seeketh rather proportion then absolute perfection of goodness So that Woman being created for mans sake to be his Helper in regard of the end before mentioned namely the having and bringing up of Children whereunto it was not possible they could concur unless there were subalternation between them which subalternation is naturally grounded upon inequality because things equall in every respect are never willingly directed one by another Woman therefore was even in her first estate framed by Nature not only after in time but inferiour in excellency also unto Man howbeit in so due and sweet proportion as being presented before our eyes might be sooner perceived then defined And even herein doth lie the Reason why that kind of love which is the perfectest ground of Wedlock is seldome able to yield any reason of it self Now that which is born of Man must be nourished with far more travel as being of greater price in Nature and of slower pace to perfection then the Off-spring of any other Creature besides Man and Woman being therefore to joyn themselves for such a purpose they were of necessity to be linked with some straight and insoluble knot The bond of Wedlock hath been always more or less esteemed of as a thing Religious and Sacred The Title which the very Heathens themselves do thereunto oftentimes give is Holy Those Rites and Orders which were instituted in the Solemnization of Marriage the Hebrews term by the Name of Conjugal Sanctification Amongst our selves because sundry things appertaining unto the Publick Order of Matrimony are called in Question by such as know not from whence those Customs did first grow to shew briefly some true and sufficient Reason of them shall not be superfluous although we do not hereby intend to yield so far unto Enemies of all Church-Orders saving their own as though every thing were unlawful the true Cause and Reason whereof at the first might hardly perhaps be now rendred Wherefore to begin with the times wherein the liberty of Marriage is restrained There is saith Solomon a time for all things a time to laugh and a time to mourn That duties belonging unto Marriage and Offices appertaining to Pennance are things unsuitable and unfit to be matched together the Prophets and Apostles themselves do witness Upon which ground as we might right well think it marvellous absurd to see in a Church a Wedding on the day of a publick Fast so likewise in the self-same consideration our Predecessors thought it not amiss to take away the common liberty of Marriages during the time which was appointed for preparation unto and for exercise of General Humiliation by Fasting and praying weeping for sins As for the delivering up of the woman either by her Father or by some other we must note that in ancient times all women which had not Husbands nor Fathers to govern them had their Tutors without whose Authority there was no act which they did warrantable And for this cause they were in Marriage delivered unto their Husbands by others Which custome retained hath still this use that it putteth Women in mind of a duty whereunto the very imbecillity of their nature and Sex doth bind them namely to be always directed guided and ordered by others although our Positive Laws do not tie them now as Pupils The custome of laying down Money seemeth to have been derived from the Saxons whose manner was to buy their Wives But seeing there is not any great cause wherefore the memory of that custome should remain it skilleth not much although we suffer it to lie dead even as we see it in a manner already worn out The Ring hath been always used as an especial pledge of Faith and Fidelity Nothing more fit to serve as a token of our purposed endless continuance in that which we never ought to revoke This is the cause wherefore the Heathens themselves did in such cases use the Ring whereunto Tertullian alluding saith That in ancient times No Woman was permitted to wear gold saving only upon one finger which her Husband had fastened unto himself with that Ring which was usually given for assurance of future Marriage The cause why the Christians use it as some of the Fathers think is either to testifie mutual love or rather to serve for a pledge of conjunction in heart and mind agreed upon between them But what right and custome is there so harmless wherein the wit of man bending it self to derision may not easily find out somewhat to scorn and jest at He that should have beheld the Jews when they stood with a four-cornered Garment spread over the heads of Espoused Couples while their Espousals were in making He that should have beheld their praying over a Cup and their delivering the same at the Marriage-feast with set Forms of Benediction as the Order amongst them was might being lewdly affected take thereat as just occasion of scornful cavil as at the use of the Ring in Wedlock amongst Christians But of all things the most hardly taken is the uttering of these words With my body I thee worship In which words when once they are understood there will appear as little cause as in the rest for any wise man to be offended First therefore inasmuch as unlawful copulation doth pollute and dishonour both parties this Protestation that we do worship and honour another with our bodies may import a denial of all such Lets and Impediments to our knowledge as might cause any stain blemish or disgrace that way which kind of construction being probable would easily approve that speech to a peaceable and quiet mind Secondly in that the Apostle doth so expresly affirm that parties unmarried have not any longer entire power over themselves but each hath interest in others person it cannot be thought an absurd construction to say that worshipping with the body is the imparting of that interest in the body unto another which none before had save only our selves But if this were the natural meaning the words should perhaps be as requisite to be used on the one side as on the other and therefore a third sense there is which I rather rely upon Apparent it is that the ancient difference between a lawful Wife and a Concubine was only in the different purpose of man betaking himself to the one or the other If his purpose were only fellowship there grew to the Woman by this means no worship at all but the contrary In professing that his intent was to add by his person honour and worship unto hers he took her plainly and cleerly to Wife This is it which the Civil Law doth mean when it maketh a Wife to differ from a Concubine in dignity a Wife to be taken where Conjugal honour and affection do go before The worship that grew unto her being taken with declaration of this intent was that her children became by this mean legitimate and free her self was
made a Mother over his Family Last of all she received such advancement of state as things annexed unto his person might augment her with yea a right of participation was thereby given her both in him and even in all things which were his This doth somewhat the more-plainly appear by adding also that other Clause With all my worldy goods I thee endow The former branch having granted the principal the latter granteth that which is annexed thereunto To end the Publick Solemnity of Marriage with receiving the Blessed Sacrament is a Custom so Religious and so holy that if the Church of England be blameable in this respect it is not for suffering it to be so much but rather for not providing that it may be more put in Me. The Laws of Romulus concerning Marriage are therefore extolled above the rest amongst the Heathens which were before in that they established the use of certain special Solemnities whereby the mindes of men were drawn to make the greater conscience of Wedlock and to esteem the Bond thereof a thing which could not be without impiety dissolved If there be any thing in Christian Religion strong and effectual to like purpose it is the Sacrament of the holy Eucharist in regard of the force whereof Tertullian breaketh out into these words concerning Matrimony therewith sealed Unde sufficiam ad enarrandam faelicitatem ejus Matrimonii quod Ecclesia conciliat confirmat Oblatio I know not which way I should be able to shew the happiness of that Wedlock the knot whereof the Church doth fasten and the Sacrament of the Church confirm Touching Marriage therefore let thus much be sufficient 74. The Fruit of Marriage is Birth and the Companion of Birth Travail the grief whereof being so extream and the danger always so great Dare we open our mouths against the things that are holy and presume to censure it as a fault in the Church of Christ That Women after their Deliverance do publickly shew their thankful mindes unto God But behold What reason there is against it Forsâ—â—th if there should be solemn and express giving of Thanks in the Church for every benefit either equal or greater then this which any singular person in the Church doth receive We should not onely have no Preaching of the Word nor Ministring of the Sacraments but we should not have so much leisure as to do any corporal or bodily work but should be like those Massilian Hereticks which do nothing else but pray Surely better a great deal to be like unto those Hereticks which do nothing else but pray then those which do nothing else but quarrel Their heads it might happily trouble somewhat more then as yet they are aware of to finde out so many benefits greater then this or equivalent thereunto for which if so be our Laws did require solemn and express Thanksgivings in the Church the same were like to prove a thing so greatly cumbersome as is pretended But if there be such store of Mercies even inestimable poured every day upon thousands as indeed the Earth is full of the Blessings of the Lord which are day by day renewed without number and above measure shall it not be lawful to cause solemn Thanks to be given unto God for any benefit then which greater or whereunto equal are received no Law binding men in regard thereof to perform the like duty Suppose that some Bond there be that tieth us at certain times to mention publickly the names of sundry our Benefactors Some of them it may be are such That a day would scarcely serve to reckon up together with them the Catalogue of so many men besides as we are either more or equally beholden unto Because no Law requireth this impossible labor at our hands shall we therefore condemn that Law whereby the other being possible and also dutiful is enjoyned us So much we ow to the Lord of Heaven that we can never sufficiently praise him nor give him thanks for half those benefits for which this Sacrifice were most due Howbeit God forbid we should cease performing this duty when publick Order doth draw us unto it when it may be so easily done when it hath been so long executed by devout and vertuous people God forbid that being so many ways provoked in this case unto so good a duty we should omit it onely because there are other cases of like nature wherein we cannot so conveniently or at leastwise do not perform the same most vertuous Office of Piety Wherein we trust that as the action it self pleaseth God so the order and manner thereof is not such as may justly offend any It is but an over-flowing of Gall which causeth the Womans absence from the Church during the time of her lying in to be traduced and interpreted as though she were so long judged unholy and were thereby shut out or sequestred from the House of God according to the ancient Levitical Law Whereas the very Canon Law it self doth not so hold but directly professeth the contrary She is not barred from thence in such sort as they interpret it nor in respect of any unholiness forbidden entrance into the Church although her abstaining from publick Assembles and her abode in separation for the time be most convenient To scoff at the manner of attire then which there could be nothing devised for such a time more grave and decent to make it a token of some folly committed for which they are loth to shew their faces argueth that great Divines are sometime more merry then wise As for the Women themselves God accepting the service which they faithfully offer unto him it is no great disgrace though they suffer pleasant witted men a little to intermingle with zeal scorn The name of Oblations applied not onely here to those small and petit payments which yet are a part of the Ministers right but also generally given unto all such allowances as serve for their needful maintenance is both ancient and convenient For as the life of the Clergy is spent in the Service of God so it is sustained with his Revenue Nothing therefore more proper then to give the name of Oblations to such payments in token that we offer unto him whatsoever his Ministers receive 75. But to leave this there is a duty which the Church doth ow to the faithful departed wherein for as much as the Church of England is said to do those things which are though not unlawful yet inconvenient because it appointeth a prescript Form of Service at Burials suffereth mourning Apparel to be worn and permitteth Funeral Sermons a word or two concerning this point will be necessary although it be needless to dwell long upon it The end of Funeral duties is first to shew that love towards the party deceased which Nature requireth then to do him that honor which is fit both generally for man and particularly for the quality of his person Last of all to
Chancellours Officials Commissaries and such other the like names which being not found in holy Scripture we have been thereby through some mens errour thought to allow of Ecclesiastical Degress not known nor ever heard of in the better ages of former times all these are in truth but Titles of Office whereunto partly Ecclesiastical Persons and partly others are in sundry forms and conditions admitted as the state of the Church doth need degrees of Order still continuing the same they were from the first beginning Now what habit or attire doth beseem each Order to use in the course of common life both for the gravity of his Place and for Example-sake to other men is a matter frivolous to be disputed of A small measure of wisedom may serve to teach them how they should cutt their coats But seeing all well-ordered Polities have ever judged it meet and fit by certain special distinct Ornaments to sever each sort of men from other when they are in publick to the end that all may receive such Complements of Civil Honour as are due to their Roomes and Callings even where their Persons are not known it argueth a disproportioned minde in them whom so decent Orders displease 79. We might somewhat marvel what the Apostle Saint Paul should mean to say that Covetousness is Idolatry if the daily practise of men did not shew that whereas Nature requireth God to be honoured with wealth we honour for the most part Wealth as God Fain we would teach our selves to believe that for worldly goods it sufficeth frugally and honestly to use them to our own benefit without detriment and hurt of others or if we go a degree farther and perhaps convert some small contemptible portion thereof to Charitable uses the whole duty which we owe unto God herein is fully satisfied But for as much as we cannot rightly honour God unless both our Souls and Bodies be sometime imployed meerly in his Service Again sith we know that Religion requireth at our hands the taking away of so great a part of the time of our lives quite and clean from our own business and the bestowing of the same in his Suppose we that nothing of our wealth and substance is immediately due to God but all our own to bestow and spend as our selves think meet Are not our riches as well his as the days of our life are his Wherefore unless with part we acknowledge his Supream Dominion by whose benevolence we have the whole how give we Honour to whom Honour belongeth or how hath God the things that are God's I would know what Nation in the World did ever honour God and not think it a point of their duty to do him honour with their very goods So that this we may boldly set down as a Principle clear in Nature an Axiom which ought not to be called in question a Truth manifest and infallible that men are eternally bound to honour God with their substance in token of thankful acknowledgement that all they have is from him To honour him with our worldly goods not only by spending them in lawful manner and by using them without offence but also by alienating from our selves some reasonable part or portion thereof and by offering up the same to him as a sign that we gladly confess his sole and Soveraign Dominion over all is a duty which all men are bound unto and a part of that very Worship of God which as the Law of God and Nature it self requireth so we are the rather to think all men no less strictly bound thereunto than to any other natural duty in as much as the hearts of men do so cleave to these earthly things so much admire them for the sway they have in the World impute them so generally either to Nature or to Chance and Fortune so little think upon the Grace and Providence from which they come that unless by a kinde of continual tribute we did acknowledge God's Dominion it may be doubted that short in time men would learn to forget whose Tenants they are and imagine that the World is their own absolute free and independent inheritance Now concerning the kinde or quality of gifts which God receiveth in that sort we are to consider them partly as first they proceed from us and partly as afterwards they are to serve for divine uses In that they are testimonies of our affection towards God there is no doubt but such they should be as beseemeth most his Glory to whom we offer them In this respect the fatness of Abel's Sacrifice is commended the flower of all mens increase assigned to God by Solomon the Gifts and Donations of the People rejected as oft as their cold affection to God-ward made their Presents to be little worth Somewhat the Heathens saw touching that which was herein fit and therefore they unto their gods did not think they might consecrate any thing which was impure or unsound or already given or else not truly their own to give Again in regard of use forasmuch as we know that God hath himself no need of worldly commodities but taketh them because it is our good to be so exercised and with no other intent accepteth them but to have them used for the endless continuance of Religion there is no place left of doubt or controversie but that we in the choyce of our gifts are to level at the same mark and to frame our selves to his known intents and purposes Whether we give unto God therefore that which himself by commandment requireth or that which the publick consent of the Church thinketh good to allot or that which every man 's private devotion doth best like in as much as the gift which we offer proceedeth not only as a testimony of our affection towards God but also as a mean to uphold Religion the exercise whereof cannot stand without the help of temporal commodities if all men be taught of Nature to wish and as much as in them lyeth to procure the perpetuity of good things if for that very cause we honour and admire their wisdom who having been Founders of Common-weals could devise how to make the benefit they lest behind them durable if especially in this respect we prefer Lycurgus before Solon and the Spartan before the Athenian Polity it must needs follow that as we do unto God very acceptable service in honouring him with our substance so our service that way is then most acceptable when it tendeth to perpetuity The first permanent donations of honour in this kinde are Temples Which works do so much set forward the exercise of Religion that while the World was in love with Religion it gave to no sort greater reverence than to whom it could point and say These are the men that have built us Synagogues But of Churches we have spoken sufficiently heretofore The next things to Churches are the Ornaments of Churches memorials which mens devotion hath added to remain in the treasure of
the help of Revelation Supernatural and Divine Finally In such sort they are investigable that the knowledge of them is general the World hath always been acquainted with them according to that which one in Sophocles observeth concerning a Branch of this Law It is no childe of two days or yesterdays birth but hath been no man knoweth how long sithence It is not agreed upon by one or two or few but by all which we may not so understand as if every particular Man in the whole World did know and confess whatsoever the Law of Reason doth contain But this Law is such that being proposed no man can reject it as unreasonable and unjust Again there is nothing in it but any man having natural perfection of wit and ripeness of judgment may by labor and travel finde out And to conclude principles the general thereof are such as it is not easie to finde men ignorant of them Law Rational therefore which men commonly use to call the Law of Nature meaning thereby the Law which Humane Nature knoweth it self in Reason universally bound unto which also for that cause may be termed most fitly the Law of Reason this Law I say comprehendeth all those things which Men by the Light of their Natural Understanding evidently know or at leastwise may know to be beseeming or unbeseeming vertuous or vicious good or evil for them to do Now although it be true which some have said that whatsoever is done amiss the Law of Nature and Reason thereby is transgrest because even those offences which are by their special qualities breaches of Supernatural Laws do also for that they are generally evil violate in general that principle of Reason which willeth universally to flie from evil yet do we not therefore so far extend the Law of Reason as to contain in it all manner of Laws whereunto reasonable Creatures are bound but as hath been shewed we restrain it to those onely duties which all men by force of Natural Wit either do or might understand to be such duties as concern all men Certain half-waking men there are as St. Augustine noteth who neither altogether asleep in fâ—lly nor yet throughly awake in the light of true understanding have thought that there is not at all any thing just and righteous in it self but look wherewith Nations are inured the same they take to be right and just Whereupon their Conclusion is That seeing each sort of people hath a different kinde of right from other and that which is right of it's own nature must be every where one and the same therefore in it self there is nothing right These good folks saith he that I may not trouble their wits with the rehearsal of too many things have not looked so far into the World as to perceive that Do as thou wouldst be done unto is a sentence which all Nations under Heaven are agreed upon Refer this sentence to the love of God and it extinguisheth all heinous crimes Refer it to the love of thy Neighbor and all grievous wrongs it banisheth out of the World Wherefore as touching the Law of Reason this was it seemeth St. Augustines judgment namely that there are in it some things which stand as principles universally agreed upon and that out of those Principles which are in themselves evident the greatest Moral duties we ow towards God or Man may without any great difficulty be concluded If then it be here demanded by what means it should come to pass the greatest part of the Law Moral being so easie for all men to know that so many thousands of men notwithstanding have been ignorant even of principal Moral Duties not imagining the breach of them to be sin I deny not but leud and wicked custom beginning perhaps at the first amongst few afterwards spreading into greater multitudes and so continuing from time to time may be of force even in plain things to smother the light of Natural understanding because men will not bend their wits to examine whether things wherewith they have been accustomed be good or evil For examples sake that grosser kinde of Heathenish Idolatry whereby they worshipped the very works of their own hands was an absurdity to Reason so palpable that the Prophet David comparing Idols and Idolaters together maketh almost no odds between them but the one in a manner as much without wit and sense as the other They that make them are like unto them and so are all that trust in them That wherein an Idolater doth seem so absurd and foolish is by the Wiseman thus exprest He is not ashamed to speakunto that which hath no life He calleth on him that is weak for health He prayeth for life unto him which in dead of him which hath no experience he requireth help For his journey he sueth to him which is not able to go For gain and work and success in his affairs he seeketh furtherance of him that hath no manner of power The cause of which sensless stupidity is afterwards imputed to custom When a Father mourned grievously for his son that was taken away suddenly he made an image for him that was once dead whom now he worshipped as a god ordaining to his servants Ceremonies and Sacrifices Thus by process of time this wicked custom prevailed and was kept as a Law the Authority of Rulers the Ambition of Craftsmen and such like means thrusting forward the ignorant and encreasing their superstition Unto this which the Wiseman hath spoken somewhat besides may be added For whatsoever we have hitherto taught or shall hereafter concerning the force of Mans natural understanding this we always desire withal to be understood that there is no kinde of faculty or power in Man or any other Creature which can rightly perform the Functions allotted to it without perpetual aid and concurrence of that Supream Cause of all things The benefit whereof as oft as we cause God in his justice to withdraw there can no other thing follow then that which the Apostle noteth even men endued with the Light of Reason to walk notwithstanding in the vanity of their minde having their cogitations darkned and being strangers from the Life of God through the ignorance which is in them because of the hardness of their hearts And this cause is mentioned by the Prophet Isaiah speaking of the ignorance of Idolaters who see not how the manifest Law of Reason condemneth their gross iniquity and sui They have not in them saith he so much wit as to think Shall I bow to the stock of a tree All knowledge and understanding is taken from them for God hath shut their eyes that they cannot see That which we say in this case of Idolatry serveth for all other things wherein the like kinde of general blindness hath prevailed against the manifest Laws of Reason Within the compass of which Laws we do not onely comprehend whatsoever may be easily known to belong to the
