would prove at least tedious and therefore I shall impose upon my Reason no more then two which shall immediately follow and by which he may judge of the rest Mr. Travers excepted against Mr. Hooker for that in one of his Sermons be declared That the assurance of what we believe by the Word of God is not to us so certain as that which we perceive by Sense And Mr. Hooker confesseth he said so and endeavors to justifie it by the Reasons following First I taught That the things which God promises in his Word are surer to us then what we touch handle or see But are we so sure and certain of them If we be Why doth God so often prove his Promises to us as he doth by Arguments drawn from our sensible experience For we must be surer of the proof then of the things proved otherwise it is no proof For example How is it that many men looking on the Moon at the sametime every one knoweth it to be the Moon as certainly as the other doth But many believing one and the same Promise have not all one and the same fulness of Perswassion For how falleth it out that men being assured of any thing by Sense can be no surer of it then they are when at the strongest in Faith that liveth upon the Earth hath always need to labor strive and pray that his assurance concerning Heavenly and Spiritual things may grow increase and be augmented The Sermon that gave him the cause of this his Justification makes the case more plain by declaring That there is besides this certainly of Evidence a certainty of Adherence In which having most excellently demonstrated what the Certainty of Adherence is he makes this comfortable use of it Comfortable he says as to weak Believers who suppose themselves to be faithless not to believe when notwithstanding they have their Adherence the Holy Spirit hath his private operations and worketh secretly in them and effectually too though they want the inward Testimony of it Tell this to a Man that hath a minde too much dejected by a sad sense of his sin to one that by a too severe judging of himself concludes that he wants Faith because he wants the comfortable Assurance of it and his Answer will be Do not perswade me against my knowledge against what I finde and feel in my self I do not I know I do not believe Mr. Hookers own words follow Well then to favor such men a little in their weakness let that be granted which they do imagine be it that they adhere not to Gods promises but are faithless and without belief But are they not grieved for their unbelief They confess they are Do they not wish it might and also strive that it may be otherways We know they do Whence cometh this but from a secret love and liking that they have of those things believed For no man can love those things which in his own opinion are not And if they think those things to be which they shew they love when they desire to believe them then must it be that by desiring to believe they prove themselves true Believers For without Faith no man thinketh that things believed are Which Argument all the Subtilties of Infernal Powers will never be able to dissolve This is an Abridgment of part of the Reasons he gives for his Justification of this his opinion for which he was excepted against by Mr. Travers Mr. Hooker was also accused by Mr. Travers for that he in one of his Sermons had declared That he doubted not but that God was merciful to save many of our Forefathers living heretofore in Popish Superstition for as much as they sinned ignorantly And Mr. Hooker in his Answer professeth it to be his judgment and declares his Reasons for this charitable opinion to be as followeth But first he states the Question about Iustification and Works and how the Foundation of Faith is overthrown and then he proceeds to discover that way which Natural Men and some others have mistaken to be the way by which they hope to attain true and everlasting Happiness And having discovered the mistaken he proceeds to direct to that true way by which and no other Everlasting Life and Blessedness is attainable And these two ways he demonstrates thus they be his own words that follow That the way of Nature This the way of Grace the end of that way Salvation merited presupposing the Righteousness of Mens works Their Righteousness a natural ability to do them that ability the goodness of God which created them in such perfection But the end of this way Salvation bestowed upon men as a gift Presupposing not their Righteousness but the forgiveness of their Unrighteousness Iustification their Iustification not their natural ability to do good but their hearty sorrow for not doing and unfeigned belief in him for whose sake not doers are accepted which is their Vocation their Vocation the Election of God taking them out of the number of lost Children their Election a Mediator in whom to be elect This Mediation inexplicable Mercy this Mercy supposing their misery for whom be vouchsafed to die and make himself a Mediator And he also declareth There is no meritorious cause for our Iustification but Christ no effectual but his Mercy and says also We deny the Grace of our Lord Iesus Christ we abuse disannul and annihilate the benefit of his Passion if by a proud imagination we believe we can merit everlasting life or can be worthy of it This Belief he declareth is to destroy the very Essence of our Justification and he makes all opinions that border upon this to be very dangerous Tet nevertheless and for this he was accused considering how many vertuous and just Men how many Saints and Martyrs have had their dangerous opinions amongst which this was one That they hoped to make God some part of amends by voluntary punishments which they laid upon themselves Because by this or the like erroneous opinions which do by consequene overthrow the Merits of Christ shall Man be so bold as to write on their Graves Such men are damned there is for them no Salvation St. Austin says Errare possum Hareticus esse nolo And except we put a difference betwixt them that erre ignorantly and them that obstinately persist in it how is it possible that any Man should hope to be saved Give me a Pope or a Cardinal whom great afflictions have made to know himself whose heart God hath touched with true sorrow for all his sins and filled with a love of Christ and his Gospel whose Eyes are willingly open to see the Truth and his Mouth ready to renounce all Error this one opinion of Merit excepted which he thinketh God will require at his hands and because he wanteth trembleth and is discouraged and yet can say Lord cleanse me from all my secret sins Shall I think because of this or a like Error such men touch not so
other saith That the old did onely shadow Grace which was afterward to be given through the passion of Iesus Christ. But the after-wit of latter daies hath found out another more exquisite distinction That Evangelical Sacraments are causes to effect Grace through motions of signes legal according to the same signification and sense wherein Evangelical Sacraments are held by us to be God's Instruments for that purpose For howsoever Bellarmine hath shrunk up the Lutherans sinews and cut off our Doctrine by the skirts Allen although he terms us Hereticks according to the usual bitter venom of his first style doth yet ingenuously confess That the old School-mens Doctrine and ours is one concerning Sacramental efficacy derived from God himself assisting by promise those outward signes of Elements and Words out of which their School-men of the newer mint are so desirous to hatch Grace Where God doth work and use these outward means wherein he neither findeth nor planteth force and aptnesse towards his intended purpose such means are but signes to bring men to the consideration of his Omnipotent Power which without the use of things sensible would not be marked At the time therefore when he giveth his Heavenly Grace he applyeth by the hands of his Ministers that which betokeneth the same nor only betokeneth but being also accompanied for ever with such Power as doth truly work is in that respect termed God's Instrument a true efficient cause of Grace a cause not in it self but onely by connexion of that which is in it self a cause namely God's own Strength and Power Sacraments that is to say the outward signes in Sacraments work nothing till they be blessed and sanctified by God But what is God's Heavenly Benediction and Sanctification saving onely the association of his Spirit Shall we say that Sacraments are like Magical signes if thus they have their effect Is it Magick for God to manifest by things sensible what he doth and to do by his most glorious Spirit really what he manifesteth in his Sacraments The delivery and administration whereof remaineth in the hands of mortal men by whom as by personal Instruments God doth apply signes and with signes inseparably joyn his Spirit and through the power of his Spirit work Grace The first is by way of concomitance and consequence to deliver the rest also that either accompany or ensue It is not here as in Cases of mutual Commerce where divers Persons have divers acts to be performed in their own behalf a Creditor to shew his Bill and a Debtor to pay his Money But God and Man doe here meet in one Action upon a Third in whom as it is the work of God to create Grace so it is his work by the hand of the Ministry to apply a sign which should betoken and his work to annex that Spirit which shall effect it The Action therefore is but one God the Author thereof and Man a Co-partner by him assigned to work for with and under him God the Giver of Grace by the outward Ministery of man so farr forth as he authorizeth man to apply the Sacraments of Grace in the Soul which he alone worketh without either Instrument or Co-agent Whereas therefore with us the remission of Sinne is ascribed unto God as a thing which proceedeth from him only and presently followeth upon the vertue of true Repentance appearing in man that which we attribute to the vertue they do not only impute to the Sacrament of Repentance but having made Repentance a Sacrament and thinking of Sacraments as they do they are enforced to make the Ministry of the Priests and their Absolution a cause of that which the sole Omnipotency of God worketh And yet for my own part I am not able well to conceive how their Doctrine That human Absolution is really a cause out of which our Deliverance from Sinne doth ensue can cleave with the Council of Trent defining That Contrition perfected with Charity doth at all times it self reconcile offenders to God before they come to receive actually the Sacrament of Penance How it can stand with those Discourses of the learned Rabbies which grant That whosoever turneth unto God with his whole heart hath immediately his Sinnes taken away That if a man he truly converted his Pardon can neither be denyed nor delayed It doth not stay for the Priest's Absolution but presently followeth Surely if every contrite Sinner in whom there is Charity and a sincere conversion of Heart have Remission of Sinnes given him before he seek it at the Priest's hands if reconciliation to God be a present and immediate sequel upon every such Conversion or Change It must of necessity follow seeing no man can be a true Penitent or Contrite which doth not both love God and sincerely abhor Sinne that therefore they all before Absolution attain Forgivenesse whereunto notwithstanding Absolution is pretended a Cause so necessary that Sinne without it except in some rare extraordinary Case cannot possibly be remitted Shall Absolution be a Cause producing and working that Effect which is alwayes brought forth without it and had before Absolution be thought of But when they which are thus before-hand pardoned of God shall come to be also assoiled by the Priest I would know what force his Absolution hath in this case Are they able to say here that the Priest doth remit any thing Yet when any of ours ascribeth the Work of Remission to God and interpreteth the Priests Sentence to be but a solemn Declaration of that which God himself hath already performed they scorn at it they urge against it that if this were true our Saviour Christ should rather have said What is loosed in Heaven ye shall loose on Earth then as he doth Whatsoever ye loose on Earth shall in Heaven be loosed As if he were to learn of us how to place his words and not we to crave rather of him a sound and right understanding lest to his dishonour and our own hurt we mis-expound them It sufficeth I think both against their constructions to have proved that they ground an untruth on his speech and in behalf of our own that his words without any such transposition do very well admit the sense we give them which is that he taketh to himself the lawfull proceedings of Authority in his Name and that the Act of Spiritual Authority in this case is by Sentence to acquit or pronounce them free from sinne whom they judge to be sincerely and truly penitent which Interpretation they themselves do acknowledge though not sufficient yet very true Absolution they say declareth indeed but this is not all for it likewise maketh innocent which addition being an untruth proved our truth granted hath I hope sufficiency without it and consequently our opinion therein neither to be challenged as untrue nor as unsufficient To rid themselves out of these Bryars and to make Remission of Sinnes an effect of Absolution notwithstanding that which hitherto hath been said
than perhaps it seemeth to them which know not the deepnesse of Satan as the blessed Divine speaketh For although this be proof sufficient that they doe not directly deny the foundation of Faith yet if there were no other leaven in the lump of their Doctrine but this this were sufficient to prove that their Doctrine is not agreeable to the foundation of Christian Faith The Pelogians being over-great friends unto Nature made themselves Enemies unto Grace for all their confessing that men have their Souls and all the faculties thereof their wills and all the ability of their wills from God And is not the Church of Rome still an Adversary unto Christ's Merits because of her acknowledging that we have received the power of meriting by the blood of Christ Sir Thomas Moor setteth down the odds between us and the Church of Rome in the matter of Works thus Like as we grant them that no good work of man is rewardable in Heaven of its own nature but through the meer goodnesse of God that lists in set so high a price upon so poor a thing and that this price God setteth through Christ's Passion and for that also they be his own Works with us for good works to God-word worketh no man without God work in him and as we grant them also that no man may be proud of his works for his imperfect working and for that in all that man may doe he can doe God no good but is a Servant unprofitable and doth but his bare duty as we I say grant unto them these things so this one things or twain doe they grant us again That men are bound to work good works if they have time and power and that whose worketh in true faith most shall be most rewarded but then set they thereto That all his Rewards shall be given him for his Faith alone and nothing for his Works at all because his Faith is the thing they say that forceth him to work well I see by this of Sir Thomas Moor how easie it is for men of the greatest capacity to mistake things written or spoken as well on the one side as on the other Their Doctrine as he thought maketh the work of man rewardable in the World to come through the goodnesse of God whom it pleased to set so high a price upon so poor a thing and ours that a man doth receive that eternal and high reward not for his Works but for his Faiths sake by which he worketh whereas in truth our Doctrine is no other than that we have learned at the feet of Christ namely That God doth justifie the believing man yet not for the worthinesse of his belief but for the worthinesse of him which is believed God rewardeth abundantly every one which worketh yet not for any meritorious dignity which is or can be in the Work but through his mere mercy by whose Commandment he worketh Contrariwise their Doctrine is That as pure Water of it self hath no savour but if it passe through a sweet Pipe it taketh a pleasant smell of the Pipe through which it passeth so although before Grace received our Works doe neither satisfie nor merit yet after they doe both the one and the other Every vertuous Action hath then power in such to satisfie that if we our selves commit no mortal sinne no hainous crime whereupon to spend this treasure of satisfaction in our own behalf it turneth to the benefit of other mens release on whom it shall please the Steward of the House of God to bestow it so that we may satisfie for our selves and others but merit onely for our selves In meriting our Actions do work with two hands with one they get their morning stipend the encrease of Grace with the other their evening hire the everlasting Crown of Glory Indeed they teach that our good Works doe not these things as they come from us but as they come from Grace in us which Grace in us is another thing in their Divinity than is the mere goodnesse of God's mercy towards us in Christ Jesus 34. If it were not a long deluded Spirit which hath possession of their Hearts were it possible but that they should see how plainly they doe herein gain-say the very ground of Apostolick Faith Is this that Salvation by Grace whereof so plentiful mention is made in the Scriptures of God Was this their meaning which first taught the World to look for Salvation onely by Christ By Grace the Apostle saith and by Grace in such sort as a Gift a thing that commeth not of our selves nor of our Works lest any man should boast and say I have wrought out my own Salvation By Grace they confesse but by Grace in such sort that as many as wear the Diadem of Blisse they wear nothing but what they have won The Apostle as if he had foreseen how the Church of Rome would abuse the World in time by ambiguous terms to declare in what sense the name of Grace must be taken when we make it the cause of our Salvation saith He saved us according to his mercy which mercy although it exclude not the washing of our new birth the renewing of our Hearts by the Holy Ghost the Means the Vertues the Duties which God requireth of our hands which shall be saved yet it is so repugnant unto Merits that to say We are saved for the worthiness of any thing which is ours is to deny we are saved by Grace Grace bestoweth freely and therefore justly requireth the glory of that which is bestowed We deny the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we abuse disanul and annihilate the benefit of his bitter passion if we test in these proud imaginations that life is deservedly ours that we merit it and that we are worthy of it 35. Howbeit considering how many vertuous and just men how many Saints how many Martyrs how many of the Antient Fathers of the Church have had their sundry perilous Opinions and amongst sundry of their Opinions this that they hoped to make God some part of amends for their sinnes by the voluntary punishment which they laid upon themselves because by a Consequent it may follow hereupon that they were injurious unto Christ shall we therefore make such deadly Epitaphs and set them upon their Graves They denied the foundation of Faith directly they are damned there is no Salvation for them Saint Austin saith of himself Errare passum Hareticus isse nolo And except we put a difference between them that erre and them that obstinately persist in Errour how is it possible that ever any man should hope to be saved Surely in this Case I have no respect of any Person either alive or dead Give me a man of what estate or condition soever yea a Cardinal or a Pope whom in the extreme point of his life affliction hath made to know himself whose heart God hath touched with true sorrow for all his sinnes and filled with love
as dust we may be brought at the length to esteem vilely that Spiritual Blisse Christ in Matth. 6. to correct this evil affection putteth us in minde to lay up treasure for our selves in Heaven The Apostle â— Tim. Chapter 3. misliking the vanity of those Women which attired themselves more costly than beseemed the Heavenly Calling of such as professed the fear of God willeth them to cloath themselves with Shamefastnesse and Modesty and to put on the Apparel of Good works Taliter pigmentata Deum habehitis amatorem saith Tertullian Put on Righteousnesse as a Garment instead of Civit have Faith which may cause a savour of life to issue from you and God shall be enamoured he shall be ravished with your beauty These are the Ornaments and Bracelets and Jewels which inflame the love of Christ and set his heart on fire upon his Spouse We see how he breaketh out in the Canticles at the beholding of this attire How fair art thou and how pleasant art thou O my Love in these pleasures 9. And perhaps St. Iude exhorteth us here not to build our Houses but our selves foreseeing by the Spirit of the Almighty which was with him that there should be men in the last days like to those in the first which should encourage and stir up each other to make Brick and to burn it in the fire to build Houses huge as Cities and Towers as high as Heaven thereby to get them a name upon Earth men that should turn out the poor and the Fatherless and the Widow to build places of rest for Dogs and Swine in their rooms men that should lay Houses of Prayer even with the ground and make them Stables where God's people have worshipped before the Lord. Surely this is a vanity of all vanities and it is much amongst men a special sicknesse of this age What it should mean I know not except God have set them on work to provide fewel against that day when the Lord Jesus shall shew himself from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire What good cometh unto the owners of these things saith Solomon but onely the beholding thereof with their eyes Martha Martha thou busiest thy self about many things One thing is necessary Ye are too busie my Brethren with Timber and Brick they have chosen the better part they have taken a better course that build themselves Ye are the Temples of the living God as God hath said I will dwell in them and will walk in them and they shall be my People and I will be their God 10. Which of you will gladly remain or abide in a mishapen a ruinous or a broken House And shall we suffer sinne and vanity to drop in at our eyes and at our ears and at every corner of our Bodies and of our Souls knowing that we are the Temples of the Holy Ghost which of you receiveth a Guest whom he honoureth or whom he loveth and doth not sweep his Chamber against his coming And shall we suffer the Chambers of our Hearts and Consciences to lye full of vomiting full of filth full of garbidge knowing that Christ hath said I and my Father will come and dwell with you Is it meet for your Oxen to lye in Parlors and your selves to lodge in Cribs Or is it seemly for your selves to dwell in your seiled houses and the House of the Almighty to lye waste whose House ye are yourselves Do not our eys behold how God every day overtaketh the wicked in their Journeys how suddenly they pop down into the Pit how God's judgements for their Crimes come so swiftly upon them that they have not the leisure to cry Alas how their life is cutt off like a thred in a moment how they passe like a shadow how they open their mouths to speak and God taketh them even in the midst of a vain or an idle Word And dare we for all this lye down take our rest eat our meat securely and carelesly in the midst of so great and so many ruines Blessed and praised for ever and ever be his Name who perceiving of how senseless and heavy metal we are made hath instituted in his CHURCH a Spiritual Supper and an Holy Communion to be Celebrated often That we might thereby be occasioned often to examine these Buildings of ours in what case they stand For sith God doth not dwell in Temples which are unclean sith a Shrine cannot be a Sanctuary unto him and this Supper is received as a Seal unto us that we are his House and his Sanctuary that his Christ is as truly united to me and I to him as my arm is united and knit unto my shoulder that he dwelleth in me as verily as the elements of Bread and Wine abide within me which perswasion by receiving these dreadful mysteries we profess our selves to have a due comfort if truly and if in hypocrisie then wo worth us Therefore ere we put forth our hands to take this blessed Sacrament we are charged to examine and to try our hearts whether God be in us of a truth or no and if by Faith and love unfeigned we be found the Temples of the Holy Ghost then to judge whether we have had such regard every one to our building that the Spirit which dwelleth in us hath no way been vexed molested and grieved or if it have as no doubt sometimes it hath by incredulity sometimes by breach of charity sometimes by want of zeal sometimes by spots of life even in the best and most perfect amongst us for who can say his heart is clean O then to fly unto God by unfeigned repentance to fall down before him in the humility of our Souls begging of him whatsoever is needful to repair our decays before we fall into that desolation whereof the Prophet speaketh saying Thy breach is great like the Sea who can heal thee 11. Receiving the Sacrament of the Supper of the Lord after this sort you that are Spiritual judge what I speak is not all other Wine like the Water of Merah being compared to the Cup which we bless Is not Manna like to gall and our bread like to Manna Is there not a taste a taste of Christ Jesus in the heart of him that eateth Doth not he which drinketh behold plainly in this Cup that his Soul is bathed in the blood of the Lamb O beloved in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ if ye will taste how sweet the Lord is if ye will receive the King of Glory Build your selves 12. Young men I speak this to you for ye are his House because by Faith ye are Conquerors over Satan and have overcome that evil Fathers I speak it also to you ye are his House because ye have known him who is from the beginning Sweet Babes I speak it even to you also ye are his House because your sinnes are forgiven you for his names sake Matrons and Sisters I may not hold it from you ye are also
which Admonitions all that I mean to say is but this There will come a time when three words uttered with Charity and Meekness shall receive a far more blessed Reward then three thousand Volumns written with disdainful sharpness of Wit But the manner of Mens Writings must not alienate our hearts from the Truth if it appear they have the Truth as the Followers of the same Defender do think he hath and in that perswasion they follow him no otherwise then himself doth Calvin Beza and others with the like perswasion that they in this cause had the Truth We being as fully perswaded otherwise it resteth that some kinde of tryal be used to finde out which part is in error 3. The first mean whereby Nature teacheth men to judge good from evil as well in Laws as in other things is the force of their own discretion Hereunto therefore St. Paul referreth oftentimes his own speech to be considered of by them that heard him I speak as to them which have understanding Judge ye what I say Again afterward Judge in your selves is it comly that a woman pray uncovered The exercise of this kinde of judgment our Saviour requireth in the Iews In them of Berea the Scripture commendeth it Finally Whatsoever we do if our own secret judgment consent not unto it as fit and good to be done the doing of it to us is sin although the thing it self be allowable St. Pauls rule therefore generally is Let every man in his own minde be fully perswaded of that thing which he either alloweth or doth Some things are so familiar and plain that Truth from Falshood and Good from Evil is most easily discerned in them even by men of no deep capacity And of that nature for the most part are things absolutely unto all Mens salvation necessary either to he held or denied either to be done or avoided For which cause St. Augustine acknowledgeth that they are not onely set down but also plainly set down in Scripture So that he which heareth or readeth may without any great difficulty understand Other things also there are belonging though in a lower degree of importance unto the offices of Christian men Which because they are more obscure more intricate and hard to be judged of therefore God hath appointed some to spend their whole time principally in the study of things Divine to the end that in these more doubtful cases their understanding might be a light to direct others If the understanding power or faculty of the Soul be saith the Grand Physitian like unto bodily sight not of equal sharpness in all What can be more convenient then that even as the dark-sighted man is directed by the clear about things visible so likewise in matters of deeper discourse the wise in heart do shew the simple where his way lieth In our doubtful Cases of Law what man is there who seeth not how requisite it is that Professors of skill in that Faculty be our Directors so it is in all other kindes of knowledge And even in this kinde likewise the Lord hath himself appointed That the Priests lips should preserve knowledge and that other men should seek the truth at his mouth because he is the Messenger of the Lord of Hosts Gregory Nazianzen offended at the peoples too great presumption in controlling the judgment of them to whom in such cases they should have rather submitted their own seeketh by earnest entreaty to stay them within their bounds Presume not ye that are Sheep to make your selves Guides of them that should guide you neither seek ye to overslip the fold which they about you have pitched It sufficeth for your part if ye can well frame your selves to be ordered Take not upon you to judge your selves nor to make them subject to your Laws who should be a Law to you for God is not a God of Sedition and Confusion but of Order and of Peace But ye will say that if the Guides of the people be blinde the common sort of men must not close up their own eyes and be led by the conduct of such If the Priest be partial in the Law the flock must not therefore depart from the ways of sincere Truth and in simplicity yield to be followers of him for his place sake and office over them Which thing though in it self most true is in your defence notwithstanding weak because the matter wherein ye think that ye see and imagine that your ways are sincere is of far deeper consideration then any one amongst Five hundred of you conceiveth Let the vulgar sort among you know that there is not the least branch of the Cause wherein they are so resolute but to the tryal of it a great deal more appertaineth then their conceit doth reach unto I write not this in disgrace of the simplest that way given but I would gladly they knew the nature of that cause wherein they think themselves throughly instructed and are not by means whereof they daily run themselves without feeling their own hazzard upon the dint of the Apostles sentence against evil speakers as touching things wherein they are ignorant If it be granted a thing unlawful for private men not called unto Publick Consultation to dispute which is the best State of Civil Policy with a desire of bringing in some other kinde them that under which they already live for of such Disputes I take it his meaning was If it be a thing confest that of such Questions they cannot determine without rashness in as much as a great part of them consisteth in special Circumstances and for one kinde as many Reasons may be brought as for another Is there any reason in the World why they should better judge what kinde of Regiment Ecclesiastical is the fittest For in the Civil State more insight and in those affairs more experience a great deal must needs be granted them then in this they can possibly have When they which write in defence of your Discipline and commend it unto the Highest not in the least cunning manner are forced notwithstanding to acknowledge That with whom the Truth is they know not they are not certain what certainly or knowledge can the multitude have thereof Weigh what doth move the common sort so much to favor this Innovation and it shall soon appear unto you that the force of particular Reasons which for your several Opinions are alleaged is a thing whereof the multitude never did nor could so consider as to be therewith wholly carried but certain general Inducements are used to make saleable your Cause in gross And when once men have cast a fancy towards it any slight Declaration of Specialties will serve to lead forward mens inclineable and prepared mindes The method of winning the peoples affection unto a general liking of the Cause for so ye term it hath been this First in the hearing of the multitude the faults especially of
