is but either private or unnecessary and uncertain Oh that whiles we sweat and bleed for the maintenance of these oracular Truths we could be perswaded to remit of our Heat in the pursuit of Opinions These these are they that distract the Church violate our peace scandalize the weak advantage our enemies Fire upon the Hearth warms the Body but if it be misplaced burns the House My brethren let us be Zealous for our God every hearty Christian will pour Oyle and not Water upon this holy flame But let us take heed lest a blind self-love stiffe prejudice and factious partiality impose upon us in stead of the causes of God Let us be suspicious of all New Verities and careless of all unprofitable and let us hate to think our selves either wiser then the Church or better then our Superiours And if any man think that he sees further then his fellows in these Theological prospects let his tongue keep the counsel of his eyes left whiles he affects the fame of deeper learning he embroile the Church and raise his glory upon the publick ruines And ye worthy Christans whose Souls God hath entrusted with our spiritual Guardianship be ye alike minded with your Teachers The motion of their tongues lies much in your eares your modest desires of receiving needful and wholesome Truths shall avoid their labour after frivolous and quarrelsome Curiosities God hath blessed you with the reputation of a wise and knowing people In these Divine matters let a meek Sobriety set bounds to your inquiries Take up your time and hearts with Christ and Him crucified with those essential Truths which are necessary to Salvation leave all curious disquisitions to the Schools and say of those Problems as the Philosopher did of the Athenian shops How many things are here that we have no need of Take the nearest cut you can ye shall find it a side-way to Heaven ye need not lengthen it with undue circuitions I am deceived if as the times are ye shall not find work enough to bear up against the oppositions of professed hostility It is not for us to squander our thoughts and hours upon useless janglings wherewith if we suffer our selves to be still taken up Satan shall deal with us like some crafty Cheater who whiles he holds us at gaze with tricks of jugling picks our pockets Dear Brethren whatever become of these worthless driblets be sure to look well to the free-hold of your Salvation Errour is not more busie then subtile Superstition never wanted sweet insinuations make sure work against these plausible dangers Suffer not your selves to be drawn into the net by the common stale of the Church Know that outward Visibility may too well stand with an utter exclusion from Salvation Salvation consists not in a formalitie of Profession but in a Soundness of Belief A true body may be full of mortall diseases So is the Roman Church of this day whom we have long pitied and labored to cure in vain If she will not be healed by us let us not be infected by her Let us be no less jealous of her contagion then she is of our remedies Hold fast that precious Truth which hath been long taught you by faithful Pastors confirmed by clear evidences of Scriptures evinced by sound Reasons sealed up by the blood of our blessed Martyrs So whiles no man takes away the crown of your constancie ye shall be our Crown and rejoycing in the day of our Lord Jesus to whose all-sufficient Grace I commend you all and vow my self Your common Servant in him whom we all rejoice to serve JOS. EXON The Contents CHAP. I. THE extent of the Differences betwixt the Churches Pag. 375 CHAP. II. The Original of the Differences 376 CHAP. III. The Reformed unjustly charged with Noveltie Heresie Schisme 378 CHAP. IV. The Romane Church guilty of this Schisme 380 CHAP. V. The Newness of the Article of Justification by inherent Righteousness 381 Sect. 2. This Doctrine proved to be against Scripture 383 Sect. 3. Against Reason 384 CHAP. VI. The Newness of the Doctrine of Merit 385 Sect. 2. Against Scripture 386 Sect. 3. Against Reason ibid. CHAP. VII The Newness of the Doctine of Transubstantiation 387 Sect. 2. Against Scripture 389 Sect. 3. Against Reason 390 CHAP. VIII The Newness of the Half-Communion 391 Sect. 2. Against Scripture 392 Sect. 3. Against Reason ibid. CHAP. IX The Newness of Missal Sacrifice 393 Sect. 2. Against Scripture ibid. Sect. 3. Against Reason 394 CHAP. X. The Newness of Image-Worship ibid. Sect. 2. Against Scripture 396 Sect. 3. Against Reason 397 CHAP. XI The Newness of Indulgences and Purgatory ibid. Sect. 2. Against Scripture 399 Sect. 3. Against Reason 400 CHAP. XII The Newness of Divine Service in an unknown tongue ibid. Sect. 2. Against Scripture 402 Sect. 3. Against Reason ibid. CHAP. XIII The Newness of a full forced Sacramental Confession 403 Sect. 2. Not warranted by Scripture 404 Sect. 3. Against Reason ibid. Sect. 4. The Novelty of Absolution before Satisfaction 405 CHAP. XIV The Newness of the Romish Invocation of Saints ibid. Sect. 2. Against Scripture 406 Sect. 3. Against Reason 407 CHAP. XV. The Newness of Seven Sacraments 408 Sect. 2. Besides Scripture 409 Sect. 3. Against Reason ibid. CHAP. XVI The Newness of the Romish Doctrine of Traditions ibid. Sect. 2. Against Scripture 411 Sect. 3. Against Reason 412 CHAP. XVII The Newness of the universal Headship of the Bishop of Rome ibid. Sect. 2. The Newness of challenged Infallibility 414 Sect. 3. The Newness of the Popes Superiorities to Councils 415 Sect. 4. The new presumption of Papal Dispensation ibid. Sect. 5. The new challenge of popes domineering over Kings and Emperours 416 CHAP. XVIII The Epilogue both of Exhortation and Apologie 417 THE OLD RELIGION CHAP. I. The extent of the Differences betwixt the Churches THE first blessing that I daily beg of my God for his Church is our Saviours Legacy Peace that sweet Peace which in the very name of it comprehends all happiness both of estate and disposition As that Mountain whereon Christ ascended though it abounded with Palms and Pines and Myrtles yet it carried onely the name of Olives which have been an ancient Embleme of Peace Other Graces are for the Beauty of the Church this for the Health and Life of it For howsoever even Wasps have their Combes and Hereticks their Assemblies as Tertullian so as all are not of the Church that have Peace yet so essential is it to the Church in S. Chrysostome's opinion that the very name of the Church implies a consent and concord No marvel then if the Church labouring here below make it her daily suit to her glorious Bridegroom in Heaven Da pacem Give Peace in our time O Lord. The means of which happiness are soon seen not so soon attained even that which Hierome hath to his Ruffinus Una fides Let our Belief-be but one and our hearts will be but
for the Angel even after his Resurrection says He is not here for he is risen Sect. 3. Transubstantiation against Reason NEver did or can Reason triumph so much over any prodigious Paradox as it doth over this Insomuch as the Patrons of it are fain to disclaim the Sophistry of Reason and to stand upon the suffrages of Faith and the plea of Miracles We are not they who with the Manichees refuse to believe Christ unless he bring Reason we are not they who think to lade the Sea with an egge-shell to fadome the deep Mysteries of Religion with the short reach of natural apprehension We know there are wonders in Divinity fit for our adoration not fit for our comprehending But withall we know that if some Theological Truths be above right Reason yet never any against it for all Verity complies with it self as springing from one and the same Fountain This Opinion therefore we receive not not because it transcends our conceit but because we know it crosseth both true Reason and Faith It implies manifest contradiction in that it referres the same thing to it self in opposite relations so as it may be at once present and absent near and far off below and above It destroies the truth of Christ's humane body in that it ascribes Quantity to it without extension without locality turning the flesh into spirit and bereaving it of all the properties of a true body those properties which as Nicetas truely cannot so much as in thought be separated from the essence of the body insomuch as Cyril can say If the Deitie it self were capable of partition it must be a body and if it were a body it must needs be in a place and have quantity and magnitude and thereupon should not avoid circumscription It gives a false body to the Son of God making that every day of Bread by the power of words which was made once of the substance of the Virgin by the Holy Ghost It so separates Accidents from their Subjects that they not onely can subsist without them but can produce the full effects of Substances so as bare Accidents are capable of Accidents so as of them Substances may be either made or nourished It utterly overthrows which learned Cameron makes the strongest of all reasons the nature of a Sacrament in that it takes away at once the Signe and the Analogie betwixt the Signe and the thing signified The Signe in that it is no more Bread but accidents the Analogie in that it makes the Signe to be the thing signified Lastly it puts into the hands of every Priest power to doe every day a greater Miracle then God did in the Creation of the World for in that the Creator made the Creature but in this the creature daily makes the Creator Since then this Opinion is both New and convinced to be grossly Erroneous by Scripture and Reason justly have we professed our deterstation of it and for that are unjustly ejected CHAP. VIII The Newness of the Half-Communion THE Novelty of the Half-Sacrament or dry Communion delivered to the Laity is so palpable as that the Patrons of it in the presumptuous Council of Constance profess no less Licet Christus c. Although Christ say they after his Supper instituted and administred this venerable Sacrament under both kinds of Bread and Wine c. Licet in primitiva c. Although in the Primitive Church this Sacrament were received by the faithful under both kinds Non obstance c. Yet this custome for the avoiding of some dangers and scandals was upon just reason brought in that Laicks should receive onely under one kinde and those that stubbornly oppose themselves against it shall be ejected and punished as Hereticks Now this Council was but in the year of our Lord God 1453. Yea but these Fathers of Constance however they are bold to controll Christ's Law by Custome yet they say it was consuetudo diutissimè observata a custome very long observed True but the full age of this Diutissimè is openly and freely calculated by Cassander Satis constat It is apparent enough that the Western or Romane Church for a thousand years after Christ in the solemn and ordinary Dispensation of this Sacrament gave both kinds of Bread and Wine to all the members of the Church A point which is manifest by innumerable ancient Testimonies both of Greeks and Latines And this they were induced to doe by the example of Christs institution Quare non temerè c. It is not therefore saith he without cause that most of the best Catholicks and most conversant in the reading of Ecclesiastical Writers are inflamed with an earnest desire of obtaining the Cup of the Lord that the Sacrament may be reduced to that ancient custome and use which hath been for many Ages perpetuated in the universal Church Thus he We need no other Advocate Yea their Vasquez draws it yet lower Negare non c. We cannot deny that in the Latin Church there was the use of both kinds and that it so continued until the dayes of Saint Thomas which was about the year of God 1260. Thus it was in the Romane Church but as for the Greek the World knows it did never but communicate under both kinds These open Confessions spare us the labour of quoting the several testimonies of all Ages else it had been easie to shew how in the Liturgie of Saint Basil and Chrysostome the Priest was wont to pray Vouchsafe O Lord to give us thy Body and thy Blood and by us to thy people how in the order of Rome the Archdeacon taking the Chalice from the Bishops hand confirmeth all the receivers with the blood of our Lord and from Ignatius's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Cup distributed to all to have descended along through the clear records of S. Cyprian Hierome Ambrose Augustine Leo Gelafius Paschasius and others to the very time of Hugo and Lombard and our Halensis and to shew how S. Cyprian would not deny the blood of Christ to those that should shed their blood for Christ how Saint Austin with him makes a comparison betwixt the blood of the Legal Sacrifices which might not be eaten and this blood of our Saviours Sacrifice which all must drink But what need allegations to prove a yielded truth So as this halfing of the Sacrament is a mere novelty of Rome and such a one as their own Pope Gelasius sticks not to accuse of no less then Sacriledge Sect. 2. Half-Communion against Scripture NEither shall we need to urge Scripture when it is plainly confessed by the last Councils of Lateran and Trent that this practice varies from Christs institution Yet the Tridentine Fathers have left themselves this evasion that however our Saviour ordained it in both kinds and so delivered it to his Apostles notwithstanding he hath not by any command enjoyned it to
