to tye that unto him by way of excellency which in meaner degrees is common to others it doth not exclude any other utterly from being termed Head but from being intituled as Christ is the Head by way of the very highest degree of excellency Not in the communication of Names but in the confusion of things there is errour Howbeit if Head were a Name that could not well be nor never had been used to signifie that which a Magistrate may be in relation to some Church but were by continual use of speech appropriated unto the onely thing it signifieth being applyed unto Jesus Christ then although we must carry in our selves a right understanding yet ought we otherwise rather to speak unless we interpret our own meaning by some clause of plain speech because we are else in manifest danger to be understood according to that construction and sense wherein such words are personally spoken But here the rarest construction and most removed from common sense is that which the Word doth import being applyed unto Christ that which we signifie by it in giving it to the Magistrate it is a great deal more familiar in the common conceit of men The word is so fit to signifie all kindes of Superiority Preheminence and Chiefty that nothing is more ordinary than to use it in vulgar speech and in common understanding so to take it If therefore Christian Kings may have any preheminence or chiefty above all others although it be less than that which Theodore Beza giveth who placeth Kings amongst the principal Members whereunto publick Function to the Church belongeth and denyeth not but that of them which have publick Fonction the Civil Magistrates power hath all the rest at command in regard of that part of his Office which is to procure that Peace and good 〈…〉 especially kept in things concerning the first Table if even hereupon they term him the Head of the Church which is his Kingdom it should not seem so unfit a thing Which Title surely we could not communicate to any other no not although it should at our hands be exacted with torments but that our meaning herein is made known to the World so that no man which will understand can easily be ignorant that we do not impart unto Kings when we term them Heads the honor which is properly given to our Lord and Saviour Christ when the blessed Apostle in Scripture doth term him the Head of the Church The power which we signifie in that name differeth in three things plainly from that which Christ doth challenge First it differeth in order because God hath given to his Church for the Head 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Farr above all Principalities and Powers and Might and Dominion and every Name that is named not in this World only but also in that which is to come Whereas the Power which others have is subordinate unto his Secondly again as he differeth in order so in measure of Power also because God hath given unto him the ends of the Earth for his Possesion unto him Dominion from Sea to Sea unto him all power both in Heaven and Earth unto him such Soveraignty as doth not only reach over all places persons and things but doth rest in his own only Person and is not by any succession continued he reigneth as Head and King nor is there any kinde of law which tyeth him but his own proper will and wisdom his power is absolute the same joyntly over all which it is severally over each not so the Power of any other Headship How Kings are restrained and how their Power is limited we have shewed before so that unto him is given by the title of Headship ever the Church that largeness of Power wherein neither Man nor Angel can be matched not compared with him Thirdly the last and greatest difference between him and them is in the very kinde of their Power The Head being of all other parts of the Body most divine hath dominion over all the rest it is the fountain of sense of motion the throne where the guide of the Soul doth reign the Court from whence direction of all things human proceedeth Why Christ is called the Head of the Church these Causes themselves do yield As the Head is the chiefest part of a man above which there is none alwayes joyned with the Body so Christ the highest in his Church is alwayes knit to it Again as the Head giveth sense and motion unto all the Body so he quickneth us and together with understanding of heavenly things giveth strength to walk therein Seeing therefore that they cannot affirm Christ sensibly present or alwayes visibly joyned unto his Body the Church which is on Earth in as much as his Corporal residence is in Heaven again seeing they do not affirm it were intolerable if they should that Christ doth personally administer the external Regiment of outward Actions in the Church but by the secret inward influence of his Grace giveth Spiritual life and the strength of ghostly motions thereunto Impossible it is that they should so close up their eyes as not to discern what odds there is between that kinde of operation which we imply in the Headship of Princes and that which agreeth to our Saviours dominion over the Church The Headship which we give unto Kings is altogether visibly exercised and ordereth only the external frame of the Church-affairs here amongst us so that it plainly differeth from Christ's even in very nature and kinde To be in such sort united unto the Church as he is to work as he worketh either on the whole Church or upon any particular Assembly or in any one man doth neither agree nor hath any possibility of agreeing unto any one besides him Against the first distinction or difference it is to be objected That to entitle a Magistrate head of the Church although it be under Christ is not absurd For Christ hath a two-fold Superiority ever his and even Kingdoms according to the one he hath a Superior which is his Father according to the other none had immediate Authority with his Father that is to say of the Church he is Head and Governor onely as the Son of Man Head and Governor of Kingdoms onely as the Son of God In the Church as Man he hath Officers under Him which Officers are Ecclesiastical Persons As for the Civil Magistrate his Office belongeth unto Kingdoms and to Common-wealths neither is he there an under or subordinate Head considering that his Authority cometh from God simply and immediately even as our Saviour Christ's doth Whereunto the sum of our Answer is First that as Christ being Lord or Head over all doth by vertue of that Soveraignty rule all so he hath no more a Superiour in governing his Church than in exercising Soveraign Dominion upon the rest of the World besides Secondly That all Authority as well Civil as Ecclesiastical is subordinate unto him And Thirdly the
then Lord let thy Servant depart in peace which was his usual expression And God heard his Prayers though he denied the Church the benefit of them as compleated by himself and 't is thought he hastned his own death by hastning to give life to his Books But this is certain that the nearer he was to his death the more he grew in Humility in holy Thoughts and Resolutions About a moneth before his death this good man that never knew or at least never consider'd the pleasures of the Palate became first to lose his Appetite then to have an aversness to all Food insomuch that he seem'd to live some intermitted weeks by the smell of meat onely and yet still studied and writ And now his Guardian Angel seem'd to foretel him that his years were past away as a shadow bidding him prepare to follow the Generation of his Fathers for the day of his dissolution drew near for which his vigorous Soul appear'd to thirst In this time of his sickness and not many days before his death his House was robb'd of which he having notice his Question was Are my Books and Written Papers safe And being answered That they were His Reply was Then it matters not for no other loss can trouble me About one day before his death Dr. Saravia who knew the very secrets of his Soul for they were supposed to be Confessors to each other came to him and after a Conference of the Benefit the Necessity and Safety of the Churches Absolution it was resolved the Doctor should give him both that and the Sacrament the day following To which end the Doctor came and after a short retirement and privacy they return'd to the company and then the Doctor gave him and some of those friends that were with him the Blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Jesus Which being performed the Doctor thought he saw a reverend gaity and joy in his face but it lasted not long for his bodily infirmities did return suddenly and became more visible insomuch that the Doctor apprehended Death ready to seise him Yet after some amendment left him at night with a promise to return early the day following which he did and then found him better in appearance deep in contemplation and not inclinable to discourse which gave the Doctor occasion to require his present thoughts To which he replied That he was meditating the number and nature of Angels and their blessed Obedience and Order without which Peace could not be in Heaven and oh that it might be so on Earth After which words he said I have lived to see this World is made up of perturbations and I have been long preparing to leave it and gathering comfort for the dreadful hour of making my account with God which I now apprehend to be near And though I have by his Grace lov'd him in my youth and fear'd him in mine age and labor'd to have a Conscience void of offence to him and to all men yet if thou O Lord be extream to mark what I have done amiss who can abide it And therefore where I have failed Lord shew mercy to me for I plead not my Righteousness but the forgiveness of my unrighteousness for his Merits who died to purchase a pardon for penitent sinners And since I ow thee a death Lord let it not be terrible and then take thine own time I submit to it Let not mine O Lord but let thy Will be done With which expression he fell into a dangerous slumber dangerous as to his recovery yet recover he did but it was to speak onely these few words Good Doctor God hath heard my daily Petitions for I am at peace with all men and he is at peace with me and from which blessed assurance I feel that inward joy which this World can neither give nor take from me More he would have spoken but his spirits failed him and after a short conflict betwixt Nature and Death a quiet sigh put a period to his last breath and so he fell asleep And here I draw his Curtain till with the most glorious Company of the Patriarks and Apostles the most noble Army of Martyrs and Confessors this most Learned most Humble holy Man shall also awake to receive an Eternal Tranquillity and with it a greater degree of Glory then common Christians shall be made partakers of In the mean time Bless O Lord Lord bless his Brethren the Clergy of this Nation with ardent desires and effectual endeavors to attain if not to his great Learning yet to his remarkable meekness his godly simplicity and his Christian moderation For these are praise-worthy these bring peace at the last And let the Labors of his life his most excellent Writings be bless with what he designed when he undertook them Which was Glory to thee O God on high Peace in thy Church and good will to mankinde Amen Amen AN APPENDIX To the LIFE of Mr. Richard Hooker ANd now having by a long and Laborious search satisfied my self and I hope my Reader by imparting to him the true Relation of Mr. Hookers Life I am desirous also to acquaint him with some Observations that relate to it and which could not properly fall to be spoken till after his Death of which my Reader may expect a brief and true account in the following Appendix And first it is not to be doubted but that he died in the forty-seventh if not in the forty-sixth year of his Age which I mention because many have believed him to be more aged but I have so examined it as to be confident I mistake not and for the year of his death Mr. Cambden who in his Annals of Queen Elizabeth 1599. mentions him with a high commendation of his Life and Learning declares him to die in the year 1599. and yet in that Inscription of his Monument set up at the charge of Sir William Cooper in Borne Church where Mr. Hooker was buried his Death is said to be in Anno 1603. but doubtless both mistaken for I have it attested under the hand of William Somner the Archbishops Register for the Province of Canterbury that Richard Hookers Will bears date October the 26. in Anno 1600. and that it was prov'd the third of December following And this attested also that at his Death he left four Daughters Alice Cicily Iane and Margaret that he gave to each of them a hundred pound that he left Ione his Wife his sole Executrix and that by his Inventory his Estate a great part of it being in Books came to 1092l 91. 2d which was much more than he thought himself worth and which was not got by his Care much less by the good Huswifery of his Wife but saved by his trusty Servant Thomas Lane that was wiser than his Master in getting Money for him and more frugal than his Mistress in keeping it of which Will I shall say no more but that his dear Friend Thomas the Father of
when after that David had ended his days in peace they who succeeded him in place for the most part followed him not in quality when their Kings some few excepted to better their worldly estate as they thought left their own and their peoples ghostly condition uncared for by woful experience they both did learn That to forsake the true God of Heaven is to fall into all such evils upon the face of the earth as men either destitute of Grace Divine may commit or unprotected from above endure Seeing therefore it doth thus appear that the safety of all Estates dependeth upon Religion that Religion unfeignedly loved perfecteth mens abilities unto all kindes of vertuous Services in the Commonwealth that mens desire in general is to hold no Religion but the true and that whatsoever good effects do grow out of their Religion who embrace instead of the true a false the Roots thereof are certain sparks of the Light of Truth intermingled with the darkness of Error because no Religion can wholly and onely consist of untruths we have Reason to think That all true Vertues are to honor true Religion as their Parent and all well ordered Commonweals to love her as their chiefest stay 2. They of whom God is altogether unapprehended are but few in number and for grosness of wit such that they hardly and scarcely seem to hold the place of Humane Being These we should judge to be of all others most miserable but that a wretcheder sort there are on whom whereas nature hath bestowed riper capacity their evil disposition seriously goeth about therewith to apprehend God as being not God Whereby it cometh to pass that of these two sorts of men both godless the one having utterly no knowledge of God the other study how to perswade themselves that there is no such thing to be known The Fountain and Well-spring of which Impiety is a resolved purpose of minde to reap in this World what sensual profit or pleasure soever the World yieldeth and not to be barred from any whatsoever means available thereunto And that is the very radical cause of their Atheism no man I think will doubt which considereth what pains they take to destroy those principal Spurs and Motives unto all Vertue the Creation of the World the Providence of God the Resurrection of the Dead the Joys of the Kingdom of Heaven and the endless pains of the wicked yea above all things the Authority of the Scripture because on these Points it evermore beateth and the Souls immortality which granted draweth easily after it the rest as a voluntary train Is it not wonderful that base desires should so extinguish in men the sense of their own excellencyâ— as to make them willing that their souls should be like to the souls of beasts mortal and corruptible with their bodies till some admirable or unusual accident happen as it hath in some to work the beginning of a better alteration in their mindes disputation about the knowledge of God with such kinde of persons commonly prevaileth little For how should the brightness of Wisdom shine where the windows of the soul are of very seâ— purpose closed True Religion hath many things in it the only mention whereof galleth and troubleth their mindes Being therefore loth that enquiry into such matters should breed a perswasion in the end contrary unto that they embrace it is their endeavor to banish as much as in them lyeth quite and clean from their cogitation whatsoever may sound that way But it cometh many times to pass which is their torment that the thing they shun doth follow them truth as it were even obtruding it self into their knowledge and not permitting them to be so ignorant as they would be Whereupon inasmuch as the nature of man is unwilling to continue doing that wherein it shall alwaies condemn it selfe they continuing still obstinate to follow the course which they have begun are driven to devise all the shifts that wit can invent for the smothering of this light all that may but with any the least shew of possibility stay their mindes from thinking that true which they heartily wish were false but cannot think it so without some scruple and fear of the contrary Now because that judicious learning for which we commend most worthily the ancient Sages of the World doth not in this case serve the turn these trenchermates for such the most of them be frame to themselves a way more pleasant a new method they have of turning things that are serious into mockerie an Art of Contradiction by way of scorn a learning wherewith we were long sithence forewarned that the miserable times whereinto we are fallen should abound This they study this they practise this they grace with a wanton superfluity of wit too much insulting over the patience of more vertuously disposed mindes For towards these so forlom creatures we are it must be confest too patient In zeal to the glory of God Babylon hath exceeded Sion We want that decree of Nebuchodonosor the fury of this wicked brood hath the reins too much at liberty their tongues walk at large the spit-venom of their poisoned hearts breaketh out to the annoyance of others what their untamed lust suggesteth the same their licentious mouths do every where set abroach With our contentions their irreligious humor also is much strengthned Nothing pleaseth them better than these manifold oppositions about the Matter of Religion as well for that they have hereby the more opportunity to learn on one side how another may be oppugned and so to weaken the credit of all unto themselves as also because by this not pursuit of lower controversies amongst men professing Religion and agreeing in the principal foundations thereof they conceive hope that about the higher principles themselves time will cause alteration to grow For which purpose when they see occasion they stick not sometime in other mens persons yea sometime without any vizard at all directly to try what the most religious are able to say in defence of the highest points whereupon all Religion dependeth Now for the most part it so falleth out touching things which generally are received that although in themselves they be most certain yet because men presume them granted of all we are hardliest able to bring such proof of their certainty as may satisfie gain-sayers when suddenly and besides expectation they require the same at our hands Which impreparation and unreadiness when they finde in us they turn it to the soothing up of themselves in that cursed fansie whereby they would fain believe that the hearty devotion of such as indeed fear God is nothing else but a kinde of harmless error bred and confirmed in them by the sleights of wiser men For a politick use of Religion they see there is and by it they would also gather that Religion it self is a meer politick device forged purposely to serve for that use Men fearing God are
