rendred In him it is violent and hard a distinct period by it self without dependence or proper purpose against the faith of all copies who do not make this a distinct period and against the usual manner of speaking 2. This phrase of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used in 2 Cor. 5.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not for that we would be unclothed and so it is used in Polybius Suidas and Varinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is eâ conditione for that cause or condition and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad quid ades are the words of the Gospel as Suidas quotes them 3. Although 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in whom or in him yet it is so very seldom or infrequent that it were intolerable to do violence to this place to force it to an unnatural signification 4. If it did always signifie the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or in him which it does not yet we might very well follow the same reading we now do and which the Apostles discourse does infer for even 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does divers times signifie forasmuch or for that as is to be seen in Rom. 8.3 and Heb. 2.18 But 5. supposing all that can be and that it did signifie in whom yet the sence were fair enough as to the whole article for by him or in him we are made sinners that is brought to an evil state of things usually consequent to sinners we are us'd like sinners by him or in him just as when a sinner is justified he is treated like a righteous person as if he had never sinned though he really did sin oftentimes and this for his sake who is made righteousness to us so in Adam we are made sinners that is treated ill and afflicted though our selves be innocent of that sin which was the occasion of our being us'd so severely for other sins of which we were not innocent But how this came to pass is told in the following words 11. For until the law sin was in the world but sin is not imputed when there is no law Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression who is the figure of him that was to come By which discourse it appears that S. Paul does not speak of all minkind as if the evil occasion'd by Adams sin did descend for ever upon that account but it had a limited effect and reach'd only to those who were in the interval between Adam and Moses This death was brought upon them by Adam that is death which was threatned to Adam only went forth upon them also who indeed were sinners but not after the similitude of Adams transgression that is who sinn'd not so capitally as he did For to sin like Adam is used as a Tragical and a high expression So it is in the Prophet They like men have transgressed so we read it but in the Hebrew it is They like Adam have transgressed and yet death pass'd upon them that did not sin after the similitude of Adam for Abel and Seth and Abraham and all the Patriarchs died Enoch only excepted and therefore it was no wonder that upon the sin of Adam death entred upon the world who generally sinn'd like Adam since it passed on and reigned upon less sinners * It reigned upon them whose sins therefore would not be so imputed as Adams was because there was no law with an express threatning given to them as was to Adam but although it was not wholly imputed upon their own account yet it was imputed upon theirs and Adams For God was so exasperated with Mankind that being angry he would still continue that punishment even to the lesser sins and sinners which he only had first threatned to Adam and so Adam brought it upon them They indeed in rigour did themselves deserve it but if it had not been for that provocation by Adam they who sinn'd not so bad and had not been so severely and expresly threatned had not suffer'd so severely * The case is this Jonathan and Michal were Sauls children it came to pass that seven of Sauls issue were to be hanged all equally innocent equally culpable David took the five sons of Michal for she had left him unhandsomly Jonathan was his friend and therefore he spar'd his son Mephibosheth Here it was indifferent as to the guilt of the persons whether David should take the sons of Michal or of Jonathan but it is likely that as upon the kindness which David had to Jonathan he spar'd his son so upon the just provocation of Michal he made that evil to fall upon them of which they were otherwise capable which it may be they should not have suffered if their Mother had been kind Adam was to God as Michal to David 12. But there was in it a further design for by this dispensation of death Adam was made a figure of Christ So the Apostle expresly affirms who is the figure of him that was to come that as death pass'd upon the posterity of Adam though they sinn'd less than Adam so life should be given to the followers of Christ though they were imperfectly righteous that is not after the similitude of Christs perfection 13. But for the further clearing the Article depending upon the right understanding of these words these two things are observable 1. That the evil of death descending upon Adams posterity for his sake went no further than till Moses For after the giving of Moses's law death passed no further upon the account of Adams transgression but by the sanction of Moses's law where death was anew distinctly and expresly threatned as it was to Adam and so went forward upon a new score but introduc'd first by Adam that is he was the cause at first and till Moses also he was in some sence the author and for ever after the precedent and therefore the Apostle said well In Adam we all die his sin brought in the sentence in him it began and from him it passed upon all the world though by several dispensations 2. In the discourse of the Apostle those that were nam'd were not consider'd simply as born from Adam and therefore it did not come upon the account of Natural or Original corruption but they were consider'd as Sinners just as they who have life by Christ are not consider'd as merely children by title or spiritual birth and adoption but as just and faithful But then this is the proportion and purpose of the Apostle as God gives to these life by Christ which is a greater thing than their imperfect righteousness without Christ could have expected so here also this part of Adams posterity was punish'd with death for their own sin but this death was brought upon them by Adam that is the rather for his provocation of God by his great transgression 14. There is now remaining no difficulty but
so that now although a comparison proportionate was at first intended yet the river here rises far higher than the fountain and now no argument can be drawn from the similitude of Adam and Christ but that as much hurt was done to humane nature by Adams sin so very much more good is done to mankind by the incarnation of the Son of God 16. And not as it was by one that sinned so is the gift for the judgment was by one to condemnation but the free gift is of many offences unto justification And the first disparity and excess is in this particular for the judgment was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by one man sinning one sin that one sin was imputed but by Christ not only one sin was forgiven freely but many offences were remitted unto justification and secondly a vast disparity there is in this that the descendants from Adam were perfectly like him in nature his own real natural production and they sinned though not so bad yet very much and therefore there was a great parity of reason that the evil which was threatned to Adam and not to his Children should yet for the likeness of nature and of sin descend upon them But in the other part the case is highly differing for Christ being our Patriarch in a supernatural birth we fall infinitely short of him and are not so like him as we were to Adam and yet that we in greater unlikeness should receive a greater favour this was the excess of the comparison and this is the free gift of God 17. For if by one offence so it is in the Kings MS. or if by one mans offence death reigned by one much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. And this is the third degree or measure of excess of efficacy on Christs part over it was on the part of Adam For if the sin of Adam alone could bring death upon the world who by imitation of his transgression on the stock of their own natural choice did sin against God though not after the similitude of Adams transgression much more shall we who not only receive the aids of the spirit of grace but receive them also in an abundant measure receive also the effect of all this even to reign in life by one Jesus Christ. 18. Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation Even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life Therefore now to return to the other part of the similitude where I began although I have shown the great excess and abundance of grace by Christ over the evil that did descend by Adam yet the proportion and comparison lies in the main emanation of death from one and life from the other judgment unto condemnation that is the sentence of death came upon all men by the offence of one even so by a like Oeconomy and dispensation God would not be behind in doing an act of Grace as he did before of judgment and as that judgment was to condemnation by the offence of one so the free gift and the grace came upon all to justification of life by the righteousness of one 19. For as by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous The summ of all is this By the disobedience of one man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many were constituted or put into the order of sinners they were made such by Gods appointment that is not that God could be the Author of a sin to any but that he appointed the evil which is the consequent of sin to be upon their heads who descended from the sinner and so it shall be on the other side for by the obedience of one even of Christ many shall be made or constituted righteous But still this must be with a supposition of what was said before that there was a vast difference for we are made much more righteous by Christ than we were sinners by Adam and the life we receive by Christ shall be greater than the death by Adam and the graces we derive from Christ shall be more and mightier than the corruption and declination by Adam but yet as one is the head so is the other one is the beginning of sin and death and the other of life and righteousness It were easie to add many particulars out of S. Paul but I shall chuse only to recite the Aethiopick version of the New Testament translated into Latin by that excellent Linguist and worthy Person Dr. Dudly Loftus The words are these And therefore as by the iniquity of one man sin entred into the world and by THAT SIN death came upon all men therefore because THAT SIN IS IMPUTED TO ALL MEN even those who knew not what that sin was Until the Law came sin remained in the world not known what it was when sin was not reckoned because as yet at that time the Commandment of the Law was not come Nevertheless death did after reign from Adam until Moses as well in those that did sin as in those that did not sin by that sin of Adam because every one was created in the similitude of Adam and because Adam was a type of him that was to come But not according to the quantity of our iniquity was the grace of God to us If for the offence of one man many are dead how much more by the grace of God and by the gift of him who did gratifie us by one man to wit Jesus Christ life hath abounded upon many Neither for the measure of the sin which was of one man was there the like reckoning or account of the grace of God For if the condemnation of sin proceeding from one man caus'd that by that sin all should be punished how much rather shall his grace purifie us from our sins and give to us eternal life If the sin of one made death to reign and by the offence of one man death did rule in us how much more therefore shall the grace of one man Jesus Christ and his gift justifie us and make us to reign in life eternal And as by the offence of one man many are condemned Likewise also by the righteousness of one man shall every son of man be justified and live And as by one man many are made sinners or as the Syriack Version renders it there were many sinners In like manner again many are made righteous * Now this reddition of the Apostles discourse in this Article is a very great light to the Understanding of the words which not the nature of the thing but the popular glosses have made difficult But here it is plain that all the notice of this Article which those Churches derived from these words of Saint Paul was this That the sin of Adam
which interpretation I follow S. Paul not the Pelagians they who are on the other side of the question follow neither And unless men take in their opinion before they read and resolve not to understand S. Paul in this Epistle I wonder why they should fancy that all that he says sounds that way which they commonly dream of But as men fancy so the Bells will ring But I know your Lordships grave and wiser judgment sees not only this that I have now opened but much beyond it and that you will be a zealous advocate for the truth of God and for the honour of his justice wisdom and mercy That which follows makes me believe your Lordship resolv'd to try me by speaking your own sence in the line and your temptation in the interline For when your Lordship had said that My arguments for the vindication of Gods goodness and justice are sound and holy your hand run it over again and added as abstracted from the case of Original Sin But why should this be abstracted from all the whole Oeconomy of God from all his other dispensations Is it in all cases of the world unjust for God to impute our fathers sins to us unto eternal condemnation and is it otherwise in this only Certainly a man would think this were the more favourable case as being a single act done but once repented of after it was done not consented to by the parties interested not stipulated by God that it should be so and being against all laws and all the reason of the world therefore it were but reason that if any where here much rather Gods justice and goodness should be relied upon as the measure of the event * And if in other cases laws be never given to Ideots and Infants and persons uncapable why should they be given here But if they were not capable of a Law then neither could they be of Sin for where there is no law there is no transgression And is it unjust to condemn one man to Hell for all the sin of a thousand of his Ancestors actually done by them And shall it be accounted just to damn all the world for one sin of one man But if it be said that it is unjust to damn the innocent for the sin of another but the world is not innocent but really guilty in Adam Besides that this is a begging of the question it is also against common sence to say that a man is not innocent of that which was done before he had a being for if that be not sufficient then it is impossible for a man to be innocent And if this way of answer be admitted any man may be damned for the sin of any Father because it may be said here as well as there that although the innocent must not perish for anothers fault yet the Son is not innocent as being in his Fathers loyns when the fault was committed and the law calls him and makes him guilty And if it were so indeed this were so far from being an excuse to say that the Law makes him guilty that this were absolute tyranny and the thing that were to be complain'd of I hope by this time your Lordship perceives that I have no reason to fear that I prevaricate S. Paul's rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I only endeavour to understand S. Paul's words and I read them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in proportion to and so as they may not intrench upon the reputation of Gods goodness and justice that 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be wise unto sobriety But they that do so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as to resolve it to be so whether God be honour'd in it or dishonour'd and to answer all arguments whether they can or cannot be answered and to efform all their Theology to the air of that one great proposition and to find out ways for God to proceed in which he hath never told of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ways that are crooked and not to be insisted in ways that are not right if these men do not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then I hope I shall have less need to fear that I do who do none of these things And in proportion to my security here I am confident that I am unconcern'd in the consequent threatning If any man shall Evangelize 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any other doctrine than what ye have received something for Gospel which is not Gospel something that ye have not received let him be accursed My Lord if what I teach were not that which we have received that God is just and righteous and true that the soul that sins the same shall die that we shall have no cause to say The Fathers have eaten sowre Grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge that God is a gracious Father pardoning iniquity and therefore not exacting it where it is not that Infants are from their Mothers wombs beloved of God their Father that of such is the Kingdom of God that he pities those souls who cannot discern the right hand from the left as he declar'd in the case of the Ninevites that to Infants there are special Angels appointed who always behold the face of God that Christ took them in his arms and blessed them and therefore they are not hated by God and accursed heirs of Hell and coheirs with Satan that the Messias was promisâ—d before any children were born as certainly as that Adam sinn'd before they were born that if sin abounds grace does superabound and therefore children are with greater effect involv'd in the grace than they could be in the sin and the sin must be gone before it could do them mischief if this were not the doctrine of both Testaments and if the contrary were then the threatning of S. Paul might well be held up against me but else my Lord to shew such a Scorpion to him that speaks the truth of God in sincerity and humility though it cannot make me to betray the truth and the honour of God yet the very fear and affrightment which must needs seize upon every good man that does but behold it or hear the words of that angry voice shall and hath made me to pray not only that my self be preserved in truth but that it would please God to bring into the way of truth all such as have erred and are deceived My Lord I humbly thank your Lordship for your grave and pious Counsel and kiss the hand that reaches forth so paternal a rod. I see you are tender both of truth and me and though I have not made this tedious reply to cause trouble to your Lordship or to steal from you any part of your precious time yet because I see your Lordship was perswaded induere personam to give some little countenance to a popular error out of jealousie against a less usual truth I thought it my duty to represent to your Lordship such things by which as I can so I ought to
There was here no remedy no second thoughts no amends to be made But because much was not required of him and the Commandment was very easie and he had strengths more than enough to keep it therefore he had no cause to complain God might â—nd did exact at first the Covenant of Works because it was at first infinitely toleâ—â—ble But 2. From this time forward this Covenant began to be hard and by degrees beâ—â—â—e impossible not only because mans fortune was broken and his spirit troubled 〈◊〉 his passions disordered and vext by his calamity and his sin but because man upon â—â—e birth of children and the increase of the world contracted new relations and consequently had new duties and obligations and men hindred one another and their faculties by many means became disorder'd and lessen'd in their abilities and their will becoming perverse they first were unwilling and then unable by superinducing dispositions and habits contrary to their duty However because there was a necessity that man should be tied to more duty God did in the several periods of the world multiply Commandments first to Noah then to Abraham and then to his posterity and by this time they were very many And still God held over mans head the Covenant of Works 3. Upon the pressure of this Covenant all the world did complain Tanta mandata sunt ut impossibile sit servari ea said S. Ambrose the Commandments were so many and great that it was impossible they should be kept For at first there were no promises at all of any good nothing but a threatning of evil to the transgressors and after a long time they were entertain'd but with the promise of temporal good things which to some men were perform'd by the pleasures and rewards of sin and then there being a great imperfection in the nature of man it could not be that man should remain innocent and for repentance in this Covenant there was no regard or provisions made But I said 4. The Covenant of Works was still kept on foot How justly will appear in the sequel but the reasonableness of it was in this that men living in a state of awfulness might be under a pedagogy or severe institution restraining their loosenesses recollecting their inadvertencies uniting their distractions For the world was not then prepar'd by spiritual usages and dispositions to be governed by love and an easie yoke but by threatnings and severities And this is the account S. Paul gives of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law was a Schoolmaster that is had a temporary authority serving to other ends with no final concluding power It could chastise and threaten but it could not condemn it had not power of eternal life and death that was given by other measures But because the world was wild and barbarous good men were few the bad potent and innumerable and sin was conducted and help'd forward by pleasure and impunity it was necessary that God should superinduce a law and shew them the rod and affright and check their confidences left the world it self should perish by dissolution The law of Moses was still a part of the Covenant of Works Some little it had of repentance Sacrifice and expiations were appointed for small sins but nothing at all for greater Every great sin brought death infallibly And as it had a little image of Repentance so it had something of Promises to be as a grace and auxiliary to set forward obedience But this would not do it The promises were temporal and that could not secure obedience in great instances and there being for them no remedy appointed by repentance the law could not justifie it did not promise life Eternal nor give sufficient security against the Temporal only it was brought in as a pedagogy for the present necessity 5. But this pedagogie or institution was also a manuduction to the Gospel For they were used to severe laws that they might the more readily entertain the holy precepts of the Gospel to which eternally they would have shut their ears unless they had had some preparatory institution of severity and fear And therefore S. Paul also calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a pedagogie or institution leading unto Christ. 6. For it was this which made the world of the Godly long for Christ as having commission to open the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hidden mystery of Justification by Faith and Repentance For the law called for exact obdience but ministred no grace but that of fear which was not enough to the performance or the engagement of exact obedience All therefore were here convinced of sin but by this Covenant they had no hopes and therefore were to expect relief from another and a better according to that saying of S. Paul The Scripture concludes all under sin that is declares all the world to be sinners that the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe This S. Bernard expresses in these words Deus nobis hoc fecit ut nostram imperfectionem ostenderet Christi avidiores nos faceret Our imperfection was sufficiently manifest by the severity of the first Covenant that the world might long for salvation by Jesus Christ. 7. For since mankind could not be saved by the Covenant of works that is of exact obedience they must perish for ever or else hope to be sav'd by a Covenant of ease and remission that is such a Covenant as may secure Mans duty to God and Gods Mercy to Man and this is the Covenant which God made with mankind in Christ Jesus the Covenant of Repentance 8. This Covenant began immediately after Adams fall For as soon as the first Covenant the Covenant of works was broken God promised to make it up by an instrument of mercy which himself would find out The Seed of the woman should make up the breaches of the man But this should be acted and published in its own time not presently In the mean time man was by virtue of that new Covenant or promise admitted to Repentance 9. Adam confessed his sin and repented Three hundred years together did he mourn upon the mountains of India and God promised him a Saviour by whose obedience his repentance should be accepted And when God did threaten the old world with a floud of waters he called upon them to repent but because they did not God brought upon them the floud of waters For 120. years together he called upon them to return before he would strike his final blow Ten times God tried Pharaoh before he destroyed him And in all ages in all periods and with all men God did deal by this measure and excepting that God in some great cases or in the beginning of a Sanction to establish it with the terror of a great example he scarce ever destroyed a single man with temporal death for any nicety of the law but for long and great prevarications of it and when
