prophesieth Isa 61. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for that he hath annointed me to c. which Christ himself applied to himself Luk. 4. 18. Secondly The Attributes of the same Spirit infer a Deity as Omniscience 1 Cor. 2. The Spirit searcheth all things yea the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2. 10 11. And lest this should be understood of a search without success or full knowledge it followeth For what man knoweth the things of 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 Creation The Spirit of God hath made me and the Job 33. 4. breath of the Almighty hath given me life saith holy Job And Christ casting out Devils by the Spirit of God and the Apostles miraculous acts demonstrating Mat. 12. 28. 1 Cor. 2. 4. the Spirit of God in them the preaching of St. Paul being in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power i. e. being so powerful in outward acts and miracles that it was sufficient conviction that he spake and wrought by the Spirit but miracles cannot be wrought by any thing less than a divine Power And by St. Peter it is called The Spirit of Glory 1 Pet. 4. 14. 1 Cor. 3. 16 17 and of God By St. Paul it is called God himself where he saith Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you If any man defile the Temple of God him shall God destroy for the Temple of God is holy which Temple are ye Here we plainly see how the Temple of God and the Temple of the holy Ghost are the same thing And thus we see confirm'd what St. John very plainly and positively 1 Joh. 5. 7. asserteth of this Mystery That there are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the holy Ghost and these three are one And this may suffice to have spoken according to our purpose compendiously as well of the Unity as Trinity of these Persons in the God-head only adding without any long or curious enquiry the several Notions and Idioms whereby they are distinct in our Faith The Property of the first Person is to be the Fountain and after the manner of first Principle of the other to whom therefore some ascribe a dignity of order above the other two though not of time or duration being all co-eternal and the one not to be conceived anterior to the other Nor of Nature as if the divine Nature were unequally communicated to them but that they are coequal in Being and in Power or Acting externally Another Property of the first Person is to be a Father in respect of the Son the second Person and together with the Son to bear such a relation to the third the holy Spirit for which no proper name hath been yet found out and whether it be possible to express the same aptly in one word I much question It is commonly called Procession on the part of the holy Ghost and in general on the parts of the other two Persons Production which yet is â—imited to the excluding of such a Production as answers Generation and much more of Creation besides which natural Reason can comprehend no other But Christian Faith obliges us to contain our selves modestly in the general Notion of Proceeding Some have indeed presumed to distinguish the production of the Son by the Father from the production of the holy Ghost by the Father and the Son in that the Son proceeds from the Father Intellectually as a word is conceived in the mind but the holy Spirit as act of the joynt will of Father and Son by way of Love Of which explication I shall suspend all sentence leaving others to judge CHAP. V. Of the proper Acts of God Creation and Preservation or Providence What is Creation That God created all things and how Of the Ministers of Gods Providence towards inferior Creatures the Angels of God Their Nature and Office towards Man especially THAT God is the proper Object of Christian Faith or Divinity not only as principal but as all other things therein treated relate to him is before shewed Now therefore we proceed from the Creator to the Creature to which the two hands of God are more visibly and eminently extended or stretched out The first In the Creation it self The other In the Providence of God over the works of his hands as the Scriptures phrase is And first Of Creation we understanding it to be after the nature of an Act must find out the proper term or object of it which is contained in that received definition thereof Creation is the production of a thing out of nothing or more plainly a making something of nothing In which we are not so grosly to conceive of Gods Act as if he made the world so of nothing as a man makes a Statue of something but of nothing or out of nothing is as much as from nothing or nothing concurring by way of pre-existent matter to produce such an effect For if any thing had been which had not its first Being from the first Cause of all God that must have been God also or there could not be said to have been any God at all because there could be no order where was no first and second and where matter is supposed to have been eternal there no priority of time can be admitted So that either such thing must have been God as we have seen in the Relations in the Trinity or no God at all because that is not God to which an equal in any respect distinct in nature from him may be found for Gods Nature is to be above all Neither can any reason be possibly alledged whereby it should appear that if simple matter as some call it might have subsisted before it was made simply by God the Sun and Moon and other compound bodies in Nature might not have pre-existed and prevented Gods workmanship or why an imperfect Being should have the dignity denied to a more perfect but at the pleasure and will of the supream Agent disposing all things For that which was not at all produced by another must necessarily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athanasius dâ— Incarnat spring out of nothing or of it self And why might not a Man or Horse or any other thing do so as well as infamous Matter Furthermore Unless there were a productive Power in God of something out of nothing the Power of God would not answer the Nature of God The Nature of God is infinite so therefore must his Power be but the Power of God could not be known to be infinite if such an infinite effect were not producible by him Lastly This denial of Gods Power to produce even the first imaginable matter would also destroy his Power in creating any thing not consisting of such matter and so should the production of Spirits utterly be
which we have shewed they have not as Jews and he will undoubtedly conclude against their antiquated Religion and Innovated Superstitions CHAP. VII The Christian Religion described The General Ground thereof The Revealed Will of God The Necessity of Gods Revealing himself AFTER the consideration of Religion in General and the reasonableness thereof with the Exclusion of the principal false pretenders of worshipping the true God it follows to treat of the Christian Religion and the Reasonableness and several incomparable Prerogatives thereunto proper And first it is to be known what we mean by Christian Religion and what it is Christian Religion is the worship of the only true God in the unity of nature and trinity of persons through one Mediatour between God and man the Man Christ Jesus according to his Will and Laws revealed in his holy Word commonly called the Scriptures This description whether artificial enough I will not contend but full enough I suppose it is to declare as well What it is in it self as Wherein it is distinct from others And therefore omitting to treat of the more curious and formal part thereof we shall here shew briefly What great advantages it hath above any other to the obliging us to a more faithful and devout observation thereof and that this only and no other can truly please God and lead us to him and crown us hereafter with eternal bliss and glory And it having been proved that by the consent of all Nations there is a God and it following more strongly upon that ground supposed that such a Supream and Infinite being is to be worshiped and that this worship is that which we call Religion and that of the Religions pretending to be divine the others have been found vain and deficient the Right of being received as the only proper worship of God must of necessity devolve upon the Christian Religion as that which is least obnoxious to the same or like exceptions and hath many more sober and rational inducements to perswade the same to any equal judgment Which argument might well be drawn from the very Body of this Religion and the several parts whereof it consisteth together with manifold Pregnant Circumstances attending the same But because this would ask a far longer time and more tedious labour both to Writer and Reader then can consist with this intended Compendium it may abundantly suffice to give such probable and credible proofs of the Scriptures That they are the revealed will of God as Christians do believe without question For the summ and substance of all Christian religion so far as it is truly so called and professed being founded on the Holy Scriptures and there expresly contained if it be evinced that they are of divine Original it will follow That what they deliver is so likewise and consequently the Religion built upon them But because it is one Principle which Christian Religion is built upon in common with all Religions that somewhat must so be believed that no natural reason or Mathematical can invincibly demonstrate And the reason hereof is because the ground of all such demonstations is setled upon the order of Nature between Cause and Effect in point of right rather than matter of fact But that the Scriptures are so the word of God as to be revealed by his Holy Spirit to certain select Persons to that end is altogether matter of fact and that not proceeding from such a necessary and natural Agent as that according to the course of Causes and Effects it could be no otherwise but from a free Agent which certainly might have suspended such acts of Revealing his Will And the same Reason holds against all proper Demonstration from Effect For as it cannot be demonstrated that such a Cause must necessarily have such an Effect it cannot be infallibly proved that such an Effect must have such a Cause For unless it could be proved that fire must necessarily burn it could not be proved that what we see burnt must necessarily proceed from fire For before this can be don it must be shewed that nothing in the world has the same virtue but fire and this supposes that we have a perfect and exact knowledg of every thing and the nature of it in the world Take we an instance yet nearer to our present subject It is a common Maxime amongst the Schoolmen That no Creature can work a Miracle of it self but it must have the Supernatural power of God either immediately or mediately and That whatsoever Effects are wrought by any Spirit inferiour to God deserve not the name of a Miracle And yet it is confessed withall that diverse such works which appear to us as extraordinary and above nature are not of God but some perhaps evil Creature Must it not then first be known what those extraordinary acts are and how they are wrought before it can be concluded that they are of God And how can this infallibly be discern'd but by another miracle and this by a third a third by an infinity of which there can be no knowledg So that in truth the received doctrine of the Schools being thorowly examined the contrary will appear the more reasonable of the two and that we must rather first of all acknowledg a Divine Power precedent and effecting this extraordinary stupendious work before we may call it a Miracle than first admit this to be a Miracle and then and thence infer a Divine Power So that it seems very difficult and dubious to make scientifical conclusions of any thing divine And that after all there may be sufficient presumptions to render a thing credible without lightness and rashness yet the Arguments perswading shall not be so pressing and cogent but due place should remain for a Faith or assent which may not be properly humane and natural which it must needs be if it proceeded simply from sense or reason natural but divine and an admirable temperament be found in that we call The true Christian Faith wherein the Grace of God inwardly moving and inclining the Will to embrace that to which it might notwithstanding all reasons to the contrary not altogether unreasonably have dissented and yet with reason doth assent the Grace of God pulling down 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. strong holds casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledg of God and bringing into Captivity every thought unto the obedience of Christ As St. Paul excellently saith speaking of the carnal warfare of humane ratiocinations either for or against Divine Faith and Doctrine which have no might but through God as he suffers by his justice the reasonings and eloquence of men to take place against his doctrine or to prevail towards the receiving of the truth by the superadded Power of his Holy Spirit as to this end St. Paul speaks in his first Epistle to the Corinthians thus And my speech and my preaching was not 1 Cor. 2. 4 5. with enticing words of mans wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and
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
faithful 2 Tim. 2. 11 12. saying If we be dead with him we shall also live with him If we suffer we shall also raign with him And is it not certainly implied that we shall receive the promises of God which are as well of Eternal and Spiritual things if we do the will of God by Faith and works of Faith when it is said Ye have need of patience that after ye have done the will of God ye might Heb. 10. 36. receive the promise And I should wonder at the subtilty of Perverters of divine Writ if they shall be able to draw any other sense from the words of Christ expressing his Rule of proceeding at the day of Judgment thus Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the Mat. 25. 34 35 36. foundation of the world For I was an hungred and ye gave me meat I was thirsty and ye gave me drink I was a stranger and ye took me in Naked and ye cloathed me I was sick and ye visited me I was in prison and ye came unto me How can any thing be spoken more plainly to make Eternal Life the reward They falsify our Tenets saying That we hold that Good works are not means of Salvation Francis White Epist. Dedie of Good works than is here spoken Or how can any man affirm that all things necessary to salvation are plainly taught and easily to be understood in Scripture and shall denie this to be plain and such good works as are here specified necessarie to salvation For to bring in any Scholie which shall elude this will do them much more mischief in other cases as leading to the corrupting all places of Scripture which they allow to be plain and rendring them altogether useless to the ends for which they are alleadged For to say only that Faith must be here understood is most true but insufficient to make the testimonie void because otherwise they were not good works And this must alwayes be retained in memory which we have before laid as a foundation That they are not the good works of natural Reason or humanity nor the good works of the Law now voided which we here in this dispute contend for but they are the works of Faith qualified with all the due conditions of the Gospel of Grace and actuated by the Spirit of Grace And here it may be useful to instance in some of those principal adjuncts which make our works truly evangelical and leading to that blessed end spoken of And here I do not make Faith so properly a condition as a cause and a common Essential foundation supposed to all Evangelical Acts as the root is not aptly termed a Condition of the fruit but the intrinsique Cause thereof But others there are very necessarie though not in the same degree such as these First that they be done in obedience to the will and command of Almighty God ordaining Good works Anew commandment John 13. 24. saith Christ I give unto you that ye love one another And how far this extends St. Paul tells us saving He that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law Rom. 13. â— Ephes 2. 10. And yet more expresly to the Ephesians he saith We are Gods workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them And again to the Thessalonians he saith This is the Thes 4. 3. will of God even your sanctification Secondly the merits of Christs Passion whereby we are redeemed to God and sanctified according to St. Paul to Titus speaking of Christ Who gave himself for us that he might redeem Tit. 2. 14. us from all iniquitie and purisie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of Good works A third thing requisite to constitute a work Good according to the Gospel is that it proceed from a Person adopted or made a Child of God by Grace For this is required of all true Christians That they be born again of John 3. 5. Joh. 3. 9. water and the Holy Ghost And as the same author elsewhere hath it Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God A fourth is the inward Grace of God working and moving the mind to holy works and this preventing us so that we are first excited of Gods Spirit without any natural inclination of our own to do that which is the good and acceptable will of God For to this end make our Saviours words in the Gospel where he saith Without me ye can do nothing that 1 Joh. 15. 5. is no Good work answerable to the perfection of the Gospel and the promises thereof A fifth is the outward Grace of God remitting and passing over the several Omnia mandata facta deputantur quando quicquid non fit agnoscitur Aug. Retract defects and blemishes adhering to Good works even of the Regenerate For then saith an holy Father truly is the Law fullfilled when what is committed amiss is pardoned And to this relate the words quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews as an ingredient into the Covenant of the Gospel viz. I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities will Heb. 8. 12. I remember no more Sixthly Perseverance in good is likewise necessarie though not to the essence of the Act done to make it Good for perseverence doth not of it self add good or evil to an action but supposes the same and continues it as it finds it yet to the reward it is absolutely necessarie Forasmuch as Gods Judgement as mans likewise is alwayes passed according to what a man actually is found to be whether good or evil and not to what a man hath been or possibly afterwards might have been For saith the word of God Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a Crown of Life And Revel 2. 10. 1 Cor. 7. 8. elsewhere Waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall also confirm you unto the end that ye may be blameless unto the day of our Lord Jesus Last of all to make a good Work rewardable is requisite the freeness of Gods promises made to accept the same and to reward it not for its own sake but for his sake and Christs sake And that God hath promised blessed rewards to those that work according to the tenour of the Gospel as now described doing it as his children under the protection of Christs mediation and merits to the glory of God through the operation of Gods Spirit persevering therein till God shall call them off resting not upon themselves but his promises is most undeniable and a Principle necessary to be maintained and practised by all faithful Christians doth appear from what is before alleadged And what if any thing may be is yet more cleerly asserted by Christ saying He that receiveth Mat. 10. 41. a