in this case ye are all bound for the time to suspend and in otherwise doing ye offend against God by troubling his Church without any just or necessary cause Be it that there are some reasons inducing you to think hardly of our Laws Are those reasons demonstrative are they necessary or but meer probabilities onely An Argument necessary and demonstrative is such as being proposed unto any man and understood she minde cannot chase but invardly assent Any one such reason dischargeth I grant the Gonscience and setteth it at full liberty For the publick approbation given by the Body of this whole Church unto those things which are established doth make it but probable that they are good And therefore unto a necessary proofe that they are not good it must give place But if the skilfullest amongst you can shew that all the Books ye have hitherto written be able to afford any one argument of this nature let the instance be given As for probabilities What thing was there ever set down so agreeable with sound reason but some probable shew against it might be made It is meet that when publickly things are received and have taken place General Obedience thereunto should cease to be exacted in case this or that private person led with some probable conceit should make open Protostation Peter or John disallow them and pronounce them naught In which case your answer will be That concerning the Laws of our Church they are not onely condemned in the opinion of a private man but of thousands year and even of those amongst which divers are in publick charge and authority At though when publick consent of the whole hath established any thing every mans judgment being thereunto compared were not private howsoever his calling be to some kinde of publick charge So that of Peace and Quietness there is not any way possible unless the probable voice of every intire Society or Body Politick over-rule all private of like nature in the same Body Which thing effectually proveth That God being Author of Peace and not of Confusion in the Church must needs be Author of those mens peaceable resolutions who concerning these things have determined with themselves to think and do as the Church they are of decreeth till they see necessary cause enforcing them to the contrary 7. Nor is mine own intent any other in these several Books of discourse then to make it appear unto you that for the Ecclesiastical Laws of this Land we are led by great reason to observe them and ye by no necessity bound to impugne them It is no part of my secret meaning to draw you hereby into hatred or to set upon the face of this cause any fairer gloss then the naked truth doth afford but my whole endeavor is to resolve the Conscience and to shew as near as I can what in this Controversie the Heart is to think if it will follow the light of sound and sincere judgment without either cloud of prejudice or mist of passionate affection Wherefore seeing that Laws and Ordinances in particular whether such as we observe or such as your selves would have established when the minde doth sift and examine them it must needs have often recourse to a number of doubts and questions about the nature kindes and qualities of Laws in general whereof unless it be throughly informed there will appear no certainty to stay our perswasion upon I have for that cause set down in the first place an Introduction on both sides needful to be considered declaring therein what Law is how different kindes of Laws there are and what force they are of according unto each kinde This done because ye suppose the Laws for which ye strive are found in Scripture but those not against which we strive And upon this surmise are drawn to hold it as the very main Pillar of your whole cause That Scripture ought to be the onely rule of all our actions and consequently that the Church Orders which we observe being not commanded in Scripture are offensive and displeasant unto God I have spent the second Book in sifting of this point which standeth with you for the first and chiefest principle whereon ye build Whereunto the next in degree is That as God will have always a Church upon Earth while the World doth continue and that Church stand in need of Government of which Government it behoveth himself to be both the Author and Teacher So it cannot stand with duty That man should ever presume in any wise to change and alter the same and therefore That in Scripture there must of necessity be found some particular Form of Ecclesiastical Polity the Laws whereof admit not any kinde of alteration The first three Books being thus ended the fourth proceedeth from the general Grounds and Foundations of your cause unto your general Accusations against us as having in the orders of our Church for so you pretend Corrupted the right Form of Church Polity with manifold Popish Rites and Ceremonies which certain Reformed Churches have banished from amongst them and have thereby given us such example as you think we ought to follow This your Assertion hath herein drawn us to make search whether these be just Exceptions against the Customs of our Church when ye plead that they are the same which the Church of Rome hath or that they are not the same which some other Reformed Churches have devised Of those four Books which remain and are bestowed about the Specialties of that Cause which little in Controversie the first examineth the causes by you alledged wherefore the publick duties of Christian Religion as our Prayers our Sacraments and the rest should not be ordered in such sort as with us they are nor that power whereby the persons of men are consecrated unto the Ministry be disposed of in such manner as the Laws of this Church do allow The second and third are concerning the power of Iurisdiction the one Whether Laymen such as your Governing Elders are ought in all Congregations for ever to be invested with that power The other Whether Bishops may have that power over other Pastors and therewithal that honor which with us they have And because besides the Power of Order which all consecrated persons have and the Power of Iurisdiction which neither they all nor they onely have There is a third power a Power of Ecclesiastical Dominion communicable as we think unto persons not Ecclesiastical and most fit to be restrained unto the Prince our Soveraign Commander over the whole Body Politick The eighth Book we have allotted unto this Question and have sifted therein your Objections against those preeminences Royal which thereunto appertain Thus have I laid before you the Brief of these my Travels and presented under your view the Limbs of that Cause litigious between us the whole intire Body whereof being thus compact it shall be no troublesome thing for any man to finde each particular Controversies resting place
further made known such Supernatural Lawsâ— as do serve for Mens direction 12. The cause why so many Natural or Rational Laws are set down in holy Scripture 13. The benefit of having Divine Laws written 14. The sufficiency of Scripture unto the end for which it was instituted 15. Of Laws Positive contained in Scripture the Mutability of certain of them and the general use of Scripture 16. A Conclusion shewing how all this belongeth to the Cause in question HE that goeth about to perswade a multitude that they are not so well-governed as they ought to be shall never want attentive and favorable Hearers because they know the manifold defects whereunto every kinde of Regiment is subject but the secret lets and difficulties which in publick proceedings are innumerable and inevitable they have not ordinarily the judgment to consider And because such as openly reprove supposed disorders of State are taken for Principal Friends to the Common Benefit of all and for men that carry singular Freedom of Minde Under this fair and plausible colour whatsoever they utter passeth for good and currant That which wanteth in the weight of their Speech is supplied by the aptness of Mens mindes to accept and believe it Whereas on the other side if we maintain things that are established we have not onely to strive with a number of heavy prejudices deeply rooted in the hearts of men who think that herein we serve the time and speak in favor of the present State because thereby we either hold or seek preferment but also to bear such Exceptions as Mindes so avetted before-hand usually take against that which they are loth should be poured into them Albeit therefore much of that we are to speak in this present Cause may seem to a number perhaps tedious perhaps obscure dark and intricate for many talk of the Truth which never sounded the depth from whence it springeth And therefore when they are led thereunto they are soon weary as men drawn from those beaten paths wherewith they have been inured yet this may not so far prevail as to cut off that which the matter it self requireth howsoever the nice humor of some be therewith pleased or no. They unto whom we shall seem tedious are in no wise injured by us because it is in their own hands to spare that labor which they are not willing to endure And if any complain of obscurity they must consider that in these Matters it cometh no otherwise to pass then in sundry the works both of Art and also of Nature where that which hath greatest force in the very things we see is notwithstanding itself oftentimes not seen The stateliness of Houses the goodliness of Trees when we behold them delighteth the eye but that Foundation which beareth up the one that Root which ministreth unto the other nourishment and life is in the bosome of the Earth concealed and if there be occasion at any time to search into it such labor is then more necessary then pleasant both to them which undertake it and for the lookers on In like manner the use and benefit of good Laws all that live under them may enjoy with delight and comfort albeit the grounds and first original causes from whence they have sprung be unknown as to the greatest part of men they are But when they who withdraw their obedience pretend That the Laws which they should obey are corrupt and vicious For better examination of their quality it behoveth the very Foundation and Root the highest Well-Spring and Fountain of them to be discovered Which because we are not oftentimes accustomed to do when we do it the pains we take are more needful a great deal then acceptable and the Matters which we handle seem by reason of newness till the minde grow better acquainted with them dark intricate and unfamiliar For as much help whereof as may be in this case I have endeavored throughout the Body of this whole Discourse that every former part might give strength unto all that follow and every latter bring some light unto all before So that if the judgments of men do but hold themselves in suspence as touching these first more General Meditations till in order they have perused the rest that ensue what may seem dark at the first will afterwards be found more plain even as the latter particular decisions will appear I doubt not more strong when the other have been read before The Laws of the Church whereby for so many Ages together we have been guided in the Exercise of Christian Religion and the Service of the true God our Rites Customs and Orders of Ecclesiastical Government are called in question We are accused as men that will not have Christ Jesus to rule over them but have wilfully cast his Statutes behinde their backs hating to be reformed and made subject unto the Scepter of his Discipline Behold therefore we offer the Laws whereby we live unto the General Tryal and Judgment of the whole World heartily beseeching Almighty God whom we desire to serve according to his own Will that both we and others all kinde of Partial affection being clean laid aside may have eyes to see and hearts to embrace the things that in his sight are most acceptable And because the Point about which we strive is the Quality of our Laws our first entrance hereinto cannot better be made then with consideration of the Nature of Law in general and of that Law which giveth Life unto all the rest which are commendable just and good namely the Law whereby the Eternal himself doth work Proceeding from hence to the Law first of Nature then of Scripture we shall have the easier access unto those things which come after to be debated concerning the particular Cause and Question which we have in hand 2. All things that are have some operation not violent or casual Neither doth any thing ever begin to exercise the same without some fore-conceived end for which it worketh And the end which it worketh for is not obtained unless the Work be also fit to obtain it by for unto every end every operation will not serve That which doth assign unto each thing the kinde that which doth moderate the force and power that which doth appoint the form and measure of working the same we term a Law So that no certain end could ever be attained unless the Actions whereby it is attained were regular that is to say Made suitable fit and correspondent unto their end by some Canon Rule or Law Which thing doth first take place in the Works even of God himself All things therefore do work after a sort according to Law all other things according to a Law whereof some Superiors unto whom they are subject is Author onely the Works and Operations of God have him both for their Worker and for the Law whereby they are wrought The Being of God is a kinde of Law to his working for that Perfection
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
God vouchsafed them above the rest of the world that in the affairs of their estate which were not determinable one way or other by the Scripture himself gave them extraordinary direction and counsel as oft as they sought it at his hands Thus God did first by speech unto Noses after by Urim and Thummim unto Priests lastly by dreams and visions unto Prophets from whom in such cases they were to receive the answer of God Concerning Ioshua therefore thus spake the Lord unto Moses saying He shall stand before Eleazer the Priest who shall ask counsel for him by the judgement of Urim before the Lord whereof had Ioshua been mindeful the fraud of the Gibeonites could not so smoothly have past unespied till there was no help The Jews had Prophets to have resolved them from the mouth of God himself whether Egyptian aids should profit them yea or no but they thought themselves wise enough and him unworthy to be of their counsel In this respect therefore was their reproof though sharp yet just albeit there had been no charge precisely given them that they should always take heed of Egypt But as for David to think that he did evil in determining to build God a Temple because there was in Scripture no Commandment that he should build it were very injurious the purpose of his heart was religious and godly the act most worthy of honour and renown neither could Nathan chuse but admire his vertuous intent exhort him to go forward and beseech God to prosper him therein Put God saw the endless troubles which David should be subject unto during the whole time of his Regiment and therefore gave charge to defer so good a work till the days of tranquillity and peace wherein it might without interruption be performed David supposed that it could not stand with the duty which he owed unto God to set himself in an house of Cedar-trees and to behold the Ark of the Lords Covenant unsetled This opinion the Lord abateth by causing Nathan to shew him plainly that it should be no more imputed unto him for a fault then it had been unto the Judges of Israel before him his case being the same which theirs was their times not more unquiet then his nor more unfit for such an action Wherefore concerning the force of Negative Arguments so taken from the authority of Scripture as by us they are denied there is in all this less then nothing And touching that which unto this purpose is borrowed from the Controversies sometimes handled between Mr. Harding and the worthiest Divine that Christendom hath bred for the space of some hundreds of years who being brought up together in one University it fell out in them which was spoken of two others They learned in the same that which in contrary Camps they did practice Of these two the one objecting that with us Arguments taken from Authority Negatively are over common the Bishops answer hereunto is that this kinde of Argument is thought to be good whensoever proof is taken of Gods Word and is used not onely by in but also by S. Paul and by many of the Catholick Fathers S. Paul saith God said not unto Abraham In thy seeds all the Nations of the earth shall be blessed but In thy seed which is Christ and thereof he thought he made a good Argument Likewise saith Origen The Bread which the Lord gave unto his Disciples saying unto them Take and eat be deferred not nor commanded to be reserved till the next day Such Arguments Origen and other learned Fathers thought to stand for good whatsoever misliking Mr. Harding hath sound in them This kinde of proof is thought to hold in Gods Commandments for that they be full and perfect and God hath specially charged us that we should neither put to them nor take from them and therefore it seemeth good unto them that have learned of Christ. Unus est magister vester Christus and have heard the voice of God the Father from Heaven Ipsum audite But unto them that add to the Word of God what them listeth and make Gods will subject unto their will and break Gods Commandments for their own traditions sake unto them it seemeth not good Again the English Apologie alledging the example of the Greeks how they have neither private Masses nor mangled Sacraments nor Purgatories nor Pardons it pleaseth Mr. Harding to jest out the matter to use the help of his wits where strength of truth failed him and to answer with scoffing at Negatives The Bishops defence in this case is The ancient learned Fathers having to deal with politick Hereticks that in defence of their Errors avouched the judgement of all the old Bishops and Doctors that had been before them and the general consent of the Primitive and whole universal Church and that with as good regard of truth and as faithfully as you do now the better to discover the shameless boldness and nakedness of their doctrine were oftentimes likewise forced to use the negative and so to drive the same Hereticks as we do you to prove their Affirmatives which thing to do it was never possible The ancient Father Iraeneus thus stayed himself as we do by the Negative Hoc neq Prophetae praedicaverunt neque Dominus docuit neque Apostoli tradiderunt This thing neither did the Prophets publish nor our Lord teach nor the Apostles deliver By a like Negative Chrysostome saith This tree neither Paul planted nor Apollos watered nor God increased In like sort Leo saith What needeth it to believe that thing that neither the Law hath taught nor the Prophets have spoken nor the Gospel hath preached nor the Apostles have delivered And again How are the new devices brought in that our Fathers never knew S. Augustine having reckoned up a great number of the Bishops of Rome by a general Negative saith thus In all this order of succession of Bishops there is not one Bishop found that was a Donatist S. Gregory being himself a Bishop of Rome and writing against the Title of Universal Bishop saith thus None of all my Predecessors ever consented to use this ungodly Title No Bishop of Rome ever took upon him this name of singularity By such Negatives Mr. Harding we reprove the vanity and novelty of your Religion We tell you none of the Catholick ancient learned Father either Greek or Latine ever used either your private Mass or your half Communion or your barbarous unknown prayers Paul never planted them Apollos never watered them God never encreased them they are of your selves they are not of God In all this there is not a Syllable which any way crosseth us For concerning Arguments Negative taken from Humane Authority they are here proved to be in some cases very strong and forcible They are not in our estimation idle reproofs when the Authors of needless Innovations are opposed with such Negatives as that of Leo How are these new
them that so to do were so sin against their own souls and that they put forth their hands to iniquity whatsoever they go about and have not first the sacred Scripture of God for direction how can it chuse but bring the simple a thousand times to their wits end how can it chuse but vex and amaze them For in every action of common life to since out some seâ—tence clearly and infallibly setting before our eyes what we ought to do seem we in Scripture never so expert would trouble us more then we are aware In weak and tender minds we little know what misery this strict opinion would breed besides the stops it would make in the whole course of all mens lives and actions make all things sin which we do by direction of Natures light and by the rule of common discretion without thinking at all upon Scripture Admit this Position and Parents shall cause their children to sin as oft as they cause them to do any thing before they come to years of capacity and be ripe for Knowledge in the Scripture Admit this and it shall not be with Masters as it was with him him in the Gospel but servants being commanded to go shall stand still till they have errand warranted unto them by Scripture Which as it standeth with Christian duty in some cases so in common affairs to require it were most unfit Two opinions therefore there are concerning sufficiency of holy Scripture each extreamly opposit unto the other and both repugnant unto truth The Schools of Rome teach Scripture to be unsufficient as if except Traditions were added it did not contain all revealed and supernatural Truth which absolutely is necessary for the children of men in this life to know that they may in the next be saved Others justly condemning this opinion grow likewise unto a dangerous extremity as if Scripture did not only contain all things in that kinde necessary but all things simply and in such sort that to do any thing according to any other Law were not only unnecessary but even opposite unto salvation unlawful and sinful Whatsoever is spoken of God or things appertaining to God otherwise then as the truth is though it seem an honour it is an injury And as incredible praises given unto men do often abate and impair the credit of their deserved commendation so we must likewise take great heed lest in attributing unto Scripture more then it can have the incredibility of that do cause even those things which indeed it hath most abundantly to be less reverendly esteemed I therefore leave it to themselves to consider Whether they have in this First Point overshot themselves or not which God doth know is quickly done even when our meaning is most sincere as I am verily perswaded theirs in this case was OF THE LAWS OF Ecclesiastical Polity Book III. Concerning their Second Assertion That in Scripture there must be of necessity contained a Form of Church Polity the Laws whereof may in no wise be altered The Matter contained in this Third Book 1. WHat the Church is and in what respect Laws of Polity are thereunto necessarily required 2. Whether it be necessary that some particular Form of Church Polity be set down in Scripture sith the things that belong particularly to any such Form are not of necessity to salvation 3. That matters of Church Polity are different from matters of Faith and Salvation and that they themselves so teach which are out Reprovers for so teaching 4. That hereby we take not from Scripture any thing which thereunto with the soundness of truth may be given 5. Their meaning who first urged against the Polity of the Church of England that nothing ought to be established in the Church more then is commanded by the Word of God 6. How great injury men by so thinking should offer unto all the Churches of God 7. A shift notwithstanding to maintain it by interpreting Commanded as though it were meant that greater things onely ought to be found set down in Scripture particularly and lesser framed by the general Rules of Scripture 8. Another Device to defend the same by expounding Commanded as if it did signifie grounded as Scripture and were opposed to things sound out by the light of natural reason onely 9. How Laws for the Polity of the Church may be made by the advise of men and how those being nor repugnant to the Word of God are approved in his sight 10. The neither Gods being the Author of Laws nor yet his committing of them to Scripture is any Reason sufficient to prove that they admit no addition or change 11. Whether Christ must needs intend Laws unchangeable altogether or have forbidden any where to make any other Law then himself did deliver ALbeit the substance of those Controversies whereinto we have begun to wade be rather of outward things appertaining to the Church of Christ then of any thing wherein the nature and being of the Church consisteth yet because the Subject or Matter which this Position concerneth is A Forms of Church Government or Church-Polity It therefore behoveth us so far forth to consider the nature of the Church as is requisite for mens more clear and plain understanding in what respect Laws of Polity or Government are necessary thereunto That Church of Christ which we properly term his body Mystical can be but one neither can that one be sensibly discerned by any man inasmuch as the parts thereof are some in Heaven already with Christ and the rest that are on earth albeit their natural persons be visible we do not discern under this property whereby they are truly and infallibly of that body Only our minds by intellectual conceit are able to apprehend that such a real body there is a body collective because it containeth an huge multitude a body mystical because the mystery of their conjunction is removed altogether from sense Whatsoever we read in Scripture concerning the endless love and the saving mercy which God sheweth towards his Church the only proper subject thereof is this Church Concerning this Flock it is that our Lord and Saviour hath promised I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any pluck them out of my hands They who are of this Society have such Marks and Notes of distinction from all others as are not objects unto our sense only unto God who seeth their hearts and understandeth all their secret cogitations unto him they are clear and manifest All men knew Nathaniel to be an Israelite But our Saviour piercing deeper giveth further Testimony of him then men could have done with such certainty as he did Behold indeed an Israelite in whom there is no guile If we profess as Peter did that we love the Lord and profess it in the hearing of men charity is prone to believe all things and therefore charitablemen are likely to think we do so as long as they see
no proof to the contrary But that our love is sound and sincere that it cometh from a pure heart a good conscience and a faith unfeigned who can pronounce saving only the searcher of all mens hearts who alone intuitively doth known in this kind who are his And as those everlasting promises of Love Mercy and Blessedness belong to the mystical Church even so on the other side when we read of any duty which the Church of God is bound unto the Church whom this doth concern is a sensible known company And this Visible Church in like sort is but one continued from the first beginning of the World to the last end Which company being divided into two moyeties the one before the other since the coming of Christ that part which since the coming of Christ partly hath embraced and partly shall hereafter embrace the Christian Religion we term as by a more proper name the Church of Christ. And therefore the Apostle affirmeth plainly of all men Christian that be they Jew or Gentiles bond or free they are all incorporated into one company they all make but one body The unity of which visible body and Church of Christ consisteth in that Uniformity which all several persons thereunto belonging have by reason of that one Lord whose servants they all profess themselves that one Faith which they all acknowledge that one Baptism wherewith they are all initiated The visible Church of Jesus Christ is therefore one in outward profession of those things which supernaturally appertain to the very Essence of Christianity and are necessarily required in every particular Christian man Let all the house of Israel know for certainty saith Peter that God hath made him both Lord and Christ even this Iesus whom ye have crucified Christians therefore they are not which call not him their Master and Lord. And from hence it came that first at Antioch and afterward throughout the whole world all that were of the Church visible were called Christians even amongst the Heathen which name unto them was precious and glorious but in the estimation of the rest of the world even Christ Jesus himself was execrable for whose sake all men were so likewise which did acknowledge him to be their Lord. This himself did foresee and therefore armed his Church to the end they might sustain it without discomfort All these things they will do unto you for my names sake yea the time shall come that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God good service These things I tell you that when the hour shall come ye may then call to minde how I told you before-hand of them But our naming of Jesus Christ the Lord is not enough to prove us Christians unless we also embrace that Faith which Christ hath published unto the World To shew that the Angel of Pergamus continued in Christianity behold how the Spirit of Christ speaketh Thou keepest my Name and thou hast not denied my Faith Concerning which Faith The rule thereof saith Tertullian is one alone immoveable and no way possible to be better framed anew What rule that is he sheweth by rehearsing those few Articles of Christian belief And before Tertullian Irency The Church though scattered through the whole World unto the uttermost borders of the Earth hath from the Apostles and their Disciples received Belief The parts of which Belief he also reciteth in substance the very same with Tertullian and thereupon inferreth This Faith the Church being spread far and wide preserveth as if one House did contain them These things it equally embraceth as though it had even one Soul one Heart and no more It publisheth teacheth and delivereth these things with Uniform consent as if God had given it lut one onely Tongue wherewith to speak He which amongst the Guides of the Church is best able to speak uttereth no more then this and less then this the most simple do not utter when they make Profession of their Faith Now although we know the Christian Faith and allow of it yet in this respect we are but entring entred we are not into the Visible Church before our admittance by the door of Baptism Wherefore immediately upon the acknowledgment of Christian Faith the Eunuch we see was baptized by Philip Paul by Ananias by Peter a huge multitude containing Three thousand Souls which being once Baptized were reckoned in the number of Souls added to the Visible Church As for those Vertues that belong unto Moral Righteousness and honesty of life we do not mention them because they are not proper unto Christian Men as they are Christian but do concern them as they are Men. True it is the want of these Vertues excludeth from Salvation So doth much more the absence of inward belief of heart so doth despair and lack of Hope so emptiness of Christian Love and Charity But we speak now of the Visible Church whose Children are signed with this mark One Lord one Faith one Baptism In whomsoever these things are the Church doth acknowledge them for her Children them onely she holdeth for Aliens and Strangers in whom these things are not found For want of these it is that Saracens Jews and Infidels are excluded out of the bounds of the Church Others we may not deny to be of the Visible Church as long as these things are not wanting in them For apparent it is that all Men are of necessity either Christians or not Christians If by External Profession they be Christians then are they of the Visible Church of Christ and Christians by External Profession they are all whose mark of Recognisance hath in it those things which we have mentioned yea although they be impious Idolaters wicked Hereticks Persons excommunicable yea and cast out for notorious improbity Such withal we deny not to be the Imps and Limbs of Satan even as long as they continue such Is it then possible that the self-same men should belong both to the Synagogue of Satan and to the Church of Jesus Christ Unto that Church which is his Mystical Body not possibleâ— because that Body consisteth of none but onely true Israelites true Sons of Abraham true Servants and Saints of God Howbeit of the Visible Body and Church of Jesus Christ those may be and oftentimes are in respect of the main parts of their outward Profession who inregard of their inward disposition of minde yea of External Conversation yea even of some parts of their very Profession are most worthily both hateful in the sight of God himself and in the eyes of the sounder part of the Visible Church most execrable Our Saviour therefore compareth the Kingdom of Heaven to a Net whereunto all which cometh neither is nor seemeth Fish His Church he compareth unto a Field where Tares manifestly known end seen by all Men do grow intermingled with good Corn and even so shall continue till the final consummation of the World God hath had ever