very often destructive This was a little alteration or ease of the Covenant of Works but not enough 3 From this state of evil things we were freed by Christ The law was called the letter the ministration of death the ministration of condemnation the old Testament apt to amaze and confound a sinner but did not give him any hopes of remission no glimpse of heaven no ministry of pardon But the Gospel is called the Spirit or the ministration of the Spirit the law of faith the law of liberty it ministers repentance it enjoyns holiness it gives life and we all have hopes of being saved 4. This which is the state of things in which the whole world is represented in their several periods is by some made to be the state of every returning sinner and men are taught that they must pass through the terrors of the Law before they can receive the mercies of the Gospel The Law was a Schoolmaster to bring the Synagogue to Christ it was so to them who were under the Law but it cannot be so to us who are not under the Law but under grace For if they mean the law of Works or that interposition which was the first entercourse with man they lose their title to the mercies of the Gospel If they mean the law of Moses then they do not stand fast in the liberty by which Christ hath made them free But whatsoever the meaning be neither of them can concern Christians For God hath sent his Son to establish a better Covenant in his blood to preach repentance to offer pardon to condemn sin in the flesh to publish the righteousness of God to convince the world of sin by his holy Spirit to threaten damnation not to sinners absolutely but absolutely to the impenitent and to promise and give salvation to his Sons and Servants 5. I. The use that we Christians are to make of the Law is only to magnifie the mercies of God in Jesus Christ who hath freed us from so severe a Covenant who does not judge us by the measures of an Angel but by the span of a mans hand But we are not to subject our selves so much as by fiction of law or fancy to the curse and threatnings of the Covenant of Works or of Moses Law though it was of more instances and less severity by reason of the allowance of Sacrifices for expiation 6. II. Every Christian man sinning is to consider the horrible threatnings of the Gospel the severe intermination of eternal pains the goodness of God leading to repentance the severity of his Justice in exacting great punishments of criminals the reasonableness of this Justice punishing such persons intolerably who would not use so great a grace in so pleasing a service for the purchase of so glorious a reward The terrors of the Law did end in temporal death they could affright no further but in the Gospel Heaven and Hell were opened and laid before all mankind and therefore by these measures a sinner is to enter into the sorrows of contrition and the care of his amendment And it is so vain a thing to think every sinner must in his repentance pass under the terrors of the Law that this is a very destruction of that reason for which they are fallen upon the opinion The Law is not enough to affright sinners and the terrors of the Gospel are far more to persevering and impenitent sinners than the terrors of the Law were to the breakers of it The cause of the mistake is this The Law was more terrible than the Gospel is because it allowed no mercy to the sinner in great instances But the Gospel does But then if we compare the state of those men who fell under the evils of the Law with these who fall under the evils threatned in the Gospel we shall find these to be in a worse condition than those by far as much as hell is worse than being stoned to death or thrust through with a sword This we are taught by that excellent Author of the Divine Epistle to the Hebrews He that despised Moses law died without mercy under two or three witnesses Of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath troden under foot the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despite to the Spirit of Grace So that under the Gospel he that sins and repents is in a far better condition than he that sinn'd under the Law and repented For repentance was not then allowed of the man was to die without mercy But he that sins and repents not is under the Gospel in a far worse condition than under the Law for under the Gospel he shall have a far sorer punishment than under the Law was threatned Therefore let no man mistake the mercies of the New Covenant or turn the grace of God into wantonness The mercies of the Gospel neither allow us to sin nor inflict an easier punishment but they oblige us to more holiness under a greater penalty In pursuance of which I add 7. III. The Covenant by which mankind must now be judged is a Covenant of more Mercy but also of more holiness and therefore let no man think that now he is disobliged from doing good works by being admitted to the Covenant of Faith For though the Covenants are oppos'd as Old and New as a worse and a better yet Faith and Works are not oppos'd We are in the Gospel tied to more and to more excellent works than ever the subjects of any Law were but if after a hearty endeavour we fall into infirmity and still strive against it we are pitied here but there we were not Under the first Covenant the Covenant of Works no endeavour was sufficient because there was no allowance made for infirmities no abatements for ignorance no deductions of exact measures no consideration of surprises passions folly and inadvertency but under the New Covenant our hearty endeavour is accepted but we are tied to endeavour higher and more excellent things than they But he that thinks this mercy gives him liberty to do what he please loses the mercy and mistakes the whole design and Oeconomy of Gods loving kindness 8. IV. To every Christian it is enjoyned that they be perfect that is according to the measure of every one Which perfection consists in doing our endeavour He that does not do that must never hope to be accepted because he refuses to serve God by something that is in his power But he that does that is sure that God will not refuse it because we cannot be dealt withal upon any other account but by the measures of what is in our power and for what is not we cannot take care 9. V. To do our endeavour or our best is not to be understood equally in all the periods of our life according to the work or effect it self nor according to
in their appendage to the Nicene Creed thus express I believe one Baptism for the remission of sins that is to remission of sins we are admitted by Baptism alone no other way shall we have this grace this title but by being once initiated into the Gospel to be Disciples of Jesus Not that it is to be supposed that our sins are only pardon'd when we are baptized but that by Baptism we are admitted to the state and grace of Repentance and pardon of sins And this is demonstratively certain not only upon those many instances of baptized penitents admitted to pardon and baptized Criminals called upon in Scripture to repent but upon the very nature of the Evangelical Covenant and the whole design of Christs coming For if we were not admitted to Repentance after Baptism then we were still to be judged by the Covenant of Works not by the Covenant of Faith and we should inherit by the Law or not at all and not be heirs according to promise and then Christ were dead in vain we are yet in our sins and all the world must perish because all men have sinned and so none should go to Heaven but newly baptized Infants or newly baptized Catechumens and how then could the Gospel be a New Covenant it being exactly the same with the Law for so it must be if it promise no mercy or Repentance to them that sin after our admittance to it * But Baptism is a new birth and by it we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 renewed unto Repentance unto that state of life which supposes holiness and imperfection and consequently needs mercy all the way according to that saying Justus ex fide vivet The just shall live by faith that is all our righteousness all our hopes all our spiritual life is conserved by and is relying upon this Covenant of Mercy the Covenant of Faith or Repentance all his life time the just shall still need pardon and find it if he perseveres in it that is endeavours to obey according to the righteousness of Faith that is sincerely diligently and by the measures of a man Of this we shall in the sequel make use 4. For the present I consider that Repentance or Conversion admits of degrees according to the necessities of men For that Repentance which Christ and his Apostles preach'd at the opening of the Kingdom was an universal change of life which men did lead in the darkness of Heathen ignorance and idolatrous impieties among the Gentiles and the more than Heathen crimes among the Jews the whole Nation being generally false superstitious bloody persecutors proud rebellious and at last rejecters and crucifiers of their Messias whom they had long'd for ever since they were a people But in the perswasion and effecting of this Repentance there was some difference of Dispensation and Ministery 5. John the Baptist began and he preach'd Repentance to the Jews that they might believe in the Messias and so flee from the wrath to come that is from the destruction of their Nation which he prophetically foretold should come to pass for their rejecting him whom the Baptist did fore-signifie Christ and his Apostles pursued the same Doctrine still thrusting forward the design that is preaching such a Repentance as was proportionable to his purpose that is obedience to the Gospel the admission of such doctrines which did destroy the gayeties and cursed usages of the world So that the Repentance which was first preached was in order to Faith that is the Baptist and Christ and Christs Apostles preaching Repentance did mean such a conversion or change as would take them off from those crimes which so prepossess'd their hearts that by them they were indispos'd to receive Christs person and doctrine both which were so contrary to their prejudices of Pride and Covetousness Malice and Ambition 6. And therefore among the Jews Repentance was to go before Faith for they were already sufficiently disposed to believe the Revelations of God they had been used to Prophets and expected the Messias and pray'd for his day and long'd passionately for it so that they were by nothing hindred in their faith but by their lusts and secular thoughts and the way to make them believe was to cure their pride How can ye believe who receive honour one of another Their hunting after praise among the people did indispose them to the believing and receiving Christs person and doctrine Therefore until they did repent of that they could not believe and accordingly our blessed Saviour complain'd that when they saw the light which shin'd in the Ministery of John the Baptist yet they would not repent that they might believe * But afterwards the Jews when they were invited to the Religion that is to believe in Jesus were first to be called to Repentance because they had crucified the Lord of life and if they should not repent for crucifying an innocent person they would be infinitely far from believing him to be the Lord of life and their long desired Messias 7. But the Repentance that was preached to the Gentiles though it had the same design as to the event of things yet it went in another method Their Religion taught them impiety lust and folly was plac'd upon their Altars and their gods bore in their hands smoking firebrands kindled with the coals of Sodom they had false confidences and evil examples and foolish principles they had evil laws and an abominable Priesthood and their Daemons whom they call'd Gods would be worshipped with lusts and cruelty with drunkenness and revellings so that their false belief and evil Religion betrayed them to evil lives therefore they were to be recovered by being taught a better belief and a more holy Religion therefore in these faith was to go before Repentance Poenitentiae stimulus ex fide acciderat as Tertullians expression is Faith was the motive of their Repentance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So S. Clemens Alexandrinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Repentance is the perfection and consummation of Faith For unless the sinner believes his action to be a sin and that evil is his portion if he sins and that he shall be happy if he live by the rule of the Commandments he can never be converted Therefore in the conversion of the Gentiles Faith was to be ordinarily the first 8. In proportion to these several methods the doctrine or state of Christianity was sometimes called Faith sometimes Repentance He that believed Jesus Christ would repent of his sins and he that did repent would believe But sometimes Infidelity stood at the gate and sometimes Malice and vile Affections That which stood next was first to be removed 9. Now the access of both these to Christ is in Scripture called Conversion or Repentance Where Faith only was wanting and the man was of Moses and a good man the becoming a Christian was a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a perfection or consummation a progression rather than a returning
by accident that is for their conjunction with mortal sins is confuted infinitely because God punishes them with degrees of evil proper to them and for their own demerit There is no other accident by which these come to be smarted for in hell but because they were not repented of for by that accident they become Mortal as by the contrary accident to wit if the sinner repents worthily not only the smallest but the greatest also become Venial The impenitent pays for all all together But if the man be a worthy penitent if he continues and abides in Gods love he will find a mercy according to his circumstances by the measures of Gods graciousness and his own repentance so that by accident they may be pardoned but if that accident does not happen if the man be not penitent the sins shall be punished directly and for their own natural demerit The summ is this If a man repents truly of the greater sins he also repents of the smallest for it cannot be a true repentance which refuses to repent of any so that if it happens that for the smallest he do smart in hell it is because he did not repent truly of any greatest nor smallest But if it happens that the man did not commit any of the greater sins and yet did indulge to himself a licence to do the smallest even for those which he calls the smallest he may perish and what he is pleased to call little God may call great Cum his peccatis neminem salvandum said S. Bernard with these even the smallest sins actually remaining upon him unrepented of in general or particular no man can be saved SECT IV. The former doctrine reduc'd to practice 36. I HAVE been the more earnest in this article not only because the Doctrine which I have all this while opposed makes all the whole doctrine of moral Theology to be inartificial and in many degrees useless false and imprudent but because of the immediate influence it hath to encourage evil lives of men For 37. I. To distinguish a whole kind of sins is a certain way to make repentance and amendment of life imperfect and false For when men by fears and terrible considerations are scar'd from their sins as most repentances begin with fear they still retain some portions of affection to their sin some lookings back and phantastick entertainments which if they be not pared off by repentance we love not God with all our hearts and yet by this doctrine of distinguishing sins into Mortal and Venial in their whole kind and nature men are taught to arrest their repentances and have leave not to proceed further for they who say sins are Venial in their own nature if they understand the consequences of their own doctrine do not require repentance to make them so or to obtain a pardon which they need not 38. II. As by this means our repentances are made imperfect so is a relapse extreamly ready for while such a leaven is left it is ten to one but it may sowre the whole mass S. Gregory said well Si curare parva negligimus insensibiliter seducti audentèr etiam majora perpetramus we are too apt to return to our old crimes whose reliques we are permitted to keep and kiss 38. III. But it is worse yet For the distinction of sins Mortal and Venial in their nature is such a separation of sin from sin as is rather a dispensation or leave to commit one sort of them the expiation of which is so easy the pardon so certain the remedy so ready the observation and exaction of them so inconsiderable For there being so many ways of making great sins little and little sins none at all found out by the folly of men and the craft of the Devil a great portion of Gods right and the duty we owe to him is by way of compromise and agreement left as a portion to carelesness and folly and why may not a man rejoyce in those trifling sins for which he hath security he shall never be damned As for the device of Purgatory indeed if there were any such thing it were enough to scare any one from committing any sins much more little ones But I have conversed with many of that perswasion and yet never observed any to whom it was a terror to speak of Purgatory but would talk of it as an antidote or security against hell but not as a formidable story to affright them from their sins but to warrant their venial sins and their imperfect repentance for their mortal sins And indeed let it be considered If venial sins be such as the Roman DD. describe them that they neither destroy nor lessen charity or the grace of God that they only hinder the fervency of an act which sleep or business or any thing that is most innocent may doe that they are not against the law but besides it as walking and riding standing and sitting are that they are not properly sins that all the venial sins in the world cannot amount to one mortal sin but as time differs from eternity finite from infinite so do all the Venial sins in the world put together from one Mortal act that for all them a man is never the less beloved and loves God nothing the less I say if venial sins be such as the Roman Writers affirm they are how can it be imagined to be agreeable to Gods goodness to inflict upon such sinners who only have venial sins unsatisfied for such horrible pains which they dream of in Purgatory as are during their abode equal to the intolerable pains of hell for that which breaks none of his laws which angers him not which is not against him or his love which is incident to his dearest servants Pro peccato magno paulum supplicii satis est patri But if fathers take such severe amends of their children for that which is not properly sin there is nothing left by which we can boast of a fathers kindness In this case there is no remission for if it be not just in God to punish such sins in hell because they are consistent with the state of the love of God and yet they are punished in Purgatory that is as much as they can be punished then God does remit to his children nothing for their loves sake but deals with them as severely as for his justice he can in the matter of venial sins indeed if he uses mercy to them at all it is in remitting their mortal sins but in their venial sins he uses none at all Now if things were thus on both sides it is strange men are not more afraid of their venial sins and that they are not more terrible in their description which are so sad in their event and that their punishment should be so great when their malice is so none at all and it is strangest of all that if men did believe such horrible effects to be the consequent of
