from the whole Church For to require me to believe them to be in the torments prepared for the devil and his angels because I cannot say where they are were a reason too unreasonable for a Christian CHAP. XXI The opinion that makâ—s the Predetermination of mans will by God the sourse of his freedom And wherein Jansenius differs from it Of necessity upon supposition absolute The necessity of the Will following the last dictate of the understanding is onely upon supposition As also that which Gods foresight creates The difference between indifferent and undetermined These things thus premised as concerning that estate wherein the Gospell overtaketh the will of man to whom Christ is tendered being under original sin I say that it findes him not void of that freedome of choice in doing or not doing this or that which stands in opposition to necessity But that which stands in opposition to the bondage and servitude of sin This position is intended to contradict an opinion which seemeth to be very ordinary among Divines as well of the Reformation as the Church of Rome though more ingeniously professed and maintained by these Who pretending to derive the efficacy of Gods Predestination and the grace which it provideth from that decree of his Will whereby he determineth the will of his creature to do or not to doe watsoever is indeed don or not don in order of nature before it determine it selfe do consequently professe that notwithstanding this Predetermination of the will is no lesse effectuall then Gods omnipotence whereof it is the immediate and indefeasible consequence and effect yet there is no freedome in the creature no contingence in the effects of it but that which followeth upon this will of God determining understanding Creatures to do that which they do freely as it determining understanding Creatures to do that which they do necessarily This position though I intend not to admit yet I count it a point of ingenuity in them who think they free themselves of great dificulties by supposing it expressely to maintaine the truth of that supposition whereof they make so much advantage For they who not daring to incounter the difficulties wherewith it is chargeable do claime the consequences of it without premising the expresse supposition of it do as good as say nothing where they advise not the reader of those difficulties which the prime principle that they proceed upon is burthened with But he that sees how particular instances depend upon generall principles shall not stick to judge of their positions by the dependance they have upon this supposition so soon as they are informed of the credit which it deserves Now this predetermination Being the immediate effect of Gods omnipotency as for the cause of it as for the nature of it troubles very much those that maintaine it to say wherein it consists as indeed it may very well trouble any man to say of what colour a Chimaera is being in rerum natura just nothing For if they say it is a principle infused by the immediate worke of grace into the Will it is straightwaies evident that the having of it is not to make the Will able which all habituall indowments tend to but to make it actually to worke It must therefore consist in a certain motion or impulse immediately wrought by God in the Will which though it is not in the will to have depending meerely upon the Will of God yet that neither good nor ill can be don without it being necessary as they think to the effectuall determining of the will upon two accounts First as the will is a secondary cause that cannot worke unlesse moved by the first cause Secondly as the Will not being determined of it selfe cannot be determined to any act but by the same first cause But these two accompts seem to me both one For nothing can determine the will to act speaking of that which determines it formally or in the nature of a formall cause but the act of it For supposing the will to act and excluding whatsoever else might be considered the will remaines determined Not suposing that it may further be questioned what determines it The question then being onely what it is that determines the will in the nature of the effective cause the difficulty that causeth the question is but one because it is presumed that the second cause can not act if not acted that is determined to act by the first The nature then of this motion received lodged in the Will is imagined neverthelesse to be successive such as is the being of colours in the aire when they goe to the eye or that impulse which a handicraft-man moves his tooll with And the necessity of it standeth upon a generall account not of originall sine but of Gods creature such as the will in all estates is requisite to the acts of the will because nothing can be don by the creature but that which God shall determine it to do But there is of late an other opinion started in the Church of Rome by Jansenius in his Augustinus which maintaines that the Will in all actions that are goâ—d according to Christianity is determined by grace effectually inclining the will by the love of true good preventing not expecting the motion thereof and producing that influence of the will whereby formally it acteth The nature of it then consists in that very act of life whereby the reasonable creature exerciseth its choice no waies requisite to the actions of nature which man is able to do under originall sin but meerely upon that account as the cure of it restoring the due command over that concupiscence wherein originall sin consisteth and not extending to the state of innocence Which notwithstanding the will is no lesse naturally determined by it then by that principle which the other opinion advanceth For they say both that the will is not determined by the object howsoever proposed but morally as he that outwardly adviseth or perswadeth determines him that resolves upon that consideration which he advanceth to that which he proposeth And therefore this determination both agree satisfies not that efficacy of grace which the scriptures proposed in the premises require Therefore as the former opinion determineth the will naturally by a principle really lodged in the nature of the wil so this by the very vitall act of vvilling really subsistng in the nature of the Will though produced by God a cause above nature which when the delight in good which it importeth is so great as to swallow up all contradiction it determineth to the same preventing the determination of it selfe when otherwise acknowledging that though of the same nature with that which overcometh it is never the lesse defeasible From this ground there flowes an other difference between these two opinions we goe further from the fountaine head still more visible For the former admitting free will to be a faculty able to act or not to act supposing all
figure in saying That God would have that done which he will not do because he knowes sufficient reason to the contrary whether he declare it or not but setting that reason aside would have done Or that he would have that done which he provideth sufficient meanes to bring to passe But that all should signify some and the world the elect because God will not do all he can to save those whom he would have to be saved is a figure in Rhetorick called Mendacium when a man denies the Scripture to be true The same is the difficulty when our Lord Christ who saith to the Father John XVII 9. I ask for them I ask not for the world but for them whom thou hast given me for they are thine prayes upon the Crosse Father forgive them for they know not what they do For though he ask not that for the world which he askes for his disciples yet he would not have prayed for that which he knew not that God would have done His prayer being the reason moving God to grant meanes effectuall to bring to passe that which it desireth But had there been in God a purpose to exclude the Jews from the benefit of Christs death considering them as not having yet refused the grace which Christ prayed for it could not have been said that he would have our Lord Christ dy or pray for them and therefore that he would have them to be saved This is then my argument that the will of man is neither by the originall constitution of God determinable by his immediate operation nor by mans originall sinne subject to a necessity of doing or not doing this or that Because God treats with the posterity of Adam concerning the Covenant of the Law first and since concerning the Covenant of grace no otherwise then originally he treated with Adam about not eating the forbidden fruit For in conscience were it for the credit of Christianity that infidels whom we would perswade to be Christians should say True if you could shew me that God by his immediate act determines me to do as you require me without which you tell me I cannot do it and with which I cannot but do it Or that by the sinne of Adam I am not become subject to the necessity of doing or not doing this or that But supposing either of these if you move me to do what you professe I cannot do you are either a mad man your self or take me for one Do they take their hearers for men and Christians or for beasts who having first taught that man can do nothing but what God determines him to do inferre thereupon that they must indeavour themselves to do what God commands and what their Christianity requires Or that they are obliged by their Christianity to do that which their corruption from Adam necessitates them not to do Is it for the honour of Gods justice that it should be said that he intends to damne the most part of men for that which by their originall corruption they were utterly unable to do without giving them sufficient help to do it no help being sufficient which the determination of the will by the immediate operation of God makes not effectuall as they think Do they not make the Gospel of Christ a mockery that make it to require a condition impossible to be performed by any whom God determines not to perform it having resolved not to determine the greatest part of them that know it to performe it Certainly this is not to make the secret will of God contradict the declared will of God but to make the declared will of God a meer falshood unlesse the declaring will make contradictions true For to will that this be done for an end which God that willeth will not have come to pass makes contradictions the object of that will and that for the same consideration at the same time God from everlasting determining meerly in consideration of his own will that the condition of that which he would have to come to passe conditionally will not come to passe What is it then to declare all this to the posterity of Adam already lapsed without tendring help sufficient to inable them to imbrace what he tendereth For it is manifest that Adam had sufficient grace to doe what God commanded and it is as manifest that God tenders both the Law to the Israelite and the Gospell to the World in the same form as he tendred Adam the prohibition of eating the forbidden fruit Nor can it be denied that this prohibition contained in the force of it all the perswasions all the exhortations all the promises all the threatnings which either the Law or the Gospell to their respective ends and purposes can be inforced with It must therefore be concluded not that they suppose in Adams posterity an ability to do what they require as did the origiginall prohibition of eating the forbidden fruit but that they bring with them sufficient help to perform it not supposing any thing that may barre the efficacy thereof till the will of him to whom it is tendered makes it void And truly speaking of that which the naturall indowment of freedom necessarily imports in the reasonable creature it is utterly impossible that any thing should determine the will of man to do or not to do this or that but his own action formally or in the nature of a formal cause which therefore in the will cannot be the action of God nor be attributed imputed or ascribed to him to whom it were blasphemy to impute that which his creature is honoured with That God should immediately act upon the soul of man or his will is no inconvenience Because that act must end in the will or soul and not attaine that effect which the imperfection of the creature bringeth to passe Ending therefore in the creature and not in that which the action of the creature produceth it leaveth the same of necessity in the state wherein God first made it And I may well suppose here and will suppose that Gods act of creation continues the same for all the time that he maintaines the creature in that perfection of being that is to say in that ability of acting which from the beginning he gave it This discourse I confesse extendeth to the voiding of the immediate concurrence of God to the actions of his creature which my purpose necessarily requires me not to maintaine For concurrence-supposeth the creature to act without help of God that concurreth and therefore cannot be requisite on behalf of the cause being supposed to act of it self but on behalf of the effect wherein it endeth Which having a being is supposed necessarily to require immediate dependance upon the first being which is God A strange subtlety acknowledging the creature able to act and supposing it to act of it self to imagine that this act can end in nothing as that which it effecteth without Gods concurrence Which immediately attaining the
effect in which the action of the creature endeth will enforce that God is as properly said to give light as the sunne to burn as the fire to do that act which is essentially sinne as the man that sinnes And therefore at once not to sinne because we suppose his concourse tied by the originall Law of creation to the determination of his creature And to sinne as producing immediately whatsoever is in that action which is essentially sinne For unlesse the species or nature of the act importing generally no sinne were a thing subsisting by it self as by the understanding it is considered setting aside the sinne which the particular that is acted implyeth as Plato is supposed to have maintained his ideas it is impossible that he who doth the act which is essentially sinne should be said truly not to sinne The Law of concurring to the doing of sinne and producing the act which essentially importeth it necessarily drawing the imputation thereof upon him that freely tied himself by setling it Let it once be said therefore that God made the fire able to burn the sunne able to shine the will of man able to make a free choice as he is a reasonable creature and it will be very impertinent to require any action but that of the fire to the consuming of wood but that of the sunne to the dispelling of darknesse supposing God to maintaine or rather to issue every moment the ability of burning or shining once given his creature from his own spring head of being so long as his creature indureth And therefore if ever God made the will able to chuse the doing or not doing of this before that upon the direction not of right reason which directeth not to sinne but alwayes of reason for all choice supposes reason to direct it it is impertinent to suppose any thing requisite to the exercise of this freedome of choice but the maintenance of reason issuing from the fountaine of Gods Wisdome so long as the man continues a reasonable creature If the immediate concurrence of God to the action of his creature make the actions wherein the perfection of his creature consisteth much more the imperfections and faileurs of it a staine to his excellence much more shall the act of determining the choice of his creature free before it be determined impute to God whatsoever it importeth for the worse the imputation whereof or the better is a staine to his excellency And is it possible that God by making the creature capable of such imputations should depose himself from the Throne of his Godhead and set up his creature in his stead in making it able to act that either naturally without his immediate concurrence or morally also by determining that freedom by the use of his own reason and choice which he in no instance afore determineth Certainly they consider not what they grant themselves when they suppose that God made it able so to do when they make the abilities which he giveth unable to do their work till he determine them so to do so that being so determined before they determine themselves they cannot do otherwise And suppose it a contradiction that the will should choose that which no reason why it should chuse appeareth certainly when reason pronounceth the motive that appeareth to be sufficient the action that insueth cannot be said to proceed from a cause indifferent to act or not though the determination thereof be not peremptory till the act follow Now is there any necessity why God should interpose to determine the indifference of the cause otherwise then as inabling it to determine its own indifference Suppose then a sentence past in the Court of Reason importing not onely This is to be done But This shall be done Do we not see every moment protestations made by the sensuall appetite and acts entered of them by the judge Indeed if the matter of them do not bear a plea the sentence remaines But is it therefore necessary that execution follow Witnesse those that act against conscience Witnesse Aristotels dispute of incontinence placing the nature of it in doing the contrary of that which the judgement is resolved ought to be done as if the one could be absolutely the best the other the best at this time Witnesse Medea in Ovid when she saies Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor I see the better but I do the worse For the mouth of conscience is to be stopped with a pretense of repentance to come and so present satisfaction is clear gaine by the bargaine If at length it come to execution of the sentence I demand what it is that makes the resolution from thenceforth peremptory but the same reason that determined the choice afore unlesse we suppose new matter advanced in plea first and afterwards voided If that which was sufficient afore prove not effectuall till now it is not because any thing was wanting without which the will was not able to proceed but because reason to the contrary appeared considerable before I grant there be those that have so farre determined the indifference of their own inclinations that no reason to the contrary appeares considerable to delay execution of the sentence past long since But this appears by experience to take place as well in those who have degenerated to devils incarnate as those who have improved to saints upon earth And therefore cannot be attributed to the force of true good acting beyond the appearance which it createth in the mind because Gods immediate act directs it But partly to the habituall grace of the holy Ghost with the resolution of Christianity presenting true good as lovely and beautifull as indeed it is Partly to the custome of doing even those acts which without the assistance of God Spirit our nature cannot do Upon which as the habituall indowment of the holy Ghost followes by Gods gracious promise So there followes naturally a facility of doing even supernaturall actions which men habituate themselves to by the meer force of custome excluding the consideration of all that reason to the contrary that hath proved abortive and addle long since Which notwithstanding the choice remaines free by virtue of that originall freedome which determined the indifference of every man to those actions the frequenting whereof hath created an habit And this is the ground of that account which we owe that God showing sufficient reason why we ought to be Christians and the world to the contrary our choice hath followed for the better or for the worse For the efficacy of the said reasons on either side implies beside the sufficiency of them onely a supposition of that which comes to passe which the same reasons determine a man to do that remaine uneffectuall till the execution of sentence But if the will of God interpose to determine the will before it determines there can be no more ground for any account why it acteth or acteth not then the earth is to give why it
delivering mine opinion what is true not in confining the parties to a mean Wee have seen two men of repute now amongst us cenâ—ure Grotius his labors upon the Scriptures from which I acknowledg to have received much advantage The one of them hath made him a Socinian the other a Papist Both could have given us no better argument that hee was neither than this that hee cannot be both It is not my intent to bring mens persons into consideration with the common concernment of Christianity and of Gods Church To his own Master hee stands or falls I do but instance in an eminent person that must needs be a Papist though never reconciled to the Church of Rome That must needs be a Socinian though appealing to the Original consent of the whole Church Upon which terms how should there be any such thing as Papists or Socinians I remember an admonition of his bitter adversary Doctor Rivet That the Sea of Rome will never thank him for what hee writ And from thence I inferred as charity obliged mee to inferr That the common good of Christianity and of Gods Church obliged him to that for which hee was to expect thanks on no side This for certain Grotius never lived by maintaining division in the Churcâ— Whether any body doth so or not I say not Their Master will judge them for it if they do Now to show the world that I am in a capacity to recall any thing that I have said upon due information I will here pass a Review upon that which I have said to the hardest point that I have spoke to the agreement of Gods fore-knowledg and providence with contingence For I conceive it had need be limited a little further to be free from offenâ—e That the consideration of the object which providence presents a man with determines the Will to every choice that it makes which I argue at large II. 24. may be understood two wayes in the nature of an object which belongs to the formal cause when wee speak of faculties habits and acts which are specified by their objects as the Scholes speak or in the nature of an effective cause Not as if the object were not the effâ—ctive cause in respect to the act of deliberation But because in respect to the act of resolution or choice it determineth onely as an object without consideration whereof the choice could not be made not as a motive effectively producing the choice For I acknowledg in point of reason that there may be such contingencies as the School calls ad utrumlibet where a man is no more inclined to this side than to that And in point of Faith I acknowledg that setting aside the temptations by which the Angels and our first parents that â—ell might be said to incline rather to fall than to stand as they were created by God they were not inclined to fall but to stand Besides should I say that the object â—ffâ—ctively determineth the choice how should I say that which I take express notice of pag. 200. that those contingenciâ—s wherein the will inclineth to the one side as balanced by a propensity of disposition towards it not as every faculty is inclined to the object to which it naturally tends remain uncertain as nevertheless contingencies whatsoever probability that propensiâ—y may create And indeed though it is a perfection in mans knowledg rising from the consideration of the object to say what is like to come to pass though it fail yet to Gods which â—â—â—â—th from God alone it were blasplemy to suppose it to fail because then God should fail The infallibâ—lity therefore of it no being deâ—ivable from the object must necessarily be resolved into the infinity eternity immensity of that perfection which is his nature comprehending the future inclination and resolution of that will moved with a consideration capable to determine it which nothing but the native freedom thereof effectively determineth And if it be further demanded how that reason can stand which resolveth into that which no man understands The answer is necessary that it is an argument of infidelity to demand how in â—â—â—â—rs of Faith It is and ought to be sufficient that it involveth no manner of contradiction that the thing which may not be shâ—ll certainly be and therefore may be known and revealed by God that it shall come to pass For if it be a point of perfection rather to know this than not to know it of necessity God must have it how little soever wee understand how And therefore what appearance soever there may be in the motives which the object preâ—enteth agreeing with the present disposition of the Will that choice wiâ—l follow yet so long as it continueth undetermined though not indifferent by reason of the agreement between the inclination thereof and the motives tendred it is alwayes able to determine it self to the contrary of that which it is moved to though not without appearance of a motive determining it otherwise And the tender of that motive is that act of providence in which I say pag. 201. that Gods determining of future contingencies ends consisting with another whereby hee maintains the will in that ability of taking or refusing which the creation thereof constituteth In which case hee who maintaineth that it is not impossible for the infinite wisedom of God comprehending all things to see what man will do shall not derive his fore-sight from the object but from his very Godhead Onely supposing that it hath proceeded to the work of providence in purposing to place every man in an estate so circumstanced as at each moment hee comprehendeth For as man cannot procâ—ed to chuse this and not that not supposing the consideration upon which the choice proceeds which also must make it a good or a bad choice so neither doth God fore see his choice not fore-seeing the motive which the object presenteth him with Which seeing hee fore-seeth in the purpose of his providence supposing that perfection of his Godhead which his proceeding to the same requireth It is manifest that according to this saying that which hee seeth hee seeth in himself and not in his creature Wherefore I confess it may be said that seeing a Divine when hee is come thus farr must stay here and resolve the rest of his inquiries into the vast and bottomless chaos of Gods infinite perfections it had been better to have said so at the first and never have troubled the Reader with a discourse to prove by the Scriptures that God considereth the state wherein his providence placeth men for the ground upon which hee fore-seeth what they will do which that XXIV Chapter containeth For why should not our ignorance be as learned at the first as at the last But that which hath been said will serve to make the discourse no way superfluous For contingencies that shall be though they be nothing before they câ—me to pass yet is God something and the purpose of his pâ—â—â—â—â—ence