or offensive unto any especially unto the Church of God All things in order and with seemliness All unto edification finally All to the glory of God Of which kinde how many might be gathered out of the Scripture if it were necessary to take so much pains Which Rules they that urge minding thereby to prove that nothing may be done in the Church but what Scripture commandeth must needs hold that they tie the Church of Christ no otherwise then onely because we finde them there set down by the Finger of the Holy Ghost So that unless the Apostle by writing had delivered those Rules to the Church we should by observing them have sinned as now by not observing them In the Church of the Jews is it not granted That the appointment of the hour for daily Sacrifices the building of Synagogues throughout the Land to hear the Word of God and to pray in when they came not up to Ierusalem the erecting of Pulpits and Chairs to teach in the order of Burial the Rites of Marriage with such like being matters appertaining to the Church yet are not any where prescribed in the Law but were by the Churches discretion instituted What then shall we think Did they hereby add to the Law and so displease God by that which they did None so hardly perswaded of them Doth their Law deliver unto them the self-same general Rules of the Apostle that framing thereby their Orders they might in that respect clear themselves from doing amiss St. Paul would then of likelihood have cited them out of the Law which we see he doth not The truth is they are Rules and Canons of that Law which is written in all mens hearts the Church had for ever no less then now stood bound to observe them whether the Apostle had mentioned them or no. Seeing therefore those Canons do binde as they are Edicts of Nature which the Jews observing as yet unwritten and thereby framing such Church Orders as in their Law were not prescribed are notwithstanding in that respect unculpable It followeth that sundry things may be lawfully done in the Church so as they be not done against the Scripture although no Scripture do command them but the Church onely following the Light of Reason judge them to be in discretion meet Secondly unto our purpose and for the question in hand Whether the Commandments of God in Scripture be general or special it skilleth not For if being particularly applied they have in regard of such particulars a force constraining us to take some one certain thing of many and to leave the rest whereby it would come to pass that any other particular but that one being established the general Rules themselves in that case would be broken then is it utterly impossible that God should leave any thing great or small free for the Church to establish or not Thirdly if so be they shall grant as they cannot otherwise do that these Rules are no such Laws as require any one particular thing to be done but serve rather to direct the Church in all things which she doth so that free and lawful it is to devise any Ceremony to receive any Order and to authorise any kinde of Regiment no special Commandment being thereby violated and the same being thought such by them to whom the judgment thereof appertaineth as that it is not scandalous but decent tending unto edification and setting forth the glory of God that is to say agreeable unto the general Rules of holy Scripture this doth them no good in the World for the furtherance of their purpose That which should make for them must prove that men ought not to make Laws for Church Regiment but onely keep those Laws which in Scripture they finde made The plain intent of the Books of Ecclesiastical Discipline is to shew that men may not devise Laws of Church Government but are bound for ever to use and to execute onely those which God himself hath already devised and delivered in the Scripture The self-same drift the Admonitioners also had in urging that nothing ought to be done in the Church according unto any Law of Mans devising but all according to that which God in his Word hath commanded Which not remembring they gather out of Scripture General Rules to be followed in making Laws and so in effect they plainly grant that we our selves may lawfully make Laws for the Church and are not bound out of Scripture onely to take Laws already made as they meant who first alledged that principle whereof we speak One particular Plat-form it is which they respected and which they labored thereby to force upon all Churches whereas these general Rules do not let but that there may well enough be sundry It is the particular Order established in the Church of England which thereby they did intend to alter as being not commanded of God whereas unto those general Rules they know we do not defend that we may hold any thing unconformable Obscure it is not what meaning they had who first gave out that grand Axiom and according unto that meaning it doth prevail far and wide with the Favorers of that part Demand of them wherefore they conform not themselves unto the Order of our Church and in every particular their answer for the most part is We finde no such thing commanded in the Word Whereby they plainly require some special Commandment for that which is exacted at their hands neither are they content to have matters of the Church examined by general Rules and Canons As therefore in controversies between us and the Church of Rome that which they practise is many times even according to the very grossness of that which the vulgar sort conceiveth when that which they teach to maintain it is so nice and subtil that hold can very hardly be taken thereupon In which cases we should do the Church of God small benefit by disputing with them according unto the finest points of their dark conveyances and suffering that sense of their Doctrine to go uncontrouled wherein by the common sort it is ordinarily received and practised So considering what disturbance hath grown in the Church amongst our selves and how the Authors thereof do commonly build altogether on this as a sure Foundation Nothing ought to be established in the Church which in the Word of God is not commanded Were it reason that we should suffer the same to pass without controulment in that current meaning whereby every where it prevaileth and stay till some strange construction were made thereof which no man would lightly have thought on but being driven thereunto for a shift 8. The last refuge in maintaining this Position is thus to construe it Nothing ought to be established in the Church but that which is commanded in the Word of God that is to say All Church Orders must be grounded upon the Word of God in such sort grounded upon the Word not that being sound out by some Star
or Light of Reason or Learning or other help they may be received so they be not against the Word of God but according at leastwise unto the general Rules of Scripture they must be made Which is in effect as much as to say We know not what to say wel in defence of this Position And therefore lest we should say it is false there is no remedy but to say that in some sense or other it may be true if we could tell how First that Scholy had need of a very favorable Reader and a tractable that should think it plain construction when to be commanded in the Word and grounded upon the Word are made all one If when a man may live in the state of Matrimony seeking that good thereby which Nature principally desireth he make rather choice of a contrary life in regard of St. Pauls judgment That which he doth is manifestly grounded upon the Word of God yet not commanded in his Word because without breach of any Commandment he might do otherwise Secondly whereas no man in Justice and Reason can be reproved for those actions which are framed according unto that known Will of God whereby they are to be judged and the Will of God which we are to judge our actions by no sound Divine in the World ever denied to be in part made manifest even by the Light of Nature and not by Scripture alone If the Church being directed by the former of these two which God hath given who gave the other that man might in different sort be guided by them both if the Church I say do approve and establish that which thereby it judgeth meet and sindeth not repugnant to any word or syllable of holy Scripture who shall warrant our presumptuous boldness controuling herein the Church of Christ But so it is the name of the Light of Nature is made hateful with men the Star of Reason and Learning and all other such like helps beginneth no otherwise to be thought of then if it were an unlucky Comet or as if God had so accursed it that it should never shine or give light in things concerning our duty any way towards him but be esteemed as that Star in the Revelation called Wormword which being faln from Heaven maketh Rivers and Waters in which it falleth so bitter that men tasting them die thereof A number there are who think they cannot admire as they ought the power and authority of the Word of God if in things Divine they should attribute any force to Mans reason For which cause they never use reason so willingly as to disgrace Reason Their usual and common Discourses are unto this effect First The Natural Man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God For they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned Secondly It is not for nothing that St. Paul giveth charge to beware of Philosophy that is to say such knowledge as Men by Natural Reason attain unto Thirdly Consider them that have from time to time opposed themselves against the Gospel of Christ and most troubled the Church with Heresie Have they not always been great admirers of Humane Reason Hath their deep and profound skill in Secular Learning made them the more obedient to the Truth and not armed them rather against it Fourthly They that fear God will remember how heavy his sentences are in this case I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will cast away the Understanding of the Prudent Where is the Wise Where is the Scribe Where is the Disputer of this World Hath not God made the Wisdom of this World foolishness Seeing the World by Wisdom know not God In the Wisdom of God it pleased God by the foolishness of Preaching to save Believers Fifthly The Word of God in it self is absolute exact and perfect The Word of God is a two-edged sword as for the Weapons of Natural Reason they are as the Armor of Saul rather cumbersome about the Soldier of Christ then needful They are not of force to do that which the Apostles of Christ did by the power of the Holy Ghost My Preaching therefore saith Paul hath not been in the inticing speech of Mans wisdom but in plain evidence of the Spirit of Power that your Faith might not be in the Wisdom of men but in the Power of God Sixthly If I believe the Gospel there needeth no reasoning about it to perswade me If I do not believe it must be the Spirit of God and not the Reason of Man that shall convert my heart unto him By these and the like Disputes an opinion hath spred it self very far in the World as if the way to be ripe in Faith were to be raw in Wit and Judgment as if Reason were an enemy unto Religion childish simplicity the Mother of Ghostly and Divine Wisdom The cause why such Declamations prevail so greatly is For that men suffer themselves in two respects to be deluded one is that the Wisdom of Man being debased either in comparison with that of God or in regard of some special thing exceeding the reach and compass thereof it seemeth to them not marking so much as if simply it were condemned another That Learning Knowledge or Wisdom falsly so termed usurping a name whereof they are not worthy and being under that name controuled their reproof is by so much the more easily misapplied and through equivocation wrested against those things whereunto so precious names do properly and of right belong This duly observed doth to the former Allegations it self make sufficient answer Howbeit for all Mens plainer and fuller satisfaction First Concerning the inability of Reason to search out and to judge of things Divine if they be such as those properties of God and those duties of Men towards him which may be conceived by attentive consideration of Heaven and Earth We know that of meer Natural Men the Apostle testifieth How they knew both God and the Law of God Other things of God there be which are neither so found nor though they be shewed can ever be approved without the special operation of Gods good Grace and Spirit Of such things sometime spake the Apostle St. Paul declaring how Christ had called him to be a Witness of his Death and Resurrection from the Dead according to that which the Prophets and Moses had foreshewed Festus a meer Natural man an Infidel a Roman one whose ears were unacquainted with such matter heard him but could not reach unto that whereof he spake the suffering and the rising of Christ from the dead he rejected as idle superstitious fancies not worth the hearing The Apostle that knew them by the Spirit and spake of them with Power of the Holy Ghost seemed in his eyes but learnedly mad Which example maketh manifest what elswhere the same Apostle teacheth namely that Nature hath need of Grace whereunto I hope we are
the Resurrection of Jesus Christ did not prove it if so be the Prophet David meant them of himself This Exposition therefore they plainly disprove and shew by manifest Reason that of David the words of David could not possibly be meant Exclude the use of Natural reasoning about the sense of holy Scripture concerning the Articles of our Faith and then that the Scripture doth concern the Articles of our Faith who can assure us That which by right Exposition buildeth up Christian Faith being misconstrued breedeth Error between true and false construction the difference Reason must shew Can Christian men perform that which Peter requireth at their hands Is it possible they should both believe and be able without the use of Reason to render a Reason of their belief a Reason sound and sufficient to answer them that demand it be they of the same Faith with us or enemies thereunto May we cause our Faith without Reason to appear reasonable in the eyes of men This being required even of Learners in the School of Christ the duty of their Teachers in bringing them unto such ripeness must needs be somewhat more then onely to read the Sentences of Scripture and then Paraphrastically to scholy them to vary them with sundry Forms of speech without arguing or disputing about any thing which they contain This method of teaching may commend it self unto the World by that easiness and facility which is in it but a Law or a Pattern it is not as some do imagine for all men to follow that will do good in the Church of Christ. Our Lord and Saviour himself did hope by disputation to do some good yea by disputation not onely of but against the truth albeit with purpose for the truth That Christ should be the Son of David was truth yet against this truth our Lord in the Gospel objecteth If Christ be the Son of David how doth David call him Lord There is as yet no way known how to dispute or to determine of things disputed without the use of Natural Reason If we please to adde unto Christ their example who followed him as near in all things as they could the Sermon of Paul and Barnabas set down in the Acts where the people would have offered unto them Sacrifice in that Sermon what is there but onely Natural Reason to disprove their act O men why do ye these things We are men even subject to the self-same Passions with you We Preach unto you to leave these Vanities and to turn to the living God the God that hath not left himself without witness in that he hath done good to the World giving rain and fruitful Seasons filling our hearts with joy and gladness Neither did they onely use Reason in winning such unto a Christian belief as were yet thereto unconverted but with Believers themselves they followed the self-same course In that great and solemn Assembly of Believing Jews how doth Peter prove that the Gentiles were partakers of the Grace of God as well as they but by Reason drawn from those effects which were apparently known amongst them God which knoweth the hearts hath born them witness in giving unto them the Holy Ghost as unto you The light therefore which the Star of Natural Reason and Wisdom casteth is too bright to be obscured by the mist of a word or two uttered to diminish that opinion which justly hath been received concerning the force and vertue thereof even in matters that touch most nearly the principal duties of men and the glory of the Eternal God In all which hitherto hath been spoken touching the force and use of Mans Reason in things Divine I must crave that I be not so understood or construed as if any such thing by vertue thereof could be done without the aid and assistance of Gods most blessed Spirit The thing we have handled according to the question moved about it which question is Whether the Light of Reason be so pernicious that in devising Laws for the Church men ought not by it to search what may be fit and convenient For this cause therefore we have endeavored to make it appear how in the Nature of Reason it self there is no impediment but that the self-same Spirit which revealeth the things that God hath set down in his Law may also be thought to aid and direct men in finding out by the Light of Reason what Laws are expedient to be made for the guiding of his Church over and besides them that are in Scripture Herein therefore we agree with those men by whom Humane Laws are defined to be Ordinances which such as have lawful Authority given them for that purpose do probably draw from the Laws of Nature and God by discourse of Reason aided with the influence of Divine Grace And for that cause it is not said amiss touching Ecclesiastical Canons That by instinct of the Holy Ghost they have been made and consecrated by the reverend acceptation of the World 9. Laws for the Church are not made as they should be unless the Makers follow such direction as they ought to be guided by Wherein that Scripture standeth not the Church of God in any stead or serveth nothing at all to direct but may be let pass as needless to be consulted with we judge it prophane impious and irreligious to think For although it were in vain to make Laws which the Scripture hath already made because what we are already there commanded to do on our parts there resteth nothing but onely that it be executed yet because both in that which we are commanded it concerneth the duty of the Church by Law to provide that the loosness and slackness of men may not cause the Commandments of God to be unexecuted and a number of things there are for which the Scripture hath not provided by any Law but left them unto the careful discretion of the Church we are to search how the Church in these cases may be well directed to make that provision by Laws which is most convenient and fit And what is so in these cases partly Scripture and partly Reason must teach to discern Scripture comprehending Examples and Laws Laws some Natural and some Positive Examples neither are there for all cases which require Laws to be made and when they are they can but direct as Precedents onely Natural Laws direct in such sort that in all things we must for ever do according unto them Positive so that against them in no case we may do any thing as long as the Will of God is that they should remain in force Howbeit when Scripture doth yield us Precedents how far forth they are to be followed when it giveth Natural Laws what particular order is thereunto most agreeable when Positive which way to make Laws unrepugnant unto them yea though all these should want yet what kinde of Ordinances would be most for that good of the Church which is aimed at all this
in no such consideration to be understood as we have mentioned if it were so that men are condemned as well of the one as of the other only for using the Ceremonies of a Religion contrary unto their own and that this cause is such as ought to prevail no less with us than with them shall it not follow that seeing there is still between our Religion and Paganism the self-same contrariety therefore we are still no less rebukeable if we now deck our Houses with Boughs or send New-years gifts unto our Friends or seast on those days which the Gentiles then did or sit after Prayer as they were accustomed For so they infer upon the premises that as great difference as commodiously may be there should be in all outward Ceremonies between the People of God and them which are not his People Again they teach as hath been declared that there is not as great a difference as may be between them except the one do avoid whatsoever Rites and Ceremonies uncommanded of God the other doth embrace So that generally they teach that the very difference of Spiritual condition it self between the Servants of Christ and others requireth such difference in Ceremonies between them although the one be never so far disjoyned in time or place from the other But in case the People of God and Belial do chance to be Neighbours then as the danger of infection is greater so the same difference they say is thereby made more necessary In this respect as the Jews were severed from the Heathen so most especially from the Heathen nearest them And in the same respect we which ought to differ howsoever from the Church of Rome are now they say by reason of our nearness more bound to differ from them in Ceremonies then from Turks A strange kind of speech unto Christianeus and such as I hope they themselves do acknowledge unadvisedly uttered We are not so much to fear infection from Turks as from Papists What of that we must remember that by conforming rather our selves in that respect to Turks we should be spreaders of a worse infection into others then any we are likely to draw from Papists by our conformity with them in Ceremonies If they did â—ate as Turks do the Christian or as Canaanites did of old the Jewish Religion even in gross the circumstance of local nearness in them unto us might haply inforce in us a duty of greater separation from them then from those other mentioned But forasmuch as Papists are so much in Christ nearer unto us then Turks is there any reasonable man now you but will judge it meeter that our Ceremonies of Christian Religion should be Popish then Turkish or Heathenish Especially considering that we were not brought to dwell amongst them as Israel in Canaan having not been of them For even a very part of them we were And when God did by his good Spirit put it into our hearts first to reform our selves whence grew our separation and then by all good means to seek also their Reformation had we not onely cut off their corruptions but also estranged our selves from them in things indifferent who seeth not how greatly prejudicial this might have been to so good a cause and what occasion it had given them to think to their greater obduration in evil that through a froward or wanton desire of Innovation we did unconstrainedly those things for which conscience was pretended Howsoever the case doth stand as Iuda had been rather to choose conformity in things indifferent with Israel when they were neerest opposites then with the farthest removed Pagans So we in like cases much rather with Papists than with Turks I might add further for a more full and complete Answer so much concerning the large odds between the case of the eldest Churches inregard of those Heathens and ours in respect of the Church of Rome that very cavillation it self should be satisfied and have no shift to fly unto 8. But that no one thing may detain us over-long I return to their Reasons against our conformity with that Church That extreme dissimilitude which they urge upon us is now commended as our best and safest policy for establishment of sound Religion The ground of which politick Position is That Evils must be cured by their contraries and therefore the cure of the Church infected with the poyson of Antichristianity must be done by that which is thereunto as contrary as may be A medled estate of the Orders of the Gospel and the Ceremonies of Popery is not the best way to banish Popery We are contrariwise of opinion that he which will perfectly recover a sick and restore a diseased body unto health must not endeavour so much to bring it to a state of simple contrariety as of fit proportion in contâ—ariety unto those evils which are to be cured He that will take away extreme heat by setting the body in extremity of cold shall undoubtedly remove the disease but together with it the diseased too The first thing therefore in skilful cures is the knowledge of the part affected the next is of the evil which doth affect it the last is not onely of the kind but also of the measure of contrary things whereby to remove it They which measure Religion by dislike of the Church of Rome think every man so much the more sound by how much he can make the corruptions thereof to seem more large And therefore some there are namely the Arrians in reformed Churches of Poland which imagine the Canker to have eaten so far into the very Bones and Marrow of the Church of Rome as if it had not so much as a sound belief no not concerning God himself but that the very belief of the Trinity were a part of Antichristian corruption and that the wonderful providence of God did bring to pass that the Bishop of the See of Rome should be famous for his tripple Crown a sensible mark whereby the world might know him to be that Mystical Beast spoken of in the Revelation to be that great and notorious Antichrist in no one respect so much as in this that he maintaineth the Doctrine of the Trinity Wisdom therefore and skill is requisite to know what parts are sound in that Church and what corrupted Neither is it to all men apparent which complain of unsound parts with what kind of unsoundness every such part is possessed They can say that in Doctrine in Discipline in Prayers in Sacraments the Church of Rome hath as it hath indeed very foul and gross corruptions the nature whereof notwithstanding because they have not for the most part exact skill and knowledge to discern they think that amiss many times which is not and the salve of Reformation they mightily call for but where and what the sores are which need it as they wot full little so they think it not greatly material to search such mens contentment must be wrought by stratagem the
thereby a great deal more effectually then by Positive Laws restrained from doing evil in as much as those Laws have no farther power then over our outward actions onely whereas unto mens inward cogitations unto the privy intents and motions of their hearts Religion serveth for a bridle What more savage wilde and cruel then Man if he see himself able either by fraud to over-teach or by power to over-bear the Laws whereunto he should he subject Wherefore in so great boldness to offend it behoveth that the World should be held in aw not by a vain surmise but a true apprehension of somewhat which no man may think himself able to withstand This is the politick use of Religion In which respect there are of these wise malignants some who have vouchsafed it their marvellous favorable countenance and speech very gravely affirming That Religion honored addeth greatness and contemned bringeth ruine unto Commonweaâ—s That Princes and States which will continue are above all things to uphold the reverend regard of Religion and to provide for the same by all means in the making of their Laws But when they should define what means are best for that purpose behold they extol the wisdom of Paganisin they give it out as a mystical precept of great importance that Princes and such as are under them in most authority or credit with the people should take all occasions of rare events and from what cause soever the same do proceed yet wrest them to the strengthning of their Religion and not make it nice for so good a purpose to use if need be plain forgeries Thus while they study to bring to pass that Religion may seem but a matter made they lose themselves in the very maze of their own discourses as if Reason did even purposely forsake them who of purpose forsake God the Author thereof For surely a strange kinde of madness it is that those men who though they be void of Piety yet because they have wit cannot chuse but know that treachery guile an deceit are things which may for a while but do not use long to go unespied should teach that the greatest honor to a State is perpetuity and grant that alterations in the Service of God for that they impair the credit of Religion are therefore perilous in Commonweals which have no continuance longer then Religion hath all reverence done unto it and withal acknowledge for so they do that when people began to espie the falshood of Oracles whereupon all Gentilism was built their hearts were utterly averted from it and notwithstanding Counsel Princes in sober earnest for the strengthning of their States to maintain Religion and for the maintenance of Religion not to make choice of that which is true but to authorise that they make choice of by those false and fraudulent means which in the end must needs overthrow it Such are the counsels of men godless when they would shew themselves politick devisers able to create God in Man by art 3. Wherefore to let go this execâ—able crew and to come to extremities on the contrary hand two affections there are the forces whereof as they bear the greater or lesser sway in mans heart frame accordingly to the stamp and character of his Religion the one Zeal the other Fear Zeal unless it be rightly guided when it endeavoreth most busily to please God forceth upon him those unseasonable offices which please him not For which cause if they who this way swerve be compared with such sincere found and discreet as Abraham was in Matter of Religion the service of the one is like unto slattery the other like the faithful sedulity of friendship Zeal except it be ordered aright when it bendeth it self unto conflict with all things either in deed or but imagined to be opposite unto Religion useth the Razor many times with such eagerness that the very life of Religion it self is thereby hazarded through hatred of Tares the Corn in the Field of God is plucked up So that Zeal needeth both ways a sober guide Fear on the other side if it have not the light of true understanding concerning God wherewith to be moderated breedeth likewise Superstition It is therefore dangerous that in things Divine we should work too much upon the spur either of zeal or fear Fear is a good Solicitor to Devotion Howbeit sith fear in this kinde doth grow from an apprehension of Deity endued with irresistable power to hurt and is of all affections anger excepted the unaptest to admit any conference with Reason for which cause the Wise man doth say of Fear that it is a betrayer of the forces of reasonable understanding therefore except men know beforehand what manner of service pleaseth God while they are fearful they try all things which fancy offereth Many there are who never think on God but when they are in extremity of fear and then because what to think or what to do they are uncertain perplexity not suffering them to be idle they think and do as it were in a phrensie they know not what Superstition neither knoweth the right kinde nor observeth the due measure of actions belonging to the Service of God but is always joyned with a wrong opinion touching things Divine Superstition is when things are either abhorred or observed with a zealous or fearful but erroneous relation to God By means whereof the superstitious do sometimes serve though the true God yet with needless offices and defraud him of duties necessary sometime load others then him with such honors as properly are his The one their over sight who miss in the choice of that wherewith they are affected the other theirs who fail in the election of him towards whom they shew their devotion This the crime of Idolatry that the fault of voluntary either niceness or superfluity in Religion The Christian World it self being divided into two grand parts it appeareth by the general view of both that with Master of Heresie the West hath been often and much troubled but the East part never quiet till the deluge of misery wherein now they are overwhelmed them The chiefest cause whereof doth seem to have lien in the restless wits of the Grecians evermore proud of their own curious and subtile inventions which when at any time they had contrived the great facility of their Language served them readily to make all things fair and plausible to mens understanding Those grand Heretical Impieties therefore which most highly and immediately touched God and the glorious Trinity were all in a manner the Monsters of the East The West bred fewer a great deal and those commonly of a lower nature such as more nearly and directly concerned rather men then God the Latines being always to capital Heresies less inclined yet unto gross Superstition more Superstition such as that of the Pharisees was by whom Divine things indeed were less because other things were more divinely esteemed of then Reason would the