Subjects that which seemeth good in his own discretion hath not his Edict the force of a Law whether they approve or dislike it Again that which hath been received long sithence and is by custom now established we keep as a Law which we may not transgress yet what consent was ever thereunto sought or required at our hands Of this point therefore we are to note that sith Men naturally have no full and perfect power to command whole Politick Multitudes of Men therefore utterly without our consent we could in such sort be at no Mans commandment living And to be commanded we do consent when that Society whereof we are part hath at any time before consented without revoking the same after by the like Universal Agreement Wherefore as any Mans Deed past is good as long as himself continueth so the Act of a Publick Society of Men done Five hundred years sithence standeth as theirs who presently are of the same Societies because Corporations are Immortal we were then alive in our Predecessors and they in their Successors do live still Laws therefore Humane of what kinde soever are available by consent If here it be demanded how it cometh to pass that this being common unto all Laws which are made there should be found even in good Laws so great variety as there is We must note the Reason hereof to be the sundry particular ends whereunto the different disposition of that Subject or Matter for which Laws are provided causeth them to have a special respect in making Laws A Law there is mentioned amongst the Grecians whereof Pillacus is reported to have been Author and by that Law it was agreed that he which being overcome with drink did then strike any man should suffer punishment double as much as if he had done the same being sober No man could ever have thought this reasonable that had intended thereby onely to punish the injury committed according to the gravity of the Fact For who knoweth not that harm advisedly done is naturally less pardonable and therefore worthy of sharper punishment But for as much as none did so usually this way offend as men in that case which they wittingly fell into even because they would be so much the more freely outragious It was for their publick good where such disorder was grown to frame a Positive Law for remedy thereof accordingly To this appertain those known Laws of making Laws as that Law-makers must have an eye to that place where and to the men amongst whom that one kinde of Laws cannot serve for all kinde of Regiment that where the Multitude beareth sway Laws that shall tend unto the preservation of that State must make common smaller Offices to go by lot for fear of strife and division likely to arise by reason that ordinary qualities sufficing for discharge of such Offices they could not but by many be desired and so with danger contended for and not missed without grudge and discontentment whereas at an uncertain lot none can finde themselves grieved on whomsoever it lighteth Contrariwise the greatest whereof but few are capable to pass by Popular Election that neither the people may envy such as have those Honors in as much as themselves bestow them and that the chiefest may be kindled with desire to exercise all parts of rare and beneficial Vertue knowing they shall not lose their labor by growing in fame and estimation amongst the people If the Helm of chief Government be in the hands of a few of the wealthiest that then Laws providing for continuance thereof must make the punishment of contumely and wrong offered unto any of the common sort sharp and grievous that so the evil may be prevented whereby the rich are most likely to bring themselves into hatred with the people who are not wont to take so great offence when they are excluded from Honors and Offices as when their persons are contumeliously trodden upon In other kindes of Regiment the like is observed concerning the difference of Positive Laws which to be everywhere the same is impossible and against their Nature Now as the Learned in the Laws of this Land observe that our Statutes sometimes are onely the Affirmation or Ratification of that which by Common Law was held before so here it is not to be omitted that generally all Laws Humane which are made for the ordering of Politick Societies be either such as establish some duty whereunto all Men by the Law of Reason did before stand bound or else such as make that a duty now which before was none The one sort we may for distinction sake call Mixedly and the other Meerly Humane That which plain or necessary Reason bindeth Men unto may be in sundry considerations expedient to be ratified by Humane Law For example if Confusion of Blood in Marriage the liberty of having many Wives at once or any other the like corrupt and unreasonable Custom doth happen to have prevailed far and to have gotten the upper hand of Right Reason with the greatest part so that no way is left to rectifie such foul disorder without prescribing by Law the same things which Reason necessarily doth enforce but is not perceived that so it doth or if many be grown unto that which the Apostle did lament in some concerning whom he writeth saying That even what things they naturally know in those very things as Beasts void of Reason they corrupted themselves Or if there be no such special accident yet for as much as the common sort are led by the sway of their sensual desires and therefore do more shun sin for the sensible evils which follow it amongst men then for any kinde of sentence which Reason doth pronounce against it This very thing is cause sufficient why duties belonging unto each kinde of Vertue albeit the Law of Reason teach them should notwithstanding be prescribed even by Humane Law Which Law in this case we term Mixt because the matter whereunto it bindeth is the same which Reason necessarily doth require at our hands and from the Law of Reason it differeth in the manner of binding onely For whereas Men before stood bound in Conscience to do as the Law of Reason teacheth they are now by vertue of Humane Law become constrainable and if they outwardly transgress punishable As for Laws which are Meerly Humane the matter of them is any thing which Reason doth but probably teach to be fit and convenient so that till such time as Law hath passed amongst men about it of it self it bindeth no man One example whereof may be this Lands are by Humane Law in some places after the owners decease divided unto all his Children in some all descendeth to the eldest Son If the Law of Reason did necessarily require but the one of these two to be done they which by Law have received the other should be subject to that heavy sentence which denounceth against all that Decree wicked unjust and unreasonable things Wo.
the most High God whose proper handy-work all things are cannot be compassed with that wit and those senses which are our own For God and Man should be very near Neighbors if Mans cogitations were able to take a survey of the Counsels and Appointments of that Majesty Everlasting Which being utterly impossible that the Eye of Man by it self should look into the bosom of Divine Reason God did not suffer him being desirous of the Light of Wisdom to stray any longer up and down and with bootless expence of travel to wâ—nder in darkness that had no passage to get out by His eyes at the length God did open and bestow upon him the knowledge of the Truth by way of Donative to the end that Man might both be clearly convicted of folly and being through Error out of the way have the path that leadeth unto immortality laid plain before him Thus far Lactantius Firmianus to shew that God himself is the Teacher of the Truth whereby is made known the Supernatural way of Salvation and Law for them to live in that shall be saved In the Natural Path of Everlasting Life the first beginning is that ability of doing good which God in the day of Mans Creation endued him with from hence Obedience unto the Will of his Creator absolute Righteousness and Integrity in all his Actions and last of all the Justice of God rewarding the worthiness of his deâ—â—â—ts with the Crown of Eternal Glory Had Adam continued in his first estate this had been the way of life unto him and all his Posterity Whereas I confess notwithstanding with the wittiest of the School-Divines that if we speak of strict Justice God could no way have been bound to requite Mans labors in so large and ample manner as Humane Felicity doth import in as much as the dignity of this exceedeth so far the others value But be it that God of his great Liberality had determined in lieu of Mans endeavors to bestow the same by the rule of that Justice which best beseemeth him namely the Justice of one that requireth nothing mincingly but all with pressed and heaped and even over-enlarged measure yet could it never hereupon necessarily be gathered that such Justice should add to the nature of that Reward the property of everlasting continuance sith Possession of Bliss though it should be but for a moment were an abundant retribution But we are not now to enter into this consideration how gracious and bountiful our good God might still appear in so rewarding the Sons of Men albeit they should exactly perform whatsoever duty their Nature bindeth them unto Howsoever God did propose this Reward we that were to be rewarded must have done that which is required at our hands we failing in the one it were in Nature an impossibility that the other should be looked for The Light of Nature is never able to finde out any way of obtaining the Reward of Bliss but by performing exactly the Duties and Works of Righteousness From Salvation therefore and Life all flesh being excluded this way behold how the Wisdom of God hath revealed a way Mystical and Supernatural away directing unto the same end of life by a course which groundeth it self upon the guiltiness of sin and through sin desert of condemnation and death For in this way the first thing is the tender compassion of God respecting us drowned and swallowed up in misery The next is Redemption out of the same by the precious Death and Merit of a Mighty Saviour which hath witnessed of himself saying I am the Way the way that leadeth us from misery into bliss This Supernatural Way had God in himself prepared before all Worlds The way of Supernatural Duty which to us he hath prescribed our Saviour in the Gospel of St. Iohn doth note terming it by an excellency The Work of God This is the work of God that ye believe in him whom he hath sent Not that God doth require nothing unto happiness at the hands of men saving onely a naked belief for Hope and Charity we may not exclude but that without belief all other things are as nothing and it the ground of those other Divine Vertues Concerning Faith the principal object whereof is that Eternal Verity which hath discovered the Treasures of hidden Wisdom in Christ. Concerning Hope the highest object whereof is that Everlasting Goodness which in Christ doth quicken the dead Concerning Charity the final object whereof is that incomprehensible Beauty which shineth in the countenance of Christ the Son of the Living God Concerning these Vertues the first of which beginning here with a weak apprehension of things not seen endeth with the intuitive Vision of God in the World to come the second beginning here with a trembling expectation of things far removed and as yet but onely heard of endeth with Real and Actual Fruition of that which no Tongue can express the third beginning herewith a weak in inclination of heart towards him unto whom we are not able to approach endeth with endless Union the mystery whereof is higher then the reach of the thoughts of Men. Concerning that Faith Hope and Charity without which there can be no Salvation was there ever any mention made saving onely in that Law which God himself hath from Heaven revealed There is not in the World a syllable muttered with certain truth concerning any of these three more then hath been supernaturally received from the Mouth of the Eternal God Laws therefore concerning these things are Supernatural both in respect of the manner of delivering them which is Divine and also in regard of the things delivered which are such as have not in Nature any cause from which they flow but were by the voluntary appointment of God ordained besides the course of Nature to rectifie Natures obliquity withal 12. When Supernatural Duties are necessarily exacted Natural are not rejected as needless The Law of God therefore is though principally delivered for instruction in the one yet fraught with Precepts of the other also The Scripture is fraught even with Laws of Nature insomuch that Gratian defining Natural Right whereby is meant the right which exacteth those general duties the concern men naturally even as they are men termeth Natural Right that which the Books of the Law and the Gospel do contain Neither is it vain that the Scripture aboundeth with so great store of Laws in this kinde For they are either such as we of our selves could not easily have found out and then the benefit is not small to have them readily set down to our hands or if they be so clear and manifest that no man endued with Reason can lightly be ignorant of them yet the Spirit as it were borrowing them from the School of Nature as serving to prove things less manifest and to enduce a perswasion of somewhat which were in it self more hard and dark unless it should in such foâ—â— be cleared the very
applying of them unto cases particular is not without most singular use and profit many ways for mens instruction Besides be they plain of themselves or obscure the evidence of Gods own testimony added unto the natural assent of Reason concerning the certainty of them doth not a little comfort and confirm the same Wherefore in as much as our actions are conversant about things beset with many circumstances which cause men of sundry wits to be also of sundry judgments concerning that which ought to be done Requisit it cannot but seem the Rule of Divine Law should herein help our imbecillity that we might the more infallibly understand what is good and what evil The first principles of the Law of Nature are easie hard it were to finde men ignorant of them But concerning the duty which Natures Law doth require at the hands of Men in a number of things particular so far hath the Natural Understanding even of sundry whole Nations been darkned that they have not discerned no not gross iniquity to be sin Again being so prone as weare â—o fawn upon our selves and to be ignorant as much as may be of our own deformities without the feeling Sense whereof we are most wretched even so much the more because not knowing them we cannot as much as desire to have them taken away How should our festered sores be cured but that God hath delivered a Law as sharp as the two-edged sword piercing the very closest and most unsearchable corners of the heart which the Law of Nature can hardly Humane Laws by no means possibly reach unto Hereby we know even secret concupiscence to be sin and are made fearful to offend though it be but in a wandring cogitation Finally of those things which are for direction of all the parts of our life needful and not impossible to be discerned by the Light of Nature it self are there not many which few mens natural capacity and some which no mans hath been able to finde out They are saith St. Augustine but a few and they endued with great ripeness of wit and judgment free from all such affairs as might trouble their Meditations instructed in the sharpest and the subtilest points of Learning who have and that very hardly been able to finde out but onely the Immortality of the Soul The Resurrection of the Flesh what Man did ever at any time dream of having not heard it otherwise then from the School of Nature Whereby it appeareth how much we are bound to yield unto our Creator the Father of all Mercy Eternal Thanks for that he hath delivered his Law unto the World a Law wherein so many things are laid open clear and manifest as a Light which otherwise would have been buried in darkness not without the hazard or rather not with the hazard but with the certain loss of infinite thousands of Souls most undoubtedly now saved We see therefore that our soveraign good is desired naturally that God the Author of that natural desire had appointed natural means whereby to fulfil it that Man having utterly disabled his Nature unto those means hath had other revealed from God and hath received from Heaven a Law to teach him how that which is desired naturally must now supernaturally be attained Finally we see that because those latter exclude not the former quite and clean as unnecessary therefore together with such Supernatural duties as could not possibly have been otherwise known to the World the same Law that teacheth them teacheth also with them such Natural duties as could not by Light of Nature easily have been known 13. In the first Age of the World God gave Laws unto our Fathers and by reason of the number of their days their memories served in stead of Books whereof the manifold imperfections and defects being known to God he mercifully relieved the same by often putting then in minde of that whereof it behoved them to be specially mindful In which respect we see how many times one thing hath been iterated unto sundry even of the best and wisest amongst them After that the lives of Men were shortned means more durable to preserve the Laws of God from oblivion and corruption grew in use not without precise direction from God himself First therefore of Moses it is said that he wrote all the words of God not by his own private motion and device For God taketh this act to himself I have written Furthermore were not the Prophets following commanded also to do the like Unto the holy Evangelist St. Iohn how often express charge is given Scribe write these things Concerning the rest of our Lords Disciples the words of St. Augustine are Quidquid ille de suis factis dictis nos legere voluit hoc scribendum illis tanquam suis manibus imperavit Now although we do not deny it to be a matter meerly accidental unto the Law of God to be written although writing be not that which addeth authority and strength thereunto Finally though his Laws do require at our hands the same obedience howsoever they be delivered his providence notwithstanding which hath made principal choice of this way to deliver them who seeth not what cause we have to admire and magnifie The singular benefit that hath grown unto the World by receiving the Laws of God even by his own appointment committed unto writing we are not able to esteem as the value thereof deserveth When the question therefore is whether we be now to seek for any revealed Law of God otherwhere then onely in the Sacred Scripture whether we do now stand bound in the sight of God to yield to Traditions urged by the Church of Rome the same obedience and reverence we do to his Written Law honoring equally and adoring both as Divine Our answer is No. They that so earnestly plead for the Authority of Tradition as if nothing were more safely conveyed then that which spreadeth it self by report and descendeth by relation of former Generations unto the Ages that succeed are not all of them surely a miracle it were if they should be so simple as thus to perswade themselves howsoever if the simple were so perswaded they could be content perhaps very well to enjoy the benefit as they account it of that common Error What hazard the Truth is in when it passeth through the hands of report how maimed and deformed it becometh they are not they cannot possibly be ignorant Let them that are indeed of this minde consider but onely that little of things Divine which the Heathen have in such sort received How miserable had the State of the Church of God been long ere this if wanting the Sacred Scripture we had no Record of his Laws but onely the memory of man receiving the same by report and relation from his Predecessors By Scripture it hath in the Wisdom of God seemed meet to deliver unto the World much but personally expedient to be practised of certain men
