Pagans among whom as Grotius observes it was lawful for the Poets to sing what they pleased though never so lewd concerning the Gods and for the Epicures to take Providence out of the World while the Jews were made ridiculous and the Christians most barbarously used as if they had been the vilest of Mankind Of which more anon SECT XII The Romanists themselves overthrow their own Religion THAT argument also which he urges for Christianity against the Pagans that the chief Points of Christian Doctrine were acknowledged by some or other of the best and greatest among them may be used by us also for the Faith to which we now hold there being several learned Writers in the Roman Church who have acknowledged our belief to be sufficient to Salvation and the Points which they have superadded having been lookt upon by the most excellent Persons among them only as meer Scholastical opinions and not certain Truths of which we can have a full assurance Here I might show how the sufficiency of the Scripture hath been owned and the Apostles Creed likewise confessed to contain all things that are absolutely necessary to be believed to salvation But because I would not have this Book swell above the bigness of the foregoing I shall let them alone and instance only in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation which is now pressed with so much violence upon the Christian World but most plainly condemned by Gratian in their Canon Law and by the Author or Authors of the Canon of the Mass it self About the former we may be satisfied out of the Decretum if we look into the Third part and the second Distinction concerning Consecration Where in the XL VIII Chapter out of St. Austin and Prosper he says The heavenly bread which is truly Christs flesh suo modo after a sort or manner is called the Body of Christ whereas revera in truth it is the Sacrament of his Body which was hanged upon the Cross and the sacrificing of the flesh of Christ by the hand of the Priest is called his death and passion and crucifixion not in the Truth of the thing but in a signifying mystery Which words are so directly against the present sense of the Roman Church that no Protestant can speak more expresly and clearly against it nor desire a plainer confutation of it unless it be that of the Gloss upon those words which is this The celestial Sacrament which truly represents the flesh of Christ is said to be the Body of Christ but improperly whence it is said to be so suo modo sed non rei veritate after a manner but not in the truth of the thing So the sense is it is called Christs body that is it is signified thereby And if we look further into the LII Chapter we find he saith Christ was sacrificed but once in semet ipso in himself when he hung upon the Cross c. Yet is offered daily in Sacramento in the Sacrament which the Church frequents in memory of that thing Which Sacrifice in the next Chapter he calls exemplum the example or resemblance of that upon the Cross offered in remembrance of his Death Which is sufficient to convince us that they believed in those days as we do now and not as the Roman Church doth else He would not have called that which he says was truly the flesh of Christ the heavenly bread But to put all out of doubt let us turn to the lxxii Chapter and there we find these remarkable words out of St. Austin which fully explain the business Because it is not lawful for Christ to be devoured by our teeth therefore our Lord would have this Bread and this Wine in a Mystery by consecration of the Holy Spirit to be potentially created his flesh and blood and to be daily mystically offered for the life of the World They are potentially then or virtually made his Body and Blood though but Bread and Wine in themselves and of this Sacrifice which is thus wonderfully made in commemoration of Christ as he adds out of St. Hierom Chap. lxxvi it is lawful to eat but of that which Christ offered on the Cross secundum se according to it self none can eat But the Canon of the Mass will more abundantly convince us that he or they that made it did not believe any thing of Transubstantiation For First after the Consecration of the Bread and Wine the Priest signs them ten times at least with the sign of the Cross which can have no excuse made for it but is the greatest impudence if it be indeed Christ Himself who lies before the Priest whom he thus crosses For sure he doth not intend to bless Christ or to drive away the Devil from him or any such like thing for which those Crossings are used in that Church But more than this 2dly it is observable that after Consecration also the Priest still calls Christ's Body Panem Sanctum the holy Bread of Eternal life which shows that when this Rule was made they believed the Bread to be still remaining A further Indication of which is that 3dly the Priest proceeds to beseech God that He would vouchsafe to look upon that Sacrifice of his gifts with a propitious and ferene countenance and to accept them as He did the gift of his Servant Abel and the Sacrifice of Abraham and that which his High-Priest Melchisedeck offered to Him Which is most absurdly spoken if the Priest there offer Christ himself unto God For then he intercedes with him for our Intercessor as if he needed our Prayers and besides compares Him with the first-fruits of the Flock and the spoils of War which is so incongruous and so much below his heavenly glory that an unprejudiced Man cannot but think they who composed that Prayer looked upon those gifts which they offered as still Bread and Wine Which appears more fully 4thly from what follows in the next Prayer where bowing profoundly and laying his hands upon the Altar the Priest humbly intreats God in this manner Command these things to be carried by the hands of thy holy Angel to thy high Altar into the presence of thy Divine Majesty Where there are two plain testimonies against their present doctrine For First nothing but the Bread and Wine can be called haec these things which in no propriety of speech can signifie the very natural body of Christ Who secondly can by none of God's Angels be carried into Heaven being there already nor brought more than He is into the presence of the Divine Majesty where He was before the Priest said Mass and sits for ever there at God's right hand Had they that composed this Prayer believed any thing of Transubstantiation they would have said and could not have said otherways if they said any thing of this matter Almighty God behold here before me upon thy Altar lies thy only begotten Son Jesus Christ by my sacrifice unto Thee that very Christ who is at thy right
