in the practice of the ancient Church save among those that were in the last degree of penance for those that were not thought worthy to partake were not held fit to look on Albaspin de vet Eccl. rit l. 2. ob 2. p. 206. but were dismissed in the Ite missa cùm ex more Diaconus clamat si quis non communâ—cat det locum as saith Gregory and it was thought all one to behold the Celebration and to be a partaker for if a Catechumen had by fortuitous accident beheld the administration he was forthwith baptized and from Baptisme was an immediate passage to the Eucharist and whom they thought fit to be permitted the inspection they supposed worthy to be admitted to the participation of the Eucharist so to stay as a spectator De consecrat dist 2. was censured to merit the punishment of Excommunication as I have elsewhere manifested peracta consecratione omnes communicent qui noluerint ecclesiaisticis carere liminibus sic enim Apostoli statuerunt c. as Gratian recordeth Lastly as it is Treason to carry Arms and Ammunition to the Enemy so this principle treacherously betrayes the Protestant Cause and brings Aid to the Popish furnishing them with an Argument to justifie or excuse their private Masses and mutilate Communions if they may be profitable and effectual to spectators of the Sacrament when it is administred as well as to participators And sure if they doe not lend they that use it borrow this Argument from the Pontificians Aut Plato Philonizat aut Philo Platonizat Bellarmine telling us in his Disputes against our opinion of the Sacraments efficacy by exciting Faith and operating by their signification correspondently as the Word doth as in truth many of the Arguments usually urged to disprove the Sacraments to be a converting Ordinance are but feasting us in that Idol-Temple and with part of the sacrifices which Bellarmine hath offered to the God of Ekron that what effect the Sacraments have by signification may be acquired by seeing them administred as well as by partaking and from this principle also he argueth in defence of the Communion in one kinde and with the Popish Heifers have they ploughed that have found out this Riddle and in allusion to the antique mode in founding Cities have turned up this Furrow and drawn this Line where to make a Wall to retrench and keep out from the Communion And perhaps also the Papists putting their private Masses upon the score of the peoples indevotion hath prompted the Apologists and their fellows to lay their comparatively private Communions and the excluding of so many on the account of their unwillingness to come and on their irreverence and hereupon to put the blame for the with holding both kindes from so many as among the Papists they doe for withdrawing one species from all except Priests and Kings save that lately the consecrated Wine is given the Laity in some Countreyes poured out into a Glass which by no meanes is to be drank out of the Chalice that the Priest may have still some privilege and elevation above the people equal to Kings Wherein as in a glass we may see somewhat besides Truth and Godliness doth carry on and biass the wheeles of this kinde of motions That Argument seemes in some false glasses to shew a more colourable face of reason which some have thus painted He that receives worthily is converted already he that partakes unworthily ears and drinks to his damnation not conversion But this is meer painting which will neither abide the fire or tryal nor the light of the Sun and will be defaced by every strong breath that blows upon it But first to seposite and adjourn the consideration that there lies no little weight of Reason and Authority in that scale which propends to think that the unworthiness of him which eats and drinks unto damnation is meant onely of a contrary not privative unworthiness and alone of such as come with a presumptuous irreverence and wilful contempt of the Ordinance and not of those that approach with some sense of their duty reverential esteem of the Mysteries and moral conformity I shall first propound it to be considered whether these be not some of the Weapons or formed by their Pattern wherewith fresh Sophisters use to play at foiles such as those Either a man dyes while he is alive or when he is dead either the Light first enters into a room when it is dark or when it is lightsome either the soul had an existence before it was infused into the body or after and with either of the horns of this Argument they think to push down an Antagonist and make it like a Crocodile to vanquish him which way soever he takes But I shall secondly offer it to be recognized that the Argument is another Dialect of the Language of Ashdod for not onely in analogous manner Bellarmine disputes against the Institution of the Legal Sacrifices for the typical expiation of sinne viz. Either he that offered was just and then needed no such expiatory sacrifice Tom. 4. l. 3. c. 4. S. 10. or unjust and then it could not be available to him and Chamier tells him he might have formed the like Argument against the Eucharist as against the antiquated sacrifices but also the Papists with like artifice argue against justification by Faith that before justification nothing in the natural man can justifie him he being at emnity with God and after he is justified faith cannot do that which is done already and again that no man can believe his sins to be remitted and himself to be accepted as just untill remission of sins and such acceptance be obtained and afterward faith cannot impetrate that which is precedently acquired Thirdly I shall hold it forth to be perpended whether this argument do not lye as directly and will not reach home as fully to dismount the Word also from being a converting Ordinance for that profits not but where it is mixt with faith in the heart and therefore he that hears with faith is converted already he that doth not so findes it the savour of death unto death and not of life unto life Fourthly we grant that he that hears faithlesly and he that communicates unworthily In sensu composito persevering in that state and privation cannot be converted but is condemned already but in sensu diviso he that comes without true faith and unworthy to receive may yet be converted in receiving and be a worthy Receiver and having eaten of that Lamb as St. Chrysostome speakes may be transformed from a Woolf that meat not being changed into the substance of the partakers but changing him that partakes into it self and so this Bread which signifieth the Body of Christ may not onely strengthen or confirm mans heart but in that Blood which the Wine representeth there shall be life Beside the Sacraments are meanes of Grace and therefore to suspend men from the partaking thereof
eat or drank himself yet his speech no more obstructs that drinking than his saying It is finished was incoherent with his dying soon afterward In the one he said he would doe no more what from a little afterward he would not doe in the other he said that was done which waâ— instantly to be done Deodate thereof interprets it thus This is the last meaâ— I shall make with you and notwithstanding this expression he did eat also after the resurrection by a certain dispensation which was not egestatis but potestatis and not to nourish his body but to feed our Faith in his resurrection and of this comestion after he was risen Chrysostom and Beda understand this to be meant untill I drink it new c. To that which Matthew and Mark say That the discovery of the Traytor was as they did eat and Luke speakes of the taking of the Cup after Supper and then followed the detection of the Traytor I answer That as St. Matthew saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they did eat when Christ discoursed of the Traytor verse 21. so he useth the same words at the Institution of the last Supper vers 26. as they were eating Jesus took bread therefore it seems that as they were eating which Matthew useth is not at great difference with after Supper as Luke expresseth it otherwise there could be no Harmony between the Evangelists reconcile therefore the 26 verse of Mathew with that of Luke and the 21. verse will soon come into the same agreement The truth is at the Passeover there were several Suppers or more properly according to our English idiom several courses As now among the modern Jews first the unleavened cakes are set on the Table then the pultiâ—ula or Pap which represents the straw and mortar in Egypt next the acetaria or Sallet of bitter herbs and then lastly the Lambe and discourses or prayers are interposed between the one and other as Buxtorfius relates Synag Judai cap. 13. and therefore the disclosing of the Traytor might be after one Supper and yet as they were eating of another Nevertheless I doe not think that at the first Institution of the last Supper or mention of the Traytor properly and in strictness of Speech any thing was eaten but manducantibus illis is well interpreted by Deodate while they were at the Table and by Maldonat Statim ut coena peracta est antequà m surgerent antequà m mensae ciborum rel quiae removerentur And whereas it is argued that it appears by Matth. 26.23 he that dippeth c. as also by giving the Sop John 13. that they were eating at the time when the Traytor was discours'd of it may be readily answered In locum that the dipping non notat praesentem actum sed consuetudinem as Paraeus Notatur non una certa singularis actio sed agendi consuetudo as Piscator It denoted no present action for that had signally discovered the Traytor without more inquiry of whom yet the Disciples remained ignorant and Judas himself did afterwards aske Is it I but those words did onely obumbrate one of those that usually did eat together with him and Jansenius observes that the Greek in St. Matthew is in the pretertense hath dipped 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though Marke hath it in the present and he addes that our Lord intended not to shew what Judas did at present but to what familiarity he had admitted him that was about to perpetrate such a crime Sylvius in 3. q. 81. art 2. p. 331. not as a signe to discover the Traytor but to exaggerate his treason as Sylvius and it doth not prove that Judas at that time had his hand in the dish more than that David's familiar friend did eat of his bread at that instant when he said he lift up his heele against him Psal 41.9 Of the Sop we shall speak more amply anon But to prevent more altercation about the order of things in the several Evangelists we finde that Judas sate down among the Twelve Apostles who were not twelve without him our Lord gave to his Disciples and they did eat he bad all drink and all did drink where is there any mention of Judas his going forth before all was ended De non apparentibus non existentibus eadem est ratio in lege etiam divina We pursue our Quare impedit and ask what should cause a writ of Ne admittas to be sued forth against Judas who as Maldonat observs had he risen from Table before all had been ended he had bewrayed that treason which he laboured to conceale Here therefore are interposed two Arguments whereof the first seems to be raised de jure that he ought not the other de facto that certainly he did not communicate the first pleads That all those that then did partake of the Sacrament for them Christs body was broken and blood shed and they all were to drink new Wine with him in his Fathers kingdome But neither of these can be verified of Judas Ergo. Hereunto what if I should answer as Calvin doth to that of Matth. 11.21 a response which I confess I have heretofore asmuch acquiesced in as in any other solution rendred either by our Divines or the Dominicans That the Speech of Christ is applyed to the common conceit of mens minds and he speaks after the manner of men that is as men might morally think or judge and not out of his heavenly Sanctuary Themselves say that in case Judas were admitted Christ dealt as a man therein And indeed a man might morally have thought and judged that one of the chosen Apostles conversing so long with Christ taught by him and publickly teaching him and now eating the Passeover and his last Supper with him had his share in the prementioned privileges and then these words can be no more exclusive to Judas at the first Institution than now they be to any reprobate when by a charientisme and according to the judgement of charity like words are used in the subsequent Administrations But I neither will nor need to fix upon or to adhere unto the Answer The rule of Tychonius the Donatist De doctrina Christiana l. 3. tom 3. p. 13. which is the Second of his Seven Rules and which he calls de Domini Corpore bipartito but St. Augustine better names de permixta ecolesia will sufficiently satisfie this Argument viz. Quando Scriptura cùm ad alios jam loquatur tanquam ad eos ipses ad ques loquebatur videtur loqui vel de ipsis cùm de aliis jam loquatur tanquam unum sit utrorúmque corpus propter temporalem cemmixtionem communionem Sacramentorum What agrees to one part is often affirmed of the whole especially when it is the greater part and beside that the Apostles here represented the whole Church and that Christ in some respect interpretatively at least tasted death for every man propter susceptam communem
concernment can it hâ—ld with duty to take Physick enforced upon them when they are not sick and to receive a Salve that is proper for another sore that which may be a wholesome medicine for curing a disease in one may cause it in another this may be a proper recipe for an ignorant person but renders a man of knowledge interpretatively ignorant like as Myrth stops a bleeding vein makes a sound to bleed and Trifolium laid to a wound made by a Viper heals it but put to whole flesh causeth the same pain that the stinging of a Viper doth What obligation of duty can it have to give proof of that which cannot be doubted to satisfie those that are already convinced and to translate the Stage into the Church making some Histrionically to personate that which they are not and a knowing man to play the part of an ignorant only for a shew and in a kind of pageant And the Marcionites who used to give Baptisme to men after they were dead that had not received it in their life and set one under the bed to answer interrogatories for him might have defended their pageant which Chrysostom and Epiphanius so deride with this specious pretence that it served to set forth the necessity of Baptisme in respect of the Precept and to excite others that were alive to partake it as well as the Catechizing of men grounded in and approved for knowledge is here supported by this counterfeit colour that it conduceth to supple others that may need to undergo this tryal They cannot by overmuch Charity be prodigal of Church Priviledges and therein of Christs blood Aquinas 22. q. 119. art 3. I shall not remember them that it is determined not only in the Ethicks but in the School that the Covetous man is more deteriorate than the prodigal and that upon this score of reason because prodigality is beneficial to many and more approximate to liberality a more plausible and endearing habit and more easily to be rectified though these circumstances perchance might not ineptly be applyed to this case but I shall first deny that there is any inordination of giving beyond the measure of reason to whom and for what and as it ought not for time place or manner which carries the definition of prodigality when the Sacrament is exhibited to those that are not cast out for notorious wickedness but is rather an act of justice as it respects their debt and of charity as it regards anothers good and to prove this this whole discourse