The nature and intent of it renders it subordinate to the Clergy How farre the single life of the Clergy hath been a Law to the Church Inexecution of the Canons for it Nullity of the proceedings of the Church of Rome in it The interest of the People in the acts â—f the Church And in the use of the Scriptures 368 CHAP. XXXII How great the Power of the Church and the offect of it is The right of judging the causes of Christians ceaseth when it is protected by the State An Objection If Ecclesiastical Power were from God Secular Power could not limit the use of it Ground for the Interest of the State in Church matters The inconsequence of the argument The concurrence of both Interests to the Law of the Church The Inâ—erest of the state in the indowment of the Church Concurrence of both in matrimonial causes and Ordinations Temporall penalties upon Excommunication from the State No Soveraigne subject to the greater Excommunication but to the lesse The Rights of the Jewes State and of Christian Powers in Religion partly the same partly not The infinite Power of the Pope not founded upon Episcopacy but upon acts of the Secular Powers of Christendom 381 OF THE PRINCIPLES OF Christian Truth The First BOOK CHAP. I. All agree that Reason is to decide controversies of Faith The objection that Faith is taught by Gods Spirit answered What Reason decideth questions of Faith The resolution of Faith ends not in the light of Reason but in that which Reason evidenceth to come from Gods messengers THe first thing that we are to question in the beginning is Whether there be any means to resolve by the use of reason those controverâ—â—es which cause division in the Church Which is all one as if we undertook to enquire whether there be any such skill or knowledg as that for which men call themselvs Divines For if there be it must be the same in England as at Rome And if it have no principles as no principles it can have unlesse it can be resolved what those principles are then is it a bare name signifying nothing But if there be certain principles which all parties are obliged to admit that discourse which admits no other will certainly produce that resolution in which all shall be obliged to agree And truely this hope there is left that all parties do necessarily suppose that there is means to resolve by reason all differences of Faith Inasmuch as all undertake to perswade all by reason to be of the judgment of each one and would be thought to have reason on their side when so they do and that reason is not done them when they are not believed There are indeed many passages of Scripture which say that Faith is only taught by the Spirit of God Mat. XVI 17. Blessed art thou Peter son of Ionas for flesh and blood revealed not this to thee but my Father which is in the heavens II. 25. I thank thee O Father Lord of heaven and earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes 1 Cor. I. 26 27 28. For Brethren you see your calling that not many wise according to the flesh not many mighty not many noble But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen to shame the wise The weak things of the world hath God chosen to shame the strong The ignoble and despicable things of the world hath God chosen and the things that are not to confound the things that are John VI. 45. It is written in the Prophets And they shall be all taught of God Heb. VIII 10. Jer. XXXI 33. This is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel in those dayes saith the Lord I will put my Laws in their mindes and write them in their hearts These and the like Scriptures then asâ—ribing the reason why wee believe to the work of Gods Spirit seem to leave no room for any other reason why wee should believe But this difficulty is easie for him to resolve that diâ—â—inguishes between the reason that moveth in the nature of an object and that motion which the active cause produceth For the motion of an object supposes that consideration which discovers the reason why wee are to believe But the motion of the Holy Ghost in the nature of an active cause proceeds without any notice that wee take of it According to the saying of our Lord to Nicodemus John 111. 8. The winde bloweth where it listeth and a man hears the noise of it but cannot tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth So is every one that is born of the spirit For wee must know that there may be sufficient reason to evict the truth of Christianity and yet prove ineffectual to induce the most part either inwardly to believe or outwardly to professe it The reason consists in two things For neither is the mater of Faith evident to the light of reason which wee bring into the world with us And the Crosse of Christ which this profession drawes after it necessarily calls in question that estate which every man is setled upon in the world So that no marvel if the reasons of believing fail of that effect which for their part they are sufficient to produce Interest diverting the consideration or intercepting the consequence of such troublesom truth and the motives that inforce it The same is the reason why the Christian world is now to barren of the fruits of Christianity For the profession of it which is all the Laws of the world can injoyn is the common privilege by which men hold their estates Which it is no marvel those men should make use of that have neither resolved to imbrace Christ with his Crosse nor considered the reason they have to do it who if they should stick to that which they professe and when the protection of the Law failes or act according to it when it would be disadvantage to them in the world so to do should do a thing inconsequent to their own principles which carried them no further than that profession which the Law whereby they hold their estates protecteth The true reason of all Apostasy in all trials As for the truth of Christianity Can they that believe a God above refuse to believe his messengers because that which they report stands not in the light of any reason to evidence it Mater of Faith is evidently credible but cannot be evidently true Christianity supposes sufficient reason to believe but not standing upon evidence in the thing but upon credit of report the temptation of the Crosse may easily defeat the effect of it if the Grace of Christ and the operation of the Holy Ghost interpose not Upon this account the knowledg of Gods truth revealed by Christ may be the work of his Grace according to the Scriptures for that so it is I am not obliged neither have I any reason here to suppose being to come in
it is manifest that the authority which S. Paul giveth Timothy and Titus as his Epistles to them evidence is respective to the Churches of Ephesus and Creet or at the most those Churches which resorted to them Yet are they inabled thereby to constitute Bishops for the service of the said Churches as also their Deacons and to govern the same 1 Tim. II. 5. Titus I. 6-9 The Elders of the Church which S. Paul sent for to Ephesus had authority respective to the Church there meant but received from S. Paul as his directions and exhortations intimate Acts XX. 17 28-21 So did the Elders which hee and Barnabas ordained in the Churches Acts XIV 28. The like wee finde in the Churches of the Jewes Heb. XIII 7 17. James V. 14. 1 Pet. V. 1-5 and of the Thessalonians and Philippians 1 Thess V. 12 13. Phil. I. 1. And the seven Churches of Asia have their seven Angels which the Epistles which the Spirit directs S. John to write them do show that they were to acknowledge his authority Apoc. I. 20. II. III. So as long as the Scriptures last it is evident that there was a common authority whether derived from or concurrent with the authority of the Apostles which must needs make the Church one Body during that time whatsoever privilege can be challenged on behalf of the people and their concurrence to the acts either of each particular Church or of the whole And for the continuance of this authority after the Apostles I see no cause why I should seek farr for evidence It shall susfice mee to allege the Heads of the Churches of Rome Alexandira Antiochia and Jerusalem recorded by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical Histories from the time of the Apostles Adding thereunto thereunto the protestations of Irenaeus III. 3. that hee could reckon those rhat received their authority from the Apostles in all Churches though for brevities sake hee insist onely in the Church of Rome And of Tertullian de Praescript cap. XXXII who also allegeth the very Chaires which the Apostles sate upon possessed by those that succeeded them in his time as well as the Originals of those Epistles which they sent to such Churches extant in his time I will also remember S. Augustine Epistolâ CLXV and Optatus lib. II. alleging the same succession in the Church of Rome to confound the Donatists with for departing from the comminion thereof and of all Churches that then communicated with it For what will any man in his right senses say to this That this authority came not from the Apostles Or that it argues every one of these Churches to be a Body by it self but not all of them to make one Body which is the Catholick Church Hee that sayes this must answer Irenaeus alleging for a reason why hee instances onely in the Church of Rome Ad hanc enim Ecclesiam propter potentiorem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam hoc est eos qui sunt undique sideles For to this Church it is necessary that all Churches that is the Christians that are on all sides should resort because of the more powerfull principality What is the reason why it is enough for Irenaeus to instance in the Church of Rome but this That all Churches do communicate with the Church of Rome when they resort to Rome and all resort thither because it is the sear of the Empire So that which is said of the Faith of the Church of Rome is said of the Faith of all Churches And potentior principalitas is not command of the Church over other Churches but the power of the Empire which forces the Christians of all sides to resort to Rome Again the cause of the Church against the Donarists stands upon this ground that the Church of Rome which the Churches of Africk did communicate with communicated with all Churches besides those of Africk But that Church of Rome which the Donatists communicated with for they also had set up a Church of their own at Rome the rest of the Church did not communicate with How this came to passe you may see by the cause of the Novatians being the same in effect with that of the Donatists By the IV Canon of Nicaea it is provided that every Bishop be made by all the Bishops of the Province some of them as many as can meeting the rest allowing the proceedings under their hand This provision might be made when there were Churches in all Cities of all Provinces but the I Canon of the Apostles onely requireth that a Bishop be ordained by two or three Bishops For when Christianity was thinner sowed if two or three should take the care of providing a Pastor for a Church that was void their proceeding was not like to be disowned by the rest of the neighbouring Churches nor in particular by that of the chief City to which the Cities of the rest resorted for justice The Churches of these chief Cities holding intelligence correspondence and communion with other Churches of other principal Cities those Churches which they owned together with their Rulers or whosoever they were that acted on behalf of them must needs be owned by them in the same unity and correspondence The Bishop of Rome being dead while the question depended whether those that had fallen away in the persecution of Decius should be readmitted to communion or not And the neighbour Bishops being assembled sixteen of them ordain Cornelius three of them Novatianus who stood strictly upon rejecting them whatsoever satisfaction they tendered the Church Whether of these should be received was for a time questionable especially in the Church of Antiochia and those Churches which adheered to it Untill by the intercession of Dionysius of Alexandria they were induced to admit of Cornelius without dispute All this and much more you have in Eusebius Eccl. Hist VI. 42-46 Which being done there remained no further question that those who held with Cornelius were to be admitted those that held with Novatianus remaining excommunicate Whereby it appeares that by the communication which passed between the greatest Churches and the adherence of the lesse unto them whatsoever Church communicated with any Church communicated with the whole And in what quality soever a man was known in his own Church in the same hee was acknowledged by all Churches And therefore the succession of the Rulers of any Church from the Apostles is enough to evidence the unity of the Catholick Church as a visible Corporation consisting of all Churches I must not here omit to allege the authority of Councils and to maintain the right and power of holding them and the obligation which the decrees of them regularly made is able to create to stand by the same authority of the Apostles Which if I do there can no further question remain whether the Church was founded for a Corporation by our Lord and his Apostles when wee see the parts ruled by the acts of the whole That is to say
is there just cause to think that thereby advantage is given to the Jewes against Christianity by granting that such passages out of which the New Testament drawes the birth and sufferings of our Lord are reasonably to be understood of his predecessors in Gods ancient people For it is plaine that it despite of the Jewes the works done by our Lord and his Prophesies concerning his Dying and Rising again and the destruction of the Jewes and the preaching of the Gospel to all Nations seconded by his Apostles and that which they did to winn credit that they were the witnesses of the same are the evidence upon which the Gospel obliges The Scriptures of the Old Testament which were no evidence to the Gentiles as much and more concerned in the Gospel than the Jewes were evidence and so to be not of themselves for what need Christ then have done those works But upon supposition that God intended not to rest in giving the Law but to make it the thred to introduce the Gospel by Which supposition as it is powerfully inforced by the nature of the Law and the difference between the inward and the outward obedience of God as it hath been hitherto declared and maintained So is it also first introduced by those works which our Lord declareth to be done for evidence thereof then made good by the perpetual correspondence between the Old and New Testament which any considerable exception interrupts And there reasons so much the more effectual because this difference of literal and mystical sense was then and is at this day acknowledged by the Jewes themselves against whom our Lord and his Apostles imploy it in a considerable number of Scriptures which they themselves interpret of the Messias though they are not able to make good the consequence of the same sense throughout because they acknowledge not the reason of it which concludes the Lord Jesus to be the Messias whom they expect If these things be true neither Origen nor any man else is to be indured when they argue that a mystical sense of the Scripture is to be inquired and allowed even where this ground takes no place For vindicating the honor of God and that it may appeare worthy of his wisedom to declare that which wee admit to be the utmost intent of the Scriptures For if it be for the honor of God to have brought Christianity into the world for the salvation of mankinde and to have declared himself by the Scriptures for that purpose then whatsoever tends to declare this must be concluded worthy of God and his wisedom whatsoever referres not to it cannot be presumed agreeable to his wisdom how much soever it flatter mans eare or fantasie with quaintnesse of conceit or language Now as I maintain this difference between the literal and mystical sense of the Old Testament to be necessary for the maintenance of Christianity as well as for understanding the Scriptures So are there some particular questions arising upon occasion of it which I can well be content to leave to further dispute As for example There is an opinion published which saith That the abomination of desolation which our Lord saith was spoken of by Daniel the Prophet concerning the destruction of Jerusalem Dan. IX 24 Mat. XXIV 15. Mar. XIII 14. was fulfilled in the havock made by Antiochus Epiphanes Which is also plainly called the abominatio of desolation by the same Prophet Daâ— XI 31. XII 10. Whether this opinion can be made good according to historical truth or not this is not the place to dispute Whether or no the difference between the literal and mystical sense of the Scriptures will indure that the same Prophesie be fulfilled twice in the literal sense concerning the temporal state of the Jewes once under Antiochus Epiphanes and once under Titus that is it which I am here content to referre to further debate One thing I affirme that notwithstanding this difference it is no inconvenience to say that some Prophesies are fulfilled but once Namely that of Jacob Gen. XLIX 8-12 that of Daniel IX 24. that of Malacbi III. 1. IV. 5 6. Because the coming of Christ boundeth the times of the literal and mystical sense And therefore there is reason why it should be marked out by Prophesies of the Old Testament referring to nothing else Againe I am content to leave to dispute whether the many Prophesies of the Old Testament which are either manifestly alleged or covertly intimated by the Revelation of S. John must therefore be said to be twice fulfilled once in the sense of their first Authors under the Law and again under the Gospel in S. Johns sense to the Church Or that this second complement of them was not intended by the Spirit of God in the Old Prophets but that it pleased God to signifie to S. John things to befall the Church by Prophetical Visions like those which hee had read in the ancient Prophets whereby God signified to them things to befall his ancient people For of a truth it is the outward rather than the spiritual state of the Church which is signified to S. John under these images A third particular must be the first Chapter of Genesis For in that which followes of Paradise and what fell out to our first Parents there I will make no question that hoth senses are to be admitted the Church having condemned Origen for taking away the historical sense of that portion of Scripture But whether the creation of this sensible world is to be taken for a figure of the renewing of mankinde into a spiritual world by the Gospel of Christ according to that ground of the difference between the literal and mystical sense of the Scripture which hitherto I maintaine This I conceive I may without prejudice leave to further debate But leaving these things to dispute I must insist that those things which the Evangelists affirm to have been fulfilled by such things as our Lord said or did or onely befell him in the flesh have a further meaning according to which they are mystically accomplished in the spiritual estate of his Christian people The chiefe ground hereof I confesse is that of S. Matthew VIII 17. where having related divers of our Lords miracles hee addeth that they were done That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet Esay LIII 4. Hee took our infirmities and â—are away our sicknesses Together with the words of our Lord Luke V. 17-21 where hee telleth them of Nazareth This day are the words of the Prophet Esay LXI 1. The Spirit of the Lord is upon mee because hee hath anointed mee to preach the Gospel to the poor fulfilled in your hearing And his answer to John Baptist grounded upon the same passage Mat. XI 4 5 6. Go and tell John what yee have heard and seen The blinde receive sight the lame walk the lâ—pers are cleansed the deaf heare the dead are raised and the poor have the Gospel preached them For
Christians had not sufficiently renounced Idolatry in receiving the faith or as if it were not free for them being Christians to Gods creatures which perhaps might have been sacrificed to Idols But because as I said afore the Jews had a custome not to eat any thing till they had inquired whether sacrificed to Idols or consecrated by offering the first fruits thereof which scrupulosity those who did not observe they counted not so much enemies to Idols as they ought to be which opinion of their fellow Christians was not so consistent with that opinion of Christianity which was requisite Not as if fornication were not sufficiently prohibited by Christianity but because simple fornication being accounted no sinne but meerly indifferent among the Gentiles all the professions and all the decrees that could be made were little enough to perswade the Jews that their fellow Christians of the Gentiles held it in the like detestation as themselves Now though we find that the Christians did sometimes and in most places forbear blood and things strangled and offered to Idols even where this reason ceased and that perhaps out of an opinion that the decree of the Apostles took hold of them in doing which they did but abridge themselves of the common freedom of Christians yet seeing the Apostles give no such sign of any intent of reviving that which was once a Law to all that came from Noe but forgotten and never published again it followeth that the Church is no more led by the reason of their decree then those Churches of Rome and Corinth were whom S. Paul licences to eat all meats in generall as the Romanes or things sacrificed to Idols expresly as the Corinthians excepting the case of scandall which our common Christianity excepteth setting aside the decree of Jerusalem which S. Paul alledgeth not and naming two cases wherein that scandall might fall out as excepting no other case But in all these instances and others that might be brought as it was visible to the Church whether the reasons for which such alterations were brought into the Church continued in force or not so was it both necessary and sufficient for them that might question whither they were tied to them or not to see the expresse act or the custome of the Church for their assurance For what other ground had they to assure their consciences even against the Scripture in all ages of the Church For if these reasons be not obvious if every one admit them not much lesse will every one find a resolution wherein all may agree and all scandall and dissention may be suppressed CHAP. XXV The power of the Church in limiting even the Traditions of the Apostles Not every abuse of this power a sufficient warrant for particular Churches to reforme themselves Heresie consists in denying something necessary to salvation to be believed Schism in departing from the unity of the Church whether upon that or any other cause Implicite Faith no virtue but the effect of it may be the work of Christian charity SUpposing now the Church a Society and the same from the first to the second coming from Christ by Gods appointment Let it be considered what is the difference between the state thereof under the Apostles and under Constantine or now under so many Soveraignties as have shared these parts of the Empire And let any understanding that can apprehend what Lawes or what Customes are requisite to the preservation of unity in the communion of the Church in the one and in the other estate I say let any such understanding pronounce whither the same Lawes can serve the Church as we see it now or as we read of it under Constantine and as it was under the Apostles He that sayes yea will make any man that understands say that he understands not what he speaks of he that sayes nay must yeeld that even the Lawes given the Church by the Apostles oblige not the Church so farre as they become useless to the purpose for which they are intended seeing it is manifest that all Laws of all Societies whatsoever so farre as they become unserviceable so far must needs cease to oblige And the Apostles though they might know by the spirit the state of the Church that should come after yet had they intended to give Laws to that State they had not given Laws to the State which was when they lived and gave Laws The authority therefore of the Apostles remaining unquestionable and the Ordinances also by them brought into the Church for the maintenance of Gods service according to Christianity the Church must needs have power not onely to limite and determine such things as were never limited nor determined by the Apostles but even those things also the determination whereof made by the Apostles by the change of time and the state of the Church therewith are become evidently uselesse and unserviceable to the intent for which it standeth And if it be true that I said afore that all power produceth an obligation of obeying it in some things I say not in all as afore even when it is abused in respect of God and of a good Conscienceâ— then is the act of the Church so farre a warrant to all those that shall follow it so farre even in things which a man not onely suspects but sees to be ill ordered by those that act in behalfe of it This is that which all the variety and multitude of Canons Rites and Ordinances which hath been introduced into the Church before there was cause of making any change without consent of the whole evidenceth being nothing else but new limitations of those Ordinances which the Apostles either supposed or introduced for the maintenance of Gods service determining the circumstances according to the which they were to be exercised For if there were alwayes cause since the beginning for particular Churches that is parts of the vvhole to make such changes vvithout consent of the whole as might justly cause a breach between that part and the whole then was there never any such thing as a Catholick Church which all Christians profess to believe And truly the Jews Law may be an argument as it is a patern of the same right which notwithstanding an express precept of neither adding to it nor taking from it unlesse we admit a power of determining circumstances not limited by the letter of it becomes unserviceable and not to be put in practice as may easily appear to any man that shall peruse the cases that are put upon supposition of those precepts which determine not the same Whereupon a power is provided by the same Law of inflicting capitall punishment upon any that not resting upon the determination established by those that have authority in behalfe of the whole shall tend to divide the Synagogue Iintend not hereby to say that the power of giving Law to the Church cannot be so well abused that it may at length inable or oblige parts of the Church