a kind of God over them SECT VII Against worshipping of things that are no substances WE find also that the Grecians Romans and others worshipped those things which have no subsistence but are meer Accidents of other things For to omit those uncouth Deities the Fever dame Impudence and the like let us name the better sort such were health which is nothing but a right temperature of the parts of the body good fortune which is an event that is correspondent to a Man's desire The affections also such as love fear anger hope and the rest which proceed from the consideration of something that is good or evil easie or difficult are certain motions or passions in that part of the mind which is united to the body by the blood especially not having any absolute power of themselves but are subordinate hand maids to the commands of the will their Mistress at least in their continuance and direction Then for Vertues whose Names are divers Prudence in chusing what is profitable for us Fortitude in undertaking dangers Justice in abstaining from that which is another Man's Temperance in the moderation of pleasures c. they are certain inclinations and propensions in the mind unto that which is right grown up by long exercise and practice Which as they may be augmented in a Man so may they by neglect be diminished nay quite lost and abolished As for Honour whereunto we read there were Temples dedicated it is other Mens judgment or good opinion concerning one whom they supposed indued with Vertue which is often bestowed upon bad men as well as good by the natural proneness there is in Men to erre in their judgment These therefore having no subsistence and therefore not to be compared in dignity and worth with things that do subsist nor having any understanding of Mens prayers or veneration it is most absurd and unreasonable to worship them as Gods when for this very thing He is to be worshipped who can both give and preserve them SECT VIII Answer to the Argument of the Gentiles taken from Miracles done among them THE Pagans for the commendation of their Religion are wont to alledge Miracles but such as in many things may be excepted against For the wisest Men among the Pagans rejected many of these as supported by no testimony of any credible witness but plainly counterfeit and fabulous Other Miracles which they said were done hapned in some secret place in the night before one or two whose eyes the craft of the Priests might easily delude by false shows and appearances of things And there are others which raised great admiration and passed for wonders meerly because they met with those who were ignorant of natural things especially of hidden properties As for instance such a thing might happen if one should draw Iron with the Loadstone among People who knew nothing of its vertue in which arts Simon Magus and Apollonius as many have recorded were very skilful I do not deny but some things greater than these were seen which by Man's power alone could not be drawn out of natural causes and yet did not need a power which was truly divine that is omnipotent but might be performed by Spirits that are placed between God and Men. Who by their celerity efficacy subtilty and diligence can easily carry things far distant from one place to another and compound things that are very different to the working of such effects as shall strike Men with astonishment But that the Spirits whereby this was effected were not good and therefore neither was the Religion good appears already from what hath been said before And from hence also that they said they were compelled to do things even against their wills by the power of certain charms when the wisest of the Pagans agree that there can be no such vertue in words but only a power of perswasion and that no other way than by their signification And it is another token of their wickedness that they undertook to allure and draw this or that body though never so backward to it into the love of such or such a Person Wherein they were injurious to them either in their vain promises or in effecting what they promised for this also is forbidden by humane Laws as a piece of Sorcery Neither need any Man wonder why God suffered some marvels to be wrought by evil Spirits among the Gentiles seeing they deserved to be cheated with such illusions who so long time had forsaken the worship of the true God Moreover this is an argument of their weakeness and impotency that their works never brought any considerable good along with them For if any seemed to be called back to life after they were dead they did not continue alive neither could they exercise the functions of living Creatures Or if it happened that any thing proceeding happily from a divine power did appear to the Pagans yet the same was not foretold should come to pass for the confirmation of their Religion and therefore there might be other causes and far different reasons which the divine efficacy propounded to it self in the doing those things As for example if it was true that Vespasian restored sight to one blind this was done that he being thereby made more venerable might the more easily obtain the Roman Empire to which he was chosen by God that he might be a Minister of his Judgments upon the Jews More such like causes there may be of other wonders which had no relation at all to their Religion SECT IX And from Oracles THE very same likewise in a manner may serve for answer to that which they object concerning Oracles especially what we have said that these Men did worthily deserve to be deluded for contempt of that knowledge which reason or ancient tradition suggested to every one of them Then again the words of the Oracles for the most part were ambiguous and might easily receive an interpretation from any event whatsoever Or if there was any thing more expresly foretold by them yet it is not necessary that it should proceed from an all-knowing mind For it was either such a thing as might be foreseen by natural causes then existing as some Physicians have foretold Diseases that are a coming or else some probable conjecture might be made by that which commonly falls out and usually comes to pass as we read of some persons well skill'd in civil affairs that have made notable guesses at future events Again suppose that amongst the Pagans God sometimes used the ministery of some Prophets to foretel those things which could have no certain cause besides the will of God yet this did not approve or confirm their heathenish Religion but rather overthew it Such for instance are those things in the fourth Eclogue of Virgil taken out of the Sibyls verses where unwittingly the Poet gives us a lively description of the coming of Christ and his benefits So in the same Books of the Sibyls it was that