is too late to learn Let that old age blush that cannot mend it self It is not the gravity of years but of manners that deserves praise It is no shame to goe to the better And when Symmachus urges Majorum servandus est ritus We must observe the Rites of our forefathers Dicant igitur saith Saint Ambrose Let them as well say that all things should remain in their own imperfect Principles that the World once overcovered with darknesse offends in being shined upon by the glorious brightnesse of the Sun And how much more happy is it to have dispelled the darknesse of the Soul then of the body to be shined upon by the beams of Faith then of the Sun Thus he most aptly to the present occasion whereto did that blessed Father now live he would doubtlesse no lesse readily apply it Nec erubescas mutare sententiam Never blush to change Ruffinus never blush to change your minde you are not of such authority as that you should be ashamed to confesse you have erred Oh that this meek ingenuity could have found place in that once-famous and Orthodox Church of Christ how had the whole Christian World been as a City at unity in it self and triumphed over all the proud hostilities of Paganism But since we may not be so happy we must sit down and mourn for our desolations for our divisions In the mean time we wash our hands in innocence There are none of all these instanced particulars besides many more wherein the Church of Rome hath not sensibly erred in corrupt additions to the Faith so as herein we may justly before Heaven and earth warrant our disagreement of judgment from her The rest is their act and not ours we are mere patients in this schism and therefore goe because we are driven That we hold not Communion with that Church the fault is theirs who both have deserved this strangenesse by their Errours and made it by their Violence Contrary to that rule which Cato in Tully gives of unpleasing Friendship they have not ript it in the seam but torn it in the whole cloth Perhaps I shall seem unto some to have spoken too mildly of the estate of that debauched Church There are that stand upon a mere nullity of her Being not resting in a bare depravation For me I dare not goe so far If she be foul if deadly diseased as she is these qualities cannot utterly take off her Essence or our relations Our Divines indeed call us out of Babylon and we run so as here is an actuall separation on our parts True but from the Corruptions wherein there is a true confusion not from the Church Their very charge implies their limitation as it is Babylon we must come out of it as it is an outward visible Church we neither did nor would This Dropsie that hath so swoln up the body doth not make it cease to be a true body but a sound one The true Principles of Christianity which it maintains maintain life in that Church the Errours which it holds together with those Principles struggle with that life and threaten an extinction As it is a visible Church then we have not detracted to hold Communion with it though the contemptuous repulse of so many admonitions have deserved our alienation as Babylon we can have nothing to doe with it Like as in the course of our life we freely converse with those men in civil affairs with whom we hate to partake in wickednesse But will not this seem to savour of too much indifferency What need we so vehemently labour to draw from either part and triumph in winning Proselytes and give them for lost on either side and brand them for Apostates that are won away if which way soever we fall we cannot light out of a true visible Church of Christ what such necessity was there of Martyrdome what such danger of relapses if the Church be with both Let these Sophisters know that true Charity needs not abate any thing of zeal If they be acquainted with the just value of Truth they shall not enquire so much into the Persons as into the Cause Whatever the Church be if the Errours be damnable our blood is happily spent in their impugnation and we must rather chuse to undergoe a thousand deaths then offend the Majesty of God in yielding to a known falshood in Religion neither doth the outward Visibility of the Church abate ought of the hainousnesse of mis-opinions or the vehemence of our oppositions Were it Saint Peter himself if he halt in Judaizing Saint Paul must resist him to his face neither is his fault lesse because an Apostles yea let me say more Were the Church of Rome and ours lay'd upon severall Foundations these Errours should not be altogether so detestable since the symbolizing in many Truths makes grosse Errours more intolerable as the Samaritan Idolatry was more odious to the Jewes then merely Paganish If the dearest daughter of God upon earth should commit spirituall whoredome her uncleannesse is so much more to be hated as her obligations were greater Oh the glorious crowns therefore of those blessed Martyrs of ours who rather gave their bodies to be burnt to ashes then they would betray any parceâ—l of Divine Truth Oh the wofull and dangerous condition of those Souls which shutting their eyes against so clear a light either willingly sit down in palpable darkness or fall back from the sincerity of the Gospel into these miserable enormities both of Practice and Doctrine It is not for me to judge them that I leave unto that high and awfull Tribunal before which I shall once appear with them But this I dare say that if that righteous Judge shall punish either their obstinacy or relapses with eternal damnation he cannot but be justified in his judgements whiles in the midst of their torments they shall be forced to say Thou O God art just in all that is befaln us for thou hast done right but we have done wickedly For us as we would save our Souls let us carefully preserve them from the contagion of Romish Superstition let us never fear that our discretion can hate Errour too much let us awaken our holy zeal to a serious and servent opposition joyned with a charitable endeavour of reclamation shortly let us hate their Opinions strive against their Practice pity their mis-guiding neglect their censures labour their recovery pray for their Salvation AN APOLOGETICAL ADVERTISEMENT to the READER Reader Nothing can be so well said or done but may be ill taken Whiles I thus sincerely plead for Truth the well-meaning ignorance of some mistakers hath passed as deep as unjust censures upon me as if Preferment had changed my note and taught me to speak more plausible language concerning the Roman Church then I either did or ought Wherein as I pity their Uncharitablenesse so I earnestly desire to rectifie their Judgement lest their prejudice may turn more
THE Contemplations upon the HISTORY OF THE New Testament now complete The second Tome Together with Divers TREATISES reduced to the greater Volume By Jos Exon. MDCLXI LONDON Printed by James Flesher TO THE KINGS MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTIE CHARLES BY THE GRACE OF GOD KING OF GREAT Britain France and Ireland Defender of the Faith Most Gracious and Dread Soveraign MOre then twenty years are slipt away since I entred upon this task of sacred Contemplations presuming so long agoe to prefix your Royal Name to some of the first pieces of this long work which I rather wished then hoped I might live to finish The God of Heaven hath been pleased to stretch out my daies so farre as to see it brought at last after many necessary intermissions to an happy end Now not with more contentment then boldness I bring to your sacred hands besides variety of other discourses that work complete whereof some few parcels saw the light before under subordinate Dedications The whole is your Majesties due no less then the unworthy Author whose age pleaseth and prideth it self in nothing more then in the title of one of your Majesties most ancient Attendants in my station now living JOS. EXON THE CONTENTS OF THIS SECOND TOME CONTEMPLATIONS ON THE NEW TESTAMENT The First Book containing THE Angel and Zachary 1 The Annunciation of CHRIST 6 The Birth of CHRIST 9 The Sages and the Star 12 The Purification 15 Herod and the Infants 18 The Second Book containing CHrist among the Doctors 23 Christ's Baptisme 27 Christ Tempted 29 Simon Called 38 The Marriage in Cana. 41 The good Centurion 44 The Third Book containing THe Widows Son raised 48 The Rulers Son cured 51 The dumb Devil ejected 53 Matthew Called 58 Christ amongst the Gergesens or Legion and the Gadarene heard 61 The Fourth Book containing THe faithful Canaanite 73 The deaf and dumb man cured 79 Zacheus 83 John Baptist beheaded 91 The five loaves and two fishes 100 The walk upon the waters 107 The bloody issue healed 114 Jairus and his daughter 120 The motion of the two fiery Disciples repelled 122 The ten Lepers 126 The pool of Bethesda 132 Christ transfigured 138 The woman taken in adultery 152 The thankful Penitent 158 Martha and Mary 165 The begger that was born blinde cured 169 The stubborn Devil ejected 173 The Widows mites 177 The ambition of the two sons of Zebedee 179 The tribute-money pay'd 183 Lazarus dead 185 Lazarus raised 190 Christ's procession to the Temple 198 The fig-tree cursed 202 Christ betrayed 205 The Agonie 209 Peter and Malchus or Christ apprehended 212 Christ before Caiaphas 215 Christ before Pilate 218 The Crucifixion 224 The Resurrection 233 The Ascension â—â—â— Sermons and other Treatises A Sermon of publick thanksgiving for the wonderful mitigation of the late Mortality preach'd before his Majesty at White-Hall 251 One of the Sermons preach'd at Westminster on the day of the Publick Fast April 5. 1628. to the Lords of the High Court of Parliament 261 A Sermon preach'd before his Majestie on the Sunday before the Fast March 30. 1628. at White-hall 271 One of the Sermons preach'd to the Lords of the high Court of Parliament on Ashwednesday February 18. 279 The Hypocrite set forth in a Sermon at Court February 28. 1629. being the third Sunday in Lent 291 The Beauty and Unitie of the Church in a Sermon at White-Hall 304 The Fashions of the world laid forth in a Sermon at Grayes-Inn on Candlemas day 311 The Estate of a Christian laid forth in a Sermon at Grayes-Inn on Candlemas day 320 The Fall of Pride out of Proverbs 29. ver 23. 