is to that degree proficient in these as to put him in actual possession of Christ this is no where revealed neither are we commanded to believe it And when St. Paul saith to the Romans * Rom. 8. 15 16. See likewise 1 John 5. 9 10 Ye have not received again the spirit of bondage to fear but ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father What is more plain than that his meaning is to distinguish the general state of the Church of the Jews from the Church of the Gentiles and the spirit of Moses as I may so say which tender'd to bondage from the spirit of Christ which is that free Spirit For as it is elsewhere said If the Son make you free then shall you be free indeed And from hence no more can be concluded to any single person than to the whole Church of God in which there are many reprobates as all agree Neither is the matter helped out any whit by what follows The Spirit it self beareth witness with our Spirit that we are the Sons of God I presume few will be so severe and ignorant as to deny the large acceptation in Scripture of the Children of God and Sons of God and Saints viz. That generally they signifie no more than those who were elected outwardly to the Faith and Profession of Christ and to the means of becoming not only denominatively and of Right but really and effectually in Fact the heirs of Eternal Salvation To be then the Sons of God here with St. Paul signifies no more than by Faith to be the peculiar people and favorites of God above all such as were not thus brought home to Christs Fold Now that such singular Grace and Priviledges belonged to Christian St. Paul proves from the testimony of the Spirit namely That the Christian Religion is only the true Religion thus The Spirit beareth witness with our Spirit Our own Judgment our Consciences doth stedfastly assure us that we are the Children of God but this is not all this proves nothing to another to the convincing of him that we are the true Servants and Children of God but the Spirit of God bearing witness with our Spirit doth And the Spirit of God beareth witness with us sufficiently when it declareth openly by miracles signs and wonders wrought before the eyes of our Adversaries that what we preach and believe is the truth Which is the same with what St. Paul writes to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 2. 4. saying And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of mans wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of Power That your faith might stand not in the wisdom of man but in the power of God In which words he plainly sheweth the ground of the Corinthians faith not to be taken from any fair or plausible Rhetorick or form of words whereby men are led oftentimes to believe against reason but on the more solid grounds of extraordinary miracles wrought by the power of God and which did demonstrate to all equal judges That it was the Spirit of God which both taught them such mysteries of Faith as they preached and confirmed the same by such signs and wonders as did appear generally at the publication of the Gospel Now what doth all or any of this concern the supposed particular inward tacit testimony whereby it is said a man is to be assured of his Salvation And no more do the words of the Apostle in the end of the same Chapter prove too long to be recited but this Rom. 8. 35 36 37 38 39. is briefly to be answered 1. That they speak not at all of any individual single Christian but of the Church of God and that indefinitely or at large viz. That God hath so determined to plant propagate and maintain that Religion into which divers were collected by the ministry of the Apostles that whatever or from whomsoever evils might befall the Church of God yet they should never prevail with such persecutions to separate the faithful from Christ no not all the Powers nor Principalities on Earth nor all the Angels of Heaven or of Hell But to secure these and the like testimonies the better to their opinions some much admired persons of the Reformation peradventure suspecting what might be answered have proceeded to say That what promises Calvin Inst Christ hath made to his Church do equally concern every Christian as well as the Church which I cannot yield to without these Exceptions First That it may be understood of a particular Church as well as particular Persons But as may hereafter appear God hath made no absolute promise to any particular Church so far that it can be any point of Faith to believe that Gods counsel decree are such to it as never to suffer it to Apostatize from him So that no individual Church can be sure of its perseverance in the truth and if not that how should any particular person claim so much But the Promises of Christ being taken as they ought of a Church indefinitely it is most agreeable to Gods word to maintain an infallible perpetuity of the same Again It is to be remembred that all this while we are speaking not so much of certainty before God according to which we may yield the Salvation of men to be infallible but certainty before men or to the party concerned immediately which we call Assurance or Evidence In the body of an Orthodox Church it is certain in it self that many men shall be saved but not certain to us that any one therein shall nor evident to any one that he shall To the reasons taken from the Power of God who is able to save and reveal this And the truth of God who is faithful in his Promise And the Knowledge of God that he knoweth who are his what need we make any answer besides showing the vanity of that inference which is drawn from the possibility of any thing to the Fact it self and of that presumption rather than faith which
nor too narrow and rigorous The Reason hereof may be first taken from the name which imports such 〈◊〉 dictae Gâ—â—â—â— voce ex interpretatieâ—â— electionas quâ— quis sive ad instituendas suâ—cipiendas utitur c. Tertullianus Praescript cap. 6. Vide 〈◊〉 Hispalens Origin lib. â—3 a singularity of choice and addiction to an opinion which may as well be true as false good as evil Thus the ancient Heathens as well Roman as Grecian used the word and so did the Christians too for some hundred years after Christ And when it began to be restrain'd to the evil part a second thing made the notion of it no less difficult and obscure viz. the largeness of it for those errors which were not material or of any great consequence to the Christian Faith or Church as for to stigmatize them which were of note and moment in the same And a third thing obscuring the true nature is the manner of asserting and maintaining great as well as small Errours The word Heresie generally signifies any opinion either good or bad More especially it signifies an Errour in Religion Thus Ecclesiastical Writers take it Yet most properly it is an Errour in the Foundation of Christian Religion taught and defended with obstinacy Perkins on Galat. 5. v. 20. To understand this we must know how that a twofold Criminalness in Heresie according to the two more essential parts constituting it according to opinions generally received The one is called the formal part which relates to the manner of holding such opinions as are erroneous Inter Haereticâ—s non sunt deputandi qui aut ab Ecclesiasticis seducti sunt à parentibus in errorem lapsi nullà pertinaci animâ—sitate defendunt quaerunt autem 〈◊〉 solicitudine veritatem corrigi parati quum invenerint Augustin Epist 168. For lighter errours against the Doctrine of the Scriptures and peace of the Church being maintained with obstinacy and against due proposal of the truth do characterize and constitute an Heretick The other is the material part namely That about which men do err in Faith And this hath a peculiar difficulty in it arising from the undetermined points of Faith and I think a moral impossibility as they call it to define what are those so necessary points of Faith to be believed the denyal where of makes an Heretick This is thought generally to be sufficiently explained in the Creeds of the Church by some But others find many considerable points not therein comprehended unless by such a reduction whereby any thing almost may be compelled to come under anothers wing There are therefore that hold that the decrees and resolutions of Counsels fully and only can satisfie this scrupulousness and no question but all these conduce very much to the acquiring a settled Judgment in matters of Faith and espeially this latter against which notwithstanding there may be made these following exceptions First That all things defined by Councels and that with the affixing of Anathema's are confessedly not of Faith but of Rites and Order also Secondly That those Canons which are of Faith are so variously and miserably handled and distracted by Learned Interpreters that a sober well-meaning Christian may without any heretical pravity of mind fall involuntarily into a reputed Heresie Thirdly That contrary things have sometimes been determined in several ages From all which it is manifest That it is much more easie to define Heresie then an Heretick because there is an ingredient of personal aversion from or opposition to the Truth which can scarce be discovered but in the abstract Heresie may properly enough be defined to be not an opinion but a False Proposition contrary to the Catholick Faith And if it be thus uncertain and obscure what Heresie is through so many various kinds and degrees thereof answerable to the several branches therefore it cannot be easie to prove all Heresie in the common notion as opposite to Faith to be destructive to Faith That it destroyes that Part of Faith against which it is bent is undeniable but that any particular Errour should destroy the whole any farther than it is opposite to the whole Body of Faith is incredible Some Heresies pluck up the Tree of Life Faith by the roots some cut it down to the root some lop off the arms some lesser branches and some which have been reputed Heresies do only brush and beat off the leaves and ornaments An example of the former is given by St. Paul to the Corinthians some of whom it should seem denied the Resurrection in general and by necessary implication of Christ who was as dead as any mortal man else But if there be no resurrection 1 Cor. 15. 13 14. of the dead then is Christ not risen And if Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain It were to no purpose to believe any point in Christian Religion dis-believing that of the resurrection And in short to deny any thing expressed or necessarily and immediately included in the form of words used in Baptism is to root up all our Creed and render all our Faith vain in other Articles An instance of the second sort of Heresie may be to deny the Mediation of Christ by way of satisfaction for us restraining the intercession of him to that supposed one now in Heaven Of the third may be Errours about Free-will and affirming a positive necessity to commit sin against God Of the denyal of the efficacy of Good works done in Christ towards our salvation and the affirming a meritoriousness in them towards the same Of the last the affirming it unlawful to use any Ceremonies in Gods service but what are specially commanded in his word And from hence it seemeth necessary to distinguish Heresies and Hereticks into Formal or direct and Virtual and real A Formal Heresie is Propositio sapiens haeresim est ex cujus concessione co-assumpto aliquo quod non potest rationabiliter negari sequitur â—aeresis in fide vt siquis diceret quod beatus Gregorius non fuisset Papa Gerson de necessitate Salutis that which is expresly maintained and asserted in tearms but denied in the inference and consequence whichyet certainly and necessarily follows upon such positions as supposing a man should with the Monothelites of old affirm that Christ had but one Will. This is a formal and direct Heresie but if as it is possible the same person should deny the true consequence hereof viz. That he consisted but of one Nature He were not a formal Heretick in this latter because though this Errour doth certainly arise from the former yet all Heresies being erroneous apprehensions and affections of the mind this Errour being not received into his mind doth not so affect him as to denominate him formally an Heretick Yet must he answer for Heresie in his account before God because the movers and promoters of such shall no more escape then he shall from the punishment of
drunkenness who putteth the bottle to his neighbours mouth provoking him to drink to excess or of Theft who will by no means steal himself but is aiding in his advice and putting advantages into his hands to take anothers Goods In like manner the necessary consequence of a light Errour being very notorious though a person be not formally an Heretick in the conclusion which he may protest against as not following from his erroneous proposition yet if in truth it doth so and is generally so reputed to the mis-leading of Christians such a man is really or virtually an Heretick and obnoxious to the guilt and punishment due unto such Errours which he denies For instance It is a notorious Heresie to hold it unnecessary there should be any Church of Christ and to affirm That it suffices that every good Christian hath the word of God and believes and lives by himself though the word of God contradicts this impiety sufficiently and to be a Christian at large If any person heretically inclined shall deny that this is his opinion or that thus he would have it yet if he preaches such Doctrine and publishes such Opinions which do necessarily infer thus much he is a notorious Heretick in reality though not in the formality As also if he should teach The Church hath no power to enjoyn any thing besides what the word of God requires This Errour taken simply and nakedly hath no such monstrousness as may not pass for tolerable but in the necessary consequence it is as pernicious to the community of Christians as to preach against Christ himself And therefore the argument of late Rationalists is very false founded upon this ground Socinus Chi. viz. That Christians are not to be obliged under pain of damnation such as Anathema's and Excommunications are to any thing which Christ hath not by his Law prescribed For this indeed taken strictly is true Christ for ought may appear doth not in Scripture command Rites in use with the Church but Christ under pain of his displeasure doth require that we should do all things not contrary to his injunctions for the keeping up Non sunt parva existimanda sine quibus magna consistere enim possint Hieron of the nature of a Church and Christian Society and therefore though the Errour be in it self light it falls in the event heavy upon Christianity it self and deserves no less rigour than is used towards the offender in Faith it self Lastly From hence we may reasonably judge of the frequent denunciations of alienation from the Faith and Church against them who erred heretically affirming in general That Heresie quite alienated from the Church and that Society could not be of the Church which maintained an Heresie For first we are to note that few or none before St. Cyprians time were so severely censured by the ancient Fathers but such as were offenders against the very principles of Christianity it self St. Cyprian indeed and others from him extended this censure to such as were less criminal For it is a very hard matter to instance in any one Article of Faith though I know some great Clerks have attempted it which Novations or Donatists rejected or offended against So that abating somewhat for the vehemence of the zeal conceived against such enemies to the Church in the writings of Fathers against Hereticks it will appear that it was matter of Fact rather than Faith or Heresie which exposed them to such censures For uncharitableness will as certainly damn as unfaithfulness And he that dies for Christ as divers Hereticks did in animosity groundless against his brother and especially against the Church of which he is or ought to be a member may notwithstanding loose his Life hereafter as well as here But of this more now we are to speak of the Church CHAP. XXIII Of the proper Subject of Faith the Church The distinction and description of the Church In what sense the Church is a Collection of Saints Communion Visible as well as Invisible necessary to the constituting a Church HAving spoken of the Nature Kinds Acts and Effects of Christian Faith we proceed now to speak of the proper Subject of Faith which is the Church Which word is commonly used as well for the Place where our Lord is publickly and solemnly worshipped as for the People of God serving and worshipping him But of this latter only we art to treat at present which we define to be A Calling and Collection of Saints from The Church is an universal Congregation or fellowship of Gods faithful People and Elect built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ being the head and corner stone Hom. Chur. of Engl. Part. 2. pa. 213. their vain Conversation in the world to the Faith and Worship of God according to the Rule and Laws of his Holy word and to visible communion with themselves which description I doubt not to be grounded in all its parts upon the Scriptures themselves And that God is the Author and only Institutor of such a Church if it needed any proof the Scripture would soon afford it St. Paul saith to the Corinthians Chap. 7. * 1 Cor. 7. 17. But as God hath distributed to every man as the Lord hath called every one so let him walk and so ordain I in all Churches And so exhorteth the Thessalonians to †1 Thess 2. 12 walk worthy of God who called them to his Kingdom and Glory And so in very many places else where as will appear farther now we consider the Term from whence God doth call and choose his faithful people and that is the World the world not taken in its natural sense signifying the Natural bodies of all sorts of which it consisteth nor absolutely from it in the more special sense in which Mankind is sometimes called the world for civil conversation and humane mutual Offices may be maintained and ought between Christians and Heathens or Infidels but rather in a moral sense that is unnatural unjust unrighteous communication with the wicked of the world as wicked as St. Paul explaineth himself to the 1 Cor. 5. 9 10. Corinthians I wrote unto you in an Epistle not to company with fornicatours Yet not altogether to refuse to converse with the fornicatours of this world or with the covetous or extortioners or with Idolaters for them must ye needs go out of the world but if any man that is called a brother be a fornicatour c. St. Peter takes most of the terms in our description speaking 1 Pet. 2. 9 10. of Converts to the Faith Ye are a chosen generation a Royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar People that ye should shew forth the praises of God who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light c. And St. Paul to the Ephesians According as he hath chosen us in him before the Ephes 1. 4. foundation of the World that we should be holy and
be pronounced by others who are ordained of God to be judges of our state of Grace upon the discovery of our consciences to them then can be by our selves which is sufficient but of the unalterableness of that state no man can certainly affirm any thing Which holdeth true likewise as to the contrary state of Damnation For though a more than probable judgment may be made of the state of Damnation of him who continues impenitently in notorious sins yet may no man pronounce a peremptory sentence against any such person that he inevitably shall be damn'd because he cannot see into the abstruse Counsels of Almighty God so far as to deny a Liberty left in him to confer such efficacious grace upon such a notorious offender as may reduce him to God no more than withdraw grace from him who at present standeth in all probable way of perseverance This being so it followeth from hence necessarily That the Church of Christ taken for the so faithful and elect that they shall without all peradventure attain the Crown of the Triumphant is evermore in its own nature invisible that is not to be distinguished by us nor known certainly and if so then in vain and to no purpose at all are such Disputations as are made about the invisible Church in that sense of invisibility which signifies that which can in no manner appear certainly to us The other sense of invisibleness according to which a thing is possible to be seen is an object of sense but actually is either not to be seen or with very great difficulty For as in Philosophy it is with Divisibility so may it be with Visibility in Divinity Every thing that hath Quantity according to the Philosopher is divisible or is capable of being divided into lesser parts even without end but yet so small may the parts so divided become at last that no Artist shall be able to cut them any more in pieces So may we understand a thing to be visible which is so small and inconsiderable that actually it can hardly if at all be perceived But visible and palpable being taken for things which not only affect the senses simply but with some more than common notoriety the usual question Whether the Church of Christ is alwayes visible ought to be understood of such a competence of perspicuity as may ordinarily be discerned by persons rightly disposed in their understandings taking here right disposition of our inward apprehensions in a proportionable manner to that which relates to our common outward senses which if it be called into doubt as it may no wonder that the other may be and that without remedy Now according to the most strict acceptation of Visible for whatsoever may possibly be discerned the reasolution will be easie That Christs Church is and must alwayes be visible For thus to be Invisible is as much as not to be at all For seeing the Parts of which it consists be they but two or three persons in the most rigorous sense are Visible the whole must needs be visible too of it self however it may in the more received sense be termed invisible because compared with the Church of Christ as prophesied of and promised in the Gospel it is so inconsiderable as may deserve rather to be accounted invisible it being out-shined and over-shadowed by other Pretenders But there being two things which constitute the Church one the association of many persons into outward communion one with another the other the inward communion in the true Faith of Christ and the former being common very often to Hereticks as well as true Christians it may be doubted whether the true Church of Christ as opposed to heretical Societies is at all visible For seeing the true and orthodox Faith together with its practical holiness do not occur plainly to our senses the true Faith cannot be discerned visibly from the false by any outward sense How can it possibly be said that the Church of Christ is at all visible or apparent to a man 'T is true a man may discern a real man from a painted man or from any other creature from the outward notices of his body though he cannot see his soul which doth primarily constitute the person of man but he cannot see whether he be a true and honest man in a moral sense from any thing appearing outwardly So may one discern the Faith professed in general to be Christian by the outward frame and fashion of the Church professing the same but the soundness of the same and sincerity according to Christs will and institution he cannot from thence conclude upon And therefore if the Catholick Faith as Catholick in the stricter sense can never be visible the Catholick Church so being and denominated from that Faith can never be said to be properly visible but only as a Society not as the true Society of Christians in opposition to the false For instance sense or common reason not informed from the word of God could never judge whether the Arrian or the Catholick Faith as it then began to be called were most truly Christian but they both might judge that they were Christian Societies and so at least outwardly made a true Church But because it is one thing to profess the true Faith and another quite distinct from that Truly to profess the Faith as it is one thing to profess Justice and Truth and Honesty and another truly to profess these and practise them therefore can there be no estimate taken of the true Catholick Church from the persons professing the Catholick Faith who are alwayes uncertain and mutable but judgement must be made from the outward constitution only which are Discipline or Government and not Doctrine or Faith For where the former is not rightly composed according to the mind and institution of Christ there cannot be said to be a true Church And where the second is wanting there must likewise be no Church the foundation of the Church and Rule failing viz. the true Faith But wherever these be inviolately and incorruptly preserved and publickly professed though we should suppose every particular Member of such a Society to be notorious Hypocrites yet the Church might be said to be a true Church because the Church doth not receive any more than its material subsistance from the persons believing but its formal and more distinct Being it hath from the true Regiment and Faith which it is possible though scarce probable may be sufficiently preserved under hypocritical and wicked members of the same This is not only true in it self but appears so to be from the necessity of having any knowledge of the true Church at all and its being visible at any time For it never being certainly visible who are the predestinate infallibly to Life and who are not who shall constantly stand and who shall fall who are inwardly hypocrites and who are faithful and sincere indeed seeing notwithstanding the exactest judgment and search of man there
may be a falling away It could never appear which is the true Church if judgment were to be made not from the outward Forms and Faith professed but from the affection and inclination of Persons or from the invisible decrees of God of granting or denying persevering Grace to persons in the Church So that it is manifest from hence how lurious frivolous vain and sophistical disquisitions must needs be which are founded and managed upon the ground of an invisible Church properly so called The improper acceptation then of Invisible can only occasion a just controversie i. e. as it is taken comparatively and in relation to a much more conspicuous and glorious Society and that either of Infidels who may by numbers much exceed in outward glory much out-shine it in power over-rule it and by persecution and oppression so far straiten lessen and crush it that it may be termed obscure and invisible Or otherwise compared with the Societies of much more publick and outwardly glorious Hereticks and Schismaticks pretending the Catholick Church And truly if acute and exact Geographers computing the several professions of Religion and their possessions of the earth deceive us not the Church of Christ may comparatively with other superstitions Mahometan Jewish and Gentile be not unaptly said to be invisible Christian Religion being allowed but Five parts of Thirty Mahometan six and Idolaters nineteen parts of the earth But if we shall divide Christian again into Catholick according to the Judgment of several See Brerewoods Inquiries Chap. 14. Writers there will not remain at present above two parts of all the Thirty parts of the earth to be possessed by the Catholicks and if so what will become of the visibility of the Church thus understood And if a moderate sense of visibility be admitted signifying a real and apparent being only of the Church though inferiour in pomp and number unto others how doth the great end and benefit for which chiefly the Church is to be maintained Catholick and Visible shrink up into little or nothing when it cannot commend it self for any such glory to the beholder nor signalize it self to the doubter of the true Faith in the Church as may hereafter appear more fully when we shall come to speak of the Notes of the Church It may suffice to conclude this Point with these two First That Christs Church is essentially and so long as it is at all must necessarily be a Society or a communion of many For so we are taught to believe out of the Apostles Creed which speaking of the Catholick Church exegetically interpreteth what we are to understand by that term viz. The Communion of Saints And therefore we are to distinguish between being of the Catholick Church and being Christians A man may be a Christian and yet not be of the Church For no man can be of the Church who doth not hold communion with it For to deceive himself and say though he be not of the visible Communion or visible Church he may be or is of the invisible and mystical is to take for granted that which he ought to prove but never can be able but from somewhat external and the ordinary method and most effectual means of being mystically united unto Christ is by being Politically united which must be visibly unto the Body of Christ the Church It hath been therefore ever matter of greatest wonder to me to hear and read how freely all struglers and Factions of Christians how inconsiderable soever do assert to and confidently to assert that common Rule Without the Church there is no salvation and are so obscure nice or absurd in their sense of it having very little or nothing to secure themselves from self-condemnation besides an ill grounded presumption that they are inwardly united to Christ and are of the invisible Church which in truth is no Church but a certain state wherein there is no administration or order that we can learn now all Society must necessarily have order and administrations for their regulating but none such do we read of to be in Christs invisible Body Christ himself being all in all and therefore improperly called a Church And therefore all such being infallibly saved who are so of Christs Body they that so abruptly and peremptorily assure themselves they are of that invisible State do in effect contradict themselves and mean they shall be saved without being of the Church For surely the Authour of that saying meant nothing else but that before one could be according to Gods ordinary dispensation revealed in his word of Christs mystical Body called abusively the Invisible Church he must belong to the visible communion of Christs Political Body or Church So that it is not sufficient to comfort our selves with an opinion that we are good Christians and hold the same Faith entirely and purely that is required of us unless we hold outward communion And therefore secondly as Christs Church must necessarily be a Society communicating so must it be a visible communion and outward For how is it possible that such communion which constitutes a Society should be entred into unless it be visible There shall therefore as well out of the very nature of the Design God and Christ had to establish a Church as from the many promises fortifying that Resolution and perfecting that Design be evermore an outward visible company of Professours of Christian Religion in the world which shall retain the Faith of Christ and the necessary effects of it in Worship to that degree of perfection which shall or may lead a Believer certainly to Salvation as will more plainly appear from what is now to succeed viz. the outward Form of the Church CHAP. XXVIII Of the Outward and Visible Form of Christs Church Christ ordained One particularly What that was in the Apostles dayes and immediately after The vanity of such places of Scripture as are pretended against the Paternal Government of the Church FOR the Church to be and to be visible or appear to be I reckon the same thing and therefore thought good to speak of that and premise it to what in order follows on this subject viz. The Visible Form 2. The Adjuncts or Affections And 3. the Power of the Church of Christ By the Form of the Church we mean that frame and outward constitution whereby the Society of Christian believers are not only united mystically and inwardly to Christ as their proper Head and universal nor as agreeing in the substance of one Faith and Worship but as conventing and consenting in one outward Discipline or Administration of this Body so collected So that Discipline otherwise called Government is by principal Sectaries themselves rightly affirmed to be an essential ingredient into the nature of a Church which will manifestly appear if we distinguish between the nature of a Christian or many Christians separate in themselves from any Jurisdiction and the nature of a Church For a Christian or a true Believer differeth from
a Church in two things principally First in the matter The material part of a believer as he is a Christian not as he is a man is his Faith consisting of its several Articles and Branches But the matter of the Church is the Christians themselves whereof it consisteth Secondly they differ in their Form too For no man is properly a Christian though he believes all the Articles of a Christian and lives accordingly unless he be formed and fashioned Formale autem Ecclesiae Catholicae est professio fi dei Christi intâ—gra sub suis Legitimis Rectoribus à Christo institut â—â— ministris cum Sacramentorum obsignatione participatione Sec. Marcus Anton. Spalat Lib. 7. cap 10. §. 26. by the Sacrament of Regeneration which is Baptism But the Form of Christs Church doth consist in that outward disposition and order of Superiour and Inferiour communicating mutually in all Christian Acts and Offices necessary to the conservation of the whole Body and the edification and encrease of every Member thereof This Description of Christs Church is warranted us from St. Paul to the Ephesians who expresly maketh * Eph. 4. 15 16. Colos 2. 19. Christ the Head of his Church From whom the whole Body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every Part maketh increase of the Body unto the edifying its self in Love The like words to which we find to the Colossians chap. 2. 19. It must therefore from hence be granted That there is to be Government in Christs Church and that the Government ought to be proportionable to the Body thereby ordered and ruled To the Internal Body of Christ or Mystical Church not visible to us an Internal Mystical and Invisible administration is very agreeable and sufficient from Christ the Head and by the influence of the Holy Spirit but the external Church standeth in need necessarily of external Rule and Direction as much as it doth of external Doctrine Instructions and Sacraments though it be inwardly informed by the Spirit of Christ Now if it be enquired what that Government is whereby Christ would have his Church directed which is the most famous Question of late dayes though scarce ever call'd in question for some hundred years after Christ the resolution will be facilitated from what we delivered concerning Government civil For first if Government Ecclesiastical be so essential to the subsistence of a Church that without it it cannot be of any continuance without a Miracle it cannot be imagined with any probability of Reason that God or Christ should make one part of his Church and leave it to the liberty and pleasure of Man to make the other but least of all can they be of this opinion who think so sacredly of all Ecclesiastical Orders that to admit any of humane invention or prudence is to prophane the whole Systeme Again upon the grounds laid down in civil Government If Christ be the Author of Government Ecclesiastical in General he must also be the Cause of some one Government in Particular otherwise he could not be the Authour of any at all seeing Institution Political as well as Creation Natural must of necessity have some Object to terminate it as its effect Generals in all cases following Particulars in the things themselves though the way of knowledge or learning these things is to begin with the General and so to descend to Particulars Thirdly to understand what kind of Government Christ instituted in his Church what more certain and compendious way what more equal than to judge rather from matter of Fact than long and uncertain Disputations built on Arguments which are subject to diverse casualties from mans Passion and Interests prosecuted thereby whereas there is evidence sufficient from the thing it self to settle belief in that Point Fourthly we are here to note That when we speak of Government we intend not to comprehend therein all Accruments Ornaments or Additions which happened after the thing it self For these may be and doubtless oftentimes have been the effects of humane Prudence regulated by general Precepts but we speak of the Form it self or the Kind of Government For though we said God was the Author of All well grounded Government and do not mean that every particle thereof or inferiour additional Grace must proceed from the same hand For God having permitted if not ordered that every nation should conform it self in outward matters to the condition of the time and place God must have made for several Ages and several Places several Regiments which no man hath presumed to affirm the Divine Right or Institution extending only to those things wherein all at first agreed So that as children receive from the Nature of man at first created by God in Adam their fouls and bodily shape with the several parts necessarily thereunto belonging but their behaviours gestures gates favour and complexions are commonly derived from their immediate Pareâ—â—s So doth every true Body of Christ every Church receive common forms and shapes from the first Institution of Christ extant in the Primitive times but their particular modifications and customes are owing to to their Spiritual Fathers whether mediate or immediate Which frowardly and peevishly to reject or disobediently to oppose without higher warrant what is it else but to imitate such graceless and unnatural children who are ashamed of their own Parents Fifthly A distinction ought to be put between the nature and degrees of any thing and especially of the Church which had its conception in the womb of the Jewish Church its infancy during our blessed Saviours Tum maxime Deus ex memoria hominum labitur cum beneficiis ejus fruentes honorem dare divinae indulgentiae deberent Lactantius lib. 2. cap. 1. de Origine Erroris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazienz Orat 1. contra Julianum abode upon the earth its minority during the Apostolical Age of One hundred years its perfect state soon after the first Christian Emperours advanced it and augmented it with secular strength and glory And it is certain that as the Roman Empire became more corrupt and declined so Christs Empire degenerated in many things contracting deformities in Doctrine and Discipline even from secular advantages granted unto it by the Devotion and Bounty of the best Wishers to it We are not then to be so narrow in our judgment of the Churches state to allow no more to it then when it but just crept out of the womb or when having gathered a little strength it could stand alone but not act according to the prime Institutours intention but as it was habited and affected in its riper years when we may behold that in more conspicuous manner which at first was obscurer yet essentially the same For as nothing is more evident to all but such as resolve they will understand nothing that they dislike than that in nature the Father is made before