Local It was not therefore every where seen nor did it every where suffer death every where it could not be intombed it is not every where now being exalted into Heaven There is no proof in the World strong to inforce that Christ had a true Body but by the true and natural Properties of his Body Amongst which Properties Definite or Local Presence is chief How it is true of Christ saith Tertullian that he died was buried and rose again if Christ had not that very flesh the nature whereof is capable of these things flesh mingled with blood supported with bones woven with sinews embroidered with veins If his Majestical Body have now any such new property by force whereof it may every where really even in Substance present it self or may at once be in many places then hath the Majesty of his estate extinguished the veriâ—y of his Nature Make thou no doubt or question of it saith St. Augustine but that the Man Christ Iesus is now in that very place from whence he shall come in the same Form and Substance of Flesh which he carried thither and from which he hath not taken Nature but given thereunto Immortality According to this Form he spreadeth not out himself into all places For it behoveth us to take great heed lest while we go about to maintain the glorious Deity of him which is Man we leave him not the true Bodily Substance of a Man According to St. Augustines opinion therefore that Majestical Body which we make to be every where present doth thereby cease to have the Substance of a true Body To conclude We hold it in regard of the fore-alleaged proofs a most infallible truth That Christ as Man is not every where present There are which think it as infallibly true That Christ is every where present as Man which peradventure in some sense may be well enough granted His Humane Substance in it self is naturally absent from the Earth his Soul and Body not on Earth but in Heaven onely Yet because this Substance is inseparably joyned to that Personal Word which by his very Divine Essence is present with all things the Nature which cannot have in it self Universal Presence hath it after a sort by being no where severed from that which every where is present For in as much as that Infinite Word is not divisible into parts it could not in part but must needs be wholly incarnate and consequently wheresoever the Word is it hath with it Manhood else should the Word be in part or somewhere God onely and not Man which is impossible For the Person of Christ is whole perfect God and perfect Man wheresoever although the parts of his Manhood being Finite and his Deity Infinite we cannot say that the whole of Christ is simply every where as we may say that his Deity is and that his Person is by Force of Deity For somewhat of the Person of Christ is not every where in that sort namely His Manhood the onely Conjunction whereof with Deity is extended as far as Deity the actual position restrained and tied to a certain place yet presence by way of Conjunction is in some sort presence Again As the Manhood of Christ may after a sort be every-where said to be present because that Person is every where present from whose Divine Substance Manhood is no where severed So the same Universality of Presence may likewise seem in another respect appliable thereunto namely by Cooperation with Deity and that in all things The Light created of God in the Beginning did first by it self illuminate the World but after that the Sun and Moon were created the World sithence hath by them always enjoyed the same And that Deity of Christ which before our Lords Incarnation wrought all things without man doth now work nothing wherein the Nature which it hath assumed is either absent from it or idle Christ as Man hath all Power both in Heaven and Earth given him He hath as Man not as God onely Supream Dominion over quick and dead for so much his Ascension into Heaven and his Session at the right Hand of God do import The Son of God which did first humble himself by taking our flesh upon him descended afterwards much lower and became according to the Flesh obedient so far as to suffer Death even the Death of the Cross for all men because such was his Fathers Will. The former was an Humiliation of Deity the later an Humiliation of Manhood for which cause there followed upon the latter an Exaltation of that which was humbled For with Power he created the World but restored it by obedience In which obedience as according to his Manhood he had glorified God on Earth so God hath glorified in Heaven that Nature which yielded him obedience and hath given unto Christ even in that he is Man such Fulness of Power over the whole World that he which before fulfilled in the state of Humility and Patience whatsoever God did require doth now reign in Glory till the time that all things be restored He which came down from Heaven and descended into the lowest parts of the Earth is ascended far above all Heavens that fitting at the right Hand of God he might from thence fill all things with the gracious and happy fruits of his saving Presence Ascension into Heaven is a plain local translation of Christ according to his Manhood from the lower to the higher parts of the World Session at the right Hand of God is the actual exercise of that Regency and Dominion wherein the Manhood of Christ is joyned and matched with the Deity of the Son of God Not that his Manhood was before without the Possession of the same Power but because the full use thereof was suspended till that Humility which had been before as a vail to hide and conceal Majesty were laid aside After his rising again from the dead then did God set him at his right Hand in Heavenly places far above all principality and power and might and domination and every name that is named not in this World onely but also in that which is to come and hath put all things under his feet and hath appointed him over all the Head to the Church which is his Body the fulness of him that filleth all in all The Scepter of which Spiritual Regiment over us in this present World is at the length to be yielded up into the hands of the Father which gave it that is to say The use and exercise thereof shall cease there being no longer on Earth any Militant Church to govern This Government therefore he exerciseth both as God and as Man as God by Essential Presence with all things as Man by Co-operation with that which essentially is present Touching the manner how he worketh as Man in all things the Principal Powers of the Soul of Man are the Will and Understanding the one of which two in Christ
Life in his Body and Blood by means of this Sacrament Wherefore should the World continue still distracted and rent with so manifold Contentions when there remaineth now no Controversie saving onely about the subject where Christ is Yea even in this point no side denieth but that the Soul of Man is the receptacle of Christs presence Whereby the question is yet driven to a narrower issue nor doth any thing rest doubtful but this Whether when the Sacrament is administred Christ be whole within Man onely or else his Body and Blood be also externally seated in the very Consecrated Elements themselves Which opinion they that defend are driven either to Consubstantiate and Incorporate Christ with Elements Sacramental or to Transubstantiate and change their substance into his and so the one to hold him really but invisibly moulded up with substance of those Elements the other to hide him under the onely visible shew of Bread and Wine the substance whereof as they imagine is abolished and his succeeded in the same room All things considered and compared with that success which Truth hath hitherto had by so bitter Conflicts with Errors in this point Shall I wish that men would more give themselves to meditate with silence what we have by the Sacrament and less to dispute of the manner how If any man suppose that this were too great stupidity and dulness let us see whether the Apostles of our Lord themselves have not done the like It appeareth by many examples that they of their own disposition were very scrupulous and inquisitive yea in other cases of less importance and less difficulty always apt to move questions How cometh it to pass that so few words of so high a Mystery being uttered they receive with gladness the gift of Christ and make no shew of doubt or scruple The reason hereof is not dark to them which have any thing at all observed how the powers of the minde are wont to stir when that which we infinitely long for presenteth it self above and besides expectation Curious and intricate speculations do hinder they abate they quench such inflamed motions of delight and joy as Divine Graces use to raise when extraordinarily they are present The minde therefore feeling present joy is always marvellous unwilling to admit any other cogitation and in that case casteth off those disputes whereunto the intellectual part at other times easily draweth A manifest effect whereof may be noted if we compare with our Lords Disciples in the Twentieth of Iohn the people that are said in the Sixth of Iohn to have gone after him to Capernaum These leaving him on the one side the Sea of Tiberias and finding him again as soon as themselves by ship were arrived on the contrary side whither they knew that by ship he came not and by Land the journey was longer then according to the time he could have to travel as they wondered so they asked also Rabbi when camest thou hither The Disciples when Christ appeared to them in far more strange and miraculous manner moved no question but rejoyced greatly in that they saw For why The one sort beheld onely that in Christ which they knew was more then natural but yet their affection was not rapt therewith through any great extraordinary gladness the other when they looked on Christ were not ignorant that they saw the Well-spring of their own Everlasting felicity the one because they enjoyed not disputed the other disputed not because they enjoyed If then the presence of Christ with them did so much move Judge what their thoughts and affections were at the time of this new presentation of Christ not before their Eyes but within their Souls They had learned before That his Flesh and Blood are the true cause of Eternal Life that this they are not by the bate force of their own substance but through the dignity and worth of His Person which offered them up by way of Sacrifice for the Life of the whole World and doth make them still effectual thereunto Finally that to us they are Life in particular by being particularly received Thus much they knew although as yet they understood not perfectly to what effect or issue the same would come till at the length being assembled for no other cause which they could imagine but to have eaten the Passover onely that Moses appointed when they saw their Lord and Master with hands and eyes lifted up to Heaven first bless and consecrate for the endless good of all Generations till the Worlds end the chosen Elements of Bread and Wine which Elements made for ever the Instruments of Life by vertue of his Divine Benediction they being the first that were commanded to receive from him the first which were warranted by his promise that not onely unto them at the present time but to whomsoever they and their Successors after them did duly administer the same those Mysteries should serve as Conducts of Life and Conveyances of his Body and Blood unto them Was it possible they should hear that voice Take eat This is my Body Drink ye all of this This is my Blood Possible that doing what was required and believing what was promised the same should have present effect in them and not fill them with a kinde of fearful admiration at the Heaven which they saw in themselves They had at that time a Sea of Comfort and Joy to wade in and we by that which they did are taught that this Heavenly Food is given for the satisfying of our empty Souls and not for the exercising of our curious and subtile wits If we doubt what those admirable words may import let him be our Teacher for the meaning of Christ to whom Christ was himself a School-master let our Lords Apostle be his Interpreter content we our selves with his Explication My Body The Communion of my Body My Blood The Communion of my Blood Is there any thing more expedite clear and easie then that as Christ is termed our Life because through him we obtain life so the parts of this Sacrament are his Body and Blood for that they are so to us who receiving them receive that by them which they are termed The Bread and Cup are his Body and Blood because they are causes instrumental upon the receit whereof the Participation of his Body and Blood ensueth For that which produceth any certain effect is not vainly nor improperly said to be that very effect whereunto it tendeth Every cause is in the effect which groweth from it Our Souls and Bodies quickned to Eternal Life are effects the cause whereof is the Person of Christ His Body and Blood are the true Well-spring out of which this Life floweth So that his Body and Blood are in that very subject whereunto they minister life Not onely by effect or operation even as the influence of the Heavens is in Plants Beasts Men and in every thing which they quicken but also by a far more Divine and
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
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
8. Apoc. 9. 11. Gen 3. 15. 1 Chro 21. 1. Job 1 7. de 2. 5. Joh. 13. 15. Acts 5. 3. Apoc. 20. 8. The Law whereby Man is in his Actions directed to the Imitation of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. de An. lib. 1. cap. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist 2 de Coct cap. 9 Matth. 5. 48. Sap. 7. 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mens first beginning to grow to the knowl die of that Law which they are to observe Vide Isal. 7. 16. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Merc. Tris. Aristotelical demonstration Ramistry Of Mans Will which is the thing that Laws of Action are made to guide Ephes. â— 23. Salust Matth. 6. 2. Deut. 30. 19. O mihi praeteritos referat si Iupiter annos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Alcin. de Deg. Plat. a 2 Cor. 11.3 b Luke 9.51 c Matth. 23 37. * Sap. 9. 15. A corruptible Body is heavy unto the Soul and the earthly Mansion keepet't down the Mind that is full of cares And hardly can we discern the things that are upon Earth with great labor finde we out the things which are before us Who can then seek out the things that are in Heaven Ephes. 5 14. Heb. 12.1.12 1 Cor. 16.15 Prov. 2. 4. Luk. 13.84 Of the Natural way of finding out Laws by Reason to guide the will unto that which is good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. de An lib. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b Non potest erâ—â—â— continâ— gare uhi omnes idem oplnamor Mta. Ticat in 1 Pol Quiequid in omnibus inlid viduis uniue speciei communiteâ— mess id causam communew habext oporiet quae est enâ—um individuorum species na uâ—â— lilem Quod tora aliquia specie hr universalis parrienlari qe naturae sir instinctu Fleia de Christ. Rel. Si proficere cupâ— primo â—â—eâ—â— id ve rum pura quâ—l sana mens cumnâ—um hoâ—â—ianâ— atrestatur â—usâ— la Compend cap. 1. c Rom. 2 1â— Non licet naturale universaleque hominum judicium salsâ—â— van unique existimare Ides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. lib. 10. cap. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theoph. in Metaph. 1 Cor. 4. 17. Matth 15.26 Arist. Polit. 1. cap. 5. Arist Polit. 1. cap 5. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Piat in Thâ—at b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arâ—st Metaph. lib. 8. cap. 2. c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. in Tim. d Arist. Ethic. lib. 8. cap. ult e Deut. 6.4 f Matth. â—1 20 g Quod quâ— in se approbaâ— â—n alio reprubare non posse lib. in arenam C. de inos teft Quod quisque juris in allum slatuerer Ipsum quoque codem u l debere lib. quod quiâ—que An omni peni di injuril arque vl abslinendum lib. 1. sect 1. Qued vi out clain Matth. 82. 40. On these two Commandments hanseth the whole Law Gen. 39. 9. Mark 10. 4. Acts 4. 37. 5. 4. 2 Thes 3. ◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soph. Auti. Th. 1 2. q. 94 art 3. Omaeia peccara sunt in universum contra rationem naturae legem Aug. de Civie Del 1. â—a cap. 1. Omne titlum naturae nocer ac per hoc contra naturam est De Doct Chr. lib. â— cap. 14. Psal. 115. 18. Wisd. 13.17 Wisd. 14. 12. Ephes. 4.17 Isai. 44. 18.19 The benefit of keeping that Law which Reason teacheth Voluntate sublarâ omnem actum parem esse lib. soedis simam de adult Bonam voluntatem plerunque pro sacto reputari l. si quis in Testament Divos castè adeunto pietatem adhi bento Qâ—i secus faxit Deun ipse vindex crit How Reason doth leaâ— Men unto the making of Humane Laws whereby Politick Societies are governed and to Agreement about Laws whereby the Fellowship or Communion of Independent Society standeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. Rhher 1. 