329 Christ and Caesar A Sermon preach'd at Hampton-Court 337 The defeat of Cruelty prayed for and laid forth in a Sermon preach'd at a solemn Fast at White-Hall 344 S. Paul's combat in two Sermons preach'd at the Court to his Majestie in ordinary attendance 1 352 S. Paul's combat in two Sermons preach'd at the Court to his Majestie in ordinary attendance 2 362 The Old Religion A treatise wherein is laid down the true state of the difference betwixt the Reformed and Roman Church 369 The Reconciler An Epistle pacificatory of the seeming difference of opinion concerning the Trueness and Visibility of the Romane Church 424 Occasional Meditations 448 Certain Catholick Propositions 499 An Answer to Pope Urban his Inurbanity expressed in a Breeve sent to Lewis the French King 503 TO MY MUCH HONOURED AND RIGHT WORSHIPFUL FRIEND Sir Henry Yelverton KNIGHT ATTURNEY GENERALL TO HIS MAJESTIE Right Worshipful It is not out of any satietie that I change from the Old Testament to the New these two as they are the Breasts of the Church so they yield Milk equally wholesome equally pleasant unto able Nurselings Herein I thought good to have respect unto my Reader in whose strength there may be difference That other Breast perhaps doth not let down this nourishing liquor so freely so easily Even so small a variety refresheth a weak Infant Neither will there perhaps want some palates which will finde a more quick and pleasing relish in this fresher substance These I thought good to please with a Taste ere they come to sate themselves with a full Meal of this Divine nourishment in emulation of the good Scribe that brings forth both old and new If it please God to inable my life and opportunities I hope at last to present this Church with the last service of the Historie of either Page wherein my Joy and my Crown shall be the Edification of many In the mean time I dedicate this part unto your Name whom I have so much cause to observe and honour The Blessing of that God whose Church you have ever made your chief Client be still upon your head and that honourable Society which rejoyces in so worthy a Leader To it and your self I shall be ever as I have cause Humbly and unfeignedly devoted JOS. HALL Contemplations THE FIRST BOOK Containing The Angel and Zachary The Annunciation The Birth of CHRIST The Sages and the Star The Purification Herod and the Infants The Angel and Zachary WHEN things are at worst then God begins a change The state of the Jewish Church was extreamly corrupted immediately before the news of the Gospel yet as bad as it was not only the Priesthood but the courses of attendance continued even from Davids time till Christs It is a desperately depraved condition of a Church where no good orders are left Judea passed many troubles many alterations yet this orderly combination endured about an eleven hundred years A setled good will not easily be defeated but in the change of persons will remain unchanged and if it be forced to give way leaves memorable footsteps behinde it If David fore-saw the perpetuation of this holy Ordinance how much did he rejoice in the knowledge of it who would not be glad to doe good on condition that it may so long out-live him The successive turnes of the Legal ministration
miserable and not feel it to feel and not regard it to regard and yet to smother it Concealment doth not remedy but aggravate sorrow That with the counsel of not weeping therefore she might see cause of not weeping his Hand seconds his Tongue He arrests the Coffin and frees the Prisoner Young man I say unto thee Arise The Lord of life and death speaks with command No finite power could have said so without presumption or with success That is the voice that shall one day call up our vanished bodies from those Elements into which they are resolved and raise them out of their dust Neither sea nor death nor hell can offer to detain their dead when he charges them to be delivered Incredulous nature what dost thou shrink at the possibility of a Resurrection when the God of Nature undertakes it It is no more hard for that almighty Word which gave being unto all things to say Let them be repaired then Let them be made I do not see our Saviour stretching himself upon the dead corps as Elias and Elisha upon the sons of the Sunamite and Sareptan nor kneeling down and praying by the Bier as Peter did to Dorcas but I hear him so speaking to the dead as if he were alive and so speaking to the dead that by the word he makes him alive I say unto thee Arise Death hath no power to bid that man lye still whom the Son of God bids Arise Immediatly he that was dead sate up So at the sound of the last Trumpet by the power of the same voice we shall arise out of the dust and stand up glorious This mortall shall put on immortality this corruptible incorruption This body shall not be buried but sown and at our day shall therefore spring up with a plentiful increase of glory How comfortless how desperate should be our lying down if it were not for this assurance of rising And now behold lest our weak faith should stagger at the assent to so great a difficulty he hath already by what he hath done given us tastes of what he will do The power that can raise one man can raise a thousand a million a world no power can raise one man but that which is infinite and that which is infinite admits of no limitation Under the Old Testament God raised one by Elias another by Elisha living a third by Elisha dead By the hand of the Mediator of the New Testament he raised here the son of the Widow the daughter of Jairus Lazarus and in attendance of his own Resurrection he made a gaol-delivery of holy prisoners at Jerusalem He raises the daughter of Jairus from her bed this Widows son from his Coffin Lazarus from his grave the dead Saints of Jerusalem from their rottenness that it might appear no degree of death can hinder the efficacie of his overruling command He that keeps the keys of Death cannot onely make way for himself through the common Hall and outer-rooms but through the inwardest and most reserved closets of darkness Methinks I see this young man who was thus miraculously awaked from his deadly sleep wiping and rubbing those eyes that had been shut up in death and descending from the Bier wrapping his winding-sheet about his loyns cast himself down in a passionate thankfulness at the feet of his Almighty restorer adoring that Divine power which had commanded his Soul back again to her forsaken lodging and though I hear not what he said yet I dare say they were words of praise and wonder which his returned Soul first uttered It was the mother whom our Saviour pittied in this act not the son who now forced from his quiet rest must twice pass through the gates of death As for her sake therefore he was raised so to her hands was he delivered that she might acknowledge that soul given to her not to the possessor Who cannot feel the amazement and ecstasie of joy that was in this revived mother when her son now salutes her from out of another world and both receives and gives gratulations of his new life How suddenly were all the tears of that mournful train dried up with a joyful astonishment How soon is that funeral banquet turned into a new Birth-day feast What striving was here to salute the late carcase of their returned neighbour What awful and admiring looks were cast upon that Lord of life who seeming homely was approved Omnipotent How gladly did every tongue celebrate both the work and the Author A great Prophet is raised up amongst us and God hath visited his people A Prophet was the highest name they could find for him whom they saw like themselves in shape above themselves in power They were not yet acquainted with God manifested in the flesh This Miracle might well have assured them of more then a Prophet but he that raised the dead man from the Bier would not suddenly raise these dead hearts from the grave of Infidelity They shall see reason enough to know that the Prophet who was raised up to them was the God that now visited them and at last should doe as much for them as he had done for the young man raise them from death to life from dust to glory The Rulers Son cured THe bounty of God so exceedeth man's that there is a contrarietie in the exercise of it We shut our hands because we opened them God therefore opens his because he hath opened them God's mercies are as comfortable in their issue as in themselves Seldom ever do blessings go alone where our Saviour supplied the Bridegroom's wine there he heals the Rulers son He had not in all these coasts of Galilee done any Miracle but here To him that hath shall be given We do not finde Christ oft attended with Nobilitie here he is It was some great Peer or some noted Courtier that was now a suitor to him for his dying son Earthly Greatness is no defence against Afflictions We men forbear the Mightie Disease and Death know no faces of Lords or Monarchs Could these be bribed they would be too rich Why should we grudge not to be privileged when we see there is no spare of the greatest This Noble Ruler listens after Christ's return into Galilee The most eminent amongst men will be glad to hearken after Christ in their necessity Happy was it for him that his son was sick he had not else been acquainted with his Saviour his Soul had continued sick of ignorance and unbelief Why else doth our good God send us pain losses opposition but that he may be sought to Are we afflicted whither should we goe but to Cana to seek Christ whither but to the Cana of Heaven where our water of sorrow is turned to the wine of gladness to that omnipotent Physician who healeth all our infirmities that we may once say It is good for me that I was afflicted It was about a dayes journey from Capernaum to Cana Thence hither did this Courtier come for
at once removes that which both they did and might have feared The stone is removed the seal broken the watch fled What a scorn doth the Almighty God make of the impotent designes of men They thought the stone shall make the grave sure the seal shall make the stone sure the guard shall make both sure Now when they think all safe God sends an Angel from Heaven above the earth quakes beneath the stone rolls away the Souldiers stand like carkasses and when they have got heart enough to run away think themselves valiant the Tomb is opened Christ is risen they confounded Oh the vain projects of silly men as if with one shovel-full of mire they would dam up the Sea or with a clout hang'd forth they would keep the Sun from shining Oh these Spiders-webs or houses of Cards which fond children have as they think skilfully framed which the least breath breaks and ruines Who are we sorry worms that we should look in any business to prevail against our Creator What creature is so base that he cannot arm against us to our confusion The Lice and Frogs shall be too strong for Pharaoh the Worms for Herod There is no wisdome nor counsel against the Lord. Oh the marvellous pomp and magnificence of our Saviours Resurrection The earth quakes the Angel appears that it may be plainly seen that this Divine person now rising had the command both of earth and Heaven At the dissolution of thine Humane nature O Saviour was an Earthquake at the re-uniting of it is an Earthquake to tell the world that the God of Nature then suffered and had now conquered Whiles thou laiest still in the earth the earth was still when thou camest to fetch thine own The earth trembled at the presence of the Lord at the presence of the God of Jacob. When thou our true Sampson awakedst and foundst thy self tied with these Philistian cords and rousedst up and brakest those hard and strong twists with a sudden power no marvel if the room shook under thee Good cause had the earth to quake when the God that made it powerfully calls for his own flesh from the usurpation of her bowels Good cause had she to open her graves and yield up her dead in attendance to the Lord of Life whom she had presumed to detain in that cell of her darkness What a seeming impotence was here that thou who art the true Rock of thy Church shouldst lye obscurely shrouded in Joseph's rock thou that art the true corner-stone of thy Church shouldst be shut up with a double stone the one of thy grave the other of thy vault thou by whom we are sealed to the day of our Redemption shouldst be sealed up in a blind cavern of earth But now what a demonstration of power doth both the world and I see in thy glorious Resurrection The rocks tear the graves open the stones roll away the dead rise and appear the Souldiers flee and tremble Saints and Angels attend thy rising O Saviour thou laiest down in weakness thou risest in power and glory thou laiest down like a man thou risest like a God What a lively image hast thou herein given me of the dreadful Majesty of the general Resurrection and thy second appearance Then not the earth onely but the powers of Heaven shall be shaken not some few graves shall be open and some Saints appear but all the bars of death shall be broken and all that sleep in their graves shall awake and stand up from the dead before thee not some one Angel shall descend but thou the great Angel of the Covenant attended with thousand thousands of those mighty Spirits And if these stout Souldiers were so filled with terrour at the feeling of an Earthquake and the sight of an Angel that they had scarce breath left in them for the time to witness them alive where shall thine enemies appear O Lord in the day of thy terrible appearance when the earth shall reel and vanish and the elements shall be on a flame about their ears and the Heavens shall wrap up as a scroll O God thou mightest have removed this stone by the force of thine Earthquake as well as rive other rocks