be in them before and which doth more than countervail such antecedent liberty of simply teaching as was then in some manner fixed Thirdly there was in such cases as this added a Power and Right of instituting others as occasion offered which is unknown to have been in them as Evangelists From it follows that of all the forementioned kinds of Government that of the Church approached neerest to that call'd Monarchical which was only absolute and universal in Christ the Soveraign Head thereof but Ministerially under him and over the Church under their circuit Politically as proper Heads and Rulers and whatever power after extraordinary Callings by Revelation from God ceased any one dispartake of in the Church was ctrtainly at first derived from such single Persons alone however to the solemnity of such ordination others of an inferiour Order concurred thereto And as the Government of the civil World was originally without exception so far as search can be made by the most curious Antiquaries Monarchical though it were not governed by one man alone but by Civil Supream Princes of several Dominions into which the earth was parcelled So though no one Father or Bishop ever presided over all the Christian world yet several single Persons in their respective Provinces governing the Church as Principal the Government of the Church may rightly be termed Monarchical in Particular but Aristocratical as to the whole For as the Apostles were all Monarchs compared with their Proselites Converts and Churches by them founded but were but Peers compared one with another So was it with the Bishops and Patriarchs of the Church succeeding them whereby the Prophesie of Christ in St. Matthew was verified spoken not so much as some mistake it of his Heavenly Kingdome but earthly his Church and its ensuing glory Verily I say unto you that ye which M … â—â— have followed me in the regeneration when the son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel That when the Church of Christ should flourish then there should be such as in lieu of the twelve Tribes of Israel should Rule as in Thrones the Church of God under the Gospel They who object against this the words of Christ in Saint Matthew Ye know that the Princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them and Mâ—tt 20 25. 26. they that are great exercise autority upon them But it shall not be so among you Do declare no less against Aristocratical then Monarchical Government yea all Government over the Church And their favourable gâ—osS in behalf of one will be as valid for that which they reject For as it was not at all the mind of Christ that there should be no Governours at all over his Church so doth it not at all appear that what was lawful for many to do was not lawful for one But here the old cheat again takes place to suppose that the Government of one is in it self tyrannical and of many free but neither Christ nor nature ever taught them how to prove this presumptuous imagination And to this may we add another such mistake from St. Peters words That men should not be Lords over Gods heritage And what then Must there be more 1 Pet. 5. 3. than one over a Church and not onely one May a company of Presbyters oblige Christians to do or believe such things and not Lord it but if by a principal Person bearing Rule this same thing be done then is the Precept violated Besides who sees not that hath not a mind to be blind That the Apostle speaks nothing at all in these words of the kind of Government but the exercise of it and abuse Surely if Episcopal Government could not choose but tyrannize and Presbyterial could do nothing but according to Scripture and equity this Objection were unanswerable otherwise not worth the mentioning much less answering as common as it is and as confidently urged And as to that Pretense intended to overthrow our prime ground of Christs institution taken from what was first actually found in the Church viz. That Imparity of Christs Ministers was not found in the Church till about an hundred and forty or fifty years after Christ when it is confessed by the Enemies of Ecclesiastical Hierarchies that it prevailed Let the Huggers of this Device First consider what a pitiful addition is made to their cause from hence seeing that it is undenyable there was a disparity all the Apostles dayes who in order excelled all Ecclesiastical Persons and that almost one hundred years were spent of the said tearm in their time So that about fifty or sixty years only this imaginary Government had its being and then was lost again for fourteen hundred and then was better lost then found and taken up again But a far worse inconvenience spoils this jest as being founded and raised only from conjecture and that conjecture upon the obscurity of those ages not so clearly known as afterwards CHAP. XXIX Of the necessity of holding visible Communion with Christs Church Knowledge of that visible Church necessary to that Communion Of the Notes to discern the true Church how far necessary Of the Nature or Condition of such Notes in General IT being so necessary as we have above shewed to be in communion with the visible Church of Christ and the Nature of things themselves being more intrinsick many times than to characterize sufficiently them to the Enquirer into them it hath been thought necessary to explain them farther by more apparent and observable notices given of them And in the Doctrine of the Church these seem to be of greatest consequence Visibility Universality or Catholickness Sanctity and Perpetuity Of all which we shall briefly speak in order yet first premising somewhat concerning Notes in General For seeing as we have said it is necessary to know the true Church from the false and the Natures of things are often-times so abstruse and hidden from us that we cannot discover them from their own Light therefore it hath been judged very reasonable to pitch upon certain outward Notes eading us unerringly to the knowledge of the thing it self And in truth I cannot wholly approve of that course chosen to certifie us and point out to us the-true Church taken from the very being of it such as are Faithful and sincere Doctrine taught therein Sacraments duly administred Worship purely performed and Discipline rightly constituted because these are rather of the very intrinsick nature and definition it self of the Church than notes and characters outward whereby the nature it self should be certainly known We all indeed without exception consent that that Church is the true Church which is thus qualified and affected believeth aright is governed aright administreth the Sacraments aright and worshippeth aright and in one word which followeth most exactly the Rules of Holy Scripture but in the Assumption and Application is all the doubt and infinite
differences which of all Pretenders to these are assuredly so affected and blessed most with them Therefore these are not sufficient lights and demonstration of themselves to us For we grant readily That whatever Church hath all them is without controversie a true Church of Christ but whether this or that Church pretending to them hath them really remains to be enquired into Hence it hath been judged expedient to repair to some more sensible and apparent Notes or Indications to certifie us of matter of Fact viz. that so it is with this Church and not with another And it is well said That Notes of a thing must necessarily be distinct from the thing they notifie unto us and that especially in these two things First in reference to the thing described than which they must be more evident and apparent as the argument must alwayes be more clear than the thing in Question to be proved therewith Secondly in reference to other things they must not be common to more than that thing they are used to express and signifie As no man that never saw an horse before can know it from an Ox by being told that an Horse hath two ears four legs and a long tail And a third note of a true Note may be added and that is that it be inseparable For though no more but one thing has such a mark by which it may be known yet if that thing be moveable and not constant to it it cannot at all times be known by it as the Moon cannot alwayes be distinguished and known from other stars from horns or Angles which many times it wants This speculation is very rational but yet not exempt altogether from the inconveniencies of the former opinion it failing little less in the Invention and Application of such unfailing Notes as are presumed and promised For those being the very choicest of many more Notes mentioned by some for the guiding us to the true Catholick Church they are either obscure or inconstant and separable or lastly common to those Churches not received for pure and Catholick as will appear by and by Therefore I suppose a mean opinion may in this case be most true and safe as that First there can be no such infallible outward means of comming to or discerning the true Church from the false as may secure any one from errour For the Prophesies and Promises of Christ concerning the glory and conspicuousness of his Church viz. that it should be as a City set on a hill That it should be the Light of the world That it should be a Mountain unto which all Nations should flow and such like infer no more than this That whereas under the Law the Doors of Christs Church were in a manner shut against the greatest part of the world under the Gospel Christ would keep open house to all commers and that it should be more possible and easie to enter into the communion of his true Flock than formerly it had been not that it should not be possible to mistake but upon affected and wilful ignorance next to malice Neither doth there appear any greater reason why any man should be infallible in the choice of the true Church than when he is in the true Church that he should be infallible in all points of Faith therein truly professed In a word No greater inconvenience doth appear from the want of infallible means to lead men to the true Church who are in sight but not knowledge of it than to bring Heathens into an ordinary capacity of entring into it A man may be damned in that corrupt and degenerate state he now is in for want of that grace he could not of himself acquire and yet God be under no imputation of injustice or tyranny who gives him no more than he deserves and denyes him no more than he may justly detain from him For the mercy of God exceeds all not only merit but admiration that so many find the way to the truth while some as St. Paul hath it are Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth 2 Tim. 3. 7. But were it so that those means to salvation whether general or particular did work naturally not Evangelically or morally by the co-adjutancie of grace accompanying them and inwardly disposing the mind to assent to and embrace them then indeed ought there to be certain and infallible causes outward to that end but it is not so for as liberal as God hath shewn himself in the Gospel and means outward of attaining to the truth he keeps the reins still in his own hands and the key of knowledge by him the efficacy of the most probable means even that of distinguishing and knowing the true Church depending upon his free and inscrutable Grace which would in this particular be superfluous and useless if certain access might be made unto it by demonstrative notes to that purpose A second thing commending herein a mean opinion may be the due acknowledgment of the use of such outward marks and means guiding us to this prime truth of the Church For notwithstanding we have said the Grace of God hath a main stroke in every mans right choice of such dubious undemonstrable truths yet doth it not ordinarily concurr and we have nothing to know of extraordinary acts of God but by such ordinary means as he hath instituted and tyed us to observe to be capable thereof and therefore are we to embrace and improve all outward helps which may best conduce to that end otherwise we either forfeit or repel such grace from us And of such means I know none more reasonable and probable to bring us to the knowledge of this point then are they above mentioned Thirdly the use of those means or notes upon tryal will be found to consist not so much in the Affirmative as Negative sense that is not characterizing Catholick Churches in opposition to Heretical by being found only in any Church because they are also found in such as are reputed Heretical but being not found in Churches pretending Catholicisme stigmatizing them for false and defective And truly it is well worth the labour to be informed of errors as that which prepareth to the knowledge of the truth Lastly it is to be observed of the nature of Notes or Properties that they are either of the whole Species or kind as that given by Plato of a Man That he is a two-footed creature having no feathers on his body or they are Particular relating to some Individuum or single one of that kind as that given of God himself to distinguish Saul whom God had 1 Sam. 9. 2. 10. 24 designed King from the rest of the people from his stature That he was higher by head and shoulders than the rest of the people And thus was Elijah the Tishbite known to Amaziah That he was an hairy man girt with 2 Kings 1. 8. a girdle of Leather Now in this question it is
and for ought appears the Schismatical may be in greater unity within it self than the Catholick how can any man discern from unity which is the Catholick or true Church The Unity therefore which may any wise describe or distinguish the sounder part of Christs Church from the heretical must not be taken from that which it holdeth within it self but with some other which is acknowledged for Catholick wherein comes the use of Antiquity again because the Ancient Churches of Christ were saved by the same Faith and Worship that all succeeding Churches must be therefore if it may appear that a Church doth not agree in all necessary or considerable points of Faith Worship and Government with them of former ages supposed to be truly Catholick it self cannot be Catholick or a true Christian Church But they who look no higher than one Age or two and no farther then one place or two and finding convenient agreement amongst themselves do characterise themselves for Christs Church fall into the censure of St. Paul to the Corinthians who measuring themselves by themselves and comparing 2 Cor. 10. 12. themselves among themselves are not wise And in the Revelation of St. John we read of some Nations into whose heart God hath put to fulfill Revel 17. 7. his will and to agree and give their Kingdom unto the Beast until the word of God should be fulfilled I hope this unity of consent will not be taken for any argument of the faithfulness of their consent or Catholickness But more we shall have occasion to speak of Unity in the treating of Schism In the mean time I see no force at all in the places alleadged out of the Old Testament to prove so much as may be well allowed to the unity of the Church as where it is said My Beloved is but one and to the Cantic like purpose For such places taken in relation to Fact and not to Precept and counsel rather that Gods Church should be so and endeavour to keep the Spirit of Unity in the bond of peace as the Apostle speaks can Ephes 4. 3. be understood strictly only of that single Nation of the Jews which was alone chosen so peculiarly to himself Or of the future Coalition of Jew and Gentile into one Body as the same Apostle in the same Epistle speaketh of Christs Passion That he might reconcile both unto God in one Chap. 2. 16. Body by the Cross having slain the enmity thereby i. e. between Jew and Gentile These difficulties and uncertainties in this Note of Unity have constrained the Patrons of the Roman Cause to find out such an Unity which indeed is more apparent and certain to him that commits his Faith to be guided by some outward sign but so much repugnant to all ancient Churches so wholly strange to them and unheard of that it may seem to do them much more mischief than advantage as that which excludes all Antiquity from having any suffrage in this cause And this their Note is Unity Bellarm. de Notis Eccles lib. 4. cap. 10. init with the Bishop of Rome as boldly said and as weakly proved as their enemies could wish St. Hierom indeed saith to Damasus he is resolved to hold as He and that See believed in one particular of the Trinity and used not simply and abstractly consider'd this as a probable argument of Orthodoxness and preserving the peace of the Church but with the concurrence of other Circumstances rendring his Opinion probable But doth he or any ancient Author deserving with themselves the name of a Father teach as they would perswade indefinitely That to hold communion with the Bishop of Rome is to be assured you are of the true Catholick Church Christs Charter much stood upon to St. Peter and the Rhetorical flourishes many times of the Holy Fathers extolling St. Peter and his Successors but never categorically affirming or soberly determining so will not amount to this Hence they proceed to Universality too as a sign of the true Church and an help to Unity it self For it profitteth nothing that there be some one Church and that in one Age and Place which is at unity with it self if it be not universal Christs Church is said to be universal but so many senses are given of Universality it self that it is hard to apply it positively to any pretending to it For nothing so plain as that the Christian Faith doth not and never did possess all Nations nor all the persons of those Nations where it hath flourished No man therefore can know the true Church by that which is not true of it And therefore I make no doubt but the most anciently genuine and proper sense of that expression in the Apostles Creed where it is said I believe the Catholick Church Vide Augustinum Epistolâ— 50. aimed at no more than to cause us to believe that Christs Church was from that time forward no longer to be of one Nation or one Denomination as it was before Christs Incarnation but Catholick that is Universal and indifferently to extend to all People For at that time when the Creed was composed the secondary sense wherein Catholick and sound Believer signified the same thing was scarce at all heard of no not before the Councel of Nice under Constantine Afterwards it was applyed to particular Sees as well Alexandrian Antiochian and some others as Roman In Theodosius the second his dayes which above 400 years after Christ a Sozomenus Ecclesiast Hist lib. 7. cap. 4. Law was made that none should call themselves Catholicks but such as believed aright concerning the Holy Trinity the rest should be termed Hereticks Afterward notwithstanding every Sect and Heresie usurped that name as may appear from that very place corruptly cited out of Austin August Epist ad Epistolam Fundamenti by some to prove the true Church from the Title of Catholick it self For saith he however all Hereticks desire to be called Catholicks yet if any enquired for a Catholick Church they were directed to the Orthodox and not Heretical Churches But if we take the word Catholick in a more restrained sense not for that which is all over the world actually but so far as it doth extend passeth generally through all and that not Places but Ages too where shall we find a Catholick Church Christians never for fourteen or fifteen hundred yeers not conspiring into one belief no not in things held very important to Faith and I mean not only single persons but Societies of Christians Therefore neither from hence can we conclude directly of the true Church in opposition to Heretical And therefore the Patrons of this opinion of the Universality finding themselves harder pursued with difficulties than they can evade being taken in their own snares are forced according to their very vain custom to leave off the tryal of the truth from matter of Fact which is most plain and ready and proceed to say It ought so
may possibly to them were this any more than to say They would be at peace and unity with them when they became of their mind did as they would have them and not differ from them But I have transgressed I fear on this subject here at present which yet is not impertinent altogether it proving that it is Lawful to Excommunicate such who agree with us in Faith And the summ of the reason is this viz. Because there are as hath been acknowledged on both sides yea is almost on all sides granted two things essential to the Church Doctrine and Government or Discipline as it is called to act any thing to the violation of either of these may justly subject a man to this Ecclesiastical Censure And however at first sight dissension and opposition to the Rites and practices of a Church may not appear of a mortal nature of themselves as being perhaps about things in nature alterable yet in the consequence making a breach in the wall of the City of God they let in certain ruine and destruction Thieves and Robers And this holds no less to the Justification of the Church in Excommunicating refractory and disobedient persons to the Church in her citations though in truth the ground of her citation be matter of small moment It were indeed much to be wish'd that such severe sentences might not be executed but on occasions of greatest moment not only for the persons sake so excluded but the Churches sake denouncing whose autority must needs be much weakened and her sentence much contemned when upon matters appearing meerly trivial and light it is inflicted And therefore most useful it seemeth That redress of pecuniary pretensions on persons relating to Ecclesiastical Courts should not be by Excommunication but from the Civil Power enabling the Ecclesiastical to exact their dues But where this is not in use and where no other means appears of obliging men to reverence and submit to Ecclesiastical Powers but the punishment Ecclesiastical I would fain have such persons who profess not the utter abolition of such autority and dissolution propound some other effectual way of keeping up the power and autority of those Courts besides Excommunication before they declare so smartly against the abuse of it Lastly whosoever doth by contempt and disobedience first deny the Churches power and in very deed sever himself from it can he or any man of Christian reason or modesty contradict the Churches Act in declaring and formally manifesting what was more closely but really before done by himself So far as a man disobeys and opposes the Church so far is he really separated from it And to be partly on and partly off as some men propound to themselves and please themselves in thinking it free to choose and leave at their pleasure what their private judgements shall lead them to is not at all to clear them from the guilt or imputation of Schismaticalness For all proper Schismaticks agree in many things with the Church which they trouble and divide And every Schismatick stands divided from the Church And may not the censure of the Church by Excommunication most reasonably at least follow a mans own Act and declare that to be so which himself hath made so especially not only thereby or so much punishing the Offendor as securing the innocent and sound by such notice from the like contagion Doth not St. Paul cleerly imply so much when Gal. 5. 12. he saith to the Gallatians I would they were even cut off that trouble you How did these intruders and seducers so trouble the Church as to deserve such Excision or Cutting off By two things principally one whereof follows in the next verse by a presumption of such Christian Liberty which was never intended by Christ for his Church Another was in point Gal. 1. 6 7. of doctrine innovating rather in form than words For it was not another doctrine of the Gospel that was offered to these green and unstable Christians but another Form the easier to prevail upon their Consciences and to alienate them from their true Pastors Such as these would the Apostle have Cut off and therefore very false and frivolous is that ground of Socinian Extract mentioned in the beginning viz. That nothing which in it self hinders not salvation can give just occasion of Excommunication I do not here as many insist much upon the words of Christ in St. Matthew whereby he warrants a man to account him as Heathen and publican Math. 18. 15 16 17. who shall refuse to hear the Church arbitrating and judging within it self because I am of their opinion who expound this not of excommunication from the Church but of a freedom granted to a man to go to the humane Civil Power for justice against such a brother as if he were no better than a Heathen and Publican who will not listen to the voice and judgement of the Church Yet surely this intimates a power in the Church to determine and a duty in the members of it to submit unto the Judgement of it and if a private man may treat one of his brethren as he would a heathen in some cases may not the Church This is the least we can honestly make of Christs Charter given to the Church by St. Peter in Mat. 16. 19. the same Gospel I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven But consideration and limitation of this grievous censure is not to be omitted according to diversity of Persons Relations and the Causes given from whence I suppose arose the distinction of Major and Minor or Greater and Lesser Excommunication of ancient use in the Church And Anathema and Excommunication according to the Ancient differ For Excommunication is nothing else but a denunciation of a person alienated from the Communion of the Church in the mysteries and worship proper to Christians And this we may take to be the Lesser Excommunication but Anathema or the Greater Excommunication besides excluding from Christian Communion added a Curse corporal which the Scripture calls properly a Delivering unto Satan as well for the destruction of Body as Soul Thus was that incestuous person excommunicated by St. Paul For the destruction of the flesh that the Spirit may be 1 Cor. 5â— 5. saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ For though we say that this Anathema was to the destruction of the flesh we mean only Actually as in that state but the end of that was rather the Salvation of it by such outward judgements reducing the offender to repentance This Anathema upon the body by plaguing it being miraculously inflicted hath ceased But yet not all bodily punishments with it taking here bodily punishments not only for bodily pains but bodily and outward losses Of this sort may be those separate men from all Civil Communion
injustice and Tyranny be denied the exercise of that which pertains to him Now the Key of Knowledge and the Key of Jurisdiction of which the Power of the Keys delivered by Christ consists and into which it is commonly divided are very different For the first doth but open the door to the others and prepares and qualifies a person for the other but doth no more actually give power or autority than the great skill and experience of a Souldier makes him a Captain to command others or knowledge in the law makes a man a judge actually It is therefore the Key of Jurisdiction or a Right given by Christ to administer the Church and every member thereof that is principally to be acknowledged in this Case And which not being found to descend orderly from Christ no effect of that affected power can be acknowledged But as is said doth not descend naturally or by birth but Judicially from others In which manner who ever receives it not sacrilegiously murps what belongs not to him But they who would wring this power out of the hands of the Church Selden de Synedriis Lib 1. Cap. 9. do give us certain Presidents as well from the Jewish Church wherein there was it should seem a custom that one Person might excommunicate another when he pleased But the same Antiquaries tell us also that it was in use amongst them for a man to excommunicate himself And this I take to imply an answer to the former For it is in the power of any man to separate himself from the Church or any other Society materially and Really but Judicially and Formally he cannot neither can he separate another otherwise than by absenting himself from the Communion of the Church he may indeed as formally pronounce such a censure against himself or an other as the most Canonical Judge in the world but intrinsique power being wanting the outward Act turns to smoak as to others but as to himself has no other effect then he that is in a boat hath upon the earth against which he sets his oar and thrusts hard but puts himself off not the earth as our neighbouring Ministers did when with intollerable and incredible presumption they took upon them to Excommunicate their own Bishops and some of the transmarine Churches of the same Platform were so wise as to allow their Fact And to the Instances of some Princes whom Histories affirm to have Excommunicated Id. ibid. certain persons the Answer is That the word Excommunication hath deceived the reporters and appliers thereof to this Case For according to signification of that word both in the Latin and Greek language Excommunication or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the declaration by Publick Herauld Suidas in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Item 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of any guilty Person to be excluded or banished the Princes Court or Company or perhaps Dominions Thus many have been Excommunicated by Soveraign Princes But can any instances be given of such as without any further Act of the Church have been thereupon denied Communion with the Church And what we say of Excommunicating holds good likewise in the Power of Absolution which the same Persons allow to meer secular Powers and would prove from an Act of Constantine the Great his absolving Eusebius Bishop of Nicomedia Constantine we all know had but little knowledge in the Rites of the Church at that time and might attempt he knew not what as soon as any other man whose affection to Christianity far exceeded his Judgement But what is affirmed of Constantines Act That he Restored that Excommunicated person to the Communion of the Church which only is properly Absolution No surely but he might restore him to his See and that is all Or if more were done he might be said to do it who caused by the interposition of his Power some Bishop of the Church to free him from those Eonds But questionless that is none of the least corruptions which the Church of Rome stands guilty of and which our Church hath but too much connived at that the Power of Excommunication should be in the hands of Lay men To mend this a little they of the Roman Law distinguish that which by no means should be separated curing one absurdity by another Anastafius Germbnius de Sacrorum Immunitat For they distinguish Episcopal Order from Episcopal Jurisdiction and say a man that hath not Episcopal Order but Episcopal Jurisdiction may Excommunicate a vile and corrupt imagination brought in on purpose to serve the turns of ambitious secular and sacrilegious Drones who would drive two trades of secular advantage and Ecclesiastical Profits For there is nothing so Essential unto Episcopacy as Jurisdiction I mean an Habitude and Right to Preside and Rule and there can be no Episcopal power without that nor that without Episcopal Charactar Officers indeed there may be under him void of that Charactar or any Priestly because though the Court be properly Ecclesiastical yet all things are not so which are acted therein Judicial Acts and Acts of Notaries and of Executions are competible to unordain'd persons because Gifts of nature and Learning may capacitate a man to them but that of Jurisdiction properly so called is the intrinsique Right of the Pastour of the Church and this of Excommunication annext thereunto or rather a part of it And therefore he is not a Bishop that hath it not and he that hath it is a Bishop It is not indeed necessary that this should be denounced by a Bishop but that this power which is likewise inherent in a Priest as a Priest be committed to him after the decree made by the Bishop For the Priest having a Jurisdiction within himself by vertue of his place and office but restrained by the Superiour Power to him the Jurisdiction and Autority of the Bishop is seen sufficiently in this that it enables a Priest to do that which of himself he ought not to do and this is rather exciting an old power in the Priest then infusing a new giving right to it to exert it self which before it had not But Lay-men having no Ecclesiastical Charactar inherent in them cannot by any such general commission given them from the Bishop act effectually to that end for want of the due Principle this Licence of the Bishop being nothing else but removing of that Obstacle which hinders it to work where it was For to deliberate debate and Judge of causes and persons subject to Excommunication may possibly be better performed by such who have attained to that science without any order in the Clergy but the fact it self is quite of another nature CHAP. XXXIII Of the second branch of Ecclesiastical Power which is Mystical or Sacramental Hence of the Nature of Sacraments in General Of the Vertue of the Sacraments Of the sign and thing signified That they are alwayes necessarily distinct Intention how necessarie to a Sacrament Sacraments Effectual to Grace HAving
thus spoken of the Political Power of the Church which we so call because it imitates that which is so more properly called in directing the visible Body of the Church to its proper end as the Pilot doth the ship to its proper Haven and hath both Visible Acts and Effects We are now to treat of that Power We in distinction to that other do call Mystical because the End and Effect thereof is not outward or visible but inward spiritual and Mysterious and therefore also call it Sacramental Sacrament and Mystery being the same in the Original Phrase of the New Testament For to the Church as they are more peculiarly called who are Officers in the same doth it of Right appertain to celebrate these Mysteries Wherefore first we shall speak of the Sacraments in General as the manner is and then in Particular The word Sacrament is rather of Gentile than Christian original there being no word in the New Testament proper to it but the vulgar Translation Sacramentum est invisibilis gratiae invisibilis forma ita ut ejus similitudinemgerat et causa existat Gulielmus Antissiodorensis Sum. Lib. 4. Cap. 1. thinking fit to render Mystery Sacrament in Latin the Antienter Latin Church hath made use of it to express certain Mysterious Rites of sacred and necessary use in the Church of God about which word so long since received no contention ought to be had The Nature Number Minister and Use of them deserving principal enquiry A Sacrament is defin'd as is commonly known by St. Augustine a Visible sign of an Invisible Grace which being taken rigorously seemeth not to comprehend the whole nature of it therefore Antissiodorensis would have its defect supplied thus A Sacrament is a visible form of an Invisible Grace whereof it is also the Cause But considering the many and sharp disputes upon this subject I suppose it may be more fully described to be A visible sign ordained by God to produce an invisible effect of Grace in the soul of Man This definition may be collected from the several parts of it contained in the word of God as first from St. Paul to the Romans speaking of Circumcision a prime Sacrament given by God to Abraham and his seed And he received the sign of Circumcision a Seal of the Righteousness Rom. 4. 11. of Faith which he had being yet uncircumcised For there are three special properties of a Sacrament commonly acknowledged To Signifie To Seal To Effect Grace but in strickness of speech these make but two Acts. For either a Thing doth barely signify and declare another or it concurreth to the being of another where things are Related one to another For seals are no more than signs binding more firmly to the fulfilling of the contents of an Instrument or Conveyance For as in such Cases the Free good will of the Donour is the only cause of an inheritance given the Instrument of Conveyance consisting of so many words are the signs of the inward will the seals are but signs of the signs of words that is an assurance that what was signified in the said Instrument should hold good And the Actual Delivery of this is the immediate Cause of entring into possession or enjoyment of this Gift In like manner The word of God promising his Graces to us signifies the will of God to that end The Sacraments superadded do likewise sensibly signifie unto us the earnest God is in when he made promises unto us as Seals And the actual exhibiting of these signs or seals on Gods Part by his Proxy or Ministers and the due receiving of them on our Part do put us into a fruition of those things which were so signified and promised First then They must be a sign that is a Representation of a thing and not the thing it self and that to add to our knowledge and Faith for if there were no agreement between the thing signifying and the thing signified the word of God alone had sufficed to that end Secondly they must be ordained of God For if no man in common justice can give away another mans estate but the true owner of it how should it be possible or equal or credible that any other besides God himself the Owner of his graces should by instruments of his own forging convey such heavenly benefits to mankind which properly belong to God This were supream folly and presumption to attempt Or can any man know Gods mind or methods of working before he hath revealed them Therefore it is said that God gave Abraham the Sign and Seal of Circumcision Thirdly they must rather be ordained Arbitrarily of God and by special Institution then Naturally least the Free Grace of God therein contained should suffer and the effect be ascribed rather to natural than supernatural Causes For though the cutting off of the foreskin of the flesh by explication intimate the cutting off of the filth of the Soul yet naturally it could not be so well understood And God might if he had pleased ordained the cutting off of the tip of the ear to serve the same ends And so in baptism Water doth naturally cleanse bodily filthiness but without notice given of Gods will and grace it could never have been believed possible to affect the soul and purify it Fourthly as there must be some agreement between the thing signifying and signified there must also be a real difference in their nature For nothing in nature or reason can signify it self because nothing can be clearer than it self For when a thing is obvious to our senses or otherwise apparent Sicut Signum et res ipsa aliquando possint esse diversa ita saepenumero et in multis eadem esse possunt Tunstal 9. de Eucharistia fol 16. we do not say we have a sign of such a thing but the thing it self Yet this most certain Rule is sought to be bafled and overthrown by Cavillers who would bring in their false doctrine of the Eucharist and would shew from bread on a Stall or Cloath which signifies bread and Cloath as well as is bread and Cloath that the same body of Christ may be a sign of it self But their attempts in their Instance fail them because that Bread which is exposed to be sold or that Cloath is not a sign of it self viz. That it is cloath or bread but is so only but it is only a sign that either it is to be sold which is quite another thing from Cloath it self or it is a sign of other cloath which doth not appear And so the body of Christ in the Eucharist is not a sign of that Body which doth appear but of that which doth not appear And therefore a Fifth condition of a Sacrament is That it should visibly signify something invisible and spiritual Lastly that Sacraments are to be not only significant or which comes to the same Sealing but efficacious in themselves upon the souls of men which may deserve further explication