1 1 Tim. 6. 8. Gen. 1. 29. 2. 17. 4. 2. 4. 20. Matth. 6.33 Gen. 4.20,21 22. Isai. 4gâ— 15. 1 Tim. 5.8 Gen. 13. 19. Gen. 4. 8. Gen. 6. 5. Gen. 5. 2 Pet. 2. 5. Arist. Polit. lib. 3. 4. Arist. Polit. lib. 1. cap. 5. Vide latonem in 3. de legibus a Cum premeretur iniâ—io multitudo ab jis qui majores opes habebant aâ—l unum aliquem consugieban virtute prastantem qui cum prohiberet injeria renuiores aequitate consti â— uendô summos cum intimis parijure retinehar Cum id minùs cantingeret leges sunt inventae Cic. Ossic. lib. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. Rher ad Alex. b Tanta est enim vis voluptatum ut â—ignorantiam protelet in occasionem conscientiam cerâ—rampat in dissimulationem Terâ—ul lib. de Spectacul Arist. Polit. lib. 2. cap. 11â—t Staundf Pâ—C â—ice to the Pleas of the Crown Jude vers 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. Eth. lib. 10. cap. 1â— Isa. 10. 1. Arist. P. lit 1. cap 2 Gen. 2. 22. Cic. Tuâ—â— 5. 1 de Legib. 1 King 10 1. 2 Câ—râ—n g. 1. Matth. 13 42. Luke 11. 3 Joseph lib. 2. â—â— nâ—â—a ra Appl. â—n Tâ—â—â— lib. 9. de saâ—nd â— â—â— Assâ—ct Ephe. 4. 5. Acts 15. 23. Joh. 14. 27. Wherefore God hath by Scripture further made known such Supernatural Laws as do serve for Mens direction Gal. 6. 8. He that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap Life Everlasting Vide Arist. Ethic lib. 10. c. 10. Metaph. l. 12. cap. 5. cap. 4 cap. 20. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Merc. Tris. Matth 25. The just shall go into life everlasting Matth. 22. They shall be as the Angels of God 2 Tim 4. 8. 1 Pet. 1. 4. Psal. 8. Comment in Procaem 2. Metaph. Phil. 3. 19. a Matth. 5. 12. Rejoyce and be glad for great is your reward in Heaven Aug. de Doct. Christ. cap. 6. Summa merces est ut isto persruamur b Ambros. contra â—ym c Magno excellenti ingenio viri com se doctrinae penitus dididissent qâ—iquid laboris poterat impendi contemptis omnibus privatis publicis actionibus ad inquirendea veritatis studium contulerunt existimantes 〈…〉 esse pâ—â— larius humanarum divinaâ— uacute m que recum in vestigare ac scire rationem quà â—n struendes pibus aut cumulandis hogoribus inhirete Sed neque adepti sunt id quod volehant operam Sâ—mul uâ—que indusiriam perdiderun â— Qu'a veritas id est arcanum summi Dei qui fecir omnia ingenio ac propriis sensibus non potest comprehendi Aliequi nihil inter Deum homineâ—â—que distarer si consilla diiposiâ—â—oâ— illies Majestatis aeternae cogitatio assequeretur humaâ— Quod quia fieri non peruit ut homini per seipsum ratio divina notesceternon est pastâ—â— hominem Deus lumen sapientiae requirentem diuâ—â—s abberaâ—e aâ— fine ullo â—ris effectu vagari per tenebras inextricâ—â—illes Aperuit oculos ejus aliquando
of all these Inferences being this That in our Church there is no means of Salvation is out of the Reformers Principles most clearly to be proved For wheresoever any Matter of Faith unto Salvation necessary is denied there can be no means of Salvation But in the Church of England the Discipline by them accounted a Matter of Faith and necessary to Salvation is not onely denied but impugned and the Professors thereof oppressed Ergo. Again but this Reason perhaps is weak Every true Church of Christ acknowledgeth the whole Gospel of Christ the Discipline in their opinion is a part of the Gospel and yet by our Church resisted Ergo. Again The Discipline is essentially united to the Church By which term Essentially they must mean either an essential part or an essential property Both which ways it must needs be That where that Essential Discipline is not neither is there any Church If therefore between them and the Brownists there should be appointed a Solemn Disputation whereof with us they have been oftentimes so earnest challengers It doth not yet appear what other answer they could possibly frame to these and the like Arguments wherewith they might be pressed but fairly to deny the Conclusion for all Premises are their own or rather ingenuously to reverse their own Principles before laid whereon so soul absurdities have been so firmly built What further proofs you can bring out of their high words magnifying the Discipline I leave to your better remembrance But above all points I am desirous this one should be strongly inforced against them because it wringeth them most of all and is of all others for ought I see the most unanswerable you may notwithstanding say That you would be heartily glad these their Positions might so be salved as the Brownists might not appear to have issued out of their Loyns but until that be done they must give us leave to think that they have cast the Seed whereout these Tares are grown Another sort of Men there are which have been content to run on with the Reformers for a time and to make them poor instruments of their own designs These are a sort of Godless Politicks who perceiving the Plot of Discipline to consist of these two parts The overthrow of Episcopal and erection of Presbyterial Authority and that this latter can take no place till the former be remov'd are content to joyn with them in the Destructive part of Discipline bearing them in hand that in the other also they shall finde them as ready But when time shall come it may be they would be as loth to be yoaked with that kinde of Regiment as now they are willing to be released from this These Mens ends in all their actions is Distraction their pretence and colour Reformation Those things which under this colour they have effected to their own good are 1. By maintaining a contrary Faction they have kept the Clergy always in aw and thereby made them more pliable and willing to buy their Peace 2. By maintaining an opinion of Equality among Ministers they have made way to their own purposes for devouring Cathedral Churches and Bishops Livings 3. By exclaiming against abuses in the Church they have carried their own corrupt dealings in the Civil State more covertly for such is the nature of the multitude they are not able to apprehend many things at once so as being possessed with a dislike or liking of any one thing many other in the meantime may escape them without being perceived 4. They have sought to disgrace the Clergy in entertaining a conceit in mens minds and confirming it by continual practice that Men of Learning and specially of the Clergy which are imployed in the chiefest kinde of Learning are not to be admitted of sparingly admitted to Matters of State contrary to the practice of all well-governed Commonwealths and of our own till these late years A third sort of Men there are though not descended from the Reformers yet in part raised and greatly strengthned by them namely the cursed crew of Atheists This also is one of those Points which I am desirous you should handle most effectually and strain your self therein to all points of motion and affection as in that of the Brownists to all strength and sinews of Reason This is a sort most damnable and yet by the general suspition of the World at this day most common The causes of it which are in the parties themselves although you handle in the beginning of the Fift Book yet here again they may be touched but the occasions of help and furtherance which by the Reformers have been yielded unto them are as I conceive two Senseless Preaching and disgracing of the Ministry For how should not men dare to impugn that which neither by force of Reason nor by Authority of Persons is maintained But in the parties themselves these two causes I conceive of Atheism 1. More abundance of Wit then Judgment and of Witty then Judicious Learning whereby they are more inclined to contradict any thing then willing to be informed of the truth They are not therefore Men of sound Learning for the most part but Smatterers neither is their kinde of Dispute so much by force Argument as by Scoffing Which humor of Scoffing and turning Matters most serious into merriment is now become so common as we are not to marvel what the Prophet means by the â—eat of Scorners nor what the Apostles by foretelling of Scorners to come our own Age hath verified their speech unto us which also may be an Argument against these Scoffers and Atheists themselves seeing it hath been so many Ages ago foretold That such Men the latter days of the World should afford which could not be done by any other Spirit save that whereunto things future and present are alike And even for the main question of the Resurrection whereat they stick so mightily was it not plainly foretold that men should in the latter times say Where is the promise of his coming Against the Creation the Ark and divers other Points exceptions are said to be taken the ground whereof is superfluity of Wit without ground of Learning and Judgment A second cause of Atheism is Sensuality which maketh men desirous to remove all stops and impediments of their wicked life amongst which because Religion is the chiefest so as neither in this life without shame they can persist therein nor if that be true without Torment in the life to come they whet their Wits to annihilate the Joys of Heaven wherein they see if any such be they can have no part and likewise the pains of Hell wherein their portion must needs be very great They labor therefore not that they may not deserve those pains but that deserving them there may be no such pains to seize upon them But what conceit can be imagined more base then that man should strive to perswade himself even against the secret instinct no doubt of his own
Minde that his Soul is as the Soul of a Beast Mortal and corruptible with the Body Against which barbarous Opinion their own Atheism is a very strong Argument For were not the Soul a Nature separable from the Body how could it enter into discourse of things meerly Spiritual and nothing at all pertaining to the Body Surely the Soul were not able to conceive any thing of Heaven no nor so much as to dispute against Heaven and against God if there were nor in it somewhat Heavenly and derived from God The last which have received strength and encouragement from the Reformers are Papists against whom although they are most bitter enemies yet unwittingly they have given them great advantage For what can any enemy rather desire then the breach and dissention of those which are Confederates against him Wherein they are to remember That if our Communion with Papists in some few Ceremonies do so much strengthen them as is pretended How much more doth this Division and Rent among our selves especially seeing it is maintained to be not in light Matters onely but even in Matter of Faith and Salvation Which over-reaching Speech of theirs because it is so open to advantage for the Barrowist and the Papist we are to wish and hope for that they will acknowledge it to have been spoken rather in heat of affection then with soundness of judgment and that through their exceeding love that Creature of Discipline which themselves have bred nourished and maintained their mouth in commendation of her did soon overflow From hence you may proceed but the means of connexion I leave to your self to another Discourse which I think very meet to be handled either here or els where at large the parts whereof may be these 1. That in this cause between them and us Men are to sever the proper and essential Points in Controversie from those which are accidental The most essential and proper are these two Overthrow of Episcopal Erection of Presbyterial Authority But in these two Points whosoever joyneth with them is a counted of their number whosoever in all other Points agreeth with them yet thinketh the Authority of Bishops not unlawful and of Elders not necessary may justly be severed from their retinue Those things therefore which either in the Persons or in the Laws and Orders themselves are faulty may be complained on acknowledged and amended yet they no whit the nearer their main purpose For what if all Errors by them supposed in our Liturgy were amended even according to their own hearts desire if Non-Residence Pluralities and the like were utterly taken away are their Lay-Elders therefore presently authorised or their Soveraign Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction established But even in their complaining against the outward and accidental Matters in Church-Government they are many ways faulty 1. In their end which they propose to themselves For in declaiming against abuses their meaning is not to have them redressed but by disgracing the present State to make way for their own Discipline As therefore in Venice if any Senator should discourse against the Power of their Senate as being either too Soveraign or too weak in Government with purpose to draw their Authority to a Moderation it might well be suffered but not so if it should appear he spake with purpose to induce another State by depraving the present So in all Causes belonging either to Church or Commonwealth we are to have regard what minde the Complaining part doth bear whether of Amendment or Innovation and accordingly either to suffer or suppress it Their Objection therefore is frivolous Why may not Men speak against Abuses Yes but with desire to cure the Part affected not to destroy the Whole 2. A second fault is in their manner of Complaining not onely because it is for the most part in bitter and reproachful terms but also it is to the common people Who are Iudges incompetent and insufficient both to determine any thing amiss and for want of skill and authority to amend it Which also discovereth their intent and purpose to be rather destructive then corrective 3. Thirdly Those very Exceptions which they take are frivolous and impertinent Some things indeed they accuse as impious which if they may appear to be such God forbid they should be maintained Against the rest it is onely alleged That they are idle Ceremonies without use and that better and more profitable might be devised wherein they are doubly deceiv'd For neither is it a sufficient Plea to say This must give place because a better may be devised because in our judgments of better and worse we oftentimes conceive amiss when we compare those things which are in device with those which are in practice For the Imperfections of the one are hid till by time and tryal they be discovered the others are already manifest and open to all But last of all which is a Point in my Opinion of great regard and which I am desirous to have enlarg'd they do not see that for the most part when they strike at the State Ecclesiastical they secretly wound the Civil State For Personal Faults What can be said against the Church which may not also agree to the Commonwealth In both Statesmen have always been and will be always Men sometimes blinded with Error most commonly perverted by Passions Many unworthy have been and are advanced in both many worthy not regarded And as for abuses which they pretend to be in the Laws themselves when they inveigh against Non-Residence do they take it a matter lawful or expedient in the Civil State for a Man to have a great and gainful Office in the North himself continually remaining in the South He that hath an Office let him attend his Office When they condemn Plurality of Livings Spiritual to the Pit of Hell what think they of Infinite of Temporal Promotions By the Great Philosopher Pol. lib. 2. cap. 9. it is forbidden as a thing most dangerous to Commonwealths that by the same Man many great Offices should be exercised When they deride our Ceremonies as vain and frivolous were it hard to apply their Exceptions even to those Civil Ceremonies which at the Coronation in Parliament and all Courts of Iustice are used Were it hard to argue even against Circumcision the Ordinance of God as being a cruel Ceremony Against the Passover as being ridiculous should be giâ—t a staff in their hand to eat a Lamb To conclude You may exhort the Clergy or what if you direct your Conclusion not to the Clergy in general but onely to the Learned in or of both Universities You may exhort them to a due consideration of all things and to a right esteem and valuing of each thing in that degree wherein it ought to stand For it oftentimes falleth out that what Men have either devised themselves or greatly delighted in the price and the excellency thereof they do admire above desert The chiefest labor of a Christian should be know of