themselves and think all is well with them that they are regenerate and in the state of the Divine favour and if they die so their accounts are ballanc'd and they doubt not but they shall reign as Kings for ever To reprove this state of folly and danger we are to observe that there are a great many steps of this progression which are to be passed through and the end is not yet the man is not yet arrived at the state of regeneration 30. I. An unregenerate man may be convinc'd and clearly instructed in his duty and approve the law and confess the obligation and consent that it ought to be done which S. Paul calls a consenting to the law that it is good and a being delighted in it according to the inward man even the Gentiles which have not the law yet shew the work of the law written in their hearts their thoughts in the mean time accusing or excusing one another The Jews did more they did rest in the law and glory in God knowing his will and approving the things that are more excellent And there are too many who being called Christians know their Masters will and do it not and this consenting to the law and approving it is so far from being a sign of regeneration that the vilest and the basest of men are those who sin most against their knowledge and against their consciences In this world a man may have faith great enough to remove mountains and yet be without charity and in the world to come some shall be rejected from the presence of God though they shall alledge for themselves that they have prophesied in the name of Christ. * This delight in the law which is in the unregenerate is only in the understanding The man considers what an excellent thing it is to be vertuous the just proportions of duty the fitness of being subordinate to God the rectitude of the soul the acquiescence and appendent peace and this delight is just like that which is in finding out proportions in Arithmetick and Geometry or the rest in discovering the secrets of a mysterious proposition a man hath great pleasure in satisfactory notices and the end of his disquisition So also it is in moral things a good man is belov'd by every one and there is a secret excellency and measure a musick and proportion between a mans mind and wise counsels which impious and profane persons cannot perceive because they are so full of false measures and weak discourses and vile appetites and a rude inconsideration of the reasonableness and wisdom of sobriety and severe courses But virtus laudatur alget this is all that some men do and there is in them nothing but a preparation of the understanding to the things of God a faith seated in the rational part a conviction of the mind which as it was intended to lead on the will to action and the other faculties to obedience so now that the effect is not acquired it serves only to upbraid the man for a knowing and discerning Criminal he hath not now the excuse of ignorance He that complies with an Usurper out of fear and interest in actions prejudicial to the lawful Prince and tells the honest party that he is right in his heart though he be forc'd to comply helps the other with an argument to convince him that he is a false man He that does it heartily and according to a present conscience hath some excuse but he that confesses that he is right in his perswasion and wrong in his practice is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 condemn'd by himself and professes himself a guilty person a man whom interest and not conscience governs Better is it not to know at all than not to pursue the good we know They that know not God are infinitely far from him but they who know him and yet do not obey him are sometimes the nearer for their knowledge sometimes the further off but as yet they are not arrived whither it is intended they should go 31. II. An unregenerate man may with his will delight in goodness and desire it earnestly For in an unregenerate man there is a double appetite and there may be the apprehension of two amabilities The things of the Spirit please his mind and his will may consequently desire that this good were done because it seems beauteous to the rational part to his Mind but because he hath also relishes and gusts in the flesh and they also seem sapid and delightful he desires them also So that this man fain would and he would not and he does sin willingly and unwillingly at the same time We see by a sad experience some men all their life time stand at gaze and dare not enter upon that course of life which themselves by a constant sentence judge to be the best and of the most considerable advantage But as the boy in the Apologue listned to the disputes of Labour and Idleness the one perswading him to rise the other to lie in bed but while he considered what to do he still lay in bed and considered so these men dispute and argue for vertue and the service of God and stand beholding and admiring it but they stand on the other side while they behold it There is a strife between the law of the mind and the law of the members But this prevails over that For the case is thus There are in men three laws 1. The law of the members 2. The law of the mind 3. The law of the spirit 1. The law of the members that is the habit and proneness to sin the dominion of sin giving a law to the lower man and reigning there as in its proper seat This law is also called by S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mind of the flesh the wisdom the relish the gust and savour of the flesh that is that deliciousness and comport that inticing and correspondencies to the appetite by which it tempts and prevails all its own principles and propositions which minister to sin and folly This subjects the man to the law of sin or is that principle of evil by which sin does give us laws 2. To this law of the flesh the law of the mind is opposed and is in the regenerate and unregenerate indifferently and it is nothing else but the conscience of good and evil subject to the law of God which the other cannot be This accuses and convinces the unregenerate it calls upon him to do his duty it makes him unquiet when he does not but this alone is so invalidated by the infirmity of the flesh by the Oeconomy of the law by the disadvantages of the world that it cannot prevail or free him from the captivity of sin But 3. The law of the Spirit is the grace of Jesus Christ and this frees the man from the law of the members from the captivity of sin from
gone that they would not return and God did not and at last would not pardon them For this appellative is not properly subjected nor attributed to the sin it self but it is according as the man is The sin may be and is at some time unpardonable yet not in all its measures and parts of progression as appears in the case of Pharaoh who all the way from the first miracle to the tenth sinn'd against the Holy Ghost but at last he was so bad that God would not pardon him Some men are come to the greatness of the sin or to that state and grandeur of impiety that their estate is desperate that is though the nature of their sins is such as God is extremely angry with them and would destroy them utterly were he not restrain'd by an infinite mercy yet it shall not be thus for ever for in some state of circumstances and degrees God is finally angry with the man and will never return to him 49. Until things be come to this height whatsoever the sin be it is pardonable For if there were any one sin distinguishable in its whole nature and instance from others which in every of its periods were unpardonable it is most certain it would have been described in Scripture with clear characters and cautions that a man might know when he is in and when he is out Speaking a word against the Holy Spirit is by our blessed Saviour called this great sin but it is certain that every word spoken against him is not unpardonable Simon Magus spoke a foul word against him but S. Peter did not say it was unpardonable but when he bid him pray he consequently bid him hope but because he would not warrant him that is durst not absolve him he sufficiently declared that this sin is of an indefinite nature and by growth would arrive at the unpardonable state the state and fulness of it is unpardonable that is God will to some men and in some times and stages of their evil life be so angry that he will give them over and leave them in their reprobate mind But no man knows when that time is God only knows and the event must declare it 50. But for the thing it self that it is pardonable is very certain because it may be pardoned in baptism The Novatians denied not to baptism a power of pardoning any sin and in this sence it is without doubt true what Zosimus by way of reproach objected to Christian Religion it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a deletery and purgative for every sin whatsoever And since the unconverted Pharisees were guilty of this sin and it was a sin forbidden and punished capitally in the law of Moses either to these Christ could not have been preached and for them Christ did not die or else it is certain that the sin against the holy Spirit of God is pardonable 51. Now whereas our Blessed Lord affirmed of this sin it shall not be pardoned in this world nor in the world to come we may best understand the meaning of it by the parallel words of old Heli to his sons If a man sin against another the Judge shall judge him placari ei potest Deus so the Vulgar Latin reads it God may be appeased that is it shall be forgiven him that is a word spoken against the Son of man which relates to Christ only upon the account of his humane nature that may be forgiven him it shall that is upon easier terms as upon a temporal judgment called in this place a being judged by the Judge But if a man sin against the Lord who shall intreat for him that is if he sin with a high hand presumptuously against the Lord against his power and his Spirit who shall intreat for him it shall never be pardoned never so as the other never upon a temporal judgment that cannot expiate this great sin as it could take off a sin against a man or the Son of man for though it be punished here it shall be punished hereafter But 52. II. It shall not be pardoned in this world nor in the world to come that is neither to the Jews nor to the Gentiles For Saeculum hoc this World in Scripture is the period of the Jews Synagogue and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the world to come is taken for the Gospel or the age of the Messias frequently among the Jews and it is not unlikely Christ might mean it in that sence which was used amongst them by whom he would be understood But because the word was also as commonly used in that sence in which it is understood at this day viz. for the world after this life I shall therefore propound another exposition which seems to me more probable Though remission of sins is more plentiful in the Gospel than under the Law yet because the sin is bigger under the Gospel there is not here any ordinary way of pardoning it no Ministery established to warrant or absolve such sinners but it must be referred to God himself and yet that 's not all For if a man perseveres in this sin he shall neither be forgiven here nor hereafter that is neither can he be absolved in this world by the ministery of the Church nor in the world to come by the sentence of Christ and this I take to be the full meaning of this so difficult place 53. For in this world properly so speaking there is no forgiveness of sins but what is by the ministery of the Church For then a sin is forgiven when it is pardon'd in the day of sentence or execution that is when those evils are removed which are usually inflicted or which are proper to that day Now then for the final punishment that is not till the day of judgment and if God then gives us a mercy in that day then is the day of our pardon from him In the mean time if he be gracious to us here he either forbears to smite us or smites us to bring us to repentance and all the way continues to us the use of the Word and Sacraments that is if he does in any sence pardon us here if he does not give us over to a reprobate mind he continues us under the means of salvation which is the ministery of the Church for that 's the way of pardon in this World as the blessed sentence of the right hand is the way of pardon in the World to come So that when our great Lord and Master threatens to this sin it shall not be pardon'd in this World nor in the World to come he means that neither shall the Ministers of the Church pronounce his pardon or comfort his sorrows or restore him after his fall or warrant his condition or pray for him publickly or give him the peace and communion of the Church neither will God pardon him in the day of Judgment 54. But all this fearful denunciation of the Divine judgment is only upon
Rom. 5.12 As by one man sin entred into the world and Death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned i. e. As by the disobedience of Adam sin had its beginning and by sin death that is the sentence and preparations the solennities and addresses of death sickness calamity dâ—â—inution of strengths Old age misfortunes and all the affections of Mortality for the destroying of our temporal life and so this mortality and condition or state of death passed actually upon all mankind for Adam being thrown out of Paradise and forced to live with his Children where they had no Trees of Life as he had in Paradise was remanded to his mortal natural state and therefore death passed upon them mortally seized on all for that all have sinned that is the sin was reckoned to all not to make them guilty like Adam but Adams sin passed upon all imprinting this real calamity on us all But yet death descended also upon Adams Posterity for their own sins for since all did sin all should die But some Greek copies leave out the second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which indeed seems superfluous and of no signification but then the sence is cleareâ— and the following words are the second part of a similitude As by one man sin entred into the world and death by sin So death passed upon all men for that all have sinned But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies neutrally And the meaning is As Adam died in his own sin So death passed upon all men for their own sin in the sin which they sinned in that sin they died As it did at first to Adam by whom sin first entred and by sin death so death passed upon all men upon whom sin passed that is in the same method they who did sin should die But then he does not seem to say that all did sin for he presently subjoyns that death reigned even upon those who did not sin after the similitude of Adams transgression but this was upon another account as appears in the following words But others expound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie masculinely and to relate to Adam viz. that in him we all sinned Now although this is less consonant to the mind of the Apostle and is harsh and improper both in the language and in the sence yet if it were so it could mean but this that the sin of Adam was of Universal obligation and in him we are reckoned as sinners obnoxious to his sentence for by his sin humane Nature was reduced to its own mortality 13. For until the law sin was in the World but sin is not imputed where there is no law And marvel not that Death did presently descend on all mankind even before a Law was given them with an appendant penalty viz. With the express intermination of death For they did do actions unnatural and vile enough but yet these things which afterwards upon the publication of the Law were imputed to them upon their personal account even unto death were not yet so imputed For Nature alone gives Rules but does not directly bind to penalties But death came upon them before the Law for Adams sin for with him God being angry was pleased to curse him also in his Posterity and leave them also in their mere natural condition to which yet they disposed themselves and had deserved but too much by committing evil things to which things although before the law death was not threatned yet for the anger which God had against mankind he left that death which he threatned to Adam expresly by implication to fall upon the Posterity 14. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression who is the figure of him which was to come And therefore it was that death reigned from Adam to Moses from the first law to the second from the time that a Law was given to one man till the time a Law was given to one Nation and although men had not sinned so grievously as Adam did who had no excuse many helps excellent endowments mighty advantages trifling temptations communication with God himself no disorder in his faculties free will perfect immunity from violence Original righteousness perfect power over his faculties yet those men such as Abel and Seth Noah and Abraham Isaac and Jacob Joseph and Benjamin who sinned less and in the midst of all their disadvantages were left to fall under the same sentence But it is to be observed that these words even over them that had not sinned according to some Interpretations are to be put into a Parenthesis and the following words after the similitude of Adams transgression are an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to be referred to the first words thus Death reigned from Adam to Moses after the similitude of Adams transgression that is as it was at first so it was afterwards death reigned upon men who had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression that is like as it did in the transgression of Adam so it did afterward they in their innocence died as Adam did in his sin and prevarication and this was in the similitude of Adam As they who obtain salvation obtain it in the similitude of Christ or by a conformity to Christ so they 〈◊〉 die do die in the likeness of Adam Christ and Adam being the two representatives of mankind For this besides that it was the present Oeconomy of the Divine Providence and Government it did also like Janus look 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it looked forwards as well as backwards and became a type of Christ or of him that was to come For as from Adam evil did descend upon his natural Children upon the account of Gods entercourse with Adam so did good descend upon the spiritual Children of the second Adam 15. But not as the offence so also is the free gift for if through the offence of one many be dead much more the grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one man Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many This should have been the latter part of a similitude but upon further consideration it is found that as in Adam we die so in Christ we live and much rather and much more therefore I cannot say as by one man vers 12. so by one man vers 15. But much more for not as the offence so also is the free gift for the offence of one did run over unto many and those many even as it were all except Enoch or some very few more of whom mention peradventure is not made are already dead upon that account but when God comes by Jesus Christ to shew mercy to mankind he does it in much more abundance he may be angry to the third and fourth generation in them that hate him but he will shew mercy unto thousands of them that love him to a thousand generations and in ten thousand degrees
than they had a mind should be sav'd harmless Men would be safe alone or not at all supposing that their truth and good cause was warranty enough to preserve it self and they thought true it was indeed warranty enough against persecution if men had believed it to be truth but because we were fallen under the power of our worst enemies for Brethren turn'd enemies are ever the most implacable they looked upon us as men in misperswasion and error and therefore I was to defend our persons that whether our cause were right or wrong for it would be supposed wrong yet we might be permitted in liberty and impunity but then the Consequent would be this that if we when we were supposed to be in error were yet to be indemnified then others also whom we thought as ill of were to rejoyce in the same freedom because this equality is the great instrument of justice and if we would not do to others as we desir'd should be done to us we were no more to pretend Religion because we destroy the Law and the Prophets Of this some men were impatient and they would have all the world spare them and yet they would spare no body But because this is too unreasonable I need no excuse for my speaking to other purposes Others complain'd that it would have evil effects and all Heresies would enter at the gate of toleration and because I knew that they would croud and throng in as far as they could I placed such guards and restraints there as might keep out all unreasonable pretenders allowing none to enter here that speak against the Apostles Creed or weakened the hands of Government or were enemies to good life But the most complain'd that in my ways to perswade a toleration I helped some men too far and that I arm'd the Anabaptists with swords instead of shields with a power to offend us besides the proper defensatives of their own To this I shall need no reply but this I was to say what I could to make their persons safe by shewing how probably they were deceived and they who thought it too much had either too little confidence or too little knowledge of the goodness of their own cause and yet if any one made ill use of it it was more than I allowed or intended to him but so all kindness may be abused But if a Criminal be allowed Counsel he would be scorned if he should avow his Advocate as a real Patron of his crime when he only says what he can to alleviate the Sentence But wise men understand the thing and are satisfied but because all men are not of equal strength I did not only in a Discourse on purpose demonstrate the true doctrine in that question but I have now in this Edition of that Book answered all their pretensions not only fearing lest some be hurt with their offensive arms but lest others like Tarpeia the Roman Lady be oppressed with shields and be brought to think well of their Cause by my pleading for their persons And now My Lord I have done all that I can do or can be desired only I cannot repent me of speaking truth or doing charity but when the loyns of the Presbytery did lie heavy upon us and were like to crush us into flatness and death I ought not to have been reproached for standing under the ruine and endeavouring to defend my Brethren and if I had strain'd his arm whom I was lifting up from drowning he should have deplor'd his own necessity and not have reproved my charity if I say I had been too zealous to preserve them whom I ought to love so zealously But I have been told that my Discourse of Episcopacy relying so much upon the Authority of Fathers and Councils whose authority I so much diminish in my Liberty of Prophesying I seem to pull down with one hand what I build with the other To these men I am used to answer that they ought not to wonder to see a man pull down his Out-houses to save his Father and his Children from the flames and therefore if I had wholly destroyed the Topick of Ecclesiastical Antiquity which is but an outward Guard to Episcopacy to preserve the whole Ecclesiastical order I might have been too zealous but in no other account culpable But my Lord I have done nothing of this as they mistake For Episcopacy relies not upon the Authority of Fathers and Councils but upon Scripture upon the institution of Christ or the institution of the Apostles upon an universal Tradition and an universal practice not upon the words and opinions of the Doctors It hath as great a testimony as Scripture it self hath and it is such a government as although every thing in Antiquity does minister to it and illustrate or confirm it yet since it was before the Fathers and Councils and was in full power before they had a being and they were made up of Bishops for the most part they can give no authority to themselves as a body does not beget it self or give strength to that from whence themselves had warranty integrity and constitution We bring the sayings of the Fathers in behalf of Episcopacy because the reputation they have justly purchased from posterity prevails with some and their reason with others and their practice with very many and the pretensions of the adversaries are too weak to withstand that strength But that Episcopacy derives from a higher Fountain appears by the Justifications of it against them who value not what the Fathers say But now he that says that Episcopacy besides all its own proper grounds hath also the witness of Antiquity to have descended from Christ and his Apostles and he that says that in Questions of Religion the Sayings of the Fathers alone is no demonstration of Faith does not speak things contradictory He that says that we may dissent from the Fathers when we have a reason greater than that authority does no way oppose him that says you ought not to dissent from what they say when you have no reason great enough to out-weigh it He that says the words of the Fathers are not sufficient to determine a nice Question stands not against him who says they are excellent Corroboratives in a Question already determined and practised accordingly He that says the Sayings of Fathers are no demonstration in a Question may say true and yet he that says it is a degree of probability may say true too He that says they are not our Masters speaks consonantly to the words of Christ but he that denies them to be good Instructors does not speak agreeably to reason or to the sence of the Church Sometimes they are excellent Arbitrators but not always good Judges In matters of Fact they are excellent Witnesses In matters of Right or Question they are rare Doctors and because they bring good Arguments are to be valued accordingly and he that considers these things will find that Ecclesiastical Antiquity can