Divine Majesty their most convenient answer was that The best Temples which we can dedicate to God are our sanctified Souls and Bodies Whereby it plainly appeareth how the Fathers when they were upbraided with that defect comforted themselves with the meditation of Gods most gracious and merciful nature Who did not therefore the less accept of their hearty affection and zeal rather than took any great delight or imagined any high perfection in such their want of external Ornaments which when they wanted the cause was their only lack of ability ability serving they wanted them not Before the Emperour Constantines time under Severus Gardian Philip and Galienus the state of Christian affairs being tolerable the sonner Buildings which were but of mean and small estate contented them not spacious and ample Churches they erected throughout every City No Envy was able to be their hindrance no practise of Satan or fraud of men available against their proceedings herein while they continued as yet worthy to feel the aide of the arm of God extended over them for their safety These Churches Dioclesian caused by solemn Edict to be afterwards overthrown Maximinus with like authority giving leave to erect them the hearts of all men were even rapt with Divine joy to see those places which tyrannous impiety had laid waste recovered as it were out of mortal calamity Churches reared up to an height immeasurable and adorned with far more beauty in their restauration than their Founders before had given them Whereby we see how most Christian minds stood then affected we see how joyful they were to behold the sumptuous stateliness of Houses built unto Gods glory If we should over and besides this alledge the care which was had that all things about the Tabernacle of Moses might be as beautiful gorgeous and rich as Art could make them or what travel and cost was bestowed that the goodliness of the Temple might be a Spectacle of admiration to all the world this they will say was figurative and served by Gods appointment but for a time to shadow out the true everlasting glory of a more Divine Sanctuary whereinto Christ being long fithence entred it seemeth that all those curious exornations should rather cease Which thing we also our selves would grant if the use thereof had been meetly and only mystical But sith the Prophet David doth mention a natural conveniency which such kind of bounteous Expences have as well for that we do thereby give unto God a testimony of our chearful affection which thinketh nothing too dear to be bestowed about the furniture of his Service as also because it serveth to the world for a witness of his Almightiness whom we outwardly honour with the chiefest of outward things as being of all things Himself incomparably the greatest Besides were it not also strange if God should have made such store of glorious Creatures on Earth and leave them all to be consumed in Secular vanity allowing none but the baser sort to be imployed in his own service To set forth the Majesty of Kings his Vicegerents in this world the most gorgeous and rare treasures which the world hath are procured We think belike that he will accept what the meanest of them would disdain If there be great care to build and beautifie these corruptible Sanctuaries little or none that the living Temples of the Holy Ghost the dearly redeemed Souls of the people of God may be edified huge expences upon Timber and Stone but towards the relief of the poor small devotion Cost this way infinite and in the mean while Charity cold we have in such case just occasion to make complaint as Saint Ierom did The walls of the Church there are â—now contented to build and to underset it with goodly Pillars the Marbles are polished the Roofs shine with Gold the Altar hath Precious Stones to adorn it and of Christs Ministers no choyce at all The same Ierom both in that place and elsewhere debaseth with like intent the glory of such Magnificence a thing whereunto mens affections in those times needed no spuâ—r thereby to extoll the necessity sometimes of Charity and Alms sometimes of other the most principal Duties belonging unto Christian men which Duties were neither so highly esteemed as they ought and being compared with that in question the directest Sentence we can give of them both as unto me it seemeth is this God who requireth the one as necessary accepteth the other also as being an honourable work 16. Our opinion concerning the force and vertue which such Places have is I trust without any blemish or stain of Heresie Churches receive as every thing else their chief perfection from the end whereunto they serve Which end being the publick worship of God they are in this consideration Houses of greater Dignity than any provided for meaner purposes For which cause they seem after a sort even to mourn as being injured and defrauded of their right when places not sanctified as they are prevent them unnecessarily in that preheminence and honour Whereby also it doth come to pass that the Service of God hath not then it self such perfection of grace and comeliness as when the dignity of place which it wisheth for doth concurr Again albeit the true worship of God be to God in it self acceptable who respecteth not so much in what place as with what affection he is served and therefore Moses in the midst of the Sea Iob on the Dunghil Ezechias in Bed Ieremy in Mire Ionas in the Whale Daniel in the Den the Children in the Furnace the Thief on the Cross Peter and Paul in Prison calling unto God were heard as S. Basil noteth manifest notwithstanding it is that the very majesty and holyness of the place where God is worshipped hath in regard of us great vertue force and efficacy for that it serveth as a sensible help to stirr up devotion and in that respect no doubt bettereth even our holiest and best actions in this kind As therefore we every where exhort all men to worship God even so for performance of this Service by the people of God assembled we think not any place so good as the Church neither any exhortation so sit as that of David O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness 17. For of our Churches thus it becometh us to esteem howsoever others rapt with the pang of a furious zeal do pour out against them devout blasphemies crying Down with them down with them even to the very ground For to Idolatry they have been abused And the places where Idols have been worshipped are by the Law of God devote to utter destruction For extentions of which Law the Kings that were godly as Asa Jehosaphat Ezechia Josia destroyed all the High places Altars and Groves which had been erected in Juda and Israel He that said Thou shalt have no other gods before my face hath
the Sacred Authority of Scriptures ever sithence the first publication thereof even till this present day and hour And that they all have always so testified I see not how we should possibly wish a proof more palpable than this manifest received and every where continued Custom of Reading them publickly as the Scriptures The Reading therefore of the Word of God as the use hath ever been in open Audience is the plainest evidence we have of the Churches assent and acknowledgement that it is his Word 3. A further commodity this Custom hath which is to furnish the very simplest and rudest sort with such infallible Axioms and Precepts of Sacred Truth delivered even in the very letter of the Law of God as may serve them for Rules whereby to judge the better all other Doctrins and Instructions which they hear For which end and purpose I see not how the Scripture could be possibly made familiar unto all unless far more should be read in the Peoples hearing than by a Sermon can be opened For whereas in a manner the whole Book of God is by reading every year published a small part thereof in comparison of the whole may hold very well the readiest Interpreter of Scripture occupied many years 4. Besides wherefore should any man think but that Reading it self is one of the ordinary means whereby it pleaseth God of his gracious goodness to instill that Celestial Verity which being but so received is nevertheless effectual to save Souls Thus much therefore we ascribe to the Reading of the Word of God as the manner is in our Churches And because it were odious if they on their part should altogether despise the same they yield that Reading may set forward but not begin the work of Salvation That Faith may be nourished therewith but not bred That herein mens attention to the Scriptures and their speculation of the Creatures of God have like efficacy both being of power to augment but neither to effect Belief without Sermons That if any believe by Reading alone we are to account it a miracle an extraordinary work of God Wherein that which they grant we gladly accept at their hands and with that patiently they would examine how little cause they have to deny that which as yet they grant not The Scripture witnesseth that when the Book of the Law of God had been sometime missing and was after found the King which heard it but only read tare his Cloaths and with tears confessed Great is the wrath of the Lord upon us because our Fathers have notâ— kept his Word to do after all things which are written in this Book This doth argue that by bare reading for of Sermons at that time there is no mention true Repentance may be wrought in the hearts of such as fear God and yet incurr his displeasure the deserved effect whereof is Eternal death So that their Repentance although it be not their first entrance is notwithstanding the first step of their re-entrance into Life and may be in them wrought by the Word only read unto them Besides it seemeth that God would have no man stand in doubt but that the reading of Scripture is effectual as well to lay even the first foundation as to adde degrees of farther perfection in the fear of God And therefore the Law saith Thou shalt read this Law before all Israel that Men Women and Children may hear yea even that their Children which as yet have not known it may hear it and by hearing it so read may learn to fear the Lord. Our Lord and Saviour was himself of opinion That they which would not be drawn to amendment of Life by the Testimony which Moses and the Prophets have given concerning the miseries that follow Sinners after death were not likely to be perswaded by other means although God from the very Dead should have raised them up Preachers Many hear the Books of God and believe them not Howbeit their unbelief in that case we may not impute unto any weakness or insufficiency in the mean which is used towards them but to the wilful bent of their obstinate hearts against it With mindes obdurate nothing prevaileth As well they that preach as they that read unto such shall still have cause to complain with the Prophets which were of old Who will give credit unto our Teaching But with whom ordinary means will prevail surely the power of the World of God even without the help of Interpreters in God's Church worketh mightily not unto their confirmation alone which are converted but also to their conversion which are not It shall not boot them who derogate from reading to excuse it when they see no other remedy as if their intent were only to deny that Aliens and Strangers from the Family of God are won or that Belief doth use to be wrought at the first in them without Sermons For they know it is our Custom of simple Reading not for conversion of Infidels estranged from the House of God but for instruction of Men baptised bred and brought up in the bosom of the Church which they despise as a thing uneffectual to save such Souls In such they imagine that God hath no ordinary mean to work Faith without Sermons The reason why no man can attain Belief by the bare contemplation of Heaven and Earth is for that they neither are sufficient to give us as much as the least spark of Light concerning the very principal Mysteries of our Faith and whatsoever we may learn by them the same we can only attain to know according to the manner of natural Sciences which meer discourse of Wit and Reason findeth out whereas the things which we properly believe be only such as are received upon the credit of Divine Testimony Seeing therefore that he which considereth the Creatures of God findeth therein both these defects and neither the one nor the other in Scriptures because he that readeth unto us the Scriptures delivereth all the Mysteries of Faith and not any thing amongst them all more than the mouth of the Lord doth warrant It followeth in those own respects that our consideration of Creatures and attention unto Scriptures are not in themselves and without-Sermons things of like disability to breed or beget Faith Small cause also there is why any man should greatly wonder as at an extraordinary work if without Sermons Reading be sound to effect thus much For I would know by some special instance what one Article of Christian Faith or what duty required unto all mens Salvation there is which the very reading of the Word of God is not apt to notifie Effects are miraculous and strange when they grow by unlikely means But did we ever hear it accounted for a Wonder that he which doth read should believe and live according to the will of Almighty God Reading doth convey to the Minde that Truth without addition or diminution which Scripture hath derived from
in the presence of great men as what doth most avail to our own edification in piety and godly zeal If they on the contrary side do think that the same rules of decency which serve for things done unto terrene Powers should universally decide what is fit in the service of God if it be their meaning to hold it for a Maxim That the Church must deliver her publick Supplications unto God in no other form of speech than such as were decent if suit should be made to the Great Turk or some other Monarch let them apply their own rule unto their own form of Common-Prayer Suppose that the people of a whole Town with some chosen man before them did continually twice or thrice in a week resort to their King and every time they come first acknowledge themselves guilty of Rebellions and Treasons then sing a Song and after that explain some Statute of the Land to the Standers by and therein spend at the least an hour this done turn themselves again to the King and for every sort of his Subjects crave somewhat of him at the length sing him another Song and so take their leave Might not the King well think that either they knew not what they would have or else that they were distracted in minde or some other such like cause of the disorder of their Supplication This form of suing unto Kings were absurd This form of Praying unto God they allow When God was served with legal Sacrifices such was the miserable and wretched disposition of some mens mindes that the best of every thing they had being culled out for themselves if there were in their flocks any poor starved or diseased thing not worth the keeping they thought it good enough for the Altar of God pretending as wise Hyprocrites do when they rob God to enrich themselves that the fatness of Calves doth benefit him nothing to us the best things are most profitable to him all as one if the minde of the Offerer be good which is the only thing he respecteth In reproof of which their devout fraud the Prophet Malachy alledgeth that gifts are offered unto God not as supplys of his want indeed but yet as testimonies of that affection wherewith we acknowledge and honour his greatness For which cause sith the greater they are whom we honour the more regard we have to the quality and choice of those Presents which we bring them for honor's sake it must needs follow that if we dare not disgrace our worldly Superiours with offering unto them such reffuse as we bring unto God himself we shew plainly that our acknowledgment of his Greatnesse is but feigned in heart we fear him not so much as we dread them If ye offer the blinde for Sacrifice is it not evil Offer it now unto thy Prince Will he be content or accept thy Person saith the Lord of Hosts Cursed be the Deceiver which hath in his Flock a Male and having made a Vow sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing For I am a great King saith the Lord of Hosts Should we hereupon frame a Rule that what form of speech or behaviour soever is fit for Suiters in a Prince's Court the same and no other beseemeth us in our Prayers to Almighty God 35. But in vain we labour to perswade them that any thing can take away the tediousness of Prayer except it be brought to the very same both measure and form which themselves assign Whatsoever therefore our Liturgy hath more than theirs under one devised pretence or other they cut it off We have of Prayers for Earthly things in their opinion too great a number so oft to rehearse the Lords Prayer in so small a time is as they think a loss of time the Peoples praying after the Minister they say both wasteth time and also maketh an unpleasant sound the Psalms they would not have to be made as they are a part of our Common-Prayer nor to be sung or said by turns nor such Musick to be used with them those Evangelical Hymns they allow not to stand in our Liturgy the Letany the Creed of Athanasius the Sentence of Glory wherewith we use to conclude Psalms these things they cancel as having been instituted in regard of occasions peculiar to the times of old and as being therefore now superfluous Touching Prayers for things earthly we ought not to think that the Church hath set down so many of them without cause They peradventure which finde this fault are of the same affection with Solomon so that if God should offer to grant the whatsoever they ask they would neither crave Riches not length of dayes not yet victory over their Enemies but only an understanding heart for which cause themselves having Eagles wings are offended to see others flye so near the ground But the tender kindness of the Church of God it very well beseemeth to help the weaker sort which are by so great oddes moe in number although some few of the perfecter and stronger may be therewith for a time displeased Ignorant we are not that of such as resorted to our Saviour Christ being present on Earth there came not any unto him with better success for the benefit of their Souls everlasting happiness than they whose bodily necessities gave them the first occasion to seek relief when they saw willingness and ability of doing every way good unto all The graces of the Spirit are much more precious than worldly benefits our ghostly evils of greater importance than any harm which the body feeleth Therefore our desires to heaven-ward should both in measure and number no less exceed than their glorious Object doth every way excel in value These things are true and plain in the eye of a perfect Judgement But yet it must be withal considered that the greatest part of the World are they which be farthest from perfection Such being better able by sense to discern the wants of this present life than by spiritual capacity to apprehend things above sense which tend to their happiness in the world to come are in that respect the more apt to apply their mindes even with hearty affection and zeal at the least unto those Branches of Publick prayer wherein their own particular is moved And by this mean there stealeth upon them a double benefit first because that good affection which things of smaller account have once set on work is by so much the more easily raised higher and secondly in that the very custom of seeking so particular aide and relief at the hands of God doth by a secret contradiction withdraw them from endeavouring to help themselves by those wicked shifts which they know can never have his allowance whose assistance their Prayer seeketh These multiplyed Petitions of worldly things in Prayer have therefore besides their direct use a Service whereby the Church under-hand through a kinde of heavenly fraud taketh therewith the Souls of men as with certain baits If
Christ which hath so that use converted the Ceremony of the Cross in Baptism it is no Christian mans part to despise especially seeing that by this mean where Nature doth earnestly import aid Religion yieldeth her that ready assistance then which there can be no help more forcible serving onely to relieve memory and to bring to our cogitation that which should most make ashamed of sin The minde while we are in this present life whether it contemplate meditate deliberate or howsoever exercise it self worketh nothing without continual recourse unto imagination the onely Store-house of wit and peculiar Chair of memory On this Anvile it ceaseth not day and night to strike by means whereof as the Pulse declareth how the heart doth work so the very thoughts and cogitations of mans minde be they good or bad do no where sooner bewray themselves then through the crevesses of that Wall wherewith Nature hath compasied the Cells and Closets of Fancy In the Forehead nothing more plain to be seen then the fear of contumely and disgrace For which cause the Scripture as with great probability it may be thought describeth them marked of God in the Forehead whom his mercy hath undertaken to keep from final confusion and shame Not that God doth set any corporal mark on his chosen but to note that he giveth his Elect security of preservation from reproach the fear whereof doth use shew it self in that part Shall I say that the Sign of the Cross as we use it is in some sort a mean to work our preservation from reproach Surely the minde which as yet hath not hardned it self in sin is seldom provoked thereunto in any gross and grievous manner but Natures secret suggestion objected against it ignominy as a bar Which conceit being entred into that Palace of Mans fancy the Gates whereof have imprinted in them that holy Sign which bringeth fortwith to minde whatsoever Christ hath wrought and we vowed against sin it cometh hereby to pass that Christian men never want a most effectual though a silent Teacher to avoid whatsoever may deservedly procure shame So that in things which we should be ashamed of we are by the Cross admonished faithfully of our duty at the very moment when admonition doth most need Other things there are which deserve honor and yet do purchase many times our disgrace in this present World as of old the very truth of Religion it self till God by his own out-stretched arm made the glory thereof to shine over all the Earth Whereupon St. Cyprian exhorting to Maâ—tyrdom in times of Heathenish persecution and cruelty thought it not vain to alledge unto them with other Arguments the very Ceremony of that Cross whereof we speak Never let that hand offer Sacrifice to Idols which hath already received the Body of our Saviour Christ and shall hereafter the Crown of his Glory Arm your Foreheads unto all boldness â— that the Sign of God may be kept safe Again when it pleased God that the fury of their enemies being bridled the Church had some little rest and quietness if so small a liberty but onely to breathe between troubles may be termed quietness and rest to such as fell not away from Christ through former persecutions he giveth due and deserved praise in the self-same manner You that were ready to endure imprisonment and were resolute to suffer death you that have couragiously withstood the World ye have made your selves both a glorious spectacle for God to behold and a worthy example for the rest of your Brethren to follow Those mouths which had sanctified themselves with food coming down from Heaven leashed after Christ own Body and Blood to taste the poysoned and contagious scraps of Idols those Foreheads which the Sign of God had purified kept themselves to be crowned by him the touch of the Garlands of Satan they abhorred Thus was the memory of that Sign which they had in Baptism a kinde of bar or prevention to keep them even from apostasie whereunto the frailty of flesh and blood over-much fearing to endure shame might peradventure the more easily otherwise have drawn them We have not now through the gracious goodness of Almighty God those extream conflicts which our Fathers had with blasphemous contumelies every where offered to the Name of Christ by such as professed themselves Infidels and Unbelievers Howbeit unless we be strangers to the age wherein we live or else in some partial respect dissemblers of that we hourly both hear and see there is not the simplest of us but knoweth with what disdain and scorn Christ is dishonored far and wide Is there any burden in the World more heavy to bear then contempt Is there any contempt that grieveth as theirs doth whose quality no way making them less worthy then others are of reputation onely the service which they do to Christ in the daily exercise of Religion treadeth them down Doth any contumely which we sustain for Religion sake pierce so deeply as that which would seem of meer Conscience religiously spightful When they that honor God are despised when the chiefest service of Honor that man can do unto him is the cause why they are despised when they which pretend to honor him and that with greatest sincerity do with more then Heathenish petulancy trample under foot almost whatsoever either we or the whole Church of God by the space of so many ages have been accustomed unto for the comlier and better exercise of our Religion according to the soundest Rules that Wisdom directed by the Word of God and by long experience confirmed hath been able with common advice with much deliberation and exceeding great diligence to comprehend when no man fighting under Christs Banner can be always exempted from seeing or sustaining those indignities the sting whereof not to feel or feeling not to be moved thereat is a thing impossible to flesh and blood If this be any object for Patience to work on the strictest bond that thereunto tieth us is our vowed obedience to Christ the solemnest vow that we ever made to obey Christ and to suffer willingly all reproaches for his sake was made in Baptism And amongst other memorials to keep us mindful of that vow we cannot think that the Sign which our new Baptized Fore-heads cïd there receive is either unfit or unforcible the reasons hitherto alledged being weighed with indifferent ballance It is not you will say the Cross in our Fore-heads but in our Hearts the Faith of Christ that ameth us with Patience Constancy and Courage Which as we grant to be most true so neither dare we despise no not the meanest helps that serve though it be but in the very lowest degree of furtherance towards the highest services that God doth require at our hands And if any man deny that such Ceremonies are available at the least as memorials of duty or do think that himself hath no need to be so put in
and what himself did wish had been otherwise As for Sozomen his correspondency with Hereticks having shewed to what end the Church did first ordain Penitentiaries he addeth immediately that Novatianists which had no care of Repentance could have no need of this Office Are these the words of a Friend or Enemy Besides in the entrace of that whole Narration Not to sinne saith he at all would require a Nature more divine than ours is But God hath commanded to pardon Sinners yea although they transgresse and offend often Could there be any thing spoken more directly opposite to the Doctrine of Novatian Eudaemon was Presbyter under Nectarius To Novatianists the Emperour gave liberty of using their Religion quietly by themselves under a Bishop of their own even within the City for that they stood with the Church in defence of the Catholick Faith against all other Hereticks besides Had therefore Eudaemon favoured their heresie their Camps were not pitched so farr off but he might at all times have found easie accesse unto them Is there any man that hath lived with him and hath touched him that way if not why suspect we him more than Nectarius Their report touching Grecian Catholick Bishops who gave approbation to that which was done and did also the like themselves in their own Churches we have no reason to discredit without some manifest and clear evidence brought against it For of Catholick Bishops no likelihood but that their greatest respect to Nectarius a man honored in those parts no lesse than the Bishop of Rome himself in the Western Churches brought them both easily and speedily unto conformity with him Arrians Eunomians Apollinarians and the rest that stood divided from the Church held their Penitentiaries as before Novatianists from the beginning had never any because their opinion touching Penitency was against the practice of the Church therein and a cause why they severed themselves from the Church so that the very state of things as they then stood giveth great shew of probability to his speech who hath affirmed That they onely which held the Sonne consubstantial with the Father and Novatianists which joyned with them in the same Opinion had no Penitentiaries in their Churches the rest retained them By this it appeareth therefore how Baronius finding the Relation plain that Nectarius did abolish even those private secret Confessions which the People had been before accustomed to make to him that was Penitentiary laboureth what he may to discredit the Authors of the Report and to leave it imprinted in mens mindes that whereas Nectarius did but abrogate publick Confession Novatianists have maliciously forged the abolition of Private as if the oddes between these two were so great in the ballance of their Judgement which equally hated or contemned both or as if it were not more clear than light that the first alteration which established Penitentiaries took away the burthen of Publick Confession in that kinde of Penitents and therefore the second must either abrogate Private or nothing Cardinal Bellarmine therefore finding that against the Writers of the History it is but in vain to stand upon so doubtful terms and exceptions endeavoureth mightily to prove even by their report no other Confession taken away then Publick which Penitentiaries used in Private to impose upon Publick Offenders For why It is saith he very certain that the Name of Penitents in the Fathers Writings signifieth onely Publick Penitents certain that to hear the Confessions of the rest now more than one could possibly have done certain that Sozomen to shew how the Latine Church retained in his time what the Greek had clean cast off declareth the whole Order of Publick Penitency used in the Church of Rome but of Private he maketh no mention And in these Considerations Bellarmine will have it the meaning both of Socrates and Sozomen that the former Episcopal Constitution which first did erect Penitentiaries could not concern any other Offenders than such as Publickly had sinned after Baptisme That onely they were prohibited to come to the Holy Communion except they did first in secret confesse all their Sinnes to the Penitentiary by his appointment openly acknowledge their open Crimes and doe publick Penance for them That whereas before Novatian's uprising no man was constrainable to confesse publickly any Sinne this Canon enforced Publick Offenders thereunto till such time as Nectarius thought good to extinguish the Practice thereof Let us examine therefore these subtile and fine Conjectures whether they be able to hold the touch It seemeth good saith Socrates to put down the office of these Priests which had charge of Penitency what charge that was the kindes of Penitency then usual must make manifest There is often speech in the Fathers Writings In their Books frequent mention of Penitency exercised within the Chambers of our Heart and seen of God and not communicated to any other the whole charge of which Penitency is imposed of God and doth rest upon the Sinner himself But if Penitents in secret being guilty of Crimes whereby they knew they had made themselves unfit Guests for the Table of our Lord did seek direction for their better performance of that which should set them clear it was in this case the Penitentiaries Office to take their Confessions to advise them the best way he could for their Souls good to admonish them to counsel them but not to lay upon them more than private Penance As for notorious wicked Persons whose Crimes were known to convict judge and punish them was the Office of the Ecclesiastical Consistory Penitentiaries had their Institution to another end But unlesse we imagine that the antient time knew no other Repentance then publick or that they had little occasion to speak of any other Repentance or else that in speaking thereof they used continually some other Name and not the name of Repentance whereby to express private Penitency how standeth it with reason that whensoever they write of Penitents it should be thought they meant only Publick Penitents The truth is they handle all three kindes but private and voluntary Repentance much oftner as being of farr more general use whereas Publick was but incident unto few and not oftner than once incident unto any Howbeit because they do not distinguish one kinde of Penitency from another by difference of Names our safest way for Construction is to follow circumstance of Matter which in this Narration will not yield it self applyable onely unto Publick penance do what they can that would so expound it They boldly and confidently affirm That no man being compellable to confesse publickly any Sinne before Novatius time the end of instituting Penitentiaries afterwards in the Church was that by them men might be constrained unto publick Confession Is there any Record in the World which doth testifie this to be true There is that testifie the plain contrary For Sozomen declaring purposely the cause of their Institution saith That whereas men openly craving Pardon at
