narrow roome as that it should bee able to direct vs but in principall points of our Religion or as though the substance of Religion or some rude and vnfashioned matter of building the Church were vttered in them and those things left out that should pertaine to the forme and fashion of it let the cause of the accused bee referred to the accusers owne conscience and let that iudge whether this accusation be deserued where it hath bene layd 5 But so easie it is for euery man liuing to erre and so hard to wrest from any mans mouth the plaine acknowledgement of error that what hath beene once inconsiderately defended the same is commonly persisted in as long as wit by whetting it selfe is able to finde out any shift bee it neuer so sleight whereby to escape out of the handes of present contradiction So that it commeth here in to passe with men vnaduisedly fallen into errour as with them whose state hath no ground to vphold it but onely the helpe which by subtle conueyance they drawe out of casuall euents arising from day to day till at length they be cleane spent They which first gaue out that Nothing ought to be established in the Church which is not commanded by the word of God thought this principle plainely warranted by the manifest words of the lawe Ye shall put nothing vnto the word which I commaund you neither shall ye take ought therefrom that ye may keepe the commaundements of the Lord your God which I commaund you Wherefore hauing an eye to a number of rites and orders in the Church of England as marrying with a ring crossing in the one Sacrament kneeling at the other obseruing of festiuall dayes moe then onely that which is called the Lords day inioyning abstinence at certaine times from some kindes of meate churching of women after Child birth degrees taken by diuines in Vniuersities sundry Church-offices dignities and callings for which they found no commaundement in the holy Scripture they thought by the one onely stroke of that axiome to haue cut them off But that which they tooke for an Oracle being sifted was repeld True it is concerning the word of God whether it be by misconstruction of the sense or by falsification of the words wittingly to endeuour that any thing may seeme diuine which is not or any thing not seeme which is were plainely to abuse and euen to falsifie diuine euidence which iniury offered but vnto men is most worthily counted haâ—nous Which point I wish they did well obserue with whom nothing is more familiar then to plead in these causes The law of God The word of the Lord who notwithstanding when they come to alleage what word and what lawe they meane their common ordinarie practise is to quote by-speeches in some historicall narration or other and to vrge them as if they were written in most exact forme of law What is to adde to the lawe of God if this bee not When that which the word of God doth but deliuer historically we conster without any warrant as if it were legally meant and so vrge it further then we can proue that it was intended do we not adde to the lawes of God and make them in number seeme moe then they are It standeth vs vpon to be carefull in this case For the sentence of God is heauy against them that wittingly shall presume thus to vse the Scripture 6 But let that which they doe hereby intend bee graunted them let it once stand as consonant to reason that because wee are forbidden to adde to the lawe of God any thing or to take ought from it therefore wee may not for matters of the Church make any lawe more then is already set downe in Scripture who seeth not what sentence it shall enforce vs to giue against all Churches in the world in as much as there is not one but hath had many things established in it which though the Scripture did neuer commaund yet for vs to condemne were rashnesse Let the Church of God euen in the time of our Sauior Christ serue for example vnto all the rest In their domesticall celebration of the passeouer which supper they deuided as it were into two courses what Scripture did giue commaundement that betweene the first and the second he that was Chiefe should put off the residue of his garments and keeping on his feast-robe onely wash the feete of them that were with him What Scripture did command them neuer to lift vp their hands vnwasht in prayer vnto God which custome Aristaeus be the credite of the author more or lesse sheweth wherefore they did so religiously obserue What Scripture did commaund the Iewes euery festiuall day to fast till the sixt houre The custome both mentioned by Iosephus in the history of his owne life and by the words of Peter signified Tedious it were to rip vp all such things as were in that Church established yea by Christ himselfe and by his Apostles obserued though not commaunded any where in Scripture 7 Well yet a glosse there is to colour that paradoxe and notwithstanding all this still to make it appeare in shew not to be altogether vnreasonable And therefore till further reply come the cause is held by a feeble distinction that the commandements of God being either generall or speciall although there be no expresse word for euery thing in specialtie yet there are generall commaundements for all things to the end that euen such cases as are not in Scripture particularly mentioned might not be left to any to order at their pleasure onely with caution that nothing be done against the word of God and that for this cause the Apostle hath set downe in scripture foure generall rules requiring such things alone to be receiued in the Church as do best and neerest agree with the same rules that so all things in the Church may be appointed not onely not against but by and according to the word of God The rules are these Nothing scandalous or offensiue vnto any especially vnto the Church of God All things in order and with seemelinesse All vnto edification finally All to the glory of God Of which kind how many might be gathered out of the Scripture if it were necessary to take so much paines Which rules they that vrge minding thereby to proue that nothing may be done in the Church but what Scripture commaundeth must needs hold that they tye the Church of Christ no otherwise then onely because we find them there set downe by the finger of the holy Ghost So that vnlesse the Apostle by writing had deliuered those rules to the Church we should by obseruing them haue sinned as now by not obseruing them In the Church of the Iewes is it not graunted that the appointment of the hower for daily sacrifices the building of Synagogues throughout the land to heare the word of God and to pray in when they came not vp
vppon the word of God yet not commaunded in his word because without breach of any commaundement hee might do otherwise Secondly whereas no man in iustice and reason can be reproued for those actions which are framed according vnto that knowne will of God whereby they are to bee iudged and the will of God which wee are to iudge our actions by no sound Diuine in the world euer denied to bee in parte made manifest euen by light of nature and not by scripture alone if the Church being directed by the former of these two which God hath giuen who gaue the other that man might in different sort be guided by them both if the Church I say do approue and establish that which thereby it iudgeth meete and findeth not repugnant to any word or syllable of holy scripture who shall warrant our presumptuous boldnes controwling herein the Church of Christ But so it is the name of the light of nature is made hatefull with men the starre of Reason and learning and all other such like helps beginneth no otherwise to be thought of then if it were an vnluckie Comet or as if God had so accursed it that it should neuer shine or giue light in things concerning our dutie any way towardes him but be esteemed as that starre in the Reuelation called wormewood which beeing fallen from heauen maketh riuers and waters in which it falleth so bitter that men tasting them dye thereof A number there are who thinke they cannot admire as they ought the power and authoritie of the worde of God if in things diuine they should attribute any force to mans reason For which cause they neuer vse reason so willingly as to disgrace reason Their vsuall and common discourses are vnto this effect 1. The naturall man perceiueth not the thinges of the spirit of God for they are foolishnesse vnto him neither can he knowe them because they are spiritually discerned 2. It is for nothing that Saint Paule giueth charge to beware of Philosopâ—ie that is to say such knowledge as men by naturall reason attaine vnto 3. Consider them that haue from time to time opposed themselues against the Gospell of Christ and most troubled the Church with Heresie Haue they not alwayes bene great admirers of humane reason Hath their deepe and profound skill in secular learning made them the more obedient to the truth and not armed them rather against it 4. They that feare God will remember how heauie his sentences are in this case I will destroy the wisdome of the wise and will cast away the vnderstanding of the prudent Where is the wise Where is the Scribe Where is the disputer of this world Hath not God made the wisedome of this world foolishnesse Seeing the world by wisedome knewe not God in the wisedome of God it pleased God by the foolishnesse of preaching to saue beleeuers 5. The word of God in it selfe is absolute exact and perfect The word of God is a two edged sword as for the weapons of naturall reason they are as the armour of Saule rather cumbersome about the souldier of Christ then needefull They are not of force to doe that which the Apostles of Christ did by the power of the holy Ghost My preaching therefore sayth Paule hath not bene in the intising speech of mans wisedome but in plaine euidence of the spirit and of power that your faith might not bee in the wisedome of men but in the power of God 6. If I beleeue the Gospell there needeth no reasoning about it to perswade mee If I doe not beleeue it must bee the spirit of God and not the reason of man that shall conuert my heart vnto him By these and the like disputes an opinion hath spread it selfe very farre in the world as if the way to bee ripe in faith were to bee rawe in wit and iudgement as if reason were an enemie vnto religion childish simplicitie the mother of ghostly and diuine wisedome The cause why such declamations preuaile so greatly is for that men suffer themselues in two respects to bee deluded one is that the wisedome of man being debased either in comparison with that of God or in regard of some speciall thing exceeding the reach and compasse thereof it seemeth to them not marking so much as if simply it were condemned an other that learning knowledge or wisdome falsely so tearmed vsurping a name wherof they are not worthy and being vnder that name controlled their reproofe is by so much the more easily misapplied and through equiuocation wrested against those things wherunto so pretious names do properly and of right belong This duly obserued doth to the former allegations it selfe make sufficient answere Howbeit for all mens plainer and fuller satisfaction first concerning the inhabilitie of reason to search out and to iudge of things diuine if they be such as those properties of God and those duties of men towards him which may be conceiued by attentiue consideration of heauen and earth we know that of meere natural men the Apostle testifieth how they knew both God and the lawe of God Other things of God there be which are neither so found nor though they be shewed can euer be approued without the speciall operation of Gods good grace spirit Of such things sometime spake the Apostle S. Paul declaring how Christ had called him to be a witnesse of his death and resurrection from the dead according to that which the Prophets and Moses had foreshewed Festus a meere naturall man an Infidell a Romane one whose eares were vnacquainted with such matter heard him but could not reach vnto that whereof he spake the suffering and the rising of Christ froÌ„ the dead he reiecteth as idle superstitious phancies not worth the hearing The Apostle that knew them by the spirit spake of them with power of the holy Ghost seemed in his eyes but learnedly mad Which example maketh manifest what elswhere the same Apostle teacheth namely that nature hath need of grace wherunto I hope we are not opposite by holding that grace hath vse of nature 2. Philosophie we are warned to take heed of Not that Philosophie which is true and sound knowledge attained by naturall discourse of reason but that Philosophie which to bolster heresie or error casteth a fraudulent shew of reason vpoÌ„ things which are indeed vnreasonable and by that meane as by a stratagem spoileth the simple which are not able to withstaÌ„d such cunning Take heed least any spoile you through philosophie and vain deceit He that exhorteth to beware of an enemies policie doth not giue counsell to be impolitique but rather to vse all prouident foresight and circumspection least our simplicitie be ouerreacht by cunning sleights The way not to be inueigled by them that are so guilefull through skill is thorowly to be instructed in that which maketh skilfull against guile and to be armed with that true and sincere philosophy
that in matter of circumstance they alter that which they haue receiued but in things of substance they keepe the lawes of Christ without change If we say the same in our owne behalfe which surely we may do with a great deale more truth then must they cancell all that hath bene before alleaged and beginne to inquire a fresh whether we reteine the lawes that Christ hath deliuered concerning matters of substance yea or no. For our constant perswasion in this point is as theirs that we haue no where altered the lawes of Christ further then in such particularities onely as haue the nature of things chaungeable according to the difference of times places persons and other the like circumstances Christ hath commaunded prayers to be made sacraments to be ministred his Church to be carefully taught and guided Concerning euery of these somewhat Christ hath commaunded which must bee kept till the worlds end On the contrary side in euery of thē somewhat there may be added as the Church shall iudge it expedient So that if they will speake to purpose all which hitherto hath bene disputed of they must giue ouer and stand vpon such particulars onely as they can shew we haue either added or abrogated otherwise then we ought in the matter of Church politie Whatsoeuer Christ hath commanded for euer to be kept in his Church the same we take not vpon vs to abrogate and whatsoeuer our lawes haue thereunto added besides of such qualitie we hope it is as no law of Christ doth any where condemne Wherefore that all may be layd together and gathered into a narrower roome 1. First so farre forth as the Church is the mysticall body of Christ and his inuisible spouse it needeth no externall politie That very part of the law diuine which teacheth faith and workes of righteousnesse is it selfe alone sufficient for the Church of God in that respect But as the Church is a visible society and body politique lawes of politie it cannot want 2. Whereas therfore it commeth in the second place to be inquired what lawes are fittest and best for the Church they who first embraced that rigorous and strict opinion which depriueth the Church of liberty to make any kind of law for her selfe inclined as it should seeme thereunto for that they imagined all things which the Church doth without commandement of holy scripture subiect to that reproofe which the scripture it self vseth in certaine cases when diuine authority ought alone to be followed Herupon they thought it inough for the cācelling of any kind of order whatsoeuer to say The word of God teacheth it not it is a deuise of the braine of man away with it therefore out of the Church S. Augustine was of another mind who speaking of fasts on the Sunday saith That he which would chuse out that day to fast on should giue therby no small offence to the Church of God which had receiued a contrary custome For in these things wherof the scripture appointeth no certainty the vse of the people of God or the ordinances of our Fathers must serue for a law In which case if we will dispute and condemne one sort by anothers custome it will be but matter of endlesse contention where for as much as the labour of reasoning shal hardly beate into mens heads any certaine or necessary truth surely it standeth vs vpō to take heed least with the tempest of strife the brightnesse of charity and loue be darkened If all things must bee commaunded of God which may be practised of his Church I would know what commaundement the Gileadites had to erect that Altar which is spokē of in the booke of Iosua Did not cōgruity of reason induce them therunto suffice for defence of their fact I would know what cōmandement the women of Israel had yearly to mourne and lament in the memorie of Iephtaes daughter what cōmandement the Iewes had to celebrate their feast of Dedication neuer spoken of in the law yet solemnized euen by our Sauior himselfe what cōmandement finally they had for the ceremony of odors vsed about the bodies of the dead after which custome notwithstanding sith it was their custome our Lord was contented that his owne most pretious should be intoombd Wherfore io reiect all orders of the Church which men haue established is to thinke worse of the laws of men in this respect then either the iudgement of wisemen alloweth or the law of God it selfe will beare Howbeit they which had once takē vpon thē to condemn all things done in the Church not cōmanded of God to be done saw it was necessary for thē cōtinuing in defence of this their opiniō to hold that needs there must be in scripture set down a cōplete particular forme of Church polity a forme prescribing how al the affaires of the church must be ordered a form in no respect lawful to be altered by mortal mē For reformatiō of which ouersight error in thē there were that thought it a part of Christian loue charity to instruct thē better to open vnto thē the diference betweene matters of perpetual necessity to all mens saluation and matters of Ecclesiasticall politie the one both fully and plainly taught in holy scripture the other not necessary to be in such sort there prescribed the one not capable of any diminution or augmentation at all by men the other apt to admit bothe Herupon the authors of the former opinion were presently seconded by other wittier and better learned who being loath that the forme of Church-politie which they sought to bring in should be otherwise then in the highest degree accounted of tooke first an exception against the difference betweene Church-politie and matters of necessitie to saluation secondly against the restraint of scripture which they say receiueth iniurie at our hands when we teach that it teacheth not as well matters of politie as of faith and saluation 3. Constrained hereby we haue bene therefore both to maintaine that distinction as a thing not only true in it selfe but by them likewise so acknowledged though vnawares 4. and to make manifest that from scripture wee offer not to derogate the least thing that truth thereunto doth claime in as much as by vs it is willingly confest that the scripture of God is a storehouse abounding with inestimable treasures of wisedome and knowledge in many kindes ouer and aboue thinges in this one kinde barely necessary yea euen that matters of Ecclesiasticall politie are not therein omitted but taught also albeit not so taught as those other thinges before mentioned For so perfectly are those thinges taught that nothing can euer need to be added nothing euer cease to be necessary these on the contrarie side as being of a farre other nature and qualitie not so strictly nor euerlastingly commaunded in scripture but that vnto the complete forme of Church-politie much may bee requisite which the scripture teacheth not and much which
hath wrong For when doubting it the way to dispaire against which this doctrine offereth the remedie it must needs be that it bringeth comfort and â—â—y to the consciencâ— of man Due 7.8 What the Church is and in what respect lawes of polity are thereunto necessarily required Ioh. 10.28 Ioh. 1.47 Ioh. 21.15 1. Tim. â— 5 a Eph. 2.16 that he might reconcile bothe vnto God in one body Eph. 3.16 that the Gentiles should be inheritors also and of the same body Vide Th. p. 3. q. 7. ar 3. 1 Cor. 12.13 Eph. 4.5 Act. 2.36 Ioh. 13.13 Col. 3.24 Col. 4.1 a 1. Cor. 1.23 Vide Tacitum lib. Annal. 15. Nero quaesitissâ—mis poenis affecit quos per flagitia inuisos vulgus Christianos appellabat Auctor nominis eius Christus qui Tiberio imperitante per procuratotem Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat Repressáque in presenâ— exitiabilis superstitio rursus etumpebat non modo per Iudaeam originem eius mali sed per vrbem etiam quo cuncta vndique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt celebranturque Ioh. 15.21 Ioh. 16.2.4 Apoc. 2.13 Tertul. de virgin veland Iren. aduers. haer lib. 1. cap. 2. 3. Act. 8.38 Act. 22.16 Act. 2.41 Matth. 13.47 Math. 13. â—4 Exod. 32. Psal. 106.19.20 2. King 18.4 Ier. 11.13 2. King 22.17 Esa. 57.3 Esa. 1.4 Esa 60.15 Ier. 13.11 â— King 19.18 Fortunat. in Concil Car. Math. 7.24 Math. 16 1â— Math. 28.19 Secundinus in eodem conci Math. 12.30 In Concilio Niceno vide Hierony dial aduers. Luciferia 2. Chron. 1â— Hos. 4.15 17. Ios. 24.15 Rom. 11.28 Cal. Epist. 149. Epist. 283. Epist. 285. Tertul. exhort ad castit vbi treâ— Ecclesia est licet laici Act. 2.47 VVhether it be necessarie that some particular forme of Church-poliâ—y be set downe in Scriptureâ— sith the things that belong particularly vnto any such forme are not of necessitie to saluation Tertul. â—â— haâ—â—bitu mul. Aemuli sint necesse est quae Dei non sunt Rom. 2.15 Lactan. lib. 6. ca. 8. Ille legiâ— huius inuentor disceptator lator Cic. T â— de 〈◊〉 Two things misliked the one that we distinguish matters of discipline or Church-gouernâ—â—nt from matters of faith and necessarie vnto saluation â— the other that we are iniurious to the Scripture of God 〈◊〉 abridging the large and rich contentâ— thereof Their words are these You which distinguish betweene these and say that matter of faith and necessarie vnto saluation may not be toleraâ—â— in the Church vnlesse they be expressely conteined in the word of God or manifestly gathered but that ceremonies order dâ—scipline gouernment in the Church may not be receiued against the word of God and consequently may be receiued if there be no word against them although there be none for them you I say distinguishing or diuiding after this sort do proue your selfe an euill diuider Although matters of discipline and kind of gouernement were not matters necessary to saluation and of faith It is no small iniurie which you do vnto the word of God to pin it in so narrow roome as that it should be able to dirâ—ct 〈◊〉 in the principall points of our religion or as though the substance of religion or some rude and vnfashioned matter of building of the Church were vâ—tered in them and thâ—â—e thingâ— were left out that should pertaine to the forme and fashion of it or as if there were in the scriptures onely to couer the Churches nakednesse and not also chaâ—nes and bracelets and rings and other iewels to adorne her and set her out or that to conclude these were sufficient to quench her thirst and kill her hunger but not to minister vnto her a more liberall and as it were a more delitious and dainty dyes Those things you seeme to say when you say that matters necessary to saluation and of faith are contained in scripture especially when you oppose these things to ceremonies order discipline and gouernement T. C. lib. 1 p. 16. That matters of discipline are different from matters of faith and saluation and that they them selues so teach which are our reproouers T. C. lib. 2. pag. 1. We offer to shewe the discipline to be a part of the Gospell And againe pag. 5 â— speake of the discipline as of a part of the Gospell If the discipline be one part of the Gospell what other part can they assigne but doctrine to answer in diuision to the discipline Matth. 23.23 a The gouernement of the Church of Christ graunted by Fennar himselfe to be though a matter of great moment yet not of the substance of religion Against D Bridges pag. 121. if it be Fennar which was the author of that Booke That we doe not take from Scripture any thing which may be thereunto giuen with soundnesse of truth Arist. pol. li. 1. cap. 8. Plato in Menex Arist. lib. 3. de Anima cap. 45. Their meaning who first did pleaâ—e against the politie of the Church of England vrging that Nothing ought to be established in the Church which is not commaunded by the word of God and what scripture they thought they might ground this assertion vpon Deut. 4.2 Deut. 12.32 VVhatsoeuer I commaund you take heed you do itâ— thou shalt put nothing thereto nor take oughâ—â— therefrom The same assertion we cannot hold without doing wrong vnto all Churches Ioh. â—3 Caenatorium de quâ— Math. 22.12 Ibi de caenatoriâ— nuâ—tiali Act. 2. A shift to maintaine that Nothing ought to be established in the Church which is not commanded in the word of God Namely that commandements are of two sorts and that all things lawfull in the Church are commanded if not by speciall precepts yet by generall rules in the word 1. Cor. 10.32 1. Cor. 14.40 1. Cor. 14 26. Rom. 14.6.7 T. C. l. 1. p. 35. Another aunswere in defence of the former assertion whereby the meaning thereof is opened in this sort All Church orders must be commaunded in the word that is to say grounded vpon the word and made according at the leastwise vnto the generall rules of holy Scripture As for such things as are found out by any starre or light of reason and are in that respect receiued so they be not against the word of God all such things it holdeth vnlawfully receiued Arist. polit 1. 1. Cor. 7. Apoc. 8.10 1. Cor. 2.14 Col. 2. â— 1. Cor. 1.19 1. Cor. â— Rom. 1.21 verse 31. Act. 25.19 Act. 26.24 1. Cor. 2.14 Col. 2.8 Tit. 1.9.11 Tertul. de Resur carnis Tit. 3.11 Act. 7.22 Dan. 1.17 1. King 4.29.30 Act. 22.3 Matth. 13.52 Hebr. 4.12 â— Cor. 10.10 1. Cor. 2.4 Act. 18. â—1 v. 4. Heb. 11.6 1. Cor. 10.15 Act. 26.22 Act. 13.36 cap. 2.34 1. Pet. 3.15 Matth. 22.43 Act. 14.15 Act. 15. c. Viâ—latores 25. q. 1. How lawes for regiment of the Church may be made by the aduise of meÌ„ following therein the light of reasoÌ„ and how those lawes being not repugnant to the word of
simple men who knowing the time of their owne Presidentship to bee but short would alwayes stand in feare of their ministers perpetuall authoritie and among the ministers themselues one being so farre in estimation aboue the rest the voyces of the rest were likely to be giuen for the most part respectiuely with a kinde of secret dependencie and awe so that in shewe a maruellous indifferently composed Senate Ecclesiasticall was to gouerne but in effect one onely man should as the Spirite and soule of the residue doe all in all But what did these vaine surmises boote Brought they were now to so straight an issue that of two thinges they must choose one namely whether they would to their endlesse disgrace with ridiculous lightnes dismisse him whose restitution they had in so impotent maner desired or else condescende vnto that demaund wherein hee was resolute eyther to haue it or to leaue them They thought it better to be somewhat hardly yoked at home then for euer abroad discredited Wherefore in the ende those orders were on all sides assented vnto with no lesse alacritie of minde then Cities vnable to holde out longer are wont to shewe when they take conditions such as it liketh him to offer them which hath them in the narrow streightes of aduantage Not many yeares were ouerpassed before these twice sworne men aduentured to giue their last and hotest assault to the fortresse of the same discipline childishly graunting by comon consent of their whole Senate that vnder their towne seale a relaxation to one Bertelier whom the Eldership had excommunicated further also decreeing with strange absurditie that to the same Senate it should belong to giue finall iudgemēt in matter of excōmunication and to absolue whom it pleased them cleane contrary to their owne former deedes and oaths The report of which decree being forth with brought vnto Caluin Before sayth he this decree take place either my bloud or banishment shall signe it Againe two dayes before the Cōmunion should be celebrated his speech was publiquely to like effect Kill me if euer this hand do reach forth the things that are holy to thē whom THE CHVRCH hath iudged despisers Whereupon for feare of tumult the forenamed Bertelier was by his friends aduised for that time not to vse the liberty granted him by the Senate nor to present himselfe in the Church till they saw somewhat further what would ensue After the Communion quietly ministred and some likelihood of peaceable ending these troubles without any more ado that very day in the afternoone besides all mens expectation concluding his ordinary sermon he telleth them that because he neither had learned nor taught to striue with such as are in authority therefore sayth he the case so standing as now it doth let me vse these words of the Apostle vnto you I commend you vnto God the word of his grace and so bad them hartily all A dew It sometimes commeth to passe that the readiest way which a wise man hath to conquer is to flie This voluntarie and vnexpected mention of sudden departure caused presently the Senate for according to their woonted maner they still continued onely constant in vnconstancy to gather themselues together and for a time to suspend their own decree leauing things to proceed as before till they had heard the iudgement of foure Heluetian Cities concerning the matter which was in strife This to haue done at the first before they gaue assēt vnto any order had shewed some wit discretion in thē but now to do it was as much as to say in effect that they would play their parts on stage Caluin therfore dispatcheth with all expedition his letters vnto some principall pastor in euery of those cities crauing earnestly at their hands to respect this cause as a thing whereupō the whole state of religion piety in that church did so much depend that God all good men were now ineuitably certaine to be trampled vnder foot vnlesse those foure Cities by their good means might be brought to giue sentence with the ministers of Geneua when the cause should be brought before them yea so to giue it that two things it might effectually containe the one an absolute approbation of the discipline of Geneua as consonant vnto the word of God without any cautions qualifications ifs or ands the other an earnest admonition not to innouate or change the same His vehemēt request herein as touching both points was satisfied For albeit the sayd Heluetian Churches did neuer as yet obserue that discipline neuerthelesse the Senate of Geneua hauing required their iudgement concerning these three questions First after what manner by Gods commaundement according to the Scripture and vnspotted religion excommunication is to be exercised Secondly whether it may not be exercised some other way then by the Consistorie Thirdly what the vse of their Churches was to do in this case answer was returned from the sayd Churches That they had heard already of those consistoriall lawes and did acknowledge them to be godly ordinances drawing towards the prescript of the word of God for which cause that they did not thinke it good for the Church of Geneua by innouation to change the same but rather to keepe them as they were Which aunswer although not aunswering vnto the former demaunds but respecting what Maister Caluin had iudged requisite for them to aunswere was notwithstanding accepted without any further reply in as much as they plainely saw that when stomacke doth striue with wit the match is not equall And so the heat of their former contentions began to flake The present inhabitants of Geneua J hope will not take it in euill part that the faltinesse of their people heretofore is by vs so farre forth layd open as their owne learned guides and Pastors haue thought necessarie to discouer it vnto the world For out of their bookes and writings it is that I haue collected this whole narration to the end it might thereby appeare in what sort amongst them that discipline was planted for which so much contention is raised amongst our selues The reasons which mooued Caluin herein to be so earnest was as Beza himselfe testifieth for that he saw how needfull these bridles were to be put in the iawes of that Citie That which by wisedome he saw to be requisite for that people was by as great wisedome compassed But wise men are men and the truth is truth That which Caluin did for establishment of his discipline seemeth more commendable then that which he taught for the countenancing of it established Nature worketh in vs all a loue to our owne counsels The contradiction of others is a fanne to inflame that loue Our loue set on fire to maintaine that which once we haue done sharpeneth the wit to dispute to argue and by all meanes to reason for it Wherefore a maruaile it were if a man of so great capacitie hauing such incitements to make him desirous of