applying of them unto cases particular is not without most singular use and profit many ways for mens instruction Besides be they plain of themselves or obscure the evidence of Gods own testimony added unto the natural assent of Reason concerning the certainty of them doth not a little comfort and confirm the same Wherefore in as much as our actions are conversant about things beset with many circumstances which cause men of sundry wits to be also of sundry judgments concerning that which ought to be done Requisit it cannot but seem the Rule of Divine Law should herein help our imbecillity that we might the more infallibly understand what is good and what evil The first principles of the Law of Nature are easie hard it were to finde men ignorant of them But concerning the duty which Natures Law doth require at the hands of Men in a number of things particular so far hath the Natural Understanding even of sundry whole Nations been darkned that they have not discerned no not gross iniquity to be sin Again being so prone as weare â—o fawn upon our selves and to be ignorant as much as may be of our own deformities without the feeling Sense whereof we are most wretched even so much the more because not knowing them we cannot as much as desire to have them taken away How should our festered sores be cured but that God hath delivered a Law as sharp as the two-edged sword piercing the very closest and most unsearchable corners of the heart which the Law of Nature can hardly Humane Laws by no means possibly reach unto Hereby we know even secret concupiscence to be sin and are made fearful to offend though it be but in a wandring cogitation Finally of those things which are for direction of all the parts of our life needful and not impossible to be discerned by the Light of Nature it self are there not many which few mens natural capacity and some which no mans hath been able to finde out They are saith St. Augustine but a few and they endued with great ripeness of wit and judgment free from all such affairs as might trouble their Meditations instructed in the sharpest and the subtilest points of Learning who have and that very hardly been able to finde out but onely the Immortality of the Soul The Resurrection of the Flesh what Man did ever at any time dream of having not heard it otherwise then from the School of Nature Whereby it appeareth how much we are bound to yield unto our Creator the Father of all Mercy Eternal Thanks for that he hath delivered his Law unto the World a Law wherein so many things are laid open clear and manifest as a Light which otherwise would have been buried in darkness not without the hazard or rather not with the hazard but with the certain loss of infinite thousands of Souls most undoubtedly now saved We see therefore that our soveraign good is desired naturally that God the Author of that natural desire had appointed natural means whereby to fulfil it that Man having utterly disabled his Nature unto those means hath had other revealed from God and hath received from Heaven a Law to teach him how that which is desired naturally must now supernaturally be attained Finally we see that because those latter exclude not the former quite and clean as unnecessary therefore together with such Supernatural duties as could not possibly have been otherwise known to the World the same Law that teacheth them teacheth also with them such Natural duties as could not by Light of Nature easily have been known 13. In the first Age of the World God gave Laws unto our Fathers and by reason of the number of their days their memories served in stead of Books whereof the manifold imperfections and defects being known to God he mercifully relieved the same by often putting then in minde of that whereof it behoved them to be specially mindful In which respect we see how many times one thing hath been iterated unto sundry even of the best and wisest amongst them After that the lives of Men were shortned means more durable to preserve the Laws of God from oblivion and corruption grew in use not without precise direction from God himself First therefore of Moses it is said that he wrote all the words of God not by his own private motion and device For God taketh this act to himself I have written Furthermore were not the Prophets following commanded also to do the like Unto the holy Evangelist St. Iohn how often express charge is given Scribe write these things Concerning the rest of our Lords Disciples the words of St. Augustine are Quidquid ille de suis factis dictis nos legere voluit hoc scribendum illis tanquam suis manibus imperavit Now although we do not deny it to be a matter meerly accidental unto the Law of God to be written although writing be not that which addeth authority and strength thereunto Finally though his Laws do require at our hands the same obedience howsoever they be delivered his providence notwithstanding which hath made principal choice of this way to deliver them who seeth not what cause we have to admire and magnifie The singular benefit that hath grown unto the World by receiving the Laws of God even by his own appointment committed unto writing we are not able to esteem as the value thereof deserveth When the question therefore is whether we be now to seek for any revealed Law of God otherwhere then onely in the Sacred Scripture whether we do now stand bound in the sight of God to yield to Traditions urged by the Church of Rome the same obedience and reverence we do to his Written Law honoring equally and adoring both as Divine Our answer is No. They that so earnestly plead for the Authority of Tradition as if nothing were more safely conveyed then that which spreadeth it self by report and descendeth by relation of former Generations unto the Ages that succeed are not all of them surely a miracle it were if they should be so simple as thus to perswade themselves howsoever if the simple were so perswaded they could be content perhaps very well to enjoy the benefit as they account it of that common Error What hazard the Truth is in when it passeth through the hands of report how maimed and deformed it becometh they are not they cannot possibly be ignorant Let them that are indeed of this minde consider but onely that little of things Divine which the Heathen have in such sort received How miserable had the State of the Church of God been long ere this if wanting the Sacred Scripture we had no Record of his Laws but onely the memory of man receiving the same by report and relation from his Predecessors By Scripture it hath in the Wisdom of God seemed meet to deliver unto the World much but personally expedient to be practised of certain men
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
the Example of beginning this Custom in the Church of Christ sith we are wont to suspect things onely before tryal and afterwards either to approve them as good or if we finde them evil accordingly to judge of them their counsel must needs seem very unseasonable who advise men now to suspect that wherewith the World hath had by their own account Twelve hundred years acquaintance and upwards enough to take away suspition and jealousie Men know by this time if ever they will know whether it be good or evil which hath been so long retained As for the Devil which way it should greatly benefit him to have this manner of singing Psalms accounted an invention of Ignatius or an imitation of the Angels of Heaven we do not well understand But we very well see in them who thus plead a wonderful celerity of discourse For perceiving at the first but onely some cause of suspition and fear left it should be evil they are presently in one and the self-same breath resolved That what beginning soever it had there is no possibility it should be good The Potent Arguments which did thus suddenly break in upon them and overcome them are First That it is not unlawful for the People all joyntly to praise God in singing of Psalms Secondly That they are not any where forbidden by the Law of God to sing every Verse of the whole Psalm both with heart and voice quite and clean throughout Thirdly That it cannot be understood what is sung after our manner Of which three for as much as lawfulness to sing one way proveth not another way inconvenient the former two are true Allegations but they lack strength to accomplish their desire the third so strong that it might perswade if the truth thereof were not doubtful And shall this inforce us to banish a thing which all Christian Churches in the World have received a thing which so many ages have held a thing which the most approved Councils and Laws have so oftentimes ratified a thing which was never sound to have any inconvenience in it a thing which always heretofore the best Men and wisest Governors of Gods people did think they could never commend enough a thing which as Basil was perswaded did both strengthen the Meditation of those holy Words which were uttered in that sort and serve also to make attentive and to raise up the hearts of men a thing whereunto Gods people of old did resort with hope and thirst that thereby especially their Souls might be edified a thing which filleth the minde with comfort and heavenly delight stirreth up flagrant desires and affections correspondent unto that which the words contain allayeth all kinde of base and earthly Cogitations banisheth and driveth away those evil secret suggestions which our invisible Enemy is always apt to minister watereth the heart to the end it may fructifie maketh the vertuous in trouble full of magnanimity and courage serveth as a most approved remedy against all doleful and heavy accidents which befal men in this present life To conclude So fitly accordeth with the Apostles own Exhortation Speak to your selves in Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs making melody and singing to the Lord in your hearts that surely there is more cause to fear lest the want thereof be a main then the use a blemish to the Service of God It is not our meaning that what we attribute unto the Psalms should be thought to depend altogether on that onely form of singing or reading them by course as with us the manner is but the end of our speech is to shew That because the Fathers of the Church with whom the self-same custom was so many ages ago in use have uttered all these things concerning the fruit which the Church of God did then reap observing that and no other form it may be justly avouched that we our selves retaining it an besides it also the other more newly and not unfruitfully devised do neither want that good which the latter invention can afford not lose any thing of that for which the Ancients so oft and so highly commend the former Let Novelty therefore in this give over endless contradictions and let ancient custom prevail 40. We have already given cause sufficient for the great conveniency and use of reading the Psalms oftner then other Scriptures Of reading or singing likewise Magnificat Benedictus and Nunc dimittis oftner then the rest of the Psalms the causes are no whit less reasonable so that if the one may very well monethly the other may as well even daily be iterated They are Songs which concern us so much more then the Songs of David as the Gospel toucheth us more then the Law the New Testament then the Old And if the Psalms for the excellency of their use deserve to be oftner repeated then they are but that the multitude of them permitteth not any ofther repetition What disorder is it if these few Evangelical Hymns which are in no respect less worthy and may be by reason of their paucity imprinted with much more ease in all mens memories be for that cause every day rehearsed In our own behalf it is convenient and orderly enough that both they and we make day by day Prayers and Supplications the very same why not as fit and convenient to magnifie the Name of God day by day with certain the very self-same Psalms of Praise and Thanksgiving Either let them not allow the one or else cease to reprove the other For the Ancient received use of intermingling Hymns and Psalms with Divine Readings enough hath been written And if any may fitly serve unto that purpose how should it better have been devised then that a competent number of the Old being first read these of the New should succeed in the place where now they are set In which place notwithstanding there is joyned with Benedictus the Hundredth Psalm with Magnificaâ— the Ninety eighth the Sixty seventh with Nunc dimittis and in every of them the choice left free for the Minister to use indifferently the one or the other Seeing therefore they pretend no quarrel at other Psalms which are in like manner appointed also to be daily read why do these so much offend and displease their taste They are the first Gratulations wherewith our Lord and Saviour was joyfully received at his entrance into the World by such as in their Hearts Arms and very Bowels embraced Him being Prophetical discoveries of Christ already present whose future coming the other Psalms did but fore-signifie they are against the obstinate incredulity of the Jews the most luculent testimonies that Christian Religion hath yea the onely sacred Hymns they are that Christianity hath peculiar unto it self the other being Songs too of praise and thanksgiving but Songs wherewith as we serve God so the Jew likewise And whereas they tell us These Songs were fit for that purpose when Simeon and Zachary and the Blessed Virgin uttered
same Conjunction so much altered as not to stay within those limits which our Substance is bordered withal nor the state and quality of our Substance so unaltered but that there are in it many glorious effects proceeding from so near Copulation with Deity God from us can receive nothing we by him have obtained much For albeit the Natural Properties of Deity be not communicable to Mans nature the Supernatural Gifts Graces and Effects thereof are The honor which our Flesh hath by being the Flesh of the Son of God is in many respects great If we respect but that which is common unto us with him the Glory provided for him and his in the Kingdom of Heaven his Right and Title thereunto even in that he is Man differeth from other mens because he is that Man of whom God is himself a part We have right to the same Inheritance with Christ but not the same right which he hath his being such as we cannot reach and ours such as he cannot stoop unto Furthermore to be the Way the Truth and the Life to be the Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification Resurrection to be the Peace of the whole World the Hope of the Righteous the Heir of all things to be that Supream Head whereunto all Power both in Heaven and in Earth is given These are not Honors common unto Christ with other Men they are Titles above the dignity and worth of any which were but a meer Man yet true of Christ even in that he is Man but Man with whom Deity is personally joyned and unto whom it hath added those excellencies which makes him more then worthy thereof Finally Sith God hath deified our Nature though not by turning it into himself yet by making it his own inseparable Habitation we cannot now conceive how God should without Man either exercise Divine Power or receive the glory of Divine Praise For Man is in both an Associate of Deity But to come to the Grace of Unction Did the parts of our Nature the Soul and Body of Christ receive by the influence of Deity wherewith they were matcht no ability of Operations no Vertue or quality above Nature Surely as the Sword which is made fiery doth not onely cut by reason of the sharpness which simply it hath but also burn by means of that heat which it hath from fire so there is no doubt but the Deity of Christ hath enabled that Nature which it took of Man to do more then Man in this World hath power to comprehend for as much as the bare Essential Properties of Deity excepted he hath imparted unto it all things he hath replenished it with all such Perfections as the same is any way apt to receive at the least according to the exigence of that oeconomy or service for which it pleased him in Love and Mercy to be made Man For as the Parts Degrees and Offices of that Mystical Administration did require which he voluntarily undertook the Beams of Deity did in operation always accordingly either restrain or enlarge themselves From hence we may somewhat conjecture how the Powers of that Soul are illuminated which being so inward unto God cannot chuse but be privy unto all things which God worketh and must therefore of necessity be endued with knowledge so far forth Universal though not with infinite knowledge peculiar to Deity itself The Soul of Christ that saw in this life the Face of God was here through so visible presence of Deity filled with all manner of Graces and Vertues in that unmatchable degree of Perfection for which of him we read it written That God with the Oyl of Gladness anointed him above his fellows And as God hath in Christ unspeakably glorified the Nobler so likewise the meaner part of our Nature the very Bodily Substance of Man Where also that must again be remembred which we noted before concerning the degrees of the influence of Deity proportionable unto his own purposes intents and counsels For in this respect his Body which by Natural condition was corruptible wanted the gift of Everlasting immunity from Death Passion and Dissolution till God which gave it to be slain for sin had for Righteousness sake restored it to life with certainty of endless continuance Yea in this respect the very glorified Body of Christ retained in it the skars and marks of former mortality But shall we say that in Heaven his glorious Body by vertue of the same cause hath now power to present it self in all places and to be every where at once present We nothing doubt but God hath many ways above the reach of our capacities exalted that Body which it hath pleased him to make his own that Body wherewith he hath saved the World that Body which hath been and is the Root of Eternal Life the Instrument wherewith Deity worketh the Sacrifice which taketh away sin the Price which hath ransomed Souls from Death the Leader of the whole Army of Bodies that shall rise again For though it had a beginning from us yet God hath given it vital efficacy Heaven hath endowed it with celestial power that vertue it hath from above in regard whereof all the Angels of Heaven adore it Notwithstanding a Body still it continueth a Body consubstantial with our Bodies a Body of the same both Nature and Measure which it had on Earth To gather therefore into one sum all that hitherto hath been spoken touching this point there are but four things which concur to make compleat the whole state of our Lord Jesus Christ his Deity his Manhood the Conjunction of both and the distinction of the one from the other being joyned in one Four principal Heresies there are which have in those things withstood the truth Arians by bending themselves against the Deity of Christ Apollinarians by maiming and misinterpreting that which belongeth to his Humane Nature Nestorians by renting Christ asunder and dividing him into two persons the followers of Eutiches by confounding in his Person those Natures which they should distinguish Against these there have been four most famous Ancient General Councils the Council of Nice to define against Arians against Apollinarians the Council of Constantinople the Council of Ephesus against Nestorians against Eutichians the Calcedon Council In four words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 truly perfectly indivisibly distinctly The first applied to his being God and the second to his being Man the third to his being of both One and the fourth to his still continuing in that One both We may fully by way of Abridgment comprize whatsoever Antiquity hath at large handled either in Declaration of Christian Belief or in Refutation of the soresaid Heresies Within the compass of which four heads I may truly affirm That all Heresies which touch but the Person of Jesus Christ whether they have risen in these latter days or in any age heretofore may be with great facility brought to confine themselves We conclude