or two forc'd tears against a good time and believe it that 's a great matter too that is not ordinary But if men lose an estate Nemo dolorem Fingit in hoc casu vestem diducere summam Contentus vexare oculos humore coacto Men need not to dissemble tears or sorrow in that case but as if men were in no danger when they are enemies to God and as if to lose Heaven were no great matter and to be cast into Hell were a very tolerable condition and such as a man might very well undergo and laugh heartily for all that they seem so unconcerned in the actions of Religion and in their obedience to the severe laws of Repentance that it looks as if men had no design in the world but to be suffered to die quietly to perish tamely without being troubled with the angry arguments of Church-men who by all means desire they should live and recover and dwell with God for ever Or if they can be forc'd to the further entertainments of Repentance it is nothing but a calling for mercy an ineffective prayer a moist cloud a resolution for to day and a solemn shower at the most Mens immota manet lachrymae volvuntur inanes The mind is not chang'd though the face be for Repentance is thought to be just as other Graces fit for their proper season like fruits in their own month but then every thing else must have its day too we shall sin and we must repent but sin will come again and so may repentance For there is a time for every thing under the Sun and the time for Repentance is when we can sin no more when every objection is answered when we can have no more excuse and they who go upon that principle will never do it till it be too late For every age hath temptations of its own and they that have been us'd to the yoke all their life time will obey their sin when it comes in any shape in which they can take any pleasure But men are infinitely abus'd and by themselves most of all For Repentance is not like the Summer fruits fit to be taken a little and in their own time it is like bread the provisions and support of our life the entertainment of every day but it is the bread of affliction to some and the bread of carefulness to all and he that preaches this with the greatest zeal and the greatest severity it may be he takes the liberty of an enemy but he gives the counsel and the assistance of a friend My Lord I have been so long acquainted with the secrets of your Spirit and Religion that I know I need not make an apology for dedicating this severe Book to you You know according to the prudence which God hath given you that he that flatters you is your enemy and you need not be flattered for he that desires passionately to be a good man and a religious to be the servant of God and be sav'd will not be fond of any vanity and nothing else can need to be flattered but I have presented to your Lordship this Discourse not only to be a testimony to the world how great a love and how great an honour I have for you but even by ascribing you into this relation to endear you the rather every day more and more to the severest Doctrines and practices of Holiness I was invited to make something of this by an Honourable Person who is now with God and who desir'd his needs should be serv'd by my Ministery But when I had entred upon it I found it necessary to do it in order to more purposes and in prosecution of the method of my other Studies All which as they are designed to Gods glory and the Ministery of Souls so if by them I can signifie my obligations to your Lordship which by your great Nobleness do still increase I shall not esteem them wholly ineffective even of some of those purposes whither they are intended for truly my Lord in whatsoever I am or can do I desire to appear My Noblest Lord Your Honours most obliged and most affectionate Servant JER TAYLOR THE PREFACE To the Right Reverend and Religious FATHERS BRIAN Lord Bishop of SARVM AND JOHN Lord Bishop of ROCHESTER And to the most Reverend and Religious Clergy of ENGLAND my dear Brethren Men Brethren and Fathers THE wiser part of Mankind hath seen so much trifling in the conduct of disputations so much partiality such earnest desires of reputation such resolution to prevail by all means so great mixture of interest in the contention so much mistaking of the main question so frequent excursions into differing matter so many personal quarrels and petty animosities so many wranglings about those things that shall never be helped that is the errors and infirmities of men and after all this which also must needs be consequent to it so little fruit and effect of questions no man being the wiser or changed from error to truth but from error to error most frequently and there are in the very vindication of truth so many incompetent uncertain and untrue things offered that if by chance some truth be gotten we are not very great gainers because when the whole account is cast up we shall find or else they that are disinterest will observe that there is more error than truth in the whole purchase and still no man is satisfied and every side keeps its own unless where folly or interest makes some few persons to change and still more weakness and more impertinencies crowd into the whole affair upon every reply and more yet upon the rejoynder and when men have wrangled tediously and vainly they are but where they were save only that they may remember they suffered infirmity and iâ— may be the transport of passions and uncharitable expressions and all this for an unrewarding interest for that which is sometimes uncertain it self unrevealed unuseful and unsatisfying that in the event of things and after being wearied for little or nothing men have now in a very great proportion left it quite off as unsatisfying waters and have been desirous of more material nourishment and of such notices of things and just assistances as may promote their eternal interest And indeed it was great reason and high time that they should do so for when they were imployed in rowing up and down in uncertain seas to find something that was not necessary it was certain they would less attend to that which was more worthy their inquiry and the enemy of mankind knew that to be a time of his advantage and accordingly sowed tares while we so slept and we felt a real mischief while we contended for an imaginary and phantastick good For things were come to that pass that it was the character of a good man to be zealous for a Sect and all of every party respectively if they were earnest and impatient of contradiction were sure to be sav'd by
he did otherwise he did it after the man had been highly warned of the particular and could have obeyed easily which was the case of the man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath and was like the case of Adam who was upon the same account judged by the Covenant of works 10. This then was an emanation both of Gods justice and his mercy Until man had sinned he was not the subject of mercy and if he had not then receiv'd mercy the infliction had been too severe and unjust since the Covenant was beyond the measures of man after it began to multiply into particular laws and man by accident was lessen'd in his strengths 11. From hence the corollaries are plain 1. God was not unjust for beginning his entercourse with mankind by the Covenant of works for these reasons I. Because Man had strengths enough to do it until he lessen'd his own abilities II. The Covenant of works was at first instanc'd but in a small Commandment in abstaining from the fruit of one tree when he had by him very many others for his use and pleasure III. It was necessary that the Covenant of works should begin for the Covenant of faith and repentance could not be at first there was no need of it no opportunity for it it must suppose a defailance or an infirmity as physick supposes sickness and mortality IV. God never exacted the obedience of Man by strict measures by the severity of the first Covenant after Adams fall but men were sav'd then as now they were admitted to repentance and justified by faith and the works of faith And therefore the Jews say that three things were before the world The Law the name of the Messias and Repentance that is as S. Paul better expresses it This Repentance through faith in the Messias is the hidden wisdom of God ordained before the world unto our glory So that at first it was not impossible and when it was it was not exacted in the impossible measure but it was kept in pretence and overture for ends of piety wisdom and mercy of which I have given account it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a wise dispensation but it was hidden 12. For since it is essential to a law that it be in a matter that is possible it cannot be suppos'd that God would judge man by an impossible Commandment A good man would not do it much less the righteous and merciful Judge of Men and Angels But God by holding over the world the Covenant of works non fecit praevaricatores sed humiles did not make us sinners by not observing the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the minutes and tittles of the law but made us humble needing mercy begging grace longing for a Saviour relying upon a better Covenant waiting for better promises praying for the Spirit of grace repenting of our sins deploring our infirmities and justified by faith in the promises of God 13. II. This then is the great introduction and necessity of repentance We neither could have liv'd without it nor have understood the way of the Divine Justice nor have felt any thing of his most glorious attribute But the admission of us to repentance is the great verification of his justice and the most excellent expression of his mercy This is the mercy of God in Jesus Christ springing from the fountains of grace purchas'd by the blood of the Holy Lamb the Eternal sacrifice promised from the beginning always ministred to mans need in the secret Oeconomy of God but proclaim'd to all the world at the revelation of God incarnate the first day of our Lord Jesus 14. But what are we eased now under the Gospel which is a Law of greater holiness and more Commandments and a sublimer purity in which we are tied to more severity than ever man was bound to under any institution and Covenant If the Law was an impossible Commandment who can say he hath strictly and punctually perform'd the injunctions of the Gospel Is not the little finger of the Son heavier than the Fathers loyns Here therefore it is to be inquired Whether the Commandments of Jesus Christ be as impossible to be kept as the Law of Moses If we by Christ be tied to more holiness than the sons of Israel were by Moses Law then because that could not be kept then neither can this But if we be not tied to more than they how is the law of Christ a more perfect institution and how can we now be justified by a law no better than that by which we could not be justified But then if this should be as impossible as ever why is it a-new imposed why is it held over us when the ends for which it was held over us now are served And at last how can it be agreeable to Gods wisdom and justice to exact of us a law which we cannot perform or to impose a law which cannot justly be exacted The answering and explicating this difficulty will serve many propositions in the doctrine of Repentance SECT II. Of the possibility or impossibility of keeping the Precepts of the Gospel 15. IT were strange that it should be possible for all men to keep the Commandments and requir'd and exacted of all men with the intermination or threatning of horrid pains and yet that no man should ever do it S. Hierome brings its Atticus thus arguing Da exemplum aut confitere imbecillitatem tuam and the same also was the argument of Orosius and the reasonableness of it is a great prejudice against the contrary affirmation of S. Austin Alipius Evodius Aurelius Possidius who because it is no good consequence to argue à non esse ad non posse and though it is not done yet possibly it might conclude that it is possible to keep the Commandments though as yet no man ever did but he that did it for us all But as Marcellinus said well It is hard to say that by a Man a thing can be done of which although there was a great necessity and a severe Commandment yet there never was any example Because in men there is such infinite variety of tempers dispositions apprehensions designs fears and hopes purposes and interests that it were next to a miracle that not one of all mankind should do what he can and what so highly concerns him But because this although it be a high probability yet is no certain demonstration that which S. Paul taught is certainly to be relied upon That the Law could not do it for â—s that is could not bring us justification in that it was weak through the flesh meaning that because we were so weak we could not fulfil the righteousness of the Law therefore we could not be justified by that Covenant Mosâ— manns graves facies cornata impedita lingua lapideae tabulae Moses's hands were heavy his face bright his tongue stammering and the tables were of stone by which is meant that the imposition and
this also we exercise a holy fear and work out our salvation with fear and trembling It enlarges our care and endears our watchfulness and caution It cures or prevents our pride and bold challenges of God for rewards which we never can deserve It convinces us of the necessity of the Divine aid and makes us to relie upon Gods goodness in helping us and his mercy in pardoning us and truly without this we could neither be so sensible of our infirmities nor of the excellent gifts and mercies of God for although God does not make necessities on purpose that he may serve them or introduce sin that he might pardon it yet he loves we should depend upon him and by these rare arts of the Divine Oeconomy make us to strive to be like him and in the midst of our finite abilities have infinite desires that even so we may be disposed towards the holiness and glories of eternity 38. IV. Although God exacts not an impossible law under eternal and insufferable pains yet he imposes great holiness in unlimited and indefinite measures with a design to give excellent proportions of reward answerable to the greatness of our endeavour Hell is not the end of them that fail in the greatest measures of perfection but great degrees of Heaven shall be their portion who do all that they can always and offend in the fewest instances For as our duty is not limited so neither are the degrees of glory and if there were not this latitude of duty neither could there be any difference in glory neither could it be possible for all men to hope for Heaven but now all may The meanest of Gods servants shall go thither and yet there are greater measures for the best and most excellent services 39. Thus we may understand that the imposing of the Divine Laws in all the periods of the world was highly consistent with the Divine Justice and an excellent infinite wisdome and yet in the exacting them Mercy prevail'd because the Covenant of Works or of exact obedience was never the rule of life and death since the Saviour of the world was promised that is since the fall of Adam but all Mankind was admitted to repentance and wash'd clean in the blood of the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world and was slain from the beginning of it Repentance was the measure of our duty and the remedy for our evils and the Commandments were not impossible to him that might amend what was done amiss SECT III. How Repentance and the Precept of Perfection Evangelical can stand together 40. THAT the Gospel is a Covenant of Repentance is evident in the whole design and nature of the thing in the preparatory Sermons made by the Baptist by the Apostles of our Lord by the seventy two Disciples and the Exhortations made by S. Peter at the first opening the Commission and the secret of the Religion Which Doctrine of Repentance lest it should be thought to be a permission to sin a leave to need the remedy is charged with an addition of a strict and severe holiness the Precept of Perfection It therefore must be such a repentance as includes in it perfection and yet the perfection is such as needs repentance How these two are to stand together is the subject of the present inquiry Be ye therefore perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect that 's the charge To be perfect as God and yet to repent as a Man seem contrary to each other They seem so only For 41. I. It does not signifie perfection of degrees in the natural sence of the word For as Philo said well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Perfections and the heights of excellencies are only proper to one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Clemens of Alexandria God alone is wise he alone is perfect All that we do is but little and that little is imperfect and that imperfection is such as could be condemned if God did not use gentleness and mercy towards us But II. Although perfection of degrees cannot be understood to be our duty in the periods and spaces of this life because we are here in the state of labour and contention of pilgrimage and progression yet even in this life we are to labour towards it and Be ye perfect viz. with the highest degrees of holiness is to be understood in a current and transient sence For this Precept thus understood hath its obligation upon our endeavour only and not upon the event When a General commands his Army to destroy the Enemy he binds them only to a prudent a possible and vigorous endeavour to do it and cannot intend the effect but by several parts answerable to the steps of the progression So is that in the Psalms Be learned ye that are Princes of the world that is learn and so by industry and attention arrive at knowledge For although though every man be a sinner yet he that does not endeavour to avoid all sin is not only guilty of the sin he commits but the negligence also which is the parent of the sin is another sin and directly criminal So it is in the degrees of perfection what we cannot attain to we must at least desire In this world we cannot arrive thither but in this life we must always be going thither It is status â—iae grace is the way to glory And as he that commands us to enter into a City from which we are hugely distant means we should pass through all the ways that lead thither so it is here The Precept must be given here and begun and set forward and it will be finished hereafter But as a man may be an adulterer or a thief with his heart and his eye as well as with his hand so it is also in good things A mans heart and eye may be in Heaven that is in the state of perfection long before he sets his feet upon the golden threshold His desires are first crown'd and fainted and then the work shall be made perfect 43. III. There is another sort of perfection which may not be improperly meant in this charge of duty and that is a perfection of state Be ye perfect that is Be ye holy for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is sanctifico and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is festum or a holy day a day that hath the perfection added to it of which a day is capable a day sanctified to the Lord. For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to sanctifie is to make perfect Nihil enim sanctificavit lex so the Latin reads the words of S. Paul but in the Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The law made that perfect which it did sanctifie So that Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect is Be ye holy like him or in imitation of him And thus the word is expounded in Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That 's the perfection of