Agent which seeth already what to resolve upon It hath no apparent absurdity therefore in it to think that all actions of men endued with the use of reason are generally either good or evil Whatsoever is good the same is also approved of God and according unto the sundry degrees of goodness the kinds of Divine approbation are in like sort multiplied Some things are good yet in so mean a degree of goodness that men are onely not disproved nor disallowed of God for them No man hateth his own flesh If ye do good unto them that do so to you the very Publicans themselves do as much They are worse then Infidels that have no care to provide for their own In actions of this sort the very light of nature alone may discover that which is so farre forth in the sight of God allowable Some things in such sort are allowed that they be also required as necessary unto salvation by way of direct immediate and proper necessity final so that without performance of them we cannot by ordinary course be saved nor by any means be excluded from life observing them In actions of this kind our chiefest direction is from Scripture for Nature is no sufficient Teacher what we should do that we may attain unto life everlasting The unsufficiency of the light of nature is by the light of Scripture so fully and so perfectly herein supplied that further light then this hath added there doth not need unto that end Finally some things although not so required of necessity that to leave them undone excludeth from Salvation are notwithstanding of so great dignity and acceptation with God that most ample reward in Heaven is laid up for them Hereof we have no Commandment either in Nature or Scripture which doth exact them at our hands yet those Motives these are in both which draw most effectually our minds unto them In this kind there is not the least action but it doth somewhat make to the accessory augmentation of our bliss For which cause our Saviour doth plainly witness that there shall not be as much as a cup of cold water bestowed for his sake without reward Hereupon dependeth whatsoever difference there is between the states of Saints in glory hither we refer whatsoever belongeth unto the highest perfection of man by way of service towards God Hereunto that servour and first love of Christians did bend it self causing them to sell their possessions and lay down the price at the blessed Apostles feet Hereat S. Paul undoubtedly did aim in so far abridging his own liberty and exceeding that which the bond of necessary and enjoyned duty tied him unto Wherefore seeing that in all these several kinds of actions there can be nothing possibly evil which God approveth and that he approveth much more then he doth command and that his very Commandments in some kinde as namely his Prâ—cepts comprehended in the Law of Nature may be otherwise known theâ— onely by Scripture and that to do them howsoever we know them must needs he acceptable in his sight Let them with whom we have hitherto disputee consider well how it can stand with Reason to make the bare mandate of Sacred Scripture the onely Rule of all good and evil in the actions of mortal men The testimonies of God are true the Testimonies of God are perfect the Testimonies of God are all-sufficient unto that end for which they were given Therefore accordingly we do receive them we do not think that in them God hath omitted any thing needful unto his purpose and left his intent to be accomplished by our devisings What the Scripture purposeth the same in all points it doth perform Howbeit that here we swerve not in judgement one thing especially we must observe namely That the absolute perfection of Scripture is seen by relation unto that end whereto it tendeth And even hereby it cometh to pass the first such as imagine the general and main drift of the body of sacred Scripture not to be so large as it is nor that God did thereby intend to deliver as in truth he doth a full instruction in all things unto salvation necessary the knowledge whereof man by nature could not otherwise in this life attain unto They are by this very mean induced either still to look for new Revelations from Heaven or else dangerously to add to the Word of God uncertain Tradition that so the Doctrine of mans Salvation may be compleat which Doctrine we constantly hold in all respects without any such thing added to be so compleat that we utterly refuse as much as once to acquaint our selves with any thing further Whatsoever to make up the Doctrine of mans Salvation is added as in supply of the Scriptures unsufficiency we reject it Scripture purposing this hath perfectly and fully done it Again the scope and purpose of God in delivering the Holy Scripture such as do take more largely then behoveth they on the contrary side racking and stretching it further then by him was meant are drawn into sundry as great inconveniences These pretending the Scriptures perfection infer thereupon That in Scripture all things lawful to be done must needs be contained We count those things perfect which want nothing requisite for the end whereto they were instituted As therefore God created every part and particle of man exactly perfect that is to say in all points sufficient unto that use for which he appointed it so the Scripture yea every sentence thereof is perfect and wanteth nothing requisite unto that purpose for which God delivered the same So that if hereupon we conclude that because the Scripture is perfect therefore all things lawful to be done are comprehended in the Scripture we may even as well conclude so of every sentence as of the whole sum and body thereof unless we first of all prove that it was the drift scope and purpose of Almighty God in holy Scripture to comprize all things which man may practise But admit this and mark I beseech you what would follow God in delivering Scripture to his Church should clean have abrogated amongst them the Law of Nature which is an infallible knowledge imprinted in the minds of all the children of men whereby both general principles for directing of humane actions are comprehended and conclusions derived from them upon which conclusions groweth in particularity the choice of good and evil in the daily affairs of this life Admit this and what shall the Scripture be but a snare and a torment to weak Consciences filling them with infinite perplexities scrupulosities doubts insoluble and extreme despairs Not that the Scripture it self doth cause any such thing for it tendeth to the clean contrary and the fruit thereof is resolute assurance and certainty in that it teacheth but the necessities of this life urging men to do that which the light of Nature common discretion and judgement of it self directeth them unto on the other side this Doctrine teaching
three Synods consisting of many Elderships Deacons Women Church-servants or Widows free consent of the people unto actions of greatest moment after they be by Churches or Synods orderly resolved All this Form of Polity if yet we may term that a form of building when men have laid a few Rafters together and those not all of the foundest neither but howsoever all this Form they conclude is prescribed in such sort that to adde to it any thing as of like importance for so I think they mean or to abrogate of it any thing at all is unlawful In which resolution if they will firmly and constantly persist I see not but that concerning the points which hitherto have been disputed of they must agree that they have molested the Church with needless opposition and henceforward as we said before betake themselves wholly unto the tryal of particulars whether every of those things which they esteem as principal be either so esteemed of or at all established for perpetuity in holy Scripture and whether any particular thing in our Church Polity be received other then the Scripture alloweth of either in greater things or in smaller The Matters wherein Church Polity is conversant are the Publick Religious Duties of the Church as the Administration of the Word and Sacraments Prayers Spiritual Censures and the like To these the Church standeth always bound Laws of Polity are Laws which appoint in what manner these duties shall be performed In performance whereof because all that are of the Church cannot joyntly and equally work the first thing in Polity required is A difference of Persons in the Church without which difference those Functions cannot in orderly sort be executed Hereupon we hold That Gods Clergy are a State which hath been and will be as long as there is a Church upon Earth necessarily by the plain Word of God himself a State whereunto the rest of Gods people must be subject as touching things that appertain to their Souls health For where Polity is it cannot but appoint some to be Leaders of others and some to be led by others If the blinde lead the blinde they both perish It is with the Clergy if their persons be respected even as it is with other men their quality many times far beneath that which the dignity of their place requireth Howbeit according to the Order of Polity they being The lights of the World others though better and wiser must that way be subject unto them Again for as much as where the Clergy are any great multitude order doth necessarily require that by degrees they be distinguished we hold there have ever been and ever ought to be in such case at leastwise two sorts of Ecclesiastical Persons the one subordinate unto the other as to the Apostles in the beginning and to the Bishops always since we finde plainly both in Scripture and in all Ecclesiastical Records other Ministers of the Word and Sacraments have been Moreover it cannot enter into any Mans conceit to think it lawful that every man which listeth should take upon him charge in the Church and therefore a solemn admittance is of such necessity that without it there can be no Church Polity A number of Particularities there are which make for the more convenient Being of these Principal and Perpetual parts in Ecclesiastical Polity but yet are not of such constant use and necessity in Gods Church Of this kinde are times and places appointed for the Exercise of Religion Specialties belonging to the Publick Solemnity of the Word the Sacraments and Prayer the Enlargement or Abridgement of Functions Ministerial depending upon those two Principals beforementioned To conclude even whatsoever doth by way of Formality and Circumstance concern any Publick Action of the Church Now although that which the Scripture hath of things in the former kinde be for ever permanent yet in the latter both much of that which the Scripture teacheth is not always needful and much the Church of God shall always need which the Scripture teacheth not So as the Form of Polity by them set down for perpetuity is three ways faulty Faulty in omitting some things which in Scripture are of that nature as namely the difference that ought to be of Pastors when they grow to any great multitude Faulty in requiring Doctors Deacons Widows and such like as things of perpetual necessity by the Law of God which in Truth are nothing less Faulty also in urging some things by Scripture Immutable as their Lay-Elders which the Scripture neither maketh Immutable nor at all teacheth for any thing either we can as yet finde or they have hitherto been able to prove But hereof more in the Books that follow As for those marvellous Discourses whereby they adventure to argue That God must needs have done the thing which they imagine was to be done I must confess I have often wondred at their exceeding boldness herein When the question is Whether God have delivered in Scripture as they affirm he hath a compleat particular Immutable Form of Church Polity why take they that other both presumptuous and superfluous labor to prove he should have done it there being no way in this case to prove the Deed of God saving onely by producing that evidence wherein he hath done it But if there be no such thing apparent upon Record they do as if one should demand a Legacy by force and vertue of some Written Testament wherein there being no such thing specified he pleadeth That there it must needs be and bringeth arguments from the love or good will which always the Testator bore him imagining that these or the like proofs will convict a Testament to have that in it which other men can no where by reading finde In matters which concern the Actions of God the most dutiful way on our part is to search what God hath done and with meekness to admire that rather then to dispute what he in congruity of Reason ought to do The ways which he hath whereby to do all things for the greatest good of his Church are more in number then we can search other in Nature then that we should presume to determine which of many should be the fittest for him to chuse till such time as we see he hath chosen of many some one which one we then may boldly conclude to be the fittest because he hath taken it before the rest When we do otherwise surely we exceed our bounds who and where weare we forget And therefore needful it is that our Pride in such cases be contrould and our Disputes beaten back with those Demands of the blessed Apostle How unsearchable are his Iudgments and his Ways past finding out Who hath known the Minde of the Lord or who was his Counsellor OF THE LAWS OF Ecclesiastical Polity BOOK IV. Concerning their Third Assertion That our Form of Church-Politie is corrupted with Popish Orders Rites and Ceremonies banished out of certain Reformed Churches whose example
wisely considered that the Body is of far more worth than the Rayment Whereupon for fear of dangerous inconveniences it hath been thought good to adde That sometimes Authority must and may with good conscience be obeyed even where Commandment is not given upon good ground That the duty of Preaching is one of the absolute Commandements of God and therefore ought not to be forsaken for the bare inconveniency of a thing which in the own nature is indifferent That one of the foulest spots is the Surplice is the offence which is giveth in occasioning the weak to fall and the wicked to be confirmed in their wickedness yet hereby there is no unlawfulness proved but only an inconveniency that such things should be established howbeit no such Inconveniency neither as may not be born with That when God doth flatly command us to abstain from things is their own Nature indifferent if they offend our weak Brethren his meaning is not we should obey his Commandement herein unless we may do it and not leave undone that which the Lord hath absolutely commanded Always provided That whosoever will enjoy the benefit of this Dispensation to wear a scandalous Badge of Idolatry rather than forsake his Pastoral charge do as occasion serveth teach nevertheless still the incommodity of the thing it self admonish the weak Brethren that they be not and pray unto God so to strengthen them that they may not be offended thereat So that whereas before they which had Authority to institute Rites and Ceremonies were denyed to have power to institute this it is now confest that this they may also lawfully but not so conveniently appoint they did well before and as they ought who had it in utter detestation and hatred as a thing abominable they now do well which think it may be both born and used with a very good Conscience before he which by wearing it were sure to win thousands unto Christ ought not to do it if there were but one which might be offended now though it be with the offence of thousands yet it may be done rather than that should be given over whereby notwithstanding we are not certain we shall gain one the Examples of Ezechias and of Paul the Charge which was given to the Jews by Esay the strict Apostolical prohibition of things indifferent whensoever they may be scandalous were before so forcible Laws against our Ecclesiastical Attire as neither Church nor Common-wealth could possibly make void which now one of far less authority than either hath found how to frustrate by dispensing with the breach of inferiour Commandments to the end that the greater may be kept But it booteth them not thus to soder up a broken Cause whereof their first and last discourses will fall asunder do what they can Let them ingenuously confess that their Invectives were too bitter their Arguments too weak the matter not so dangerous as they did imagin If those alleged testimonies of Scripture did indeed concern the matter to such effect as was pretended that which they should inferr were unlawfulness because they were cited as Prohibitions of that thing which indeed they concern If they prove not our attire unlawful because in truth they concern it not it followeth that they prove not any thing against it and consequently not so much as uncomeliness or incoveniency Unless therefore they be able throughly to resolve themselves that there is no one Sentence in all the Scriptures of God which doth controul the wearing of it in such manner and to such purpose as the Church of England alloweth unless they can fully rest and settle their mindes in this most sound perswasion that they are not to make themselves the only competent Judges of decency in these cases and to despise the solemn judgement of the whole Church preferring before it their own conceit grounded only upon uncertain suspicions and fears whereof if there were at the first some probable cause when things were but raw and tender yet now very tract of time hath it self worn that out also unless I say thus resolved in minde they hold their Pastoral Charge with the comfort of a good Conscience no way grudging at that which they do or doing that which they think themselves bound of duty to reprove how should it possibly help or further them in their course to take such occasions as they say are requisite to be taken and in pensive manner to tell their Audience Brethren our hearts desire is that we might enjoy the full liberty of the Gospel as in other reformed Churches they do elsewhere upon whom the heavy hand of Authority hath imposed no grievous burthen But such is the misery of these our days that so great happiness we cannot look to attain unto Were it so that the equity of the Law of Moses could prevail or the zeal of Ezechias be found in the hearts of those Guides and Governours under whom we live or the voyce of God's own Prophets be duly heard or the Examples of the Apostles of Christ be followed yea or their Precepts be answered with full and perfect obedience these abominable Raggs polluted Garments marks and Sacraments of Idolatry which Power as you see constraineth us to wear and Conscience to abhor had long ere this day been removed both out of sight and out of memory But as now things stand behold to what narrow streights we are driven On the one side we fear the words of our Saviour Christ Woe be to them by whom scandal and offence cometh on the other side at the Apostles speech we cannot but quake and tremble If I preach not the Gospel woe be unto me Being thus hardly beset we see not any other remedy but to hazzard your Souls the one way that we may the other way endeavour to save them Touching the the offence of the Weak therefore we must adventure it If they perish they perish Our Pastoral charge is God's most absolute Commandment Rather than that shall be taken from us we are resolved to take this filth and to put it on although we judge it to be so unfit and inconvenient that as oft as ever we pray or preach so arrayed before you we do as much as in us lyeth to cast away your Souls that are weak-minded and to bring you unto endless perdition But we beseech you Brethren have a care of your own safety take heed to your steps that ye be not taken in those snares which we lay before you And our Prayer in your behalf to Almighty God is that the poyson which we offer you may never have the power to do you harm Advice and counsel is best sought for at their hands which either have no part at all in the Cause whereof they instruct or else are so farr ingaged that themselves are to bear the greatest adventure in the success of their own Counsels The one of which two Considerations maketh men the less respective and the other the more
which they of that place which the Lord hath chosen shew thee and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee According to the Law which they shall teach thee and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee shalt thou do thou shalt not decline from the thing which they shall shew thee to the right hand nor to the left And that man that will do presumptuously not hearkning unto the Priest that standeth before the Lord thy God to manister there or unto the Judge that man shall die and thou shalt take away evil from Israel When there grew in the Church of Christ a question Whether the Genti'es believing might be saved although they were not circumcised after the manner of Moses nor did observe the rest of those Legal Rites and Ceremonies whereunto the Jews were bound After great Dissention and Disputation about it their conclusion in the end was to have it determined by sentence at Jerusalem which was accordingly done in a Council there assemâ—led for the same purpose Are ye able to alledge any just and sufficient cause wherefore absolutely ye should not condescend in this Controversie to have your judgments over-ruled by some such Definitive Sentence Whether it fall out to be given with or against you that so these redious contentions may cease Te will perhaps make answer That being perswaded already as touching the truth of your Cause ye are not to hearken unto any sentence no not though Angels should define otherwise as the blessed Apostles own example teacheth Again That Men yea Councils may err and that unless the judgment given do satisfie your mindes unless it be such as ye can by no further argument oppugn in a word unless you perceive and acknowledge it your selves consonant with Gods Word to stand unto it not allowing it were to sin against your own consciences But consider I beseech you first As touching the Apostle how that wherein be was so resolute and peremptory our Lord Iesus Christ made manifest unto him even by Intuitive Revelation wherein there was no possibility of error That which you are perswaded of ye have it no otherwise then by your own onely probable collection and therefore such bold asseverations as in him were admirable should in your months but argue rashness God was not ignorant that the Priests and Iudges whose sentence in Matters of Controversie he ordained should stand both might and oftentimes would be deceived in their judgment Howbeit better it was in the eye of his understanding that sometime an erronious sentence Definitive should prevail till the same authority perceiving such oversight might afterwards correct or reverse it then that strifes should have respite to grow and not come speedily unto some end Neither wish we that men should do any thing which in their hearts they are perswaded they ought not to do but this perswasion ought we say to be fully setled in their hearts that in litigious and controversed causes of such quality the Will of God is to have them to do whatsoever the sentence of judicial and final Decision shall determine yea though it seem in their private opinion to swarve utterly from that which is right as no doubt many times the sentence amongst the Iews did seem unto one part or other contending And yet in this case God did then allow them to do that which in their private judgment it seemed yea and perhaps truly seemed that the Law did disallow For if God be not the Author of confusion but of peace then can he not be the Author of our refusal but of our contentment to stand unto some Definitive Sentence without which almost impossible it is that either we should avoid confusion or ever hope to attain peace To small purpose had the Council of Jerusalem been assembled if one their determination being set down men might afterwards have defended their former opinions When therefore they had given their Definitive Sentence all Controversoâ— was at an end Things were disputed before they came to be determined Men afterwards were not to dispute any longer but to obey The Sentence of Iudgment finished their strife which their disputes before judgment could not do This was ground sufficient for any reasonable Mans conscience to build the duty of Obedience upon whatsoever his own opinion were as touching the matter before in question So full of wilfulness and self-liking is our nature that without some Definitive Sentence which being given may stand and a necessity of silence on both sides afterward imposed small hope there is that strifes thus for prosecuted will in short time quietly end Now it were in vain to ask you Whether ye could be content that the Sentence of any Court already erected should be so far authorized as that among the Iews established by God himself for the determining of all Controversies That man which will do presumptuously not hearkning unto the Priest that standeth before the Lord to minister there nor unto the Judge let him die Ye have given us already to understand what your opinion is in part concerning Her sacred Majesties Court of High Commission the nature whereof is the same with that amongst the Iews albeit the power be not so great The other way happily may like you better because Master Beza in his last Book save one written about these Matters professeth himself to be now weary of such Combats and Encounters whether by word or writing in as much as he findeth that Controversies thereby are made but Brawls And therefore wisheth that in some common lawful Assembly of Churches all these strifes may at once be decided Shall there be then in the mean while no doings Yes There are the weightier Matters of the Law Judgment and Mercy and Fidelity These things we ought to do and these things while we contend about less we leave undone Happier are they whom the Lord when he cometh shall finde doing in these things then disputing about Doctors Elders and Deacons Or if there be no remedy but somewhat needs ye must do which may tend to the setting forward of your Discipline do that which wisemen who think some Statute of the Realm more fit to be repealed then to stand in force are accustomed to do before they come to Parliament where the place of enacting is that is to say spend the time in re-examining more duly your cause and in more throughly considering of that which ye labor to overthrow As for the Orders which are established sith Equity and Reason the Law of Nature God and Man do all favor that which is in Being till orderly Iudgment of Decision be given against it it is but Iustice to exact of you and perversness in you it should be to deny thereunto your willing obedience Not that I judge it a thing allowable for men to observe those Laws which its their hearts they are stredfastly perswaded to be against the Law of God But your perswasion
