Moral and Natural only but Spiritual also ought to have a spiritual or heavenly end And as the reward upon Obedience doth exceed that of the Law so the severity upon disobedience contrary to the too common Errour that the Gospel is more favourable unto sinners than was the Law For though indeed the same trivial neglects or commissions as against Vide Chrys Tom. 6. Serm. 94. initio the Old Law are not now punished in a bodily sensible manner as were they yet the punishments generally of the offences against the New Covenant were greater as St. Paul expresly witnesseth to the Hebrews Hebr. 2. 2 3. He that despised Moses's Law dyed without mercy under two or Hebr. 10 28. 29. three witnesses Of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall be thought worthy who hath troden under foot the Son of God and accounted the blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace c. For we know c. Fifthly the Administration 30 31. of the New Covenant differed from that of the Old and that 1. In the Extent comprehending all Nations without distinction Jer. 31. 34. whereas that of Moses was restrained to Abrahams Seed and that by Isaac and that Seed again of Isaac by Jacob. And secondly it extends not only to all Persons according to the promise made to Abraham that in his Gen. 22. 18. Seed all the Nations of the earth should be blessed and only his own Seed blessed but to all capacities of man his spiritual as well as carnal which the Law of Moses did not as the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews Hebr. 9. 9. doth witness where he tells us how those Legal Rites could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience And again It is not possible that the blood of Bulls and Goats should take away sins Hebr. 10. 4. But the Soul and Conscience are both purged by the Sacrifice of the New Testament once offered for all which was the Body of Christ Thirdly v. 10. It extends to a greater degree of Liberty from the outward servile part of Gods worship and either directs us only to the more inward and spiritual service or gives Liberty greater to the Church than anciently was allowed to accommodate it self to times and place and persons in the worship of God which Liberty was not so far granted under the Old Testament Sixthly The Law and Covenant made by Moses were according to the Letter but Christs according to the Spirit That was exacted upon outward terrours propounded or Mercies This was transacted by an inward principle of Ingenuity and Grace given of God as St. Paul is to be Rom. 6. 14. understood where he saith For sin shall not have dominion over you For ye are not under the Law but under Grace meaning That now least of all we should let sin rule over us being not under the Law that is exempted from the penalties and terrours outward which seemed to constrain obedience or whose disobedience was remitted upon certain outward Rites which have no effect upon them who are under the Law of Grace But the Grace of God so revealed outwardly and so assisting and inclining inwardly doth require more ingenuous obedience than formerly as in the next Chapter it is said But now we are delivered from the Law that being Rom. 7. 6. dead wherein we were held that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the Letter Now from this adjustment of the Law of Moses and of Christ it is evident in what sense St. Paul so oft calls one the Law of Works and the other the Law of Grace For he there takes not Law so generally as some would understand him for all Rule and Doctrine of Holy Life whereby they comprehend as well Evangelical as Natural and Mosaical but in contradistinction to the Law of the Gospel published by Christ viz. the Law as it was Mosaical according to which it could justifie no man it being it self to be done away in Christ For as the Scripture hath it if perfection were by the Levitical Priesthood for under it the People received Hebr. 7. 11. the Law what farther need that another Priest should arise after the order of Melchisedec and not be called after the order of Aaron Secondly Answer from hence may be made to the difficulty How far the Law of Moses or the Old Law binds under the Gospel For having shewed that the Gospel in substance being ancienter than the Law of Moses as well because of the moral duties common to all mankind as the Promises of the Messias contained in it whatever we sind in Moses or the Prophets or the Sacred Historians against any injustice vice or irreligion is not to be imputed so much to the Law as Mosaical but as Evangelical And therefore whatever was Levitical or Mosaical in that Law given to the Seed of Abraham as such ceased and had its full completion in Christ And though many things there found were alwayes and still are of excellent use to all men both morally and judicially taken so that they cannot be said to have no force upon us Yet their obliging power as delivered by Moses and not partaking of the nature of the Gospel ceases and is extinct but lives and is hinding as the same belonged anciently to Christs Law and by it is renewed and confirmed Thirdly The obscurity at least if not errour of those Notes of distinction found in many learned mens writings from hence is discerned such as are these First That the Law propoundeth wrath without Mercy but the Gospel Mercy and Justice For that the Law thus properly and precisely taken as distinct in matter as well as form from the Gospel propounded Mercies as well as Judgments is most apparent from the eighteenth Chapter of Deuteronomy though as we have shewed neither the Mercy not the Judgments were of the same nature as they propounded by the Gospel but chiefly temporal For whether the breach of any of Moses his Laws as such made men obnoxious to Hell and not only to bodily and temporal punishments I much question unless we consider the disobedience formal and doing presumptuously which may attend that evil act Secondly They say the Law Perkins required internal and perfect Righteousness the Gospel imputed But this is very dangerous Doctrine For first it doth not appear that the Law as such and not partaking of the nature of the Gospel doth require such internal and perfect Righteousness it being satisfied with the outwardness and formality of the Letter Secondly It must not be granted that Christs Law doth not much more require internal and perfect Righteousness than the Law and that to our Justification For it is one thing to require a thing absolutely and another necessarily and indispensibly to such an end The Gospel doth