principles to spirituall good can no way impeach it as coming from the constitution of our nature supposing the ornaments and additions of grace to be removed The opinion of the fulfilling of Gods Law by Christians supposes that the remaines of concupiscence in the regenerate and the immediate effects thereof in the first motions to sinne which cannot be prevented are not against Gods Law but onely besides it From whence it will follow that he who of his free will imbraces Christianity and perseveres in the good works which it injoyneth meriteth of justice the reward of the Life to come And truly for my part I cannot deny that all this is justly pleaded against those that are of this opinion and cannot by them justly be answered But that this opinion is injoyned by the Church of Rome I cannot understand seeing divers learned Doctors of the Schools alledged by Doctor Field for the opposition which he maketh to this opinion and that very truly and justly shewing infallibly that the contrary opinion is allowed to be maintained in the communion of the Church of Rome And that nothing hath been done since the authors whom he alledgeth to make this unlawfull to be held amongst them I suppose it will be enough to produce the decree of the Council of Trent since which it is evident that it is lawfull among them to maintaine that concupiscence is originall sinne For though the decree declareth that the Church never understood concupiscence in the regenerate to be truly and properly sinne but to be so called as proceeding from sinne and inclining to sinne Yet in as much as it is one thing to speak of concupiscence in the regenerate another in the unregenerate and in as much as it is one thing to declare the sense of the Church according to the opinion of the Synode another to condemn the contrary sense as opposite to the Faith it is manifest that this declaration condemns not those that hold originall concupiscence to be originall sinne but onely shewes that they could not answer the difficulty of originall sinne in the regenerate On the other side it cannot be justly said so farre as I understand that those of the Reformation do affirme that the grace given to Adam at his creation was due to his nature in this sense and to this effect as if they did intend to deny that he was created in such an estate and to such a condition of happinesse as the principles and constitution of his nature do not necessarily require But onely this That the gifts which by his creation he stood indowed with were necessary to the purchase of that happinesse which he that is to say his nature was created to whereupon they are justly called the indowments of nature Here I must not omit the opinion of Catharinus in the Council of Trent That Adam received originall righteousnesse of God in his own name and the name of his posterity to be continued to them he obeying God Whereupon his disobedience iâ— in Law their disobedience though in nature onely his and the act of his transgression imputed to them is their originall sinne as personall as the penalties of it No otherwise then Levâ— paid Tithes in Abraham Many passages of S. Augustine he had to alledge for this as also a Text of the Prophet Osee and another of Ecclesiasticus But especially the expresse words of S. Paul That by the inobedience of one man many are made sinnerâ— And That by sinne death came into the world which surely came into the world by the actuall transgression of Gods commandment Alledging that Eve found not her self naked till Adam had eaten the forbidden fruit Nor had originall sin been had the matter rested there And by this reason he thought he avoided a difficulty not to be overcome otherwise how the lust of generation can give a spirituall staine to the soul which must needs be carnall if it come from the flesh And by this meanes nothing but an action which transgresseth Gods Law shall be sinne which all men understand by that name This opinion the History saith was the more plausible among the Prelates there as not bred Divines but Canonists or versed in businesse and so best relishing that which they best understood to wit the conceit of a civile contract with Adam in behalfe of his posterity as well as himself To give a judgement of this opinion I shall do no more but remit the reader to those Scriptures which I have produced to shew that there is such a thing as originall sinne concluding that the nature of it wherein it consists must be valued by the evidence of it whereby it appeares that it is It will then be unavoidable that when death is the effect of sinne because righteousnese is the cause of life as Adams sinne is the cause of his death so the death of his posterity depends upon their own unrighteousnesse Why else should Christianity free us from death as hath been shewed Why should S. Paul complain of the Law that he found in his members opposing the Law of righteousnesse why should the flesh fight with the Spirit and the fruits of the flesh be opposite to the fruits of the Spirit but that the same opposition of sinne to righteousnesse is to be acknowldged in the habituall principles as in the actuall effects which proceed from the same As for that onely text of S. Paul in which he could find any impression of his meaning if the reader observe the deduction whereby I have shewed that S. Pauls discourse obliged him to set forth the ground whereupon the coming of Christ and his Gospel became necessary to the salvation both of the Jews and Gentiles he will easily find that the question is of the effective not of the formall cause that S. Paul is not ingaged to shew wherein that source of sinne which our Lord Christ came to cure consisteth but from whence it proceedeth True it is when the posterity suffers losse of estate and honour for the Fathers treason it may properly be said that the Fathers crime is imputed to the posterity Not because any reason can indure that what is done by one man should be thought to be done by another but because the effect of what one man does may justly be either granted to or inflicted upon another whether for the better or for the worse As in a civile state suppose the Laws make treason to forfeit lands and honours which every man sees are held by virtue of the Lawes that posterity which hath no right to them but from predecessors and the obligation which they had to maintaine the state should forfeit them by the act of predecessors is a thing not strange but reasonable Though so that the forfeiture may transgresse the bounds of reason and humanity if the Law should not allow posterity or kindred to live in that state to which predecessors have forfeited when there is so much cause to believe that the
forfeiture may be an instruction to them if once they believe that it was by just Law This justice then and the ground of it is the onely reason why the predecessors fault is truly said to be imputed to his posterity But between God and mankind in the forfeit of Adam by the precept given him there cannot be understood any contract by virtue whereof posterity that did not the act can be liable to the punishment of it And therefore we must distinguish between the imputing of one mans sinne to another formally so as to punish a man for another mans sin which if he concurred to the act may be just otherwise not And effectively in the nature of a meritorious cause which reduceth it self to the effective when in consideration of one mans sinne another is made subject to that evil which he should have been free from otherwise And according to this distinction though the posterity of Adam is liable to much evill in consideration of his sin yet is not this evil properly the punishment of it but the effect of the same will of God in propagating mankind with the staine of concupiscence which takes place in maintaining understanding creatures to do all that sinne which God might have hindred them from doing had he not thought it better to draw good out of evil then utterly to prevent it And this is no more then the correspondence between the first and second Adam which S. Paul proceeds upon Rom. V. inferreth For I have shewed already that the righteousnesse of Christ is not imputed to any man formally and immediately so as to say that any man is justified by Gods deputing our Lord Christ for his benefit personally excluding those for whom he was not deputed And I have shewed againe that the righteousnesse of Christ is imputed to all Christians effectively and in the nature of a meritorious cause In as much as have shewed that those helps of grace without which no man is able to imbrace Christianity as it is to be imbraced are granted by God in consideration of his merits and sufferings laid out to that purpose And that which remaineth for me to shew in due place is this That that disposition which qualifieth for the promises of the Gospel being brought to passe in any man by those helps obliges not God to grant those promises which the Gospel rewards it with by any worth in it self but by virtue of Gods grace in consideration of Christs merits and sufferings laid out to that purpose By which correspondence it may appear that those who can perswade themselves that the posterity of Adam are bound to answer for the sin of his fall as their own act cannot stand bound to acknowledge a Christian to whom the merits of the sufferings of Christ are imputed upon the same terms obliged to any condition upon which his right to the promises of the Gospel can depend being once due to him by virtue of Christs merits and sufferings deputed to be personally his As on the contrary those that acknowledge the merits and sufferings of Christ to be justly imputed to the persons of those whom he was sent to redeem cannot stand bound to acknowledge the posterity of the first Adam to be liable to concupiscence by his fall seeing the coming of Christ for the redemption of those whom God thereby should please to exempt from the common imputation thereof would be no lesse effectuall to the voiding of that condemnation which it contracted then supposing what ever disease of our nature concupiscence coming in by his fall may signifie So that supposing the immediate and personall imputation of the fall of Adam to all his posterity of the merits and suffering of Christ to all those for whom they are appointed the evil which mankind suffereth by the meanes of Adams fall is properly the punishment of his sinne the good which it receiveth by the meanes of Christs sufferings is the reward of it nor can have any dependance upon any act of his free will Otherwise then as that which God worketh by him not as that which he requireth at his hands But supposing the meritorious imputation of Adams fall and Christs righteousnesse the evil which his posterity lies under by meanes of it will not be properly the punishment of sinne because not the recompense of the evill which a man does by the evil which he suffers though properly a penalty because an evil inflicted in consideration of sinne Now supposing that Adam understood the precept In the day thou eatest thereof shalt thou die the death to condemn his posterity as well as himself it is manifest notwithstanding that the obligation thereof was not by virtue of his accepting of it and contracting upon it but originall by virtue of that being which God had bestowed and therefore taking hold of all his posterity on whom he meant to bestow it Wherefore though it is handsomly called by S. Augustine and others a Covenant of God with mankind which being transgressed by Adam forfeited the benefit thereof to his posterity Yet to speak properly it was the meer appointment of God in that which lay in his power and right to appoint that the uprightnesse wherein Adam was created should descend to his posterity he continuing in it otherwise the propagation thereof should be maintained the uprightnesse failing Nor can any man think strange that Christianity should oblige us to believe this if we consider the many and strange extravagances which those who either acknowledge not Christianity or have fallen from it do runne into by not resting in it The Epicureans and as some think the Peripateticks denying Providence the Stoicks Free-will and so the same providences The Pythagoreans whom the Platonicks are intangled with and the ancient Gnosticks Marcionites and Manichees manifestly imitate setting up two Gods one the author of evil the other of good the Heathen worshipping in effect the devil whom those Sects set up under the Name of author of evil the Jews and Mahumetanes if they have any thing to say to the originall of evil in mankind to whose use God hath commended the world being obliged to say that it comes from the fall of Adam Pelagians and Socinians not confessing what Jewes and Mahumetanes cannot deny but not able to give any account why the noble creature of mankind should be so overspread with evil coming from a good God and accountable for his own actions The question thus stated and Christianity tendring first the fall of bad angels and the seducing of Adam by their malice and in consequence thereunto of the greatest part of mankind to the worship of evil angels by whom they were seduced excepting those whom God dealt with by his word ministred by angels first then by his Sonne whose Gospel now is preached I suppose there is nothing wanting to evidence either the truth or obligation of it though those that preach it are not inabled to evidence why God pleased to suspend the
standeth still or the heavens why they move For it is not the nature of heaven and earth that makes them stand still or move but the will of God that made it their nature and creates all the necessity that followes upon it as I said afore If therefore a man can do nothing till God determine him to do it and cannot but do that which he determines him to do then is there the same necessity for that which he doth as for the heavens moving or the earth standing still Here a difficulty is made in regard of the merits of Jesus Christ who for the joy set before him underwent the crosse despising the shame and sate down at the right hand of God Heb. XII 2. And Humbled himself becoming obedient to death even the death of the Crosse Wherefore God also hath over-exalted him Phil. II. 8 9. As if because the merits of Christ are the acts of a will by the hypostaticall union utterly determined to the will of God it were not requisite that the promises of the Gospel should be obtained by performing the Covenant of Grace when a man might not have performed it The answer is not to be cleared more then the mystery of the holy Trinity is to be comprehended For of a truth how should it be understood how the will of God the Father freely tendered how the same in the Sonne undertook to assume our nature to perform the work of our redemption in it But upon this freedom depends the consideration which makes the Grace of Christ due by Gods promise For though the will of man in Christ were utterly determined to that which the will of God should choose yet because it became so determined by the divine will in Christ freely assuming our nature the influence of that freedome into all that he freely did in virtue of that choice makes the acts thereof meritorious of the rewards of his Crosse Nor is there any use to be made of the distinction between the compound and divided sence of any propositions but those that speak of that necessity which followes upon a supposition of the being of those things which are said to be necessary That necessity and onely that it reconcileth with contingence Necesse est praedestinatum salvari Non necesse est praedestinatum salvari In English for we must suppose the property of each language it must needs be or it is necessary that he who is predestinate should be saved It is not necessary not of necessity it must not needs be that he who is predestinate should be saved Compounding or twisting in your minde the quality of predestinate with salvation that is supposing a man to be predestinate the affirmative is true necessity is attributed to the salvation of a man so qualified dividing them that is not supposing the man to be praedestinate the negative Because Christianity supposeth praedestination to preserve freedome and contingence But if you say in Latine Praedestinatus necessario salvatur In English He that is praedestinate is saved necessarily or by necessity it must be utterly denied for the same cause The same distinction may be used when the necessity is not upon supposition of the being of that which is said to be necessary but to no purpose For it is necessary that the fire burne or the Sunne show us light if wood be put to it if it be above our hemisphere It is not necessary if otherwise But this makes not that which is necessary upon such a supposition ever a whit the more contingent Nay it were ridiculous to expresse it because a limitation so unnecessary may be understoode No lesse necessary will that act of the will be to which God determines though otherwise the being of it were not onely not necessary but impossible Nor will it be true to say that he who doth what God determines him immediately to do hath power to do the contrary at the same time though not to do it at the same time simultatem potentiae ad oppositum not potentiam simultatis For if the will cannot act still so determined it were a contradiction to say that it hath power to do that which you say it cannot doe Wherefore if God from the beginning ever gave the reasonable creature a will actually not determined to do or not to do this or that the same will by which God does this continuing for all that time that he maintaines it there is no more roome left for a will of determining the same in God untill by virtue of his first will it determine it selfe then there is roome in God not to will that which actually and presently he willeth It is therefore too late to say That God determining as well the maner by which all things come to passe as what shall come to passe can as well determine the acts of his reasonable creatures to be done freely as the acts of naturall things to be done necessarily Having supposed afore that he determines these acts by determining immediately the will to do them For though I count it necessary to grant that God by his providence determines all future contingences for the reason to be shewed in due time yet should he determine the will to doe them without supposing it to determine it selfe there could remaine neither contingence in the effect nor freedome in the cause And therefore I say that God determines those thinges that come to passe freely and contingently so to come to passe but he cannot determine this by destroying freedome and contingence Therefore not by determining immediately the will of man to doe or not to doe this or that For this determination produceth not that necessity which stands upon supposition of an act freely done and therefore contingent as that which neede not have beene done or of the foresight of it or of effectuall meanes to bring it to paâ—â—e which cannot be defeated because they are supposed to take effect but that which stands onely upon supposition of the cause which being the determination of God and therefore indefeasible the necessity which it produceth whatsoever it be for the kind will be stronger then any necessity that is antecedent to the being of any thing in the creature And though I said before absolutely that the action of the creature cannot be imputed to God yet upon an impossible supposition as this I can and must inferre that nothing can be imputed to the creature as good or evill to reward or punishment but all to God Which is a consequence that Christian ears must not indure For I suppose no Christian ears can indure to heare that God should infuse any inclination to malice into the heart of his creature because when it comes to effect the effect will be imputable to God and because before it comes to effect the work of God must be called evill as inclined to evill How then shall we indure to heare it said that God by his indefeasible omnipotence determines the creature
to doe all the evill that it does and that without this determination no evill can be done with it no evill can but be done For alas the covering will be too shortâ—â— to say that God produceth onely the positive action of sinne the malice incident to it consisting in the meere want of conformity to the rule which it ought to follow proceeding from the imperfection of the creature For the difference between the action of sinne and the sinne which it acteth consisteth meerely in the conceit of mans understanding not apprehending at once all the particulars wherein the action consisteth No action possibly being so badde that in some generall considerations common to those which are good it may not be counted good But those generall considerations expresse not the particular act which is supposed to be sinne So soone as the nature thereof is sufficiently expressed so soone it will appeare to be essentially sinne Therefore if God determine the creature to the act or sinne he determines it to sinne And though upon these termes there can neither be sinne nor vertue good nor evill Law nor Gospel providence nor judgment to come yet upon these termes the actions of the creature will be imputable to God alone though not as good or badde or as the actions of God yet as the actions of him that is supposed to be God in wordes but denied to be God in effect As for that which was said as if otherwise the efficacy of Gods praedestination and that grace which by it he appointeth for those that shall be saved could not subsist or as if otherwise God could not be maintained to be the first cause I will say no more now then what I said of the ground for Gods foreknowledge of future contingences That when I come to say how God determines future contingences I will doe the best I can to render such a reason as may maintaine him to be the first cause and so to foresee all future contingences by the same meanes by which he determines that they shall come to passe without giving just ground to inferre that there is neither contingence in the effect nor freedome in the cause no providence no judgment no Christianity appointed by God But if I faile of giving such a reason I disclaime it here before I give it and will rather allege that I have none to give and yet beleeve both Gods effectuall providence and the freedome and contingence of mens actions then beleive the determination of mans will by the immediate operation of Gods providence to be the sourse of freedome and contingence which I have shewed leaves no roome for contingence or providence And now I may freely grant that Jansenius hath avoided the charge of telling what it is that comes between the last instance of deliberation and the first of resolution by the immediate act of God to inable a man to do that which he that is able to deliberate and act both is not able to bring to passe Which is the same Chimaera with the imagination of infallibility in every sentence of the present Church when it comes to pronounce though the premises upon which it proceedeth do not appear even to them that pronounce infallible Nor will I envy him the advantage that he may make of the distinction between the sense of that which is said to be necessary including this praedetermination and not necessary setting it aside For having shewed that it is to no effect but to destroy contingence that is Christianity and to multiply contradiction to that common sense which all own I may well bid much good do it But I am not therefore bound to believe that it will serve his turn proceeding upon the account of indifference in the creature and the necessary effect of a secondary cause who standeth upon that necessity of Grace which Originall sinne introduceth For how shall he say that setting aside Gods praedetermination the Will may have Grace sufficient to do the work of Grace including the same it cannot but do it who makes the will utterly unable to do it till it be determined to do it And therefore takes away all difference between effectuall and sufficient Grace all intent of Christs dying for them that shall not be saved Indeed if he extend his opinion to the reconciling of mans free will with Gods Providence in matters not concerning the work of saving Grace he may make use of praedetermination in giving account how sinne is foreknown and the rest which hitherto he resolveth not But grounding himself upon the exigence of Originall sinne it were not wisdome for him to scandalize his own opinion by making sinne as necessary by Gods act as he makes the work of Grace There is extant a briefe resolution of the whole question by that learned Gentleman Thomas White where he concludeth Paragr X. That God determineth every man so to determine himself in whatsoever he does by the love of good infused and the causes which his Providence useth to represent it desirable that he cannot do otherwise How he would answer concerning evil is not so plain by his words He sayes indeed it is not the same thing to determine and cause to determine as for the Ammonites and David to kill Vrias But if the murther be duly imputed to David for procuring meanes towards it that might have failed would he have God procure meanes that cannot fail It cannot be allowed but thus that though of themselves they might fail yet supposing the foreknowledge of God that imployeth them that is supposing them to take effect which supposition all the experience in the world concludeth cannot be cleared till the effect follow they cannot fail And the nature of freedome the ground of the account to come consisteth in this that determining a man to act he might not have acted till the act was done For certainly it were a contradiction to say that which determines the will to act speaking not of the thing without but of the consideration thereof in the minde may not be extant when a man determines himself in virtue of it Nay were this consideration whereby God determineth indefeasible of its own nature for as imployed by Gods Providence that is supposing the effect to follow it is it were that very predetermination which I have infringed by the premised discourse coming from God in order of reason first and in the very next instant producing that choice wherein the determination of the will formally consisteth I will therefore conclude that wheresoever through the whole Bible God calls any man or his ancient people or by the Gospell all people to yeild him that inward obedience and worship in spirit and truth which Christianity requireth all this proceeding supposing the corruption of mans nature by the fall of Adam there he will take account of his disbursements by that which the creature shall have done not finally determined to do it by any thing preceding the choice Putting you