yet thou wouldst rather use the Ministery of an Angel or thou that gavest thy self life and gavest being both to the stone and to the earth couldst more easily have removed the stone then moved the earth but it was thy pleasure to make use of an Angels hand And now he that would ask why thou wouldst doe it rather by an Angel then by thy self may as well ask why thou didst not rather give thy Law by thine own immediate hand then by the ministration of Angels why by an Angel thou struckest the Israelites with plagues the Assyrians with the sword why an Angel appeared to comfort thee after thy Temptation and Agony when thou wert able to comfort thy self why thou usest the influences of Heaven to fruiten the earth why thou imployest Second causes in all events when thou couldst doe all things alone It is good reason thou shouldst serve thy self of thine own neither is there any ground to be required whether of their motion or rest besides thy will Thou didst raise thy self the Angels removed the stone They that could have no hand in thy Resurrection yet shall have an hand in removing outward impediments not because thou needst but because thou wouldst like as thou alone didst raise Lazarus thou badst others let him loose Works of Omnipotency thou reservest to thine own immediate performance ordinary actions thou doest by subordinate means Although this act of the Angels was not merely with respect to thee but partly to those devout Women to ease them of their care to manifest unto them thy Resurrection So officious are those glorious Spirits not onely to thee their Maker but even to the meanest of thy servants especially in the furtherance of all their spiritual designes Let us bring our Odours they will be sure to roll away the stone Why do not we imitate them in our forwardness to promote each others Salvation We pray to doe thy will here as they doe in Heaven if we do not act our wishes we do but mock thee in our Devotions How glorious did this Angel of thine appear The terrified Souldiers saw his face like lightning both they and the Women saw his garments shining bright and white as snow such a presence became his errand It was fit that as in thy Passion the Sun was darkned and all Creatures were clad with heaviness so in thy Resurrection the best of thy Creatures should testifie their joy and exsultation in the brightness of their habit that as we on Festival-dayes put on our best cloaths so thine Angels should celebrate this blessed Festivity with a meet representation of Glory They could not but injoy our joy to see the work of mans Redemption thus fully finished and if there be mirth in Heaven at the conversion of
into that dear Sepulcher Holy desires never but speed well There she sees two glorious Angels the one sitting at the head the other at the feet where the body of Jesus had lain Their shining brightness shew'd them to be no mortal creatures besides that Peter and John had but newly come out of the Sepulcher and both found and left it empty in her sight which was now suddenly filled with those celestial guests That white linen wherewith Joseph had shrouded the Sacred body of Jesus was now shamed with a brighter whiteness Yet do I not find the good Woman ought appalled with that inexspected glory So was her heart taken up with the thought for her Saviour that she seemed not sensible of whatsoever other Objects Those tears which she did let drop into the Sepulcher send up back to her the voice of those Angels Woman why weepest thou God and his Angels take notice of every tear of our Devotion The sudden wonder hath not dried her eyes nor charmed her tongue She freely confesseth the cause of her grief to be the missing of her Saviour They have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid him Alas good Mary how dost thou lose thy tears of whom dost thou complain but of thy best friend who hath removed thy Lord but himself who but his own Deity hath taken away that humane body out of that region of death Neither is he now laid any more he stands by thee whose removal thou complainest of Thus many a tender and humbled Soul afflicts it self with the want of that Saviour whom it hath and feeleth not Sense may be no judge of the bewailed absence of Christ Do but turn back thine eye O thou Religious Soul and see Jesus standing by thee though thou knewst not that it was Jesus His habit was not his own Sometimes it pleases our Saviour to appear unto his not like himself his holy disguises are our trials Sometimes he will seem a Stranger sometimes an Enemie sometimes he offers himself to us in the shape of a poor man sometimes of a distressed Captive Happy is he that can discern his Saviour in all forms Mary took him for a Gardener Devout Magdalene thou art not much mistaken As it was the trade of the First Adam to dress the Garden of Eden so was it the trade of the Second to tend the Garden of his Church He diggs up the soil by seasonable Afflictions he sows in it the seeds of Grace he plants it with gracious motions he waters it with his Word yea with his own blood he weeds it by wholsome censures O Blessed Saviour what is it that thou neglectest to doe for this selected inclosure of thy Church As in some respect thou art the true Vine and thy Father the Husbandman so also in some other we are the Vine and thou art the Husbandman Oh be thou such to me as thou appearedst unto Magdalene break up the fallows of my Nature implant me with Grace prune me with meet corrections bedew me with the former and latter rain doe what thou wilt to make me fruitful Still the good Woman weeps and still complains and passionately inquires of thee O Saviour for thy self How apt are we if thou dost never so little vary from our apprehensions to mis-know thee and to wrong our selves by our mis-opinions All this while hast thou concealed thy self from thine affectionate client thou sawest her teares and heardest her importunities and inquiries at last as it was with Joseph that he could no longer contain himself from the notice of his brethren thy compassion causes thee to break forth into a clear expression of thy self by expressing her name unto her self Mary She was used as to the name so to the sound to the accent Thou spakest to her before but in the tone of a stranger now of a friend of a Master Like a good Shepheard thou callest thy sheep by their name and they know thy voice What was thy call of her but a clear pattern of our Vocation As her so thou callest us first familiarly effectually She could not begin with thee otherwise then in the compellation of a stranger it was thy mercy to begin with her That correction of thy Spirit is sweet and useful Now after ye have known God or rather are known of him We do know thee O God but our active knowledge is after our passive first we are known of thee then we know thee that knewest us And as our Knowledge so is our Calling so is our Election thou beginnest to us in all and most justly sayest You have not chosen me but I have chosen you When thou wouldst speak to this Devout client as a stranger thou spakest aloof Woman whom seekest thou now when thou wouldst be known to her thou callest her by her name Mary General invitations and common mercies are for us as men but where thou givest Grace as to thine elect thou comest close to the Soul and winnest us with dear and particular intimations That very name did as much as say Know him of whom thou art known and beloved and turns her about to thy view and acknowledgment She turned her self and saith unto him Rabboni which is to say Master Before her face was towards the Angels this word fetches her about and turns her face to thee from whom her misprision had averted it We do not rightly apprehend thee O Saviour if any creature in Heaven or earth can keep our eyes and our hearts from thee The Angels were bright and glorious thy appearance was homely thy habit mean yet when she heard thy voice she turns her back upon the Angels and salutes thee with a Rabboni and falls down before thee in a desire of an humble amplexation of those Sacred feet which she now rejoyces to see past the use of her Odours Where there was such familiarity in the mutual compellation what means such strangeness in the charge Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father Thou wert not wont O Saviour to make so dainty of being touched It is not long since these very same hands touched thee in thine anointing the Bloody-fluxed woman touched thee the thankful Penitent in Simon 's house touched thee What speak I of these The multitude touch'd thee the Executioners touch'd thee and even after thy Resurrection thou didst not stick to say to thy Disciples Touch me and see and to invite Thomas to put his fingers into thy side neither is it long after this before thou sufferest the three Maries to touch and hold thy feet How then saist thou Touch me not Was it in a mild taxation of her mistaking as if thou hadst said Thou knowest not that I have now an Immortal body but so demeanest thy self towards me as if I were still in my wonted condition know now that the case is altered howsoever indeed I have not yet ascended to my Father yet this body of mine which
Horseleach that cry still Give give Prov. 30. 15. Give is for Christians but Give give is for worldlings as it was the doubling of the stroke upon the Rock that offended If we be Christians we are richer then the world can make us Having therefore food and raiment let us be therewith content 1 Tim. 6. 8. But if thou wilt needs inlarge thy boundlesse desires take this with thee there is somewhat as unsatiable as thine eye The grave and hell never say It is enough Prov. 30. 16. Thus fashion not your eye to the Covetousnesse of the world The next is the Proud looks There is a generation O how lofty are their eyes and their eye-lids are lifted up Prov. 30. 13. There is nay where is there any other The world is all such admiring it self scorning all others And if ever now is that of the Prophet verified The childe shall behave himself proudly against the ancient and the base against the honourable Esa 3. 5. One prides himself in his bags another in his gay coat one in his titles another in his fame one in agility another in skill one in strength another in beauty Every one hath something to look big upon Oh fools either ignorant or forgetfull of what ye are of what ye shall be goe on to wonder at your poor miserable glory and greatness ye are but lift up for a fall your height is not so sure as your ruine ruine to the dust yea to hell Him that hath a proud heart will I not suffer faith God Psal 101. 5. Fashion not your eye therefore to the Pride of the world The last is the Envious eye by an eminence called Oculus nequam an evil eye Is thine eye evil because I am good saith the Housholder Mat. 20. 15. As if Envy had ingrossed all malignity into her own hands This cast of the eye the World learned of the Devil who when himself was fallen could not abide that man should stand Far be it from us to learn it of the World As happy is this vice is executioner enough to it self Putredo ossium invidentia Envy is the rotting of the bones Prov. 14. 30. And where other earthly torments die with men this follows them into Hell and shall there torture them eternally The wicked shall see it and shall be grieved frendens contabescet and shall gnash and pine Psal 112. 10. Fashion not your eye therefore to the Envy of the world We have done with the Eye in the Uncleanness Covetousness Pride Envy of it we might have taken the Forehead in our way that is the seat of Impudency it is frons aerea a brow of brasse Esa 48. 4. yea meretricia an whores forehead that refuses to be ashamed Jer. 3. 4. yea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 giant-like confronting Heaven which Ecclesiasticus prayes to be delivered from Ecclus. 2. 3. 5. that can boldly bear out a sin committed either out-facing the fact as Gehezi or the fault as Saul This is the fashion of the world by lyes imprecations perjuries to outbrave the most just reproof A wicked man hardneth his face Prov. 21. 29. This fashion is not for us Christians If we cannot be guiltlesse we cannot be shamelesse at least we can blush at our sins The dye of our Repentance strives with the crimson of our Offence and we can out of the true remorse of our Souls say with the Prophet We lie down in our shame and our confusion covereth us for we have sinned against the Lord our God Jer. 3. 