wonderful dangerous abuse of the Old Testaments Autority not to be content to admit an invalidity of proofs drawn from thence to confirm Evangelical Duties but to make it no small presumption against the Evangelicalness of any duty that it is first found in the Old Testament which is a gross abuse of Scripture especially by them who would be held enemies to Antimonians They ought therefore first of all to show that such things are purely Legal that is as the Law it self is Mosaical and Typical and Ceremonial before they can damn them there for no better reason but there they find them Add to this when we challenge them to the most ancient and manifold Presedents of the Christian Church who constantly made Vows of various natures to God they presently betake themselves to their common subterfuge pretence of appeal to the Word of God as a Rule and that without any respect to any not truly divine Guides otherwise directing And this they do as confidently as if it had been concluded out of Scripture to the contrary For in such cases indeed their appeal would be most just and reasonable but until that little better then ridiculous especially Scripture being before advised about and appearing not definitive in the case Antiquity and Holy precedents consulted with the better to know the mind of Scripture For instance that text of St. Paul to Timothy saith of young Widows They have damnation in themselves because 1 Tim. 5. 12. they have cast off their first Faith Many of late dayes interpret the Apostle to mean only the Faith of Christ in general Others understand him to speak of a Faith particularly made to Christ by the Order of Widows vowing singleness of life and in all reason this seems to be most favoured by the context But besides this appeal is made by the one party to the judgment of the ancient and holy Christians interpreting this both by their writings and practise as relating specially to the dedication of Widowhood to God After this fair dealing for men to declare they will be tryed by none but that which they know is the main thing in question is very vain and somewhat more They having no special text so interdicting such Vows as this is to commend them But the worst of it is this that if there were any way more perfect then that they have pitched on they should be sufferers in the good opinion of the world but that must by no means be endured And this at the end of all is the great absurdity they bring us to but surely not so great but both the Cause and Defenders of it may well show their face after all this granted and owned The second thing now in the third place to be touched is concerning the Nature of a Vow in it self viz. That so it is no proper act nor any proper part of Gods Service but the manner of it For to vow to God is an indifferent thing to Good or Evil. A man may as well vow to Gods dishonour as his glory It is therefore good or evil in relation to the matter about which the Vow is made For to vow Sacrifices under the Law and to vow Alms under the Gospel or Virginity or such like is no farther part of the Service of God then the thing it self tends to the worship of God and its nature and office is to bind to the true and due performance of a thing but not absolutely a duty in its self The principle doubt on the contrary may be that which is taken from that which a man devotes to God as an ingredient to all vows For when a man vows he of a free man makes himself servile and limited to one of those things to which formerly he was free And this we have shewed is an argument of some against vowing because it takes away the liberty God had given On the other side the contrary party may in my judgment turn it against them and make it an argument of worth and excellencie because it gives to God that which is to us most precious For when St. Paul saith If you may be free use it rather and stand fast in the liberty where with Christ hath made you free he undoubtedly means only in reference to man and then only when we really have and not presume only that we have such a liberty and when this liberty is that which pertaineth to the substance of the Gospel as most of those places alledged to found a liberty do aim at But do they think as it should seem that either Natural Civil or Evangelical Liberty is such a thing and so given unto us of God that we may not render it to him nor part with it again to him Is it too good or sacred to give him it from whom we received it Nay the more dear and precious it is to us the more acceptable it should be to him When we deny our selves the liberty he hath given us the better to serve him surely it is no less pleasing to God than to part with meat drink money and the time which he hath given us dedicating the same to him It is strange therefore next to monstrous that Christians should stumble so at the Scriptures and they especially who will scarce allow any man to be cunning in the Scriptures besides themselves or to be governed by them as they pretend to be as to make such fond conclusions from them the contrary to which is much the truer To give away our liberty to God is an excellent Sacrifice to him and they would prove out of Scripture we ought not to give it him at all For if they prove not this they prove nothing when they say we ought not to make vows to him because it takes away our liberty And therefore to the argument viz. that by this it should follow that vowing is in it self an act or part of Gods worship I answer That if any thing here be an act of worshipping God it is the giving up it self of our liberty and not the vowing to give it up for this is but the means and manner so to serve and worship God and not the worship it self And thus much Perkins Perkins Cases of Conscience Chap. 14. Lib. 2. acknowledges in vows about bodily exercises such as Fasting Prayers and Alms but likes not it so to be in other matters Indeed as he confusedly and crudely touches the point passing from the nature of a Vow in it self which was his question unto the matter he might very well write against some vows and prove them unlawful when the thing it self is unlawful to be done whether with or without a vow such as are ceremonial acts of the Law of Moses and moral evils against truth justice or piety it self And thus much of the form of vowing the lawfulness and uses in general CHAP. IV. Of the Matter of Vows in particular And first of the Virginal state that it is
and state than Religion in common so yet in Christian Religion it self are there more large and free and more strait and determined wayes of serving God which when they are not moveable or mutable in themselves may be aptly called states of Religion subordinate to the general Profession We are therefore first to consider the formal cause of this stating a mans self in Religion and then the principal matters wherein this state doth consist which may be reduced to these three Holy Orders Celebacy or Singleness of Life Monastick Life with its appendages of Poverty and Obedience That which gives the formality to all these and makes them a proper state is the bond of a Vow under which a man binds himself duly to observe the same And a Vow is a solemn and sacred promise made to God by a Person free to that thing of performing somewhat above his ordinary obligation For by the common covenant and obligation every Christian hath upon him as a Christian and baptized he hath bound himself to observe all things directly commanded by God and which are necessary to salvation But because these things necessary to salvation are not so easily determinable by every man but varying according to the talents of Grace and Nature according to outward means and according to opportunities put into the hands of Man by God it hath been ever both prudently and piously practised by devout and faithful persons to secure the necessary duties by taking upon them some things that are not of themselves or generally necessary to the pleasing God and saving themselves These extraordinary Services are commonly known by Counsels Evangelical or Perfections because they tend to a more perfect and devout walking with God in Mortifications Self-denyals of the pleasures and unnecessary Comforts of this world and more pure immediate and spiritual communion with God in the exercise of acts of Religion There are many amongst the eminent Reformers who oppose such Evangelical