Church staÌ„deth bound by the law of God to put downe Bishops and in their roomes to erect an eldership so authorized as you would haue it for the gouernmeÌ„t of each parish Deceiued greatly they are therfore who think that all they whose names are cited amongst the fauourers of this cause are on any such verdict agreed Yet touching some materiall points of your discipline a kind of agreement we grant there is amongst many diuines of reformed Churches abroad For first to do as the Church of Geneua did the learned in some other churches must needs be the more willing who hauing vsed in like maner not the slow tedious help of proceeding by publike authoritie but the peoples more quick endeuor for alteratioÌ„ in such an exigent I see not well how they could haue staied to deliberat about any other regimeÌ„t theÌ„ that which already was deuised to their hands that which in like case had bene takeÌ„ that which was easiest to be established without delay that which was likeliest to content the people by reason of some kind of sway which it giueth them When therfore the example of one Church was thus at the first almost through a kind of coÌ„straint or necessitie followed by many their concurrence in perswasion about some materiall points belonging to the same policie is not strange For we are not to maruell greatly if they which haue all done the same thing do easily embrace the same opinion as coÌ„cerning their owne doings Besides mark I beseech you that which Galen in matter of philosophie noteth for the like falleth out euen in questions of higher knowledge It fareth many times with mens opinioÌ„s as with rumors reports That which a credible person telleth is easily thought probable by such as are well perswaded of him But if two or three or foure agree all in the same tale they iudge it then to be out of controuersie and so are many times ouertaken for want of due consideration eyther some common cause leading them all inâ—â— error or one mans ouersight deceiuing many through their too much credulitie and easinesse of beliefe Though ten persons be brought to giue testimony in any cause yet if the knowledge they haue of the thing whereunto they come as witnesses appeare to haue growne from some one amongst them and to haue spred it selfe from hand to hand they all are in force but as one testimony Nor is it otherwise here where the daughter Churches do speake their mothers dialect here where so many sing one song by reason that hee is the guide of the quier concerning whose deserued authoritie amongst euen the grauest diuines we haue already spoken at large Will ye aske what should moue those many learned to be followers of one mans iudgement no necessitie of argument forcing them thereunto your demaund is answered by your selues Loath ye are to thinke that they whom ye iudge to haue attained as sound knowledge in all points of doctrine as any since the Apostles time should mistake in discipline Such is naturally our affection that whom in great things we mightily admire in them we are not perswaded willingly that any thing should be amisse The reason whereof is for that as dead flies putrifie the oyntment of the Apothecarie so a little folly him that is in estimation for wisedome This in euery profession hath too much authorized the iudgement of a few This with Germans hath caused Luther and with many other Churches Caluin to preuaile in all things Yet are we not able to define whether the wisedome of that God who setteth before vs in holy Scripture so many admirable paternes of vertue and no one of them without somewhat noted wherin they were culpable to the end that to him alone it might alwayes be acknowledged Thou onely art holy thou onely art iust might not permit those worthy vessels of his glory to be in some thinges blemished with the staine of humaine frailtie euen for this cause least wee should esteeme of any man aboue that which behoueth 5. Notwithstanding as though ye were able to say a great deale more then hitherto your bookes haue reuealed to the world earnest chalengers ye are of triall by some publique disputation Wherein if the thing ye craue bee no more then onely leaue to dispute openly about those matters that are in question the schooles in Vniuersities for any thing I know are open vnto you they haue their yearely Acts and Commencements besides other disputations both ordinary and vpon occasion wherein the seuerall parts of our owne Ecclesiasticall discipline are oftentimes offered vnto that kind of examination the learnedest of you haue bene of late yeares noted seldome or neuer absent from thence at the time of those greater assemblies and the fauour of proposing there in conuenient sort whatsoeuer ye can obiect which thing my selfe haue knowne them to graunt of Scholasticall courtesie vnto straungers neither hath as I thinke nor euer will I presume be denied you If your suite be to haue some great extraordinary confluence in expectation whereof the lawes that already are should sleepe and haue no power ouer you till in the hearing of thousands ye all did acknowledge your error and renounce the further prosecutioÌ„ of your cause happily they whose authority is required vnto the satisfying of your demaund do think it both dangerous to admit such coÌ„course of deuided minds vnmeet that laws which being once solemnly established are to exact obedience of all men and to constraine therunto should so far stoup as to hold theÌ„selues in suspeÌ„se froÌ„ taking any effect vpoÌ„ you till some disputer can perswade you to be obedient A law is the deed of the whole body politike wherof if ye iudge your selues to be any part theÌ„ is the law eueÌ„ your deed also And were it reasoÌ„ in things of this qualitie to giue meÌ„ audience pleading for the ouerthrow of that which their own very deed hath ratified Laws that haue bin approued may be no man doubteth again repealed to that end also disputed against by the authors thereof theÌ„selues But this is wheÌ„ the whole doth deliberate what laws each part shal obserue not when a part refuseth the laws which the whole hath orderly agreed vpon NotwithstaÌ„ding for as much as the cause we maintain is God be thanked such as needeth not to shun any triall might it please theÌ„ on whose approbatioÌ„ the matter dependeth to coÌ„descend so far vnto you in this behalf I wish hartily that proofe were made euen by solemne confereÌ„ce in orderly quiet sort whether you would your selues be satisfied or else could by satisfying others draw theÌ„ to your part Prouided alwaies first in asmuch as ye go about to destroy a thing which is in force to draw in that which hath not as yet bin receiued to impose on vs that which we think not our selues bound vnto to ouerthrow those things whereof we are possessed that therefore
We may not giue our selues this liberty to bring in any thing of our will nor choose any thing that other men bring in of their will we haue the Apostles themselues for authors which themselues brought nothing of their owne wil but the discipline which they receiued of Christ they deliuered faithfully vnto the people In which place the name of discipline importeth not as they who alleage it would faine haue it construed but as any man who noteth the circumstance of the place and the occasion of vttering the words will easily acknowledge euen the selfe same thing it signifieth which the name of doctrine doth and as well might the one as the other there haue bene vsed To helpe them farther doth not Saint Ierome after the selfe same maner dispute We beleeue it not because we reade it not Yea We ought not so much as to knowe the things which the booke of the Lawe containeth not sayth Saint Hilarie Shall we hereupon then conclude that we may not take knowledge of or giue credit vnto any thing which sense or experience or report or art doth propose vnlesse we find the same in scripture No it is too plaine that so farre to extend their speeches is to wrest them against their true intent and meaning To vrge any thing vpon the Church requiring thereunto that religious assent of Christian beliefe wherewith the words of the holy Prophets are receiued to vrge any thing as part of that supernaturall and Celestially reuealed truth which God hath taught and not to shewe it in Scripture this did the auncient Fathers euermore thinke vnlawfull impious execrable And thus as their speeches were meant so by vs they must be restrained As for those alleaged words of Cyprian The christian religion shall find that out of this scripture rules of all doctrines haue sprâ—ng and that from hence doth spring and hether doth returne whatsoeuer the Ecclesiasticall discipline doth coÌ„teine surely this place would neuer haue bin brought forth in this cause if it had bene but once read ouer in the author himselfe out of whom it is cited For the words are vttered concerning that one principall commaundement of loue in the honour whereof he speaketh after this sort Surely this commaundement containeth the Law and the Prophets and in this one word is the abridgement of al the volumes of scripture This nature and reason and the authority of thy word O Lord doth proclaime this we haue heard out of thy mouth herein the perfection of all religion doth consist This is the first commandement and the last thing being written in the booke of life is as it were an euerlasting lesson both to men and Angels Let Christian religion reade this one word and meditate vpon this commaundement and out of this scripture it shall find the rules of all learning to haue sprung and from hence to haue risen and hither to returne whatsoeuer the Ecclesiasticall discipline containeth and that in all things it is vaine and bootelesse which charity confirmeth not Was this a sentence trow you of so great force to proue that Scripture is the onely rule of all the actions of men Might they not hereby euen as well proue that one commandement of Scripture is the onely rule of all things and so exclude the rest of the Scripture as now they do all meanes besides Scripture But thus it fareth when too much desire of contradiction causeth our speech rather to passe by number then to stay for waight Well but Tertullian doth in this case speake yet more plainely The scripture sayth he denieth what it noteth not which are indeed the words of Tertullian But what the scripture reckoneth vp the Kings of Israell and amongst those Kings Dauid the scripture reckoneth vp the sonnes of Dauid and amongst those sonnes Salomon To proue that amongst the Kings of Israell there was no Dauid but only one no Salomon but one in the sonnes of Dauid Tertullians argument will fitly proue For in as much as the scripture did propose to recken vp all if there were moe it would haue named them In this case the scripture doth deny the thing it noteth not Howbeit I could not but thinke that man to do me some peece of manifest iniury which would hereby fasten vpon me a generall opinion as if I did thinke the scripture to deny the very raigne of King Henry the eight because it no where noteth that any such King did raigne Tertullians speech is probable concerning such matter as he there speaketh of There was saith Tertullian no second Lamech like to him that had two wiues the scripture denieth what it noteth not As therefore it noteth one such to haue bene in that age of the world so had there beene moe it would by likelihood as well haue noted many as one What infer we now hereupon There was no second Lamech the scripture denieth what it noteth not Were it consonant vnto reason to diuorce these two sentences the former of which doth shew how the later is restrained and not marking the former to conclude by the later of them that simply whatsoeuer any man at this day doth thinke true is by the scripture denied vnlesse it be there affirmed to be true I wonder that a cause so weake and feeble hath bene so much persisted in But to come vnto those their sentences wherein matters of action are more apparantly touched the name of Tertullian is as before so here againe pretended who writing vnto his wife two bookes and exhorting her in the one to liue a widdow in case God before her should take him vnto his mercy and in the other if she did marry yet not to ioyne her selfe to an infidel as in those times some widowes Christian had done for the aduancement of their estate in this present world he vrgeth very earnestly Saint Paules words onely in the Lord whereupon he demaundeth of them that thinke they may do the contrary what Scripture they can shew where God hath dispensed and graunted licence to do against that which the blessed Apostle so strictly doth inioyne And because in defence it might perhaps be replied seeing God doth will that couples which are maried when bothe are infidels if either party chaunce to be after conuerted vnto Christianity this should not make separation betweene them as long as the vnconuerted was willing to reteine the other on whom the grace of Christ had shined wherefore then should that let the making of mariage which doth not dissolue mariage being made after great reasons shewed why God doth in Conuerts being maried allow continuance with infidels and yet disallow that the faithfull when they are free should enter into bonds of wedlocke with such concludeth in the end concerning those women that so mary They that please not the Lord do euen thereby offend the Lord they do euen thereby throw themselues into euill that is to say while they please him not by
bene quite and cleane extinguished but hee tooke it as though there had not bene remaining in the worlde any besides himselfe that carried a true and an vpright heart towardes God with care to serue him according vnto his holy will For lacke of diligent obseruing the difference first betweene the Church of God mysticall and visible then betweene the visible sound and corrupted sometimes more sometimes lesse the ouersightes are neither fewe nor light that haue beene committed This deceiueth them and nothing else who thinke that in the time of the first worlde the family of Noah did containe all that were of the visible Church of God From hence it grewe and from no other cause in the world that the Affricane Bishopes in the Councell of Carthage knowing how the administration of Baptisme belongeth onelye to the Church of Christ and supposing that heretiques which were apparantly seuered from the sound beleeuing Church could not possibly be of the Church of Iesus Christ thought it vtterly against reason that baptisme administred by men of corrupt beleefe should be accounted as a Sacrament And therefore in maintenance of rebaptization their arguments are built vpon the forealeaged ground That heretiques are not at all any part of the Church of Christ. Our Sauiour founded his Church on a rocke and not vpon heresie power of baptizing he gaue to his Apostles vnto heretiques he gaue it not Wherefore they that are without the Church and oppose themselues against Christ do but scatter his sheepe and flocke without the Church baptize they cannot Againe Are heretiques Christians or are they not If they be Christians wherefore remaine they not in Gods Church If they be no Christians how make they Christians Or to what purpose shall those words of the Lord serue He which is not with me is against me and He which gathereth not with me scattereth Wherefore euident it is that vpon misbegotten children and the brood of Antichrist without rebaptization the holy Ghost cannot descend But none in this case so earnest as Cyprian I know no baptizme but one and that in the Church only none without the Church where he that doth cast out the Diuell hath the Diuell he doth examine about beleefe whose lips and words do breath foorth a canker the faithlesse doth offer the articles of faith a wicked creature forgiueth wickednesse in the name of Christ Antichrist signeth he which is cursed of God blesseth a dead carrion promiseth life a man vnpeaceable giueth peace a blasphemer calleth vpō the name of God a prophane person doth exercise priesthood a sacrilegious wretch doth prepare the Altar and in the necke of all these that euill also commeth the Eucharist a very Bishop of the Diuell doth presume to consecrate All this was true but not sufficient to prooue that heretiques were in no sort any part of the visible Church of Christ and consequently their baptisme no baptisme This opinion therefore was afterwards both condemned by a better aduised councell and also reuoked by the chiefest of the authors thereof themselues What is it but onely the selfe same error and misconceite wherewith others being at this day likewise possest they aske vs where our Church did lurke in what caue of the earth it slept for so many hundreds of yeeres together before the birth of Martin Luther As if we were of opinion that Luther did erect a new Church of Christ. No the Church of Christ which was from the beginning is and continueth vnto the end Of which Church all parts haue not bene alwayes equally sincere sound In the dayes of Abia it plainely appeareth that Iuda was by many degrees more free from pollution then Israell as that solemne oration sheweth wherein he pleadeth for the one against the other in this wise O Ieroboam and all Israell heare you me Haue ye not driuen away the Priests of the Lord the sonnes of Aaron and the Leuits and haue made you Priests like the people of nations whosoeuer commeth to consecrate with a young bullocke and seuen Rammes the same may be a Priest of them that are no Gods But we belong vnto the Lord our God and haue not forsaken him and the Priests the sonnes of Aaron minister vnto the Lord euery morning and euery euening burnt offerings and sweete incense and the bread is set in order vpon the pure table and the candlesticke of gold with the lamps therof to burne euery euening for we keepe the watch of the Lord our God but ye haue forsaken him In Saint Paules time the integritie of Rome was famous Corinth many wayes reproued they of Galatia much more out of square In Saint Iohns time Ephesus and Smyrna in farre better state then Thyatira and Pergamus were We hope therefore that to reforme our selues if at any time we haue done amisse is not to seuer our selues from the Church we were of before In the Church we were and we are so still Other difference betweene our estate before and now we know none but onely such as we see in Iuda which hauing some time beene idolatrous became afterwards more soundly religious by renouncing idolatrie and superstition If Ephraim be ioyned vnto idoles the counsell of the Prophet is Let him alone If Israell play the harlot let not Iuda sinne If it seeme euill vnto you sayth Iosua to serue the Lord choose you this day whom ye will serue whether the Gods whom your fathers serued beyond the floud or the Gods of the Amorites in whose land ye dwell but I and mine house will serue the Lord. The indisposition therefore of the Church of Rome to reforme her selfe must be no stay vnto vs from performing our duty to God euen as desire of retaining conformity with them could be no excuse if we did not performe that dutie Notwithstanding so farre as lawfully we may we haue held and do hold fellowship with them For euen as the Apostle doth say of Israell that they are in one respect enimies but in another beloued of God In like sort with Rome we dare not communicate concerning sundrie her grosse and grieuous abominations yet touching those maine parts of Christian truth wherein they constantly still persist we gladly acknowledge them to bee of the familie of Iesus Christ and our hearty prayer vnto God almighty is that being conioyned so farre foorth with them they may at the length if it be his will so yeeld to frame and reforme themselues that no distraction remaine in any thing but that we all may with one heart and one mouth glorifie God the father of our Lord and Sauiour whose Church we are As there are which make the Church of Rome vtterly no Church at all by reason of so many so greeuous errors in their doctrines so we haue them amongst vs who vnder pretence of imagined corruptions in our discipline do giue euen as hard a iudgement of the Church of England it selfe But whatsoeuer either the
to Ierusalem the erecting of Pulpets Chaires to teach in the order of buriall the rites of mariage with such like being matters appertaining to the Church yet are not any where prescribed in the law but were by the Churches discretion instituted What then shall we thinke Did they hereby adde to the law and so displeas◠God by that which they did None so hardly perswaded of them Doth their law deliuer vnto thē the self same general rules of the apostle that framing therby their orders they might in that respect cleare thēselues frō doing amisse S. Paule would then of likelihood haue cited them out of the Law which we see he doth not The truth is they are rules and Canons of that law which is written in all men hearts the Church had for euer no lesse then now stood bound to obserue them whether the Apostle had mentioned them or no. Seeing therefore those Canons do bind as they are edicts of nature which the Iewes obseruing as yet vnwritten and thereby framing such Church-orders as in their lawe were not prescribed are notwithstanding in that respect vnculpable it followeth that sundry things may be lawfully done in the Church so as they be not done against the Scripture although no Scripture do commaund them but the Church only following the light of reason iudge them to be in discretion meete Secondly vnto our purpose and for the question in hand whether the commaundements of God in Scripture be generall or speciall it skilleth not For if being particularly applied they haue in regard of such particulars a force constraining vs to take some one certaine thing of many and to leaue the rest whereby it would come to passe that any other particular but that one being established the generall rules themselues in that case would be broken then is it vtterly impossible that God should leaue any thing great or small free for the Church to establish or not Thirdly if so be they shall graunt as they cannot otherwise do that these rules are no such lawes as require any one particular thing to be done but serue rather to direct the Church in all things which she doth so that free and lawfull it is to deuise any Ceremony to receiue any order and to authorize any kind of regiment no speciall commandement being thereby violated and the same being thought such by them to whom the iudgement thereof appertaineth as that it is not scandalous but decent tending vnto edification and setting forth the glory of God that is to say agreeable vnto the generall rules of holy Scripture this doth them no good in the world for the furtherance of their purpose That which should make for them must proue that men ought not to make lawes for Church regiment but onely keepe those lawes which in Scripture they find made The plaine intent of the booke of Ecclesiasticall discipline is to shew that men may not deuise lawes of Church gouernment but are bound for euer to vse and to execute only those which God himselfe hath already deuised and deliuered in the Scripture The selfe same drift the Admonitioners also had in vrging that nothing ought to be done in the Church according vnto any lawe of mans deuising but all according to that which God in his word hath commanded Which not remembring they gather out of Scripture generall rules to bee followed in making lawes and so in effect they plainely graunt that we our selues may lawfully make lawes for the Church and are not bound out of Scripture onely to take lawes already made as they meant who first alleaged that principle whereof we speake One particular platforme it is which they respected and which they labored thereby to force vpon all Churches whereas these generall rules do not let but that there may well enough be sundrie It is the particular order established in the Church of England which thereby they did intend to alter as being not commanded of God whereas vnto those generall rules they know we do not defend that we may hold any thing vncomfortable Obscure it is not what meaning they had who first gaue out that graund axiome and according vnto that meaning it doth preuaile farre and wide with the fauourers of that part Demaund of them wherefore they conforme not themselues vnto the order of our Church and in euery particular their answer for the most part is We find no such thing commaunded in the word Whereby they plainely require some speciall commaundement for that which is exacted at their hands neither are they content to haue matters of the Church examined by generall rules and Canons As therefore in controuersies betweene vs and the Church of Rome that which they practise is many times euen according to the very grosnesse of that which the vulgar sort conceiueth when that which they teach to maintaine it is so nice and subtle that hold can very hardly be taken thereupon in which cases we should do the Church of God small benefite by disputing with them according vnto the finest points of their darke conueyances and suffering that sense of their doctrine to go vncontrolled wherein by the common sort it is ordinarily receiued and practised So considering what disturbance hath growne in the Church amongst our selues and how the authors thereof do commonly build altogether on this as a sure foundation Nothing ought to be established in the Church which in the word of God is not commanded were it reason that we should suffer the same to passe without controulement in that currant meaning whereby euery where it preuaileth and still till some strange construction were made thereof which no man would lightly haue thought on but being driuen thereunto for a shift 8 The last refuge in maintaining this position is thus to conster it Nothing ought to be established in the Church but that which is commaunded in the word of God that is to say All Church-orders must be grounded vpon the word of God in such sort grounded vpon the word not that being found out by some starre or light of reason or learning or other helpe they may be receiued so they be not against the word of God but according at least wise vnto the generall rules of Scripture they must bee made VVhich is in effect as much as to say We knowe not what to say well in defence of this position and therefore least we should say it is false there is no remedie but to say that in some sense or other it may be true if we could tell howe First that Scholie had neede of a very fauourable Reader and a tractable that should thinke it plaine construction when to be commaunded in the word and grounded vpon the word are made all one If when a man may liue in the state of Matrimonie seeking that good thereby which nature principally desireth he make rather choyce of a contrarie life in regard of Saint Paules iudgement that which hee doth is manifestly grounded
therunto may we cause our faith without reason to appeare reasonable in the eyes of men This being required euen of learners in the schoole of Christ the duty of their teachers in bringing them vnto such ripenes must needes be somewhat more then only to read the sentences of scripture and then paraphrastically to scholie them to vary theÌ„ with sundry formes of speech without arguing or disputing about anything which they contain This method of teaching may coÌ„mend it selfe vnto the world by that easines facilitie which is in it but a law or a patterne it is not as some do imagine for all men to follow that will do good in the Church of Christ. Our Lord and Sauiour himselfe did hope by disputation to do some good yea by disputatioÌ„ not onely of but against the truth albeit with purpose for the truth That Christ should be the sonne of Dauid was truth yet against this truth our Lorde in the Gospell obiecteth If Christ be the son of Dauid how doth Dauid call him Lord There is as yet no way knowne how to dispute or to determine of things disputed without the vse of naturall reason If we please to adde vnto Christ their example who followed him as neere in all thinges as they could the Sermon of Paule and Barnabas set downe in the Actes where the people would haue offered vnto them sacrifice in that Sermon what is there but onely naturall reason to disproue their acte O men why doe you these thinges We are men euen subiect to the selfe same passions with you wee preach vnto you to leaue these vanities and to turne to the liuing God the God that hath not left himselfe without witnesse in that he hath done good to the world giuing raine and fruitfull seasons filling our heart with ioy and gladnesse Neither did they onely vse reason in winning such vnto Christian beleefe as were yet thereto vnconuerted but with beleeuers themselues they followed the selfesame course In that great and solemne assembly of beleeuing Iewes how doth Peter proue that the Gentiles were partakers of the grace of God as well as they but by reason drawne from those effectes which were apparently knowne amongst them God which knoweth hearts hath borne them witnesse in giuing vnto them the holy Ghost as vnto vs. The light therefore which the starre of naturall reason and wisedome casteth is too bright to be obscured by the mist of a word or two vttered to diminish that opinion which iustly hath beene receiued concerning the force and vertue thereof euen in matters that touch most nearely the principall duties of men and the glory of the eternall God In all which hitherto hath beene spoken touching the force and vse of mans reason in thinges diuine I must craue that I be not so vnderstood or coÌ„strued as if any such thing by vertue thereof could be done without the aide and assistance of Gods most blessed spirit The thing wee haue handled according to the question mooued about it which question is whether the light of reason be so pernitious that in deuising lawes for the church men oughâ— not by it to search what may be fit coÌ„uenient For this cause therfore we haue endeuoured to make it appeare how in the nature of reason it selfe there is no impedimeÌ„t but that the self-same spirit which reuealeth the things that god hath set down in his law may also be thoughâ— to aid direct men in finding out by the light of reason what lawes are expedient to be made for the guiding of his Church ouer and besides them that are in scripture Herein therfore we agree with those men by whom humane lawes are defined to be ordinances which such as haue lawfull authorisiâ— giuen them foâ— that purpose do probably draw from the lawes of nature God by discourse of reason aided with the influence of diuine grace And for that cause it is not said amisse touching Ecclesiasticall canons that by instinct of the holy Ghost they haue bin made and consecrated by the reuerend acceptation of all the world 9 Lawes for the church are not made as they should be vnles the makers follow such directioÌ„ as they ought to be guided by Wherin that scripture standeth noâ— the church of God in any stead of serueth nothing at aâ—â—o direct but may be let passe as needles to be consulted with we iudge it prophane impious and irreligious to thinke For although it were in vaine to make laws which the scripture hath already made because what we are already there coÌ„manded to do on our parts there resteth nothing but only that it be executed yet because both in that which we are commanded in concerneth the duty of the church by law to prouide that the loosenes and slacknes of men may not cause the commandements of God to be vnexecuted and a number of things there are for which the scripture hath not prouided by any law but left them vnto the carefull discretion of the Church we are to search how the Church in these cases may be well directed to make that prouision by lawes which is most conuenient c fit And what is so in these cases partly scripture and partly reason must teach to discerne Scripture comprehending examples lawes lawes some naturall and some positiue examples neither are there for al cases which require lawes to be made and wheâ— they are they can but direct as precedents onely Naturall lawes direct In such sorte that in all things wee must for euer doe according vnto them positiue so that against them in no case we may doe any thing as long as the will of God is that they should remaine in force Howbeit when scripture doth yeelde vs precedents how far forth they are to be followed when it giueth naturall lawes what particular order is thereunto most agreeable when positiue which way to make lawes vnrepugnant vnto them yea though all these should wanâ— yeâ— what kinde of ordinances would be most for that good of the Church which is aimed at al this must be by reason found out And therefore Tib refuse the conduct of the light of nature saith S. Augustine is not folly alone but accompanied with impietie The greatest amongst the Schoole diuines studying how to set downe by exact definition the nature of an humane lawe'â— of which nature all the Churches constitutions are found not which way better to do it thâ—n in these words Out of the precepâ—s of the law of nature as out of certaine coÌ„mon vndemonstrable principles mans reason doth necessarily proceede vnto certaine more particular determinations which particular determinations beeing found out according vnto the reason of man they haue the names of humane lawes so that such other conditions be therein kept as the making of lawes doth require that is if they whose authoritie is thereunto required do establish and publish them as lawes And the truth is that all our