but they were the intermediate effects of the stock of Grace treasured up in the Soul and exhorting and improving it self by the continual supplie of the Spirit of Christ according to the * Mat. 25. 16. doctrine of St. Paul to the Corinthians saying Insomuch that we desired Titus that as he had begun so he would also finish in you the same Grace also Therefore as ye abound in every thing in Faith in utterance in knowledge and v. 7. in all diligence and in your love to us see that ye abound in this Grace also Of this influence of Christs Spirit to the augmentation of Grace in the hearts of the true believers speaketh the same Apostle to the Colossians thus The Col. 2. 19. Head from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministred and knit together encreaseth with the encrease of God Sanctification then may be described The Grace of God infused into the Soul of a Sinner and purifying it by Faith as Justification is the reputation and acceptation of a person for Just by almighty God through the intuition of the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ And yet more distinctly to declare their mutual agreement and difference it will conduce much to the due understanding of them both First then Justification and Sanctification agree in their Subject The true believer the same person who is Sanctified being also Justified and he that is Justified being Sanctified also For so saith the prophet Nahum of him The Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked Nahum 1. 3. And when we find St. Paul affirming the contrary in appearance viz. that God justifieth the ungodly we are to understand him to speak not in Rom. 4. 5. Sensu composito in such manner that he is justified while he is so ungodly but in Sensu diviso a distinct sense and season as if it had been said Him that was once ungodly as he seems to interpret himself in his Epistle to the Corinthians where having spoken of the many abominations men were subject to he saith And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are 1 Cor. 6. 11. Sanctified but ye are Justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God Secondly Justification and Sanctification agree in their foundation which is at least inchoate and initial holiness For though no mans inherent holiness arises so high as to denominate him truly Just or holy for its own sake yet both to Sanctification and Justification is necessarily required some preparatorie and imperfect holiness consisting principally in the Conversion of the mind to God from sin Thirdly both Sanctification and Justification are alike owing to Faith as their immediate Cause next under Gods Spirit as may be gathered from the prayer of Christ for his disciples Sanctifie them through thy truth thy word is Joh. 17 17. truth That is the doctrine of Faith received To which Faith the effect of Sanctification is ascribed by St. Peter in the Acts whereby the Act. 15. 9. hearts of the Gentile were purified or Sanctified Fourthly they are both equally imputed unto us through the Righteousness of Christ Therefore saith St. Paul to the Corinthians To them that are Sanctified in Christ Jesus And 1 Cor. 1. 2. Heb. 10. 29. to the Hebrews it is said We are Sanctified by the blood of the Covenant So that no less are we Sanctified then Justified by Christs death and merits and the imputation of them But on the other side they are distinct in some formalities such as these may be for First the immediate cause of our Sanctification is in holy Scripture imputed to the operation and influence of the Holy Spirit as our Justification is more properly attributed to Christ the mediator between God and man As appeareth from St. Pauls words to the Thessalonians But we are bound to give thanks alwayes for you brethren beloved of the Lord 2 Thes 2. 13. because God hath from the beginning chosen you to Salvation through Sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth And St. Peter Elect according 1 Pet. 1. 2. to the foreknowledge of God the Father and Sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience Thirdly Justification looketh backward being an absolution of the guilty from sins formerly committed and holding him Just but no man is justified actually from sins which hereafter he may fall into But Sanctification relates chiefly to the time future For not only is a sinner by the Spirit of Regeneration and Sanctification purged from the old Leaven of sin and malice but he becometh a New Lump and unleavened 1 Cor. 5. 7. Rom. 6. 13. and whereas he hath yielded his members as Instruments of unrighteousness unto sin he doth yield himself unto God as those that are alive from the dead And old things are done away in him and all things become new And whosoever is 1 Joh. 3. 9. thus born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God Fourthly to the Act of our Justification the will of man doth not necessarily concurr though it dissents not but is rather passive than Active but to our Sanctification is absolutely required the co-operation of the will and affections of man with the Grace of God in all those who have attained unto the use of reason For indeed by baptism Infants are so far Sanctified as to be freed from that hereditarie evil incident unto them which their will concurred not to but to actual Sanctification from those evils our wills did freely consent actual concurrence of our wills is necessary Fifthly Our Justification is entire and absolute at once no man being partly Justified and partly not Justified though he be partly Just and partly unjust or unholy But no man in this Life is so perfectly Sanctified as that there wants not somewhat to consummate the same because Justification being altogether the Act of God and not at all of Man God may and doth wholly and freely remit the guilt of sin to the penitent offendor But Man being also concerned in the Sanctification of himself his acts are imperfect and defective so that the effect it self partakes of the same and so Sanctification continues imperfect And it is not all at once but answerable to our natural man proceedeth by degrees Until we all come Eph 4. 13. in the unity of the Faith and of the knowledg of the son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the Stature of the fulness of Christ which fulness of stature is that we are to hope for and enjoy only in heaven Lastly to search no farther into this point before Justification there must of necessity goe some degree of Sanctification even in the opinion of such as contend most rigorously for freeness of Justification for to make Justification altogether
Gods Word already confirming this duty and to leave others to every ingenuous Christians diligent use of it to avoid prolixity And for the objections which may be made and are commonly found against what is above delivered for the same reason I pass them over as likewise because I intend not here Controversie but Positive Institutions CHAP. XXVII An Application of the former Discourse of Civil Government to Ecclesiastical How Christs Church is alwayes visible and how invisible Of the Communion of Christ and his Members The Church of Christ taken specially for the Elect who shall infallibly be saved never visible But taken for true Professours of the Faith must alwayes be visible though not Conspicuous in comparison of other Religions or Heresies THE Reasons moving me to insist a while upon Civil Government before I entred upon Ecclesiastical are First because I find Authors of the grounds of Christian Religion to treat of the same generally Secondly because where breaches have been made often in the Faith and Discipline of the Church there necessary provision ought to be made to secure them for the future but for want of due understanding of this Doctrine licencious zeal blinded with presumption hath transported very many into unchristian practises Thirdly because it is a necessary introduction to the more clear and compendious pursuing of our subject of the Spiritual Society of the Church of Christ and particularly its Form The Form of Christs Church may be distinguished according to the vulgar Notion into invisible and visible or inward and outward Invisible we here call that which doth not at all offer it self to our outward sense of seeing cannot be beholden with our eye Or that which may in some manner appear to our sight but not as a Church of Christ though in truth it so may be According to the first acceptation of invisible we understand the Body Mystical of Christ consisting of himself the only proper Head the Holy Spirit animating and influencing the same and the particular members of the holy most happy invisible Spirits in heaven and Saints on earth spiritually united to them by Christ in the divine band of holiness And hitherto do the words of the Apostle to the Ephesians seem to be applyed saying Having made known the mystery of his will That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather Ephes 1. 9 10. together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are in earth even in him signifying hereby the mystical conjunction of Men and Angels in Christ Jesus although there are who not improbably and more literally do understand these words only of the collection and uniting of Jews who in respect of their peculiar exaltation to Gods service and favour are stiled in Scripture heavenly compared with the Gentiles and Gentiles into one Faith and Church of Christ which therefore divers times is called a Mystery as Romans the 16. 25 26. Ephes 3. v. 3 4 5. Col. 1. 26 27. 1 Tim. 3. 16. because as is there expressed it was an hidden and incredible thing to the Jews that the Gentiles should be taken into the like priviledges and rights of serving God as were once esteemed incommunicable to any so fully as to the Jews But whether the Scripture according to its most genuine and literal sense intendeth at any time to comprehend into one Society Angelical Peings and Humane as the Church of Christ as I do not find though the Ancients as well as Modern have held such an opinion so do I not oppose the Mystery of which we now speak being sufficiently verified in the preternatural and invisible conjunction of Christ and his Church in the indissoluble bands of his Spirit guiding the members thereof into all sufficiencie of Grace here and immortal absolute glory hereafter in heaven To understand this co-union or conjunction of Christ and his Members the better we are to call to mind a threefold union intimated in holy Writ unto us First a conjunction of Nature when more are of the same individual nature as the three Persons in the Holy Trinity are united in the same Divine Nature though in themselves distinct which is so proper to that mystery of the Trinity that it is not to be found elsewhere no not in that intimate communion we now speak of between Christ and his Members their natures continuing distinct Again another conjunction proper to Christian Religion is the union of two natures into one Person as in the Mystery of Christs incarnation when the humane and divine Nature become one so far as to constitute but one Person Christ Jesus So do not Christ and his Church But by a third way are Christ and his Church united into one aggregate Spiritual Body or Society which is effected by his Spirit which yet do not make properly a Part of that Body but by its manifold divine Graces do produce and conserve the same Christ thereby and his Church being as St. Paul saith One Spirit He that is joyned unto the Lord is one Spirit And 1 Cor. 6. 17. St. John likewise saith Hereby we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his Spirit This truly and only in a proper sense is invisible and that alwayes and hath two Parts the triumphant in Heaven which is a most perfect pure holy and blessed Society which have through the bloud of the Lamb and the power of his Spirit overcome the three grand Enemies Sin Death and the Devil and reaped the fruits of their sufferings and labours all tears being wiped from their eyes all sorrows being fled away all temptations for ever conquered and ceasing to molest them Now this part of Christ's Church remains alwayes invosible unto us here below And as for the other Part which is called Militant and are described to be A number of faithful and elect people living under the Cross and aspiring towards the perfection of Grace and Glory hereafter supposing at present what may hereafter be farther discussed viz. That such a peculiar number of holy persons there are within the visible Church of Christ which shall infallibly attain to everlasting bliss in heaven yet neither are these as such at any time visible or discernable to our common senses It being scarce if at all possible to judge infallibly who shall be saved and who shall not be saved it being much more difficult for any man to be assured of another mans salvation than of his own seeing that as is said hereunto an inward testimony of Gods Spirit is required which is the ground of that sound hope which is commonly called Assurance but the Promises of God in holy Scripture do not extend in like manner to the assuring of any man that another shall be saved as that he himself shall or that anothers faith shall not fail as that his own shall not but thus far only probably a truer and more certain sentence may
be made apparent in how many and great things they have degenerated in their Doctrine and Worship since it pleased God to withdraw his holy Spirit from that Church upon their rejecting of the true Messias sent them and to translate it to the Church of the Gentiles And no wonder that they who observe not that now should argue against it as a thing not to be done and moreover deny that ever it was believed or practised by their Forefathers for there remains no other way to excuse themselves in their present error but to maintain that it was never otherwise held This is a common evasion of all Hereticks and Sectaries But that the Scriptures of the Old Testament contained this Doctrine in substance though the more perspicuous and glorious manifestation of the same was reserved for the New is not to be denied especially if we consider how that many of their own Doctors and Rabbies have so interpreted the same And some have admired the Hebrew Language as the holy Tongue not so much as some of moderner standing amongst them have given out because of the neat and modest expression of things of impure and obscene nature for it is very plain that the most obscene things are there as broadly and manifestly expressed as elsewhere but from the matter which it treats of generally very divine and particularly from the nature of that Tongue in every word of which being a Radix or original the Mystery of the Trinity is implied in that it consists but of three principal Letters which Letters make but one word But there are more sure words of Prophesie than they and such are these together with the Comment and approbation of the Chaldee Paraphrast Gen. 3. v. 8. it is said They heard the voice of the Gen 3. 8. Lord God walking in the Garden which words Onkelos renders thus And they heard the voice of the Word of the Lord God where we see that Voice and Word are distinguished the one being taken for the Word spoken the other for the Word subsisting or personal And again v. 22. where the Hebrew hath And the Lord God said c. Jonathans or as some more properly the Hierusalem Targum hath The Word of the Lord said And the same Hierusalem Targum on Deuteronomy the 33. 7. hath The Word of the voice of the Lord heard Judah where the Original and other Translations have Hear Lord or receive Lord the voice of Judah And so in other places which doth argue a Personality ascribed unto the Word of God Which doth farther appear for that the action of Creation extending the Heavens and Repenting is attributed unto the Word of God But I leave the asserting of the Mystery of the Trinity from the Scriptures of the Old Testament interpreted by the learnedst and most renowned of the Jewish Doctors to such who have made it their design to convince them from testimonies of their own Authors as Petrus Galatinus and more exactly Josephus de Voisin in his Comments on Prigro Christianae Fidei and especially de Trinitate I shall only add here that memorable passage in Bibliander out of the Jewish Rabbies upon that place in Bibliander de Paschate Israel Gen. 28. 11. Gen. 28. And he lighted upon a certain place and tarried there all night because the Sun was set and he took of the stones of the place and put them for his pillows and lay down in that place to sleep Where some Rabbies saith Bibliander do understand that he took two stones but others as Rabbi Nechemias that he took three and in this manner prayed to God If God shall write his Name upon me as he did his Name upon mine Ancestors let all these become one and he found them all one By which type of the stone they give to understand God to be the Original of all things for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in Hebrew is a stone implies in a mystery the Trinity for in Aben Ab intimates the Father Ben signifies the Son and ◠or N. Neshanna or Spirit Thus they Which their interpretation whether it hath not more of wit than solid Argument I am not here to determine it sufficing our present purpose to shew that the Doctrine of the Trinity is no invention of Christians as moderner Jews vainly give out for if their forefathers mention the same though their grounds may not be of the soundest it argues they knew and received it Other Texts from the Old Testament implying this Mystery are chiefly these 2 Sam. 23. 2. Isa 48. 16 17. and chap. 61. 1. and chap. 63. 9. Psal 33. 6. compared with Joh. 11. 1 2 3. Haggai 2. 5. compared with Gen. 1. 26. Isa 6 3 c. Concerning all which it is to be observed First That it is not to be expected the testimonies of the Old Testament whose design it was to deliver all things more covertly and obscurely should be altogether so literally and expresly taken as that none other may be found as proper as that sence given by Christians but it may suffice that an apt accommodation may be made to the confirmation of our Faith and that by the chief enemies to it Secondly That the Tradition of the Jewish Church differed from the historical or literal sence Hence our Saviour Christ proves the Messias to be God out of Psalm 110. v. 1. The Lord said Psal 110. Matth. 22. 42. unto c. arguing to this effect He who was greater than David himself from whom the Messias should come must needs be God David calling him in Spirit Lord but David in Spirit calls the Messias his Lord whereas David being himself absolute Soveraign had no mortal greater than he therefore he must be God This was then generally received amongst the wisest of them That the Messias was there intended though the words might be capable of a more literal sence And the like may we judge of the Arguments of St. Paul drawn out of the Old Testament to confirm the Doctrine of the New and particularly this for it is confessed that he bringeth many proofs as do also the other sacred Pen-men out of the Books of the Old Testament which have a literal sence much differing from that purpose to which they are alledged But it is certain that the ancient Jews did maintain two sences a Literal and a Mystical and that St. Paul being educated in the prime Traditions and Mysteries of their Divinity used them according to the known sence of the learned For otherwise it had been as easie then for the Jews to have put in their exceptions against his Doctrine as now it is for Jews to cavil at them But besides the Autority of the Old Testament principally to be used against Jews the Autority of the New must be enforced against the Heresies of Christians against this great Mystery Go ye saith Christ in St. Matthew and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father Matth.