is a medium 2. It seems then that Baptisme is no Church privilege Dr. Morton Cathol appeal for Protest l. 2. c. 22. sect 15. p. 108. and that Ambrose affirming that in Baptisme there is the invisible blood of Christ and Augustine saying that every one Baptised before he eat of the Bread of the Eucharist is notwithstanding by vertue of Baptisme partaker of the body and blood of Christ were both grosly mistaken though our Divines have alleaged those testimonies against the Papists to shew the Fathers spake the same of the Sacramental Element of Water which they did of those Bread and Wine Or else in Baptizing all the Infants of their Congregations they have a commission to be prodigal only of such Church privileges and of Christs blood also in such manner as they shall think fit and expedient and as it shall be subservient to their ends and interests 3. Not to insist on here what hath been considered elsewhere how farre the partaking of the word and prayers is a Church-privilege yet the blood of Christ is as well held forth and offered to us in the word preached as in those visible and tangible words the Sacrament and we drink the blood of Christ when we hear his word as Origen expresseth it it is the same thing in both though in a different manner as hath been formerly demonstrated Paul was jealous and afraid Diodat Annot. in utrumque locum In locum Ardenter vos in Deum depereo Menoc annot in loc yet not uncharitable Paul had indeed a jealous care of the Corinthians 2 Cor. 11.2 but it was not so much a distrust as a desire to keep them in union with Christ Ambio vos Dei zelotypia metaphora à zelo parauymphi pro gloria sponsi salute sponsae saith Piscator non patier aemulos pseudo-apostolos qui vos quasi virginem meam ambiunt as A Lapide and consonantly Aquinas and Estius and Ostendit saith Calvin cur desipiat gloriando nam hominem zelotypia quasi transversum rapit and he was afraid of the Galatians Gal. 4.11 for declarat pro iis suam solicitudinem saith Estius and solicitudo is onely rationabile sludium ad aliquid consequendum but let it be properly fear which is any expectation of an impendent evill or ex imaginatione futuri mali corruptivi 〈◊〉 dolorem inserentis perturbatio quadam ac dolor there was evident ground and cause sufficient for such a fear and we do not dream that a just fear cannot be compatible with charity but nevertheless that fear did onely move to an admonition or reproof and there did rest it did not transport him to divine of their estate and suspend them from the Sacrament we impugne not all doubtings or suspitions of others if the signes from whence they result be not light nay we have conceived that in order to cautell or admonition for avoiding a detriment or applying a remedy even doubtful things may be interpreted in the worst part Silvius in 22. q. 60. art 4. p. 317. not definitively judgeing another to be ill but suppositively fearing he may be such and demeaning themselves externally in these respects as if he were such for such acts neither are nor include a judgement of another as evill but involve onely a judgement that they ought to be cauâ—ious and wary and tender of them but we only limit prescribe them to abstain from what may be defamatory and poenall for else they will goe farther than the Apostles example or any line of Scripture will reach or extend unto What they say of the Angel of the Church of Ephesus his trying some we have elswhere made triall of and shewed it can be no Angel tutclar for them or their course Charity they say is not blind but sure it is so dul-sighted in nothing as in prying into and censuring other mens faults and especially their state and condition it hath eyes clear from all vitiating humors which receive the species according to their tinctures and dispositions it hath no close nor contracted pupill whereby according to the Opticks mens faults seem bigger than they are but large and dilated whereby they rather appear less and is contrariwise affected toward their graces They are not bound to hope contrary to their knowledge and experience then it seems they have broken the bands in sunder that Charity laid on them for it is the property and Eulogy thereof to
but doubtingly For whereas it may be answered that it is enough to act with the judgment of Charity and to go as far as that can lead and direct I shall reply That Charity is very incompetent to hold the Beam when things are to be waighed out in the Scales of Justice and with à suum cuique tribuere Charity presumeth all are good that are not manifestly evil interprets all doubtful things concerning persons in the better part and judgeth aliorum bona certa meliora certa mala minora bona dubia certa dubia mala nulla which though it exalt the excellency of the virtue absolutely yet it shews it is not respectively fit to be a just Judge which must be impartial and by what signs soever he may seek to make judgment the possibility of being deceived will render him still pendulous and doubtful whether those signs be certain or his disquisition and deliberation sufficient and besides if any shall say that they admit none that are manifestly wicked but such onely as being closely and secretly such cannot be discerned to be hypocrites I shall answer them as Augustine did Cresconius Contra Cresc l. 2. c. 23 24 26. Tom. 7. p. 47.49 Cur conaberis occultum excipere peccatorem quem Scriptura non excipit non ait oleum manifesti peccatoris sed absolute oleum peccatoris Nec qui Baptizatur à mortuo manifesto sed absolute à mortuo ita nec occultus excipitur quo evertitur omne quod loquer's so in like manner they are unregenerate absolutely such to whom the priviledges of the godly are to be denyed and not occult unregenerate men onely 3. Why is the one Sacrament more the priviledge of the godly As cited by Bede on 1 Cor. 10. and often by Chamier v. g. Tom. 4. S. 11. c. 5. Sect. 27. or more makes those Saints to whom it is exhibited then the other Are they not both alike equally Seals of the Covenant of Grace and is not the Eucharist the renewing of that Covenant which was formerly made by us or others for us in Baptisme Et institutio paria et significatio similia et finis facit aequalia It is no ways to be doubted saith Augustine that every one of the faithful doth partake of the body and blood of Christ when by Baptisme he is made a member of Christ They administer the Sacrament of Baptisme to Infants of whose sanctity they can have no prognosticks and of whose Parents holiness they have no Diagnostick signs to tell me that other qualifications are more requisite to the one Sacrament then the other is nihil ad rhombum that is not now our subject matter but whether if the Sacrament of the Eucharist be imparted to any that give not satisfactory testimony of grace the priviledges of the godly be prostituted and if so why then it should not hold alike in the other Sacrament of Baptisme also truly as all the Rivers run into the Sea from whence chiefly they are derived so let the Learned perpend Whether these conclusions that seem to tend and lead thereunto Advers Anabapt l. 6. c. 9 p. 229. did not first flow from the principles of Anabaptisme that great Abysse of modern Heresies though perchance as Rivers they may seem at first to run a quite contrary course from the Sea and to move so silently that none can discern their motion thitherward Post doctrinam de caena domini scrupulosè quaerunt Anabaptistae saith Bullinger quorum causâ instituta sit et quibus danda est ac multa de separatione dicunt atque hac ratione caeâ—am domini amabilem et gaudio plenam horribilem tristem faciunt ac aditum ad eam adeo coarctant ut pii quoque homines ab ea abhorreant et eam potius fugiant quà m accedant And as a straight Line drawn out in length is weak and cannot be strengthned but by being re-doubled and bowed back again whereby it draws neer to the nature of a circular Line which is more strong by the support which each part yieldeth to another so let it also be considered by the Senate of the Learned for these points need rather Oedipus then Davus whether the Apologists can be true and firm to their principle of admitting none to the one Sacrament as being the proper priviledge of the godly without satisfactory tokens of godliness unless they also suspend Infants from the other until they grow into a capacity of giving such marks and demonstrations and also whether they can exclude the Parents from the one Sacrament without rejecting their Children from the other since the Parents Faith is the ground of claim to the Child and if a Dogmatical Faith and External Profession cannot entitle the Parent to the Eucharist whether can it give the Child a right to Baptisme since quod facit tale debet esse magis tale But for my part were I convinced of the truth of these principles of the Apologists I should have strong tentations to turn Anabaptist and doubt I could not else be true to them or maintain them This may also pertinently serve to blank or founder their Hackney Argument that the seal is to set a blank and false testimony that is given by a promiscuous admission for when the Sacrament the seal of Faith is administred to those that are not true Believers the seal is set to testifie and confirm that truth of sacred Writ If thou believe thou shalt be saved which is the compendium and abstract of the Covenant This promise is made to unbelievers though it be the object of Faith but the thing promised which is the appropriate object of Hope is not to be acquired by any that performs not the condition Besides not onely by the rule of contraries nor alone by an equal accommodation of that rule in interpreting the Laws Praeceptum faciens includit praeceptum non faciens Mark 16.16 and therefore consequently the promise made to doing implies the threat against not doing but even in terms it is exprest that as he that believes shall be saved so he that believeth not shall be damned and therefore the Sacraments being seals of the Covenant as they confirm and ascertain the mercy to the faithful partakers so do they the judgement to the unfaithful receiver and therefore never is the seal set to a blank to whomsoever applied for somewhat of holy writ is still sealed either salvation or damnation according to the performance of the condition or not as the same Deed or Writing sealed and delivered may according to Covenants contain a grant and confirmation of a right and estate upon condition of some services and upon default thereof that right and estate to be forfeited and a mulct or penalty to be then incurred and he to whom the Original is sealed may seal back his counterpart and oblige himself to observe the condition before he have performed it and though perchance afterward he break
explicit and express promise and engagement to God to endevour to attain what we pray for to glorifie God with all which we obtain by prayer to observe his will that is pleased to accept the representation of ours and to turn that verbal praise which we give him into real by glorifying him by our religious lives and complying with our vows and verifying our professions of service without all which prayer becomes nothing but a mockery of God But do not wicked men in all this flatter him with their mouth Psal 78.36 and lye unto him with their tongues and if then men must be suspended from the Sacrament until they approve their holiness to the satisfaction of the Church lest otherwise they make an hypocritical engagement and false promise it seems to me to follow that upon the same account they ought not to be admitted to prayers Neither are or ought men to be Saints onely in order to the Sacrament and not to other Ordinances and if they must be rejected from the Sacraments till they give convincing signes of their sanctity because all that are admitted to joyn in this highest act of Church-Communion as they stile it ought de jure to be Saints it seems to me that till they render such signs they ought to be excluded altogether from all Church-Communion and to be accounted as Heathens and Publicans and no members at all of the visible Church for the Church and Saints by calling signifie the same thing and all ought to be Saints that are of the Church Lastly I may not deny that through an accidental abuse which may not prejudice things good in themselves wicked men may be facil to flatter and indulge themselves with a good conceit of their condition though sinful or an hope of their impunity in their evils because of their participation of the Sacraments It seems by what St. Paul delivers 1 Cor. 10. the Corinthians are an exemplary instance hereof being guilty of the like presumption and security But what way of cure doth the Apostle use to prevent or remedy the malady Truly not Empyrick-like straightway to take the knife in hand and fall to cutting oft for he doth not tell them that therefore all ought to be suspended beside manifest Saints but he proceeds dogmatically and to expel and correct the errour of the Corinthians which also lets out the vital blood and spirits of this Paradox of the Apologists he better doth instruct and principle them shewing that the Sacraments which were common to good and evil men could give no privilege to sinne nor protection from punishment For quemadmodum tu comedis corpus Christi sic illi Manna quomodo tu bibis sanguinem Homil. 18. in 2 Cor. In locum Calvin Instit l. 2. c. 10. Sect. 5. p. 148. Aquinas Justinian Estius Lapide c. English late Annot. Chamier to 4. l. 3. c. 2. p. 55. stc illi aquam ex petra saith Chrysostome The Fathers did all eat the same spiritual meat and drink the same spiritual drink the same non in symbolis seu signis sed significatione seu re significatâ as Piscator iisdem quoque symbolis illustrem inter eos gratiam suam reddiderit the same cum nobis with us not onely the same among themselves inter se as the Papists would have it for that would take off the energy of the Apostles argument whose scope being ut ostendat quòd sicut illis non profuit quòd tantum donum sunt assecuti ita nec his quòd consequuti sunt baptismum spiritualia perceperint mysteria nisi sint ostensuri vitam dignam gratiâ in the words of Chrysostome wherein not onely all Protestants concurre but even many Pontificians themselvs therefore ut apta esset comparatio oportuit oftendere nihil esse inaequalitatis inter nos ipsos in iis bonis quibus falsè gloriari vetabat Ergo pares in Sacramentis non facit nec ullam praerogativam nobis relinquit saith Calvin and therefore in illa comparatione rem eandem significatam esse fundamentum comparandi nulla consequentia si compararentur inaequalia aut dissimilia nam si res impar Ibid. c. 1. in promptu exceptionem esse futuram Periisse Israelitas non participes beneficiorum quorum nobis Sacramenta sunt addes Chamier and the drift of the Apostle here is to compare those Sacramental Types in the old Law with the two Sacraments in the new and that in two respects First for the same nature or substance of mysteries in both and secondly Mede Diatr p. 556. Chamier Tom. 4. l. 3. c. 1. for the same condition of the receivers if either they abuse them or walk unworthy of them saith a late judicious Writer They were therefore the same spiritual meat and drink in re as Chamier non in modo rei their Sacraments praefigurativè ours rememorativè and ours having ex ampliore revelationis modo gratiam uberiorem as Calvin non in specie visibili sed virtute spirituali in signis diversis eadem fides as Augustine and out of him Anselm there being discrepantia in signis In Joh. Tract 26. 45. Tom. 9. convenientia in re significata as Paraeus their 's being antitypes of ours signs of the same things ut apud Graecos Grammaticos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sunt elementa quorum idem sonus tempus deversum as Chamier and so this was the same meat and spiritual drink too because spirituale aliquod significans Ut supra as Augustine and Piscator figura spiritualis as Sa quia in symbolum significationem spiritualium as Salmeron quatenus habuerint rationem Sacramenti adds Piscator So then however these were Sacramenta extraordinaria transitoria temporaria yet being the same with ours or else Christ is not ours for that Rock was Christ the same with ours in use end and effect and operating Tom. 4. c. 9. p. 36. saith Ames eodem genere non gradu efficaciae and agreeing with ours omnibus iis capitibus quae sunt de natura Sacramenti as Chamter and therefore the Fathers receiving the Sacramental Communication of the body and blood of Christ indeed Confut. Rhem. Test. in 1 Cor. 10.3 Willet contr 11. q. 2. p. 544. as not onely Fulk and Willet but the whole Protestant Host of the living God do contend yet many of them God was not well pleased with some whereof were Idolaters Fornicators Murmurers did lust did tempt Christ yet the same spiritual meat and drink was received by all Sacramentally though effectually onely by believers the spiritual thing by the good alone the Elements which were spiritual in their signification by evil men also And thereupon likewise I hope it will seem evident to unprejudiced and unbiassed men that the Sacraments are not onely communicable to such as have given positive signs and demonstrations of Holiness There are such answers given to the Argument drawn from