it may be said that a thing comes to passe necessarily and that sense in which it may be said that it must necessarily come to passe For I suppose that the property of our English will help me here to distinguish these two senses to all that consider their mother tongue and may discerne a severall meanâ—ng when a man saies the fire burnes necessarily Peter must necessarily deny our Lord supposing that our Lord had fore told it For when the necessity is understood to be in the cause which the nature thereof though by Gods will determines it is proper to say thaâ— it comes to passe necessarily But when the necessity is understood to stand upâ—n a supposition of the effect either being or knowne to be which knowledg presupposeth it to be being supposâ—d to be true or the like it is proper to say this must needs come to passe or it must of necessity come to passe but not that it comes to passe necessarily because then the necessity must noâ— fall upon the coming of it upon passe but upon the manner by which it comes to pâ—sse I say then if any can inferr upon my saying that the necessity which it infers is antecedent to the being of it I grant I am faln into the inconvenience which I would a void and will disclaime the position upon which it followes But if it be onely consequent upon supposition either that it is or that it is taken to be it is no more then that necessity which is found in all coâ—tiâ—gencies according to all opinions that must allow all things necessarily to be â—hough not to be necessarily supposing that they are Now when I say that God determines the evenâ—s of future contingencies I say not that he doth it by determining their causes to do them speaking of free causes for the contingâ—â—cies which come to passe by the concurrence of naturall causes I grant â—o be meere necessities in regard it is necessary that when every cause actâ— to the uâ—most of his strength that must not onely needs come to passe but come to passe necessarily which the concurrence of severall forces produceth and must needâ— appear in the causes to any that comprehends the force of them all buâ— that this act of his ends in determining the motives which present themâ—elves to such causes Which act is consistent with an other act whereby he mâ—intaines the cause in an ability of doing or not doing that which it is movâ—d to do But that comprehending the inclinations thereof and the force oâ— the motives which it is presented with he comprehends thereby that it will proceed to act though comprehending that it might doe otherwiâ—e shâ—uld it regard those appearances which either habitually it hath or actuâ—lly â—t â—â—ght to have Now I confesse againe it is hard for me to show how it ought actually to have those appearances which habitually it hath But seeing thaâ— supposing this I show evidently how the providence of God iâ— unceâ—easibâ—â— the will remaining free and the effects thereof contingent I will rathâ—r conâ—esse that I cannot shew where their freedome might or ought to move when it does not then destroy the ground of all Christianity Thus much is evident supposing my saying that the certainty of the event includes the supposition of the will acting freely therefore infers no necessity antecedent to it the knowledge upon which providence decrees foreseeing that it will freely proceed being so moved CHAP. XXV The grounds of the difference between sufficient and effectuall How naturall occasions conduce to supernaturall actions The insufficience of Jansenius his doctrine Of sufficient grace under the Law of Moses and Nature ANd now I shall not use many words to declare what it is that makes those helps of grace which of themselves are sufficient effectuall For if all particulars are contayned in their generalls that which is said of all the works of providence must hold in those helps of supernaturall grace whereby it conducteth to the happinesse of the world to come And therefore the efficacy of Gods grace taking efficacy to imply the effect consists in the order which providence useth that the motives of Christianity whether to imbrace or performe the profession of it be presented in such circumstances as may render them accepted of the will to whose judgement for the preâ—ent they so appeare So that the same for nature and kind prove effectall to one which to an other prove void and frustrate For it is manifest that those helps are the grace of Christ even as they are sufficient and supposing them not to take effect And it ought to be manifest that the circumstances in which they are present to every particular person are brought to passe by the conduct of Gods spirit which filleth the world and attaineth from the beginning to the end of all things which come to passe And this spirit and the coming thereof being purchased by our Lord Christ and granted in consideration of his obedience it is easy to bee seen how it is the grace of Christ not onely as sufficient but also as effectuall This resolution then presupposeth two things as proved Chap. XVIII The first That the preaching of the Gospell is the grace of Christ That is to say A Grace granted by God in consideration of Christs merits and sufferings The second That the grace of Christ attaineth and reacheth the very effect of conversion and new obedience and resteth not in having inabled man to doe it of himselfe without the influence of it To make this part of faith better to be understood among believers better to be maintained against unbelievers that which this resolution advanceth is this That the Grace of the H. Ghost purchased by the humiliation of Christ and by his exaltation obtained as it is the meanes which God hath provided for the publishing of his Gospell to the conviction of all who understand it that they ought to submit to the faith and live according to it so it is the meanes to make it effectuall to the conversion of the Nations to Christianity that conversion effectuall in their lives and conversations by presenting the reasons and grounds thereof being of themselves sufficient for the worke to every mans consideration in those circumstances procured by the providence of God which it executeth in which his wisdome â—oresaw that they would takâ— effect and become to the purpose And truly when our Lord saith Iohn XVI 8 9 10. And when he cometh he will convict the world of sin of righteousnesse of judgement Of sin because they believe not in mee Of judgement because the prince of this world is condemned we must understand that the H. Ghost convinced the world of sin because those miracles which the Apostles did by the holy Ghost convincing the world that they spoke the word of God shewed the world that they were under sin and liable to Gods wrath if they became not Christians And that he convinced
meanes that makes the grace of Christ effectuall addresse it selfe especially to that estate o men in which our Lord Christ to whom they so become conformable appeared in the world And for that very reason to figure that estâ—te of mind which the Gospell requires the people of â—sraell were by Gods Law left unâ—uâ—nished of many helps of policy and force by which other nations maintain themselves free from servâ—tude that they might remaine obliged to depend upon Gâ—dâ— immediate assistance providence But it is to be said further That the greatest estates of the world being subject to the greatest crosses through want of successe and those great changes to which they are liable this way of preparation to the kingdome of heaven can no way seeme wanting to any estate when a begger is seen no lesse to doâ—e upon this world then an uncleane person is seen to doâ—e upon that whore by whom he is abused It is moreover to be said That the remembrance of death which must and the inconstancy of this world which may deprive us of all the benefits thereof being by Gods judgement the punishment of sin soures all the content of them that drench themselves deepest in the pleasures of this life and gives them just cause to forsake them all in case they stand not with the hope of the world to come And the very injoying of them being injoyed with that conscience which all Châ—â—stians have of Gods providence and the sense of his hand from whence they come is reasonably an advantage to those who injoy the best successe that can be expressâ—d in the course of this world both to become thankfull to God for it and also to prefer â—â—ernity before it Whereby it may appeare that the course of this world disposed by God upon the terms of the covenant of nature containes â—â— it those opportunities and advantages which the act of Gods providence by the grace of Christ knowes easily how to makâ— effectuall to the supernaturall purposes of it This is the place for the rest of that which I am to say of the opinion of Jansenius setling the efficacy of saving grace upon other grounds then those which I use The ground of it seems to stand upon the observation of S. Augustin de corrept gratia Chap. XI XII Distinguishing between the help of grace without which the worke of grace is not don that by which it is don auxilium sine quo non and auxilium quo and comparing the grace of Christ which cometh to effect notwithstanding originall concupiscence with the grace given Adam which might have come to effect had he pleased but came not notwithstanding his innocenâ—e as more powerfull in our weakenesse then that in his strength For hereupon he will have the grace of Christ to be onely that which takes effect confining that help without which the worke of grace cannot be don to the state of innocence as ouâ— of date now under oâ—iginall sin So that the freedome of the will is so far from being râ—quisite to â—he effects â—hereof that it hath no being but bâ— the meanes of it consisting in that free love of that which God commandeth because he commandeth it which it inspireth As on the other side the counâ—erfeit of it in them that sin without reluctation bâ—cause free from righteousnesse is nothing but the free lâ—ve of sin for the saâ—isfaction of concupiscence It is therefore in his opinion impertinent how necessarily the grace of Christ determineth the wil to imbrace the true good seeing it is the love of it the delight in it which grace worketh in the wâ—ll that determines it willingly and freely to imbrace it To tâ—ke the more distinct view of this plea let us put the case in him who running full speed in a course of sin is caâ—led by the preaching of the Gospell to become a Christian Or to the same purpose in him who being a Christian and runnâ—ng the same race is summoned by his profession and the grounds thereof to reâ—urne to it In this case can any man imagine that the reasons which move us all to be Christians shâ—uld raise no love of true good no dislike to sin no feare of vengeance no desire of everlasting hapâ—iâ—esse in him that considers them as they deserve Especially being managed by the spirit of God which knocketh at the dore of the heart by that meanes Or can any man question as it is â—he feare of vengeance that beginneth so it is the love of good for Gods sâ—ke that conâ—ummateth the resolution of becoming a true Christiâ—â— But the quâ—stâ—â—n being put about changing the chief end of a mans whole life and doings can it be supposed that any man is prevented with such a delight in true gooâ—nesse as iâ—stâ—ntly to abandon the lust which his bâ—sâ—nesse hath been hitherto to satisfie without demurre or regret I doubt not that God can immediatly crâ—aâ—e in any man that appearance of true good that shall without debate or looking back transport him to the prosecution of it That notwithstanding the Covenant of grace he may doe it Which though a rule to his ordâ—nâ—ry proceeding is no Law to his Soveraigne perogative But him that is thus sâ—ved though sâ—ved by grace yet we cannot count to be saved by the Covenant of grace Which proposeth a reward to them who are led by motives thereof notwithstanding the difficulties to the contrary though implying the worke of grace in him that overcometh And this no man more câ—earâ—ly acknowledgeth then Jansenius de gratia Christi VIII 2. where â—â— conâ—esseth that the predetermination of the will by the grace of Christ is not indefeasible but onely when it overcomâ—s as Gods predetermination according to the Dominicans is For by this difference whâ—ch in statiâ—g of this opinion I have not neglected afore the efficacy thereof cannot be attribuâ—ed to â—e â—aâ—ure of that help which overcometh aâ— of an other kind then that which pâ—oveth frustrate And therefore notwithstanding that large and elaborat work of his he hath left us to inquire further whence the efficacy of it proceedeth As having in effect onely resolved us wherein the efficacy of Grâ—ce consisteth in the nature of the formall cause Not from whence it proceedâ—th in the nature of the effective cause which the question indeed demandâ—th And truly the very consideration premised That as freedome from sin coâ—sists in the determination of the will to righteousnesse which the Grace of Chrâ—st effecteth so freedome from righteousnesse in the determination of it to sin which it acteth Inâ—orceth an other kind of freedome common to both estates not importing praise or dispraise but a capacity of either by doing that which no necessity determineth a man to doe And therefore that though the grace of Christs Crosse be the medecine yet till it be freely taken it worketh not the cure This is that freedome from necessity by the present condition of our nature the use whereof
the later end of the world that God meant first to show the world that all other meanes which he thought fit to use to reclaime man by the fathers and by and under the Law were not to purpose that the necessity of his coming might appeare But that this is not to be understood as if God meant to render them inexcusable by using insufficient meanes that could not take effect But that dispensing to those times such meanes of grace as he found the reasons upon which his secret counâ—ailes proceed to require proportionable to the obedience and service which he required then at their hands He reserves the full measure of them to the coming of his Son proportionable to the difficulty of beraing his Crosse which he purposed for the condition of those promises which he brought And the same is to be said of the Fathers under the law of nature Which if we understand it to be so cailed as if the light of nature then taught and inabled them to please God we contradict not onely the faith hitherto maintained against Pelagius but also the appearances in Scripture of those revelations of that cpmmerce and inâ—rcourse with God whereby they advanced to the state of his friends The book of Iob to the time whereof we see this state lusted presenting most evident instances both of Gods correspondence with the Godly of the Gentiles and of Christians piety in their conversations Now to that state of inocence wherein Adam was created it must needs be a grace oâ— God to make knowne his will because it cannot be supposed that God should imploy his creature in his service and not reward him for doing it with advantage But not as if suck knowledg could give him ability but onely determine the matteâ— of his obedience who had nothing to hinder the doing of that which commanded by God must needs be for his advantage to do Since the fall if reasons provided by God to convince the understanding to incline the will to that which he purposeth for our happinesse may and would prove ineffectuall were they not acted and managed by the holy Ghost Let us not therefore so far miâ—â—ken the counsaile of God in providing them as to imâ—gine the worke is not done by them because it is his speciall grace that makes them effectuall to purpose The indowments of Adam how great soever thâ—y were the event sheweth that they might faile and hâ—d they not failed it must have been ascribed to God for a greater grace then those indowments in as much as these made him accountable to God that would have inâ—itled him to a reward So that by this account it will be no marvaâ—le that the grace of Christ which saveth us in and through this weakenesse of iâ—bred concupâ—scence should be counted greater then that which Adam had in his inâ—â—â—ncy And the same is to be said of the Angels that fell and those that stood How great soever their indowments were had not the motive whatsoever it was that prevailed with the one part to depart from God been prevenâ—ed of taking effect with the rest it might have come to passe as well in all as in some That it did not what can it be ascribed to all being turâ—â—shed with abilities fully corespondent to that which God required at theâ— hands but some dispensation of Gods secret counsail being by no reason of his declared Justice obliged otherwise Not that the Will of Adam or of Angels was not able to doe what God required and hâ—d done it of â—â— selfe without any help added by God But because so gâ—eat is the influence of the makers providence that the events thereof how justly soevâ—â— imputable to the choice of the creature must of necessity have their springs in and from the secret dispensation thereof not concerning his justice Seeing then that as I said before the opinion of Jansenius though it gives account wherein the grace of Christ formally consisteth yet gives no account from whence effectively it proceedeth but the immâ—diate wâ—ll of God â—he question demanding upon what ground it redounds to mans accâ—uâ—t Let them either look about them for a better reason or accept of thâ—s not a destrâ—ying that which it saith but to the introducing of that which it saâ—eth not For it is agâ—eed upon both waies that it is delight in true goodness for the love of God that makes the grace of Christs Gospell effâ—ctual in mens lives and conversations How by the act of that wil which in others rejects it â—â—ndevour to say what the scriptures and faith of the Church will allow But Jansenius his opinion goes no further then that so it is to wit because love is free therefore man is freâ—ly saved howsoever love be brought to passe But the necessity of those actions to which grace determineth which is antecedent in Jansenius his opinion the cause which is Gods will being undeâ—easible iâ— in mine onely consequent upon suposition of efficacy which implyes the being of that which comes to effect grounded upon the foreknowledg of God which supposes the free motion of the reasonable creature If the advantage be such in reconciling the efficacy of grace with the free will of the creature in reconciling the same with Gods foreknowledge and effectuall providence extending to all good and bad it will appeare much more For had Jansenius done his businesse in the mater of supernaturall grace he had not obliged us much unlesse his resolution were an overture to abate the generall difficulty thâ—t remaines But if he sends us for that to the predetermination of God which is said to be requisite upon the geneâ—all account of the creature and the indifference of mans will he leaves us to seeke for a reason how God is not the author of that sin which he determineth the will to do before it determine it selfe If we avoid that as Doctor Strang whom I spoke of before hath done by maintayning against Doctor Twisse that the will is not determined by God to the actions of sin Besides that he is to give account why the same providence of God which is generall to all things should be thought to teach this sort not that all actions as appendâ—nces of Gods creatures having the same dependence upon God which the prerogative of the first cause requi eth we are leâ—t to seeke how that foreknowledge of God which directeth his providence comes informed of the truth of future contingencies For if wee maintaine that the wisdome of God comprehending the inclinations of his creatures and all those considerations which outward occurrences or inward appearances shall present or not present them with to determine their choice cannot thereby cetainely discerne what will come to passe as Doctor Strang maintaines that so there cannot be in God any certtine knowledge of future conditionalls I leave to them that shall peruse this writing what satisfaction it is possible for him to give in the possibility of foreknowing