of uncleanness they nourish the root out of which they grow they breed that iniquity which bred them The blot therefore of Sin abideth though the act be transitory And out of both ariseth a present debt to endure what punishment soever the evil which we have done deserveth an Obligation in the Chains whereof Sinners by the Justice of Almighty God continue bound till Repentance loose them Repent this thy Wickedness saith Peter unto Simon Magus beseech God that if it be possible the thought of thine heart may be pardoned for I see thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of Iniquity In like manner Solomon The Wicked shall be held fast in the cords of his own sin Nor doth God only binde Sinners hand and foot by the dreadful determination of his own unsearchable Judgment against them but sometime also the Church bindeth by the Censures of her Discipline So that when Offenders upon their Repentance are by the same Discipline absolved the Church looseth but her own Bonds the Chains wherein she had tyed them before The act of Sin God alone remitteth in that his purpose is never to call it to account or to lay it unto mens charge The stain he washeth out by the sanctifying Grace of his Spirit And concerning the punishment of Sinne as none else hath power to cast Body and Soul into Hell fire so none power to deliver either besides him As for the Ministerial Sentence of private Absolution it can be no more than a Declaration what God hath done It hath but the force of the Prophet Nathan's Absolution God hath taken away thy Sin Than which construction especially of words judicial there is not any thing more vulgar For example the Publicans are said in the Gospel to have justified God The Jews in Malachi to have blessed Proud men which sinne and prosper not that the one did make God righteous or the other the wicked happy But to bless to Justifie and to Absolve are as commonly used for words of Judgement or Declaration as of true and real efficacy Yea even by the opinion of the Master of Sentences It may be soundly affirmed and thought that God alone doth remit and retain Sinnes although he have given Power to the Church to do both But he one way and the Church another He only by himself forgiveth Sinne who cleanseth the Soul from inward blemish and looseth the Debt of Eternal death So great a Priviledge he hath not given unto his Priests who notwithstanding are authorized to loose and binde that is to say declare who are bound and who are loosed For albeit a man be already cleared before God yet he is not in the Church of God so taken but by the vertue of the Priests Sentence who likewise may be said to binde by imposing Satisfaction and to loose by admitting to the Holy Communion Saint Hierom also whom the Master of the Sentences alledgeth for more countenance of his own opinion doth no less plainly and directly affirm That as the Priests of the Law could only discern and neither cause nor remove Leprosies So the Ministers of the Gospel when they retain or remit Sin do but in the one judge how long we continue guilty and in the other declare when we are clear or free For there is nothing more apparent than that the Discipline of Repentance both Publick and Private was ordained as an outward mean to bring men to the vertue of inward Conversion So that when this by manifest tokens did seem effected Absolution ensuing which could not make served only to declare men innocent But the cause wherefore they are so stiff and have forsaken their own Master in this point is for that they hold the private Discipline of Penitency to be a Sacrament Absolution an external sign in this Sacrament the signs external of all Sacraments in the New Testament to be both causes of that which they signifie and signs of that which they truly cause To this opinion concerning Sacraments they are now tyed by expounding a Canon in the Florentine Council according to the former Ecclesiastical invention received from Thomas For his device it was that the mercy of God which useth Sacraments as Instruments whereby to work indueth them at the time of their Administration with supernatural force and ability to induce Grace into the Souls of men Even as the Axe and Saw doth seem to bring Timber into that fashion which the minde of the Artificer intendeth His Conceipt Scotus Occam Petrus Alliacensis with sundry others do most earnestly and strongly impugn shewing very good reason wherefore no Sacrament of the new Law can either by vertue which it self hath or by force supernatural given it be properly a cause to work Grace but Sacraments are therefore said to work or conferr Grace because the will of Almighty God is although not to give them such efficacy yet himself to be present in the Ministry of the working that effect which proceedeth wholly from him without any real operation of theirs such as can enter into men's Souls In which construction seeing that our Books and Writings have made it known to the World how we joyn with them it seemeth very hard and injurious Dealing that Bellarmine throughout the whole course of his second Book De Sacramentis in genere should so boldly face down his Adversaries as if their opinion were that Sacraments are naked empty and ineffectual signes whererein there is no other force than only such as in Pictures to stir up the minde that so by theory and speculation of things represented Faith may grow Finally That all the operations which Sacraments have is a sensible and divine Instruction But had it pleased him not to hud-wink his own knowledge I nothing doubt but he fully saw how to answer himself it being a matter very strange and incredible that one which with so great diligence hath winowed his Adversarys Writings should be ignorant of their minds For even as in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ both God and Man when his human nature is by it self considered we may not attribute that unto him which we do and must ascribe as oft as respect is had unto both natures combined so because in Sacraments there are two things distinctly to be considered the outward sign and the secret concurrence of Gods most blessed Spirit in which respect our Saviour hath taught that Water and the Holy Ghost are combined to work the mysterie of new birth Sacraments therefore as signs have only those effects before mentioned but of Sacraments in that by God's own Will and Ordinance they are signs assisted alwayes with the power of the Holy Ghost we acknowledge whatsoever either the places of the Scripture or the Authority of Councels and Fathers or the proofs and arguments of reason which he alledgeth can shew to be wrought by them The Elements and words have power of infallible signification for
of that courage to follow learning which hath already so much failed through the onely diminution of her chiefest rewards Bishopricks Surely wheresoever this wicked intendment of overthrowing Cathedral Churches or of taking away those Livings Lands and Possessions which Bishops hitherto have enjoyed shall once prevail the hand maids attending thereupon will be Paganism and extreme Barbarity In the Law of Moses how careful provision is made that goods of this kind might remain to the Church for ever Ye shall not make common the holy things of the children of Israel lest ye dye saith the Lord. Touching the fields annexed unto Levitical Cities the Law was plain they might not be sold and the reason of the Law this for it was their possession for ever He which was Lord and owner of it his will and pleasure was that from the Levites it should never pass to be enjoyned by any other The Lords own portion without his own Commission and Grant how should any man justly hold They which hold it by his appointment had it plainly with this condition They shall not sell of it neither change it nor alienate the first-fruits of the Land for it is holy unto the Lord. It falleth sometimes out as the Prophet Habbakkuk noteth that the very prey of Savage Beasts becometh dreadful unto themselves It did so in Iudas Achan Nebuchadnezzar their evil-purchased goods were their snare and their prey their own terror A thing no where so likely to follow as in those goods and possessions which being laid where they should not rest have by the Lords own testimony his most bitter curse their undividable companion These perswasions we use for other mens cause not for theirs with whom God and Religion are parts of the abrogated Law of Ceremonies Wherefore not to continue longer in the cure of a Sore desperate there was a time when the Clergy had almost as little as these good people wish But the Kings of this Realm and others whom God had blest considered devoutly with themselves as David in like case sometimes had done Is it meet that we at the hands of God should enjoy all kindes of abundance and Gods Clergy suffer want They considered that of Solomon Honor God with thy substance and the chiefest of all thy revenue so shall thy barns be filled with corn and thy vessels shall run over with new wine They considered how the care which Iehoshaphat had in providing that the Levites might have encouragement to do the work of the Lord chearfully was left of God as a fit pattern to be followed in the Church for ever They considered what promise our Lord and Saviour hath made unto them at whose hands his Prophets should receive but the least part of the meanest kind of friendliness though it were but a draught of water Which promise seemeth not to be taken as if Christ had made them of any higher courtesie uncapable and had promised reward not unto such as give them but that but unto such as leave them but that They considered how earnest the Apostle is that if the Ministers of the Law were so amply provided for less care then ought not to be had of them who under the Gospel of Jesus Christ possess correspondent rooms in the Church they considered how needful it is that they who provoke all others unto works of Mercy and Charity should especially have wherewith to be examples of such things and by such meons to win them with whom other means without those do commonly take very small effect In these and the like considerations the Church-Revenues were in ancient times augmented our Lord thereby performing manifestly the promise made to his servants that they which did leave either Father or Mother or Lands or goods for his sake should receive even in this World an hundred fold For some hundreds of years together they which joyned themselves to the Church were fain to relinquish all worldly emoluments and to endure the hardness of an afflicted estate Afterward the Lord gave rest to his Church Kings and Princes became as Fathers thereunto the hearts of all men inclined towards it and by his providence there grew unto it every day earthly possessions in more and more abundance till the greatness thereof bred envy which no diminutions are able to satisfie For as those ancient Nursing Fathers thought they did never bestow enough even so in the eye of this present age as long as any thing remaineth it seemeth to bee too much Our Fathers we imitate inperversum as Tertullian speaketh like them we are by being in equal degree the contrary unto that which they were Unto those earthly blessings which God as then did with so great abundance pour down upon the Ecclesiastical state we may in regard of most neer resemblance apply the self same words which the Prophet hath God blessed them exceedingly and by this very mean turned the hearts of their own Brethren to hate them and to deal politiquely with his servants Computations are made and there are huge sums set down for Princes to see how much they may amplifie and enlarge their own treasure how many publique burthens they may ease what present means they have to reward their servants about them if they please but to grant their assent and to accept of the spoil of Bishops by whom Church-goods are but abused unto pomp and vanity Thus albeit they deal with one whose princely vertue giveth them small hope to prevail in impious and sacrilegious motions yet shame they not to move her Royal Majesty even with a suit not much unlike unto that wherewith the Jewish High-Priest tried Iudas whom they sollicited unto Treason against his Master and proposed unto him a number of silver-pence in lien of so vertuous and honest a service But her sacred Majesty disposed to be always like her self her heart so far estranged from willingness to gain by pillage of that estate the only awe whereof under God she hath been unto this present hour as of all other parts of this noble Common-wealth whereof she hath vowed her self a Protector till the end of her days on earth which if nature could permit we wish as good cause we have endless this her gracious inclination is more then a seven times sealed warrant upon the same assurance whereof touching time and action so dishonourable as this we are on her part most secure not doubting but that unto all posterity it shall for ever appear that from the first to the very last of her Soveraign proceedings there hath not been one authorized deed other then consonant with that Symmachus saith Fiscus bonitum Principum non sacer dotum damnis sed hastium spoliis angeatur consonant with that imperial law Ea qua ad be atissima ecclesia jur a pâ—rtinent tanquam ipsamâ— sacro sanctam religiosam Ecclesiam intactu convenit vener abiliter aâ—stodiri ut â—icâ—â— ipsâ—religionis â—idei mater perpetua
that Church never knew the meaning of her Heresies So that although all Popish Hereticks did perish thousands of them which lived in Popish Superstitions might be saved Thirdly seeing all that held Popish Heresies did not hold all the Heresies of the Pope why might not thousands which were infected with other leaven live and die unsowred with this and so be saved Fourthly If they all held this Heresie many there were that held it no doubt but onely in a general form of words which a favourable Interpretation might expound in a sense differing far enough from the poysoned conceit of Heresie As for example Did they hold that we cannot be saved by Christ without good works We our selves do I think all say as much with this Construction salvation being taken as in that sentence Corde creditur ad justitiam Ore fit confessio ad salutem except Infants and Men cut off upon the point of their conversion of the rest none shall see God but such as seek peace and holiness though not as a Cause of their salvation yet as a Way which they must walk which will be saved Did they hold that without works we are not justified Take justification so as it may also imply sanctification and St. Iames doth say as much For except there be an ambiguity in the same term St. Paul and St. Iames do contradict each the other which cannot be Now there is no ambiguity in the name either of Faith or of Works being meant by them both in one and the same sense Finding therefore that Justification is spoken of by St Paul without implying Sanctification when he proveth that a man is justified by faith without works finding likewise that justification doth sometime imply sanctification also with it I suppose nothing to be more sound then so to interpret St Iames speaking not in that sense but in this 21. We have already shewed that there be two kinds of Christian righteousness the one without us which we have by imputation the other in us which consisteth of faith hope and charity and other Christian Vertues And S. Iames doth prove that Abraham had not onely the one because the thing believed was imputed unto him for righteousness but also the other because he offered up his Son God giveth us both the one justice and the other the one by accepting us for righteous in Christ the other by working Christian righteousness in us The proper and most immediate efficient cause in us of this latter is the Spirit of adoption we have received into our hearts That whereof it consisteth whereof it is really and formally made are those infused vertues proper and peculiar unto Saints which the Spirit in the very moment when first it is given of God bringeth with it the effects whereof are such actions as the Apostle doth call the fruits of works the operation of the Spirit The difference of the which operations from the root whereof they spring maketh it needful to put two kinds likewise of sanctifying righteousness Habitual and Actual Habitual that holiness wherewith our souls are inwardly indued the same instant when first we begin to be the Temples of the Holy Ghost Actual that holiness which afterwards beautifieth all the parts and actions of our life the holiness for which Enoch Iob Zachary Elizabeth and other Saints are in the Scriptures so highly commended If here iâ— he demanded which of these we do first receive I answer that the Spirit the vertue of the spirit the habitual justice which is ingrafted the external justice of Jesus Christ which is imputed these we receive all at one and the same time whensoever we have any of these we have all they go together Yet sith no man is justified except he believe and no man believeth except he hath Faith and no man except he hath received the spirit of Adoption hath Faith forasmuch as they do necessarily infer justification and justification doth of necessity presuppose them we must needs hold that imputed righteousness in dignity being the chiefest is notwithstanding in order to the last of all these but Actual righteousness which is the righteousness of good works succeedeth all followeth after all both in order and time Which being attentivly marked sheweth plainly how the faith of true Believers cannot be divorced from hope and loveâ— how faith is a part of sanctification and yet unto justification necessary how faith is perfected by good works and not works of ours without faith Finally how our Fathers might hold that we are justified by Faith alone and yet hold truly that without works we are not justified Did they think that men do merit rewards in heaven by the works they perform on earth The Ancients use meriting for obtaining and in that sense they of Wittenberg have it in their Confession We teach that good works commanded of God are necessarily to be done and by the free kindness of God they merit their certain rewards Therefore speaking as our Fathers did and we taking their speech in a â—ound meaning as we may take our Fathers and might for as much as their meaning is doubtful and charity doth always interpret doubtful things favourably what should induce as to think that rather the damage of the worst construction did light upon them all then that the blessing of the better was granted unto thousands Fiftly if in the worst construction that may be made they had generally all imbraced it living might not many of them dying utterly renounce it Howsoever men when they sit at ease do vainly tickle their hearts with the vain conceit of I know not what proportionable correspondence between their merits and their rewards which in the trance of their high speculations they dream that God hath measured weighed and laid up as it were in bundles for them notwithstanding we see by daily experience in a number even of them that when the hour of death approacheth when they secretly hear themselves summoned forthwith to appear and stand at the Bar of that Judge whose brightness causeth the eyes of the Angels themselves to dazel all these idle imaginations do then begin to hide their faces to name merits then is to lay their souls upon the rack the memory of their own deeds is lothsome unto them they forsake all things wherein they have put any trust or confidence no staff to lean upon no ease no rest no comfort then but onely in Jesus Christ. 22. Wherefore if this proposition were true To hold in such wise as the Church of Rome doth that we cannot be saved by Christ alone without works is directly to deny the foundation of Faith I say that if this proposition were true nevertheless so many ways I have shewed whereby we may hope that thousands of our Fathers which lived in popish superstition might be saved But what if it be not true What if neither that of the Galathians concerning Circumcision nor this of the Church of Rome by Workes be
where once he dwelleth What shall become of his Promise I am with you to the Worlds end If the Seed of God which containeth Christ may be first conceived and then cast out how doth S. Peter term it immortal How doth St. Iohn affirm It abideth If the Spirit which is given to cherish and preserve the Seed of Life may be given and taken away how is it the earnest of our inheritance until Redemption how doth it continue with us for ever If therefore the man which is once just by faith shall live by Faith and live for ever it followeth that he which once doth believe the foundation must needs believe the foundation forever If he believe it for ever how can he ever directly deny it Faith holding the direct affirmation the direct negation so long as Faith continueth is excluded Object But you will say That as he that is to day holy may to morrow forsake his holiness and become impure as a friend may change his minde and be made an enemy as hope may wither so saith may dye in the heart of man the Spirit may be quenched Grace may be extinguished they which believe may be quite turned away from the Truth Sol. The case is clear long experience hath made this manifest it needs no proof I grant we are apt prone and ready to forsake God but is God as ready to forsake us Our mindes are changeable is His so likewise Whom God hath justified hath not Christ assured that it is his Fathers will to give them a Kingdom Notwithstanding it shall not be otherwise given them than if they continue grounded and stablished in the Faith and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel if they abide in love and holiness Our Saviour therefore when he spake of the sheep effectually called and truly gathered into his fold I give unto-them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any pluck them out of my hands in promising to save them he promised no doubt to preserve them in that without which there can be no salvation as also from that whereby it is irrecoverably lost Every errour in things appertaining unto God is repugnant unto Faith every fearful cogitation unto hope unto love every stragling inordinate desire unto holiness every blemish wherewith either the inward thoughts of our mindes or the outward actions of our lives are stained But heresie such as that of Ebion Gerinthus and others against whom the Apostles were forced to bend themselves both by word and also by writing that repining discouragement of heart which tempteth God whereof we have Israel in the Desart for a pattern coldness such as that in the Angels of Ephesus soul sins known to be expresly against the first or second table of the Law such as Noah Monasses David Solomon and Peter committed These are each in their kind so opposite to the former vertues that they leave no place for salvation without an actual repentance But Infidelity extream despair hatred of God and all goodness obduration in Sin cannot stand where there is but the least spark of Faith hope love and sanctity even as cold in the lowest degree cannot be where heat in the highest degree is found Whereupon I conclude that although in the first kind no man liveth which sinneth not and in the second as perfect as any do live may sinne yet sith the man which is born of God hath a promise That in him the Seed of God shall abide which Seed is a sure Preservative against the sinnes that are of the third suit Greater and clearer assurance we cannot have of any thing than of this that from such sinnes God shall preserve the Righteous as the apple of his Eye for ever Directly to deny the foundation of Faith is plain Infidelity where Faith is entred there Infidelity is for ever excluded Therefore by him which hath once sincerely believed in Christ the foundation of Christian Faith can never be directly denied Did not Peter Did not Marcellinus Did not others both directly deny Christ after that they had believed and again believe after they had denied No doubt as they confesse in words whose Condemnation is nevertheless their not believing for example we have Iudas So likewisewise they may believe in Heart whose Condemnation without Repentance is their not Confessing Although therefore Peter and the rest for whose Faith Christ hath prayed that it might not fail did not by denial sinne the Sinne of Infidelity which is an inward abnegation of Christ for if they had done this their Faith had clearly failed Yet because they sinned notoriously and grievously committing that which they knew to be expresly forbidden by the Law which saith Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him onely shalt thou serve necessary it was that he which purposed to save their Souls should as he did touch their Hearts with true unfeigned repentance that his mercy might restore them again to life whom Sinne had made the children of Death and Condemnation Touching the point therefore I hope I may safely set down that if the Justified erre as he may and never come to understand his errour God doth save him through general repentance But if he fall into Heresie he calleth him at one time or other by actual repentance but from Infidelity which is an inward direct denial of the foundation he preserveth him by special providence for ever Whereby we may easily know what to think of those Galatians whose hearts were so possest with the love of the Truth that if it had been possible they would have pluckt out their eyes to bestow upon their Teachers It is true that they were greatly changed both in perswasion and affection so that the Galatians when Saint Paul wrote unto them were not now the Galatians which they had been in former time for that through errour they wandred although they were his sheep I do not deny but that I should deny that they were his sheep if I should grant that through errour they perished It was a perilous opinion that they held perilous even in them that held it only as an Errour because it overthroweth the foundation by consequent But in them which obstinately maintain it I cannot think it less than a damnable Heresie We must therefore put a difference between them which erre of ignorance retaining neverthelesse a mind desirous to be instructed in Truth and them which after the Truth is laid open persist in the stubborn defence of their blindness Heretical defenders froward and stiff-necked Teachers of Circumcision the blessed Apostle calls Doggs Silly men who were seduced to think they taught the Truth he pitieth he taketh up in his arms he lovingly imbraceth he kisseth and with more than fatherly tenderness doth so temper qualifie and correct the speech he useth towards them that a man cannot easily discern whether did most abound the love which he bare to to their godly
Faith as we trust by his mercy we our selves are I permit it to your wise considerations whether it be more likely that as frenzy though it take away the use of reason doth notwithstanding prove them reasonable Creatures which have it because none can be frantick but they So Antichristianity being the bane and plain overthrow of Christianity may neverthelesse argue the Church where Antichrist sitteth to be Christian Neither have I ever hitherto heard or read any one word alledged of force to warrant that God doth otherwise than so as in the two next Questions before hath been declared binde himself to keep his Elect from worshipping the Beast and from receiving his mark in their foreheads but he hath preserved and will preserve them from receiving any deadly wound at the hands of the Man of Sinne whose deceit hath prevailed over none unto death but onely unto such as never loved the Truth such as took pleasure in unrighteousnesse They in all ages whose hearts have delighted in the principal Truth and whose Souls have thirsted after righteousness if they received the mark of Errour the mercy of God even erring and dangerously erring might save them if they received the mark of Heresie the same mercy did I doubt not convert them How farr Romish Heresies may prevail over God's Elect how many God hath kept falling into them how many have been converted from them is not the question now in hand for if Heaven had not received any one of that coat for these thousand years it may still be true that the Doctrine which this day they do professe doth not directly deny the foundation and so prove them simply to be no Christian Church One I have alleadged whose words in my ears sound that way shall I adde another whose speech is plain I deny her not the name of a Church saith another no more than to a man the name of a man as long as he liveth what sicknesse soever he hath His Reason is this Salvation is Iesus Christ which is the mark which joyneth the Head with the Body Iesus Christ with the Church is so cut off by many merits by the merits of Saints by the Popes Pardons and such other wickednesse that the life of the Church boldeth by a very thred yet still the life of the Church holdeth A third hath these words I acknowledge the Church of Rome even at this present day for a Church of Christ such a Church as Israel did Jeroboam yet a Church His reason is this Every man seeth except he willingly hoodwink himself that as alwayes so now the Church of Rome holdeth firmly and stedfastly the Doctrine of Truth concerning Christ and baptizeth in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost confesseth and avoucheth Christ for the onely Redeemer of the World and the Iudge that shall sit upon quick and dead receiving true Believers into endless joy faithless and godless men being cast with Satan and his Angels into flames unquenchable 28. I may and will rein the question shorter than they doe Let the Pope take down his top and captivate no more mens Souls by his Papal Jurisdiction let him no longer count himself Lord Paramount over the Princes of the World no longer hold Kings as his Servants paravaile Let his stately Senate submit their Necks to the yoke of Christ and cease to die their Garments like Edom in Blood Let them from the highest to the lowest hate and forsake their Idolatry abjure all their Errours and Heresies wherewith they have any way perverted the truth Let them strip their Churches till they leave no polluted ragg but onely this one about her By Christ alone without works we cannot be saved It is enough for me if I shew that the holding of this one thing doth not prove the foundation of Faith directly denied in the Church of Rome 29. Works are an addition Be it so what then the foundation is not subverted by every kinde of addition Simply to adde unto those fundamental words is not to mingle Wine with Water Heaven and Earth things polluted with the sanctified blood of Christ Of which Crime indict them which attribute those operations in whole or in part to any Creature which in the work of our Salvation wholly are peculiar unto Christ and If I open my mouth to speak in their defence if I hold my peace and plead not against them as long as breath is within my Body let me be guilty of all the dishonor that ever hath been done to the Son of God But the more dreadful a thing it is to deny salvation by Christ alone the more slow and fearful I am except it be too manifest to lay a thing so grievous to any man's charge Let us beware lest if we make too many ways of denying Christ we scarce leave any way for our selves truly and soundly to confess him Salvation only by Christ is the true foundation whereupon indeed Christianity standeth But what if I say You cannot besaved only by Christ without this addition Christ believed in heart confessed with mouth obeyed in life and conversation Because I adde do I therefore deny that which I did directly affirm There may be an additament of explication which overthroweth not but proveth and concludeth the Proposition whereunto it is annexed He which saith Peter was a Chief Apostle doth prove that Peter was an Apostle He which saith Our Salvation is of the Lord through Sanctification of the Spirit and Faith of the Truth proveth that our Savation is of the Lord. But if that which is added be such a privation as taketh away the very essence of that whereunto it is added then by the sequel it overthroweth it He which saith Iudas is a dead man though in word he granteth Iudas to be a man yet in effect he proveth him by that very speech no man because death depriveth him of being In like sort he that should say our Election is of Grace for our Works sake should grant in sound of words but indeed by consequent deny that our Election is of Grace for the Grace which electeth us is no Grace if it elect us for our Works sake 30. Now whereas the Church of Rome addeth Works we must note further that the adding of Works is not like the adding of Circumcision unto Christ Christ came not to abrogate and put away good Works he did to change Circumcision for we see that in place thereof he hath substituted holy Baptism To say Ye cannot be saved by Christ except ye be circumcised is to adde a thing excluded a thing not only not necessary to be kept but necessary not to be kept by them that will be saved On the other side to say Ye cannot be saved by Christ without Works is to add things not only not excluded but commanded as being in their place and in their kinde necessary and therefore subordinated unto Christ by Christ himself by whom
men And fearing left that such questions as these if voluntarily they should be too farr waded in might seem worthy of that rebuke which our Saviour thought needfull in a case not unlike What is this unto thee When I was forced much beside my expectation to render a reason of my speech I could not but yield at the Call of others and proceed so farr as Duty bound me for the fuller satisfying of mindes Wherein I have walked as with Reverence so with Fear with Reverence inregard of our Fathers which lived in former times not without Fear considering them that are alive 38. I am not ignorant how ready men are to feed and sooth up themselves in evil Shall I will the man say that loveth the present World more than he loveth Christ shall I incurr the high displeasure of the mightiest upon Earth Shall I hazard my Goods endanger my Estate put my self into jeopardy rather than to yield to that which so many of my Fathers imbraced and yet found favour in the sight of God Curse ye Meroz saith the Lord curse bar Inhabitants because they helped not the Lord they helped him not against the Mighty If I should not onely not help the Lord against the Mighty but help to strengthen them that are mighty against the Lord worthily might I fall under the burthen of that Curse worthy I were to bear to bear my own Judgement But if the Doctrine which I reach be a flower gathered in the Garden of the Lord a part of the saying Truth of the Gospel from whence notwithstanding poysonous Creatures do suck-venom I can but wish it were otherwise and content my self with the lord that hath befallen me the rather because it hath not befallen me alone Saint Paul taught a Truth and a comfortable truth when he taught that the greater our misery is in respect of our Iniquities the readier is the mercy of God for our release If we seek unto him the more we have sinned the more praise and glory and honour unto him that pardoneth our sinne But mark what sewd Collections were made hereupon by some Why then am I condemned for a Sinner And the Apostle as we are blamed and as some affirm that we say Why doe we not evil that good may come of it he was accused to teach that which ill-disposed People did gather by his teaching though it were clean not onely besides but against his meaning The Apostle addeth Their Condemnation which thus doe is just I am not hasty to apply Sentences of Condemnation I wish from mine Heart their Conversion whosoever are thus perversly affected For I must needs say Their Case is fearful their Estate dangerous which harden themselves presuming on the mercy of God towards others It is true that God is merciful but let us beware of presumptuous sinnes God delivered Ionah from the bottome of the Sea will you therefore cast your selves head-long from the tops of Rocks and say in your Hearts God shall deliver us He pitieth the Blinde that would gladly see but will he pity him that may see and hardeneth himself in blindenesse No Christ hath spoken too much unto you to claim the priviledge of your Fathers 39. As for us that have handled this Cause concerning the condition of our Fathers whether it be this thing or any other which we bring unto you the Counsel is good which the Wise man giveth Stand thou fast in thy sure understanding in the way and knowledge of the Lord and have but one manner of word and follow the Word of peace and righteousnesse As a loose tooth is a grief to him that eateth so doth a wavering and unstable word in speech that tendeth to instruction offend Shall a wise man speak words of the winde saith Eliphaz leight unconstant unstable words Surely the wisest may speak words of the winde such is the untoward Constitution of our nature that we doe neither so perfectly understand the way and knowledge of the Lord nor so stedfastly imbrace it when it is understood nor so graciously utter it when it is imbraced not so peaceably maintain it when it is uttered but that the best of us are over-taken sometime through blindenesse sometime through hastinesse sometime through impatience sometimes through other passions us the minde whereunto God doth know we are too subject We must therefore be contented both to pardon others and to crave that others may pardon us for such things Let no man that speaketh as a man think himself while he liveth alwayes freed from scapes and over-sights in his speech The things themselves which I have spoken unto you are sound howsoever they have seemed otherwise unto some at whose hands I have in that respect received Injury I willingly forget it although indeed considering the benefit which I have reaped by this necessary speech of Truth I rather incline to that of the Apostle They have not injured me at all I have cause to wish them as many Blessings in the Kingdom of Heaven as they have forced me to utter words and syllables in this Cause wherein I could not be more sparing of speech than I have been It becommeth no man saith Saint Ierom to be patient in the crime of Heresie Patient as I take it we should be alwayes though the crime of Heresie were intended but silent in a thing of so great Consequence I could not beloved I durst not be especially the love which I bear to the truth of Christ Jesus being hereby somewhat called in question Whereof I beseech them in the meeknesse of Christ that have been the first original cause to consider that a Watch-man may cry an Enemy when indeed a Friend commeth In which Cause as I deem such a Watch-man more worthy to be loved for his Care than mis-liked for his Errour So I have judged it my own part in this as much as in me lyeth to take away all suspition of any unfriendly intent or meaning against the Truth from which God doth know my heart is free 40. Now to you Beloved which have heard these things I will use no other words of admonition than those that are offered me by St. Iames My Brethren have not the Faith of our glorious Lord Iesus in respect of Persons Ye are not now to learn that as of it self it is not hurtful so neither should it be to any scandalous and offensive in doubtful cases to hear the different judgments of men Be it that Cephas hath hath one interpretation and Apollos hath another that Paul is of this minde and Barnabas of that if this offend you the fault is yours Carry peaceable mindes and you may have comfort by this variety Now the God of Peace give you peaceable mindes and turn it to your everlasting comfort A LEARNED SERMON OF THE NATURE OF PRIDE HABAK. 2. 4. His mind swelleth and is not right in him But the Iust by his Faith shall live THE nature of Man being much more delighted to