implicit Faith even of the death and resurrection of Christ as appeares John 20.9 and Luk. 9.44 45. and 24.7 8. neither doe we finde they had any other preparatory instruction concerning the Nature and ends of the Sacrament save what was collected from the words of Institution which we propound not as a sufficient extent of our knowledge or that we should content our selves with such a measure but as a restraint upon their rigor and that they should accept a lesse stint than what they exact But notwithstanding if some are weak in knowledge it is no unlikely way to improve it by frequent partaking of the Sacrament where the great mystery of the redemption of the World by the death of Christ is so sensibly shewed forth so as to suspend men because of their meane knowledge is as if they should deny them the meanes because they have not fully attained the end and if profession of Faith may serve in lieu of examination as the Apologists insinuate the very comming to the Sacrament and partaking thereof is a kinde of reall profession of Faith And Aquinas tells us Addit ad 3. q. 5. ar 2. Durand 4. d. 17. q. 14. Loc. com part 4. p. 194. Sacramenta sunt quaedam protestationes fidei or signa protestativa fidei as Durand an owning of Christ externally and engaging to beleeve in him they profess their Faith as touching the body of Christ nailed upon the Cross and his blood shed for their salvation saith Peter Martyr confession being to be made with outward actions not onely with the mouth And if any orall and explicite confession was thought fit to be made it was onely the joyning in the publick repeating of the Apostolique Creed which in the Easterne Churches usually preceded the Sacrament and therefore in the third Councell of Toledo it was decreed Cano. ◠Ante communicationem corporis Christi sanguinis juxta Orientalium partium morem unanimiter clarâ voce sacratissimum fidei recenseant Symbolum ut primùm populi quam credulitatem teneant fateantur Besides the adding Amen to the words of Consecration wherewith saith Ambrose the Elements were delivered quibus singulis vescentes confessionem fidei suae addebant respondentes Amen Chemnitius saith was a profession of the Faith Exam. Trid. Concil part 2. p. 107. Idem p. 111 112. and the same learned Man addes that therefore in Festis solennioribus tota multitudo ad majores Basilicas conveniebat ibi solennis quaedam Communio celebrabatur Ut quisque publicâ professione ostenderet se esse membrum ecclesiae and this he saith was enacted to be done by the Agathense Councell where observe that he speakes of tota multitudo not five of five hundred and so many at these times convened that one Church could not containe them and Leo prescribes that therefore sacrificii oblatio reiteretur and sure every mans proper reason will dictate to him how impossible it was that in such a confluence there could be a triall of every mans knowledge and holiness which could neither be perfectly known to them that in such manner administred De re Sacrament l. 2. p. 52. Hospinian speaking of the solemne communions upon the greater festivals tells us Nec malo consilio haec solennis communio instituta fuit sed ut hac publicâ professione declararent se esse membra verae ecclesiae admonerentur sicut unus est panis ita multos se unum corpus esse atque hoc modo consensus in doctrina fide retinerentur So when Erastus objected that sinners were called to the Sacrifices Beza answers Such sinners as testified their repentance by their sacrificing and if to sacrifice were a profession of repentance then to come to the Communion by the same proportion of reason is a profession of Faith and the Priest might have as rationally examined the truth of the Sacrificers repentance which he did not but charitably judged of the sincerity of his heart by the offerings of his hands as the Minister may now make research into the knowledge of Faith of the receiver § 10 And at the Passover the antitype and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Lords Supper and the same in substance with it as themselves affirm we have not the least Evidence that there was but there are Arguments that there could be no such examination of the partakers Rivet Gerhard for though the owner had brought the Lambe to the Courts of the Temple to be killed by the Priests which the Learned deny yet it was eaten at home by the whole Family to whom the Master taught the end and use thereof but called none to account what understanding they had of that or any other mysteries Let them if they think it expedient and will afford the pains to do it examine men also of their aptness to profit by the word and of their proficiency thereby but as if men decline and will not come under such examination we cannot allow them to shut them out from hearing the Word so neither can we permit them to exclude all from the Sacrament that conform not to be examined in antecedency thereunto Yet if the Apologists would onely bring us all under the necessity of an unlimited examination of our knowledge to have peace with them we might be content interpretatively to put out our right eye and subject our selves to a suspicion of our ignorance But Ad populum phaleras Ego te intus in cute novi A satisfaction concerning mens knowledge and verbal examination in order thereunto is not onely nor principally contended for by them nor alone or chiefly questioned by us They insist on it to be satisfied of their Holiness and without real proof thereof they admit none to fellowship in the Sacraments which they tell us are the privileges onely of the Godly This is that Helena that chiefly sets us all at War and hath kindled those flames they suppose that to be a Church-member with a dogmatical faith gives not a right of being admitted to the Sacrament or is the Directory for them to admit him Neither is a negative holiness sufficient to be free of scandal but he must give positive signs of sound grace nor that it is enough they have nothing against him he must shew some evidence for himself of real holiness it avails not that they know nothing to the contrary they must have farther satisfaction they grant not that every intelligent member of the visible Church hath a right till he have forfeited it but allow no title till he have pleaded and approved it by some evidence that he is a member of the invisible Church They repel not men for notorious Crimes nor in any formal judicial way of Censure but because they are not satisfied concerning them or they have not merited their good opinion Nay I would particularly instance in some that after admission have been laid aside not for want of grace
read it with Gregory and Bede's Spectacles wherewith they saw things that had no existence or else met with it in the Gospel of the Hebrews the Acts of Paul and Tecla the Epistle to the Laodiceans or the Acts of St. John according to Cerinthus Here the Apostle mentions no tryal by others for two Reasons First because the Corinthians to whom he speakes were newly admitted to Church-fellowship by profession of their Faith and needed not to be called to this again but in our Church true discipline hath been neglected and many are unfit I have formerly superseded this answer and shewed the impertinency thereof and shall not actum agere onely since they know that we cannot swallow what they offer without chewing it they should have brought some proof that the Corinthians did make such a profession of their Faith as they require in order to admission to the Sacrament for we finde cause to doubt that there was no such discipline practised in the first times since when three thousand were baptized in one day and added to the Church we cannot imagine it facible that every one of them should make such an explicite verbal profession as they require and there could not sure be such an Evidence of the ability of all those Corinthians that they should be all taken to be such Disciples as they say are not to be examined but the profession of their Faith is sufficient But since the Corinthians were so ignorant not convinced of the Resurrection and so criminous as the Epistle chargeth them to be if yet upon self-examination the Apostle permits them to communicate that liberty cannot rationally be denyed to those who doubtless are not so culpable as they were The Precept Let a man examine himself is universal and catholique and why then should the permission to communicate upon self-examination be peculiar onely to those Corinthians at that time and so to separate what God by St. Paul hath joyned together To restrain and limit Divine Rules to particular times or persons without cogent circumstances sets open a desperate way to evade the force of Arguments deduced from Scripture and to betray or make breaches in the Fortress of Faith and though the Apologists to escape out of a presont strait 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to serve a turn take that way yet when they have soberly re-minded themselves they will finde this path leads to a precipice and that hence some may take the advantage and encouragement to tell them that Excommunication was onely a temporary discipline in joyned while the Church wanted a secular Magistrate If some in our Churches may be suspected to be unfit it may perchance be fit to bring them under tryal by examination but why paucorum crimen should be attended with paena in omnes and the unfitness of some should introduce a necessity of examining all I am not acute enough to discern the consequence 2. The Apostle here eys Christs performances with his Disciples whom he needed not to examine being known to him We are fully reconciled to this assertion that the Apostle reflected upon the actions of Christ as his pattern and delivered onely what he had received of the Lord but then it seems that neither in what he received nor what he delivered is any the least hint of any other save self-examination Cranmer Defence true and Cathol doct of Sacram p. 5. And then the Morning Star of our English Reformation having explicated what the Evangelists and St. Paul in this 1 Cor. 11. have left written of the Institution concludes That things spoken done by Christ and written by the Holy Evangelists and St. Paul ought to suffice the Faith of Christian people as touching the doctrine of the Lords Supper and Holy Communion or Sacrament of his body and blood as Cyprian had long before assured us that in sacrificio quod Christus obtulit non nisi Christus sequendus est so that we are safe enough if we beleeve and practice so much as either in the Evangelists describing Christs Institution of the Sacrament or St. Paul repeating and explaining it and directing to the right administration and due receiving thereof we finde to have been done or prescribed and we may hope sooner to finde pardon for not advancing beyond what we have their example or precept for than they can to obtain excuse for seeking to lead us farther If the Apostles needed not to be examined because known to Christ then without examination mens fitness may be manifested and such as are known need no farther tryal but if the Apologists would condescend to be as gently and familiarly conversant with their people as Christ was with his Disciples perhaps they might have as much knowledge of them also or infuse so much knowledge into them as to prevent and fore-stall examination Yet according to their model the Apostles howsoever ought to have made a publick profession of their Faith though they were not obnoxious to examination And if they tell us in earnest that for example sake those whose knowledge is elevated above suspicion yet ought to submit to examination I hope they will yeeld there had been far more reason for our Saviour whose practice was to be our pattern and whose example was to pass into a Law to have examined his Disciples though he actively or they passively needed it not yet because we needed it as a standing influential example since that being the first administration in that kinde was to be the rule measure of all to follow And surely it is not easily imaginable that where professedly the Institution is recorded by the Evangelists and repeated by the Apostle with directions for the fit reception of the Sacrament that there being the proper seat of such Doctrine there should be no one word of previous tryal and that it should else-where hang upon a long chain of consequences and by several distillations be extracted from such places of Scripture where is no mention at all of the Sacrament or any preparation thereunto The celebrious name of Zanchy is mentioned not to reflect light but to raise a cloud for they neither produce his words nor direct us where we may take view of them If none of these Reasons were of weight as they cannot but sense enough to distrust for sure they will not turn those very scales at Sedan which Capellus tells us would break with the four hundreth part of a grain yet why may not examination of Pastors and Church Officers stand with that of a mans self these being not contrary but subordinate and the Precept being not exclusive Let a man examine c They are so accustomed to ignoratio elenchi that it is passed into their nature we doe not say those two are so contrary as to be incompatible nor argue that because one is injoyned the other is excluded but we reason thus that the liberty of communicating onely upon self-examination granted by St. Paul so let him eat cannot