A thing may be said in its self efficacious though it doth not attain the proper end of its working it misses of its effect because the conditions required are not kept For fire it self as active and operative an Element as it is doth not work effectually upon any thing but its proper matter nor upon that at too great a distance So may it be with the Sacraments which though indeed they are the power of God and not of nature unto salvation yet through some defect in the object or indisposition may fail of their proper and wonted Effect but not from any insufficiency in themselves or indignity of the Minister of them For if in this sense that old barbarous Rule be taken viz. That Sacraments have their virtue Ex Opere Operato viz. From the work done i. e. that they are Efficacious means of Grace in themselves and their vertue doth not depend upon the Ministers unworthines or worthiness provided he doth work according to Christs institution and intention it is true For what St. Paul speaks of the Ministers of the Gospel is true of the Ministers of the Sacraments Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think 2 Cor. 3. 5. any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God The Officers of God in the delivering of these means of salvation not swerving from the Rule and Prescription given by God these Instruments themselves have their due and proper effect As when a King of his Free Grace sendeth by a leud and vain fellow a Grant of some great Favour to any of his subjects whom he pleaseth to raise out of a poor and base estate to riches and honour 't is not the unworthiness or wickedness of the bearer so long as he is true in his Office that can void the Grant so neither can the evil manners of the Ministers of the word and Sacraments null the power and promises of God made in them But though evil manners and vitiousness of the person do not corrupt or destroy the nature and end of the Sacrament yet it is believed that the actual aversation of the mind of him who consecrates and administers not only not intending actually to Consecrate but actually intending not to consecrate may evacuate the whole Action But this is shown by the former example to be very false because still God hath inserted his will and annexed his promises to the thing it self and not to the Persons disposition or indisposition either of understanding or manners It is true some of the Antients have said that Intention is necessary to a Sacrament and this hath given occasion to that gross Error in the Church of Rome which hath mistaken the intention of such Fathers as have spoken of Intention For Intention is twofold The Intention of Christ or God and the Intention of Man or the Minister They may say that Intention is necessary to a Sacrament taking their Intention for the will and mind of God which if it be not observed in all necessary thing at least the Sacrament is not perfect or valid but if it be whatever mans intention be it hinders not the Sacrament is the same And whereas they would sosâ—en this harsh and moderate this erroneous doctrine by distinguishing of Intention in the Priest into Actual Habitual and Vertual First we may well except against this distinction it self because they are forced in the explication of it to make Habitual and Vertual Intention the same in all material things only they cause them to differ in that Habitual is only a general intention without any actual consideration at the time of Consecration of what they are about Vertual that there is at the entrance upon that Action an actual purpose to do what Christ and the Church intended should be done at that time but this passeth a way suddenly and all the remaining Action is performed by vertue of that first good thought But this cannot serve the turn For the form of the Sacrament consisting chiefly in the words of Consecration according to their own doctrine if such an Intention be wanting at that time there can be no consecration and if no consecration no Sacrament So that there are two notorious inconveniences following upon this Error the one that the most sacred and Comfortable Instruments of Gods Grace and our Salvation are left to the lusts of malitious and vain man to be bafled at his pleasure and the Communicant defeated of the blessings God hath consigned to him thereby Another that upon supposition that the Sacraments were duly administred and so by consequence effectual to their proper ends yet this being not certainly known to the Partaker thereof his mind must be in perpetual disturbance and conflict fearing that the Priest had an inward intention contrary to the outward appearance But they say there is at least a Moral certainty And what is a Moral certainty Can they tell They have not yet And all I suppose they can say is no more then to make it a good degree of Probability which will not serve this Case But in truth many Cases fall out so that there is that they call a Moral Certainty on the contrary when spite and malice boll high in the breasts of men and their happiness consists in doing all the mischief they can to them they malign which we know by several Instances is not seldom found in those Countryes where this doctrine flourishes most And to what they are wont here chiefly to oppose That there can be no probability of an effect where the cause is not real but jocular ludicrous and Histrionical as it must be where there is no intention but only a fiction of doing a thing as if one in mockery upon the Stage should baptize one in derision of the Faith and Church of Christ We answer That if this Ludicrous Action be so fictitious and false that the thing only seems to be done but is not done and one seems to be baptized but is not It matters not what his intention may be For we now suppose the thing to be done as Christ and the Church intends For if this be wanting surely nothing is really performed But the question is whether when the thing is really done saving the due intention this defect voids all the rest For let an Officer of a King mock what he pleases and act what he pleases in scorn and derision of the thing he hath in Charge to deliver and declare it is contrary to his resolution to deliver it yet if he really doth deliver it his contrary purposes and actions cannot hinder the effect nor the benefit accruing from thence For as St. Paul saith Neither he that 1 Cor. 3. 7. planteth is any thing nor he that watereth is any thing but God who giveth the encrease We see this in marriage more apparently than in other Sacraments if we may call this a sacrament of which by and by that let the Minister intend what he pleases
are we to mutiny against the Constitutions of Eastern and Western Churches which in progress of time added some inferiour Orders to those most anciently received in the Church viz. of Bishop Priest and Deacon For I take it to be no invasion of Christs Right to call to the assistance of such as he had constituted such as he did not ordain to that end but to retrench of the number to dissolve that Order which he appointed that is sacrilegious What then may we call Orders but The Collation of an Ecclesiastical Faculty or Power to serve God and the Church by such as are authorized by God using the necessary Forms of Words and Rites thereunto required according to his order of Ministration Now we have already shewed That as no man can create himself a secular neither can he an Ecclesiastical Officer and as no man in that Politv can be created but by one in Authority rightly derived to him so can none in Spiritual matters be ordained to Ecclesiastical Ministration but he that is thereunto called by some in Lawful or at least real Power And therefore such who are chosen and appointed by the common people are but common people after such vainly affected callings and they who are of an inferiour Order were never acknowledged to have power to create one of a Superiour to them As it was never endured in the Church till of late dayes that Priests should appoint Bishops or Priests because though Power of the Keys were communicated to them in reference to the two Principal and necessary Sacraments yet never as to the whole complex notion of the same which consists of Jurisdiction as well as Knowledge and Intercession And the School argument which at least hath given occasion to confound the Order of Bishop and Priest is very false and frivolous supposing all Ecclesiastical Orders to be so denominated in or dine ad consecrandum from their relation to the Power of Consecrating the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist because they suppose that to be the supream Mystery and End of Priestly Office but the distinction of Power Political and Mystical in the Church quite overthrows that For the Power of Jurisdiction is greater in its kind than that of celebrating and therefore not so vainly to be taken Again the Orders of the Church are so called from the Relation they have to the Body Ecclesiastical or outward Form and Constitution of it which is made up of all of them by a gradual ascent from the lowest to the highest which make that Hierarchy without which a Church has but very little to show that it is a Church but is forc'd to shroud it self under the obscure priviledges of being an invisible Church though not visible Orders therefore thus duly administred though they be not a Sacrament for then must there be seven Sacraments subordinate to the other famous seven because generally seven sorts of Orders are administred in the Church yet are they Sacramental things that is Sacred and no less necessary to the constituting a Visible Body of Christ than are the others to the Invisible And though that cannot presently be concluded to be a true Church of Christ which hath them I do not see how that can be a true Church which hath them not And for that which is commonly called Extream Unction being the Anointing of the Infirm of Body or such as are despaired of as to this Life I see no great matter to be objected against it no more did Luther nor Bucer nor some other eminent Reformers for a good while after they left Rome provided it be done with that solemnity and soundness of invocation of God and Benediction of the deceasing Party as may comfort and strengthen him in his last Agonies It being ancient though not so old as is pretended nor ministred in the same manner as now For in the beginning not one but many Presbyters of the Church were called according to the advice of St. James to pray over the sick and to anoint James 1. 14 15 him with common not compounded or artificial Oyl and that not without a miraculous event But because the Miracle is now ceased it is no good reason the thing it self should be detested For Primitively a Miracle did accompany Baptism too which ceasing no man will declare the Sacrament it self ought to cease likewise The Superstitions of Prayer and some other Rites added of late whereby the simplicity of it hath been corrupted is a more reasonable ground of laying it down Neither is the want thereof in that formality to be charged upon a Church where there is commanded and continued due Ministration to the Sick answerable to the necessities of Body and Soul But though the use hereof be ancient yet the name Sacrament hath not so anciently been ascribed to it in the sense at this day Current And Innocent the first who is reported to have so called it doth permit others besides Priests to minister the same to the Sick the Chrism or Oyl being made by the Bishop CHAP. XXXVII Of Confirmation What it is The Reasons of it The Proper Minister of it Of Vnction threefold in Confirmation Of Sacramental Repentance and Penance The Effects thereof BUT of Confirmation much greater esteem hath ever been and ought still to be had though not so much as some of the Ancients and divers Modern Schoolmen would exalt it to unless a favourable interpretation be made of their judgments delivered concerning it For they make it more useful than Baptism it self and impute the efficacy of Baptism in great part unto this Sacrament To judge the better of which Opinion it is to be consider'd what this Confirmation is Confirmation may be said to be a solemn Act of Invocation of God and Benediction of a Person upon his publick Profession of that Christian Faith into which he was before baptized First It was required that the Person capable of this Ceremony should have first been baptized For he was not hereby made a Christian but as the word importeth confirmed in that Faith into which he had been baptized And the Reasons hereof were such then as do to this day commend exceedingly the use of it viz. Because some were baptized in their minority or infancy when wanting common judgment they could not discern the nature use and end of Baptism and therefore very requisite it was that they should after due and sober information in the mysteries and principles of Christian Religion make in their own person such a publick Profession of the same as they were bound to do at the time of their baptism according Catechismus Argentoratensis p. 36. D. Cum nos pueri instituti sumus in fide Christiana debemus eam palam aperte profiteri c. as the Church Catechism of Strasburgh since the Reformation well thus expresses it by Scholar and Master Schol. We that are children and instructed in the Faith of Christ ought to profess the
same in publick and clearly in the Church seeing we could not do this when we were baptized Mast How are ye confirmed Schol. By publick blessing intercession of the Church with imposition of hands Mast But how art thou assured of this Schol. We have Word of God when he sayes Let little Children come unto me c. Thus that Catechise Another reason may be the danger from the multitude of Hereticks which possibly might have corrupted such young beginners in the Faith therefore as well for the better securing such persons as for the satisfaction of the Church that they who were once enter'd into communion with it did so persevere inviolate in the same this excellent Rite was instituted And surely because it notably discriminates Schismaticks and Erroneous persons from sober and faithful Members of Christ and his Church it is by vain ignorant and ungodly persons scoffed at railed at and contemned A third Reason respecteth the time to come wherein a man foreseeing the many and great temptations of the World Flesh and Devil which he had renounced in Baptism to increase upon him as he converses more with the World doth thereby fortifie himself by a renewed profession of his Faith and Obedience to Christ Fourthly to this conduceth very much the Benediction of his Ghostly Father the Bishop and the joynt prayers of all the Congregation which ought devoutly to be put up to God for the descent of his Grace to preserve the persons so confirmed in that holy profession which should be most earnestly desired by every pious heart that likes his Religion and fears his own frailties And it is to me an infallible argument of desperate unchristian prophaneness or a new superstition instilled into men alienating them from the truth of that Religion in which they were educated who carp at this so godly Constitution their best ground being that which is to all their frivolous reasonings Because no express place of Scripture commands it directly and because it is possible to be saved without it It is possible that we may be saved without many things which we daily use in Religion and yet they contemptuously and wilfully omitted may be a just and certain cause of our condemnation the Scriptures having not limited God to those means of saving us which they have if we would be saved And yet again they have not so particularized our duties that there should be nothing accepted by God from us which they have not expressed I find it disputed on both sides whether this Rite be of Divine Institution or not and shall not determine it but in this both Ancient and Modern Eastern and Western Churches are agreed that it is of Divine use and therefore I may determine it to be pious and profitable and them who oppose it to speak evil 2 Pet. 2. of the things they understand not for which they may utterly perish in their own corruption But I suppose the proper Minister of this Solemnity who alwayes was the Bishop of the Church hath much turned the stomach of those who very unhappily have none or most wickedly endeavour to have none against it For considering how little is to be said against it how much for it the principle ground why they are bent against it must be to defend themselves from notorious defects To understand this as likewise the manner of performing this Sacramental Rite it is to be noted there was a threefold use of Unction called also Chrism in the ancient Church whereof one pertained to the Presbyter or Priest who in the time of Baptism was wont to anoint the party baptized on the crown of the Head The other two were properly belonging to the Bishop the one being done presently Hieremias Patr. Cap 7. Censure O. rieâ—tal after Baptism on the forehead after the Priest had anointed him on the crown of the Head which custom the Greek Church retain to this day as their Patriarch Hieremias witnesseth and when this was done I suppose there followed no other Confirmation but after the deferring of Baptism ceased and the appointed times of Easter and Pentecost for that Sacrament were laid aside and children and that at all times and in all places of Divine worship were admitted to Baptism and not alwayes as most anciently in the presence of the Bishop then it became necessary that a peculiar time and proper services should be appointed to this Solemnity wherein the Party to be confirmed was signed in the forehead by the Bishop only as before in substance but with variation of circumstances In Gregory Gregor M. Epist Lib 3. 9. the Great 's days it should seem the brest was anointed by the Priest What need we trouble ourselvs in such things aswere alterable in that unalterable solemnity our Churches moderation endeavouring to prevail upon the modesty of some dissatisfied persons in it have incurred the censurre of other Churches in paring that Ordinance to the Quick from unnecessary excrescencies without any effect upon her own undutiful children but pertinacy and petulancy in their private morosities which at length may teach us how vain such charms of Charity are used upon such deaf Adders and unnatural Vipers whom nothing will satisfie but the tearing to pieces the womb that conceived them And that they may do with it what they list they make the Church speak what they list many times And therefore though it hath wisely declared and plainly but for two Sacraments ordinarily necessary to salvation they are wont to exclaim against it thereby inferring contumeliously that she holds more though not so necessary which had been no slander if they at the same time had used that candour which became them in stating the mind of the Church as they might and ought but to do this here or in other cases were to do themselves or Cause wrong and to be just to us were to be cruel to themselves A fifth pretended Sacrament is that of Repentance sometimes also called Penance with us For so I read Mr. Bradford in his Sermon on the Fourth of Matthew and the seventeenth to speak saying Penance is a sorrowing or forethinking of our sins past an earnest purpose to amend or turning to God with a trust of pardon Which description may suffice us at present For the first thing in Repentance is a sound judgment of the evil of the Facts committed or omitted the next is a belief and sense of the evil of punishment incurred by such enormities A third degree or act of the mind is a change of the resolution for the time to come to act more reasonably and faithfully A fourth is an apprehension of the Grace and Mercy of God towards him upon his humiliation and return A fifth the real execution and putting in outward practise the good purposes of heart in effects proper to Repentance A sixth is not to repent of Repentance or return to the offenses for which he was so grieved and which he renounced A seventh is the
doth not distinguish there men ought not to distinguish or limit For if it be alleadged that Instruction and Faith ought to go before this Sacrament according to Christs Intention and institution in St. Matthew It is sufficiently answer'd that seeing the Law General by which baptism is made necessary to Salvation hath no exception or condition annexed to it which may concern Infants Infants are therein contained And this implies an exemption from that naturally impossible preparation of Instruction and Faith properly so called And as Calvin well notes Believing Calvin Institut to infant-Baptism is no more requisite than working to their eating and drinking by vertue of the Apostles precept If any will not work neither 2 Thes 3. 10. should he eat Faith and repentance both are required necessarily of such who are capable of them or able to oppose them but of them who are not capable and have no actual sin to be repented of the Act of them who have the Care of them and Tuition joyned with the passiveness or non-remitency of the Infants found a capacity in them But where a Personal power of Willing is found there is exacted a personal knowledge and consent to that Sacrament This will appear from those several reasons built upon the Scriptures First That the Primest antiquity ever so understood the Scripture and practised accordingly Not that Baptism was presently as now administred to Children at their coming into the world seeing Antiquity gives us many instances of such who were not baptized till they came to years of discretion though they were born of Christian Parents For some continued Catecheumenes together with them who were young and Converted from Heathenism unto Christianity Others of purpose and design protracted the time of their baptism upon an opinion that all their Actual as well as Original sins were washed away in Baptism and concluded they had the less to answer for if they were baptized towards the latter end of their dayes Yet though this abuse of Baptism prevailed not upon that opinion only but upon the occasion which was taken of educating and instructing Infidels in the Faith for some good time before they were baptized which custome divers born of Christian Parents imitated yet we find none that the Church wilfully suffered to die without Baptism who were descended of true believers or had been competently instructed in the Faith of Christ which was alwayes according to Christs words intended towards them who had None to resign them up to God and compromise for their due perseverance in the Faith So that there is not the least evidence of Autority ancient in the Church rejecting the baptism of children or denying them to be subjects capable of it And none opposed the same until the year 1030 when Guimund Bishop of Aversa in Campania accused Berengarius Deacon of Anjou for denying Infant-baptism though that opinion was not found directly to be Berengarius's But about the year 1130 this Heresie began to discover it self in France and Germany and was Headed by Peter Bruis and Henricus his Scholar From whom that Faction was called Petrobrusians and Henricians denying withal a Capacity of Childrens entring into the Kingdom of Heaven affirming That only they who were baptized and believed could enter into Heaven But the Waldenses who succeeded them in many of their opinions rejected this their Dogme and so the controversy ceased until the year 1522. when one Nicolas Stork and Thomas Muncer two desperately Phanatical men stirred Sleiden Comment up this opinion and other wicked fancies concerning Civil Government wherein this Latter perished miserably Yet this error was not so soon or easily suppressed but spread farther and continued by the great industry and zeal of Melchior Rinck and Balthazar Hebmaier until about the year 1532 it received its complement from the tongue and hand of Melchior Hofman a Leather-dresser of Germany and so hath been propagated to other places and to this day But not only did none of the ancients oppose Pedobaptism but have declared and proved the use of it As did Irenaus Tertullian Origen Cyprian Augustine and others downward were this a proper place to shew so much We shall rather proceed to those Scriptural reasons inferring this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athan. cont Arium pag. 147. Tom. â— Secondly either all Children must be damned dying unbaptized or they must have baptism The consequent is plain from that Principle in Christian Religion which Anabaptists have been constreined to deny to uphold their other That all sin not washed away or expiated exposes to damnation and the Principle in Christian Religion is That Children come into the world infected with Originalâ—sm and therefore if there be no remedy against that provided by God all Children of Christian Parents which St. Paul sayes are Holy are liable to eternal death without remedy Now there is no remedy but Christ and his death and Passion are not communicated unto any but by outward Signs and Sacraments And no other do we read of but this of Water in Baptism And the invitation of Christ of infants in St. Mathew doth imply a capacity in them of Grace For Mat. 19. when Christ saith Suffer little Children to come unto me and forbid them Mar. 13. 14. not for of such is the Kingdome of God he doth not mock meaning literally that Infants who are not able to go or stand should come unto him on their own leggs So neither doth he mean in the spiritual sense that Children who have neither reason nor Faith should come unto him by Faith before they be baptized but be brought to him by the Faith of others which may profit them who resist not though they seek not that Grace Thirdly They that are of the Covenant and of the Body of the Church really ought also to be formal partakers of that Body and this they only can obtain by being admitted solemnly into the congregation of Christs Faithful and Elect Church As the children of the Israelites were of necessity to be admitted into the number of that Church by circumcision Gen. 17. 14. or be cut off in wrath from them For St. Paul telleth us how the children of the Believers are sanctified by their Parents And how are they 1 Cor. â—7 14. holy but by being separated from unbelievers and solemnly dedicated to God by the Laver of Regeneration And as in the same place the Apostle saith to the Romans If the first fruit be holy the Lump is holy and if the root be holy so are the branches drawing this Literal to an Evangelical sense and meaning thereby that the Parent being of the Election the Child is so and being so ought to receive the sign of Evangelical circumcision Fourthly The Analogy and apt correspondence between the Sacrament of the Law called Circumcision and that of the Gospel warranteth this For that is not true which they say against this That the Precepts of the New Testament
necessary to Salvation are as clear as those under the Old But this is not so clear as Circumcision To which we answer That this is as true taking in the whole manifestation of Gods will For the clearness of the Sacraments enjoyned in the Old Testament do conduce to the clearness of them signified by them And there needs nothing more be said for the clearing of the necessity of these than to admit them to have succeeded those two in the Old Testament And we find not such necessity particularly imposed upon us of receiving the Eucharist as was upon the Israelites of receiving the Paschal Lamb but general necessity without determination of time or place the Gospel expresseth unto us upon the hope of salvation which is sufficient The vertue and Efficacie of this Sacrament above-touched proves this farther but it needs it self be proved according to those extravagant opinions brought by Modern Divines into the Church that it is only a seal of our Faith and eternal Favour of God in Predestinating us to Glory As if First all according to their judgements that were baptized were ordained to Glory and this were assured them by that Seal Or Secondly that God had Predestinated any to Life without the necessary means to it Or that remission of sins Actual and the expiation of Original were not necessary to the entring into Life or that God had so simply and absolutely ordained us to heaven that he had not ordained these two as Means to obtain Perkins on Gal. 2. v. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod Haret Fabul 5. c. 2. this For what can be a more horrible prophanation of this Sacrament then to say with one upon the Galatians We are born Christians if our Parents believe and not made so in Baptism Which is contrary to the Doctrine of our Catechism and the whole stream of Primitive Doctors of the Church from whom we may Gather this threefold Effect of Baptism First it is not only a sign as the same Persons say of our Covenant but it is the Covenant it self made between God and Man For God indeed doth make a Promise but he maketh no Covenant otherwise than by Baptism God made a Promise to Abraham that his seed should be blessed before Circumcision but he made no Covenant with him but by Circumcision nor is any actually in the Covenant of Faith but by being baptized Doth not the Scripture expresly say that God gave Abraham the Covenant of Act. 7. 8. Circumcision Circumcision then was not only a Sign of that Covenant though that it were but an Essential part of it Circumcision therefore was a sign in a twofold sense First in respect of the Covenant under the Law as words whereof the Covenant consists are signs of the Will of the Covenanters to the ear and works outward are in like manner signs of the same to the Eye which sort of signs are not distinct from the thing it signifies For God Covenanted with Abraham that he should use those Ceremonies Now this outward visible Covenant was a sign of an inward and invisible relating to the righteousness of Faith as St. Paul saith of Abraham And he received the Sign of Circumcision a Seal of the Righteousness Rom 4. 11. of Faith So that is the Second way in which Circumcision may be said to be a sign viz. As the whole Sacramental Covenant of which it was a part signified the Covenant of Faith into which we are entred by Baptism as the Jews into the other by Circumcision A Second effect of Baptism is to wash away all sins as well Original as Actual of which that Prophesie of Zacharie is generally understood In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and Zechar. 13. 1. to the inhabitants of Jerusalem For sin and for uncleanness To which St. Paul agrees in his Epistle to the Ephesians speaking of the Church That Eph. 5. 26. he might sanctifie it and cleanse it by the washing of water by the word Where the Word sanctifieth the Water and the water sanctifieth the Person which it can no otherwise do then by washing off the sins of the Soul As St. Peter hath it Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh but the answer 1 Pet. 3. 21. of a good Conscience towards God That is at the time of baptism whereby the filth of the Spirit necessarily implied to make up the correspondence is put away And St. Paul telleth the Corinthians They were washed 1 Cor. 6. they were Sanctified viz. By Baptism But whether Original sin be so far extinguished in the baptized as no more remains should be found is much doubted to which we briefly and clearly answer from the distinction of Sins For sometimes the Cause of sin is termed sin Sometime the Effect of Sin is called Sin whereas Sin is properly the Evil Act it self or the omission of an act due from us Original Sin in us is not so properly called Sin as it was in Adam who actually sinned and that with a consent of his own will But it is rather the Effect of his Actual transgression which doth originally adhere to us and is called sin upon this threefold account First because it is the necessary effect or consequence of Adams Sin as we find Moses to speak in Deuteronomy And I took your sin the Calfe which ye made The Calfe was the fruit of their Sin and Deut. 9. 21. not their sin it self So is that evil Effect the Sin Original because it is the evil consequence of it Secondly It is Sin because it doth partake of the nature of sin in one of the principal parts making up sin They are two The Obliquity of the Act or Deformity and disagreement to the accurate Law of God and the disobedience of the will and pravity thereof This latter original sin as it was actual in Adam had as well as the former but so is it not with us There can be no such disobedience in the Will where there is no Will. There is no will in Infants besides the remote faculty it self and therefore all sin yea all humane acts requiring consent of the Will original sin cannot be sin in this sense But taking sin for a dissonancy from 1 Joh. 3. 4. the Law and Rule as St. John doth and that conformity as is justly required by the Law certainly that Original depravation and corruption found generally in our natures at our first entrance into the World may truly be called sin because it makes us to differ so much from that God made us and intended us to be Thirdly Original sin hath this likewise denominating it sin that it is the cause of sin that original inclination to sin being that which moves us all unto the actual commission of sin which St. Paul surely aimeth at where he saith Now then it is no more I that do Rom. 7. 17. it but sin that dwelleth in