be led than drawn doth many times stubbornly resist Authority when to Perswasion it easily yieldeth Whereupon the Wisest Law-makers have endeavoured always that those Laws might seem most reasonable which they would have most inviolably kept A Law simply commanding or forbidding is but dead in comparison of that which expresseth the reason wherefore it doth the one or the other And surely even in the Laws of God although that he hath given Commandment be in it self a reason sufficient to exact all obedience at the hands of men yet a forcible inducement it is to obey with greater alacrity and chearfulnesse of minde when we see plainly that nothing is imposed more than we must needs yield unto except we will be unreasonable In a word whatsoever be taught be it Precept for direction of our Manners or Article for instruction of our Faith or document any way for information of our mindes it then taketh root and abideth when we conceive not onely what God doth speak but why Neither is it a small thing which we derogate as well from the honour of his Truth as from the comfort joy and delight which we our selves should take by it when we loosely slide over his speech as though it were as our own is commonly vulgar and trivial Whereas he uttereth nothing but it hath besides the substance of Doctrine delivered a depth of wisdom in the very choice and frame of words to deliver it in The reason whereof being not perceived but by greater intention of brain than our nice mindes for the most part can well away with fain we would bring the World if we might to think it but a needless curiosity to rip up any thing further than extemporal readness of wit doth serve to reach unto Which course if here we did list to follow we might tell you that in the first branch of this Sentence God doth condemn the Babylonian's pride and in the second teach what happiness of state shall grow to the righteous by the constancy of their Faith notwithstanding the troubles which now they suffer and after certain notes of wholsome instruction hereupon collected pass over without detaining your mindes in any further removed speculation But as I take it there is a difference between the talk that beseemeth Nurses among Children and that which men of Capacity and Judgment do or should receive instruction by The minde of the Prophet being erected with that which hath been hitherto spoken receiveth here for full satisfaction a short abridgement of that which is afterwards more particularly unfolded Wherefore as the question before disputed of doth concern two sorts of men the Wicked flourishing as the Bay and the righteous like the withered Grass the one full of pride the other cast down with utter discouragement so the answer which God doth make for resolution of doubts hereupon arisen hath reference unto both sorts and this present sentence containing a brief Abstract thereof comprehendeth summarily as well the fearful estate of iniquity over-exalted as the hope laid up for righteousness opprest In the former branch of which Sentence let us first examine what this rectitude or straitness importeth which God denieth to be in the minde of the Babylonian All things which God did create he made them at the first true good and right True in respect of correspondence unto that pattern of their Being which was eternally drawn in the Counsel of God's fore-knowledge Good in regard of the use and benefit which each thing yieldeth unto other Right by an'apt conformity of all parts with that end which is outwardly proposed for each thing to tend unto Other things have ends proposed but have not the faculty to know judge and esteem of them and therefore as they tend thereunto unwittingly so likewise in the means whereby they acquire their appointed ends they are by necessity so held that they cannot divert from them The ends why the Heavens do move the Heavens themselves know not and their motions they cannot but continue Only men in all their actions know what it is which they seek for neither are they by any such necessity tyed naturally unto any certain determinate mean to obtain their end by but that they may if they will forsake it And therefore in the whole World no Creature but onely man which hath the last end of his actions proposed as a recompence and reward whereunto his minde directly bending it self is termed right or strait otherwise perverse To make this somewhat more plain we must note that as they which travel from City to City enquire ever for the straightest way because the streightest is that which soonest bringeth them unto their journeys end So we having here as the Apostle speaketh no abiding City but being always in travel towards that place of joy immortality and rest cannot but in every of our deeds words and thoughts think that to be best which with most expedition leadeth us thereunto and is for that very cause termed right That Soveraign good which is the eternal fruition of all good being our last and chiefest felicity there is no desperate Despiser of God and godliness living which doth not wish for The difference between right and crooked mindes is in the means which the one of the other eschew or follow Certain it is that all particular things which are naturally desired in the world as Food Rayment Honor Wealth Pleasure Knowledge they are subordinated in such wise unto that future Good which we look for in the World to come that even in them there lyeth a direct way tending unto this Otherwise we must think that God making promises of good things in this life did seek to pervert men and to lead them from their right minds Where is then the obliquity of the minde of man his minde is perverse cam and crooked not when it bendeth it self unto any of these things but when it bendeth so that it swerveth either to the right hand or to the left by excess or defect from that exact rule whereby Human actions are measured The rule to measure and judge them by is the Law of God For this cause the Prophet doth make so often and so earnest suit O direct me in the way of thy Commandments As long as I have respect to thy Statules I am sure not to tread amiss Under the name of the Law we must comprehend not only that which God hath written in Tables and Leaves but that which Nature also hath engraven in the hearts of men Else how should those Heathens which never had Books but Heaven and Earth to look upon be convicted of Perverseness But the Gentiles which had not the Law in Books had saith the Apostle the effect of the Law written in their hearts Then seeing that the heart of man is not right exactly unless it be found in all parts such that God examining and calling it unto account with all severity of rigour be not able once to charge it with
if we may be privy to what we are every way if glad and joyful for our own wel-fare and in all this remain unblameable nevertheless some there are who granting thus much doubt whether it may stand with humility to accept those testimonies of Praise and Commendation those Titles Rooms and other Honours which the World yieldeth as acknowledgements of some mens excellencies above others For inasmuch as Christ hath said unto those that are his The Kings of the Gentiles raign over them and they that bear rule over them are called Gracious Lords Be ye not so the Anabaptist hereupon urgeth equality amongst Christians as if all exercise of Authority were nothing else but Heathenish Pride Our Lord and Saviour had no such meaning But his Disciples feeding themselves with a vain imagination for the time that the Messias of the World should in Ierusalem erect his Throne and exercise Dominion with great pomp and outward statelinesse advanced in honour and Terrene Power above all the Princes of the Earth began to think how with their Lord's condition their own would also rise that having left and forsaken all to follow him their Place about him should not be mean and because they were many it troubled them much which of them should be the greatest man When suit was made for two by name that of them one might sit at his right hand and the other at his left the rest began to stomack each taking it grievously that any should have what all did affect their Lord and Master to correct this humour turneth aside their cogitations from these vain and fansieful conceits giving them plainly to understand that they did but deceive themselves His coming was not to purchase an earthly but to bestow on heavenly Kingdom wherein they if any shall be greatest whom unfeigned Humility maketh in this World lowest and least amongst others Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations therefore I leave unto you a Kingdom as my Father hath appointed me that ye may eat and drink at my Table in my Kingdom and sit on Seats and judge the twelve Tribes of Israel But my Kingdom is no such Kingdom as ye dream of And therefore these hungry ambitious contentions are seemlier in Heathens than in you Wherefore from Christ's intent and purpose nothing is further removed than dislike of distinction in Titles and Callings annexed for Order's sake unto Authority whether it be Ecclesiastical or Civil And when we have examined throughly what the nature of this Vice is no man knowing it can be so simple as not to see an ugly shape thereof apparent many times in rejecting Honours offered more than in the very exacting of them at the hands of men For as Iudas his care for the Poor was meer covetousness and that frank-hearted wastfulness spoken of in the Gospel thriftâ— so there is no doubt but that going in raggs may be Pride and Thrones be cloathed with unfeigned humility We must go further therefore and enter somewhat deeper before we can come to the Closet wherein this Poyson lyeth There is in the heart of every proud man first an errour of understanding a vain opinion whereby he thinketh his own excellency and by reason thereof his worthiness of estimation regard and honour to be greater than in truth it is This maketh him in all his affections accordingly to raise up himself and by his inward affections his outward acts are fashioned Which if you list to have exemplified you may either by calling to minde things spoken of them whom God himself hath in Scripture specially noted with this fault or by presenting to your secret cogitations that which you daily behold in the odious lives and manners of high-minded men It were too long to gather together so plentiful an harvest of examples in this kinde as the sacred Scripture affordeth That which we drink in at our ears doth not so piercingly enter as that which the minde doth conceive by sight Is there any thing written concerning the Assyrian Monarch in the tenth of Esay of his swelling minde his haughty looks his great and presumptuous taunts By the power of mine own hand I have done all things and by mine own wisdom I have subdued the World Any thing concerning the Dames of Sion in the third of the Prophet Esay of their stretched-out Necks their immodest Eyes their Pageant-like stately and pompous Gate Any thing concerning the practises of Corah Dathan and Abiram of their impatience to live in subjection their mutinies repining at lawful Authority their grudging against their Superiours Ecclesiastical and Civil Any thing concerning Pride in any sort of Sect which the present face of the World doth not as in a glass represent to the view of all mens beholding So that if Books both prophane and holy were all lost as long as the manners of men retain the estate they are in for him that observeth how that when men have once conceived an over-weening of themselves it maketh them in all their affections to swell how deadly their hatred how heavy their displeasure how un-appeaseable their indignation and wrath is above other mens in what manner they compose themselvs to be as Heteroclits without the compass of all such Rules as the common sort are measured by how the Oaths which religious hearts do tremble at they affect as principal graces of speech what felicity they take to see the enormity of their crimes above the reach of Laws and punishments how much it delighteth them when they are able to appale with the cloudiness of their looks how far they exceed the terms wherewith man 's nature should be limited how high they bear their heads over others how they brow-beat all men which do not receive their Sentences as Oracles with marvellous applause and approbation how they look upon no man but with an indirect countenance nor hear any thing saving their own praise with patience nor speak without scornfulness and disdain how they use their Servants as if they were Beasts their Inferiors as Servants their Equals as Inferiors and as for Superiors they acknowledg none how they admire themselves as venerable puissant wise circumspect provident every way great taking all men besides themselves for cyphers poor inglorious silly creatures needless burthens of the earth off-scowrings nothing in a word for him which marketh how irregular and exorbitant they are in all things it can be no hard thing hereby to gather that Pride is nothing but an inordinate elation of the minde proceeding from a false conceit of mens excellency in things honored which accordingly frameth also their deeds and behaviour unless they be cunning to conceal it For a foul scarr may be covered with a fair cloath And as proud as Lucifer may be in outward appearance lowly No man expecteth Grapes of Thistles nor from a thing of so bad a nature can other than suitable fruits be looked for What harm soever in private Families there groweth by
what it is to sit in the shadow of death A grieved spirit therefore is no argument of a faithless minde A third occasion of mens mis-judging themselves as if they were faithless when they are not is They fasten their cogitations upon the distrustful suggestions of the flesh whereof finding great abundance in themselves they gather thereby surely unbelief hath full dominion it hath taken plenary possession of me if I were faithful it could not be thus Not marking the motions of the Spirit and of Faith because they lye buried and over-whelmed with the contrary when notwithstanding as the blessed Apostle doth acknowledge that the Spirit groaneth and that God heareth when we do not so there is no doubt but that our Faith may have and hath her private operations secret to us yet known to him by whom they are Tell this to a man that hath a minde deceived by too hard an opinion of himself and it doth but augment his grief he hath his answer ready Will you make me think otherwise than I finde than I feel in my self I have throughly considered and exquisitely sifted all the corners of my heart and I see what there is never seek to perswade me against my knowledge I do not I know I do not believe Well to favour them a little in their weakness let that be granted which they do imagine be it that they be faithless and without belief But are they not grieved for their unbelief They are Do they not wish it might and also strive that it may be otherwise We know they do Whence commeth this but from a secret love and liking which they have of those things that are believed No man can love things which in his own opinion are not And if they think those things to be which they shew that they love when they desire to believe them then must it needs be that by desiring to believe they prove themselves true Believers For without Faith no man thinketh that things believed are Which argument all the subtilty of infernal powers will never be able to dissolve The Faith therefore of true Believers though it hath many and grievous down-falls yet doth it still continue invincible it conquereth and recovereth it self in the end The dangerous conflicts whereunto it is subject are not able to prevail against it The Prophet Habakkuk remained faithful in weakness though weak in Faith It is true such is our weak and wavering nature we have no sooner received Grace but we are ready to fall from it we have no sooner given our assent to the Law that it cannot fall but the next conceit which we are ready to embrace is that it may and that it doth fail Though we finde in our selves a most willing heart to cleave unseparably unto God even so farr as to think unfeignedly with Peter Lord I am ready to go with thee into Prison and to death yet how soon and how easily upon how small occasions are we changed if we be but a while let alone and left unto our selves The Galatians to day for their sakes which teach them the truth of Christ are content if need were to pluck out their own eyes and the next day ready to pluck out theirs which taught them The love of the Angel to the Church of Ephesus how greatly enflamed and how quickly slacked the higher we flow the nearer we are unto an ebb if men be respected as mere men according to the wonted course of their alterable inclination without the heavenly support of the Spirit Again the desire of our ghostly enemy is so incredible and his means so forcible to over-throw our Faith that whom the blessed Apostle knew betrothed and made hand-fast unto Christ to them he could not write but with great trembling I am jealous over you with a godly jealousie for I have prepared you to one Husband to present you a pure Virgin unto Christ but I fear lest at the Serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty so your mindes should be corrupted from the simplicity which is in Christ. The simplicity of Faith which is in Christ taketh the naked promise of God his bare Word and on that it resteth This simplicity the Serpent laboureth continually to pervert corrupting the mind with many imaginations of repugnancy and contrariety between the promise of God and those things which sense or experience or some other fore-conceived perswasion hath imprinted The word of the promise of God unto his People is I will not leave thee nor forsake thee upon this the simplicity of Faith resteth and is not afraid of famine But mark how the subtilty of Satan did corrupt the mindes of that Rebellious generation whose Spirits were not faithful unto God They beheld the desolate state of the desart in which they were and by the wisdom of their sense concluded the promise of God to be but folly Can God prepare a Table in the Wildernesse The word of the promise to Sarah was Thou shalt bear a Son Faith is simple and doubteth not of it but Satan to corrupt this simplicity of Faith entangleth the mind of the Woman with an argument drawn from common experience to the contrary A woman that is old Sarah now to be acquainted again with forgotten passions of youth The word of the promise of God by Moses and the Prophets made the Saviour of the World so apparent unto Philip that his simplicity could conceive no other Messias than Iesus of Nazareth the Son of Ioseph But to stay Nathaniel left being invited to come and see he should also believe and so be saved the subtilty of Satan casteth a mist before his eyes putteth in his head against this the common conceived perswasion of all men concerning Nzaareth Is it possible that any good thing should come from thence this stratagem he doth use with so great dexterity that the minds of all men are so strangely bewitched with it that it bereaveth them for the time of all perceivance of that which should relieve them and be their comfort yea it taketh all remembrance from them even of things wherewith they are most familiarly acquainted The people of Israel could not be ignorant that he which led them through the Sea was able to feed them in the Desâ—rt but this was obliterated and put out by the sense of their present want Feeling the hand of God against them in their food they remember not his hand in the day that he delivered them from the hand of the Oppressour Sarah was not then to learn That with God all things were possible Had Nathaniel never noted how God doth chuse the base things if this World to disgrace them that are most honourably esteemed The Prophet Habakkuk knew that the promises of Grace protection and favour which God in the Law doth make unto his People do not grant them any such immunity as can free and exempt them from all chastisements he knew that as God said I will continue for ever my
World that shall change his Heart over-throw his Faith alter his affection towards God or the affection of God to him If I be of this note who shall make a separation between me and my God shall tribulation or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword No I am perswaded that neither tribulation nor anguish nor persecution or famine nor nakedness nor peril nor sword nor death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other Creature shall ever prevail so far over me I know in whom I have believed I am not ignorant whose precious blood hath been shed for me I have a Shepheard full of kindness full of care and full of power unto him I commit my self his own finger hath engraven this sentence in the Tables of my heart Satan hath desired to winnow thee as wheat but I have prayed that thy Faith fail not Therefore the assurance of my hope I will labour to keep as a Jewel unto the end and by labour through the gracious mediation of his Prayer I shall keep it To the Worshipful Mr. GEORGE SUMMASTER Principal of Broad-Gates Hall in Oxford Henry Iackson wisheth all Happiness SIR YOur kinde acceptance of a former testification of that respect I owe you hath made me venture to shâ—w the World these godly Sermons under your name In which as every point is worth observation so some especially are to be noted The first that as the spirit of Prophesie is from God himself who doth inwardly heat and enlighten the hearts and mindes of his holy Pen-men which if some would diligently consider they would not puzzle themselves with the contentions of Scot and Thomas Whether God only or his Ministring Spirits do infuse into men's mindes prophetical Revelations per species intelligibiles so God framed their words also Whence he holy Father St. Augustine religiously observeth That all those who understand the Sacred Writers will also perceive that they ought not to use other words than they did in expressing those heavenly Mysteries which their hearts conceived as the Blessed Virgin did our Saviour By the Holy Ghost The greater is Castell-o his offence who hath laboured to teach the Prophets to speak otherwise than they have already Much like to that impious King of Spain Alphonsus the tenth who found fault with God's works Si inquit Creationi assuissiem Mundum melius ordinassem If he had been with God at the Creation of the World the World had gone better than now it doth As this man found fault with God's works so did the other with God's words but because we have a most sure word of the Prophets to which we must take heed I will let his words pass with the winde having elsewhere spoken to you more largely of his errours whom notwithstanding for his other excellent parts I much respect You shall moreover from hence understand how Christianity consists not in formal and seeming purity under which who knows not notorious Villany to mâ—sk but in the heart root Whence the Author truly teacheth that Mockers which use Religious as a Cloak to put off and on as the Weather serveth are worse than Pagans and Infidels Where I cannot omit to shew how justly this kinde of men hath been reproved by that renowned Martyr of Jesus Christ E. Latimer both because it will be opposite in this purpose and also free that Christian Worthy from the slanderous reproaches of him who was if ever any a Moâ—ker of God Religion and all good men But first I must desire you and in you all Readers not to think lightly of that excellent man for using this and the like witty similitudes in his Sermons For whosoever will call to minde with what riff-raff God's people were fed in those days when their Priests whose lips should have preserved Knowledge preached nothing else but dreams and false miracles of counterfeit Saints enrolled in that sâ—ttish Legend coyned and amplified by a drousie head between sleeping and waking He that will consider this and also how the People were delighted with such toys God sending them strong delusions that they should believe lyes and how hard it would have been for any man wholly and upon the sudden to draw their mindes to another bent will easily perceive both how necessary it was to use Symbolical Discourse and how wisely and moderately it was applied by the religious Father to the end he might lead their understanding so far till it were so convinced informed and setled that it might forget the means and way by which it was led and think only of that it had acquired Far in all such mystical speeches who knows not that the end for which they are used is only to be thought upon This then being first considered let us hear the story as it is related by Mr. Fox Mr. Latuner saith he in his Sermon gave the People certain Cards out of the fifth sixth and seventh chapters of Matthew For the chief Triumph in the Cards be limited the Heart as the principal thing that they should serve God withal whereby he quite overthrew all hypocritical and external Ceremonies not tending to the necessary furtherance of God's holy Word and Sacraments By this he exhorted all men to serve the Lord with inward heart and true affection and not with outward Ceremonies adding moreover to the praise of that Triumph that though it were never so small yet it would take up the best Coat-card beside in the Bunch yea though it were the King of Clubs c. meaning thereby how the Lord would be worshipped and served in simplicity of the heart and verity wherein consisteth true Christian Religion c. Thus Master Fox By which it appears that the holy man's intention was to lift up the Peoples hearts to God and not that he made a Sermon of playing at Cards and taught them how to play at Triumph and plaid himself at Cards in the Pulpit as that base companion Parsons reports the matter in his wonted scurrilous vein of railing whence he calleth it a Christmas-Sermon Now he that will think ill of such Allusions may out of the abundance of his folly jest at Demosthenes for his story of the Sheep Wolves and Doggs and Menenius for his fiction of the Belly But hinc illae lacrymae The good Bishop meant that the Romish Religion came not from the heart but consisted in outward Ceremonies Which sorely grieved Parsons who never had the least warmth or spark of honesty Whether B. Latimer compared the Bishops to the Knave of Clubs as the Fellow interprets him I know not I am sure Parsons of all others deserved those colours and so I leave him We see then what inward purity is required of all Christians which if they have then in Prayer and all other Christian duties they shall lift up pure hands as the
apparel come amongst us although he be a Thief or a Murtherer for there are Thieves and Murtherers in gorgeous apparel be his heart whatsoever if his Coat be of Purple or Velvet or Tissue every one riseth up and all the reverend Solemnities we can use are too little But the man that serveth God is contemned and despised amongst us for his Poverty Herod speaketh in judgement and the People cry out The voyce of God and not of man Paul preacheth Christ they term him a Trifler Hearken beloved Hath not God chosen the Poor of this World that they should be rich in Faith Hath he not chosen the Reffuse of the World to be Heirs of his Kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him Hath he not chosen the Off-scowrings of Men to be the Lights of the World and the Apostles of Jesus Christ Men unlearned yet how fully replenished with understanding Few in number yet how great in power Contemptible in shew yet in Spirit how strong how wonderful I would faiâ—â— learn the mystery of the eternal generation of the Son of God saith Hilary Whom shall I seek Shall I get me to the Schools of the Grecians Why I have read Ubi Sapiens ubi Scriba ubi Conquisitor hujus saculi These Wise-men in the World must needs be dumbe in this because they have rejected the wisdom of God Shall I beseech the Scribes and Interpreters of the Law to become my Teachers how can they know this sith they are offended at the Cross of Christ It is death for me to be ignorant of the unsearchable mystery of the Son of God of which mystery notwithstanding I should have been ignorant but that a poor Fisher-man unknown unlearned new come from his Boat with his Cloaths wringing-wet hath opened his mouth and taught me In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God These poor silly Creatures have made us rich in the knowledge of the mysteries of Christ. 7. Remember therefore that which is spoken of by the Apostles Whose words if the Children of this World do not regard is it any marvail They are the Apostles of our Lord Jesus not of their Lord but of ours It is true which one hath said in a certain place Apostolicam sidem seculi homo non capit A man sworn to the World is not capable of that Faith which the Apostles do teach What mean the Children of this World then to tread in the Courts of our God What should your Bodies do at Bethel whose Hearts are at Bethaven The god of this World whom ye serve hath provided Apostles and Teachers for you Chaldeans Wizzards Sooth-sayers Astrologers and such like Hear them Tell not us that ye will sacrifice to the Lord our God if we will sacrifice to Ashtaroth or Melcom that ye will read our Scriptures if we will listen to your Traditions that if ye may have a Mass by permission we shall have a Communion with good leave and liking that ye will admit the things that are spoken of by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus if your Lord and Master may have his Ordinances observed and his Statutes kept Solomon took it as he well might for an evident proof that she did not bear a motherly affection to her Childe which yielded to have it cut in divers parts He cannot love the Lord Jesus with his heart which lendeth one ear to his Apostles and another to false Apostles which can brook to see a mingle-mangle of Religion and Superstition Ministers and Massing-Priests Light and Darkness Truth and Error Traditions and Scriptures No we have no Lord but Jesus no Doctrine but the Gospel no Teachers but his Apostles Were it reason to require at the hand of an English Subject obedience to the Laws and Edicts of the Spaniards I do marvel that any man bearing the name of a Servant of the Servants of Jesus Christ will go about to draw us from our Allegiance We are his sworn Subjects it is not lawful for us to hear the things that are not told us by his Apostles They have told us that in the last days there shall be Mockers therefore we believe it Credimus quia legimus We are so perswaded because we read it must be so If we did not read it we would not teach it Nam qua libro Legis non continentur ea nec nosse debemus saith Hilary Those things that are not written in the book of the Law we ought not so much as to be acquainted with them Remember the words which were spoken of before by the Apostles of our Lord Iesus Christ. 8. The third thing to be considered in the description of these men of whom we speak is the time wherein we should be manifested to the World They told you there should be mockers in the last time Noah at the commandement of God built an Ark and there were in it Beasts of all sorts clean and unclean A Husbandman planteth a Vineyard and looketh for Grapes but when they come to the gathering behold together with Grapes there are found also wilde Grapes A rich man prepareth a great Supper and biddeth many but when he sitteth him down he findeth amongst his Friends here and there a man whom he knoweth not This hath been the state of the Church â—it hence the beginning God always hath mingled his Saints with faithless and godless Persons as it were the clean with the unclean Grapes with sowre grapes his Friends and Children with Aliens and Strangers Marvel not then if in the last dayes also ye see the men with whom you live and walk arm in arm laugh at your Religion and blaspheme that glorious name whereof you are called Thus it was in the days of the Patriarks and Prophets and are we better than our Fathers Albeit we suppose that the blessed Apostles in foreshewing what manner of men were set out for the last dayes meant to note a calamity special and peculiar to the Ages and Generations which were to come As if he should have said As God hath appointed a time of Seed for the Sower and a time of Harvest for him that reapeth as he hath given unto every Herb and every Tree his own fruit and his own season not the season nor the fruit of another for no man looketh to gather Figgs in the Winter because the Summer is the season for them nor Grapes of Thistles because Grapes are the fruit of the Vine so the same God hath appointed sundry for every Generation of them other men for other times and for the last times the worst men as may appear by their properties which is the fourth point to be considered of in this description 9. They told you that there should be Mockers He meaneth men that shall use Religion as a Cloak to put off and on as the weather serveth such as shall with Herod hear the Preaching of Iohn Baptist to day