Counsels it is to be feared because they would carry away the credit from others of being Religious and cannot endure to have any thing more eminent in that Religion condemned by them than is to be found in their Reformation and therefore they say there is no such thing to be allowed or received as Evangelical that is in plain tearms Christian Perfection but all states of Christianity are alike For surely had it not been self-defense and self-love not to venture flesh and bloud farther than is absolutely necessary but that they might enjoy the world in all its benefits and accommodations not inconsistent with future bliss they would never have dar'd to have contradicted the common voice of all Christians one or two perhaps excepted who were manifestly reprehended by the general sentence of the age wherein they lived and not only Christians but Jews and not only Jews but Heathens too pretending to Religion And for my part as I reverence that as a Law of Nature in which all men generally conspire and concur so do I esteem that as a Law of Religion which all Religious People have in some manner used But all People as well Christian as Unchristian have ever allowed as very laudable the use of Vows in Chastity and secludedness from the common course of the world And this is of greater force to me than any arguments by the adversaries brought to the contrary They want not indeed certain pretty colours to perswade rather than prove their modern singularities Some of which and the principal are these First that we are commanded to love and serve God with all our hearts with all our souls with all our strength and therefore there can be no place for such perfection seeing it is no more than we are bound to do To which I answer That to love and serve God with all our might is in the general a direct Precept and not barely an advice or counsel given to us But the special duties wherein this universal and absolute service of God consist are not so determined For we may love God with all our hearts according to the intent of the Command in any one state of life that is so far as to prefer God and his service before and above all and this may suffice to carry us to Heaven But this All may be taken Intensively or Extensively Extensively when we subject all things really to our esteem of God not idolizing any worldly thing or equalling it to him But still Intensively a man so long as he continues in this world may proceed to higher degrees of the Love of God And these more perfect degrees are acquired by more constant attendance on Gods worship and this attendance is caused by sequestring our selves from those many worldly cumbrances incident to us in this world which though not absolutely unlawful for were it that Marriage or Monastick life were simply and generally necessary no question but they would have been commanded or forbidden directly yet upon common consent more hazardous than the severer part of Christian life may be And neither wedded life or a political life are of themselves evil but expose a man to more temptations and leave him less at liberty to attend on the Lord without distraction Yet all this will admit of exceptions some men undoubtedly whether Laical or Clerical living much chaster in wedlock than others do in Celebacy and singleness of life and some men living more divinely and holily in the midst of much business and tumultuous Cities than others in Cloysters or Desarts remote from the worlds contagion and vanity For might not this be Precepts would certainly have been delivered in Scripture to bind us to one way But no judgment or conclusion of a Case is wont to be made by wise men from the variety and uncertainty of particular persons but in reference to the thing it self whether such ways of serving God which are vulgarly called Evangelical Counsels are not in themselves with the like concurrence of Gods Grace and other due circumstances which may be supposed common to other states more probable and apt means to attain heaven and serve God more devoutly than the other and whether this state of separation and dedication of our time and actions unto God are not more susceptible of the Grace of God than common conversations The Affirmative we maintain and see not how the foresaid reason opposes it to any purpose A second main reason is That though it is lawful and may be expedient to choose such a kind of life yet it is not so fit to bind our selves to it by a Vow For we must vow to do nothing which is not in our power to perform But such kind of Chastity suck kind of Separation and Sequestration of our selves from the World and civil Society is not in our power to fulfil And that because they are the special Gifts of God as the Scripture telleth us when it saith Every man hath his proper gift of God 1 Cor. 7. 7.
danger not much less as hath been shewed And the Devil most busily and eagerly seeks to impel to those sins which are most notorious How many have with little wit and great impudence professed they could love their own Wives above all women were it not for the reason that God and Nature requires they should prefer them so that they are their wives and that they are tyed to them their liberty is destroyed thereby And may not as good an argument be made from hence against all Votal Ties in marriage as from marriage And whereas it is said a Vow casts a man divers times into a greater temptation it is meerly accidental and personal according to the particular humour of some men who knowing their disease of contradiction and renitencie to what is imposed on them may with prudence avoid such a snare as they call it But we all know things are not to be estimated or concluded from such contingencies and personal irregularities but from the nature of the things themselves And none can deny but the nature of a Vow is to bind and not to loose and to prevent and not to lead into temptations or snares and withal he that Vows the thing or the effect doth implicitly vow the means conducing thereunto and against the occasions and temptations tending to the contrary It is farther objected against a Vow that it is taken to be part of the worship of God And this Being made part of the worship of God is a general Battering Ram whereby most ill Reforming Divines endeavour to beat down all things they like not For first they religiously hold that nothing must be part of Gods worship which he hath not commanded in his word which is not altogether true nor false no more then the contrary That every thing commanded in his Word is part of his worship And again they hold that every thing that is done in the worship of God is part of the worship of God and from hence set themselves with great animosity against all forms and actions and Ceremonies in order to the service of God as so many parts of the worship of God of humane invention and therefore to be utterly rejected And such say they are Vows Bellarm. de Monachis lib. 2. cap. 16. To. 2. The Popish writers do grant and go about to prove that they are Acts of Gods worship but very unluckily to themselves holding that they are Counsels and not Precepts The Puritan Writers that they are so far from that that they are unlawful but in those things that are commanded of God and therefore in the Instances before given of single and separate life unlawful But Peter Martyr it should seem goes by himself denying the use of all Vows under the New Testament but approving of them under the Old as commanded many times and being uncommanded worship under the New Testament And that with men of such principles is bad enough But I suppose a mean way is best in this case which holdeth Vows lawful even in uncommanded worship and Secondly that of themselves they are no part nor so much as act of Gods service but the manner only of his service And Thirdly that it is no less lawful and expedient to Vow under the state of the Gospel than under the Law And to begin with the last That which deceived Peter Martyr and divers others seems to be an erroneous supposition made by them that Vows were under precept and command under the Law in certain cases but it is not so For though many Rules and Precepts are found in Moses his Law about governing and regulating them that had freely made Vows there is no precept given that men should vow but that was left free Secondly those Precepts of paying Vows found in Scriptures do not at all concern the taking of Vows simply So David Vow and pay unto the Lord Psalm 76. 