controuersie in this cause concerning the orders of the Church is what particulars the Church may appoint That which doth finde them out is the force of mans reason That which doth guide and direct his reason is first the generall law of nature which law of nature and the morall law of scripture are in the substance of law all one But because there are also in scripture a number of lawes particular and positiue which being in force may not by any law of man be violated we are in making lawes to haue thereunto an especiall eie As for example it might perhaps seeme reasonable vnto the Church of God following the generall laws concerning the nature of mariage to ordaine in particular that cosen germains shall not marry Which law notwithstanding ought not to be receiued in the Church if there should be in the scripture a law particular to the contrary forbidding vtterly the bonds of mariage to be so far forth abridged The same Thomas therfore whose definition of humane lawes we mentioned before doth adde thereunto his caution concerning the rule and canon whereby to make them Humane lawes are measures in respect of men whose actiōs they must direct howbeit such measures they are as haue also their higher rules to be measured by which rules are two the law of God and the law of nature So that laws humane must be made according to the generall lawes of nature without contradiction vnto any positiue lawe in scripture Otherwise they are ill made Vnto lawes thus made and receiued by a whole Church they which liue within the bosome of that Church must not think it a matter indifferēt either to yeeld or not to yeeld obedience Is it a small offence to despise the Church of God My sonne keepe thy fathers comaundement saith Salomon forget not thy mothers instruction bind thē bothe alwaies about thine hart It doth not stand with the duty which we owe to our heauenly fathers that to the ordinances of our mother the Church we should shew our selues disobedient Let vs not say we keepe the commandements of the one when we breake the law of the other For vnlesse we obserue bothe we obey neither And what doth let but that we may obserue both when they are not the one to the other in any sort repugnant For of such lawes only we speake as being made in forme and maner already declared can haue in them no contradiction vnto the lawes of almighty God Yea that which is more the lawes thus made God himselfe doth in such sort authorize that to despise them is to despise in them him It is a loose licentious opinion which the Anabaptists haue embraced holding that a Christian mans libertie is lost and the soule which Christ hath redeemed vnto himselfe iniuriously drawne into seruitude vnder the yoke of humane power if any law be now imposed besides the Gospell of Iesus Christ in obedience whereunto the spirite of God and not the constraint of men is to leade vs according to that of the blessed Apostle Such as are led by the spirits of God they are the sonnes of God and not such as liue in thraldome vnto men Their iudgement is therefore that the Church of Christ should admit no law makers but the Euangelists The author of that which causeth another thing to be is author of that thing also which thereby is caused The light of naturall vnderstanding wit and reason is from God he it is which thereby doth illuminate euery man entering into the world If there proceede from vs any thing afterwardes corrupt and naught the mother thereof is our owne darknes neither doth it proceed from any such cause whereof God is the author He is the author of all that we think or doe by vertue of that light which himselfe hath giuen And therefore the lawes which the very Heathens did gather direct their actiōs by so far forth as they proceeded from the light of nature God himselfe doth acknowledge to haue proceeded euen from himselfe and that he was the writer of them in the tables of their hearts How much more then he the author of those lawes which haue bene made by his Saints endued furder with the heauenly grace of his spirit and directed as much as might be with such instructiōs as his sacred word doth yeeld Surely if we haue vnto those lawes that dutifull regard which their dignitie doth require it will not greatly need that we should be exhorted to liue in obedience vnto them If they haue God himselfe for their author contempt which is offered vnto them cannot choose but redound vnto him The safest and vnto God the most acceptable way of framing our liues therfore is with all humilitie lowlines and singlenes of hart to studie which way our willing obedience both vnto God and man may be yeelded euen to the vtmost of that which is due 10 Touching the mutabilitie of lawes that concerne the regiment politie of the church changed they are when either altogether abrogated or in part repealed or augmented with farther additions Wherein wee are to note that this question about changing of lawes concerneth onely such lawes as are positiue and do make that now good or euill by being commanded or forbidden which otherwise of it selfe were not simply the one or the other Vnto such lawes it is expressely sometimes added how long they are to continue in force If this be no where exprest then haue we no light to direct our iudgemēts concerning the chaungeablenes or immutabilitie of them but by considering the nature and qualitie of such lawes The nature of euery lawe must be iudged of by the ende for which it was made and by the aptnes of thinges therein prescribed vnto the same end It may so fall out that the reason why some lawes of God were giuen is neither opened nor possible to be gathered by wit of man As why God should forbid Adam that one tree there was no way for Adam euer to haue certainely vnderstood And at Adams ignorance of this point Satan tooke aduantage vrging the more securely a false cause because the true was vnto Adam vnknowne Why the Iewes were forbidden to plow their ground with an oxe and an asse why to cloath themselues with mingled attire of wooll and linnen both it was vnto them vnto vs it remaineth obscure Such lawes perhaps cannot be abrogated sauing onely by whom they were made because the intent of them being knowne vnto none but the author he alone can iudge how long it is requisite they should endure But if the reason why things were instituted may be known and being knowne do appeare manifestly to be of perpetuall necessitie then are those things also perpetuall vnlesse they cease to be effectuall vnto that purpose for which they were at the first instituted Because when a thing doth cease to be auaileable vnto the end which gaue it being the
it hath taught become vnrequisite sometime because we neede not vse it sometime also because wee cannot In which respect for mine owne part although I see that certaine reformed Churches the Scottish especially and French haue not that which best agreeth with the sacred scripture I meane the gouernment that is by Bishops in as much as both those churches are fallen vnder a different kinde of regiment which to remedie it is for the one altogether too late and too soone for the other during their present affliction and trouble this their defect and imperfection I had rather lament in such case then exagitate considering that men oftentimes without any fault of their owne may be driuen to want that kinde of politie or regiment which is best and to content themselues with that which either the irremediable error of former times or the necessitie of the present hath cast vpon them 5. Now because that position first mentioned which holdeth it necessarie that all thinges which the Church may lawfully doe in her owne regiment be commaunded in holy scripture hath by the latter defendors thereof beene greatly qualified who though perceiuing it to be ouer extreame are notwithstanding loth to acknowledge any ouersight therein and therefore labour what they may to salue it by construction we haue for the more perspicuitie deliuered what was thereby meant at the first 6. how iniurious a thing it were vnto all the Churches of God for men to hold it in that meaning 7. and how vnperfect their interpretations are who so much labour to helpe it eyther by diuiding commaundements of scripture into two kindes and so defending that all thinges must be commaunded if not in speciall yet in generall precepts 8. or by taking it as meant that in case the Church doe deuise any new order shee ought therein to follow the direction of scripture onely and not any starlight of mans reason 9. Bothe which euasions being cut off wee haue in the next place declared after what sort the Church may lawfully frame to her selfe lawes of politie and in what reckoning such positiue lawes both are with God and should be with men 10. Furthermore because to abridge the libertie of the Church in this behalfe it hath bene made a thing very odious that when God himselfe hath deuised some certaine lawes and committed them to sacred scripture man by abrogation addition or any way should presume to alter and change them it was of necessitie to be examined whether the authoritie of God in making or his care in committing those his lawes vnto scripture be sufficient arguments to proue that God doth in no case allow they should suffer any such kind of change 11. The last refuge for proofe that diuine lawes of Christian Church-politie may not be altered by extinguishment of any olde or addition of new in that kinde is partly a marueilous strange discourse that Christ vnlesse he would show himselfe not so faithfull as Moses or not so wise as Lycurgus and Solon must needes haue set downe in holy scripture some certaine complete and vnchangeable forme of politie and partly a coloured shewe of some euidence where change of that sort of lawes may seeme expressely forbidden although in truth nothing lesse be done I might haue added hereunto their more familiar and popular disputes as The Church is a Citie yea the Citie of the great king and the life of a Citie is politie The Church is the house of the liuing God and what house can there be without some order for the gouernment of it In the royall house of a Prince there must be officers for gouernment such as not any seruant in the house but the Prince whose the house is shall iudge cōuenient So the house of God must haue orders for the gouernment of it such as not any of the household but God himselfe hath appointed It cannot stand with the loue and wisedome of God to leaue such order vntaken as is necessary for the due gouernment of his Church The numbers degrees orders and attire of Salomons seruants did shewe his wisedome therefore he which is greater then Salomon hath not failed to leaue in his house such orders for gouernment thereof as may serue to be as a looking glasse for his prouidence care and wisedome to be seene in That little sparke of the light of nature which remaineth in vs may serue vs for the affaires of this life But as in all other matters concerning the kingdome of heauen so principally in this which concerneth the very gouernment of that kingdome needfull it is wee should be taught of God As long as men are perswaded of any order that it is only of men they presume of their owne vnderstanding and they thinke to deuise an other not only as good but better then that which they haue receiued By seueritie of punishment this presumption and curiositie may be restrained But that cannot worke such chearefull obedience as is yeelded where the conscience hath respect to God as the author of lawes and orders This was it which countenanced the laws of Moses made concerning outward politie for the administration of holy things The like some law giuers of the Heathens did pretend but falsely yet wisely discerning the vse of this perswasion For the better obedience sake therfore it was expediēt that God should be author of the politie of his church But to what issue doth all this come A man would thinke that they which hold out with such discourses were of nothing more fully perswaded thē of this that the scripture hath set downe a complete forme of Church-politie vniuersall perpetuall altogether vnchangeable For so it would follow if the premises were sound and strong to such effect as is pretended Notwithstanding they which haue thus formally maintained argument in defence of the first ouersight are by the very euidence of truth themselues constrained to make this in effect their conclusion that the Scripture of God hath many thinges concerning Church-politie that of those many some are of greater waight some of lesse that what hath beene vrged as touching immutabilitie of lawes it extendeth in truth no further then onely to lawes wherein thinges of greater moment are prescribed Now those things of greater moment what are they Forsooth Doctors Pastors Layelders Elderships compounded of these three Synods consisting of many Elderships Deacons women-church-seruants or widowes free consent of the people vnto actiōs of greatest moment after they be by Churches or Synodes orderly resolued All this forme of politie if yet wee may terme that a forme of building when men haue laide a fewe rafters together and those not all of the soundest neither but howsoeuer all this forme they conclude is prescribed in such sort that to adde to it any thing as of like importance for so I thinke they meane or to abrogate of it any thing at all is vnlawfull In which resolution if they will firmely and constantly persist I see not
but that concerning the points which hitherto haue beene disputed of they must agree that they haue molested the Church with needelesse opposition and henceforward as we said before betake themselues wholly vnto the triall of particulars whether euery of those thinges which they esteeme as principall be eyther so esteemed of or at all established for perpetuitie in holy scripture and whether any particular thing in our Church-politie bee receiued other then the scripture alloweth of eyther in greater thinges or in smaller The matters wherein Church-politie is conuersant are the publique religious duties of the Church as the administration of the word and sacraments prayers spirituall censures and the like To these the Church standeth alwayes bound Lawes of politie are laws which appoint in what maner these duties shal be performed In performance whereof because all that are of the Church cannot ioyntly and equally worke the first thing in politie required is a difference of persons in the Church without which difference those functions cannot in orderly sort bee executed Hereupon we hold that Gods clergie are a state which hath bene and will be as long as there is a Church vpō earth necessarie by the plaine word of God himselfe a state whereunto the rest of Gods people must be subiect as touching things that appertaine to their soules health For where politie is it cannot but appoint some to be leaders of others and some to be led by others If the blind leade the blind they both perish It is with the clergie if their persons be respected euen as it is with other men their qualitie many times farre beneath that which the dignitie of their place requireth Howbeit according to the order of politie they being the lightes of the world others though better and wiser must that way be subiect vnto them Againe for as much as where the clergie are any great multitude order doth necessarily require that by degrees they be distinguished wee holde there haue euer bene and euer ought to be in such case at least wise two sorts of Ecclesiasticall persons the one subordinate vnto the other as to the Apostles in the beginning and to the Bishops alwaies since wee finde plainely both in scripture and in all Ecclesiasticall records other ministers of the word and sacraments haue bene Moreouer it cannot enter into any mans conceipt to thinke it lawfull that euery man which listeth should take vpon him charge in the Church and therefore a solemne admittance is of such necessitie that without it there can be no church-politie A number of particularities there are which make for the more conuenient being of these principall perpetuall parts in Ecclesiasticall politie but yet are not of such constant vse and necessitie in Gods Church Of this kind are times and places appointed for the exercise of religion specialties belonging to the publike solemnitie of the word the sacraments and praier the enlargement or abridgement of functions ministeriall depending vpon those two principall before mentioned to conclude euen whatsoeuer doth by way of formalitie circumstance concerne any publique action of the Church Now although that which the scripture hath of thinges in the former kind be for euer permanent yet in the later both much of that which the scripture teacheth is not alwaies needfull and much the Church of God shall alwaies neede which the scripture teacheth not So as the forme of politie by thē set downe for perpetuitie is three waies faultie Faultie in omitting some things which in scripture are of that nature as namely the difference that ought to bee of Pastors when they grow to any great multitude faultie in requiring Doctors Deacons Widowes and such like as thinges of perpetuall necessitie by the law of God which in truth are nothing lesse faultie also in vrging some thinges by scripture immutable as their Layelders which the scripture neither maketh immutable nor at all teacheth for any thing either we can as yet find or they haue hitherto beene able to proue But hereof more in the bookes that followe As for those maruellous discourses wherby they aduenture to argue that God must needs haue done the thing which they imagine was to be done I must confesse I haue often wondred at their exceeding boldnesse herein When the question is whether God haue deliuered in scripture as they affirme he hath a complet particular immutable forme of Church-politie why take they that other both presumptuous and superfluous labour to proue he should haue done it there being no way in this case to proue the deede of God sauing only by producing that euidence wherein he hath done it But if there be no such thing apparent vpon record they do as if one should demaund a legacie by force and vertue of some written testament wherein there being no such thing specified hee pleadeth that there it must needes be and bringeth argumēts from the loue or good-will which alwaies the testatour bore him imagining that these or the like proofes will conuict a testament to haue that in it which other mē can no where by reading find In matters which concerne the actions of God the most dutiful way on our part is to search what God hath done and with meeknes to admire that rather thē to dispute what he in congruitie of reason ought to do The waies which he hath whereby to do all things for the greatest good of his Church are mo in number thē we can search other in nature thē that we should presume to determine which of many should be the fittest for him to choose till such time as we see he hath chosen of many some one which one wee then may boldly conclude to be the fittest because he hath taken it before the rest When we doe otherwise surely we exceede our bounds who and where we are we forget and therefore needfull it is that our pride in such cases be controld and our disputes beaten backe with those demands of the blessed Apostle How vnsearchable are his iudgements and his waies past finding out Who hath knowne the minde of the Lord or who was his counsellor The fourth Booke Concerning their third assertion that our forme of Church-politie is corrupted with popish orders rites and ceremonies banished out of certaine reformed Churches whose example therein we ought to haue followed The matter conteined in this fourth Booke 1 HOw great vse ceremonies haue in the Church 2 The first thing they blame in the kinde of our ceremonies is that wee haue not in them auncient Apostolicall simplicitie but a greater pompe statelinesse 3 The second that so many of them are the same which the Church of Rome vseth and the reasons which they bring to proue them for that cause blame worthy 4 How when they go about to expound what popish ceremonies they meane they contradict their owne arguments against popish ceremonies 5 An answere to the argument whereby they would proue that sith wee allow the customes
all kind of furtherances vnto his cause could espie in the whole Scripture of God nothing which might breed at the least a probable opinion of likelihood that diuine authority it selfe was the same way somewhat inclinable And all which the wit euen of Caluin was able from thence to draw by sifting the very vtmost sentence and syllable is no more then that certaine speeches there are which to him did seeme to intimate that all Christian Churches ought to haue their Elderships indued with power of excommunication and that a part of those Elderships euery where should be chosen out frō amongst the laitie after that forme which himselfe had framed Geneua vnto But what argument are ye able to shew whereby it was euer prooued by Caluin that any one sentence of Scripture doth necessarily enforce these things or the rest wherein your opinion concurreth with his against the orders of your owne Church We should be iniurious vnto vertue it selfe if we did derogate from them whom their industrie hath made great Two things of principall moment there are which haue deseruedly procured him honour throughout the world the one his exceeding paynes in composing the Institutions of Christian Religion the other his no lesse industrious trauailes for exposition of holy Scripture according vnto the same institutions In which two things who soeuer they were that after him bestowed their labour he gayned the aduantage of preiudice against them if they gaine said and of glorie aboue them if they consented His writings published after the question about that discipline was once begunne omit not any the least occasion of extolling the vse and singular necessitie thereof Of what accompt the Maister of sentences was in the Church of Rome the same and more amongest the Preachers of reformed Churches Caluin had purchased so that the perfectest diuines were iudged they which were skilfullest in Caluins writings His bookes almost the very Canon to iudge both doctrine and discipline by French Churches both vnder others abroad and at home in their owne Countrey all cast according vnto that mould which Caluin had made The Church of Scotland in erecting the fabricke of their reformation tooke the selfe same paterne Till at length the discipline which was at the first so weake that without the staffe of their approbation who were not subiect vnto it themselues it had not brought others vnder subiection beganne now to challenge vniuersall obedience and to enter into open conflict with those very Churches which in desperate extremitie had bene relieuers of it To one of those Churches which liued in most peaceable sort and abounded as well with men for their learning in other professions singular as also with diuines whose equals were not elsewhere to be found a Church ordered by Gualters discipline and not by that which Geneua adoreth vnto this Church the Church of Heidelberge there commeth one who crauing leaue to dispute publiquely defendeth with open disdaine of their gouernement that To a Minister with his Eldership power is giuen by the law of God to excommunicate whomsoeuer yea euen kings and princes themselues Here were the seedes sowne of that controuersie which sprang vp betweene Beza and Erastus about the matter of excommunication whether there ought to be in all Churches an Eldership hauing power to excommunicate and a part of that Eldership to be of necessitie certaine chosen out from amongest the laity for that purpose In which disputation they haue as to me it seemeth deuided very equally the truth betweene them Beza most truly maintaining the necessitie of excommunication Erastus as truly the nonnecessitie of layelders to be ministers thereof Amongest our selues there was in King Edwards dayes some question moued by reason of a few mens scrupulositie touching certaine things And beyond Seas of them which fled in the dayes of Queene Mary some contenting themselues abroad with the vse of their owne Seruice booke at home authorised before their departure out of the Realme others liking better the Common prayer booke of the Church of Geneua translated those smaller contentions before begun were by this meane somewhat increased Vnder the happy raigne of her Maiesty which now is the greatest matter a while contended for was the wearing of the Cap and Surplesse till there came Admonitions directed vnto the high Court of Parliament by men who concealing their names thought it glory inough to discouer their minds and affections which now were vniuersally bent euen against all the orders and lawes wherein this Church is found vnconformable to the platforme of Geneua Concerning the defendor of which admonitions all that I meane to say is but this There will come a time when three words vttered with charitie and meeknesse shall receiue a farre more blessed reward then three thousand volumes written with disdainefull sharpnes of wit But the maner of mens writing must not alienate our hearts from the truth if it appeare they haue the truth as the followers of the same defendor do thinke he hath and in that perswasion they follow him no otherwise then himselfe doth Calvin Beza and others with the like perswasion that they in this cause had the truth We being as fully perswaded otherwise it resteth that some kind of tryall be vsed to find out which part is in error 3 The first meane whereby nature teacheth men to iudge good from euill as well in lawes as in other things is the force of their owne discretion Hereunto therefore Saint Paule referreth oftentimes his owne speech to be considered of by them that heard him I speake as to them which haue vnderstanding iudge ye what I say Againe afterward Iudge in your selues is it comely that a woman pray vncouered The exercise of this kind of iudgement our Sauiour requireth in the Iewes In them of Berea the Scripture commendeth it Finally whatsoeuer we do if our owne secret iudgement consent nor vnto it as fit and good to be done the doing of it to vs is sinne although the thing it selfe be allowable Saint Paules rule therefore generally is Let euery man in his owne minde be fully perswaded of that thing which he either alloweth or doth Some things are so familiar and plaine that truth from falshood and good from euill is most easily discerned in them euen by men of no deepe capacitie And of that nature for the most part are things absolutely vnto all mens saluation necessarie either to be held or denied either to be done or auoided For which cause Saint Augustine acknowledgeth that they are not onely set downe but also plainely set downe in Scripture so that he which heareth or readeth may without any great difficultie vnderstand Other things also there are belonging though in a lower degree of importance vnto the offices of Christian men which because they are more obscure more intricate and hard to be iudged of therefore God hath appointed some to spend their whole time principally in the studie of things diuine to
that maketh them which way soeuer they take diligent in drawing their husbands children seruants friends and allies the same way apter through that naturall inclination vnto pity which breedeth in them a greater readines then in men to be bountifull towards their Preachers who suffer want apter through sundry opportunities which they especially haue to procure encouragements for their brethren finally apter through a singular delight which they take in giuing very large and particular intelligence how all neere about them stand affected as coÌ„cerning the same cause But be they women or be they men if once they haue tasted of that cup let any man of contrary opinion open his mouth to perswade them they close vp their eares his reasons they waigh not all is answered with rehearsall of the words of Iohn We are of God he that knoweth God heareth vs as for the rest ye are of the world for this worlds pompe vanity it is that ye speake and the world whose ye are heareth you Which cloake sitteth no lesse fit on the backe of their cause then of the Anabaptists when the dignitie authority and honour of Gods Magistrate is vpheld against them Shew these egerly affected men their inhabilitie to iudge of such matters their answer is God hath chosen the simple Conuince them of folly and that so plainely that very children vpbraid them with it they haue their bucklers of like defence Christs owne Apostle was accompted mad The best men euermore by the sentence of the world haue bene iudged to be out of their right minds When instruction doth them no good let them feele but the least degree of most mercifully tempered seueritie they fasten on the head of the Lords vicegerents here on earth whatsoeuer they any where find vttered against the cruelty of bloud-thirstie men and to themselues they draw all the sentences which Scripture hath in the fauour of innocencie persecuted for the truth yea they are of their due and deserued sufferings no lesse prowd then those ancient disturbers to whom S. Augustine writeth saying Martyrs rightly so named are they not which suffer for their disorder and for the vngodly breach they haue made of Christian vnitie but which for righteousnes sake are persecuted For Agar also suffered persecution at the hands of Sara wherein she which did impose was holy and she vnrighteous which did beare the buâ—then In like sort with theeues was the Lord himselfe crucified but they who were matcht in the paine which they suffered were in the cause of their sufferings disioyned If that must needs be the true Church which doth endure persecution and not that which persecuteth let them aske of the Apostle what Church Sara did represent when she held her maide in affliction For euen our mother which is free the heauenly Ierusalem that is to say the true Church of God was as he doth affirme prefigured in that very woman by whom the bondmaide was so sharply handled Although if all things be throughly skanned she did in truth more persecute Sara by prowd resistance then Sara hir by seueritie of punishment These are the pathes wherein ye haue walked that are of the ordinary sort of men these are the very steps ye haue troden and the manifest degrees whereby ye are of your guides and directors trained vp in that schoole a custome of inuring your cares with reproofe of faults especially in your gouernors an vse to attribute those faults to the kind of spirituall regiment vnder which ye liue boldnesse in warranting the force of their discipline for the cure of all such euils a slight of framing your conceipts to imagine that Scripture euery where fauoureth that discipline perswasion that the cause why ye find it in Scripture is the illumination of the spirit that the same spirit is a seale vnto you of your neernes vnto God that ye are by all meanes to nourish and witnesse it in your selues and to strengthen on euery side your minds against whatsoeuer might be of force to withdraw you from it 4. Wherefore to come vnto you whose iudgement is a lanterne of direction for all the rest you that frame thus the peoples hearts not altogether as I willingly perswade my selfe of a politique intent or purpose but your selues being first ouerborne with the waight of greater mens iudgements on your shoulders is laid the burthen of vpholding the cause by argument For which purpose sentences out of the word of God ye alleage diuerse but so that when the same are discust thus it alwayes in a manner falleth cut that what things by vertue thereof ye vrge vpon vs as altogether necessarie are found to be thence collected onely by poore and maruelous slight coniectures I need not giue instance in any one sentence so alleaged for that I thinke the instance in any alleaged otherwise a thing not easie to be giuen A verie strange thing sure it were that such a discipline as ye speake of should be taught by Christ and his Apostles in the word of God and no Church euer haue found it out nor receiued it till this present time contrariwise the gouernmeÌ„t against which ye beÌ„d your selues be obserued euery where throughout all generations and ages of the Christian world no Church euer perceiuing the word of God to bee against it Wee require you to finde out but one Church vpon the face of the whole earth that hath bene ordered by your discipline or hath not bene ordered by ours that is to say by episcopall regiment sithence the time that the blessed Apostles were here conuersant Many things out of antiquitie ye bring as if the purest times of the Church had obserued the selfesame orders which you require and as though your desire were that the Churches of olde should be paternes for vs to follow and euen glasses wherin we might see the practise of that which by you is gathered out of scripture But the truth is ye meane nothing lesse All this is done for fashions sake onely for ye complaine of it as of an iniury that meÌ„ should be willed to seeke for examples and paternes of gouernment in any of those times that haue bene before Ye plainly hold that froÌ„ the very Apostles times till this present age wherein your selues imagine ye haue found out a right patern of sound discipline there neuer was any time safe to be followed Which thing ye thus endeuour to proue Out of Egesippus ye say that Eusebius writeth how although as long as the Apostles liued the Church did remaine a pure virgin yet after the death of the Apostles and after they were once gone whom God vouchsafed to make hearers of the diuine wisedome with their owne eares the placing of wicked error began to come into the Church Clement also in a certaine place to confirme that there was corruption of doctrine immediately after the Apostles times alleageth the prouerb that There are few sonnes like their fathers Socrates