and to morrow condescend to have him beheaded or with the other Herod say they will worship Christ when they purpose a massacre in their hearts kiss Christ with Iudas and betray Christ with Iudas These are Mockers For Ishmael the Son of Hagar laughed at Isaac which was heir of the Promise so shall these men laugh at you as the maddest People under the Sun if ye be like Moses choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sinne for a season And why God hath not given them eyes to see nor hearts to conceive that exceeding recompence of your reward The promises of Salvation made to you are matters wherein they can take no pleasure even as Ishmael took no pleasure in that promise wherein God had said unto Abraham In Isaac shall thy seed be called because the Promise concerned not him but Isaac They are termed for their impiety towards God Mockers and for the impurity of their life and conversation Walkers after-their own ungodly lusts Saint Peter in his second Epistle and third Chapter soundeth the very depth of their impiety shewing first how they shall not shame at the length to profess themselves prophane and iâ—â—eligious by flat denying the Gospel of Jesus Christ and deâ—ding the sweet and comfortable promises of his appearing Secondly that they shall not be onely deâ—iders of all Religion but also disputers against God using Truth to subvert the Truth yea Scriptures themselves to disprove Scriptures Being in this sort Mockers they must needs be also Followers of their own ungodly lusts Being Atheists in perswasion can they choose but be Beasts in conversation For why remove they quite from them the feat of God Why take they such pains to abandon and put out from their hearts all sense all taste all feeling of Religion but onely to this end and purpose that they may without inward remorse and grudging of Conscience give over themselves to all uncleanness Surely the state of these men is more lamentable than is the condition of Pagans and Turks For at the bare beholding of Heaven and Earth the Infidel's heart by and by doth give him that there is an eternal infinite immortal and ever-living God whose hands have fashioned and framed the World he knoweth that every House is builded of some man though he see not the man which built the House and he considereth that it must be God which hath built and created all things although because the number of his days be few he could not see when God disposed his Works of old when he caused the light of his Clouds first to shine when he laid the Corner-stone of the Earth and swadled it with bands of Water and Darkness when he caused the Morning-star to know his place and made bars and doors to shut up the Sea within his House saying Hitherto shalt thou come but no further he hath no eye-witnesse of these things Yet the light of Natural reason hath put this wisdom in his reâ—ns and hath given his Heart thus much understanding Bring a Pagan to the Schools of the Prophets of God prophesie to an Infidel rebuke him lay the judgements of God before him make the secret sinnes of his heart manifest and he shall fall down and worship God They that crucified the Lord of Glory were not so farr past recovery but that the preaching of the Apostles was able to move their hearts and to bring them to this Men and Brethren what shall we doe Agrippa that sate in judgement against Paul for Preaching yielded notwithstanding thus farr unto him Almost thou perswadest me to become a Christian. Although the Jews for want of knowledge have not submitted themselves to the righteousnesse of God yet I bear them record saith the Apostle That they have a zeal The Athenians a people having neither zeal nor knowledge yet of them also the same Apostle beareth witnesse Ye men of Athens I perceive ye are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some way religious but Mockers walking after their own ungodly lusts they have smothered every spark of that heavenly light they have stifled even their very natural understanding O Lord thy Mercy is over all thy works thou savest Man and Beast yet a happy case it had been for these men if they had never been born and so I leave them 10. Saint Iude having his minde exercised in the Doctrine of the Apostles of Jesus Christ concerning things to come in the last time became a man of wise and staid judgement Grieved he was to see the departure of many and their falling away from the Faith which before they did professe grieved but not dismayed With the simpler and weaker sort it was otherwise Their countenance began by and by to change they were half in doubt they had deceived themselves in giving credit to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Saint Iude to comfort and refresh these silly Babes taketh them up in his armes and sheweth them the men at whom they were offended Look upon them that forsake this blessed Profession wherein you stand they are now before your eyes view them mark them are they not carnal are they not like to noysom carrion cast out upon the Earth is there that Spirit in them which cryeth Abba Father in your bosoms Why should any man be discomforted Have you not heard that there should be Mockers in the last time These verily are they that now do separate themselves 11. For your better understanding what this severing and separating of themselves doth mean we must know that the multitude of them which truly believe howsoever they be dispersed farr and wide each from other is all one Body whereof the Head is Christ one building whereof he is the Corner-stone to whom they as the Members of the Body being knit and as the stones of the Building being coupled grow up to a man of perfect stature and rise to an holy Temple in the Lord. That which linketh Christ to us is his mere mercy and love towards us That which tyeth us to him is our faith in the promised Salvation revealed in the Word of Truth That which uniteth and joyneth us amongst our selves in such sort that we are now as if we had but one Heart and one Soul is our love Who be inwardly in Heart the lively Members of this Body and the polished stones of this Building coupled and joyned to Christ as flesh of his flesh and bones of his bones by the mutual bond of his unspeakable love towards them and their unseigâ—ed faith in him thus linked and fastned each to other by a spiritual sincere and hearty affection of love without any manner of simulation who be Jewes within and what their names be none can tell save he whose eyes do behold the secret disposition of all mens hearts We whose eyes are too dim to behold the inward man must leave the secret judgement of every Servant to his own Lord accounting
Children from the Cradle to be his Cardinals He hath fawned upon the Kings and Princes of the Earth and by Spiritual Cozenage hath made them sell their lawful Authority and Jurisdiction for Titles of Catholicus Christianissimus Defensor Fidei and such like he hath proclaimed sale of Pardons to inveigle the ignorant built Seminaries to allure young men desirous of Learning erected Stews to gather the dissolute unto him This is the Rock whereupon his Church is built Hereby the man is grown huge and strong like the Cedars which are not shaken with the winde because Princes have been as Children over-tender hearted and could not resist Hereby it is come to pass as you see this day that the Man of Sinne doth war against us not by men of a Language which we cannot understand but he cometh as Iereboam against Iudah and bringeth the fruit of our own Bodies to eat us up that the bowels of the Childe may be made the Mother's grave and hath caused no small number of our Brethren to forsake their Native Countrey and with all disloyalty to cast off the yoke of their Allegiance to our dread Soveraign whom God in mercy hath set over them for whose safeguard if they carried not the hearts of Tygers in the bosomes of men they would think the dearest blood in their Bodies well spent But now saith Abiah to Ieroboam Ye think ye be able to resist the Kingdom of the Lord which is in the hands of the Sonnes of David Ye be a great multitude the golden Calves are with you which Ieroboam made you for gods Have ye not driven away the Priests of the Lord the Sons of Aaron and the Levites and have made you Priests like the People of Nations Whosoever cometh with a young Bullock and seven Rams the same may be a Priest of them that are no gods If I should follow the Comparison and here uncover the Cup of those deadly and ugly Abominations wherewith this Ieroboam of whom we speak hath made the Earth so drunk that it hath retled under us I know your godly Hearts would loath to see them For my own part I delight not to take in such filth I had rather take a Garment upon my Shoulders and go with my face from them to cover them The Lord open their Eyes and cause them if it be possible at the length to see how they are wretched and miserable and poor and blinde and naked Put it O Lord in their hearts to seek white Rayment and to cover themselves that their filthy nakednesse may no longer appear For beloved in Christ we bow our Knees and lift up our hands to Heaven in our Chambers secretly and openly in our Churches we pray heartily and hourly even for them also though the Pope hath given out as a Judge in a solemn Declaratory Sentence of Excommunication against this Land That our gracious Lady hath quite abolished Prayers within her Realm and his Scholars whom he hath taken from the midst of us have in their published Writings charged us nor onely nor to have any holy Assemblies unto the Lord for Prayer but to hold a Common School of Sinne and Flattery to hold Sacriledge to be God's Service Unfaithfulnesse and breach of Promise to God to give it to a Strumpet to be a Vertue to abandon Fasting to abhor Confession to mislike with Penance to like well of Usury to charge none with restitution to finde no good before God in single life not in no well-working that all men as they fall to us are much worse and more than afore corrupted I do not add one word or syllable unto that which Mr. Bristow a man both born and sworn amongst us hath taught his hand to deliver to the view of all I appeal to the Conscience of every Soul that hath been truly converted by us Whether his heart were never raised up to God by our Preaching Whether the words of our Exhortation never wâ—â—â—g any tear of a penitent heart from his eys Whether his Soul never reaped any joy and comfort any consolation in Christ Jesus by our Sacraments and Prayers and Psalms and Thanksgiving Whether he were never bettered but always worsed by us O merciful God! If Heaven and Earth in this case do not witness with us and against them let us be razed out from the Land of the Living Let the Earth on which we stand swallow us quick as it hath done Corah Dathan and Abiram But if we belong unto the Lord our God and have not forsaken him if our Priests the Sons of Aaron minister unto the Lord and the Levites in their Office if we offer unto the Lord every morning and every evening the Burnt-offerings and sweet Incense of Prayers and Thanksgiving if the Bread be set in order upon the pure Table and the Candlestick of Gold with the Lamps thereof burn every morning that is to say if amongst us God's blessed Sacraments be duly administred his holy Word sincerely and daily preached if we keep the Watch of the Lord our God and if ye have forsaken him then doubt ye not this God is with us as a Captain his Priests with sounding Trumpets must cry alarm against you O ye Children of Israel fight not against the Lord God of your Fathers for ye shall not prosper THE SECOND SERMON Epist. JUDE Verse 17 18 19 20 21. But ye beloved remember the words which were spoken before of the Apostles of our Lord Iesus Christ How that they told you that there should be Mockers in the last time which should walk after their own ungodly lusts These are makers of Sects fleshly having not the Spirit But ye beloved edifie your selves in your most holy Faith praying in the Holy Ghost And keep your selves in the love of God looking for the mercy of our Lord Iesus Christ unto eternal life HAving otherwhere spoken of the words of Saint Iude going next before concerning Mockers which should come in the last time and Backsliders which even then should fall away from the Faith of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ I am now by the aide of Almighty God and through the assistance of his good Spirit to lay before you the words of Exhortation which I have read 2. Wherein first of all whosoever hath an eye to see let him open it and he shall well perceive how careful the Lord is for his Children how desirous to see them profit and grow up to a manly stature in Christ how loath to have them any way mis-led either by examples of the wicked or by inticements of the world and by provocation of the flesh or by any other means forcible to deceive them and likely to estrange their hearts from God For God is not at that point with us that he careth not whether we sink or swim No he hath written our names in the Palm of his Hand in the Signet upon his Finger are we graven in Sentences not onely of Mercy but
Covenants of Mercy and the Law of Moses and the service of God and the promises of Christ were made impropriate who not onely were the Off-spring of Abraham Father unto all them which do believe but Christ their Off-spring which is God to be blessed for evermore 20. Consider this People and learn what it is to build your selves in Faith They were the Lord's Vine He brought it out of Egypt he threw out the Heathen from their places that it might be planted he made room for it and caused it to take root till it had filled the earth the Mountains were covered with the shadow of it and the boughs thereof were as the goodly Cedars she stretched out her branches unto the Sea and her boughs unto the River But when God having sent both his Servants and his Son to vâ—siâ—s this Vine they neither spared the one nor received the other but stoned the 〈…〉 s and crucified the Lord of glory which came unto them then began the curse â—â— God to come upon them even the curse whereof the Prophet David hath spoken saying Let their table be made a snare and a net and a stumbling block even for a recompence unto them Let their eyes be darkned that they do not see how down their backs for ever keep them down And sithence the hour that the measure of their infidelity was first made up they have been spoiled with Warrs eaten up with Piagues spent with Hunger and Famine they wander from place to place and are become the most â—ase and contemptible people that are under the Sun Ephraim which before was a terrour unto Nations and they trembled at his voyce is now by infidelity so vile that he seemeâ—h as a thing cast out to be trampled under mens feet In the midst of these desolations they cry Returâ— we beseech thee O God of hosts look down from heaven behold and visit their Vine but their very Prayers are turned into sin and their crys are no better than the lowing of â—easts before him Well saith the Apostle by their anbelief they are broken off and thou dost standby thy Faith Behold therefore the bountifulness and severity of God towards them severity because they have fallen bountifulness towards thee if thou continue in his bountifulness or else thou shalt be cut off If they forsake their unbelief and be grafted in again and we at any time for the hardness of our hearts be broken off it will be such a judgment as will amaze all the Powers and Principalities which are above Who hath searched the counsel of God concerning this secret And who doth not see that Infidelity doth threaten Lo-ammi unto the Gentiles as it hath brought Lo-ruchama upon the Jews It may be that these words seem dark unto you But the words of the Apostle in the eleventh to the Romans are plain enough If God have not spared the natural branches take heed take heed lest he spare not thee Build thy self in Faith Thus much of the thing which is prescribed and wherein we are exhorted to edifie our selves Now consider the Condition and Properties which are in this place annexed unto Faith The former of them for there are but two is this Edifie your selves in your Faith 21. A strange and a strong delusion it is wherewith the man of Sin hath bewitched the World a forcible spirit of Errour it must needs be which hath brought men to such a senseless and unreasonable perswasion as this is not onely that men cloathed with mortality and sinne as we our selves are can do God so much service as shall be able to make a full and perfect satisfaction before the Tribunal seat of God for their own sinnes yea a great deal more than is sufficient for themselves but also that a man at the hands of a Bishop or a Pope for such or such a price may buy the over-plus of other mens merits purchase the fruits of other men's labours and build his Soul by another man's faith Is not this man drowned in the gall of bitterness Is his heart right in the sight of God Can he have any part or fellowship with Peter and with the Successors of Peter which thinketh so vilely of building the precious Temples of the Holy Ghost Let his money perish with him and he with it because he judgeth that the Gift of God may be sold for money 22. But beloved in the Lord deceive not your selves neither suffer ye your selves to be deceived Ye can receive no more ease nor comfort for your Souls by another man's faith than warmth for your Bodies by another man's cloaths or sustenance by the bread which another man doth eat The just shall live by his own Faith Let a Saint yea a Martyr content himself that he hath cleansed himself of his own sins saith Tertullian No Saint or Martyr can cleanse himself of his own sins But if so be a Saint or a Martyr can cleanse himself of his own sins it is sufficient that he can do it for himself Did ever any man by his death deliver another man from death except onely the Sonne of God He indeed was able to Safe-conduct a Thief from the Cross to Paradise for to this end he came that being himself pure from sinne he might obey for Sinners Thou which thinkest to do the like and supposest that thou canst justifie another by thy Righteousness if thou be without sinne then lay down thy life for thy Brother dye for me But if thou be a Sinner even as I am a Sinner how can the Oyl of thy Lamp be sufficient both for thee and for me Virgins that are wise get ye Oyl while ye have day into your own Lamps For out of all peradventure others though they would can neither give nor sell. Edifie your selves in your own most holy faith And let this be observed for the first property of that wherein we ought to edifie our selves 23. Our Faith being such is that indeed which St. Iude doth here term Faith namely a thing most holy The reason is this We are justified by Faith For Abraham believed and this was imputed unto him for Righteousness Being justified all our iniquities are covered God beholdeth us in the Righteousness which is imputed and not in the Sins which we have committed 24. It is true we are full of sin both original and actual whosoever denieth it is a double Sinner for he is both a Sinner and a Lyar. To deny sin is most plainly and clearly to prove it because he that saith he hath no sin lyeth and by lying proveth that he hath sin 25. But imputation of Righteousness hath covered the sins of every Soul which believeth God by pardoning our sin hath taken it away So that now although our transgressions be multiplied above the hairs of our head yet being justified we are as free and as clear as if there were no one spot or stain of any uncleanness in us For it
is God that justifieth And who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's chosen saith the Apostle in Rom. 8. 26. Now sin being taken away we are made the righteousness of God in Christ for David speaking of this Righteousness saith Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven No man is blessed but in the righteousness of God Every man whose sin is taken away is blessed Therefore every man whose sin is covered is made the Righteousness of God in Christ. This Righteousness doth make us to appear most holy most pure most unblameable before him 27. This then is the sum of that which I say Faith doth justifie Justification washeth away sin sin removed we are cloathed with the righteousness which is of God the righteousness of God maketh us most holy Every of these I have proved by the testimony of God's own mouth Therefore I conclude That Faith is that which maketh us most holy in consideration whereof it is called in this place Our most holy saith 28. To make a wicked and a sinful man most holy through his believing is more than to create a World of nothing Our faith most holy Surely Solomon could not shew the Queen of Sheba so much treasure in all his Kingdom as is lapt up in these words O that our hearts were stretched out like tenis and that the eyes of our understanding were as bright as the Sun that we might thoroughly know the riches of the glorious inheritance of the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power towards us whom he accepteth for pure and most holy through our believing O that the Spirit of the Lord would give this Doctrine entrance into the slony and brazen heart of the Jew which followeth the Law of Righteousness but cannot attain unto the righteousness of the Law Wherefore saith the Apostle they seek righteousness and not by faith wherefore they stumble at Christ they are bruised shivered to pieces as a ship that hath run herself upon a Rock O that God would cast down the eyes of the proud and humble the souls of the high-minded that they might at the length abhor the garments of their own flesh which cannot hide their nakedness and put on the faith of Christ Jesus as he did put it on which hath said Doubtless I think all thing but loss for the excellent knowledge-sake of Christ Iesus my Lord for whom I have counted all things loss and do judge them to be dung that I might win Christ and might be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the saith of Christ even the righteousness which is of God through faith O that God would open the Ark of Mercy wherein this Doctrine lyeth and set it wide before the eys of poor afflicted Consciences which fly up and down upon the water of their afflictions and can see nothing but onely the gulf and deluge of their sinnes wherein there is no place for them to rest their feet The God of pity and compassion give you all strength and courage every day and every hour and every moment to build and edifie your selves in this most pure and holy faith And thus much both of the thing prescribed in this Exhortation and also of the properties of the thing Build your selves in your most holy faith I would come to the next branch which is of Prayer but I cannot lay this matter out of my hands till I have added somewhat for the applying of it both to others and to our selves 29. For your better understanding of matters contained in this Exhortation Build your selves you must note that every Church and Congregation doth consist of a multitude of Believers as every House is built of many Stones And although the nature of the Mystical body of the Church be such that it suffereth no distinction in the invisible members but whether it be Paul or Apollos Prince or Prophet he that is taught or he that teacheth all are equally Christ's and Christ is equally theirs yet in the external administration of the Church of God because God is not the Author of Confusion but of Peace it is necessary that in every Congregation there be a distinction if not of inward dignity yet of outward degree so that all are Saints or seem to be Saints and should be as they seem But are all Apostles If the whole Body were an eye where were then the hearing God therefore hath given some to be Apostles and some to be Pastors c. for the edification of the body of Christ. In which work we are God's labourers saith the Apostle and ye are God's husbandry and God's building 30. The Church respected with reference unto administration Ecclesiastical doth generally consist but of two sorts of men the Labourers and the Building they which are ministred unto and they to whom the work of the Ministery is committed Pastors and the Flock over whom the Holy Ghost hath made them Overseers If the Guide of a Congregation be his name or his degree whatsoever be diligent in his Vocation feed the flock of God which dependeth upon him caring for it not by constraint but willingly not for filthy lucre but of a ready minde not as though he would tyrannize over God's heritage but as a pattern unto the Flock wisely guiding them If the People in their degree do yield themselves frameable to the truth not like rough stone or flint refusing to be smoothed and squared for the building if the Magistrate do carefully and diligently survey the whole order of the work providing by Statutes and Laws and bodily punishments if need require that all things may be done according to the rule which cannot deceive even as Moses provided that all things might be done according to the pattern which he saw in the Mount there the words of this Exhortation are truly and effectually heard Of such a Congregation every man will say Behold a people that are wise a people that walk in the Statutes and Ordinances of their God a people full of knowledge and understanding a people that have skill in building themselves Where it is otherwise there at by sloathfulness the roof doth decay and as by idleness of bands the House droppeth thorow as it is in Eccles. 10. 18. so first one piece and then another of their building shall fall away till there be not a stone left upon a stone 31. We see how fruitless this Exhortation hath been to such as bend all their travel onely to build and manage a Papacy upon earth without any care in the Worlâ— of building themselves in their most holy faith God's people have enquired at their mouths What shall we do to have Eternal life Wherein shall we build and edifie our selves And they have departed home from their Prophets and from their Priests laden with Doctrines which are Precepts of men they have been taught to tire out themselves with bodily exercise those
day some maintain it than it was in them which held it at first as Luther and others whom I had an eye unto in this speech The Question is not Whether â—o error with such and such circumstances but simply Whether an error overthrowing the foundation do exclude all possibility of salvation if it be not râ—enated and expresly repented of 2 Thes. 2. 11. Apoc. 13. v. â— For this is the only thing alledged to prove the impossibility of their salvation The Church of Rome joyneth works with Christ which is a denial of the foundation and unless we hold the foundation we cannot be saved They may cease to put any confidence in works and yet never think living in Popish superstition they did amiss Pighius dyed Popish and yet denial Popery in the Article of Justification by works long before his death What the foundation of saith is Vâ—caeto ad conâ—ionem multitudine quae coalesecre in populi unial corpus nuâ—a et praâ—erquam I legibus poterat Liv. de Rom. lib. 1. Ephes. 1. 23. 4. 1â— Ephes. 2. 20. John 6. 63. 2 Tim. 3. 15. Acts 16. 17. Heb. 10. 20. Gen. 49. Job 19. Acts 4.18 Luke 1. 11. 1 Cor. 3. a Rom. 8. 10. b Phil. 2. 15. c Col. 3.4 1 Pet. 1. Ephes. 2. 9. John 5. 11. 1 John 5. 13. Perpetuity of saith Rom. 6. 10. John 14. 19. 1 Pet. 1. 1. 2 John 3. 9. Ephes. 1. 4. 5. John 4. 14. Coll. 1. 23. 1 Tim. 2. 15. John 10. 1 John 3. â— * Howsoever men be changed for changed they may be even the best amongst men if they that have received as it seemeth some of the Galatians which fell into errour not received the Gifts and Graces of God which are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as Faith Hope and Charity are which God doth never take away from him to whom they are given as less repented him to have given them if such might be so farr changed by errour as that the very root of Faith should be quite extinguished in them and so their Salvation utterly lost It would shake the hearts of the strongest and stoutest of us all See this contrary in Beza his observations upon the harmony of Confessions a Error convicted and afterwards maintained â—â— more than errour for although opinion be the same it was in which respect I still call it errour yet they are not now the same they were when they are taught what the Truth is and plainly raught b Acts 15. 9. c Gal. 4.14.15 d Vers. 18. e Vers. 21. f Vers. 8. â—â—er de Unit. Eccles. servants Calr Ey 108. Morn de Eccles. Zaâ—ch praâ—â—ar de Relig. 1 Thess. 1. 13. Rom. 11. 6. * I deny not but that the Church of Rome requireth some kinde of works which she ought not to require at mens hands But our question in general about the adding of good works not whethere such or such Works be goed In this comparison it is enough to touch so much of the matter in question between St. Paul and the Galatians as inferreth those Conclusions Ye are fallen from grace Christ can profit you nothing which Conclusions will foâ—low Circumcision and Rites of the Law Ceremonial if they be required as things necessary to Salvation This only was a ledged against me and need I touch more than was all edged a Mat. 5. 20. b Luke 11. 39. c Mat. 5. 21. Eph. 2. 7. 15. a Gal 3. 8. b 1 Pet. 2. 9. and 5 3. c Ephes. 1. 7. d Isa. 53. 11. Jer. 23. 6. e Eph. 3. 25. f Mat. 19. 27. g 2 Thess. 2. 15. h Gal. 2. 16. end 3. 3. 2 Thess. 2. 13. Hac â—aâ—io Ecclesiastici Sacramenti Catholicae Fâ—ici est vt qui parâ—em â—ivini Sacrimenti negar partem â—â—â—alâ—at cuâ—sirâ—â— Iratuim sibi â—onnâ—â—a cuncorpâ—â—ata sunc omnia â—t aliud â—â—ae aâ—io staâ—e non possie quiunum ex omnibus denegaveriâ—â— aliaâ—â— emnia tradidâ—ss non presir Cassian lib. 6. de Incarnat Dom. If he obstâ—aâ—cly stand in denial pag 193. Acts 20. 23. Lib 2. â—e in car Dem. cap. 14. Levis of Oraneâ— l. Merlit cap. last â— Paulgarola let 11. Annoâ— in 1 John 1. In his Book of Consolation Works of Superetogation Let all Affection be laid asideâ— Let the Matter indifferently be considered Ecclus. 6. 2. Lib 4. cap. 6. de dâ—ct chr Rob. Tolâ—â— lib. 4. cap. 5. 2 Pet. 1. Pâ—iâ—â— in Orit D. Aâ—nold Parsons in 3. convers Mal. 1. 7. Canus locur l. 11. c. 5. Viâ— ver lib. 2. de corrupt art Hard. lib. 4. Pac. 1903. edit 1570. a In the third part of the 3. conversions of England in the Examination of Foxes Saints c. 14. sect 53.54 p. 215. b Sect. 55. c Plut. in Demosthen d Liv. Dec. 1 l.2 an V.C. 60 e 1 Tim. 2.8 f Annal. tom â— An. 59. n. 109,110 tom 2. An. 132. num g S. Paulus de sua salute incertus Kicheom Jesuit 1.2 c. 12. Idolat Huguen p. 119. in marg edit Lat. Mogunt 113. interpret Marcel Bomper Jesuita h Witness the verses of Horatius a Jesuite recited by Posse Biblioth Select part 2 l.17 c. 19. Exue Franciscum tunica laceroque cuculâ—o Qui Franciscus erat jam tibi Christus eriâ— Francisci exuriâ—s si quà licet indue Christium Jam Francisco erit qui modo Christus erat The like hath Bencius another Jesuite i 2 Cor. 3.1 Of the spirit of Prophesie received from God himself Of the Prophers manner of speech Job 15. 2 3. Wisd. 2. 15. Esay 49. 5. Ezekiel 3. A natural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perceiveth nor heavenly things James 2. Acts 12. Acts 17. We must not halt between two opinion Nockerâ— in the last time Mockers Mockers worse than Pagans and Infidelâ— Rom. 10. Iudas vit sapienâ— certi usicâ— Three fold Separation 1. Heresie 2. Scism 3. Apostasie Infallible evâ—dence in the Faithful that they are Gods Children The Papists falsly accuseâ— us of Heresie and Apostasie Acts 2â— Apoc. 18. Caâ—t 8. 11. Acts â—â— The Popes usurped Supremacy Concil delector Cardin. Laurent Soriuâ— Coun. de reb gest 1 Pio â— Urancise Sansâ—viâ— de guherm Rerum â—â—h l. â— Cap. de Jud. are scal â—oldap 1 Chron. 13. Verse 12. Gen. 6.3 13. Gen. 6. â— 1â— Gen. 19. 12. Gen. 19. 15. Verse 1â— The Sacrament of the Lords Supper Lam. 2. 13. Ephes. 4. 1 John 4. 1 John 5. Mat. 9. Rom. 11. 1 John 2. No pleasuâ—â— of God without Faith Psal. 69. Rom. 11. Psal. 10. 1â— Verse â—2 Hosea 1. 2. nor my people Verse 6. not obtaining mercy * Careless Amos â— 11,12 1 Pet. 4. 17. Jer. 3. 14 15.