over Jordan carried nothing with him save his staff only and yet returned enriched with a great flock of sheep Moses was a poor exile and feeding the flocks when God appeared to him in the bush and gave him commission for the conduct of his People David also was called to his Kingdom when he was feeding sheep and with many other such like examples doth the Sacred story abound Now concerning the Messias we read that he should be a gladsome Messenger unto the poor that he should make no noise in publick nor use any strife and contention but deal gently forbearing to break the shaken reed and cherishing that heat which remains in smoaking flax Neither ought the rest of his afflictions no not his ignominious death to make him despicable to any For God oftentimes suffereth the godly not only to be vexed and disquieted by the wicked as righteous Lot was by the Citizens of Sodom but also even to be destroyed and slain as is plain by the example of Abel who was cruelly murdered by his Brother of Isaiah who was sawn in pieces and of the seven brethren in the Macchabees who together with their mother were miserably tormented and put to death The very Jews themselves sing the Seventy-ninth Psalm wherein are these words The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven the flesh of those whom thou lovest O God unto the beasts of the earth Their bloud have they shed like water round about Jerusalem and there was none to bury them And whosoever considers the words of Isaiah in the 53. Chapter cannot deny that the Messias himself ought to have passed thorow much affliction and death to come into his Kingdom and obtain power to adorn his Houshold or Church with the most excellent blessings The words in the Prophet are these Who hath believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of the dry ground He hath no form or comeliness and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him He is despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs And we hide as it were our faces from him He was so despised and in so small esteem among us Surely he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we did esteem him stricken smitten of God and afflicted But he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed All we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all He was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth He is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb so he openeth not his mouth After imprisonment and sentence passed on him he was taken away but who shall worthily declare his duration when he was restored to life again For he was cut off out of the land of the living but for the transgression of my people he was stricken and he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death though he had done no violence neither was any deceit in his mouth But though it hath pleased the Lord to bruise him and he hath put him to grief Yet because he made himself an offering for sin he shall see his seed he shall prolong his days and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justifie many by taking away their iniquities Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he hath poured out his soul unto death And he was numbred with the transgressors and he bare the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors Who is there either among the Kings or Prophets to whom these things can be applyed Surely none As touching that shift which some later Jews have invented telling us that the Prophet speaks here of the Hebrews dispersed thorow all Nations that by their example and perswasion they might every where make many Proselytes this sense is first of all repugnant to many testimonies of holy Writ which loudly proclaim that no evil is befaln the Jews which they have not deserved and a great deal more beside for their evil deeds He also of whom Esaias treats was to deprecate God for the Heathen which the Jews do not And lastly the very order and series of the Prophetical Discourse will not bear that interpretation For either the Prophet which seems more proper to that place or God saith This evil happened unto him for the iniquities of my People Now the people of Isaiah or the peculiar people of God are the people of the Hebrews therefore he who is said by Isaiah to have suffered such grievous things cannot be that same People But the ancient Doctors of the Hebrews more ingenuously confess that these things were spoken of the Messias whereupon some later among them have devised two Messiases the one they call the Son of Joseph who was to suffer many miseries and a bloudy death the other is the Son of David to whom all things should succeed prosperously When it would be far more easie and more consonant with the Writings of the Prophets to acknowledge but one Messias who was to pass unto his Kingdom through many difficulties and death it self which we believe of Jesus and the thing it self declares to be most true SECT XX. And as though they were honest men that put him to death MANY of the Jews are kept back from receiving the Religion of Jesus by a certain preconceived opinion of the vertue and honesty of their Ancestors and specially of the Priests who out of prejudice condemned Jesus and rejected his Doctrine But what kind of Men their Ancestors oft-time were that they may not think I defame them let them hear the words of their own Law and Prophets wherein they are often called uncircumcised in heart and ears a people that honoured God with their lips and with the garnish of Ceremonies but their hearts were far from him It was their Ancestors that went about and were very near to have kill'd their brother Joseph and in very deed sold him into bondage It was their Ancestors also that by their continual mutinies and seditions made Moses weary of his life who was their Leader and Redeemer whom the Earth the Sea and the Air obeyed These were they that loathed the Bread that was sent from Heaven complaining as though they had been in greatest want and scarcity even when they belched up again the Fowl that they had eaten It was their Ancestors that forsaking