stand obliged to second the same with means sufficient to bring them to everlasting happinesse For the beginning of the worke being acknowledged to require Gods preventing Grace it cannot be said that those who are supposed to be thus saved are saved by works and not by grace or that in their regard Christ is dead in vaine the said helps being granted in consideration of Christs death But though it may without prejudice to christanity be said that God may dispense the helps of that grace which Christs death hath purchased besides and without the preaching of the Gospell yet can it not be said during the Gospell that any man attaineth the kingdom of heaven which Christianty promiseth but by it Now to be saved by the Gospell requires the profession of the faith and that the Sacrament of Baptisme at least in resolution and purpose So that whether among those nations where the gospell is not preached any man be saved by this way is a thing visible to be tried by examining whom this case hath been knowne to have become a Christian Of which I assure my selfe there will be found so few instances of historical truth that a discreet man will have no pleasure to introduce a position so neerely concerning the intent of Christs coming wherof there can so little effect appear For supposing instances might be alleaged to make the mater questionable how farr would they be from rendring a reason of that vast difference that is visible between the proceeding of God towards the salvation of those that are borne within the Pale of the Church and those that live and dye without hearing of christianity The one being so prevented with the knowledg of what they are to doe to be saved that they shall have much a do so to neglect it as to flatter their own concupiscence with any color of an excuse Whereas the other whatsoever conviction we may imagine them to have of one true God of an account to be made for all that wee doe of the guilt of sin which they are under without the Gospell it will be impossible to reduce the reason of the difficulties they are under more then the former to an equall desire in God of saving all together with the difference of mens complyance with the helps of Grace which it produceth And therefore considering the antecedent will of God is not absolutly Gods will but with a terme of abatement reserving the condition upon which it proceedeth I conceive it requisite as I have don to limit the signification thereof to those effects which we see God being to passe by vertue of it The utmost whereof being the provâ—dâ—ng of means for the preaching of the Gospell it is neverthelesse no prejudice to it that the Apostles are forbidden by the spâ—rit to preach in Bithynia or Asia Acts XVâ— 6 7. not because God would not have them to be saved or because the Macedonians by their works had obliged him to set them aside for their sakes who could have provided for both But for reasons knowne to himselfe alone and not reducible to any thing that appeares to us Especially considering the câ—se of infants dying before Baptisme in whose workes it is manifest there can be no ground of difference For to say that by the universality of that Grace which God declareth by Christ wee are to believe that they are all saved as many as live not to transgresse the Covenant of grace would be a novelty never heard of in the Catholike Church of Christ tending to unâ—ermine the foundation of our common salvation laid by our Lord â—o Nicodâ—mus Vnlâ—sse ye bâ— born againe of water and of the Holy Ghost ye cannot enter into the Kingdome of God For how should the generall tender of the Gospell intitle infants to the benefit thereof because they never transgressed that in which they were never estated It were in vaine then to looke about the scripture for examples to justifie any part of this position The widow of Sarepta to whom Elias was sent Naaman the Syrian who was sent to Eliseus Cyâ—us whom many supposed to have worshipped the onely God because in the end of the Chronicâ—es and beginning of Esdras he saith the God of heaven hath given me all the Kingdoms of the earth because the Prophet Esay makes him a figure of the Messias as the Kings of Gods people were for the freedom which they attained by his government the Centurion Cornelius to whom S. Peter was sen with the Gospell are all of one case which is the case of thâ—se strangers who living in the common-wealth of Israel though not circumcised yet woâ—shiped the onely true God under those lawes which the Jews tell us were delivered by God to Noe and by him to all his posterity and so were capable of thaâ— salvation which the Israelites had the meanes of under the Law though themselves not under it But neither have we evidence that their works under the light of nature obliged God to call them to the priviledg of stâ—angers in the hâ— use of Israel nor can the workes of Cornelius be taken for the workes of corrupt nature being in the state of Gods grace which was manifested under the Law and therefore prevented with those meanes of salvation which become necessary under the Gospell to the salvation which it tendreth So far are we from finding in them any argument of a Law obliging God to grant them those helps in consideration of their works don in the state of corrupt nature And therefore whatsoever examples we may find of this nature under Christianity they are to be referred to the free grace of God which as sometimes it may come to those of best conversation according to nature to whom the words oâ— our Lord To him that hath shall be given may be applied without prejudice to Christianity Math. XXV 19. Luk XIX 26. So also it fails not to call those who for their present state are most strangers to christianity that it may appeare that no Rule ties God but that free grace which his own secret wisdom dispenseth And truly those good works which corupt nature produceth necessarily depend upon those circumstances in which Gods proâ—â—dence placeth one man and not an other though both in the state of meere nature So that the one shall not be able to do that which is reasonable without overcoming those difficulties to which the other is not lyable In which regard it hath been said that the Heroick acts of the Heâ—hen may be attributed to the spirit of God moving them though not as granted in consideration of Christ but as conducting the whoâ—e worke of providence So little cause there is to imagine that the consideration of them should oblige God to grant those helps of grace the ground whereof is the obedience of Christ and the end the happinesse of the world to come CHAP. XXVI Predestination to grace absolute to glory respective Purpose of denying effectuall Grace
to be a Christian that teaches that wickednesse which a Jew dare not maintaine Though it be just with God to suffer them that presume of the assistance of Gods Spirit in understanding the Scriptures before they be principled in Christianity which the gift of Gods Spirit to Christians presupposeth to be led unto such wicked imaginations by reading the Scriptures as he suffered those that setting up their Idols in their hearts and putting the stumbling block of their iniquities before their faces came to seek direction from God to be seduced by the Prophets by whom they should come to inquire as the Propheâ— threatneth Ezek. XIV 8 10. As for the fact of David and Husâ—ai in ruining of Absalom 2 Sam. XV. 32-37 XVI 16-19 XVII 5-14 there is the lesse difficulty in it because we are not obliged to maintaine the actions of the Fathers to be without sinne and the Spirit of God doth no where commend it Which also holds in those officious lies wherewith Rebecca and the Midwives of the Israâ—lites and Rahab the harlot seduced Isaak and the King of Egypt and the Rulers of Jericho to the good of Gods people Gen. XXVII Exod. I. 15-21 Jos II. 4 5. because whatsoever were the successe which God blessed them with yet as S. Augustine observes it s no where said that God blessed them for lying but for that love to his people which though joyned with their own weaknesse he then rewarded Though he that well considers the nature of these acts comparing them with these sayings and doings of David and Jeremy of Elias Elizaus and Samson which I have showed the spirit of God alloweth will without doubt find cause to believe that the reason why their acts which were joyned with such infirmities were blessed by God at that time is to be drawn from that measure of knowledge which the meanes allowed by God at that time afforded and the obligation which God required at their hands proportionable to the same From the premises we may proceed to resolve that endlesse dispute concerning the intent of our Lords Sermon in the Mount whether it was to take away those â—alse glosses which the Scribes and Pharisees had put upon the Law of Moses importing that nothing but the overt act of murder adulteries and the like stood prohibited by it or to inlarge it unto a further extent of forbidding the first motions of concupiscence in regard of that further light which the Gospel bringeth For I have showed that the most difficult passage of all which saith Thou shalt love thy neighbour and â—ate thine enemy Mat. V. 43. is according to the practise of the law in David Jeremy Elias and Elizeus which is without question the best interpreter of the law and the extent of it How much more if you translate it as questionlesse the Hebrew will allow us to translate it thou shalt love thine neighbour but mayest hate thine enâ—my For it is manifest that when the fourth Commandment saith Six dayes shalt thou labour and do all that thou hast to do the meaning is no more but this Six â—ayes thou mayest labour to wit as for this commandment So that this clause is nothing else but the consequence of that limitation which the law puts to the precept of loving a mans neighbour as himself understanding his neighbour to be onely an Israelite and teaching to pursue Idolaters with all manner of hatred Now when our Saviour saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his meaning is plain enough Ye have heard that it was said to them of old that is to the Fathers at the giving of the law not ye have heard it said by your Predecessors to wit the Scribes and Pharisees who about some hundred years beforâ— had begun to glosse the law with their Traditions Mat. V. 21 27 33 38 43. The subject matter in all the rest besides that which I have spoken of being alwaies the expresse letter of Moses law no Tradition of the Elders Yet it is not my intent to say that our Lords intent is not to clear the true meaning of the law from the false glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees For I acknwledge a false glosse of theirs upon Moses law which it is the intent not onely of the Sermon in the mount but of all the New Testament to clear I say the Scribes and Pharisees taking advantage of the truth of the world to come which they thought to be covenanted for and not onely intimated as the truth is by Moses law did inferre the reward thereof to be due to the outward and carnall observation of it And this is that false glosse of theirs which as every where else so here especially our Lord cleareth when he saith Vnlesse your righteousnesse exceed the righteousnesse of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven Mat. V. 20. But this he doth by clearly inacting that conversation which the Gospel requireth whereof the Fathers of the Old law had onely expressed the rudiments and principles out of that light which the law joyned with the tradition of the Fathers and the doctrine of the Prophets had supplied Though so well accepted by God at that time that he failed not to grant his holy Spirit to them who had attained that measure of righteousnesse And therefore we are to conclude that during the Lâ—w there was a sincerity of righteousnesse consisting in the observation of the precepts thereof not out of any temporall respect or hope of this world but out of the sense of Gods will who searcheth the heart and judgeth the thoughts thereof according to which the Prophets of old and their disciples as Zachary and Elizabeth in the New Testament Luke I. 6. are to be counted perfect and intire in righteousnesse Comparing them forsooth with the Scribes and Pharisees and all their sect who in all ages of that people as I have showed standing so much upon the precise observation of the positive precepts thereof for their own power and advantage grossely failed in all performance where the sincerity of the heart became requâ—site But that when our Saviour saith Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect Mat. V. 48. It is manifest from the premises that he requireth of Christians that charity towards God and all men for Gods sake or to speak in those terms which I take to be more generall that respect to the will of God and his glory and service in all our doings which he did not covenant for with his ancient people Which point before I conclude that we may the better understand wherein I make this perfection of Christians to consist it will be requisite to resolve whether or no Christians can do more then the law of God requires and whether there are these offices which the law of God commands not but the Gospel onely commends as matters of counsel to those that aime at perfection among Christians not matters of necessity for all
can be produced to depose for the Sacrifice of the Eucharist than the sense of those Scriptures of the New Testament already handled which are in a maner all that have any mention of it will inferr and allow There is much noise made with the Priesthood of Melchisedeck of whom wee reade Gen. XIV 19 24. And Melchisedeck King of Salem brought forth bread and wine for hee was the Priest of the most High God And hee blessed him saying Blessed be Abraham of the most High God which owneth heaven and earth In reference whereunto the Psalmist speaking of Christ Psal CX 4. The Lord sware and will not repent thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedeck And the Apostle taking for granted that hee is a figure of Christ in the mystical sense Ebr. VII 13. argueth the voiding of the Levitical Law from the purpose of setting up another Priesthood declared by the Psalm But no where in all that Chapter which is all spent about the Exposition of it so much as intimateth the Priesthood of Christ to consist in any thing but in offering up to God in heaven his own body and bloud sacrificed upon the Crosse to make expiation for the sins of his people and to obtain of God that grace and assistance that comfort and deliverance which their necessities from time to time may require Be it granted neverthelesse that seeing of necessity Melchisedeck is the figure of Christ those things which Melchisedeck is related to have done are also necessarily figures of things done by our Lord Christ For otherwise were not the mystical sense of the Old Testament a laughing stock to unbelievers if it should hold in nothing but that which the Spirit of God hath expounded in the New Testament by our Lord and his Apostles I have therefore to the best advantage translated the words of Moses For not and hee was the Priest of the living God That whoso will may argue thereupon that his bringing forth bread and wine was an act of his Priesthood Which if I would deny no man can constrain mee by virtue of these words to acknowledg But I cannot therefore allow that Translation which sayes Obtulit panem vinum that as Priest hee offered bread and wine in sacrifice to God The Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so evidently signifying protulit not obtulit hee brought forth not that hee offered that hee brought forth bread and wine to refrâ—sh Abraham â—nd his people returning weary from the slaughter of the Kings not that hee offered them in sacrifice to God as his Priest the mention of his Priesthood râ—ther advancing the reason why hee blessed them than why hee fed them As both Moses in the words next afore and the Apostle also Ebr. VII 1. intimateth or declareth the intent why hee brought them forth Though if I should grâ—nt that custome which was common to all Idolaters to have been in forâ—e under the Law of nature because wee see it retained and inâ—cted by the Law of Moses not to taste of any thing till some part of it had been dedicated to God in the nature of first-fruits to the sanctifying of the whole till when it was not to be touched I say though I should grant this for a reâ—son why hee may be thought to have offered bread and wine to God not why 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be translated protulit hee brought forth no man would have cause to thank mee for any advantage from thence For still the correspondence between Melchisedeck â—nd our Lord Christ would lye in this that our Lord by appointing this Sacrâ—ment brings forth bread and wine to strengthen the peoâ—lâ— of Abraham in their warfare against the powers of darknesse as in the dayes of his flâ—sh hee fed those that attended upon his doctrine least they should faint in their travail Now this will first inferr that it is bread and wine which our Lord feeds us with in the Eucharist And again that it hath the virtue of sustaining us by being made the body and bloud of Christ as in a Sacrament by virtue of the consecration past upon it Which is all that which I say to a hair that by being made a Sacrament it becomes the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Crosse to be feasted upon by Christians In like maner be it granted that the words of the Prophet Malachy I. 11. From the rising of the Sun to his going down my name shall be great among the Gentiles and in every place incense shall be offered to my name and a pure meat offering For my name shall be great among the Gentiles saith the Lord of Hosts is a Prophesie of the institution of this Sacrâ—ment because it is contained in those kindes of breâ—d and wine which served for meat and drink offerings in the Law of Moses But this being granted what shall wee do with the incense and the meat offering which the Prophet speaks of unlâ—sse wee say that they signifie that which corresponds to the meâ—t and drink offerings of the Law and their incense under the Gospel And will not thâ—t prove to be the spiritual sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving which God under the Gospel is served with by all Nations Though those prayers and prâ—â—es of God being by the institution of the Eucharist limited and determined to be such as the celebration thereof requires it is no inconvenience nay it will be necessâ—ry to grant that the sacrifice thereof is fore-told by these words not signifying neverthelesse the nature of it to require any thing more thâ—n is exprâ—ssed by the premises Be the same therefore said if you please of all the Sacrifices of the Old Law of all the Prophesies in which the service to be rendred to God in the New Testament is described by the offering of Sacrifices As for the words of our Lord to the woman of Samaria John IV. 23. The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth For the Father seeketh such to worship him God is a Spirit and those that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth Though I grant as afore that this is fulfilled by the celebration of the Eucharist when once wee suppose our Lord to have limited the worship of God under the Gospel to the form of it yet there can be no consideration of a sacrifice signified by these words which neither suppose nor expresse the sacrifice of Christ upon the Crosse the Eucharist no way bearing the nature of a sacrifice but as it is the same with it But for the same reason and by the same correspondence between the sacrifices of the Law and that of Christs Crosse it may be evident that it is not nor can be any disparagement to the Sacrifice of our Lord Christ upon the Crosse to the full and perfect satisfaction and propitiation for the sins of the world which it hath made that the Eucharist should be
other cause yet forbids not what he allows not But seeing such offences fall out among Christians that be maried as are not easily discernable where the fault of them lies noâ— allowing them to part nor yet condemning both parties he limits them in case they do so not to marry again imposing thereby upon the innocent party the necessity of continence which his innocence makes tolerable and the Aâ—ostles advise if it proceed not to the parting of families easily recoverâ—ble As for the guilty if it prove a burthen or a snare he may impute it to his fault And as it was not necessary that the Church should be interessed in it so long as both parties were inabled by the Law to depart and neither proceeded to mary again So the Law not allowing it there is no marvail that the Church should interpose Let us then see how the rest of the Church allowes the exception of adultery to the purâ—oâ—e of marying again Clemens Alexandrinus Strom. II. in fine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Scripture plainly inacteth Thou shalâ— not a smiss thy wife but upon account of adultery Counting it adultery to mary while the one of the parted is alive Athenâ—goras de resurrect mortuorum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Christian is to abâ—de as he was born or aâ— one mariage For saith he he that dismisseth his wife and marieth another committeth adultery This necessarily concerneth no morâ— thâ—n marrying again upon that divorce which the Romane Law inâ—led eithâ—r pâ—rty to make without rendring a reason and may well bâ—aâ— the exâ—eption of marying upon divorce for adultery by the Christian Law And the sâ—â—â—â—xception may well be understood in the XLVIII Câ—non of the Apâ—â—â—â—â—s 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If a Lay-man casting ouâ— his wife take another or one that is put away â—y another let him stand excommunicate Proviâ—ion is made against taking to wiâ—e one that had been put away for the reputation of the Clergy For it must needs be a sâ—ain to bring such a one into a mans house If it be true that Grotius alleges out of severall passages of Tertulliane that the Church in his time admitted them to mary again who had parted with their wives for adultery we need no more But though those allegations as not quoted so are no where to be â—ound yet Tertullianes opinion is to be seen by the plea that he makes contra Marc. IV. 32. that our Lord abrogâ—teth not that divorce which Moses had inacted though he restâ—ineth it Which could not be said if the divorce which our Lord alloweth did not import right to mary again Lactantius plainly signifies the same when he sayes Adulterum esse qui à marito dimissam duâ—erit Et eum qui praeter crimen adulterii uxorem dim serit ut alterum duâ—â—t That he is an adulterer who maries a wife put away by her husband And that so is he that shall put away his wife to mary another excepting the crime of adultery The great Council of almost all the West at Arles in the businesse of the Donatists provides Can. X. That those who take their wives in adultery being young Christians be exhorted not to mary others as long as they live leaving thereby hope of reconcilement Certainly they counted it not adultery which they only exhort not to do The Council of Elvira Can IX That the wife that forsakes her husband for adultery and maries another shall not communicate so long as he remains alive of the husband nothing By the VIII X. She who leaves her husband without cause and maries another is not to communicate no not at the point of death At the date of this Council before the act of Constantine man or wife parted without showing cause Without cause then is when that cause which the Church allows viz. adultery is not She that maries him who she knew had put away his wife without cause not till the point of death This is the difference between committing adultery and marying him that commits adultery by putting away his wife without adultery And it is plain the wife is stricter used by these Canons then the husband The Commentaries upon S. Pauls Epistles under S. Ambrose his name say plainly 1 Cor. VII That the man may mary again having put away his wife for adultery not the wife having put away her husband because the man is the head of the woman I do not find this reason sufficient For S. Paul maketh the interest of the wife in the husband and that of the husband in the wife both one and the same Nor do I find the reason sufficient which Cardinall Cajetane hath given for him upon Mat. XIX 9. to wit because our Lord saying He that putteth away his wife unlesse for adultery and marieth again committeth adultery sayes nothing of what the woman may do in that case For Mark X. 11. 12. he sayes as much for the wife as for the husband not expressing the exception Why then should I not be extended to her when he addeth it But I conceive that though by Gods Law the woman be restrained no more then the man yet the Law of the Church might restrain that which Gods law restrained not And so though the man be onely advised not to mary again by the Canon of Arles yet the woman might be put to Penance so long as her first husband remained alive by the Canon of Elvira For I see S. Basil ad Amphil. Can IX confesses that though S. Paul makes the case of both equall yet custome put the woman to Penance marying upon the adultery of her husband Some ground of difference nature it selfe inforces in that the man taints not the wives issue nor brings that infamy upon her bed as she upon his In the mean time whatsoever we say of that it is manifest they held it not adultery for the party that parted for adultery to mary again And as for Fabiola who having put away a notorious adulterous husband maried another after the death of this second did voluntary Penance for it as you find in S. Jerome Epist XXX It may be the Church exacted it not because during her second Husbands time it is not said that she communicated not And it may be she followed S. Jeromes opinion which he expresseth Epist XLVII Some passages of S. Basil S. Chrysostome and Gregory Nazianze are alleged in vain signifying onely the insolubility of mariage which may allow the exception which the Gospel maketh and must allow it when we see the custome testified by S. Basil to the contrary And S. Chrysostome when S. Paul sayes of the wife If she part understands him If she part upon ordinary displeasures which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or pusillanimities which the courage of a true Christian would neglect and over see Innocent I. Pope Epist ad Exuperium puts them only to Penance that mary again having put away wives or husbands Not supposing adultery But