which sanctified our Nature in Christ that which made it a Sacrifice available to take away sin is the same which quickneth it raised it out of the Grave after Death and exalted it unto Glory Seeing therefore that Christ is in us as a quickning Spirit the first degree of Communion with Christ must needs consist in the Participation of his Spirit which Cyprian in that respect well termeth Germanissimam Societatem the highest and truest Society that can be between man and him which is both God and Man in one These things St. Cyril duly considering reproveth their speeches which â—aught that onely the Deity of Christ is the Vine whereupon we by Faith do depend as Branches and that neither his Flesh not our Bodies are comprised in this resemblance For doth any man doubt but that even from the Flesh of Christ our very Bodies do receive that Life which shall make them glorious at the latter day and for which they are already accounted parts of his Blessed Body Our corruptible bodies could never live the life they shall live were it not that here they are joyned with his Body which is incorruptible and that his is in ours as a cause immortality a cause by removing through the Death and Merit of his own Flesh that which hindered the life of ours Christ is therefore both as God and as Man that true Vine whereof we both spiritually and corporally are Branches The mixture of his Bodily Substance with ours is a thing which the Ancient Fathers disclaim Yet the mixture of his Flesh with ours they speak of to signifie what our very bodies through Mystical Conjunction receive from that vital efficacy which we know to be in his and from bodily mixtures they borrow divers Similitudes rather to declare the Truth then the manner of coherence between his sacred and the sanctified Bodies of Saints Thus much no Christian Man will deny That when Christ sanctified his own Flesh giving as God and taking as Man the Holy Ghost he did not this for himself onely but for our sakes that the Grace of Sanctification and Life which was first received in him might pass from him to his whole Race as Malediction came from Adam unto all mankinde Howbeit because the Work of his Spirit to those effects is in us prevented by Sin and Death possessing us before it is necessity that as well our present Sanctification unto newness of life as the future of Restauration of our Bodies should presuppose a participation of the Grace Efficacy Merit or Vertue of his Body and Blood without which Foundation first laid there is no place for those other operations of the Spirit of Christ to ensue So that Christ imparteth plainly himself by degrees Iâ— pleaseth him in Mercy to account himself incompleat and maimed without us But most assured we are that we all receive of his Fulness because he is in us as a moving and working Cause from which many blessed effects are really found to ensue and that in sundry both kindes and degrees all tending to eternal happiness It must be confest that of Christ working as a Creator and a Governor of the World by providence all are partakers not all partakers of that Grace whereby he inhabiteth whom he saveth Again as he dwelleth not by Grace in all so neither doth he equally work in all them in whom he dwelleth Whence is it saith St. Augustine that some be holier then others are but because God doth dwell in some more plentifully then in others And because the Divine Substance of Christ is equally in all his Humane Substance equally distant from all it appeareth that the participation of Christ wherein there are many degrees and differences must needs consist in such effects as being derived from both Natures of Christ really into us are made our own and we by saving them in us are truly said to have him from whom they come Christ also more or less to inhabit and impart himself as the Graces are fewer or more greater or smaller which really flow into us form Christ. Christ is whole with the whole Church and whole with every part of the Church as touching his Person which can no way divide it self or be possest by degrees and portions But the Participation of Christ importeth besides the Presence of Christs Person and besides the Mystical Copulation thereof with the Parts and Members of his whole Church a true actual influence of Grace whereby the life which we live according to godliness is his and from him we receive those perfections wherein our eternal happiness consisteth Thus we participate Christ partly by imputation as when those things which he did and suffered for us are imputed unto us for Righteousness Partly by habitual and real infusion as when Grace is inwardly bestowed while we are on Earth and afterwards more fully both our Souls and Bodies make like unto his in Glory The first thing of his so infused into our hearts in this life is the Spirit of Christ whereupon because the rest of what kinde soever do all both necessarily depend and infallibly also easue therefore the Apostles term it sometime the Seed of God sometime the Pledge of our Heavenly Inheritance sometime the Hansel or Earnest of that which is to come From hence it is that they which belong to the Mystical Body of our Saviour Christ and be in number as the Stars of Heaven divided successively by reason of their mortal condition into many Generations are notwithstanding coupled every one to Christ their Head and all unto every particular person amongst themselves in as much as the same Spirit which anointed the Blessed Soul of our Saviour Christ doth so formalize unite and actuate his whole Race as if both he and they were so many Limbs compacted into one Body by being quickned all with one and the same Soul That wherein we are Partakers of Jesus Christ by Imputation agreeth equally unto all that have it For it consisteth in such Acts and Deeds of his as could not have longer continuance then while they were in doing nor at that very time belong unto any other but to him from whom they come and therefore how men either then or before or fithence should be made Partakers of them there can be no way imagined but onely by Imputation Again a Deed must either not be imputed to any but rest altogether in him whose it is or if at all it be imputed they which have it by Imputation must have it such as it is whole So that degrees being neither in the Personal Presence of Christ nor in the Participation of those effects which are ours by Imputation onely it resteth that we wholly apply them to the Participation of Christs infused Grace although even in this kinde also the first beginning of Life the Seed of God the First-fruits of Christs Spirit be without latitude For we have hereby onely the being of
is freely given the fruit of their Bodies bringeth into the World with it a present interest and right to those means wherewith the Ordinance of Christ is that his Church shall be sanctified it is not to be thought that he which as it were from Heaven hath nominated and designed them unto Holiness by special priviledge of their very Birth will himself deprive them of Regeneration and Inward Grace onely because necessity depriveth them of outward Sacraments In which case it were the part of Charity to hope and to make men rather partial then cruel Judges if we had nor those fair apparancies which here we have Wherefore a necessity there is of Receiving and a necessity of Administring the Sacrament of Baptism the one peradventure not so absolute as some have thought but out of all peradventure the other more straight and narrow then that the Church which is by Office a Mother unto such as crave at her hands the Sacred Mystery of their new Birth should repel them and see them die unsatisfied of these their Ghostly desires rather then give them their Souls Rights with omission of those things which serve but onely for the more convenient and orderly Administration thereof For as on the one side we grant that those sentences of holy Scripture which make Sacraments most necessary to eternal life are no prejudice to their Salvation that want them by some inevitable necessity and without any fault of their own So it ought in reason to be likewise acknowledged that for as much as our Lord himself maketh Baptism necessary necessary whether we respect the good received by Baptism or the Testimony thereby yielded unto God of that Humility and meek Obedience which reposing wholly it self on the absolute Authority of his Commandment and on the Truth of his Heavenly Promise doubteth not but from Creatures despicable in their own condition and substance to obtain Grace of inestimable value or rather not from them but from him yet by them as by his appointed means Howsoever he by the secret ways of his own incomprehensible Mercy may be thought to save without Baptism this cleareth not the Church from guiltiness of Blood if through her superstuous scrupulosity lets and impediments of less regard should cause a Grace of so great moment to be withheld wherein our merciless strictness may be our own harm although not theirs towards whom we shew it and we for the hardness of our hearts may perish albeit they through Gods unspeakable Mercy do live God which did not afflict that Innocent whose Circumcision Moses had over-long deferred took revenge upon Moses himself for the injury which was done through so great neglect giving us thereby to understand that they whom Gods own Mercy saveth without us are on our parts notwithstanding and as much as in us lieth even destroyed when under unsufficient pretences we defraud them of such ordinary outward helps as we should exhibit We have for Baptism no day set as the Jews had for Circumcision neither have we by the Law of God but onely by the Churches discretion a place thereunto appointed Baptism therefore even in the meaning of the Law of Christ belongeth unto Infants capable thereof from the very instant of their Birth Which if they have not howsoever rather than lose it by being put off because the time the place or some such like circumstance doth not solemnly enough concur the Church as much as in her lieth wilfully casteth away their Souls 61. The Ancients it may be were too severe and made the necessity of Baptism more absolute then Reason would as touching Infants But will any man say that they notwithstanding their too much rigor herein did not in that respect sustain and tolerate defects of Local or of Personal Solemnities belonging to the Sacrament of Baptism The Apostles themselves did neither use nor appoint for Baptism any certain time The Church for general Baptism heretofore made choice of two chief days in the year the Feast of Easter and the Feast of Pentecost Which Custom when certain Churches in Sicily began to violate without cause they were by Leo Bishop of Rome advised rather to conform themselves to the rest of the World in things so reasonable then to offend mens mindes through needless singularity Howbeit always providing That nevertheless in apparent peril of death danger of siege streights of persecution fear of shipwrack and the like exigents no respect of times should cause this singular defence of true safety to be denied unto any This of Leo did but confirm that sentence which Victor had many years before given extending the same exception as well unto places as times That which St. Augustine speaketh of Women hasting to bring their children to the Church when they saw danger is a weak proof That when necessity did not leave them so much time it was not then permitted them neither to make a Church of their own home Which answer dischargeth likewise their example of a sick Jew carried in a Bed to the place of Baptism and not baptized at home in private The casue why such kinde of Baptism barred men afterwards from entring into holy Orders the reason wherefore it was objected against Novatian in what respect and how far forth it did disable may be gathered by the Twelfth Canon set down in the Council of Neocaesarea after this manner A man which hath been baptized in sickness is not after to be ordained Priest For it may be thought That such do rather at that time because they see no other remedy then of a voluntary minde lay hold on the Christian Faith unless their true and sincere meaning be made afterwards the more manifest or else the scarcity of others inforce the Church to admit them They bring in Iustinians Imperial Constitution but to what purpose seeing it onely forbiddeth men to have the Mysteries of God administred in their Private Chappels lest under that pretence Hereticks should do secretly those things which were unlawful In which consideration he therefore commandeth that if they would use those private Oratories otherwise then onely for their private Prayers the Bishop should appoint them a Clerk whom they might entertain for that purpose This is plain by latter Constitutions made in the time of Leo It was thought good saith the Emperor in their judgment which have gone before that in Private Chappels none should celebrate the holy Communion but Priests belonging unto greater Churches Which Order they took as it seemeth for the custody of Religion lest men should secretly receive from Hereticks in stead of the food the ban of their Souls pollution in place of expiation Again Whereas a Sacred Canon of the Sixth Reverend Synod requireth Baptism as others have likewise the holy Sacrifices and Mysteries to be celebrated onely in â—emples hallowed for publick use and not in private Oratories which strict Decrees appear to have been made heretofore in regard
main the Substance the Form of Baptism in which respect the Church did neither simply disannul nor absolutely ratifie Baptism by Hereticks For the Baptism which Novarianists gave stood firm whereas they whom Samosotenians had baptized were rebaptized It was likewise ordered in the Council of Arles That if any Arian did reconcile himself to the Church they should admit him without new Baptism unless by examination they found him not baptized in the Name of the Trinity Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria maketh report how there live under him a man of good reputation and of very ancient continuance in that Church who being present at the Rites of Baptism and observing with better consideration then ever before what was there done came and with weeping submission craved of his Bishop not to deny him Baptism the due of all which profess Christ seeing it had been so long sithence his evil hap to be deceived by the fraud of Hereticks and at their hands which till now he never throughly and duly weighed to take a Baptism full fraught with blasphemous impieties a Baptism in nothing like unto that which the true Church of Christ useth The Bishop was greatly moved thereat yet durst not adventure to Rebaptize but did the best he could to put him in good comfort using much perswasion with him not to trouble himself with things that were past and gone nor after so long continuance in the Fellowship of Gods people to call now in question his first entrance The poor man that law himself in this sort answered but not satisfied spent afterwards his life in continual perplexity whereof the Bishop remained fearful to give release perhaps too fearful if the Baptism were such as his own Declaration importeth For that the substance whereof was rotten at the very first is never by tract of time able to recover soundness And where true Baptism was not before given the case of Rebaptization is clear But by this it appeareth that Baptism is not void in regard of Heresie and therefore much less through any other Moral defect in the Minister thereof Under which second pretence Doâ—atists notwithstanding took upon them to make frustrate the Churches Baptism and themselves to Rebaptize their own sry For whereas some forty years after the Martyrdom of Blessed Cyprian the Emperor Dioclesian began to persecute the Church of Christ and for the speedier abolishment of their Religion to burn up their Sacred Books there were in the Church it self Traditors content to deliver up the Books of God by composition to the end their own lives might be spared Which men growing thereby odious to the rest whose constancy was greater it fortuned that after when one Caecilian was ordained Bishop in the Church of Carthage whom others endeavored in vain to defeat by excepting against him as a Traditor they whose accusations could not prevail desperately joyned themselves in one and made a Bishop of their own crue accounting from that day forward their Faction the onely true and sincere Church The first Bishop on that part was Majorinus whose Successor Donatus being the first that wrote in defence of their Schism the Birds that were hatched before by others have their names from him Arians and Donatists began both about one time Which Heresies according to the different strength of their own sinews wrought as hope of success led them the one with the choicest wits the other with the multitude so far that after long and troublesome experience the perfectest view men could take or both was hardly able to induce any certain determinate resolution whether Error may do more by the curious subtilty of sharp Discourse or else by the meer appearance of zeal and devout affection the latter of which two aids gave Donatists beyond all mens expectation as great a sway as ever any Schism or Heresie had within that reach of the Christian World where it bred and grew the rather perhaps because the Church which neither greatly feared them and besides had necessary cause to bend it self against others that aimed directly at a far higher mark the Deity of Christ was contented to let Donatists have their course by the space of Threescore years and above even from Ten years before Constantine till the time that Optatus Bishop of Nilevis published his Books against Parmenian During which term and the space of that Schisms continuance afterwards they had besides many other Secular and Worldly means to help them forward these special advantages First the very occasion of their breach with the Church of God a just hatred and dislike of Traditors seemed plausible they easily perswaded their hearers that such men could not be holy as held communion and fellowship with them that betrayed Religion Again when to dazle the eyes of the simple and to prove that it can be no Church which is not holy they had in shew and sound of words the glorious pretence of the Creed Apostolick I believe the holy Catholick Church We need not think it any strange thing that with the multitude they gain credit And avouching that such as are not of the true Church can administer no true Baptism they had for this point whole Volums of St. Cyprians own writing together with the judgment of divers Affrican Synods whose sentence was the same with his Whereupon the Fathers were likewise in defence of their just cause very greatly prejudiced both for that they could not inforce the duty of mens communion with a Church confest to be in many things blame-worthy unless they should oftentimes seem to speak as half-defenders of the faults themselves or at the least not so vehement accusers thereof as their adversaries And to withstand itâ—ration of Baptism the other Branch of the Donatists Heresie was impossible without manifest and profest rejection of Cyprian whom the World universally did in his life time admire as the greatest among Prelates and now honor as not the lowest in the Kingdom of Heaven So true we finde it by experience of all Ages in the Church of God that the teachers error is the peoples tryal harder and heavier by so much to bear as he is in worth and regard greater that mis-perswadeth them Although there was odds between Cyprians cause and theirs he differing from others of sounder understanding in that point but not dividing himself from the Body of the Church by Schism as did the Donatists For which cause saith Vincentius Of one and the same opinion we judge which may seem strange the Authors Catholick and the followers heretical we acquit the Masters and condemn the Scholars they are Heirs of Heaven which have writen those Books the defenders whereof are trodden down to the pit of Hell The Invectives of Catholick Writers therefore against them are sharp the words of Imperial Edicts by Honorius and Theodosius made to bridle them very bitter the punishments severe in revenge of their folly Howbeit for fear as we may conjecture lest much