25. Thus fashion not your Forehead to the Impudence of the world We passe to the Eare wherein there is a double fashion to be avoided First there is a Deaf eare shut up against all instruction like the Adder's against the charm Psal 58. 5. How shut up A filme or fore-skin is grown over it which hinders the way of the voice Jer. 6. 10. Behold their eare is uncircumcised and they cannot hearken Hence it is that we preach in vain we labour in vain to what purpose do we tear our throats and spend our lungs and force our sides in suing to a deaf world Who hath believed our report or to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed If ever we will hear the voice of the Son of God and live we must therefore have our eares opened this our fore-skin must be pierced Aurem perforasti mihi Thou hast digged my eare as the word originally sounds Psal 40. 6. The finger of our Omnipotent Saviour must doe it and his Ephphatha Mar. 7. 34. Let the deaf world perish in their infidelity and disobedience but for us let us say with Samuel Speak Lord for thy Servant heareth Secondly there is an Itching eare 2 Tim. 4. 3. that out of a wanton curiosity affects change of doctrine How commonly do we see a kinde of Epicurisme in the eare which when it hath fed well of many good dishes longs to surfeit of a strange composition Yea there is an appetitus caninus that passing by wholsome viands falls upon unmeet and foul-feeding morsels We have heard Sermons enough Oh now for a Masse We have heard our owne Divines Oh for a Jesuite at a Vespers Oh foolish Israelites who hath bewitched you that loathing the Manna of Angels your mouth should hang towards the Egyptian garlick God hath a medicine in store for this itch if we prevent him not Tinnient aures saith he Jer. 19. 3. If our eares itch after strange doctrine others ears shall tingle at our strange Judgements The God of Mercy prevent it and since we accurse our selves if we speak any other words then our Masters say you to Christ speaking by us Master whither shall we goe from thee thou hast the words of eternall life Thus fashion not your Eare to the deafnesse to the inconstancy of the world The ill fashions of the Tongue call me to them whereof the variety is no lesse infinite then of words forbidden and offensive The Eye and the Eare are receivers but the Tongue is a spender and it layes out according to the store of the heart For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh saith our Saviour No words can expresse the choice of ill words I will limit my speech to three ill fashions of the Tongue Falshood Maliciousnesse Obscenity 1. The world hath a False tongue in his head false every way in broaching of errours in sophistry of their maintenance in deceits and cozenages of contracts in lies whether assertory which breed misreports or promissory which cause disappointments in perjuries in equivocations in flatteries and humouring of men or times What a world of untruth offers it self here to us Lord whom can a man speak with that he dares believe whom dares he believe that deceives him not How is that of the Psalm verified Diminutae sunt veritates Truth is minished from the children of men Yea let it be from the children of men it is a shame it should be thus
as out of the right apprehension of these differences my Reader shall evidently see the vanity of this cavill and finde cause to bless God fox the safety of his station in so pregnant and undeceivable a truth For me I shame not to profess that I have passed my most and best hours in quiet Meditations wherein I needed not bend mine edge against any Adversary but Satan and mine own corruptions These controversary points I have rather crost in my way then taken along with me Neither am I ignorant what incomparably-clear beams in this kind some of the worthy Lights of our Church have cast abroad into all eyes to the admiration of present and future times no corner of truth hath lyen unsearch'd no plea unargued the wit of man cannot make any essential additions either to our proofs or answers But as in the most perfect discovery where Lands and Rivers are specially described there may be some small obscure inlets reserved for the notice of following experience so is it in the business of these sacred quarrels that brain is very unhappy which meets not with some traverse of discourse more then it hath borrowed from anothers Pen. Besides which having faln upon a method and manner of Tractation which might be of use to plain understandings the familiarity whereof promised to contribute not a little to the information and setling of weaker Souls I might not hide it from you to whose common good I have gladly resolved to sacrifice my self Let it be taken with the same construction of love wherewith it is tendred And that you may improve this and all other my following labours to a sensible advantage give me leave to impart my self to you a little in this short and free Preamble It is a large body I know and full of ordinate variety to which I How direct my words Let me a while in these lines sever them whom I would never abide really disjoined Ye my dear fellow-labourers as my immediate Charge may well challenge the first place It is no small joy to me to expect so able hands upon whom I may comfortably unload the weight of this my spiritual care If Fame do not over-speak you there are not many soils that yield either so frequent Flocks or better fed Goe on happily in these high steps of true Blessedness and save your selves and others To which purpose let me commend to you according to the sweet experience of a greater Shepherd two main helps of our Sacred trade first the tender Pastures and secondly the still Waters By the one I mean an inuring of our people to the principles of wholesome Doctrine by the other an immunitie from all Faction and disturbance of the publick peace It was the observation of the learnedst King that ever sate hitherto on the English Throne that the cause of the miscarriage of our People into Popery and other Errours was their ungroundedness in the points of Catechism How should those Souls be but carried about with every winde of Doctrine that are not well ballasted with solid informations Whence it was that his said late Majestie of happy memory gave publick order for bestowing the latter part of Gods Day in familiar Catechising then which nothing could be devised more necessary and behoveful to the Souls of men It was the Ignorance and ill-disposedness of some cavillers that taxed this course as prejudicial to Preachings since in truth the most useful of all Preaching is Catechetical This layes the Grounds the other raiseth the Walls and Roof this informs the Judgment that stirs up the Affections What good use is there of those Affections that run before the Judgment or of those walls that want a Foundation For my part I have spent the greater half of my life in this station of our holy service I thank God not unpainfully not unprofitably But there is no one thing whereof I repent so much as not to have bestowed more hours in this publick Exercise of Catechism in regard whereof I could quarrel with my very Sermons and wish that a great part of them had been exchanged for this Preaching conference Those other Divine Discourses enrich the Brain and the Tongue this settles the Heart those other are but the descants to this plain-song Contemn it not my Brethren for the easie and noted homeliness the most excellent and beneficial things are most familiar What can be more obvious then Light Aire Fire Water Let him that can live without these despise their commonness Rather as we make so much more use of the Divine bounty in these ordinary benefits so let as the more gladly improve these ready and facile helps to the Salvation of many Souls the neglect whereof breeds instability of Judgment misprision of necessary Truths fashionableness of profession frothiness of discourse obnoxiousness to all Errour and Seduction And if any of our people loath this Manna because they may gather it from under their Feet let not their palates be humour'd in this wanton nauseation They are worthy to fast that are weary of the bread of Angels And if herein we be curious to satisfie their roving appetite our favour shall be no better then injurious So we have seen an undiscreet School-master whiles he affects the thanks of an over-weening Parent marre the progress of a forward child by raising him to an higher form and Authour ere he have well learned his first rules whence follows an empty ostentation and a late disappointment our fidelity and care of profit must teach us to drive at the most sure and universal good which shall undoubtedly be best attained by these safe and needful ground-works From these tender Pastures let me leade you and you others to the still Waters Zeal in the Soul is as natural heat in the body there is no life of Religion without it But as the kindliest heat if it be not tempered with a due equality of moisture wastes it self and the body so doth Zeal if it be not moderated with discretion and charitable care of the common good It is hard to be too vehement in contending for main and evident truths but litigious and immaterial verities may soon be over-striven for in the prosecution whereof I have oft lamented to see how heedless too many have been of the publick welfare whiles in seeking for one scruple of truth they have not cared to spend a whole pound-weight of precious Peace The Church of England in whose Motherhood we have all just cause to pride our selves hath in much Wisdom and Piety delivered her judgement concerning all necessary points of Religion in so compleat a body of Divinity as all hearts may rest in These we reade these we write under as professing not their truth onely but their sufficiency also The voice of God our Father in his Scriptures and out of these the voice of the Church our Mother in her Articles is that which must both guide and settle our resolutions Whatsoever is besides these
Devils and that which Dionysius said to Novatus Any thing must rather be born then that we should rend the Church of God Far far was it from our thoughts to teare the seamless coat or with this precious Oile of Truth to break the Churches head We found just faults else let us be guilty of this disturbance If now Choler unjustly exasperated with an wholesome reprehension have broken forth into a furious persecution of the gainsayers the sin is not ours if we have defended our innocence with blows the sin is not ours Let us never prosper in our good Cause if all the water of Tyber can wash off the blood of many thousand Christian Souls that hath been shed in this quarrel from the hands of the Romish Prelacie Surely as it was observed of olde that none of the Tribe of Levi were the professed followers of our Saviour so it is too easy to observe that of late times this Tribe hath exercised the bitterest enmity upon the followers of Christ Suppose we had offended in the undiscreet managing of a just reproof it is a true rule of Erasmus that generous spirits would be reclaimed by teaching not by compulsion and as Alipius wisely to his Augustine Heed must be taken lest whiles we labour to redress a doubtful complaint we make greater wounds then we find Oh how happy had it been for Gods Church if this care had found any place in the hearts of her Governours who regarding more the entire preservation of their own Honour then Truth and Peace were all in the harsh language of warre 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 smite kill burn persecute Had they been but half so charitable to their modern reprovers as they profess they are to the fore-going how had the Church florished in an uninterrupted Unity In the old Catholick Writers say they we bear with many Errours we extenuate and excuse them we finde shifts to put them off and devise some commodious senses for them Guiltiness which is the ground of this favour works the quite contrary courses against us Alas how are our Writings racked and wrested to envious senses how misconstrued how perverted and made to speak odiously on purpose to work distast to enlarge quarrel to draw on the deepest censures Wo is me this cruel uncharitableness is it that hath brought this miserable calamity upon distracted Christendome Surely as the ashes of the burning Mountain Vesuvius being dispersed far and wide bred a grievous Pestilence in the