dismiss them the holy Guardian refusing such an unprofitable and servile office and at the same time in effect invite evil Spirits to joyn with them in their dissolute courses and to manage them therein To the confirmation of which I shall only translate the words of St. Hierom upon Habbacuck As Christ is the Head of his Church Hieron in c. 3 Habbac and every man so is Belzebub the Prince of Devils the head of all such Devils as rage in this world and every company of them hath their Heads and Princes For example Spirits of Fornication and Uncleanness have their Head the Spirits of Covetousness have their Prince the Spirits of Vain-glory the Spirits of Lying the Spirits of Infidelity have their Presidents of mischief This I say supposing the great opinion which asserteth the Ministration of good and evil Angels as is here intimated from the grounds given in Scripture and such a cloud of ancient and modern witnesses against Calvin in Act. 15 Psal 90. Mat. 18. 10. whom it pleased Calvin to interpret Scripture in this point with addition of scoffs and derisions which I here leave to them that like them well and proceed to this visible and inferior World CHAP. VI. Of the Works of God in this visible World Of the Six days Work of God All things are good which were made by God IT is plainly affirmed in the entrance of the History of the Creation that In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth By Gen. 1. 1. which two general Bodies we understand all particular reducible to either of them and that there is nothing so pure perfect or noble above which we call heavenly Bodies but God first gave it a Being neither is there any earthly Substance so imperfect base or impure but his hand descended to the framing of it For first Nothing is abâ—olutely evil but only as there are sâ—me more excellentand divine things made by God which eclipse their glory which otherwise would be seen and noted in the most vile thing of all And secondly Nothing is so base but that an infinite Power is requisite to the first production of it neither did the divine hand labour more in produâ—â—ng an Angel than the first deformed Matter out of which other things were made So that the error of such Hereticks as the Marcionites and Manichees who constituted two Gods from the diversity of things appearing to them good and evil was no less sottish than blasphemous and derogatory to Almighty Gods Nature and Providence For as the Scripture tells us after a particular view made by God of every days work he pronounced all things to be good so at the consummation of all things he passeth this sentence upon all his works together And God saw every thing that he had made and behold it was Gen. 1. 31. very good And to the general Objection against this taken from the contrariety and Vide Petrum Comestorem in Genesim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost in Gen. Serm. 7. enormities one thing hath to another in the world and especially the great evil that many things bring unto man for whose good they seem principally to be intended such as are ravenous wild Beasts venemous Serpents and deadly poysons lurking in Plants The answer is ready and fair viz. That God made not any thing absolutely for anothers no not for mans good but for his own Glory and the manifestation of his Power Wisdom and Goodness to all And therefore though by nature some things are repugnant to one another nothing is contrary unto God all the contrariety to God found in the Creature is meerly accessory and not natural and that only in such Creatures as were at first endued with so much freedom of will that they might persevere in that natural perfection given 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aeneas Gazaeus in Theophrasto them or fall from it Again After the chief of Gods ways as the principal order of Angels and Man were degenerated into evil the Universe continued notwithstanding perfect and God provided for the evil it self crept into it For as in a Dispensatory all things are not sweet but some sharp and bitter all things are not lenitives but some corrosive and cutting and there are poysons and counter-poysons So is it in this great World God hath disposed every thing in its proper place and to its proper end and one contrary to counterwork another to the benefit of the whole and constituting of all a most excellent harmony As in a well-tuned Lute or Harp the strings stand many times of themselves in discord but being toucht by the skilful hand of the Artist do render to the ear excellent harmony In like manner the discord of the Elements and other compounded Bodies being most wisely ordained and moved by the hand of the all-ruling Providence do make an excellent consort to the praise and glory of God Lastly As it is no less necessary to the preserving of the common peace and tranquillity of a Nation that there should be Prisons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysoft To. 6. Serm. 102. p. 895. Psal 8. 1. 3. Psal 19. 1. as well as Palaces and whips and halters as well as honours and riches So is it in the world the Commonwealth over which God alone presides necessary that for the deterring of evilly-inclined persons for the repressing of seditiously and rebelliously-disposed persons and malefactors against God their Soveraign there should alwayes be at hand Gods Instruments to châ—stise and punish them and this is done by commissioning and arming the Creature to seize upon them by afflicting the body or estate of the contumacious or meliorating them to an higher degree of perfection So that though some things to man in some one capacity may be found to be evil yet is it not in all respects and in it self not at all And thus is resolved as well the evil aspects and influences of the Heavens as the violences of inferior bodies against man nay the reason of Hell it self as Chrysostome saith For that the Heavens are the work of Gods hands hath been shewed before in the general Discourse and may yet farther from the Authority of the Psalmist which saith of God He hath set his Glory above the Heavens And The Heavens are the work of thy fingers the Moon and the Stars which thou hast ordained And The Heavens declare the Glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his handy-work 1. That God therefore made the Heavens and all the Hosts thereof is most plain and as most plain so most necessary to be believed but concerning the nature and number of them it is rather a Philosophical curiosity than Christian duty to enquire And that little which we may draw from Scripture hath more of reason in it than all the presumptuous imaginations of men for such I call their defining them to be solid oâ—bicular bodies moving like wheels about the earth and
7. 1. Eph. 5. 21. place The Psalmist saith They have no fear of God before their eyes St Paul saith Perfecting holiness in the fear of God and elsewhere Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God All which with many more places import as much as Religious worship of God And so doth the Love of God also as in St. Luke our Saviour saith to the Pharisees Wo to you Pharisees for ye tithe Mint and Rue and all manner of Herbs and pass over Judgment and the Love of God where Love of God stands for the Luk. 11. 42. true Service of God and duely to him as Judgment insinuates our duty towards our neighbour And so St. Paul to the Thessalonians The Lord direct your hearts into the Love of God And St. John most frequently in 2 Thes 3. 5. all his writings Leaving therefore this general consideration let us in this order inquire farther into 1. The Parts 2. The proper States of serving 3. The special Kinds of Divine Worship CHAP. II. Of the two parts of Divine Worship Inward and Outward The Proof of outward worship as due to God and that it is both due and acceptable to God Several Reasons proving bodily worship of God agreeable to him Wherein this Bodily worship chiefly consists Certain Directions for Bodily worship Exceptions against it answered BY what is expressed in our General description of Worship it may appear that there are two Principal Parts of it The one consisting in inward affection and the other in the outward Actions The inward disposition of the mind or soul of man is that on all hands is agreed upon as most justly due and proper to God alone in the supreamest manner God calleth for the heart so often in his holy word as his proper portion and the Spirit as that which draweth nearer to the nature of God as purely spiritual and incorporeal For God saith Christ is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in Truth Though if we should take these words according to the prime intention they would be found not to aim so much if at all at diverse manners of worship under the same kind but at several kinds such as were the Judaical and Christian the meaning of Christ being this that the hour or time was coming when there should be no longer use of those corporal services and Sacrifices under the Law but in lieu of them the spiritual and true worship of the Gospel should succeed But no question can be made of the excellency of that true spiritual inward devotion of the heart and mind to God as the most absolute most required most accepted and in comparison of that all outward worship being no better without it than gross Hypocrisie rather incurrs the displeasure of Almighty God than pleases him Therefore leaving that which all Christians are in their judgements sufficiently satisfied in and hold themselves obliged unto we shall take up the defence of the outward worship in great manner opposed by too many And truly They that argue so contemptuously and wildly as the vulgar custome doth against outward worship of God shall not need to go far to see their own folly For to say God is a Spirit and 'T is the heart that God calls for and 'T is the zeal of the Soul and such like loose sayings what do they but cut the throat as much of vocal prayer and Preaching as of any thing else For if God will accept the heart and looks no farther than the purity and good dispositiâ—n of the mind Audible Prayer and Preaching must together with the rest be excluded as impertinent in Gods service We know that the prayer of the heart as in the Case of Hannah is accepted of God at some times and in some places as the true Love and Charity to our Neighbour inclining us to do him good and relieve him when it lies not in our power but St. James looks on them and censures them as meer uncharitable mockers and not relievers of their neighbours who shall only pretend they mean them well inwardly and say unto them Depart Jam. 2. 16. in peace be ye warmed and filled notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body Even so Faith and so the will and the heart and the Spiritual worship without works are all dead and are a meer mockery of the divine Majesty a corrupting and perverting of his holy word and a bitter Sarcasm turning it against himself and as much as if it should be said Seeing you will needs have the heart you shall have it that is so as to have nothing more It were superfluous and shameful to cite the many misunderstood and misapplied texts of Scripture to delude the most ignorant and at the same time most presumptuous of Scripture None speak more after the phrase which hath deceived so many than that not long since quoted Wo be to you Pharisees for ye tithe Mint and Rue and Luk 11 42. all manner of Herbs and pass over Judgment and the Love of God Doth not the Scripture here seem to condemn and that under a curse such litle services as are there expressed It seems so indeed and really doth as much as any outward worship of God But it doth but seem so For undoubtedly it was most agreeable to it that such minuter services should be perform'd but that so performed as studiously and superstitiously to neglect the other more weighty was it which incensed God against them And here comes in that general argument also above touched Fast from sin say they and for outward fasts it matters not Wisely and profoundly said like able Divines indeed And so fast or abstain from sin and ye shall never need to pray nor hear Sermons nor to feed the Hungry nor cloth the Naked no nor to believe in God which is all such persons have left them of Religion starved into an unactiveness Would it not make a mans Hair stand upright to see and hear what precipices of Heathenism and follies Men dispute themselves into And so they may as they suppose enjoy their lust of contradiction and contempt of others strike through the loins of all Reason and Religion at the same time Reason which they set by such sophistry as this to fight against it self For Serving of God in Spirit and in truth and abstinence from all sins as well of Omission as Commission is the very perfection and end of all Religion And if there were no more required but a simple command to do it on Gods part not directing us to the way and no more on our part but presently and immediately to become holy and perfect without the proper means conducing to such high and not easie ends then forsooth these Disputants were the best Councellors but if there be outward means ordained in general by God and applicable many times by humane prudence to the effecting such ends and
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
bear the place of the Example 27. It may be granted that Images may be worshipped C. 23. improperly and by accident with the same kind of worship C. 24. with which the Exemplar but not for their own sakes and properly and therefore Latria is not properly and for themselves to be given for them 28. A Vow is an Act of Religion due to God only like L. 3. c. 9. De cultu sanctor as an Oath and Sacrifice as appears from the Scriptures whose Vowes are constantly said to be made to God Yet it is most certain that in some manner Vowes may be made to Saints 29. It is not probable that Christ in these words this is De Eucharist l. 1. c. 9. my Body would speak figuratively 30. One Body may be in divers places at once L. 3. c. 3. 31. That the Elements in the Eucharist are turned into L. 3. per. tot Christs Body 32. It is a truth necessary to be believed that whole L. 4. c. 21. 22. Christ is in the kind of Bread and whole Christ is in the kind of Wine 33. No more Grace is contain'd in one kind then in C. 23. both 34. Worshipping the Host excuses from Idolatry because C. 29. they believe there is no Bread remaining and no Catholick holds that Divine Worship is to be given to Bread 35. Our Sacrifice is truly and properly called a Sacrifice L. 2. de missa c. 2. no less than the ancient Sacrifices as is shown in the former Book 36. The Rite of Reconciling Sinners after Baptism which De Paenit lib. consists of Repentance discovered by external signs and the word of Absolution Catholicks affirm to be a true and proper Sacrament 37. There is a treasure of superfluous Merits in the Church De Indulg l. c. 2 3 11. which may by the Pope be applyed to the benefit of other persons by Indulgences 38. The Catholick Church doth openly affirm Extream Unction De Extrem Unct. c. 1. to be truly and properly a Sacrament 39. Orders are a Sacrament truly and properly so called De Ord. c. 1. 40. Matrimony of Believers is a proper Sacrament De Matrim c. 1. To these innumerable other might be added of strange nature to the Word of God and belief and practise of the ancient Church but these are more then sufficient to confront those vainly objected to us by them whereof some are most false others most true others false or true as they may be taken And now the manner of proceeding in this Discourse being propounded to be touched in the second place here must not be forgotten In which I confess I have not a little varied from my first intention and resolution which were in a plain compendious way to set down the Principal Doctrine of Faith and Worship agreeable to God's Holy Word and to the mind of the best Ancient Churches as well as our Own and that without Passion or particular Reflexions on any Party or Person by name knowing that of Synesius to be most true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Synes Ep 57. That Soul which would be a Vessel to receive God must be void of all Passions But finding some things both approved and disproved by me would scarce be credited without such instances I held my self obliged to forsake that resolution in the process of my Discourse and a little in the beginning where I was forced by ill Paper and Ink to write somewhat over the second time to make it legible Otherwise I determined to avoid Names and Testimonies of Authors after the manner of them who before me have written Institutions and Sums of this nature Yet have I not taken upon me in an imperious way to multiply Canons and Axioms and impose them with expectation of greater faith in them then such men will allow to the Decrees of the Holy Councils so called And this with a perswasion I know not how or why wrought into credulous persons that now-a-dayes only Scripture is understood and they only speak Scripture but others humane Inventions Which most bold demand 't is a wonder how many prone naturally to superstitious novelties do without the least suspicion of vanity and falsity readily receive for a most certain and fundamental Truth but is indeed a fundamental Error and the root of all Heresie towards the Faith and of all Schism towards the Church I remember how some years since enquiring of one very near to me what Divinity his Tutor grounded him in he answered me Wollebius And farther inquiring what Wollebius said of a certain point he replyed as he there found it against which when I put in my exception he wondered at me and indeavored to silence me by telling me It was a Canon I have not here proceeded so Canonically as others nor yet so Polemically but considering according to St. Johns distinction that there are Children in Christ 1 John 2. 13. and Young men and Old men commonly call'd Incipientes Prosicientes and perfecti i. e. Beginners Proficients and Perfect men I have here pitched upon the mean sort of these to whom to direct my Labors knowing there were but too many Catechises amongst us for the former and too few Treatises or none for the second And that to write Polemically for the satisfaction of the third required another more proper language and a more Scholastical Person and much more large Volumes then this one though this Book hath increased under my hands well nigh thrice as much as I at first intended And in truth it is to be lamented and blushed at that none of the Learned men of our Church have yet appeared in so noble and necessary a Work as the fuller and more entire managing of the Elenctical part of Divinity to the preventing daily mischiefs arising from the necessity of repairing to our Enemies of both sides to perfect Theological Studies without the due ballance on our side to prevent prejudice I hope God will stir up the spirits of some to set their hands to and enable them to go through so good a Work Voetius of Utrecht than whom I think none of this Age hath Certum autorem ejus qui solidè compendiosè accommodatè ad nestra tempora hee â—gat hâ—ctenus non vidi expectandum est ergo c. Voetius Bibl. l. 2. c. 5. been acquainted with more modern Authors much complains for want of some compendious Body of Elenctical Divinitie which to that day he had not seen And therefore expected that long defired Piece of Famous Altingius should at length come forth which was only in the hands of his Scholars in writing Yet I find this Work of Henricus Altingius to have been published the same year with Voetius his Bibliotheca viz. Anno 1654. and called Theologia Elenctica Nova viz. New Elenctical Divinitie which in truth hath not its name New for nothing in that manner of handling Divinity as none before