of Christians that is of the whole Church occultae quoque conjunctiones id est non priâ—s apud Ecclesiam professae juxta maechiam fornicationem judicari perclitantur Among us even clandestine mariages that is not professed before the Church are in danger to be censured next to adultery and fornication And therefore Ad uxorem II. ult Unde sufficiamus ad senarrandam faelicitatem ejus matrimonii quod Ecclesia conciliat How may we be able to declare the happinesse of that mariage which the Church interposeth to joyn de Monogamiâ cap. XI Quale est id matrimonium quod eis a quibus postulas non licet hahere What maner of mariage is that saith he speaking of marying a second wife which it is not lawfull for them of whom thou desirest it to have Because it was not lawful for the Clergy who allowed the people to mary second wives themselves to do the same Ignatius Epist ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It becometh men and women that mary to joyn by the consent of the Bishop that the mariage be according to the Lord and not according to lust It hath been doubted indeed whether we have the true Copy of Ignatius his Epistles or not whether this be one of them or not But that Copy being found which Eusebius S. Jerome and others of the Fathers took for Ignatius his own and hath all that the Fathers quote just as they quote it nothing of that which stood suspected afore to refuse them now is to refuse evidence because it stands not with our prejudices Not that this power of the Church stands upon the authority of two or three witnesses These were not to be neglected But the Canons of the Church and the custome and practice of the Church ancientâ—r then any Canons in writing but evidenced by written Law which could never have come in writing had it not been in force before it was written suffer it not to remain without evidence In particular the allowance of the mariages of those who were baptized when they were admitted to Baptism evidenced out of S. Austine the Constituions and Eliberitane Canons evidenceth the Power of the Church in this point unquestionable And therefore against the Imperiall Lawes I argue as against the Leviathan that is if any man suppose that they pretend to secure the conscience of a Christian in marying according to them upon divorce Either the Soveraign Power effects that as Soveraign or as Christian If as Soveraign why may not the Christians of the Turkish Empire divorce themselves according to the Alâ—oran which is the Law of the Land and be secure in point of conscience If as Christian how can the conscience of a Christian in the Eastern Empire be secured in that case wherein the conscience of a Christian in the West cannot be secured because there is no such Civil Law there the Christianity of both being the same For it cannot be said that the Imperiall Lawes alleged were in force in the West after the division of the Empire I argue again That they cannot secure the conscience but under the Law of our Lord as containing the true interpretation of fornication in his sense And can any man be so senselesse as to imagine so impudent as to affirm that the whole Church agreeing in taking the fornication of maried people to signifie adultery hath failed but every Christian Prince that alloweth and limiteth any other causes of divorce all limiting severall causes attaineth the true sense of it Will the common sense of men allow that Homicide Treason Poysoning Forgery Sacriledge Robbery Mans-stealing Cattle-driving or any of them is contained is the true meaning of Fornication in our Lords words That consent of parties that a reasonable cause when Pagans divorced per bonam gratiam without disparagement to either of the parties can be understood by that name For these you shall find to be legall cause of divorce by those acts of the Emperours Lastly I argue If these causes secure the conscience in the Empire by virtue of those Laws why shall not those causes for which divorce was allowed or practiced amongst the ancient French the Irish the Welch the Russes do the like For that which was done by virtue of their Lawes reported there cap. XXVI XXX is no lesse the effect of Christian power that is Soveraign He that could find in his heart to tell Baronius reproving the Law of Justine that allowed divorce upon consent that Christian Princes who knew their own power were not so easily to be ruled by the Clergy p. 611. can he find fault with the Irish marrying for a year and a day or the Welch divorcing for a stinking breath Had he not more reason to say that knowing their power they might chuse whether they would be Christians or not The dispute being What they should do supposing that they are Christians And therefore it is to be maintained that those Emperours in limiting the infinite liberty of divorces by the Romane Law to those causes upon which dowries should be recoverable or not being made for Pagans as well as for Christians did as it were rough hew their Empire to admit the strict law of Christianity in this point And that this was the intent and effect of their acts appears by the Canons which have been alleged as well in the East as in the West made during the time when those Laws were in force For shall we think the Church quite out of their senses to procure such Canons to be made knowing that they could not take place in the lives and conversations of Christians to the effect of hindring to mary again If we coulde so think it would not serve the turn unlesse we could say how S. Basil should testifie that indeed they did take place to that effect and yet the Civill Law not suffer them to take effect From our Lord Christ to that time it is clear that no Christian could mary again after divorce unlesse for adultery some not excepting adultery In the baseâ— times of that Empire it appears by the Canons of Alexius Patriarch of C P. and by Matthaeus Blastares alleged by Arcudius p. 517. that those causes which the Imperiall Lawes allowed but Gods law did not took place to the effect of marrying again But that so it was alwaies from Constantine who first taxed legall cause of divorce nothing obliges a man to suppose For though the Emperours Law being made for Pagans as well as for Christians might inable either party to hold the dowry yet the Christian law might and did oblige Christians not to mary again The Mileuitane Canon showes it which provideth that the Emperour be requested to inact that no Christian might mary after divorce For this might be done saving the Imperial Laws But when we see the Civil Law inforce the Ministers of the Church to blesse those Mariages which the Civil Law allows but Gods Law makes adulteries the party that is put away
change the customes of the Church Therefore this repeal never took place in the West For first the Gothes retained Theodosius his Law as Cassidore VII 46. testifieth which Cvias saith is the reason why in Gaiâ—s out of whom Justinian took his Institutes for the most part it is at this day read Duorum fratrum vel sororum liberi vel fratris sororis jungi non possunt The children of two Brothers or Sisters or of a Brother and Sister may not mary together contrary to that which Justinian is known to have inacted Then the later Emperours revived the Law of Theodosius upon which occasion it is still read in many Copies of the Institutes de Nupt. X. 4. non possunt expresly against many parts of Justinians Law And for the East how shall we say that Justinians Law was repealed or upon what ground but that the custome of the Church prevailed to move Christian Emperours to repeal it seeing Christendom scandalized at the license introduced by it He therefore that alleges Iâ—stinian in these cases or even Moses let him allege Herods marying his Brothers Daughter and espousing his Daughter to his Brother Pheroras in Iosephus Aâ—t XII XVI and so allowing the same which when Claudius for his own lust licensed there was scarce found a Gentleman in Rome that would do the like as Tacitus reporteth Indeed when S. Austine says this was rarely done afore Theodosius signifying that sometimes it was done we must accknowledge not onely that the mariage was not void that was so made from the beginning for neither is the mariage of the deceased wives Sister or of the neece void by the Canons of the Apostles and the Eliberine Canon injoyns upon marying the wives sister five yeares Penance signifying that it was not void but also we remain uncertain whether it were censured by the Church or how But when S. Gregory allows Austine the Monk to allow the first Christian Saxons to mary in the fourth degree we are not certified whither according to the account of the Romane Law or according to that account which the Popes afterwards brought in use For the Romane Law counting the stock for one made no first degree in the cross line but reckoned Brothers the second and by consequence Cousin Germanes the fourth determining both legall successions and affinities within seven degrees which are sometime called six as you include both terms or exclude the one L. X. ff de gradibus affinibus Paulus Sent. IV. 11. ubi Anianus Modest L. XLV ff de gradibus affinibuâ— Whereupon mariage was first forbidden in the West as far as the seventh degree inclusive Caus XXV q. 2 3. cap. 20. ib. Greg. P P. I. Nic. P P. II. c. 17. ib. sentent IV. dist XL. Isid Orig. IX c. 6. Caus XXXV q. 5. Grat. c. 21. whereby it should seem that this degree was dispensed with by S. Gregory being otherwise then prohibited But the Pope afterwards introducing a contrary way of counting brothers for one degree and Cousin Germanes the second which before were the second and the fourth determined kindred by seven of these degrees which were before just halfe so many Alex. PP 2. c. 2. Caus XXXV q. 5. and all these prohibited c. 14. Caus XXXV q. 2 3. till reduced to the fourth by the Laterane Council under Innocent III. for the difficulty and burthen of it which fourth is just the eight by the former account which is now the law of the West under the Pope A thing which I cannot admire at enough either how proposed or how admitted Whereas in the East the seventh degree according to the Roman account is neither permitted nor the mariage dissolved if consummate Ius Graecorum L. III. p. 204. lib. IV. pag. 266. afterwards under Michael Patriarch of C P. Ib. lib. 3. p. 206. the seventh was forbidden the eighth alwayes licensed See further Harmenop lib. IV. Tit. 5 Arcudius VII 30. which I allege all to no purpose but this that the consent of Christendom submitting to be restrained beyond all degrees any way pretended to be expressed by Gods Law is an evidence of the two Principles alledged that they were from the beginning admitted by all Christendom Indeed when it is said that which the Church censured not which S. Gregory dispensed with which the Romane Emperours and Gothish Kings reserved themselves a power of dispensing in as appeares by a Law of Honorius and Theodosius in C. Theod. Si nuptia ex resciptâ— pâ—tantur and by Cassiâ—d VII 46. It is no marvail if it be permitted by the Statute of H. VIII XXXVI 38. we may see the case hath been not much otherwise with us since that statute then with Christendom before the act of Theodosius For as then the known custome of the Church so since with us the remains of the opinion of that publick honesty which Christianity first introduced hath been the cause that few have used the known liberty of the temporal law and that with such reluctation of judgement as hath been thought the occasion of evill consequences As for those degrees which being prohibited by the Popes are of course dispensed in for paying the fees without any notice of particular reason in the case as it is not for me either to maintain the abuse of Ecclesiasticall power or because of the abuse to yield the Church to have no power in those causes which it could have no power in if that power might not be abused so I am able to conclude that it were more Christian for any Christian state to undergo a burthen altogether unreasonable then to shake of a burthen for which there is so much reason in Christianity as I have showed for prohibiting the mariage of Cousin Germanes Another impediment of force to void mariage whether onely contracted or consummate also by carnall knowledge pretended by the Church of Rome and practised in the Eastern Church is that of profession of single life to attend upon the service of God alone For whether Christians under wedlock upon consent may part from bed and bord for this purpose there is no reason for any Christian to make difficulty the wish of S. Paul that all were as he 1 Cor. VII 1. taking place in them as well as in all others That to avoid fornication one man should mary one wife not taking place but in them in whom no such resolution is supposed Upon which supposition they are commanded to return to the use of wedlock after having retired for Prayer and Fasting least Satan tempt them through their incontinence But this is disputable whether it be a dissolution of the bond or onely a suspension of the exercise of mariage It is further pretended that the one party may by publishing such a profession make void the mariage that is not yet consummate by carnall knowledge leaving the other free to mary elsewhere This in the Church of Rome For in the Eastern Church I doubt
shall be of force to void mariage contracted afore upon wich ground the opinion which I propounded last would justifie the divorces which the Imperiall Laws make to the effect of marrying again will be a new question Seeing that if any thing bâ— to be accepted it will be in any mans power to dissolve any mariage and the law of Christ allowing no divorce but in case of adultery will be to no effect Neither will there be any cause why the same Divines should not allow the act of Justine that dissolves mariage upon consent which they are forced to disclaim allowing the rest of those causes which the Imperial Laws create Indeed whither any accident absolutely hindring the exercise of mariage and falling out after mariage may by Law become of force to dissolve it I need not here any further dispute For so the securing of any Christian mans conscience it is not the act of secular Power inacting it for Law that can avail unlesse the act of the Church go before to determine that it is not against Gods Law and therefore subject to that civil Power which is Christian The reason indeed may fall out to be the same that makes impotence of force to do it and it may fall out to be of such force that Gregory III Pope is found to have answered a consultation of Boniface of Mence in the affirmative XXXII q. VII c. Quod proposuisti But this makes no difference in the right and power of the Church but rather evidences the necessity of it For though as Cardinall Cajetane sayes the Canon Law it selfe allows that Popes may erre in determining such maters cap. IV. de divortiis c. licet de sponsa duorum which every man will allow in the decree of Deuededit Pope Epist unicâ yet the ground of both Power witnessing the Constitution of the Church as a necessary part of Christianity as it determines the true bounds of both so it allows not the conscience of a Christian to be secured by other means And were it not a strange reason of refusing the Church this Power because it may erre when it must in that case fall to the secular Powers who have no ground to pretend any probable cause of not erring For he that proceedeth in the simplicity of a Christian heart to use the means which God by Christianity hath provided for his resolution may promise himselfe grace at Gods hands even when he is seduced by that power which is not infallible But he that leans upon that warrant which God by his Christianity hath not referred him to must answer for his errors as well as the consequences of the same CHAP. XVI Of the Power of making Gouernours and Ministers of the Church Upon what ground the Hierarchy of Bishops Priests and Deacons standeth in opposition to Presbyteries and Congregations Of the Power of Confirming and the evidence of the Hierarchy which it yieldeth Of those Scriptures which seem to speak of Presbyteries or Congregations NOw are we come to one of the greatest Powers of the Church For all Societies according as they are constituted either by the act of Superiors or by the will of members are by their constitution either inabled to give themselves Governours or tied to receive them from those by whose will they subsist The Society of the Church subsisting by the will of God is partly regulated by the will of men voluntarily professing themselves Christians If God having limimited the qualities and the Powers by which his Church is to be Governed do referre the designing of persons to bear those qualities and powers to his Church it must needs appear one of the greatest points that he hath left to their choice Therefore I have made it appear from the beginning that the originall of this Power was planted by our Lord Christ in his Apostles and Disciples to whom immediately he committed the trust of propagating it And now that I may further determine within what bounds and under what terms those his immediate Commissaries did appoint it to be propagated to the end of the world I say that by their appointment the bodies of Christians contained in each City and the territory thereof is to constitute a several Church to be governed by one cheif Ruler called a Bishop with Presbyters or Priests subordinate to him for his advice and assistance and Deacons to minister and execute their appointment The said Bishops to be designed by their Clergy that is their respective Priests and Deacons with consent of neighbour Bishops ordaining them and by the assent of the people whom they are to govern I say further That the Churches of greater Cities upon which the Government of the lesse dependeth are by the same Rule greater Churches and the greatest of all the Churches of the chiefe Cities So that the chief Cities of the Christian world at the planting of Christianity being Rome Alexandria and Antiochia by consequence those were by this Rule the chief Churches and in the first place that of Rome This position excludeth in the first place that of Independent Congregations which maketh a Church and a Congregation to be all alone so that the people of each Congregation to be able first to give themselves both Laws and Governours then to govern and manage the Power of the Keyes according to Gods word that is according to that which they shall imagine to be the intent of it For whatsoever authority they allow their Ministers or Elders seeing they are created out of the people by the meer act of the people and that the consent of the People is required to inact every thing that passeth it will be too late for them to think of any authority not subordinate to the people upon whom they have bestowed the Soveraign On the other extreme this position excludeth that of the Romanists who will have the fulnesse of Ecclesiasticall Power to have been first setled upon S. Peter as sole Monarch of the Church and from him derived upon the rest of the Apostles as his Deputies or Commissaries So that the Power which other Bishops Priests and Deacons have in their respective Churches being granted by the successors of S. Peter Bishops of Rome is therefore limitable at their pleasure as no otherwise estated by divine right then because God hath setled it in S. Peter and his successors as the root and source of it Between these extremes there remain two mean opinions whereof one is the platform of the Presbyteries in which every Congregation is also a Church with a Consistory to rule it consisting of a Minister with his Lay-Elders whom now they call Triers referring to them the â—riall of those who come to communicate and Deacons Of these Congregations so many as they without Rule or Reason so farre as I know think fit to cast into one resoâ—t or division they call a Session or Class and as many of those as they please a Synod and of Synods a Province So that as the
Samaria mentioned Acts IX 31. where the Harvest was lesse though somewhat elder yet not more considerable whither as Elders of the whole Church that is Bishops or as Elders of the Church of Jerusalem that is Priests supposing the same Order promiscuously called Bishops and Presbyters which I never doubted and since hath been largely and learnedly proved will scarce be decided by these Texts and the interesse of the Church will be secure though it be not decided For when the deputation of the Church of Antiochia is addressed to the Apostles and these Elders when they assemble to consider of it when the answer containing the decree goes forth in their name Act. XV. 2 4. 16 23. It is still the decree of the Princes and Elders of the Israel of God whether you take them for Elders of the Church of Jerusalem or Bishops of the whole Church Nor is the case much otherwise when Paul and his companions consult with Iames and the Elders almost about the same businesse Act. XXI 18. though of the twelve it seems there was none then left at Jerusalem but James whom for the many marks which the Scriptures give us that his care was appropriated though his power no way confined to that Church the Church calleth Bishop of Jerusalem and of those Presbyters many were either setled in or dispersed to other functions as those whom first we read of in the Church of Antiochia must have have been of that quality Act. XIII 1. no lesse then Barâ—abas and Silas Act. IX 27. XI 22-26 XV. 22. But is there any man that can pick out of all this any maner of pretense for the equality of whether Governors or Ministers of the Church for the concurrence of Lay Elders to the Acts of their Government For the concurrence of the people there may be some pretense because they are present at passing the decree and the leter that bears it goes in their name Act. XV. 4. 23. And because the choice of Matthias and of the seven proceeds upon upon their allowance and nomination of the persons Act. I. 20-23 XVI 3-6 But that therefore the cheif interess should be in the people is an imagination too brutish Cannot the Apostles finding themselves obliged to ordain persons so and so qualified for such and such offices in the Church appeal to the people whom they acknowledge so and so qualified Cannot S. Paul afterwards provide That no man should blame them in dispensing the Power which they are trusted with 2 Cor. VIII 20. but a consequence must thereupon be inferred against themselves that they are commanded by God to referre things concerning the salvation of Gods people in generall as the power of an Apostle the order of Deacon the decree of the Synod at Jerusalem to the temerity and giddinesse of the people When it is evident in the Text that the people are neither left to themselves whither to proceed or not nor to proceed but within bounds limited so that proceeding within those bounds â—hey could not prejudice the Apostles interess without they were to be restrained As for the mater of Faith determined at Jerusalem is any man so litle a Christian as to doubt whether it obliged them whom it concerned or whether by virtue of that act Those that so readily admitted it Act. XVI 4. did not The whole interess of the people consequent to this proceeding of the Apostles consists in being reasonably satisfied of mater of fact concerning persons and causes to be justiced by the Apostles and their successors in the Church And can no more argue the People to be chief in the Church then the triall by Juries can argue England to be no Monarchy Which interesse when it is shamefully abused to the dishonour of Christianity I say not I would have it taken away as in some â—laces perhaps it is but I say he that would not have the satisfaction which they may demand limited by certain bounds with force of Law that it may not be so abused any more can neither pretend to be reasonable nor Christian But that the people of one Church should do an act which must oblige other Churches is a thing so gross that they who allow their Christians the freedom to be tied to nothing but what themselves please do by consequence allowing others the same destroy all principles and grounds of one Catholick Church which having proved as largely as my design admits I remit those who may pretend themselves unsatisfieâ— in this point to void me these grounds before they claim of me that which cannot stand with the truth of them But the due interess of the people being thus satisfied and their pretended interess by the same means excluded what becomes of the Lay Elders interess upon their account For Lay Elders can be no more then the Foremen of the People to act that interess which they challenge to their due advantage And in this quality I have granted elsewere and cannot repent me of that opinion that in some parts of the Western Church some of the chief of the People that is that were not of the Clergy did concur to the acts of the Church in behalf of the People and of their Interess And in this quality Blondel the most learned of Presbyterians claims the Lay Elders of Gâ—nâ—va to be receivable Which as he knew very well and all his party will own to be utterly inconsistent with the meaning and intent of them who first brought them in at Geneva So will it both cut of all pretense for them that is derived from any other ground and leave the claim also to be limited by that which the preservation of the whole Church and the unity thereof will require In the mean time the Order of Bishops and the superiority thereof above the order of Priests stands exemplified in the person of S. Iames the brother of our Lord by so ancient testimonies concurring with such circumstances of Scripture marked out Bishop of Jerusalem whither one of the twelve or noâ— In that indeed the reports of the ancients are not reconcileable But if not why should S. Paul be so careful to protest that he received not his authority from him no more then from S. Peter and S. Iohn Gal. I. 18. 19. II. 9. 12. Could there be any question of receiving his authority from any but those of the Twelve Therefore and for other reasons elsewhere alleged I count it as shouldred by most probâ—bilities so a subject to least difficulty to believe him to be Iames the Son of Alphoeus as having nothing of consequence to answer but why Hegâ—sippus writing so soon after the Apostles hath not remembred it But of that let each man think as he finds most reasonable Those testimonies of antiquity which expound those circumstances of Scripture which mark him out for the head of that Church do not discharge him from the care of other Churches especially of the circumcision which perhaps by his care together with