11. meaneth no more than Vowing pay unto the Lord which is the meaning of the Prophet Esay also saying The Egyptians shall vow a vow unto the Lord Esaiah 19. 21. and perform it And in no place of Scripture is there any injunction simply to vow And therefore the case being alike as to the Vow it self though different as to the matter if it were lawful for the Jews to do this uncommanded act as they call it it is also lawful for Christians whom they acknowledge to be no more but rather less bound up from uncommanded worship than the Jews And from hence are easily and better answered Peter Martyrs arguments against Vows of Christians then by Bellarmine For we deny that Vows were instituted Ceremonies under the Law which Martyr supposeth for they were not instituted at all And that he saith That we have no mention of Vows in the New Testament as there is in the Old is not altogether true as shall be seen afterward but if it were true as hath been said those things which we know by the light and law of nature the Scriptures are not so solicitous simply to institute as to prescribe Rules concerning the due execution of them But common reason hath instructed Gentile Jew and Christian upon occasion to vow to God and therefore whatever is peculiar to Christians is provided for by the New Testament in determining the matter consistent with Christian Faith and common equity and the manner First that it be made by a Person who hath power over himself For no man can make a lawful Vow to do any thing to the prejudice of the right of another And therefore children under the power of their Parents cannot bind themselves firmly in any such Vow which tendeth to the disobliging them from their known duty to their Parents neither can Subjects vow any thing to the disservice of their Soveraign or Country Nor can Clergy-men vow any thing contrary to the subjection and obedience of their Superiours or detriment of the Church in general unless it be ratified by them but all is void or may be made void by them in lawful power over them And the Arguments of Peter Martyr taken from Christian Liberty have been answered already Now to return to the first That Vows are lawful to Christians is shewed already from the natural reason of Vows And that it was not an invention of Moses or introduced by God first under him appears from the general consent of all religious persons who never knew any thing of the Law of Moses or if as in later times some nations did yet regarded it not And from the practise of Jacob long before Moses who we read vowed unto the Lord a vow It appears likewise from the many moral precepts in Genes 28. 20. the Psalms Proverbs Ecclesiastes which concern themselves very little in the Law of Moses And the Predictions in the Prophets of Vows to be made at the time of the Gospel are not well put off by saying the Prophets spake figuratively But it may be here noted as a
in general concerned himself in the marriage of others And to declare how that state was not at all inconsistent with a state Clerical of twelve Disciples John 2. 1 2. which Christ chose to minister for him Eleven are supposed to be married persons or at least to have been married formerly To answer which by saying that after they were chosen they forsook their wives is to evade and not really to answer First because it had been as easie for Christ surely to have picked out a dozen persons free from the knowledge of women as to make choice of such as were wedded had he judged any incapacity in these to the Evangelical Ministery But secondly do we find any thing in special prescribed by Christ for such separation from wives more than for other Christians who were not Ministers of the Gospel For of all faithful Christians it is spoken in certain junctures that whoever forsaketh not Father and Mother and Brethren and Sisters and Wise and Children for Christs sake cannot be his Disciple And there is no rule but common necessity and prudence not Divine prescription which requires any man for the Gospels sake to forsake his Wife rather than his Father and Mother Yet that the Apostles did actually absent rather than separate themselves from their Wives and that others who enter'd into the ministration to the Church under the Apostles foreseeing what St. Paul expresseth the present distress of the Church as well in regard of the 1 Cor. 7. 26. persecutions of the Church as the paucity of Preachers the greatness of the Harvest and the small number of Labourers did decline the state of marriage is very probable because they were required by Christs Injunction to Go and teach all Nations which travelling life ill could consist with cohabitation with Wives And therefore it must be given them Gratis and not by the merits of any reason oâ— grounds they can show that that such relinquishing of their Wives was either total or upon conscience made of the thing it self Doth not St. Paul say expresly in the words before those now touched Concerning Virgins I have no commandment of the Lord If such as served at the Altar were to be excepted surely he 1 Cor. 7. 25. would not have left the Rule so general as we find speaking only according to humane prudence And though they search with their best eyes they shall not be able to find in any other writings of the Apostles one Text o Scripture obliging Bishops or Priests to singleness of life more than those of the Laity unless they argue from reason That Virginal Chastity is more severe more pure more spiritual than conjugal which is yielded and therefore more obliging the Clergy who should be more spiritual persons then others all which I deny not but say that this binds them no more from marriage than it doth from wine and strong drink which if none of the Clergy ever used they were the more to be commended unless in such cases as St. Paul advises Timothy For their stomachs sake and often infirmities And thus is Bellarmin's first proof laid Bellarm. de Clericis l. 1. c. 19. The sole grounds then of unmarried state of Priests must be fetch'd from Tradition and Reason of both which we shall presume to speak a word or two Apostolical Tradition is pretended but not trusting much to that recourse is had to the Old Testament from certain allegorical interpretations made of some Rites in Moses's Law which may do well in the Church where they used them to perswade but ill in the Schools to prove the same as a necessary duty The argument taken from the custom of the Priest abstaining from their Wives during the time of their ministration I do really 1 Chron. 