whereof whoso tasteth shall thirst no more As the Will doth now work upon that object by desire which is as it were a motion towards the end as yet unobtained so likewise upon the same hereafter received it shall work also by love Appetitus inhiantis fit amor fruentis saith St. Augustine The longing disposition of them that thirst is changed into the sweet affection of them that taste and are replenished Whereas we now love the thing that is good but good especially in respect of benefit unto us we shall then love the thing that is good onely or principally for the goodness of beauty in it self The Soul being in this sort as it is Active perfected by love of that infinite good shall as it is Receptive be also perfected with those Supernatural Passions of Joy Peace and Delight All this endless and Everlasting Which Perpetuity in regard whereof our Blessedness is termed A Crown which withereth not doth neither depend upon the nature of the thing it self nor proceed from any natural necessity that our Souls should so exercise themselves for ever in beholding and loving God but from the Will of God which doth both freely perfect our nature in so high a degree and continue it so perfected Under Man no Creature in the World is capable of felicity and bliss First because their chiefest Perfection consisteth in that which is best for them but not in that which is simply best as ours doth Secondly because whatsoever External Perfection they tend unto it is not better then themselves as ours is How just occasion have we therefore even in this respect with the Prophet to admire the goodness of God Lord what is man that thou shouldst exalt him above the works of thy hands so far as to make thy self the Inheritance of his Rest and the Substance of his Felicity Now if men had not naturally this desire to be happy how were it possible that all men should have it All men have Therefore this desire in Man is natural It is not in our power not to do the same how should it then be in our power to do it coldly or remisly So that our desire being natural is also in that degree of earnestness whereunto nothing can be added And is it probable that God should frame the hearts of all men so desirous of that which no man may obtain It is an Axiom of Nature that natural desire cannot utterly be frustrate This desire of ours being natural should be frustrate if that which may satisfie the same were a thing impossible for Man to aspire unto Man doth seek a tripple Perfection first a sensual consisting in those things which very life it self requireth either as necessary Supplements or as Beauties and Ornaments thereof then an Intellectual consisting in those things which none underneath Man is either capable of or acquainted with lastly a Spiritual and Divine consisting in those things whereunto we tend by supernatural means here but cannot here attain unto them They that make the first of these three the scope of their whole life are said by the Apostle to have no God but onely their Belly to be earthly-minded men Unto the second they bend themselves who seek especially to excel in all such Knowledge and Vertue as doth most commend Men. To this branch belongeth the Law of Moral and Civil Perfection That there is somewhat higher then either of these two no other proof doth need then the very Process of Mans desire which being natural should be frustrate if there were not some farther thing wherein it might rest at the length concented which in the former it cannot do For Man doth not seem to rest satisfied either with fruition of that wherewith his life is preserved or with performance of such actions as advance him most deservedly in estimation but doth further covet yea oftentimes manifestly pursue with great sedulity and earnestness that which cannot stand him in any stead for vital use that which exceedeth the reach of Sense yea somewhat above capacity of Reason somewhat Divine and Heavenly which with hidden exultation it rather surmiseth then conceiveth somewhat it seeketh and what that is directly it knoweth not yet very intentive desire thereof doth so incite it that all other known delights and pleasures are laid aside they give place to the search of this but onely suspected desire If the Soul of Man did serve onely to give him Being in this life then things appertaining unto this life would content him as we see they do other Creatures which Creatures enjoying what they live by seek no further but in his contentation do shew a kinde of acknowledgment that there is no higher good which doth any way belong unto them With us it is otherwise For although the Beauties Riches Honors Sciences Vertues and Perfections of all Men living were in the present possession of one yet somewhat beyond and above all this there would still be sought and earnestly thirsted for So that Nature even in this life doth plainly claim and call for a more Divine Perfection then either of these two that have been mentioned This last and highest estate of Perfection whereof we speak is received of Men in the nature of a Reward Rewards do always presuppose such duties performed as are rewardable Our natural means therefore unto Blessedness are our works nor is it possible that Nature should ever finde any other way to Salvation then onely this But examine the works which we do and since the first Foundation of the World what one can say My ways are pure Seeing then all flesh is guilty of that for which God hath threatned eternally to punish what possibility is there this way to be saved There resteth therefore either no way unto Salvation or if any then surely a way which is Supernatural a way which could never have entred into the heart of man as much as once to conceive or imagine if God himself had not revealed it extraordinarily For which cause we term it the Mystery or Secret way of Salvation And therefore St. Ambrose in this matter appealeth justly from Man to God Caeli mysterium doceat me Deus qui condidit non homo qui seipsum ignoravit Let God himself that made me let not Man that knows not himself be my instructer concerning the Mystical Way to Heaven When Men of excellent wit saith Lactantius had wholly betaken themselves unto study after farewel bidden unto all kinde as well of private as publick Action they spared no labor that might be spent in the search of Truth holding it a thing of much more price to seek and to finde out the reason of all Affairs as well Divine as Humane then to stick fast in the toil of piling up Riches and gathering together heaps of Honors Howbeit they both did fail of their purpose and got not so much as to quit their charges because Truth which is the secret of
must be by Reason found out And therefore To refuse the conduct of the Light of Nature saith St. Augustine is not Folly alone but accompanied with Impiety The greatest amongst the School Divines studying how to set down by exact definition the Nature of an Humane Law of which nature all the Churches Constitutions are found not which way better to do it then in these words Out of the Precepts of the Law of Nature as out of certain common and undemonstrable Principles Mans Reason doth necessarily proceed unto certain more particular determinations Which particular determinations being found out according unto the Reason of Man they have the names of Humane Laws so that such other conditions be therein kept as the making of Laws doth require that is If they whose Authority is thereunto required do establish and publish them as Laws And the truth is that all our controversie 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 general Law of Nature which Law of Nature and the Moral Law of Scripture are in the substance of Law all one But because there are also in Scripture a number of Laws particular and positive which being in force may not by any Law of Man be violated we are in making Laws to have thereunto an especial eye As for example it might perhaps seem reasonable unto the Church of God following the general Laws concerning the nature of Marriage to ordain in particular that Cosin-Germans shall not marry Which Law notwithstanding ought not to be received in the Church if there should be in the Scripture a Law particular to the contrary forbidding utterly the Bonds of Marriage to be so far forth abridged The same Thomas therefore whose definition of Humane Laws we mentioned before doth add thereunto this Caution concerning the Rule and Canon whereby to make them Humane Laws are Measures in respect of Men whose actions they must direct howbeit such Measures they are as have 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 General Laws of Nature and without contradiction unto any Positive Law in Scripture otherwise they are ill made Unto Laws thus made and received by a whole Church they which live within the bosom of that Church must not think it a matter indifferent either to yield or not to yield obedience Is it a small offence to despise the Church of God My Son keep thy Fathers Commandment saith Solomon and forget not thy Mothers instruction binde them both always about thine heart It doth not stand with the duty which we ow to our Heavenly Father that to the Ordinances of our Mother the Church we should shew our selves disobedient Let us not say we keep the Commandments of the one when we break the Law of the other For unless we observe both we obey neither And what doth let but that we may observe both when they are not the one to the other in any sort repugnant For of such Laws onely we speak as being made in form and manner already declared can have in them no contradiction unto the Laws of Almighty God Yea that which is more the Laws thus made God himself doth in such sort authorize that to despise them is to despise in them him It is a loose and licentious opinion which the Anabaptists have embraced holding That a Christian Mans liberty is lost and the Soul which Christ hath redeemed unto himself injuriously drawn into servitude under the yoke of Humane Power if any Law be now imposed besides the Gospel of Jesus Christ In obedience whereunto the Spirit of God and not the constraint of man is to lead us according to that of the blessed Apostle Such as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God and not such as live in thraldom unto men Their judgment is therefore that the Church of Christ should admit no Law-Makers but the Evangelists The Author of that which causeth another thing to be is Author of that thing also which thereby is caused The light of Natural Understanding Wit and Reason is from God he it is which thereby doth illuminate every man entring into the World If there proceed from us any thing afterwards corrupt and naught the Mother thereof is our own darkness neither doth it proceed from any such cause whereof God is the Author He is the Author of all that we think or do by vertue of that Light which himself hath given And therefore the Laws which the very Heathens did gather to direct their actions by so far forth as they proceed from the Light of Nature God himself doth acknowledge to have proceeded even from himself and that he was the Writer of them in the Tables of their Hearts How much more then is he the Author of those Laws which have been made by his Saints endued further with the Heavenly Grace of his Spirit and directed as much as might be with such instructions as his Sacred Word doth yield Surely if we have unto those Laws that dutiful regard which their Dignity doth require it will not greatly need that we should be exhorted to live in obedience unto them Iâ— they have God himself for their Author contempt which is offered unto them cannot chuse but redound unto him The safest and unto God the most acceptable way of framing our lives therefore is with all Humility Lowliness and Singleness of Heart to study which way our willing Obedience both unto God and Man may be yielded even to the utmost of that which is due 10. Touching the Mutability of Laws that concern the Regiment and Polity of the Church changed they are when either altogether abrogated or in part repealed or augmented with farther additions Wherein we are to note that this question about the changing of Laws concerneth onely such Laws as are Positive and do make that now good or evil by being commanded or forbidden which otherwise of it self were not simply the one or the other Unto such Laws it is expresly sometimes added how long they are to continue in force If this be no where exprest then have we no light to direct our judgments concerning the changeableness or immutability of them but by considering the nature and quality of such Laws The nature of every Law must be judged of by the end for which it was made and by the aptness of things therein prescribed unto the same end It may so fall out that the reason why some Laws of God were given is neither opened nor possible to be gathered by the Wit of Man As why God should forbid Adam that one Tree there was no way for Adam ever to have certainly understood And at Adams ignorance of
therein we ought to have followed The Matter contained in this Fourth Book 1. HOw great use Ceremonies have in the Church 2. The First thing they blame in the kinde of our Ceremonies is that we have not in them ancient Apostolical simplicity but a greater pomp and stateliness 3. The second that so many of them are the same which the Church of Rome useth and the Reasons which they bring to prove them for that cause blame-worthy 4. How when they go about to expound what Popish Ceremonies they mean they contradict their own Argument against Popish Ceremonies 5. An Answer to the Argument whereby they would prove that sith we allow the customs of our Fathers to be followed we therefore may not allow such customs as the Church of Rome hath because we cannot account of them which are in that Church as of our Fathers 6. To their Allegation that the course of Gods own wisdom doth make against our conformity with the Church of Rome in such things 7. To the example of the eldest Church which they bring for the same purpose 8. That it is not our best Politie as they pretend it is for establishment of sound Religion to hâ—ve in these things no agreement with the Church of Rome being unsound 9. That neither the Papists upbraiding us as furnished out of their store nor any hope which in that respect they are said to conceive doth make any more against our Ceremonies then the former Allegations have done 10. The grief which they say godly Brethren conceive at such Ceremonies as we have câ—â—â—men with the Church of Rome 11. The third thing for which they reprove a great part of our Ceremonies is for that as we have them from the Church of Rome so that Church had them from the Jews 12. The fourth for that sundry of them have been they say abused unto Iâ—â—aery and arâ— by that mean become scandalous 13. The fifth for that we retain them still notwithstanding the example of certain Churches reformed before us which have cast them out 14. A Declaration of the proceedings of the Church of England â—or the establisement of things as they are SUch was the ancient simplicity and softness of spirit which sometimes prevailed in the World that they whose words were even as Oracles amongst men seemed evermore loth to give sentence against any thing publiquely received in the Church of God except it were wonderful apparently evil for that they did not so much encline to that seventy which delighteth to reprove the least things in seeth amiss as to that Charity which is unwilling to behold any thing that duty bindeth it to reprove The state of this present Age wherein Zeal hath drowned Charity and Skill Meekness will not now suffer any man to marvel whatsoever he shall hear reproved by whomsoever Those Rites and Ceremonies of the Church therefore which are the self-same now that they were when Holy and Vertuous men maintained them against profane and deriding Adversaries her own children have at this day in deâ—ision Whether justly or no it shall then appear when all things are heard which they have to alledge against the outward received Orders of this Church Which inasmuch as themselves do compare unto Mint and Cummin granting them to be no part of those things which in the matter of Polity are weightier we hope that for small things their strife will neither be earnest noâ— long The fifting of that which is objected against the Orders of the Church in particular doth not belong unto this place Here we are to discuss onely those general exceptions which have been taken at any time against them First therefore to the end that their nature and use whereunto they serve may plainly appear and so afterwards their quality the better be discerned we are to note that in every grand or main publique duty which God requireth at the hands of his Church there is besides that matter and form wherein the essence thereof consisteth a certain outward fashion whereby the same is in decent sort administred The substance of all religious actions is delivered from God himself in few words For example sake in the Sacraments Unto the Element let the Word be added and they both do make a Sacrament saith S. Augustine Baptism is given by the Element of Water and that prescript form of words which the Church of Christ doth use the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ is administred in the Elements of Bread and Wine if those mystical words be added thereunto But the due and decent form of administring those holy Sacraments doth require a great deal more The end which is aimed at in setting down the outward form of all religious actions is the edification of the Church Now men are edified when either their understanding is taught somewhat whereof in such actions it behoveth all men to consider or when their hearts are moved with any affection suitable thereunto when their mindes are in any sort stirred up unto that reverence devotion attention and due regard which in those cases seemeth requisite Because therefore unto this purpose not onely speech but sundry sensible means besides have always been thought necessary and especially those means which being object to the eye the liveliest and the most apprehensive sense of all other have in that respect seemed the sittest to make a deep and strong impression from hence have risen not only a number of Prayers Readings Questionings Exhortings but even of visible signs also which being used in perfomance of holy actions are undoubtedly most effectual to open such matter as men when they know and remember carefully must needs be a great deal the better informed to what effect such duties serve We must not think but that there is some ground of Reason even in Nature whereby it cometh to pass that no Nation under Heaven either doth or ever did suffer publike actions which are of weight whether they be Civil and Temporal or else Spiritual and Sacred to pass without some visible solemnity The very strangeness whereof and difference from that which is common doth cause Popular eyes to observe and to mark the same Words both because they are common and do not so strongly move the phansie of man are for the most part but slightly heard and therefore with singular wisdom it hath been provided that the deeds of men which are made in the presence of Witnesses should pass not only with words but also with certain sensible actions the memory whereof is far more easie and durable then the memory of speech can be The things which so long experience of all Ages hath confirmed and made profitable let not us presume to condemn as follies and toys because we sometimes know not the cause and reason of them A wit disposed to scorn whatsoever it doth not conceive might ask wherefore Abraham should say to his servant Put thy hand under my thigh and swear was it not sufficient
ought not to cause the Churches to dissent out with another But yet it maketh most to the avoiding of Dissention that there be amongst them an Unity not onely in Doctrine but also in Ceremonies And therefore our Form of Service is to be amended not onely for that it cometh too near that of the Papists but also because it is so different from that of the Reformed Churches Being asked to what Churches ours should conform it self and why other Reformed Churches should not as well frame themselves to ours Their answer is That if there be any Ceremonies which we have better then others they ought to frame themselves to us If they have better then we then we ought to frame ourselves to them If the Ceremonies be alike commodious tha latter Churches should conform themselves to the first as the younger Daughter to the Elder For as St. Paul in the Members where all other things are equal noteth it for a mark of honor above the rest that one is called before another to the Gospel so is it for the same cause amongst the Churches And in this respect he pincheth the Corinths that not being the first which received the Gospel yet they would have their several manners from other Churches Moreover where the Ceremonies are alike commodious the fewer ought to conform themselves unto the moe For as much therefore as all the Churches so far as they know which plead after this manner of our Confession in Doctrine agree in the Abrogation of divers things which we retain Our Church ought either to shew that they have done evil or else she is found to be in fault that doth not conform her self in that which she cannot deny to be well abrogated In this Axiom that Preservation of Peace and Unity amongst Christian Churches should be by all good means procured we joyn most willingly and gladly with them Neither deny we but that to the avoiding of Dissention it availeth much that there be amongst them an Unity as well in Ceremonies as in Doctrine The onely doubt is about the manner of their Unity How far Churches are bound to be Uniform in their Ceremonies and what way they ought to take for that purpose Touching the one the Rule which they have set down is That in Ceremonies indifferent all Churches ought to be one of them unto another as like as possibly they may be Which possibly we cannot otherwise conster then that it doth require them to be even as like as they may be without breaking any Positive Ordinance of God For the Ceremonies whereof we speak being Matter of Positive Law they are indifferent if God have neither himself commanded nor forbidden them but left them unto the Churches discretion so that if as great Uniformity be required as is possible in these things seeing that the Law of God forbiddeth not any one of them it followeth that from the greatest unto the least they must be in every Christian Church the same except meer impossibility of so having it be the hindrance To us this Opinion seemeth over-extream and violent We rather incline to think it a just and reasonable cause for any Church the State whereof is free and independent if in these things it differ from other Churches onely for that it doth not judge it so fit and expedient to be framed therein by the pattern of their example as to be otherwise framed then they That of Gregory unto Leander is a charitable Speech and a peaceable In una side nil officit Ecclesiae sancta consuetudo diversa Where the Faith of the Holy Church is one a difference in Customs of the Church doth no harm That of St. Augustine to Cassulanus is somewhat particular and toucheth what kinde of Ceremonies they are wherein one Church may vary from the example of another without hurt Let the Faith of the whole Church how wide soever it hath spred it self be always one although the Unity of Belief be famous for variety of certain Ordinances whereby that which is rightly believed suffereth no kinde of let or impediment Calvin goeth further As concerning Rites in particular let the sentence of Augustine take place which leaveth it free unto all Churches to receive their own Custom Yea sometime it profiteth and is expedient that there be difference lest men should think that Religion is tyed to outward Ceremonies Always provided that there be not any emulation nor that Churches delighted with novelty affect to have that which others have not They which grant it true That the diversity of Ceremonies in this kinde ought not to cause dissension in Churches must either acknowledge that they grant in effect nothing by these words or if any thing be granted there must as much be yielded unto as we affirm against their former strict Assertion For if Churches be urged by way of duty to take such Ceremonies as they like not of How can dissension be avoided Will they say that there ought to be no dissension because such as are urged ought to like of that whereunto they are urged If they say this they say just nothing For how should any Church like to be urged of duty by such as have no authority or power over it unto those things which being indifferent it is not of duty bound unto them Is it their meaning that there ought to be no dissension because that which Churches are not bound unto no man ought by way of duty to urge upon them And if any man do he standeth in the sight both of God and Men most justly blameable as a needless Disturber of the Peace of Gods Church and an Author of Dissension In saying this they both condemn their own practice when they press the Church of England with so strict a bond of duty in these things and they overthrow the ground of their practice which is That there ought to be in all kinde of Ceremonies Uniformity unless impossibility hinder it For Proof whereof it is not enough to alledge what St. Paul did about the Matter of Collections or what Noblemen do in the Liveries of their Servants or what the Council of Nice did for Standing in time of Prayer on certain days Because though St. Paul did will them of the Church of Corinth every man to lay up somewhat by him upon the Sunday and to reserve it in store till himself did come thither to send it unto the Church of Ierusalem for relief of the Poor there signifying withal that he had taken the like order with the Churches of Galatia yet the reason which he yieldeth of this order taken both in the one place and the other sheweth the least part of his meaning to have been that whereunto his words are writhed Concerning Collection for the Saints he meaneth them of Ierusalem as I have given order to the Church of Galatia so likewise do ye saith the Apostle that is In every first day of the week let each of