great matter Finally Seeing that both are Ordinances were devised for the good of Man and yet not Man created purposely for them as for other Offices of Vertue whereunto Gods immutable Law for ever tieth it is but equity to wish or admonish that where by uniform order they are not as yet received the example of Victors extremity in the one and of Iohns Disciples curiosity in the other be not followed yea where they are appointed by Law that notwithstanding we avoid Judaism and as in Festival days mens necessities for matter of labour so in times of Fasting regard be had to their imbecillities lest they should suffer harm doing good Thus therefore we see how these two Customes are in divers respects equal But of Fasting the use and exercise though less pleasant is by so much more requisite than the other as grief of necessity is a more familiar guest then the contrary passion of mind albeit gladness to all men be naturally more welcome For first We our selves do many â—o things amiss than well and the fruit of our own ill doing is remorse because nature is conscious to it self that it should do the contrary Again forasmuch as the world over-aboundeth with malice and few are delighted in doing good unto other men there is no man so seldom crost as pleasured at the hands of others whereupon it cannot be chosen but every mans Woes must double in that respect the number and measure of his delights Besides concerning the very choice which oftentimes we are to make our corrupt inclination well considered there is cause why our Saviour should account them the happiest that do most mourn and why Solomon might judge it better to frequent mourning then Feasting-houses not better simply and in it self for then would Nature that way incline but in regard of us and our common weakness better Iob was not ignorant that his Childrens Banquets though teâ—diÌ„g to amity needed Sacrifice Neither doth any of us all need to be taught that in things which delight we easily swerve from mediocrity and are not easily led by a right direct line On the other side the Sores and Diseases of mind which inordinante pleasure breedeth are by Dolour and Grief cured For which cause as all offences use to seduce by pleasing so all punishments endeavour by vexing to reform transgressions We are of our own accord apt enough to give entertainment to things delectable but patiently to lack what flesh and blood doth desire and by Vertue to forbear what by Nature we covet this no man attaineth unto but with labour and long practice From hence it riseth that in former Ages abstinence and Fasting more then ordinary was always a special branch of their praise in whom it could be observed and known were they such as continually gave themselves to austere life of men that took often occasions in private vertuous respects to lay Solomons counsel aside Eat thy bread with joy and to be followers of Davids Example which saith I humbled my soul with fasting or but they who otherwise worthy of no great commendation have made of hunger some their Gain some their Physick some their Art that by mastering sensual Appetites without constraint they might grow able to endure hardness whensoever need should require For the body accustomed to emptiness pineth not away so soon as having still used to fill it self Many singular Effects there are which should make Fasting even in publick Considerations the rather to be accepted For I presume we are not altogether without experience how great their advantage is in martial Enterprizes that lead Armies of men trained in a School of Abstinence It is therefore noted at this day in some that patience of hunger and thirst hath given them many Victories in others that because if they want there is no man able to rule them not they in plenty to moderate themselves he which can either bring them to hunger or overcharge them is sure to make them their own overthrow What Nation soever doth feel these dangerous inconveniences may know that sloth and fulness in peaceable times at home is the cause thereof and the remedy a strict Observation of that part of Christian Discipline which teacheth men in practice of Ghostly warfare against themselves those things that afterwards may help them justly assaulting or standing in lawful defence of themselves against others The very purpose of the Church of God both in the number and in the order of her Fasts hath been not only to preserve thereby throughout all Ages the remembrance of miseries heretofore sustained and of the causes in our selves out of which they have risen that men considering the one might fear the other the more but farther also to temper the mind lest contrary affections coming in place should make it too profuse and dissolute in which respect it seemeth that Fasts have been set as Ushers of Festival days for prevention of those disorders as much as might be wherein notwithstanding the World always will deserve as it hath done blame because such evils being not possible to be rooted out the most we can do is in keeping them low and which is chiefly the fruit we look for to create in the minds of men a love towards a frugal and severe life to undermine the Palaces of wantonness to plant Parsimony as Nature where Riotousness hath been studied to harden whom pleasure would melt and to help the tumours which always Fulness breedeth that Children as it were in the Wool of their Infancy dyed with hardness may never afterwards change colour that the poor whose perpetual Fasts are of Necessity may with better contentment endure the hunger which Vertue causeth others so often to chuse and by advice of Religion it self so far to esteem above the contrary that they which for the most part do lead sensual and easie lives they which as the Prophet David describeth them are not plagued like other men may by the publick spectacle of all be still put in mind what themselves are Finally that every man may be every mans daily guide and example as well by fasting to declare humility as by praise to express joy in the sight of God although it have herein befallen the Church as sometimes David so that the speech of the one may be truly the voice of the other My soul fasted and even that was also turned to my reproof 73. In this world there can be no Society durable otherwise then only by propagation Albeit therefore single Life be a thing more Angelical and Divine yet sith the replenishing first of Earth with blessed Inhabitants and then of Heaven with Saints everlastingly praising God did depend upon conjunction of Man and Woman he which made all things compleat and perfect saw it could not be good to leave men without any Helper unto the sore-alledged end In things which some farther and doth cause to be desired choice
saith Cyprian that our Lord himself did elect Apostles but Deacons after his ascension into Heaven the Apostles ordained Deacons were Stewards of the Church unto whom at the first was committed the distribution of Church-goods the care of providing therewith for the Poor and the charge to see that all things of expeace might be religiously and faithfully dealt in A part also of their Office was attendance upon their Presbyters at the time of Divine Service For which cause Ignatius to set forth the dignity of their Calling saith that they are in such case to the Bishop as if Angelical Powers did serve him These onely being the uses for which Deacons were first made if the Church have sithence extended their Ministery further than the circuit of their labour at the first was drawn we are not herein to think the Ordinance of Scripture violated except there appear some prohibition which hath abridged the Church of that liberty Which I note chiefly in regard of them to whom it seemeth a thing so monstrous that Deacons should sometime be licensed to preach whose institution was at the first to another end To charge them for this as men not contented with their own Vocations and as breakers into that which appertaineth unto others is very hard For when they are thereunto once admitted it is part of their own Vocation it appertaineth now unto them as well as others neither is it intrusion for them to do it being in such sort called but rather in us it were temerity to blame them for doing it Suppose we the Office of Teaching to be so repugnant unto the Office of Deaconship that they cannot concurr in one and the same Person What was there done in the Church by Deacons which the Apostles did not first discharge being Teachers Yea but the Apostles found the burthen of Teaching so heavy that they judged it meet to cutt off that other charge and to have Deacons which might undertake it Be it so The multitude of Christians increasing in Ierusalem and waxing great it was too much for the Apostles to teach and to minister unto Tables also The former was not to be slacked that this latter might be followed Therefore unto this they appointed others Whereupon we may rightly ground this Axiom that when the subject wherein one man's labours of sundry kindes are imployed doth wax so great that the same men are no longer able to manage it sufficiently as before the most natural way to help this is by dividing their Charge into slipes and ordaining of Under-Officers as our Saviour under twelve Apostle seventy Presbyters and the Apostles by his example seven Deacons to be under both Neither ought it to seem less reasonable that when the same men are sufficient both to continue in that which they do and also to undertake somewhat more a combination be admitted in this case as well as division in the former We may not therefore disallow it in the Church of Geneva that Calvin and Beza were made both Pastors and Readers in Divinity being men so able to discharge both To say they did not content themselves with their Pastoral vocations but brake into that which belongeth to others to alledge against them He that exhorteth on exhortation as against us He that distributeth in simplicity is alledged in great dislike of granting licence for Deacons to preach were very hard The antient custome of the Church was to yield the poor much relief especially Widows But as poor people are always querulous and apt to think themselves less respected then they should be we see that when the Apostles did what they could without hindrance to their weightier business yet there were which grudged that others had too much and they too little the Grecian Widows shorter Commons than the Hebrews By means whereof the Apostles saw it meet to ordain Deacons Now tract of time having clean worn out those first occasions for which the Deaconship was then most necessary it might the better be afterwards extended to other Services and so remain as at this present day a Degree in the Clergy of God which the Apostles of Christ did institute That the first seven Deacons were chosen out of the seventy Disciples is an errour in Epiphanius For to draw men from places of weightier unto rooms of meaner labour had not been fit The Apostles to the end they might follow teaching with more freedom committed the ministery of Tables unto Deacons And shall we think they judged it expedient to chuse so many out of those seventy to be ministers unto Tables when Christ himself had before made them Teachers It appeareth therefore how long these three degrees of Ecclesiastical Order have continued in the Church of Christ the highest and largest that which the Apostles the next that which Presbyters and the lowest that which Deacons had Touching Prophets they were such men as having otherwise learned the Gospel had from above bestowed upon them a special gift of expounding Scriptures and of foreshewing things to come Of this sort Agabus was and besides him in Ierusalem sundry others who notwithstanding are not therefore to be reckoned with the Clergy because no man's gifts or qualities can make him a Minister of holy things unless Ordination do give him power And we nowhere since Prophets to have been made by Ordination but all whom the Church did ordain where either to serve as Presbyters or as Deacons Evangelists were Presbyters of principal sufficiency whom the Apostles sent abroad and used as Agents in Ecclesiastical affairs wheresoever they saw need They whom we finde to have been named in Scripture Evangelists Ananias Apollos Timothy and others were thus employed And concerning Evangelists afterwards in Trajans dayes the History Ecclesiastical noteth that many of the Apostle's Disciples and Scholars which were then alive and did with singular love of Wisdom affect the Heavenly Word of God to shew their willing mindes in executing that which Christ first of all requireth at the hands of men they sold their Possessions gave them to the Poor and betaking themselves to travel undertook the labour of Evangelists that is they painfully preached Christ and delivered the Gospel to them who as yet had never heard the Doctrine of Faith Finally whom the Apostle nameth Pastors and Teachers what other were they than Presbyters also howbeit settled in some certain charge and thereby differing from Evangelists I beseech them therefore which have hitherto troubled the Church with questions about Degrees and Offices of Ecclesiastical Calling because they principally ground themselves upon two places that all partiality laid aside they would sincerely weigh and examine whether they have not mis-interpreted both places and all by surmising incompatible Offices where nothing is meant but sundry graces gifts and abilities which Christ bestowed To them of Corinth his words are these God placed in the Church first of all some Apostles Secondly Prophets Thirdly Teachers after
Presbyters and Bishops both were all subject unto Paul as to an higher Governor appointed of God to be over them But for as much as the Apostles could not themselves be present in all Churches and as the Apostles St. Paul foretold the Presbyters of the Ephesians that there would rise up from amongst their own selves men speaking perverse things to draw Disciples after them there did grow in short time amongst the Governors of each Church those emulations strifes and contentions whereof there could be no sufficient remedy provided except according unto the order of Ierusalem already begun some one were indued with Episcopal Authority over the rest which one being resident might keep them in order and have preheminence or principality in those things wherein the equality of many agents was the cause of disorder and trouble This one President or Governour amongst the rest had his known Authority established along time before that settled difference of name and title took place whereby such alone were named Bishops And therefore in the book of S. Iohns Revelation we find that they are entituled Angels It will perhaps be answered That the Angels of those Churches were onely in every Church a Minister Sacraments But then we ask Is it probable that in every of these Churches even in Ephesus it self where wany such Ministers were long before as hath been proved there was but one such when Iohn directed his speech to the Angel of that Church If there were many surely St. Iohn in naming but only one of them an Angel did behold in that one somewhat above the rest Nor was this order peculiar unto some few Churches but the whole world universally became subject thereunto insomuch as they did not account it to be a Church which was not subject unto a Bishop It was the general received perswasion of the ancient Christian world that Ecclesia est in Episcopo the outward being of a Church consisteth in the having of a Bishop That where Colledges of Presbyters were there was at the first equality amongst them S. Ierome thinketh it a matter clear but when the rest were thus equal so that no one of them could command any other as inferior unto him they all were controlable by the Apostles who had that Episcopal authority abiding at the first in themselves which they afterwards derived unto others The cause wherefore they under themselves appointed such Bishops as were not every whereat the first is said to have been those strifes and contentions for remedy whereof whether the Apostles alone did conclude of such a regiment or else they together with the whole Church judging it a fit and a needfull policy did agree to receive it for a custom no doubt but being established by them on whom the Holy Ghost was powred in so abundant measure for the ordering of Christs Church it had either Divine appointment beforehand or Divine approbation afterwards and is in that respect to be acknowledged the Ordinance of God no less then that ancient Jewish regiment whereof though Iethro were the Deviser yet after that God had allowed it all men were subject unto it as to the Polity of God and not of Iethro That so the ancient Fathers did think of Episcopal regiment that they held this order as a thing received from the blessed Apostles themselves and authorized even from heaven we may perhaps more easily prove then obtain that they all shall grant it wâ—o see it proved St. Augustine setteth it down