her pollution that he who did not transmit life should transmit his sin and yet if the soul were traduc'd from the parents and begotten yet sin could not descend because it is not a natural but a superinduc'd quality and if it could then it would follow that we should from every vicious father derive a proper Original sin besides the general 7. If in him we sinned then it were but just that in him we should be punished for as the sin is so ought the punishment to be But it were unjust or at least it seems so that he should sin for us and we be punished for him or that he should sin for us and for himself and yet be punish'd for himself alone 42. III. But if it be said that this happened because of the will and decree of God then there is no more to be done but to look into the record and see what God threatned and what he inflicted He threatned death and inflicted it with all its preparations and solemnities in men and women hard labour in them both which S. Chrysostome thus expresses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Adam falling even they that did not eat of the Tree were of him all born mortal He and all his posterity were left in the mere natural state that is in a state of imperfection in a state that was not sufficiently instructed and furnished with abilities in order to a supernatural end whither God had secretly design'd mankind In this state he could never arrive at Heaven but that was to be supplied by other means for this made it necessary that all should come to Christ and is the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and necessity for the baptism of Infants that they being admitted to supernatural promises and assistances may be lifted up to a state above their nature Not only to improve their present good as the Pelagians affirm'd Tam Dives verò hoc donum baptismatis esse Vt parvis etiam vitióque carentibus omni Congruat ut qui sunt geniti bene sint meliores Naturaeque bonum adjecto illustretur honore But to take off that evil state of things whither by occasion of the fall of Adam they were devolv'd and to give them new birth adoption into Christ and the seeds of a new nature so to become children of God and heirs of the promises who in their mere naturals did inherit from Adam nothing but misery and imperfection and death Coelorum regnum sperate hoc fonte renati Non recipit felix vita semel genitos Insons esse volens isto mundare lavacro Seu patrio premeris crimine seu proprio So Xistus in the Verses written upon the Fount of Constantine But 2. It is not to be supposed that God did inflict any necessity of sinning upon Adam or his posterity because from that time ever unto this he by new laws hath required innocence of life or repentance and holiness For besides that it is a great testimony of the Divine favour that God will still imploy us and exact more services of us and that there is no greater argument of joy to us in the world than that we are Gods servants and there can be no greater testimony that God is our God and that of this employing us in his service there can be no greater evidence than the giving to us new laws Besides this I say if man could not obey it is not consistent with the wisdom of God to require of man what he knows man cannot do nor with his justice to punish that in man which he knows man cannot avoid 43. But if it be objected that man had strengths enough in his first Creation but when in Adam he sinned in him also he forfeited all his strengths and therefore his consequent disability being his own fault cannot be his excuse and to whatsoever laws God shall be pleased afterwards to impose he cannot plead his infirmity because himself having brought it on himself must suffer for it It being just in God to exact the law of him even where he is unable to keep it because God once made him able and he disabled himself I answer many things 44. I. That Adam had any more strengths than we have and greater powers of Nature and by his fall lost them to himself and us being part of the question ought not to be pretended till it be proved Adam was a man as his sons are and no more and God gave him strength enough to do his duty and God is as just and loving to us as to him and hath promisâ—d he will lay no more upon us than he will make us able to bear But 2. He that disables himself from doing his Lord service if he does it on purpose that he may not serve him may be punished for not doing all that which was imposed upon him because that servant did chuse his disability that he might with some pretence refuse the service He did disobey in all the following particulars because out of a resolution not to obey in those particulars he made himself unable in the general It is all one with the case of voluntary and affected ignorance He that refuses knowledge lest he should understand his duty and he that disables himself that he may not do it may be punished not only for not doing it but for making it impossible to be done But that was not Adams case so far as we know and it is certain it was not ours in the matter of his sin 3. But if he commits a fault which accidentally disables him as if he eats too much and be sick the next day and fall into a fever he may indeed and is justly punished for his gluttony but he is not punishable for omitting that which in his present weakness he can no ways perform The reason is because this disability was involuntary and an evil accident of it self a punishment of his sin and therefore of it self not punishable and this involuntariness is still the more notorious and certain as the consequents are the more remote 4. No man can be answerable to God for the consequent of his sin unless it be natural foretold or foreseen but for the sin it self he is and as for the consequents superinduc'd by God he must suffer them but not answer for them For these being in the hands of God are not the works of mens hands God hath effected it upon the sinner he is the Author of it and by it he is directly glorified and therefore though by it the sinner is punished yet for it he cannot be punished again 5. But that I may come to the case of the present argument This measure and line of justice is most evident in laws to be imposed after the disability is contracted and not foreseen before concerning which there can be no pretence of justice that the breach of them should be punished If a law be already imposed and a man by his fault loses those
to the purities and perfections of God in respect of which as he says of us men in our imperfect state so he says also of the Angels or the holy Ones of God and of the Heaven it self that it is also unclean and impure for the cause and verification of which we must look out something besides Original sin * Add to this that vice is pregnant and teeming and brings forth new instances numerous as the spawn of fishes such as are inadvertency carelesness tediousness of spirit and these also are causes of very much evil SECT V. Of liberty of Election remaining after Adams fall UPON this account besides that the causes of an universal impiety are apparent without any need of laying Adam in blame for all our follies and miseries or rather without charging them upon God who so order'd all things as we see and feel the universal wickedness of man is no argument to prove our will servile and the powers of election to be quite lost in us excepting only that we can chuse evil For admitting this proposition that there can be no liberty where there is no variety yet that all men chuse sin is not any testimony that there is no variety in our choice If there were but one sin in the world and all men did chuse that it were a shrewd suspicion that they were naturally determin'd or strongly precipitated But every man does not chuse the same sin nor for the same cause neither does he chuse it always but frequently declines it hates it and repents of it many men even among the Heathens did so So that the objection hinders not but that choice and election still remains to a man and that he is not naturally sinful as he is naturally heavy or upright apt to laugh or weep For these he is always and unavoidable 72. And indeed the contrary doctrine is a destruction of all laws it takes away reward and punishment and we have nothing whereby we can serve God And precepts of holiness might as well be preached to a Wolf as to a Man if man were naturally and inevitably wicked Improbitas nullo flectitur obsequio There would be no use of reason or of discourse no deliberation or counsel and it were impossible for the wit of man to make sence of thousands of places of Scripture which speak to us as if we could hear and obey or could refuse Why are promises made and threatnings recorded Why are Gods judgments registred to what purpose is our reason above and our affections below if they were not to minister to and attend upon the will But upon this account it is so far from being true that man after his fall did forfeit his natural power of election that it seems rather to be encreased For as a mans knowledge grows so his will becomes better attended and ministred unto But after his fall his knowledge was more than before he knew what nakedness was and had experience of the difference of things he perceiv'd the evil and mischief of disobedience and the Divine anger he knew fear and flight new apprehensions and the trouble of a guilty conscience by all which and many other things he grew better able and instructed with arguments to obey God and to refuse sin for the time to come And it is every mans case a repenting man is wiser and hath oftentimes more perfect hatred of sin than the innocent and is made more wary by his fall But of this thing God himself is witness Ecce homo tanquam singularis ex se ipso habet scire bonum malum So the Chaldee Paraphrase reads Gen. 3.22 Our Bibles read thus And the Lord God said Behold the man is become as one of us to know good and evil Now as a consequent of this knowledge God was pleased by ejecting him out of Paradise to prevent his eating of the Tree of Life Ne fortè mittat manúm suam in arborem vitae Meaning that now he was grown wise and apt to provide himself and use all such remedies as were before him He knew more after his fall than before therefore ignorance was not the punishment of that sin and he that knows more is better enabled to choose and lest he should choose that which might prevent the sentence of death put upon him God cast him from thence where the remedy did grow Upon the authority of this place Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon hath these words Potestas libera unicuique data est Si vult inclinare se ad bonum esse jusâ—us penes ipsum est Sin vult se ad malum inclinare esse impius hoc ipsum penes est Hoc illud est quod in lege scribitur Ecce homo tanquam singularis ex seipso habet scire bonum malum To every man is given a power that he may choose and be inclined to good if he please or else if he please to do evil For this is written in the Law Behold the man is as a single one of himself now he knows good and evil as if he had said Behold mankind is in the world without its like and can of his own counsel and thought know good and evil in either of these doing what himself shall choose Si lapsus es poteris surgere In utramvis partem habes liberum arbitrium saith S. Chrysostome If thou hast fallen thou mayest rise again That which thou art commanded to do thou hast power to do Thou mayest choose either 73. I might be infinite in this but I shall only add this one thing That to deny to the will of man powers of choice and election or the use of it in the actions of our life destroys the immortality of the Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Hierocles Humane Nature is in danger to be lost if it diverts to that which is against Nature For if it be immortal it can never die in its noblest faculty But if the will be destroyed that is disabled from choosing which is all the work the will hath to do then it is dead For to live and to be able to operate in Philosophy is all one If the will therefore cannot operate how is it immortal And we may as well suppose an understanding that can never understand and passions that can never desire or refuse and a memory that can never remember as a will that cannot choose Indeed all the faculties of the soul that operate by way of nature can be hindred in individuals but in the whole species never But the will is not impedible it cannot be restrained at all if there be any acts of life and when all the other faculties are weakest the will is strongest and does not at all depend upon the body Indeed it often follows the inclination and affections of the body but it can choose against them and it can work without them And indeed since sin is the action of a free faculty it can no more
from the severities of Religion let me live by the measures of thy law not by the evil example and disguises of the world Renew a right spirit within me and cast me not away from thy presence lest I should retire to the works of darkness and enter into those horrible regions where the light of thy countenance never shineth II. I AM ashamed O Lord I am ashamed that I have dishonoured so excellent a Creation Thou didst make us upright and create us in innocence And when thou didst see us unable to stand in thy sight and that we could never endure to be judged by the Covenant of works thou didst renew thy mercies to us in the new Covenant of Jesus Christ and now we have no excuse nothing to plead for our selves much less against thee but thou art holy and pure and just and merciful Make me to be like thee holy as thou art holy merciful as our Heavenly Father is merciful obedient as our holy Saviour Jesus meek and charitable temperate and chaste humble and patient according to that holy example that my sins may be pardoned by his death and my spirit renewed by his Spirit that passing from sin to grace from ignorance to the knowledge and love of God and of his Son Jesus Christ I may pass from death to life from sorrow to joy from Earth to Heaven from the present state of misery and imperfection to the glorious inheritance prepar'd for the Saints and Sons of light the children of the new birth the brethren of our Lord and Brother our Judge and our Advocate our Blessed Saviour and Redeemer JESVS Amen A Prayer to be said by a Matron in behalf of her Husband and Family that a blessing may descend upon their posterity I. O Eternal God our most merciful Lord and gracious Father thou art my guide the light of mine eyes the joy of my heart the author of my hope and the object of my love and worshippings thou relievest all my needs and determin'st all my doubts and art an eternal fountain of blessing open and running over to all thirsty and weary souls that come and cry to thee for mercy and refreshment Have mercy upon thy servant and relieve my fears and sorrows and the great necessities of my family for thou alone O Lord canst do it II. FIT and adorn every one of us with a holy and a religious spirit and give a double portion to thy servant my dear Husband Give him a wise heart a prudent severe and indulgent care over the children which thou hast given us His heart is in thy hand and the events of all things are in thy disposition Make it a great part of his care to promote the spiritual and eternal interest of his children and not to neglect their temporal relations and necessities but to provide states of life for them in which with fair advantages they may live chearfully serve thee diligently promote the interest of the Christian family in all their capacities that they may be always blessed and always innocent devout and pious and may be graciously accepted by thee to pardon and grace and glory through Jesus Christ. Amen III. BLESS O Lord my Sons with excellent understandings love of holy and noble things sweet dispositions innocent deportment diligent souls chaste healthful and temperate bodies holy and religious spirits that they may live to thy glory and be useful in their capacities to the servants of God and all their neighbours and the Relatives of their conversation Bless my Daughters with a humble and a modest carriage and excellent meekness a great love of holy things a severe chastity a constant holy and passionate Religion O my God never suffer them to fall into folly and the sad effects of a wanton loose and indiscreet spirit possess their fancies with holy affections be thou the covering of their eyes and the great object of their hopes and all their desires Blessed Lord thou disposest all things sweetly by thy providence thou guidest them excellently by thy wisdom thou unitest all circumstances and changes wonderfully by thy power and by thy power makest all things work for the good of thy servants Be pleased so to dispose my Daughters that if thou shouldest call them to the state of a married life they may not dishonour their Family nor grieve their Parents nor displease thee but that thou wilt so dispose of their persons and the accidents and circumstances of that state that it may be a state of holiness to the Lord and blessing to thy servants And until thy wisdom shall know it fit to bring things so to pass let them live with all purity spending their time religiously and usefully O most blessed Lord enable their dear father with proportionable abilities and opportunities of doing his duty and charities towards them and them with great obedience and duty toward him and all of us with a love toward thee above all things in the world that our portion may be in love and in thy blessings through Jesus Christ our dearest Lord and most gracious Redeemer IV. O MY God pardon thy servant pity my infirmities hear the passionate desires of thy humble servant in thee alone is my trust my heart and all my wishes are towards thee Thou hast commanded me to pray to thee in all needs thou hast made gracious promises to hear and accept me and I will never leave importuning thy glorious Majesty humbly passionately confidently till thou hast heard and accepted the prayer of thy servant Amen dearest Lord for thy mercy sake hear thy servant Amen TO The Right Reverend Father in God JOHN WARNER D.D. and late Lord Bishop of Rochester MY LORD I NOW see cause to wish that I had given to your Lordship the trouble of reading my papers of Original Sin before their publication for though I have said all that which I found material in the Question yet I perceive that it had been fitting I had spoken some things less material so to prevent the apprehensions that some have of this doctrine that it is of a sence differing from the usual expressions of the Church of England However my Lord since your Lordship is pleased to be careful not only of truth and Gods glory but desirous also that even all of us should speak the same thing and understand each other without Jealousies or severer censures I have now obeyed your Counsel and done all my part towards the asserting the truth and securing charity and unity Professing with all truth and ingenuity that I would rather die than either willingly give occasion or countenance to a Schism in the Church of England and I would suffer much evil before I would displease my dear Brethren in the service of Jesus and in the ministeries of the Church But as I have not given just cause of offence to any so I pray that they may not be offended unjustly lest the fault lie on them whose persons I so much love
temptation but he offends God and then how we should understand S. James's rule that we should count it all joy when we enter into temptation is beyond my reach and apprehension The Natural inclination hath in it nothing moral and g. as it is good in Nature so it is not ill in manners the supervening consent or dissent makes it morally good or evil 34. In every person born into the world it deserveth Gods wrath and damnation Viz. When it is so consented to when it resists and overcomes the spirit of grace For we being devested of the grace given to the first Adam are to be renewed by the spirit of grace the effect of the second Adam which grace when we resist we do as Adam did and reduce our selves back into the state where Adam left us That was his sin and not ours but this is our sin and not his both of them deserve Gods wrath and damnation but by one he deserved it and by the other we deserve it But then it is true that this corrupted Nature deserves Gods wrath but we and Adam deserve not in the same formality but in the same material part we do He left our Nature naked and for it he deserved Gods wrath if we devest our Nature of the new grace we return to the same state of Nature but then we deserve Gods wrath so that still the object of Gods wrath is our mere Nature so as left by Adam but though he sinned in the first disrobing and we were imperfect by it yet we sin not till the second disrobing and then we return to the same imperfection and make it worse But I consider that although some Churches in their confessions express it yet the Church of England does not they add the word Eternal to Damnation but our Church abstains from that therefore Gods wrath and damnation can signifie the same that damnation does in S. Paul all the effects of Gods anger Temporal Death and the miseries of mortality was the effect of Adams sin and of our being reduc'd to the Natural and Corrupted or worsted state Or secondly they may signifie the same that hatred does in S. Paul and in Malachi Esau have I hated that is lov'd him less or did not give him what he was born to he lost the primogeniture and the Priesthood and the blessing So do we naturally fall short of Heaven This is hatred or the wrath of God and his Judgment upon the sin of Adam to condemn us to a state of imperfection and misery and death and deficiency from supernatural happiness all which I grant to be the effect of Adams sin and that our imperfect Nature deserves this that is it can deserve no better 35. And this infection of Nature Viz. This imperfection not any inherent quality that by contact pollutes the relatives and descendants but this abuse and reproach of our Nature this stain of our Nature by taking off the supernatural grace and beauties put into it like the cutting off the beards of Davids Embassadors or stripping a man of his robe and turning him abroad in his natural shame leaving him naked as Adam and we were But the word infection being metaphorical may aptly signifie any thing that is analogical to it and may mean a Natural habitude or inclination to forbidden instances But yet it signifies a very great evil for in the best Authors to be such by Nature means an aggravation of it So Carion in Aristophanes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This man is very miserable or miserable by Nature and again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Do you believe me to be such a man by Nature that I can speak nothing well 36. Doth remain yea in them that are regenerated That is all the baptized and unbaptized receive from Adam nothing but what is inclined to forbidden instances which is a principle against which and above which the spirit of God does operate For this is it which is called the lust of the flesh for so it follows whereby the lust of the flesh that is the desires and pronenesses to Natural objects which by Gods will came to be limited order'd and chastis'd curb'd and restrain'd 37. Called in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here it is plain that the Church of England though she found it necessary to declare something in the fierce contention of the time in order to peace and unity of expression yet she was not willing too minutely to declare and descend to the particulars on either side and therefore she was pleas'd to make use of the Greek word of the sence of which there were so many disputes and recites the most usual redditions of the word 38. Which some do expound the wisdom some the sensuality some the affection some the desire of the flesh is not subject to the law of God These several expositions reciting several things and the Church of England reciting all indefinitely but definitely declaring for none of them does only in the generality affirm that the flesh and spirit are contrary principles that the flesh resists the law of God but the spirit obeys it that is by the flesh alone we cannot obey Gods law naturally we cannot become the sons of God and heirs of Heaven but it must be a new birth by a spiritual regeneration The wisdom of the flesh that is Natural and secular principles are not apt dispositions to make us obedient to the law of God Sensuality that signifies an habitual lustfulness Desires signifie actual Lustings Affections signifie the Natural inclination now which of these is here meant the Church hath not declar'd but by the other words of the Article it is most probable She rather inclines to render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by desires and sensuality rather than by affection or wisdom though of these also in their own sence it is true to affirm that they are not subject to the law of God there being some foolish principles which the flesh and the world is apt to entertain which are hindrances to holiness and the affection that is inclination to some certain objects being that very thing which the laws of God have restrained more or less in several periods of the world may without inconvenience to the Question be admitted to expound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 39. And although there is no condemnation to them that believe and are baptized That is this concupiscence or inclination to forbidden instances is not imputed to the baptized nor to the regenerate that is when the new principle of grace and of the spirit is put into us we are reduced to as great a condition and as certain an order and a capacity of entring into Heaven as Adam was before his fall for then we are drawn from that mere natural state where Adam left us and therefore although these do die yet it is but the condition of nature not the punishment of the sin For Adams sin brought in Death and baptism and regeneration does not hinder