you lay aside by himself and reserve according to that which God hath blessed him with that when I come collections be not then to make and that when I am come whom you shall chuse them I may forthwith send away by Letters to carry your beneficence unto Jerusalem Out of which words to conclude the duty of Uniformity throughout all Churches in all manner of indifferent Ceremonies will be very hard and therefore best to give it over 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 give it some kinde of countenance more then the pretext of Livery-coats affordeth them For neither is it any mans duty to cloath all his children or all his servants with one weed nor theirs to cloath themselves so if it were left to their own judgments as these Ceremonies are left of God to the judgment of the Church And seeing Churches are rather in this case like divers Families then like divers servants of one Family because every Church the state whereof is independent upon any other hath authority to appoint orders for it self in things indifferent therefore of the two we may rather infer That as one Family is not abridged of liberty to be cloathed in Friers Gray for that another doth wear Clay colour so neither are all Churches bound to the self-same indifferent Ceremonies which it liketh sundry to use As for that Canon in the Council of Nice let them but read it and weigh it well The ancient use of the Church throughout all Christendom was for fifty days after Easter which fifty days were called Pentecost though most commonly the last day of them which is Whitsunday he so called in like sort on all Sundays throughout the whole year their manner was to stand at Prayer Whereupon their meetings unto that purpose on those days had the name of Stations given them Of which Custom Tertullian speaketh in this wise It is not with us thought sit either to fast on the Lords day or to pray kneeling The same immunity from Fasting and Kneeling we keep all the time which is between the Feasts of Easter and Pentecost This being therefore an order generally received in the Church when some began to be singular and different from all others and that in a Ceremony which was then judged very convenient for the whole Church even by the whole those few excepted which break out of the common Pale the Council of Nice thought good to enclose them again with the rest by a Law made in this sort Because there are certain which will needs kneel at the time of Prayer on the Lords day and in the fifty days after Easter the holy Synod judging it meet that a convenient custom be observed throughout all Churches hath decreed That Standing we make our Prayers to the Lord. Whereby it plainly appeareth that in things indifferent what the whole Church doth think convenient for the whole the same if any part do wilfully violate it may be reformed and inraised again by that general authority whereunto each particular is subject and that the Spirit of singularity in a few ought to give place unto publick judgment this doth clearly enough appear but not that all Christian Churches are bound in every indifferent Ceremony to be uniform because where the whole Church hath not tyed the parts unto one and the same thing they being therein left each to their own choice may either do as others do or else otherwise without any breach of duty at all Concerning those indifferent things wherein it hath been heretofore thought good that all Christian Churches should be uniform the way which they now conceive to bring this to pass was then never thought on For till now it hath been judged that seeing the Law of God doth not prescribe all particular Ceremonies which the Church of Christ may use and in so great variety of them as may be found out it is not possible That the Law of Nature and Reason should direct all Churches unto the same things each deliberating by it self what is most convenient The way to establish the same things indifferent throughout them all must needs be the judgment of some Judicial authority drawn into one onely sentence which may be a rule for every particular to follow And because such authority over all Churches is too much to be granted unto any one mortal man there yet remaineth that which hath been always followed as the best the safest the most sincere and reasonable way namely the Verdict of the whole Church orderly taken and set down in the Assembly of some General Council But to maintain That all Christian Churches ought for Unities sake to be uniform in all Ceremonies and then to teach that the way of bringing this to pass must be by mutual imitation so that where we have better Ceremonies then others they shall be bound to follow us and we them where theirs are better How should we think it agreeable and consonant unto reason For sith in things of this nature there is such variety of particular inducements whereby one Church may be led to think that better which another Church led by other inducements judgeth to be worse For example the East Church did think it better to keep Easter day after the manner of the Jews the West Church better to do otherwise the Greek Church judgeth it worse to use Unleavened Bread in the Eucharist the Latine Church leavened One Church esteemeth it not so good to receive the Eucharist sitting as standing another Church not so good standing as sitting there being on the one side probable Motives as well as on the other unless they add somewhat else to define more certainly 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 remain any question about this point we are not a whit the nearer for that they have hitherto said They themselves although resolved in their own judgments what Ceremonies are best foreseeing that such as they are addicted unto be not all so clearly and so incomparably best but others there are or may be at leastwise when all things are well considered as good knew not which way smoothly to rid their hands of this matter without providing some more certain rule to be followed for establishment of Uniformity in Ceremonies when there are divers kindes of equal goodness And therefore in this case they say That the latter Churches and the fewer should conform themselves unto the elder and the moe Hereupon they conclude that for as much as all the Reformed Churches so far as they know which are of our Confession in Doctrine have agreed already in the Abrogation of divers things which we retain Our Church ought either to shew that they have done evil or else she is found to be in fault
to hold especially sit hence the publishing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ whereby the simplest having now a Key unto Knowledge which the Eunuch in the Acts did want our Children may of themselves by reading understand that which he without an Interpreter could not they are in Scripture plain and easie to be understood As for those things which at the first are obscure and dark when memory hath laid them up for a time Judgment afterwards growing explaineth them Scripture therefore is not so hard but that the only reading thereof may give life unto willing Hearers The easie performance of which holy labour is in like sort a very cold Objection to prejudice the vertue thereof For what though an Infidel yes though a Childe may be able to read there is no doubt but the meanest and worst amongst the People under the Law had been as able as the Priests themselves were to offer Sacrifice Did this make Sacrifice of no effect unto that purpose for which it was instituted In Religion some duties are not commended so much by the hardness of their execution as by the worthiness and dignity of that acceptation wherein they are held with God We admire the goodness of God in nature when we consider how he hath provided that things most needful to preserve this life should be most prompt and easie for all living Creatures to come by Is it not as evident a sign of his wonderful providence over us when that food of Eternal life upon the utter want whereof our endless death and destruction necessarily ensueth is prepared and always set in such a readiness that those very means than which nothing is more easie may suffice to procure the same Surely if we perish it is not the lack of Scribes and learned Expounders that can be out just excuse The Word which saveth our Souls is near us we need for knowledge but to read and live The man which readeth the Word of God the Word it self doth pronounce blessed if he also observe the same Now all these things being well considered it shall be no intricate matter for any man to judge with indifferency on which part the good of the Church is most conveniently sought whether on ours whose opinion is such as hath been shewed or else on theirs who leaving no ordinary way of Salvation for them unto whom the Word of God is but only read do seldom name them but with great disdain and contempt who execute that Service in the Church of Christ. By means whereof it hath come to pass that Churches which cannot enjoy the benefit of usual Preaching are judged as it were even forsaken of God forlorn and without either hope or comfort Contrariwise those places which every day for the most part are at Sermons as the flowing sea do both by their emptiness at times of reading and by other apparent tokens shew to the voice of the living God this way sounding in the ears of men a great deal less reverence then were meet But if no other evil were known to grow thereby who can chuse but think them cruel which doth hear them so boldly teach that if God as to him there nothing impossible do haply save any such as continue where they have all other means of instruction but are not taught by continual preaching yet this is miraculous and more than the fitness of so poor instruments can give any man cause to hope for that Sacraments are not effectual to Salvation except men be instructed by Preaching before they be made Partakers of them yea that both Sacraments and Prayers also where Sermons are not do not only not feed but are ordinarily to further condemnation What mans heart doth not rise at the mention of these thingsâ— It is true that the weakness of our Wits and the dulness of our Affections do make us for the most part even as our Lords own Disciples were for a certain time hard and slow to believe what is written For help whereof expositions and exhortations are needful and that in the most effectual manner The principal Churches throughout the Land and no small part of the rest being in this respect by the goodness of God so abundantly provided for they which want the like furtherance unto knowledge wherewith it were greatly to be desired that they also did abound are yet we hope not left in so extream desticution that justly any men should think the ordinary means of Eternal life taken from them because their teaching is in publick for the most part but by Reading For which cause amongst whom there are not those helps that others have to set them forward in the way of Life such to dis-hearten with fearful Sentences as though their Salvation could hardly be hoped for is not in our understanding so consonant with Christian Charity We hold it safer a great deal and better to give them incouragement to put them in minde that it is not the deepness of their Knowledge but the singleness of their Belief which God accepteth That they which hunger and thirst after Righteousness shall be satisfied That no imbecillity of Means can prejudice the truth of the promise of God herein That the weaker their helps are the more their need is to sharpen the edge of their own industry And that painfulness by feeble meanes shall be able to gain that which in the plenty of more forcible instruments is through sloth and negligence lost As for the men with whom we have thus fart taken pains to conferr about the force of the Word of God either read by it self or opened in Sermons their speeches concerning both the one and the other are in truth such as might give us very just cause to think that the reckoning is not great which they make of either For howsoever they have been driven to devise some odde kinde of blinde uses whereunto they may answer that reading doth serve yet the reading of the Word of God in publick more than their Preachers bare Text who will not judge that they deem needless when if we chance at any time to term it necessary as being a thing which God himself did institute amongst the Jews for purposes that touch as well us as them a thing which the Apostles commend under the Old and ordain under the New Testament a thing whereof the Church of God hath ever sithence the first beginning reaped singular Commodity a thing which without exceeding great detriment no Church can omit they only are the men that ever we heard of by whom this hath been cross'd and gain-said they only the men which have given their peremptory sentence to the contrary It is untrue that simple Reading is necessary in the Church And why untrue Because although it be very convenient which is used in some Churches where before Preaching-time the Church assembled hath the Scriptures read in such order that the whole Canon thereof is
whereby our form of Common Prayer is thought to swerve from the Word of God A great favourer of that part but yet his Errour that way excepted a learned painful a right vertuous and good man did not fear sometime to undertake against Popish Detractors the general maintenance and defence of our whole Church-Service as having in it nothing repugnant to the Word of God And even they which would file away most the largeness of that Offer do notwithstanding in more sparing terms acknowledge little less For when those opposite judgements which never are wont to construe things doubtful to the better those very tongues which are always prone to aggravate whatsoever hath but the least shew whereby it may be suspected to savour of or to sound towards any evil do by their own voluntary sentence clearly free us from gross Errours and from manifest Impiety herein who would not judge us to be discharged of all blame which are confest to have no great fault even by their very word and testimony in whose eyes no fault of ours hath ever hitherto been accustomed to seem small Nevertheless what they seem to offer us with the one hand the same with the other they pull back again They grant we erre not in palpable manner weare not openly and notoriously impious yet Errors we have which the sharp insight of their wisest men do espy there is hidden impiety which the profounder sort are able enough to disclose Their skilful ears perceive certain harsh and unpleasant discords in the sound of our Common Prayer such as the Rules of Divine Harmony such as the Laws of God cannot bear 28. Touching our Conformity with the Church of Rome as also of the difference between some Reformed Churches and ours that which generally hath been already answered may serve for answer to that Exception which in these two respects they take particularly against the form of our Common Prayer To say that in nothing they may be followed which are of the Church of Rome were violent and extream Some things they do in that they are men in that they are Wise men and Christian men some things some things in that they are men misled and blinded with Errour As farr as they follow Reason and Truth we fear not to tread the self-same steps wherein they have gone and to be their Followers Where Rome keepeth that which is antienter and better others whom we much more affect leaving it for newer and changing it for worse we had rather follow the perfections of them whom we like not than in defects resemble them whom we love For although they profess they agree with us touching a prescript form of Prayer to be used in the Church yet in that very form which they say is agreeable to Gods Word and the use of Reformed Churches they have by special Protestation declared That their meaning is not it shall be prescribed as a thing whereunto they will tye their Minister It shall not they say be necessary for the Minister daily to repeat all these things before mentioned but beginning with some like Confession to proceed to the Sermon which ended he either useth the Prayer for all States before mentioned or else prayeth as the Spirit of God shall move his Heart Herein therefore we hold it much better with the Church of Rome to appoint a prescript form which every man shall be bound to observe then with them to set down a kinde of direction a form for men to use if they list or otherwise to change as pleaseth themselves Furthermore the Church of Rome hath rightly also considered that Publick Prayer is a Duty intire in it self a Duty requisite to be performed much oftner than Sermons can possibly be made For which cause as they so we have likewise a Publick form how to serve God both Morning and Evening whether Sermons may be had or no. On the contrary side their form of Reformed Prayer sheweth only what shall be done upon the dayes appointed for the Preaching of the Word with what words the Minister shall begin when the hour appointed for Sermon is come what shall be said or sung before Sermon and what after So that according to this form of theirs it must stand for a Rule No Sermon No Service Which over-sight occasioned the French spitefully to term Religion that sort exercised a meer Preach Sundry other more particular defects there are which I willingly forbear to rehearse in consideration whereof we cannot be induced to prefert their Reformed form of Prayer before our own what Church soever we resemble therein 29. The Attire which the Minister of God is by Order to use at times of Divine Service being but a matter of meer formality yet such as for Comeliness sake hath hitherto been judged by the wiser sort of men not unnecessary to concurr with other sensible Notes betokening the different kinde or quality of Persons and Actions whereto it is tyed as we think not ourselves the holier because we use it so neither should they with whom no such thing is in use think us therefore unholy because we submit our selves unto that which in a matter so indifferent the wisdom of Authority and Law have thought comely To solemn Actions of Royalty and Justice their suitable Ornaments are a Beauty Are they only in Religion a stain Divine Religion saith Saint Ierom he speaketh of the Priestly Attire of the Law hath one kinde of Habite wherein to minister before the Lord another for ordinary uses belonging unto common life Pelagius having carped at the curious neatness of men's Apparel in those days and through the sowreness of his disposition spoken somewhat too hardly thereof affirming That the glory of Cloaths and Ornaments was a thing contrary to God and godliness S. Ierom whose custom is not to pardon over-easily his Adversaries if any where they chance to trip presseth him as thereby making all sorts of men in the World God's enemies Is it enmity with God saith he if I wear my Coat somewhat handsome If a Bishop a Priest Deacon and the rest of the Ecclesiastical Order come to administer the usual Sacrifice in a white Garment are they hereby God's Adversaries Clarks Monks Widows Virgins take beed it is dangerous for you to be otherwise seen than in soul and ragged Cloaths Not to speak any thing of Secular men which have proclaimed to have war with God as oft as ever they put on precious and shining Cloathes By which words of Ierome we may take it at the least for a probable collection that his meaning was to draw Pelagius into hatred as condemning by so general a speech even the neatness of that very Garment it self wherein the Clergy did then use to administer publickly the holy Sacrament of Christ's most blessed Body and Blood For that they did then use some such Ornament the words of Chrysostome give plain testimony who speaking to the Clergy of Antioch