24. believe to have had an influence upon Primitive Christians Judaizing in many other things of like nature to restrain them from the use of their Wives upon solemn ministrations But this was without Law or Canon freely undertaken and embraced as was Celebacie it self at first until about the year 385. Siricius Bishop of Rome made a constitution that it should and ought to be and that on that ground And that the inferiour Orders such as Ostiaries Readers Exorcists and Acolythites should only be permitted to marry But Alexander the third about the year 1160 proceeded according to the method of that Church to shut them also out the doors of Orders that should presume to marry But all that was done against those in greater or sacred Orders in the Church for more than three hundred years after Christ was to deny such as were married access to the Altar by way of ministration who from that time abstained not from their Wives as did the Council of Arles and some in Spain Only a custom prevailed very generally and anciently to suffer none who were in those called Sacred Orders such as were Bishops and Priests and Deacons to marry after they were so ordained for if they did they were dismissed of their Office or their Wives The Eastern Church ever accepted of married persons into the Clergy and at length understanding the Apostle Let the Bishops be the husbands of one wife as a Precept rather than a Caution that they should be husbands of no more then one which in all likelyhood the truest sense in the Sixth Council In Trullo decreed they only should be received into Priestly Orders who were married And therefore all antiquity for twelve hundred years together fails them in this that it was otherwise then voluntary that married Priests lived from their Wives who had before orders or that married Men might not be made Priests though 't is confessed they preferred unmarried Persons before them until that Sixth Council which for that reason amongst others Bellarmine calls a Profane Synod and Baronius impious such a great veneration have they for the Autority of the Church when it speaks not their sense Yet as we are far from giving an exact and full account of this long controversie here so are we so far as I can Divine at the judgment of our Church willing to accommodate the matter with others that can digest any thing but their own stout devises to acknowledge a Power in the Church to bind or loose her sons of the Clergy to an unmarried state or to leave them free For to aggravate matters to that height as to make it absolute tyranny or Antichristian and to be against the word of God which saith Marriage is honourable in all things and the like implyes more of the weakness of the Arguer than strength in the Argument more of spite and passion than ingenuity or soberness For 't is answered very sufficiently marriage is not condemned but virginity commended before it Marriage is not at all declared to be evil when Celebacie is said to be much better Marriage is not condemned when certain persons are condemned for marrying Doth a Father that should cast off
that little For they may say that in prayer we offer not so much to God as we receive from him For prayer is a begging of favour and benefits of God To which our Answer is that taking prayer strictly and precisely for that one part of prayer which consisteth in craving a supply of our wants or deprecation only then indeed this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Cremens Alexand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Asterius apud Phoetum not so properly a Sacrifice But we are to take prayer in its usual latitude for all the parts of it such as Confession Deprecation of Evil Petition of Good Agnition and Profession of Mercies received Thanksgiving Praise for all Gods hand of Grace towards us and thus prayer is the offering up of a spiritual Sacrifice to God An offering of our heart and an assent of the soul to God as some devout men and learned have defined it And not so only but in effect and intention it by acknowledging of the free mercie of God in outward or inward blessings received from him is the rendring of them all to him again and a Sacrifice of that back again which once he conferred on us Thirdly prayer and worship so properly called bear the name of Sacrifices from the ground of all prayers though some parts of prayer be not so expresly such For he that acknowledges the Omnipotence of God the Omniscience Omnipresence the Alsufficiencie doth thereby render unto God his due but he that prayeth unto God supposeth and confesseth and implicitly offers all these as his duty to God But whoever heard of Offering up the Sacrifice of a Sermon unto God For Lastly If there be any thing of worship or the nature of a Sacrifice in Sermons certainly great Idolatry is committed by them it being most manifest that preaching is offered to Man and not to God and if it be a Divine worship what can it be less For what is more true and common then this That in prayer men speak to God but in preaching they speak to man So that from hence we may safely conclude that that Religion which hath nothing to commend it but preaching or nothing so much as preaching is quite contrary to the Apostle Whose praise is not of God but of Men and in truth deserves not so much the Name of Religion as of Superstition unheard of unthought of until of late years and coming nearest to that grossest part of truly Popish Superstition or as some call it Sacriledge communicating in one kind But here it will be warmly interposed and replyed God forbid they should oppose praying it is a manifest slander For these good people have prayers in private and prayers in publick too It is no proper place now by and by it will be to examine what manner of prayers worship these they mean are insufficient God knows to the constituting of a Church in true Christian communion But here we tell them that we have not disputed against them as having no worship of God at all But first that at all they make preaching and hearing Sermons a proper part of Gods service Secondly that they make it the most eminent and chief against both which our reasons stand good still And that they so do is demonstrated from their practise no less than Doctrines in that they never amongst us pray in publick never enjoy Christian communion but by vertue of a Sermon And though being pressed hard they confess with much ado as Cartwright against Bishop Whitgift that it is possible and valid to celebrate the Sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist without a Sermon yet it seems so notoriously inconvenient and incongruous as it ought never to be done where the Sermon is possible to be had A foul and ungodly mistake So that we have done them no wrong as yet CHAP. VIII A second Corruption of the worship of God not espicially in Prayer by opposing Set-forms of Publick Worship Reasons against Extemporary Prayers in Publick The Places of Scripture and Reasons and Antiquity for Extemporary Prayers answered A Second thing whereby they have abused both the holy duty of prayer and well-meaning Christians is in their traducing and prophanation of all prescribed forms of prayer wherein they forget not to shew themselves in their arts and colours For when the power is in their hands and their Faction can domineer then do they condemn directly in word by preaching