may as effectually be urged and accommodated to frustrate the necessity of their pre-examination since all the particulars are involved in and may be collected out of the general and out of one principle may several conclusions be extracted and applyed to divers subjects And whatsoever plausible reasons or specious pretences they can muster to elude the force and energy of this Argument and notwithstanding the liberty granted by the Apostle to maintain their probation as necessary the same or the like doe and may the Papists muster to support the necessity of confession To the third Paraeus indeed owns the words they cite and the Paper runs not discord with them which disallows not but supposeth pre-examination may be requisite as an act of prudence ad hic nunc in order to particular persons who may rationally be suspected to be of incompetent knowledge but not as an universal and unlimited Empire over all with power to make re-search of their lives and the signes of saving grace in them as well as disquisition of their knowledge and intellectual gifts Paraeus hath no spice that relisheth of this and if his sense were not as we have interpreted we must dosiderare Paraeum in Paraeo and the weapon he hath sharpned against the Papists would be turned upon himself for if he think it required of the Minister to make probation of all how can it hold coherence with that which he saith Estque doctrina generalis de legitima salutari usu Sacramenti probatio sui praecedat postea veniatur ad sacrum hoc epulum non dicit Apostolus sacerdotes probent explorent communicantes sed quisque probet seipsum And though he approve of some kinde of examination yet he would have it such from which absit tyrannis superstitio ducantur afflictae conscientiae ad Christi corpus sanguinem And though we shall suspend to asperse tyranny or superstition on their way yet we are convinced to say it is out of the way of drawing men to the Sacrament of Christs body and blood and rather drives them from it And though examination may in some respects and circumstances be requisite yet Paraeus warrants not that it is so necessary necessitate medii aut praecepti as if it be not practised or cannot conveniently be effected that either the Ordinance may be suspended from administration or any from partaking They think it hinted that their probation hath risen out of the ashes of auricular confession and we cannot dissemble that we conceive those ashes to have improved their grounds and that out of those ashes they have made glass for this Prospective for that they have built upon the same foundation and propt their Fabrick with the same but tresses we have evidenced out of Valentia whereof they have I suppose more out of cautness than contempt or negligence taken no notice and in like manner as Bellarmine Lorinus and others argue from Levit. 13.5 for proof of confession so do they also dispute for their examination and I might adde that as they conclude because persons ignorant are to be excluded therefore they must examine all or else they cannot make judgment of their knowledge so both Bellarmiue and Vasquez pleading for the necessity of confession Bell. de paenit l. 3. c. 2. p. 231 Vasquez in 3. q. 90. art 1. dub 2. p. 184. say the Priest is to judge who ought to have absolution without which none can have admission to the Sacrament but neque sacerdotes judicare possunt nisi peccata cogno cant incognitâ causâ non potest fieri judicium But though confession and examination are pitch'd upon the same ground and perchance have the same prospect and after look the same way v.z. toward power and greatness yet we never said they were in all things of the same model and form of building and therefore they might have superseded their Parergon and spared supervacaneously to shew us the differences between their probation and Popish Confession though Amasis his famous Basin and Idol were formed of the same mettal it doth not follow that they must have been of the same figure As the Arguments rallied for their probation are to my sense and I hope to make it evident to others as loose and wanton as those the Papists arrang for Confessions and some of them are the same as that of making judgment of and shutting up the Leper and theirs of Jehoshapha's Porters weighs just as much as that of the Papists concerning God's asking Cain where his brother was so auricular Confession hath as specious prerences of Reformation and Godliness to usher and attend it as they can palliate their examination with which is oftentimes if not always auricular too and acted by themselves alone in private as besides the disposing for the Sacrament that it must needs give a bridle to sinne and a stirrop to holiness and perfection when a man takes so frequent a survey of his actions and passions censuring them with grief confessing with shame curing by counsel and expiating with punishment and redeeming with resolution to offend no more Confession was first onely publick recognition for publick scandals and then inlarged and extended to private sins but voluntarily undertaken not imposed of Consilium Ecclesiasticum it becaine at length Praeceptum Ecclesiae then injoyned for all sins quoad substantiam at length quoad circumstantias and confession as Luther calls it degenerated into carnificinam cruentissimam conscientiarum and this was that prisca servitus whereunto Musculus feared this examination was like to reduce us The Keys at length got new Wards and instead of opening Consciences were used to unlock Cabinets and Kingdoms and they that carryed them hereby became Masters of the house and kept all men under their girdle by the keys that hung at it The Presbyterians profess they examine none but children but some of ours of that notion spread and dilated their examination to all though adult in knowledge as well as years The Independents enlarge and extend this tryal to their lives and gracious conversation not onely to exclude them for the scandal of notorious sins Bayley Disswas c. 7. but not to admit them without approved signs of Holiness and to reject them not onely ob evidentiam juris aut facti but upon suspicion And lastly that which was at first onely commended as adjumental to Godliness is now become as it were the form thereof giving the name and essence thereunto for let a man walk harmless and blameless without rebuke yet if he walk not with them in this way he is but a morral man onely and hath not yet commenced religious as if it might be said of this discipline as St. Augustine speaks of discretion tolle hanc virtus vitium erit and an inconformity thereunto were like the slaying of Callisthenes to Alexander a blasting of all graces or an alloy to all endowments But nevertheless this new Light makes all to
Churches that they may better suspend their people which hath some affinity with Caligula's wish That the whole City of Rome had but one neck that he might cut it off at once to take so much pains to justifie and defend their suspending of so many as unfit when as he said to his Son encountring with his Enemy Percute qua aratrum the same labour might have made the most of them fit and however they shall be fitted yet to give them no admission or entrance but onely by stepping over their threshold which they have set up by Gods threshold he that shall deny that this is to be carefull to exclude and keep men from the Sacrament and as Alcibiades perswaded Pericles to be studious rather not to give than to give an account so that this is to be more solicitous not to give than to give the Sacrament he hath been bred up in Anaxagoras his School where in defiance of sense it was denied that the Snow was white and if I should do it I should doubt that even for this I should come too near the danger of incurring some of Chrysostome's stigmatical Epithites Chrysostome was ere while as full as they could wish now he is fulsom and their stomaces cannot digest an argument collected from his words They very calmly and with silence let pass the greatest and most forcible part of the testimony and onely pick a quarrel to the application of one piece thereof Chrysostome had said that he that stands by and not communicates is wicked shameless and impudent And the Paper thence modestly as it could offered it to be considered by arguing à pari if not à fortiori where or upon whom that censure would fall or how it would be-reversed if those that stand by and would yet shall not be suffered to participate hereupon Ignescunt irae duris dolor ossibus haeret They take this shaft into their sides as if aimed at them and complain of the wound and indeed cùm vitia incessimus reum ira manifestat but I shall say with St. Hierom Neminem specialiter meus sermo pulsavit Tom. 1. ep 2. ad Nepol c. 26. qui mihi irasci voluerit priùs ipse de se quòd talis sit confitebitur As our Saviour told the Jews That not he but Moses accused them so it was not I but Chrysostome that laid the censure and leaves it not on them but ex Hypothesi upon supposition they do that which he censureth it was he that delivered the Law as the major if their conscience become the witness against them in the case and make up the minor for the conclusion let any man be judg I could not borrow a nail from that Master of the Assemblies as the words of the wise are called and not drive it to the head nor bring forth and onely shew the weapon and not strike with it nor make it like Thebes when Epaminondas was slain a spear that had no head or point If they shall prompt me how I might apply the words to make them argumentative in any more modest or candid manner I shall be very docible to write after their copy and excuse and expunge my former characters or Ut Lugdunensem dicturus Rhetor ad aram My tongue shall lick out and make amends for the blots of my Pen. But noise and outcries whatsoever some Nations imagine will not help an Eclipse As in Tophet they set up a loud sound and raised clamours to drown the cry of the dying childe so perchance they keep this ratling about thatwhich seems to pinch the credit of their persons onely to drown the sound of that blow which-mortally wounds their cause for what was transcribed out of Chrysostome That he which was unworthy of the Eucharist was also unworthy of the prayers this they take no notice of like weak souls that wink when they are put in fear and think the danger lessened which they see not And this though his words seem yet to be the sense of the whole Church which did conclude all her publick and solemn prayers with the receiving of the Sacrament so as Albaspinus tells us De vet eccles rit l. 1. obs 16. p. 124. Mede Christian Sacrif Sect. 1. p. 475. Vix repories quenquam eo i. solenniter usum esse nisi ad Eucharistiam significandam As we vocally conclude all our prayers through Jesus Christ our Lord so saith Mr. Mede the ancient Church in the solemn and publick service when she presented her self before God as one body did visibly by representing him in the Symboles of his Body and Bloud he being thereby commemorated and received by them and us to the same end for which he suffered that through him we receiving forgiveness of sins God might accept our persons and prayers The Stations which were but dimidiata jesunia Fasts extended to the ninth hour and not prolonged usque ad authoritatem demorantis stellae in Tertullian's Idiom and which he tells us had their name from the example of Souldiers whose standing to watch before the Palace being called Stations I. 1. obs 14. p. 101. gave the like appellation to the Christians coming together twice a week and continuing together in prayer for defence of the Church and to impetrate Gods favour those Stations being as Albaspinus describes them Nihil aliud quam coitio ac veluti conjuratio totius ecclesiae contra Deum and whereby as Tertullian speaks quasi manu facta eo Deum perpellebant adi gebántque ad id quod obnixè peterent concedendum But those Stations were always concluded with the Eucharist as the close and upshot thereof In the fifty days betwixt Easter and Whitsunday L. 1. obse 15. p. 106 108 a time of more solemn prayers and which Albaspinus affirms to equal the Lords day in Worship and Religion every particular Christian saith he most sweetly was compelled and enforced to receive the Eucharist Besides they had no other place where they offered the publick prayers but that whereon the memory of Christ's Body and Bloud was celebrated and even as in the Old Testament where they called on the Name of the Lord there they still built an Altar and their Sacrifices were Rites whereby to invocate God as may be collected from 1 Sam. 13.12 So in the swadling of the Christian Church Breaking of Bread or as the Syriack reades the breaking of the Eucharist and prayers are conjoyned and both referred to their Christian fellowship as the Exegesis thereof shewing wherein the Communion of the Church consisted so as therefore whosoever was of the body of the Church did both partake of the Prayers and of the Altar and who was divided from the one had no benefit of the other as Mr. Mede produceth Ignatius to witness Pag. 494. and it was morally impossible that those which were received as competent for a conjunction in the former could be rejected as incapable of Communion in the later
promises though with some more particular and appropriate application upon performance of the condition Chamier Tom. 4. l. 2. c. 9. S. 18 Easdem res confirmare quae prius erant solis verbis conceptae est enim ea signorum natura ut quae Diplomata in membranis sunt fiant efficaciora sortianturque effectum suum Sacraments having some analogy with an Oath wherewith God confirms the promise willing more abundantly to shew unto the Heirs thereof the immutability of his counsel non suam naturam spectans sed nostram infirmitatem and therefore Paraeus calls our Sacraments In Hebr. c. 6. v. 17. p. 888. God's visible Oaths as the very words saith he manifests for Lawyers call a solemn Oath a Sacrament and therefore they are Gods Oaths in confirmation of his Promises Si verbum meum non sufficit ecce signum do addes Chrysostome but then even in confirming Faith objectivè they consequently not onely strengthen but beget Faith subjectively as a Seal in confirming the Writing begets a beleef of the validity of the assurance and so are meanes of Conversion producing a firmer assent to the truth of those Promises which before were not effectually laid hold of Dico sacramenta saith Chamier esse notiora efficaciora fidei faciendae Ubi supra S. 24. p. 42. observe he saith faciendae non tantùm confirmandae ipsa promissione codem modò quo sigilla regia sunt notiora â—fficaciora ipso diplomate nimirum quia solent apud nos esse cognitiora certioraque quae in oculos cadunt quà m quae auribus admoventur As then he that is not satisfied with a bare single promise may credit an oath and then that oath is properly the means whereby he is perswaded into a beleef and as when a naked Writing is not held a good Conveyance until it become a Deed sealed and delivered that sealing and delivery makes good the assurance and is that which invests the right and interest so when the Word preached doth not profit being not mix'd with Faith in them that hear it the Sacrament that superadds to the Dogmatical or Historical Faith a fiducial assent doth not onely confirm but cause that Faith which justifieth and brings peace with God And to say it cannot properly be said to doe this because it doth it not without precognition of the word is as if they should say that because a Deed is a writing sealed and delivered that it doth not therefore become of force from the sealing and delivery but from the writing read or that an incorporal estate did alwayes pass when the grant alone was read and was onely confirmed by the sealing and delivery Though most of their cunning lye in such generalities yet I shall not insist on it that Christ hath promised to be with us in all his Ordinances unto the end of the world And that there are general promises that their hearts shall live that seek God Psal 6.9.32 Prov. 8.17 Matth. 