the several Senses and Meanings according to which the Scriptures may be understood IT being found what is the Letter of the Word of God It is necessary to know what is the true sense of it For this is only in truth the Word and not the Letters Syllables or Grammatical words To know this we must first distinguish a Sense Historical and Mystical The Historical Sense is the same as the Literal so called because it is that which is primarily signified and intended by such a form of words And this is twofold For either these words are to be taken in the proper and natural signification as I may call that which is in most vulgar use or in their borrowed and mataphorical Sense As when I call a thing hard and apply it to Iron or Stone I speak properly and according to the Natural sense but when I apply Hardness to the heart I speak improperly and Metaphorically and yet Literally too intending thereby to signifie not any natural but moral quality in the heart The Seven Ears saith Joseph in Genesis are seven years and the Seven fat Kine are Seven years And so Christ in the Gospel This is my Body and infinite others in Scripture are Metaphorical and Literal Senses both The Mystical Sense is that which is a translation not so much of words from one signification to another as of the entire Sense to a meaning not excluding the Historical or Literal Sense but built upon it and occasion'd by it And is commonly divided into the Tropological Allegorical and Anagogical which some as Origen make coordinate with the former saying The Scripture is a certain Intelligible world wherein are four Parts Origen Homil 2. In Diversos as four Elements The Earth is the Literal Sense The waters is the profound Moral Sense The Air is the Natural Sense or natural science therein found And above all the sublime sense which is Fire In another place he mentions only the Historical Moral and Mystical And generally Idem Homil. 5. in Leviticum the Fathers do acknowledg all these though with some variation not distinguishing them as we have as might be shown were it needful to enlarge here on that subject The Moral Sense is that which is drawn from the natural to signifie the manners and conditions of men The Allegorical is a sense under a continuation of tropes and figures The Anagogical a translation of the meaning of things said or done on earth to things proper to heaven The Oxe being suffered to eat while he trod out the Corn according to St. Paul in the Moral sense signified that the labourer was worthy of his hire Mount Sinah and Mount Sion as the same Gal. 2. 24 25. Apostle saith signified the two Cities of God Earthly and Heavenly Allegorically And the Church of God upon Earth the Church Triumphant in heaven It is therefore without reason and modesty both that some strickt Modern Divines have set themselves against the Antient in contracting all these senses into one so as to allow no more which is of very ill consequence to the Faith both of Jew and Christian For generally all the hopes of the Jews concerning the Messias to come and all the proofs of the Christian taken from the Old Testament That he is come would come to little or nothing seeing there is manifestly a Literal or Historical sense primarily intended upon which the Mistical is built So that the arguments of the Evangelists and St. Paul in his Epistles convincing that Christ was the true Messias must needs be invalid seeing their quotation to that purpose had certainly another Literal Sense And it is against the condition of the whole Law it self which as St. Paul Heb. 10. 1. saith was a Shadow of good things to come and not the very things themselves It is here replied commonly That all these are but one Literal Perkins on Galâ—â— 22. sense diversely expressed which is to grant all that is contended for but with a reservation of a peculiar way of speaking to themselves that having been so infortunate as to judge of things amiss they may in some manner solace themselves with variety of phrase too commonly found amongst such as resolve to say something new where there is no just cause at all And to that which seems a Difficultie That no Symbolical sense can be argumentative or prove any thing in Divinity we answer That it cannot indeed unless it be known first to be the true Mistical sense of the words alledged For neither is the Literal sense it self until it be known that such was the true intent of the Speaker But those things which were symbolically and Mystically delivered in the Law being well known to Christ and his Apostles as likewise to the Learnedest of the Jewish Doctors by a received current tradition amongst them were of force to the ends alledged by them But where such a Mystical sense is not received nothing can be inferred from thence which is conclusive CHAP. X. Of the true Interpretation of Holy Scriptures The true meaning not the letter properly Scripture Of the difficultie of attaining the proper sense and the Reasons thereof IT availeth a Christian as little to have the Letter of the word of God without the genuine sense as it doth a man to have the shell without the Kernel For the sense is the word of God not the Letter Wicked men yea the Devil himselfe maketh use of the Letter to contradict the truth it self as St. Hierome hath observed and other Fathers and constant experience certifieth not without the consent of the Scripture it self which saith of it self In it are some things hard to be understood which 2 Pet. 3. 16. they that are unlearned and unstable wrest as they do all other Scriptures to their own destruction Therefore because it is very necessarie to be informed of the difficulties and dangers in misinterpreting Scripture before we can throughly apply our selves to prevent and avoid them we will First shew briefly That many things are difficult in Scripture and the Reasons why and after proceed to the most probable means rightly to interpret the same And these obstacles in attaining the true sense of Gods word are either found in our selves or in Gods wisdome and Providence or lastly in the Word of God it self Some indeed piously but inconsiderately make all the reason of difficulties not denied by them altogether in the Scripture to be in Man supposing they hereby vindicate Gods Providence from that censure it might otherwise be liable unto if so be that God should deliver such a Law to man which could not well be understood but apt to mislead men into errour And therefore say they It is the darkness and perversness of mans understanding and will that make things in Scripture obscure and not the condition of the Scriptures themselves But this no ways doth attain its end For when did God deliver his written word unto Mankind
than guide or promote men in the knowledge of Scripture it self which naked would be better understood and resolved on then with them Fifthly The seeming opposition and contradiction in Scripture are no little impediments to the setling of mens minds in the knowledg of them Sixthly a Sixth difficulty will be The distinguishing of things Judicial Ceremonial and Moral so far as to be assured How far it is lawful to use or necessary to refuse what is prescribed by Precept or example in the Old Testament Seventhly To name no more The several various Lections may much offend the simplicity of such who shall not be well inform'd concerning the substantial integrity of Divine writ And all these I recite to no other end than to flacken the precipitancy and cool the impetuous and presumptious heat of such who the less able they are to examine and judge the more confident they are to conclude out of Scriptures what they phansie and like best refusing the outward and ordinary means of receiving the true sense upon indeed a certain truth That Gods Spirit is the best interpreter of its own Laws and God is able to direct them in the sober use of them but a most unsound and unsafe inference from hence that God doth or will so assist them when they neglect those sober outward means he hath no less ordained to that end then the former Of which means we are in the next place here to treat CHAP. XI Of the Means of interpreting the Scripture That they who understand Scripture are not for that authorized to Interpret it decisively The Spirit not a Proper Judge of the Scriptures sense Reason no Judge of Scripture There is no Infallible Judge of Scripture nor no necessity of it absolute The grounds of an Infallible Judge examined THE Opinion That all things necessary to salvation are plainly enough delivered in Scripture is pious and reasonable enough taken with its due qualifications and limitations namely of Persons of Times of Places and such like For of things supposed to be necessary all are not to all men alike necessary no not to the same man at all times For there are some Articles of Faith that are sufficiently explained and propounded to him others are not so and therefore in relation to such a person not so necessary to be explicitly believed Again some points of Religion are necessary to be received for their own sakes after due proposal others are necessary to be received for the sake of others and so imediately only necessary The Articles in the Creed of the Apostles are most of the former sort to be for their own sakes believed But the Articles of the Church and its power and autority which I take not to be mentioned in the Creed as most do are necessary for the preservation of the true Faith it self For without the use and receiving of Discipline there can be no Church properly so called as may hereafter be prooved and without a Church there can be no long continuance of Faith Therefore from hence it is not difficult to null the pretensions of some ranck Disputants who lay it as a Principal foundation and so reasonable that it scarce needs any thing but clamours and out cries to make it take effect on them that shall dare to reject it That nothing is necessarily to be offered to the Faith of any or to be by him received which is not expressed in holy writ For in holy writ it is necessary to observe and obey such as are set over us in the Lord so far as we are not convinced that they determine or impose any thing contrary to the word of God And for ought doth appear it is as necessarily required that we should depend upon our Guides in the Church for the due meaning of the Scriptures as upon the suggestions of Gods Spirit which refuseth not but requireth such outward means concurring with its direction For nothing can be more absurd or vain than simply to depend upon divine intimations of Gods Spirit because it is all sufficient of it self to such purposes For it is not only sufficient to them but to all other as well divine as natural ends and yet to so rest on it as to neglect or pass over contemptuously other meanes is rather to provoke God to denie the ordinary assistance of it For God doth not act in the world according to his power but according to his Will and Promise made unto us It is true that Christ hath promised in St. Mathew Whatsoever ye ask in my name believing ye shall receive and Math. 21. 22. by St. Luke more expresly If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts Luk. 11. 13. unto your children how much more shall your heavenly Father give the holy Spirit to them that ask him These and such like promises of being invested with Gods blessed Spirit must not be so absolutely understood as that all who simply crave it should forthwith certainly be therewith endowed because St. James as other places of Scripture explains and restrains this large promise according to the Oeconomie or more general tenour of the Gospel i. e. That we ask aright and believing which whether we in prayer do duly observe may be well doubted of us though we doubt not of the Thesis it self or Rule That he that asketh aright shall receive And besides these are senses in which such promises are truly verified and Gods Spirit truly given and yet not a full importment of all the graces which flow from it For they who at first were called to the Faith of Christ and baptized were indued with the holy Spirit and yet not presently instated in the discerning of all the mysteries of Christian Faith but still depended upon the Prophets and Apostles and interpreters of Gods will for the attaining of his will even revealed in General For according to the known distinction there are spiritual Gifts signally so called and spiritual Graces And some men may receive the influence of Gods Spirit in the way of Grace which sanctifies the will and affections and not of Gifts which illuminates the mind and understanding and that not only to the use of things absolutely necessary to our Salvation but to the benefit of others Add hereunto That notwithstanding the Spirit is so sufficient of it self and God doth grant it to them who ask it of them We know that generally it is not granted to any but in the way which Christ ordained the same and that was that first it should descend as it also did immediately and primarily upon the Church representative or Ruling who were then his Apostles and holy Disciples and in like manner is it still to be expected soberly through the mediation of such as are by Christ set to govern the Church and rule under him herein succeeding the Apostles and not immediately and by a leap from the head to the lowest members which though it may be yet is so rarely
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
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
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
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
without blame before him in love And it hath been shewed before how that when in the New Testament we read of Gods Calling and choosing and electing we are not so much to understand the eternal purpose or decree of God but the execution thereof in Gods actual calling and electing certain persons to the profession and belief of the Faith of Christ which he effected by the fulfilling of the Prophesie made by Christ in St. Matthews Gospel relating to the Matth. 24. 31. destruction of the Jewish Polity and Church and erecting of the Christian instead thereof viz. And he shall send his Angels that is his Messengers and Ministers with a great sound of a trumpet i. e. the Gospel preached and published and they shall gather together his elect i. e. such as he shall make choice of from the four winds i. e. from all quarters of the world from one end of heaven to the other Now these persons by Gods word and good-will called from such vanities ignorances and vices are in the Scripture called Saints not so much because they were all so throughly or absolutely sanctified from their former natural or moral impieties contracted in their state of Nature and Gentilism as that they should retain no sin and none of them should fail of heaven hereafter But first either from the better part the whole was denominated actually holy which is not unusual in all speech Or because having made renunciation of the World and Flesh and Devil in Baptism they were called and consecrated to Holiness Or lastly because they made open and solemn profession thereof however some so called might be and did appear to be reprobates And names and appellations are given not from any inward affection or quality which sense cannot judge of but from such things as are visible and apparent And thus in the Old Testament as well as New it is used As in the Psalmes Gather my Saints Psalm 50. 5. together unto me those that have made a Covenant with me by Sacrifice which imply the whole body of the people of Israel as the words going immediately before do also declare And wherever in the Book of Psalms which is in divers places we find the Congregation of the Saints is meant the Israelites in general And in Daniel Chap. 7. v. 8. 21 22 25 27. is the word necessary taken Now it being most customary with the Penmen of the New Testament to borrow the phrase of the Old this tearm Saints was translated from the Jewish Synagogue to the Christian Church by St. Paul expresly to the Romans saying To all that be in Rome beloved of Rom. 1 7. God called Saints so the original better then the insertion of to be made in the translation As likewise in his first Epistle to the Corinthians To the Church of God which is at Corinth to them that are sanctified in Christ 1 Cor. 1. v. 2. Jesus called to be Saints withall that in every place call upon the name Jesus Christ their Lord and ours And the like salutation we shall find in most of St. Pauls Epistles as also most frequently in the body of them as may be obvious to any reader though I deny not but sometimes in the New Testament it is taken in a more restrained sense signifying especially the victorious and triumphant not Militant Saints From all which it doth sufficiently appear in what sense the Church may and ought to be described a Society or Collection of Saints And withal how miserably and mischievously they err who giving that title to a Party hold themselves bound to gather a certain select number out of Christians not accusable of any notorious errour from the Faith of Christ as the Apostles of Christ did out of Heathens and Jews and to constitute and call them Saints Another thing requisite to the constitution of a Church is That it be a Communion of Saints it sufficing not that persons elected or selected as above-said be many in number but holy by nature or institution as God ordained of old in the forming of the Jewish Church Deut. 7. 6. Thou art Deut. 7. 6. 26 19. 18 9. an holy people unto the Lord thy God The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself above all the people that are upon the face of Earth Which words are with advantage applyed unto the Christian Church by St. Peter Whence it is that the same St. Peter maketh it an 1 Pet. 2. 9 10. 2 Pet. 1. 4. end of calling this company together That they may be partakers of the Divine Nature or as it is otherwise more plainly render'd Of a Divine Nature Holiness drawing us near unto the Nature of God himself As the Wiseman also writeth The giving heed unto her Laws is the assurance Wisdom 6. 18 19. of Incorruption and Incorruption maketh us near unto God And not only must they be holy but to that end must of necessity hold a twofold communion The one Invisible with one Head Christ The other Visible and external with one another For the Apostle tells us speaking of Christians The head of every man is Christ And to the Ephesians The 1 Cor. 11. 3. Ephes 5. 23. husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the Church and and he is the Saviour of the world There can therefore no question be made but it is most essential as well to the Church in general as every particular Christian or Member of the same that Christ be the Head of his Church as St. Paul yet more clearly expresseth it to the Colossians excepting against such Professors of Christian Religion as held not the Head from which all the Body by joynts and bands having nourishment ministred and knit 2 Col. 2. 19. together encreaseth with the increase of God Therefore leaving that as on all hands granted we come to the external communion of the Church CHAP. XXIV A Preparation to the knowledge of Ecclesiastical Society or of the Church from the consideration of humane Societies What is Society What Order What Government Of the Original of Government Reasons against the Peoples being the Original of Power and their Right to frame Governments Power not Revocable by the People IN the outward Communion of the Church two things are to be enquired into First the Nature of it wherein it consisteth Secondly the Adjuncts or Affections thereof First we shall treat Civitas à conversatione multorum dicta est pro eo quod plurimorum in unum constituat contineat vitas Origin Homil. 5. in Genesim briefly of the Nature of this Communion To understand which clearly it will be expedient to begin with the definition of Communion in General or Society humane For Communion is nothing else but Humane Society And Humane Society is nothing else but a conversation of men out of natural reason inclining and moving them thereunto for the mutual supply of the