accepted if done by her more soberly and seriously as it ought by all whether Minister or otherwise And that this Act of Zipporah was not so exorbitant in the manner of doing as vulgarly supposed more learned Men have shewed at large And secondly That is was not so extraordinary doth appear from the practice of the Jews who as P. Fagius hath observed upon Deuteronomy Fagius in Deuteron C. 10. 16. Cap 10. v. 16. do believe if a Man be wanting to whom it belongs one Uncircumcised as a Servant a Woman so not an Heathen or Infidel a Youth may circumcise an Infant Neither was Circumcision to be repeated made by what man soever though an Heathen or Infidel And in brief We find no person excluded by the Catholick Church from doing this office for one desiring it or capable otherwise of it but a Mans self And yet we are told by searchers into the ancient practice of the Jews that a man might circumcise himself And thus much of the First Proper and Generally necessary Sacrament to Salvation Baptism adding only one thing more for a conclusion and that is about the Repetition of Baptism or Anabaptism Of which prophanation of that solemn Sacrament I find many really guilty but not so much nor upon those grounds they are Generally charged For I have not met with any that directly affirm it to be requisite or lawful to reiterate Baptism though in fact they do so For the Novatians the Donatists the Arrians and they of Late years who are called from the Renewing of their Baptism Anabaptists have none of them that we find declared it reasonable that Baptism once truly performed should be acted over again but all these suppose it not done and therefore they do it It was always the opinion of the Catholick as well as Heretical and Schismatical Churches That all outward words or washings sufficed not to the due effect of baptism There were three several incapacities which render'd pretended baptism void so far that the Person so baptized was held obliged to be again baptized The incapacity of the Minister or Baptizer The incapacity of the Person or subject to be baptized Thirdly the incapacity of the Form used in Baptism If the Minister had any time fallen from or denied the Christian Faith or was of impure and Scandalous manners he was reputed by the Novatians and Donatists uncapable of such a sacred Office and consequently in that though a Priest did not effectually administer that Holy Sacrament imagining that he who was so defiled himself could not by his Ministration cleanse another and therefore he was baptized not as repeating former baptism but as not being baptized at all The Arrians being enemies to the second Person in the Trinity and judging the Catholicks to be so too in ascribing too much unto Christs divine nature looked on the form of baptizing as corrupt and insufficient to such an end and therefore thought another necessary And our modern Anabaptists as they are called not thinking Infants capable of that Sacrament for want of Faith and Repentance which they hold absolutely necessary to Salvation and that in the properest sense deny any effect to follow upon those Actions used So that we see there are no proper Anabaptists such I mean who hold it so much as needful to baptize any persons above once Though in Fact they stand guilty of this prophanation upon the grounds of others not hard to be made Good against them as we have against these last shewing the Capacity children are in of receiving Baptism as also that the unworthiness of the Person ministring Sacraments doth not impede the effect of those Sacraments while he hath a proper subject to work upon and observes the proper form required Now this form according as the Arrians excepted against at doth depend upon the disputation of the Divine Nature of Christ proper to another place It may here be doubted whether the zeal of some of the Ancients but of most of the Schoolmen hath not too far transported them who damn all such as repeat Baptism once rightly administer'd it being impossible in their opinion that Baptism should be twice acted but the Former must be renounced and truly if Baptism once truly performed be renounced that which follows is also renounced being in it self good For there is but One Baptism as St. Paul saith But this can never be proved as necessarily Ephes 4. and perpetually true They indeed of whom now we have spoken who were so engaged in heretical opinions and societies as to believe the imperfection and insufficiency of that Baptism they received could not admit of another but they must reject the first But then whether absolutely they rejected true Catholick Baptism may be a doubt For he only renounces his Baptism properly who rejecteth the Form it self and the Faith therein implied And this is the One Baptism of which St. Paul is certainly to be understood that is necessarily One in nature but that it should be also so One in number as multiplied both should be made void no reason is given And surely St. Paul intended no such thing though he may be said much less to have intended the multiplication of it The more probable opinion therefore of the two is That the Second Baptism is void rather than the first As if two married persons being joyned together in Lawful Matrimony once should presume a Second time to go through the same Ceremony it may be only to confirm them in that state this were to baffle and prophane such Ordinances but it were not to make the former Vows and Rites void And for the reasons given against Iteration of Baptism though I yield the Conclusion that it ought not so to be I do not hold them convincing used to this purpose Not that taken from the indelibleness of that Character supposed to be imprinted in the soul by that Sacrament 'T is true Circumcision had a visible character made in the body which could scarce be altered or removed But that therefore to answer this there must be a proportionable impresâ—â—on the soul which is invisible follows not St. Paul calls Circumcision a sign and a seal and it is Baptism in a Metaphorical sense And the Fathers who many times mention such things intended nothing more than an immutable Obligation on our part to God and an infallible communication of Gods grace to them who duly are partakers of his Sacraments It is also true a Man can be born but once spiritually as naturally and therefore supersluous and prophane are all attempts to a Regeneration a second time the principles of spiritual life being preserved intire in themselves though in a way to be extinguished upon pertinacy in sin and dying in impenitency And for those places of Scipture where St. Paul tells us we are sealed by Gods spirit alledged 2 Cor. 1. 21 22. Eph. 1. 13 14. Eph. 4. 30. to prove that we have a Character made in Baptism
choose c. it was free for the servants of God to offer their Sacrifice upon any place they Jacobus Bolduc de Ecclesia ante Legem Lib. 11. should think fit and make Altars at their pleasures though I am not ignorant that mystical Bolducius is of another mind without solid grounds But afterward the Altar as Christ intimateth in the Gospel Sanctified the Gift so far that it was not accepted but upon that which Mat. 23. 19. God had ordained for Sacrifices or offerings to him The case is not altogether so now under the Gospel that Christians should be absolutely confined to the Publique Altars as they may be called appointed to the Eucharist For we do not read that ever the Apostles so Celebrated but have great presumptions to the Contrary Nor doth it in like manner appear in the Gospel that those places on which they did Celebrate were preserved from all Secular uses as we do in the Law that Altars there were Yet so much ought all who are good Christans condescend to the immemoriall practise of the Church separating all such sacred things from common and vulgar uses and requiring to celebrate upon the Reputed and appointed Altar that I make question whether any Sacrifice not so offered through contempt or sullenness can be either so acceptable to God or profitable to our selves as in the other received way And there want not as learned men who denie that Consumption is necessary to a true Sacrifice And I am sure the Roman Cause so requires unless in this state they will make Christ passible and Corruptible though I know they have many a Sorry shift to evade this too Now for brevity sake to omit many things incident to this dispute and to apply the Notion of Sacrifice to the Actions in the Eucharist If we take Sacrifice in Melancthons sense from which Calvin doth not much vary Melanct. Loc. Com Calv. Instit Lib. 4. C. 73. For every act and thing devoted to God whereby we give him honour there are Sacrifices enough to be found in the Eucharist And there are many known senses of Sacrifice given to God admitted by Protestants But passing all them over the Question here must be stated concerning this Sacrifice as it was concerning the Body of Christ Not whether there Really it is but whether it really and properly be Predicated of the matter of the Sacrament and that in as proper a sense as Christs Body was offered upon the Cross This we deny acknowledging only these three things which fully satisfie the expressions of the Ancient calling the Host an Incruent Sacrifice First because here we call to remembrance Christs sacrifice upon the Crosse according as he Instituted and required that at our hands saying Do this in remembrance of me Secondly as it is a Sacrifice Luk. 22. 19. Rememorative so is it a Sacrifice Representative Insinuating and signifying unto as the death and Passion of Christ and not as common signes and advertences only to bring to mind or as Gulielmus Parisiensis hath it like a String tyed about the singer to put a man in remembrance and no more but also to informe the Iudgment and confirm and encrease the Faith of the Receiver Thirdly it is a Sacrifice Representative to God as well as to Man For though nothing can lie hid from him or be forgotten by him yet taking things as he hath been pleased to express them unto us after the manner of Men he by the offering of this Sacrifice and the devout worship there performed to God is moved to behold consider and accept the true Sacrifice which Christ made for us in offering himselfe for us As it was by Gods own appointment in the Rainbow put for a signe between him and Man of the Covenant for not drowning the earth And the Gen. 4. 16. bow saith the Scripture shall be in the cloud and I will look upon it that I may remember the everlasting Covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth In like manner and much more effectually may we say that the Action of the Eucharist presents to God the Sacrifice of Christs death and mediation made by him for mankind especially those that are immediately concerned in that Sacrament from which Metonymical Sacrifice what Great and rich benefits may we not expect Thus is the Host a Sacrifice but not essentially as the sacrifices of the Law or Christs offering himself but Analogically and Metonymically by vertue of the Sacrifice of Christ and through whose vertue the benefits of Christs death and Passion are made over unto the worthy Communicats agreably to Christs Institution and the Title given it by the Ancient and Holy Fathers CHAP. XLV Of the form of Consecrating the Elements wherein it consisteth Whether only Recitative or Supplicative AND to this duly communicating is necessarily required the proper Form of this Sacrament Which Form consisteth in two things principally The Proper Actions of the Minister of it and the Receiver of it The Action of the Minister or Priest consisteth in the due consecration and Dedication of those Elements designed for that end For as Augustin the father hath it The word coming to the Creature maketh it a Sacrament it gives being to it as such which before was but common bread and wine And that this is done by the Recitation of the historie of Christs Celebration and Institution of them all at first and Invocation of God upon the Elements is certain but it is not so certain what special form of words is only and absolutely required to this purpose nor whether they are only Recitative pronouncing the words of Christ at the Institution of this Sacrament as This is my Body Christoph de Cap. Fontium de Theolog. Scholast Reformat and so over the Cup This is my Blood or whether they must be also Supplicative The Greek Church and some of the Learnedest of the Roman hold the Latter to be necessarie and the Former insufficient The most common Opinion of the Western Church is That the Consecration by way of decencie and solemnitie ought to consist of Benedictions and Invocations of God but that essentially is required nothing more than the recitation of Christs words over the Elements for the real Consecration of them And each side doth rather well prove their own practise than answer the difficulties opposed to each other For as the Greeks well say There is no great probability that an historical narration of what was done by Christ should of it selfe be effectuall to the Conversion of the Elements from their Common use and nature to the divine For it is only expected from him that rehearseth what another said or did that he be a faithful reporter and not that he should effectually thereby make a thing true But on the otherside Prayer is not so much Indicative as Imperative and Impetrative We read indeed in St Paul to Timothie of things that are
Sanctified by the word and â— Tim. 4. 5. Prayer But the word and Sanctification there are no preaching or consecration but only signify that God by the Gospel which is his word proper removed the sentence of uncleannesse from things so judged to be under the Law and set them as free as other reputed Clean But prayer's proper Act and Office it is to bring down a special Benediction upon Sacramental and Familiar food On the other side the difference being so vast and Sacred between Common Creatures of bread and Wine and the Sacramental it was lookt upon as a thing of greatest use and concernment to all believers to know whether such consecration was performed or not But where the form was so loose and indetermined as it must needs be consisting in the various and Prolix office belonging thereunto how could it possible be diserned when the Host was consecrated and whether seeing neither the whole Canon could be said thereunto absolutely necessary nor could it be assigned what part thereof essentially and essectually performed he Consecration Hereupon the Latine Church hath taken upon them to define the Conversion of the Elements into Christ for that they make Consecration to a very few precise words used by Christ at the First Institution of his Holy Supper viz This is my Body and This is my Blood And I have not found how the Arguments on either side can be well answered while the Opinion of trans-elementation or such supposed conversion stands Good and is accepted but otherwise it is no hard matter to answer Both. For supposing not a change of the proper natures and substances of the Elements into the Body of Christ naturall What inconvenience would it be to be undetermined by a certain number of words when the mystical change was wrought granting that this change Relative is made by the word and Prayer as the change of water in baptism is made not by any special number or form of words but by the Office whether longer or shorter And therefore the necessitie of putting the whole virtue in those few words recited was received presently upon the doctrine of Transubstantiation which is an argument that the Greek Church never admitted it in the Latin sense however I know they would not in their Councels contend with them about that but kept themselves to the tradition of their Predecessors who restrained not the Consecration to such number of words but must have with the like prudence and necessity have done so had they so apparently and expresly received such a simple conversion as being true all Christians ought to be so punctually assured of and venerate that nothing in their Creed could be more necessary and not contented themselves with the Relative change only of the things themselves which precisely to know stood them not so much in hand seeing the Reverence given to the Visible objects could not exceed that communicable to Creatures It may be granted therefore that the words of Christ are so necessary that Consecration cannot rightly be performed without them but yet denied to be so operative that upon the plain recitation of them they should presently effect that great alteration of them as the Story I make no doubt feigned to beget belief of this new opinion implieth telling us That certain Shepheards while it was the custom to pronounce the Canon of the Mass openly having learned it Henorius in Gemma Animae 1. 103. and recited it over their bread and wine which they had before them in the field as they were at their ordinary Meal the bread was turned visibly into Christs body and the Wine into his Blood and that the Shepheards were struck dead from heaven Whereupon it was decreed in a Synod that from thence forward no man should rehearse the said Canon Audibly or out of Sacred Places or without Book or without Holy Vestments or without an Altar A tale as likely to be true as the thing they would prove by it And so let them pass together while we proceed to the CHAP. XLVI Of the Participation of this Sacrament in both Kinds The vanity of Papists allegations to the Contrary No Sacramental Receiving of Christ in One kind only How Antiquity is to be understood mentioning the receiving of one Element only The pretended inconveniences of partaking in both kinds insufficient Of Adoration of the Eucharist SECOND Thing formally necessary to this Sacrament which is Celebration in both Kinds or Bread and Wine In treating whereof we must do so much Justice to the Cause as to acknowledge a reasonable distinction between the Sacrament it self and the Communicants in it To the former I suppose it is agreed that indispensably both Elements are necessary and Essential and that there can be no Sacrament without them both whatever solemnity may be acted to the eye or ear For the Sacrament noâ— being a thing of natural force or vertue but instituted the very formality of the Institution consisting in the joint concurrence of both Elements the Removing of One is the Adulteration of the Whole and destruction neither can that be said to be a Sacrament of Christs Institution but if at all of mans devising Neither do I see how the argument should not hold in the Participation of that Sacrament as well as Consecration viz that as consecration in one Kind only maketh not a Sacrament so communication in one Kind where both are in being should be receiving the Sacrament For the natures of things as Aristotle hath it are like numbers which with the addition or Substraction of one change their kind We do not make Bread of the Nature of Wine or on the contrary but we make them both equally of the nature of that Sacrament which by Christs own Institution was an Aggregate thing constituted of both and therefore to withdraw or deny one is in effect to deny both And the Evasion to salve this is both ridiculous and prophane which saith The blood is contained in the Body of Christ and therefore in taking one both are received But 't is nothing so For the Blood of Christ in the Sacrament is no more contained in the Body than the Body in the blood And besides we say that he who not at all receives the Cup cannot at all receive the signified body of Christ but only the signifying Again How can this assertion consist with the opinion of an Incruent Sacrifice For either the Sacramental Body of Christ hath Blood in it or it hath not If it hath then is it a Bloody and not Incruent Sacrifice For I think there is no ground for a man to say a Sacrifice was called Bloody or Cruent because only Blood was shed before it was Sacrificed and not because even at that time it contained blood in it For Cruent and Incruent are the same in the Law from whence the Gospel borrows this Phrase as Animate and Inanimate Sacrifices If it hath not how can it be said to have the blood
us but nothing could suffice to lay aside the proper cerimonies used at the Institution or form of it but such an opinion as that of Transubstantiation â—ellarmin It now sufficing according to moderner Judgments that the several Wafers now in use were all one when they came first from mill and are broken by the Teeth in actually receiving them whereas Christ represented the unity of his mystical Members and Fraction of his Natural Body by the Forms set before his Disciples the better to affect our hearts and quicken our devotion To the same end in Ancienter though not first dayes of Christianity there was an Elevation of the Mysteries made by the Priest to shew only how Christ was Lifted up on the Cross for our sins but upon the doctrine and perswasion of transubstantiation this was corrupted and perverted to the drawing people to a direct Adoration terminated in the Visible objects and not as was anciently used from that Action to take an occasion of worshipping Christ himself with a seqestration of their mind from their senses To this likewise pertains the Grosser devotion for many hundred years impractised and unknown to Christians that not only Adoration to God and Christ should be made by all who approched as Communicants to these Holy Mysteries but that the Host should be on purpose publickly exposed to the view of all enterers into the Church where it is with an injunction to exhibit all devout and divine worship to it which invention the Fathers and all Christian Churches were holy ignorant of for many hundred years and never was there so much as a Feast of Corpus Cristi till Urbane the Fourth instituted one about the year 1263. And the Adoration of the Host as Christ himself much later But if such an opinion had been of any tolerable Antiquity in the Church how could it be avoided but such direct and open Adoraâ—ion should have been given much more early it being a most ancient Principle of Christian Faith that Christ was God and of common humane reason that God is to be worshipped And yet no mention made of such Adorations as are of late introduced and required which is an argument they never believed as now the Romanists do for had they they must have necessarily done as they do But a stop must be put to this luxuriant Subject to keep our selves in the Limits presribed to our selves and here let it be Only having hitherto spoken of the Preparatories to Christian Faith the nature Kinds Acts effects and Lastly subject which is the Church and of this again in its Political and Mystical Capacity and Power which consists in the due Administration of the Sacraments as well Properly as Improperly and Equivocally so called It remains now to conclude and Crown the present doctrine of the Church with that which is most contrary of all things to the Nature of a Visible Church and that is Schism For by this unnatural state the true Nature of the Church is more illustrated and the Unitie of it by the explication of this Separation and Dis-union called Schism CHAP. XLVII The Conclusion of the Treatise of the subject of Christian Faith the Church by the treating of Schism contrary to the Visible Church Departure from the Faith real Schism not formal as to the outward form Of the state of Separation or Schism Of separation of Persons Coordinate and Subordinate Of Formal and Vertual Schism All Heresie vertually Schism not formally Separation from an Heretical Society no Schism From Societies not Heretical Schism Heretical Doctrine or Discipline justifie â—eparation How separation from a true Church is Schism and how not In what sense we call the Roman Church a true Church Some instances of Heretical Errours in the Roman Church Of the Guilt of Schism Of the notorious guilt of English Sectaries The folly of their Vindications That the Case of them and us is altogether different from that of us and the Church of Rome Not lawful to separate from the Vniversal Church VVHile we treat of the Church it must be alwaies remembred that we intend not to speak of the Invisible Church as it is taken for a select number supposed to belong intimately and inseparably to Christs invisible Body of which no knowledg or account can be had but by sensible outward things but we altogether enquire of the Visible Church which though it be not alwaies Actually seen or discerned from other Societies especially pretending to be Churches of Christ yet must alwaies be Visible though not conspicious And it would be a gross mistake in any so to judge of the Church Visible and Invisible as of distinct Churches or necessarily distinct parts of the same Church because the same persons may at the same time be of the Visible and Invisible Church This distinction then is to be allowed no farther than as it insinuates to us the Several States of the Members of the same Church the Church in nature being but One according to several testimonies of Holy-Writt and the very nature of all Communities and much more of the Church which is to be an Aggregate Body consisting of many parts by no natural Bond or influence united together but by divine Falsae Professionis Imagine utimur si cujus nomine gloriamur ejus instituta non sequimur Leo. Mag. Serm. 5. de Jejun 7. Mensis and Spiritual Which is manifested by certain outward Acts which renders and denominates such a society of Men Visible as a Church of Christ These Acts are principally two The profession and declaration in word or writing of the true Faith and the Exercise of those Graces and workes which that Faith requires in Religious worship and Obedience That and in what degree of necessitie this Church must be One as well as Visible is before declared and here only repeated to give light to the nature of Schisme now to be explained For to omit the Criticismes and various acceptations of the word Schism as not necessarie we shall proceed by degrees to shew these two things concerning it The Nature and Guilt of it For the Nature of Schism it doth appear from the Unitie and conjunction of Christs Body of the Church consisting in two things Communion with Christ the Head and mutual Communion of the members one with another the contrary to this must needs be Discommunion and Separation But there being two parts in Communion a Material or the things in which men communicate as faith it selfe and the substantial Part of Christian worship And a Formal the Actual outward exercise of this The First of these though it be really yet is not formally Schism as may appear more fully by and by because all Schism doth suppose some agreement with and Relation to that One Body the Church but where the foundation of such Relation is destroyed there the whole perishes And therefore a division from the Faith of Christs bodie the Church being either Total and that again either Negatively when
a man never was inserted into that Stock is more properly called Atheism or Heathenism or Privative and then is called Apostasie which is a professed renunciation of the Faith once received Or this Division is Partial and so it takes the name of Heresie upon it Schism then must needs be an outward Separation from the Communion of the Church But when we say Schism is a Separation we do not mean so strictly as if it consisted in the Act of Separating so much as the State For we do not call any man a Schismatique who sometimes refuses to communicate with the Church in its outward worship though that done wilfully is a direct way to it as all frequented Actions do at length terminate in habits of the same Nature but it is rather a State of separation and of Dissolution of the continuitie of Church in a moral or divine sense not natural which we seek into at present This Separate State then being a Relation of Opposition as the other was of Conjunction the Term denominating and signallizing both is to be enquired unto And that is insinuated alreadie and must needs be the Church and that as that is united unto Christ or the true Church For there is no separation from that which really is not though it may seem to be It must therefore be a true Church from whence Schismatical separation is made So far do they confute and confound themselves who excuse their Schismaticalness from that which principally constitutes Schism and Schismaticks viz. an acknowledgement of that to be a true Church from which they divide themselves and separate Again We are to note that Separation is either of Persons and Churches in Co-ordination or subordination according to that excellent and ancient distinction of Optatus saying It is one thing for a Bishop to communicate Optatus Mileviâ—â—â— Cont. Parmen Lib. 3. Aldâ— with a Bishop and another for a Lay man or the Inferiour Clergy to communicate with the Bishop And this because what may perhaps justifie a Non-communion with Co-ordinate Persons or Churches which have no autority one over another wil not excuse Subordinate Persons or Churches owing obedience to their Superiours from Schism From whence it is manifest that though all Schism be a Separation yet all Separation is not a Schism And though there may be many and just causes for a Separation there can be no cause to justifie a Schism For Schism is in its nature A studious Separation or State Separate against Christian Charity upon no sufficient Cause or grounds It must be affected or Studious because if upon necessity or involuntary the Diâ—junction of Churches is rather a punishment than a sin and an Infelicity rather than Iniquity as in the dayes of Anastatius the Emperour as Evagrius relates it Who so violently persecuted the Catholick Church in behalfe of the Eutychian Evagrius Hist Eccl. L. C. 30. Heresie that it was crumbled as it were into several parcels And the Governours could not communicate one with another but the Eastern and Western and African Churches were broke asunder Which farther shews that all Criminal Separation which we make Synonimous with Schism must likewise be an Act proceeding from the persons to separated and not the Act of another For no man can make another a Schismatick any more than he can make him a Lyar or a drunkard without his consent For if the Governours of one Church expeâ— out of Communion another upon no just grounds the Church thus separated is not the Schismatick but the other as appears from the words of Firmilianus Bishop of Cappadocia in St Cyprian concerning Pope Stephen advising him he should noâ— be too busie or presumptious in separating others lest he thereby separated himself so that if the Schism had broke out upon no good grounds he who was the Architect of it Separated himself as all others do and it is impossible any man should make though he may declare another a Schismatique any more than he can make him erre without his consent or be uncharitable Yet do they err also that from hence conclude that the Formal reason of Schism consists in Separating a mans self for it is rather the material Cause than formal The formal Cause being as in all other things the very Constitution it self with unreasonableness and uncharitableness No man can make another involuntarily an Heretick And therefore no man can make another a Schismatick All the Guilt redounding to the Agent noâ— Patient in such cases So that it is scarce worth the Enquiring Who began the breach of unity as it outwardly appears but who is actually and Really First divided from Christs Church For they surely are the proper Schismaticks though the name may stick closer to others To understand this we may consider that there is a Vertual Schism and a Formal Schism A Vertual Schism I call real division from Christs Church though it comes not to an open opposition to it or Defiance of it so that where ever is any heresie or considerable Errour nourished or maintained in a Church there is to be found a Schismatick also in reality though not in formality the reason hereof is well expressed by and may best come from the hand of an Adversary to u thus judiciously enquiring It is demanded first saith he Whether Schismaticks be Hereticks Answer The Common opinion Azâ—rius Inst Moral Tom. 1. Lib. 3. C. 20. of the Interpreters of the Canon Law and of the Summists is that the Heretick differs from the Schismatick in that Every Heretick is a Schismatick but not on the contrary Which they prove because the term Shismatick signifies Division But every Heretick turns away separates divides himself from the Church This is very plain and reasonable and so is the consequence from hence That where the Body is so corrupt as to be really infected with notorious errors there it is really so far as it is erroneous separated from the true Church and where it is so far separated from the true Church so far it is Schismatical And when a Church is thus far really Schismatical little or no Scruple is to be made of an outward Separation neither can a guilt be affixed unto it And on the other side if no such real separation and antecedent Guilt can be found in a Church in vain do diverse betake themselves to that specious Shift and evasion that they were cast out and went not out willingly from a Church and that they are willing to return but are not suffered For undoubtedly the very supposition is insincere and faulty that they forsook not the Church before they were ejected And the expulsion followed separation and dissention from it and was not rather the Effect than Cause of them as are all excommunications rightly used For to those that pretend they were turned out do not the doors stand open to receive them and that with thanks if they please to re-enter and re-unite themselves What do they here
it implies as much as to say Give us but our demands and then we will be quiet by which Rule no man should defend his own right in lesser matters which to part with perhaps would not utterly undo him but he must be lookt on as accessary to and guilty of his own destruction if the Invader shall have power enough to bring it upon him because he will not peaceably satisfie his unjust desires A man may be and our Saviour in the Gospel saith expresly Luk. 16. 10. is unjust in the least as well as in much And so undoubtedly are they who having no Autority but what they frame to themselves shall by violence and aggressions attempt to extort the least thing belonging of right to another though haply better spar'd than kept For it is a Case of Justice rather than Christianity In justice and common equity the inferiour members of a Church and state owe obedience to their Superiours in all things not contrary to the Law of God the Church or the Nation but at most they can claim such things that are as they say indifferent to be granted them out of Courtesie or Charity only And whoever was so wilfully stupid as not to perceive that Injustice is much more a sin than Uncharitableness and so whatever mischief or guilt shall fall out in such contentions must necessarily light upon the heads of the unjust Aggressour and not indiscreet Resister were it indiscretion to withstand to deny such bold and insolent demanders or uncharitableness both which are denied in the present Case For there can be nothing more unjust on the one side and unwise on the other than so rudely and unrighteously to require of another all that may be granted or to grant all such things as are so demanded And if they urge still The peace of the Church to require such concessions I shall answer Let them first as all good Christians ought to do observe the Peace of Nature and the Peace of Nations which is not to offer violence nor to be unjust nor to go out of their Rank and Order but with good Autority and then take care for the Peace of the Church But what can be more absurd than that men should break the Peace of Nations and Nature it self yea the Law of God and Scriptures which require to obey all that are in autority over us as well Ecclesiastically as Civilly and then so much as to mention the Peace of the Church especially calling that only the Peace of the Church which puts them into quiet possession of their desires But to this we add that it is also very false which is here supposed to be true For there is nothing more manifest than that with diverse things of indifferent nature they mix many things of indispensable use to a Church and such is that so much reproached and derided Hierarchie which all the earth sees they have made it their business to Destroy utterly And when we plainly see as we do that those things in nature indifferent are demanded chiefly as an introduction to a farther abolition of things we hold necessary we hold them no longer indifferent nor can we in common prudence or Christianity part with them to such person any more than we can in a neighbourly manner lend away an Ax or Hammer when we are assured they will be made use of to break open our houses and spoil us though we know they may possibly be made use of to other purposes The Second Obstacle rather than Objection cast in our way is the parity of their Case with the Church of England with that of the Church of England with the Roman wherein whether they show more Spite or Policy may be a question Their Policy imitates them who finding the war to lie heavy upon them at their own doors contrive by all means possible to translate it into another Country as was particularly seen in Hindersons Letter to his late Sacred Majesty who finding the ability of his pen and weight of his discourses advised him rather to turn himself against the common enemy the Papist And thus these men would needs oblige us to make our quarrel good against the Romanists that they may be the les molested in the pursuance of their most Schismatical designs against the Church in which they were educated And this being discovered we might well excuse ourselves from such a task as they would set us But this we have before resolved in good part and had we not might and shall in a very few words dispatch as somewhat out of its proper place We grant then there is a Schism between us and the Romanists And we grant that there can be no cause to be Schismaticks though for a Separation there may and that they are truly Schismaticks who have ministred just Cause of Separation Some we know out of an ancient Father have urged against us That there can be no cause to divide the Church which is true in two senses only First when that Church is not before really divided from other Churches of unquestion'd integrity Realy I say by deserting some considerable point of Faith or introducing some unchristian manner of worship though not Openly and Formally as hath been said Again it is true only in such junctures as the Father spake those words in which was an apt and orthodox agreement within itself both in Faith and manners in such Cases there can be no cause to divide the Church as did the Novatians and Donatists But it was never his purpose to say that no case could happen in which it was not lawful for one Church to leave the Communion of another when it was so often done So still the point is wholly whether cause was given or not and not whether such outward and wilful Separation was made For undoubtedly however some would mince the matter Separate we did and that wilfully from the Church of Rome and chose rather than were forced to go out And upon those very grounds we still stand out and refuse to return The gross corruptions there maintained and not lurking and the fear of the loss of our souls in there continuing and much more thither returning What those are hath been even now touched and we here add that notwithstanding 't is confessed such senses are found of their doctrine and superstitious worship in some private authors amongst them which they offer at first to them they would seduce which may put persons into a possibility of their continuing without incurring damnation yet the Publick autority of that Church which I suppose they will call their Church having evermore of late years censur'd purged and expunged such more tollerable constructions and appeared for the most harsh and uncatholick there can be no great regard had to the fairer opinions Again it is not sufficient that a Church hath a true sense of Christian Faith if it alloweth and commendeth a false and a wicked sense 'T is little to the