printing and covenanting solemnly against Set-forms in publick and there hath been nothing under heaven acted by them more industriously than the utter abolition of all such Divine Offices And when they can go no farther their Chariots wheels are taken off and they begin to find themselves to sink that they bethink themselves how possibly they may stand in need of that moderation that they contemned and that indulgence they condemned their study is not how to repent and retract absolutely their former ungodly counsels and practises as all good Christians that meant seriously to be saved ought to do but with what artifices they may at the same time hold to their old principles of mischief to others and save themselves from harm from others For we must not say now they did any thing so disorderly good people that they are and innocent against Set-forms Province of London but the Parliament as they are obstimately bent to grace their cause without any ground for such a title say they call'd them to it when of the two they if we may distinguish them from their pretended Parliament for which there is no ground rather called their Parliament to such counsels and pranks as they after play'd as appeareth by their early Smectymnuus and their incessant instances with them to pursue those Schismatical Dogms to the subverting of all received Discipline and forms of Worship And that they have disowned their principles upon which they then proceeded we find not though we have more than enough of tricks and turnings and windings and straining them to the fairest sense they can possibly bear and sometimes farther too For instance they say now their Covenant was not against Episcopal Government but an Hierarchy They say They are not against Set forms for they suffer them in private Nay they say they are no enemies to publick Forms nor many other Rites but they would not have them imposed upon any But we shall presume to tell them we neither believe the one nor other until they as publickly retract what they have done in deposing all Set forms and taught and writ and imposing Unset forms upon all that would live by them And in that they would not have them now imposed they imply more strongly they are against them wholly than they express they any wayes favour them when God be thanked as ill as at present it is it is not in their power to oppose and damn them as formerly Can there be any thing more ridiculous than for men to do as much mischief as
not Composito viz. before some one place be determined and dedicated especially to his worship and not after or from the contempt of Gods house or from dislike of the Publique worship or from admiration of our own Gifts and a delight to show them or lastly a design to breed a faction in private against the publique profession I know likewise and grant that several just Impediments there are to the publique service and in such Cases most necessary it is that Gods service should be performed within doors But it is not necessary that this should be performed as the affected manner is in a service quite distinct from the publique yea often quite contrary What men speak in prayer and spiritual devotion between God and their own souls privately they are the only proper judges of and Christian not Liberty only but piety requires they should so be But surely when Men speak before others as well as God and there is nothing so much as the Place which diversifies the worship in a Family from that in the Church that of the Church is most proper And not to say any thing of the Laity no Priest or Minister of our Church ought upon common occasions to officiate in Prayers in Private Families any otherwise than he is bound to do in Publique especially if they to whom he officiates and himself have not performed their duties in that manner before in Publique which when they have then only is the proper place for another free-will offering unprescribed I shall not here insist on the obligation all Priests have to recite their Office as I could but only give this general reason That every Priest is ordained of God by man as a constant intercessour between God and Man in behalf of the People and especially them of whom he hath a Pastoral charge and not only the nature of his Office but condition of his Benefice requires that this he doth constantly or daily twice the old rule being very reasonable viz. Beneficium requirit officium the temporal benefits received by the Clergy require spiritual office The first is daily and so should the second also be And this is no such innovation as the contrary that the Priest should have nothing to do but when he preaches or that he should pray and offer to God as liketh best every single Christian which is impossible and ridiculous and an intolerable presumption in any man to prescribe to their Minister how he should minister to them when he is lawfully prescribed his duty before and if he were not he ought to prescribe to others not of the same order with himself and not take Laws from them which is the corruptest and modernest of all Innovations But the Recitation of the Office by the Priest is a constitution of above a thousand years standing according Barthol Gavantus in Rubricam Brev. Tom. 2. Sect. 2. c. 5. Tit. 1. Compilatio Chronolog ad An. 490. to the account of them who set it Jowest Sigebert in his Chronicle affirmeth it began in the year 540 as Gavantus out of him But I find another Chronologer to place it in the year 490 saying Anastasius the fifty second Pope ordained that no Clergyman should omit his Divine Office the office of the Mass or Eucharist only excepted And therefore with excellent wisdom and advice it is in these words prescribed by the Church before the Liturgy All Priests and Deacons are to say daily the Morning and Evening Prayer either privately or openly not being let by sickness or some other urgent cause And surely as there is an Obligation upon Priests to use these prayers there must be implied an obligation in all the true sons of the Church to be present at them and to joyn with the Priest Which because it cannot be expected that all men well inclin'd should be always in a capacity to do the Priest doubtless may comply with the exigencies of others so it be not to the pre judice of the Publique And now considering also the many extraordinary days of Festivals and ordinary days of Fasting wherein especial obligation lies upon all Good Christians so far as they can without justifiable impediment to appear in the house of God and worship him not omitting their personal and private devotions at home and comparing the same with the practice of Puritans who are so strangely deluded with the great vertue of a Sermon and extemporary prayers at home that it goes quite against the hair if not conscience of them to visit Gods house upon the account of prayers and adoration only let it be fairly judged whether they have such cause to insult over our Religion and not be ashamed of their gross defects and dissonancy from all that ever professed Christianity before their days Will their bold pretences to Giftedness think they in their rare way of worship cover these foul blemishes from God when they do not from men But this upon the occasion of the contrary abuse of times in order to Religion wherein the Româ—n Church hath exceeded and departed from the practice of the Ancient Church which indeed had some other solemn times of worship before the fourth Century besides Sundays and Easter day but very Erasinus in Matth. 