change which Temporal Power remaining in the same hands is able to produce within its own dominions The consequence of which consideration will be this that where Temporal Power makes such a change in the state of those Cities which are the seats of Churches that the Government and advancement of Christianity either may proceed changing the priviledges of the Churches or cannot proceed otherwise there the Church either may or ought to transferre the pre-eminences of Churches from City to City And therefore that where the case is otherwise the Church is not bound upon every act of Temporall Power to proceed to any change If this seem obscure being thus generally said let not the Reader despair before we have done to find instances in things that have come to pass not onely to clear my meaning but also to evidence the reason upon which I proceed It is likewise easie for him that considers this supposition and the effect and consequence of it to see that it gives no Jurisdiction to the Church of Rome much lesse to the Head thereof in behalfe of it over other Churches then those which resort immediately to it as every Diocess is concluded by the mother Church and every Province by the Synod of it much lesse the Power of giving Law to the whole but by the act of those Synods whereof the whole consists or of judging â—ny appeal that may be brought to it But it makes the Church of Rome as other Head Churches the center to which the causes that concern first the Western Churches in particular then the whole are to resort that they may find issue and be decided by the consent and to the unity of all whom they concern It is also easily to be observed that this eminence of the greatest Churches over their inferiours which originally is no further defined and limited then the consequence of this ground in respect of the rest of Christendom required might lawfully be defined and limited further either by sâ—lent custome or by express law of the Church consenting at leaâ—â—â—â—â—ffect and practice which is the onely real positive Law that rules all Societies Whereby new rights and priviledges might come to the Church of Rome as well as to other Churches which might also be for the good of the whole in â—â—intaining the unity of the Church together with the common interest of Christianity But I deny not on the other side that this Power the beginning whereof is so necessary and just the intent so excellent by the change of the world and the state of things in it may be so inhansed that though it do provide for the unity of the Church yet it shall not provide for the interess of Chistianity But of this and the consequence of it in due time For the present the reason upon which my position the effect and consequence whereof I have hitherto set forth is grounded is the effect of it in all proceedings of the Church recorded first in the Scriptures and afterwards in Church Writers as they succeed those that I must here principally consider being the very same that I considered in the first Book to make evidence of the being of the Church in point of fact as a body out of which now the right which held it together as the soul must appear Adding the consideration of such eminent passages in succeeding times as may serve to the same purpose I will not here repeat the marks of it which I have produced out of the Scriptures in the right of the Church Chap. II. For the dependence of Churches is part of this position as an ingredient without which the unity of the whole is not attainable I will onely adde here the consideration of that which I alleged in the first Book out of S. Johns last Epistle 5-10 Some have thought it so strange that Diotrephes and his faction should not acknowledge those that were recommended by S. John an Apostle that they have rather intitled the Epistle to a successor of his in the Church of Ephesus whose Tombe S. Jerome saw there besides S. John the Apostle whom Papias called John the elder as he is called in the beginning of these two Epistles Hieron Catal. in Johanne Papiâ Ens. Ecclesiast Hist II. 25. But he that considers what S. Paul writes to the Corinthians of his adversaries there will not marvail that S. John should find opposition at the hands of Diotrephes aspiring to the Bishoprick by banding a faction against the Jewish Christians whom it appears sufficiently that S. John cherished And therefore the mark here set upon Diotrephes is not for introducing Episcopacy as the Presbyterians would have it but for disobeying the superiour Church whereof S. John was head to the indangering of Unity in the Whole For could Diotrephes hope to make himselfe Bishop in his own Church when no body was Bishop in any Church besides Or might not Diotrephes hope to do it by heading a party that disallowed compliance with Judaism at that time If then the Apostles provided not that the Church should continue alwayes one if this Unity was not alwayes maintained by the dependence of Churches let this reproof have no effect in any succeeding time of the Church But if the eminence of S. Johns Church above the neighbour Churches in insuing ages was a necessary ingredient to the unity of the whole then be it acknowledged that S. Johns successors might lay the blame of Diotrephes his ambition upon any successor of his that should follow it Before I go any further I will here allege those Fathers which do teach that our Lord gave S. Peter the Keys of his Church in the person of the Church and as the figure of it Namely S. Cyprian Pacianus S. Hierom S. Augustine and Optatus whose words I will not here write out to inflame the bulk of this Book because you have them in the Archbishop of Spalato de Rep. Eccl. 1. VII 17-29 VIII 8. 9. Adding onely to them S. Ambrose de dignitate Sacerdotali cap. 1. affirming that in S. Peter the Keys of the Kingdom of heaven are given to all Priests And cap. II. speaking of the words of our Lord to S. Peter Feede my sheepe Quas oves quem gregem non solum tunc beatus suscepit Petrus sed nobiscum eas suscepit cum illo eas nos suscepimus omnes Which sheep and which flock not onely S. Peter then undertook but also he with us and with him we all undertook them And venerable Bede upon the words of our Lord Tell the Church Haec potestas sanctae Ecclesiae Episcopis specialiter commissa est generaliter vero omni Ecclesiae data creditur Nam quod dominus alibi hanc ligandi solvendique potestatem Petro tribuit utique in Petro qui typum gerebat Ecclesiae omnibus Apostolis hoc concessisse non dubitatur The power of the Keys is committed especially to the Bishops of the Holy Church but is believed to be
the like moment because of the sentence of the Nicenâ— Council already past in the main ground of the cause and because of the sentence of the Synod of Rome past in the cause Now when this difference comes afterwards to be tried by a General Council at Sardica shall this trial inferre the infinite Power of the Pope or the regular Power of a General Council For surely the Council of Sardica was intended for a General Council as the Emperor Justinian reckons it being summoned by both Emperours Constantius and Constans out of the whole Empire When the breach fell out and the Eastern Bishops withdrew themselves to Philippopolis the whole Power in point of right ought I conceive to remain on that side which was not the cause of the breach But the success sufficiently showeth that it did not so prevail For many a Council might then have been spared The soveraign regard of peace in the Church suffered not those that were in the right to insist upon the acts of it as I suppose In the mean time the Canons thereof whereby appeals to the Pope in the causes of Bishops are setled whither for the West which it represented or for the whole which it had right to conclude not having caused the breach shall I conceive to be forged because they are so aspersed having been acknowledged by Justinian translated by Dionysius Exigâ—us added by the Eastern Church to their Canon Law Or shall I not ask what pretense there could be to settle appeals from other parts to Rome rather then from Rome to other parts had not a pre-eminence of Power and not onely a precedence of rank been acknowledged originally in the Church of Rome But though I think my self bound to acknowledge that such Canons were made by the Council at Sardica yet not that they took effect by the act of it The Canons of Councils had not effect as I said afore till received The troubles that succeeded might well hinder the admitting of them into practice And that this exception is not for nothing I appeal to all that shall but consider that the Canons of the Council of Antiochia which the Eastern Bishops at Sardica stood for made part of the Code of the whole Church which the Council of Chalcedon owned The Canon of Sardica being no part of it till after times And this is the point upon which the dispute between the Pope and the Churches of Africk about appeals most depends The case that brought it to issue was the case of Apiarius a Priest onely that appealed to Rome The Popes Legates pretended that appeals to Rome were settled by the Council of Nicaea The Churches of Africk finding no such Canon of Nicaea in their records desire that recourse might be had to Alexandria and Constantinople for the true Copies The true Copies import no such thing but it is alleged and it is reason it should be alleged that the appeals of Bishops are setled by the Canons of the Council of Sardica the very terms whereof are couched in the instructions to the Council of Africk The Council of Sardica was not the Council of Nicaea but the acts of it were done by those who pretended to maâ—ntain it Whither it were justly done or imported an intent of imposture to challenge the authority of the Canons of Nicaea for the Canons of it I dispute not But had the case in question been the case of a Bishop as it was onely the case of a Priest what could the Churches of Africk have alledged why they should not be tyed by the Canons of Sardica who acknowledged themselves tyed by the Canons of Nicaea For there was onely the Bishop of Carthage present at the Council of Nicaea but there was six and thirty Africane Bishops at the Council of Sardica enow to represent all the Diocese of Africk and to tie those whom they represented What could they alledge but the inexecution of the Council of Sardica Or what greater evidence could they alledge for the inexecution of it then that there was no Copy of any such Canon in the records of all their Churches Or how could the Pope desire a fairer pretense for the execution of it for the future then the concurrence of the Africanâ— Churches by so many Bishops For though the Council of Sardica is quoted in that which is called the VI Council of Carthage yet the whole issue of the businesse was onely whither they were Nicâ—ne Canons that were alleged or not and when it appeared that they were not the dispute was at an end and the Africane Synode by the leter extant in the Africane Code desires the Pope to stand to terms of the Nicene Canons Therefore it is clearly a fault in the Copy that the Council of Sardica is named which could not be pleaded because all knew that it was not in force as the Council of Nicaea was in the Churches of Africk So that the act of the Council of Sardica necessarily presupposeth that the Church of Rome was effectually acknowledged the prime Church of the West and by consequence of all Churches because it setleth the right of appeals upon it before other Churches in certain causes though it appear not what effect it took unlesse you allow the conjecture which I have to propose Within a few years after this contest there appears a standing Commission of the Popes to the Bishops of Thessalonica to be their standing Lieutenants in Illyricum mentioned in the leter of Pope Leo to Anastasins of Thessalonica as derived from their predecessors Had the Bishop of Rome been no more then the Bishop of Thessalonica how came this to be his Lieutenant rather then on the contrary And truly where those priviledges of the Church of Rome over the Churches of Illyricum began whereby the Popes had made the Bishops of Thessalonica their standing Legates appears not by the records of the Church So that it is as free for me to conjecture that they come from the Council of Sardica as for others to conjecture otherwise For it is not unreasonable to think that it might take effect upon the place where it was made with fuller consent of the Bishops of that Diocese present in greater numbers then strangers though scarce known in Africk after some LXX years But at such time as Rome disputed with Africk about appeals and injoyed regular priviledges in Illyricum can the Church of Milane or any Church of Spain or Gaul or Britaine be thought parallel to it From this time the rescripts of the Popes are extant unforged and directed to divers prime Churches of Gaul and Spain And the Heads of them were added by Dionysius Exiguâ—s about DXXX unto that collection of Canons which what force it had in the Western Church appears in that Cresconius abridging the Canons which the African Church used referrs them to the Heads which he follows both beginning at Syricius Cresconius ending at Gelasius And the Copies of Dionysius his Collection that now are
answer to the Jesuites Challenge Pag. 308-326 that the spoiling of Hell is attributed by the Fathers to the rising of our Lord Christ from the grave whereby the law of death was voided Which if it be true what Tradition can there remaine in the Church that our Lord Christs soule should harrow hell and ransacke it of the soules of the Fathers there detained or in the Verge of it Saint Basil de Sp. S. cap. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How then do we go down to Hell aright Imitating the buriall of Christ by Baptisme For the bodies of these who are Baptized are as it were buried in the water Saint Chrysostome in 1 ad Cor. Hom XL. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For to be baptized and first to sink then come up againe is an Embleme of going down into Hell and coming up againe And truly if the force of Christs death in voiding the dominion of death stood by the merit of his sufferings Then was the descent of his flesh into the grave of force to that effect without any descent further of his soul into the lower parts thereof And if the death of Christ and his continuing in death for the time that God had appointed was declared by God to be accepted by him to that effect then was his rising from death his triumph over hell and death whereby the title of his rising againe being declared it must needs appear that neither death nor hell nor the devil hath any more interest in Christians Nor is it so strange that the descent of Christ into hell should be mentioned by the Apostles Creed after his buriall if it signify not the descent of his soul as it would be that it should be left out of other Creeds if it did signify that it is necessary to the salvation of all so to believe For neither is it expressed in the Creed of Nicaea or Constantinople nor was it found in that which the Church of Rome or that which the Churches of the East used saith Ruffinus upon the Creed who notwithstanding expoundeth it because the Church of Aquileia which he belonged to used it Which had the signification of it been a distinct truth necessary to the salvation of all to be believed the Churches could by no meanes have connived at one another in not delivering it And truly seeing the dominion of death intimating the second death to which those who belong not to the New Testament are accursed is signified in the Old Testament by going under the earth The signification of going down into Hell in the Creed can by no meanes be thought superfluous though our Lord neither went thither to rescue the Fathers soules nor to triumph over the Powers of darknesse For as thereby the common curse from whence we are redeemed so is also the reason and meanes of our deliverance from it intimated And seeing there is appearance from that which hath been said that the divell himself did not understand the secret of Gods intent to dissolve his interest in mankind by the death of Christ untill it appeared by what right our Lord resumed his body which he had Laid downe this being declared in the other world by his rising again and in signe thereof the soules of the saints that slept rising againe with him and resuming their bodies there is no reason why the mention of his resurrection following immediately upon the descent into Hell in the Creed should not sufficiently expresse that triumph which this declaration importeth Which triumph being effected by the Godhead though in his flesh it will be no marvaile to meet with some sayings of the Fathers that ascribe it to his Godhead Now the common doctrine of the Schoole maketh it no matter of Faith to believe the descent of Christs soule into that Hell where the damned were but onely to the Verge of it where the souls of the Fathers were It is enough with them that the effect of this Power reached to the place of the damned Cardinall Bellarmine when he published his controversies held it probable that the soul of Christ descended to the place of the damned But upon better consideration in the review of them thinks that the other opinion of Thomas and the rest of the Schoole is to be followed And yet it is not possible to distinguish between this Verge and the lowest hell by any Tradition of the Church Nay Durandus goes so farre out of their rode as to maintaine that the soul of Christ went not to hell that is to Lymbus but onely by the effect of it in making the soules of the Fathers happy Which is in my opinion declaring to them the reason of their happinesse And the opinion of Suarez the Jesuite is remarkable That taking an Article of Faith for a truth necessary for the salvation of all Christians to be known the descent of Christ into hell is no Article of Faith For that is not very necessary for single Christians to know And for that cause perhaps it is not in the Nicene Creed which whoso believeth believes enough to save him And that perhaps for this cause some Fathers expounding the Creed to the People make no mention of it In III. Disput XLIII Sect. II. and IV. I may adde for the advantage of my opinion That if it be not necessary for single Christians to believe much lesse is it necessary for the Church as a body to believe it For those things which the Church believeth as a body it imposeth to be believed upon them who are of the body But it cannot be reasonable for the Church as a body to impose upon the members thereof the beliefe of that which it is not necessary to their salvation as single Christians to believe And therefore allowing the conscientiousnesse of S. Augustine who having presumed that he who believes not the descent is no Christiane doubts not that by the descent as many were delivered as Gods secter justice thought fit Epist XCIX And of Saint Jerome in Eph. II. allowing some work of God to be managed by it which we understand no more then what good our Lords death did the good Angels I allow also the reservedness of those of the Confession of Auspurg or of Suisse who acknowledging the literall sense of this Article find not themselves bound to maintaine for what reason it was I am not offended with those in the Church of England that assigne the triumph of our Lord for the reason of it But believing with Saint Gregory Nyssene in Pascha Resurrect Christi Epist ad Eustath that our Lord by the descent of his body into the grave abolished him that had the power of death by his soul made way for the thiefe into Paradise where it self was count this enough for the salvation of all Christians to be believed And therefore that the Church cannot impose upon them as the necessary meanes of their salvation to believe any more I do not intend to say much more
which it standeth For it is manifest that the powers from whose acts this argument is drawne are such as hold communion with the Church of Rome and acknowledg the Pope in behalf of it As manifest it is that the Pope not onely challengeth to be head of the Church in Church maters but maintaineth Friers Canonists to chalenge for him Soveraigne power in civill causes over all persons in order to Christianity To say then that by the acts which they limite the use of Ecclesiastical power by they pretend that there is no Power in the Church but what they give it is to say that by those acts they contradict themselves and proclaime their own professing themselves Sons of the Church not onely to be without cause but to signifie nothing as words without sense Which with what modesty it can be affirmed in the face of Christendome I leave to Christendome to judge Onely I will here summon the liberties of the Gallicane Church as they are digested by that worthy Advocate of Paris P. Pithaeus to give sentence in this cause being a peece much appealed to by the Father of this argument as that which deserves to be accounted of prime consequence in the businesse I desire those that will take the pains to looke into them to tell me whether they find not these two to be the first two points of them That the King of France is Soveraigne in his own dominions and that he is Protector of the Canons Liberties and priviledges of the Church And then I desire them to imploy the common understanding of men to pronounce whether these be not the same points of secular interest in Church maters which I have advanced Namely as Soveraigne to have no competitor in the right of the Crowne and as Christian to be borne Protector of the Catholicke and Apostolick Faith and of the Church and of the Lawes of it which have no being but upon supposition of that faith whereof one part is the beliefe of the Catholike Church Onely I shall take notice that they protest that they are called Liberties and not Priviledges on purpose to signifie that they are no exceptions to the common right of all Soverainities in Church maters but essentiall points of it Which they call the liberties of the French Church in particular because the Kings of France they thinke have maintained them better then other Princes of Christendome have done In consequence of this collection of Pithaeus besids the proofs of them in two great volums we have of late a commentary of Petrus Puteanus upon these Liberties as they are digested by Pithaeus the businesse whereof is first to make good that they are of more unquestionable right in France then they have been and are practiced also by other Princes and states of Christendome which is answer enough to this whole argument as it stands upon the authority of Christendome expessed by the acts of it Neverthelesse I shall further alledge in this cause the collection which Frier Paul of the order delli Servi hath made of the articles accorded betweene the Pope and the state of Venice concerning the Inquisition the bounds of secular Power in the cognizance of those causes wherein that court may pretend concurrence of Jurisdiction with it I will not undertake to say that the state of Venice maintaining the Inquisition upon such termes as this collection or Capitular declareth doth maintaine those persons in the use of Ecclesiasticall power to whom by the common right of the whole Church it belongeth Neither will I maintaine that whatsoever those articles distinguish and allow the Inquisition is by virtue of the common right of the whole Church For who can ty him to expresse every where what is by Ecclesiasticall right and what of secular privilege by free act of tâ—e state bestowed upon the Church as all states that would be held Christians have alwaies done This I say that he that shall take the paines to look into it shall finde the bounds of secular and Ecclesiastical power so expressely distinguished upon the reasons which I have aleged that it shall be too late to say that they who acknowledge a Church and certaine rights by Gods Lawe belonging to the foundation of it doe contradict themselves when they do limit the exercise of those rights Being ready further to maintaine that they doe nothing but right when they limit the exercise of them according to the reasons which I have advanced As for the Leviathan who hath made himselfe so merry with compasing a state Christian in which the Ecclesiasticall power is distinct from the secular with the governement of Oberon and Queene Mabbe and theire Pugs in the land of Fairies If he speake of a state framed according to the opinion of those that make the Pope soveraigne in all causes and over all persons in order to Christianity I grant he hath reason For there is not nor can be any such state and it would be indeed a kingdome of confusion and darkenesse Nay where the Church it selfe is Soveraigne as in the Popes dominions show the difference of the grounds upon which severall rights and powers are held and exercised will be in some points though not in all no lesse visible then else where But if he intend by consequence to say the same of all Christian states that acknowledg an Ecclesiasticall power derived from the Law of God and not from the secular then I remit to those that shall have perused the practice of Christendome but in those short peeces that I have named whether they believe those states which so governe themselves to be the land of Fairies or his wits that writ such things to have beene troubled with Fairies And now in particular to say what the maintenance of the Church in giving Lawes to the Church requires that is to say in determining those maters the determination whereof becomes necessary for the maintenance of unity in the Communion of the Church It is easy to deduce from the premises that every Christian is under two obligations One to the Church which as a Christian he is bound to communicate with The other as belonging to that state of Government which he believeth to be lawfully setled in his country By the act of those whom he believes to have right to oblige respectively these two societies which if we speake onely of that part of the Church which is in one soverainty consist of the same persons if they be all of the same Church every Christian is respectively obliged For by the premises it remaines manifest that it is the act of the Church to determine the mater of Ecclesiasticall Law and give it force to oblige the respective part thereof under paine of forseiting the communion of the Church But the act of the state either not to hinder this effect when and where Christianity is onely tollerated as a corporation which it alloweth Or to make them Lawes of the state when and where