saith of the church of Rome Alexandria the most famous Churches in the Apostles times that about the yeare 430. the Romain Alexandrian Bishops leauing the sacred function were degenerate to a secular rule or dominioÌ„ HereupoÌ„ ye coÌ„clude that it is not safe to fetch our gouernment from any other then the Apostles times Wherein by the way it may be noted that in proposing the Apostles times as a paterne for the Church to follow though the desire of you all be one the drift and purpose of you all is not one The chiefest thing which lay reformers yawne for is that the Cleargie may through conformitie in state and condition be Apostolicall poore as the Apostles of Christ were poore In which one circumstance if they imagine so great perfection they must thinke that Church which hath such store of mendicant Friers a Church in that respect most happy Were it for the glory of God and the good of his Church in deede that the Cleargie should be left euen as bare as the Apostles when they had neither staffe nor scrip that God which should lay vpon them the condition of his Apostles would I hope endue them with the selfesame affection which was in that holy Apostle whose words concerning his owne right vertuous contentment of heart As well how to want as how to abound are a most fit episcopall emprese The Church of Christ is a body mysticall A body cannot stand vnlesse the parts thereof be proportionable Let it therefore be required on both parts at the hands of the Cleargie to be in meannesse of state like the Apostles at the hands of the laitie to be as they were who liued vnder the Apostles and in this reformation there will bee though little wisedome yet some indifferencie But your reformation which are of the Cleargie if yet it displease ye not that I should say ye are of the Cleargie seemeth to aime at a broader marke Ye thinke that he which will perfectly reforme must bring the forme of Church discipline vnto the state which then it was at A thing neither possible nor certaine nor absolutely conuenient Concerning the first what was vsed in the Apostles times the scripture fully declareth not so that making their times the rule and Canon of Church politie ye make a rule which being not possible to be fully knowne is as impossible to be kept Againe sith the later euen of the Apostles owne times had that which in the former was not thought vpon in this generall proposing of the Apostolicall times there is no certaintie which should be followed especially seeing that ye giue vs great cause to doubt how far ye allow those times For albeit the louer of Antichristian building were not ye sâ—y as then set vp yet the foundations thereof were secretly and vnder the ground layd in the Apostles times so that all other times ye plainely reiect and the Apostles owne times ye approue with maruellous great suspition leauing it intricat and doubtfull wherein we are to keepe our selues vnto the paterne of their times Thirdly whereas it is the error of the common multitude to consider onely what hath bene of olde and if the same were well to see whether still it continue if not to condemne that presently which is and neuer to search vpon what ground or consideration the change might growe such rudenes cannot be in you so well borne with whom learning and iudgement hath enabled much more soundly to discerne how farre the times of the Church and the orders thereof may alter without offence True it is the auncienter the better ceremonies of religion are howbeit not absolutely true and without exception but true onely so farre forth as those different ages do agree in the state of those things for which at the first those rites orders and ceremonies were instituted In the Apostles times that was harmlesse which being now reuiued would be scandalous as their oscula sancta Those feastes of charitie which being instituted by the Apostles were reteined in the Church long after are not now thought any where needfull What man is there of vnderstanding vnto whom it is not manifest how the way of prouiding for the Cleargie by tithes the deuise of almes-houses for the poore the sorting out of the people into their seuerall parishes together with sundrie other things which the Apostles times could not haue being now established are much more conuenient and fit for the Church of Christ then if the same should be taken away for conformities sake with the auncientest and first times The orders therefore which were obserued in the Apostles times are not to be vrged as a rule vniuersally either sufficient or necessary If they bee neuerthelesse on your part it still remaineth to bee better prooued that the forme of discipline which ye intitle apostolicall was in the Apostles times exercised For of this very thing ye faile euen touching that which ye make most account of as being matter of substance in discipline I meane the power of your lay-elders and the difference of your Doctors from the Pastors in all Churches So that in summe we may be bold to conclude that besides these last times which for insolencie pride and egregious contempt of all good order are the worst there are none wherein ye can truly affirme that the complete forme of your discipline or the substance thereof was practised The euidence therefore of antiquitie failing you yee flie to the iudgements of such learned men as seeme by their writings to be of opinion that all Christian Churches should receiue your discipline and abandon ours Wherein as ye heape vp the names of a number of men not vnworthy to be had in honor so there are a number whom when ye mention although it serue ye to purpose with the ignorant and vulgar sort who measure by tale not by waight yet surely they who know what qualitie and value the men are of will thinke ye drawe very neare the dregs But were they all of as great account as the best and chiefest amongst them with vs notwithstanding neither are they neither ought they to be of such reckening that their opinion or coniecture should cause the lawes of the Church of England to giue place Much lesse when they neither do all agree in that opinioÌ„ and of theÌ„ which are at agreemeÌ„t the most part through a courteous inducement haue followed one man as their guide finally that one therein not vnlikely to haue swarued If any chance to say it is probable that in the Apostles times there were layelders or not to mislike the continuance of them in the Church or to affirme that Bishops at the first were a name but not a power distinct from presbyters or to speake any thing in praise of those Churches which are without episcopall regimeÌ„t or to reproue the fault of such as abuse that calling all these ye register for men perswaded as you are that euery christian
them to the contrary 7. Nor is mine owne intent any other in these seuerall bookes of discourse then to make it appeare vnto you that for the ecclesiasticall lawes of this land we are led by great reason to obserue them and ye by no necessitie bound to impugne them It is no part of my secret meaning to draw you hereby into hatred or to set vpoÌ„ the face of this cause any fairer glasse then the naked truth doth afford but my whole endeuour is to resolue the conscience and to shew as neare as I can what in this controuersie the hart is to thinke if it will follow the light of sound and sincere iudgement without either clowd of preiudice or mist of passionate affection Wherefore seeing that lawes and ordinances in particular whether such as we obserue or such as your selues would haue established when the minde doth sift and examine them it must needes haue often recourse to a number of doubts and questions about the nature kindes and qualities of lawes in generall whereof vnlesse it be throughly enformed there will appeare no certaintie to stay our perswasion vpon I haue for that cause set downe in the first place an introduction on both sides needfull to bee considered Declaring therein what law is how different kindes of lawes there are and what force they are of according vnto each kind This done because ye suppose the lawes for which ye striue are found in scripture but those not against which we striue vpon this surmise are drawne to hold it as the very maine pillar of your whole cause that scripture ought to be the onely rule of all our actions and consequently that the Church-orders which wee obserue being not commaunded in scripture are offensiue and displeasant vnto God I haue spent the second booke in sifting of this point which standeth with you for the first and chiefest principle whereon ye build Wherevnto the next in degree is that as God will haue alwayes a Church vpon earth while the worlde doth continue and that Church stand in neede of gouernment of which gouernment it behoueth himselfe to bee both the author and teacher so it cannot stand with dutie that man should euer presume in any wise to chaunge and alter the same and therefore That in Scripture there must of necessitie be found some particular forme of politie Ecclesiasticall the lawes whereof admit not any kinde of alteration The first three bookes being thus ended the fourth proceedeth from the generall grounds and foundations of your cause vnto your generall accusations against vs as hauing in the orders of our Church for so you pretend corrupted the right forme of Church politie with manifolde popish rites and ceremonies which certaine reformed Churches haue banished from amongst them and haue thereby giuen vs such examples as you thinke wee ought to follow This your assertion hath herein drawne vs to make search whether these bee iust exceptions against the customes of our Church when ye pleade that they are the same which the Church of Rome hath or that they are not the same which some other reformed Churches haue deuised Of those foure bookes which remaine and are bestowed about the specialties of that cause which lyeth in controuersie the first examineth the causes by you alleaged wherefore the publique duties of Christian religion as our prayers our Sacramants and the rest should not be ordered in such sort as with vs they are nor that power whereby the persons of men are consecrated vnto the ministerie be disposed of in such maner as the lawes of this Church doe allow The second and third are concerning the power of iurisdiction the one whether laâ— men such as your gouerning Elders are ought in all congregations for euer to bee inuested with that power the other whether Bishops may haue that power ouer other Pastors and there withall that honour which with vs they haue And because besides the power of order which all consecrated persons haue and the power of iurisdiction which neither they all nor they only haue there is a third power a power of Ecclesiasticall Dominion communicable as wee thinke vnto persons not Ecclesiasticall and most fit to be restrained vnto the Prince or Soueraigne commaunder ouer the whole body politique the eight booke we haue allotted vnto this question and haue sifted therein your obiections against those preeminences royall which thereunto appertâ—ine Thus haue J layd before you the briefe of these my trauailes and presented vnder your view the limmes of that cause litigious betweene vs the whole intier body whereof being thus compact it shall be no troublesome thing for any man to find each particular controuersies resting place and the coherence it hath with those things either on which it dependeth or which depend on it 8. The case so standing therefore my brethren as it doth the wisdome of gouernors ye must not blame in that they further also forecasting the manifold strange dangerous innouations which are more then likely to follow if your discipline should take place haue for that cause thought it hitherto a part of their dutie to withstand your endeuors that way The rather for that they haue seene alreadie some small beginninges of the fruits thereof in them who concurring with you in iudgement aboute the necessitie of that discipline haue aduentured without more adoe to separate themselues from the rest of the Church and to put your speculations in execution These mens hastines the warier sort of you doth not commend yee wish they had held themselues longer in and not so dangerously flowne abroad before the fethers of the cause had beene growne their errour with mercifull terms ye reproue naming them in great commiseration of mind your poore brethren They oâ— the contrary side more bitterly accuse you as their false brethreÌ„ against you they plead saying From your breasts it is that we haue sucked those thinges which when ye deliuered vnto vs ye termed that heauenly sincere and wholesome milke of Gods word howsoeuer yee now abhorre as poyson that which the vertue thereof hath wrought and brought forth in vs. Ye sometime our companions guides and familiars with whome we haue had most sweete consultations are now become our professed aduersaries because wee thinke the statute-congregations in Englande to bee no true Christian Churches because wee haue seuered our selues from them and because without their leaue or licence that are in Ciuill authoritie wee haue secretly framed our owne Churches according to the platforme of the worde of God For of that point betweene you and vs there is no controuersie Alas what would ye haue vs to doe At such time as ye were content to accept vs in the number of your owne your teachinges we heard we read your writinges and though wee would yet able wee are not to forget with what zeale yee haue euer profest that in the English congregations for so many of them as bee ordered according
vnto their owne lawes the very publique seruice of God is fraught as touching matter with heapes of intollerable pollutions and as concerning forme borrowed from the shoppe of Antichrist hatefull both waies in the eyes of the most holy the kinde of their gouernment by Bishops and Archbishops Antichristian that discipline which Christ hath essentially tyed that is to say so vnited vnto his Church that wee cannot accompt it really to be his Church which hath not in it the same discipline that verie discipline no lesse there despised then in the highest throne of Antichrist all such partes of the word of God as doe any way concerne that Discipline no lesse vnsoundlie taught and interpreted by all authorized English Pastors then by Antichrists factors themselues at Baptisme crossing at the Supper of the Lord kneeling at both a number of other the most notorious badges of Antichristian recognisance vsuall Being moued with these and the like your effectuall discourses whereunto we gaue most attentiue eare till they entred euen into our soules and were as fire within our bosomes we thought we might hereof be bold to conclude that sith no such Antichristian synagogue may be accompted a true Church of Christ ye by accusing all congregations ordered according to the lawes of England as Antichristian did meane to condemne those congregations as not being any of them worthy the name of a true Christian Church Ye tell vs now it is not your meaning But what meant your often threatnings of them who professing thēselues the inhabitants of mount Sion were too loth to depart wholly as they should out of Babylon Whereat our hearts being fearefully troubled we durst not we durst not continue longer so neere her confines least her plagues might suddenly ouertake vs before we did cease to be partakers with her sinnes for so we could not choose but acknowledge with griefe that we were when they doing euill we by our presence in their assemblies seemed to like thereof or at least wise not so earnestly to dislike as became men heartily zealous of Gods glory For aduenturing to erect the discipline of Christ without the leaue of the Christian Magistrate happily ye may condemne vs as fooles in that we hazard thereby our estates and persons further then you which are that way more wise thinke necessary but of any offence or sinne therein committed against God with what conscience can you accuse vs when your owne positions are that the things we obserue should euery of them be dearer vnto vs then ten thousand liues that they are the peremptory commaundements of God that no mortall man can dispence with them and that the Magistrate grieuously sinneth in not constraining thereunto Will ye blame any man for doing that of his owne accord which all men should be compelled to do that are not willing of themselues When God commandeth shall we answer that we will obey if so be Caesar will graunt vs leaue Is discipline an Ecclesiasticall matter or a Ciuill If an Ecclesiasticall it must of necessitie belong to the duty of the Minister And the Minister ye say holdeth all his authority of doing whatsoeuer belongeth vnto the spirituall charge of the house of God euen immediatly from God himselfe without dependency vpon any Magistrate Whereupon it followeth as we suppose that the hearts of the people being willing to be vnder the Scepter of Christ the Minister of God into whose hands the Lord himselfe hath put that Scepter is without all excuse if thereby he guide them not Nor do we finde that hitherto greatly ye haue disliked those Churches abroad where the people with direction of their godly ministers haue euen against the will of the Magistrate brought in either the doctrine or discipline of Iesus Christ. For which cause we must now thinke the very same thing of you which our Sauiour did sometime vtter concerning false harted Scribes and Pharises They say and do not Thus the foolish Barrowist deriueth his schisme by way of conclusion as to him it seemeth directly and plainely out of your principles Him therefore we leaue to be satisfied by you from whom he hath sprung And if such by your owne acknowledgement be persons dangerous although as yet the alterations which they haue made are of small and tender groath the changes likely to insue throughout all states and vocations within this land in case your desire should take place must be thought vpon First concerning the supreme power of the highest they are no small prerogatiues which now thereunto belonging the forme of your discipline will constraine it to resigne as in the last booke of this treatise we haue shewed at large Againe it may iustly be feared whether our English Nobility when the matter came in tryall would contentedly suffer themselues to be alwayes at the call and to stand to the sentence of a number of meane persons assisted with the presence of their poore teacher a man as sometimes it hapneth though better able to speake yet little or no whit apter to iudge then the rest from whom be their dealings neuer so absurd vnlesse it be by way of cōplaint to a Synod no appeale may be made vnto any one of higher power in as much as the order of your discipline admitteth no standing inequalitie of Courts no spirituall iudge to haue any ordinary superiour on earth but as many supremacies as there are parishes seuerall Congregations Neither is it altogether without cause that so many do feare the ouerthrow of all learning as a threatned sequell of this your intended discipline For if the worlds preseruation depend vpon the multitude of the wise and of that sort the number hereafter be not likely to waxe ouer great when that where with the sonne of Syrach professeth himselfe at the heart grieued men of vnderstanding are already so little set by howe should their mindes whom the loue of so pretious a iewell filleth with secret iealousie euen in regard of the least things which may any way hinder the flourishing estate thereof choose but misdoubt least this discipline which alwayes you match with diuine doctrine as hir naturall and true sister be found vnto all kinds of knowledge a stepmother seeing that the greatest worldly hopes which are proposed vnto the chiefest kind of learning ye seeke vtterly to extirpate as weedes and haue grounded your platforme on such propositions as do after a sort vndermine those most renowmed habitations where through the goodnesse of almightie God all commendable arts and sciences are with exceeding great industrie hitherto and so may they euer continue studied proceeded in and profest To charge you as purposely bent to the ouerthrow of that wherein so many of you haue attained no small perfection were iniurious Only therfore I wish that your selues did well consider how opposite certaine your positions are vnto the state of Collegiate societies whereon the two Vniuersities consist Those degrees which their statutes bind them to take are
those things which are for direction of all the parts of our life needfull and not impossible to be discerned by the light of nature it selfe are there not many which few mens naturall capacitie and some which no mans hath bene able to find out They are sayth Saint Augustine but a few and they indued with great ripenes of wit and iudgement free from all such affaires as might trouble their meditations instructed in the sharpest and the subtlest points of learning who haue and that very hardly bene able to find out but onely the immortality of the soule The resurrection of the flesh what man did euer at any time dreame of hauing not heard it otherwise then from the schoole of nature Whereby it appeareth how much we are bound to yeeld vnto our creator the father of all mercy eternall thankes for that he hath deliuered his law vnto the world a law wherein so many things are laid open cleere and manifest as a light which otherwise would haue bene buried in darknesse not without the hazard or rather not with the hazard but with the certaine losse of infinite thousands of soules most vndoubtedly now saued We see therefore that our soueraigne good is desired naturally that God the author of that naturall desire had appointed naturall meanes whereby to fulfill it that man hauing vtterly disabled his nature vnto those meanes hath had other reuealed from God and hath receaued from heauen a law to teach him how that which is desired naturally must now supernaturally be attained finally we see that because those later exclude not the former quite and cleane as vnnecessary therefore together with such supernaturall duties as could not possibly haue beene otherwise knowne to the world the same lawe that teacheth them teacheth also with them such naturall duties as could not by light of nature easily haue bene knowne 13. In the first age of the world God gaue lawes vnto our fathers and by reason of the number of their daies their memories serued in steed of books wherof the manifold imperfections and defects being knowne to God he mercifully relieued the same by often putting them in mind of that whereof it behoued them to be specially mindfull In which respect we see how many times one thing hath bene iterated vnto sundry euen of the best and wisest amongst them After that the liues of men were shortned meanes more durable to preserue the lawes of God from obliuion and corruption grew in vse not without precise direction from God himselfe First therefore of Moyses it is sayd that he wrote all the words of God not by his owne priuate motion and deuise for God taketh this act to himselfe I haue written Furthermore were not the Prophets following commanded also to do the like Vnto the holy Euangelist Saint Iohn how often expresse charge is giuen Scribe write these things Concerning the rest of our Lords Disciples the words of Saint Augustine are Quic quid ille de suis factis dictis nos legere voluit hoc scribenduÌ„ illis tanquaÌ„ suis manibus imperauit Now although we do not deny it to be a matter meerely accidentall vnto the law of God to be written although writing be not that which addeth authority and strength thereunto finally though his lawes do require at our hands the same obedience howsoeuer they be deliuered his prouideÌ„ce notwithstanding which hath made principall choice of this way to deliuer them who seeth not what cause we haue to admire and magnifie The singular benefit that hath growne vnto the world by receiuing the lawes of God euen by his owne appointment committed vnto writing we are not able to esteeme as the value thereof deserueth When the question therefore is whether we be now to seeke for any reuealed law of God other where then onely in the sacred Scripture whether we do now stand bound in the sight of God to yeeld to traditions-vrged by the Church of Rome the same obedience and reuerence we do to his written lawe honouring equally and adoring both as Diuine our answer is no. They that so earnestly pleade for the authority of Tradition as if nothing were more safely conueyed then that which spreadeth it selfe by report and descendeth by relation of former generations vnto the ages that succeed are not all of the them surely a miracle it were if they should be so simple as thus to perswade themselues howsoeuer if the simple were so perswaded they could be content perhaps very well to enioy the benefit as they accompt it of that common error What hazard the truth is in when it passeth through the hands of report how maymed and deformed it becommeth they are not they cannot possibly be ignorant Let them that are indeed of this mind consider but onely that litle of things Diuine which the Heathen haue in such sort receiued How miserable had the state of the Church of God beene long ere this if wanting the sacred Scripture we had no record of his lawes but onely the memory of man receiuing the same by report and relation from his predecessors By Scripture it hath in the wisedome of God seemed meete to deliuer vnto the world much but personally expedient to be practised of certaine men many deepe and profound points of doctrine as being the maine originall ground whereupon the precepts of duty depend many prophecies the cleere performance whereof might confirme the world in beliefe of things vnseene many histories to serue as looking glasses to behold the mercy the truth the righteousnesse of God towards all that faithfully serue obey and honor him yea many intire meditations of pietie to be as patternes and presidents in cases of like nature many things needfull for â—â—plication many for applicatioÌ„ vnto particular occasions such as the prouidence of God from time to time hath taken to haue the seuerall bookes of his holy ordinance written Be it them that together with the principall necessary lawes of God there are sundry other things written whereof we might happily be ignorant and yet be saued VVhat shall we hereupon thinke them needlesse shall we esteeme them as riotous branches wherewith we sometimes behold most pleasant vines ouergrown Surely no more then we iudge our hands on our eies â—â—perfluouâ— or what part soeuer which if our bodies did want we might notwithstaÌ„ding any such defect reteine still the complete being of men As therfore a complete man is neither destitute of any part necessary and hath some partes wherof though the want could not depriue him of his essence yet to haue â—hem standeth him in singular stead in respect of the special vses for which they serues in 〈…〉 all those writings which conteine in them the law of God all those â—â—nâ—râ—ble bookes of Scripture all those sacred tomes and volumes of holy wriâ— â—â—ey are with such absolute perfection framed that in them there neither 〈◊〉 any thing the lacke whereof might depriue vs of life
nor any thing in such wise aboundeth that as being superfluous vnfruitfull and altogether needlesse we should thinke it no losse or danger at all if we did want it 14 Although the scripture of God therefore be stored with infinite varietie of matter in all kinds although it abound with all sorts of lawes yet the principal intent of scripture is to deliuer the lawes of duties supernaturall Oftentimes it hath bene in very solemne maner disputed whether all things necessary vnto saluation be necessarily set downe in the holy Scriptures or no. If we define that necessary vnto saluation whereby the way to saluation is in any sort made more plaine apparent and easie to be knowne then is there no part of true Philosophie no art of account no kind of science rightly so called but the Scripture must conteine it If onely those things be necessary as surely none else are without the knowledge and practise whereof it is not the will and pleasure of God to make any ordinary graunt of saluation it may be notwithstanding and oftentimes hath bene demanded how the bookes of holy Scripture conteine in them all necessary things when of things necessary the very chiefest is to knowe what bookes we are bound to esteeme holy which point is confest impossible for the Scripture it selfe to teach Whereunto wee may aunswere with truth that there is not in the world any Arte or Science which proposing vnto it selfe an ende as euery one doth some ende or other hath bene therefore thought defectiue if it haue not deliuered simply whatsoeuer is needfull to the same ende but all kinds of knowledge haue their certaine bounds and limits each of them presupposeth many necessary things learned in other sciences and knowne before hand He that should take vpon him to teach men how to be eloquent in pleading causes must needes deliuer vnto them whatsoeuer precepts are requisite vnto that end otherwise he doth no◠the thing which he taketh vpon him Seeing then no man can pleade eloquently vnlesse he be able first to speake it followeth that habilitie of speech is in this case a thing most necessary Notwithstanding euery man would thinke it ridiculous that he which vndertaketh by writing to instruct an Orator should therfore deliuer all the precepts of Grammar because his profession is to deliuer precepts necessarie vnto eloquent speech yet so that they which are to receiue them bee taugt before hand so much of that which is thereunto necessarie as comprehendeth the skill of speaking In like sort albeit Scripture do professe to conteine in it all thinges which are necessarie vnto saluation yet the meaning cannot bee simply of all things which are necessarie but all things that are necessary in some certaine kind or forme as all things that are necessarie and either could not at all or could not easilie be knowne by the light of naturall discourse all things which are necessarie to be knowne that we may be saued but knowne with presupposall of knowledge cōcerning certaine principles wherof it receaueth vs already perswaded and then instructeth vs in all the residue that are necessary In the number of these principles one is the sacred authority of Scripture Being therefore perswaded by other meanes that these Scriptures are the oracles of God themselues do then teach vs the rest and lay before vs all the duties which God requireth at our hands as necessary vnto saluation Further there hath bene some doubt likewise whether conteining in scripture do import expresse setting downe in plaine tearmes or else comprehending in such sort that by reason we may frō thence conclude all things which are necessary Against the former of these two constructions instance hath sundrie wayes bene geuen For our beliefe in the Trinity the Coeternity of the Sonne of God with his Father the proceeding of the Spirite from the Father and the Sonne the duty of baptizing infants these with such other principall points the necessity wherof is by none denied are notwithstanding in Scripture no where to be found by expresse literall mention only deduced they are out of scripture by collection This kind of cōprehension in scripture being therefore receiued still there is no doubt how far we are to proceed by collection before the full and complete measure of things necessary be made vp For let vs not thinke that as long as the world doth endure the wit of man shal be able to found the bottome of that which may be concluded out of the scripture especially if things conteined by collection do so far extend as to draw in whatsoeuer may be at any time out of scripture but probably and coniecturally surmised But let necessary collection be made requisite and we may boldly deny that of all those things which at this day are with so great necessitie vrged vpon this Church vnder the name of reformed Church discipline there is any one which their bookes hetherto haue made manifest to be conteined in the Scripture Let them if they can alleage but one properly belonging to their cause and not common to them and vs and shew the deduction thereof out of scripture to be necessarie It hath beene already shewed how all things necessarie vnto saluation in such sort as before we haue maintained must needes be possible for men to knowe and that many things are in such sort necessarie the knowledge whereof is by the light of nature impossible to be attained Whereupon it followeth that either all flesh is excluded from possibility of saluation which to thinke were most barbarous or else that God hath by supernaturall meanes reuealed the way of life so far forth as doth suffice For this cause God hath so many times and waies spoken to the sonnes of men Neither hath he by speech only but by wilting also instructed and taught his Church The cause of writing hath bene to the end that things by him reuealed vnto the world might haue the longer cōtinuance and the greater certainty of assurance by how much that which standeth on record hath in both those respects preeminence aboue that which passeth from hand to hand and hath no pennes but the toongs no bookes but the eares of men to record it The seueral bookes of scripture hauing had each some seuerall occasion and particular purpose which caused them to be written the contents thereof are according to the exigence of that speciall end whereunto they are intended Hereupon it groweth that euery booke of holy scripture doth take out of all kinds of truth naturall historicall forreine supernaturall so much as the matter handled requireth Now for as much as there hath bene reason alleaged sufficient to conclude that all things necessary vnto saluation must be made knowne and that God himselfe hath therefore reuealed his will because otherwise men could not haue knowne so much as i◠necessary his surceasing to speake to the world since the publishing of the Gospell of Iesus Christ and the