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
be he no where affirms but saith expresly I do not therefore affirm because I oppose it not But the supream folly of cutting off scores hundreds and thousands of years of torments by Indulgences upon earth was such an imposture as could never enter into the head of any of the sober Ancients and not to be endured amongst Christians Many are the Suffrages of the Fathers to that of the word of God Blessed are the dead which dye in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit Rev. 14. 13. that they may rest from their Labours and their works do follow them Implying a direct and comfortable passage from this miserable to that happy life in heaven And whereas they say That they who go to Purgatory may be said to dye in Christ because they shall at length be delivered by Christ How can that stand with such excessive pains there suffered to which none on earth are equal either in degree or continuance How can these wretched souls be said to rest from their labours and sorrows Must they not make God a mocker of his servants in comforting them against their affections in this world by telling them they shall one day be delivered from them and go to greater in Purgatory Besides What grounds do they find in the Word of God or the word of the primitiye Fathers which makes a a twofold state in Christ One of them who by Saintly lives pass immediately to bliss Another of them who are in a middle state and are partly miserable and partly blessed But to their prime argument the Answer is easie We are not generally purged wholly from sin nor have we made full satisfaction of punishments for our sins in this Life unless by Martyrdom or some heroical and eminent Sanctity Both are false which are here supposed First That Martyrdom for Christ or the most holy and exemplary life lead here in this world do so perfectly purge us that we need not further cleansing Again it is denyed that true and sincere repentance acted in this life both in forsaking sin and in true conversion unto God sufficeth not to purge us from all our sins in this life as to the guilt and penalty of them and the odious stain rendring the soul unaccepted to God though men arive not to the perfection of Martyrdom or the eminencie of Sanctity attainable here as St. John witnesseth But if we walk in the light as he is in the light 1 John 1. 7. we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin He doth not here intend to speak of the supreamest sanctity only but of that general state of grace and holy life in which whoever is the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth him from all his sins and dying in that state needs no more cleansing to make him capable of entring immediately into everlasting bliss which is far from all torment though not so consummate as to be capable of no addition at the Resurrection when the Body shall be re-united to the Soul Nor doth this take away what of prerogatives is justly due to Martyrdom or eminent Holiness in this Life because there remains proper to them first a greater measure of comfortable assurance of Gods favour and bliss hereafter and a much greater and higher degree of glory when possessed than inferiour degrees of holiness here can lay claim to And this is sufficient encouragement next to the pure intention of holiness it self and Gods glory to any Christian to abound in good works knowing that his 1 Cor. 15. labour is not in vain in the Lord. And thus much of those we call Aequivocal Sacraments and improper For though all true Sacraments are ordinarily necessary to salvation yet all things ordinarily necessary to salvation are not Sacraments as Repentance which in its nature consisting of true Contrition of heart and conversion unto God and thereby putting us into capacity of mercy from God is not pretended to be a Sacrament until the Priest acteth his part towards the Penitent And if Contrition thus understood or Repentance be no Sacrament surely neither can Confession or Satisfactions which are said to be parts of Repentance be Sacraments nothing being in the parts which may not be in the whole But so moderate sound Consecration of Arch-Bishops and Bishops a course hath our Church taken as to call them Sacramentals as being above the order of general acts and duties of Piety and not amounting to the dignity of the two proper ones Baptism and the Eucharist CHAP. XL Of Baptism The Author Form Matter and Manner of Administration of it The General necessity of it The Efficacy in five things Of Rebaptization that it is a prophanation but no evacuation of the former Of the Character in Baptism MANY Acceptations are found of the word Baptism in Holy Scripture which I leave to others who have collected them and betake my self to the thing it self commonly understood by it And thus Baptism is a Sacrament of the New Testament instituted by Christ consisting of the outward signs of Water and the Word and the inward Grace of Regeneration and remission of sins and outward Communion with the Church of Christ all which I conceive to be contained in our Church Catechism where it is first described by its outward Sign to be Water wherein the Party is baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost And by its inward Grace to be A death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness for being by nature born in sin we are hereby made the Children of Grace This Sacrament then of baptism is said truly to succeed that of Circumcision and to have the same Spiritual effect upon the Spiritual and inward man which that had over the Outward The agreement and difference between which two will sufficiently appear from the comparing of this as we now shall explain it with that which we shall do by considering the Form the Matter The Subject The Efficacy and the Minister of Baptism The Form we have propounded to us by Christ when he first instituted the same and commanded his Disciples to go and teach all nations baptizing Mat. 28. 19. them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatever I have commanded you From whence it doth appear that taking Baptism simply for the Act it consisteth in that form of words here prescribed by Christ and the outward Action of baptizing with Water But taken more Concretely and complexly for all things concurring to that Sacrament essentially It is a Covenant made between God and Man whereby is promised on Gods part remission of sins and salvation and on mans part Faith and Observation of the terms of the Gospel as St. Mark more expresly hath it He that believeth Mar. 16. 16. Eph. 2. 12. and is baptized shall be
Patient or thing that suffereth not according to the full force and vertue which it hath in it self For fire doth not equally prey upon stone and wood nor doth the Physitian give the same strong Physick to a weak body as he doth to a strong nor are Men informed of God after the manner of Angels who behold much more purely and cleerly the Nature of God But mans knowledge is generally taken from the Effects And so comparing those works of God and Acts of God which have some similitude with those of men For as all works of note do imply some care and pains to produce them by men So is God said to labour when he created all things in this world and to rest when he had finished and ended all because this is the manner of men And to be Angry when either just cause is offered by offending him in breaking of his holy Laws or the effects of wrath commonly seen when men are so affected appear by the severe punishments inflicted upon offenders And what is said of the inward affections ascribed unto God may be easily applied to those outward descriptions made of God in Scripture under the form of Man as of Hands Arms Head Heart Eyes and such like which the ancient Fathers against the Heresie of the Anthropomorphites who as Epicurus in Tully took God to be of the same fashion and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 often mentioned by St. Chrysostome Suidas form with Man do affirm to be by Condescension to Man which Condescension is thus described by one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Condescension is when God doth seem to be what he is not but so declares himself to be as he that is to conceive of him is best able to behold him proportioning the revelation of himself to the imbecillity of the contemplator CHAP. IV. Of the Vnity of the Divine Nature as to number and how the Trinity of Persons may consist with the Vnity and simplicity of the Deity Of the proper Notions pertaining to the Mystery of the Trinity viz. Essence Substance Nature Person The Distinction of the Persons in the Trinity Four Enquiries moved How far the Gentiles and Jews understood the Trinity The Proof of the Doctrine of the Trinity from the New Testament and the Explication of it BUT to the exception taken from the Mystery of the Holy Trininity greater regard ought to be had as well for the explication and confirmation of that Doctrine as for the satisfaction of humble enquirers into the same And for more clear and gradual proceeding herein it will be requisite first to explain such terms as this Doctrine much depends on as Essence Substance Nature Person and Trinity it self Essence is of somewhat larger extent than Substance because Substance signifies properly only that which is opposite to Accident or that which adheres or inheres to Substance but Essence signifies all kinds of Beings as well of Accidents as Substances Nature is the restraint of Essence and Substance both in their general Being to some more special kind of thing as there is the Nature of Man and the Nature of Beast the Nature of Accidents and the Nature of Substances the Nature of Colours and the Nature of Quantities so that Nature is not that whereby a thing simply and absolutely is but whereby it is what it is Hence we say also the Nature of God or the Creator and the Nature of the Creature Nature being that by which as is said a thing is what it is and distinct from others And as for the word Trinity it is true what hath been objected by some of old that it is not in terms t◠be found in Scripture for the word doth not import any one or more things absolutely but rather the manner of such things being the better to settle the mind in the apprehension of that great Mystery Now the Holy Scriptures doth very often only propound the Article of Faith to be believed by us but leaves the manner of expressing and conceiving the same to the holy prudence of Men whom he hath for the instruction of inferior persons ordained in his Church which have agreed so to term that three-fold personal Relation in the Deity A Person is defined to be an entire and absolute Being of reasonable nature Man in general is not a Person because he subsisteth not by himself A Beast in particular is not a Person because void of knowledge and reason The soul of Man though endowed with reason is not a Person because not of it self entire and perfect being part of another thing i e. Man But Peter and John are Persons because single Substances absolute in themselves and rational To collect therefore and conclude from what is thus briefly premised we say that these Notions of Essence Substance and Nature are sometimes taken more strictly and properly according to which we must alwayes hold it as a most fundamental Truth in Christian Religion as it is in the Religion of all civilized People that God is but one in Essence Substance or Nature i. e. the Being and Nature of God as God are but one But if we take the said Notions more largely for that which expresses the manner of Being as well as Being it self then may we speak of the nature of a Person as when we say that the nature of a Person is different from the nature of things simply taken And if Nature be taken as sometimes for the condition of a thing or Person we may truly say that in the Trinity the Three Persons as Persons are of a different nature though they differ not in the nature of the Deity For that they really and not imaginarily or by mans fancy and conception different from one another is a received Truth by all reputed true Believers but nothing can be distinct from another but by somewhat peculiar to it and whatever is peculiar to a thing and ingredient into its Being may be and is commonly called the nature of it in which sense we may say Three Persons are of a different nature because the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Ghost Father or Son for the nature of the Father as Father is to beget the nature of the Son as Son to be begotten the nature of the Holy Ghost as Holy Ghost to proceed But all this hindereth not in the Nature of God they should be one and the same and so but one distinct God and this makes the Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity For were not the Persons distinct by somewhat real and not so notional as to be fictitious there could not be said to be a Triplicity or Trinity of Persons And again if in nature they were not the same there could be no Identity worthy of that Mystery For other Creatures differing one from another in subsisting distinctly agree in the unity of a general nature as three men agree in the common nature of man But 't is
28. 19. and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost which plainly distinguishes three Persons And Take heed saith St. Paul in the Acts therefore unto your Acts 20. 28. selves and to all the Flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Overseers to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own bloud Here we have two persons distinct expressed The Holy Ghost whose act of making Overseers doth infer an Agent and that Agent a Person And in that it is said God purchased the Church with his bloud there is an express Character of Christ in his Passion to whom is expresly given the title of God for that God the Father died nor Christ as God though Christ God is manifest Now of God the Father no Christian can make doubt after so many manifest Texts expressing the same And Rom. 9. v. 5. Whose Rom. 9. 5. are the Fathers and of whom concerning the flesh Christ came who is over all God blessed for ever The Scholie of Socinus and his followers being meerly cavillous and forced contrary to common reading The Confession likewise of Thomas upon the Miracle wrought by Christ proveth the Deity of Christ crying out My God and my Lord. And in the Epistle to the Colossians Joâ— 20. v. 28. Col. 2. 9. the God-head is said to dwell in Christ bodily i. e. in opposition to figuratively or improperly To these bare Testimonies add we these rational proofs from the Attributes proper to God given to Christ 1. Eternity Micah 5. 2. His goings-out are from everlasting 2. Omnipotence Micah Joh. 3. 31. Joh. 3. 31. He that cometh from above is above all but only God is above all An instance likewise of Christs Omnipotency is given us by St. Paul to the Philippians where speaking of Christ he saith Who shall change our vile Phil. 3. 21. body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself 3. Immensity another property of God is given to Christ Mat. 18. 20. Where he promiseth Where two or three shall be gathered together in his Name he will be in the midst of them which is not possible for him that is not God Christs Church being in all places diffused 4 Divine worship given to Christ implies a divine nature in him but both Old and New Testaments agree herein that Christ the Messias is to be worshipped In the Psalms thus it Psal 72. is written of him Yea all Kings shall fall down before him and all Nations shall worship him And in the second Psalm David adviseth to kiss the Son Psal 2. that is worship him lest he be angry and ye perish from the right way when his wrath is kindled but a little blessed are all they that put their trust in him Now we know the same Psalmist saith Put not your trust in Princes Psal 146. 3. nor in any Son of man in whom there is no help And believing in Christ is a special part of worship but this is required by Christ of his Disciples saying Ye believe in God believe also in me Prayer likewise is made to Joh. 14. 