authorities to the same purpose may find them in S. Basil Theodoret S. Cyril Macarius S. Ambrose S. Hierom and Theophylact The words of the Apostle the very purpose and design the whole Oeconomy and Analogy of the sixth seventh and eighth Chapters do so plainly manifest it that the heaping up more testimonies cannot be useful in so clear a case The results are these I. The state of men under the law was but a state of carnality and of nature better instructed and soundly threatned and set forward in some instances by the spirit of fear only but not cured but in many men made much worse accidentally II. That to be pleased in the inner man that is in the Conscience to be convinc'd and to consent to the excellency of vertue and yet by the flesh that is by the passions of the lower man or the members of the body to serve sin is the state of Unregeneration III. To do the evil that I would not and to omit the good that I fain would do when it is in my hand to do what is in my heart to think is the property of a carnal unregenerate man And this is the state of men in nature and was the state of men under the law For to be under the law and not to be led by the Spirit are all one in S. Paul's account For if ye be led by the Spirit ye are not under the law saith he And therefore to be under the law being a state of not being under the Spirit must be under the government of the flesh that is they were not then sanctified by the Spirit of grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ they were not yet redeemed from their vain conversation Not that this was the state of all the sons of Israel of them that liv'd before the law or after but that the law could do no more for them or upon them Gods Spirit did in many of them work his own works but this was by the grace of Jesus Christ who was the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world this was not by the works of the law but by the same instruments and grace by which Abraham and all they who are his children by promise were justified But this is the consequent of the third proposition which I was to consider 27. III. From this state of evil we are redeemed by Christ and by the Spirit of his grace Wretched man that I am quis liberabit who shall deliver me from the body of this death He answers I thank God through Jesus Christ so S. Chrysostom Theodoret Theophylact S. Hierom the Greek Scholiast and the ordinary Greek copies do commonly read the words in which words there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they are thus to be supplied I thank God through Jesus Christ we are delivered or there is a remedy found out for us But Irenaeus Origen S. Ambrose S. Austin and S. Hierom himself at another time and the Vulgar Latin Bibles instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gratia Domini Jesu Christi the grace of God through Jesus Christ. That is our remedy he is our deliverer from him comes our redemption For he not only gave us a better law but also the Spirit of grace he hath pardon'd all our old sins and by his Spirit enables us for the future that we may obey him in all sincerity in heartiness of endeavour and real events From hence I draw this argument That state from which we are redeemed by Jesus Christ and freed by the Spirit of his grace is a state of carnality of unregeneration that is of sin and death But by Jesus Christ we are redeemed from that state in which we were in subjection to sin commanded by the law of sin and obeyed it against our reason and against our conscience therefore this state which is indeed the state S. Paul here describes is the state of carnality and unregeneration and therefore not competent to the servants of Christ to the elect people of God to them who are redeemed and sanctified by the Spirit of Christ. The parts of this argument are the words of S. Paul and proved in the foregoing periods From hence I shall descend to something that is more immediately practical and cloth'd with circumstances SECT V. How far an Vnregenerate man may go in the ways of Piety and Religion 28. TO this inquiry it is necessary that this be premised That between the regenerate and a wicked person there is a middle state so that it is not presently true that if the man be not wicked he is presently Regenerate Between the two states of so vast a distance it is impossible but there should be many intermedial degrees between the Carnal and Spiritual man there is a Moral man not that this man shall have a different event of things if he does abide there but that he must pass from extreme to extreme by this middle state of participation The first is a slave of sin the second is a servant of righteousness the third is such a one as liveth according to Natural reason so much of it as is left him and is not abused that is lives a probable life but is not renewed by the Spirit of grace one that does something but not all not enough for the obtaining salvation For a man may have gone many steps from his former baseness and degenerous practices and yet not arrive at godliness or the state of pardon like the children of Israel who were not presently in Canaan as soon as they were out of Egypt but abode long in the wilderness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they begin to be instructed that is their state Thou art not far from the Kingdom of Heaven said our blessed Saviour to a well disposed person but he was not arrived thither he was not a subject of the Kingdom These are such whom our blessed Lord calls The weary and the heavy laden that is such who groan under the heavy pressure of their sins whom therefore he invites to come to him to be eased Such are those whom S. Paul here describes to be under the law convinced of sin pressed vexed troubled with it complaining of it desirous to be eased These the holy Scripture calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordained disposed to life eternal but these were not yet the fideles or believers but from that fair disposition became believers upon the preaching of the Apostles 29. In this third state of men I account those that sin and repent and yet repent and sin again for ever troubled when they have sinn'd and yet for ever or most frequently sinning when the temptation does return 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They sin and accuse and hate themselves for sinning Now because these men mean well and fain would be quit of their sin at their own rate and are not scandalous and impious they flatter
Popery and Faction did teach indifferency For I have shewn that Christianity does not punish corporally persons erring spiritually but indeed Popery does the Donatists and Circumcellians and Arrians and the Itaciani they of old did in the middle Ages the patrons of Images did and the Papists at this day doe and have done ever since they were taught it by their St. Dominick Seventhly And yet after all this I have something more to exempt my self from the clamour of this Objection For let all Errours be as much and as zealously suppressed as may be the Doctrine of the following Discourse contradicts not that but let it be done by such means as are proper instruments of their suppression by Preaching and Disputation so that neither of them breed disturbance by charity and sweetness by holiness of life assiduity of exhortation by the word of God and prayer For these ways are most natural most prudent most peaceable and effectual Onely let not men be hasty in calling every dislik'd Opinion by the name of Heresie and when they have resolved that they will call it so let them use the erring person like a brother not beat him like a dog or convince him with a gibbet or vex him out of his understanding and perswasions And now if men will still say I perswade to indifferency there is no help for me for I have given reasons against it I must bear it as well as I can I am not yet without remedy as they are for patience will help me and reason will not cure them let them take their course and I 'le take mine Only I will take leave to consider this and they would do well to do so too that unless Faith be kept within its own latitude and not call'd out to patrocinate every less necessary Opinion and the interest of every Sect or peevish person and if damnation be pronounced against Christians believing the Creed and living good lives because they are deceived or are said to be deceived in some Opinions less necessary there is no way in the world to satisfie unlearned persons in the choice of their Religion or to appease the unquietness of a scrupulous Conscience For suppose an honest Citizen whose imployment and parts will not enable him to judge the disputes and arguings of great Clerks sees Factions commenced and managed with much bitterness by persons who might on either hand be fit enough to guide him when if he follows either he is disquieted and pronounced damned by the other who also if he be the most unreasonable in his Opinion will perhaps be more furious in his sentence what shall this man do where shall he rest the soal of his foot Vpon the Doctrine of the Church where he lives Well but that he hears declaimed against perpetually and other Churches claim highly and pretend fairly for truth and condemn his Church If I tell him that he must live a good life and believe the Creed and not trouble himself with their disputes or interest himself in Sects and Factions I speak reason because no Law of God ties him to believe more then what is of essential necessity and whatsoever he shall come to know to be revealed by God Now if he believes his Creed he believes all that is necessary to all or of it self and if he do his moral endeavour beside he can do no more toward finding out all the rest and then he is secured But then if this will secure him why do men press farther and pretend every Opinion as necessary and that in so high a degree that if they all said true or any two indeed of them in 500 Sects which are in the world and for ought I know there may be 5000 it is 500 to one but that every man is damned for every Sect damns all but itself and that is damn'd of 499 and it is excellent fortune then if that escape And there is the same reason in every one of them that is it is extreme unreasonableness in all of them to pronounce damnation against such persons against whom clearly and dogmatically Holy Scripture hath not In odiosis quod minimum est sequimur in favoribus quod est maximum saith the Law and therefore we should say any thing or make any excuse that is in any degree reasonable rather then condemn all the world to Hell especially if we consider these two things that we ourselves are as apt to be deceived as any are and that they who are deceived when they used their moral industry that they might not be deceived if they perish for this they perish for what they could not help But however if the best security in the World be not in neglecting all Sects and subdivisions of men and fixing ourselves on points necessary and plain and on honest and pious endeavours according to our several capacities and opportunities for all the rest if I say all this be not through the mercies of God the best security to all unlearned persons and learned too where shall we fix where shall we either have peace or security If you bid me follow your Doctrine you must tell me why and perhaps when you have I am not able to judge or if I be as able as other people are yet when I have judged I may be deceived too and so may you or any man else you bid me follow so that I am not whit the nearer truth or peace And then if we look abroad and consider how there is scarce any Church but is highly charg'd by many adversaries in many things possibly we may see a reason to charge every one of them in some things and what shall we doe then The Church of Rome hath spots enough and all the world is inquisitive enough to find out more and to represent these to her greatest disadvantage The Greek Churches denies the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son If that be false Doctrine she is highly to blame if it be not then all the Western Churches are to blame for saying the contrary And there is no Church that is in prosperity but alters her Doctrine every Age either by bringing in new Doctrines or by contradicting her old which shews that none are satisfied with themselves or with their own Confessions And since all Churches believe themselves fallible that only excepted which all other Churches say is most of all deceived it were strange if in so many Articles which make up their several bodies of Confessions they had not mistaken every one of them in some thing or other The Lutheran Churches maintain Consubstantiation the Zuinglians are Sacramentaries the Calvinists are fierce in the matters of absolute Predetermination and all these reject Episcopacy which the Primitive Church would have made no doubt to have called Heresie The Socinians profess a portentous number of strange Opinions they deny the Holy Trinity and the Satisfaction of our Blessed Saviour The Anabaptists laugh at Paedo-baptism the Ethiopian Churches
observable that no Heresies are noted signanter in Scripture but such as are great errours practical in materiâ pietatis such whose doctrines taught impiety or such who denyed the coming of Christ directly or by consequence not remote or withdrawn but prime and immediate And therefore in the Code de S. Trinitate fide Catholica Heresy is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a wicked Opinion and an ungodly doctrine 3. The first false doctrine we find condemned by the Apostles was the opinion of Simon Magus who thought the Holy Ghost was to be bought with money he thought very dishonourably to the blessed Spirit but yet his followers are rather noted of a vice neither resting in the understanding nor derived from it but wholly practical 'T is simony not heresy though in Simon it was a false opinion proceeding from a low account of God and promoted by his own ends of pride and covetousness The great heresy that troubled them was the doctrine of the necessity of keeping the Law of Moses the necessity of Circumcision against which doctrine they were therefore zealous because it was a direct overthrow to the very end and excellency of Christs coming And this was an opinion most pertinaciously and obstinately maintained by the Jews and had made a Sect among the Galathians and this was indeed wholly in opinion and against it the Apostles opposed two Articles of the Creed which served at several times according as the Jews changed their opinion and left some degrees of their errour I believe in Jesus Christ and I believe the holy Catholick Church For they therefore pressed the necessity of Moses Law because they were unwilling to forgo the glorious appellative of being Gods own peculiar people and that salvation was of the Jews and that the rest of the World were capable of that grace no otherwise but by adoption into their Religion and becoming proselytes But this was so ill a Doctrine as that it overthrew the great benefits of Christ's coming for if they were circumcised Christ profited them nothing meaning this that Christ will not be a Saviour to them who do not acknowledge him for their Law-giver and they neither confess him their Law-giver nor their Saviour that look to be justified by the Law of Moses and observation of legal rites so that this doctrine was a direct enemy to the foundation and therefore the Apostles were so zealous against it Now then that other opinion which the Apostles met at Jerusalem to resolve was but a piece of that opinion for the Jews and Proselytes were drawn off from their lees and sediment by degrees step by step At first they would not endure any should be saved but themselves and their Proselytes Being wrought off from this height by Miracles and preaching of the Apostles they admitted the Gentiles to a possibility of salvation but yet so as to hope for it by Moses Law From which foolery when they were with much ado perswaded and told that salvation was by Faith in Christ not by works of the Law yet they resolved to plow with an Oxe and an Ass still and joyn Moses with Christ not as shadow and substance but in an equal confederation Christ should save the Gentiles if he was helpt by Moses but alone Christianity could not do it Against this the Apostles assembled at Jerusalem and made a decision of the Question tying some of the Gentiles such only who were blended by the Jews in communi patria to observation of such Rites which the Jews had derived by tradition from Noah intending by this to satisfie the Jews as far as might be with a reasonable compliance and condescension the other Gentiles who were unmixt in the mean while remaining free as appears in the liberty S. Paul gave the Church of Corinth of eating Idol Sacrifices expresly against the Decree at Jerusalem so it were without scandal And yet for all this care and curious discretion a little of the leaven still remained All this they thought did so concern the Gentiles that it was totally impertinent to the Jews still they had a distinction to satisfie the letter of the Apostles Decree and yet to persist in their old opinion and this so continued that fifteen Christian Bishops in succession were circumcised even until the destruction of Jerusalem under Adrian as Eusebius reports 4. First By the way let me observe that never any matter of Question in the Christian Church was determined with greater solemnity or more full authority of the Church than this Question concerning Circumcision No less than the whole Colledge of the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem and that with a Decree of the highest sanction Visum est spiritui sancto nobis Secondly Either the case of the Hebrews in particular was omitted and no determination concerning them whether it were necessary or lawful for them to be circumcised or else it was involv'd in the Decree and intended to oblige the Jews If it was omitted since the Question was de re necessaria for dico vobis I Paul say unto you If ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing it is very remarkable how the Apostles to gain the Jews and to comply with their violent prejudice in behalf of Moses Law did for a time Tolerate their dissent etiam in re alioquin necessariâ which I doubt not but was intended as a precedent for the Church to imitate for ever after But if it was not omitted either all the multitude of the Jews which S. James then their Bishop expressed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou seest how many myriads of Jews that believe and yet are zelots for the Law and Eusebius speaking of Justus saies he was one ex infinitâ multitudine eorum qui ex circumcisione in Jesum credebant I say all these did perish and their believing in Christ served them to no other ends but in the infinity of their torments to upbraid them with hypocrisie and heresie or if they were saved it is apparent how merciful God was and pitiful to humane infirmities that in a point of so great concernment did pity their weakness and pardon their errors and love their good mind since their prejudice was little less than insuperable and had fair probabilities at least it was such as might abuse a wise and good man and so it did many they did bono animo errare And if I mistake not this consideration S. Paul urged as a reason why God forgave him who was a Persecutor of the Saints because he did it ignorantly in unbelief that is he was not convinced in his understanding of the truth of the way which he persecuted he in the mean while remaining in that incredulity not out of malice or ill ends but the mistakes of humanity and a pious zeal therefore God had mercy on him And so it was in this great Question of circumcision here only was the difference the invincibility of S. Paul's error and