Ministers Which as it is against the practice of the whole Church for many Ages from the beginning So directly opposes the Institution of Christ who set his Apostles in a superiority to the LXX as his Apostles set such Men as Timothy and Titus in a superiority over the Presbyteries of those Churches which they could no longer attend themselves SECT X. Arguments enough in the foregoing Books to prove the true Christian Religion not to be sincerely preserved in the Roman Church one is their way of worship IT would be easie to show how much the Roman Church hath deviated from the Rule of Faith by considering particularly the falsity of every one of those Doctrines which they have added to the ancient Creeds But it will be more proper in so short a Treatise as this only to bring to the Readers mind some Principles in the foregoing Books which direct us as plainly to reject Popery and upon the very same ground as those false Religions for whose confutation he alledges them And First let the Reader again weigh his Arguments against the worship of the Pagans and he will find them in several things as strong against the worship of the Roman Church whose practices it will hereby appear are no less faulty than their Faith As for example in the worship of Angels and Saints For the former They should not only as he discourses there Book IV. in their very worship make an evident difference between the most high God and those Angels to whom they commend themselves which they do not do in the Roman Church but quite contrary in the external acts of adoration have none that are appropriated to God alone but are all common to him with others as adoration invocation burning incense nay offering the Sacrifice of the Mass in their honour and making vows to them but be satisfied also what order there is among the Angels what good may be expected from each of them and what honour the most high God is willing should be bestowed upon every one of them All which being wanting for there is nothing revealed about such matters it is plain from thence how uncertain that Religion is and how much safer it would be for them to betake themselves as we do to the worship of Almighty God alone Especially for that to whomsoever He is favourable to them the holy Angels must needs be kind and serviceable though no Petitions be made to them being the Ministers and Servants of the most High who hath revealed this to us that He hath made them all subject to Jesus Christ to be sent forth by Him for the good of those who shall be heirs of Salvation In the number of which they above all others have reason to hope to be who have so great a respect to His Majesty and confidence in his Goodness that for fear of offending Him they dare worship none but Himself alone resting assured He will deal well with them even for this reason because they have such a regard to Him as not to presume without his warrant and authority so much as to recommend themselves to Him by any Angel in Heaven though never so great but by his only begotten Son Jesus Christ alone who is the Head of them all and whom He hath consecreated to be our perpetual Intercessor with Him The like we may say of the Worship of Saints to whom all Prayers are fruitless and vain unless they be able to do something for their Supplicants Of which they have no certainty nor is there more ground to say that they can than that they cannot but rather less ground since it is inconceivable how they should be able to hear and assist so many as address themselves to the same Saint in several far distant parts of the World without supposing them to be equal to our blessed Saviour for they have as many if not more Supplicants as He by such an union as He hath with the Divinity They worship also which is still worse such for Saints as never were in being and others whose Saintship there is too much reason to question being apparently guilty of such crimes as are inconsistent with it For instance our Thomas à Becket by whose bloud they have prayed our Lord Christ that they may ascend into Heaven and do still pray upon Decemb. 29. that they who implore his help may have the saving effect of his petitions whom our Forefathers even in the time of Popery lookt upon as a perjured Person and as a Traitor being not only called so by the King but in Parliament accused of Treason the Bishops as well as others being present and the Bishop of Winchester pronouncing the sentence against him In short the Devotions of the Roman Church are so like the ancient Idolatry that the cunningest Man in the World cannot find any difference without a great many nice and subtil distinctions which in practice make no difference at all SECT XI Another is the way of promoting their Religion THERE is this Argument also against it as Grotius speaks of Paganism Book 4. Sect. 10. taken from the Religion it self that if it be not supported by humane power or policy immediately it falls to the ground For as the Church of Rome it hath been observed by wise Men of our own got and increased its absolute Authority over Mens consciences by obtruding on the World supposititious Writings and corrupting the Monuments of former times by false Miracles and forging false stories by Wars also and Persecutions by Massacres Treasons and Rebellions in short by all manner of carnal means whether violent or fraudulent so take away these supports and that Religion cannot stand by its own strength And truly his reason in the Third Section of the same Book against the Paganish worship that it was from evil Spirits because they instigated their Worshippers to destroy them that worshipped one God holds good still if there be any force in it to prove the Roman Church not to be acted by the good Spirit of God because they would not let those live had they sufficient power who worship only one God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and content themselves with the Belief before mentioned into which they were Baptized not presuming to superadd any thing else as necessary to Salvation And which is worse while they have been most cruel to those who for fear of offending God dare not allow the worship they give to Saints which they think belongs to him alone nor fall down before the Sacrament and adore it as very God Himself They have tolerated such without any censure who have raised St. Francis into an equality with if not superiority unto our blessed Saviour and made the blessed Virgin a kind of Goddess nay called the Pope the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords giving him such a power over all Kings and Kingdoms as sober Men among themselves are ashamed to own Which is just after the example of the