lest the sense and signification we give unto it should burthen us as Authors of a new Gospel in the House of God not in respect of some cause which the Fathers had more then we have to use the same nor finally for any such offence or scandal as heretofore it hath been subject unto by Error now reformed in the mindes of Men. 66. The ancient Custom of the Church was after they had Baptized to add thereunto Imposition of Hands with effectual Prayer for the illumination of Gods most holy Spirit to confirm and perfect that which the Grace of the some Spirit had already begun in Baptism For our means to obtain the Graces which God doth bestow are our Prayers Our Prayers to that intent are available as well for others as for ourselves To pray for others is to bless them for whom we pray because Prayer procureth the blessing of God upon them especially the Prayer of such as God either most respecteth for their Piety and Zeal that way or else regardeth for that their place and calling bindeth them above others unto this duty as it doth both Natural and Spiritual Fathers With Prayers of Spiritual and Personal Benediction the manner hath been in all ages to use Imposition of Hands as a Ceremony betokening our restrained desires to the party whom we present unto God by Prayer Thus when Israel blessed Ephraim and Manasses Iosephs sons he imposed upon them his hands and prayed God in whose sight my Fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk God which hath fed me all my life long unto this day and the Angel which hath delivered me from all evil bless these Children The Prophets which healed diseases by Prayer used therein the self-same Ceremony And therefore when Elizeus willed Naaman to wash himself seven times in Iordan for cure of his foul disease it much offended him I thought saith he with my self Surely the man will come forth and stand and call upon the Name of the Lord his God and put his hand on the place to the end he may so heal the â—â—eprosie In Consecrations and Ordinations of Men unto Rooms of Divine Calling the like was usually done from the time of Moses to Christ. Their suits that came unto Christ for help were also tendred oftentimes and are expressed in such forms or phrases of speech as shew that he was himself an observer of the same custom He which with Imposition of Hands and Prayer did so great Works of Mercy for restauration of Bodily health was worthily judged as able to effect the infusion of Heavenly Grace into them whose age was not yet depraved with that malice which might be supposed a bar to the goodness of God towards them They brought him therefore young children to put his hands upon them and pray After the Ascension of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that which he had begun continued in the daily practice of his Apostles whose Prayer and Imposition of Hands were a mean whereby thousands became partakers of the wonderful Gifts of God The Church had received from Christ a promise that such as believed in him these signs and tokens should follow them To cast one Devils to speak with Tongues to drive away Serpents to be free from the harm which any deadly poyson could work and to cure diseases by Imposition of Hands Which power common at the first in a manner unto all Believers all Believers had not power to derive or communicate unto all other men but whosoever was the instrument of God to instruct convert and baptize them the gift of miraculous operations by the power of the Holy Ghost they had not but onely at the Apostles own hands For which cause Simon Magus perceiving that power to be in none but them and presuming that they which had it might sell it sought to purchase it of them with money And as miraculous Graces of the Spirit continued after the Apostles times For saith Irenaus they which are truly his Disciples do in his Name and through Grace received from him such works for the benefit of other men as every of them is by him enabled to work Some cast one Devils in so much as they which are delivered from wicked spirits have been thereby won unto Christ and do constantly persevere in the Church and Society of Faithful Men Some excel in the knowledge of things to come in the grace of Visions from God and the gift of Prophetical Prediction Some by laying on their hands restore them to health which are grievously afflicted with sickness yea there are that of dead have been made alive and have afterwards many years conversed with us What should I say The gifts are innumerable wherewith God hath inriched his Church throughout the World and by vertue whereof in the Name of Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate the Church every day doth many wonders for the good of Nations neither fraudulently nor in any respect of lucre and gain to her self but as freely bestowing as God on her hath bestowed his Divine Graces So it no where appeareth that ever any did by Prayer and Imposition of Hands sithence the Apostles times make others partakers of the like miraculous gifts and graces as long as it pleased God to continue the same in his Church but onely Bishops the Apostles Successors for a time even in that power St. Augustine acknowledgeth That such gifts were not permitted to last always lest men should wax cold with the commonness of that the strangeness whereof at the first inflamed them Which words of St. Augustine declaring how the vulgar use of these Miracles was then expired are no prejudice to the like extraordinary Graces more rarely observed in some either then or of latter days Now whereas the Successors of the Apostles had but onely for a time such power as by Prayer and Imposition of Hands to bestow the Holy Ghost the reason wherefore Confirmation nevertheless by Prayer and Laying on of Hands hath hitherto always continued is for other very special benefits which the Church thereby enjoyeth The Fathers every where impute unto it that gift or Grace of the Holy Ghost not which maketh us first Christian men but when we are made such assisteth us in all vertue aimeth us against temptation and sin For after Baptism administred there followeth saith Tertullian Imposition of Hands with Invocation and Invitation of the Holy Ghost which willingly cometh down from the Father to rest upon the purified and blessed Bodies as it were acknowledging the Waters of Baptism a fit Seat St. Cyprian in more particular manner alluding to that effect of the Spirit which here especially was respected How great saith he is that power and force wherewith the minde is here he meaneth in Baptism enabled being not onely withdrawn from that pernicious hold which the World before had of it nor onely so purified and made clean that no stain or blemish of
the days of whose departure out of the World are to the Church of Christ as the Birth and Coronation days of Kings or Emperors therefore especial choice being made of the very flower of all occasions in this kinde there are annual selected times to meditate of Christ glorified in them which had the honor to suffer for his sake before they had age and ability to know him glorified in them which knowing him as Stephen had the sight of that before death whereinto so acceptable death did lead glorified in those Sages of the East that came from far to adore him and were conducted by strange light glorified in the second Elias of the World sent before him to prepare his way glorified in every of those Apostles whom it pleased him to use as Founders of his Kingdom here glorified in the Angels as in Michael glorified in all those happy Souls that are already possessed of Heaven Over and besides which number not great the rest be but four other days heretofore annexed to the Feast of Easter and Pentecost by reason of general Baptism usual at those two Feasts which also is the cause why they had not as other days any proper name given them Their first Institution was therefore through necessity and their present continuance is now for the greater honor of the Principals whereupon they still attend If it be then demanded Whether we observe these times as being thereunto bound by force of Divine Law or else by the onely Positive Ordinances of the Church I answer to this That the very Law of Nature it self which all men confess to be Gods Law requireth in general no less the Sanctification of Times then of Places Persons and Things unto Gods honor For which cause it hath pleased him heretofore as of the rest so of times likewise to exact some parts by way of perpetual homage never to be dispensed withal nor remitted Again To require some other parts of time with as strict exaction but for less continuance and of the rest which were left arbibitrary to accept what the Church shall in due consideration consecrate voluntarily unto like Religious uses Of the first kinde amongst the Jews was the Sabbath-day of the second Those Feasts which are appointed by the Law of Moses the Feast of Dedication invented by the Church standeth in the number of the last kinde The Moral Law requiring therefore a seventh part throughout the age of the whole World to be that way employed although with us the day be changed in regard of a new Revolution begun by our Saviour Christ yet the same proportion of time continueth which was before because in reference to the benefit of Creation and now much more of Renovation thereunto added by him which was Prince of the World to come we are bound to accompt the Sanctification of one day in seven a duty which Gods Immutable Law doth exact for ever The rest they say we ought to abolish because the continuance of them doth nourish wicked Superstition in the mindes of men besides they are all abused by Papists the enemies of God yea certain of them as Easter and Pentecost even by the Jews 71. Touching Jews their Easter and Pentecost have with ours as much affinity as Philip the Apostle with Philip the Macedonian King As for imitation of Papists and the breeding of Superstition they are now become such common guests that no man can think it discourteous to let them go as they came The next is a rare Observation and Strange you shall finde if you mark it as it doth deserve to be noted well that many thousands there are who if they have vertuously during those times behaved themselves if their devotion and zeal in Prayer have been fervent their attention to the Word of God such as all Christian men should yield imagine that herein they have performed a good duty which notwithstanding to think is a very dangerous Error in as much as the Apostle Saint Paul hath taught That we ought not to keep our Easter as the Jews did for certain days but in the Unleavened Bread of Sincerity and of Truth to feast continually Whereas the restraint of Easter to a certain number of days causeth us to rest for a short space in that near consideration of our duties which should be extended throughout the course of our whole lives and so pulleth out of our mindes the Doctrine of Christs Gospel â—re we be aware The Doctrine of the Gospel which here they mean or should mean is That Christ having finished the Law there is no Jewish Paschal Solemnity nor abstinence from sour Bread now required at our hands there is no Leaven which we are bound to cast out but malice sin and wickedness no Bread but the food of sincere Truth wherewith we are tied to celebrate our Passover And seeing no time of sin is granted us neither any intermission of sound belief it followeth That this kinde of feasting ought to endure always But how are standing Festival Solemnities against this That which the Gospel of Christ requireth is the perpetuity of vertuous duties not perpetuity of exercise or action but disposition perpetual and practice as oft as times and opportunities require Just valiant liberal temperate and holy men are they which can whensoever they will and will whensoever they ought execute what their several perfections import If Vertues did always cease to be when they cease to work there should be nothing more pernicious to Vertue then Sleep Neither were it possible that men as Zachary and Elizabeth should in all the Commandments of God walk unreprovable or that the Chain of our Conversation should contain so many Links of Divine Vertues as the Apostles in divers places have reckoned up if in the exercise of each vertue perpetual continuance were exacted at our hands Seeing therefore all things are done in time and many offices are not possible at one and the same time to be discharged duties of all forms must have necessarily their several successions and seasons In which respect the School-men have well and soundly determined That Gods Affirmative Laws and Precepts the Laws that enjoyn any actual duty as Prayer Alms and the like do binde us ad semper velle but not ad semper agere we are tyed to iterate and resume them when need is howbeit not to continue them without any intermission Feasts whether God himself hath ordained them or the Church by that Authority which God hath given they are of Religion such publick services as neither can nor ought to be continued otherwise then onely by iteration Which iteration is a most effectual mean to bring unto full maturity and growth those Seeds of Godliness that these very men themselves do grant to be sown in the hearts of many Thousands during the while that such Feasts are present The constant habit of well-doing is not gotten without the custom of doing well neither can Vertue be made perfect but by
that we may consider as in Gods own sight and presence with all uprightnesse sincerity and truth let us particularly weigh and examine in every of them First how farr forth they are reproveable by Reasons and Maxims of Common right Secondly whether that which our Laws do permit be repugnant to those Maxims and with what equity we ought to judge of things practised in this case neither on the one hand defending that which must be acknowledged out of square nor on the other side condemning rashly whom we list for whatsoever we disallow Touching Arguments therefore taken from the principles of Common right to prove that Ministers should be learned that they ought to be Resident upon their Livings and that more than one onely Benefice or Spiritual Living may not be granted unto one man the first because Saint Paul requireth in a Minister ability to teach to convince to distribute the Word rightly because also the Lord himself hath protested they shall be no Priests to him which have rejected knowledge and because if the blince lead the Blinde they must both needs fall into the Pit the second because Teachers are Shepherds whose Flocks can be at no time secure from danger they are Watchmen whom the Enemy doth alwayes besiege their labours in the Word and Sacraments admit no intermission their duty requireth instruction and conference with men in private they are the living Oracles of God to whom the People must resort for counsel they are commanded to be Patterns of Holiness Leaders Feeders Supervisors amongst their own it should be their grief as it was the Apostles to be absent though necessarily from them over whom they have taken charge finally the last because Plurality and Residence are opposite because the placing of one Clark in two Churches is a point of Merchandize and filthy gain because no man can serve two Masters because every one should remain in that Vocation whereto he is called What conclude they of all this Against Ignorance against Non-residence and against Plurality of Livings is there any man so raw and dull but that the Volumes which have been written both of old and of late may make him in so plentiful a cause eloquent For if by that which is generally just and requisite we measure what knowledge there should be in a Minister of the Gospel of Christ the Arguments which Light of Nature offereth the Laws and Statutes which Scripture hath the Canons that are taken out of antient Synods the Decrees and Constitutions of sincerest Times the Sentences of all Antiquity and in a word even every man's full consent and conscience is against Ignorance in them that have Charge and Cure of Souls Again what availeth it if we be Learned and not Faithful or what benefit hath the Church of Christ if there be in us sufficiency without endeavour or care to do that good which our place exacteth Touching the pains and industry therefore wherewith men are in conscience bound to attend the work of their Heavenly Calling even as much as in them lyeth bending thereunto their whole endeavour without either fraud sophistication or guile I see not what more effectual Obligation or Bond of Duty there should be urged than their own onely Vow and Promise made unto God himself at the time of their Ordination The work which they have undertaken requireth both care and fear Their sloth that negligently perform it maketh them subject to malediction Besides we also know that the fruit of our pains in this Function is life both to our selves and others And doe we yet need incitements to labour Shall we stop our ears both against those conjuring exhortations which Apostles and against the fearful comminations which Prophets have uttered out of the mouth of God the one for prevention the other for reformation of our sluggishness in this behalf Saint Paul Attend to your selves and to all the Flock whereof the Holy Ghost hath made you Over-seers to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood Again I charge thee before God and the Lord Iesus Christ which shall judge the quick and the dead at his comming preach the Word be instant Jeremiah We unto the Pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my Pasture I will visit you for the wickedness of your Works saith the Lord the remnant of my Sheep I will gather together out of all Countries and will bring them again so their solds they shall grew and increase and I will set up Shepherds over them which shall feed them Ezekiel Should not the Shepherds should they not feed the Flocks Ye eat the fat andye clothe your selves with the wool but the weak ye have not strengthened the sick ye have not cured neither have ye bound up the broken nor brought home again that which was driven away ye have not inquired after that which was lost but with cruelty and rigour ye have ruled And verse 8. Wheresore as I live I will require c. Nor let us think to excuse our selves if haply we labour though it be at random and sit not altogether idle abroad For we are bound to attend that part of the flock of Christ whereof the Holy Ghost hath made us Over-seers The residence of Ministers upon their own peculiar Charge is by so much the rather necessary for that absenting themselves from the place where they ought to labour they neither can do the good which is looked for at their hands nor reap the comfort which sweetneth life to them that spend it in these cravels upon their own For it is in this as in all things else which are through private interest dearer than what concerneth either others wholly or us but in part and according to the rate of a general regard As for plurality it hath not onely the same inconveniencies which are observed to grow by absence but over and besides at the least in common construction a shew of that worldly humour which men do think should not raign so high Now from hence their Collections are as followeth first a repugnancy or contradiction between the Principles of common right and that which our Laws in special considerations have allowed secondly a nullitie or frustration of all such acts as are by them supposed opposite to those Principles and invalidity in all Ordinations of men unable to preach and in all dispensations which mitigate the Law of Common right for the other two And why so Forsooth because whatsoever we do in these three cases and not by vertue of Common-right we must yield it of necessity done by warrant of peculiar right or priviledge Now a Priviledge is said to be that that for favour of certain persons commeth forth against Common-right things prohibited are dispensed with because things permitted are dispatched by Common-right but things forbidden require Dispensations By which descriptions of a Priviledge and Dispensation it is they say apparent that a Priviledge must
most willingly thereunto even of reverence to the Most High with the Flower of whose sanctified Inheritance as it were with a kinde of Divine presence unless their Chiefest Civil Assemblies were so farr forth beautified as might be without any notable impediment unto their Heavenly Fâ—nctions they could not satisfie themselves as having showed towards God an Affection most duâ—iful Thus first in defect of other Civil Magistrates Secondly for the ease and quietness of Scholastical Societies Thirdly by way of Political necessity Fourthly in regard of quality care and extraordinancy Fifthly For countenance into the Ministry And lastly even of Devotion and Reverence towards God himself there may be admitted at leastwise in some Particulars well and lawfully enough a conjunction of Civil and Ecclesiastical Power except there be some such Law or Reason to the contrary as may prove it to be a thing simply in it self naught Against it many things are objected as first That the matters which are noted in the holy Scripture to have belonged unto the ordinary Office of any Minister of God's holy Word and Sacraments are these which follow with such like and no other namely The watch of the Sanctuary the business of God the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments Oversight of the House of God Watching over his Flock Prophesie Prayer Dispensations of the Mysteries of God Charge and care of mens Souls If a man would shew what the Offices and Duties of a Chirurgion or Physician are I suppose it were not his part so much as to mention any thing belonging to the one or the other in case either should be also a Souldier or a Merchant or an House-keeper or a Magistrate Because the Functions of these are different from those of the former albeit one and the same man may happily be both The Case is like when the Scripture teacheth what Duties are required in an Ecclesiastical Minister in describing of whose Office to touch any other thing than such as properly and directly toucheth his Office that way were impertinent Yea But in the Old Testament the two Powers Civil and Ecclesiastical were distinguished not onely in Nature but also in Person the one committed unto Moses and the Magistrates joyned with him the other to Aaron and his Sons Jehosophat in his Reformation doth not onely distinguish Causes Ecclesiastical from Civil and erecteth divers Courts for them but appointeth also divers Iudges With the Jews these two Powers were not so distinguished but that sometimes they might and did concâ—â— in one and the same Person Was not Ely both Priest and Judge After their return from captivity Esâ—â—as a Priest and the same their Chief Governour even in Civil Affairs also These men which urge the necessity of making always a Personal distinction of these two Powers as if by Iehosaphat's example the same Person ought not to deal in both Causes yet are not scrupulous to make men of Civil Place and Calling Presbyters and Ministers of Spiritual Jurisdiction in their own Spiritual Consistories If it be against the Jewish Precedents for us to give Civil Power unto such as have Ecclesiastical is it not as much against the same for them to give Ecclesiastical Power unto such as have Civil They will answer perhaps That their Position is onely against conjunction of Ecclesiastical Power of Order and the Power of Civil Jurisdiction in one Person But this Answer will not stand with their Proofs which make no less against the Power of Civil and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in one Person for of these two Powers Iehosaphat's example is Besides the contrary example of Heli and of Ezra by us alledged do plainly shew that amongst the Jewes even the power of Order Ecclesiastical and Civil Jurisdiction were sometimes lawfully united in one and the same Person Pressed further we are with our Lord and Saviour's example who denyeth his Kingdom to be of this Wold and therefore as not standing with his Calling refused to be made a King to give sentence in a criminal Cause of Adultery and in a Civil of dividing an Inheritance The Jews imagining that their Messiah should be a Potent Monarch upon Earth no marvail though when they did otherwise wonder at Christ's greatness they sought forthwith to have him invested with that kinde of Dignity to the end he might presently begin to reign Others of the Jewes which likewise had the same imagination of the Messiah and did somehat incline to think that peradventure this might be He thought good to try whether he would take upon him that which he might do being a King such as they supposed their true Messiah should be But Christ refused to be a King over them because it was no part of the Office of their Messiah as they did falsely conceive and to intermeddle in those Acts of Civil Judgement be refused also because he had no such Jurisdiction in that Common-wealth being in regard of his Civil Person a man of mean and low Calling As for repugnancy between Ecclesiastical and Civil Power or any inconvenience that these two Powers should be united it doth not appear that this was the cause of his resistance either to reign or else to judge What say we then to the blessed Apostles who teach That Souldiers intangle not themselves with the businesses of this life but leave them to the end they may please him who hath chosen them to serve and that so the good Souldiers of Christ â—ught to do The Apostles which taught this did never take upon them any Place or Office of Civil Power No they gave over the Ecclesiastical care of the Poor that they might wholly attend upon the Word and Prayer St. Paul indeed doth exhort Timothy after this manner Suffer thou evil as a noble Souldier of Iesus Christ No man warring is entangled with the affairs of Life because he must serve such as have pressed him unto Warfare The sense and meaning whereof is plain that Souldiers may not be nice and tender that they must be able to endure hardnesse that no man betaking himself unto Wars continueth entangled with such kinde of Businesses as tend only unto the ease and quiet felicity of this Life but if the service of him who hath taken them under his Banner require the hazard yea the losse of their Lives to please himâ— they must be content and willing with any difficulty any peril be it never so much against the natural desire which they have to live in safety And at this point the Clergy of God must always stand thus it behoveth them to be affected as oft as their Lord and Captain leadeth them into the field whatsoever conflicts perils or evils they are to endure Which duty being not such but that therewith the Civil Dignities which Ecclesiastical Persons amongst us do enjoy may enough stand the Exhortation of Paul to Timothy is but a slender Allegation against them As well might we gather out of this place that Men having Children or Wives