7.7 Lam. 3.25 Psal 75.4 that the Lord will be found of them that seek him and is good to them that wait for him and to the soul that seeketh him and they that dwell in his Courts shall be satisfied with the goodness of his house and that this is extensible and accommodable to seeking and waiting on him in all his wayes and Ordinances and as a general rule extends to and comprehendeth all particulars not specially and expresly excepted so they must shew by direct and explicit proof that the grace of conversion is denyed to this particular ordinance or else it is included in the affirmation of such grace to be annexed to ordinances in general As the generative faculty for propagation of the species is still supported and enlivened by influence of Gods benediction Be fruitful and multiply semel quidem dicta est semper autem fit saith Chrysostome so the converting power in the Sacrament for continuance and dilatation of the Church is maintained and verified by the power of Christ's blessing of the Elements to the remembrance of him which commemoration is efficacious to the engaging of the heart to him The Sacramental Elements are the Body and Blood of Christ and the Blood of the New Testament shed for many for remission of sins as well by signification as by obsignation and the obsignation is but an higher kind of signification they are the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ In locum signifying and sealing them accompanied with their effect and spiritual reality saith Deodate by virtue of the Holy Ghost And why should not the signification be really effectual in production of reall grace as the sealing to the causing of relative or the signification have no such effect in the Sacrament which is so efficacious when made in the Word Beside every promise made to the Word Homil. 3. aâ—â— Ephes c. 1. is extended to the Sacraments which are but visible words And when Chrysostome in his Exhortations to frequent communicating affirms not onely by these things set before us viz. the Sacrament but by Hymnes also doth the Holy Ghost descend he implyes that by the Sacrament the Holy Ghost more evidently came into mens hearts than by the other means and whether that of 1 Cor. 12.13 of drinking into one spirit which the Syriack Ambrose Augustine and others render drinking of one spirit and which Calvin thus expounds Participationem calicis huc spectare ut unam Christi spiritum hauriamus and Piscator Etsi verbi auditionem sacramentor legitimam c. brationem spiritus consolans sanctificans sequitur remunerationis ergo potiores â—amen esse in eo sacramentorum partes neque sane leviter praetereundum est quod Paulus dixit nos spiriâ—â— potari eui nihil unquam simile protulit cum de verbi praedicatione locutus est Thes Salmur part 3. p. 40. Calvin in loc Piscator in loc Gerhard loc com tom 6. c. 20. p. 173. Chrys in homil moral 24. Ut regenerentur ab uno spiritu viz. Sancto and Gerhard Ex uno calice bibimus ut unum spiritum accipiamus refer not to the conferring of real grace as well as relative and so whether those Testimonies of Chrysostome and other Fathers which if I should muster up for my defence I might like that Romane Vestal be oppress'd with the multitude of such Bucklers concerning the Sacrament calling it Fundamentum salus lux vita medicamentum immortalitatis antidotum non moriendi the saying of Ignatius Renovationis regenerationis causa which is Nyssen's vivificatio spiritûs which is Cyril's Saint as mentis which is Cyprians c. relate onely to confirming not begetting of Faith let men more learned judge but truly I cannot beleeve Can they deny that the Sacrament by shewing forth and signifying the Lords death and putting us in remembrance of him and his Body broken and his Blood shed for the remission of sins is a part of the Gospel or good
16. p. 31. geneat sacramenta movent intellectum ad assentiendum veritati divinae ergo Major patet quia fidei est assentire veritati divinae Minor etiam facilè probatur movent enim intellectum qua signa sunt itaque significant significationis vis tota pertinet ad intellectum movent autem ad assentiendum quia signa sunt veracia non mendacia veritas autem quam significant est divina non humana so as this may set it in the clearest Sun that those which deny the Sacraments to be converting Ordinances in this point they are also speculative separatists from the communion of Protestants And as certain Princes in some straits of indigence have coyned Leather instead of Silver so this new-minted distinction of a converting and confirming Ordinance was stamp'd in such a distress and necessity for want of better Bullion and is not Sterling onely I have not read of Princes that have fallen into such an exigence at the Inauguration into their Principalities or was false Coyn rather borrowed from the Papists who deny this Sacrament to confer the first grace Suarez 2. in 3. disp 7. q. 62. Vasquez disp 205. c. 4. who cite Hales Durand Bonaventure Biel Paludanus Major and others for this opinion but to suppose him just that receives it I recognize that some interpose to tell us that what use or effect the Sacrament can have by representing may be acquired by seeing the Administration without partaking and then it might be sufficient for some to look on but I shall regest that to what end shall they look on if they can look for no fruit or good effect thereby And wherein can the Aspect be fruitfull or effectuall to men unconverted but as it shall be subservient and adjumentall to their Conversion And if the Sacrament may be thereby capable of any such efficacy by representing to the Eye onely it will be necessarily consequent that the efficacy thereof in order to that end must be farre greater when it workes also by signifying to the other Senses and the applying signes are also added to the representing but though we should not willingly turn out of the way yet farther to remove this block out of the way of freer admission to the Sacrament wee shall answer 1. That the Blessing of our Saviour sanctifies the Bread and the Wine in order to the taking of both and eating of the one and drinking of the other not to the seeing them administred to the doing this in remembrance of Him not beholding it done and he shall unwarrantably presume to expect the fruit of the Promise that performes not the Duty of the Precept the Sacramental Elements put Christ into all our senses as I have formerly cited out of Chamier not onely into our Eyes significatio quò est expressiâ—r hoc magis operatur as Chamier to him that ears not Tom. 4. l. 9. c. 10. S. 36. p. 246. it is no Sacrament for sacramenta ut relata non habent extra usum rationem sacramenti And Chaemier also approves a passage of Valentia to this purpose Scilicet rem sacram in proposito intelligi debere quae sanctificat hominem suscipientem rectè ipsum sacramentum Tom. 4. l. 1. c. 11. quod talis rei sacrae est signum ita ut intelligere dâ—beamus esse signum rei fanctificantis practicum quoniam significat rem quae in ipsa praxi usu talis signt sanctificat Secondly Definitions are the very essence of things and the Apostle defineth this Sacrament by the Communion the Bread which we break is the Communion of the Body of Christ not the Inspection and we are partakers of one Bread not beholders For the better amplification of the benefits of Christs Incarnation in special there was to be a Mystical Incarnation of Christ in us as well as a real for us Mede in 1 Cor. 10.3 4 5. p. 582. as Nazianzen-defines the Eucharist to be a Communion of the Incarnation of God which is not effected but by receiving this Body and Blood of his changing them into ours by way of nourishment St. Augustine tells us that without the similitude of the signe to the thing signified there is no Sacrament but the Analogy of the Eucharistical signes to the Body and Blood of Christ consist in the respect of aliment and nutrition which respect faileth without eating and drinking and a Sacrament being not ens Physicum sed rationis Tom. 4. l. 7. c. 7. S. 18. p. 174. may be a Sacrament to one and not to another as Chamier disputeth it is but common meat and drink until it be consecrated but the Consecration is not perfected nor in facto esse until participation as it is no compleat motion until it have attained its term Even Bellarmine Valentia and other Papists Tom. 4. l. 9. c. 10. S. 15. p. 245. make Consumption to be of the Essence of their fictitious sacrifice Nay Chamier goeth farther and denyes Ullum fructum ex Eucharistia participi videndo ratio facilis quia non sit instituta ut significet ea ratione sed aliâ quare cùm Eucharistia pertineat ad gustum sic Augustinus ridicule sophista Bellarminus dixit aequè significare per oculos id est videndo And when I shall finde their Appetite as well satisfied and their Stomachs as much filled by looking on a good Supper as by eating it I may be facile to assent to their Hypothesis and beleeve the Supper of the Lords may be alimental and refective to the soul by seeing as well as by partaking Thirdly As the benefit is not equal in seeing and eating In Eccl. l. 3. so the danger is alike in either if they be without Faith for since not onely as saith Hierom in this Mystery but in the reading of the Scripture we eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of Christ and the Word preached as I alleaged out of Casaubon is a Spiritual Table and another kinde of spiritual eating of Christ therefore to whomsoever or howsoever salvation by the death of Christ is represented if not laid hold of by Faith it turnes to his condemnation and he hath no life in him because he eates not the flesh of the Son of Man nor drinkes his Blood so that as a man may eat Christ spiritually and not sacramentally and have the rem signi without the signum rei so he that eates not spiritually contracts damnation though he be restrained from Sacramentall eating Fourthly Therefore saith Chrysostome not onely they that sit down at the Table but they that are present at the Feast without their Wedding Garment Mep ad Ephes Hom. 3. Tom. 4 p. 356. are subject to condemnation for the Master of the Feast will not ask How durst thou sit down but how durst thou come in not having a Wedding Garment Fifthly To be a spectator of the Celebration and not a partaker of the Sacrament as it hath no precedent
pertinac tom 2. p. 142. contra lit Petil. tom 9. p. 26. contra Crescon l. 3. c. 36. they suffer that for the good of truth which they hate for the good of equity saith Augustine And again Quaerendum est quis habeat charitatem invenies non esse nisi c. It is to be inquired who have charity and you shall finde none but those that love unity some likewise shall say In thy Name we have eaten and drunk and shall hear I know you not which eat his Body and drink his Bloud in the Sacrament and acknowledg not in the Gospel his members diffused through the whole world with whom therefore they shall not be reckoned in the day of judgment And in another place the Apostle saying Be not partaker of other mens sins Keep thy self chaste to shew saith he in what sort a man might communicate with other mens sins he adds Keep thy self chaste for he that keeps himself chaste communicates not with other mens fins although he communicate not their sins but the Sacraments of Christ which they receive to their judgment with them from whom he hath severed himself by keeping himself chaste There may be a common concourse to the material part of an act without concurrence in the formal neither can a Physical concurrence make partakers in a moral act there can be no such transite from one kinde of action to another both People and Minister concurre to the receiving not the unworthy receiving if thereof they are no causes to the act not to the ataxy or sinfulness thereof they cooperate not in the evil but permit it Contra epist Parmen tom 7. p. 11. as that which morally they cannot remedy Quod non placet non nocet qui seipsum custodit non communicat alienis peccatis saith St. Augustine for if in evil actions any man consents not to them the evil doer bears his own cause and his person saith he prejudiceth not another whom in consenting to an evil deed he had not his partner in the crime What is said of him that is born of God Non facit peccatum quia patitur potiùs is in some sort appliable to this purpose the People and the same may be said of the Pastor are physically active morally passive and neither give nor partake of the Sacrament to and with one unworthy but one that is undivided from the visible Church the notes whereof must agree to it as Proprium quarto modo omni soli semper whence if the Word and Sacraments are those notes as our Divines assert though Non quoad essentiam ejus internam certò necessariò declarandam tamem ad visibilem aliquem coetum designandum qui est Ecclesia particularis ex instituto Christi formata as learned Ames All then that are actually of the visible Church may challenge a right unto a free enjoyment of these Sacraments to the one by being born of Christian Parents to the other by being baptized and having a dogmatical faith which every intelligent person is presumed to have else there may be a part of the visible Church not authoritatively or judicially sequestred from the communion thereof which are not in a capacity of obtaining that which denotes the Church At no time can the Church pretend to or hope for perfection of degrees rarely to that of parts Jacob's Ladder had several degrees in it and all were not of one height or rising perplexed and complicated are those two Cities saith St. Augustine in this world and mix'd one with the other untill they are separated in the last judgment Exhortatio ad conc Eul. ep tom 2. p. 147. the Church being no homogeneous body constituted of singular parts The Floor hath in it Wheat and Chaff the Field Corn and Tares the Net good fish and bad and it is observable that at the Nuptial Banquet was one found without a Wedding-garment With those and other similitudes saith Augustine the Lord confirmeth the forbearance of his servants lest while good men may think themselves blamed for commixture with evil by humane and rash dissensions they destroy the little ones Contra Crescon l. 3. c. 35. or the little ones perish I keep the Church saith the same Father full both of wheat and Chaff I amend whom I can I tolerate whom I cannot I fly the Chaff lest I become the same thing but not the Floor lest I be nothing Let no man therefore saith he desert the Floor before his time Contra ep Parmen tom 1. p. 11. let him tolerate the Chaff in threshing suffer it in the Floor for he shall not have any thing to bear within the Barn he will come that hath his Fan and divide the good from the bad To forsake the assemblies because of the mixture and communion of hypocrites and evil men seems to be a kinde of negative Schism or Separation and a positive to gather and constitute a new Church and I would willingly know if it be not the renewing of the old Heresies and Schisms of Donatus Lucifer Contra Faust Manich. tom 6. p. 60. Novatus and Audim Whether it make not the Church of the called to be of no greater latitude than that of the Elect whereas many are called but few are chosen Cum paucis haereditatem Dei cum multis signacula ejus participanda saith Augustine and whether in time by degrees this singularity may not antiquate the Sacrament and make the use thereof wholly obsolete and bring men to be Seekers and like the Phenix In 1 ad Cor. c. 11. v. 26. p. 430. one alone in the kinde of their devotions and to that humour of the Swenckfeldian in Musculus that would never communicate because he could not in his judgment finde any Church sufficiently adorned to make a fit Spouse for Christ And as the better qualified people may not withdraw themselves from the Communion upon pretence of mixt Congregations and fear of prejudice by them so neither upon the like score may the Minister withhold the Sacrament from them or intermit the Administration thereof for can it be thought rational that the holy desire of a competent number should be unsatisfied because the greater part are not equally prepared and so well disposed to joyn with them Is not this to eradicate the Corn for the Tares sake whereas rather both should be suffered to grow together untill Harvest It was a Principle of wise Cato's It is better many receive Silver than a few Gold and can it be held just that none should have Silver because all cannot receive Gold or because the Leven cannot be throughly purged that therefore the Children must eat no Bread or because the Hedg of Discipline cannot be effecutally planted that the Field of the Church must ly altogether unmanured and must the Wheat receive no nourishment because the Tares stand in the same Field Shall a certain essential duty be neglected for an uncertain accidental evil