1. Acts 7. Christ by St. Stephen for in the Acts it is written how Stephen was stoned calâ—ing upon Christ and saying Lord Jesus receive my spirit The third Person in the holy Trinity is the holy Ghost which we have shewed in part that the learnedest of the ancient Jews were not ignorant of though more obscurely delivered in the Old Testament than in the New The first thing then we are to prove is That the holy Ghost is a Person for that it is there needs no other proof than the words themselves so often used in Scripture And that it subsists personally and not only as an Act or Grace will appear from these two general heads The Acts of it an the Attributes given to it And first In what sense the Scriptures use evil Spirit in the same sense may it be said to use the good Spirit but evil Spirit is frequently used for a Person who is the author of mischief to mankind and therefore the good Spirit must be a Person the author of 1 Joh. 4. 6. Rom. 11. 8. Eph. 2. 2. 1 Sam. 16. 14. 2 Chron. 18. 20 21. good to man We read in Scripture of a Spirit of error and the Spirit of slumber and the Spirit of disobedience and of an evil Spirit that possessed Saul and of a lying Spirit that entred into and moved the false Prophets and in the New Testament as well as humane Authors of divers who have been infested with evil Spirits Now all these were real and personal Subsistences and therefore in parity of reason so should the good Spirit of which we so often read both in the Old and New Testament under the appellation of the Spirit of the Lord as the Spirit of the Lord moved upon the waters at the beginning and the Spirit of the Lord fell upon such persons And if it be here replyed That we are to understand the good Spirits after the same manner we understand the evil and that the evil Spirits being evil Angels the good Spirit should be good Angels only We answer not denying That Spirit may be so used in Scripture divers times and that by the same parity of reason that it is insinuated unto us that the evil Spirit hath one Prince and chief amongst them called Lucifer so the good Spirits have one supreme over them that good Spirit of God Secondly That where Scripture speaks of Spirit absolutely there the divine Spirit is constantly to be understood as St. Hierome hath observed Again We read from the Acts of the Spirit as interceding for us being Rom 8. 26. Eph. 4. 30. Mat. 3. 16. grieved and descending upon Christ in a bodily shape at his Baptism and Christs speech to his Disciples saying in St. John I will ask the Father and he shall give you another Comforter Christ was the one Comforter not only by his Graces but personal presence among his Disciples and answerable to this must the holy Spirit be also here promised And that this divine Person is distinct from the other appeareth from the general Doctrine of the Trinity above and specially out of St. Matthew where Christ saith Baptizing them in the Name of the Father Mat. 28. and of the Son and of the holy Ghost which must imply a distinction And St. John Chap. 1. He that sent me to baptize with water the same said unto Joh. 1. 33. me Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him the same is he which baptizeth with the holy Ghost And so Joh. 14. 16. Joh. 15. 26. From the same place of St. Matthew appeareth the equality of all these three Persons and especially from the immediate operation the Spirit had upon Christ who was God and Man for of it Isaiah thus
apud Laertium in Vita diffused acts thereof considerable in all his Creatures we shall confine our selves to those specially concerning Man the measure of all other Creatures as the Philosopher said and as Christian doctrine tell us the Head and Crown of all and these as to the religious capacity of Man chiefly In which are eminent Predestination Election Vocation Salvation And Reprobation and Damnation on the other side Predestination and the Decree of God if in any thing they differ it may seem to be chiefly in this that use hath made Decree of a more large signification conteining the act of Gods supream Providence over all his Creatures but Predestination is more properly appertaining to Man Some have thought good yet farther to proceed in limiting the tearm Predestination to the Elect only and such as shall be saved but St. Austine and others that follow him make it common to both the Saved and Damned And Augustine speaking of the two Cities in the world that of God and that of Aug. in Civ Dei lib. â—5 c. 1. the Devil saith One is predestinated to reign for ever with God the other to endure eternal punishment with the Devil And so in several other places which here I omit Calvine is famous for the like freedom of speech in the Predestination of men to Damnation and to Beza and Martyr and Aretius and almost who not that were of that Reformation but the opinion of these must not pass for Austins opinion without this remarkable distinction Austine and such Fathers as followed him and it was some hundred of years before any Father of repute in the Church presumed to confront him in his known doctrines in this point affirmed an infallible Predestination to Life and Death but he did not so affirm it that this should be done absolutely without any consideration of the way and means leading thereunto this those Divines now named held and those of Dort generally called the Supralapsarian way very irrationally and impiously Their main reason is this That God could not be subject to so much inconsiderateness and imprudence as no man of ordinary reason could be guilty of viz. To make a thing before he knows what to do with it First therefore they conclude That God must propound to himself a certain end and that not common and general which is his Glory but special to each man in the last state of all and thence infer That he must as men call for several tools or instruments for several works and ends predestinate the means thereunto This argument was used long before Calvine by Scotus and in effect the same though minc'd a little by him who declares plainly that God must first propound to himself an end and then order the means agreeable to that end Yet is Scotus suffer'd to pass and little said to him But Calvine bears all the blame And surely blame-worthy he is As on the other side that later rank and careless Pen which would by no means suffer that there should inevitable destruction attend any man of Gods making because forsooth this were to make God like to a foolish workman who should make a curious work only to destroy it and break it to pieces But setting aside the odiousness of the comparison the thing it self supposed is false and that many wayes First that it would be such a piece of impardonable folly in a man to make a thing which he resolved to destroy again when he had done his will with it It is indeed hard to conceive that any man should be so stupid as to have no end of a thing but that it might not be so soon as it hath a beginning for surely either profit or delight intermediate was the principal and rational Motives thereunto and therefore secondarily he might ordain the very dissolution of his work as a man doth who having made a curious mould breaks it to pieces and so at first intended before it was made so soon as he had perfected his more principal intention But were it so that this could not be done without extream folly on mans part yet the same might be done without the least just suspicion of mistake on Gods part For man is certainly a fool who studieth or laboureth about a thing which bringeth him no real advantage or destroyes a thing which doth But God receiving no such advantage from the saved or such disadvantage from the damned where is the imprudence But last of all Damnation is indeed destruction in the vulgar but not proper sense The Person of the damned is as entire as to his Si enim de nihilo creavit omnia non idcirco fecit ut perderet quae creavit sed ut illius miserecordid quae creata sunt salvarentur Hieronymus in cap. 12. Zachariae state of natural being as is that of the saved And God may have his ends of glory and certainly hath from the misery of the Creature But both this opinion and that of Calvine seem to make the ultimate tearm of Man the ultimate end of God though it be but for this arguments sake and cannot do it generally or really But the contrary is plainly the truer that God propoundeth no other ultimate end than himself in his acts of Creation and Providence And therefore though God hath revealed himself an act of his free Grace in his holy Word that he willeth not the death of a sinner and much less of a person that is innocent before him and it were most blasphemous to Gods truth and mercy to affirm That as the case stands between him and man he will or may condemn to everlasting pains Man not justly deserving them yet there appears not any reason considering the absolute dominion of the Creature belonging to him that of himself he might not so have disposed of him They may say That God in justice can take away no more than he gave to his Creature be it so The capacity of the beatifical Vision God gave man and therefore may take it away And what is that but extream misery Chrysostome makes the loss of Gods glorious presence to be greater than the pains of sense suffered by the damned And do we not see thus much before our eyes frequently That God causes many to come into this world who wear-out a miserable life without any good day in continual languishings and sicknesses Surely this is not without cause going before But yet no more cause then is common to others living in prosperity and ease This may be disputed and perhaps better omitted but not so that opinion which makes irrespective Predestination to glory and misery because God must first propound his end making no great difference between the Predestination to the means of a good end and the means towards a bad one but that God to bring about this as well as that doth with like concurse and will design evil means to evil ends as he doth good to good ends or that he
They are of three sorts Some profess him to be God but deny him to be true and real Man Others believe him to be Man but deny him to be God But the Faith truly Christian professes both viz. That Christ was God and Man We shall remit for brevities sake the Reader to what hath been said before proving the mystery of the Trinity out of the Scriptures and that Christ the second Person in the Trinity is the Son of God by natural Generation supernatural to us And to prove the second out of the word now there is scarce one such Heretick who denyes it may seem superfluous That which is to be demonstrated is That there was time of union of that second Person in the Trinity with Man and that this union was such that it constituted not two Persons but one as St. Paul plainly writeth to Timothy There is one God and one Mediatour between God and man the Man Christ 1 Tim. 2. 5. Jesus And therefore whatever doctrine so speaks of this Mystery as to divide the Natures into two Persons as if there were two Mediatours two Saviours two Christs between God and Man destroyeth the Faith of a Christian no less than that doth which denyes these two Natures to concur in one Person the Eternal and Divine Nature and Person assuming in the fulness of time humane Nature inconfusedly into the Divine To the proving this we take that as a sure ground and founadtion which St. John hath laid to build his Gospel on That there was an Eternal Divine Nature in and from the beginning and that this Divine Nature was diversified by three distinct Persons that one of these Persons is called the Word For he saith In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with John 1. 1. God and the Word was God Ridiculous are the violences offered to these words by Hereticks who first take here Beginning not for that highest and higher than the Creatures comprehension can mount to of all durations which none is afore and none come properly after but for a tearm of time properly fixt and for want of more remarkable do pitch upon the first publication of the Gospel as that beginning answerable forsooth unto that speech of Moses In the beginning God created the heaven and the Gen. 1. 1. earth but the agreement is too little to make such interpretation because it is plain that heaven and earth not only had a beginning but gave beginning to time it self measured and observed by them And it is plain that the Gospel did not begin so soon by almost thirty years as Christ began according to his humane nature And if it be taken of the Person of Christ What can be more absurd than to say In the beginning was the Word that is Christ began when he began Therefore the word here can neither be taken for the Gospel or Word preacht but it must be meant of a word superiour and anteriour to both as doth yet more plainly appear from the phrase used The Word was with God and the Word was God For the heavens and earth which are said in Genesis to be made in the beginning cannot be said either to have been with God or to have been God nor can the humane nature of Christ not extant till some thousands of years after the first Creation be said to have been in the beginning with God and much less to have been God And the like may be said of the Word spoken by Christ and his Apostles which the Scriptures do not reckon to have begun at Christs birth nor many years after For thus saith St. Peter in his Sermon to Cornelius That Word ye know which was published throughout all Acts 10. 37. Judea and began from Galilee after the Baptism which John preached The Word therefore according to this account was not at the beginning but after Johns Baptism But this is not all this is nothing in comparison of what is added The Word was God The humane nature of Christ precisely taken was not God therefore another Word must be allowed to be God And that must be the Word Eternal and Personal And if this be doubted of I thus argue from the words following In that sense that Christ is said to be Light is he said to be the Word but Christ is said to be Light and the Light is said to be Christ and St. John Baptist disavows that Light John 1. 7 8 9 10. and ascribes it to Christ And therefore as the Person of Christ is signified by the Light so is it by Word And how can we possibly make sense of Christs words in St. John if Christ prae-existed not before he came into the World in the flesh And now glorifie thou me O Father with that glory which I had with thee before John 18. 5. the foundation of the World It may be said that before the foundation of the World such decree of glory might be given to one future but thus it cannot be said of him who is described to be actually possessed of it before the foundation of the World and that a man is said to be possessed of which he is said to have had as here And how could Christ say truly Before Abraham was I am when he was not Fifty years old according John 8. 57 58. to the Jews account And that he puts a distinction between his comming from the Father and his seeing the Father otherwise than any before him or of his time proves a prae-existence and presence singular with God Not any man hath seen the Father save he which is of God he hath seen the John 6. 46 62. Father And to this adde what follows What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before Doth not this plainly imply that as Christ did really ascend after his Resurrection and sate at the right hand of God in his humane nature so he was there before some way or other and no way can be thought of but his Divine nature as St. Paul intimated to the Ephesians He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above Ephes 4. 10. all heavens Now if any will be so captious as to except against this because the Divine Nature cannot properly be said to descend because it filleth all things it is true in rigour of speech what they say but not according to the form of speech frequent in Scripture which then affirmeth God to descend when as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrha he appeareth Gen. 18. 21. and revealeth himself more sensibly as Christ did taking humane nature on him And this prae-existent Nature of Christ to his humane being proved that these were so united together must be also shown And to this the single express testimony of St. John may suffice an equal mind The Word John 1. 14. was made Flesh and dwelt amongst us And we beheld his glory the glory