his institution that God in like sort doth authorize them and account them to be his though it were not confessed it might be proved undeniably For if that be acounted our deed which others do whom we have appointed to be our Agents how should God but approve those deeds even as his own which are done by vertue of that Commission and Power which he hath given Take heed saith Iehosophat unto his Judges be careful and circumspect what ye do ye do not execute the judgments of Man but of the Lord 2 Chron. 19. 6. The Authority of Caesar over the Jews from whence was it Had it any other ground than the Law of Nations which maketh Kingdoms subdued by just War to be subject unto their Conquerors By this Power Caesar exacting Tribute our Saviour confesseth it to be his Right a Right which could not be with-held without Injury yea disobedience herein unto him and even Rebellion against God Usurpers of Power whereby we do not mean them that by violence have aspired unto places of Highest Authority but them that use more Authority than they did ever receive in form and manner before-mentioned for so they may do whose Title to the rooms of Authority which they possess no man can deny to be just and lawful even as contrariwise some mens proceedings in Government have been very orderly who notwithstanding did not attain to be made Governors without great violence and disorder such Usurpers thereof as in the exercise of their Power do more than they have been authorized to do cannot in Conscience binde any man unto Obedience That subjection which we owe unto lawful Powers doth not onely import that we should be under them by order of our State but that we shew all submission towards them both by honor and obedience He that resisteth them resisteth God And resisted they be if either the Authority it self which they exercise be denied as by Anabaptists all Secular Jurisdiction is or if resistance be made but only so farr forth as doth touch their Persons which are invested with Power for they which said Nolumus hunc regnare did not utterly exclude Regiment nor did they wish all kinde of Government clearly removed which would not at the first have David to govern or if that which they do by vertue of their Power namely their Laws Edicts Services or other Acts of Jurisdiction be not suffered to take effect contrary to the blessed Apostles most holy rule Obey them which have the oversight of you Heb. 13. 17. or if they do take effect yet is not the will of God thereby satisfied neither as long as that which we do is contemptuously or repiningly done because we can do no otherwise In such sort the Israelites in the Desart obeyed Moses and were notwithstanding deservedly plagued for disobedience The Apostle's Precept therefore is Be subject even for God's cause Be subject not for fear but of mere Conscience knowing that be which resisteth them purchaseth to himself condemnation Disobedience therefore unto Laws which are made by them is not a thing of so small account as some would make it Howbeit too rigorous it were that the breach of every Human Law should be held a deadly sin A mean there is between those extremities if so be we can finde it out TO THE READER THe pleasures of thy spacious Walks in Mr. Hooker's Temple-Garden not unfitly so called both for the Temple whereof he was Master and the Subject Ecclesiastical Polity do promise acceptance to these Flowers planted and watered by the same hand and for thy sake composed into this Posie Sufficiently are they commended by their fragrant smell in the dogmatical Truth by their beautiful colours in the accurate stile by their medicinable vertue against some diseases in our neighbour Churches now proving epidemical and threatning farther infection by their strait feature and spreading nature growing from the root of Faith which as here is proved can never be rooted up and extending the branches of Charity to the covering of Noah's nakedness opening the windows of Hope to men's misty conceits of their bemisted Fore-fathers Thus and more than thus do the Works commend themselves The Workman needs a better Work-man to commend him Alexander's Picture requires Apelles his Pencil nay he needs it not His own Works commend him in the Gates and being dead he yet speaketh the Syllables of that memorable name Mr. Richard Hooker proclaiming more than if I should here stile him a painful Student a profound Scholar a judicious Writer with other due Titles of his Honor. Receive then this posthume Orphan for his own yea for thine own sake and if the Printer bath with overmuch haste like Mephibosheth's Nurse lamed the Childe with slips and falls yet be thou of David's minde shew kindness to him for his Father Ionathan's sake God grant that the rest of his Brethren be not more than lamed and that at Saul's three Sons died the same day with him so those three promised to perfect his Polity with other Issues of that learned Brain be not duried in the Grave with their renowned Father Farewel W. S. The CONTENTS of the TREATISES following I. A Supplication made to the Councel by Master WALTER TRAVERS II. Master HOOKERS Answer to the Supplication that Master TRAVERS made to the Councel III. A learned Discourse of Iustification Works and how the foundation of Faith is overthrown IV. A learned Sermon of the nature of Pride V. A Remedy against Sorrow and Fear delivered in a Funeral Sermon VI. Of the certainty and perpetuity of Faith in the Elect especially of the Prophet Habbakkuk's Faith VII Two Sermons upon part of Saint Jude's Epistle A SVPPLICATION Made to the COUNCEL BY Master Walter Travers Right Honourable THE manifold benefits which all the Subjects within this Dominion do at this present and have many years enjoyed under Her Majesties most happy and prosperous reign by your godly wisdom and careful watching over this Estate night and day I truly and unfeignedly acknowledge from the bottom of my heart ought worthily to binde us all to pray continually to Almighty God for the continuance and increase of the life and good estate of your Honours and to be ready with all good duties to satisfie and serve the same to our Power Besides publick benefits common unto all I must needs and do willingly confess my self to stand bound by most special Obligation to serve and honour you more than any other for the honourable favour it hath pleased you to vouchsafe both oftentimes heretofore and also now of late in a matter more dear unto me than any earthly commodity that is the upholding and furthering of my service in the ministring of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For which cause as I have been always careful so to carry my self as I might by no means give occasion to be thought unworthy of so great a Benefit so do I still next unto her Majesties gracious countenance hold nothing more
to stand upon I think the like to this and other such in this Sermon and the rest of this matter hath not been heard in Publick places within this Land since Queen Mary's days What consequence this Doctrine may be of if he be not by Authority ordered to revoke it I beseech your H H. as the truth of God and his Gospel is dear and precious unto you according to your godly wisdome to consider I have been bold to offer to your H H. a long and tedious Discourse of these matters but Speech being like to Tapestry which if it be folded up sheweth but part of that which is wrought and being unlapt and laid open sheweth plainly to the eye all the work that is in it I thought it necessary to unfold this Tapestry and to hang up the whole Chamber of it in your most Honourable Senate that so you may the more easily discern of all the Pieces and the sundry Works and Matters contained in it Wherein my hope is your H H. may see I have not deserved so great a Punishment as is laid upon the Church for my sake and also upon my self in taking from me the excercise of my Ministerie Which Punishment how heavy it may seem to the Church or fall out indeed to be I referr it to them to judge and spare to write what I fear but to my self it is exceeding grievous for that it taketh from me the excercise of my Calling Which I do not say is dear unto me as the means of that little benefit whereby I live although this be a lawful consideration and to be regarded of me in due place and of the Authority under whose Protection I most willingly live even by God's Commandment both unto them and unto me but which ought to be more precious unto me than my life for the love which I should bear to the glory and honour of Almighty God and to the edification and salvation of his Church for that my life cannot any other way be of like service to God nor of such use and profit to men by any means For which Cause as I discern how dear my Ministery ought to be unto me so it is my hearty desire and most humble request unto God to your H H. and to all the Authority I live under to whom any dealing herein belongeth that I may spend my life according to his Example who in a word of like sound of fuller sense comparing by it the bestowing of his life to the Offering poured out upon the Sacrifice of the Faith of God's people and especially of this Church whereupon I have already poured out a great part thereof in the same Calling from which I stand now restrained And if your H H. shall finde it so that I have not deserved so great a Punishment but rather performed the Duty which a good and faithful Servant ought in such case to do to his Lord and the People he putteth them in trust withal carefully to keep I am a most humble Suiter by these presents to your H H. that by your godly wisdom some good course may be taken for the restoring of me to my Ministery and Place again Which so great a favour shall binde me yet in a greater obligation of Duty which is already so great as it seemed nothing could be added unto it to make it greater to honour God daily for the continuance and encrease of your good estate and to be ready with all the poor means God hath given me to do your H H. that faithful Service I may possibly perform But if notwithstanding my Cause he never so good your H H. can by no means pacifie such as are offended nor restore me again then am I to rest in the good pleasure of God and to commend to your H H. protection under Her Majesties my private life while it shall be led in duty and the Church to him who hath redeemed to himself a People with his precious Blood and is making ready to come to judge both the Quick and the Dead to give to every one according as he hath done in this life be it good or evil to the Wicked and Unbelievers Justice unto death but to the Faithful and such as love his truth Mercy and Grace to life everlasting Your Honours most bounden and most humble Suppliant WALTER TRAVERS Minister of the Gospel Mr. HOOKER'S ANSVVER TO THE SUPPLICATION THAT Mr. TRAVERS Made to the COUNCIL To my Lord of Canterburie his Grace MY Duty in my most humble wise remembred May it please your Grace to understand That whereas there hath been a late Controversie raised in the Temple and pursued by Mr. Travers upon conceit taken at some words by me uttered with a most simple and harmless meaning In the heat of which pursuit after three publick Invectives silence being enjoyned him by Authority he hath hereupon for defence of his proceedings both presented the Right Honourable Lords and others of Her Majesties Privy Councel with a Writing and also caused or suffered the same to be Copied out and spread through the hands of so many that well nigh all sorts of men have it in their bosomes The matters wherewith I am therein charged being of such quality as they are and my self being better known to your Grace than to any other of their Honors besides I have chosen to offer to your Grace's hands a plain Declaration of my Innocence in all those things wherewith I am so hardly and so heavily charged lest if I still remain silent that which I do for quietness sake be taken as an Argument that I lack what to speak truly and justly in mine own defence 2. First because M. Travers thinketh it an expedient to breed an Opinion in mens mindes that the root of all inconvenient events which are now sprung out is the surly and unpeaceable disposition of the man with whom he hath to do therefore the first in the rank of Accusations laid against me is my intorformity which have so little inclined to so many and so earnest Exhortations and Conferences as my self he saith can witness to have been spent upon me for my better fashioning unto good correspondence and agreement 3. Indeed when at the first by means of special Well-willers without any suit of mine as they very well know although I do not think it had been a mortal sinne in a reasonable sort to have shewed a moderate desire that way yet when by their endeavour without instigation of mine some Reverend and Honourable favourably affecting me had procured her Majesties's grant of the Place At the very point of my eptring thereinto the Evening before I was first to Preach he came and two other Gentlemen joyned with him The effect of his Conference then was That he thought it his Duty to advise me not to enter with a strong hand but to change my purpose of Preaching there the next day and to stay till he had given notice of me to
the web of Salvation is spun Except your Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Stribes and Pharisees ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven They were rigorous exacters of things not utterly to be neglected and left undone washing and tything c. As they were in these so must we be in judgement and the love of God Christ in Works Ceremonial giveth more liberty in moral much less than they did Works of Righteousness therefore are added in the one Proposition as in the other Circumcision is 31. But we say our Salvation is by Christ alone therefore howsoever or whatsoever we adde unto Christ in the matter of Salvation we overthrow Christ. Our Case were very hard if this Argument so universally meant as it is proposed were sound and good We our selves do not teach Christ alone excluding our own Faith unto Justification Christ alone excluding our own Works unto Sanctification Christ alone excluding the one or the other unnecessary unto Salvation It is a childish Cavil wherewith in the matter of Justification our Adversaries do so greatly please themselves exclaiming that we tread all Christian vertues under our feet and require nothing in Christians but Faith because we teach that Faith alone justifieth whereas by this speech we never meant to excluded either Hope or Charity from being always joyned as inseparable Mates with Faith in the man that is justified or Works from being added as necessary Duties required at the hands of every justified man But to shew that Faith is the onely hand which putteth on Christ unto Justification and Christ the onely Garment which being so put on covereth the shame of our defiled natures hideth the imperfection of our Works preserveth us blameless in the sight of God before whom otherwise the weaknesse of our Faith were cause sufficent to make us culpable yea to shut us from the Kingdom of Heaven where nothing that is not absolute can enter That our dealing with them he not as childish as theirs with us when we hear of Salvation by Christ alone considering that alone as an exclusive Particle we are to note what it doth exclude and where If I say Such a Iudge onely ought to determine such a case all things incident to the determination thereof besides the Person of the Judge as Laws Depositions Evidences c. are not hereby excluded Persons are not excluded from witnessing herein or assisting but onely from determining and giving Sentence How then is our Salvation wrought by Christ alone Is it our meaning that nothing is requisite to man's Salvation but Christ to save and he to be saved quietly without any more adoe No we acknowledge no such Foundation As we have received so we teach that besides the bare and naked work wherein Christ without any other Associate finished all the parts of our Redemption and purchased Salvation himself alone for conveyance of this eminent blessing unto us many things are of necessity required as to be known and chosen of God before the foundation of the World in the World to be called justified sanctified after we have lest the World to be received unto glory Christ in every of these hath somewhat which he worketh alone Through him according to the Eternal purpose of God before the foundation of the World Born Crucified Buried Raised c. we were in a gracious acceptation known unto God long before we were seen of men God knew us loved us was kinde to us in Jesus Christ in him we were elected to be Heirs of Life Thus farr God through Christ hath wrought in such sort alone that our selves are mere Patients working no more than dead and senseless Matter Wood Stone or Iron doth in the Artificers hands no more than Clay when the Potter appointeth it to be framed for an honourable use nay not so much for the matter whereupon the Craftsman worketh he chuseth being moved by the fitness which is in it to serve his turn in us no such thing Touching the rest which is laid for the foundation of our Faith it importeth farther That by him we are called that we have Redemption Remission of sins through his blood Health by his stripes Justice by him that he doth sanctifie his Church and make it glorius to himself that entrance into joy shall be given us by Him yea all things by him alone Howbeit not so by him alone as if in us to our Vocation the hearing of the Gospel to our Justification Faith to our Sanctification the fruits of the Spirit to our entrance into rest perseverance in Hope in Faith in Holinesse were not necessary 32. Then what is the fault of the Church of Rome Not that she requireth Works at their hands which will be saved but that she attributeth unto Works a power of satisfying God for Sinne yea a vertue to merit both Grace here and in Heaven Glory That this overthroweth the foundation of Faith I grant willingly that it is a direct elenyal thereof Iutterly deny What it is to hold and what directly to deny the foundation of Faith I have already opened Apply it particularly to this Cause and there needs no more adoe The thing which is handled if the form under which it is handled be added thereunto it sheweth the foundation of any Doctrine whatsoever Christ is the Matter whereof the Doctrin of the Gospel treateth and it treateth of Christ as of a Saviour Salvation therefore by Christ is the foundation of Christianity as for works they are a thing subordinate no otherwise than because our Sanctification cannot be accomplished without them The Doctrine concerning them is a thing builded upon the foundation therefore the Doctrin which addeth unto them the power of satisfying or of meriting addeth unto a thing sabordinated builded upon the foundation not to the very foundation it self yet is the foundation by this addition consequently overthrown forasmuch as out of this addition it may be negatively concluded He which maketh any work good and acceptable in the sight of God to proceed from the natural freedom of our will he which giveth unto any good works of ours the force of satisfying the wrath of God for sinne the power of meriting either earthly or heavenly rewards he which holdeth Works going before our Vocation in congruity to merit our Vocation Works following our first to merit our second Justification and by condignity our last Reward in the Kingdom of Heaven pulleth up the Doctrin of Faith by the roots for out of every of these the plain direct denial thereof may be necessarily concluded Not this onely but what other Heresie is there that doth not raze the very foundation of Faith by consequent Howbeit we make a difference of Heresies accounting them in the next degree to infidelity which directly deny any one thing to be which is expresly acknowledged in the Articles of our Belief for out of any one Article so denied the denial of