11. v. 30. Id. in Romanos cap. 14. 5. few Truly and learnedly saith Erasmus upon Matthew The Age of Hieromne knew very few Feasts except the Lords day And in another place he writes thus With the Jews some days were prophane and some days holy but with the Christians every day is equally this he speaks according to the sense of Origen not excepting the Lords day holy Not that Festivals are not to be observed which the holy Fathers instituted afterward to the more commodious assembling of Christian People and to the worship of God but that they were very few to wit The Lords day Easter and Pentecost and some such like reckoned up by Hieromne But I know not whether it be expedient to add Feast upon Feast especially since we see the manners of Christians to come to that pass that so much reason as there was of old to institute them for pieties sake so great seems there to be to antiquitate them Thus he And this hath been the opinion of the Church of England and the course taken in the Reforming the abuse in the number of them And a second abuse hath been pared off by us seen in the end of them which is rather to the honour of Saints than of God or Christ among Papists I know at the long run as we may so speak they ascribe in their doctrine all to God but not half of them have this sense and little or nothing many times comes from them but what is directed to the Saint they then worship Bishop Whitgift doth distinguish ours from theirs many ways This one shall suffice at present out of him Neither Whit gifts Answer to the admonition pag. 175. are they Holy days called by the name
assaults by such arguments as above said are disown'd and rejected as inconsistent with all Order in Christs Church and more severe exactions of obedience maintained than they groaned under before Then are these texts of force which otherwise signifie nothing or are eluded with a sigh a wry look sad complaint and a profession that they would submit but that their Consciences will not suffer them their consciences being so stated as never to accept of any Rule but their own Christ saith He that heareth you heareth me and he that heareth me heareth him that sent Heb. 13. 17. me And to the Hebrews Obey them that have the Rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give an account c. And our Saviour Christ in St. Matthew alloweth so much uncharitableness if we may so call it and not justice rather to them that shall not hear the Church which is certainly to stand to the determinations of the Church as to number them among Publicans and Heathens Mat. 18. 17. And this obedience is much illustrated by that required in civil Matters in the Scriptures Children obey your Parents in the Lord saith St. Paul And honor your Father and Mother saith the Decalogue which the Ephes 5. 1. greatest opposers of obedience in practise cannot choose in their expositions of that commandement to extend to Civil and Ecclesiastical as well as Natural Parents And St. Paul to the Colossians saith farther Children obey your Parents in all things And Servants obey your Masters in all things But the misery and mischief is that what St. Paul in his sixth Chapter to the Ephesians v. 1. used and intended as an argument to induce Col. 3. 20 21. men to obedience is with wonted boldness and violence perverted against obedience St. Paul saith Obey in the Lord that is for Gods sake and because God doth more require this of Christians as they have greater and sounder knowledg of God than have other men For thus St. Peters words corresponding with St. Pauls advise Submit your selves to 1 Pet. 2. 13. every ordinance of man for the Lordssake that is as we have shewed before Humane Creature in authority by God And the reason hereof is rendred presently after For so is the will of God These obligations 15. and enforcements of this duty of obedience are from this Restriction they are pleased to understand here In the Lord and for Gods sake quite nulled and baffled to nothing For every thing that comes into their mind contrarying the degrees and commands of their Superiors are presently made Canonical Scripture with them and so an absolute dispensation from all obligatoriness as to their persons at least of the Precepts of their Superiors And whereas we have heard the Law of God so general and express for honouring and obeying our Governors that very rarely and then only upon very weighty Causes and Grounds a good Christian fearing to displease God in one law of his as well as another would scruple nothing more than disobedience Now innumerable and those most empty and frivolous exceptions are framed to our selves for the qualifying us for disobedience For what can be more monstrous and ridiculous at the same time than when we are pressed so hard with the innocency at least of the thing lawfully required which was ever looked upon as sufficient ground of Obedience to lawful Powers that we have no more to oppose we shelter our selves under this umbrage My mind and conscience is set against it though it cannot be said why but only So it is therefore I cannot do it and therefore you may look for subjection and obedience where you can get it which is just no where and in nothing if this be good reason or religion But there is much worse and unbeseeming a tollerable heathen behind which out of Principles of disorder ruine and confusion professes that no Obedience is due to Ecclesiastical Superiors in such things as you cannot bring proofs of Scripture that God requires them So that they will obey God and who but they with a vengeance but man not at all For if you bring Scripture for what you require and they cannot pick a hole in it nor evade it which were very strange and unheard of in these dayes then they will most freely submit and obey but not you notwithstanding but God who requires it But if you come only with the general Rules and Precepts of Obedience and argue from the Power God hath given those in authority to order and dispose all things extrinsecal to the Faith for the more uniform and charitable walking with God in doctrine and worship then think they themselves absolved from any duty but that of resisting such attempts upon them And which was never in the heart of any Heathen Heretique or Schismatique before late dayes and much less in the mouth a Principle directly contrary to nature as well as Grace is wickedly taken up and impudently professed That because a thing is commanded and that by their lawful Superiors they must not do it otherwise possibly they might and would And now is the matter no longer a Mystery of iniquity but such Impudency as though the Devil be not ashamed to put these men upon such unnatural and un-Christian dogms yet I question whether he would not blush to profess so much himself openly For surely to him that hath any fear of God or reverence to men this is and ought to be a firm and constant principle To obey all that are in authority over him not usurping that Power in all things which are not expresly contrary to the word of God And the questions wherein these mens Religion and learning lye chiefly are quite from the purpose when to withdraw obedience they ask Whether such a thing is necessary to Salvation or not which is required thinking they are free if it be answered No. For though the thing it self be not necessary to Salvation the obedience may And disobedience may certainly damn those whom in such Cases Obedience would not certainly save Again we see no reason to lay aside that excellent and ancient distinction of things necessary and profitable to Salvation or if not absolutely to Salvation to Charity and Edification mentioned by Ivo Carnotensis And even these are to be observed and Vid. Ivonem Caâ—not Praef. ad Decret that for their own sake and Churches sake requiring them as well as the others though not in the same degree of obedience or necessity It is received as part of the Greek Churches Canon-Law what Nicephorus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Juris Graec. Rom. l. 5. P. 344. answered to the demand of Theodosius a Monk objecting that men generally could not endure so much as to hear of the Canonical Precepts of the Church This ill becomes your Vertue For they who will not admit of such are no wayes of the Party of Christians And it was of old