of men with such a power In the mean time he that submits his understanding to all that he knows God hath said and is ready to submit to all that he hath said if he but know it denying his own affections and ends and interests and humane perswasions laying them all down at the foot of his great Master Jesus Christ that man hath brought his understanding into subjection and every proud thought unto the obedience of Christ and this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the obedience of Faith which is the duty of a Christian. 14. But to proceed Besides these heresies noted in Scripture the age of the Apostles and that which followed was infested with other heresies but such as had the same formality and malignity with the precedent all of them either such as taught practical impieties or denied an Article of the Creed Egesippus in Eusebius reckons seven only prime heresies that sought to deflour the purity of the Church That of Simon that of Thebutes of Cleobius of Dositheus of Gortheus of Masbotheus I suppose Cerinthus to have been the seventh man though he express him not But of these except the last we know no particulars but that Egesippus says they were false Christs and that their doctrine was directly against God and his blessed Son Menander also was the first of a Sect but he bewitched the people with his Sorceries Cerinthus his doctrine pretended Enthusiasm or a new Revelation and ended in lust and impious theorems in matter of uncleanness The Ebionites denied Christ to be the Son of God and affirmed him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 begot by natural generation by occasion of which and the importunity of the Asian Bishops St. John writ his Gospel and taught the observation of Moses Law Basilides taught it lawful to renounce the faith and take false oaths in time of Persecution Carpocrates was a very bedlam half-witch and quite mad-man and practised lust which he called the secret operations to overcome the Potentates of the World Some more there were but of the same nature and pest not of a nicety in dispute not a question of secret Philosophy not of atomes and undiscernable propositions but open defiances of all Faith of all sobriety and of all sanctity excepting only the doctrine of the Millenaries which in the best Ages was esteemed no heresy but true Catholick Doctrine though since it hath justice done to it and hath suffered a just condemnation 15. Hitherto and in these instances the Church did esteem and judge of heresies in proportion to the rules and characters of Faith For Faith being a Doctrine of piety as well as truth that which was either destructive of fundamental verity or of Christian sanctity was against Faith and if it made a Sect was heresy if not it ended in personall impiety and went no farther But those who as S. Paul says not onely did such things but had pleasure in them that doe them and therefore taught others to doe what they impiously did dogmatize they were Hereticks both in matter and form in doctrine and deportment towards God and towards man and judicable in both tribunals 16. But the Scripture and Apostolical Sermons having expressed most high indignation against these masters of impious Sects leaving them under prodigious characters and horrid representments as calling them men of corrupt minds reprobates concerning the faith given over to strong delusions to the belief of a lie false Apostles false Prophets men already condemned and that by themselves Anti-Christs enemies to God and heresy it self a work of the flesh excluding from the kingdom of heaven left such impressions in the minds of all their successors and so much zeal against such Sects that if any opinion commenced in the Church not heard of before it oftentimes had this ill luck to run the same fortune with an old heresy For because the Hereticks did bring in new opinions in matters of great concernment every opinion de novo brought in was liable to the same exception and because the degree of malignity in every errour was oftentimes undiscernable and most commonly indemonstrable their zeal was alike against all and those Ages being full of piety were sitted to be abused with an over-active zeal as wise persons and learned are with a too much indifferency 17. But it came to pass that the further the succession went from the Apostles the more forward men were in numbring heresies and that upon slighter and more uncertain grounds Some footsteps of this we shall find if we consider the Sects that are said to have sprung in the first three hundred years and they were pretty and quick in their springs and falls fourscore and seven of them are reckoned They were indeed reckoned afterward and though when they were alive they were not condemn'd with as much forwardness as after they were dead yet even then confidence began to mingle with opinions less necessary and mistakes in judgment were oftner and more publick than they should have been But if they were forward in their censures as sometimes some of them were it is no great wonder they were deceived For what principle or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had they then to judge of heresies or condemn them besides the single dictates or decretals of private Bishops for Scripture was indifferently pretended by all and concerning the meaning of it was the Question now there was no general Council all that while no opportunity for the Church to convene and if we search the communicatory letters of the Bishops and Martyrs in those days we shall find but few sentences decretory concerning any Question of Faith or new sprung opinion And in those that did for ought appears the persons were mis-reported or their opinions mistaken or at most the sentence of condemnation was no more but this Such a Bishop who hath had the good fortune by posterity to be reputed a Catholick did condemn such a man or such an opinion and yet himself erred in as considerable matters but meeting with better neighbours in his life-time and a more charitable posterity hath his memory preserved in honour It appears plain enough in the case of Nicholas the Deacon of Antioch upon a mistake of his words whereby he taught 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to abuse the flesh viz. by acts of austerity and self-denial and mortification some wicked people that were glad to be mistaken and abused into a pleasing crime pretended that he taught them to abuse the flesh by filthy commixtures and pollutions This mistake was transmitted to posterity with a full cry and acts afterwards found out to justifie an ill opinion of him For by S. Hierom's time it grew out of Question but that he was the vilest of men and the worst of Hereticks Nicolaus Antiochenus omnium immunditiarum conditor choros duxit foemineos And again Iste Nicolaus Diaconus ita immundus extitit ut etiam in praesepi Domini nefas perpetrârit Accusations
Alphonsus à Castro says to the same purpose in the instance of Caelestine dissolving Marriages for Heresy Neque Caelestini error talis fuit qui soli negligentiae imputari debeat ità ut illum errâsse dicamus velut privatam personam non ut Papam quoniam hujusmodi Caelestini definitio habetur in antiquis Decretalibus in cap. Laudabilem titulo De conversione infidelium quam ego ipse vidi legi Lib. 1. adv haeres cap. 4. And therefore 't is a most intolerable folly to pretend that the Pope cannot erre in his Chair though he may erre in his Closet and may maintain a false opinion even to his death For besides that it is sottish to think that either he would not have the world of his own opinion as all men naturally would or that if he were set in his Chair he would determine contrary to himself in his Study and therefore to represent it as possible they are fain to flie to a Miracle for which they have no colour neither instructions nor insinuation nor warrant nor promise besides that it were impious and unreasonable to depose him for Heresy who may so easily even by setting himself in his Chair and reviewing his Theorems be cured it is also against a very great experience For besides the former Allegations it is most notorious that Pope Alexander III. in a Council at Rome of 300 Archbishops and Bishops A. D. 1179. condemned Peter Lombard of Heresy in a matter of great concernment no less then something about the Incarnation from which Sentence he was after 36 years abiding it absolved by Pope Innocent III. without repentance or dereliction of the Opinion Now if this Sentence was not a Cathedral Dictate as solemn and great as could be expected or as is said to be necessary to oblige all Christendome let the great Hyperaspists of the Roman Church be Judges who tell us that a particular Council with the Pope's confirmation is made Oecumenicall by adoption and is infallible and obliges all Christendome so Bellarmine And therefore he says that it is temerarium erroneum proximum haeresi to deny it But whether it be or not it is all one as to my purpose For it is certain that in a particular Council confirmed by the Pope if ever then and there the Pope sate himself in his Chair and it is as certain that he sate besides the cushion and determined ridiculously and falsely in this case But this is a device for which there is no Scripture no Tradition no one dogmaticall resolute saying of any Father Greek or Latine for above 1000 years after Christ and themselves when they list can acknowledge as much And therefore Bellarmine's saying I perceive is believed of them to be true That there are many things in the Decretall Epistles which make not Articles to be de fide And therefore Non est necessariò credendum determinatis per summum Pontificem says Almain And this serves their turns in every thing they do not like and therefore I am resolved it shall serve my turn also for something and that is that the matter of the Pope's Infallibility is so ridiculous and improbable that they do not believe it themselves Some of them clearly practised the contrary and although Pope Leo X. hath determined the Pope to be above a Council yet the Sorbon to this day scorn it at the very heart And I might urge upon them that scorn that Almain truly enough by way of Argument alledges It is a wonder that they who affirm the Pope cannot erre in judgement do not also affirm that he cannot sin they are like enough to say so says he if the vicious lives of the Popes did not make a daily confutation of such flattery Now for my own particular I am as confident and think it as certain that Popes are actually deceived in matters of Christian Doctrine as that they do prevaricate the laws of Christian piety And therefore Alphonsus à Castro calls them impudentes Papae assentatores that ascribe to him infallibility in judgment or interpretation of Scripture 17. But if themselves did believe it heartily what excuse is there in the world for the strange uncharitableness or supine negligence of the Popes that they do not set themselves in their Chair and write infallible Commentaries and determine all Controversies without errour and blast all Heresies with the word of their mouth declare what is and what is not de fide that his Disciples and Confidents may agree upon it reconcile the Franciscans and Dominicans and expound all Mysteries For it cannot be imagined but he that was endued with so supreme power in order to so great ends was also fitted with proportionable that is extraordinary personal abilities succeeding and derived upon the persons of all the Popes And then the Doctors of his Church need not trouble themselves with study nor writing explications of Scripture but might wholly attend to practicall Devotion and leave all their Scholasticall wranglings the distinguishing Opinions of their Orders and they might have a fine Church something like Fairy-land or Lucian's Kingdome in the Moon But if they say they cannot doe this when they list but when they are moved to it by the Spirit then we are never the nearer for so may the Bishop of Angoulesme write infallible Commentaries when the Holy Ghost moves him to it for I suppose his motions are not ineffectual but he will sufficiently assist us in performing of what he actually moves us to But among so many hundred Decrees which the Popes of Rome have made or confirmed and attested which is all one I would fain know in how many of them did the Holy Ghost assist them If they know it let them declare it that it may be certain which of their Decretals are de fide for as yet none of his own Church knows If they do not know then neither can we know it from them and then we are as uncertain as ever And besides the Holy Ghost may possibly move him and he by his ignorance of it may neglect so profitable a motion and then his promise of infallible assistance will be to very little purpose because it is with very much fallibility applicable to practice And therefore it is absolutely useless to any man or any Church because suppose it settled in Thesi that the Pope is infallible yet whether he will doe his duty and perform those conditions of being assisted which are required of him or whether he be a secret Simoniack for if he be he is ipso facto no Pope or whether he be a Bishop or Priest or a Christian being all uncertain every one of these depending upon the intention and power of the Baptizer or Ordainer which also are fallible because they depend upon the honesty and power of other men we cannot be infallibly certain of any Pope that he is infallible and therefore when our Questions are
that he was asked by Budus Bishop of Emessa whether he did approve of the Epistle of Athanasius to Epictetus Bishop of Corinth and that his answer was Si haec apud vos scripta non sint adultera Nam plura ex his ab hostibus Ecclesiae deprehenduntur esse depravata And this was done even while the Authours themselves were alive for so Dionysius of Corinth complain'd that his writings were corrupted by Hereticks and Pope Leo that his Epistle to Flavianus was perverted by the Greeks And in the Synod of Constantinople before quoted the sixth Synod Macarius and his Disciples were convicted quòd Sanctorum testimonia aut truncârint aut depravârint Thus the third Chapter of Saint Cyprian's book De unitate Ecclesiae in the Edition of Pamelius suffered great alteration these words Primatus Petro datur wholly inserted and these super Cathedram Petri fundata est Ecclesia and whereas it was before super unum aedificat Ecclesiam Christus that not being enough they have made it super illum unum Now these Additions are against the faith of all old Copies before Minutius and Pamelius and against Gratian even after himself had been chastised by the Roman Correctors the Commissaries of Gregory XIII as is to be seen where these words are alledged Decret c. 24. q. 1. can Loquitur Dominus ad Petrum So that we may say of Cyprian's works as Pamelius himself said concerning his writings and the writings of other of the Fathers Vnde colligimus saith he Cypriani scripta ut aliorum Veterum à librariis variè fuisse interpolata But Gratian himself could doe as fine a feat when he listed or else some-body did it for him and it was in this very Question their beloved Article of the Pope's Supremacy for De poenit dist 1. c. Potest fieri he quotes these words out of Saint Ambrose Non habent Petri haereditatem qui non habent Petri sedem fidem not sedem it is in Saint Ambrose but this errour was made authentick by being inserted into the Code of the Law of the Catholick Church And considering how little notice the Clergy had of antiquity but what was transmitted to them by Gratian it will be no great wonder that all this part of the world swallowed such a bole and the opinion that was wrapped in it But I need not instance in Gratian any farther but refer any one that desires to be satisfied concerning this Collection of his to Augustinus Archbishop of Tarracon in emendatione Gratiani where he shall find fopperies and corruptions good store noted by that learned man But that the Indices expurgatorii commanded by Authority and practised with publick licence professe to alter and correct the sayings of the Fathers and to reconcile them to the Catholick sense by putting in and leaving out is so great an Imposture so unchristian a proceeding that it hath made the faith of all books and all Authours justly to be suspected For considering their infinite diligence and great opportunity as having had most of the Copies in their own hands together with an unsatisfiable desire of prevailing in their right or in their wrong they have made an absolute destruction of this Topick and when the Fathers speak Latine or breathe in a Roman Diocese although the providence of God does infinitely over-rule them and that it is next to a miracle that in the Monuments of Antiquity there is no more found that can pretend for their advantage then there is which indeed is infinitely inconsiderable yet our Questions and uncertainties are infinitely multiplied in stead of a probable and reasonable determination For since the Latines alwaies complain'd of the Greeks for privately corrupting the ancient Records both of Councils and Fathers and now the Latines make open profession not of corrupting but of correcting their writings that 's the word and at the most it was but a humane Authority and that of persons not alwaies learned and very often deceived the whole matter is so unreasonable that it is not worth a farther disquisition But if any one desires to enquire farther he may be satisfied in Erasmus in Henry and Robert Stephens in their Prefaces before the Editions of the Fathers and their Observations upon them in Bellarm. de scrip Eccl. in D. Reynolds de lib. Apoc. in Scaliger and Robert Coke of Leeds in Yorkshire in his Book De censura Patrum SECT IX Of the incompetency of the Church in its diffusive capacity to be Judge of Controversies and the impertinency of that pretence of the Spirit 1. AND now after all these considerations of the several Topicks Tradition Councils Popes and ancient Doctors of the Church I suppose it will not be necessary to consider the Authority of the Church apart For the Church either speaks by Tradition or by a representative body in a Council by Popes or by the Fathers for the Church is not a Chimaera not a shadow but a company of men believing in Jesus Christ which men either speak by themselves immediately or by their Rulers or by their proxies and representatives Now I have considered it in all senses but in its diffusive capacity in which capacity she cannot be supposed to be a Judge of Controversies both because in that capacity she cannot teach us as also because if by a Judge we mean all the Church diffused in all its parts and members so there can be no controversie for if all men be of that opinion then there is no Question contested if they be not all of a mind how can the whole diffusive Catholick Church be pretended in defiance of any one Article where the diffusive Church being divided part goes this way and part another But if it be said The greatest part must carry it Besides that it is impossible for us to know which way the greatest part goes in many Questions it is not always true that the greater part is the best sometimes the contrary is most certain and it is often very probable but it is always possible And when paucity of followers was objected to Liberius he gave this in answer There was a time when but three Children of the Captivity resisted the King's Decree And Athanasius wrote on purpose against those that did judge of truth by multitudes and indeed it concerned him so to doe when he alone stood in the gap against the numerous armies of the Arians 2. But if there could in this case be any distinct consideration of the Church yet to know which is the true Church is so hard to be found out that the greatest Questions of Christendom are judged before you can get to your Judge and then there is no need of him For those Questions which are concerning the Judge of Questions must be determined before you can submit to his judgement and if you can yourselves determine those great Questions which consist much in universalities then also you may determine the