fishes some were taken in one haven and some in another and eaten of others And again these men that have eaten these fishes which devour'd the man happen to dye in other Countries and that perhaps devoured by wild beasts Such a confusion and dissipation being made how shall that man rise again Who is he that reduces the dust again But why O man dost thou thus speak and patches a long train of tales together and offerest it as insoluble For answer me What if that man doth not go to Sea and be not drownd If no fish eat him nor the fish be afterward eaten of infinite men but that he be laid decently in his Coffin and neither worms nor any thing else molest him How shall that dust and ashes be compacted together again Whence shall that body flourish again Is not this unanswerable If they be Greeks Heathens who doubt of these things We can answer a thousand things But what Because there are some amongst them who put souls into Plants and Fruit-trees and Doggs Tell me which is easier for a soul to recover its own body or another Again there are others who says that fire shall catch them that their garments shall arise and their shooes and no body laughs at them And some introduce Atomes But we have nothing to say to them But to Believers if we may call them believers who thus doubt we shall say with the Apostle All life is subject to corruption all plants all seeds Seest thou not c. Here that eloquent Father expatiates in the mysteries and subtilties of nature shewing how little we understand of them and concludes this point thus But these things humane reason is to seek in But when God works all things yield to him In another place he doubts whether he be an Infidel or Christian who calls in question the Resurrection and the reason hereof is because as the power of God is infinite so infinite wayes there are for his infinite wisdome to bring to pass his own pleasure and to make good his words in which he hath caused his servants to trust CHAP. XIX Of the most perfect effect of Christs Mediation in the Salvation of Man Several senses of Salvation noted That Salvation is immediately after death to them that truly dye in Christ And that there is no grounds in Antiquities or Scripture for that midde state called Purgatory the Proofs answered Of the Consequent of Roman Purgatory Indulgences the novelty groundlesness and gross abuse of them The Conclusion of the first Part of this Introduction SAint Paul where he disputes the manner of Gods free Election of his people to the grace of the Gospel doth also declare unto us the end of such Election to be another Election and that to glory as in these words That he might make known the riches of his glory Rom. 9. 23. of Grace on the vessels of mercy which he had before prepared unto glory This is yet more fully expressed by St. Peter in this order Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the Resurrection 1 Pet. 1. 3. of Jesus Christ from the dead To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time But before we engage far in this subject of Salvation it is requisite we observe a twofold Salvation frequently mentioned and promised in Scripture A Temporal and Eternal For herein common mistakes have surprised many who willing to amplifie and extend all the promises of Gods deliverance equally to us of this last Age of the Church and to them of the former and Apostolical do willingly interpret many places of Scripture peculiar to them as concerning us to which cannot be literally done though figuratively it may For the Church of Christ being in those first Ages in continual conflicts with her enemies Jewish and Gentile and most violent persecntions harrassing and wasting the tender body of the Infant-Church many weak Christians were of desponding minds and looked upon the same as Job upon natural man as having a short time to live and full of sorrows Which moved the Apostolical Writers to confirm the Hope and Faith of them by the assurances of deliverances and salvation And none can deny this to be the literal meaning of St. Paul in his eighth Chapter to the Romans from whence so many draw an Argument to prove the innumerable purpose of God towards particular persons in predestinating and electing and glorifying them when upon faithful examination nothing more was primarily intended then assurance of Gods temporal preservation of the Church and making it outwardly glorious in despight of all its adversaries so that none should separate the flook of Christ so far from the love of Christ by persecution tribulation distress or famine or nakedness or peril or sword but that at length it should be more than conquerer through him that loved it And that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come c. should cause God to forsake it And no other is the meaning of the same Apostle in his thirteenth Chapter to the Romans where he saith And that knowing the time that now it is high Rom. 13. 11. time for us to awake out of sleep for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed i. e. having continued thus long in the faith the time now draweth near we should be secured and saved from our enemies And the Salvation to be revealed in the last times spoken of by St. Peter was the Deliverance which at last should be manifested to the Church in constant expectation of which they were kept by Faith and confidence of Gods mercy And if we shall consult the Apocalypse we shall scarce find the word Salvation used in any other sense then that of temporal deliverance Rev. 7. 10. 12 10. 19 1. of Gods Church But withal most certain it is that by Salvation is very often indended by Gods word the deliverance from the miseries of sin and suffering in this world into a state of such perfect bliss as man is capable of in which sense St. Paul saith The Gospel is the power of God unto Rom. 1. 16. salvation And that with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation which salvation was in those dayes the destruction of them that confessed Christ For St. Paul to animate the weak Believers to a stout and resolute profession of Christ against the terrors of death threatning those that were known to be Christians tells them that if they so boldly confessed Christ with their mouth as to dye in that profession they should be saved And when St. Paul advises the Philippians to work out their salvation Phil. 2. 12. with fear and trembling he means without
doubt Eternal Life And that Eternal Life which to the Romans he calleth the Gift of God Rom. 6. ult 1 John 5. 11. Col. 3. 3 4. Of which Life St. John speaks thus This is the record that God hath given unto us eternal life and this life is in his Son And St. Paul more expresly to the Colossians For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ When Christ who is our life shall appear shall ye also appear with him in glory So that nothing is more frequent in Scripture then that Christ is the Authour of Eternal Salvation to all them that obey him as it is in the Epistle to the Hebrews and that he is the Authour and finisher of our Faith Hebr. 5. 9. 12. 2. The Authour of it in Grace and Finisher of it in Glory the perfection and consummation of Grace Of the thing therefore no dispute can be justly raised but of the manner some differences there are and they principally about the possession of that bliss or the fruition of it or the time when it first entred into and when it is in its full perfection And as touching the latter it is with greatest probability affirmed That although there be such a free and full participation of the Divine Vision whereby the Spirits of the deceased and truly and abundantly happy yet there remains somewhat to be added thereunto from the conjunction of the body once companion to the soul in all good and evil of the passed Life For as at the general Resurrection the souls of the damned shall have their torments augmented upon the re-union of the body once combining with the soul in sin so at the same time there being a conjunction of the soul and body of the just there shall likewise be an increase of felicity and glory St. Paul intimateth thus much where he saith Knowing that whatever good Ephes 6. 8. thing a man doth the same shall he receive of the Lord whether he be bond or free And yet more particularly to the Corinthians For we must all appear 2 Cor. 5. 10. before the Judgment Seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad So that the body as well as the soul shall have the like proportion of reward or retribution as they had in sinning or doing well together Of which we forbear here to enlarge as not at all questioning the vertue and sufficiencie of Christs merits as the sonner seems to do For if the Grace of Gods Spirit the course of righteousness duly run by the servant of God the Merits of Christs Death and Passion be not efficacious to the throughly purging of the soul and conscience of the faithful in this life somewhat derogatory not to the person only of man but performance of Gods Spirits and Christs merit applyed certainly to the soul seems to be reflected The sufficiencie of Christs salvation is such that by confession of all it may avail to the acquitting from all the affections and circumstances of sin such as pollution guilt and punishment but it will not be granted that this actually is done in this life or were ordained to such an end generally For I suppose that they who have raised and maintained such an opinion do not deny the sufficiencie of Christs merits and Gods mercy to sanctifie every faithful person to the putting him into a capacity of heaven and that immediately after this life for they directly affirm that some eminent Saints and particularly Martyrs for Christ do forthwith pass from hence to absolute bliss but they deny that all that are in a state of Grace and are predestinated by God unto everlasting life are so fully cleansed from the contagion and impurities which even Venial sins taint them with that they need not another expurgation before they can be admitted into the presence of God The faith of the ancient Churches as in few words we shall shew and of all but such as profess subjection unto the Roman hold that though no man ordinarily lives without sin nor at the instant of his death is so absolutely pure as to be fit to behold the face of God who can endure no iniquity and with whom no unclean thing shall dwell yet by passing from this life into another so far is the evil remitted by Gods mercie in Christ so far accepted in Christ is that person that dyes in a state of Grace and reconciled to God that he passes immediately from this mortal and miserable state here to an immortal and less miserable yea blessed though not to the height yet far exceeding all happiness competible to the children of God during this life The demonstration of this our opinion though very true we must confess to be difficult by reason of an evasion and shift always at hand to elude our proofs For when we bring testimonies direct out of Scripture of the happiness of Gods servants after this life they answer presently that they are to be understood either of eminent Saints which are presently accepted into Gods presence or of their designation to bliss though they be not presently possessed of it which must be acknowledged to be a kind of happiness compared at least with the wickeds condition which after death is irreparable But these notwithstanding and certain others we shall take notice of by and by we declare positively that for this doctrine of Purgatory there is not any ground of Scriptures Reason or Antiquity but on the contrary all these are sufficient evidences to the contrary For if the thing be so material a point in our Religion as it is said to be we hold the Scripture to be so entire a Rule of our belief as that it must of necessity have been contained in it but there is no foundation in it for that as we shall see by and by And on the other side there are these arguments in it against it First saith Solomon Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do do it with thy Eccles 9. 16. might for there is no word or devise nor wisdom nor knowledge in the grave whether thou goest Doth not this place plainly speak of the fixt and immoveable estate of the life to come And can that be connted less than ridiculous which is answer'd at the best rate That there is nothing that a man can better himself in but others by their piety may better them Or that though in Purgatory they cannot help themselves yet by the good works done before they came there they may be benefitted Who denyes but the Faith and Good works of men in this life have singular influence upon mens future life to the encrease of happiness But all this we say takes effect immediately upon the change of this mortal into immortal state For who told them that to the application of the work to the wages are required the suffrages of the living or passions
their friends after their death supposing that by proxie a man might receive the benefit of Baptism And yet some of these denyed the Resurrection Now St. Paul argues thus If there be no Resurrection of the dead to what end do they baptize the living instead of the dead what can it avail them according to their own judgments and opinions And thus what becomes of Purgatory But lastly The words of Christ in St. Matthew and St. Luke agree Matth. 5. 25 26. Luke 1258. with c. Verily I say unto thee thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing are thought of no mean force to infer a Purgatory But alas such havock do men make who would so have it of the words such hooks and tenters do they apply to wring and draw them to their purpose so do they play fast and loose with Antiquity about them that a man had need be well setled in a perswasion of the thing it self before he can brook such a reason as this affords The plain and simple sense therefore shall suffice to ward off all force against it viz. That Christ meant no more than they who made not their peace and reconciliation with God before they go out of this world shall be cast into Hell from whence they shall never return until they have paid all the punishment they ow to God for their sins to a farthing that is absolutely satisfied which by a Periphrasis or in many words as much as to say in one Never Besides they that are such stout defenders of the Virgin Maries perpetual Virginity against the ill sense given by Helvidius and his followers of those words in St. Matthew Until she had brought forth her First-born know very well how to give another sense to Until then a certain inference of somewhat to ensue that Period so fix'd and that it implies not necessarily that ever such payment of the utmost Farthing shall be made but upon supposition that it be paid such event as is there mentioned should follow But Antiquity and that of both Eastern and Western Churches are is alledged in confirmation of the present Roman Purgatory To which we oppose this assertion That Purgatory as now defended was never heard of in the Latin Church for four hundred years together after Christ nor received into it with common approbation until six hundred years after Christ Austin began to doubt of it and is scarce constant to himself in it Gregory the Great set it up upon its leggs and advanced it far if so be that the Dialogues bearing his name were truly his as 't is most probable they are not or that they are corrupted For how could Gregory who flourished about the year of our Lord 590. and was succeeded by Boniface Greg. M. Dial. l. 3. c. 2. the third about the year 606. take notice of Justinian the elder as elder unless he had known Justinian the younger who was Emperour about the year 685. long after the true Gregory was dead But from about that time this erroneous opinion got footing and began to spread but was never thoroughly setled in the Church of Rome it self until the time of John the Seventeenth or as others compute it the Nineteenth about the year 1003 when he instituted the Feast of All-Souls in which men were enjoyned to pray for the deliverance of Souls out of Purgatory But the Council of Florence in the year 1439. put it out of all future dispute when it decreed it so to be But the Greeks who were there present refused that sense however they gave way to the Name Purgatory Neither do they admit it unto this day so vain and bold a task doth Bellarmine undertake with other Pontificians to bring and that of old the Greek Church to consent with the Latin herein upon whose attempts we find modern Assertours of the Roman Cause to call them to witness too and when diligent search proves prejudicial to them to bring Osiander a man of small judgment and no command of his passions in his free censures of Antiquity wherever his History leads him to observe any thing there which he likes not and many times understands not and Sir Edwin Sands a Gentleman of excellent abilities as an Historian but finding the word Purgatory among Grecian Authours of modern times concluded that it was the same with the Roman but was much mistaken For 't is well known some modern Greeks as Nilus Thessaloniensis have writ purposely against the Roman Purgatory And this will farther appear from the two general defects running through almost all the Arguments brought by Romanists to prove Purgatory from the ancient Fathers and Councils of both Churches which being noted may suffice for Answers to them in this point especially in this place For first they argue from the word Purgatory where-ever they find it in Greek and Latin Fathers But Purgatory fire with them was quite another thing from that now in credit amongst us Origen and he the first that we meet with invented a Purgative fire and divers Fathers catching at that discoursed dubiously upon that subject but with this Fivefold difference from Roman Flames First They exempted no man from this Purgation not Saints or Martyrs but supposed all should be purged before they entred entirely into Heaven the moderner Purgatory frees eminent Saints from that fiery tryal Secondly They held this purgation principally useful to the purification of the gross matter of the body to a finer substance before it could be meet to enter into heaven together with the soul but these make it to seize principally if not only on the soul separate from the body and to cleanse that Thirdly They never intended theirs to purge off the stain of sins or satisfie for what souls were behind in going out of this world but the Romanists affirm and defend it in this sense Fourthly They never maintained any immediate purgation or torments from the departure of the soul from the body but affirmed only a general and momentaneous transmutation by Fire at the Day of Judgment to be fitted the better for Heaven Fifthly They never imagined that the Prayers of Living did relieve the miseries of the afflicted in Purgatory as do these or that there was any such passing from that state to Heaven before the Day of Judgment And what need we travel on this subject when we have the testimony of chief men against them herein Roffensis Artic. 18. against Luther says directly Amongst the Ancient there is little or no mention made of Purgatory and that the Greek to this day hold it not The very same says Alphonsus de Castro contr Haeret. lib. 8. tit De Indulgentia But the second Argument of Romanists will clear this drawn out of many Fathers to prove they held Purgatory because they held Prayer for the dead of which Prayer none they suppose can be capable but such as are in this middle state between
that worthily and gravely and not all Rites introduced ordinarily and orderly into the Church by good Councels and autority as many vainly have imagined and drawn his words with wonted ignorance or spite against the use of Ceremonies But what we were saying is this that all Reverence and gravity and decency are wholly such by humane agreement and opinion and that of the Region wherein they are used For if any posture or gesture or Habit were naturally good or Evil decent or indecent it would be so to all countries and people the contrary to which is most certain viz. That what one people judgeth grave and decent another esteemeth ridiculous and uncomely To bare the Head in the Western parts of the world is a token and Act of Reverence to whom it is done but absurd and grievous to the Eastern Parts Again in the Western Parts for Men to move their hats and to bend the Knee to one is Reverence but for women to do so is foolish and ungrateful to any Black clothes and habit in the European Parts and amongst Christians are generally looked on as comely grave and decent for persons of the soberest rank but odious to the Turks and so might instances be given in many things of like nature Which are not for any intrinsick worth in them or natural received into the service of God but for that they are partly by consent of men where we live acknowledged for proper notes of Reverence or else are by express constitution declared to be such which are designed by the Church to signifie and express veneration and esteem of what we do and upon that become such For neither do words themselves naturally signifie what we mean by them nor do letters naturally give such a sound to a word compounded of them but altogether by human agreement and appointment no more do these signs and ceremonies of themselves but by consent and institution imply reverence and devotion Where then do these frivolous and quarrelsome fellows appear who resolving to undo something done before them and do somewhat that better suits with their own humours and unchristian tempers devise monstrous things in such rites malitiously apply them zealous enforce the contrary upon such absurd errours And will take no denial when they are pleased to utter such slanders as these That we urge them as of absolute necessity We prefer them before the more material service of God We make them conditions of Communion with us The first and second of which are directly false and never can be made good The Third is indirectly true For by consequence indeed they become conditions of Communion in all Churches and their mouths are opened directly and expresly according to their manner only against our Church yet all are no less concerned than ours yea their own Conventicles are in as much danger of this argument as our Churches For I appeal unto themselves whether they would not thrust out from among them such as should dare against their Orders to do what they list amongst them Would they suffer one amongst that should constantly take the Communion kneeling while the rest sat or stood Would they not severely censure and being obstinate eject such an one as should bow at the name of Jesus against their will and perhaps him that should own he makes a conscience of being covered in the house of God Must they not here interpret themselves better in their famous modern Maxime Of making outward Rites conditions of Communion and so that their adversaries shall come off as well as they Or they suffer as much mischief by their own weapon as any else But what they will say we regard not no more than what they have said in that Rule it self frivolous and fallacious That which we say to it is the quite contrary That we do not make such Orders or customes conditions of our communion so much as they make them causes of non-communion and Separation Let the matter then be brought fairly before all equal Judges who are to be blamed they who have no autority either to appoint or put down any Ceremonie and yet upon that which they can never prove to be forbidden or unlawful but as it likes them not by which they argue us out of all but their own inventions refuse communion with that Church to which they have all general obligations to joyn themselves Or they who being over them in the Lord whether they will or not do form outwardly by such Ceremonies and Rites the more intrinsick parts of Gods Worship requiring under the sin of disobedience and pain of Ecclesiastical censures following thereupon submission unto them In fine We accuse them and believe we are much better able as we are always ready to prove it of making innocent I do not say inoffensive for where shall we find that thing that offends not some body rites and orders the only ground of Schism rather than we make them conditions of Communion And so what they will get by this justification of themselves they may and hope will at length put in their eyes and cause tears of repentance to fall from them for their many groundless prevarications and slanders of both Powers God had set over them CHAP. III. Of the Second thing considerable in Divine Worship viz. The state wherein we serve God What is a State The formal cause of a State Divine Vows What is a Vow The proper matter of Vows Evangelical Councils That it is lawful and useful to make Vows under the Gospel contrary to Peter Martyr The nature of Vows explained THE Second thing wherein religious worship doth consist in general is the special state which a true Believer chooseth to serve God in The state of any thing doth import in it Inde est quod etiam in actionibus humanis dicitur negotium habere aliquem statum Secundum ordinem propriae dispositionis cum quadam immobilitate seu quiete Thomas 2 dae Qu. 183. c. 1. constancie and subtilty as Thomas hath not amiss described it in general saying In humane actions a matter is said to have a state according to its particular constitution with a certain immutability and rest Whatever therefore is by nature uncertain and mutable and becomes determined and fixed may be said to be in such a state in which it is so fixed And though by the vanity and natural wantonness of Mans will he is too often unresolved and fickle in his due Obligations towards God yet by Reason and much more Religion every man is bound to God and his liberty is to serve God in the common state of Religion which restrains his irregular motions and confines him to the will of God And under this due subjection is every man especially brought by being baptized and therein vowing faith and Christian obedience unto God But as Religion in general is the stating and establishing a man towards God and as Christian Religion is yet an higher stricter and holyer obligation
wonderful dangerous abuse of the Old Testaments Autority not to be content to admit an invalidity of proofs drawn from thence to confirm Evangelical Duties but to make it no small presumption against the Evangelicalness of any duty that it is first found in the Old Testament which is a gross abuse of Scripture especially by them who would be held enemies to Antimonians They ought therefore first of all to show that such things are purely Legal that is as the Law it self is Mosaical and Typical and Ceremonial before they can damn them there for no better reason but there they find them Add to this when we challenge them to the most ancient and manifold Presedents of the Christian Church who constantly made Vows of various natures to God they presently betake themselves to their common subterfuge pretence of appeal to the Word of God as a Rule and that without any respect to any not truly divine Guides otherwise directing And this they do as confidently as if it had been concluded out of Scripture to the contrary For in such cases indeed their appeal would be most just and reasonable but until that little better then ridiculous especially Scripture being before advised about and appearing not definitive in the case Antiquity and Holy precedents consulted with the better to know the mind of Scripture For instance that text of St. Paul to Timothy saith of young Widows They have damnation in themselves because 1 Tim. 5. 12. they have cast off their first Faith Many of late dayes interpret the Apostle to mean only the Faith of Christ in general Others understand him to speak of a Faith particularly made to Christ by the Order of Widows vowing singleness of life and in all reason this seems to be most favoured by the context But besides this appeal is made by the one party to the judgment of the ancient and holy Christians interpreting this both by their writings and practise as relating specially to the dedication of Widowhood to God After this fair dealing for men to declare they will be tryed by none but that which they know is the main thing in question is very vain and somewhat more They having no special text so interdicting such Vows as this is to commend them But the worst of it is this that if there were any way more perfect then that they have pitched on they should be sufferers in the good opinion of the world but that must by no means be endured And this at the end of all is the great absurdity they bring us to but surely not so great but both the Cause and Defenders of it may well show their face after all this granted and owned The second thing now in the third place to be touched is concerning the Nature of a Vow in it self viz. That so it is no proper act nor any proper part of Gods Service but the manner of it For to vow to God is an indifferent thing to Good or Evil. A man may as well vow to Gods dishonour as his glory It is therefore good or evil in relation to the matter about which the Vow is made For to vow Sacrifices under the Law and to vow Alms under the Gospel or Virginity or such like is no farther part of the Service of God then the thing it self tends to the worship of God and its nature and office is to bind to the true and due performance of a thing but not absolutely a duty in its self The principle doubt on the contrary may be that which is taken from that which a man devotes to God as an ingredient to all vows For when a man vows he of a free man makes himself servile and limited to one of those things to which formerly he was free And this we have shewed is an argument of some against vowing because it takes away the liberty God had given On the other side the contrary party may in my judgment turn it against them and make it an argument of worth and excellencie because it gives to God that which is to us most precious For when St. Paul saith If you may be free use it rather and stand fast in the liberty where with Christ hath made you free he undoubtedly means only in reference to man and then only when we really have and not presume only that we have such a liberty and when this liberty is that which pertaineth to the substance of the Gospel as most of those places alledged to found a liberty do aim at But do they think as it should seem that either Natural Civil or Evangelical Liberty is such a thing and so given unto us of God that we may not render it to him nor part with it again to him Is it too good or sacred to give him it from whom we received it Nay the more dear and precious it is to us the more acceptable it should be to him When we deny our selves the liberty he hath given us the better to serve him surely it is no less pleasing to God than to part with meat drink money and the time which he hath given us dedicating the same to him It is strange therefore next to monstrous that Christians should stumble so at the Scriptures and they especially who will scarce allow any man to be cunning in the Scriptures besides themselves or to be governed by them as they pretend to be as to make such fond conclusions from them the contrary to which is much the truer To give away our liberty to God is an excellent Sacrifice to him and they would prove out of Scripture we ought not to give it him at all For if they prove not this they prove nothing when they say we ought not to make vows to him because it takes away our liberty And therefore to the argument viz. that by this it should follow that vowing is in it self an act or part of Gods worship I answer That if any thing here be an act of worshipping God it is the giving up it self of our liberty and not the vowing to give it up for this is but the means and manner so to serve and worship God and not the worship it self And thus much Perkins Perkins Cases of Conscience Chap. 14. Lib. 2. acknowledges in vows about bodily exercises such as Fasting Prayers and Alms but likes not it so to be in other matters Indeed as he confusedly and crudely touches the point passing from the nature of a Vow in it self which was his question unto the matter he might very well write against some vows and prove them unlawful when the thing it self is unlawful to be done whether with or without a vow such as are ceremonial acts of the Law of Moses and moral evils against truth justice or piety it self And thus much of the form of vowing the lawfulness and uses in general CHAP. IV. Of the Matter of Vows in particular And first of the Virginal state that it is
in general concerned himself in the marriage of others And to declare how that state was not at all inconsistent with a state Clerical of twelve Disciples John 2. 1 2. which Christ chose to minister for him Eleven are supposed to be married persons or at least to have been married formerly To answer which by saying that after they were chosen they forsook their wives is to evade and not really to answer First because it had been as easie for Christ surely to have picked out a dozen persons free from the knowledge of women as to make choice of such as were wedded had he judged any incapacity in these to the Evangelical Ministery But secondly do we find any thing in special prescribed by Christ for such separation from wives more than for other Christians who were not Ministers of the Gospel For of all faithful Christians it is spoken in certain junctures that whoever forsaketh not Father and Mother and Brethren and Sisters and Wise and Children for Christs sake cannot be his Disciple And there is no rule but common necessity and prudence not Divine prescription which requires any man for the Gospels sake to forsake his Wife rather than his Father and Mother Yet that the Apostles did actually absent rather than separate themselves from their Wives and that others who enter'd into the ministration to the Church under the Apostles foreseeing what St. Paul expresseth the present distress of the Church as well in regard of the 1 Cor. 7. 26. persecutions of the Church as the paucity of Preachers the greatness of the Harvest and the small number of Labourers did decline the state of marriage is very probable because they were required by Christs Injunction to Go and teach all Nations which travelling life ill could consist with cohabitation with Wives And therefore it must be given them Gratis and not by the merits of any reason oâ— grounds they can show that that such relinquishing of their Wives was either total or upon conscience made of the thing it self Doth not St. Paul say expresly in the words before those now touched Concerning Virgins I have no commandment of the Lord If such as served at the Altar were to be excepted surely he 1 Cor. 7. 25. would not have left the Rule so general as we find speaking only according to humane prudence And though they search with their best eyes they shall not be able to find in any other writings of the Apostles one Text o Scripture obliging Bishops or Priests to singleness of life more than those of the Laity unless they argue from reason That Virginal Chastity is more severe more pure more spiritual than conjugal which is yielded and therefore more obliging the Clergy who should be more spiritual persons then others all which I deny not but say that this binds them no more from marriage than it doth from wine and strong drink which if none of the Clergy ever used they were the more to be commended unless in such cases as St. Paul advises Timothy For their stomachs sake and often infirmities And thus is Bellarmin's first proof laid Bellarm. de Clericis l. 1. c. 19. The sole grounds then of unmarried state of Priests must be fetch'd from Tradition and Reason of both which we shall presume to speak a word or two Apostolical Tradition is pretended but not trusting much to that recourse is had to the Old Testament from certain allegorical interpretations made of some Rites in Moses's Law which may do well in the Church where they used them to perswade but ill in the Schools to prove the same as a necessary duty The argument taken from the custom of the Priest abstaining from their Wives during the time of their ministration I do really 1 Chron. 24. believe to have had an influence upon Primitive Christians Judaizing in many other things of like nature to restrain them from the use of their Wives upon solemn ministrations But this was without Law or Canon freely undertaken and embraced as was Celebacie it self at first until about the year 385. Siricius Bishop of Rome made a constitution that it should and ought to be and that on that ground And that the inferiour Orders such as Ostiaries Readers Exorcists and Acolythites should only be permitted to marry But Alexander the third about the year 1160 proceeded according to the method of that Church to shut them also out the doors of Orders that should presume to marry But all that was done against those in greater or sacred Orders in the Church for more than three hundred years after Christ was to deny such as were married access to the Altar by way of ministration who from that time abstained not from their Wives as did the Council of Arles and some in Spain Only a custom prevailed very generally and anciently to suffer none who were in those called Sacred Orders such as were Bishops and Priests and Deacons to marry after they were so ordained for if they did they were dismissed of their Office or their Wives The Eastern Church ever accepted of married persons into the Clergy and at length understanding the Apostle Let the Bishops be the husbands of one wife as a Precept rather than a Caution that they should be husbands of no more then one which in all likelyhood the truest sense in the Sixth Council In Trullo decreed they only should be received into Priestly Orders who were married And therefore all antiquity for twelve hundred years together fails them in this that it was otherwise then voluntary that married Priests lived from their Wives who had before orders or that married Men might not be made Priests though 't is confessed they preferred unmarried Persons before them until that Sixth Council which for that reason amongst others Bellarmine calls a Profane Synod and Baronius impious such a great veneration have they for the Autority of the Church when it speaks not their sense Yet as we are far from giving an exact and full account of this long controversie here so are we so far as I can Divine at the judgment of our Church willing to accommodate the matter with others that can digest any thing but their own stout devises to acknowledge a Power in the Church to bind or loose her sons of the Clergy to an unmarried state or to leave them free For to aggravate matters to that height as to make it absolute tyranny or Antichristian and to be against the word of God which saith Marriage is honourable in all things and the like implyes more of the weakness of the Arguer than strength in the Argument more of spite and passion than ingenuity or soberness For 't is answered very sufficiently marriage is not condemned but virginity commended before it Marriage is not at all declared to be evil when Celebacie is said to be much better Marriage is not condemned when certain persons are condemned for marrying Doth a Father that should cast off