for a principle that whatsoever positive order the whole Church every where doth observe the same it must needs have received from the very Apostles themselves unless perhaps some general Councel were the Authors of it And he saw that the ruling superiority of Bishops was a thing universally established not by the force of any Councel for Councels do all presuppose Bishops nor can there any Councel be named so ancient either General or as much as Provincial sithence the Apostles own times but we can shew that Bishops had their Authority before it and not from it Wherefore St. Augustine knowing this could not chuse but reverence the Authority of Bishops as a thing to him apparently and most clearly apostolical But it will be perhaps objected that Regiment by Bishops was not so universal nor ancient as we pretend and that an Argument hereof may be Ieroms own Testimony who living at the very same time with St. Augustine noteth this kind of Regiment as being no where antient saving onely in Alexandria his words are these It was for a remedy of Schism that one was afterwards chosen to be placed above the rest lest every mans pulling unto himself should rend asunder the Church of Christ. For that which also may serve for an Argument or taken hereof at Alexandria from Mark the Evangelist unto Heraclas and Dionysius the Presbyters always chose one OF THEMSELVES whom they placed in higher degree and gave unto him the Title of Bishop Now St. Ierom they say would never have picked out that one Church from amongst so many and have noted that in it there had been Bishops from the time that St. Mark lived if so be the self same order were of like antiquity every where his words therefore must be thus scholied In the Church of Alexandria Presbyters indeed had even from the time of St. Mark the Evangelist always a Bishop to rule over them for a remedy against Divisions Factions and Schisms Not so in other Churches neither in that very Church any longer then usque ad Heraclam Dionysium till Heraclas and his Successor Dionysius were Bishops But this construction doth bereave the words construed partly of wit and partly of truth it maketh them both absurd and false For if the meaning be that Episcopal Government in that Church was then expired it must have expired with the end of some one and not of two several Bishops days unless perhaps it fell sick under Heraclas and with Dionysius gave up the Ghost Besides it is clearly untrue that the Presbyters of that Church did then cease to be under a Bishop Who doth not know that after Dionysius Maximus was Bishop of Alexandria after him Theonas after him Peter after him Achillas after him Alexander of whom Socrates in this sort writeth It fortuned on a certain time that this Alexander in the presence of the Presbyters which were under him and of the rest of the Clergy there discoursed somewhat curiously and subtilly of the holy Trinity bringing high Philosophical proofs that there is in the Trinity an Unity Whereupon Arius one of the Presbyters which were placed in that degree under Alexander opposed eagerly himself against those things which were uttered by the Bishop So that thus long Bishops continued even in the Church of Alexandria Nor did their Regiment here cease but these also had others their Successors till St. Ieroms own time who living long after Heraclas and Dionysius had
of which appointed all to succeed in the self-same equality of power except that Commission which doth authorize to Preach and Baptise should be alledged which maketh nothing to the purpose for in such things all Pastors are still equal We must I fear me wait very long before any other will be shewed For howsoever the Apostles were Equals amongst themselves all other Pastors were not Equals with the Apostles while they lived neither are they any where appointed to be afterward each others Equals Apostles had as we know authority over all such as were no Apostles by force of which their Authority they might both command and judge It was for the singular good and benefit of those Disciples whom Christ left behinde him and of the Pastors which were afterwards chosen for the great good I say of all sorts that the Apostles were in power above them Every day brought forth somewhat wherein they saw by experience how much it stood them in stead to be under controulment of those Superiours and Higher Governours of Gods House Was it a thing so behoveful that Pastors should be subject unto Pastors in the Apostles own times and is there any commandment that this Subjection should cease with them and that the Pastors of the succeeding Ages should be all Equals No no this strange and absurd conceit of Equality amongst Pastors the Mother of Schism and of Confusion is but a dream newly brought forth and seen never in the Church before 4. Power of Censure and Ordination appeareth even by Scripture marvellous probable to have been derived from Christ to his Church without this surmised Equality in them to whom he hath committed the same For I would know Whether Timothy and Titus were commanded by Saint Paul to do any thing more than Christ hath authorized Pastors to do And to the one it is Scripture which saith Against a Presbyter receive THOU no accusation saving under two or three Witnesses Scripture which likewise hath said to the other For this very cause left I THEE in Crete that THOU shouldst redress the things that remain and shouldst ORDAIN Presbyters in every City as I appointed THEE In the former place the power of Censure is spoken of and the power of Ordination in the latter Will they say that every Pastor there was equal to Timothy and Titus in these things If they do the Apostle himself is against it who saith that of their two very Persons he had made choyse and appointed in those places them for performances of those Duties whereas if the same had belonged unto others no less than to them and not principally unto them above others it had been fit for the Apostle accordingly to have directed his Letters concerning these things in general unto them all which had equal interest in them even as it had been likewise fit to have written those Epistles in Saint Iohn's Revelation unto whole Ecclesiastical Senates rather than only unto the Angels of each Church had not some one been above the rest in Authority to order the affairs of the Church Scripture therefore doth most probably make for the inequality of Pastors even in all Ecclesiastical affairs and by very express mention as well in Censures as Ordinations 5. In the Nicene Council there are consumed certain Prerogatives and Dignities belonging unto Primates or Archbishops and of them it is said that the antient custom of the Church had been to give them such preheminence but no syllable whereby any man should conjecture that those Fathers did not honor the Superiority which Bishops had over other Pastors only upon antient custom and not as a true Apostolical heavenly and divine Ordinance 6. Now although we should leave the general received perswasion held from the first beginning that the Apostles themselves left Bishops invested with power above other Pastors although I say we should give over this opinion and imbrace that other conjecture which so many have thought good to follow and which my self did sometimes judge a great deal more probable than now I do meerly that after the Apostles were deceased Churches did agree amongst themselves for preservation of Peace and Order to make one Presbyter in each City Chief over the rest and to translate into him that power by force and vertue whereof the Apostles while they were alive did preserve and uphold order in the Church exercising Spiritual Jurisdiction partly by themselves and partly by Evangelists because they could not always every where themselves be present This order taken by the Church it self for so let us suppose that the Apostles did neither by word nor deed appoint it were notwithstanding more warrantable than that it should give place and be abrogated because the Ministry of the Gospel and the Functions thereof ought to be from Heaven There came Chief Priests and Elders unto our Saviour Christ as he was teaching in the Temple and the Question which they moved unto him was this By what Authority dost thou these things and who gave thee this Authority their Question he repelled with a Counter-demand The Baptism of John whence was it from Heaven or of Men Hereat they paused secretly disputing within themselves If we shall say from Heaven he will ask Wherefore did ye not then believe him And if we say of men We fear the People for all hold Iohn a Prophet What is it now which hereupon these men would infer That all-Functions Ecclesiastical ought in such sort to be from Heaven as the Function of Iohn was I No such matter here contained Nay doth not the contrary rather appear most plainly by that which is here set down For when our Saviour doth ask concerning the Baptism that is to say the whole Spiritual Function of Iohn whether it were from Heaven or of men he giveth clearly to understand that men give Authority unto some and some God himself from Heaven doth Authorize Nor is it said or in any sort signified that none have lawful Authority which have it not in such manner as Iohn from Heaven Again when the Priests and Elders were loth to say that Iohn had his calling from men the reason was not because they thought that so Iohn should not have had any good or lawful Calling but because they saw that by this means they should somewhat embase the Calling of Iohn whom all men knew to have been sent from God according to the manner of Prophets by a meer Celestial vocation So that out of the evidence here alledged these things we may directly conclude first that who so doth exercise any kinde of Function in the Church he cannot lawfully so do except Authority be given him Secondly that if Authority be not given him from men as the Authority of Teaching was given unto Scribes and Pharisees it must be given him from Heaven as Authority was given unto Christ Elias Iohn Baptist and the Prophets For these two only wayes there are to have Authority But a strange Conclusion
any longer under him but he together with them under God receiving the joyes of everlasting triumph that so God may be in all all misery in all the Wicked through his Justice in all the Righteous through his love all felicity and blisse In the mean while he reigneth over the World as King and doth those things wherein none is Superiour unto him whether we respect the works of his Providence and Kingdom or of his Regiment over the Church The cause of Errour in this point doth seem to have been a misconceit that Christ as Mediatour being inferiour to his Father doth as Mediatour all Works of Regiment over the Church when in truth Regiment doth belong to his Kingly Office Mediatourship to his Priestly For as the High-Priest both offered Sacrifices for expiation of the Peoples sins and entred into the holy Place there to make intercession for them So Christ having finished upon the Cross that part of his Priestly Office which wrought the propitiation for our Sinnes did afterwards enter into very Heaven and doth there as Mediatour of the New Testament appear in the sight of God for us A like sleight of Judgement it is when they hold that Civil Authority is from God but not immediately through Christ nor with any subordination to God nor doth any thing from God but by the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ. They deny it not to be said of Christ in the Old Testament By me Princes rule and the Nobles and all the Iudges of the Earth In the New as much is taught That Christ is the Prince of the Kings of the Earth Wherefore to the end it may more plainly appear how all Authority of Man is derived from God through Christ and must by Christian men be acknowledged to be no otherwise held then of and under him we are to note that because whatsoever hath necessary being the Son of God doth cause it to be and those things without which the World cannot well continue have necessary being in the World a thing of so great use as Government cannot choose but be originally from Him Touching that Authority which Civil Magistrates have in Ecclesiastical Affairs it being from God by Christ as all other good things are cannot chuse but be held as a thing received at his hands and because such power is of necessity for the ordering of Religion wherein the essence and very being of the Church consisteth can no otherwise slow from him than according to that special care which he hath to govern and guide his own People it followeth that the said Authority is of and under him after a more special manner in that he is Head of the Church and not in respect of his general Regency over the World All things saith the Apostle speaking unto the Church are yours and ye are Christs and Christ is God's Kings are Christ's as Saints because they are of the Church if not collectively yet divisively understood It is over each particular Person within that Church where they are Kings Surely Authority reacheth both unto all mens persons and to all kindes of causes also It is not denyed but that they may have and lawfully exercise it such Authority it is for which and for no other in the World we term them Heads such Authority they have under Christ because he in all things is Lord overall and even of Christ it is that they have received such Authority in as much as of him all lawful Powers are therefore the Civil Magistrate is in regard of this Power an under and subordinate Head of Christ's People It is but idle where they speak That although for several Companies of Men there may be several Heads or Governours differing in the measure of their Authority from the Chiefest who is Head over all yet it cannot be in the Church for that the reason why Head-Magistrates appoint others for such several places it Because they cannot be present every where to perform the Office of an Head But Christ is never from his Body nor from any Part of it and therefore needeth not to substitute any which may be Heads some over one Church and some over another Indeed the consideration of Man's imbecillity which maketh many Heads necessary where the burthen is too great for one moved Iethro to be a Perswader of Moses that a number of Heads of Rulers might be instituted for discharge of that duty by parts which in whole he saw was troublesome Now although there be not in Christ any such defect or weakness yet other causes there be divers more than we are able to search into wherefore it might seem unto him expedient to divide his Kingdom into many Provinces and place many Heads over it that the Power which each of them hath in particular with restraint might illustrate the greatness of his unlimited Authority Besides howsoever Christ be Spiritually alwayes united unto every part of his Body which is the Church Nevertheless we do all know and they themselves who alledge this will I doubt not confess also that from every Church here visible Christ touching visible and corporal presence is removed as farr as Heaven from the Earth is distant Visible Government is a thing necessary for the Church and it doth not appear how the exercise of visible Government over such Multitudes every where dispersed throughout the World should consist without sundry visible Governours whose Power being the greatest in that kinde so farr as it reacheth they are in consideration thereof termed so farr Heads Wherefore notwithstanding the perpetual conjunction by vertue whereof our Saviour alwayes remaineth spiritually united unto the parts of his Mystical Body Heads indeed with Supream Power extending to a certain compasse are for the exercise of a visible Regiment not unnecessary Some other reasons there are belonging unto this branch which seem to have been objected rather for the exercise of mens wits in dissolving Sophismes than that the Authors of them could think in likelyhood thereby to strengthen their cause For example If the Magistrate be Head of the Church within his own Dominion then is he none of the Church For all that are of the Church make the Body of Christ and every one of the Church fulfilleth the place of one member of the Body By making the Magistrate therefore Head we do exclude him from being a Member subject to the Head and so leave him no place in the Church By which reason the name of a Body Politick is supposed to be alwayes taken of the inferiour sort alone excluding the Principal Guides and Governors contrary to all Mens customes of speech The Errour ariseth by misconceiving of some Scripture-sentences where Christ as the Head and the Church as the Body are compared or opposed the one to the other And because in such comparisons ooppositions the Body is taken for those only parts which are subject unto the Head they imagine that who so is the Head of any