Regions round about so the ashes that flie from these unkindly flames of discord have bred a woful infection and death of Souls through the whole Christian world CHAP. IV. The Church of Rome guilty of this Schisme IT is confessed by the President of the Tridentine Council that the depravation of the discipline and manners of the Romane Church was the chief cause and original of these dissentions Let us cast our eyes upon the Doctrine and we shall no less finde the guilt of this fearful Schism to fall heavily upon the same heads For first to lay a sure ground Nothing can be more plain then that the Romane is a particular Church as the Fathers of Basil well distinguish it not the universal though we take in the Churches of her subordination or correspondence This truth we might make good by authority if our very senses did not save us the labour Secondly No particular Church to say nothing of the universal since the Apostolick times can have power to make a Fundamental point of Faith It may explain or declare it cannot create Articles Thirdly Onely an errour against a point of Faith is Heresie Fourthly Those Points wherein we differ from the Romanists are they which onely the Church of Rome hath made Fundamental and of Faith Fifthly The Reformed therefore being by that Church illegally condemned for those Points are not Hereticks He is is properly an Heretick saith Hosius who being convicted in his own judgment doth of his own accord cast himself out of the Church For us we are neither convicted in our own judgment nor in the lawful judgment of others we have not willingly cast our selves out of the Church but however we are said to be violently ejected by the undue sentence of malice hold our selves close to the bosome of the true Spouse of Christ never to be removed as far therefore from Heresie as Charity is from our Censurers Only we stand convicted by the doom of good Pope Boniface or Sylvester Prierius Quicunque non c. Whosoever doth not rely himself upon the Doctrine of the Romane Church and of the Bishop of Rome as the infallible rule of Faith from which even the Scripture it self receives her force he is an Heretick Whence follows that the Church of Rome condemning and ejecting those for Hereticks which are not is the Authour of this woful breach in the Church of God I shall therefore I hope abundantly satisfie all wise and indifferent Readers if I shall shew that those Points which we refuse and oppose are no other then such as by the confessions of ingenuous Authors of the Roman part have been besides their inward falsities manifest upstarts lately obtruded upon the Church such as our ancient Progenitours in many hundreds of successions either knew not or received not into their Belief and yet both lived and dyed worthy Christians Surely it was but a just speech of S. Bernard and that which might become the mouth of any Pope or Council Ego si peregrinum c. If I shall offer to bring in any strange opinion it is my sin It was the wise Ordinance of the Thurians as Diodorus Siculus reports that he who would bring in any new Law amongst them to the prejudice of the old should come with an Halter about his neck into the assembly and there either make good his project or dy For however in humane constitutions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. the later orders are stronger then the former yet in Divinity Primum verum The first is true as Tertullian's rule is the old way is the good way according to the Prophet Here we hold us and because we dare not make more Articles then our Creeds nor more sins then our Ten Commandements we are indignely cast out Let us therefore address our selves roundly to our promised task and make good the Novelty and Unreasonableness of those Points we have rejected Out of too many Controversies disputed betwixt us we select only some principal and out of infinite varieties of evidence some few irrefragable testimonies CHAP. V. The Newness of the Article of Justification by inherent Righteousness TO begin with Justification The Tridentine Fathers in their seven moneths debating of this point have so cunningly set their words that the Errour which they would establish might seem to be either hid or shifted yet at the last they so far declare themselves as to
Provincial Council of Colen shall serve for all Bellarmine himself grants them herein ours and they are worth our entertaining That Book is commended by Cassander as marvellously approved by all the learned Divines of Italy and France as that which notably sets forth the sum of the judgment of the Ancients concerning this and other Points of Christian Religion Nos dicimus c. We say that a man doth then receive the gift of Justification by Faith when being terrified and humbled by repentance he is again raised up by Faith believing that his sins are forgiven him for the Merits of Christ who hath promised Remision of sins to those that believe in him and when he feels in himself new desires so as detesting evil and resisting the infirmity of his flesh he is inwardly inkindled to an endeavour of good although this desire of his be not yet perfect Thus they in the voice of all Antiquity and the then present Church Onely the late Council of Trent hath created this Opinion of Justification a Point of Faith Sect. 2. The Errour hereof against Scripture YET if age were all the quarrel it were but light For though Newness in Divine Truths is a just cause of suspicion yet we do not so shut the hand of our munificent God that he cannot bestow upon his Church new Illuminations in some parcels of formerly-hidden Verities It is the charge both of their Canus and Cajetan that no man should detest a new sense of Scripture for this that it differs from the ancient Doctors for God hath not say they tied exposition of Scripture to their senses Yea if we may believe Salmeron the latter Divines are so much more quick-sighted they like the Dwarf sitting on the Giants shoulder overlook him that is far taller then themselves This Position of the Romane Church is not more new then faulty Not so much Novelty as Truth convinceth Heresies as Tertullian We had been silent if we had not found this Point besides the lateness erroneous erroneous both against Scripture and Reason Against Scripture which every where teacheth as on the one side the imperfection of our Inherent Righteousness so on the other our perfect Justification by the Imputed Righteousness of our Saviour brought home to us by Faith The former Job saw from his dunghil How should a man be justified before God If he will contend with him he cannot answer one of a thousand Whence it is that wise Solomon asks Who can say My heart is clean I am pure from sin And himself answers There is not a just man upon earth which doth good and sinneth not A Truth which besides his experience he had learned of his Father David who could say Enter not into Judgement with thy Servant though a man after God's own Heart for in thy sight shall no man living be justified and If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquities O Lord who shall stand For we are all as an unclean thing we saith the Prophet Esay including even himself and all our Righteousness are as filthy rags And was it any better with the best Saints under the Gospel I see saith the chosen Vessel in my members another law warring against the law of my minde and leading me captive to the law of sin which is in my members So as In many things we sin all And If we say that we have no sin we do but deceive our selves and there is no truth in us The latter is the summe of Saint Paul's Sermon at Antioch Be it known unto you men and brethren that through this Man is preached to you forgiveness of sins and by him all that believe are justified They are justified but how Freely by his Grace What Grace Inherent in us and working by us No By Grace are ye saved through Faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Not of works lest any man should boast Works are ours but this is Righteousness of God which is by the faith of Jesus Christ to all them that believe And how doth this become ours By his gracious imputation Not to him that worketh but believeth in him who justifieth the wicked is his faith imputed for righteousness Lo it is not the Act not the Habit of Faith that justifieth it is he that justifies the wicked whom our Faith makes ours and our sin his He was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him Lo so were we made his Righteousness as he was made our sin Imputation doth both it is that which enfeoffes our sins upon Christ and us in his Righteousness which both covers and redresses the imperfection of ours That distinction is clear and full That I may be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the Faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by Faith S. Paul was a great Saint he had a Righteousness of his own not as a Pharisee onely but as an Apostle but that which he dares not trust to but forsakes and cleaves to God not that essential Righteousness which is in God without all relation to us nor that habit of Justice which was remaining in him but that Righteousness which is of God by faith made ours Thus being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ For what can break that peace but our sins and those are remitted For God's elect it is God that justifies And in that Remission is grounded our Reconciliation For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing their sins unto them but contrarily imputing to them his own righteousness and their Faith for righteousness We conclude then that a man is justified by faith And Blessed is he to whom the Lord imputes righteousness without works Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins covered Let the vain Sophistry of carnal mindes deceive it self with idle subtilties and seek to elude the plain Truth of God with shifts of wit we bless God for so clear a light and dare cast our Souls upon this sure evidence of God attended with the perpetual attestation of his ancient Church Sect. 3. Against Reason LAstly Reason it self fights against them Nothing can formally make us Just but that which is perfect in it self How should it give what it hath not Now our Inherent Righteousness at the best is in this life defective Nostra siqua est humilis c. Our poor Justice saith Bernard if we have any it is true but it is not pure For how should it be pure where we cannot but be faulty Thus he The challenge is unanswerable To those that say they can keep God's Law let me give S. Hierome's answer to his Ctesiphon Profer quis impleverit Shew me the man that hath done