fancy which is cast towards them and proceedeth from other Causes For there are divers Motives drawing men to favor mightily those Opinions wherein their Perswasions are but weakly setled and if the Passions of the Minde be strong they easily sophisticate the Understanding they make it apt to believe upon very slender warrant and to imagine infallible Truth where scarce any probable shew appeareth Thus were those poor seduced Creatures Hacquet and his other two adherents whom I can neither speak nor think of but with much commisseration and pity Thus were they trained by fair ways first accompting their own extraordinary love to his Discipline a token of Gods more then ordinary love towards them From hence they grew to a strong conceit that God which had moved them to love his Discipline more then the common sort of men did might have a purpose by their means to bring a wonderful work to pass beyond all mens expectation for the advancement of the Throne of Discipline by some Tragical Execution with the particularities whereof it was not safe for their Friends to be made acquainted of whom they did therefore but covertly demand what they thought of extraordinary Motions of the Spirit in these days and withal request to be commended unto God by their Prayers whatsoever should be undertaken by Men of God in meer Zeal to his Glory and the good of his distressed Church With this unusual and strange course they went on forward till God in whose heaviest worldly Judgments I nothing doubt but that there may lie hidden Mercy gave them over their own Inventions and left them made in the end an example for Head-strong and Inconsiderate Zeal no less fearful then Achitophel for Proud and Irreligious Wisdom If a spark of Error have thus far prevailed falling even where the Wood was green and farthest off to all mens thinking from any inclination unto furious Attempts must not the peril thereof be greater in men whose mindes are of themselves as dry sewel apt beforehand unto Tumults Seditions and Broyls But by this we see in a Cause of Religion to how desperate adventures men will strain themselves for relief of their own part having Law and Authority against them Furthermore Let not any man think that in such Divisions either part can free it self from inconveniencies sustained not onely through a kinde of Truce which Vertue on both sides doth make with Vice during War between Truth and Error but also in that there are hereby so fit occasions ministred for men to purchase to themselves welwillers by the colour under which they oftentimes prosecute quarrels of Envy or Inveterate Malice and especially because Contentions were as yet never able to prevent two Evils The one a mutual exchange of unseemly and unjust disgraces offered by men whose Tongues and Passions are out of rule the other a common hazard of both to be made a prey by such as study how to work upon all Occurents with most advantage in private I deny not therefore but that our Antagonists in these Controversies may peradventure have met with some not unlike to Ithacius who mightily bending himself by all means against the Heresie of Priscillian the hatred of which one Evil was all the Vertue he had became so wise in the end That every man careful of Vertuous Conversations studious of Scripture and given unto any abstinence in Diet was set down in his Kalender of suspected Priscillianists for whom it should be expedient to approve their soundness of Faith by a more licencious and loose behavior Such Proctors and Patrons the Truth might spare Yet is not their grossness so intolerable as on the contrary side the scurrilous and more then Satyrical immodesty of Martinism the first published Schedules whereof being brought to the hands of a grave and a very Honorable Knight with signification given that the Book would refresh his spirits he took it saw what the Title was read over an unsavory sentence or two and delivered back the Libel with this Answer I am sorry you are of the minde to be solaced with these sports and sorrier you have herein thought mine affection to be like your own But as these sores on all hands lie open so the deepest wounds of the Church of God have been more softly and closely given It being perceived that the Plot of Discipline did not onely bend it self to reform Ceremonies but seek farther to erect a popular authority of Elders and to take away Episcopal Jurisdiction together with all other Ornaments and means whereby any difference or inequality is upheld in the Ecclesiastical Order towards this destructive part they have found many helping hands divers although peradventure not willing to be yoked with Elderships yet contented for what intent God doth know to uphold opposition against Bishops not without greater hurt to the course of their whole proceedings in the business of God and Her Majesties service then otherwise much more weighty Adversaries had been able by their own power to have brought to pass Men are naturally better contented to have their commendable actions supprest then the contrary much divulged And because the Wits of the multitude are such that many things they cannot lay hold on at once but being possest with some notable either dislike or liking of any one thing whatsoever sundry other in the mean time may escape them unperceived Therefore if men desirous to have their Vertues noted do in this respect grieve at the same of others whose glory obscureth and darkness theirs it cannot be chosen but that when the ears of the people are thus continually beaten with exclamations against abuses in the Church these tunes come always most acceptable to them whose odious and corrupt dealings in secular affairs both pass by that mean the more covertly and whatsoever happen do also the least feel that scourge of vulgar imputation which notwithstanding they most deserve All this considered as behoveth the sequel of duty on our part is onely that which our Lord and Saviour requireth harmless Discretion the wisdom of Serpents tempered with the innocent meekness of Doves For this World will teach them wisdom that have capacity to apprehend it Our wisdom in this case must be such as doth not propose to it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our own particular the partial and immoderate desire whereof poysoneth wheresoever it taketh place But the scope and mark which we are to aim at is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the publick and common good of all for the easier procurement whereof our diligence must search out all helps and furtherances of direction which Scriptures Counsels Fathers Histories the Laws and Practices of all Churches the mutual Conference of all Mens Collections and Observations may afford Our industry must even anatomize every Particle of that Body which we are to uphold sound and because be it never so true which we teach the World to believe yet if once their affections begin to be alienated a
small thing perswadeth them to change their opinions it behoveth that we vigilantly note and prevent by all means those evils whereby the hearts of men are lost which evils for the most part being personal do arm in such sort the Adversaries of God and his Church against us that if through our too much neglect and security the same should run on soon might we feel our estate brought to those lamentable terms whereof this hard and heavy sentence was by one of the Ancients uttered upon like occasions Dolens dico gemens denuncio sacerdotium quod apud nos intus cecidit foris diu stare non poterit But the gracious providence of Almighty God hath I trust put these Thorns of Contradiction in our sides lest that should steal upon the Church in a slumber which now I doubt not but through his assistance may be turned away from us bending thereunto our selves with constancy constancy in labor to do all men good constancy in Prayer unto God for all men Her especially whose sacred power matched with incomparable goodness of Nature hath hitherto been Gods most happy instrument by him miraculously kept for works of so miraculous preservation and safety unto others that as By the Sword of God and Gedeon was sometime the cry of the people of Israel so it might deservedly be at this day the joyful Song of innumerable multitudes yea the Emblem of some Estates and Dominions in the world and which must be eternally confest even with tears of thankfulness the true Inscription Stile or Title of all Churches as yet standing within this Realm By the goodness of Almighty God and his servant Elizabeth we areâ— That God who is able to make Mortality immortal give her such future continuance as may be no less glorious unto all Posterity then the days of Her Regiment past have been happy unto our selves and for his most dear Anointeds sake grant them all prosperity whose Labors Cares and Counsels unfeignedly are referred to Her endless welfare through his unspeakable mercy unto whom we all owe everlasting praise In which desire I will here rest humbly beseeching your Grace to pardon my great boldness and God to multiply his Blessings upon them that fear his Name Your Graces in all duty RICHARD HOOKER A PREFACE To them that seek as they term it The Reformation of Laws and Orders Ecclesiastical IN THE Church of England THough for no other cause yet for this That Posterity may know we have not loosly through silence permitted things to pass away as in a Dream there shall be for Mens information extant thus much concerning the present state of the Church of God established amongst us and their careful endeavor which would have uphold the same At your hands beloved in our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ for in him the love which we bear unto all that would but seem to be born of him it is not the Sea of your Gall and Bitterness that shall ever drown I have no great cause to look for other then the self-same portion and lot which your manner hath been hitherto to lay on them that concur not in Opinion and Sentence with you But our hope it that the God of Peace shall notwithstanding mans nature too impatical of contumelious malediction enable us quietly and even gladly to suffer all things for that work sake which we covet to perform The wonderful seal and fervor wherewith ye have with stood the received Orders of this Church was the first thing which caused me to enter into consideration Whether as all your published Books and Writings peremptorily maintain every Christian man fearing God stand bound to joyn with you for the furtherance of that which ye term The Lords Discipline Wherein I must plainly confess unto you that before I examined your sundry Declarations in that behalf it could not settle in my head to think but that undoubtedly such numbers of otherwise right well-affected and most religiously enclined minds had some marvellous reasonable enducements which led them with so great earnestness that way But when once as near as my slender ability would serve I had with travel and care performed that part of the Apostles advice and counsel in such cases whereby be willeth to try all things and was come at the length so far that there remained only the other clause to be satisfied wherein he concludeth that what good is must be held There was in my poor understanding no remedy but to set down this as my final resolute perswasion Surely the present Form of Church Government which the Laws of this Land have established is such as no Law of God nor Reason of Man hath hitherto been alledged of force sufficient to prove they do ill who to the uttermost of their power withstand the alteration thereof Contrariwise The other which instead of it we are required to accept is onely by Error and misconceipt named the Ordinance of Jesus Christ no one Proof as yet brought forth whereby it may clearly appear to be so in very deed The Explication of which two things I have here thought good to offer into your own hands Heartily beseeching you even by the Meekness of Iesus Christ whom I trust ye love That as ye tender the Peace and Quietness of this Church if there be in you that gracious Humility which hath ever been the Crown and Glory of a Christianly disposed minde If your own souls hearts and consciences the sound integrity whereof can but hardly stand with the refusal of Truth in personal respects be as I doubt not but they are things most dear and precious unto you Let not the Faith which ye have in our Lord Jesus Christ be blemished with partialities regard not who it is which speaketh but weigh onely what is spoken Think not that ye read the words of one who bendeth himself as an Adversary against the Truth which ye have already embraced but the words of one who desireth even to embrace together with you the self same Truth if it be the Truth and for that cause for no other God he knoweth hath undertaken the burthensom labor of this painful kinde of Conference For the plainer access whereunto let it be lawful for me to rip up the very bottom how and by whom your Discipline was planted at such time as this age we live in began to make first tryal thereof 2. A Founder it had whom for mine own part I think incomparably the wisest man that ever the French Church did injoy since the hour it injoyed him His bringing up was in the study of the Civil Law Divine knowledge he gathered not by hearing or reading so much as by teaching others For though thousands were debters to him as touching knowledge in that kinde yet be to none but onely to God the Author of that most blessed Fountain The Book of Life and of the admirable dexterity of Wit together with the helps of other learning which
towards the Gospel of Christ whose eyes are opened to see the Truth and his mouth to renounce all Heresie and Errour any wise opposite thereunto This one opinion of Merits excepted he thinketh God will require at his hands and because he wanteth therefore trembleth and is discouraged it may be I am forgetful and unskilful not furnished with things new and old as a wise and learned Scribe should be nor able to alledge that whereunto if it were alledged he doth hear a minde most williing to yield and so to be recalled as well from this as from other Errours And shall I think because of this onely Errour that such a man toucheth not so much as the hem of Christ's garment If he do Wherefore should not I have hope that vertue may proceed from Christ to save him Because his Errour doth by consequent overthrow his Faith shall I therefore cast him off as one that hath utterly cast off Christ one that holdeth not so much as by a slender thred No I will not be afraid to say unto a Pope or Cardinal in this plight Be of good comfort we have to do with a merciful God ready to make the best of a little which we hold well and not with a captious Sophister which gathereth the worst out of every thing wherein we erre Is there any Reason that I should be suspected or you offended for this speech Is it a dangerous thing to imagine that such men may finde mercy The hour may come when we shall think it a blessed thing to hear that if our sinnes were the sinnes of the Pope and Cardinals the bowels of the mercy of God are larger I do propose unto you a Pope with the neck of an Emperour under his feet a Cardinal riding his horse to the bridle in the blood of Saints but a Pope or a Cardinal sorrowful penitent dis-robed stript not onely of usurpec ' power but also delivered and recalled from Error and Antichrist converted and lying prostrate at the foot of Christ and shall I think that Christ shall spurn at him and shall I cross and gain-say the merciful promises of God generally made unto penitent sinners by opposing the name of a Pope or Cardinal What difference is there in the world between a Pope and a Cardinal and Iohn a Stile in this Case If we think it impossible for them if they be once come within that rank to be afterwards touched with any such remorse let that he granted The Apostle saith If I or an Angel from heaven preach unto c. Let it be as likely that S. Paul or an Angel from Heaven should preach Heresie as that a Pope or Cardinal should be brought so farr forth to acknowledge the truth yet if a Pope or Cardinal should what finde we in their Persons why they might not be saved It is not the Persons you will say but the Errour wherein I suppose them to dye which excludeth them from the hope of mercy the opinion of merits doth take away all possibility of Salvation from them What if they hold it onely as an Errour Although they hold the truth truly and sincerely in all other parts of Christian Faith Although they have in some measure all the Vertues and Graces of the Spirit all other tokens of God's Elect Children in them Although they be farr from having any proud presumptuous opinion that they shall be saved by the worthiness of their deeds Although the onely thing which troubleth and molested them be but a little too much dejection somewhat too great a fear rising from an erroneous conceit that God would require a worthinesse in them which they are grieved to finde wanting in themselves Although they be not obstinate in this perswasion Although they be willing and would be glad to forsake it if any one reason were brought sufficient to dispove it Although the onely lett why they doe not forsake it ere they dye be the ignorance of the means by which it might be disproved Although the cause why the ignorance in this point is not removed be the want of knowledge in such us should be able and are not to remove it Let me dye if ever it be proved that simply an Errour doth exclude a Pope or a Cardinal in such a case utterly from hope of life Surely I must confesse unto you if it be an Errour that God may be merciful to save men even when they erre my greatest Comfort is my Errour were it not for the love I bear unto this Errour I would never wish to speak nor to live 36. Wherefore to resume that mother-Sentence whereof I little thought that so much trouble would have grown I doubt not but that God was merciful to save thousands of our Fathers living in Papish Superstitions inasmuch as they sinned ignorantly Alas what bloody matter is there contained in this Sentence that it should be an occasion of so many hard Censures Did I say that thousands of our Fathers might be saved I have shewed which way it cannot be denied Did I say I doubt not but they were saved I see no impiety in this Perswasion though I had no reason for it Did I say Their ignorance did make me hope they did finde mercy and so were saved What hindreth Salvation but Sinne Sinnes are not equal and Ignorance though it doth not make Sinne to be no Sinne yet seeing it did make their sinne the less why should it not make our hope concerning their life the greater We pity the most and doubt not but God hath most compassion over them that sinne for want of understanding As much is confessed by sundry others almost in the self-same words which I have used It is but onely my evil hap that the same Sentences which savour Verity in other mens books should seem to bolster Heresie when they are once by me recited If I be deceived in this point not they but the blessed Apostle hath deceived me What I said of others the same he said of himself I obtained mercy for I did it ignorantly Construe his words and you cannot misconstrue mine I spake no otherwise I meant no otherwise than he did 37. Thus have I brought the question concerning our Fathers at length unto an end Of whose estate upon so fit an occasion as was offered me handling the weighty causes of separation between the Church of Rome and us and the weak motives which are commonly brought to retain men in that Society amongst which motives the examples of our Fathers deceased is one although I saw it convenient to utter the Sentence which I did to the end that all men might thereby understand how untruly we are said to condemn as many as have been before us otherwise perswaded than we our selves are yet more than that one Sentence I did not think it expedient to utter judging it a great deal meeter for us to have regard to our own estate than to sift over-curiously what is become of other
and using all men as Brethren both near and dear unto us supposing Christ to love them tenderly so as they keep the profession of the Gospel and joyn in the outward communion of Saints Whereof the one doth-warrantize unto us their Faith the other their love till they fall away and forsake either the one or the other or both and then it is no injury to term them as they are When they separate themselves they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not judged by us but by their own doings Men do separate themselvs either by Heresie Schism or Apostasie If they lose the bond of Faith which then they are justly supposed to do when they frowardly oppugn any principal point of Christian Doctrine this is to separate themselves by Heresie If they break the bond of Unity whereby the Body of the Church is coupled and knit in one as they doe which wilfully forsake all external Communion with Saints in holy Exercises purely and orderly established in the Church this is to separate themselves by Schism If they willingly cast off and utterly forsake both profession of Christ and communion with Christians taking their leave of all Religion this is to separate themselves by plain Apostasie And Saint Iude to expresse the manner of their departure which by Apostasie fell away from the Faith of Christ saith They separated themselves noting thereby that it was not constraint of others which forced them to depart it was not infirmity and weaknesse in themselves it was not fear of Persecution to come upon them whereat their hearts did fail it was not grief of torment whereof they had tasted and were not able any longer to endure them No they voluntarily did separate themselves with a fully settled and altogether determined purpose never to name the Lord Jesus any more nor to have any fellowship with his Saints but to bend all their counsel and all their strength to raze out their memorial from amongst them 12. Now because that by such examples not onely the hearts of Infidels were hardned against the Truth but the mindes of weak Brethren also much troubled the Holy Ghost hath given sentence of these Backsliders that they were carnal men and had not the Spirit of Christ Jesus lest any man having an overweening of their Persons should be overmuch amazed and offended at their fall For simple men not able to discern their Spirits were brought by their Apostasie thus to reason with themselves If Christ be the Sonne of the Living God if he have the words of Eternal life if he be able to bring Salvation to all men that come unto him what meaneth this Apostasie and unconstrained departure Why do his Servants so willingly forsake him Babes be not deceived his Servants forsake him not They that separate themselves were amongst his Servants but if they had been of his Servants they had not separated themselves They were amongst us not of us saith Iohn and Saint Iude proveth it because they were carnal and had not the Spirit Will you judge of Wheat by Chaff which the winde hath scattered from amongst it Have the Children no Bread because the doggs have not tasted it Are Christians deceived of that Salvation they look for because they were denyed the joys of the life to come which were no Christians What if they seemed to be Pillars and principal Upholders of our Faith What is that to us which know that Angels have fallen from Heaven Although if these men had been of us indeed O the blessedness of a Christian man's estate they had stood surer than the Angels that had never departed from their place Wherein now we marvel not at their departure at all neither are we prejudiced by their falling away because they were not of us sith they are fleshly and have not the Spirit Children abide in the House for ever they are Bond-men and Bond-women which are cast out 13. It behoveth you therefore greatly every man to examine his own estate and to try whether you be bond or free children or no children I have told you already that we must beware we presume not to sit as Gods in judgement upon others and rashly as our conceit and fancy doth lead us so to determine of this man he is sincere or of that man he is an Hypocrite except by their falling away they make it manifest and known that they are For who art thou that takest upon thee to judge another before the time Judge thyself God hath left us infallible evidence whereby we may at any time give true and righteous sentence upon our selves We cannot examine the hearts of other men we may our own That we have passed from death to life we know it saith St. Iohn because we love the Brethren And know ye not your own selves how that Iesus Christ is in you except you be Reprobates I trust Beloved we know that we are not Reprobates because our Spirit doth bear us record that the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ is in us 14. It is as easie a matter for the Spirit within you to tell whose ye are as for the eyes of your Bodie to judge where you sit or in what place you stand For what saith the Scripture Ye which were in times past Strangers and Enemies because your mindes were set an evil works Christ hath now reconciled in the body of his Flesh through death to make you holy and umblameable and without fault in his sight If you continue grounded and established in the Faith and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel Collos. 1. And in the third to the Colossians Ye know that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of that Inheritance for ye serve the Lord Christ. If we can make this account with our selves I was in times past dead in Trespasses and Sinnes I walked after the Prince that ruleth in the Ayr and after the Spirit that worketh in the Children of Disobedience but God who is rich in mercy through his great love wherewith he loved me even when I was dead hath quickned me in Christ. I was fierce heady proud high-minded but God hath made me like the Childe that is newly weaned I loved pleasures more than God I followed greedily the joyes of this present World I esteemed him that erected a Stage or Theatre more than Solomon which built a Temple to the Lord the Haâ—p Viol Timbrel and Pipe Men-singers and Women-singers were at my Feast it was my felicity to see my Children dance before me I said of every kinde of vanity O how sweet art thou in my Soul All which things now are crucified to me and I to them Now I hate the pride of life and pomp of this world now I take as great delight in the way of thy Testimonies O Lord as in all Riches now I finde more joy of heart in my Lord and Saviour than the Worldly-minded-man when his Wheat and Oyl do much abound
Now I taste nothing sweet but the Bread which came down from Heaven to give life unto the World Now mine eys see nothing but Jesus rising from the dead Now my ears refuse all kinde of melody to hear the Song of them that hath gotten victory of the Beast and of his Image and of his Mark and of the number of his Name that stand on the Sea of Glass having the Harps of God and singing the Song of Moses the Servant of God and the Song of the Lamb saying Great and marvellous are thy works Lord God Almighty just and true are thy wayes O King of Saints Surely if the Spirit have been thus effectual in the secret work of our Regeneration unto newness of life if we endeavour thus to frame our selves anew then we may say boldly with the blessed Apostle in the tenth to the Hebrews We are not of them which withdraw our selves to perdition but which follow Faith to the conservation of the Soul For they which fall away from the grace of God and separate themselves unto perdition they are fleshly and carnal they have not God's holy Spirit But unto you because ye are Sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts to the end ye might know that Christ hath built you upon a Rock unmoveable that he hath registred your names in the Book of life that he hath bound himself in a sure and everlasting Covenant to be your God and the God of your Children after you that he hath suffered as much groaned as oft prayed as heartily for you as for Peter O Father keep them in thy Name O Righteous Father the World hath not known thee but I have known thee and these have known that thou hast sent me I have declared thy name unto them and will declare it that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them The Lord of his infinite mercy give us hearts plentifully fraught with the treasure of this blessed assurance of Faith unto the end 15. Here I must advertise all men that have the testimony of God's holy fear within their Breasts to consider how unkindly and injuriously our own Countrey-men and Brethren have dealt with us by the space of four and twenty years from time to time as if we were the men of whom St. Iude here speaketh never ceasing to charge us some with Scism some with Heresie some with plain and manifest Apostasie as if we had clean separated our selves from Christ utterly forsaken God quite abjured Heaven and trampled all Truth and Religion under our feet Against this third sort God himself shall plead our Cause in that day when they shall answer us for these words nor we them To others by whom we are accused for Schism and Heresie we have often made our reasonable and in the sight of God I trust allowable Answers For in the way which they call Heresie we worship the God of our Fathers believing all things which are written in the Law and the Prophets That which they call Schism we know to be our reasonable service unto God and obedience to his voyce which cryeth shrill in our ears Go out of Babylon my People that you be not Partakers of her sinnes and that ye receive not of her Plagues And therefore when they rise up against us having no quarrel but this we need not seek any farther for our Apology than the words of Abiah to Iereboam and his Army 2 Chron. 13. O Ieroboam and Israel hear you me Ought you not to know that the Lord God of Israel hath given the Kingdom over Israel to David for ever even to him and to his Sons by a Covenant of Salt that is to say an everlasting Covenant Jesuits and Papists hear ye me ought you not to know that the Father hath given all power unto the Son and hath made him the onely Head over his Church wherein he dwelleth as an Husband-man in the midst of his Vineyard manuring it with the sweat of his own brows not letting it forth to others For as it is in the Canticles Solomon had a Vineyard in Baalhamon he gave the Vineyard unto Keepers every one bringing forth the fruit thereof a thousand pieces of Silver but my Vineyard which is mine is before me saith Christ. It is true this is meant of the Mystical Head set over the Body which is not seen But as he hath reserved the Mystical Administration of the Church invisible unto himself so he hath committed the Mystical Government of Congregations visible to the Sonnes of David by the same Covenant whose Sons they are in the governing of the Flock of Christ whomsoever the Holy Ghost hath set over them to go before them and to lead them in several Pastures one in this Congregation another in that as it is written Take heed unto your selves and to all the Flock whereof the Holy Ghost hath made you Overseers to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood Neither will ever any Pope or Papist under the Cope of Heaven be able to prove the Romish Bishop's usurped Supremacy over all Churches by any one word of the Covenant of Salt which is the Scripture For the Children in our streets do now laugh them to scorn when they force Thou art Peter to this purpose The Pope hath no more reason to draw the Charter of his universal Authority from hence than the Brethren had to gather by the words of Christ in the last of St. Iohn that the Disciple whom Jesus loved should not dye If I will that he â—arry till I come what is that to thee saith Christ. Straitways a report was raised amongst the Brethren that this Disciple should not dye Yet Jesus said not to him He shall not dye but If I will that he â—arry till I come what is that to thee Christ hath said in the sixteenth of St. Matthew's Gospel to Simon the Son of Ionas I say to thee Thou art Peter Hence an opinion is held in the World That the Pope is universal Head of all Churches Yet Jesus said not The Pope is universal Head of all Churches but Ta es Petrus Thou art Peter Howbeit as Ieroboam the son of Nebat the servant of Solomon rose up and rebelled against his Lord and there were gathered unto him vain men and wicked which made themselves strong against Roboam the son of Solomon because Roboam was but a Childe and tender-hearted and could not resist them So the Son of Perdition and Man of Sin being not able to brook the words of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ which forbad his Disciples to be like Princes of Nations They bear rule that are called Gracious it shall not be so with you hath risen up and rebelled against his Lord and to strengthen his arm he hath crept into the Houses almost of all the Noblest Families round about him and taken their