deliuery of the same in writing is vnto vs a manifest token that the way of saluation is now sufficiently opened and that we neede no other meanes for our full instruction then God hath already furnished vs withall The maine drift of the whole newe Testament is that which Saint Iohn setteth downe as the purpose of his owne Historie These things are written that yee might beleeue that Iesus is Christ the Sonne of God and that in beleeuing yee might haue life through his name The drift of the olde that which the Apostle mentioneth to Timothie The holy Scriptures are able to make thee wise vnto saluâ—tion So that the generall ende both of olde and newe is one the difference betweene them consisting in this that the olde did make wise by teaching saluation through Christ that should come the newe by teaching that Christ the Sauiour is come and that Iesus whom the Iewes did crucifie and whom God did raise againe from the dead is he When the Apostle therefore affirmeth vnto Timothie that the old was able to make him wise to saluation it was not his meaning that the olde alone can do this vnto vs which liue sithence the publication of the newe For he speaketh with presupposall of the doctrine of Christ knowne also vnto Timothie and therefore first it is sayd Continue thou in those things which thou hast learned and art perswaded knowing of whom thou hast bene taught them Againe those Scriptures hee graunteth were able to make him wise to saluation but he addeth through the faith which is in Christ. VVherefore without the doctrine of the new Testament teaching that Christ hath wrought the redemption of the world which redemption the olde did foreshewe he should worke it is not the former alone which can on our behalfe performe so much as the Apostle doth auouch who presupposeth this when he magnifieth that so highly And as his words concerning the bookes of auncient Scripture do not take place but with presupposall of the Gospell of Christ embraced so our owne wordes also when wee extoll the complete sufficiency of the whole intire body of the Scripture must in like sorte bee vnderstood with this caution that the benefite of natures light be not thought excluded as vnnecessarie because the necessitie of a diuiner light is magnified There is in Scripture therefore no defect but that any man what place or calling soeuer he hold in the Church of God may haue thereby the light of his naturall vnderstanding so perfected that the one being relieued by the other there can want no part of needfull instruction vnto any good worke which God himselfe requireth be it naturall or supernaturall belonging simply vnto men as men or vnto men as they are vnited in whatsoeuer kinde of societie It sufficeth therefore that nature and Scripture do serue in such full sort that they both ioyntly and not seuerally either of them be so complete that vnto euerlasting felicitie we need not the knowledge of any thing more then these two may easily furnish our mindes with on all sides and therefore they which adde traditions as a part of supernaturall necessarie truth haue not the truth but are in errour For they onely pleade that whatsoeuer God reuealeth as necessary for all Christian men to do or beleeue the same we ought to embrace whether we haue receiued it by writing or otherwise which no man denieth when that which they should confirme who claime so great reuerence vnto traditions is that the same traditions are necessarily to bee acknowledged diuine and holy For wee doe not reiect them onely because they are not in the Scripture but because they are neither in Scripture nor can otherwise sufficiently by any reason be proued to be of God That which is of God and may be euidently proued to be so we deny not but it hath in his kind although vnwritten yet the selfe same force and authoritie with the written lawes of God It is by ours acknowledged that the Apostles did in euery Church institute and ordeene some â—iâ—es and customes seruing for the seemelenesse of Church regiment which rites and customes they haue not committed vnto writing Those rites and customes being knowne to be Apostolicall and hauing the nature of things changeable were no lesse to be accompted of in the Church then other things of the like degree that is to say capable in like sort of alteration although set downe in the Apostles writings For bothe being knowne to be Apostolicall it is not the manner of deliuering them vnto the Church but the author from whom they proceed which doth giue them their force and credite 15 Lawes being imposed either by each man vpon himselfe or by a publique societie vpon the particulars thereof or by all the nations of men vpon euery seuerall societie or by the Lord himselfe vpon any or euerie of these there is not amongst these foure kinds any one but containeth sundry both naturall and positiue lawes Impossible it is but that they should fall into a number of grosse errors who onely take such lawes for positiue as haue bene made or inuented of men and holding this position hold also that all positiue and none but positiue lawes are mutable Lawes naturall do alwayes bind lawes positiue not so but onely after they haue bene expresly and wittingly imposed Lawes positiue there are in euery of those kindes before mentioned As in the first kinde the promises which we haue past vnto men and the vowes we haue made vnto God for these are lawes which we tye our selues vnto and till we haue so tied our selues they bind vs not Lawes positiue in the second kind are such the ciuill constitutions peculiar vnto each particular common weale In the third kind the law of Heraldy in waâ—re is positiue and in the last all the iudicials which God gaue vnto the people of Israell to obserue And although no lawes but positiue be mutable yet all are not mutable which be positiue Positiue lawes are either permanent or else changeable according as the matter it selfe is concerning which they were first made Whether God or man be the maker of them alteration they so far forth admit as the matter doth exact Lawes that concerne supernaturall duties are all positiue and either coÌ„cerne men supernaturally as men or else as parts of a supernaturall society which society we call the Church To concerne men as men supernaturally is to concerne them as duties which belong of necessitie to all and yet could not haue bene knowne by any to belong vnto them vnlesse God had opened them himselfe in as much as they do not depend vpon any naturall ground at all out of which they may be deduced but are appoiâ—â—ed of God to supply the defect of those naturall wayes of saluation by which we are not now able to attaine thereunto The Church being a supernaturall societie doth differ from naturall societies in this that the persons
which is meere we owe in this case obedience to that law of reason which teacheth mediocritie in meates and drinkes The same things diuine lawe teacheth also as at large we haue shewed it doth all partes of morall dutie whereunto we all of necessitie stand bound in regard of the life to come But of certaine kindes of foode the Iewes sometime had and we our selues likewise haue a mysticall reliâ—ious and supernaturall vse they of their Pasâ— all lambe and oblations wee of our bread and wine in the Eucharist which vse none but diuine law could institute Now as we liue in ciuill societie the state of the common wealth wherein we liue both may and doth require certaine lawes concerning foode which lawes sauing onely that we are members of the common wealth where they are of force we should not neede to respect aâ— rules of action whereas now in their place and kinde they must be respected and obeyed Yea the selfe same matter is also a subiect wherein sometime Ecclesiasticall lawes haue place so that vnlesse wee will bee authors of confusion in the Church our priuate discretion which otherwise might guide vs a contrary way must here submit it selfe to bee that way guided which the publike iudgement of the Church hath thought better In which case that of Zonaras concerning fâ—stes may be remembred Fastinges are good but let good things be done in good and conueniâ—nt maner He that transgresseth in his fasting the orders of the holy fathers the positiue lawes of the Church of Christ must be plainely tolde that good thinges doe loose the grace of their goodnesse when in good sort they are not performed And as here mens priuate phansies must giue place to the higher iudgement of that Church which is in authoritie a mother ouer them so the very actions of whole Churches haue in regard of commerce and fellowship with other Churches bene subiect to lawes concerning foode the contrarie vnto which lawes had else bene thought more conuenient for them to obserue as by that order of abstinence from strangled and bloud may appeare an order grounded vpon that fellowship which the Churches of the Gentiles had with the Iewes Thus we see how euen one and the selfe same thing is vnder diuers considerations conueyed through many lawes and that to measure by any one kind of law all the action of men were to confound the admirable order wherein God hath disposed all lawes each as in nature so in degree distinct from other Wherefore that here we may briefly ende of lawe there can be no lesse acknowledged then that her seate is the bosome of God her voyce the harmony of the world all things in heauen and earth doe her homage the very least as feeling her care and the greatest as not exempted from her power both Angels and men and creatures of what condition so euer though each in different sort and manner yet all with vniforme consent admiring her as the mother of their peace and ioy The second Booke Concerning their first position who vrge reformation in the Church of England Namely That Scripture is the onely rule of all things which in this life may be done by men The matter contained in this second Boooke 1 AN answere to their first proofe brought out of scripture Prou. 2.9 2 To their second 1 Cor. 10.31 3 To their third 1. Tim. 4.5 4 To their fourth Rom. 14.23 5 To their proofes out of Fathers who dispute negatiuely from the authoritie of holy scripture 6 To their proofe by the scriptures custome of disputing from diuine authoritie negatiuely 7 An examination of their opinion concerning the force of arguments taken from humane authoritie for the ordering of mens actions and perswasions 8 A declaration what the truth is in this matter AS that which in the title hath bene proposed for the matter whereof we treat is onely the Ecclesiasticall lawe whereby we are gouerned So neither is it my purpose to maintaine any other thing then that which therein truth and reason shall approue For concerning the dealings of men who administer gouernment and vnto whom the execution of that law belongeth they haue their iudge who sitteth in heauen and before whose tribunall seate they are accomptable for whatsoeuer abuse or corruption which being worthily misliked in this Church the want eyther of care or of conscience in them hath bred We are no Patrones of those things therfore the best defence whereof is speedie redresse amendment That which is of God we defend to the vttermost of that habilitie which he hath giuen that which is otherwise let it wither euen in the roote from whence it hath sprung Wherefore all these abuses being seuered and set apart which rise from the corruption of men and not from the lawes themselues come we to those things which in the very whole intier forme of our Church-politie haue bene as wee perswade our selues iniuriously blamed by them who endeuour to ouerthrow the same and in stead therof to establish a much worse onely through a strong misconceipt they haue that the same is grounded on diuine authoritie Now whether it be that through an earnest longing desire to see things brought to a peaceable end I do but imagine the matters whereof we contend to be fewer then indeed they are or else for that in truth they are fewer when they come to be discust by reason then otherwise they seeme when by heate of contention they are deuided into many slippes and of euery branch an heape is made surely as now wee haue drawne them together choosing out those things which are requisite to bee seuerally all discust and omitting such meane specialties as are likely without any great labour to fall afterwardes of themselues I knowe no cause why either the number or the length of these controuersies should diminish our hope of seeing them end with concord and loue on all sides which of his infinite loue and goodnes the father of all peace and vnitie graunt Vnto which scope that our endeuour may the more directly tend it seemeth fittest that first those thinges be examined which are as seedes from whence the rest that ensue haue growne And of such the most generall is that wherewith we are here to make our entrance a question not mooued I thinke any where in other Churches and therefore in ours the more likely to be soone I trust determined The rather for that it hath grown from no other roote then only a desire to enlarge the necessarie vse of the word of God which desire hath begotten an error enlarging it further then as we are perswaded soundnesse of truth will beare For whereas God hath left sundry kindes of lawes vnto men and by all those lawes the actions of men are in some sort directed they hold that one onely lawe the scripture must be the rule to direct in all thinges euen so farre as to the taking vp of a rush or strawe About which
the name of God as we should without an actuall intent to doe him in that particular some speciall obedience yet for any thing there is in this sentence alleaged to the contrarie God may be glorified by obedience and obeyed by performance of his will and his will be performed with an actuall intelligent desire to fulfill that lawe which maketh knowne what his will is although no speciall clause or sentence of scripture bee in euery such action set before mens eyes to warrant it For scripture is not the onely lawe whereby God hath opened his will touching all thinges that may be done but there are other kindes of lawes which notifie the will of God as in the former booke hath beene prooued at large Nor is there any law of God whereunto he doth not account our obedience his glory Doe therefore all thinges vnto the glory of God saith the Apostle be inoffensiue both to the Iewes and Graecians and the Church of God euen as I please all men in all thinges not seeking mine owne commoditie but manies that they may be saued In the least thing done disobediently towardes God or offensiuely against the good of men whose benefite wee ought to seeke for as for our owne we plainely shew that we doe not acknowledge God to be such as indeede he is and consequently that we glorifie him not This the blessed Apostle teacheth but doth any Apostle teach that we cannot glorifie God otherwise then onely in doing what wee finde that God in Scripture commaundeth vs to doe The Churches dispersed amongest the Heathen in the East part of the world are by the Apostle S. Peter exhorted to haue their conuersation honest amongest the Gentiles that they which spake euill of them as of euill doers might by the good workes which they should see glorifie God in the day of visitation As long as that which Christians did was good and no way subiect vnto iust reproofe their vertuous conuersation was a meane to worke the Heathens conuersion vnto Christ. Seeing therefore this had beene a thing altogether impossible but that Infidels themselues did discerne in matters of life and conuersation when beleeuers did well and when otherwise when they glorified their heauenly father and when not it followeth that some thinges wherein God is glorified may be some other way knowne then onely by the sacred Scripture of which Scripture the Gentiles being vtterly ignorant did notwithstanding iudge rightly of the qualitie of Christian mens actions Most certaine it is that nothing but onely sinne doth dishonour God So that to glorifie him in all things is to do nothing whereby the name of God may be blasphemed nothing whereby the saluation of Iew or Grecian or any in the Church of Christ may be let or hindered nothing wherby his law is transgrest But the question is whether onely Scripture do shewe whatsoeuer God is glorified in 3 And though meates and drinkes be said to be sanctified by the worde of God and by prayer yet neither is this a reason sufficient to prooue that by scripture wee must of necessitie be directed in euery light and common thing which is incident into any part of mans life Onely it sheweth that vnto vs the worde that is to say the Gospell of Christ hauing not deliuered any such difference of thinges cleane and vncleane as the law of Moses did vnto the Iewes there is no cause but that we may vse indifferently all thinges as long as wee doe not like swine take the benefite of them without a thankefull acknowledgement of his liberalitie and goodnesse by whose prouidence they are inioyed and therefore the Apostle gaue warning before hand to take heede of such as should inioyne to abstaine from meates which God hath created to be receiued with thankes-giuing by them which beleeue and know the truth For euery creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be receiued with thankesgiuing because it is sanctified by the word of God and praier The Gospell by not making many thinges vncleane as the lawe did hath sanctified those thinges generally to all which particularly each man vnto himselfe must sanctifie by a reuerend and holy vse which will hardly be drawne so farre as to serue their purpose who haue imagined the word in such sort to sanctifie all thinges that neither foode can bee tasted nor rayment put on nor in the world any thing done but this deede must needes be sinne in them which do not first knowe it appointed vnto them by scripture before they do it 4 But to come vnto that which of all other things in scripture is most stood vpon that place of S. Paule they say is of all other most cleare where speaking of those thinges which are called indifferent in the ende he concludeth that whatsoeuer is not of faith is sinne But faith is not but in respect of the worde of God Therefore whatsoeuer is not done by the worde of God is sinne Whereunto wee aunswere that albeit the name of faith being properly and strictly taken it must needes haue reference vnto some vttered worde as the obiect of beliefe neuerthelesse sith the ground of credite is the credibilitie of thinges credited and things are made credible eyther by the knowne condition and qualitie of the vtterer or by the manifest likelihood of truth which they haue in thēselues hereupon it riseth that whatsoeuer we are perswaded of the same we are generally said to beleeue In which generalitie the obiect of faith may not so narrowly be restrained as if the same did extend no further then to the onely scriptures of God Though saith our Sauiour ye beleeue not me beleeue my workes that ye may know and beleeue that the father is in me and I in him The other Disciples said vnto Thomas we haue seene the Lord but his aunswere vnto them was Except I see in his hands the print of the nailes and put my finger into them I will not beleeue Can there be any thing more plaine then that which by these two sentences appeareth namely that there may be a certaine beliefe grounded vpon other assurance then Scripture any thing more cleare then that we are said not onely to beleeue the thinges which we knowe by anothers relation but euen whatsoeuer we are certainly perswaded of whether it be by reason or by sense For as much therefore as it is graunted that S. Paule doth meane nothing else by Fayth but onely a full perswasion that that which we doe is well done against which kinde of faith or perswasion as S. Paule doth count it sinne to enterprise any thing so likewise some of the very Heathen haue taught as Tully that nothing ought to be done whereof thou doubtest whether it be right or wrōg wherby it appeareth that euen those which had no knowledge of the word of God did see much of the equitie of this which the Apostle
that if it were possible no doubt or scruple concerning the same might remaine in any mans cogitation Some truthes there are the veritie whereof time doth alter as it is now true that Christ is risen from the dead which thing was not true at such time as Christ was liuing on earth and had not suffered It would be knowne therefore whether this which they teach concerning the sinfull staine of all actions not commanded of God be a truth that doth now appertaine vnto vs only or a perpetuall truth in such sort that from the first beginning of the world vnto the last consummation thereof it neither hath bene nor can be otherwise I see not how they can restraine this vnto any particular time how they can thinke it true now and not alwaies true that in euery action not commanded there is for want of faith sinne Then let them cast backe their eyes vnto former generations of men and marke what was done in the prime of the world Seth Enoch Noah Sem Abraham Iob and the rest that liued before any syllable of the lawe of God was written did they not sinne as much as we doe in euery action not commaunded That which God is vnto vs by his sacred word the same he was vnto them by such like meanes as Eliphas in Iob describeth If therefore we sinne in euery action which the scripture commaundeth vs not it followeth that they did the like in all such actions as were not by reuelation from heauen exacted at their hands Vnlesse God from heauen did by vision still shew them what to doe they might do nothing not eate not drinke not sleepe not moue Yea but euen as in darkenes candle light may serue to guide mens steps which to vse in the day were madnes so when God had once deliuered his lawe in writing it may bee they are of opinion that then it must needes bee sinne for men to doe any thing which was not there commaunded them to do whatsoeuer they might do before Let this be graunted and it shall here upon plainely ensue either that the light of Scripture once shining in the world all other light of nature is ther with in such sort drowned that now we need it not neither may we longer vse it or if it stand vs in any stead yet as Aristotle speaketh of men whom nature hath framed for the state of seruitude saying They haue reason so farre forth as to conceiue when others direct them but litle or none in directing themselues by themselues so likewise our naturall capacity and iudgement must serue vs only for the right vnderstanding of that which the sacred Scripture teacheth Had the Prophets who succeeded Moses or the blessed Apostles which followed them bene setled in this perswasion neuer would they haue taken so great paines in gathering together naturall arguments thereby to teach the faithfull their duties To vse vnto theÌ„ any other motiue then Scriptum est Thus it is written had bene to teach them other grounds of their actions then scripture which I graunt they alleage commonly but not only Only scripture they should haue alleaged had they bene thus perswaded that so far forth we do sinne as we do any thing otherwise directed then by â—cripture Saint Augustine was resolute in points of Christianity to credit none how godly and learned soeuer he were vnlesse he confirmed his sentence by the Scriptures or by some reason not contrary to them Let them therfore with Saint Augustine reiect and condemne that which is not grounded either on the Scripture or on some reason not contrary to Scripture and we are ready to giue them our hands in token of friendly consent with them 5 But against this it may be obiected and is that the Fathers do nothing more vsually in their books then draw arguments from the Scripture negatiuely in reproofe of that which is euill Scriptures teach it not auoid it therefore these disputes with the Fathers are ordinary neither is it hard to shew that the Prophets themselues haue so reasoned Which arguments being sound and good it should seeme that it cannot be vnsound or euill to hold still the same assertion against which hitherto we haue disputed For if it stand with reason thus to argue Such a thing is not taught vs in Scripture therefore we may not receiue or allow it how should it seeme vnreasonable to thinke that whatsoeuer we may lawfully do the Scripture by commanding it must make it lawful But how far such arguments do reach it shall the better appeare by considering the matter wherein they haue bene vrged First therefore this we constantly deny that of so many testimonies as they are able to produce for the strength of negatiue arguments any one doth generally which is the point in question condemne either all opinions as false or all actions as vnlawfull which the scripture teacheth vs not The most that can be collected out of theÌ„ is onely that in some cases a negatiue argument taken from scripture is strong whereof no man indued with iudgement can doubt But doth the strength of some negatiue argumenâ— proue this kind of negatiue argument strong by force whereof all things are denied which Scripture affirmeth not or all things which Scripture prescribeth not condemned The question betweene vs is concerning matter of action what things are lawfull or vnlawfull for men to do The sentences alleaged out of the Fathers are as peremptory and as large in euery respect for matter of opinion as of action which argueth that in truth they neuer meant any otherwise to tye the one then the other vnto scripture bothe being thereunto equally tyed as far as each is required in the same kind of necessitie vnto saluation If therefore it be not vnlawful to know and with full perswasion to belieue much more then scripture alone doth teach if it be against all sense and reason to condemne the knowledge of so many arts and sciences as are otherwise learned then in holy scripture notwithstanding the manifest speeches of auncient Catholike fathers which seeme to close vp within the bosome thereof all manner good and lawfull knowledge wherefore should their words be thought more effectuall to shew that we may not in deedes and practise then they are to proue that in speculation and knowledge we ought not to go any farther then the scripture Which scripture being giuen to teach matters of beliefe no lesse then of action the Fathers must needs be and are euen as plaine against credit besides the relation as against practise without the iniunction of the scripture Saint Augustine hath sayd Whether it be question of Christ or whether it be question of his Church or of what thing soeuer the question be I say not if we but if an Angell from heauen shall tell vs any thing beside that you haue receiued in the scripture vnder the Law and the Gospel let him be accursed In like sort Tertullian
marying in him they do that whereby they incurre his displeasure they 〈◊〉 an offer of themselues into the seruice of that enemy with whose seruants they linke themselues in so neere a bond What one syllable is there in all this preiudiciall any way to that which we hold For the words of Tertullian as they are by them alleaged are two wayes misunderstood both in the former part where that is extended generally to all things in the neuter gender which he speaketh in the feminine gender of womens persons and in the later where receiued with hurt is put in stead of wilfull incurring that which is euill And so in summe Tertullian doth neither meane nor say as is pretended Whatsoeuer pleaseth not the Lord displeaseth him and with hurt is receiued but Those women that please not the Lord by their kind of marying do euen thereby offend the Lord they do euen thereby throw themselues into euill Somewhat more shew there is in a second place of Tertullian which notwithstanding when we haue examined it will be found as the rest are The Romaine Emperours custome was at certaine solemne times to bestowe on his souldiers a Donatiue which Donatiue they receiued wearing garlands vpon their heads There were in the time of the Emperors Seuerus and Antoninus many who being souldiers had bene conuerted vnto Christ and notwithstanding continued still in that militarie course of life In which number one man there was amongst all the rest who at such a time comming to the Tribune of the army to receiue his Donatiue came but with a garland in his hand and not in such sort as others did The Tribune offended hereat demaundeth what this great singularitie should meane To whom the souldier Christianus sum I am a Christian. Many there were so besides him which yet did otherwise at that time whereupon grew a question whether a Christian souldier might herein do as the vnchristian did and weare â—s they wore Many of them which were very sound in Christian beliefe did rather commend the zeale of this man then approue his action Tertullian was at the same time a Montanist and an enemy vnto the Church for condemning that propheticall Spirite which Montaâ—â—s and his followers did boast they had receiued as if in them Christ had performed his last promise as if to them he had sent the Spirit that should be their perfecter and finall instructer in the mysteries of Christian truth Which exulceration of mind made him apt to take all occasions of contradiction Wherefore in honour of that action and to gall their minds who did not so much commend it he wrote his booke De corona militis not dissembling the stomacke wherewith he wrote it For first the man he commendeth as one more constant then the rest of his brethren Who presumed sayth he that they might well enough serue two Lords Afterwards choller somewhat more rising within him he addeth It doth euen remaine that they should also deuise how to rid themselues of his martyrdomes towards the prophecies of whose holy spirit they haue already shewed their disdaine They mutter that their good and long peace is now in hazard I doubt not but some of them send the Scriptures before trusse vp bagge and baggage make themselues in a readinesse that they may flye from Citie to Citie For that is the only point of the Gospell which they are carefull not to forget I knowe euen their Pastors very well what men they are in peace Lions Harts in time of trouble and feare Now these men saith Tertullian They must be aunswered where we do find it written in Scripture that a Christian man may not weare a garland And as mens speeches vttered in heate of distempered affection haue often times much more egernes then waight â—o he that shall marke the proofes alleaged and the answers to things obiected in the booke will now and then perhaps espie the like imbecillity Such is that argument whereby they that wore on their heads garlands are charged as transgressors of natures lawe and guilty of sacrilege against God the Lord of nature in as much as flowers in such sort worne can neither be smelt nor seene well by those that weare them and God made flowers sweet and beautifull that being seene and smelt vnto they might so delight Neither doth Tertullian bewray this weaknes in striking only but also in repelling their strokes with whom he contendeth They aske sayth he What scripture is there which doth teach that we should not be crowned And what scripture is there which doth teach that we should For in requiring on the contrary part the aide of scripture they do giue sentence before hand that their part ought also by scripture to be aided Which answer is of no great force There is no necessitie that if I confesse I ought not to do that which the scripture forbiddeth me I should thereby acknowledge my selfe bound to do nothing which the Scripture commandeth me not For many inducements besides Scripture may leade me to that which if scripture be against they all giue place and are of no value yet otherwise are strong and effectuall to perswade VVhich thing himselfe well enough vnderstanding and being not ignorant that Scripture in many things doth neither commaund nor forbid but vse silence his resolution in fine is that in the Church a number of things are strictly obserued whereof no law of scripture maketh mention one way or other that of things once receiued and confirmed by vse long vsage is a law sufficient that in ciuill affaires when there is no other law custome it selfe doth stand for lawe that in as much as law doth stand vpon reason to alleage reason serueth as well as to cite scripture that whatsoeuer is reasonable the same is lawfull whosoeuer is author of it that the authoritie of Custome is great finally that the custome of Christians was then and had bene a long time not to weare garlands and therefore that vndoubtedly they did offend who presumed to violate such a custome by not obseruing that thing the very inueterate obseruation whereof was a law sufficient to bind all men to obserue it vnlesse they could shew some higher law some law of scripture to the coÌ„trary This presupposed it may stand then very well with strength and soundnesse of reason euen thus to answer Whereas they aske what scripture forbiddeth them to weare a garland we are in this case rather to demaund what scripture commandeth them They cannot here alleage that it is permitted which is not forbidden them no that is forbidden them which is not permitted For long receiued Custome forbidding them to do as they did if so be it did forbid them there was no excuse in the world to iustifie their act vnlesse in the scripture they could shewe some lawe that did licence them thus to breake a receiued custome Now whereas in all the bookes of Tertullian besides there is not so much found as