Exposition which are not inclinable to think that Moses was matched like Socrates nor that Circumcision could now in Eleazar be strange unto her having had Gersons her elder son before circumcised nor that any occasion of châ—ler could rise from a spectacle of such misery as doth naturally move Compassion and not Wrath nor that Zipporah was so impious as in the visible presence of Gods deserved Anger to storm at the Ordinance and Law of God not that the words of the History it self can inforce any such affection but do onely declare how after the act performed she touched the feet of Moses saying Sponsus tu mihi as sanguinum Thou art unto me an Husband of Blood which might be very well the one done and the other spoken even out of the slowing abundance of commiseration and love to signifie with hands laid under his feet That her tender affection towards him had caused her thus to forget Woman-hood to lay all Motherly affection aside and to redeem her Husband out of the hands of Death with effusion of Blood The sequel thereof take it which way you will is a plain Argument That God was satisfied with that she did as may appeal by his own Testimony declaring How there followed in the person of Moses present release of his grievous punishment upon her speedy discharge of that duty which by him neglected had offended God even as after execution of Justice by the hands of Phineas the Plague was immediately taken away which former impunity of sin had caused In which so manifest and plain cases not to make that a reason of the event which God himself hath set down as a reason were falsly to accuse whom he doth justifie and without any cause to traduce what we should allow yet seeing they which will have it a breach of the Law of God for her to circumcise in that necessity are not able to deny but Circumcision being in that very manner performed was to the innocent Childe which received it true Circumcision why should that defect whereby Circumcision was so little wealmed be to Baptism a deadly wound These Premises therefore remaining as hitherto they have been laid because the Commandment of our Saviour Christ which committeth joyntly to Publick Ministers both Doctrine and Baptism doth no more by linking them together import That the Nature of the Sacrament dependeth on the Ministers Authority and Power to Preach the Word then the force and vertue of the Word doth on Licence to give the Sacrament and considering that the Work of External Ministery in Baptism is onely a pre-eminence of honor which they that take to themselves and are not thereunto called as Aaron was do but themselves in their own persons by means of such usurpation Incur the just blame of disobedience to the Law of God father also in as much as it standeth with no reason That Errors grounded on a wrong interpretation of other Mens Deeds should make frustrate whatsoever is misconceived and that Baptism by Women should cease to be Baptism as oft as any Man will thereby gather That Children which die unbaptized are damned which opinion if the Act of Baptism administred in such manner did inforce it might be sufficient cause of disliking the same but none of defeating or making it altogether void Last of all whereas general and full consent of the godly-learned in all ages doth make for Validity of Baptism yea albeit administred in private and even by Women which kinde of Baptism in case of necessity divers Reformed Churches do both allow and defend some others which do not defend tolerate few in comparison and they without any just cause do utterly disannul and annihilate Surely howsoever through defect on either side the Sacrament may be without Fruit as well in some cases to him which receiveth as to him which giveth it yet no disability of either part can so far make it frustrate and without effect as to deprive it of the very Nature of true Baptism having all things else which the Ordinance of Christ requireth Whereupon we may consequently infer That the Administration of this Sacrament by private persons be it lawful or unlawful appeareth not as yet to be meerly void 63. All that are of the Race of Christ the Scripture nameth them Children of the Promise which God hath made The Promise of Eternal Life is the Seed of the Church of God And because there is no attainment of life but through the onely begotten Son of God nor by him otherwise then being such as the Creed Apostolick describeth it followeth That the Articles thereof are Principles necessary for all men to subscribe unto whom by Baptism the Church receiveth into Christs School All Points of Christian Doctrine are either demonstrable Conclusions or demonstrative Principles Conclusions having strong and invincible Proofs as well in the School of Jesus Christ as elswhere And Principles be Grounds which require no Proof in any kinde of Science because it sufficeth if either ther certainty be evident in it self or evident by the light of some higher knowledge and in it self such as no mans knowledge is ever able to overthrow Now the principles whereupon we do build our souls have their evidence where they had their original and as received from thence we adore them we hold them in reverend admiration we neither argue nor dispute about them we give unto them that assent which the Oracles of God require We are not therefore ashamed of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ because miscreants in scorn have upbraided us That the highest point of our Wisdom is Belief That which is true and neither can be disceined by Sense not concluded by meer Natural Principles must have Principles of revealed Truth whereupon to build it self and an habit of Faith in us wherewith Principles of that kinde are apprehended The Mysteries of our Religion are above the reach of our Understanding above discourse of Mans Reason above all that any Creature can comprehend Therefore the first thing required of him which standeth for admission into Christs Family is Belief Which Belief consisteth not so much in knowledge as in acknowledgment of all things that Heavenly Wisdom revealeth the Affection of Faith is above her reach her Love to God-ward above the comprehension which the hath of God And because onely for Believers all things may be done He which is Goodness it self loveth them above all Deserve we then the love of God because we believe in the Son of God What more opposite then Faith and Pride When God had created all things he looked upon them and loved them because they were all as himself had made them So the true Reason wherefore Christ doth love Believers is Because their belief is the gift of God a gift then which flesh and blood in this World cannot possibly receive a greater And as to love them of whom we receive good things is Duty because they
satisfie our desires in that which else we should want so to love them on whom we bestow is Nature because in them we behold the effects of our own vertue Seeing therefore no Religion enjoyeth Sacraments the signs of Gods love unless it have also that Faith whereupon the Sacraments are built could there be any thing more convenient then that our first admittance to the Actual Receit of his Grace in the Sacrament of Baptism should be consecrated with profession of Belief which is to the Kingdom of God as a Key the want whereof excludeth Infidels both from that and from all other saving Grace We finde by experience that although Faith be an Intellectual Habit of the Minde and have her Seat in the Understanding yet an evil Moral Disposition obstinately wedded to the love of darkness dampeth the very Light of Heavenly Illumination and permitteth not the Minde to see what doth shine before it Men are lovers of pleasure more then lovers of God Their assent to his saving Truth is many times with-held from it not that the Truth is too weak to perswade but because the stream of corrupt affection carrieth them a clean contrary way That the Minde therefore may abide in the Light of Faith there must abide in the Will as constant a resolution to have no fellowship at all with the vanities and works of darkness Two Covenants there are which Christian men saith Isidor do make in Baptism the one concerning relinquishment of Satan the other touching Obedience to the Faith of Christ. In like sort St. Ambrose He which is baptized forsaketh the Intellectual Pharaoh the Prince of this World saying Abrenuncio Thee O Satan and thy Angels thy works and thy mandates I forsake utterly Tertullian having speech of wicked spirits These saith he are the Angels which we in Baptism renounce The Declaration of Iustin the Martyr concerning Baptism sheweth how such as the Church in those days did baptize made profession of Christian Belief and undertook to live accordingly Neither do I think it a matter easie for any man to prove that ever Baptism did use to be administred without Interrogatories of these two kindes Whereunto St. Peter as it may be thought alluding hath said That the Baptism which saveth us is not as Legal Purifications were a cleansing of the flesh from outward impurity but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Interrogative tryal of a good conscience towards God 64. Now the fault which they finde with us concerning Interrogatories is our moving of these Questions unto Infants which cannot answer them and the answering of them by others as in their names The Anabaptist hath many pretences to scorn at the baptism of Children First Because the Scriptures he saith do no where give Commandment to Baptize Infants Secondly For that as there is no Commandment so neither any manifest example shewing it to have been done either by Christ or his Apostles Thirdly In as much as the Word Preached and the Sacraments must go together they which are not capable of the one are no fit receivers of the other Last of all sith the Order of Baptism continued from the first beginning hath in it those things which are unfit to be applied unto Sucking Children it followeth in their conceit That the Baptism of such is no Baptism but plain mockery They with whom we contend are no enemies to the Baptism of Infants it is not their desire that the Church should hazard so many Souls by letting them run on till they come to ripeness of understanding that so they may be converted and then baptized as Infidels heretofore have been they bear not towards God so unthankful mindes as not to acknowledge it even amongst the greatest of his endless mercies That by making us his own possession so soon many advantages which Satan otherwise might take are prevented and which should be esteemed a part of no small happiness the first thing whereof we have occasion to take notice is How much hath been done already to our great good though altogether without our knowledge The Baptism of Infants they esteem as an Ordinance which Christ hath instituted even in special love and favor to his own people They deny not the practice thereof accordingly to have been kept as derived from the hands and continued from the days of the Apostles themselves unto this present onely it pleaseth them not That to Infants there should be Interrogatories proposed in Baptism This they condemn as foolish toyish and profane mockery But are they able to shew that ever the Church of Christ had any Publick Form of Baptism without Interrogatories or that the Church did ever use at the Solemn Baptism of Infants to omit those Questions as needless in this case Ioniface a Bishop in St. Augustines time knowing That the Church did Universally use this Custom of Baptising Infants with Interrogatories was desirous to learn from St. Augustine the true cause and reason thereof If saith he I should see before thee a young infant and should ask of thee whether that Infant when he cometh unto riper age will be honest and just or no Thou wouldst answer I know that to tell in these things what shall come to pass is not in the power of Mortal Man If I should ask What good or evil such an infant thinketh Thine answer hereunto must needs be again with the like uncertainty If them neither canst promise for the time to come nor for the present pronounce any thing in this case How is it that when such are brought unto Baptism their Parents there undertake what the Childe shall afterwards do Yea they are not doubtful to say It doth that which is impossible to be done by Infants At the least there is no man precisely able to affirm it done Vonchsafe me hereunto some short answer such as not onely may press me with the bare authority of Custom but also instruct me in the cause thereof Touching which difficulty whether it may truly be said for Infants at the time of their Baptism That they do believe the effect of St. Angustines answer is Yea but with this distinction a present Actual habit of Faith there is not in them there is delivered unto them that Sacrament a part of the due celebration whereof consisting in answering to the Articles of Faith because the habit of Faith which afterwards doth come with years is but a farther building up of the same edifice the first foundation whereof was laid by the Sacrament of Baptism For that which there we professed without any understanding when we afterwards come to acknowledge do we any thing else but onely bring unto ripeness the very Seed that was sown before We are then Believers because then we begun to be that which process of time doth make perfect And till we come to Actual Belief the very Sacrament of Faith is a shield as strong as after this the Faith of the Sacrament against all
Which Labyrinth as the other sort doth justly shun so the way which they take to the same Inâ— is somewhat more short but no whit more certain For through Gods Omnipotent Power they imagine that Transubstantiation followeth upon the words of Consecration and upon Transubstantiation the Participation of Christs both Body and Blood in the onely shape of Sacramental Elements So that they all three do plead Gods Omnipotency Sacramentaries to that Alteration which the rest confess he accomplisheth the Patrons of Transubstantiation over and besides that to the change of one substance into another the Followers of Consubstantiation to the kneading of both Substances as it were into one lump Touching the sentence of Antiquity in this cause first For as much as they knew that the force of this Sacrament doth necessarily presuppose the Verity of Christs both Body and Blood they used oftentimes the same as an Argument to prove That Christ hath as truly the substance of Man as of God because here we receive Christ and those Graces which flow from him in that he is Man So that if he have no such Being neither can the Sacrament have any such meaning as we all confess it hath Thus Tertullian thus Irenaeus thus Theodoret disputeth Again as evident it is how they teach that Christ is personally there present yea present whole albeit a part of Christ be corporally absent from thence that Christ assisting this Heavenly Banquet with his Personal and true Presence doth by his own Divine Power add to the Natural Substance thereof Supernatural Efficacy which addition to the Nature of those consecrated Elements changeth them and maketh them that unto us which otherwise they could not be that to us they are thereby made such Instruments as mystically yet truly invisibly yet really work our Communion or Fellowship with the Person of Jesus Christ as well in that he is Man as God our Participation also in the Fruit Grace and Efficacy of his Body and Blood whereupon there ensueth a kinde of Transubstantiation in us a true change both of Soul and Body an alteration from death to life In a word it appeareth not that of all the ancient Fathers of the Chruch any one did ever conceive or imagine other then onely a Mystical Participation of Christs both Body and Blood in the Sacrament neither are their speeches concerning the change of the Elements themselves into the Body and Blood of Christ such that a man can thereby in Conscience assure himself it was their meaning to perswade the World either of a Corporal Consubstantiation of Christ with those Sanctified and Blessed Elements before we receive them or of the like Transubstantiation of them into the Body and Blood of Christ. Which both to our Mystical Communion with Christ are so unnecessary that the Fathers who plainly hold but this Mystical Communion cannot easily be thought to have meant any other change of Sacramental Elements then that which the same Spiritual Communion did require them to hold These things considered how should that Minde which loving Truth and seeking Comfort out of Holy Mysteries hath not perhaps the leisure perhaps nor the wit nor capacity to tread out so endless Mazes as the intricate Disputes of this cause have led men into how should a vertuously disposed minde better resolve with it self then thus Variety of Iudgments and Opinions argueth obscurity in those things whereabout they differ But that which all parts receive for Truth that which every one having sifted is by no one denied or doubted of must needs be matter of infallible certainly Whereas therefore there are but three Expositions made of This is my Body The first This is in it self before participation really and truly the Natural Substance of my Body by reason of the coexistence which my Omnipotent Body hath with the sanctified Element of Bread which is the Lutherans Interpretation The second This is in itself and before participation the very true and Natural Substance of my Body by force of that Deity which with the words of Consecration abolisheth the Substance of Bread and substituteth in the place thereof my Body which is the Popish construction The last This Hallowed Food through concurrence of Divine Power is in verity and truth unto faithful Receivers instrumentally a cause of that Mystical Participation whereby as I make my self wholly theirs so I give them in hand an actual possession of all such saving Grace as my Sacrificed Body can yield and as their Souls do presently need This is to them and in them my Body Of these three rehearsed Interpretations the last hath in it nothing but what the rest do all approve and acknowledge to be most true nothing but that which the words of Christ are on all sides confest to inforce nothing but that which the Church of God hath always thought necessary nothing but that which alone is sufficient for every Christian man to believe concerning the use and force of this Sacrament Finally Nothing but that wherewith the Writings of all Antiquity are consonant and all Christian Confessions agreeable And as Truth in what kinde soever is by no kinde of Truth gain-said so the minde which resteth it self on this it never troubled with those perplexities which the other do both finde by means of so great contradiction between their opinions and true principles of Reason grounded upon Experience Nature and Sense Which albeit with boysterous courage and breath they seem oftentimes to blow away yet whoso observeth how again they labor and sweat by subtilty of wit to make some shew of agreement between their peculiar conceits and the general Edicts of Nature must needs perceive they struggle with that which they cannot fully master Besides sith of that which is proper to themselves their Discourses are hungry and unpleasant full of tedious and irksome labor heartless and hitherto without Fruit on the other side read we them or hear we others be they of our own or of ancienter times to what part soever they be thought to incline touching that whereof there is controversie yet in this where they all speak but one thing their Discourses are Heavenly their Words sweet as the Honey-Comb their Tongues melodiously tuned Instruments their Sentences meer Consolation and Ioy Are we not hereby almost even with voice from Heaven admonished which we may safeliest cleave unto He which hath said of the one Sacrament Wash and be clean hath said concerning the other likewise Eat and live If therefore without any such particular and solemn warrant as this is that poor distressed Woman coming unto Christ for health could so constantly resolve her self May I but touch the skirt of his Garment I shall be whole what moveth us to argue of the manner how Life should come by Bread our duty being here but to take what is offered and most assuredly to rest perswaded of this that can we but eat we are safe When I behold with
mine eyes some small and scarce discernable Grain or Seed whereof Nature maketh a promise that a Tree shall come and when afterwards of that Tree any skilful Artificer undertaketh to frame some exquisite and curious work I look for the event I move no question about performance either of the one or of the other Shall I simply credit Nature in things natural Shall I in things artificial relie my self on Art never offering to make doubt And in that which is above both Art and Nature refuse to believe the Author of both except he acquaint me with his ways and lay the secret of his skill before me Where God himself doth speak those things which either for height and sublimity of Matter or else for secresie of Performance we are not able to reach unto as we may be ignorant without danger so it can be no disgrace to confess we are ignorant Such as love Piety will as much as in them lieth know all things that God commandeth but especially the duties of Service which they ow to God As for his dark and hidden works they prefer as becometh them in such cases simplicity of Faith before that Knowledge which curiously sisting what it should adore and disputing too boldly of that which the wit of man cannot search chilleth for the most part all warmth of zeal and bringeth soundness of belief many times into great hazard Let it therefore be sufficient for me presenting my self at the Lords Table to know what there I receive from him without searching or enquiring of the manner how Christ performeth his promise Let Disputes and Questions Enemies to Piety abatements of true Devotion and hitherto in this cause but over-patiently heard let them take their rest Let curious and sharp-witted Men beat their Heads about what Questions themselves will the very Letter of the Word of Christ giveth plain security that these Mysteries do as Nails fasten us to his very Cross that by them we draw out as touching Efficacy Force and Vertue even the Blood of his goared side In the Wounds of our Redeemer we there dip our Tongues we are died red both within and without our hunger is satisfied and our thirst for ever quenched they are things wonderful which he feeleth great which he seeth and unheard of which he uttereth whose Soul it possest of this Paschal Lamb and made joyful in the strength of this new Wine This Bread hath in it more then the substance which our eyes behold this Cup hallowed with solemn Benediction availeth to the endless life and welfare both of Soul and Body in that it serveth as well for a Medicine to heal our infirmities and purge our sins as for a Sacrifice of Thanksgiving With touching it sanctifieth it enlightneth with belief it truly conformeth us unto the image of Iesus Christ. What these Elements are in themselves it skilleth not it is enough that to me which take them they are the Body and Blood of Christ his Promise in witness hereof sufficeth his Word he knoweth which way to accomplish why should any cogitation possess the minde of a Faithful Communicant but this O my God thou art true O my Soul thou art happy Thus therefore we see that howsoever Mens opinions do otherwise vary nevertheless touching Baptism and the Supper of the Lord we may with consent of the whole Christian World conclude they are necessary the one to initiate or begin the other to consummate or make perfect our life in Christ. 68. In Administring the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ the supposed faults of the Church of England are not greatly material and therefore it shall suffice to touch them in few words The first is That we do not use in a generality once for all to say to Communicants Take eat and drink but unto every particular person Eat thou drink thou which is according to the Popish manner and not the Form that our Saviour did use Our second oversight is by Gesture For in Kneeling there hath been Superstition Sitting agreeth better to the action of a Supper and our Saviour using that which was most fit did himself not kneel A third accusation is for not examining all Communicants whose knowledge in the Mystery of the Gospel should that way be made manifest a thing every where they say used in the Apostles times because all things necessary were used and this in their opinion is necessary yea it is commanded in as much as the Levites are commanded to prepare the people for the Passover and Examination is a part of their Preparation our Lords Supper in place of the Passover The fourth thing misliked is That against the Apostles prohibitionâ— to have any familiarity at all with notorious Offenders Papists being not of the Church are admitted to our very Communion before they have by their Religious and Gospel-like behavior purged themselves of that suspition of Popery which their former life hath caused They are Dogs Swine unclean Beasts Foreigners and Strangers from the Church of God and therefore ought not to be admitted though they offer themselves We are fiftly condemned in as much as when there have been store of people to hear Sermons and Service in the Church we suffer the Communion to be ministred to a few It is not enough that our Book of Common Prayer hath godly Exhortations to move all thereunto which are present For it should not suffer a few to Communicate it should by Ecclesiastical Discipline and Civil punishment provide that such as would withdraw themselves might be brought to Communicate according both to the Law of God and the ancient Church Canons In the sixth and last place cometh the enormity of imparting this Sacrament privately unto the sick Thus far accused we answer briefly to the first That seeing God by Sacraments doth apply in particular unto every mans person the Grace which himself hath provided for the benefit of all mankinde there is no cause why Administring the Sacraments we should forbear to express that in our forms of Speech which he by his Word and Gospel teacheth all to believe In the one Sacrament I Baptize thee displeaseth them not If â—at thou in the other offend them their fancies are no rules for Churches to follow Whether Christ at his last Supper did speak generally once to all or to every one in particular is a thing uncertain His words are recorded in that Form which serveth best for the setting down with Historical brevity what was spoken they are no manifest proof that he spake but once unto all which did then Communicate muchless that we in speaking unto every Communicant severally do amiss although it were clear that we herein do otherwise then Christ did Our imitation of him consisteth not in tying scrupulously our selves unto his syllables but rather in speaking by the Heavenly Direction of that inspired Divine Wisdom which teacheth divers ways to one end and doth therein controul their boldness