of the dead Secondly St. John in the Revelations clears this saying Write blessed Rev. 14. 13. are the dead which dye in the Lord from henceforth for they rest from their labour and their works follow them Their works follow them without the least mention or insinuation of being vegetated and enabled so to do with the prayers of the living And they rest from their labours without being toyled wasted and tormented with worse miseries than ever they suffered upon earth The evasion which is here borrowed from Anselme upon the words which yet in truth are no more Anselm's than the Comments under his name upon the Epistles but Herveus Natalis his living above two hundred years after Anselme that here we are to understand the time of the Resurrection might be accepted for true it is then shall the due reward be rendered to every mans works if this excluded the other For let our adversaries say whether all consideration of good works be deferred until the Resurrection Is it not in reference to them that some men are committed to Purgatory only while others immediately go to hell That some mens pains in Purgatory are gentle and light others more grievous and some mens shorter and some longer even of themselves without the help of their friends upon earth Why then must we needs understand this following of good works to be at the day of Judgment only and not in just proportion the whole time going before And therefore is that elusion we touched of being meant of perfect Men and Martyrs only rested on as the surer of the two and that from De Victore and Haymon It is true he doth speak of such but it can only be said and not proved that he speaks of such only Dying in the Lord being of far greater extent and not upon mens pleasures and the exigencie of a corrupt cause limited But distrust that these devises will not satisfie hath driven a great Champion of this Purgatory into another plainer but much more absurd answer of his own viz. That some men dye absolutely in the Lord as Martyrs c. and some men partly in the Lord and partly not in the Lord This is congruous indeed to the opinion resolved to be maintained and belike St. Augustine gives ground hereunto who in a certain Epistle saith that some men in this life are partly the Sons of Christ and partly the Sons of this world This Augustine might speak in reference to the imperfection of the state of Grace and Sonship here which will admit of some mixture of worldliness and weakness with Grace and Sanctification but doth St. Austine any where say that upon this any man is partly the child of God and partly the child of the Devil at the same time or that at the same time he is in a state of Grace and a state of Sin or reconciled to God and not reconciled This is a new invention but very suitable to the third state after this life Purgatory and both of equal truth The place of Ecclesiastes Where the tree falleth there it shall be brought against a middle state I confess hath besides the most natural sense a sense which may be aimed at besides the denyal of any middle state but that by indifferent interpreters it hath been applyed to the immutableness of mans state at his death is certain For in truth Purgatory as commended to us is a quite different state from that of bliss as a state of torment must be from a state of bliss Fourthly The Holy Scriptures teach us that The bloud of Jesus Christ 1 John 1. 7. John 5. 24. cleanseth us from all our sins and that He that heareth Christs word and believeth on him that sent him hath everlasting life and shall not come into death but is passed from death unto life And we may note that Life simply taken is never used for any other state but that of happiness in holy Scripture and therefore these two states only being mentioned in Scripture it is sufficient to conclude that no more are to be added For were it so that nothing in Scripture were directly spoken against this opinion it would no more avail the defenders of it then it would any other Heretical Invention which might be yet framed without any direct opposition from thence Now the Scriptural reasons against this we make to be these in brief First that as well Scripture as Philosophy to which they assent who introduced these Purgative Flames truly hold that all spiritual purgation and sanctification must have the consent and co-operation of the will to produce any spiritual effect in the soul but the Will after death elects not merits not nor demerits i. e. deserves neither good nor evil but is fixed to the state in which it is But if sin be remaining in the separate soul it must necessarily have its seat principally in the will which is the formal principle of all good and evil And there can be no change in the will of the deceased as to the choise of good or evil simply but only as to the more full and absolute captivating of the same in the admiration of good or pertinacie in evil Therefore the Prayers of the living not having any influence upon the will or affections at that time to change them for the best or correct the pravity of them cannot avail to the meliorating of the soul in reference to its sanctity or impurity Again No corporeal cause can be effectual upon the spirit of Man immediately while it is disjoyned from the body to the cleansing of spiritual stains But the relicts of sin are spiritual and not corporal pollutions and therefore no flames of Purgatory can mundifie the soul so as to render it more innocent and fit for heaven But the flames of Purgatory are sensible and properly material And it is not said that the suffrage of the living obtain remission of sins for the afflicted in Purgatory but only deliver them from punishments there suffered Thirdly All sins being committed in the person of a Man consisting of body and soul must be accounted for as they were acted in the Person and not only in the one Part of him neither can any sin be said to be forgiven the soul without the body which was committed in soul and body together nor can the soul be purged and not the person nor the person and not the body but the body lies unconcerned untouched all this while by such tormenting remedies and therefore there is no probability of any such semi-purgation of the soul which should avail to the benefit and salvation of the whole And therefore the souls of the damned suffering the pains of Hell fire immediately after their departure from the body are not awhit the better for what they suffer Neither can this be alledged to invalidate the other because that in God punishing the souls of the Reprobates without their bodies is no unjustice but rather a
following these words For it is most certain that the Apostles aim was to discover and oppose false teachers start up to the prejudice of the true Apostles of Christ and laying at least in shew another foundation of faith v. 10 11. than Christ had laid or building otherwise upon St. Pauls foundation than became them Now what think we doth St. Paul abruptly leave the subject he was treating of and the persons he was confuting of and warning the Corinthians against and pass to the Doctrine nothing at all depending upon what went before or after of Purgatory Or if he did not altogether desert his subject but as may be granted by them declare what would be the end of such Doctours or Doctrines after they were all dead and gone would this satisfie the expectation of such who stood in need of present advice and directions to secure themselves from such Impostures Surely no. St. Paul therefore doth certainly in this Metaphorical or Allegorical manner apply himself to the present state of the Corinthians whom he adviseth to beware of such dangerous teachers And how doth he this First under the Metaphor of a Workman insinuating the teacher himself Secondly under the Metaphor of a piece of Work figuring the Doctrines taught and instilled into men Thirdly by Fire certifying the manner of discerning the true Doctrine from the false and that fire is afflictions and persecutions which then were actually on the Church but were soon after like to fall more heavily on it Fourthly by hay stubble wood he means corrupt and erroneous Doctrines by gold silver precious stones sincere and sound Doctrine Now collect we all into one and can any man desire any plainer and more current consonancie between the figurative speech as most infallibly this is and the proper intention of the Apostle I have begun amongst you O v. 10. Corinthians to preach Christ I have lald the foundation of saving Faith like a wise Master-builder yet there are some who building partly upon my Doctrine and partly laying another foundation of their 11. own heads when in very truth there can be no other foundation laid by any man than that is already laid by me which is Jesus Christ Now if any man build upon this foundation thus laid gold silver 12. precious stones wood hay stubble that is sound or unsound ye shall know which Doctrine is as gold silver and precious stones sound and valuable and which as wood hay and stubble that is refuse and corrupt For the day shall declare it What day The day of tryal What tryal the tryal by fire for the fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is But what fire The fire of Persecution 1 Pet. 4. 12. or fiery tryal as St. Peter speaks And this is the second ground of this interpretation taken from the frequencie of this phrase Fire signifying in Scripture no more than afflictions or persecutions which may convince us of the true acceptation here Christ in the Gospel of St. Luke saith I am come to send fire on the earth and what Luke 12. 49. will I if it be already kindled And that this fire was no other than persecutions and troubles with which the followers of Christ were to contend and struggle is manifest from the following words And Tertullian taking occasion to speak of those words saith Ipse melius interpretabitur ignis illius qualitatem c. He Christ himself explains better the condition of that fire Do ye think that I came to send peace on v. 51. the earth St. Peter commeth much nearer to our present case where he saith That the tryal of your faith being much more precious than of gold 1 Pet. 1. 7. that perisheth though it be tryed with fire might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearance of Jesus Christ The Psalmist saying Thou hast caused men to ride over our head we went through fire and Psalm 66. 12. through water c. what can we understand but afflictions And no need of any more instances to the purpose i. e. either to show in general that Fire in holy Scripture imports afflictions or that so it is here with St. Paul used Yet the words immediately following agree so exactly with it that it is yet farther put out of question what should be the meaning of the former viz. If any mans work abide which he hath built thereupon he shall receive a reward If any mans work shall be burnt he shall suffer loss but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire That is if any man hath so built upon the foundation Christ Jesus as his work abides the tryal and so be found good and laudable then he shall have his due reward for his pains But if otherwise his work shall be burnt that is upon tryal not be found as gold and silver which cometh out of the fire better and purer but Persecutions and Examinations shall reveal or manifest it to be dross vain and corrupt then shall such an one suffer loss he shall have lost his labour and his reputation yet may we not despair of him For however he be found defective in his Doctrines yet himself may be saved upon his repentance so as by fire i. e. by having passed himself through such persecutions as may bring him to the sincere profession of the Faith though his erroneous Doctrines perish and come to nought And to this sense of the Apostle do I stick though I am not ignorant how diversly he is interpreted by as well Ancient as Modern Divines to whom to be tyed when they are so dissonant were too hard measure especially when the simplicity of a literal sense offers it self so fairly as here and the greatest part of the expositions agree hereunto Thirdly It is not very strange that the words of St. Paul elsewhere to the Corinthians should be drawn this way too viz. What shall they do 1 Cor. 15. 29. Hic locus apertè convincit quod volumus si bene intelligatur Bellar. de Purg. l. 1. c. 6. that are baptized for the dead and that as he that alledges them saith manifestly making for what they would have them when as immediately he brings six several senses given of them Can they then be so very plain He well therefore adds If they be rightly understood And when are they rightly understood according to him Not until they make for Purgatory It were too tedious and polemical to refute all brought for the vindicating these words to the use of Purgatory or to contend about the sense of them farther then what Epiphanius long since hath with great judgment and simplicity lead us too which I profess to adhear to and with which most imaginary senses are answered For says he there were a certain sort of Hereticks crept into the Church in St. Pauls dayes which maintained such a necessity of Baptism to be saved that they would baptize
Heaven and Hell But we deny not that the Ancients prayed for the Dead nor do we dissent much from them in that pious act our selves however there are quarrellers amongst us well known by their other affected and morose follies who oppose it because they have no express Scripture for it but we deny they ever prayed for the pardon of their sins or ease of torments so anciently but for an happy rest and restauration in a Resurrection So that we peremptorily deny and well may notwithstanding all proofs brought to the contrary that Prayer for the Dead necessarily infers Roman Purgatory And for the Consequence of this Opinion of Roman Purgatory Indulgences it is so rank a Corruption such a novel and impudent invention as the Church of Rome under that defection it now is never did so great a miracle as to get it any place in sober and knowing mens minds both thing it self and the abuse of it being such as alone may suffice to disgrace the Authours of it and make their pretenses to infallibility alwaies false very ridiculous We know indeed that scarce any thing was of ancienter use in the Church then some Indulgences but no more like these than Earth is like Purgatory Indulgences were made by such who were in autority in the Church towards Penitents who had their Penances allotted them for scandalous Crimes committed against the Faith and Church which Penances were often relaxed and mittigated by the favour and indulgences of the Fathers of the Church good cause appearing for to do so But that ever it was in the power of the Church to give ease to such as were punished in that other Life to come was never heard of for above a thousand years after Christ Alphonsus de Castro is worth the Alphonsus de Castro lib. 8. Adv. Haer. de Indulg reading upon this who is positive for Indulgences but going about to prove them prepares his Reader with a long Preface for such a short Discourse telling him that He ought not to expect for all points of Faith Antiquity or express Scripture For many things are known to the moderner which those ancient Writers were altogether ignorant of For seldome any mention is made in ancient Writers of the transubstantiation of the Bread into Christs Body of the Spirits proceeding from the Son much rarer of Purgatory almost none at all especially among Greek Writers for which reason Purgatory is not believed of the Greek to this day c. The ancient Church caused men to satisfie in this life and would leave nothing to be punished in the Life to come and therefore there is no mention of Indulgences Thus he But adds Amongst the Romans the use of them is said to be very ancient as may in some manner be collected from their stations And it is reported of Gregory the First of whom we even now spake that he granted some in his dayes It is said and reported by where and by whom he could not tell us But he tells us indeed how Innocent the Third that great Innovator and Corrupter of the Church constituted it in the Latherane Council and the Council of Constance after that much which was not before the Year 1200. Judge we from hence what great account is to be made of the many sayings of the Fathers pretended to approve this devise And judge we farther what great Reason or Scripture there is for the Popish faction to derogate so far as they do from the efficacy of Gods Holy Spirit of Grace in the repenting sinner though straitened of time in the exercise and demonstration of his true Conversion and from the fullness of Christs mediation and merits which are ordained for the remission of all sins upon true Repentance For the bloud of Christ cleanseth from all sin saith St. John and so say they understood as in this Life and the Life to come but St. John nor any other holy Writer of Scripture gives us the least intimation of any other season of pardon then that of this Life Therefore here to end this First Part with the end of Man in this world seeing Gods Promises are so liberally revealed unto penitent sinners in this Life without exceptions of matter time or place of venial or mortal sins Seeing Christs merits are absolutely sufficient to acquit the sinner and no limitation is to be found upon Faith and Repentance in Scripture Seeing lastly that Gods Spirit of Grace is of vertue sufficient to sanctifie to the washing away of all filthiness both of flesh and spirit and this life is only mentioned in Scripture for the exerting of this work and perfecting this cure of the soul Let us rather thankfully embrace so great salvation and work it out for St. Paul supposes we may with fear and trembling in this life that so as St. Peter hath 2 Pet. 1. 11. it An entrance may be ministred abundantly unto us into the everlasting Kingdem of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ The End of the First Part. THE Second Part OF THE INTRODUCTION To the Knowledge of the True Catholick Religion CHAP. I. Of the worship of God wherein the Second Part of Christian Religion consists Of the Necessity of worshipping God It is natural to worship God Socinus holding the contrary confuted Of the Name of Religion the Nature of religious worship wherein it consisteth REligion we have defined to be A due Recognition and Retribution made by the Creature to God the Fountain of all Being communicating himself freely to inferiour Beings And this description we have in substance given us by David in his last and most serious charge to Solomon his Son saying And thou Solomon my Son know thou the God of 1 Chron. 28. 9. thy Fathers and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind c. From whence we take the ground of our distinction of Religion into two Parts The true knowledge of God which is attained by the Doctrine of Faith revealed in Gods holy Word and the worship of him there in likewise contained Of the former having already spoken we now proceed more briefly to treat of the second The worship of God And that God is to be worshipped is such an inseparable notion from the acknowledgment of God as nothing can follow more necessarily then that doth from this And it were more reasonable though that be brutish for to deny God absolutely then to deny him worship and service And therefore Seneca saith well The first worshipping of God is to believe there is a God The next to yield to him his Majesty to yield him Sen. Epist 95. his Goodness to understand that he or they governs the world And afterward He sufficiently worships God who imitates him And Tully The Cicero de Natura Deor. lib. 2. worship of God ought to be most excellent and pure and holy and full of piety so that we may constantly worship him with a pure intire and uncorrupt mind and voice