gifted as to speak in unknowntongues they should either be altogether silent or speak by one or two Interpreters and this is all they can make of these words as the words going before and after plainly demonstrate But to Ecclesiastical antiquity they have recourse next and from Justin Martyr they argue a Liberty to Priests to model the worship of God because he saith the place is known well enough that the President of the Assemblies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according as he is able prays But that this publick Officer was a Presbyter or Priest and not the Bishop himself is more than they can prove though it lyes upon them For I make no scruple to grant but it was free for the Bishop who is the highest power in the Church to alter several things in the form of worship and to make forms of Prayer according to the exigence of that Church he presided over but never was any such thing allowed to the Presbyter and no longer to the Bishop than a form of publick Worship was agreed to and received which we confess was not until the Gifts of Miracles were ceased and then not all at an instant but by degrees and by orderly consultation and good autority as occasion offered There might also be some Liberty even after such provision made for the solemn service of God by some presumptuous Priests taken to deviate from such Prescriptions but that ever it was left free to them to use or not to use the same or to add or detract from them no where appeareth The Council of Milevis in Affrica provideth by a Canon against such perhaps growing presumption but not then first made it absolutely unlawful as it is cited to that purpose by Sectaries And as for Tertullian who affirmeth it to have been the custom in Christian Apolog. ◠39. assemblies for certain persons to come forth and sing Hymns to God out of the Holy Scriptures or their own Wits I understand him rather of the Actions in the Agape or Love-Feasts which were wont to be distinct from and kept after the more solemn and proper Ecclesiastical service And in such cases spending the time religiously also it might be lawful for private men whether Ecclesiastical persons or otherwise for his words make no more for Priests than Laymen and upon that very ground can avail them but little that draw them to their Ministers only to show their Poetical Gifts whether extempore or premeditate no matter or mention is made in the praising God But finding in Philo Judaeus Philo Judaeus de Vita Contemplat a description of the Ascetical Jews which were mostly of the Sect of the Essens to have such practises amongst them also I make no doubt but such things might be first drawn from them as many ancient Ceremonies of the Christians were and that by the countenance of the Apostles themselves however simpler Zealots will scarce endure to hear so much and continued without prejudice to the more solemn and publick worship For scarce do the leading Sectaries pretend to such Gifts of the Spirit as should enable their wits to make Hymns extemporary or so much as bring in a new Psalm or Hymn into their Assemblies unknown or unheard of to the commoner sort Surely their modesty herein that they have not dared as yet to offer any new Sonnet though of praise and prayer to God to their people as they call them by vertue of this gift of the Spirit doth condemn their boldness in offering every day new prayers whereas there is the very same ground for the one as the other both in Antiquity and the Scriptures Tertullian speaks only of singing out of their own heads St. Paul speaks as expresly of singing as praying by the Spirit yet we hear nothing they have done to declare their spirituality in publick by way of singing or causing any thing of their own devising to be sung But surely singing is no less a duty then praying And if they find it difficult and inconvenient for the people to take the ditty so set by them from their mouths or hands and from thence infer that it is not necessary We reply That is as necessary and accordingly was ever practised in Churches that people should concur with the Priest in prayer too and therefore such ill-form'd forms as are made and used at the same time are not fit for solemn service because though they may be tacitly followed yet are they so ordered and invented that the common sort should have no more to do with them than they may with musical prayers and praises which in heart they may consent to but in act can only say Amen to as is permitted to the people in their extravagant prayers Would the one be scandalous to those of their Party so is the other actually offensive to us and therefore we desire to hear no more of such matters nor should they expect to find relaxation of Duties from those they are bound in Justice to obey before they remove such obstacles of communion with them to those that owe them nothing but charity and this principally in reducing them from such a fond admiration of themselves and gross infatuation of others by the colour of such false gifts It would be too long and tedious to take notice here of all their reasons against Set forms which are of two sorts the one General against All enjoyned forms the other against the English Liturgy in Particular Of this latter we shall speak least and not much of the former because we will take them at their word when they say they are not absolutely against Liturgies prescribed though we know they contradict themselves sufficiently Bishop Whitgift hath of old told them home of this their double dealing For in the Puritans Admonition they directly oppose all forms Cartwright Cartwrights Reply p. 105. Whitgifts Defens p 488 in his Reply to Whitgift endeavouring to bring them off says they explain themselves afterward But they are truly told that such their Explication is a meer retractation and contradiction all their arguments formerly being level'd directly against forms in General And to this day they are always at that game still until they be beaten off and then forsooth 't is only the Liturgies as ill-framed they complain of as Cartwright hath taught them to dissemble upon occasion and shuffle Nevertheless I hold it not amiss to transcribe here a Case of Conscience out of Mr. Perkins thus doubting Perkins Cases of Conscience l. 2. c. 6. Whether it be lawful when we pray to read a Set form of prayer Answer It is no sin This is better then nothing But a man may lawfully and with good conscience do it Reasons First the Psalms of David were delivered to the Church to be used and read in a Set form of words and yet the most of them are prayers Secondly To conceive a form of prayer requires gift of memory and knowledge utterance and the gifts
amongst themselves as to have nothing more than a blind presumption and credulity that all is or will be well But what should we protract an argument of this nature any longer against them who are arrived to such an unnatural height of admiring fresh phrases inverted numbers of words when the matter is much the same that their own uttered conceptions to day affecting themselves and others wonderfully and lookt on as spiritual and divine tomorrow nay on the afternoon nay next hour shall be sentenced by themselves and auditors as an humane invention and injurious to God and Man Nay which is yet more The form which Christ gave his Disciples and left to all to be practised who would be his Disciples hath met with such hard entertainment amongst these illuminated ones that 't is well it escapes a reproach when it is rehearsed Tell them here how the ancient and eminent Saints and Servants of Christ did use it in terms and that daily and that frequently every day and that often in the service of the Church in publick you make the matter worse for them Tell them how diverse of our own holy Martyrs blessed God for what they saw that day wherein they were redeemed not only from blind obedience but worship had the comfortable opportunity of worshipping God according to this manner so contemned they stick a little and premise some small respect to such good men as would dye against Popery but for such devout and constant adherence to the Liturgy of the Church they have no good words for them But it must be either their unhappiness that they knew no better their weakness they were so fond of that their want of zeal for a thorow reformation and of light to see what they did so clearly as they at this day And many such pieces of tattle have they in readiness having neither truth nor judgment nor charity in them but declare plainly they who thus discourse and practise to the contrary are not of the same Religion with them as to speak what I hold my self bound to profess I am not of theirs who refuse such publick communion with our Church and hold it utterly unlawful to give so much as ear to them in their will-worship and especially such as use that way in dislike of opposition to the established And so let this end CHAP. IX A third abuse of the Worship of God by Sectaries in neglecting publick Prayers without Sermons censured That Prayer in a publick Place appointed for Gods Worship ought at all times to be offered to God Scripture and Vniversal Tradition require it above that in private Places The frivolousness of such Reasons as are used against it The Reasons for it WE come now to take notice of another instance of their injuriousness to the Glory of God in their vile and low opinion of publick Prayer in Gods House Whither it should seem they would scarce ever invite Christian people but for the Sermons sake And this they may do for their own sakes because they love to be encouraged as who doth not by a full appearance of Auditors For whoever saw a Sectary at prayers alone in the Church as was the manner and ought to be the practise at this day of devout Christians even upon all occasions to visit Gods house of Prayer to pour out their hearts before him to put up the private requests of their soul to God there as the properest place I am ashamed to hear and much more to utter what they have to say against this excellent practice 'T is out of one of their Common-places which fights against most of what they approve not amongst us and there 's an end of it It makes I am sure ten times more for the reputation of them whom they bitterly enough hate then they are aware of Shall all Jews be not only permitted but excited to frequent Gods house even at those hours of Prayer in which the publick Sacrifice was not offered Shall the Apostles of Christ after the Resurrection as did Peter and John Acts 3. 1. in express manner and without all peradventure the rest who are not expressed observe the publick place as well as common time of prayer Shall our Saviour Christ himself often resort to the Temple and that of the corrupt Jews to pray Nay shall this end be especially mention'd as to which the Temple was ordained by Solomon that men in private may offer 1 Kings 8. 38 39 c. up their Prayers to God And shall it not become Christians much more We know not of any publick prayers the Jews had in their Temple at all but he that shall prove they had any even at their offering Sacrifice which I neither positively deny nor know of but should gladly learn from others must I am confident prove it a Set form But every man likely pray'd for himself as his own heart and occasions moved him but commonly in a Set form For when I doubted of prayer in the Temple it was of any which was common publick or general as with Christians So that the principal end of Gods house then next to sacrificing was that particular men might come and worship God and pray to him And to this end the Temple doors were not then only opened when the Sacrifice was made and that ended clap'd to again presently to shut men out from praying there at any time of the day Nay the doors of the Gentile Temples were not shut up against commers in to worship And much less they of the ancient Christians when a publick and peculiar place was appointed for their worship whatever they were before If it were so that in the infant and extreamly persecuted state of the Church before Christian Religion dar'd to show its face abroad the doors of places appointed for Gods worship were shut from the time the service was over nay and at the very time of assembling will John 20. 19. they bring us back to that again We find it indeed to be their Negative use of Antiquity and Prescriptions That if it cannot be prov'd that such a thing was in use from the first beginning of Christians they hold themselves sufficiently exempted from the same but if it can they will not hold themselves bound to do it One of their fair dealings But we think it altogether sufficient in unquestionable Presidents to alledge them as imitable and binding that such were so early and general as could well consist with the safety and advantage of Christianity it self and its Professours And this we have beyond all doubt to favour and commend to us an open Church even when there were no publick prayers though that was daily and much less a Sermon which was rarely and yet God serv'd I speak modestly as well as any where since the Reformation and free and frequent access was had to the House of God to pray in This was continued in all Ages and all Christian Countries
till some extraordinary Pastours as they call'd themselves made the alteration much for the worse God knows and would have no man enter the proper place of worship unless it were to hear the Word that is their word This custome God be thanked was never quite laid down in our English Church and I trust in God never will but gain strength countenance and encouragement knowing that the Mother Churches or Cathedrals being Precedents to all inferiour Churches pertaining to them do by their example of daily prayers and a free access at all convenient times of the day granted for men to pray to God their private particular prayers not only approve but commend to and invite her daughter Churches to the like most godly practise All Eastern as well as Western Churches out of the Precincts of the Reformation herein very unhappy set us the like example And all Churches at first by great prudence and piety of the founders and promoters were there placed where they might be most convenient for the Parish to resort to at all times and also to the best advantage of Roads that so travellers passing by might have an opportunity to enter them and do the devotions to God But now a thing to be lamented such a godly custom would be censur'd for superstition as the Devil and the Enemies of God never want words to traduce where they want reason to disprove what is good and commendable And being born to an errour have a certain horrour of leaving it though no reason can possibly be picked up to retain it Besides Popish and Superstitious what have any man I would fain hear to say against private prayers in Churches And those tearms are now so bald and generally so boldly and ignorantly applyed that they prove nothing more many times than the profaneness of the user and have done the Church of Rome more credit and service in that many excellent things have been made proper and singular to that Church which in truth are not then all the franck language and most averse practises of such men have done them discredit or hurt But it were very strange if they could here find nothing in Scripture to colour their cause or credit this ungodly opinion Christ saith say they or at least may Thou when thou prayest enter into thy closet and when thou hast Matth. 6. 6. shut thy door pray to thy father which is in secret and thy father which is in secret shall reward thee openly But do they who turn these words thus to their purpose really think that Christ hereby advised men to pray rather at home than in the publick When I can believe it I will shew the contrary and before For Christ spake not against the publickness but the hypocrisie of this prayer It is not probable indeed that a man should be so hypocritical in private as he may in publick And therefore to obviate that mortal evil to all divine prayer our Saviour both confutes and redresses it shewing it is far better for such and more acceptable to God to be take themselves to their closets where no Man but God and their own Consciences can see them than with such vain ostentation to beg applause of men And if all the world were such Hypocrites as Christ reproved it were better no man should ever come to Church at any time But there is the contrary vice to be shun'd and that is Profaneness For that is no less scandalous yea much more and must be so accounted But they who out of undue reasons refuse the publick place of Gods worship are to be noted as Prophane It is most certain that they who keep to St. Pauls precept in his Epistle to Timothy That men pray every where lifting up holy hands c. cannot pray 1 Tim. 2. 8. Ephes 6. always in one place especially if we add that other precept of St. Paul Pray always for no man can be always in that most common place of prayer And therefore it may be inferred from hence that it is lawful and acceptable to God to pray privately but not that prayer in publick is not to be preferred before private For would it not as well hold against prayer in families which is not in the closet And if to every house there were a place dedicated specially to Gods worship as there is in every parish I should hold that prayers generally in the family and particularly of persons singly were more laudably performed in that publick place than in a private chamber But it is further to be noted That when St. Paul saith we should pray every where he never intended to equalize all places in fitness to Gods service he intended not to take off distinction of Christian places to that end but Judaical as the Temple of the Jews which diverse green Christians supposed was to be the special if not only place assigned of God for his worship St. Paul informs them better assures them that they should pray every where as well as at Jerusalem meaning nothing less then that where there were Christian Temples to which they might resort they should not need go to them but may keep at home as well being God is every where and they must pray every where but that a place of worship solemniz'd by Christians was altogether as proper as that Temple of the Jews Isidore saith indeed Prayer is most opportunely made in private places and is more pleasing to God viz. so qualified as before A sincere prayer at home is better many degrees than an hypocritical one in publick And the Gloss upon St. Pauls words â—â—ith In every place that is where ever you are and not only in the Church And the like it saith upon Christs words in St. John to the woman of Samaria That neither John 4. 21. on that mount nor yet at Jerusalem men should worship God But who sees not that it is to be understood signally and not so superstitiously as that a Temple might not be as pleasing to God in any other place as at Jerusalem or Mount Gerizzim And I know he addeth as divers other Fathers the Temple of the heart which is worthily said to encourage such persons to inward and chamber-devotion whose leisure or labours will not suffer them to repair to Church not to erect an alter in heart house equal to that in the Church And for my part I see no reason to except unclean places from Gods worship as some Casuists do when a more comely and convenient cannot be had For there is no place unclean in such Cases But we are now enquiring about the right a place hath to our Services other things being equal As if a man hath as good an heart as simple intention as pure charity as laudable matter petition'd for whether the place of Gods worship be not it he ought to offer his Sacrifice in rather than any other And whether publick is not required rather than private And here
home Thou mayest pray indeed but thy prayer not have the like efficacie as when it is made with the proper members as when the entire body of the Church sendeth up its Petition with one consent with one voice the Priests being present and offering up the prayers of the whole multitude Wouldst thou know of what great force the prayer that is made in the Church is Peter was bound in Prison c. Acts 12. 5. And is it not most strange to consider the bold ignorance of the common sort who dare to turn the words of Solomon and that even in that prayer of Dedication and signalizing the House of God above all places else for Gods worship against that and all other Houses to that holy intent and to make all places alike when there is nothing so manifest as that that place was only assigned by God with special injunctions and promises For when Acts 7. 48. c. 17. 24. 1 Kings 8. 27. they say God doth not dwell in Temples made with hands out of the Acts of the Apostles what do they say more than Solomon at the time of dedication But will God indeed dwell on the earth Behold the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee how much less this House which I have built Doth not the argument prove that God is no where to be worshipped because he is locally no where contain'd in a place Or does it prove that he is to be worshipped in private Houses or contained in them rather then in the publick The Gentiles as St. Pauls words intimate imagined that by certain Images they could bind their Gods to be present and limit them to certain places from whence they could not well stir And this is the reason that some ancient Fathers as Arnobius and Minutius Felix denyed the Christians had any Temples then meaning such charmed Images and Shrines to hold God fast to them The Jews imagined as appears by St. Stephens words that Gods promises and blessings were so precisely determined to that One Temple amongst them that he would by no means impart himself in like manner in any other place To this fond and superstitious conceit it was very proper to quote their own Prophets against them who imply what St. Paul expresses else where Is he the God of the Jews only Is he not Rom. 3. 29. also of the Gentiles Yes of the Gentiles also c. And by vertue hereof whatsoever the Scripture may seem to ruder readers of it to speak by way of disesteem of material and visible Temples implies no more than an equal right of the Gentile Temples dedicated to God under the Gospel with the Jewish under the Law But that even the publick places of Christians should be looked upon with no greater respect or religion then that which comes next to hand is no where to be found and far from being the purpose of Christs words out of which another exception is made viz. Where two or three are gathered together Matth. 18. 20. in my Name there am I in the midst of them For what I pray is it to meet in the Name of Christ Only to take his Name into our mouths To turn over the Scriptures and to turn them this way and that way and prosess great matters out of them By no means 'T is true this is somewhat towards it But notwithstanding this men may meet in the name of the Devil rather than of Christ and do the works of the Devil rather than of Christ For to do the will and work of either is to meet in the name of either And no men who in their very meeting it self as such are enemies unto Christ can be said to meet in the Name of Christ speak they never so gracious and glorious things of Christ and Religion But they who lightly vainly and causlesly affect separation and dismember themselves from the visible I say visible Body of Christ the Society of Saints by Election and Profession are thereby direct enemies to Christ and can never meet in Christs Name according to Christs intention though as the worshippers of Baal on Baal they call on Christ with never so much zeal and earnestness from morning to evening as we have already shewed where we treated of Schism And when at length will they who under such obscure and fond pretenses separate produce any one thing which may countervail the notoriousness of the evil of separation as a reason to warrant them so to do But this either the gross insensateness of the vulgar in such points or the desperate resolution to hold their own whatever may be said against them is little or nothing look't after till it be too late CHAP. X. A fourth corruption of the Worship of God by confining it to an unknown tongue Scripture and Tradition against that custom A fifth abuse of Prayer in denying the People their Suffrage contrary to the ancient practise of the Church BUT before we leave this publick worship we are to observe somewhat of the manner how it ought to be performed and that to rescue it from two abuses principally crept into it The first of the Papist and the other of the Puritan unluckily falling into the same condemnation with the other Two things are as evident as Tradition not to say Scripture can make any thing First that all publick and private prayers were instituted in a known tongue Secondly that there was a concurrence of the vulgar Christians with the publick Minister of such Offices Both these are now quite almost worn out of use amongst the Romanists and being disused a defense framed studiously against the practise of them The latter hath been practised and maintained by Puritans though first invented by Papists The authority of Scripture for the publick prayers to be made in a known tongue seems to us and not only to us but to our more ingenuous adversaries very express in St. Pauls Epistle to the Corinthians The subject 1 Cor. 14. of the fourteenth Chapter of the first Epistle is to redress the vanity of certain gifted persons who presumed to teach and pray in such a forreign tongue which no man understood but themselves For whereas it is commonly replyed by the Learned Romanists that the Apostle speaks of preaching chiefly and not of praying in publick It matters not much if he doth speak of preaching as certainly he doth so it be evident that he speaketh of prayer also nor that he principally teacheth of prophesying if he omitteth not publick prayer Is there any thing need be plainer than this on our side If I pray in an unknown tongue my spirit prayeth but v. 14 15. my understanding is unfruitful What is it then I pray with the Spirit and I will pray with the understanding also I will sing with the spirit I will sing with the understanding also Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned
say Amen at thy giving of thanks seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest These words are plain enough one would think to declare that the Apostle intended publick prayer as well as preaching or prophesying Therefore no arts are omitted to obscure and pervert his meaning but with such ill success that it is thereby much more illustrated and confirmed to the loss of such corrupters of Scripture to make it agree with their doctrine and practise For Bellarmine confesses 't is very hard to make it good that the Aposte means Bellarm. de Verbo D. lib. 2. cap. 16. only preaching and so in truth it must needs be but that there is nothing to necessity and a willing mind And therefore to mend the matter he says The Apostle there treateth not of Divine Offices but of Spiritual Songs which Christians were wont to compose to praise God and give him thanks And what if this were so For that they had any formed Liturgies in those early unsetled dayes of the Church while the gifts of the Spirit were so ordinary I much question excepting the Lords Prayer which was ever in publick use as well as private if it be not undoubtedly true what is affirmed by no mean Authors That St. Peter celebrated the Mass taking here Mass in the ancient and innocent signification with the Lords prayer only Doth not the argument of the Apostles hold altogether as valid in the ordinary as extraordinary Praises and Service But when the same Authour can bring scarce any ancienter than himself who are of his opinion and doth bring Haymo Primasius Lombard Thomas and others that he means the Ordinary service what worth can there be in such an evasion Hence it is that another is invented in the same Authour which acknowledges that there is meant Common worship But that the whole Congregation is not thereby to understand but only the Clerk of the Parish who is instead of the unlearned or Idiot to say Amen For Papists make no doubt but such an one there was who should in such manner answer for the rest of the people But I make no doubt but they are miserably mistaken For no records among the Jews from whom most customs of the ancientest Christians descended report any such thing No custom of the primitive Christians warrant this but the contrary whatever Ledesima the Jesuit saith For as shall by and by shewed the people in general without any such discrimination of persons made their solemn returns unto their Bishop or Priest who so celebrated in publick And therefore Bellarmine honestly and learnedly rejecteth this interpretation showing that the phrase of the Apostle which we render Supplyeth the place of the unlearned comprehendeth no less all the vulgar then the pretended Clerk And reason good he should so think because questionless by Unlearned is not there meant general ignorance of men but ignorance of that language which was spoken so extraordinarily For as Salmeron noteth upon the place of St. Paul by Place is meant the order of setting in such Assemblies where the Teachers had one place and the Hearers who for that were called Unlearned had another Hence it is that Salmeron would make clearer work affirming Salmer Com. in 1 Cor. 14. Disp 30. That it is not the end of Divine Service that the people should be instructed but the worshipping of God This Bellarmine approveth but betrays his cause in another point granting that of old prayers publick were for the instruction of the people but now is not this to own a forsaking of antitiquity the chief use of prayers is not the edification or consolation of the people but the worship of God And the Reason which Bellarmine gives is exactly the same which Sectaries amongst us give to silence the people in publick Devotion because The Minister speaketh not to man but unto God To both which we answer briefly and against both viz. The Priest speaketh unto God only in prayer as the proper object and to the people only in preaching as the proper object of that But he also in prayer speaks to the people instrumentally i. e. as to so many instruments or causes concurring to the same end and effect and therefore ought to understand what is petitioned for and obliged to concur with the principal Agent the Minister of God in such worship For though we are far from denying what the Papists and Puritans may say That any prayer is unfruitful or unnecessary which is not understood by the people in whose behalf it is put up for it may avail them who are many miles distant we all grant and consequently a prayer not heard may be useful as well not understood when heard Yet this holds only when inconveniencies or impossibilities obstruct the due exercise of prayer For as to such who are deaf and cannot hear yet come with general reverence to the publick place and so far as they can joyn with the prayers of the Church I make no question but considerable benefit to accrew so such as shall ignorantly scornfully or uncharitably neglect to give their general consent and suffrage to the publick communion in prayer I make no doubt but they bereave themselves of the benefit both of the publick service and their own private worship But this cometh not home to the purpose For of extraordinary acts in Religion as of particular things in Philosophy there is no knowledge and nothing can be determined but this may That generally and ordinarily publick prayers are more prevalent with God when understood and concurred to by publick devotion And herein doth consist the vulgar errour of the Romish Doctours that they suppose St. Paul should mean which I confess as I have said before our Translation too much favours that when he saith The understanding is unfruitful the understanding of the speaker in an unknown tongue whenas the context will certainly inform us he meant the understanding of the hearer who knew nothing of what was so delivered which some of their own Expositors agree to as also they do to the great expediencie as well as antiquity of that custom of the peoples bearing a share in the publick Worship To demonstrate which I shall here at large transcribe what I find in sober and learned Cassander It were to be wisht that according to the precept of the Cassand Defens Lib. De Officio Pii Viri p. 865. Op. Apostle and the ancient Rite of the Church that some consideration were had of the people in the publick prayers of the Church singings and lessons which are undertaken for the peoples sake and that the common sort of Believers should not wholly and constantly be driven from all communion of prayers and divine lessons St. Pauls words are manifest that what is said cannot be understood unless you express it by a tongue signifying your speech and that he who through ignorance understandeth not what is said can by no means answer Amen at the giving of thanks of another