and cast Pearl before Swine which is sometime superciliously enough alleaged to justifie this Oeconomy of repelling from the Communion such as they suppose unworthy is first and principally intended of the Word of Instruction and Reproof as appeares by the Text and the sense of Interpreters Though surely by the way that Text cannot be very pertinent nor well applyable to the point for which they produce it for those Pearls are prohibited to be cast before Swine Jansenius in Mat. 7.6 Idem Estius in 4. sent d. 9. S. 9. p. 123. and those holy things forbidden to be given to Dogs upon this caution lest they trample them under feet and turn to rent those that dispense them but there is no danger saith Jansenius that if the Sacrament be given to sinful men that desire it they should turn and rent those that exhibite it but rather that they will tear those that deny it neither can any be understood under the notion of Dogs or Swine that are not notoriously wicked and scandalous and such onely are here properly and especially meant as are Blasphemers and Persecuters of the truth and malicious resisters thereof but in these we plead for their reverence to the Sacrament and desire to partake thereof supersedes all fear and anticipates all caution lest they approve themselves such Dogs and Swine as to trample the Ordinance under feet or rent the Dispensers thereof But to stigmatize all those for Dogs or Swine whom they admit not to the Sacrament Dignos laude viros labe notare would be either rodere dente canino or else porcino foedare modo and canina facundia according to Lex Remia might render them obnoxious to a literal stigme and real brand being a calumny unworthy not onely a charitable Christian but a moral man But let us examine what they interpose to disprove our paralel of reasons verily much pargetting there is to shew a dispariry between the Word and Prayer and the Sacraments and to set them at difference which agree so well in the common and generical notion of Ordinances and it is remarkable to contemplate how the Sacraments are used like Casting-Counters sometimes standing for one hundred and then again but for ten according to the pleasure and interest of the Disposer to serve one turn they are sometimes advanced into a Sphere higher than the Word and we may somewhere meet with a fardle of what by a charitable construction we may call Reasons pack'd together to this purpose and Rhetorically enough displayed which yet indeed are but parcels of small Wares and which are like the Duke of Britain's Souldiers Briton's in English-mens Cassocks to accommodate another end they are at other times degraded set many Orbs lower and their virtue more disparaged and alleviated as upon this instant occasion we are told by some that Prayer and hearing the Word is a duty commanded but there is no Precept that wicked men should come to the Sacrament that in the one the matter is good and there is onely a failer in the manner but in the other both matter and manner are faulty and that by Prayer and hearing of the Word they may acquire some good temporal at least and mitigation of punishment but not so by communicating and therefore the Reasons are not alike for the admission probation of and conjunction with unconverted irregenerate and unworthy men to and in the former and latter Ordinances But I take leave to answer That it is the unanimous suffrage of the Fathers asserted by our Divines against the Papists in the question whether the Communion in both kindes be necessary that Take Eat Drink ye all of this Do this Shew forth the Lords death as some learned man will have it read are explicite commands words not onely of invitation of power of liberty Piscator but of command and precept as Justin Martyr and Chrysostome in terms expresly A Theologue of no ordinary elevation for learning and piety Perkins cas consc l. 2. c. 10. resolves in his Cases of conscience that by virtue of these commandments every man of years living in the Church and being baptized is bound in conscience to use the Lords Supper and so also doth the School resolve In 3. q. 80. ar 11. though they extend not the obligation to a receiving in both kindes as there is no formal command in terms requiring wicked men to communicate so neither is there such for them to pray the commandment is proposed indifferently and in general terms to all men and the Genus includes the several Species and the Species all the Individuals as our Divines answer the Anabaptists objecting there is no formal command for the baptizing of infants which are comprehended under the general notions of all Nations and Houses and Families neither can the want of those special qualifications or powers enabling to the discharge thereof exempt from or dispense with the obligation of general duties otherwise we might reverse and cassate the whole Moral Law which we are obliged to keep though we are not now able to perform our duty It seems to me a sad and piacular enunciation that the receiving of the Sacrament by an unworthy person is said to be materially evil or ex genere objecto though I deny not it may become so Ad hîc nunc ex fine circumstantiis I suppose the Author that dropp'd those inconsiderate words might justly with the Annular or Physick-finger touch the place behinde the right ear consecrate to Nemesis which among the Ancients was used by them that begg'd pardon of their gods for any inconsiderate and obnoxious speech what influence and effect the participation of the Sacrament may have upon unconverted and faithless persons I have elsewhere spoken and need not here to recapitulate That which is most commonly and most speciously and by the best learned objected to prove that there is not the like reason in this case in relation to the hearing of the Word and receiving of the Sacraments is this that the Sacraments are not converting Ordinances as the Word is there being no institution nor promise nor command to use them to that end but they are onely sealing Ordinances and conferre not but confirm Faith presuppose it and testifie our union with Christ not beget it that the Word is to be preached to those that believe not but the Sacraments to be administred onely to believers and those properly and really believers which not onely assent to the Word of Faith but to the work of Faith believing practically aswell as speculatively else the Seal should be set to a Blank and there should be a false testimony in witnessing that which is not and so be a practical Lye some few perchance attribute more to Baptism as to be a regenerating Ordinance but the Lords Supper they think is nothing like as if it were more to be the Laver of Regeneration than the Body and Bloud of Christ or as
cum ipsis qui ea faciunt donec areâ dominicâ sicut palea ventilabro ultimo separentur non eorum peccata sed Dei sacramenta communicent We shall howsoever endeavour that they may not onely recipere totum telum but also be sensible of the stroke and the wound First they grant what the Paper proposed that to forsake the Assemblies or to make a separation because of the mixture of evil men was the Heresie of Donatus Audius c. But what it tacitly assumed that they were guilty of a like separation upon like grounds that they think they may be confident to deny But although perhaps there be not such an exact agreement between them and those Hereticks as they say there was among the 72. Interpreters who though in several Cells yet punctually accorded in the same Translation yet that there is some conformity in judgment and affection between them as they write there is among those between whom there is a Synastry and who have the same common Stars and influences at their Nativities if themselves will not see we hope to make others to discern for first they separate from those which by no judicial process are separated from them so did those Hereticks 2. Their separation is carried on by the same motives for they confess that divers of their members have forsaken Communion with their proper Congregations Centur. Magd. cent 4. c. 5. p. 208. L. de unic bapt c. 14. S. 9. because they were offended with the grossness of the Administrations at home where no separation was made just as Theodoret tells of the Audians Recederéque à communione Ecclesiastica dicebant quòd in illa ferrentur faeneratores impuri and right as Augustine and others elsewhere alleaged shew us of the Donatists that they separated from other constituted Churches because of the mixture of godly and wicked persons in one Communion and because some whom they thought of right ought to have been so were not in Fact excommunicated 3. That Reason the Apologists have back'd with a second adding that the commixture of the Wicked with the Godly defileth and polluteth and therefore they refuse Communion with them in the Sacrament And these were the very Dictates and Arguings of the Novatians and Donatists Centur. Magd. cent 3. c. 3. p. 71. ubi supra as Cyprian and Augustine inform us In communione sacramentorum mali maculant bonos c. so as plainly the lives of the one and other are paralels though in a different Meridian If to excuse themselves from symbolizing with those Hereticks they shall alleage that they doe not suppose the Church either should or can be constituted of such as are free from all sinne but such as are cleer of Crimes not who are really but onely who are visibly worthy We shall re-minde them that those Heresiarchs were pure from so gross an errour as to think there were no Hypocrites in the Church or that all of their Societies were pure without mixture or perfect without defect neither did they pretend to have read the Book of Life to know who were Elect nor presume to know the hearts Gods peculiar and to discern who were Hypocrites but they would admit of communion with none whom they could distrust to be culpable in any sinne or that had not a visible worthiness as the Apologists would qualifie their members they would not communicate with those they judged to be impure as is mentioned of the Audians though they were not yet cast out nor thought fit to be so Mutato nomine de te Fabula narratur Secondly If to vindicate themselves they shall suggest that they admit such to Church-fellowship in other Ordinances and only deny it in the holy Supper besides that some men may build higher upon the like Foundation and runne farther in the same way we must remember them § 9 that it hath been elsewhere shewed that the Fathers have described Ecclesiastical Communion by Society in Sacraments and have asserted evil men with the good Sociari cohaerere fratres esse misceri in and by a Communion of Sacraments and St. Cont. Ep. Parmen l. 3. c. 2. tom 7. p. 12 13. Augustine tells us that Cyprian alia frumenta Dominica quòd in illa tunc unitatis Ecclesia cum avaris rapacibus cum his qui regnum Dei non possidebant panem Domini manducabant calicem Domini bibebant which frustrates any interposition that this Communion of Sacraments was onely in the one Sacrament and not in the other and that they were together not onely unam cum iis intrantes Ecclesiam but also in una Congregatione paria tractantes sacramenta for quia non poterant ab iis corporaliter separari ne similiter eradicarent triticum sufficiebat iis à talibus corde seâ—ungi vitâ moribusque distingui propter compensationem custodiendae pacis unitatis propter salutem infirmorum tanquam lactentium frumentorum ne membra corporis Christi per sacrilega schismata laniarent and as it is not Ecclesiastical Communion but Schisme rather in the judgment of Mr. Ball to use the one Ordinance and not the other Cited before and they are not to be reckoned of the body of Christ which are unworthy to eat the Body Christ in the Sentence of Chamier so Casaubon tells us farther Exercit. 6. S. 52. p. 145. Eos ' qui ad Christianismum adspirarent priusquam sacramentorum facti essent participes neque esse neque dici posse Christianos neque ad Ecclesiam pertinere aditum per baptismum sed neque satis hanc semel esse ingressum sed oportere conjungi Christo per sacramentalem ejus manducationem L. de Pastorib c. 13. p. 221. tom 9. They were not by Antiquity held or named Fideles that did not partake of the Eucharist the Celebration whereof was therefore called Missa fidelium Quaeris saith Augustine nè fortè Catechumenus irruat sacramentis Respondet fidelis which implyes that every of the faithful which was a member contradistinguish'd from the Catechumens and onely those that had the name of Faithful used to communicate neither were they esteemed Brethren that were not partakers of the Sacrament L. 1. obs 19. p. 141. for so Albaspinus tells us that the Penitents and Catechumens were not called Brethren by the Faithful so as the denomination being taken à fortiori it cannot be absolutely called Church-fellowship that is without Communion of Sacraments which is implyed and tacitly assented unto even by themselves who call those onely the Church whom they admit to the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ Thirdly if to defend themselves they shall interpose that they separate not from the Catholique Church but from corrupt Congregations I shall admonish them that seeing the publick Worship is not sinful but it is onely pretended that sinners are admitted to a Communion therein and those that are pure may joyn in