was this absolute Primacy and Headship of old as that when the Roman Dition was brought down to a Dukedome and subjected to the Exarchate of Ravenna the Archbishop of Ravenna upon the very same grounds stuck not as Blondus tels us to strive with the Bishop of Rome for Priority of place So necessarily was the rising or fall of the Episcopall Chair annexed to the condition of that City wherein it was fixed But in all this we well see what it is that was stood upon an arbitrable precedency of these Churches in a priority of order and according thereunto the Bishop of Rome is determined to be primae sedis Episcopus the Bishop of the first See A style which our late Learned Soveraign professed with Justinian not to grudge unto the modern Bishops of that See But as for a Primacy of Soveraignty over all Churches and such an Headship as should inform and inliven the body and govern it with infallible influences it is so new and hatefull as that the Church in all Ages hath opposed it to the utmost neither will it be indured at this day by the Greek Church notwithstanding the colourable pretence of subscription hereunto by their dying Patriarch Joseph of Constantinople in the late Florentine Council and the letters of union subscribed by them Anno 1539. Yea so far is it from that as that their Emperour Michael Palaeologus for yielding a kinde of subjection of the Eastern Bishops to the Roman would not be allowed the honour of Christian Burial as Aemilius hath recorded And in our time Basilius the Emperour of Russia which challengeth no small part in the Greek Church threatned to the Pope's Legate as I have been informed an infamous death and burial if he offered to set foot in his Dominions out of a jealous hate of this Usurpation Sect. 2. The Newnesse of challenged Infallibility THE particularities of this new arrogation of Rome are so many that they cannot be pent up in any streight room I will only instance in some few The Pope's Infallibility of Judgment is such a Paradox as the very Histories of all times and proceedings of the Church doth sufficiently convince For to what purpose had all Councils been called even of the remotest Bishops to what purpose were the agitations of all controversal causes in those Assemblies as Erasmus justly observes if this Opinion had then obtained Or how came it about that the Sentences of some Bishops of Rome were opposed by other Sees by the Successors of their own by Christian Academies if this conceit had formerly passed for current with the World How came it to passe that whole Councils have censured and condemned some Bishops of Rome for manifest Heresies if they were perswaded beforehand of the impossibility of those Errours Not to speak of Honorius of Liberius and others the Council of Basil shall be the voice of common observation Multi Pontifices c. Many Popes say they are recorded to have faln into Errours and Heresies Either all stories mock us or else this parasitical dream of impeccancy in judgment is a mere stranger And his disguise is so foul that it is no marvel if Errare non possum I cannot erre seemed to Eberhardus Bishop of Saltzburgh no other then the suit of an Antichrist Sect. 3. The Newness of the Popes Superiority to General Councils HOW bold and dangerous a Novelty is that which Cardinal Bellarmine and with him the whole Society and all the late Fautors of that See after the Florentine Synod stick not to avouch Summus Pontifex c. The Pope is absolutely above the whole Church and above a General Council so as he acknowledges no Judges on earth over himself How would this have relished with those well-near a thousand Fathers in the Council of Constance who punctually determined thus Ipsa Synodus c. The Synod lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost making a Generall Council representing the Catholick Church militant upon earth hath immediately power from Christ whereunto every man whosoever he be of what state or dignity soever although he be the Pope himself is bound to obey in those things which pertain to Faith or to the extirpation of Schism And fifteen years after that the General Council of Basil wherein was President Julianus Cardinall of Saint Angelo the Popes Legate defined the same matter in the same words It is no marvell if Cardinal Bellarmine and some others of that strain reject these as unlawfull Councils but they cannot deny first that this Decree was made by both of them secondly that the Divines there assembled were in their allowance Catholick Doctors and such as in other Points adhered to the Romane Church insomuch as they were the men by whose sentence John Husse and Hierome suffered no lesse then death and yet even so lately did these numerous Divines in the voice of the Church define the Superiority of a Council above the Pope What speak we of this when we finde that the Bishops of the East excommunicated in their assembly Julius the Bishop of Rome himself amongst others without scruple as Solzomen reporteth How ill would this Doctrine or practice now be endured Insomuch as Gregory of Valence dares confidently say that whosoever he be that makes a Council superior to the Pope fights directly though unawares against that most certain Point of Faith concerning Saint Peter's and the Roman Bishops Primacie in the Church Sect. 4. The new presumption of Papall Dispensations FRom the opinion of this supereminent Power hath flowed that common course of Dispensations with the Canons and Decrees of Councils which hath been of late a great eye-sore to moderate beholders Franciscus à Victoria makes a wofull complaint of it professing to doubt whether in the end of the year there be more that have leave by this means to break the laws then those that are tied to keep them Thereupon wishing for remedy that there were a restraint made of those now boundlesse Dispensations and at last objecting to himself that such a Decree of restriction would be new and not heard of in any former Council he answers Tempore Conciliorum antiquorum c. In the time of the antient Councils Popes were like to the other Fathers of those Councils so as there was no need of any act for holding them back from this immoderate licence of dispensing yea if we do well turn over the laws and histories of the Antient we shall finde that Popes did not presume so easily and commonly to dispense with Decrees of Councils but observed them as the Oracles of God himself yea not onely did they forbear to doe it ordinarily but perhaps not once did they ever dispense at all against the Decrees of Councils But now saith he by little and little are we grown to this intemperance of dispensations and to such an estate as that we can neither abide our mischiefs nor
me thus imperfectly happy before my time that when my time shall be no more I may be perfectly happy with thee in all Eternity XCII Upon the sight of an Harlot carted WIth what noise and tumult and zeal of solemn Justice is this sin punished The Streets are not more full of beholders then clamors Every one strives to expresse his detestation of the fact by some token of revenge one casts Mire another Water another rotten Egges upon the miserable offender neither indeed is she worthy of lesse but in the mean time no man looks home to himself It is no uncharity to say that too many insult in this just Punishment who have deserved more Alas we men value sins by the outward Scandall but the Wise and Holy God against whom onely our sins are done esteems them according to the intrinsecal Iniquity of them and according to the secret violation of his Will and Justice thus those Sins which are slight to us are to him hainous We ignorants would have rung David's Adultery with Basons but as for his numbring of the people we should have past it over as venial the wise Justice of the Almighty found more wickedness in this which we should scarce have accused Doubtlesse there is more mischief in a secret Infidelity which the World either cannot know or cares not to censure then in the foulest Adultery Publick sins have more Shame private may have more Guilt If the world cannot charge me of those it is enough that I can charge my Soul of worse Let others rejoice in these publick Executions let me pity the sins of others and be humbled under the sense of my own XCIII Upon the smell of a Rose SMelling is one of the meanest and least usefull of the Senses yet there is none of the Five that receives or gives so exquisite a contentment as it Methinks there is no earthly thing that yields so perfect a pleasure to any Sense as the odour of the first Rose doth to the Sent. It is the Wisdome and Bounty of the Creator so to order it that those Senses which have more affinity with the body and with that earth whereof it is made should receive their delight and contentation by those things which are bred of the earth but those which are more sprightfull and have more affinity with the Soul should be reserved for the perfection of their pleasure to another world There and then only shall my Sight make my Soul eternally blessed XCIV Upon a cancelled Bond. WHiles this Obligation was in force I was in servitude to my parchment my Bond was double to a Payment to a Penalty now that is discharged what is it better then a wast scroll regarded for nothing but the witness of its own voidance and nullity No otherwise is it with the severe Law of my Creator Out of Christ it stands in full force and bindes me over either to perfect Obedience which I cannot possibly perform or to exquisite torment and eternall Death which I am never able to indure but now that my Saviour hath fastened it cancelled to his Cross in respect of the rigour and malediction of it I look upon it as the monument of my past danger and bondage I know by it how much was owed by me how much was payed for me The direction of it is everlasting the obligation by it unto death is frustrate I am free from Curse who never can be free from Obedience O Saviour take thou Glory and give me Peace XCV Upon the report of a great losse by Sea THe Earth and the Water are both of them great givers and both great takers As they give matter and sustentation to all Sublunary creatures so they take all back again insatiably devouring at last the fruits of their own wombs Yet of the two the Earth is both more beneficial and lesse cruell for as that yields us the most generall maintenance and wealth and supportation so it doth not lightly take ought from us but that which we resign over to it and which naturally falls back unto it Whereas the Water as it affords but a small part of our livelihood and some few knacks of ornament so it is apt violently to snatch away both us and ours and to bereave that which it never gave it yields us no precious Metalls and yet in an instant fetches away millions And yet notwithstanding all the hard measure we receive from it how many do we daily see that might have firm ground under them who yet will be trusting to the mercy of the Sea Yea how many that have hardly crawled out from a desperate shipwrack will yet be trying the fidelity of that unsure and untrusty Element O God how venturous we are where we have reason to distrust how incredulously fearfull where we have cause to be confident Who ever relied upon thy gracious Providence and sure Promises O Lord and hath miscarried Yet here we pull in our Faith and make excuses for our Diffidence And if Peter have tried those waves to be no other then solid pavement under his feet whiles his Soul trod confidently yet when a billow and a winde agree to threaten him his Faith flags and he begins to sink O Lord teach me to doubt where I am sure to finde nothing but uncertainty and to be assuredly confident where there can be no possibility of any cause of doubting XCVI Upon sight of a bright Skie full of Stars I Cannot blame Empedocles if he professed a desire to live upon earth only that he might behold the face of the Heavens surely if there were no other this were a sufficient errand for a mans being here below to see and observe these goodly Spangles of Light above our heads their places their quantities their motions But the employment of a Christian is far more noble and excellent Heaven is open to him and he can look beyond the veil and see further above those Stars then it is thither and there discern those Glories that may answer so rich a pavement Upon the clear sight whereof I cannot but wonder if the chosen Vessel desired to leave the earth in so happy an exchange O God I blesse thine Infiniteness for what I see with these bodily eyes but if thou shalt but draw the curtain and let me by the eye of Faith see the inside of that thy Glorious frame I shall need no other Happiness here My Soul cannot be capable of more favour then Sight here and Fruition hereafter XCVII Upon the rumours of Wars GOod Lord what a shambles is Christendome become of late How are men killed like flies and blood poured out like water Surely the cruelty and ambition of the Great have an heavy reckoning to make for so many thousand Souls I condemn not just Arms those are as necessary as the unjust are hatefull even Michael and his Angels fight and the style of God is the Lord of Hoasts But wo be to the man by whom the offence