in that one to proue not onely that we may do but that we ought to do sundry things which the Scripture commaundeth not out of that verie booke these sentences are brought to make vs belieue that Tertullian was of a cleane contrary minde We cannot therefore hereupon yeeld we cannot graunt that hereby is made manifest the argument of Scripture negatiuely to be of force not only in doctrine and ecclesiasticall discipline but euen in matters arbitrary For Tertullian doth plainely hold euen in that booke that neither the matter which he intreateth of was arbitrary but necessarie in as much as the receaued custome of the Church did tye and bind them not to weare garlands as the Heathens did yea and further also he reckoneth vp particularly a number of things whereof he expresly concludeth Harum aliarum eiusmodi disciplinarum si legem expostules scripturarum nullam inuenies which is as much as if he had sayd in expresse words Many things there are which concerne the discipline of the Church and the duties of men which to abrogate and take away the scriptures negatiuely vrged may not in any case perswade vs but they must be obserued yea although no scripture be found which requireth any such thing Tertullian therefore vndoubtedly doth not in this booke shew himselfe to be of the same mind with them by whom his name is pretended 6 But sith the sacred scriptures themselues affoord oftentimes such arguments as are taken from diuine authoritie both one way and other The Lord hath commaunded therefore it must be And againe in like sort He hath not therefore it must not be some certainty concerning this point seemeth requisite to be set downe God himselfe can neither possibly erre nor leade into error For this cause his testimonies whatsoeuer he affirmeth are alwaies truth and most infallible certainty Yea further because the things that proceed frō him are perfect without any manner of defect or maime it cannot be but that the words of his mouth are absolute lacke nothing which they should haue for performance of that thing whereunto they tend Wherupon it followeth that the end being knowne wherunto he directeth his speech the argumēt euen negatiuely is euermore strōg forcible cōcerning those things that are apparātly requisit vnto the same ende As for example God intending to set downe sundry times that which in Angels is most excellent hath not any where spoken so highly of them as he hath of our Lord and Sauiour Iesus Christ therefore they are not in dignitie equall vnto him It is the Apostle Saint Paules argument The purpose of God was to teach his people both vnto whom they should offer sacrifice and what sacrifice was to be offered To burne their sonnes in fire vnto Baal hee did not commaund them he spake no such thing neither came it into his mind therefore this they ought not to haue done VVhich argument the Prophet Ieremie vseth more then once as being so effectuall and strong that although the thing hee reproueth were not onely not commaunded but forbidden them and that expresly yet the Prophet chooseth rather to charge them with the fault of making a lawe vnto themselues then with the crime of transgressing a lawe which God had made For when the Lord hath once himselfe precisely set downe a forme of executing that wherein we are to serue him the fault appeareth greater to do that which we are not then not to do that which we are commaunded In this we seeme to charge the Lawe of God with hardnesse onely in that with foolishnesse in this we shew our selues weake and vnapt to be doers of his will in that we take vpon vs to be controllers of his wisedome in this we faile to performe the thing which God seeth meete conuenient and good in that we presume to see what is meete and conuenient better then God himselfe In those actions therefore the whole forme whereof God hath of purpose set downe to be obserued we may not otherwise do then exactly as he hath prescribed in such things negatiue arguments are strong Againe with a negatiue argument Dauid is pressed concerning the purpose he had to build a Temple vnto the Lord Thus sayth the Lord thou shalt not build me an house to dwell in Wheresoeuer I haue walked with all Israell spake I one word to any of the Iudges of Israel whom I commaunded to feed my people saying Why haue ye not built me an house The Iewes vrged with a negatiue argument touching the ayde which they sought at the hands of the King of AEgypt Woe to those rebellious children sayth the Lord which walke forth to go downe into AEgypt and haue not asked counsell at my mouth to strengthen themselues with the strength of Pharao Finally the league of Ioshua with the Gabeonites is likewise with a negatiue argument touched It was not as it should be And why The Lord gaue them not that aduise They sought not counsell at the mouth of the Lord. By the vertue of which examples if any man should suppose the force of negatiue arguments approued when they are taken from Scripture in such sort as we in this question are pressed therewith they greatly deceiue themselues For vnto which of all these was it said that they had done amisse in purposing to do or in doing any thing at all which the Scripture commanded them not Our question is whether all be sinne which is done without direction by scripture and not whether the Israelites did at any time amisse by following their owne minds without asking counsell of God No it was that peoples singular priuiledge a fauour which God vouchfafed them aboue the rest of the world that in the affaires of their estate which were not determinable one way or other by the scripture himselfe gaue them extraordinarily direction and counsell as oft as they sought it at his hands Thus God did first by speech vnto Moses after by Vrim and Thummim vnto Priests lastly by dreames and visions vnto Prophets from whom in such cases they were to receiue the aunswere of God Concerning Iosua therefore thus spake the Lord vnto Moses saying He shall stand before Eleazar the Priest who shall aske counsell for him by the iudgement of Vrim before the Lord whereof had Iosua bene mindfull the fraud of the Gabeonites could not so smoothly haue past vnespied till there was no helpe The Iewes had Prophets to haue resolued them from the mouth of God himselfe whether Egyptian aides should profite them yea or no but they thought themselues wise enough and him vnworthy to be of their Counsell In this respect therfore was their reproofe though sharpe yet iust albeit there had bene no charge precisely geuen them that they should alwayes take heed of Egypt But as for Dauid to thinke that he did euill in determining to build God a Temple because there was in scripture no commandement that he should build it
were very iniurious the purpose of his hart was religious and godly the act most worthy of honour and renowne neither could Nathan choose but admire his vertuous intent exhort him to go forward and beseech God to prosper him therein But God saw the endlesse troubles which Dauid should be subiect vnto during the whole time of his regiment and therefore gaue charge to differre so good a worke till the dayes of tranquilitie and peace wherein it might without interruption be performed Dauid supposed that it could not stand with the duty which he owed vnto God to set himselfe in an house of Cedar trees and to behold the Arke of the Lords Couenant vnsetled This opinion the Lord abateth by causing Nathan to shew him plainely that it should be no more imputed vnto him for a fault then it had bene vnto the Iudges of Israell before him his case being the same which theirs was their times not more vnquiet then his nor more vnfit for such an action Wherefore concerning the force of negatiue arguments so taken from the authority of Scripture as by vs they are denied there is in all this lesse then nothing And touching that which vnto this purpose is borrowed froÌ„ the controuersies sometime handled betweene M. Harding and the worthiest Diuine that Christendome hath bred for the space of some huÌ„dreds of yeres who being brought vp together in one Vniuersitie it fell out in them which was spoken of two others They learned in the same that which in contrary CaÌ„ps they did practise Of these two the one obiecting that with vs arguments taken from authority negatiuely are ouer common the Bishops answer hereunto is that This kind of argument is thought to be good whensoeuer proofe is taken of Gods word and is vsed not only by vs but also by Saint Paul and by many of the Catholique Fathers Saint Paule saith God said not vnto Abraham In thy seeds all the nations of the earth shall be blessed but in thy seed which is Christ and thereof he thought he made a good argument Likewise sayth Origen The bread which the Lord gaue vnto his disciples saying vnto them Take and eate he differred not nor commanded to be reserued till the next day Such arguments Origen and other learned Fathers thought to stand for good whatsoeuer misliking Maister Harding hath found in theÌ„ This kind of proofe is thought to hold in Gods commaundements for that they be full and perfect and God hath specially charged vs that we should neither put to them nor take fro them and therefore it seemeth good vnto them that haue learned of Christ Vnus est magister vester Christus haue heard the voyce of God the Father from heauen Ipsum auâ—ite But vnto them that adde to the word of God what them listeth and make Gods will subiect vnto their will and breake Gods commaundements for their owne traditions sake vnto them is seemeth not good Againe the English Apologie alleaging the example of the Greekes how they haue neither priuate Masses nor mangled Sacraments nor Purgatories nor pardons it pleaseth Maister Harding to iest out the matter to vse the helpe of his wits where strength of truth failed him to answer with scoffing at negatiues The Bishops defence in this case is The auncient learned Fathers hauing to deale with impudent heretiques that in defence of their errors auouched the iudgement of all the old Bishops and Doctors that had bene before them and the generall consent of the primitiue and whole vniuersall Church and that with as good regard of truth and as faithfully as you do now the better to discouer the shamelesse boldnes nakednes of their doctrine were oftentimes likewise forced to vse the negatiue so to driue the same heretiques as we do you to proue their affirmatiues which thing to do it was neuer possible The ancient father Irenaeus thus stayed himselfe as we do by the negatiue Hoc neque Prophetae praedicauerunt néque Dominus docuit néque Apostoli tradiderunt This thing neither did the Prophets publish nor our Lord teach nor the Apostles deliuer By a like negatiue Chrysostome saith This tree neither Paule planted nor Apollo watered nor God increased In like sort Leo saith What needeth it to beleeue that thing that neither the Lawe hath taught nor the Prophets haue spoken nor the Gospell hath preached nor the Apostles haue deliuered And againe How are the new deuises brought in that our Fathers neuer knew S. Augustine hauing reekoned vp a great number of the Bishops of Rome by a generall negatiue saith thus In all this order of succession of Bishops there is not one Bishop found that was a Donatist Saint Gregory being himselfe a Bishop of Rome and writing against the title of vniuersall Bishop saith thus None of all my predecessors euer consented to vse this vngodly title No Bishop of Rome euer tooke vpon him this name of Singularity By such negatiues M. Harding we reproue the vanity and nouelty of your religion we tell you none of the catholique ancient learned Fathers either Greeke or Latine euer vsed either your priuate Masse or your halfe communion or your barbarous vnknowne prayers Paule neuer planted them Apollo neuer watered them God neuer increased them they are of your selues they are not of God In all this there is not a syllable which any way crosseth vs. For coÌ„cerning arguments negatiue euen taken from humane authorityâ— they are here proued to be in some cases very strong and forcible They are not in our estimation idle reproofes when the authors of needlesse innouations are opposed with such negatiues as that of Leo How are these new deuises brought in which our fathers neuer knew When their graue and reuerend superiours do recken vp vnto them as Augustine did vnto the Donatists large Catalogues of Fathers wondered at for their wisdome piety and learning amongst whom for so many ages before vs no one did euer so thinke of the Churches affaires as now the world doth begin to be perswaded surely by vs they are not taught to take exception hereat because such arguments are negatiue Much lesse when the like are taken from the sacred authority of Scripture if the matter it selfe do beare them For in truth the question is not whether an argument from scripture negatiuely may be good but whether it be so generally good that in all actions men may vrge it The fathers I graunt do vse very generall and large tearmes euen as Hiero the King did in speaking of Archimedes From henceforward whatsoeuer Archimedes speaketh it must be belieued His meaning was not that Archimedes could simply in nothing be deceiued but that he had in such sort approued his skill that he seemed worthy of credit for euer after in matters appertaining vnto the science he was skilfull in In speaking thus largely it is presumed that mens speeches will be taken according to the
was with him in the Gospell but seruants being commaunded to goe shall stand still till they haue their errand warranted vnto them by scripture Which as it standeth with Christian dutie in some cases so in common affaires to require it were most vnfit Two opinions therefore there are concerning sufficiencie of holy scripture each extreamly opposite vnto the other bothe repugnant vnto truth The schooles of Rome teach scripture to be so vnsufficient as if except traditions were added it did not conteine all reuealed and supernaturall truth which absolutely is necessary for the children of men in this life to know that they may in the next be saued Others iustly condemning this opinion growe likewise vnto a dangerous extremitie as if scripture did not only containe all thinges in that kinde necessary but all thinges simply and in such sorte that to doe any thing according to any other lawe were not onely vnnecessary but euen opposite vnto saluation vnlawfull and sinfull Whatsoeuer is spoken of God or thinges appertaining to God otherwise then as the truth is though it seeme an honour it is an iniurie And as incredible praises giuen vnto men doe often abate and impaire the credit of their deserued commendation so we must likewise take great heed least in attributing vnto scripture more then it can haue the incredibilitie of that do cause euen those thinges which indeed it hath most aboundantly to be lesse reuerendly esteemed I therefore leaue it to themselues to consider whether they haue in this first point or not ouershot themselues which God doth knowe is quickly done euen when our meaning is most sincere as I am verily perswaded theirs in this case was The third Booke Concerning their second assertion that in Scripture there must be of necessitie contained a forme of Church-politie the lawes whereof may in no wise be altered The matter conteined in this third Booke 1 What the Church is and in what respect lawes of politie are thereunto necessarily required 2 Whether it be necessary that some particular forme of Church-politie be set downe in scripture sith the thinges that belong particularly to any such forme are not of necessitie to saluation 3 That matters of Church-politie are different from matters of faith and saluation and that they themselues so teach which are our reprouers for so teaching 4 That hereby we take not from Scripture any thing which thereunto with soundnesse of truth may be giuen 5 Their meaning who first vrged against the politie of the Church of England that nothing ought to be established in the Church more then is commaunded by the worde of God 6 How great iniurie men by so thinking should offer vnto all the Churches of God 7 A shift notwithstanding to maintaine it by interpreting Commaunded as though it were meant that greater thinges only ought to be found set downe in Scripture particularly and lesser framed by the generall rules of Scripture 8 An other deuise to defend the same by expounding Commaunded as if it did signifie grounded on Scripture and were opposed to things found out by light of naturall reason onely 9 How lawes for the politie of the Church may be made by the aduise of men and how those lawes being not repugnant to the word of God are approued in his sight 10 That neither Gods being the author of laws nor yet his committing of them to Scripture is any reason sufficient to proue that they admit no addition or change 11 Whether Christ must needs intend lawes vnchangeable altogether or haue forbidden any where to make any other law then himselfe did deliuer ALbeit the substance of those controuersies whereinto wee haue begun to wade be rather of outward things appertaining to the Church of Christ then of any thing wherein the nature and being of the Church consisteth yet because the subiect or matter which this position concerneth is A forme of Church-gouernment or Church-politie it therefore behoueth vs so far forth to consider the nature of the Church as is requisite for mens more cleare and plaine vnderstanding in what respect lawes of politie or gouernment are necessary therunto That Church of Christ which we properly terme his body mysticall can be but one neither can that one be sensibly discerned by any man in as much as the parts thereof are some in heauen alreadie with Christ and the rest that are on earth albeit their naturall persons be visible we do not discerne vnder this propertie whereby they are truly and infallibly of that body Onely our mindes by intellectuall conceipt are able to apprehend that such a reall body there is a body collectiue because it cōtaineth an huge multitude a body mistical because the mysterie of their coniunction is remoued altogether from sense Whatsoeuer we read in scripture concerning the endlesse loue and the sauing mercie which God sheweth towards his Church the onely proper subiect thereof is this Church Concerning this flocke it is that our Lord and Sauiour hath promised I giue vnto them eternall life and they shall neuer perish neither shall any plucke them out of my hands They who are of this society haue such markes and notes of distinction from all others as are not obiect vnto our sense onely vnto God who seeth their hearts and vnderstandeth all their secret cogitations vnto him they are cleare and manifest All men knew Nathaniel to be an Israelite But our Sauiour pearcing deeper giueth further testimony of him then men could haue done with such certaintie as he did Beholde indeede an Israelite in whom is no guile If we professe as Peter did that we loue the Lorde and professe it in the hearing of men charitie is prone to beleeue all thinges and therefore charitable men are likely to thinke we do so as long as they see no proofe to the contrary But that our loue is sound and sincere that it commeth from a Pure heart and a good conscience a faith vnfained who can pronounce sauing onely the searcher of all mens hearts who alone intuitiuely doth knowe in this kinde who are his And as those euerlasting promises of loue mercy blessednes belong to the mysticall church euen so on the other side when we reade of any dutie which the Church of God is bound vnto the Church whom this doth concerne is a sensibly knowne company And this visible Church in like sorte is but one continued from the first beginning of the world to the last end Which company being deuided into two moieties the one before the other since the comming of Christ that part which since the comming of Christ partly hath embraced and partly shall hereafter embrace the Christian Religion wee terme as by a more proper name the Church of Christ. And therefore the Apostle affirmeth plainely of all men Christian that be they Iewes or Gentiles bond or free they are al incorporated into one cōpany they al make but one body The vnitie of which visible
Tertullian yet there is a Church that is to say a Christian assembly But a Church as now we are to vnderstand it is a society that is a number of men belonging vnto some Christian fellowship the place and limites whereof are certaine That wherein they haue communion is the publike exercise of such duties as those mentioned in the Apostles acts Instruction Breaking of bread and Prayers As therefore they that are of the misticall body of Christ haue those inward graces and vertues whereby they differ from all others which are not of the same body againe whosoeuer appertaine to the visible body of the Church they haue also the notes of externall profession whereby the world knoweth what they are after the same manner euen the seuerall societies of Christian men vnto euery of which the name of a Church is giuen with addition betokening seuerally as the Church of Rome Corinth Ephesus England and so the rest must bee indued with correspondent generall properties belonging vnto them as they are publique Christian societies And of such properties common vnto all societies Christian it may not be denied that one of the very chiefest is Ecclesiasticall Politie Which word I therefore the rather vse because the name of gouernement as commonly men vnderstand it in ordinary speech doth not comprise the largenes of that whereunto in this question it is applied For when we speake of gouernment what doth the greatest part conceiue thereby but onely the exercise of superiority peculiar vnto rulers and guides of others To our purpose therefore the name of Church-politie will better serue because it conteineth both gouernement and also whatsoeuer besides belongeth to the ordering of the Church in publique Neither is any thing in this degree more necessarie then Church politie which is a forme of ordering the publique spirituall affaires of the Church of God 2 But we must note that he which affirmeth speech to bee necessary amongest all men throughout the world doth not thereby import that all men must necessarily speake one kind of language Euen so the necessitie of politie and regiment in all Churches may be held without holding any one certaine forme to bee necessarie in them all Nor is it possible that any forme of politie much lesse of politie Ecclesiasticall should bee good vnlesse God himselfe bee author of it Those things that are not of God sayth Tertullian they can haue no other then Gods aduersarie for their author Be it whatsoeuer in the Church of God if it bee not of God wee hate it Of God it must bee either as those things sometime were which God supernaturally reuealed and so deliuered them vnto Moses for gouernement of the common wealth of Israell or else as those thinges which men finde out by helpe of that light which God hath giuen them vnto that ende The verie lawe of nature it selfe which no man can deny but God hath instituted is not of God vnlesse that be of God whereof God is the author as well this later way as the former But for as much as no forme of Church-politie is thought by them to be lawfull or to bee of God vnlesse God be so the author of it that it bee also set downe in Scripture they should tell vs plainely whether their meaning be that it must be there set downe in whole or in part For if wholly let them shewe what one forme of politie euer was so Their owne to be so taken out of Scripture they will not affirme neither denie they that in part euen this which they so much oppugne is also from thence taken Againe they should tell vs whether onely that be taken out of Sripture which is actually and particularly there set downe or else that also which the generall principles and rules of Scripture potentially conteine The one way they cannot as much as pretend that all the partes of their owne discipline are in scripture and the other way their mouthes are stopped when they would pleade against all other formes besides their owne seeing the generall principles are such as do not particularly prescribe any one but sundry may equally be consonant vnto the generall axiomes of the Scripture But to giue them some larger scope and not to close them vp in these streights let their allegations bee considered wherewith they earnestly bend themselues against all which deny it necessarie that any one complete forme of Church politie should bee in Scripture First therefore whereas it hath beene told them that matters of faith and in generall matters necessarie vnto saluation are of a different nature from Ceremonies order and the kind of Church gouernement that the one are necessarie to bee expressely contained in the word of God or else manifestly collected out of the same the other not so that is necessarie not to receiue the one vnlesse there be some thing in Scripture for them the other free if nothing against them may thence bee alleaged although there do not appeare any iust or reasonable cause to reiect or dislike of this neuerthelesse as it is not easie to speake to the contentation of mindes exulcerated in themselues but that somewhat there will bee alwayes which displeaseth so herein for two things we are reprooued the first is misdistinguishing because matters of discipline and Church gouernement are as they say matters necessary to saluation and of faith whereas we put a difference betweene the one and the other our second fault is iniurious dealing with the Scripture of God as if it conteined onely the principall points of religion some rude and vnfashioned matter of building the Church but had left out that which belongeth vnto the forme and fashion of it as if there were in the Scripture no more then only to couer the Churches nakednesse and not chaines bracelets rings iewels to adorne her sufficient to quench her thirst to kill her hunger but not to minister a more liberall and as it were a more delitious and dainty dyet In which case our apologie shall not need to be very long 3 The mixture of those things by speech which by nature are diuided is the mother of all error To take away therefore that error which confusion breedeth distinction is requisite Rightly to distinguish is by conceipt of minde to seuer thinges different in nature and to discerne wherein they differ So that if wee imagine a difference where there is none because wee distinguish where wee should not it may not bee denied that wee misdistinguish The onely tryall whether wee do so yea or no dependeth vpon comparison betweene our conceipt and the nature of thinges conceiued Touching matters belonging vnto the Church of Christ this wee conceiue that they are not of one sute Some things are meerely of faith which things it doth suffice that wee knowe and beleeue some things not onely to bee knowne but done because they concerne the actions of men Articles about the Trinitie are matters of meere faith and
must bee belieued Precepts concerning the workes of charitie are matters of action which to knowe vnlesse they bee practised is not enough This beeing so cleare to all mens vnderstanding I somewhat maruaile that they especially should thinke it absurde to oppose Church-gouernement a plaine matter of action vnto matters of faith who know that themselues deuide the Gospell into Doctrine and Discipline For if matters of discipline be rightly by them distinguished from matters of doctrine why not matters of gouernmeÌ„t by 〈◊〉 as reasonably set against matters of faith Do not they vnder doctrine comprehend the same which we intend by matters of faith Do not they vnder discipline comprise the regiment of the Church When they blame that in vs which themselues followe they giue men great cause to doubt that some other thing then iudgement doth guide their speech What the Church of God standeth bound to knowe or do the same in part nature teacheth And because nature can teach them but onely in part neither so fully as is requisite for mans saluation nor so easily as to make the way plaine and expedite enough that many may come to the knowledge of it and so be saued therefore in Scripture hath God both collected the most necessarie things that the Schoole of nature teacheth vnto that end and reuealeth also whatsoeuer we neither could with safety bee ignorant of nor at all be instructed in but by supernaturall reuelation from him So that Scripture conteining all things that are in this kind any way needfull for the Church and the principall of the other sort this is the next thing wherewith we are charged as with an errour we teach that whatsoeuer is vnto saluation termed necessarie by way of excellencie whatsoeuer it standeth all men vppon to knowe or do that they may be saued whatsoeuer there is whereof it may truely be sayd This not to beleeue is eternall death and damnation or This euery soule that will liue must duly obserue of which sort the Articles of Christian faith and the Sacraments of the Church of Christ are all such things if Scripture did not comprehend the Church of God should not bee able to measure out the length and the breadth of that way wherein for euer she is to walke Heretiques and Schismatiques neuer ceasing some to abridge some to enlarge all to peruert and obscure the same But as for those things that are accessorie hereunto those things that so belong to the way of saluation as to alter them is no otherwise to chaunge that way then a path is chaunged by altering onely the vppermost face thereof which be it layd with grauell or set with grasse or paued with stone remaineth still the same path in such things because discretion may teach the Church what is conuenient we hold not the Church further tied herein vnto Scripture then that against Scripture nothing be admitted in the Church least that path which ought alwayes to be kept euen do thereby come to be ouer-growne with brambles and thornes If this be vnsound wherein doth the point of vnsoundnesse lye It is not that we make some things necessarie some things accessorie and appendent onely For our Lord and Sauiour himselfe doth make that difference by terminâ— iudgement and mercie and fidelitie with other things of like nature the greater and waightier matters of the lawe Is it then in that wee account Ceremonies wherein wee do not comprise Sacraments or any other the like substantiall duties in the exercise of Religion but onely such externall rites as are vsually annexed vnto Church-actions is it an ouersight that we recken these thinges and matters of gouernement in the number of things accessorie not things necessarie in such sort as hath beene declared Let them which therefore thinke vs blameable consider well their owne words Do they not plainely compare the one vnto garments which couer the body of the Church the other vnto rings braslets and iewels that onely adorne it the one to that food which the Church doth liue by the other to that which maketh her dyet liberall daintie and more delitious Is dainty fare a thing necessary to the sustenance or to the clothing of the body rich attire If not how can they vrge the necessity of that which themselues resemble by things not necessary Or by what construction shall any man liuing be able to make those comparisons true holding that distinction vntrue which putteth a difference betweene things of externall regiment in the Church and things necessarie vnto saluation 4 Now as it can be to nature no iniury that of her we say the same which diligent beholders of her workes haue obserued namely that she prouideth for all liuing creatures nourishment which may suffice that she bringeth foorth no kind of creature whereto she is wanting in that which is needfull although we do not so farre magnifie her exceeding bountie as to affirme that she bringeth into the world the sonnes of men adorned with gorgeous attire or maketh costly buildings to spring vp out of the earth for them So I trust that to mention what the Scripture of God leaueth vnto the Churches discretion in some things is not in any thing to impaire the honour which the Church of God yeeldeth to the sacred scriptures perfection Wherein seeing that no more is by vs maintained then onely that scripture must needs teach the Church whatsoeuer is in such sort necessarie as hath bene set downe and that it is no more disgrace for scripture to haue left a number of other things free to be ordered at the discretion of the Church then for nature to haue left it vnto the wit of man to deuise his owne attire and not to looke for it as the beasts of the field haue theirs If neither this can import nor any other proofe sufficient be brought foorth that we either will at any time or euer did affirme the sacred Scripture to comprehend no more then onely those bare necessaries if we acknowledge that as well for particular application to speciall occasions as also in other manifold respects infinite treasures of wisedome are ouer and besides aboundantly to be found in the holy Scripture yea that scarcely there is any noble part of knowledge worthie the minde of man but from thence it may haue some direction and light yea that athough there bee no necessitie it should of purpose prescribe any one particular forâ—â— of Church-gouernement yet touching the manner of gouerning in generall the precepts that Scripture setteth downe are not few and the examples many which it proposeth for all Church-gouernors euen in particularities to followe yea that those things finally which are of principall waight in the verie particular forme of Church-politie although not that forme which they imagine but that which we against them vphold are in the selfe same Scriptures conteined if all this bee willingly graunted by vs which are accused to pinne the word of God in so