divers suppositions of their own which I intend not hereby either to admit or to dispute because it is enough for my turne that we agree in this that the precept of avoiding the Excommunicate is limitable upon such considerations as the constitution and being of the Church presupposeth As the Apostle when he orders the Corinthians not so much as to eat with one that professeth Christianity and yet lives in the sinnes he nameth 1 Cor. V. 11. meaneth the same that he expresseth and signifieth by avoiding an Heretick Titus III. 10. S. John by not bidding him God speed and our Lord by holding him as a Heathen man or a Publicane But he that shall consider the vast difference between the State of Christianity under the Apostles and when the Empire and now severall Soveraignties professe it remembring that Christianity disolves not but maintaines civil Government and every mans estate in it must see this to be one of those Lawes which without limitation become uselesse to the maintenance of the Church and therefore must necessarily be limited that it may be serviceable The ordinary limitation of it by that verse of the Casuists is well enough known Vtile lex humile res ignorata necesse But he that will observe shall find that all these Exceptions to the generall rule of avoiding the Excommunicate are grounded upon that one title of the necessity of this world and the subsistence thereof which the being of the Church presupposeth A man converseth with the excommunicate for his profit to recover a debt This is the necessity of his estate of which he owes God an account in behalfe of his obligations A man or wife converses with wife or husband excommunicate for the bond of mariage This is that necessity which that law presupposed to the foundation of the Church createth Superiours and inferiours converse with one an other excommunicate This is the necessity of their estate which Christianity maintayneth Other necessities are warrantable under the generall title of necessity The necessity of violence or feare why should it not have a place here as well as that of ignorance onely that both are generall justifying all and not onely this kind of actions The necessity of giving and getting good counsaile or almes is all reducible to the same head Wherefore all these considerations resolve themselves into that generall ground which I tender that Christianity supposes the lawfull state of the world according to the reason of civill Government and altereth no mans condition in it of it selfe but maintaineth every man in that estate in which it findeth him as S. Paul argueth at large 1. Corin. VII 17-24 being such as Christianity alloweth By reason whereof the avoiding of the excomunicate easily to be visibly performed by Christians among themselves when their conversation was among many times more men that were not Christians becomes without limitation impossible to be observed of them that live onely with Christians How feasible that obligation is as the Casuists now make it I leave it to them to maintaine or how feasible it may be made This I say that all these reasons conccurre to oblige all Christian subjects not to forbeare the conversation of their Soveraignes The civill Laws of every state the advantage which the state of all subjects doth or may require from the soveraign the inâ—eriority wherein they are and the necessity which all these reasons produce For neither can Christianity pretend to disolve the Law of the land Nor can justice goe forwards without conversation of the subject with the soveraigne And Christianity obligeth superiours and inferiors to maintaine the relations in which it overtaketh them And finally the necessity of these reasons createth an exception even to the Law of the Church communion though setled by our Lord and his Apostles And this as much as to say that the greater Excommunication taketh no place against Soveraignes And this position is so far from being new in England that in my nonage it was disputed at Cambridge upon an eminent occasion at the reception of the Archbishop of Spalato by an expresse order of King James of excellent memory as I conceive I am well informed and thereby satisfied that I maintaine hereby no novelty in the Church of England But those that distinguish not this from the act of S. Ambrose in refusing the communion to the great Theodosius upon a horrible murther done by his expresse commandement may doe well to consider either with what conscience they censure such a Prelate in what they understand not or why they condemne the whole Church whereof all Christians are or ought to be members For how can the Church refuse any Christian the communion if it refuse not the same to all Christians even the soveraigne in that case wherein the condition of all is one and the same And hereby also wee may see what was the opinion of the learned Prince King James concerning this action of S. Ambrose whatsoever may have been said Who had he made question of the lesse excommunication consisting in excluding from the Eucharist would never have caused it to be disputed that the greater hath no place against Soveraigne As concerning the Jurisdiction of the Church in the causes of Christians if the question be made whether or no it now continue that common wealths professe Christianity the argument seemeth peremptory that it doth not continue because then of necessity all civill powers should resolve into the Power of the Church because all Jurisdiction by consequence to this priviledge must needs resolve into the jurisdiction of the Church all causes being the causes of Christians and resorting therefore to the jurisdiction of the Church and therefore no use of secular Courts but the power of the sword must become subordinate to execute the sentence of the Church And therefore seeing that on the otherside the reason why S. Paul forbids them to goe to sute before secular courts is this because they were the Courts of Infidels and that the scandals of Christians were by that meanes published before unbelievers which it is evident was the reason why this course was thought abominable even among the Jewes it is manifest that the jurisdiction of the Church in maters that arise not upon the constitution of the Church though inforced by S. Paul and our Lord ceaseth together with the title and cause of it when secular Powers professe Christianity Which notwithstanding it is a thing well known that the line of Charles the Great in the West revived those privileges which Constantine had granted the Church as his act also is repeaâ—ed in their Capitulares VI. 281. which Gratiane also hath recorded XI Quaest cap. Quicunque From which beginning many sorts of causes especialy such as charity seemed to have most interest in which the Clergy were thought fittest to manage have continued to be sentenced by the Ecclesiastical Court in all Christian dominions Notwithstanding that they rise not upon the constitution
make good that protection which they undertook by the loyalty of them that injoyed it things must by consequence continue in this estate But when the removing of the Germane power from the line of Charles the great had done the operation of rendring them who succeeded obnoxious at home to them by whose faction they obtained it there was no great likelyhood that the obedience of strangers and Italians accustomed to changing of masters should continue This was the time that Gregory VII Pope and his successors took when the power of the Emperours in disposing the Churches of Germany by the right of investiture whatsoever in point of right it signified must needs render their interest envious as well at home as at Rome whatsoever occasions of discontent besides an Elective Crowne might produce For Charles the great as our William of Malmsbury noteth had heaped wealth and power upon the Churches by which he planted Christianity in Germany as placing a greater confidence of Loyalty in them then in any estate of his subjects besides And the example of that credit which the usurpation of Pepin had received by the allowance of the Pope seemed to justify any insurrection either of Italians or Germanes to which the Pope was a party For as to the issue of those Warres though the Pope got no more then reducing the adverse party to composition because he could not pretend any dominion for his Church by conquering yet must it needs turn to the advantage of his authority that had the greatest stroke in moving that warre which others made This is the story the morall whereof became the theme for those that undertook to preach the Popes temporall power over Soveraignties For successe to them that consult not with their Christianity is a plausible argument of right But the Interest of the Pope in Soveraignties having swelled so farre beyond the whole capacity of the Church the bad consequence of necessity followes that his originall power in the Church must needs swell so farre beyond the bounds as of regular to become infinite I will not now contend that the subjects of the Empire in Italy fell away from it because they thought themselves free of their allegiance by the excommunicating of the Emperor Leo Isaurus There is reason enough to think that the See of Rome cried up the worship of images contrary to the moderation of Saint Gregory some hundred years afore out of hope to advance their own power by impairing the rights of their Soveraigne But I charge no more then they pretend And there is appearance for another plea which is want of protection from the Empire at such time as recourse was had to the protection of the French But the vexation of the Germane Emperours manifestly pretended the temporall effect of the Popes excommunication in dissolving the bond of allegiance wherein the temporal power of the Pope consisteth The effect of which being such as it was it is the lesse marvaile that the rest of the Soveraignities of Christendome have entered into capitulations with the Pope such as the Concordates which I spoke of afore with France whereby to secure the government of their people in peace on that side they make the Popes pretense of power without bounds in Ecclesiasticall matters of law to their respective Dominions and Territories It is strange to him that considers without prejudice how they who imagine the Pope to be Antichrist could make their pretense popular that Episcopacy is the support of Antichrist For his unlimitted power in Church maters is but the regular power of all Churches united in one It is plainly made up for the See of Rome of feathers plucked from every Church So that if Episcopacy be the support of Antichrist then do their rights maintaine his usurpation by whom they are destroyed Did the Soveraignities of Christendome maintaine the Churches of their respective dominions in that right which the reguâ—ar constitution of the Church settleth upon them and that is it which the protection of the Church signifyeth it would soon appeare that he is Antichrist if Antichrist he be to their prejudice and disadvantage The See of Rome having got a decree at the Councile of Trent scornes any termes but absolute submission to it But the end of such an intestine warre by conquest as it would be extreamly mischievous bearing all down before the pretense of infallibility which must then prevaile So findes hinderances answerable to the advantages which the disunion of the adverse party ministreth The animosities of Potentates that adhere to it have made it visible that their interest consists in hindering the reunion of the Reformation to the Church of Rome And the pretense of dissolving allegiance by the sentence of excommunication is become no way considerable by the subsistence of them who regard it not Nor is the advantage which the favour thereof lends the armes of those Princes who tye themselves the most strictly to the interests of it any more considerable Whether or no it be time for them to bethink themselves that it were better for them to injoy the unquestionable title of a true Church and of the chief Church of Christendome which it is absolutely necessary for all Churches to hold communion with the common Christianity being secured then catching at the disposing of all mens Christianity without rendring any account to the Church which how dangerous for their own salvation is it to hang the unity of the Church meerly upon the interest of the World which how prejudiciall is it to the salvation of Gods people not upon the interest of Christianity themselves must judge This I am sure If Christian Powers maintaine their due right and title of Protectors of Gods Church it is the regular constitution thereof which they must maintaine The exemption of Monasticall Orders and Universities from the jurisdiction of their Ordinaries under whom they stand and the Synods to which they resort the reservation of cases dispensations in Canons provisions of Churches and the rest of those chanels by which power as well as wealth is drained from all Churches to Rome must needs be stopped up at least for the greatest part if Christian Soveraigns did protect the Church of their dominions in the right of ending causes that concern not the whole Church at home This were such a ground of confidence between Soveraignes and the Clergy of their dominions that it would be very hard to imagine any interest considerable to ingage against that interest by the prejudicing whereof neither of them could expect any advantage And this confidence the meanes to restore and to maintain that intercourse and correspondence between the Churches of severall Soveraignties by which when all Churches at least as many as easily outweighed the rest were under the Romane Empire the Unity of the Church was maintained without that recourse to temporall power which made it infinite Nor would there remaine any just ground of jealousie between the Pope and the
therefore how shall it appeare to signify here any more then him that pretends to be the Christ For it is evident that Saint John both there and 1 John IV. 3. speakes of his own time As for the Revelation neither is it any where said that it prophesieth any thing of Antichrist nor will it be proved that it saith any thing of the Pope Much of it being a Prophesie hath been expounded to all appearance of something like the Pope though with violence enough All of it without Prophesying what shall come to passe could never be expounded to that purpose and it is not strange that so great a foundation should be laid upon the event of an obscure Scripture such as all Prophesies are to be conjectured by that which we think we see come to passe For I referre to judgement how much more appearance there is that it intendeth the vengeance of God upon the Pagan Empire of Rome for persecuting Christianity both in the Text and composure of the prophesie and in the pretense of tendring and addressing it Nor is there any thing more effectuall to prove the same then the Idolatries which it specifies that the Christians chused rather to lay down their lives then commit True it is no man can warrant that by praying to Saints for the same things that we pray to God for and by the worship of Images Idolatry may not come in at the back door to the Church of Rome which Christianity shuts out at the great Gate But if it do the difference will be visible between that and the Idolatry of Pagans that professe variety of imaginary deities by those circumstances which in the Apocalypse expresly describe the Idolatries of the Heathen Empire of Rome And therefore I am forced utterly to discharge the Church of Rome of this imputation and to resolve that the Pope can no more be Antichrist then he that holds by professing our Lord to be the Christ and to honour him for God as the Christ is honoured by Christians can himself pretend to be the Christ Nay though I sincerely blame the imposing of new articles upon the faith of Christians and that of positions which I maintaine not to be true yet I must and do freely professe that I find no positinecessary to salvation prohibited none destructive to salvtion injoyned to be believed by it And therefore must I necessarily accept it for a true Church as in the Church of England I have alwaies known it accepted seeing there can no question be made that it continueth the same visible body by the succession of Pastors and Lawes the present customes in force being visibly the corruption of those which the Church had from the beginning that first was founded by the Apostles For the Idolatries which I grant to be possible though not necessary to be found in it by the ignorance and carnall affections of particulars not by command of the Church or the Lawes of it I do not admit to destroy the salvation of those who living in the comunion thereof are not guilty of the like There remaines therefore in the present Church of Rome the profession of all that truth which it is necessary to the salvation of all Christians to believe either in point of faith or maners Very much darkned indeed by inhansing of positions either of a doubtful sense or absolutely false to the ranck and degree of matters of Faith But much more overwhelmed and choaked with a deal of rubbish opinions traditions customes and ceremonies allowed indeed but no way injoyned which make that noise in the publick profession and create so much businesse in the practice of Religion among them that it is a thing very difficult for simple Christians to discerne the pearl the seed and the leaven of the Gospel buried in the earth and the dough of popular doctrines and observations so as to imbrace it with that affection of faith and love which the price of it requires But if it be true as I said afore that no man is obliged to commit those Idolatries that are possible to be committed in that communion it will not be impossible for a discerning Christian to passe through that multitude of doctrines and observations the businesse whereof being meerly circumstantiall to Christianity allows not that zeale and affection to be exercised upon the principall as is spent upon the accessory without superstition and will-worship in placing the service of God in the huske and not in the kernell or promising himself the favour of God upon considerations impertinent to Christianity As for the halfe Sacrament the service in an unknown language the barring the people from the Scrptures and other Lawes manifestly intercepting the meanes of salvatian which God hath allowed his people by the Church It seems very reasonable to say that the fault is not the fault of particular Christians who may and perhaps do many times wish that the matter were otherwise But that the Church being a Society concluding all by the act of those who conclude it there is no cause to imagine that God will impute to the guilt and damnation of those who could not help it that which they are sufferes in and not actors Nay t is much to be feared that the authors themselves of such hard Lawes and those who maintaine them will have a strong plea for themselves at the day of judgement in the unreasonablenesse of their adversaries That it is true all reason required that the meanes of salvation provided by God should be ministred by the Church But finding the pretense of Reformation without other ground than that sense of the Scriptures which every man may imagine and therefore without other bounds and measure then that which imagination for which there are no bounds fixeth They thought it necessary so to carry matters as never to acknowledge that the Church ever erred in any decree or Law that it hath made Least the same error might be thought to take place in the substance of Christianity and the Reformation of the Church to consist in the renouncing of it Which we see come to passe in the Heresy of Socinus And that finding the Unity of the Church which they were trusted with absolurely necessary to the maintenance of the common Christianity whereby salvation is possible to be had though more difficult by denying those helps to salvation which such Lawes intercept They thought themselves tied for the good of the whole not to give way to Laws tending so apparently to the salvation of particular Christians On the other side supposing the premises there remaine no pretense that either Congregations or Presbyteries can be Churches as founded meerly upon humane usurpation which is Schisme not upon divine institution which ordereth all Churches to be fit to constitute one Church which is the whole I need not say that there can be no pretense for any authority visibly convayed to them by those which set them up having it in themselves before I
who create the parties by heading the division have to look about them least they become guilty of the greatest part of soules which in reason must needs perish by the extremities in which it consisteth And the representing of the grounds thereof unto the parties though it may seem an office unnecessary for a private Christian to undertake yet seemeth to me so free from all imputation of offense in discharging of our common Christianity and the obligation of it that I am no lesse willing to undergoe any offense which it may bring upon me then I am to want the advantages which allowing the present Reformation might give me In the mean time I remaine obliged not to repent me of the resolution of my nonage to remaine in the communion of the Church of England There I find an authority visibly derived from the act of the Apostles by meanes of their successors Nor ought it to be of force to question the validity thereof that the Church of Rome and the communion thereof acknowledgeth not the Ordinations and other Acts which are done by virtue of it as done without the consent of the whole Church which it is true did visibly concurre to the authorizing of all acts done by the Clergy as constituted by virtue of those Lawes which all did acknowledge and under the profession of executing the offices of their severall orders according to the same For the issue of that dispute will be triable by the cause of limiting the exercise of them to those termes which the Reformation thereof containeth which if they prove such as the common Christianity expressed in the Scriptures expounded by the original practice of the whole Church renders necessary to be maintained notwithstanding the rest of the Church agree not in them the blame of separation that hath insued thereupon will not be chargeable upon them that retire themselves to them for the salvation of Christian soules but on them who refuse all reasonable compliance in concurring to that which may seem any way tollerable But towards that triall that which hath been said must suffice The substance of that Christianity which all must be saved by when all disputes and decrees and contradictions are at an end is more properly maintained in that simplicity which all that are concerned are capable of by the terms of that Baptisme which it ministreth requiring the profession of them from all that are confirmed at years of discretion then all the disputes on both sides then all decrees on the one side all confessions of faith on the other side have been able to deliver it And I conceive I have some ground to say so great a word having been able by limiting the term of justifying faith in the writings of the Apostles according to the same to resolve upon what termes both sides are to agree if they will not set up the rest of their division upon something which the truth of Christianity justifieth not on either side For by admitting Christianity that is the sincere profession thereof to be the Faith which onely justifyeth in the writings of the Apostles whatsoever is in difference as concerning the Covenant of Grace is resolved without prejudicing either the necessity of Grace to the undertaking the performing the accepting of it for the reward or the necessity of good works in consideration for the same The substance of Chrianity about which there is any difference being thus secured there remaines no question concerning Baptisme and the Eucharist to the effect for which they are instituted being ministred upon this ground and the profession of it with the form which the Catholick Church requireth to the consecration of the Eucharist Nor doth the Church of England either make Sacraments of the rest of the seven or abolish the Offices because the Church of Rome makes them Sacraments Nor wanteth it an order for the daily morning and evening service of God for the celebration of Festivalls and times of Fasting for the observation of ceremonies fit to create that devotion and reverence which they signify to vulgar understandings in the service of God But praying to Saints and worshipping of Images or of the Eucharist Prayers for the delivery of the dead out of Purgatory the Communion in one kind Masses without Communions being additions to or detractions from that simplicity of Gods service which the originall order of the Church delivereth visible to common reason comparing the present order of the Church of Rome with the Scriptures and primitive records of the Church there is no cause to think that the Catholick Church is disowned by laying them aside It is true it was an extraordinary act of Secular Power in Church maters to inforce the change without any consent from the greater part of the Church But if the matter of the change be the restoring of Lawes which our common Christianity as well as the Primitive orders of the Church of both which Christian Powers are borne Protectors make requisite the secular power acteth within the sphere of it and the division is not imputable to them that make the change but to them that refuse their concurrence to it Well had it been had that most pious and necessary desire thereof to restore publick Penance been seconded by the zeal and compliance of all estates and not stifled by the tares of Puritanisme growing up with the Reformation of it For as there can be no just pretense of Reformation when the effect of it is not the frequentation of Gods publick service in that forme which it restoreth but the suppressing of it in that form which it rejecteth So the communion of the Eucharist being the chiefe office in which it consisteth the abolishing of private Masses is an unsusticient pretense for Reformation where that provision for the frequenting of the communion is not made which the restoring of the order in force before private Masses came in requireth Nor can any meane be imagined to maintaine continuall communion with that purity of conscience which the holinesse of Christianity requireth but the restoring of Penance In fine if any thing may have been defective or amisse in that order which the Church of England establisheth it is but justice to compare it in grosse with both extreames which it avoideth and considering that it is not in any private man to make the body of the Church such as thâ—y could wish to serve God with to rest content in that he is not obliged to become a party to those things which he approves not conforming himself to the order in force in hope of that grace which communion with the Church in the offices of Gods service promiseth For consider againe what meanes of salvation all Christians have by communion with the Church of Rome All are bound to be at Masse on every Festivall day but to say onely so many Paters and so many Aves as belong to the hour Not to assist with their devotions that which they understand not much lesse