there was no intention to divide that Period into two Precepts For then in all probability the Persons should have been ranked by themselves and the Goods by themselves so to distinguish them but no heed being given to this no intention seems to be for that To this they answer most colourably That in Deuteronomy the order is otherwise Coveting ones Neighbours wife being first prohibited and Deut. 5. 21. that the Law as there repeated and revised is to be a President to us But first the contrary to this is most true That the Law was more exactly delivered in Exodus than in Deuteronomie in all those points which are in common to them as hath been shewed out of Grotius For Deuteronomy according to its Name being indeed a Repetition in a compendious manner of what was more expresly and at large handled in the four first Books of Moses it cannot be supposed but many if not all things should be in them more plainly and accurately treated of than in this For as St. Augustine Evangelista autem Lucas in oratione Dominicà Petitiones non septem sed quinque complexus est c. Aug. Enchirid ad Laurent cap. 115. hath observed of the diverse manner of reciting the Lords Prayer in Saint Matthews Gospel and St. Lukes St. Matthew setting down seven Petitions and St. Luke but five and thereupon directs us to make St. Matthews words the Rule of understanding St. Lukes So questionless where a thing in the Pentateuch is more distinctly and fully expressed there ought we to take our measures for the interpretation of what is more confusedly or breifly rehearsed elsewhere and by consequence the Law in Deuteronomy is to be regulated by that of Exodus But farther The order of persons or things is not in Deuteronomie observed For first it is said Thou shalt not desire thy Neighbours Wife then Neither shalt thou covet thy Neighbours House and then follows his Servants and then again his Goods which shew that God would not have us too rigorously to seek for methods in his word but matter Therefore the sum of all is this That God knowing how imperfect mans understanding was in the matter wherein his senses were concerned and how willing he was to be deceived and ignorant of his duty and lastly how prone a man is to proceed from evil thoughts to evil deeds he doth here inform his people in an higher point of Sobriety and Justice than Gentile Philosophers or common light of Nature could direct men For Saint Paul saith he had not known lust to be a sin except the Law had said Thou Rom. 7. 7. Matth. 5. 28. shalt not covet And our Saviour in the Gospel interdicteth all vain and lascivious looks whereby Lust may be conceived The reason of all which is this because as the Scripture often intimates unto us God accepteth the heart for the act and the will for the deed where there is a defect of power to bring things to perfection which are righteous and holy so doth God judge that Evil to be done against him which is so conceived and resolved upon in the mind as to want nothing but ability and opportunity to put in execution For as an holy Father saith No man is righteous who cannot do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil Mag. Per hoc etiamsi minora mala faciant quia minus possunt non minus tamen mali sunt quia nollent minus esse si pâ—ssent amiss And as another speaks of wicked mens inclinations By this though peradventure they commit less evil they are no less evil because they would not be less wicked if they could tell how to shift it Thus Salvian And necessary was this Commandment not only for the reasons now given but also for the general pronity of all men to fall into this sin All men naturally having this unnatural called sometimes for the commonness Natural Concupiscence in them inclining and urging them to evil none but Christ himself not the Virgin Mary being exempted from it in the root and first seed called Original sin But Original sin is not here forbidden as that which surprises a man inevitably and cannot possibly be prevented but the actuating or drawing that evil principle which lurks in our nature forth Neque enim ea dimitti nobis volumus quae dimissa non dubitamus in baptismo sed illa c. Aug. Epist 108 to particular evil motions of the will For as St. Austine hath observed We do not pray God to forgive us those sins which we doubt not but are forgiven in baptism but those which through human frailty creep upon us unawares which though small are frequent So are we not here advised to pray against or resist Original sin which is irresistible but the vermine of evil thoughts which are apt to breed in the remains of natural Concupiscence as Snakes in a dunghil which coming to get strength creep out in evil outward acts to the endangering of the soul Hence it is that the Scriptures exhort us to avoid the occasions and resist the Devil at first and by Faith to quench these fiery darts of the Devil that shall be shot into our souls with some of which proper and useful means so to do I shall conclude this Chapter First the outward occasions of wicked thoughts are carefully and resolutely to be avoided such as are Idleness evil Objects evil Authours and evil Company Secondly Not to give way to the least friendly entertainment to the first motions or injections of the Tempter but crush the Cockatrice egg and quench the spark and growing flame at the very first For as when an enemy without throws in a Granado into a Fort to ruin it if they within take it up presently and throw it back again before it breaks it confounds the Enemy rather then them in the Fort so do evil thoughts cast into the Soul by the Devil rather torment him than hurt the Soul when they are rejected suddainly and cast out Thirdly By being instant and fervent Wisd 8. 21. Matth. 17. 21. in prayer whereby God is called to the assistance of the labouring Soul as some good hand by crying out is ready to pull out one sinking in waters Fourthly Imploying a mans self constantly and carefully in some laudable and profitable actions much secures him from the vain illusions of the mind from whence do spring that Lust of the Flesh Lust of the Eyes and Pride of Life against which St. John warns us and all which with their particular branches are forbidden by this last Commandment CHAP. XXI Of Superstition contrary to the true Worship of God and Christian Obedience AS Heresie is a corruption of the Faith or Doctrine of the Church and Schism of its Unity and Christian Communion so necessary to its well being so is Superstition a degeneration and corruption of the true worship of God now last spoken of And therefore as to the more compleat