Agrippa beleeuest thou the Prophets I know thou dost The questiō is how the bookes of the Prophets came to be credited of king Agrippa For what with him did authorize the Prophets the like with vs doth cause the rest of the scripture of God to be of credit Because we maintain that in scripture we are taught all things necessary vnto saluation hereupon very childishly it is by some demanded what scripture can teach vs the sacred authoritie of the scripture vpō the knowledge wherof our whole faith saluation dependeth As though there were any kind of science in the world which leadeth men into knowledge without presupposing a number of thinges alreadie knowne No science doth make knowne the first principles whereon it buildeth but they are alwaies either taken as plaine and manifest in themselues or as proued and granted already some former knowledge hauing made them euident Scripture teacheth al supernaturally reuealed truth without the knowledge wherof saluatiō cannot be attained The maine principle wherupon our beliefe of al things therin contained dependeth is that the scriptures are the oracles of God himselfe This in it selfe wee cannot say is euident For thē all men that heare it would acknowledge it in hart as they do when they heare that euery whole is more then any part of that whole because this in it selfe is euident The other we know that all do not acknowledge when they heare it There must be therefore some former knowledge presupposed which doth herein assure the hearts of all beleeuers Scripture teacheth vs that sauing truth which God hath discouered vnto the world by reuelation it presumeth vs taught otherwise that it self is diuine sacred The questiō thē being by what meanes we are taught this some answere that to learne it we haue no other way then only traditiō as namely that so we beleeue because both we from our predecessors they from theirs haue so receiued But is this inough That which al mens experience teacheth them may not in any wise be denied And by experience we all know that the first outward motiue leading men so to esteeme of the scripture is the authority of Gods church For whē we know the whole church of God hath that opiniō of the scripture we iudge it euen at the first an impudēt thing for any man bredde and brought vp in the Church to bee of a contrary mind without cause Afterwards the more we bestow our labor in reading or hearing the misteries thereof the more we find that the thing it selfe doth answer our receiued opinion concerning it So that the former inducement preuailing somwhat with vs before doth now much more preuaile when the very thing hath ministred farther reason If Infidels or Atheists chance at any time to call it in question this giueth vs occasion to sift what reason there is whereby the testimony of the church cōcerning scripture our own perswasiō which scripture it selfe hath confirmed may be proued a truth infallible In which case the ancient fathers being often constrained to shew what warrant they had so much to relie vpō the scriptures endeuored still to maintain the authority of the books of God by arguments such as vnbeleeuers thēselues must needs think reasonable if they iudged therof as they shuld Neither is it a thing impossible or greatly hard euen by such kind of proofes so to manifest cleere that point that no mā liuing shal be able to deny it without denying some apparent principle such as al men acknowledge to be true Wherefore if I beleeue the gospell yet is reason of singular vse for that it confirmeth me in this my beleefe the more If I do not as yet beleeue neuertheles to bring me to the number of beleeuers except reasō did somwhat helpe were an instrument which God doth vse vnto such purposes what should it boote to dispute with Infidels or godles persons for their conuersion perswasion in that point Neither can I thinke that when graue learned men do sometime hold that of this principle there is no proofe but by the testimony of the spirit which assureth our harts therin it is their meaning to exclude vtterly all force which any kind of reason may haue in that behalfe but I rather iucline to interpret such their speeches as if they had more expresly set downe that other motiues inducemēts be they neuer so strong consonāt vnto reason are notwithstanding vneffectual of thēselues to worke faith concerning this principle if the special grace of the holy ghost concur not to the inlightning of our minds For otherwise I doubt not but mē of wisdom iudgemēt wil grant that the Church in this point especially is furnished with reason to stop the mouthes of her impious aduersaries and that as it were altogether bootles to alleage against thē what the spirit hath taught vs so likewise that euen to our owne selues it needeth caution and explicatiō how the testimony of the spirit may be discerned by what meanes it may be known least mē think that the spirit of God doth testifie those things which the spirit of error suggesteth The operations of the spirit especially these ordinary which be cōmon vnto all true christian men are as we know things secret vndiscernable euen to the very soule where they are because their nature is of an other an higher kind thē that they cā be by vs perceiued in this life Wherfore albeit the spirit lead vs into all truth direct vs in all goodnes yet because these workings of the spirit in vs are so priuy secret we therfore stand on a plainer ground when we gather by reason frō the quality of things beleeued or done that the spirit of God hath directed vs in both then if we settle our selues to beleeue or to do any certaine particular thing as being moued thereto by the spirit But of this enough To go frō the books of scripture to the sense meaning therof because the sentēces which are by the Apostles recited out of the Psalms to proue the resurrectiō of Iesus Christ did not proue it if so be the prophet Dauid meant thē of himsef this expositiō therfore they plainly disproue shew by manifest reason that of Dauid the words of Dauid could not possibly be meant Exclude the vse of naturall reasoning about the sense of holy scripture concerning the articles of our faith then that the scripture doth concerne the articles of our faith who can assure vs That which by right exposition buildeth vp Christian faith being misconstrued breedeth error between true and false construction the difference reason must shew Can Christian men perform that which Peter requireth at their hands is it possible they should both beleeue be able without the vse of reason to render a reason of their beleefe a reason sound and sufficient to answer them that demaund it be they of the same faith with vs or enemies
change is requisite had bin worse when that which now is changed was instituted Otherwise God had not then left this to choose that neither would now reiect that to choose this were it not for some new grown occasion making that which hath bene better worse In this case therefore 〈…〉 not presume to change Gods ordinance but they yeeld thereunto requiring it selfe to be chaunged Against this it is obiected that to abrogate or innouate the gospel of Christ if mē do Angels should attempt it were most heynous and cursed sacriledge And the Gospell as they say containeth not only doctrine instructing men how they should beleeue but also precepts concerning the regiment of the Church Discipline therefore is a part of the Gospell and God being the author of the whole Gospel as well of discipline as of doctrine it cānot be but that both of them haue a common cause So that as we are to beleeue for euer the articles of euangelicall doctrine so the precepts of discipline we are in like sort bound for euer to obserue Touching points of doctrine as for example the vnity of God the trinitie of persons saluation by Christ the resurrection of the body life euerlasting the iudgement to come and such like they haue bene since the first houre that there was a Church in the world and till the last they must be beleeued But as for matters of regiment they are for the most part of another nature To make new articles of faith and doctrine no man thinketh it lawfull new lawes of gouernment what common wealth or Church is there which maketh not either at one time or another The rule of faith saith Tertullian is but one and that alone immoueable and impossible to be framed or cast anew The law of outward order polity not so There is no reason in the world wherfore we should esteeme it as necessary alwayes to do as alwayes to beleeue the same things seeing euery man knoweth that the matter of faith is constant the matter contrariwise of action daily changeable especially the matter of action belonging vnto Church polity Neither than I find that men of soundest iudgement haue any otherwise taught then that articles of beliefe and things which all men must of necessity do to the end they may be saued are either expresly set downe in Scripture or else plainly thereby to be gathered But touching things which belong to discipline outward politie the Church hath authority to make canons laws decrees euen as we reade that in the Apostles times it did Which kind of lawes for as much as they are not in themselues necessary to saluation may after they are made be also changed as the difference of times or places shall require Yea it is not denied I am sure by themselues that certaine things in discipline are of that nature as they may be varied by times places persons and other the like circumstances Whereupon I demaund are those changeable points of discipline commaunded in the word of God or no If they be not commanded and yet may be receiued in the Church how can their former position stand cōdemning all things in the Church which in the word are not commanded If they be commaunded and yet may suffer change how can this later stand affirming all things immutable which are commanded of God Their distinction touching matters of substance and of circumstance though true will not serue For be they great things or be they small if God haue commaunded them in the Gospell and his commanding them in the Gospell do make them vnchangeable there is no reason we should more change the one then we may the other If the authority of the maker do proue vnchangeablenesse in the lawes which God hath made then must al laws which he hath made be necessarily for euer permanēt though they be but of circumstance only and not of substance I therfore conclude that neither Gods being author of lawes for gouernment of his Church nor his cōmitting them vnto Scripture is any reason sufficient wherefore all Churches should for euer be bound to keepe them without chaunge But of one thing we are here to giue them warning by the way For whereas in this discourse we haue oftentimes profest that many parts of discipline or Church politie are deliuered in Scripture they may perhaps imagine that we are driuē to cōfesse their discipline to be deliuered in scripture and that hauing no other meanes to auoid it we are faine to argue for the changeablenesse of lawes ordained euen by God himselfe as if otherwise theirs of necessitie should take place and that vnder which we liue be abandoned There is no remedie therefore but to abate this error in them and directly to let them know that if they fall into any such conceit they do but a little flatter their owne cause As for vs we thinke in no respect so highly of it Our perswasion is that no age euer had knowledged of it but onely ours that they which defend it deuised it that neither Christ nor his Apostles at any time taught it but the contrary If therefore we did seeke to maintaine that which most aduantageth our owne cause the very best way for vs and the strongest against them were to hold euen as they do that in Scripture there must needs be foūd some particular forme of Church-polity which God hath instituted and which for that very cause belongeth to all Churches to all times But with any such partiall eye to respect our selues and by cunning to make those things seeme the truest which are the fittest to serue our purpose is a thing which we neither like nor meane to follow Wherefore that which we take to be generally true concerning the mutability of lawes the same we haue plainely deliuered as being perswaded of nothing more then we are of this that whether it be in matter of speculation or of practise no vntruth can possibly auaile the patrone and defendor long and that things most truly are likewise most behoouefully spoken 11. This we hold and graunt for truth that those very lawes which of their own nature are changeable be notwithstāding vncapable of change if he which gaue them being of authority so to do forbid absolutely to change thē neither may they admit alteratiō against the will of such a law maker Albeit therfore we do not find any cause why of right there should be necessarily an immutable forme set downe in holy scripture neuerthelesse if indeed there haue bene at any time a Church-politie so set downe the change whereof the sacred scripture doth forbid surely for mē to alter those lawes which God for perpetuity hath established were presumption most intollerable To proue therfore that the wil of Christ was to establish laws so permanent and immutable that in any sort to alter them cannot but highly offend God thus they reason First if Moses being but a seruant in
and their potent opposites vtterly to cast away themselues for euer Wherefore least it should so fall out to them vpon whom so much did depend they were not permitted to enter into warre nor conclude any league of peace nor to wade through any acte of moment betweene them and forraine states vnlesse the Oracle of God or his Prophets were first consulted with And least domesticall disturbance should wash them within themselues because there was nothing vnto this purpose more effectuall then if the authority of their lawes and gouernors were such as none might presume to take exception against it or to shewe disobedience vnto it without incurring the hatred detestation of al men that had any sparke of the feare of God therefore he gaue them euen their positiue lawes from heauen and as oft as occasion required chose in like sort Rulers also to leade gouerne them Notwithstāding some desperatly impious there were which adventured to try what harme it could bring vpon them if they did attempt to be authors of confusion and to resist both Gouernours and Lawes Against such monsters God mainteined his owne by fearefull execution of extraordinarie iudgement vpon them By which meanes it came to passe that although they were a people infested and mightily hated of all others throughout the world although by nature hard harted querulous wrathful impatiēt of rest and quietnes yet was there nothing of force either one way or other to worke the ruine and subuersion of their state till the time before mentioned was expired Thus we see that there was not no cause of dissimilitude in these things betweene that one only people before Christ and the kingdomes of the world since And whereas it is further alleaged that albeit in Ciuill matters and things perteining to this present life God hath vsed a greater particularity with them then amongst vs framing lawes according to the quality of that people and Countrey yet the leauing of vs at greater liberty in things ciuill is so farre from prouing the like liberty in things pertaining to the kingdome of heauen that it rather proues a streighter bond For euen as when the Lord would haue his fauour more appeare by temporall blessings of this life towards the people vnder the Lawe then towards vs he gaue also politique lawes most exactly whereby they might both most easily come into and most stedfastly remaine in possession of those earthly benefites euen so at this time wherein he would not haue his fauour so much esteemed by those outward commodities it is required that as his care in prescribing lawes for that purpose hath somewhat fallen in leauing them to mens consultations which may be deceiued so his care for conduct and gouernement of the life to come should if it were possible rise in leauing lesse to the order of men then in times past These are but weake and feeble disputes for the inference of that conclusion which is intended For sauing only in such consideration as hath bene shewed there is no cause wherefore we should thinke God more desirous to manifest his fauour by temporall blessings towards them then towards vs. Godlinesse had vnto them and it hath also vnto vs the promises both of this life and the life to come That the care of God hath fallen in earthly things and therefore should rise as much in heauenly that more is left vnto mens consultations in the one and therefore lesse must be graunted in the other that God hauing vsed a greater particularity with them then with vs for matters perteining vnto this life is to make vs amends by the more exact deliuery of lawes for gouernment of the life to come these are proportions whereof if there be any rule we must plainely confesse that which truth is we know it not God which spake vnto them by his Prophets hath vnto vs by his onely begotten Sonne those mysteries of grace and saluation which were but darkely disclosed vnto them haue vnto vs more cleerely shined Such differences betweene them and vs the Apostles of Christ haue well acquainted vs withall But as for matter belonging to the outward cōduct or gouernment of the Church seeing that euen in sense it is manifest that our Lord Sauiour hath not by positiue lawes descended so farre into particularities with vs as Moses with them neither doth by extraordinary means oracles and Prophets direct vs as them he did in those things which rising daily by new occasions are of necessitie to be prouided for doth it not hereupon rather follow that although not to them yet to vs there should be freedome libertie graunted to make lawes Yea but the Apostle S. Paule doth fearefully charge Timothy euen In the sight of God who quickneth all of Christ Iesus who witnessed that famous confession before Pontius Pilate to keepe what was commaunded him safe and sound til the appearance of our Lord Iesus Christ. This doth exclude al liberty of changing the lawes of Christ whether by abrogation or addition or howsoeuer For in Timothy the whole Church of Christ receiueth charge concerning her duty And that charge is to keepe the Apostles commaundement And his commaundement did conteine the lawes that concerned Church gouernement And those lawes he straightly requireth to be obserued without breach or blame till the appearance of our Lord Iesus Christ. In Scripture we graunt euery one mans lesson to be the common instruction of all men so farre forth as their cases are like and that religiously to keepe the Apostles commandemēts in whatsoeuer they may concerne vs we all stand bound But touching that commandement which Timothy was charged with we swarue vndoubtedly from the Apostles precise meaning if we extend it so largely that the armes thereof shall reach vnto all things which were cōmanded him by the Apostle The very words themselues do restraine thēselues vnto some one speciall commandemēt among many And therfore it is not said Keepe the ordinances lawes constitutions which thou hast receiued but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that great cōmandement which doth principally concerne thee and thy calling that cōmandement which Christ did so often inculcate vnto Peter that cōmandement vnto the carefull discharge whereof they of Ephesus are exhorted Attend to your selues to all flock wherin the holy Ghost hath placed you Bishops to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased by his owne bloud finally that cōmandement which vnto the same Timothy is by the same Apostle euen in the same forme maner afterwards again vrged I charge thee in the sight of God the Lord Iesus Christ which will iudge the quicke dead at his appearance in his kingdom Preach the word of God When Timothy was instituted into that office then was the credit and trust of this duty committed vnto his faithfull care The doctrine of the Gospell was thē giuen him as the precious talent or treasure of Iesus Christ
onely to say in the hearing of the publique magistrate I will that this man become free but after these solemne wordes vttered to strike him on the cheeke to turne him round the haire of his head to be shaued off the magistrate to touch him thrise with a rod in the end a cap and a white garment to be giuen him To what purpose all this circumstance Amongst the Hebrewes how strange in outward appearance almost against reason that he which was minded to make himselfe a perpetuall seruant should not only testifie so much in the presence of the iudge but for a visible token thereof haue also his eare bored through with a nawle It were an infinite labour to prosecute these things so far as they might be exempplified both in ciuill and religious actions For in bothe they haue their necessary vse and force The sensible things which Religion hath allowed are resemblances framed according to things spiritually vnderstood wherunto they serue as a hand to lead and a way to direct And whereas it may peraduenture be obiected that to adde to religious duties such rites and ceremonies as are significant is to institute new sacraments sure I am they will not say that Numa Pompilius did ordaine a sacrament a significant ceremonie he did ordaine in commanding the Priests to execute the work of their diuine seruice with their handes as farre as to the fingers couered thereby signifiing that fidelitie must be defended and that mens right handes are the sacred seate thereof Againe we are also to put them in mind that themselues do not holde all significant ceremonies for sacramentes in as much as imposition of handes they denie to be a sacrament and yet they giue thereunto a forcible signification For concerning it their words are these The party ordained by this ceremony was put in mind of his seperation to the worke of the Lord that remembring himselfe to be taken as it were with the hand of God from amongst others this might teach him not to account himselfe now his owne nor to doe what himselfe listeth but to consider that God hath set him about a worke which if he will discharge accomplish he may at the hands of God assure himselfe of reward and if otherwise of reuenge Touching significant ceremonies some of thē are sacramēts some as sacramēts only Sacraments are those which are signes tokēs of some general promised grace which alwaies really descendeth from God vnto the soule that duly receiueth thē other significant tokēs are onely as sacraments yet no sacraments Which is not our distinction but theirs For concerning the Apostles imposition of handes these are their owne words Manuum signum hoc quasi sacramentum vsurparunt They vsed this signe or as it were sacrament 2 Concerning rites and ceremonies there may be fault either in the kinde or in the number and multitude of them The first thing blamed about the kind of ours is that in many thinges we haue departed from the auncient simplicitie of Christ and his Apostles we haue embraced more outward statelinesse we haue those orders in the exercise of Religion which they who best pleased God and serued him most deuoutly neuer had For it is out of doubt that the first state of thinges was best that in the prime of Christian Religion faith was soundest the scriptures of God were then best vnderstood by all men all parts of godlines did then most abound and therefore it must needes follow that customes lawes and ordinances deuised since are not so good for the Church of Christ but the best way is to cut off later inuentions and to reduce thinges vnto the auntient state wherin at the first they were Which rule or canō we hold to be either vncertain or at leastwise vnsufficient if not bothe For in case it be certain hard it cannot be for them to shew vs where we shall finde it so exactly set downe that wee may say without all controuersie These were the orders of the Apostles times these wholly and onely neither fewer nor moe then these True it is that many things of this nature be alluded vnto yea many thinges declared and many thinges necessarily collected out of the Apostles writings But is it necessary that all the orders of the Church which were then in vse should be contained in their bookes Surely no. For if the tenor of their writinges be well obserued it shall vnto any man easily appeare that no more of them are there touched then were needfull to be spoken of somtimes by one occasion and sometimes by another Will they allow then of any other records besides Well assured I am they are farre enough from acknowledging that the church ought to keepe any thing as Apostolicall which is not found in the Apostles writings in what other recordes soeuer it be found And therefore whereas S. Augustine affirmeth that those thinges which the whole Church of Christ doth hold may well be thought to bee Apostolicall although they be not found written this his iudgement they vtterly condemne I will not here stand in defence of S. Augustines opinion which is that such thinges are indeede Apostolicall but yet with this exception vnlesse the decree of some generall councell haue happily caused them to be receiued for of positiue lawes and orders receiued throughout the whole Christian world S. Augustine could imagine no other fountaine saue these two But to let passe S. Augustine they who condemne him herein must needs confesse it a very vncertaine thing what the orders of the Church were in the Apostles times seeing the scriptures doe not mention them all and other records thereof besides they vtterly reiect So that in tying the Church to the orders of the Apostles times they tie it to a maruellous vncertain rule vnlesse they require the obseruatiō of no orders but only those which are knowne to be Apostolicall by the Apostles owne writings But then is not this their rule of such sufficiencie that we should vse it as a touchstone to trie the orders of the Church by for euer Our ende ought alwaies to bee the same our waies and meanes thereunto not so The glory of God and the good of his Church was the thing which the Apostles aymed at and therefore ought to bee the marke whereat we also leuell But seeing those rites and orders may be at one time more which at an other are lesse auaileable vnto that purpose what reason is there in these thinges to vrge the state of one onely age as a patterne for all to followe It is not I am right sure their meaning that we should now assemble our people to serue God in close secret meetings or that common brookes or riuers should be vsed for places of baptisme or that the Eucharist should be ministred after meate or that the custome of Church feasting should bee renued or that all kinde of standing prouision for the
ministrie should be vtterly taken away and their estate made againe dependent vpon the voluntary deuotion of men In these thinges they easily perceiue how vnfit that were for the present which was for the first age conuenient enough The faith zeale godlines of former times is worthily had in honour but doth this proue that the orders of the Church of Christ must bee still the selfesame with theirs that nothing may be which was not then or that nothing which then was may lawfully since haue ceased They who recall the Church vnto that which was at the first must necessarily set boundes and limits vnto their speeches If any thing haue bene receiued repugnant vnto that which was first deliuered the first things in this case must stand the last giue place vnto them But where difference is without repugnancie that which hath bene can be no preiudice to that which is Let the state of the people of God when they were in the house of bondage and their maner of seruing God in a strange land be compared with that which Canaan and Ierusalem did afford and who seeth not what huge difference there was betweene them In Aegypt it may be they were right glad to take some corner of a poore cottage there to serue God vpon their knees peraduenture couered in dust and strawe sometimes Neither were they therefore the lesse accepted of God but he was with them in all their afflictions and at the length by working their admirable deliuerance did testifie that they serued him not in vaine Notwithstanding in the very desert they are no sooner possest of some little thing of their owne but a tabernacle is required at their handes Beeing planted in the land of Canaan and hauing Dauid to be their King when the Lord had giuen him rest from all his enemies it greeued his religious minde to consider the growth of his owne estate and dignitie the affaires of religion continuing still in the former manner Beholde now I dwell in an house of Cedar trees and the Arke of God remaineth still within curtaines What hee did purpose it was the pleasure of God that Salomon his sonne should performe and performe it in maner suteable vnto their present nor their auncient estate and condition For which cause Salomon writeth vnto the King of Tyrus The house which I build is great and wonderfull for great is our God aboue all Gods Whereby it clearely appeareth that the orders of the Church of God may bee acceptable vnto him as well being framed sutable to the greatnes and dignitie of later as when they keepe the reuerend simplicitie of aunciente◠times Such dissimilitude therefore betweene vs and the Apostles of Christ in the order of some outward things is no argument of default 3 Yea but wee haue framed our selues to the customes of the Church of Rome our orders and ceremonies are Papisticall It is espied that our Church-founders were not so carefull as in this matter they should haue bene but contented themselues with such discipline as they took from the Church of Rome Their error we ought to reforme by abolishing all Popish orders There must bee no communion nor fellowship with Papistes neither in doctrine ceremonies nor gouernment It is not enough that wee are deuided from the Church of Rome by the single wall of doctrine reteining as we do part of their ceremonies and almost their whole gouernment but gouernment or ceremonies or whatsoeuer it be which is popish away with it This is the thing they require in vs the vtter relinquishment of all thinges popish Wherein to the ende wee may answer them according vnto their plaine direct meaning and not take aduantage of doubtfull speech whereby controuersies growe alwaies endlesse their maine position being this that nothing should bee placed in the Church but what God in his word hath commaunded they must of necessitie holde all for popish which the Church of Rome hath ouer and besides this By popish orders ceremonies and gouernment they must therefore meane in euery of these so much as the church of Rome hath embraced without commandement of Gods word so that whatsoeuer such thing we haue if the Church of Rome haue it also it goeth vnder the name of those thinges that are Popish yea although it be lawfull although agreeable to the word of God For so they plainely affirme saying Although the formes and ceremonies which they the Church of Rome vsed were not vnlawfull and that they contained nothing which is not agreeable to the word of God yet notwithstanding neither the word of God nor reason nor the examples of the eldest Churches both Iewish and Christian do permit vs to vse the same formes and ceremonies being neither commanded of God neither such as there may not as good as they and rather better be established The question therefore is whether we may follow the Church of Rome in those orders rites and ceremonies wherein wee doe not thinke them blameable or else ought to deuise others and to haue no conformitie with them no not as much as in these thinges In this sense and construction therefore as they affirme so we denie that whatsoeuer is popish wee ought to abrogate Their arguments to proue that generally all popish orders and ceremonies ought to be cleane abolished are in summe these First whereas wee allow the iudgement of Saint Augustine that touching those thinges of this kinde which are not commaunded or forbidden in the scripture wee are to obserue the custome of the people of God and decree of our forefathers how can we retaine the customes and constitutions of the Papistes in such things who were neither the people of God nor our forefathers Secondly although the formes and ceremonies of the Church of Rome were not vnlawfull neither did containe any thing which is not agreeable to the word of God yet neither the worde of God nor the example of the Eldest Churches of God nor reason doe permit vs to vse the same they being heretiques and so neare about vs and their orders beeing neither commaunded of God nor yet such but that as good or rather better may be established It is against the word of God to haue conformitie with the Church of Rome in such things as appeareth in that the wisdome of God hath thought it a good way to keepe his people from infection of Idolatry and superstition by seuering them from idolaters in outward ceremonies and therefore hath forbidden them to doe thinges which are in themselues very lawfull to be done And further whereas the Lorde was carefull to seuer them by ceremonies from other nations yet was he not so careful to seuer them from any as from the Aegyptians amongst whom they liued and from those nations which were next neighbours vnto them because from thē was the greatest feare of infection So that following the course which the wisdom of God doth teach it were more safe for