And that Oraculum by notice whereof the Bishop of Rome with the Senate of Cardinals granted to the Sclavonian Nation that they should use the tongue of their Country in sacred actions seemeth to pertain to all Nations named Christians Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum omnis lingua confiteatur ei Let every spirit praise the Lord and every tongue confess to him And Thomas Cajetane a man doubtless most learned and acute wrote in a certain place It were better for the edification of the Church publick prayers to be said in the vulgar tongue in the Church which the people may hear than in the Latin tongue And when he was for this reproved by some he answered He built upon the foundation of the Apostles in his fourteenth Chapter of his first Epistle to the Corinthians c. Thus far and much more followeth out of that grave man to this purpose So that in one of those things which convince the Church of Rome of Innovation and obstinacie in novelties as nothing need more be said against it to that end nothing being said more for it in the upshot of all Disputes but that for some time it hath been in use there and the Trentine Convention hath Azorus Institut Mor. l. 8. c. 26. Salmer in 1 Cor. 16. Disp 30. made all sure according to their manner by decreeing it inconvenient that Divine Offices should commonly be in the vulgar tongue as Azorius writeth and as Salmeron It anathematizes such as will not be content with the three tongues in which the super scription was written upon the Cross of Christ Which is a fansie without any firmness at all it being certain no such thing was intended thereby and evident that the Hebrew tongue was scarce ever used in Christian services though the Syriack hath been And it is not agreed whether of the two was the Language but this we rest not on nor can the Romanists But when they have turned every stone to little purpose they come to that which will never fail them in this or any other point the determination of their Church and practise of the same which upon no accounts must be violated for that were to loose or hazard all as Azorius in the place fore-cited doth with little modesty and less advantage to his cause profess and answering this question Whether the vulgar tongue might not be indulged to Hereticks petitioning for it and for the peace of the Church saith I answer Councils and Fathers and the Church were never wont to yield to such like Hereticks demands But this he proves in matters quite of a different nature as if when the Fathers would hear of no accommodation with Arius Eutycheus Nestorius holding notorious heresies against Christ even when they would have introduced some verbal agreement they could be precedents to oppose that wherein if it were false can consist no heresie but is true and most generally was practised by all the Fathers and Churches at first and so continued for eight hundred years And therefore he speaks more to this purpose in these words following If it should be granted to Lutherans and Calvinists that they should celebrate Divine Service in their vulgar tongue they would afterward give out that they had got their wills yea that the Church had changed her opinion and left off her ancient custom as contrary to Scripture and so charge the Church with erring and would exult with incredible joy and gladness over it c. This is in truth the very same reason which our grave Puritans render why they conform not to the Church in her Service whenas they confess they have nothing of sin to object against the thing it self viz. They should be judged of mutability and levity should thereby weaken their Ministry in the esteem of their people which in all probability they borrowed from their Father Calvin one of whose reasons against the moderation Calvin Epist of Melancthon was that if they should make any correction in that Reformation which was so hastily hudled up they should weaken their Ministry The reasonableness of which I leave to others to judge of But rejecting the common reasons all of which we are not here to examine of Papists we shall freely oblige them to give better grounds of the Liturgies in unknown tongues than may be ordinarily found amongst them though no sufficient can be given And one is the great veneration had to the traditions of the Ancients in worshipping God not that anciently any instance can be given that may be a precedent to the corruptions of these times but that having with sober grave and holy advice framed a Liturgy in any one tongue they were very scrupulous how they made any alteration therein though of words only and therefore that which is vulgarly spoken altering daily and that which was written remaining altogether unchanged in words tract of time bred a diversity between the one and the other But this we demand of our Adversaries what one president for many hundred years together they can produce where at the first institution of publick Service it was so contriv'd that nothing of the vulgar language should be taken into it There is a vast difference between a passive and an active and purposed inconvenience The ancient predecessours of the Roman Church never intended that their Latin Service should be hid or unknown from the common people which many generations after followed yet so it must needs fall out in time But they who at this day plant Churches in both Indies and obtrude their Latine tongue upon the people there and who deny liberty to other Provincial Churches in Europe and elsewhere to celebrate in their known Language do purpose mischief unto such Christians and become Schismatical in not only not redressing themselves according to the Rule of their fore-fathers whom they should much more imitate in ordering their service so that the Common Christian might understand the same as primitively and for a long time they did than in sticking so severely to the bare Letters and Syllables they used not making conscience of far more scandalous practices in altering the service it self in matter by absurd additions and detractions but with denunciation of Excommunication against such Churches as shall presume to redress that evil of ignorance and render Christians intelligent of what they do But I have been of opinion that the vulgar have been no small cause of this great superstition and inconvenience to themselves In that in process of time their devotion slacking in timely repairing to the Church and in due demeanor in the Church neglecting to concur with the Minister of God and to reciprocate with him and almost deserting the Service by coldness sloth and indevotion the Priest was constrained perhaps with a Deacon or Clerk only to perform the service alone And truly let such people look to their modern teachers who have instilled such ungracious opinions into them as to take them off
certain Houses may become the houses of God in a peculiar manner no less than Houses and Lands may be the rights of Man will appear from the very same grounds which are generally three Donation Purchase Occupation Donation is the Transferring of the Right of one Man to another under which we reduce Inheritance which though now custom of Law has made to descend to the next heir without any act of the predecessour yet originally it was constantly by gift and the Law supposes now a gift of the deceased where no formal donation is mentioned to him that is to succeed nor any other Purchase is the transferring of the Right or Dominion one hath of any thing to another upon civil contract and consideration whereas the other seemed rather to be natural Occupation is the possession of a thing free from any proprietary and retaining the same unto his own proper use All these ways both Houses and Lands may be transferred unto God upon this farther supposition that to the acquiring of a Right of Dominion the act of the person to whom it is transferred is not immediately necessary but another in his name and right may assume it So that if any entring into uninhabited and unpossessed Countries to which no man layeth a claim shall take up such a quantity of ground in Gods name and declare it devoted to the use of Religion and the Service of God it as undoubtedly becomes the possessions of God as it would have belonged to himself had he retained to himself the right of the first Occupant as they call it Again when out of the revenues of such sacred Estate commonly called Church-Lands or Means there is purchase made to the same end and in the same nature But most known is that of Free Donation either of one or more to the Service and Honour of God which we call Dedication Which Dedication is an outward act or ceremony signifying the Alienation of the right formerly posited in others and Translation thereof to Gods Service which because God conversing not with us Civilly as we do one with another it cannot be put immediately into the hands of God is taken up in Gods name for his use by his more immediate Servants and by consequence is not to be wrested from him nor alienated to any prophane I mean common humane uses any more than is that which in right belongs unto one man to be granted to or usurped by another without concession or consent in some manner implyed if not expressed This ancient Rite of Dedicating Churches was at first very agreeable to the simplicity of Christian Religion it self yet like all passing of Estates from one to another in the more natural and rude condition of Humane Society where there was alwayes a change of the Propriety where was any propriety at all but very simple and rude without any formalities as are now in use in those called civilized Countries but with no less validity And so it was at first in the alienation of Houses from humane Proprietaries and devoting them to God For as Baronius hath observed As the Kings Baron Ann. 112. num 45 46. or Emperours Exchequer was wont at first to lay claim to any thing by casting over it the Emperours Mantle or putting his Image or Name upon it even so the Bishops were wont to consecrate Churches to God no otherwise than by marking them with the Title of the Cross or with its Banner Whence it was that the Emperour Theodosius Leg. ult de Paganis Cod. Theod. commanded that the Temples of the Gentiles should serve for Christian Religion by placing upon them the sign of the Venerable Cross Hence is that of Perkins concerning this matter who saith The ancient Consecration of Perkins Demonst Problem Churches was with meer words and prayers not with crossings or such like rites And dedication of Churches began about the year 300 after Christ is partly found true and partly erroneous For Funcius yields much more confessing Funcius Comment l. 2. ad Ann. 141. that Hyginus Bishop of Rome ordained that Temples should be dedicated to God with solemn Rites and Ceremonies which was about the year 141. And yet it is true what Perkins saith that very simple was the first form But we do not so much here enquire into the Antiquity or Form of Consecration as the reasonableness and effect of such consecration And the reasonableness doth appear from the common grounds already laid and the necessity of some outward visible form to be used in such Dedications as well to manifest to the world the renunciation of propriety in any that may otherwise pretend to reserve their right to themselves anciently enjoyed as also to declare to what end and upon what conditions they so part with that right and to whom it thenceforward belongs all which if it must be traduced with the opprobrious name of Superstition so pass as invalid or sinful I would pray such enemies as he did those that desired Aristocratical Government to settle it first in their own Families and then as experience should prompt to them to commend it to the Publick First to take up estates upon such simple unceremonial acts themselves and as they find the event to offer that as the most simple and sober way for Gods House to pass from others hands into Gods I know the haters of Superstition to far greater superstition are wont to say It suffices that such is the consent of Christians that a place should be allotted in convenient manner to Gods Service and that it is sufficiently consecrated if they dare speak such a bold word by concomitancie that is when such acts of Divine worship as their prayers and specially preaching are there exercised But this will no ways be accepted both because they do the same duties in places which they hold no wayes thereby alienated from their common uses And this is no more than for a man to lend another his house to keep a Feast in it and not so much as if a man should let out his house for one to keep his Shevalry or Majoralty in But that we require is that a place should so be made over to Gods use that it should be out of all mens power justly to reduce it to humane propriety and uses And this can only be done and is done by such acts of publick Dedication as we plead for and never could hear half a note of sense reason or religion against it though we hear too great and unchristian clamours to the contrary with wonted revilings Supposing then this we pass to the effect of such Dedications unto Almighty God one of which is contained and expressed in the formal abrenunciation made of all Civil Right to such a place and by consequence for any man to convert any part of it to his own use is sacrilegiously to prophane the same A thing which I take this occasion to note against the gross abuse of Churches
of devotion must be held before the eyes as if they were asham'd of what they did whereas St. Paul saith plainly every man praying or prophesying having his head covered 1 Cor. 11. 4. dishonoureth his head and again For a man ought not to cover his head c. 7. But surely he who covereth his face with his hat or such liâ—â— doth altogether as much thwart the design of the Apostle as he that covereth it with his hair I wonder much who could be the author of such an indecent and absurd custom but more to find it defended in some sort by Calvin Calvinus in Esaiam cap. 38. 2. upon Esay and reasons rendered for the same by Amesius in his Cases of Conscience the best he can devise being these two Either to prevent avocation of mind which may be occasioned by the eye Or to conceal such singular gestures Ames de Conscient lib. 4. c. 18. quaest 3. which may be some times necessary to us but seem silly and hypocritical to others These two occasions being taken away Covering the head agrees rather to women than men 1 Cor. 11. 4 5. Thus he And that these are not sufficient causes thus appears because such an accidental inconvenience as is the former ought not to null a direct good but publique and open profession of our duty reverence and devotion to God is that which God doth require as an act of worship and the good example to others should preponderate that particular possible inconvenience And as for the other no man ought to use such absurd and ridiculous ceremonies in his face being in publique as should be apt to give offence but compose his whole man to such gravity and decency as might become the place wherein he is which is in every mans power as it is his part And 't is very unreasonable and somewhat more that men should abhor to receive ceremonies of Communion and uniformity from the Church and yet be more superstitious in inventing and introducing private Ceremonies into the Church and unapproved by it such as this is But though all postures and gestures be alike in nature yet nothing must be done in publique but what is reputed sober modest and grave as well in respect of the persons assembled as for the place sake of which if we had a due opinion it would be superfluous to multiply arguments to extort reverence therein And what need we any farther proofs of the dignity of it then that it is Gods house as hath been shewed and the place where his honour dwells and our happiness especially And therefore before I end this I cannot forbear giving all good Christians warning of one of Mr. Perkins absurd and false dogmes which I doubt not but hath deceived many into prophaness in publique In regard of Conscience Holiness and Religion all places are holy and alike in the New Testament since the coming of Christ The Perkins Cases of Conscience lib. 2. c. 6. qu. 3. §. 3. House or the Field is as holy as the Church And if we pray in either of them our prayer is as acceptable to God as that which is made in the Church All this we look upon as prophane and false Let us hear how out of Scripture he proves his new paradoxes For now saith he the days are come which were foretold by the Prophet where in a clean offering should be offered to God in every place Mal. 1. 11. which Paul expounds 1 Tim. 2. 8. of pure and holy prayer offered to God in every place Of these words of St. Paul which I acknowledge to be the sense of the Prophet I have already given the true meaning and so answered both to this effect That whatever the Scripture prophetically delivers concerning the diffusion of Gods worship or the Apostle actually declares as come to pass comes to no more but that God should be more purely served under the Gospel by the Sacrifice of prayer c. than he was by the Sacrifice of beasts to him and such like and that the service of God should be as well performed out of Jerusalem as in it and in Christian Temples in what Country or Angle of the world soever they were built as in that of Hierusalem but that it was ever intended that he should be as well served in the fields or private houses as in Churches raised for that purpose when necessity constrained not men otherwise doth not in the least appear And the same answer likewise we give to the words of Christ to the woman of Samaria Joh. 4. 25. of which we also spake before As also to that of Christ Matth. 6. 5. reproving the affected hypocritical practise of the Pharisees praying in all publick places to be noted Then which kind of Devotion no doubt but a Prayer in the Closet is much more acceptable to God But doth it therefore follow that such a prayer as is so acceptable in the closet would not be as acceptable in the Temple and more too surely nothing of this which ought to be the conclusion is contained in the argument Now proceeds Mr. Perkins the opinion of the Papist is otherwise It is so and is much truer than the Puritans and more agreeable to the word of God For he thinks that in the New Testament hallowed Churches are more holy than other places are or can be and do make the prayers offered to God in them more acceptable to him than in any other and hereupon they teach that private men must pray in Churches and private prayers must be made in Churches if they will have them heard All this they teach indeed but do they teach this as Papists or as Christians Did not the doctrine and constant practise of all ages and places when and where there were Churches teach the very same Nay doth not Bucer one of the most eminent Reformers for judgment and Quantâ— jam religione sunt loca cultui Dei consecrata huic uni reipate facienda supra aliqua ex parte ostendimus Adeo autem vulgo obtinuit horum locorum horrenda sane prophanatio c. Bucerus de Regno Christi l. 2. c. 11. learning say in a manner as much in these words With what religiousness therefore are places consecrated to Divine worship to be opened to this one thing and to be preserved most sacred we have in some measure before shewed But vulgar custom has far prevailed in a horrible profanation of these places while men having thrown away all reverence of a Deity in them walk in them for their recreation as in walks void of all sacredness and in them exchange all sorts of prophane and impure discourse so that to remove this so unseasonable dammage to the Divine Majesty severe Laws of godly Kings and Princes are requisite and ready and constant vindications of such Laws besides the devout exhortations of holy men whereby it should be brought to pass that Gods holy Temple should not be
it is That divine Adoration receives its specification from the intention which is an act principally of the will so that be the object what it will yet if I have no intention to worship any other than the true God I worship him when I direct my worship to that which we may suppose not to prove upon tryal God But this is not to be granted that intention is sufficient to denominate worship or constitute it true and Catholick though it suffices abundantly to make a worship false when it is intended for such And then may a man be said to intend false worship not only when he knows it to be false but when he might possibly know it to be so and when he intends to worship that which actually is a false object For as hath been said Idolatry consists principally in the understanding as also the Scripture intimateth when it charges the Idolatrous Israelites with ignorance 2 King 17. 26. Isa 4. 9. of God For were not the Samaritans Idolaters who knew not the manner of the God of Israel And what saith the Prophet Isaiah They that make a graven Image i. e. to worship it are all of them vanity and their delectable things shal not profit and they are their own witnesses they see not nor know that they may be ashamed Surely if any man saw and were convinced of his error he would be ashamed of it but 't is his ignorance that detains him as well as precipitates him into such errors Ephes 4. 18. as St. Paul witnesses of the Gentiles Having their understanding darkened through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart Fifthly There is no reason to grant that simplicity and sincerity of Intention and Resolution of worshipping none but the true God may not consist and hold good in worshipping more than one God as in the Act. 17. 23. case of the Athenians worshipping the unknown God in the Acts For as Pausanias in Eliacis taking notice of this inscription hath it The Persians threatning Greece with War the Athenians sent to the Lacedemonians to beg aid of them Pan met their Embassador Philippides and expostulated with him why the Athenians had made no statue to him but left him our adding that if they received him he would stand by them Hereupon they erected this Monument To the unknown God Others say That they being miserably harrassed with the Pestilence and finding no relief from them they worshipped bethought themselves there might be a God neglected by them who might relieve them and so dedicated an Altar To the unknown God Might not all these things stand with very great sincerity of intention And yet I suppose it was Idolatry So that sincere resolution and intention of worshipping none but the true God only may be found where many are worshipped For though to us as St. Paul saith * Toletus Instruct Sacerdotum l. 4. c. 14. § 6. There is but one God and one Lord yet with all Nations it was not so they might really and stedfastly believe there were more Gods than one And therefore Tolet the Jesuit well writeth thus Therefore Idolatry is the exhibiting of a Divine worship to a false God For to worship him for true God who is not God either by praising him or invoking him or Sacrificing to him or any wayes prostrating our selves to him is to commit Idolatry False adoration which is Idolatry is never but where an Error in the understanding goeth before †De Ratione lure definiend pag. 273. Num ut Supersationis caput est Id. 〈◊〉 iâ—a emnus Dei caltus non solum extrav ritatem fidei sed etiam extra uniatem Ecclesis alterius Dei cultum in se contnet ab coquem Fides Christiarorum communis intra Ecclesiam colendum propâ—nit Omnis enim Commentitia religio talem sibi Deum colendum pâ—â—ponit qualem sibi ipsa commenta sit non qualem se ipse ostendit Quod Idololatrioe instar quoddam est And besides all this the Author of this tenet in another place acknowledges it to be a sort of Idolatry to feign or device a worship of God otherwise than was instituted of God and that not only to worship God out of the verity of Faith but out of the unity of the Church containeth in it a worship of another God than is propounded by the Christian Faith to be worshiped in the Church And again All commentitions religion propounds such a God to be worshipped as it hath feigned to it self not as he hath declared himself to be By which words I understand him to explain himself and draw nearer to the common notion of Idolatry than he is commonly taken to do For granting that it is a kind of Idolatry to offer any superstitious worship interdicted by God and that in thus doing a man doth in effect frame to himself a God distinct from the true God it may be easily granted that all Idolatry consisteth in Polytheism or plurality of Gods because in effect a man makes strange Gods though not formally as he that constituteth one of purpose to worship as the object of his Devotion And this agreeth with what othet learned men have written of Idolatry Quicunque de Deo secus sentit quam revera est c. Erasm in symbolum Catechesm 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epict. Cap. 38. Perkins Cases of Conscience l. 2. c. 11. Luther Colloq Mensalia p. 91. extending it to a false notion or judgment of the one true God For Erasmus in his Catechism on the Creed saith Whosoever thinketh otherwise of God than in truth he is or doth not believe him to be such as the Authority of the Holy Scriptures hath described him to us believeth not in God but in an Idol To the same purpose speaketh Mr. Perkins thus If adoration be given to the true God with a false and erroneous intention it makes him an Idol For example if the body be bowed with this intent to worship God out of the Trinity as the Turk doth Or if he be worshipped out of his Son with the Jews thus doing we worship not the true God but an Idol To these I add these words of Luther All manner of Religion let it have never so great a name and lustre of Holiness when people will serve God without his word and command is nothing else but plain Idolatry It may be said in behalf of Jews and Turks that they are not Idolaters because they worship God according to the true Light of Nature asserting and magnifying above all men the unity of God and directing their worship after the manner of the service of God before Christ To which answering I shall wave the question about the measure of knowledg the Jews had of the Trinity before Christ of which somewhat hath been said before and rather distinguish between the manner of their believing or disbelieving those mysteries For it is much different
of St. Paul that 1 Cor. 14. 35. women should ask their husbands and learn at home And St. Chrysostom often exhorts his hearers to consider of what they hear in publique at home and meditate of the Scriptures at home which was either privately with every mans self or to such as could not have access to the Publique And this publique way of Preaching had for a long time no prescribed subject but what the Bishop thought proper or seasonable for instruction or Exhortation was uttered by him But in Saint Bafils Nazianzens Chrysostoms and Augustines Sermons we find mention made of the Scriptures read before and Sermons made by way of Exposition of them after the manner that Epistles and Gospels are in use with us and commended as proper subjects to instruct Christian People the one giving us matter of Instruction from the history of the Life Doctrine Miracles and Death of our only Saviour Christ and the other principally moving us to the exercise of all Christians Graces and Vertues conformable to our calling and knowledg of God and Christ Far were our Christian Ancestors and well they might from the modern perswasion of Erratick Christians that the Sermon was more necessary than the Scriptures or that reading of the Scriptures was not Preaching or that Catechizing and instructing Novices in Christian Religion was not Preaching I confess I am of opinion that there is a distinction to be made between a Preaching and a Sermon taking here a Sermon for an Oration made by un-Christian as well as Christian Orators to inform and perswade to what they aimed at in such speeches And no instance can be given of any Orator Gentile or Christian for many hundred years that presumed to speak to the People out of his own writings rehearsed to them Poets were wont in Publique to recite their verses in Publique out of their book by reading and therefore could never in my judgment comply with the very modern practise of it there being no reason why it should be more tolerated in Divine than Humane Orations or why setting the custome of the place aside which must needs be corrupt and absurd as it is singular and new it is less ridiculous to rehearse a Divine Oration which we call a Sermon by reading than Humane I am sure the ancient Fathers whom we pretend to imitate and all modern Churches without exception of any but our own abhor it And are not at all sensible of the vulgar arguments weight to justifie it viz. because the matter is the same And what difference is there between a Sermon deliver'd without reading and with it if the hearer sees him not or looks not on him that Preaches But it is very expedient the Hearers eye should be attent as well as his ear and yet that is not all might be said neither but all I will here say But undoubtedly they erregregiously on the other hand who imagine such sermoning as we now speak of is only Preaching according to the mind of the Apostle and that which is the only proper means of Salvation We are not saved but by Faith we cannot believe but by hearing we cannot hear without a Preacher as the Apostle most undeniably concluding from thence the absolute necessity of Preaching But what Preaching When I said Recitation of a Speech concerning divine matters and our Salvation was not properly a Sermon or Oration unless pronounced after the universal Law of all Orators which is to denominate things aright I said not that it was not Preaching taking preaching from the end of it and not so much from the form The end is undoubtedly knowledg first of the Christian Faith The next end is Assent to that Doctrine of Faith The third end is Obedience to the Faith The last end is the Salvation of such a true believer Now all these may without doubt be obtained without the Forms of Oratory and by so many wayes as we are made capable of these great ends so many wayes are we preacht to And therefore reading to and writing to another as the Apostles did their their Epistles to several Churches or any communication may be called the word of God and Preaching as really as the most Oratorical Sermon Though still considering the nature of man and the ordinary course of perswading settled all the world over I cannot grant that such wayes are so effectual or operative upon the partakers of the same instructions By what is said may be gathered what I propounded at first viz. in what sense Preaching and Hearing may be reduced to the Worshipping of God and become part of his Service For taking the service of God strictly and properly neither of both of them are such but they are a necessary foundation to build our worship of God on They have of late dayes amongst Sectaries been called The Means in so high and signal sense as if they need say no more and they comprehended all Religious acts eminently which is nothing so They are indeed The Means and that of Faith worship and Salvation But worshipping of God in prayer and praises c. and obeying his will and living godly and soberly in this present world are much more effectual and excellent Means of our Salvation than they They are but Means to the more excellent means of Salvation as Faith Hope and Charity and therefore must know their place and keep their distance and Mr. Thorndyck Epilog l. 3. c. 25. their limits too For as an excellent person hath at large showed the vain abuse of this preaching by Presbyterians which shall cause me to contract here Preaching is not so much as the Means of Salvation unless it contains it self within the limits of the doctrine of the Church To the confirmation of whose opinion I shall here give St. Austins Judgment Nobis autem ad certam regulam loqui fas est ne verbâ—rum licentia etiam rebus quae his significantur impiam gignat opinicnem Aug. Civit. Dei l. 10. c. 23. who would have not only limits set to the matter but manner of preaching too by obliging to the phrase of the Church saying We Christians must speak by certain Rule lest by a License taken of wording it a wicked opinion be begot of the things themselves signified thereby And concerning this we know St. Paul hath thus provided in his directions to Timothy Hold fast the Form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in Faith and Love which is in Christ Jesus It was very well known to the ancient Church that if Preachers kept not themselves in the compass of sober words and phrases to which faithful ears had been accustomed though their new Forms and phantastique phrases might possibly admit of a fair construction yet naturally they tended to the dissetling of mens minds from the truth and drawing them to novelty of doctrine and worship By which means as also by affected postures gestures pronunciation and such like carrying with them an
to be cordially addicted to the Good of the Church or Glory of God would use more civility and common Ingenuity if not conscience towards both then purposely and industriously to involve and cumber themselves with multiplicities of inconsisting Cares and Cures and then use it as sufficient excuse for their ill discharge of their Duty in all or most of them That they have so many occasions as that they cannot attend on them all as they confess they should and say they would For this is plainly to mock God and the Church too But experience proveth this to be too true that they who are most engaged in multitude of imploiments or charges seldom perform so much service to all of them put together as he that hath but one single Charge doth to it alone Chap. XVIII Of Obedience to the Church in Particular in the Five Precepts of the Church common to all viz. 1. Observation of Festival Dayes 2. Observation of the Fasts of the Church Of the Times Manner and Grounds of them Exceptions against them answered 3. Of the Customs and Ceremonies of the Church 4. Frequentation of the Publick Worship 5. Frequent Communicating and the due preparation thereunto IT was well said by a Reverend Person of our Church even where he argues against the blind obedience of the Roman Church Certainly Donnes Pseudomartyrs chap. 6. p. 180. the inestimable benefits which we receive from the Church who feeds us with the Word and Sacraments deserves from us an humble acknowledgment and obedient confidence in her yea it is spiritual treason not to obey her And though I dare not say with Catharinus against Cajetan The In eâ—dem gradu habenda sunt pracepta Ecclesiae si bona sunt quo ipsius Dei quoad hoc quod similiter ligant c. Catharinus Annotatin Com. Cajet lib. 2. Precepts of the Church are to be received with the same degree of honor yet I may say with as real reverence as the Precepts of God if they be good thus far that they both bind alike under pain of eternal damnation So that there could scarce any doctrine be devised more pestilent to the Church or pernicious to the souls of Men then that which infuses into mens heads to obey the Church as little as they can possibly without danger from the Civil Magistrate or express and particular violation of some text of Holy Writ alwayes excepted that more then Antichristian Dogme That men should refuse to do any thing enjoyned by any lawful Authority because it is commanded least forsooth their Christian liberties should be invaded But Bernard was certainly a much better Christian in this subject then these men to whom none in their own opinions are to be compared who tells us Whatever of Obedience is yielded unto them that are set over us is given Bernard de Virtute Obedientiae unto him who saith He that heareth you heareth me c. especially when the things so injoyned tend so directly to the service of God as doth those particularly commended unto our practise by our Church against which the Adversaries arguments are taken from the general quarrel they have against such Governours whom they would not have to rule at all but come under them or from the things themselves which they give out are against the Word of God because against their Negative Superstitions When we therefore propound to them and all faithful servants of God and true obedient and humble children of the Church the Five Precepts of the Church we suppose them to whom they are directed to be free from the leven and infection of Schism and Stubbornness we suppose them to be bred and educated in the bosome of the Church and to have no other Fathers in Christ than the Fathers of the Church For when they have made defection from that body of which they are or were Members either in heart and affections or outward declaration against it then no wonder if a thousand malicious reasons be at hand to enervate the commands upon them and defie all Authority But they who hold to their sound profession and have any honour for their spiritual Parents as well as natural or respect 〈◊〉 the Fifth Commandment which themselves generally interpret to extend to Religious as well as Moral Obedience and Offices whose interest will not suffer them to observe it cannot boggle at the reasonable use of Power in requiring such things nor at the Piety of the Precepts themselves Now the Five Precepts of the Church are these which have been with long continuance as to time and with great conscience as to all good Christians observed drawn out of our Liturgy by the Authour of the Collection Church Calendar of Private Devotions or Hours of Prayers First to observe the Festival or Holydayes appointed Of the reasâ—nabless whereof we have before spoken The manner of keeping them is by suspending all humane businesses wherein Justice and Mercy which are to be preferred before Sacrifice do not principally consist inconsistent with that due service of God on that day celebrated It is plain that before distinction of days set apart in special manner to the praise of God which we now call Holidayes there was a daily publick worship solemnly used by the Church and Christians held themselves bound to be present at the same For Origen upon Leviticus affirms That to Christians every day was an Holiday and Festival And to Chrys To. 5. Serin 88. p. 602 603. the same purpose St. Chrysostome in whose age the special Memory of Saints was frequent saith that Every day is a Feast to a Christian And out of Austin and others it is manifest that there was wont to have been a daily communication by Christians of the Eucharist But this so solemn and constant attendance on Gods worship ill agreeing with mens daily civil imployments it was the wisdom and piety of the Church to restrain the more solemn Service of God to some special days which was signalized with the memory of Christ or his eminent Servants and Saints So that if Sectaries would but keep to the grounds of Christianity rather than natural Policie and Interest they might find the contrary to that Calumny against the Church viz. That it restrains men in their callings For the Church hath rather made a Relaxation and Indulgence to men in order to their worldly affairs than laid any new restraints upon them in that it hath much lessened the number of Festivals to what they were twelve or thirteen hundred years ago and much more in the later days of the Roman Church It is a gross and prophane Errour of modern Sectaries to imagine that there is no obligation upon Christian people to repair to the house of God every day whether to publick or private Devotion as we have said before but much greater to imagine that the obligation is not yet stronger when the Authority of the Church determines the time and place though