hand I now take into my hands to present unto thy Majesty under the form of Bread and Wine Him thou canst not reject nor me his Priest who offer Him unto Thee c. Or some such like words more befitting their present notions than desiring an Angel may carry what the Priest offers and present it unto GOD. But we find quite contrary which is the last thing I shall observe that in conclusion the Priest acknowledges that by Christ Jesus God always creates and sanctifies and quickens and blesses making a cross upon the Host and the Chalice at every one of those three last words all these good things Which can be meant of nothing but the Bread and Wine consecrated to the commemoration and representation of Christ's body and bloud sacrificed for us For Christ's own very natural body and bloud cannot in any tolerable sense be said to be continually created and quickned or made alive unless you will suppose him to have been dead before nay not to have been at all For creation implies the thing not to have been and vivification not to have been then alive when it was quickned Yet this fancy of Christs real presence in the Sacrament by Transubstantiation against which there are such numerous Testimonies in their own Communion Service is now become the main Article of their Religion For we all know to our great grief and astonishment that when the publick Authority of this Realm was on their side subscription was not urged to any Article of their Religion upon such violent and bloudy terms as unto this of the Real Presence The Mystery of which iniquity as a great Man of our own said in the Age before us cannot be better resolved than into the powerful and deceitful working of Satan who delights thus to do despite to our Lord and to his Religion by seducing his professed Subjects into a belief of such things as make them and Him ridiculous unto unbelievers and ingage them in the worst kind of Rebellion he could imagine by worshipping Bread and Wine instead of their Saviour and all this upon the least occasions and shallowest reasons SECT XIII Other Instances of it BUT besides these plain confessions of that Church against it self there are many other things which I shall but just name wherein we have the testimony of several of their own learned Men ready to be produced for our and against their belief proving clearly that the present is not the old Religion of that Church but that they have brought into it many Innovations by adding to the Canonical Books of Scripture by making their vulgar Latine Translation of the Bible about which they themselves cannot agree authentical by forbidding the People to read the holy Scriptures in their own Language and by denying them the publick Prayers in a Language they understand by giving the Pope not only a new Title of Universal Bishop but an authority and jurisdiction which was never heard of for many Ages by increasing the number of Sacraments and altering their nature by taking away the Cup from the People and turning the Sacrament of Christs body and bloud into a proper expiatory sacrifice by celebrating the Eucharist without any body to communicate by setting up Images in Churches and ordaining Religious Worship to be given to them by invocating Saints and Angels as was said before and by the Doctrine of Purgatory and Indulgences and many other together with a vast number of strange ceremonies in the making holy water consecrating bells c. For which no antiquity can be pretended The woful effect of which is this if we may speak the plain Truth that by pressing upon Mens belief a great deal too much and placing great vertue in trifles they have tempted Men to believe nothing at all As is apparent from hence that where and when as an excellent Writer of our own speaks this Religion hath most absolutely commanded there and then Atheism or Infidelity hath most abounded And how should it do otherwise when as he observes so many lying Legends have been obtruded upon Mens belief and so many false Miracles forged to justifie them as are very likely to make suspicious Men question the truth of all And so many weak and frivolous ceremonies devised and such abundance of ridiculous observances in Religion introduced as are no less apt to beget a secret contempt and scorn of it in witty Men and consequently Atheism and Impiety if they have this perswasion setled in their mind which is indeavoured to be rooted in them from their childhood that if they be not of that Religion they were as good be of none at all And when a great part also of the Doctrines now mentioned so apparently make for the temporal ends of those who teach them that sagacious Men can scarce forbear thinking they were on purpose devised to serve those designs That particular doctrine also of Transubstantiation being so portentous that joyned with the forenamed perswasion of No Papists no Christians it hath in all probability brought more than Averroes to this resolution since Christians eat that which they adore let my Soul be among the Philosophers And lastly the pretence which is so common that there is no ground to believe the Scriptures but their Churches infallibility and yet no ground to believe their Churches infallibility but some Texts of Scripture being too plain a way to lead those who discern the labyrinth wherein they are to believe neither Church nor Scripture SECT XIV Whereby they have spoil'd Christianity as the Pagans did the Natural Religion THESE things which have been already urged by the Writers of our Church for the conviction of those who are capable of it I repeat here again because they seem to me very powerful for the preservation of those who are not already tainted or too far gone in that delusion Which is so great that to summ up all belonging to this Head we may safely say Popery is just such a depravation of the true Christian Religion as Paganism was of the Natural Religion There cannot be a righter conception of it than this which appears too plainly in the absurd doctrines and opinions which they have mingled with the Christian Faith in their multiplied superstitions in their fabulous relations of the Saints wherein they have surpassed the very Poets themselves and to pass by the rest in their prostrating themselves before Images and giving religious worship to Men departed Which last instance furnished the Pagans of Cochin with this answer to the Jesuits as Christoph Borrus one of that Order relates when they pressed upon them the belief of one God and no more We do believe it said they but those whom you see us worship in their Images were Men of great Sanctity whom pious People therefore worship according to their merit just as you give to the Apostles and Martyrs and Confessors divers degrees of honour and religious service as you know them to have excelled in vertue