other might haue But then must they shewe some commission wherby they are authorized to sit as iudges and we required to take their iudgement for good in this case Otherwise their sentences will not be greatly regarded when they oppose their Me thinketh vnto the orders of the Church of England as in the question about surplesses one of them doth If we looke to the colour blacke me thinketh is more decent if to the forme a garment downe to the foote hath a great deale more cōlinesse in it If they thinke that we ought to proue the ceremonies cōmodious which we haue reteined they do in this point very greatly deceiue themselues For in all right equity that which the Church hath receiued held so long for good that which publique approbation hath ratified must cary the benefit of presumption with it to be accompted meet and conuenient They which haue stood vp as yesterday to challenge it of defect must proue their challenge If we being defendants do answer that the ceremonies in question are godly comely decent profitable for the Church their reply is childish vnorderly to say that we demaund the thing in question shew the pouerty of our cause the goodnes wherof we are faine to begge that our aduersaries would graunt For on our part this must be the aunswere which orderly proceeding doth require The burthen of prouing doth rest on them In them it is friuolous to say we ought not to vse bad ceremonies of the Church of Rome and presume all such bad as it pleaseth themselues to dislike vnlesse we can perswade them the contrary Besides they are herin opposite also to themselues For what one thing is so common with thē as to vse the custome of the Church of Rome for an argument to proue that such such ceremonies cānot be good profitable for vs in as much as that church vseth them Which vsual kind of disputing sheweth that they do not disallow onely those Romish ceremonies which are vnprofitable but count all vnprofitable which are Romish that is to say which haue bene deuised by the Church of Rome or which are vsed in that Church and not prescribed in the word of God For this is the onely limitation which they can vse sutable vnto their other positions And therefore the cause which they yeeld why they hold it lawfull to reteine in Doctrine and in Discipline some things as good which yet are common to the Church of Rome is for that those good things are perpetual commandements in whose place no other can come but ceremonies are changeable So that their iudgement in truth is that whatsoeuer by the word of God is not changeable in the Church of Rome that Churches vsing is a cause why reformed Churches ought to change it and not to thinke it good or profitable And least we seeme to father any thing vpon them more thē is properly their owne let them reade euen their owne words where they complaine that we are thus constrained to be like vnto the Papists in Any their ceremonies yea they vrge that this cause although it were alone ought to moue them to whom that belongeth to do thē away for as much as they are their ceremonies and that the B. of Salisbury doth iustifie this their complaint The clause is vntrue which they adde concerning the B. of Salisbury but the sentence doth shew that we do them no wrōg in setting downe the state of the question betweene vs thus Whether we ought to abolish out of the Church of England all such orders rites and ceremonies as are established in the Church of Rome and are not prescribed in the word of God For the affirmatiue whereof we are now to answer such proofes of theirs as haue bene before alleaged 5 Let the Church of Rome be what it will let them that are of it be the people of God and our fathers in the Christian faith or let them be otherwise hold them for Catholiques or hold them for heretiques it is not a thing either one way or other in this present question greatly material Our conformity with thē in such things as haue bene proposed is not proued as yet vnlawfull by all this S. Augustine hath said yea and we haue allowed his saying That the custome of the people of God and the decrees of our forefathers are to be kept touching those things wherof the scripture hath neither one way nor other giuen vs any charge What then Doth it here therfore follow that they being neither the people of God nor our forefathers are for that cause in nothing to be followed This consequent were good if so be it were graunted that onely the custome of the people of God the decrees of our forefathers are in such case to be obserued But then should no other kind of later laws in the church be good which were a grosse absurdity to think S. Augustines speech therefore doth import that where we haue no diuine precept if yet we haue the custome of the people of God or a decree of our forefathers this is a law and must be kept Notwithstanding it is not denied but that we lawfully may obserue the positiue constitutions of our owne Churches although the same were but yesterday made by our selues alone Nor is there any thing in this to proue that the Church of England might not by law receiue orders rites or customes from the Church of Rome although they were neither the people of God nor yet our forefathers How much lesse when we haue receiued from them nothing but that which they did themselues receiue from such as we cannot deny to haue bene the people of God yea such as either we must acknowledge for our owne forefathers or else disdaine the race of Christ 6 The rites and orders wherein we follow the Church of Rome are of no other kind thē such as the Church of Geneua it selfe doth follow thē in We follow the church of Rome in moe things yet they in some things of the same nature about which our present controuersie is so that the difference is not in the kind but in the number of rites only wherein they and we do follow the Church of Rome The vse of wafer-cakes the custom of godfathers godmothers in baptisme are things not commanded nor forbidden in scripture things which haue bene of old are reteined in the Church of Rome euen at this very hower Is conformity with Rome in such things a blemish vnto the Church of England vnto Churches abroad an ornament Let thē if not for the reuerence they ow vnto this Church in the bowels wherof they haue receiued I trust that pretious and blessed vigor which shall quicken thē to eternall life yet at the leastwise for the singular affection which they do beare towards others take heed how they strike least they wound whom they would not For vndoubtedly it cutteth deeper thē they
nature Words must be taken according to the matter wherof they are vttered The Apostles commaund to abstaine from bloud Conster this according to the lawe of nature and it will seeme that Homicide only is forbidden But conster it in reference to the law of the Iewes about which the question was and it shall easily appeare to haue a cleane other sense and in any mans iudgement a truer when we expound it of eating and not of sheading bloud So if we speake of fornication he that knoweth no lawe but only the lawe of nature must needes make thereof a narrower construction then he which measureth the same by a lawe wherein sundry kindes euen of coniugall copulation are prohibited as impure vncleane vnhonest Saint Paule himselfe doth terme incestuous marriage fornication If any do rather think that the Christian Gentiles themselues through the loose and corrupt custome of those times tooke simple fornication for no sinne and were in that respect offensiue vnto beleeuing Iewes which by the law had bene better taught our proposing of an other coniecture is vnto theirs no preiudice Some thinges therefore we see there were wherein the Gentiles were forbidden to be like vnto the Iewes some things wherin they were commanded not to be vnlike Againe some things also there were wherein no lawe of God did let but that they might be either like or vnlike as occasion should require And vnto this purpose Leo sayth Apostolicall ordinance beloued knowing that our Lord Iesus Christ came not into this world to vndo the law hath in such sort distinguished the mysteries of the old testament that certaine of them it hath chosen out to benefit euangelicall knowledge withall and for that purpose appointed that those things which before were Iewish might now be Christian customes The cause why the Apostles did thus conforme the Christians as much as might be according to the patterne of the Iewes was to reine them in by this meane the more and to make them cleaue the better The Church of Christ hath had in no one thing so many and so contrary occasions of dealing as about Iudaisme some hauing thought the whole Iewish lawe wicked and damnable in it selfe some not condemning it as the former sort absolutely haue notwithstanding iudged it either sooner necessary to be abrogated or further vnlawful to be obserued then truth can beare some of scrupulous simplicitie vrging perpetuall and vniuersall obseruation of the law of Moses necessary as the Christian Iewes at the first in the Apostles times some as Heretiques holding the same no lesse euen after the contrary determination set downe by consent of the Church at Ierusalem finally some being herein resolute through meere infidelitie and with open profest enmitie against Christ as vnbeleeuing Iewes To cōtrowle slaunderers of the law and Prophets such as Marcionites and Manichees were the Church in her liturgies hath intermingled with readings out of the new Testament lessons taken out of the lawe and Prophets whereunto Tertullian alluding saith of the Church of Christ It intermingleth with euangelicall and apostolicall writings the law and the Prophets and from thence it drinketh in that faith which with water it sealeth clotheth with the spirit nourisheth with the Eucharist with martirdom setteth forward They would haue wondered in those times to heare that any man being not a fauourer of heresie should terme this by way of disdaine mangling of the Gospels Epistles They which honor the law as an image of the wisdome of God himselfe are notwithstanding to know that the same had an end in Christ. But what was the lawe so abolished with Christ that after his ascention the office of Priests became immediatly wicked the very name hatefull as importing the exercise of an vngodly function No as long as the glory of the temple continued and till the time of that finall desolation was accomplished the very Christian Iewes did continue with their sacrifices and other parts of legall seruice That very lawe therefore which our Sauiour was to abolish did not so soone become vnlawfull to be obserued as some imagine nor was it afterwards vnlawful so far that the very name of Aultar of Priest of Sacrifice it selfe should be banished out of the world For thogh God do now hate sacrifice whether it be Heathenish or Iewish so that we cannot haue the same things which they had but with impietie yet vnlesse there be some greater let then the onely euacuation of the law of Moses the names thēselues may I hope be retained without sin in respect of that proportion which things established by our Sauiour haue vnto them which by him are abrogated And so throughout all the writings of the auncient fathers we see that the words which were do continue the onely difference is that whereas before they had a literall they now haue a metaphoricall vse and are as so many notes of remembrance vnto vs that what they did signifie in the letter is accomplished in the truth And as no man can depriue the Church of this libertie to vse names whereunto the lawe was accustomed so neither are wee generally forbidden the vse of things which the lawe hath though it neither commaund vs any particularitie as it did the Iewes a number and the waightiest which it did commaund them are vnto vs in the Gospell prohibited Touching such as through simplicitie of error did vrge vniuersall and perpetuall obseruation of the lawe of Moses at the first we haue spoken already Against Iewish heretikes and false Apostles teaching afterwards the selfe same Saint Paul in euery Epistle commonly either disputeth or giueth warning Iewes that were zealous for the lawe but withall infidels in respect of Christianitie and to the name of Iesus Christ most spitefull enemies did while they flourished no lesse persecute the Church then Heathens After their estate was ouerthrowne they were not that way so much to be feared Howbeit because they had their Synagogues in euery famous Citie almost throughout the world and by that meanes great opportunitie to withdraw from the Christian faith which to doe they spared no labor this gaue the Church occasion to make sundry lawes against them As in the Councell of Laodicea The festiuall presents which Iewes or Heretikes vse to send must not be receiued nor Holy dayes solemnized in their company Againe From the Iewes men ought not to receiue their vnleauened nor to communicate with their impieties Which Councell was afterwardes indeede confirmed by the sixt generall Councell But what was the true sense or meaning both of the one and the other Were Christians here forbidden to communicate in vnleauened bread because the Iewes did so being enemies of the Church Hee which attentiuely shall waigh the wordes will suspect that they rather forbid communion with Iewes thē imitation of them much more if with these two decrees be compared a third in the Councell of Cōstantinople Let no man either of the Clergie
or Laitie eate the vnleauened of the Iewes nor enter into any familiaritie with them nor send for them in sicknes nor take phisicke at their haÌ„ds nor as much as goe into the bath with them If any do otherwise being a Clergie man let him be deposed if being a lay person let excommunicatioÌ„ be his punishment If these Canons were any argumeÌ„t that they which made them did vtterly coÌ„demne similitude betweene the Christians Iewes in things indifferent appertaining vnto religioÌ„ either because the Iewes were enemies vnto the Church or else for that their ceremonies were abrogated these reasons had bin as strong effectual against their keeping the feast of Easter on the same day the Iewes kept theirs and not according to the custome of the West Church For so they did froÌ„ the first beginning till Constantines time For in these two things the East West churches did interchangeably both confront the Iewes and concur with theÌ„ the West church vsing vnleauened bread as the Iewes in their passouer did but differing froÌ„ them in the day whereon they kept the feast of Easter conâ—â—ariwise the East church celebrating the feast of Easter on the same day with the Iewes but not vsing the same kind of bread which they did Now if so be the East Church in vsing leuened bread had done wel either for that the Iewes were enemies to the Church or because Iewish ceremonies were abrogated how should we think but that Victor the B. of Rome whom all iudicious meÌ„ do in that behalf disallow did well to be so vehement fierce in drawing theÌ„ to the like dissimilitude for the feast of Easter Againe if the West Churches had in either of those two respects affected dissimilitude with the Iewes in the feast of Easter what reasoÌ„ had they to drawe the Easterne Church herein vnto them which reason did not enforce them to frame themselues vnto it in the ceremonie of leauened bread DiffereÌ„ce in rites should breed no coÌ„trouersie between one church an other but if controuersie be once bred it must be ended The feast of Easter being therfore litigious in the daies of CoÌ„stantine who honored of all other churches most the Church of Rome which Church was the mother from whose breasts he had drawn that food which gaue him nourishmeÌ„t to eternall life sith agreement was necessary and yet impossible vnlesse the one part were yeelded vnto his desire was that of the two the Easterne church should rather yeeld And to this end he vseth sundry perswasiue speeches When Stephen the Bi. of Rome going about to shew what the Catholique Church should do had alleaged what the heritiques themselues did namely that they receiued such as came vnto them and offered not to baptise them anew S. Cyprian being of a contrary mind to him about the matter at that time questioÌ„ which was Whether heretikes conuerted ought to be rebaptised yea or no answered the allegatioÌ„ of Pope Stephen with exceeding great stomack saying To this degree of wretchednes the church of God and Spouse of Christ is now come that her wayes she frameâ—h to the example of heretikes that to celebrate the sacrameÌ„ts which heaueÌ„ly instructioÌ„ hath deliuered light it self doth borrow froÌ„ darknes Christians do that which Antichrists do Now albeit CoÌ„stantine haue done that to further a better cause which Cyprian did to countenance a worse namely the rebaptization of heretiques and haue taken aduantage at the odiousnesse of the Iewes as Cyprian of heretiques because the Easterne Church kept their feast of Easter alwayes the fourteenth day of the Moneth as the Iewes did what day of the weeke soeuer it â—el or how soeuer Constantine did take occasioÌ„ in the handling of that cause to say It is vnworthy to haue any thing common with that spitefull Nation of the Iewes shall euery motiue argument vsed in such kinde of conferences be made a rule for others still to coÌ„clude the like by coÌ„cerning all things of like nature when as probable inducements may leade them to the contrary Let both this and other allegations suteable vnto it cease to barke any longer idlely against that truth the course and passage wherof it is not in them to hinder 12 But the waightiest exception and of all the most worthy to be respected is against such kind of ceremonies as haue bene so grossely shamefully abused in the Church of Rome that where they remaine they are scandalous yea they cannot choose but be stumbling blockes and grieuous causes of offence Concerning this point therefore we are first to note what properly it is to be scandalous or offensiue secondly what kinde of Ceremonies are such and thirdly when they are necessarily for remedie therof to be taken away and when not The common conceipt of the vulgar sort is whensoeuer they see any thing which they mislike and are anrgy at to thinke that euery such thing is scandalous and that themselues in this case are the men concerning whome our Sauiour spake in so fearefull manner saying Whosoeuer shall scandalize or offend any one of these little ones which beleeue in me that is as they conster it whosoeuer shall anger the meanest and simplest Artizan which carrieth a good minde by not remouing out of the Church such rites and Ceremonies as displease him better he were drowned in the bottom of the sea But hard were the case of the church of Christ if this were to scandalize Men are scandalized when they are moued led and prouoked vnto sinne At good thinges euill men may take occasion to doe euill and so Christ himselfe was a rock of offence in Israel they taking occasion at his poore estate and at the ignominie of his crosse to think him vnworthy the name of that great and glorious Messias whom the Prophets describe in such ample stately terms But that which we therfore terme offensiue because it inuiteth meÌ„ to offend and by a dumb kind of prouocation incourage thmoueth or any way leadeth vnto sinne must of necessitie be acknowledged actiuely scandalous Now some thinges are so euen by their very essence and nature so that wheresoeuer they be found they are not neither can be without this force of provocation vnto euill of which kinde all examples of sinne and wickednes are Thus Dauid was scandalous in that bloudie acte whereby he caused the enemies of God to be blasphemous thus the whole state of Israell scandalous when their publique disorders caused the name of God to be ill spoken of amongst the nations It is of this kind that Tertullian meaneth Offence or scandall if I be not deceaued saith he is when the example not of a good but of an euill thing doth set men forward vnto sinne Good things can scandalize none saue only euill mindes good things haue no scandalizing nature in them Yet that which is of it owne nature either good or at least not euill may by some accident become
the dutie of vniformitie throughout all Churches in all manner of indifferent ceremonies will bee very hard and therefore best to giue it ouer But perhaps they are by so much the more loth to forsake this argument for that it hath though nothing else yet the name of Scripture to giue it some kinde of countenance more then the next of liuerie coates affordeth them For neither is it any manâ— dutie to cloth all his children or all his seruants with one weede nor theirs to cloath themselues so if it were left to their owne iudgements as these ceremonies are lâ—ft of God to the iudgement of the Church And seeing Churches are rather in this case like diuerse families then like diuers seruants of one family because euery Church the state whereof is independent vpon any other hath authoritie to appoint orders for it selfe in thinges indifferent therefore of the two we may rather inferre that as one familie is not abridged of libertie to be clothed in Fryers gray for that an other doth weare clay-colour so neither are all Churches bound to the selfe same indifferent Ceremonies which it liketh sundry to vse As for that Canon in the Councell of Nice let them but read it and waigh it well The auncient vse of the Church throughout all Christendome was for fiftie dayes after Easter which fifty dayes were called Pentecost though most commonly the last day of them which is Whitsunday be so called in like sort on all the Sundayes throughout the whole yeare their manner was to stand at praier whereupon their meetinges vnto that purpose on those dayes had the name of Stations giuen them Of which custome Tertullian speaketh in this wise It is not with vs thought sit either to fast on the Lordes day or to pray kneeling The same immunitie from fasting and kneeling we keepe all the time which is betweene the Feasts of Easter and Pentecost This being therefore and order generally receiued in the Church when some began to be singular and different from all others and that in a ceremonie which was then iudged very conuenient for the whole Church euen by the whole those fewe excepted which brake out of the common pale the Councell of Nice thought good to inclose them againe with the rest by a lawe made in this sort Because there are certaine which will needs kneele at the time of praier on the Lordes day and in the fiftie dayes after Easter the holy Synode iudging it meet that a conuenient custome be obserued throughout all churches hath decreed that standing wee make our praiers to the Lord. Whereby it plainely appeareth that in things indifferent what the whole Church doth thinke conuenient for the whole the same if any part doe wilfully violate it may be reformed and inrayled againe by that generall authority whereunto ech particular is subiect and that the spirit of singularitie in a few ought to giue place vnto publike iudgement this doth clearely enough appeare but not that all Christian Churches are bound in euery indifferent ceremonie to be vniforme because where the whole hath not tyed the parts vnto one and the same thing they being therein left each to their owne choyce may either do as other do or else otherwise without any breach of dutie at all Concerning those indifferent thinges wherein it hath beene heretofore thought good that all Christian Churches should bee vniforme the way which they now conceiue to bring this to passe was then neuer thought on For till now it hath bene iudged that seeing the lawe of God doth not prescribe all particular ceremonies which the Church of Christ may vse and in so great varietie of them as may be found out it is not possible that the lawe of nature and reason should direct all Churches vnto the same thinges each deliberating by it selfe what is most conuenient the way to establish the same things indifferent throughout them all must needs be the iudgement of some iudiciall authoritie drawne into one onely sentence which may be a rule for euery particular to follow And because such authoritie ouer all Churches is too much to be granted vnto any one mortall man there yet remaineth that which hath bene alwayes followed as the best the safest the most sincere and reasonable way namely the verdict of the whole Church orderly taken and set downe in the assembly of some generall councell But to maintaine that all Christian Churches ought for vnities sake to be vniforme in all ceremonies then to teach that the way of bringing this to passe must be by mutuall imitation so that where we haue better ceremonies then others they shall bee bound to followe vs and we them where theirs are better how should we thinke it agreeable and consonant vnto reason For sith in things of this nature there is such varietie of particular inducements whereby one Church may be led to thinke that better which another Church led by other inducements iudgeth to be worse For example the East Church did thinke it better to keepe Easter day after the manner of the Iewes the West Church better to do otherwise the Greeke Church iudgeth it worse to vse vnleauened bread in the Eucharist the Latine Church leauened one Church esteemeth it not so good to receiue the Eucharist sitting as staÌ„ding another Church not so good standing as sitting there being on the one side probable motiues as well as on the other vnlesse they adde somewhat else to define more certainely what ceremonies shall stand for best in such sort that all Churches in the world shall know them to be the best and so know them that there may not remaine any question about this point we are not a whit the neerer for that they haue hitherto said They themselues although resolued in their owne iudgements what ceremonies are best the foreseeing that such as they are addicted vnto be not all so clearely and so incomparably best but others there are or may be at least wise when all things are well considered as good knewe not which way smoothly to rid their hands of this matter without prouiding some more certaine rule to be followed for establishment of vniformitie in ceremonies when there are diuerse kinds of equall goodnesse and therefore in this case they say that the later Churches the fewer should conforme themselues vnto the elder and the mo Hereupon they conclude that for as much as all the reformed Churches so farre as they know which are of our confession in doctrine haue agreed already in the abrogation of diuerse things which we reteine our Church ought either to shew that they haue done euill or else she is found to be in fault for not conforming her selfe to those Churches in that which she cannot deny to be in them well abrogated For the authoritie of the first Churches and those they accompt to be the first in this cause which were first reformed they bring the comparison of younger daughters conforming themselues
1. p. 20. I say that the word of God containeth whatsoeuer things can fall into any part of mans life For so Salomon saith in the 2. chapter of the Prouerbes My sonne if thou receiue my words c. then thou shalt vnderstand iustice and iudgement equitie and euery goodway Psal. 119.95 a 2. Tim. 3 16. The whole Scripture is giuen by inspiration of God and is profitable to teach to improue to correct and to instruct in righteousnes that the man of God may be absolute being made perfect vnto all good works He meaneth all and only those good workes which belong vnto vs as we are men of God and which vnto saluation are necessary Or if we vnderstand by men of God Gods Ministers there is not required in them an vniuersall skill of euery good worke or way but an habilitie to teach whatsoeuer men are bound to doe that they may be saued And with this kinde of knowledge the scripture sufficeth to furnish them as touching matter The second proofe out of Scripture 1. Cor. 10.31 T.C. l. 1. p. 16. S. Paul saith that whether we eat or drink or whatsoeuer we do we must do it to the glory of God But no man can glorifie God in any thing but by obedience and there is no obedience but in respect of the commaundement and word of God Therefore is followeth that the word of God directeth a man in all his actions 1. Pet. 2.12 Rom. 2.34 1. Cor. 10.32 Rom. 2.23 The third scripture prof 1. Tim. 4.5 And that which S. Paul said of meats drinkâ— that they are sanctified vnto vs by the word of God the same is to bâ— vnderstanded of all things els whatsoeuer we haue the vse of T.C. l. 1. p. 20. 1. Tim. 4. The fourth Scripture-proofe Rom. 14.23 T.C. lib. 1 p. 27. Psal. 19.8 Apoc. 3.14 2. Cor. 1.18 Ioh. 10.38 Ioh. 20.25 a And if any will say that S. Paule meaneth there a full 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perswasion that that which hee doth is well done I graunt it But from whence can that spring but from faith how can wee perswade and assure our selues that wee doe well but whereas we haue the word of God for our warrant T.C. lib. 1. cap. 27. b What also that some euen of those Heathen men haue taught that nothing ought to be done whereof thou doubtest whether it be right or wrong Whereby it appeareth that euen those which had no knowledge of the worde of God did see much of the equitie of this which the Apostle requireth of a Christian man and that the chiefest difference is that where they sent men for the difference of good and euill to the light of reason in such things the Apostle sendeth them to the Schoole of Christ in his worde which onely is able through faith to giue them assurance and resolution in their doings T.C. lib. 1. pag. 60. Ioh. 20.29 T.C. li. 2. p. 5â— Act. 5. Exod 28.4.43 Leuit. 11. 1. Cor. 6.12 Iob. 4.19 Arist. Pol. 1. August Ep. 18. The first assertion indeuoured to be proued by the vse of taking arguments negatiuely from the authority of Scripture which kind of disputing is vsuall in the Fathers August-contr liter Petil. li. 3. cap. 6. Tertull. de prescrip aduers T.C. l. 2. p. 8â— Augustine sayth Whether it be question of Christ or whether it be question of his Church c. And least the answerer should restraine the generall saying of Augustineâ—nto â—nto the doctrine of the Gospell so that he would thereby shut out the discipline euen Tertullian himselfâ— before he was embrued with the Heresie of Montanus gâ—ueth testimony vnto the discipline in these words VVe may not giue our selues c. Hieron contra Heluid Hilar. in Psal. 132. T.C. l. 2. p. 8. Let him heare what Cyprian sayth The Christian Religion sayth he shall find that c. Verâ— hoc mandatum legem complectitur Prophetas in hoc verbo omnium scripturarum volumina coarctaâ—iur Hoc natura hoc ratio hoc Dominâ— verbi tui clamat authoritas hoc ex ere tuo Iudiuimuâ— hâ—c inuenit consummationem omnis religio Primum est hoc mandatum vltimum hoc in libro vitae conscriptum indeficientem hominibus Angelis exhibet lectionem Legat hoc vnum verbum in hoc mandato meditetur christiana religâ—o inueniet ex H AC scriptura omnium doctrinarum regulas emanasse hinc nasci huc reuerti quicquid ecclesiastica continet disciplina in omnibus irritum esse friuolum quicquid dilectio non confirmat Tertul. lib de Monog T. C. l. 2. p. 81. And in another place Tertullian sayth that the scripture denieth that which it noteth not T. C. l. â— p. 80. And that in indifferent things it is not enough that they be not against the word but that they be according to the word it may appeare by other places where he sayth that whatsoeuer pleaseth not the Lord displeaseth him and with hurt is receiued lib. 2. ad vxorem Qua domino non placent vtique Dominum offendunt vtique Malo se inferunt T. C. l. 2. p. 81. And to come yet neerer Where he disputeth against the wearing of crowne or garland which is indifferent of it selfe to those which obiecting asked where the scripture saith that a man might not weare a crowne he answereth by asking where the scripture sayth that they may weare And vnto them replying that it is permitted which is not forbidden he answereth that it is forbidden which is not permitted Whereby appeareth that the argument of the scriptures negatiuely holdeth not onely in the doctrine and ecclesiasticall discipline but euen in matters arbitrary and variable by the aduise of the Church Where it is not inough that they be not forbidden vnlesse there be some word which doth permit the vse of them it is not enough that the scripture speaketh not against them vnlesse it speake for them and finally where it displeaseth the Lord which pleaseth him not we must of necessitie haue the word of his mouth to declare his pleasure Tert. de corona militis The first assertion endeuoured to be confirmed by the scriptures custome of disputing froÌ„ diuine authority negatiuely 1. Iohn 2.5 God is light and there is in him no darknesse at all Hebr. 6.18 It is imposble that God should lye Num. 23.19 God is not as man that he should lye T. C. l. 2. p. 48 It is â—er hard to shew that the Prophets haue reasoned negatiuely Aâ— wheâ— in the person of the Lord the Prophet sayth Whereof I haue not spoken Ieremie 19.5 and Whâ—ch neuer entered into my heart Ierâ—mie 7.31.32 and where he condemneâ—h them because They haue not asked counsell at the mouth of the Lord Esay 30 2. And it may be shewed that the same kind of argument hath bene vsed in things which are not of the substance of saluation or damnation and whereof there was no commaundâ—ment