that little For they may say that in prayer we offer not so much to God as we receive from him For prayer is a begging of favour and benefits of God To which our Answer is that taking prayer strictly and precisely for that one part of prayer which consisteth in craving a supply of our wants or deprecation only then indeed this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Cremens Alexand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Asterius apud Phoetum not so properly a Sacrifice But we are to take prayer in its usual latitude for all the parts of it such as Confession Deprecation of Evil Petition of Good Agnition and Profession of Mercies received Thanksgiving Praise for all Gods hand of Grace towards us and thus prayer is the offering up of a spiritual Sacrifice to God An offering of our heart and an assent of the soul to God as some devout men and learned have defined it And not so only but in effect and intention it by acknowledging of the free mercie of God in outward or inward blessings received from him is the rendring of them all to him again and a Sacrifice of that back again which once he conferred on us Thirdly prayer and worship so properly called bear the name of Sacrifices from the ground of all prayers though some parts of prayer be not so expresly such For he that acknowledges the Omnipotence of God the Omniscience Omnipresence the Alsufficiencie doth thereby render unto God his due but he that prayeth unto God supposeth and confesseth and implicitly offers all these as his duty to God But whoever heard of Offering up the Sacrifice of a Sermon unto God For Lastly If there be any thing of worship or the nature of a Sacrifice in Sermons certainly great Idolatry is committed by them it being most manifest that preaching is offered to Man and not to God and if it be a Divine worship what can it be less For what is more true and common then this That in prayer men speak to God but in preaching they speak to man So that from hence we may safely conclude that that Religion which hath nothing to commend it but preaching or nothing so much as preaching is quite contrary to the Apostle Whose praise is not of God but of Men and in truth deserves not so much the Name of Religion as of Superstition unheard of unthought of until of late years and coming nearest to that grossest part of truly Popish Superstition or as some call it Sacriledge communicating in one kind But here it will be warmly interposed and replyed God forbid they should oppose praying it is a manifest slander For these good people have prayers in private and prayers in publick too It is no proper place now by and by it will be to examine what manner of prayers worship these they mean are insufficient God knows to the constituting of a Church in true Christian communion But here we tell them that we have not disputed against them as having no worship of God at all But first that at all they make preaching and hearing Sermons a proper part of Gods service Secondly that they make it the most eminent and chief against both which our reasons stand good still And that they so do is demonstrated from their practise no less than Doctrines in that they never amongst us pray in publick never enjoy Christian communion but by vertue of a Sermon And though being pressed hard they confess with much ado as Cartwright against Bishop Whitgift that it is possible and valid to celebrate the Sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist without a Sermon yet it seems so notoriously inconvenient and incongruous as it ought never to be done where the Sermon is possible to be had A foul and ungodly mistake So that we have done them no wrong as yet CHAP. VIII A second Corruption of the worship of God not espicially in Prayer by opposing Set-forms of Publick Worship Reasons against Extemporary Prayers in Publick The Places of Scripture and Reasons and Antiquity for Extemporary Prayers answered A Second thing whereby they have abused both the holy duty of prayer and well-meaning Christians is in their traducing and prophanation of all prescribed forms of prayer wherein they forget not to shew themselves in their arts and colours For when the power is in their hands and their Faction can domineer then do they condemn directly in word by preaching printing and covenanting solemnly against Set-forms in publick and there hath been nothing under heaven acted by them more industriously than the utter abolition of all such Divine Offices And when they can go no farther their Chariots wheels are taken off and they begin to find themselves to sink that they bethink themselves how possibly they may stand in need of that moderation that they contemned and that indulgence they condemned their study is not how to repent and retract absolutely their former ungodly counsels and practises as all good Christians that meant seriously to be saved ought to do but with what artifices they may at the same time hold to their old principles of mischief to others and save themselves from harm from others For we must not say now they did any thing so disorderly good people that they are and innocent against Set-forms Province of London but the Parliament as they are obstimately bent to grace their cause without any ground for such a title say they call'd them to it when of the two they if we may distinguish them from their pretended Parliament for which there is no ground rather called their Parliament to such counsels and pranks as they after play'd as appeareth by their early Smectymnuus and their incessant instances with them to pursue those Schismatical Dogms to the subverting of all received Discipline and forms of Worship And that they have disowned their principles upon which they then proceeded we find not though we have more than enough of tricks and turnings and windings and straining them to the fairest sense they can possibly bear and sometimes farther too For instance they say now their Covenant was not against Episcopal Government but an Hierarchy They say They are not against Set forms for they suffer them in private Nay they say they are no enemies to publick Forms nor many other Rites but they would not have them imposed upon any But we shall presume to tell them we neither believe the one nor other until they as publickly retract what they have done in deposing all Set forms and taught and writ and imposing Unset forms upon all that would live by them And in that they would not have them now imposed they imply more strongly they are against them wholly than they express they any wayes favour them when God be thanked as ill as at present it is it is not in their power to oppose and damn them as formerly Can there be any thing more ridiculous than for men to do as much mischief as
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
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 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
praecipit vel humana Constitutio Et ut facilius ita tutius quâ—que est omnes Imagines è templis submovere qudâ—n impâ—trare uc nec modus praetereâ—â—ur nec admiscedtur superscitio Eratm in Symb. Decalog Cateches 6. commended yet have not men dared as yet by any direct Precept to command the use of Images at all in Churches For that Images should be in Churches saith Erasmus no Constitution so much as humane requireth And as is is more easie so is it more safe to withdraw all Images out of Churches then to prevail that the Mean should not be exceeded nor Superstition mingled therewith Thirdly If that Rule of Explication holds good viz. that in the Decalogue where a sin is forbidden there the occasion leading thereunto is also forbidden I make no doubt but to worship the Creatour or any Creature by an Image is also here forbidden as Idolatrous though perhaps not Idolatry absolute And contrary to the current sense and distinction of modern Romanists concerning Material and Formal Idolatry of which we have before spoken denying an errour about the Object to be Formal Idolatry provided the intention be directed to the only true object of worship God we may more safely and properly call this outward visible adoration given to outward objects or at least seeming to be given to them Formal Idolatry than Material because there is nothing wanting to common sense which might make and denominate it Idolatry and this to have the Formalities of Idolatry but if they take Formal for the intrinsick specification of a thing then it is a Contradiction and Nonsense to say or suppose that there can be any Idolatry not Formal as to imagine any thing can be without its form or that which is absolutely necessary to make it what it is Furthermore this worshipping of God by any thing made is forbidden by this command if not as simply and immediately unlawful in it self yet under the head of Scandal unjustly and unnecessarily given For in this Case it will no more if so much as excuse a man from the just suspicion of Idolatry that he upon occasion declares he does not worship the thing before which he worships than it could do them of whom St. Paul to the 1 Cor. 8. 4. Corinthians speaks who sat in the Idols Temple being Christians and knowing an Idol was as much as nothing in the world and a man having so much Faith and Knowledge might do as he please in neglect and contempt of that but St. Paul could not be put off so but knowing and taking for v. 7. 10 11. granted that some did eat before an Idol with a conscience and sense of an Idol as it were adjured such presumers under the terrour of being accessary to the ruin of their brothers Souls not to have to do with them So what if it be true as most true it is a man may worship God or Saints before an Image and have a right intention and pure conscience towards God is it not also as true that he may have an erroneous and idolatrous intention Nay are not the Evidences and Presumptions much more clear and strong that his intention is corrupt then that it is pure Can flesh and bloud put any difference between the visible act of him that doth worship an Image directly and properly and of him that doth not Is not this then scandalous to sin So that we may reasonably conclude this Command to stretch it self to forbid all worship by Images and especially in publick where there is more danger to others though not under the same guilt or penalty as flat idolizing of any thing besides God For in that it is said Thou shalt not bow down to them is plainly forbidden external reverence to or before them in any way of Religious worship In that it is said Nor worship them is expressed the internal act and forbidden And thus far of the more literal sense of this Precept the more remote and reductive sense as I may call it is to interdict all worshipping of Imaginations or vain opinions which are certain Idols of the mind as the other are of the outward senses And thus Hierom upon the Prophet Esay Hieron in Isaiam c. 40. tropically applies his words To whom will ye liken the Lord c. We may say that Arch-hereticks are here rebuked who make sundry Idols out of their own heart c. And again upon the same Prophet afterward Quicquid Id. in Isaiam c. 44. v. 15 16. de Idolis dictum est potest referri ad haereseon Principes c. Whatever the Prophet speaks of Idols may be referred to the Ringleaders of Hereticks who dexterously frame out of their own hearts certain images of their opinions and of a lye and worship them knowing that they made them themselves And think it not sufficient to keep them to themselves unless they seduce other simpler folk with the adoration of them Against this little noted but most frequently practised Idolatry we have an excellent Sermon of a Reverend Bishop Andrews Sermon of worshipping Imaginations Sin ulachris phantasmatum suprum sectatores suos omnis error illidit Aug. Expos Ep. ad Rom. Inchoata lib. Prelate long since made and never more need was there then is now to inculcate this when people blinded with the love of their own inventions and opinions of the sense of Scripture run carelesly and rashly into the Idolatry of their own wayes having first consecrated them with an obscure and mistaken Text of Scripture or two and so made them as they think Divine This is condemned in this Commandment as are also all corrupting depraving mis-sensing Gods Holy Word bringing in Sects and Heresies disesteem and abuse of his Sacraments And to name no more to be remiss prophane and negligent in the true Service and Worship of God either by inward aversion or outward absenting themselves without just cause from him in his house and denying him that outward adoration and humiliation which he here forbids us to give any but himself which he surely never would have done had he not set some value on it himself And on the contrary we are required positively here to give all outward as well as inward worship to him as he is in his illimited nature without circumscribing him in our minds or likening him to any corporeal being how excellent soever The second Part of this Commandment gives us the reason of it viz. For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God deterring all men from the violation of the same from the Power Majesty and Justice of him against such contemners of his worship and his word So that as too often it is seen that some fond worldly and covetous Parents will even venture their own necks and damn their souls out of an extream desire to advance their children and to settle them sure and flourishing as they think in the world after them God confounds this their plot
being two general motives to all duties Love and Ingenuity and fear of evil and necessity it is not so prudent nor so powerful to hang all upon one as on both 'T is true God hath put power into the hands of Parents and Princes and Governours to constrain and exact the duty of Obedience from their respective Subjects but he hath put a natural principle of Love into their hearts also inclining them to goodness towards them which notwithstanding is neither so general nor effectual but many fail egregiously in it wherefore God by his holy Word advertiseth and exhorteth to the exercise of it and as it were the better to dispose and bow those in subjection to them to perform their duty with cheerfulness And therefore St. Paul after the duty of Obedience imposed upon Children layeth a duty upon Parents on their Children saying And ye Fathers provoke not your Children but bring them up in the admonition Ephes 6. 4. of the Lord That is Exercise not imperiously and impertinently that power God hath given you over your Children rather be known ye can do it and so when it is discerned that it is rather the Lust of a tyrannous nature than of natural care love or kindness which urges them to rule with vain rigour the Children be provoked to break their bonds and pass the bounds which otherwise might have been observed to the glory of God and comfort of both Yet doth not the Apostle justifie such excess in children more than the extream of Parents but only foretels the evil event of such unchristian rigour And the like may be said of Servants and Masters mentioned next by the Apostle who having prescribed an Evangelical principle of demeanor Ephes 6. of Servants towards their Masters doth subjoyn the like Precept to Masters And ye Masters do the same things unto them forbearing threatning knowing that your Master also is in Heaven neither is there respect of persons with him Intimating the ground of hearty ingenuous and faithful service of Children and Servants to proceed commonly from the Fountain of love and kindness in the Parents and Masters and therefore if they would be well served they should first serve God themselves in educating them according to Gods gentle Law and be careful to instruct them in the fear of God And so where the Apostle stateth the mutual obligation between Eph. 5 21 25. Man and Wife he tempereth his counsel with reciprocal kindnesses that as the Wife is to submit her self to her own Husband the Husband is to love his Wife and that by vertue of this Commandment which can never be well kept according to Gods mind where there is a faileur on either hand though St. Peter tells us like a true Evangelical Preacher that with good Christians and true Believers it is no exemption from duty and proper subjection that our Superiours transgress the laws of modesty sobriety and moderation towards us But Servants and by the same rule Subjects and Children ought to be subject with all fear not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward and that for reasons immediately following And the 1 Pet. 2. 18 19 20. Titus 2. 9. same requireth St. Paul to Titus But here it is queried by some Why St. Paul having taken occasion to adjust the duties between Masters and Servants Parents and Children Husbands and Wives omitteth wholly to restrain and regulate the power of Princes towards their Subjects leaves no Rules for them as if they might offend or offending might not be informed of their duty by Christian Doctrine To this we say First what some have well observed and affirmed before us The reason hereof is because in St. Pauls dayes there were no Soveraign Powers of the Christian Religion and therefore it might have seemed unseasonable and vain to offer counsel and rules to them who were not capable of them For had there been such Princes no doubt is to be made but he would have seasoned them and sanctified them with his wholsome documents And yet Secondly He doth not absolutely dismiss them without advice who may be well reduced to the Head of Parents of Countries and Masters of their Subjects And thus much for the principle of honouring our Superiours from the benefit of their duties towards us Now the Principles of Obedience more immediately obliging us unto them are in brief The Fear and Honour of God whose Image Representatives and Instruments they are for our Good No man after so many Reasons and Precepts given us in holy Luke 10. 16. Scripture of faithful and conscionable submission to our Superiours can be said to fear God who doth not honour his Superiours For of all Civil Parents or Governours St. Paul saith They are the Ministers of God to thee Rom. 13. 4. Eccles 7. 27 28. for good And of our Natural Parents well admonisheth the Wise-man Honour thy Father with thy whole heart and forget not the sorrows of thy Mother Remember that thou wast begot of them and how canst thou recompence them the things they have done for thee And of our Ecclesiastical Parents Hebr. 13. 17. 1 Thess 5. 12 13. to the Hebrews Now the Act Honour doth imply all inward affection and proper humility of mind and all outward demonstrations of the same by sober modest humble respect and reverence unto them As also service assistance obedience attendance relief in straits feeding clothing and comforting them in their wants weaknesses and distresses and finally contributing all we are able to their well being who next under God were the Causes of our Beings in the world But of the manner or extent of our Obedience especialâ—y to our Civil Parents and of the contrary evil Resistance we have spoken before The last motive to this duty is expressed in the Reason annexed to this Commandment viz. That thy dayes may be long in the Land which the Lord thy God shall give thee Intimating a signal blessing of God upon them that so reverence his Deputies whether Natural Civil or Ghostly and a malediction Ephes 6. 2. unto such as deny the same upon false wicked fleshly or vain pretences See Part 1. Book 1. ch 26 But of the vertue and duty of Obedience we have spoken before The Sixth Commandment followeth Thou shalt do no murder as it is well §. VI. rendred in our English Translation For Murder is that which imports the killing of Man only and so doth the Hebrew word here used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in opposition as it were to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 common to all killing whether of Man or Beast Which though it might not be an argument to the Superstitious Heathens of the Pythagorean or rather Indian strain the Gymnosophists from whom Pythagoras borrowed his opinion denying it lawful to take away the life of any thing in so much as Aristotle tells us that Empedocles the ancient Aristotel Rhetor. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plin.