delivered from the heavy Yoke of Rites and Ceremonies that lay upon them But if they would admit of the Commandments of Christ which are full of all goodness easily permitted them to follow what course of life they pleased in matters of indifferency provided they would not impose the necessity of observing them upon others SECT XXV Conclusion of all UPON these terms we are ready to agree with them and I conclude all with this memorable Proposal which Erasmus made in a Letter to Johannes Slechta a Friend of his in Bohemia at the very beginning of the Reformation MD XIX This would reconcile People to the Church of Rome if all things were not so particularly defined and made a matter of Faith which we would have to belong to it but those only which are evidently expressed in the Holy Scriptures or without which we do not see any way to be saved To this purpose a few things are sufficient and a few things may be sooner perswaded than a great many Now out of one Article we make Six Hundred some of which are such that without indangering Piety we may either be ignorant or doubt of them And such is the nature of Mankind that what is once defined we hold tooth and nail and will by no means part with it But when all 's done the summ of Christian Philosophy lies in this That we understand all our Hope to be placed in God who freely gives us all things by his Son Jesus by whose Death we are redeemed into whose Body we are planted by Baptism that being dead to the lusts of this World we may live according to his Doctrine and Example not only abstaining from all evil but indeavouring to deserve well of every Body assd that if any adversity happen we bear it couragiously in hope of a future reward which without all doubt waits for all pious Persons at the coming of Christ and that we make such progress from vertue to vertue as notwithstanding to arrogate nothing to our selves but to ascribe all the good that is in us or that we can do unto GOD. These things chiefly are to be inculcated and beaten into the minds of Men so that they become as it were their Nature But if any will search into those things which are more abstruse about the Divine Nature the Hypostasis of Christ or the Sacraments that they may raise their minds the higher and draw them from things here below let them do so provided that every body be not compelied presently to believe what seems good to this or that Person For as out of large Deeds arise sooner Law-suits so are differences begotten by very many definitions And let us not be ashamed to answer to some things God knows how it may be done it is sufficient for me to believe that it is done I know that Christ's pure Body and Blood is to be purely received by those that are pure and that He would have this to be a most holy token and pledge both of his love to us and of our Christian concord among our selves And therefore I will examine my self and make a strict search whether there be any thing in me that ill agrees with Christ whether any discord with my Neighbour But how the Ten Predicaments are there how the Bread is Transubstantiated by the mystical words or as He explains himself in the latter end of his Book upon lxxxiv Psal how the body of Christ is there whether under the substance of Bread or under the species of Bread and Wine and such like doth not much conduce in my judgment to proficiency in piety c. By these and other such innumerable disputations in which some triumph the minds of Men are called away from those things which alone are to the purpose To conclude it will be of great moment to establish the concord of the World if all secular Princes and especially the Bishop of Rome would abstain from all appearance of Tyranny and of Covetousness For Men easily start back when they see slavery is prepared for them when they see they are not invited to piety but inveigled to be made a prey If they perceive us to be harmless to be beneficent they will most easily credit us and intrust themselves with us Thus He. It would not be very hard to make a longer Book on this Subject But this is sufficient as Grotius speaks in the beginning of this Discourse about the Truth of Christian Religion to convince those whose understandings are rightly disposed and are not pertinaciously set against all further information But no Arguments can be found of force enough to convince a froward will and perswade perverse affections which make Men uncapable of Moral Truth most of all of Divine Which will not enter as the Wise man speaks into a malicious Soul nor dwell in the Body that is subject unto sin For the Holy Spirit of Discipline will flee deceit and remove from thoughts that are without understanding and will not abide when unrighteousness cometh in THE END A RECAPITULATION OF THE Principal Things handled IN THIS WORK According to the several Sections of each Book The Contents of the first Book THe Preface shewing the occasion of this Work Sect. I. Proving there is a God p. 1 Sect. II. That there is but one God p. 5 Sect. III. That all Perfection is in God p. 7 Sect. IV. God is Infinite p. 8 Sect. V. That God is eternal omnipotent omniscient and absolutely good p. 9 Sect. VI. That God is the Author cause of all things ib. Sect. VII Answer to that Objection concerning the cause of evil p. 15 Sect. VIII Against the Opinion of two Principles or causes of things p. 16 Sect. IX That God doth govern the whole World p. 17 Sect. X. Yea sublunary things p. 18 Sect. XI This is further proved by the preservation of Empires p. 19 Sect. XII And by Miracles p. 21 Sect. XIII Specially among the Jews wherunto credit may be given by reason of the long continuance of their Religion p. 22 Sect. XIV Also by the truth and antiquity of Moses his story p. 24 Sect. XV. And by the Testimony of many Gentiles p. 25 Sect. XVI The same is proved by the Oracle and Predictions p. 34 Sect. XVII The Objection is answered why Miracles are not now to be seen p. 36 Sect. XVIII And that now there is such liberty in offending p. 37 Sect. XIX Insomuch that good Men are oppressed p. 39 Sect. XX. The same argument is retorted to prove that the Soul survives the Body p. 40 Sect. XXI Which is proved by Tradition ib. Sect. XXII Against which no contrary reason can be brought p. 41 Sect. XXIII Many reasons may be alledged for it p. 44 Sect. XXIV Whence it follows that the end of all shall be Mans happiness after this life p. 45 Sect. XXV Which to obtain men must get the true Religion ib. The Contents of the second Book Sect. I. TO Prove the