of joy when I see men upon an unreasonable suggestion of that evil Spirit cast away their lives for nothing and so hastening their temporall death that they hazard an eternall CXVIII Upon the coming in of the Judge THE construction of men and their actions is altogether according to the disposition of the lookers on The same face of the Judge without any inward alteration is seen with terror by the guilty with joy and confidence by the oppressed innocent like as the same lips of the Bride-groom drop both myrrhe and hony at once hony to the well-disposed heart myrrhe to the rebellious and the same Cup relishes well to the healthfull and distasts the feverous the same word is though a sweet yet a contrary favour to the different receivers and the same Sun comforts the strong sight dazles the weak For a man to affect either to doe or speak that which may be pleasing to all men is but a weak and idle ambition when we see him that is infinitely Good appear terrible to more then he appears lovely Goodnesse is it self with whatever eyes it is look'd upon There can be no safety for that man that regards more the censure of men then the truth of being He that seeks to win all hearts hath lost his owne CXIX Upon the sight of an Heap of stones UNder such a pile it was that the first Martyr was buried none of all the antient Kings had so glorious a Tomb here were many stones and every one pretious Jacob leaned his head upon a stone and saw that Heavenly vision of Angels ascending and descending Many stones light upon Steven's head in the instant of his seeing the Heavens opened and Jesus standing at the right hand of God Lo Jacob resting upon that one stone saw but the Angels Steven being to rest for once under those many stones saw the Lord of the Angels Jacob saw the Angels moving Steven saw Jesus standing As Jacob therefore afterwards according to his Vow made there an altar to God so Steven now in the present gathers these stones together of which he erected an holy altar whereon he offered up himself a blessed Sacrifice unto God And if there be a time of gathering stones and a time of casting them away this was the time wherein the Jews cast and Steven gathered up these stones for a monument of eternall Glory O blessed Saint thou didst not so clearly see Heaven opened as Heaven saw thee covered thou didst not so perfectly see thy Jesus standing as he saw thee lying patiently courageously under that fatall heap Do I mistake it or are those stones not Flints and Pebbles but Diamonds Rubies and Carbuncles to set upon thy Crown of Glory CXX Upon sight of a Bat and Owle THese Night-birds are glad to hide their heads all and if by some violence they be unseasonably forced our of their secrecy how are they followed and beaten by the birds of the day With us men it is contrary the Sons of Darknesse do with all eagernesse of maâ—ice pursue the children of the Light and drive them into corners and make a prey of them the opposition is alike but the advantage lies on the worse side Is it for that the Spirituall Light is no lesse hatefull to those Children of Darknesse then the naturall night is to those chearfull Birds of the day Or is it for that the Sons of Darknesse challenging no lesse propriety in the world then the Foul do in the lightsome aire abhorre and wonder at the conscionanable as strange and uncouth Howsoever as these Bats and Owls were made for the night being accordingly shaped foul and ill-favoured so we know these vicious men however they may please themselves have in them a true deformity fit to be shrowded in Darknesse and as they delight in the works of Darknesse so they are justly reserved to a state of Darknesse CXXI Upon the sight of a Well-fleeced Sheep WHat a warm Winter-coat hath God provided for this quiet innocent creature as indeed how wonderfull is his Wisdome and Goodness in all his purveiances Those creatures which are apter for motion and withall most fearfull by nature hath he clad somewhat thinner and hath allotted them safe and warm boroughs within the earth those that are fit for labour and use hath he furnished with a strong hide and for Man whom he hath thought good to bring forth naked tender helplesse he hath indued his Parents and himself with that noble faculty of Reason whereby he may provide all manner of helps for himself Yet again so bountifull is God in his provisions that he is not lavish so distributing his gifts that there is no more superfluity then want Those creatures that have beaks have no teeth and those that have shells without have no bones within All have enough nothing hath all Neither is it otherwise in that one kinde of Man whom he meant for the Lord of all Variety of gifts is here mixed with a frugall dispensation None hath cause to boast none to complain Every man is as free from an absolute defect as from perfection I desire not to comprehend O Lord teach me to doe nothing but wonder CXXII Upon the hearing of Thunder THere is no Grace whereof I finde so generall a want in my self and others as an awfull fear of the infinite Majesty of God Men are ready to affect and professe a kinde of Familiarity with God out of a pretence of love whereas if they knew him aright they could not think of him without dread nor name him without trembling their narrow hearts strive to conceive of him according to the scantling of their own streight and ignorant apprehension whereas they should only desire to have their thoughts swallowed up with an adoring wonder of his Divine incomprehensiblenesse Though he thunder not alwaies he is alwayes equally dreadfull there is none of his works which doth not bewray Omnipotency I blush at the sawcinesse of vain men that will be circumscribing the powerfull acts of the Almighty within the compasse of Naturall Causes forbearing to wonder at what they professe to know Nothing but Ignorance can be guilty of this Boldnesse There is no Divinity but in an humble fear no Philosophy but a silent admiration CXXIII Upon the sight of an Hedge-hog I Marvelled at the first reading what the Greeks meant by that Proverb of theirs The Fox knows many pretty wiles but the Hedg-hog knows one great one But when I considered the Nature and practice of this creature I easily found the reason of that speech grounded upon the care and shift that it makes for its own preservation Whiles it is under covert it knows how to bar the fore-dore against the cold Northern and Eastern blasts and to open the back-dore for quieter and calmer aire When it is pursued it knows how to roll up it self round within those thorns with which Nature hath environed it so as the Dog in stead of a beast findes
Religion But alas poor souls we are mistaken all this while it is nothing else but pure Piety forsooth which we ignorantly condemn for Cruelty 't is the zeal of Gods house wherewith Good Prelate thou art so inflamed that thou hast hereupon both wished and importuned the utter extirpation of all those Hereticks stabling in the French Territories O forehead O bowels For us we call God Angels Saints to witness of this foul calumniation I wis those whom thou falsly brandest for Hereticks thou shalt one day hear when the Church shall imbrace them for her children Christ for the spiritual Members of his mystical body For what I beseech you do we hold which the Scriptures Councils Fathers Churches and Christian Professors have not in all Ages taught and published To say the truth All that which we professe your own most approved Authors have still maintained whence then is this quarrell Shall I tell you There are indeed certain new Patches of Opinion which you would needs adde to the ancient Faith these we most justly reject and do still constantly refuse They are humane they are your own briefly they are either doubtfull or impious And must we now be cast out of the bosome of the Church and be presently delivered up to fire and sword Must we for this be thunder-strucken to Hell by your Anathemas there to frie in perpetuall Torments Is it for this that a stall and shambles are thought good enough for such brutish animals Good God! See the justice and charity of these Popelings This is nothing but a mere injury of the Times it was not wont to be Heresie heretofore that is so now-a-daies If it had been our Happinesse to have lived in the Primitive times of the Churches Simplicity before ever that Romish Transcendency Image-worship Transubstantiation Sacrifice of the Masse Purgatory single or half-Communion Nundination of Pardons and the rest of this rabble were known to the Christian world surely Heaven had been as open to us as to other Devout Souls of that purer Age that took their happy flight from hence in the Orthodox Faith of Christ Jesus But now that we are reserved to that dotage of the world wherein a certain new brood of Articles are sprung up it is death to us forsooth and to be expiated by no lesse punishment then the perpetuall torments of Hell-fire Consider this O ye Christians wheresoever dispersed upon the face of the whole earth consider I say how far it is from all Justice and Charity that a new Faith should come dropping forth at mens pleasure which must adjudge Posterity to eternal death for Mis-believers whom the ancient Truth had willingly admitted into Heaven These new Points of a politick Religion are they indeed that have so much disturbed the peace of Christendome these are they that set at variance the mighty Potentates of the earth who otherwise perhaps would sit down in an happy Peace these are they that rend whole Kingdomes distract people dissolve Societies nourish Faction and Sedition lay wast the most flourishing Kingdomes and turn the richest Cities to dust and rubbish But should these things be so Do we think this will one day be allowed for a just warrant of so much war and bloodshed before the Tribunall of that supreme Judge of Heaven and earth Awake therefore now O ye Christian Princes and You especially King Lewis in whose eares these wicked counsels are so spightfully and bloodily whispered rouse up your self and see how cruell Tyranny seeks to impose upon your Majesty in a most mischievous manner under a fair pretence of Piety and Devotion They are your own native Subjects whom these malicious foreigners require to the slaughter yea they are Christs and will you imbrue your hand and sword in the blood of those for whom Christ hath shed his yea who have willingly lavished their own in the behalf of You and your great Father Hear I beseech thee O King who art wont amongst thine own to be instiled Lewis the Just If we did adore any other God any other Christ but thine if we aspired to any other Heaven embraced any other Creed any other Baptisme lastly if we made profession of a new Church built upon other foundations there were some cause indeed why thou shouldest condemn such Hereticks stabling in France to the revenging sury of thy flames If this thy people have wilfully violated any thing established by our common God or lawfully commanded by thee we crave no pardon for them let them smart that have deserved it is but just they should But do not in the mean time fall fiercely upon the fellow-servants of thy God upon thine own best Subjects whose very Religion must make them loyall suffer not those poor wretches to perish for some late upstart superfluous additions of humane invention and mere will-worship who were alwaies most forward to redeem Thine thy Great Fathers Safety and Honour with the continuall hazzard of their owne most precious lives Let them but live then by thy gracious sufferance by whose Valour and Fidelity thou now reignest But suppose they were not yours yet remember that they are Christians a title wherewith your style is wont most to be honored washed in the same Laver of Baptisme bought with the same price renewed by the same Spirit and whatsoever impotent malice bawle to the contrary the beloved Sons of the Celestiall Spouse yea the Brethren of that Spirituall Bride-groom Christ Jesus But they erre you will say from the Faith From what faith I beseech you Not the Christian surely but the Romish What a strange thing is this Christ doth not condemn them the Pope doth If that great Chancellour of Paris were now alive he would freely teach his Sorbon as he once did that it is not in the Popes power that I may use his owne word to hereticate any Proposition Yea but an Oecumenicall Council besides hath done it What Council That of Trent I am deceived if that were hitherto received in the Churches of France or deserved to be so hereafter Consult with your own late Authors of most undoubted credit they will tell you plainly how unjust that Council was yea how no Council at all It was only the Popes act whatsoever was decreed or established by that pack'd Conclave envassalled to the Seven hills Consider lastly I beseech you how the Reformed Christians stand in no other terms to the Papists then the Papists do to the Reformed Heresie is with equall vehemency upbraided on both sides But do we deale thus roughly with the followers of the Roman Religion Did we ever rage against the Popish Faith with fire and sword Was ever the crime of a poor misled conscience capitall to any soul You may finde perhaps but very seldome some audacious Masse-priest some firebrand of Sedition and contemner of our publick Laws to have suffered condign punishment But no Papist I dare boldly say ever suffered losse either of life or lim merely for his Religion