how incompetent those Elders are ad hic nunc to be set up as Judges being of such parts and education I need not say who as little dare to undertake as they are unable to act any thing without the infusions and conduct of their Pastor and though I will not say as the Italians do of the Cardinals in the conclave in relation to the sense of the Pope That they do assentari non assentire yet others cannot but observe that the Elders of those Churches which be spoken without any odious extension to all of that Notion are but Cyphers serving onely to add the more of number and like Mercury in conjunction with the Sun lost in the light and having no influence but what is derived from him and as in the Consulship of Julius Caesar and Bibulus because the one carried all the sway and honour from the other they dated writings Julius and Caesar being Consuls no mention being made of Bibulus so notwithstanding the conjunction of the Elders the Ministers are virtually and in effect sole in the action and act arbitrarily too for any rule or Canon that ever I could take notice of to regulate their proceeding but in whomsoever the power be vested yet nec unquam satis fida potentia est ubi nimia est and whatsoever the men may be that exercise it yet Vespasianus moderatus sed imperator non libertas Lastly Whether this be not more than half way towards the Independents and symbolize not with the Congregational way for what subâ—â—antial difference is there between their gathering a Church and this collecting together of Communicants some out of one place some out of another What material disparity is there between this admitting none without profession made and satisfaction rendred of their sufficiency both in faith and manners and then entring into fellowship and the Independent Covenant As their way of gathering is the same so their way of governing the Church is very like the Independents admit any to the hearing of the Word not to the Communion of of the Body and Blood of Christ so do these they have further conformity in admitting and countenancing their gifted brethren to pray publickly and though not in their publick places of convention nor in the formality of preaching Bayly diswas c. p. 174. yet to teach in their private Assemblies and Meeting-houses according to the medious way excogitated by some Independents to reconcile the different opinions among themselves upon that matter and it is said that not the Elders onely but the whole Congregation doth occasionally make judgment Are not both they and the Independents equally guilty of an Allotrioepiscopacy of removing the ancient Land-marks and confounding of Churches and limits and taking in such of whose souls they have by no law nor consonancy to good order any proper or special care and of a resemblance with the Partrich Ier 17.11 which gathereth the young which she brought not forth as was the ancient and is still the marginal reading and of that magick which Furius Cresinus among the old was slandered with of charming and bringing other mens fruits into his field contrary to holy Scripture Acts 20.28 1 Pet. 5.2 Heb. 13.17 Can. 17. not in quosdam Canones Concil Gal. p. 160. Can. 20. Can. 6. apud Magdeburg 7. apud Caranz L. 1. Epist 5. Epist 6. contrary to that rule of righteousness what you would that men should do unto you even so do unto them Matt. 7.12 contrary to the ancient Canons of the first Council of Arles Ne quis Episcopus alium Episcopum conculcet hec est involare in vicini sui diaecesim saith Albaspinus and the third Council of Carthage Vtâ—a nullo Episcopo usurpentur plebes alienae and the first Council of Carthage nequis vel clericus vellaicus sine literis Episcopi in aliena Ecclesia communicet and contrary to the judgement of Cyprian singulis pastoribus portio gregis est adscri ta quam regat unusquisque gubernet rationem sui actus Deo reddat oportet eos quibus praesumus non circum-cursitare and again sine spe sunt perditionem maximam indignatione Dei adquirant qui schismata serunt rolicto Episcopo alium sibi foras pseudo-episcopum constituunt So as they must excuse me to think that they onely take magni nominis umbram when they sometimes assume the name of Presbyterial Churches at best they can be but blended and by mixture constituted of some of the principles of the one way and the other Amphibii Zoophytes Epicaenes like the Chymicall naile in the Duke of Florence his cabinet part Iron and part Gold like the Amphisbaena that hath two heads and moves two divers wales that have a Crow for Caesar and another for Anthony or as the Angel in the Revelation that flew between heaven and earth is by a learned man interpreted to be Gregory the Great who was the last of the good Popes and the first of the bad so they may passe for the worst kind of Presbyterians though the best sort of Independents But surely as Aristotle said of the Milesians That they were not fools but yet they did the very same things that fools doe so if these be not Independents yet they have the same actions and wayes There may be and are some differences perchance in opinion and practice between the one and the other but that impedeth not but that they may passe under one notion and denomination The Churches of France and Spain are in many points Antipodes each to other Azorius will tell us that what is the common opinion in the one kingdome is not so in the other as concerning the immaculate conception of the virgin Mary and the worshipping the Cross with Latria c. yet both are Papists and so are all they among whom Bellarmine himself by the account of Pappus reckons up above three hundred different opinions and perhaps we might find far more among those who properly and professedly passe for Independents and so many perchance as are not to be reduced to a fixt certain number except by a second Clavius who hath in one sum set down the number of the sands that would fill up all the concave space between the Earth and the eighth Spheare or peradventure so many as there are Indulgences in that one Church of Lateran which a Papist saith none but God can number and he Indeed at his great day of account will be sure to number both the one and the other And as these mens ARguments are most of them Arrows taken out of Independent Quivers and sharpned on their Anvils so let assay be made by some skilfuller hand more versed in these controversies whether the forces mustred against separation fight not most of them against this new modell which I know nor how to blanch or palliate with any other name than a Separation a separation of themselves as the purer part from the dregges of the
every one be culpable and multis minatur qui uni fâ—cit injuriam and have obtained what Caligula wisht that all their people have but one neck which they cut off at once nor do they like Chirurgions onely launch tumors or cut off dead flesh but like Mountebanks do wound and flash the whole and sound flesh upon pretence to heal it again and to bring themselves and their salves into more request and practice and whereas the terror onely should come to all they make the punishment proper for a few to be universal not punishing onely those that are necent but like Theodosius at Thessalonica for which Ambrose thought he merited excommunication cut off all promiscously without discrimination the innocent as well as the guilty that when one man perhaps hath sinned they are wroth with the whole Congregation and then notwithstanding Irae suum stimulum Zelum vocant so as the generality and commonness of the punishment taking away the sense of shame and fear thereof frustrates the end of it as it is no odious deformity to be black among Negroes where all are of that colour a white man and some such they have born there is more monstrous to them and therefore as Physitian say that the disease which all or most men commonly have must spring from the same common cause and our Divines tell us that the corruption of the Masse cannot be the cause of reprobation negative because that is commen but that which makes to differ is peeuliar so it cannot be any crime or incapacity in the persons wherein their exclusion is rooted for all are not incapable or criminous but there is some cause that is common to all and that can be no other but that they may have a preheminent power over all whereinto this is their Inauguration Fourthly they exercise not this power onely occasionally and upon an exigent but make a common and continuall trade thereof and consequently making the Church such a meddow as Lewis 11. said France was which he mowed not onely when it was rank grown but as often as he pleased nor do proceed as Arnoldus saith a wise and a modest Physitian ought to doe which is never to use medicines but upon urgent necessity and that sparingly too but their constant practice is to keep men under this purging physick which were it cordial would ferfeit its virtue by too frequent use but being purgative medicines must not be used as familiar as meat when there is no purgative as â—hysitians confess but is contrary to nature and consumes the very substance of our bodies so as qui medicè vivit miscrè vivit and this is to make the Church as he said of the State of Thuscany under the Medices like a body exhausted with continual purgings the blood and spirits consumed and nothing left but weakness and melancholly and we may say of them as Seneca did of others Moverer si judicio hoe farerent nure morho faciunt faciunt non quod mercor sed quod solent and judge of their course as Demosthenes did of calumny Aliquantisper audientium opinionem confirmare progressu verò temporis nihil eá imbecillius Upon these considerations that which they call ministerial power is Tempestas non potestas as the Lawyers speak potentia ruinae et incendii as â—eneca Cornâ—a sunt ista ventilantis non mansuetudo pascentis as Augustine And if this do not border upon that of Ifidor which he saith of some that they bear themselves upon their Priesthood as if they had a tyranny yet whether it be not the second part of Diotrephes and the playing over again his ambition of preheminence and whether these probations and suspensions be not a kind of hunting of men thereby to make themselves mighty ones in the earth and instead of the old paternal government to introduce a Lording In 1 Pet. 5.3 which is the same thing which Diotrephes practised as Aretius alios vobis imperiose subjectos esse volentes as the Commentary asscribed to Aquinas to be imperious masterly persons ruling roughly and harshly as Hammomd by which prohibition the Apostle reprehends severity tanquam ab ecclefiastica mansuetudine alienam as Iustinian and lessoneth Parstors and Governours in the Church magis apparere humilitatem et mansuetudinem quà m potestatis ostentationem ac severitatem et amorem magis quà m terrorem as Estius and if their course clash not with this precept so interpreted yet whether it check not with that which he thereby prescribeth ut absit non solùm animus sed species dominandi in plebem subjectam as Estius the Apostle saying Neque ut deminantes non solùm non dominantes quia nihil debent exterius praetendere per quod possit de iis opinari ut videantur velle dominari as Aquinas Though they may be somewhat in passion to hear the quaere yet we shall not be much out of reason to make it and we are sure without question that this rejecting of all till they be proved and approved by them as Musculus ranks it with the with-holding of the cup from the Laity by the Popish Priests so it is that dominion which if otherwise it cannot be redressed â—he saith God will restrain And whereas they say To Lord it over Gods heritage is to infringe the liberties and priviledges of the Saints Whosoever is a Church-member I have formerly demonstrated to be in Scripture ideom and generall acceptation a Saint and to debarre any intelligent member of the Church of communion in the Sacrament is to infringe his liberties and his priviledges in the crown whereof that communion is a rich jewell but the learned â—unius tells them Vtriusque communionis cum Deo inquam Ecclesia ad sanctos omnes promiscue pertinentis I might setâ— an asterisck on that for the observation indici à Deo data certáque E. clesiae verae documentá eculis omnium exposita sunt ea quae communis usus Sacramenta nuncupavit atque haec quidem communionis genera quà sunt spiritualia semper ubique ab hominibus sanctis percipiuntur quà autem sunt â—orporalia coluntur in templo id est ad to um Ecclesiae corpus conjuâ—â—ctè pertinent neque ullus ex Ecclesia Dei esse putandus est qui se ab ullo istius communionis genere ultro subtraxeri a passage like the pillar of a cloud and fire which gives light to us and casts them under darkness To keep away ignorant and scandalous persons exceeds not Ministeriall power is no Lording imperious thing But first were they whom they keep away such delinquents yet the number of the guilty should manacle the hands of the Judge and periculum schismatis send an injunction from the Court of equity If the one member be gangrened the excision thereof may be just and necessary potiùs pereat unus quà m unitas as Bernard but if the body be infected with a scab other medicines may be
a bad servant mihi accusatio etiam vera contra fratrem displicet as Hierom and though Noah were drunken yet Cham was accursed for discovering his nakedness and however perchance illi quod meruere sed quid tu ut adesses and Lactantius tells us that we murder him in whose death we take complacency though executed by a righteous sentence But though in the natural body the blood and spirits run to cherish any wounded part yet in politick bodies we find it is rather as in an Arch where if a stone be loose the whole frame sets upon it with all its weight and most men are too ready to seeth a kid in his mothers milk that is as Philo interprets to add affliction to the afflicted turpes instant morientibus ursi Et quaecunque minor nobilitate fera est We wisht it were the worst thereof that some men like the unspunne silk of Chies would draw and suck up all moisture we more fear lest this he some of the teeth of that worm that lies at the root of Ministery and that this pretended sweeping and garnishing of the house is onely to make way for seven more wicked spirits and that some men are so blind like Sampson unawares to grind for the Philistines and are deceived by the wooife in sheeps cloathing to seek to hang up the doggs upon pretence they are dumb or mangy and are so fascinated like him at Constantinople whom Nicetas mentions that supposed he had been pushing upon a Serpent when he broke in pieces his own earthen vessels so some may think they are strising at the old Serpent when they are breaking vessels of the Sanctuary Certainly the Jesuites will not be decieved or discouraged from attempting upon this Church by a supposall that because we cast out so many we had Ministers enough to defend the truth against their machinations as the Gaules were disanimated to pursue the seige of the Capitol as not reducible by famine because the Romans cast out over the walles all their provision of bread Lastly They bear false witness against us by mis-interpreting our words and then spiâ—in our face and buffet us they accuse us to say that they shape Presbytery to Popery and this they say is the dreggs of this bitter Cup. And this had been dreggs indeed yea crassi gutta veneni had it dropt from our pen and had made it a cup of abomination if this had lain in the bottome thereof but sure it is the dreggs of the cup of their fancy and like to Alexander the sixth the cup they have mixed for us will envenome themselves Nihil est Antipho quin male narrando possit depravarier tu id quod boni est excerpis dicis quod mali est The Apologists carry some analogy with the Samaritaus when the Jewes prespered then they were brethren but if they were under water the Samaritan would drench himself in water if he had but toucht a Jew so if the Presbyterians be about the Zenith they are calculated also for the same Meridian so as in their own words to be neerer to them than to Independents but if in the Nadir they are Antipodes to them having fitted their Church way in such a latitude as to suit with every elevation formed it like the Giraffa made up of a Libbard Hart Buff Camel that none can well know what to call it of late though intruth they are onely dow-baked Independents and like the froggs generated of dust after it is fermented with certain showers are but half made up part earth and part conformed yet most often they take the livery of Presbytery and the paper upon that supposition inferred that their way being obtruded under that notion gave occasion to some that took that for the face which was but a vizor to suspect that Presbytery was modelled and cast into the like mould as Popery Sands Europae speculum p. 3. where the Prelates made their greatness wealth and honor the very rules whereby to souare out the Canons of faith and then set Clerks on work to devise arguments to uphold them and this odious suspition in others was a spring of grief to the friends of Presbytery who could not without indignation hear some say of Presbytery as that Cardinal did at the bustling and factions Elections in the Conclave Ad hunc modum fiunt Romani pontifices Of this pinch of the inference they will