but to all People and not after that mankind had lived above the space of Two Thousand Years but even from the beginning of all Neither Abel Enoch Noah Melchisedeck Job Abraham Isaac or Jacob though all of them were godly men and dearly beloved of God knew this part of the Law but were altogether ignorant or very little acquainted therewith yet notwithstanding for all that they received the testimony of their confidence in God and of God's love unto them Besides neither did Moses exhort Jethro his Father in law to the receiving of these rites nor did Jonah the Ninivites neither did any other Prophets reprehend the Chaldeans Aegyptians Sydonians Tyrians Idumeans and Moabites for not admitting those ceremonies though when they writ unto them they reckoned up their sins exactly enough These then were peculiar precepts introduced either for the avoiding of some evil which the Jews were prone unto or for the trial of their obedience or for the signification of some future things Wherefore it is no more to be wondred that these are abolished than if any King should abrogate some Municipal Statutes which belong that is to particular Corporations to the end he might establish one law within his dominions Neither can there any reason be alledged to prove that God did so bind himself as that he would change nothing of the same For if it be said that these precepts are called perpetual the same word Men oftentimes use when they would signifie that that which they command is not yearly or accommodated to certain times suppose of War Peace or Scarcity Yet they are not thereby hindred from making new constitutions of the same things specially when the publick good requires it Thus in like manner some of the Divine precepts given to the Hebrews were temporary during the Peoples abode in the Wilderness others were strictly tied to their habitation in the Land of Canaan therefore to distinguish these from the other he calls them perpetual whereby might be understood that they ought not any where or at any time to be intermitted unless God signified that it was his will so to be Which manner of speaking since it is commonly used by all people ought to be less wondered at by the Hebrews who know that in their Law it is called a perpetual statute and a perpetual bondage which continues only from one Jubilee to another And the coming of the Messias is called by them the accomplishment of the Jubilee or the greatest Jubilee of all Thus in the Hebrew Prophets there was anciently a promise of making a new covenant as in Jerem xxxi where God promiseth that he will make a new covenant which shall be put into their inward parts and written in their hearts neither shall men have any need that one shall learn Religion of another for it shall be manifest unto all Yea further the Lord will forgive them their former iniquities and will remember their sin no more which is as if a King after great enmity and discord amongst his Citizens and Subjects should for the establishment of peace and tranquillity among them take away all diversity of Laws and make one perfect Law common to them all promising forgiveness of faults by-past if hereafter they do amend And this which hath been said might suffice but we will survey every part of the Law which is abrogated and shew they were neither such as in themselves could be well pleasing unto God nor ought they to continue for ever SECT VIII As the Sacrifices which of themselves were never well-pleasing unto God THE first and chief thing to be considered are the Sacrifices which many of the Hebrews think were invented by Man before that they were commanded by God And true it is indeed the Hebrews were desirous of abundance of Rites and Ceremonies so that there was cause enough why GOD should enjoyn them very many if it were but for this reason lest they should return unto the worship of false Gods by the remembrance of their sojourning in Egypt Howbeit when their Posterity made too great account of them as though of themselves they had been acceptable unto God and a part of true piety then did the Prophets reprehend them for it About Sacrifices saith God by David in the fiftieth Psalm I will not so much as exchange a word with thee as if I were desirous to have thy burnt offerings continually before me I will take no Buliock out of thy house nor he-goats out of thy folds For every beast of the forest is mine and so are the cattel upon a thousand hills I know all the fowls of the mountains and the wila beasts of the field are mine If I were hungry I would not tell thee for the World is mine and the fulness thereof thinkest thou that I will eat the flesh of Bulls or drink the bloud of goats Offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the most high Some there are among the Hebrews who say that this is spoken because they that offered those sacrifices were of an impure mind and dishonest conversation But the words now alledged shew another matter to wit that the thing in it self was no whit acceptable unto God For if we consider the whole series and order of the Psalm we shall and that God in these words speaks unto the godly for he had said Gather my Saints together unto me and hear my people which are the words of a Teacher and one that instructeth Then having ended those words now alledged as his manner is he speaks unto the wicked But unto the wicked God saith To the same sense we may cite other places as in the 51. Psal Thou desirest not sacrifice else would I give it thee but thou delightest not in burnt-offerings The sacrifice of God is a broken Spirit a broken and contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise So likewise in the fortieth Psalm Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire but hast tied me to thee as he whose ear was boared through to be thy servant burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required Then said I Loe I come In the volume of the book it is written of me I delight to do thy will O my God yea thy Law is within my heart I have preached righteousness in the great Congregation Loe I have not refrained my Lips O Lord thou knowest I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation I have not concealed thy loving kindness and thy truth from the great Congregation The like we read in the Prophet Isaiah chap. 1. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me saith the Lord I am full of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts and I delight not in the bloud of bullocks or of lambs or of he-goats When ye come to appear before me who hath required this at your hand to tread my Courts Answerable to this place and the