Christians to such sort of Meats as are now allowed For it was rather her act of Grace and Lenity to remit the one half of that ancient Severity commonly submitted unto in the earlier days of Christian Religion And who but ignorant and ill natur'd and nurtur'd children could turn her Lenity into Tyranny and make her curtesie a matter of calumny Nay which hath more disingenuity and absurdity while they fret and complain grievously that the Yoke as it is lyes too heavy upon them and presses them too hard to invert their spite and malice against it by arguing from the lightness and contemptibleness of such Fastings as consists only in abstinence from flesh saying It is no Fast which abstains not absolutely from all Meat This were indeed somewhat to the purpose if so be that the Church did at the same time command any man to eat fish or so much as hearbs or bread when she forbids flesh to be eaten Or that they who were able and did wholly abstain from Meats at such seasons did not more fulfill the intention of the Church then they who took the liberty left them of eating in some manner What temper and spirit do these men discover to themselves to be of who are alwayes in readiness to charge their Superiours either with folly or tyranny or impiety upon the same occasion and never been able to prove any one them Scotus and Biel Scotus lib. 4. Distinct 8. Biel Lect. 8. in Canon Missae after him distinguish of a Fast of Nature which is a total abstinence from all eating and drinking and of a Fast of the Church when a man eats but once a day and that according to the precept and mind of the Church Now if the Church hath invented a favourable distinction and sense to gratifie murmurers at the rigour of her Laws do they not requite her ingenuously who turn that also to her reproach Nay if another distinction be found which makes a Fast a Toto a Tanto and a Tali from the Whole from the Quantity and from the Quality of the Meats eaten hereby willing to condescend and bring down her Rules so low that all men may have somewhat to exercise themselves in according to their ability in the graces of Abstinence and Obedience who but such whose Religion impels them to be the worse for good usage and resolve to hear of nothing but their own inventions would clamour against their Governours for such moderation But when they are disappointed in their arguments and expectations to reduce all men and things to their own model their last Effort is to humble this kind of Fasting into a civil Constitution only and for a civil End according as an Act of Parliament misconstrued as hath more plainly and fully been declared by others hath misled them conceiving that the Fastings of our Church tend only to the encrease of Navigation or are intended for the good of beasts not of men But what hinders that the Church may have one end in her decrees and the Common-wealth another and that which the Church designed for the exercise of Christian vertues may be embraced by Secular Politicians to promote Secular benefits to the Publick Nothing is so manifest to him that knows any thing in Church History as that such a reason was never dreamt of by the Propounders of such Fastings in our Church nor in any part of the Christian world before that Act. And if the words of that Act were intended for an ease to the tender Consciences as those of dissenters are mis-called and to draw them by little and little upon consideration of Civil ends which they less hated than the Ecclesiastical to some good order and submission this is not to be drawn to a perpetual Rule nor made the only universal end of such a Constitution For the Church still keeps to the most ancient and general sense received amongst Christians A third Precept of the Church is The Observation of the Ecclesiastical Canon 6. Preface of Ceremonies c. Customs and Ceremonies of the Church and that without frowardness and contradiction as appears from her Canons and the Preface before the Common-Prayer Of which obligation that which we have before spoken of the Power of the Church and even now of Fasting may here be applyed and suffice A fourth Precept is Constantly to repair to the Publick Service of the Preface to the Book of Common-Prayer Church for Mattens and Evening Song with other holy Offices at times appointed unless there be a just and unfeigned cause to the contrary And this we have before also treated of extending it to the worship of God in his House especially when there is an assembly of Christian people together to that purpose though there be no Sermon and also to the humbling a mans self and putting up his private Devotions there alone when occasion and opportunity shall be offered so to do according to the most ancient and godly custom of good Christians ever since there were Temples built for Gods Service For the disuse of which excellent acts not the least reason hath been or can be alledged by those that would be thought to be the only Rule of Reformation which we have not sufficiently refuted before Lastly To receive the blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ Second Exhortation to be read before the Communion with frequent Devotion but at least Thrice a year whereof Easter is to be one And in order hereunto as occasion shall be to open our souls by due Confession and disburden and quiet our troubled Consciences by some learned and discreet Minister of God from whom Ghostly counsel and comfort may be received with the benefit of Absolution Of the use of which we have also before spoken where we shewed that such Confession was not of such absolute Divine Right either of Precept or Means that Salvation could not be otherwise obtain'd but as an Ecclesiastical Expedient very effectual as well for the bringing Impenitent sinners to repentance as for the due restoring of them that are Penitent to a comfortable assurance of Gods favour towards them and direction and encouragement in holy living which the foul abuses in those Churches where it is excessively magnified should by no means abolish For besides them above noted doubtless it is no mean abuse to make that which undoubtedly should be an act of Judgment in Gods Minister discerning between the hopeful state of some and desperate of others and accordingly suspending or applying the Free Grace of the Gospel and the Power left by Christ to his Church an act of custom formality and course or perhaps common civility which kind of rashness and profuseness the ancient Churches were altogether ignorant of When grievous offenders against God and the Church had fallen justly under the censures of the Church it was permitted to absolve them at the point of death so far as concerned their restitution to the Communion of
give offense to the people contrary to the use of that Church And why so It it not because their doctrine and practise are quite contrary to it Is it not because the native sense of those words is so manifest and obvious that they would certainly understand them aright could they be suffered to come to the true knowledge of them And this is the scandal and offence would be given them And in the Reign of Henry the Eighth of England who opened the Hatches a little whereby men were kept in hold from discerning the clear light above and about them when they could no longer conceal the Second Commandment from the people but it must appear in its own entireness in the English tongue Gardiner and other Romanists would have added for safety sake their own gloss to the Word of God viz. to Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image nor the likeness Antiquit. Brittan 1 ag 338. of any thing c. with that intent to give to them Divine Worship Which sufficiently betrayes the guilt to which they are conscious in their false dealing with this Precept and the common people about it But neither of these being likely to take effect a more effectual and bold coarse is invented and defended That this Commandment was Ceremonial and Judicial and Temporary only ordained to prevent the Jews from falling into Idolatry to which they were so prone 'T is true they were so prone then to Idolatry and however they are now-a-dayes more than enough averse from it yet would they at this day be as prone as ever were but the liberty given of the use of Images in the sense of the Roman Church This they have found by experience of their Forefathers and others of succeeding Generations and therefore hold it safest and best to set a less Superstition to keep at a distance a far greater and to make a scruple of all use of images which can scarce amount to the nature of sin at all though it may of folly to secure themselves from the contagion of the other extream in the superstitious use of them It is controverted between the ancient Hebrew Doctours of which you Petavius Theolog. Dogmati To. 4. l. 15. cap. 6. Grotius Exposst Decal may read Petavius and Grotius whether Gods intent it was here wholly to deny the Jews the use of Images as Philo and Josephus suppose or the use only in a Divine manner as others this later Opinion is chosen by Petavius and the Adversaries to the Iconoclasts or Image-breakers But my opinion is First That all Jews concur in this and all Christians not led by the nose by the Pope of Rome that to make the Image of God at all under what pretence soever is absolutely forbidden And therefore I wonder more at Gerson than at them who lived with and after him that he should endeavour to excuse the Latin Church thus Before the Incarnation when the Law was given there appeared no Image of the Incorporeal God either in wood Gerson To. 2. De 10 Praecept in Praec 1. or stone because the Image of a Spirit cannot be made And therefore all Images were then to be rejected but because that may be now done since the Incarnation of the Son of God therefore from that time it is allowed to be done by him who might dispense Thus he And how weakly who may not see First Why could not the Image of God be made as well before the Incarnation as after And why might not the Image of the Son of God be made before he was Incarnate therebeing some knowledge of the same as we may well suppose amongst the Jews before the Incarnation and some Umbrages and Representations of it in Apparitions made to the ancient Patriarchs without the view of his Colour Stature and Lineaments as well as after when we have certainly lost the truest form of Christ and go by guess and uncertain tradition Again could not there be drawn the Image of a Spirit before Christ and can there now I would fain see how where or by whom What Because Christ who is a Spirit who is God may be drawn according to his Humane nature may be also according to his Divine The Divine Person may indeed but the Divine Nature can no more now than before be resembled and that Deity only by concomitance and implication and not in form at all When the Image of a Man is made the Image of him is made who hath a spiritual and divine Soul but the Image of his Soul is not at all made and much less is the Image of God made unless metonymically as Man is said to be the Image of God when Christ is figured unto us But could this be which neither can nor ought to be what warrant at all can it be to make the Image of God in contradiction to Christ as is pleaded for and usual among Roman Catholicks when they upon a vile fansie occasioned from a vision in Daniel make God the Father like a decâ—epit old man well clothed indeed and most like to the Picture of Winter we have seen but that he wants a pan of coals by him to warm his old and cold fingers over and as it were his Grandchild standing by him Could not all this foul daubing of the Deity have been made before Chrusts Incarnation Or ought it in any sober mans judgment to be made now Lastly because they speak of some special Dispensation to do this now which was never allowed formerly let them be so ingenuous and courâ—eous to show us if not the Original lest they should be cousened of it the Copy or but one word of it and it will satisfie us otherwise we think they have said much more already than they needed For we should have been as well satisfied altogether if they had said only It ought to be so as to give such a Reason which is as incredible as the thing it self viz. that It is dispensed with now under the Gospel Nay in that they say it is dispensed with under the Gospel they impty it was more than Mosaical and Ceremonial under the Law because Rites and Ceremonies are not so much dispensed with as directly abolished and destroyed Secondly I hold it absolutely forbidden the Jews by the same Law to make use of any Images in the worship of God though not to that degree as to worship them but only By them and that for fear of Idolatry and if not in passing by or neglecting God himself and directing and fixing the mind and heart on the visible Object yet by help of that For that contradicts the mind of God as may appear by the whole Body of Gods worship and every part thereof instituted by himself without the least insinuation of such manner of worship Nay it is very strange what Erasmus hath observed That though indeed in practice it hath been connived at yea Nam ut Imagines sint in Templis â—ulla
which is an endless and causeless pursuit of outward sensible acts and ceremonies to the corrupting of the more sound and necessary part of Religion starving this by bestowing all cost and care on that and seeking to quiet the restless and suspicious mind by new and vain inventions in which the Roman Church and especially the vulgar there knoweth no mean And that we term Negative Superstition which on the contrary thinks every small matter a load unsupportable which is imposed upon them thinking it no less necessary to salvation not to do such things than the other to observe them and imagining they cannot serve God in Spirit and in Truth with such things as the opposite party suppose they cannot serve God without when both are false and both vainly deceived We may first give an Instance of both in the Indians as a great Traveller hath reported The Indians saith he Vincent le Blanck Trav. Par. 1. adjacent to the River Ganges impute such Worth and Sanctity to it that they believed it washed them from all their sins and value it as the best water in the world for which reason the Portugals hate it extreamly and will not but upon great necessity make use of it a superstitious humor This is exactly the Case between the superstitious Papist and the superstitious Puritan The Papists have sundry Intolerable superstitions next to Idolatry of these we speak not They have likewise many ancient and laudable Rites and Ceremonies innocent in themselves and very useful to Christians being not extolled above their Nature and Office which are to be subservient to and not to domineer over the more material part of Religion to the extinguishing or oppressing of it But they being advanced to such an unreasonable and dangerous esteem with them the Puritans fearful Religion tells him he can never sufficiently quit himself of them nor detest the number and nature of them enough this is their superstitious humor too Calvin in the treatise even now mentioned disputing against the Anabaptists Calv. contra Anabapt p. 8. in 8o. who opposed Pedobaptism or Baptism of Children argueth from the antiquity of the practice against which because they were wont to put in an exception as not Scriptural but rather Popish he proceedeth to shew that It was not brought in under the raign of the Pope which Ut simpsiciores faciam hos Fanaticos impudenter calumniari c. saith he I thought good to touch for no other reason but because I would advertise the simpler sort that these Fanatiques do impudently slander when they would perswade men that this so eminent Observation is a new Superstition and fein it to proceed from the Pope whereas the universal Church held it before it understood what the Popes Kingdom meant or had heard any thing at all of it Thus he And how many Rites and Customs do the Fanatiques now-a-days detest and declaim against right loudly and ignorantly because they hear and that many times by most false and vain Relaters that Popish Churches do use them as if they were the Authors and inventors of them who received most of their ancientest Ceremonies as they did the Scriptures and Councils themselves from the Eastern Churches and that before the Roman Church ever so much as pretended to that Power or was infected with that Leaven it now is And this doth plainly appear to any unprejudiced eye able to read but a little way into the monuments of the Church And I remember to have been within hearing of a great Zealot but God knows of little knowledge preaching up his Directory and consenting and advising that the Three Creeds now in our Liturgy should be taken into the Body of the Directory to garnish it as his own word was But because they were not pure Scripture and were admitted into the impure Missal what should be here done He resolved this by saying there was no great danger herein because these were not made nor brought in by the Pope but they were in use before the Pope was Antichrist It were to be wished they would extend this somewhat farther and the greatest number of grievances and superstitious scruples would easily vanish But Seneca de Ira. l. 2. c. 12. truly said Sencca of such persons Vana vanis terrori sunt Vain men are soon scar'd with vain things especially where there shall be invented such a supream piece of Religion which shall perswade men that the more full of exceptions doubts scruples and fears the more godly and the more tender Conscienced men not distinguishing between a sore Conscience and a tender one nor a distemper'd one and a quick sens'd We know very well that they who are sick are soonest a waked and those parts that are inflam'd and swell'd with corruption are most tender of all And so is it with such Consciences which are no more nor so much moved as others in matters of undoubted Good or Evil such as are division disobedience and uncharitableness and scandal and on the contrary humility and study of unity but so sore and tender in lighter matters that the least touch offends them and enrages them Which Tully according to his natural Superstitio qua qui est imbutus quietus esse nunquamposset Cicero de Natur. D. l. 1. wit found to be most true when he said Superstition was such a thing that he who is affected with can never be quiet Every thing but what he devises to himself molests and confounds him And out of this unsetled and unsatisfied humor every man would very gladly have the constituting and modelling the worship of God to prevent all superstition but what he himself is full of and to avoid the imaginary Idolatry of others inventions fall into the subtile and pleasant idolizing of his own imaginations But if way should be given to this not only Religion but even the world it self would soon come to an end if we believe that wise and Learned Doctour of the Jews Maimonides writing thus For the judgment of man is small and Maimonides deIdol cap. 2. §. 4. weak neither can all mortal men attain the pure truth But if every man should yield to his own conceits we should find the world run to destruction through the weakness of his understanding There can therefore be no more deadly superstition than for a man to fear no man but him that flatters him and every thing but what pleases him and to require much more clear demonstrations for the satisfaction of his pretended and superstitious fears than possibly he can give to ground them and so become contumacious under such colours But to rip up this sore disease at the Core we shall see so little Religion in the tempers of these obstinately superstitious people that there will appear nothing of common reason justice or ingenuity at the bottom of all For striking into mens minds hearts the sparks of their dividing and factious principles as men do fire into a
by the Greater sort who commonly by building themselves large and stately Pews and inclosing what is every poor Christians Freehold as well as the richest and noblest of the parish make it more sacred to the common Christian than any other part of the Church besides For that must be kept under lock and key and if not yet the greatness and power of the person who hath laid that out for himself suffices to deter any ordinary man from making the like use of that as of any other part of the Church lest his secular hand lye heavier upon him than the Ecclesiastical power can or must upon him for such invasion of every parishioners right as well as his So that what it is not lawful for or just to do to the Common for beasts or Town-Green where he lives he makes no scruple at all to do to Gods Peculiar and the Common to Christians As if so be Churches now-a-dayes were of the same nature with new found and possessed Lands in the Indies every man may have what he can enclose and fense in for himself and his friends only Whereas this should be well understood by every good Christian that hath the fear of God as a Christian ought before his eyes that the poorest person that takes collection in the parish hath as much reason and right to erect places in the Church to themselves and to possess themselves of any part of it as the rich but that it is not so much in his power And doth any man think he hath a good Right because he can do it That we can do saith the Law which we can Idpossumus qued sure possumus lawfully do But that we can lawfully do which the Common Law doth not interdict alwayes For the Common Law whether because it concerns altogether men in their civil capacities and proprieties such as this is not or whether it hath not heretofore been such a Dragg to enclose all it could lay hold on without consideration of other Courts Ecclesiastical which were alwayes received in all Christian Commonwealths but left many things to the decision of the more peculiar Laws made in behalf of Churches and Ecclesiastical Cases hath made no provision at all for the securing of the Rights of the Church or Christians thereunto belonging I mean in their Capacities properly Ecclesiastical so that scarce any remedy can be obtain'd from thence if a man shall steal any thing off the very body of the Church it self And can any man that hath any sense of Religion take sanctuary or protection from that in defense of his violation of Christians Rights and think all well done that is not punishable by that Law and lawful that it doth not interdict For by the same reason a man may inclose to himself a third part or more of the Church But they will modestly say that were unreasonable and I will boldly say so is the other and especially where when the Authours of such Fabricks making no use of them themselves shall deny the use of them to others case so requiring But that which is yet more intolerable is That the power and purse of the Great man who is alwayes to remember that the poorest man in the parish hath as much Law and Right on his side to shut him out as he hath to exclude and over-top the poor in his building should enable and embolden him so far as to take a considerable part of Gods sanctuary and inclose that from all use and access to lay the bones of his Family in and wholly to alienate it from all Divine Services and dedicate it only to corruption and with impudent Sacriledge to erect many Monuments and Tombs in a Canton they have usurped to themselves which being as is said no less lawful for any man than for one man instead of Christians in time we should have a Church filled with Sepulchres of the dead And when this is once done to endeavour a redress of such sacrilegious invasions of Gods and good Christians Rights is to expose Gods servants to not only the obloquy power and mischief of too potent an Adversary but to the dammage of Common Law which though it can give no right so to do yet will certainly defend the wrong-doer if he can plead custom But I have often thought that God in this last Age hath done himself Justice against such Families as have been guilty of such prophane usurpations in that he hath stirred up a barbarous Sect of Christians of late and let them justly into Churches like Goths and Vandals to break to pieces pull down and raze the scandalous monuments of many Churches erected to the honour of Man and dishonour of God At first all dead Bodies were lookt upon by the Heathens themselves as unclean and unworthy to be buried within the walls of their City Lycurgus was the first that suffered Corps to be interr'd in the City and that Plutarch in vita Lycurg Eutropius Lib. 8. Cicero de Legibus l. 2. near the Temples in Lacaedemon saith Plutarch The first of all Roman Emperours and much more of the inferiour people that was buried within the City was Trajane the Emperour which was prohibited by a Law of the twelve Tables as Cicero witnesseth And St. Vedastus was wont to say That the dead should not be buried within the walls of a City which was a place for the living and not for the dead as Alcuinus in his life writes And it is certain no Christians at all were buried in Churches for many hundred years but certain proper Cemateries or Dormitories were allotted for that purpose remote from Churches Pope Nicholas the first about the year 867 was thought to be preferred to be buried before the Church doors of St. Peter saith Nauclere And the same Nauclere writeth how Nauclerus Vol. 3. p. 64. ibid. p. 94. that about the year 983 Otho the third Emperour was buried at the Threshold of St. Peter at Rome And when they had brought dead bodies to the Church door they soon presumed to bring them in and found a reason so to do because the bodies of true Believers and holy Servants of God were not to be looked on as unclean or unworthy of so sacred a place because they had been themselves Temples of the Holy Ghost and were to be rennited again to their blessed spirits in heaven And not only so but the nearer the Altar always the better mistaking that place in the Apocalypse I saw under the Altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and Rev. 6. 9. for the testimony which they held collecting from hence that for Martyrs and holy persons that was the properest place to be buried in And the Cannon Law surely misguided by such a vain perswasion hath decreed it necessary to the Consecration of a Church that there be the body or at least some Relique of a Saint there posited But more reasonably doth it erre when it
affirmeth that it is Desecrated by the interrment of Hereticks there But certainly the words in the Revelation expressing a Vision meant no such thing as they are alledged for but only that in that Vision the holy Apostle beheld the souls of Saints and Martyrs departed humbled before or at the foot of the Altar as the manner was anciently to pray especially at the time v. 10. of offering crying aloud and with great importunity for justice and revenge upon the Persecutors of the Church and Murderers of them for the Testimony of Christ Jesus But because such hath been and I fear ever will be the corruption of Christian Religion that he that hath power in his hands and money good store in his purse shall be Sainted so far as outward ceremonies and priviledges can advance him he that would be at the charge of breaking up of the ground hath not been denyed nor dare any that I know whatever they ought to do deny him the liberty of being buried in the Church This may be and must be passed over but the affectation or irreligious ambition of building stately Seats and making that which is common to all Christians peculiar to some house so as upon no occasion it must be used by others is wicked and sacrilegious and much more the taking in of any the least part of Gods ground as the Church is to the prophane uses of making Tombs and Sepulchres and no other They are wont to say There is room enough besides It may be so for they commonly who thus enclose or usurp Gods Land have thin'd the inhabitants of the place where they live by illegal enclosures of the Common belonging to the Parish and so almost dispeopled the place But what is that to them more than any body else And why may not any man upon the same reason violently or fraudulently take away certain Acres of Land from him and say in his defense He hath left him enough still And least such as are Patrons of Churches and have certain supposed Prerogatives over the Chancels above what can be pretended to by the common sort of people should conceive they may there do as they please they are to know That in right and conscience such fore-mention'd practises can least of all be done For as the Founder of the Church so likewise the Builders of Chancels from whence only they can pretend such priviledge and as the maintainers of it in repair do at the time of the consecration consent to a total alienation of all civil propriety from themselves they can neither build nor bury there nor incommodate the place more than any other man for they are only Guardians and not Owners of that place upon which they may and ought to exclude and refuse all such incommodations of others as may any way deface or straiten or empair the same but they have no more right to do any such things there themselves then he that is Trustee or Guardian to an Orphan to seize upon his estate or any part thereof to his own use And it is only civil custom which hath given him a peculiar right of burial there rather then any body else And this may seem sufficient if not too much to have said of the Negative force of Dedication of Churches against Usurpers of Gods and Christians Rights The positive effect which is a veneration and worship therein of God Almighty doth farther confirm this and is contained in the end expressed as well as in the form of Dedication used by Solomon as the constant practise of the Jews whose Tabernacle or Temple had nothing of constant preaching or instruction of the people but only Prayers and Sacrifices Afterward their Synagogues called also Proseuchae for convenience because Acts 13. 27. all people could not meet at the Temple were erected where as the Scripture tells us the Law was read and Moses preached every Sabbath day but they had their special denomination fâ—ouâ— the Office and Acts of Prayer Synagogue signifying no more than an Assembly in general From whence if not also from the consent of all Nations besides who had Temples to their Gods it may appear that the most principal end of Gods House was alwayes till an ignorant irregular Generation sprang up esteemed the House of Prayer and Worship and teaching and instruction of people very necessary indeed as the foundation upon which all worship must be built was not that main end as is pretended And this worship being in its proper place in the Church was always and ought to be performed in most publique manner and most solemn as to outward appearance as well as inward affection to which too many deluded by a gross and cheap piece of Sophistry would confine Gods worship It is time we have no direct precept in the New Testament that I can call to mind enjoyning any particular behaviour at the time of Gods service nor yet in the Law And why so were not that very necessary in case any outward carriage were necessary Yes truly if so be such a Religious manner of worship could be known to us no other way than by Revelation extraordinary For Gods word is very sparing in those things of which we may by the common light of Nature attain to the knowledge For who is there that knows there is a God that knoweth not also that he is to be worshipped Who is there that knoweth that God is to be worshipped thar knoweth not also that he is to worshipped in the most lowly and reverent manner And that reverence outward is mutable and various according to the opinion of several Countries and therefore no one general Rule could be made comprehending and obliging all people but this is laid down to us that what is accounted in any Nation most solemn humble and reverent is that which is required of us in the worship of God But surely kneeling bowing the body uncovering the head yea and prostration of the body in convenient time and place are acts of worship such as were in use among the Jews of old continued by the Apostles and successors in Faith and Devotion as innumerable places of Holy Writ in the Old and New Testament intimate unto us where falling low at Gods footstool bowing the knee and such like outward acts of reverence are put for prayer it self which they never would have been had not they been the known manner of worship And Salvian describes Salvian de Provid lib. 7. Ad domos statim dominicas 〈◊〉 c. to us the custom of Christians in his early days thus We presently haste to the Lords house we cast our bodies on the floor and pray with weeping and joy mixt together And I am not advis'd of more then one place which interdicts any one piece of irreverence as unnatural and that the superstition of Puritans hath cast them into and that is covering of mens faces in the time of publique prayer when the hat as an instance
there be no Sermon there to offer their Prayers unto God and be instructed and edified out of the Word of God But I hold it best considering the many prejudices and superstitious surmises that are bred in the minds of too many simple Christians concerning the use of Gods house and the worship therein to propound what might more accurately be spoken of that subject from the opinion of Chrysostome that devout and judicious Father in an Homily against such as absented themselves too much from the House of God in these words so near as I could translate them He that loves doth not only desire to see his friend Chryâ—ostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Pag 1. 2 103. Tom. 8. whom he loveth but the very house only and the gate yea not only the gate of the house but the very holes and passages thereunto And if he sees but the garment or pantofle of his beloved he imagines himself to be present Such were the Prophets because they saw not God who is incorporeal they beheld his House and by his House imagined they had him present I should choose to be prostrate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the House of God rather then to dwell in the Tents of sinners Every place Every Room Psal 84. compared with the House of God is the Tent of sinners though it be a Court of Justice though it be a Council-house though any mans private House For though there should be Prayers though Supplications there yet must there necessarily be strifes and contentions and evil language and debates about secular cares But this House is clear from all these Wherefore they are the Tents of wicked men but this the House of God And as the shore free from winds and waves affords great safety to the Barks which put into them In like manner the House of God drawing such as enter into it from the stroms of outward businesses causeth them to abide in great calmness and security and to hear the Oracles of God This place is the Foundation of Vertue the School-house of Philosophy or wisdome and that not only at the time of assembling when the Word of God is heard and spiritual Doctrine and the Reverend Fathers are assembled but likewise at every other time Enter into the Porch only and suddainly as it were a spiritual Brees incloses thy soul And this quietness leads thee to trembling and teaches thee to be wise It elevates the mind and suffereth thee not to mind these present things It transports thee from Earth to Heaven And if so great benefit doth aâ—crue unto thee being there when there is not any Congregation what great profit must they needs reap who are then present and what great dammage must they suffer who are absent when the Prophets on all sides sound forth when the Apostles are preached when Christ stands in the midst when the Father disposes matters there done when the Holy Spirit affordeth its own joyes Would ye know where such persons spend their time who despise the Congregation what witholds them and what withdraws them from this sacred Table and of what is there discoursed Or rather I know clearly For rather they prate of absurd and ridicuious matters or are fix'd on worldly cares But both these exercises fail of pardon and have extream punishment And for the former there is no need so much as of a word or demonstration Yea that they who pretend the affairs of their house and alledge the unsupportable necessity from thence can by no means obtain pardon being called once aweek and even not then enduring the preferring of Spiritual before Earthly things is apparent from the Gospels For they who were called to the spiritual Marriage made such excuses as these One that he had bought a yoke of Oxen one that he had purchased a field another that he had married a bride but they were all alike punished They may be necessary causes but when God calls they are no Apology For after God all things are necessary After his honour let all other things be regarded For what servant I pray tell attends the affairs of his own house before he hath finished his Lords service c. And in another place he as plainly and zealously contendeth for the Time as here he doth for the Place of Gods worship directly refuting the vain imaginations of them in his days who contented themselves in appearing in Gods Chrys Proaem in 6. Orat. in Annam Tom. 5. p. 78. To. 8. p. 8. House on Festival days only I would we had not them that had learnt worse Doctrine then this Such saith he are to be perswaded to communicate according to every Festival assembly For though saith he Whitsuntide is passed yet the Feast is not over For every coming together is a Feast Whence doth this appear From the very words of Christ himself Matth. 18. 20. whereby he saith Where two or three are gathered together in my Name I am there in the midst of them But when Christ is in the midst of them assembled what other proof of a Feast would ye have greater than this Where there is teaching and praying where are the Benedictions of the Fathers the hearing of Laws where the assembling of Brethren is and the bond of sincere Charity where there is conversing with God and God discourses with men why should we not call that a Feast and Solemn meeting c. Thus he And are not all these to be had many dayes even when there is no Sermon And have not men been of late taught to despise and prophanely deride such incomparable daily blessings as these and the benefits flowing from them the more is the shame and the more is the pity God of his great mercy and grace teach us better and better settle us and incline us delivering us from that prophane imposture which hath of late been wrought into the minds of Christians most unchristianly that it is needless nay perhaps worse superstitious in publick or private manner to visit Gods House by Prayers and Praises offered there to him but when a Sermon is at hand A second Precept of the Church is to all conscientious Christians and obedient Children of God and the Church To observe the Fasts of Directions after the Kalendar and Rubrick after the Nicene Creed the Church which Fasts the Church makes fourfold The Fourty Days of Lent Ember Days at the four Seasons being the Wednesday Friday and Saturday after the first Sunday in Lent after the Feast of Pentecost after September the Fourteenth and after December the Thirteenth The Three Rogation days being the Monday Tuesday and Wednesday before Holy Thursday or the Ascension of our Lord. In all which we must note and suppose that Fasting it self in general is the Ordinance of God himself and not of the Church this duty in a manner contrary unto that of rejoycing unto God and Feasting standing upon the same Grounds that Festivals and Days of