not be sensible nor do seek to clear their way of this stumbling block viz. that it is a way which leads onely to their own ends of power and greatness but turning out of the way extravagantly tells us that men that like not the restraint of their lusts and we must needs be those men or whosoever else they be perchance they cannot think fit that their lusts be restrained by giving liberty to others lusts and letting them do what they list as Vives saith Philostratus corrected Homers lies by greater lies by any Church government for if they like not theirs of necessity they will not abide any cry out of Popery Covetousness Ambition Praelacy c. which are but fig leaves to cover their nakedness But their paper leaves are not worth a figg to vail that cause which they have left naked of defence for si hac Pergama dextra if this plea may defend a government then all una hac defensa fuissent this might be pleaded in defence of any the most tyrannous governours they might also inferre that because some like not the restraint of their lusts by any government therefore themselves do not govern according to their lusts and Bellarmine might with as much reason conclude that whereas Cyprian saith Heresies and Schismes have no other spring but onely because the Priest of God is not obeyed nor one Priest and Iudge for the time in the Church is reminded to be In the stead of Christ therefore the Bishop of Rome usurps no unjust authority nor is a tyrant in the title or exercise of his power A man that is not fond of Presbytery that is such a man as themselves so coldly and disaffectionately they speak it may say this for Presbytery what ever it be else a suspitious Aposiâ—pesis as if it were somewhat else which I lle quidem caelare cupit turpÃque pudore Tempora purpureis cogit velare tiaris is the strongest barre that ever was set against Popery We shall plead nothing in bar to that supposition being farre from going about to lessen their good opinion of Presbytery which we would rather cherish and do wish they did like and love it better and were more Presbyters but we cannot illis dare nominis hâ—jus honorem and may rather expostulate quid pulchra vocabula pigris Obtendis vitiis or complaine with Cato in Salust I am pridem equidem nos vera rerum vocabula amifimus so as Aristippus said of precious ointments malè sit Cynaedis qui diffamarum beshrew them that by incrusting
the cup the blood may be some way administred but they must not drink it SECT XXIV Whether they are Butchers or Surgeons Whether guilty of Schism Of negative and positive Schisme What are just causes of separation Whether our Saviour separated from the Jewish Church for instance in eating the Passover They condemne what they practise by confounding Churches and by separation They grant Professors to be visible Saints which destroyes their Platforme Their reasons why all sorts are to be admitted to the word and prayer Whether there are not better reasons to warrant a like admission to the Sacrament whether the same conclude it not Whether the Churches of England are all true Churches Sacraments notes of the Church and therefore communicable to all Church members They grant discipline enters not the definition of a Church yet they separate for want thereof Whether they may not aswell deny Baptisme to the Children as the Eucharist to the Parents VVHy they separate not in all Ordinances is an head that looks not directly toward us but respects their brethren of the separation who have outrun and gone beyond them and stand at a distance as much further from them as they from us For as when Apolles had drawn a fine small line Protogenes cut that in 〈…〉 another and the former halfed that again so when one sort have cut 〈…〉 from communion with the rest of the Church they divide themselves again and some of them think themselves not refined enough and as the Chymists say of sublimation sapius repetenda est operatio neque enim prima sublimotione res mox satis depuratur so one separation grows out of another like the tunal which Nieremberge speaks of mira frondium facunditas solium supernasâ—itur solio si decidâ—t aliquod radices rursus agit surgitque altera arbos And so though as sand conteined in a vessel hath one general figure in the whole Masse conformable to the continent yet every grain is inechaerent with other so though they all come under one common notion of Separatists yet they are as much separate from 〈◊〉 other as from us and as little agree among themselves as with us though when they come against us like Themistocles and Aristides going on Embassie they lay down their enmities to be afterward reassumed And as Aristides said It will never be well with Athens till both the one and the other be shut up in the dungeon so they intimate in the close of this Section that in such a condition they were most likely to close in a mutual agreement but their present quarrels with the other occasion here the diverting of their armes which offers us a little truce who might now stand a loofe and behold the fight among themselves whom that happily may befall which Tacitus relates of Apronjus souldiers dum singuli pugnant universi vincuntur and when they fall out good men may come by the truth Discordia in malis tam bona quà m concordia in bonis onely we shall gather up some of those arrowes which they let fly at others to shoot back upon themselves and if any of those shot at randome seem to fall neer us we shall endeavour to repell or avoid such as we have not already broken They separate not in other Ordinances because they are for Surgery not Butchery It seems then they now somewhat odiously set their brethren in the rank of cut-throats who will shrewdly resent to be degraded into the company of Butchers Secondly How little conformity or resemblance their practise hath with the rules of Chirurgery hath been frequently instanced Thirdly Chirurgeons neither use nor are able to cut off any one member from an union with the rest in the influence and benefit of one vitall faculty onely but exscind altogether from the whole body whereas they make exscision of men onely from a Communion in one Ordinance alone not all Fourthly Let this reason have the most favourable passe yet it onely can argue absolutely why they should separate not in all Ordinances but in some alone not comparatively why in this Sacrament rather than in other Fiftly It is a strange method of Physick or Chirurgery to seek to preserve life by witholding the means of life and the medicine of life and immortality as the Fathers call the Sacrament and if all meanes must be sought to cure before they cut down a Church we think they have deserted their own Aphorismes for they have not sought to cure it by this medicine yet they have cut down their Church not onely by gathering another but by a practical judging of them to have no present interest in the body and blood of Christ nor worthy to have the truth of Gods promises in him to be sealed unto them The learned and they quote Camero distinguish of a twofold separation positive and negative the first they condemne unlesse upon just and weighty grounds the second they are acting in making a separation in their Congregations not separating from their Churches but some corruptions in them in order to reformation De Eccles p. 325. Camero in that place disputes of Schisme whereof secession or separation may be the genus and Schisme he distinguisheth into negative and positive the first Schisma quod non exit in coetum societatem aliquam religiosam quae simpliciter secessio subductio cùm non instituitur ecclesia facto Schismate Schisma positivum tum fit cum instituitur ecclesia hoc est cum fit consociatio quaedam quae legibus ecclesiasticis Dei verbo atque sacramentorum administratione utitur separatim quod quadam formula desumpta ex Scriptura dicitur strâ—ere altare contra altare But as the men of Bengala are so afraid of a Tiger that they dare not name him through fear if they should do so they should be torn in pieces by him so it seems the Apologists are so conscious of Schisme or fearfull to be blasted with it that they decline the mention of this and passing over the description he makes of Schisme they only barely and without any distinct explication tell us of a negative and positive separation Abstine epistolis quae sunt instar Edicti saith Symmachus facessat omne studium ex quo nascitur cura compendii Me thinks they should have been able to have understood Camero had they looked into him themselves but whencesoever it results there is an ignorant and wilfull mistake in alleaging him for they seem to quote him as if he determined that a negative separation were absolutely and universally lawfull whereas he affirming that a positive Schisme is that which Antonomasticè and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is called Schisme he renders this reason because often he saith not alwayes a negative secession is lawfull that justly and piously it may be free to depart from some Churches but it will not be so if it grow into a positive As for example some may be cast out by the fault of
and that carries the worst ignominy for Simpliciter pateat vitium fortasse pusillum Quod tegitur majus creditur esse malum Whether those are endearments and Charientismes likely to charm and winne upon their affections Ignosci aliquatenus iguorantiae potest contemptus veniam nou meretur whether this be not a provoking of their children to wrath graviùs contumeliam ferunt homines quam detrimentum whether this be not obloquious to themselves that they have not meliorated nor lickt them into a better shape all this while since by the law Falcidia the parents were punisht for the continued faults of their children whether this being a judgment not of men by external actions but by the hidden causes thereof and their secret intentions which cannot be evident to them by any violent signes and at most there can be oâ—ely a probable suspition that the actions spring from such a fountaine be not temerarious judgment and a judging of the heart since such a suspition is sufficient onely to spring a doubt not to support an absolute determination which must be founded onely upon manifest grounds and as long as things are but doubtful they are not manifest and the most rational doubts are to be interpreted in the better part as hath been formerly demonstrated and then whether the Apologists have just cause to complaine of or can have hope to be condoled for the hard thoughts and untempered words which thâ—y say they suffer from others since Judicium si quis quae fecit perferat aequum est as Vespasan thought it punishable Senatoribus maledici but not regardable remaledici of all these if the Apologists will not consider others will take notice What they diaper their margin with out of Mr. Baxter of the desperate opposing and villfying and scurrilous railing at desired discipline is but as Urias his letters in the sacred story or Bellerophons in the prophane which are destructive to themselves for their dear brethren and such as are germane to them in principles are most engaged in that guilt which in that place is most reflected on who have endeavoured to make that Oath of union according as they have called it an old Almanack fitted to the interest of State or impiously as Cusanus saith the Scriptures are fitted to the time and practice of the Church so that one time according to the current the they are expounded one way and when that rite of the Church changeth then the sense is changed They conclude the Section with intimation of fear to suffer in their estates aswel as their names and quiet for adhering to those principles and proceeding in this way As they have not hitherto felt any detriment so we cannot see any imminent danger thereof but whether the pluralities of a Church and a Congregation which springs an income aswel of offerings as of tythes have not brought some advantage and improvement or whether a pastoral Church and a gathered Church may not countervaile two Benefices or the Semestrian visitations of some of them may not ballance the Triennial visitations of the Bishops especially since as he said of Grotius Odi sapientem qui sibi non sapit and also In steriles campos nolunt juga ferre juvenci I shall not pretend to know though I am not ignorant quantus tota rumor in urbesonat I shall onely say They accuse their people to be time-servers or observers but can they say soberly as Pope Paul the 3d. did of his son Petrus Aloysius Haec ille vitia non me commonstratore didicit for though they suspect them yet it is manifest of it selfe and very obvious that there is much Quicksilver in the composition of them and that mettal doth never endure the fire and being liquid is conformable to any mould and I hope therefore they will as did the Romans make fortunam fidei comitem and as the King of Navar profest to Beza not advance beyond the possibility of a safe retreate Hectora non nosset si faelix Troja fuisset and it is adversity can onely try what friends they will be to their way and whether they affect Alexander or the King Sure I am their undertakings are not like the Ceraunia a Jewel onely bred in a storm They suppose and publish that authority is for them or not against them but if the superiour bodies should have different aspect and influence whether they would then turn tables again or not and whether they would be like the regina aurarum quae obsistit ventis immobilÃsque contrà nititur adversantibus as Nieremberge or like the hedge Bore that having many hoses to his den doth alwaies stop that which is toward the bleate wind that would be the question and in order to some perhaps no very difficult question Contra Ep. Parmen l. 3. c. 6. Cont. lit Petil l. 2. c. 98. But whatever they would undergoe as St. Augustine to his Donatists let them take heed lest perchance Coecis vendatur reprobus lapis pro gemma pretiosa l. carnalis duritia pro spirituali patientia and that non fortiter sed pertinaciter non timetis Quoniam qui pro pace Christi omnibus terrenis caruerit deum habet qui autem pro parte Donati vel paucos nummos perdiderit cor non habet But I shall for conclusion remark that to excuse the omission of administring the Sacrament in their Churches they say it hath been supplied by holding forth Christ in the word and giving souls to eat and drink his flesh and blood in the word whence it follows that it is the same thing that is exhibited in both but in different manner All to whom Christ is offered in the word receave him not nor are qualified to do so aswell as all embrace him not 〈…〉 he is propounded in the Sacrament nor are conditioned to do it those 〈…〉 we not perfect understanding in the word yet to all them it is preacht that they may understand and believe for it is verbum practicum why then by a parity of reason should not the Sacrament be administred to those who by the word have attained an historical and dogmatical faith are intelligent of the nature use end of the Sacrament without further scrutiny whether they have a true faith seeing that true faith may be wrought by reception of that which is signum practicum why then should the one be the privilege of Saints more than the other why should it be prodigality of Christs blood in holding it forth to all in the Sacrament and not when they tender if to all in the word seeing the same blood is offered in the one and other unless this be even such another crotchet as the Papists grate our eares with who tell us that the blood of Christ represented by the cup is also exhibited with the bread which signifieth his body by a certain concomitancy but yet the Laity that partake of the bread may not for some great mysteries participate of