Interpreter of it is that in Jer. 7. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel Put your burnt-offerings unto your sacrifices and eat their flesh your selves For I spake not unto your fathers nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the Land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices But this thing commanded I them saying Obey my voice and I will be your God and ye shall be my People and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you that it may be well unto you Agreeing with this is that in Hosea 6. To shew mercy to men is more acceptable to me than sacrifice to think rightly of God more than all burnt-offerings Lastly in the sixth of Micah when the question was made what was the best way to obtain the favour of God whether by coming before him with a great number of rams or with a great quantity of Oyl or with Calves of a Year old to this God answers and saith I will tell thee what is truly good and acceptable unto me namely to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God By all which places it being apparent that Sacrifices are not in the number of those things which God desires for themselves or primarily and that the People a naughty superstition creeping in as is usual by little and little among them placed a great part of their piety in them and believed they made a sufficient compensation for their sins by sacrifices what wonder is it if God at length took away a thing which was not now in its own nature indifferent but whose use was now become a Vice since King Hezekiah did not stick to break even the brazen Serpent erected by Moses because the People began to honour it with Religious Worship Moreover there are divers Prophecies that foretold these sacrifices whereof we speak should come to an end which any one may easily conceive who doth but consider that according to the Law of Moses only the posterity of Aaron was to do sacrifice and that only in their own Country But in the 110 Psalm there is a King promised whose dominion should be most ample the beginning whereof should be out of Sion and this same King was to be a Priest also for ever and that after the order of Melchisedeck So Isaiah saith chap. 19. That there shall be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the Land of Egypt where not only the Aegyptians but the Assyrians also and the Israelites shall worship God And in the 66 chapter he saith that the People of all Nations and Languages which are far and widely distant shall come as well as the Israelites and offer gifts unto God and of them also there shall be ordained Priests and Levites All which could not come to pass so long as the Law of Moses remained in force Add unto these that in the first of Malachy God foretelling future things saith he abhorred the offerings of the Hebrews I have no pleasure in you neither will I accept an offering at your hand For from the rising of the Sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name and a pure offering for my name shall be great among the Heathen saith the Lord of Hosts Lastly Daniel in his 9. chapter rehearsing the Prophecy of the Angel Gabriel concerning Christ saith that he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease And not by words only but really and indeed God plainly enough shews that he likes not any longer those Sacrifices which were prescribed by Moses seeing that he hath suffered the Jews for the space of one thousand six hundred years and more to be without Temple without Altar and without any certain distinction of their Tribes or Lineage whence it might appear who they are that may lawfully offer sacrifice SECT IX The difference of Meats NOW what we have declared concerning the Law of Sacrifices the same may be proved of that Law which forbids the use of some kinds of meats For it is plain that after the great Deluge God gave licence unto Noah and his Posterity to use any sort of victual Which Right therefore passed not only to Japhet and Cham but also unto Sem and his Posterity Abraham Isaac and Jacob. But afterward when the People being in Egypt were addicted to the naughty superstitions of that Countrey then began God to forbid them the eating of some kind of living creatures either because the Aegyptians offered those creatures unto their Gods and made divination by them or because in that ceremonial Law Mens sundry vices were shadowed out by divers kind of living creatures Again that these precepts were not universal it is manifest by that statute which was made touching the flesh of a Beast that died of it self Deut. 14. which to eat was not lawful for the Israelites but it was lawful for the strangers that dwelt among them unto whom the Jews by divine command were to perform all offices of courtesie as persons esteemed by God Likewise the ancient Hebrew Doctors do plainly teach that in the time of the Messias the Law concerning forbidden meats should cease when the Sow should be as clean and pure as the Oxe And verily in as much as God out of all Nations would collect unto himself one Church it was more just and equitable to have a common liberty than a bondage in such things SECT X. And of Days IT follows that we consider of Festival Days all which were instituted and ordained in remembrance of that benefit received of God when they were freed from Egyptian calamity and afterward brought into the promised Land Now the Prophet Jeremy in the 16. and 23. Chapters saith that the time would come when more new and greater benefits should so obscure the remembrance of that benefit as that afterward there should scarce be any mention thereof Besides that which but now was said concerning Sacrifices is true also of Festival Days the People began to put confidence in them thinking that if they kept and observed them well it was no matter though they transgressed in other matters whereupon in the first Chapter of Isaiah God faith that his Soul hated their new Moons and appointed Feasts and that they were such a trouble unto him as that he was weary to bear them More particularly it is objected concerning the Sabbath that the law thereof is universal and perpetual because it was not given to one peculiar People only but to Adam the Parent of all Mankind at the very beginning of the World I answer with the most learned of the Hebrews that there is a twofold precept concerning the Sabbath the first is a precept for commemoration Exod. 20. 8. and the second is a precept for observation Exod. 31. 31. The former is fulfilled by a religious remembrance of the Worlds creation and the latter