of that temper and expedient but either he must lose the formality of a law and neither have power coercitive nor obligatory but ad arbitrium inferiorum or else it cannot antecedently to the particular case give leave to any sort of men to disagree or disobey 5. Secondly Suppose that a Law be made with great reason so as to satisfie divers persons pious and prudent that it complies with the necessity of Government and promotes the interest of God's service and publick order it may easily be imagined that these persons which are obedient sons of the Church may be as zealous for the publick Order and Discipline of the Church as others for their opinion against it and may be as much scandalized if disobedience be tolerated as others are if the Law be exacted and what shall be done in this case Both sorts of men cannot be complied withall because as these pretend to be offended at the Law and by consequence if they understand the consequents of their own Opinion at them that obey the Law so the others are justly offended at them that unjustly disobey it If therefore there be any on the right side as confident and zealous as they who are on the wrong side then the disagreeing persons are not to be complied with to avoid giving offence for if they be offence is given to better persons and so the mischief which such complying seeks to prevent is made greater and more unjust obedience is discouraged and disobedience is legally canonized for the result of a holy and a tender Conscience 6. Thirdly Such complying with the disagreeings of a sort of men is the total overthrow of all Discipline and it is better to make no Laws of publick Worship then to rescind them in the very constitution and there can be no end in making the Sanction but to make the Law ridiculous and the Authority contemptible For to say that complying with weak Consciences in the very framing of a Law of Discipline is the way to preserve unity were all one as to say to take away all Laws is the best way to prevent disobedience In such matters of indifferency the best way of cementing the fraction is to unite the parts in the Authority for then the question is but one viz. Whether the authority must be obeyed or not But if a permission be given of disputing the particulars the Questions become next to infinite A Mirrour when it is broken represents the object mutiplied and divided but if it be entire and through one centre transmits the species to the eye the Vision is one and natural Laws are the Mirrour in which men are to dress and compose their actions and therefore must not be broken with such clauses of exception which may without remedy be abused to the prejudice of Authority and peace and all humane Sanctions And I have known in some Churches that this pretence hath been nothing but a design to discredit the Law to dismantle the Authority that made it to raise their own credit and a trophee of their zeal to make it a characteristick note of a Sect and the cognizance of holy persons and yet the men that claimed exemption from the Laws upon pretence of having weak Consciences if in hearty expression you had told them so to their heads they would have spit in your face and were so far from confessing themselves weak that they thought themselves able to give Laws to Christendome to instruct the greatest Clerks and to catechize the Church herself And which is the worst of all they who were perpetually clamourous that the severity of the Laws should slacken as to their particular and in matter adiaphorous in which if the Church hath any Authority she hath power to make Laws to indulge a leave to them to doe as they list yet were the most imperious amongst men most decretory in their sentences and most impatient of any disagreeing from them though in the least minute and particular whereas by all the justice of the world they who perswade such a compliance in matters of fact and of so little question should not deny to tolerate persons that differ in Questions of great difficulty and contestation 7. Fourthly But yet since all things almost in the world have been made matters of dispute and the will of some men and the malice of others and the infinite industry and pertinacy of contesting and resolution to conquer hath abused some persons innocently into a perswasion that even the Laws themselves though never so prudently constituted are superstitious or impious such persons who are otherwise pious humble and religious are not to be destroyed for such matters which in themselves are not of concernment to Salvation and neither are so accidentally to such men and in such cases where they are innocently abused and they erre without purpose and design And therefore if there be a publick disposition in some persons to dislike Laws of a certain quality if it be fore-seen it is to be considered in lege dicenda and whatever inconvenience or particular offence is fore-seen is either to be directly avoided in the Law or else a compensation in the excellency of the Law and certain advantages made to out-weigh their pretensions But in lege jam dicta because there may be a necessiy some persons should have a liberty indulged them it is necessary that the Governours of the Church should be intrusted with a power to consider the particular case and indulge a liberty to the person and grant personal dispensations This I say is to be done at several times upon particular instance upon singular consideration and new emergencies But that a whole kinde of men such a kinde to which all men without possibility of being confuted may pretend should at once in the very frame of the Law be permitted to disobey is to nullifie the Law to destroy Discipline and to hallow disobedience it takes away the obliging part of the Law and makes that the thing enacted shall not be enjoyn'd but tolerated onely it destroys unity and uniformity which to preserve was the very end of such laws of Discipline it bends the Rule to the thing which is to be ruled so that the Law obeys the subject not the subject the Law it is to make a Law for particulars not upon general reason and congruity against the prudence and design of all Laws in the world and absolutely without the example of any Church in Christendome it prevents no scandal for some will be scandalized at the Authority itself some at the complying and remisness of Discipline and several men at matters and upon ends contradictory All which cannot some ought not to be complied withall 8. Sixthly The summe is this The end of the Laws of Discipline are in an immediate order to the conservation and ornament of the publick and therefore the Laws must not so tolerate as by conserving persons to destroy themselves and the publick benefit but if
act of which by nature they have the faculty so if it did yet Baptism is not the means of conveying the Holy Ghost For that which Peter says Be baptized and ye shall receive the holy Ghost signifies no more then this First be baptized and then by imposition of the Apostles hands which was another mysterie and rite ye shall receive the Promise of the Father And this is nothing but an insinuation of the rite of Confirmation as is to this sense expounded by divers ancient Authours and in ordinary ministery the effect of it is not bestowed upon any unbaptized persons for it is in order next after Baptism and upon this ground Peter's Argument in the case of Cornelius was concluding enough à majori ad minus thus the Holy Ghost was bestowed upon him and his family which gift by ordinary ministery was consequent to Baptism not as the effect is to the cause or to the proper instrument but as a consequent is to an antecedent in a chain of causes accidentally and by positive institution depending upon each other God by that miracle did give testimony that the persons of the men were in great dispositions towards Heaven and therefore were to be admitted to those Rites which are the ordinary inlets into the Kingdome of Heaven But then from hence to argue that wherever there is a capacity of receiving the same grace there also the same sign is to be ministred and from hence to infer Paedo baptism is an Argument very fallacious upon several grounds First because Baptism is not the sign of the Holy Ghost but by another mystery it was conveyed ordinarily and extraordinarily it was conveyed independently from any mystery and so the Argument goes upon a wrong supposition Secondly if the supposition were true the proposition built upon it is false for they that are capable of the same grace are not always capable of the same sign for women under the Law of Moses although they were capable of the righteousness of Faith yet they were not capable of the sign of Circumcision For God does not always convey his graces in the same manner but to some mediately to others immediately and there is no better instance in the world of it then the gift of the Holy Ghost which is the thing now instanced in this contestation for it is certain in Scripture that it was ordinarily given by imposition of hands and that after Baptism and when this came into an ordinary ministry it was called by the ancient Church Chrism or Confirmation but yet it was given sometimes without imposition of hands as at Pentecost and to the family of Cornelius sometimes before Baptism sometimes after sometimes in conjunction with it 22. And after all this lest these Arguments should not ascertain their Cause they fall on complaining against God and will not be content with God unless they may baptize their children but take exceptions that God did more for the children of the Jews But why so Because God made a Covenant with their children actually as Infants and consigned it by Circumcision Well so he did with our children too in their proportion He made a Covenant of spiritual Promises on his part and spiritual and real services on ours and this pertains to children when they are capable but made with them as soon as they are alive and yet not so with the Jews babes for as their Rite consigned them actually so it was a national and temporal blessing and Covenant as a separation of them from the portion of the Nations a marking them for a peculiar people and therefore while they were in the wilderness and separate from the commixture of all people they were not at all circumcised but as that Rite did seal the righteousness of Faith so by virtue of its adherencie and remanency in their flesh it did that work when the children came to age But in Christian Infants the case is otherwise for the new Covenant being established upon better Promises is not onely to better purposes but also in distinct manner to be understood when their spirits are as receptive of a spiritual act or impress as the bodies of Jewish children were of the sign of Circumcision then it is to be consigned But this business is quickly at an end by saying that God hath done no less for ours then for their children for he will doe the mercies of a Father and Creatour to them and he did no more to the other But he hath done more to ours for he hath made a Covenant with them and built it upon Promises of the greatest concernment he did not so to them But then for the other part which is the main of the Argument that unless this mercy be consigned by Baptism as good not at all in respect of us because we want the comfort of it this is the greatest vanity in the world For when God hath made a Promise pertaining also to our children for so our Adversaries contend and we also acknowledge in its true sense shall not this promise this word of God be of sufficient truth certainty and efficacy to cause comfort unless we tempt God and require a sign of him May not Christ say to these men as sometime to the Jews A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign but no sign shall be given unto it But the truth on 't is this Argument is nothing but a direct quarrelling with God Almighty 23. Now since there is no strength in the Doctrinal part the practice and precedents Apostolical and Ecclesiastical will be of less concernment if they were true as is pretended because actions Apostolical are not always Rules for ever it might be fit for them to doe it pro loco tempore as divers others of their Institutions but yet no engagement past thence upon following Ages for it might be convenient at that time in the new spring of Christianity and till they had engaged a considerable party by that means to make them parties against the Gentiles Superstition and by way of pre-occupation to ascertain them to their own Sect when they came to be men or for some other reason not transmitted to us because the Question of fact itself is not sufficiently determined For the insinuation of that precept of baptizing all Nations of which Children certainly are a part does as little advantage as any of the rest because other parallel expressions of Scripture do determine and expound themselves to a sense that includes not all persons absolutely but of a capable condition as Adorate eum omnes gentes psallite Deo omnes nationes terrae and divers more 24. As for the conjecture concerning the family of Stephanus at the best it is but a conjecture and besides that it is not proved that there were children in the family yet if that were granted it follows not that they were baptized because by whole families in Scripture is meant all persons of reason and age within the
chosen my friend wisely or fortunately he cannot be the correlative in the best Union but then the friend lives as the soul does after death it is in the state of separation in which the soul strangely loves the body and longs to be reunited but the body is an useless trunk and can do no ministeries to the soul which therefore prays to have the body reformed and restored and made a brave and a fit companion So must these best friends when one is useless or unapt to the braveries of the princely friendship they must love ever and pray ever and long till the other be perfected and made fit in this case there wants only the body but the soul is still a relative and must be so for ever A Husband and a Wife are the best friends but they cannot always signifie all that to each other which their friendships would as the Sun shines not upon a Valley which sends up a thick vapour to cover his face and though his beams are eternal yet the emission is intercepted by the intervening cloud But however all friendships are but parts of this a man must leave Father and Mother and cleave to his Wife that is the dearest thing in Nature is not comparable to the dearest thing of friendship and I think this is argument sufficient to prove friendship to be the greatest band in the world Adde to this that other friendships are part of this they are marriages too less indeed than the other because they cannot must not be all that endearment which the other is yet that being the principal is the measure of the rest and are all to be honoured by like dignities and measured by the same rules and conducted by their portion of the same Laws But as Friendships are Marriages of the soul and of fortunes and interests and counsels so they are Brotherhoods too and I often think of the excellencies of friendships in the words of David who certainly was the best friend in the world Ecce quà m bonum quà m jucundum fratres habitare in unum It is good and it is pleasant that Brethren should live like friends that is they who are any ways relative and who are any ways social and confederate should also dwell in Unity and loving society for that is the meaning of the word Brother in Scripture It was my Brother Jonathan said David such Brothers contracting such friendships are the beauties of society and the pleasure of life and the festivity of minds and whatsoever can be spoken of love which is God's eldest daughter can be said of vertuous friendships and though Carneades made an eloquent Oration at Rome against justice yet never saw a Panegyrick of malice or ever read that any man was witty against friendship Indeed it is probable that some men finding themselves by the peculiarities of friendship excluded from the participation of those beauties of society which enamel and adorn the wise and the vertuous might suppose themselves to have reason to speak the evil words of envy and detraction I wonder not for all those unhappy souls which shall find Heaven-gates shut against them will think they have reason to murmur and blaspheme The similitude is apt enough for that is the region of friendship and Love is the light of that glorious Country but so bright that it needs no Sun Here we have fine and bright rays of that Celestial flame and though to all mankind the light of it is in some measure to be extended like the treasures of light dwelling in the South yet a little do illustrate and beautifie the North yet some live under the line and the beams of friendship in that position are imminent and perpendicular I know but one thing more in which the Communications of friendship can be restrained and that is in Friends and Enemies Amicus amici amicus meus non est My friends friend is not always my friend nor his enemy mine for if my friend quarrel with a third person with whom he hath had no friendships upon the account of interest if that third person be my friend the nobleness of our friendships despises such a quarrel and what may be reasonable in him would be ignoble in me sometimes it may be otherwise and friends may marry one anothers loves and hatreds but it is by chance if it can be just and therefore because it is not always right it cannot be ever necessary In all things else let friendships be as high and expressive till they become an Union or that friends like the Molionidae be so the same that the flames of their dead bodies make but one Pyramis no charity can be reproved and such friendships which are more than shadows are nothing else but the rays of that glorious grace drawn into one centre and made more active by the Union and the proper significations are well represented in the old Hieroglyphick by which the Ancients depicted friendship In the beauties and strength of a young man bare-headed rudely clothed to signifie its activity and lastingness readiness of action and aptnesses to do service Upon the fringes of his garment was written Mors vita as signifying that in life and death the friendship was the same on the forehead was written Summer and Winter that is prosperous and adverse accidents and states of life the left arm and shoulder was bare and naked down to the heart to which the finger pointed and there was written longè propè by all which we know that friendship does good far and near in Summer and Winter in life and death and knows no difference of state or accident but by the variety of her services and therefore ask no more to what we can be obliged by friendship for it is every thing that can be honest and prudent useful and necessary For this is all the allay of this Universality we may do any thing or suffer any thing that is wise or necessary or greatly beneficial to my friend and that in any thing in which I am perfect master of my person and fortunes But I would not in bravery visit my friend when he is sick of the plague unless I can do him good equal at least to my danger but I will procure him Physicians and prayers all the assistances that he can receive and that he can desire if they be in my power and when he is dead I will not run into his grave and be stifled with his earth but I will mourn for him and perform his will and take care of his relatives and do for him as if he were alive and I think that is the meaning of that hard saying of a Greek Poet. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To me though distant let thy friendship fly Though men be mortal friendships must not die Of all things else there 's great satiety Of such immortal abstracted pure friendships indeed there is no great plenty and to see brothers
or successors of the injur'd person for in those sins very often the curse descends with the wrong So long as the effect remains and the injury is complained of and the title is still kept on foot so long the son is tied to restitution But even after the possession is setled yet the curse and evil may descend longer than the sin as the smart and the aking remains after the blow is past And therefore even after the successors come to be lawful possessors it may yet be very fit for them to quit the purchase of their fathers sin or else they must resolve to pay the sad and severe rent-charge of a curse 98. VI. In such cases in which there cannot be a real let there be a verbal and publick disavowing their fathers sin which was publick scandalous and notorious We find this thing done by Andronicus Palaeologus the Greek Emperor who was the son of a bad Father and it is to be done when the effect was transient or irremediable 99. VII Sometimes no piety of the children shall quite take off the anger of God from a family or nation as it hapned to Josiah who above all the Princes that were before or after him turned to the Lord. Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal In such a case as this we are to submit to Gods will and let him exercise his power his dominion and his kingdom as he pleases and expect the returns of our piety in the day of recompences and it may be our posterity shall reap a blessing for our sakes who feel a sorrow and an evil for our fathers sake 100. VIII Let all that have children endeavour to be the beginners and the stock of a new blessing to their family by blessing their children by praying much for them by holy education and a severe piety by rare example and an excellent religion And if there be in the family a great curse and an extraordinary anger gone out against it there must be something extraordinary done in the matter of religion or of charity that the remedy be no less than the evil 101. IX Let not the consideration of the universal sinfulness and corruption of mankind add confidence to thy person and hardness to thy conscience and authority to thy sin but let it awaken thy spirit and stir up thy diligence and endear all the watchfulness in the world for the service of God for there is in it some difficulty and an infinite necessity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Electra in the Tragedy Our nature is very bad in it self but very good to them that use it well Prayers and Meditations THE first Adam bearing a wicked heart transgressed and was overcome and so be all they that are born of him Thus infirmity was made permanent And the law also in the heart of the people with the malignity and root so that the good departed away and the evil abode still Lo this only have I found that God hath made man upright but they have sought many inventions For there is not a just man upon earth that doth good and sinneth not Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me Purge me with hysop and I shall be clean wash me and I shall be whiter than snow create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me The fool hath said in his heart There is no God they are corrupt they have done abominable works there is none that doth good The Lord looked down from Heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek after God They are all gone aside they are all become filthy There is not one that doth good no not one O that the salvation of Israel were come out of Sion when the Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people Jacob shall rejoyce and Israel shall be glad Man dieth and wasteth away yea man giveth up the ghost and where is he For now thou numbrest my steps Dost thou not watch over my sin my transgression is seal'd up in a bag and thou sewest up iniquity Thou destroyest the hope of man Thou prevailest against him for ever and he passeth thou changest his countenance and sendest him away But his flesh upon him shall have pain and his soul within him shall mourn What is man that he should be clean and he that is born of a woman that he should be righteous Behold he putteth no trust in his Saints yea the Heavens are not clean in his sight How much more abominable and filthy is man which drinketh iniquity like water Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid They shall prevail against him as a King ready to battel For he stretcheth out his hand against God and strengthneth himself against the Almighty Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity for vanity shall be his recompence Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing no not one I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin and defiled my horn in the dust My face is foul with weeping and on my eye-lids is the shadow of death Not for any injustice in my hand also my prayer is pure Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death I thank God I am delivered through Jesus Christ our Lord. But now being made free from sin and become servants of God ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life For the wages of sin is death But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof For sin shall not have dominion over you for ye are not under the law but under grace The PRAYER O Almighty God great Father of Men and Angels thou art the preserver of men and the great lover of souls thou didst make every thing perfect in its kind and all that thou didst make was very good only we miserable creatures sons of Adam have suffered the falling Angels to infect us with their leprosie of pride and so we entred into their evil portion having corrupted our way before thee and are covered with thy rod and dwell in a cloud of thy displeasure behold me the meanest of thy servants humbled before thee sensible of my sad condition weak and miserable sinful and ignorant full of need wanting thee in all things and neither able to escape death without a Saviour nor to live a life of holiness without thy Spirit O be pleas'd to give me a portion in the new birth break off the bands and fetters of my sin cure my evil inclinations correct my indispositions and natural averseness