their assurance whereof his Peace he gave them his Peace he left unto them not such Peace as the World offereth by whom his name is never so much pretended as when deepest treachery is meant but Peace which passeth all understanding Peace that bringeth with it all happinesse Peace that continueth for ever and ever with them that have it This Peace God the Father grant `for his Son's sake unto whom with the Holy Ghost three Persons one Eternal and Everliving God be all Honour and Glory and Praise now and for ever Amen A Learned and Comfortable SERMON Of the certainty and perpetuity of FAITH in the ELECT Especially of the Prophet Habakkuk's FAITH HABAK. 1. 4. Whether the Prophet Habakkuk by admitting this cogitation into his minde The Law doth fail did thereby shew himself an Unbeliever WEE have seen in the opening of this clause which concerneth the weakness of the Prophet's Faith First what things they are whereunto the Faith of sound Believers doth assent Secondly wherefore all men assent not thereunto and Thirdly why they that doe doe it many times with small assurance Now because nothing can be so truly spoken but through mis-understanding it may be depraved therefore to prevent if it be possible all mis-construction in this cause where a small errour cannot rise but with great danger it is perhaps needful ere we come to the fourth Point that something be added to that which hath been already spoken concerning the third That meer natural men do neither know nor acknowledge the things of God we do not marvel because they are spiritually to be discerned but they in whose hearts the light of Grace doth shine they that are taught of God why are they so weak in Faith why is their assenting to the Law so scrupulous so much mingled with fear and wavering It seemeth strange that ever they should imagin the Law to fail It cannot seem strange if we weigh the reason If the things which we believe be considered in themselves it may truly be said that Faith is more certain than any Science That which we know either by sense or by infallible demonstration is not so certain as the Principles Articles and Conclusions of Christian Faith Concerning which we must note that there is a certainty of evidence and a certainty of adherence Certainty of evidence we call that when the minde doth assent unto this or that not because it is true in it self but because the truth is clear because it is manifest unto us Of things in themselves most certain except they be also most evident our perswasion is not so assured as it is of things more evident although in themselves they be lesse certain It is as sure if not surer that there be spirits as that there he men but we be more assured of these than of them because these are more evident The truth of some things is so evident that no man which heareth them can doubt of them as when we hear that a part of any thing is less than the whole the minde is constrained to say This is true If it were so in matters of Faith then as all men have equal certainty of this so no Believer should be more scrupulous and doubtful than another But we finde the contrary The Angels and Spirits of the Righteous in Heaven have certainty most evident of things spiritual but this they have by the light of glory That which we see by the light of Grace though it he indeed more certain yet it is not to us so evidently certain as that which sense or the light of Nature will not suffer a man to doubt of Proofs are vain and frivolous except they be more certain than is the thing proved and do we not see how the Spirit every where in the Scripture proving matters of Faith laboureth to confirm us in the things which we believe by things whereof we have sensible knowledge I conclude therefore that we have less certainty of evidence concerning things believed than concerning sensible or naturally perceived Of these who doth doubt at any time Of them at somtime who doubteth not I will not here alledge the sundry confessions of the perfectest that have lived upon earth concerning their great imperfections this way which if I did I should dwell too long upon a matter sufficiently known by every faithful man that doth know himself The other which we call the certainty of adherence is when the heart doth cleave and stick unto that which it doth believe This certainty is greater in us than the other The reason is this The faith of a Christian doth apprehend the words of the Law the promises of God not onely as true but also as good and therefore even then when the evidence which he hath of the Truth is so small that it grieveth him to feel his weakness in assenting thereto yet is there in him such a sure adherence unto that which he doth but faintly and fearfully believe that his Spirit having once truly tasted the heavenly sweetness thereof all the world is not able quite and clean to remove him from it but he striveth with himself to hope against all reason of believing being setled with Iob upon this unmoveable resolution Though God kill me I will not give ever trusting in him For why This lesson remaineth for ever imprinted in him It is good for me to cleave unto God Psal. 37. Now the mindes of all men being so darkned as they are with the foggy damp of original corruption it cannot be that any man's heart living should be either so enlightned in the knowledge or so established in the love of that wherein his Salvation standeth as to be perfect neither doubting nor shrinking at all If any such were what doth lett why that man should not be justified by his own inherent righteousness For Righteousness inherent being perfect will justifie And perfect Faith is a part of perfect Righteousness inherent yea a principal part the root and the Mother of all the rest so that if the Fruit of every Tree be such as the Root is Faith being perfect as it is if it be not at all mingled with distrust and fear what is there to exclude other Christian vertues from the like perfections And then what need we the righteousness of Christ His Garment is superstuous we may be honourably cloathed with our own Robes if it be thus But let them beware who challenge to themselves a strength which they have not left they lose the comfortable support of that weakness which indeed they have Some shew although no soundness of ground there is which may be alledged for defence of this supposed-perfection in certainty touching matters of our Faith as first that Abraham did believe and doubted not secondly that the spirit which God hath given us to no other end but only to assure us that we are the Sons of God to embolden us to call upon him as our Father to open our eyes
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
therefore That to save the World it was of necessity the Son of God should be thus incarnate and that God should so be in Christ as hath been declared 55. Having thus far proceeded in speech concerning the Person of Jesus Christ his two Natures their Conjunction that which he either is or doth in respect of both and that which the one receiveth from the other sith God in Christ is generally the Medicine which doth cure the World and Christ in as is that Receipt of the same Medicine whereby we are every one particularly cured In as much as Christs Incarnation and Passion can be available to no mans good which is not made partaker of Christ neither can we participate him without his Presence we are briefly to consider how Christ is present to the end it may thereby better appear how we are made partakers of Christ both otherwise and in the Sacraments themselves All things are in such sort divided into Finite and Infinite that no one Substance Nature or Quality can be possibly capable of both The World and all things in the World are stinted all effects that proceed from them all the powers and abilities whereby they work whatsoever they do whatsoever they may and whatsoever they are is limited Which limitation of each Creature is both the perfection and also the perservation thereof Measure is that which perfecteth all things because every thing is for some end neither can that thing be available to any end which is not proportionable thereunto and to proportion as well excesses as defects are opposite Again for as much as nothing doth perish but onely through excess or defect of that the due proportioned measure whereof doth give perfection it followeth That measure is likewise the preservation of all things Out of which premises we may conclude not onely that nothing created can possibly be unlimited or can receive any such accident quality or property as may really make it infinite for then should it cease to be a Creature but also that every Creatures limitation is according to his own kinde and therefore as oft as we note in them any thing above their kinde it argueth That the same is not properly theirs but groweth in them from a cause more powerful then they are Such as the Substance of each thing is such is also the Presence thereof Impossible it is that God should withdraw his Presence from any thing because the very Substance of God is infinite He filleth Heaven and Earth although he take up no room in either because his Substance is immaterial pure and of us in this World so incomprehensible that albeit an part of us be ever absent from him who is present whole unto every particular thing yet his Presence with us we no way discern further then onely that God is present which partly by Reason and more perfectly by Faith we know to be firm and certain Seeing therefore that Presence every where is the sequel of an infinite and incomprehensible Substance for what can be every where but that which can no where be comprehended To enquire whether Christ be every where is to enquire of a Natural Property a Property that cleaveth to the Deity of Christ. Which Deity being common unto him with none but onely the Father and the Holy Ghost it followeth That nothing of Christ which is limited that nothing created that neither the Soul nor the Body of Christ and consequently not Christ as Man or Christ according to his Humane Nature can possibly be every where present because those phrases of Limitation and Restraint do either point out the principal subject whereunto every such attribute adhereth or else they intimate the radical cause out of which it groweth For example when we say that Christ as Man or according to his Humane Nature suffered death we show what Nature was the proper subject of Mortality When we say that as God or according to his Deity he conquered Death we declare his Deity to have been the cause by force and vertue whereof lie raised himself from the Grave But neither is the Manhood of Christ that subject whereunto Universal Presence agreeth neither is it the cause original by force whereof his Person is enabled to be everywhere present Wherefore Christ is essentially present with all things in that he is very God but not present with all things as Man because Manhood and the parts thereof can neither be the cause nor the true subject of such Presence Notwithstanding somewhat more plainly to shew a true immediate reason wherefore the Manhood of Christ can neither be every where present nor cause the Person of Christ so to be we acknowledge that of St. Augustine concerning Christ most true In that he is personally the Word he created all things in that he it naturally Man he himself is created of God and it doth not appear that any one Creature hath Power to be present withall Creatures Whereupon nevertheless it will not follow that Christ cannot therefore be thus present because he is himself a Creature for as much as onely Infinite Presence is that which cannot possibly stand with the Essence or Being of any Creature as for Presence with all things that are sith the whole Race Mass and Body of them is Finite Christ by being a Creature is not in that respect excluded from possibility of Presence with them That which excludeth him therefore as Man from so great largeness of Presence is onely his being Man a Creature of this particular kinde whereunto the God of Nature hath set those bounds of restraint and limitation beyond which to attribute unto it any thing more then a Creature of that sort can admit were to give it another Nature to make it a Creature of some other kinde then in truth it is Furthermore if Christ in that he is Man be every where present seeing this cometh not by the Nature of Manhood it self there is no other way how it should grow but either by the Grace of Union with Deity or by the Grace of Unction received from Deity It hath been already sufficiently proved that by Force of Union the Properties of both Natures are imparted to the Person onely in whom they are and not what belongeth to the one Nature really conveyed or translated into the other it hath been likewise proved That Natures united in Christ continue the very same which they are where they are not united And concerning the Grace of Unction wherein are contained the Gifts and Vertues which Christ as Man hath above men they make him Really and Habitually a Man more excellent then we are they take not from him the Nature and Substance that we have they cause not his Soul nor Body to be of another kinde then ours is Supernatural endowments are an advancement they are no extinguishment of that Nature whereto they are given The Substance of the Body of Christ hath no Presence neither can have but onely
that men ought to Fast more often then Marry the best Feast-maker is with them the perfectest Saint they are assuredly meer Spirit and therefore these our corporal devotions please them not Thus the one for Montanus and his Superstition The other in a clean contrary tune against the Religion of the Church These Set-fasts away with them for they are Iewish and bring men under the yoke of servitude If I will fast let me chuse my time that Christian Liberty be not abridged Hereupon their glory was to fast especially upon the Sunday because the order of the Church was on that day not to Fast. On Church Fasting days and especially the Week before Easter when with us saith Epiphanius Custom admitteth nothing but lying down upon the Earth abstinence from fleshly delights and pleasures sorrowfulness dry and unsavory Diet Prayer Watching Fasting all the Medicines which holy Affections can minister they are up be times to take in of the strongest for the belly and when their veins are well swoln they make themselves mirth with laughter at this our service wherein we are perswaded we please God By this of Epiphanius it doth appear not onely what Fastings the Church of Christ in those times used but also what other parts of Discipline were together therewith in force according to the ancient use and custom of bringing all men at certain times to a due consideration and an open Humiliation of themselves Two kindes there were of Publick Penitency the one belonging to notorious offenders whose open wickedness had been scandalous the other appertaining to the whole Church and unto every several person whom the same containeth It will be answered That touching this latter kinde it may be exercised well enough by men in private No doubt but Penitency is as Prayer a thing acceptable unto God be it in publick or in secret Howbeit as in the one if men were wholly left to their own voluntary Meditations in their Closets and not drawn by Laws and Orders unto the open Assemblies of the Church that there they may joyn with others in Prayer it may be soon conjectured what Christian devotion that way would come unto in a short time Even so in the other We are by sufficient experience taught how little it booreth to tell men of washing away their sins with tears of Repentance and so to leave them altogether unto themselves O Lord what heaps of grievous transgressions have we committed the best the perfectest the most righteous amongst us all and yet clean pass them over unsorrowed foâ— and unrepented of onely because the Church hath forgotten utterly how to bestow her wonted times of Discipline wherein the publick example of all was unto every particular person a most effectual mean to put them often in minde and even in a manner to draw them to that which now we all quite and clean forget as if Penitency were no part of a Christian mans duty Again besides our private offences which ought not thus loosly to be overslipt suppose we the Body and Corporation of the Church so just that at no time it needeth to shew it self openly cast down in regard of those Faults and Transgressions which though they do not properly belong unto any one had notwithstanding a special Sacrifice appointed for them in the Law of Moses and being common to the whole Society which containeth all must needs so far concern every man in particular as at some time in solemn manner to require acknowledgment with more then daily and ordinary testifications of grief There could not hereunto a fitter preamble be devised then that memorable Commination set down in the Book of Common Prayer if our practice in the rest were suitable The Head already so well drawn doth but wish a proportionable Body And by the Preface to that very part of the English Liturgy it may appear how at the first setting down thereof no less was intended For so we are to interpret the meaning of those words wherein restitution of the Primitive Church Discipline is greatly wished for touching the manner of publick penance in time of Lent Wherewith some being not much acquainted but having framed in their mindes the conceit of a new Discipline far unlike to that of old they make themselves believe it is undoubtedly this their Discipline which at the first was so much desired They have long pretended that the whole Scripture is plain for them If now the Communion Book make for them too I well think the one doth as much as the other it may be hoped that being found such a well-willer unto their cause they will more favor it then they have done Having therefore hitherto spoken both of Festival days and so much of solemn Fasts as may reasonably serve to shew the ground thereof in the Law of Nature the practice partly appointed and partly allowed of God in the Jewish Church the like continued in the Church of Christ together with the sinister oppositions either of Hereticks erroneously abusing the same or of others thereat quarrelling without cause we will onely collect the chiefest points as well of resemblance as of difference between them and so end First In this they agree that because Nature is the general Root of both therefore both have been always common to the Church with Infidels and Heathen men Secondly They also herein accord that as oft as joy is the cause of the one and grief the Well-spring of the other they are incompatible A third degree of affinity between them is That neither being acceptable to God of it self but both tokens of that which is acceptable their approbation with him must necessarily depend on that which they ought to import and signifie So that if herein the minde dispose no it self aright whether we rest or fast we offend A fourth thing common unto them is that the greatest part of the World hath always grosly and palpably offended in both Infidels because they did all in relation to false gods godless sensual and careless mindes for that there is in them no constant true and sincere affection towards those things which are pretended by such exercise yea certain flattering over-sights there are wherewith sundry and they not of the worst sort may be easily in these cases led awry even through abundance of love and liking to that which must be imbraced by all means but with caution in as much as the very admiration of Saints Whether we celebrate their glory or follow them in humility whether we laugh or weep mourn or rejoyce with them is as in all things the affection of Love apt to deceive and doth therefore need the more to be directed by a watchful guide seeing there is manifestly both ways even in them whom we honor that which we are to observe and shun The best have not still been sufficiently mindful that Gods very Angels in Heaven are but Angels and that bodily exercise considered in it self is no